3 But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:3,4)
There seem to be two great follies that man is guilty of during his life, and a third folly that has the exact opposite result as man would intend. And each of these follies gives birth to a type of vanity when they are played out in each of their own circumstances.
It is folly for men to pass judgment on the transgressions of others and yet believe that the things that they do in secret will avoid any prosecution. For if, with our own skewed vision and sense of justice, we can see the transgressions of men and bring them to account, how much more would the creator of all things, Jesus Christ the Son of God, be able to see, expose, prosecute, and convict you of your secret transgressions. It is this inner knowledge and understanding of the character of God that causes men to hate Christ and His church.
Oh, yes, men like an idea of Jesus or of the church that doesn’t compromise their own life-style or vices. They rally around this man called Jesus, and they sing praises of the great religious and pious man, or of the social revolutionary, or of the man whom they shape into filling any one of their own pet social or political causes. The true Jesus who is revealed in the pages of the Bible was a religious and pious man whose teachings did lead to social change, but this is only a fragment of the picture of the Biblical Jesus. One other portion of His divine portrait is His illuminating light on the sins of men. And it is this that causes men to love their Jesus idol but hate the Lord Christ. For men hate Him and loved the darkness of their own sins because their deeds are evil (see John 3:19).
Men who want to focus on social justice, to the extent that they ignore the teachings of sin and salvation or simply water down what the Scriptures say about His eternal righteousness, run to the beatitudes and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount for their purely social manifesto. However, it is in this same book leading up to this same sermon that John the Baptist, who Jesus hailed as the greatest of the prophets, made this declaration concerning the two ways in which God will deal with humanity,“His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:7)
And when men find themselves under the judgment of God, they recoil and feel wrongfully assailed. This is the pride of vanity to believe that, even though the weight of evidence is utterly against them, they still perceive that they are being wrongfully singled out or that their good intentions are not being accurately weighed in the balance. But if this judgment begins to fall upon this man during his life, he is blessed! Because it is this judgment that can bring a man to understand his sin and see his need for the Savior. It is a measure of God’s grace that He brings sins to light and yet graces the man with time with which he could repent of those sins and fall prostrate before the Savior.
It is folly to for men to experience the blessings of God in life and breath, and even more so, but not exclusively, in prosperity and peace, but yet not acknowledge that they are the recipients of God’s blessings. When men find themselves in any state of temporal blessing, they hail themselves as being wise enough or shrewd enough to have attained such affluence, or they praise the gods of luck or fortune for their luxury. Either way, it is vain pride that sees a privileged position in life and gives praise or thanks to self or the randomness of life. If men find themselves in prosperity, they should see and know that the blessings that we receive in this life are expressions of the kindness of God that should lead us to repentance. 7 Two things I asked of You, Do not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 That I not be full and deny {You} and say, "Who is the LORD?" Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:7-9)
It is folly for men to believe that their heart and their good intentions will be a witness in their defense when they stand before the Lord. Whether men are blessed with affluence and the blessings from God that demonstrate His exceeding kindness or whether they are blessed with suffering to show God’s judgment and righteous accounting, man will always believe that his heart and intentions are good. Most men will not assert their perfection, but will excuse the varying degrees of fault as being normal or human. But this perception will be shown as folly by God because the conscience of man will testify against the man in the courtroom of God. The heart of man will show the consistent transgression of God’s eternal and holy standard.
Whether you have prosperity or poverty, freedom or bonds, health or sickness, God is giving you a measure of His grace; both in the fact that you are drawing another breath and that He is kindly revealing truth about Himself in a very applicational way. To be sure, men cannot be saved in their circumstances alone. For how would they know to call on Christ? God in Christ must be proclaimed through the Scriptures, whether read or heard through a preacher, and only then will man have the knowledge of how one is saved. Without the Scriptures, men only know enough and are given enough revelation to justly condemn them before the God of the Bible. 
16 "Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ' Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.' 17 "You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? 18 "And, 'Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.' 19 "You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering?” (Matthew 23:16-19)
For seven days you shall make atonement for the altar and consecrate it; then the altar shall be most holy, and whatever touches the altar shall be holy. (Exodus 29:37)
How foolish was it for the Pharisees and the other teachers of the law to have made a distinction between swearing by the offering on the altar and swearing by the altar itself. And even if they had made swearing by the altar or the temple as the one incurring a binding obligation, they still would have missed the point because they didn’t go back to where the holiness and sanctity for anything originates.
So many people see the foolish and wicked behavior of the Pharisees in Jesus’ day or the Israelites in the desert and their constant rebellion and lack of faith. Likewise, many people see or the shortcomings of Peter or Thomas in their actions and words before the Lord, but miss the fact that it wasn’t just Peter or Thomas who made bold or seemingly foolish statements, but when Peter declared his allegiance to Christ in the garden even though it would take him to death, “All the disciples said the same thing too.” (Matthew 26:35)
It is with a similar mentality that so many see the blatantly foolish, wicked, proud, braggadocios, or sinful behavior in others, but do not apply the same lens to examine their own faith. Just like the Israelites who so quickly detested manna, we are so quick to complain about the taste, presentation, or timeliness of the food that we are provided on a daily basis. But even worse than that, it is the rampant popular idolatry that places anything and everything in entertainment, technology, and even pious activity on a platform that receives preferential time and treatment over the Lord who provides grace for our entertainment, who sustains our world and its technologies, and who should be the prime focus of any pious activity.
If I read my Bible only so that I might be able to teach or preach a sermon, what value does it have? Which is more important, a crafty sermon that can move the emotions of the hearers, or the Spirit-enabled, Scripture-fueled, Christ-centered, God-glorifying sanctification, and the overflowingly contagious love for God of the preacher? Man made self-centered ideas of how life and religion should be conducted are nothing more than re-inventing a shattered wheel. The result, not the product, is the only thing that doesn’t change.
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.
“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....
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.
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.
20 Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; 21 At the head of the noisy {streets} she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: 22 "How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge? 23 "Turn to my reproof, Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you. 24 "Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; 25 And you neglected all my counsel And did not want my reproof; 26 I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes, 27 When your dread comes like a storm And your calamity comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you. 28 "Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me, 29 Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD. 30 "They would not accept my counsel, They spurned all my reproof. 31 "So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way And be satiated with their own devices. 32 "For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them. 33 "But he who listens to me shall live securely And will be at ease from the dread of evil." (Proverbs 1:20 – 33)
Praise God that His Word is not trivial or able to be fully grasped or understood by reading it once. My daily reading of the Scriptures had me read the final verses of the first chapter of Proverbs where a condemnation of death and destruction is decreed on those who are complacent fools or waywardly naïve. It was the harshness of the language of this section of Proverbs that shocked me. I am sure that I’ve read this passage before, but I must say that I was taken aback.
How can God, who is the supreme embodiment of love and mercy (among other attributes), declare that He will laugh at and mock those who have scorned Him when their calamity comes? Furthermore, how can it be that someone who seeks diligently for God will not find Him? This seems to run contrary to what we know and understand about the gospel of Jesus Christ. It may seem contrary or contradictory, but I trust that the God of all truth is able to communicate His message without contradicting Himself. And if that is the case, how then could it be that someone will seek God and not find Him? God’s Word, of course, provides us with the answer to this dilemma. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hosea 4:6)
Too often today, and to a fault, I believe that the gospel message is dumbed-down to seemingly the lowest common denominator. This is done with purposing that the most people can hear it and then they, being unoffended by it, can agree with the message and call themselves Christians. The problem with this sort of presentation is that when you cut out the offensiveness of the gospel, you also cut out the effectiveness of the gospel. Or, stated another way, it becomes something other than the gospel and then cannot save anyone. In no way do I want to make the gospel more complicated than it is or intentionally make it convoluted, but we cannot boil it down to something that is less than the bare essentials or water it down so much that it removes the sharp bite of a necessary ingredient.
So, how can it be that someone who calls on God or who is seeking Him diligently will not find Him or will not be heard? Well, if that same person doesn’t know who they’re calling on or seeking, they’re not going to find God. It is one of the greatest sins against the masses of lost and ungodly people that a Christian preacher can commit when he neglects the Law of God and doesn’t make it plain who God is in the fullness of how He has revealed Himself to us in the Bible. In other words, we do not preach the gospel if we do not make a firm declaration about the incarnation, by means of the virgin birth, of the uncreated and eternal Christ. We do not preach the gospel for it to be believed if there is no talk about the mystery of the Triune Godhead. We do not preach the gospel of salvation if we do not preach the just penalty of sin at the hands of the Almighty who cannot tolerate sin in His midst.
Preachers will have a lot to be accountable for before God. Make no mistake about that. However, with that being said, not all of the blame lies with the preachers. God has saw fit to preserve for Himself some faithful preachers and believers, unfortunately probably not a majority of ministers even among those inside of Christendom, throughout history who thunder about the Law and about God’s just wrath at sinful man while, at the same time, they speak softly, gently, and lovingly about the great mercy and grace God our Savior. They preach salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone which brings about good works and a changed life as evidence of true salvation. The problem here lies not with the preacher, but with the hearer. How many church going people, however regularly they attend or how involved they are, have heard the message of the cross time and time again but have never been changed by Christ nor have they been born again by the Spirit? It is not because of a lack of knowledge that these people will be condemned, but because they act as “simple-minded” and live out their lives in the “complacency of fools” by not repenting of their sins and placing their faith in Christ that they will be lost.
Do not tarry and do not let the message of the cross go in one ear and out the other without letting it sit and soak into your heart. Do not shun the fear of the Lord or the call of the gospel! Listen and hear what God has said. Do not assume that you will be able to repent and believe in Christ tomorrow, for tomorrow may never come. Do not take comfort in the fact that you know so much about God and the gospel when it has not yet transformed your very being nor changed your desires. And do not neglect to learn about the God of the Bible and who He really is, for if you do not know who to call on, you will not be calling on the only true God when your life is in crisis and you are desperately seeking salvation.
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.
5 Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, `HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU'; and `ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'" 7 Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, `YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'" (Matthew 4:5-7)
Scripture alone is the final voice in all things pertaining to godliness, theology, and anything else in life. As Christians, we must be humble enough to bow our own desires and thoughts to the truth of God’s Word. Everything, from how I raise my family to how I interact in my political world, should be guided from a thorough study of and implementation of the Word of God.
It is hard to find any example that better displays the supremacy of Scripture than the example of Christ being tempted by Satan in the desert. In the broader context, Jesus rebukes the devil and answers the temptations put before Him by quoting Scripture as well as simply commanding him. I have always found it interesting that Jesus didn’t simply command Satan not to tempt Him, but He quoted Scripture to stand firm against temptation.
But even more than that, even Satan quotes Scriptures in an effort to have God sin before him. We must never be foolish enough to think that just because someone quotes Scripture and sounds authoritative, that doesn’t mean that the message being conveyed is true. Whether you hear Scripture from a preacher, teacher, evangelist, or anyone else, don’t simply ingest, digest, and manifest what they are proclaiming. Satan and his slick salesmen are very keenly aware of what the Scriptures say. In fact, I have heard it said before that if Satan had true and uncontrolled power over the world that it would look cleaner and nicer, it would be full of smiling people who filled up church buildings on Sunday’s and Wednesdays. But the church buildings would not preach Christ aright.
Now, whether that is truly how the world would look or not, I think that it gives a glimpse at one of the most tragically effective deceptions that the devil is adept at using. Church without God, Jesus without the cross, and the Scriptures without their context all lead to an abysmal “gospel” that is truly no gospel.
We must not be lackadaisical in our vetting of the preaching and teaching of our ministers and lay-teachers, nor should we be casually tolerant anytime anyone throws out a Bible verse or a biblical cliché. “God helps those who help themselves.” What Bible verse is that? It’s not in the Bible, but if I had a nickel for every time that I heard someone use that phrase in reference to Christianity and the God of the Bible, I would have no small fortune.
One of the favorite Scriptures for non-Christians, pseudo-Christians, and Christians alike to quote is from Jesus’ words on the Sermon on the Mount, when referring to Matthew 7:1 they say, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” And when this verse is brought out, it is often used as an offensive weapon against those Christians who see sin in our midst, whether in ourselves or in others, and have the audacity to call sin “sin”. Or if a Christian calls attention to a self-styled Christian teacher or a professed believer and notes that this same person betrays that they are not born again based on their actions, this same verse is brought out as a cudgel to put down this kind of judgmental attitude.
I forget where I first heard the best fitting response to the abuse of the words of our Lord from Matthew 7, but I find it to be so refreshing and true. So the next time that you are rightly making an identification of something as sinful, evil, wicked or false and you are doing so while not being pharisaical and executing a sentence or punishment (excluding church discipline, of course) on that individual in the place of God Himself, you may want to remember this concise retort.
“You say, ‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’ But I say, ‘Twist not Scripture lest ye be like Satan.’” - Unknown
Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him." (Matthew 2:13)
Joseph was warned in a dream that his young son, as well as he and his wife, were in great danger from King Herod. He was instructed to take his family and flee to Egypt as a temporary refuge from the danger at hand. What father wouldn’t listen and obey the warning of an angel of the Lord when it came to the safety of his own family? Some might scoff at the warning if they hadn’t been convinced of the faithfulness and truth of the messenger, but this was not the case for Joseph. So could Joseph have heard the warning in the dream, thought about it, and then rolled over and gone back to sleep and not heeded the warning? I guess that I would assume that he had the cognitive ability to do this, and he really could have chosen to ignore the true warning from God and subject his family to death. I bet that it would have been possible.
However, the fact that he may have had the ability to ignore God’s warning here does not even touch the question of “would he” ignore God. Sure he might have had the mental facilities to ignore God and choose a different path, but there is no way that any father who loves his family would willingly leave them in a situation where there is a certainty that they will be killed. Moreover, if there is a certain way of escape, what father would not wake the family up in the middle of the night and be gone before an hour had passed? No father would dawdle or ignore this warning. He would not ignore it because of the reliability of the messenger and the fact that he loves his family.
Similar to this, when a sinner’s eyes are opened and he has been granted faith and repentance from God alone, is it possible that the sinner might choose to reject God’s grace and stay in a position of being at war with God and awaiting His righteous and holy wrath? I suppose that it is possible that this person could make the choice not to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of his sins. But similar to Joseph’s situation, what person wouldn’t throw himself on the mercy of Christ in order to be saved from the wrath of God that is coming? For the work that is done in the sinner to enable him to believe in Christ opened his eyes so much that he agrees with God both about his own sinful situation as well and with the just punishment that the sinful man deserves. In addition to that, he has a love for both his own soul and for the savior of his soul.
So, because the man being drawn by God to Christ is both able to understand the reality of the situation, the truthfulness of the message, and has his affections aligned in such a way that he would want to be delivered from the wrath of God, what sinner would ever reject the grace of God? The grace of God given to men when God is saving that person is more irresistible to that man than the choice that Joseph’s situation gave him. There seems to be a one to one correlation between those who are drawn by God and those who are saved by Christ’s work (cf. John 6:37-44, Romans 8:29,30). The work of God’s grace is irresistible because no one who is granted this grace would want to reject it.
For the sake of Your name, O LORD, revive me. In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. (Psalms 143:11)
I am working on putting my sermon together for this coming Sunday, and this verse may be a good cross reference. My pastor asked me to preach on the last Sunday of the year, and I was happy to give him a break when his children will all be home for Christmas break from college. I really want to plead with the congregation not to waste this cultural time of introspective investigation and resolution, and I am looking at the picture of God’s willingness to give what we ask Him for found in Matthew 7:7-11 as the primary text. And David’s plea to God on behalf of his own life perfectly focuses one of my main thoughts. David had a definite need of preservation from all of the problems and dangers that were swirling around him, and he asked God to revive him.
But the point that really made me sit back and think was that the weight of this request was not based on David’s health or well being in and of themselves, it was based and rooted in God’s Name and for God’s sake. This is the kind of attitude that accepts blessing and persecution from God, regardless of what we would like to have happen to us. I think that this model of asking for something, anything really, is the only viable model for making God honoring requests. Everything we do should be done in order to glorify God. And we can do this by loving and serving Him, loving and serving others, proclaiming His Word, and by following His many other commands in Scripture. May God be glorified, and may I receive grace when preparing this message.3 And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! 4 "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED." (Revelation 15:3,4)
I just loved this praise to God for the greatness of His works and that it affirms and esteems all of His ways as being righteous. I can just sit and drink in the truth that God alone is holy, and that all the nations will worship God because His righteous acts have been revealed. The revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His act of justifying wretchedly sinful people, so that He can be both just and the justifier, is staggering to me when I ponder it.
Today’s Reading (read on 12/22 & 12/23):
- Zechariah 2:1-5:11
- Revelation 13:1b-14:20
- Psalms 141:1-142:7
- Proverbs 30:18-23
Today’s Thoughts:“1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. 2 The LORD said to Satan, ‘ The LORD rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?’ 3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. 4 He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, ‘ Remove the filthy garments from him.’ Again he said to him, ‘See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.’" (Zechariah 3:1-4)
This section of Zechariah stuck out to me for a few reasons. The first was the fact that two times God (I would guess that it is Christ in this context) rebuked Satan, but He didn’t do it in the way that many modern Christians practice commanding Satan what to do and what not to do. The trend seems to be that if you command (or claim) something “in Jesus’ name” that you have the authority to do what you have said. Now, I don’t want to get into the whole problem of the “name it, claim it” false teaching in the church today, but I will say that there seems to be some reason for not using the commanding “in Jesus’ name” formula. Jude also warns of false teachers “revile angelic majesties” by, among other things, not acting as Michael the archangel did when dealing with disputing with the devil saying, “The Lord rebuke you!” (cf. Jude 8,9) I think that we need to be careful of how cavalier we are when we attempt to deal with the demonic.
The second thing that stuck out at me was the picture of the Lord ordering that the “filthy garments” be taken from him, and it is explained that God has “taken your iniquity away from you.” I just thought that this was a beautiful picture of the mercy of God in how He chose Joshua as “a brand plucked from the fire.” The picture of having our sins dealt with and being clothed in clean garments before God is beautiful in light of how the Bible repeatedly describes our natural attire before Him (cf. Isaiah 64:6). Praise God for removing my filthy garments and clothing me with His Son.
“9 Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.’” (Revelation 14:9,10)
The only reason why this really jumped out at me was a combination of a few things. First of all, the increasing number of people inside of Christendom who deny the existence or reality of Hell as a place of eternal torment has really been overwhelming lately. I know that people who have believed this have been around for a long time, but the increasing visibility and volume of them today is very distressing. The second reason that I grabbed this verse was recently I read Habakkuk where God turns the tables on those who indulge in drunkenness (cf. Hab 2:15,16).
I don’t know all of the cultural implications of drinking “a cup” in this type of a manner back in the first century, but the imagery of having to drink some horrible concoction is nothing pleasant. Eating foul food, taking medicine that tastes unpleasant, or otherwise accidentally ingesting something foreign is a terrible thought. The cup that we will drink is the cup of His anger at me and the wine is His wrath being applied to me. Wow, that is a vivid image of hell that I don’t think can be explained away as the life we’re living now apart from God or something innocuous that man-hating peddlers of their so-called gospel put forth in an effort to calm the screaming consciences of their dead followers.
Today’s Reading:
- Zechariah 1:1-21
- Revelation 12:1-13:1a
- Psalms 140:1-13
- Proverbs 30:17
Today’s Thoughts:”12 I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted And justice for the poor. 13 Surely the righteous will give thanks to Your name; The upright will dwell in Your presence.” (Psalms 140:12,13)
Perhaps one of the more apparent problems in modern Western Christianity has to do with the corporate dealings with those in poverty. I think that this observation is being keenly highlighted with various parts of the emergent movement even if their way of dealing with this issue is wrong. That being the case, I still think that it is generally Christians, or those who would fall under the umbrella of Christendom, who give more to the poor, volunteer, adopt children, and do various other actions displaying their concern for those less fortunate than themselves. So I don’t want to agree with a large amount of people in our culture who think that Christians just don’t care about the poor. A common assault on our stance on abortion is that we are pro life until the child is born, and then they need to fend for themselves.
Although that thought is based largely on a straw-man understanding of what Christians believe, I can’t get away from the thought that there might be a grain of truth in some of the accusations. Not enough to validate the unfair characterization, but enough to make me sit back and ponder it a bit. Could it be that much of my socially apparent thoughts about the poor and about the needy are governed more by my political persuasion than by the Bible? Conservative politics has a touch of grace but is very rigidly a “pick yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of mentality. Conversely, liberal politics tends to be gracious to the point of enabling bad and destructive behavior with a more limited “get up and work” mentality with very little teeth.
As an aside, though, because of our current societal conditions, I hesitate to afford very many people the label of “poor” or “needy”. I worked with a guy who asked if I knew of any food shelters that didn’t ask for information on your current income before giving out food. Now I really love this guy, but we both worked the same job and were making between $40k and $60k each year. I have other friends, co-workers, and relatives who constantly complain of money problems or state some form of “we’re not poor, but we don’t have much money.” The problem is not with the amount of money that most Americans have, it is what we choose to do with it. For goodness sake, probably the vast majority of the “poor” in America have cable TV, high speed Internet, their own home (or apartment), air conditioning, refrigerators and microwaves. We need to take care of them, but the poor that I think the Bible is primarily talking about are the destitute, those who have no means, no supplies, no home, nothing.
We should be more conscious of the needs of those in our community and in our nation, and I think that we Christians need to make a large effort to reach out and help. We must not do that instead of preaching the gospel to them or fall under the false idea that doing that is preaching the gospel to them, but the gospel message of salvation from sin by Christ’s blood that we preach must be seasoned with love and good deeds. “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)
We must reach out to the poor and take care of the widows and orphans. We can do that, and we can make that difference. But the second part of James’ statement about “pure and undefiled religion” is to remain “unstained by the world.” That is impossible for anyone to do. The gospel must be preached so that it can be believed. Only then can the hearer become unstained by the world. And in the preaching of the cleansing gospel of Christ, we can show our love and the love of God in Christ by serving the needy and helping them so as not to be offensive by only saying “be warmed” or “be filled” without giving them what they need for clothing and food (cf. James 2:16).
Is there a problem that needs to be addressed with how the majority of Western protestant Christianity interacts with and thinks of the poor? I believe there is. Is the answer to stop preaching the gospel of salvation from sin and death while turning to noble social programs? Never! The answer is to align our hearts and minds with Christ’s by reading and applying His Word. Only then will we have the mind of Christ and the motivation to do what Christ did when He cared for the poor and the outcast and still proclaimed the gospel with unwavering fervor.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Copyright © 2005-2010 Eric Johnson
