the gift of faith

“They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2:19)

For about the last four years (as I remember my line-in-the-sand in conjunction with the birth of my second son) I have been an ardent advocate of the truth that faith in Christ, true saving faith, is a gift that is given to some, the elect, and not to others. When stated clearly like that, it can be a bit…uncomfortable or controversial inside of the church. But that is where I stand on the basis of Scripture.

And by the grace of God, I have been saved for over 20 years. By the grace of God I have been spared from emotional, physical, and spiritual pitfalls and trouble. The Lord has spared me from certain things and disciplined me out of love for other things when I sinned. The older I get and the more I work with and study in the church, the more I am convinced of the truth and glory of the fact that true saving faith is a gift from God which He imparts to the elect.

I fully and whole-heartedly acknowledge and glorify God in the fact that I am certain that the only reason that I am a faithful, yet constantly warring with sin, disciple of Christ is that God has given me new life and faith to believe in Him. And because it is a gift from God, it will not fail. Because my faith is a gift of God, it will continue and endure forever. For if my faith fails and I deny Christ or deny the true doctrines of salvation for the apostate doctrines of men that mingle human works with the work of Christ, this will begin to show that John’s words would apply to me.

…so why am I blogging this (after months of silence)?

1. I want to get back into writing (published or not) my thoughts and meditations. It is a very helpful tool for my own growth and development that I have missed of late. And let’s face it – life’s not going to get less busy ever, so I gotta kick it into gear now.
2. Sometimes I take things for granted – health, life, faith, house, job, you name it. Well, today I am intentionally not taking the faith that was given to me for granted.

Soli Deo Gloria

A Summary of my view of The Shack

The following is the final paragraph of my paper (still in rough form at this time) on the theology of God in The Shack. I will post more at a later time, but this sums up most of what I believe about this popular book:

This book is not a Pilgrim’s Progress for our generation (as Eugene Peterson claims). If anything, it may have the effect of pushing many people into a heretical view of God when Pilgrim’s Progress encouraged devotion to the true God. And if the current acclaim for The Shack is that it gives readers a whole new perspective of God or that it changes how they understand God, then this much can be sure: whatever that reader’s previous understanding of God was before reading The Shack, he is now more fully embracing a non-Biblical and soul damning view of a god who not only cannot save his soul, but does not exist.

An Alien Desire

for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)

I am working on my first sermon in Philippians chapter two, and I want to glorify God through the depth of His Word. It is nearing the “wee” hours of the morning on this Saturday, and I have been reading through the first few chapters of Philippians for a few hours in an attempt to gain a deeper feeling for what the meaning of this text is. I don’t know how many times I had read through the second chapter or what translation I was reading when I felt like I was slapped upside the head with this verse.

Paul here is writing to believers and encouraging them in how to live and act in fellowship by conforming to Christ in His supremely glorious example that He has set for us. And it is in this context that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul made a plain declaration of why believers want to do things that are glorifying to God as well as why we actually do them. Namely, God Himself is at work in me in order that I might desire to work for His good pleasure and so that I might actually do that work that I now desire to do.

Praise God for His divine sustaining and enabling mercy that causes my will to be conformed to His desires and that moves me to act in obedient response to His alien desire that is now residing in me.

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. (Galatians 5:17)

Oh God, that You would break down my fleshly desires and reservations that war against Your Spirit’s work in my soul that I might live in obedience with greater fervor, greater frequency, and greater faith.

O Lord, Pardon My Iniquity

“For Your name's sake, O LORD, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.” (Psalms 25:11)

I’ve been thinking about and meditating, if you will, about this verse for the past few days. I have wanted to write something about it, but haven’t had the time or taken the opportunity to do so until now. But the longer I gazed at this verse, the more and more I became amazed at how much truth is jam packed into it. I have taken to praying this in my mind throughout the day, and it is a great shot in the arm to realign my heart whenever it might go astray.

The phrase, “pardon my iniquity,” is such a stripping request because it is my confession and agreement with God that I have offended Him. Furthermore, I have no ability in and of myself to rectify this situation with my Lord. The awareness of the size of my debt is only increased the longer I dwell on the Lord because my sin and iniquity “is very great.” I understand that it takes a miracle for God to be merciful to me, and it is the mercy of a pardon that I truly entreat and so desperately do not deserve.

And if I ever found myself full of pride because I had found a Lord who would pardon my sin and wash my soul in the cleansing flood of His blood, I can hearken back to the truth that He saved me, He has forgiven me, and He will keep me for His name’s sake. For Your name’s sake, O Lord, restore my soul. For Your name’s sake, O Lord, lead me and guide me. For Your name’s sake, O Lord, act toward me in grace and not in due measure for my own works. For Your name’s sake, O Lord....

It is a Fearful Thing to Hear the Voice of God

I wonder how often I flip through the channels and come to view a segment of the religious programs. I also wonder how frequently the self proclaimed apostles, bishops, pastors, evangelists, and prophets claim to have received a word from the Lord. Whether they received their definitive message in a dream, vision, prompting, or audible voice, I wonder how frequently this claim is made.

⁴ Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” ⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. ⁷ And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” (Matthew 17:4-7)

I am continually amazed by the revealed Word of God. I find it amazing that virtually every time that a sinful man is accosted with the voice of God or is found to be in the presence of God, the reaction of the person is one of fear or terror. Whether it is the shepherds visitation by the angels, Isaiah’s vision where he has his tongue burned with a coal, or the disciples on the mountain where God proclaims His pleasure with His son, their reactions are all of fear, dread, terror, or a complete awareness of his own sinfulness in the presence of a holy God. And if that realization doesn’t bring about a terrified reaction, then nothing will.

If we doubt these preachers for no other reason, and there are many plain reasons that should make us wary, we should have our doubts because of the flippant and casual way with which many seem to refer to their encounters with God and their messages from Him.

Church and the Super Bowl

On a Sunday, probably much like this one in so many ways, a little over two years ago, our world was rocked by a massive disaster. Called the Asian Tsunami or the Boxing Day Tsunami, an unimaginably large earthquake shook the very foundations of the earth, and death emanated from its epicenter.

This earthquake was one of the largest ever recorded in modern history, it registered a 9.3 on the Richter scale having originated nearly 100 miles off the coast of northern Sumatra and about 19 miles under the ocean’s surface that produced waves that peaked at nearly 100 feet above the ocean’s surface. It has been guessed that if you could put all of the seismic activity relating to earthquakes since 1906 into a mathematic equation, nearly 13% of that total occurred on December 26th, 2005. The resulting loss of life is almost an unfathomable 229,866 men, women, and children.

On Thursday, November 12th 1970, an intense cyclone referred to afterwards as the Bhoda Cyclone, producing winds of between 111-130 mph and flooding of 9-12 feet, which is equivalent to the strength of a category 3 hurricane, descended upon what is now Bangladesh and claimed the lives of between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

In the 20th century alone, terrors emanating from atheistic communism have claimed the lives of between 65 and 95 million people. Through wars, genocide, purges, political maneuvering, and random and wanton murder, small segments of powerful men have condemned millions of others to death.

The horrific scope and reality of tragedies and atrocities, whether of man’s own creation or as the result of divine or “natural” causes, are often communicated in a variety of ways. For instance, these types of events are often recounted in numbers of jobs lost, dollars lost, homes or property destroyed, homes evacuated, people infected, square miles covered, miles per hour (wind), depth of flood waters, and lives lost.

That being the case, the single greatest calamity ever to fall upon the earth and to afflict mankind cannot be measured in the numbers of homes lost, lives lost, property destroyed, or in terms of economic impact. No, the greatest of all calamities – the worst of the worst – was so massive, so far reaching, and so devastating that it can only be communicated, numerically speaking, by the number of survivors. And there were only eight of them.

This climaxing event, and the events that lead up to it and flowed from it, is recorded for us in Genesis 6-9. And it is on this 17th of February, 2007, that I want to first look back the events of the Great Deluge and then look forward to the greatest single tragedy. Why look at this today instead of picking up where we left of last year with the 2nd chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians?

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. (Genesis 7:11)

Now I am fully aware that the Jewish calendar of Moses’ time and before is not equivalent to our current 365 ¼ day calendar year. And so, it was not on February 17th in the year 1656 after creation. But for tonight, just think of it as Sunday February 17th 2008, or February 17th of some other year. My only point with emphasizing the date is this: who in Noah’s time (including himself) would have guessed that the world would end on a normal day in the middle of February? And likewise we must all be mindful that we do not choose the day, hour, or manner in which we will die or in which those around us will die – it will most likely occur on an otherwise normal day.

Why, why was the world destroyed in this way at this time in the single greatest natural disaster in history?

⁵ Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. ⁷ The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them." (Genesis 6:5-7)

The answer: sin. Generally speaking, it was the overall and continual wickedness of man on the earth. But the “straw that broke the camel’s back” as it were, was the great perversion of the coming of the sons of God into the daughters of men. This was, specifically an unholy mingling in marriage. And as flashy or notably horrid as this sinful act was, the reality is that it was not simply this one single sin that caused God’s anger to burn towards the people.

The simplicity of this answer – namely, that the world was destroyed because God was angry about the sin of the people – should not cause a thoughtfully dismissive “hmmm” or “duh” or any other reaction that would cause us to gloss over this vitally important and pertinent truth. It should cause us to sit in awe of God’s perfect and holy standard of perfection.

Even using words like “perfection”, “holiness”, or “righteousness” are so lacking in their ability to communicate, at least to me, what God’s standard truly is. I understand the idea…to a point, but the weight of the truth of God’s demands and expectations especially in light of my inability to meet these expectations, is so fleeting and impossible to wrap my mind around.

So, how did God deal with the lawbreakers in Noah’s day? As terrible as the Boxing Day Tsunami was, as bad as the Bhoda Cyclone was, or as devastating as 100 years of Communism has been, the great deluge in Noah’s day minimizes them all.

The Bible records in Genesis chapter 7 that the “all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened” (11) and that the rain continued for 40 days. The flood was so dramatic that it covered the highest peaks of the mountains by as much as 25 or 30 feet. Mt Everest’s is 29,028 feet above sea level. That means that the waters reached nearly 29,050 feet above sea level. That is, of course, unless there were greater and loftier peaks that were swept away during the great deluge or have since been worn down. So, at least, the waters were around 29,050 feet in depth.

This means that, if the water surge was consistent throughout the entire 40 days, the waters increased in depth by ½ foot every minute, 30 feet ever hour, 726 feet each day, until it reached its final depth of over 5.5 miles. The rains stopped after 40 days, but the flood waters remained for a total of 150 days. And it was not until July 17th, at the end of the 150 days, that the ark rested on Ararat. But it was not until February 27th of the following year that God finally commanded Noah to leave the ark.

This is a massively clear picture of just how much God hates sin.

But the flood is not just a story about God’s hatred of sin, no. It is a picture of that, yes, but it is also a beautiful picture of God’s grace. God saved Noah and his family.

⁵ Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. ⁷ The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them. ⁸ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD." (Genesis 6:5-8; emphasis mine)

The Hebrew word translated as “favor” means graciousness, a subjective (kindness, favor) or objective (beauty); and in the Greek Septuagint, this word is translated “xariV$” which is the same Greek New Testament word that is used for God’s unmerited favor that is bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus because of His good pleasure.

This was an exercise of divine mercy in the midst of judgment, for the transmission of the human family. This preservation may be regarded as a reward of his piety. But it was a 'reward of grace,' as one that trusted in a better righteousness; and it is no small proof of its being a reward of grace, that it extended to his whole family, though one of them was wicked.¹

“This is a Hebrew expression that means God was propitious to Noah and favored him. The Hebrews often spoke in this way. They would say, “If I have found grace in your sight: instead of saying, “If I am acceptable to you” or “If you will grant me a favor.” This phrase needs to be noted, because certain ignorant people infer with futile subtlety that if men find race in God’s sight, it is because they seek it through their own industry and merit. I acknowledge, indeed, that here Noah is declared to have been acceptable to God because by living uprightly he kept himself pure from the pollution of the world. But from where did he attain this integrity except from the preventing grace of God? The origin, therefore, of this favor was gratuitous mercy. Afterward the Lord, having once embraced him, retained him under his own hand, so that he would not perish with the rest of the world.²

God graced Noah for the same reason, even though the manifestation itself was different, that He acts graciously towards all of those who have been saved and will be saved.

That being said, Noah was not an average American evangelical in the way that he carried himself and acted. The prophet Ezekiel puts Noah, along with Job and Daniel, as the symbol of piety and obedience that – even if they were present in Jerusalem during the time of God’s judgment against it, could not spare even their families for their own sake, but only themselves (cf. Ez 14:14ff). The writer of the Hebrews puts forth Noah as an example of his faith in and reverent obedience to God (cf. Heb 11:7). And Peter referred to Noah as a “preacher of righteousness” (cf. 2 Peter 2:5).

Even with this impressive resume that few mortal men can equal, God was gracious to Noah and his family because God was gracious to Noah and his family.

Following Noah’s Deliverance from the Great Deluge, God made an unsolicited and an unconditional covenant with Noah, and through him, He made it with you and me, that God would never again destroy the earth in the waters of a great and terrible flood. And in order to remind us of this promise, He gave to us the beautiful rainbow.

What a glorious picture of God’s gracious salvation! This picture and view of salvation was not lost to the Church, but before I can get into that, I want to go back to look at the reason that brings us to the brink and puts us in the cross-hairs of God’s perfectly aimed rifle.

The cause of our problem before God is no different than the root cause that brought about the Great Deluge in Noah’s day. And God’s wrath has been kindled against many individuals and nations in the past – sometimes He stays His hand for a while, and other times He does not hold back.

God destroyed Sodom, Gomorrah, and their surrounding cities. God was going to kill Moses just after He’d commissioned him to lead Israel out of captivity and slavery, but Moses was spared when his wife circumcised their son on the spot. God was seemingly on the verge of destroying the nation many times just following their miraculous Exodus from Egypt. God declared destruction of the nation of Israel if they disobeyed, and He carried it out through Assyria and Babylon. And God has prepared a place of the most extreme torment and misery for all people everywhere who die in a state of sin – even if the only infraction was that you disobeyed your parents one time when you were a teenager.

Sin is horrible. Sin is repulsive. Sin is repugnant. The glamorous nature of the sins of Sodom & Gomorrah, the people of Noah’s day, or even the blatant idolatry of the Nation of Israel shouldn’t desensitize us to the horrific nature of the smallest transgression of His divine standard. Hatred is murder. Lust is adultery. Doubt of God’s promises is slander against His good name! Pornography is a vile and disgusting perversion of sexuality, a betrayal of your spouse – whether you’re married now or you will become married in the future – no matter if you’re in your clean and isolated home sitting at your computer or at Naked Sushi night at a Twin Cities restaurant that is being advertised on radio that is targeted to people who would hold to many of our same social ideals and political values.

And again, let me restate that we must not casually hear and agree with the general idea that human sin is evil in the sight of God. I would argue that the more we seek to understand sin, not in a desire to revel in sin as the world does, but in order to understand just how great our debt is to Christ, and it is this understanding when coupled with a greater understanding of the beauty, majesty, glory, and mercy of God displayed through His grace in our salvation that we grow in our walk with Him by leaps and bounds.

“We are all loathsome to God, before we are washed pure in the blood of Christ!

By nature, we are all in a filthy and cursed condition. We are a lump of clay and sin mingled together. Sin not only blinds us—but defiles us. It is called filthiness (James 1:21). And to show how befilthying a thing it is, it is compared . . .
to a plague of the heart (1 Kings 8:38),
to corruption (Deuteronomy 32:5),
to vomit (2 Peter 2:22),
to a menstrual cloth (Isaiah 30:22).

If all the evils in the world were put together and their quintessence strained out—they could not make a thing so black and polluted as sin is! A sinner is a devil in a man's shape! When Moses' rod was turned into a serpent—he fled from it. If God would open men's eyes and show them their deformities and damnable spots—they would fly from themselves, as from serpents!

When grace comes—it washes off this hellish filth! It turns ravens into swans. It makes those who are as black as hell—to become as white as snow!

"Christ gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own." Christ shed His blood—to wash off our filth. The cross was both an altar and a laver.

Jesus died not only to save us from wrath (1 Thes. 1:10)—but to save us from sin! (Matthew 1:21). Out of his side came water which signifies our cleansing—as well as blood which signifies our justifying (1 John 5:6).”³

The final destination for those who are found in contempt of God’s Holy Court is the same for us as it was for Noah’s friends and neighbors. This is a place of eternal and unmatched suffering and horror.

“Hell is described as a place where "their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched." Repeatedly Jesus spoke of outer darkness and a furnace of fire, where there will be wailing, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.

The Book of Revelation describes hell as "a lake of fire burning with brimstone" (Rev 19:20; 20:10,14-15; 21:8). Into hell will be thrown the beast and the false prophet (Rev 19:20). At the end of the age the devil himself will be thrown into it, along with death and hades and all whose names are not in the Book of Life. "And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev 20:10 b).

Because of the symbolic nature of the language, some people question whether hell consists of actual fire. Such reasoning should bring no comfort to the lost. The reality is greater than the symbol. The Bible exhausts human language in describing heaven and hell. The former is more glorious, and the latter more terrible, than language can express.”⁴

Now whereas there has not been a singular event that God has caused virtually the entirety of mankind to meet with their eternal fate since the Great Deluge, there has been a single event that has occurred that has more perfectly and more manifoldly displayed God’s hatred of Sin and need for justice to be served. It is the greatest tragedy that has ever occurred – not because of the outcome, but because of the actual event itself. The only way for God’s wrath at you, and me, and every other redeemed individual to be satisfied was with the death of His own Son.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor 5:21)

And it is here – in the sacrifice of the Beloved Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, that Peter draws our minds back to the catastrophe of the flood.

¹⁸ For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; ¹⁹ in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, ²⁰ who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. ²¹ Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you-- not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience--through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²² who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him. (1 Peter 3:18-22; emphasis mine)

Two questions come up from this text. The first is this: Does baptism – and by that I mean water baptism – save us? To that question I would answer with an un-hesitating “NO!” The second question is this: If water baptism is not what saves us, what in the world is Peter saying here? And I want to answer that in two ways.

First, what Does the Bible clearly say about how man is saved?

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. (John 3:18)

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24)

I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. (John 6:47)

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. (Romans 3:28)

nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. (Galatians 2:16)

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8,9)

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” (Romans 1:16,17)

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)

He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, (Titus 3:5)

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, (Romans 5:1)

I have only given a few verses that argue for the fact of salvation being through faith by the means of God’s grace. But the fact that there are so many more verses than what I have provided is an argument for the overwhelming nature of the Bible’s clear statement about the doctrine of justification by faith.

Justification by Faith. Although the Lord Jesus has paid the price for our justification, it is through our faith that He is received and His righteousness is experienced and enjoyed (Rom 3:25-30). Faith is considered righteousness (Rom 4:3,9), not as the work of man (Rom 4:5), but as the gift and work of God (John 6:28-29; Phil 1:29).⁵

Second Question: If we’re saved by grace through faith and not by means of water baptism, what on earth is Peter saying here? What is the analogy that he is drawing?

The first key is to understand what ideas are “corresponding” in what Peter is trying to say. Peter is relating Christ’s sacrifice and our salvation through it to the entire story of Noah and the ark. He is not comparing the act of water baptism and a salvation effecting quality that it might have with Noah’s experience. Noah was saved by the ark, not by the water.

The water of the Great Deluge baptized the world in death, but Noah sailed safely through it in the Ark that the Lord provided. Similarly, when we are saved by Christ we are placed inside of the perfect ark that has been baptized in the wrath of God’s judgment on the cross.

“But baptism (from baptize) simply means ‘to immerse,’ and not just in water. Peter here uses baptism to refer to a figurative immersion into Christ as the ark of safety that will sail over the holocaust of judgment on the wicked.

God preserved [Noah and his family] in the midst of His judgment, which is what He also does for all those who trust in Christ.”⁶

Therefore, by being found in Christ Jesus, through faith, God displays His desire to give mercy and grace while still showing His requirement for justice.

God offers two promises, one desirable and one undesirable. The first promise is that if you, as a sinner, die in your sins, God promises to cast you into a reality that is far clearer, far more tangible than anything you know here on earth. And that reality will completely and utterly crush you, but you will be preserved to endure it in misery. That is the first promise, the promise of God’s vengeance and His righteous and holy wrath that will be poured out on all ungodliness.

The second promise is God’s promise of grace. Oh, if you will but call on the Lord, confess and turn from your sins, place your complete trust in Him alone to deliver you from His wrath by means of His substituting His Son in your place – if you trust in the finished and perfect work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, God promises to give you eternal life. He will give you a new heart, with new desires, and you will wage war on those sins that so justly condemned you before the throne of Glory. He will cause you to grow in holiness and cause you to desire His word and love His Son.

It is possible that we can experience some conviction and yet be unchanged. After hearing a much more powerful sermon and articulation of the gospel than I have presented tonight, King Herod Agrippa said, “In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian.” (Acts 26:28) He had some conviction there – but I don’t know of a good historical account that tells of the conversion of King Agrippa II.

Don’t let the conviction of the Holy Spirit wane as you move it to the back of your mind and ignore it. For there will come a time that, after having done that so often and so long, that you will no longer be convicted and you will be adrift in your unbelief.

---

¹ (from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

² Genesis, John Calvin. p. 71.(The Crossway Classic Commentaries)

³ The Beatitudes, Thomas Watson, 1660

⁴
(from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright (c)1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)

⁵ (from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright (c)1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)

⁶ 1 Peter, John MacArthur, p. 217

Forgiveness of Sins, a Cure for the Sick

⁶ "But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--then He said to the paralytic, "Get up, pick up your bed and go home."

¹² But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.” (Matthew 9:6,12)

It amazes me how quickly and easily I can sometimes read over verses that I am so familiar with and miss something that is truly awesome. It is so beautiful and clear how these two verses fit together with the overall message of salvation in Christ. And it is the punctuating statement of verse 12 that is so powerful. I used to think that Jesus was saying that the “sick” were people who had not been born again whereas the “healthy” were people who had already. But, the more I understand the Savior’s audience and the overall message of the gospel, the more I see that the “sick” refer to those who know of their sins and of their need for a savior whereas the “healthy” are the self-righteous who do not need a savior.

The reality of life is that everyone is worse off than the paralytic that Jesus healed; we are like Lazarus, we’re dead, until we are born again by the Spirit of God. But the sad situation is that the vast majority of men proclaim their own goodness with their mouths and see their situation as less than dire before God. This condition is not limited to the practitioners of self-righteous religious systems, but it extends to all men. And in a real way, all non-Christians are practitioners of a self-righteous system even if they are unaware of it. Many of the non-conformist or non-religious people have individual and self-styled idolatrous systems that they have created for themselves to go along with the god that they’ve made in their minds.

I thank God for his grace in showing me my own sinfulness so that I may repent of it and be made more like my Lord. I consider it one of my primary goals in ministry to shine the light of God’s Word onto the sins of those who are under my care and teaching. And once the Word has done its work, I pray that the flood of grace would abound to those who find themselves to be sick and in need of a physician.

But God Remembered Noah

The story of Noah always makes me sit back and read it as a little child. I mean, there is so much in this story that the scale alone makes me want to catch my breath. Perhaps it is just me, but when we see the whole earth as wretched and vile and that it deserved to be wiped out completely, it makes me sit back and marvel at God’s favoring Noah. If Noah’s heart, just like all men everywhere for all time, was only continually evil from his youth (cf. Genesis 6:4; 8:5), then when Noah found favor in God’s eyes, it must have been because of God’s desire to have mercy on Noah.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. (Genesis 6:8)

God would have been justified in wiping out Noah and the rest of his family that were saved when He destroyed the rest of humanity. I think that it would be extremely detrimental to gloss over this fact or not to address it when reading and meditating on the story of Noah and the flood. And that Noah found favor in God’s eyes must have been attributed only to God’s mercy and grace. Furthermore, for anyone to find favor before God happens despite anything and everything that the person says, does, or thinks.

But God remembered Noah (Genesis 8:1a)

The fact that God remembers His own is an astoundingly glorious truth. Even amidst the destruction of literally everything else on the planet, Noah could have (and should have) had the uttermost peace and felt completely than safe and secure in the ark. One of the truly great things about God’s favor in salvation that we learn see clearly from the New Testament is that once God has saved you, once you have found favor with God based on His grace and mercy alone, we have no need to fear even though the world comes crashing down around us. As a practical note, this doesn’t mean that Christians won’t endure hardship, persecution, torture, or violent and horrible deaths, but it does mean that this is the extent at which we can be tormented or suffer (cf. Matthew 10:28). But Noah had the expressed promise of temporal delivery from this maelstrom (cf. Genesis 6:18ff), and so he could confidently wait for God to deliver him even though he was on the ark for over one year.

Regardless of the time between the promise and the deliverance, God is faithful. If anyone has trusted in Christ alone for salvation, whether they did that at 5, 55, or 105 years of age, God will remember the saving work that He has done when death comes and we have nothing to fear.

But know that the LORD has set apart the godly man for Himself; The LORD hears when I call to Him. (Psalms 4:3)

Praise God that He sets apart those in whom He favors, and He then hears us when we call to Him.

My iPod and My Xbox 360

So what does it say about my life when two of the biggest “concerns” of this past week have had to do with my Xbox 360 and my iPod? Now, to be fair, the last two weeks were consumed by weightier things with my preaching and teaching duties as well as some relationship “funkyness” with someone, but that has all subsided and I have come out on the other side of the problem with focus, joy, and determination.

Recently I was hit with the stressful situation and problems of two people who I am very close to and fond of. In one situation there is significant marital strain, but both parties are committed to fighting through. We spoke at some length and my heart just broke for them. Sometimes it is best to hear and know things even though they will cut deeply as opposed to not knowing about them to be able to deal with them. I am committed to pray for my friend and everything that may be contributing to the difficulties that they are going through.

The second issue that was brought to my attention (only an hour or so later) was from another brother in the Lord who I esteem very highly. Basically, the job market is tough, and companies make decisions that may or may not be of an overall benefit for individual employees. Stress about the security of one’s job is never a good thing, especially around Christmas and especially if you’ve been there for a few years. I asked how I could pray for him in this situation, and he asked for wisdom in decision making.

My marriage is sublime and my job security is as good as it has ever been, and I’ve been concerned over my Xbox 360 and my iPod. It kind of puts things into perspective. When I got home I just wanted to hug my wife and kids and just thank God for the blessings that He has given to us. Now, that could all change tomorrow – my job could end and some tragedy could come out of nowhere and bring a hard time to our family. May I encounter the hard times as my brothers in Christ are doing so now. Seeking to lean on Christ and trusting in Him for everything. May I be like Job and bless God and not curse Him even if my family and all that I have is stripped from me during this life. “Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

Daily Bread: Comfort or Fear

Today’s Reading:

• Haggai 1:1-2:23
• Revelation 11:1-19
• Psalms 139:1-24
• Proverbs 30:15-16

Today's Thoughts

“¹ O LORD, You have searched me and known {me.} ² You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. ³ You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. ⁴ Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all. ⁵ You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. ⁶ {Such} knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is {too} high, I cannot attain to it. ⁷ Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? ⁸ If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. ⁹ If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, ¹⁰ Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. ¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night," ¹² Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike {to You.}” (Psalms 139:1-12)

I know that the writer is a friend of God because he hates “those who hate You,” (v.21). And in that light, it is so wonderfully comforting to know that God knows me completely and is never far from me. It helps to give some depth to Paul’s rhetorical question about “Who will separate us from the love of God in Christ?” (Romans 8:35) It is so wonderfully assuring to know that there is no place that I can go or no place that someone evil can take me that God is not in control of or near.

Conversely, if someone is an enemy of God and has not received His mercy based upon Christ’s work on the cross…wow, how scary is this picture of God. You can’t go anywhere to hide from God. The piercing vision of God and the ability to stretch out His hand to anyone at any place would be a source of great dread and horror. To have the infinitely powerful God angry with you and to not be able to hide in the least from His wrath should fear in the heart of the unbeliever.

John Piper once described God as an immeasurable rock. The unbeliever stands under this rock which is only suspended by a single thread. The believer stands on top of this same rock. God’s power, when expressed in His love, is the single source for all of the stability, comfort, and security for the believer. But it is the power of the same Almighty God that will utterly crush and destroy the unbeliever in the most complete fashion when it is expressed in wrath.

Daily Bread: Coexist or Wrath and Mercy

Today’s Reading:

• Zephaniah 1:1-3:20
• Revelation 10:1-11
• Psalms 138:1-8
• Proverbs 30:11-14

Today’s Thoughts:

⁴ "So I will stretch out My hand against Judah And against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, {And} the names of the idolatrous priests along with the priests. ⁵ "And those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven, And those who bow down {and} swear to the LORD and {yet} swear by Milcom, ⁶ And those who have turned back from following the LORD, And those who have not sought the LORD or inquired of Him." (Zephaniah 1:4-6)

I am finding that it can get a bit overwhelming to read Minor Prophets because of the wrath and judgment that they are declaring against Israel. The one thing that struck me here is that in between the condemnation of the idolatry of worshiping Baal and Milcom (these two are possibly one and the same along with Molech), the Lord condemns those who seemingly mingle worship of Him with the worship of false gods. I guess I find that it is an interesting dichotomy that God cannot tolerate what our postmodern society lifts up, and our postmodern society cannot tolerate what God demands.

This makes me weep for the droves of people who are being falling led astray and who are headlong into the sin of Bono with his anti-Christian, God-insulting, and otherwise damning coexist campaign.

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¹⁶ In that day it will be said to Jerusalem: " Do not be afraid, O Zion; Do not let your hands fall limp. ¹⁷ "The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. ¹⁸ "I will gather those who grieve about the appointed feasts-- They came from you, {O Zion;} {The} reproach {of exile} is a burden on them. ¹⁹ "Behold, I am going to deal at that time With all your oppressors, I will save the lame And gather the outcast, And I will turn their shame into praise and renown In all the earth. (Zephaniah 3:16-19)

² I will bow down toward Your holy temple And give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word according to all Your name.

⁶ For though the LORD is exalted, Yet He regards the lowly, But the haughty He knows from afar. (Psalms 138:2,6)

It is quite amazing that the same God who will crush (in the most complete way possible) those who oppose Him, and He will be righteously just in doing so, will show compassion on the “outcast” and He will have regard for the “lowly” and express His lovingkindness to receive praise and glory from them. The doctrine of God’s infinite, but jealously guarded, mercy and grace is so much more beautiful than a pandering call to coexist.

Daily Bread:Drunkenness & Non - Repentance

Today’s Reading:

• Habakkuk 1:1- 3:19
• Revelation 9:1-21
• Psalms 137:1-9
• Proverbs 30:10

Today’s Thoughts:

¹⁵ "Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom even to make {them} drunk So as to look on their nakedness! ¹⁶ "You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your {own} nakedness. The cup in the LORD'S right hand will come around to you, And utter disgrace {will come} upon your glory. (Habakkuk 2:15,16)

This passage was in the context of God declaring “woe” on those who build their empires or civilizations on bloodshed or deceptive means. But then God transitions to talk about making people drink to see their nakedness. I could not help but think of our debaucheries society where “Spring Break” is like a religious ceremony where this seems to be the act of worship; people going to warm beaches, drinking to see nakedness and fornicate. But isn’t God’s justice language here sobering? He will cause that person to drink the Lord’s cup and be naked before Him! How scary is that – to be naked in all of one’s sinfulness before God Almighty who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness.” (Hab 1:13) How terrible will that day be for those who are naked and shamed before God.

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²⁰ The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; ²¹ and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts. (Revelation 9:20,21)

I guess I’m not sure why I marveled at this statement, but I did. After all of the plagues and death and suffering that the world endures up until this point, but they did not repent. Twice, it says it twice! And, as an aside, for my easy-believism friends, repent here implies more than simply a “change of mind” about who Christ is. They didn’t repent “so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold….” In other words, the repenting would have included putting a stop to all of that. Anyway, it is shockingly clear that the mind and will of man will not turn to God, but only blaspheme Him, even when that same man is being righteously punished.

Noah Turns Two…wow, how time flies

I still almost can’t believe that Noah turned two years old on Sunday. It has been a whirlwind over the past two years, and I’m not even counting the craziness that his older brother and younger sister have added to the mix. I understand it from reliable sources (namely my mother) as well as my own distinct way of seeing things that Noah is a little me. Not just genetically, but temperamentally. I would throw in the “weird” factor as well because I was a strange boy (I still kind of am) and I see the glimmers of the same type of “marching to a different drummer…who’s in a different band…in a different city…living in a different realm of reality” mentality that I hear about from my relatives in reference to me as well as what I have seen on old home movies. All of that makes no difference – positive or negative – to the amount of love that I have for this little (and strange) boy.

Noah -

You truly light up my heart with joy when you come barreling into me and squeeze my leg as hard as you can. It makes me so happy when you have had a hard day and you ask me to “nugga” (snuggle) for a bit when it is bed time. Your craziness is so fun and contagious that it seems to me that as much as you copy your older brother in doing things, he takes some cues from you in zany, and sometimes dangerous, things.

Dear God,

I pray that Noah would grow up healthy and strong and have a long and fruitful life. I pray that Stephanie and I would train him well and that we would be blessed with the ability to communicate the message of the cross to our son so that, God willing, he would repent and place his faith in Christ at a young age. I pray that You would grant him grace, faith, repentance, understanding, wisdom, and patience that he will develop throughout his life. Thank you again for the blessing that Noah is.

Amen.

Lord, Grant Repentance to the Sinner

Over the past decade (wow, I can actually use that length of time while talking about my adult life) I have struggled over the doctrinal issues surrounding Calvinism and Arminianism. Almost two years ago, though (at about the same time as the birth of my second son, Noah), I settled this issue. I am a firm believer in the doctrines of grace, more commonly called Calvinism. And it was from this foundational understanding of God’s work in the salvation of man that many different phrases, in discussion and prayer, have seeped into my daily lexicon. One such phrase has been, “May God grant you (whomever) grace and repentance.” God’s gift to the believer is faith (Ephesians 2:8,9) and grace is, by definition, a gifting form God. Working from that understanding, I extrapolated that any repentant heart and action must come from God’s initiating work. Could I have pointed to a Scripture that said this specifically in this way (i.e. you repented because God gave you repentance), not really, but any response to God done correctly by a sinful man must, in my understanding, have it’s root cause in God, not man. Praise be to God for today and John MacArthur’s radio broadcast because he referenced a Scripture, that up until now, I have missed.

“When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, "Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11:18)

Repentance is a gift, just like faith is a gift, that God’s working of salvation produces in the believer. Hallelujah! Salvation is all of God, and nothing of my own.