September 30, 2005

Do you ever have a gut feeling sweep over your soul that you are “the chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), that you are “carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14), that “in [your] flesh dwells no good thing” (vs. 18)?

Don’t despair! The great Holy Spirit of God may at last be working deep in your heart. God Himself is noticing you like He notices when a little humming bird falls on the forest floor—that’s something! God in heaven is teaching you as if you were a student in His classroom. He honors you!

You become really sure that you are indeed “a child of God” when you sense that He Himself is chastising you: “ ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son when He receives’ ” (Heb. 12:5, 6).

We have generally thought that refers to our getting sick, or getting in an accident, or some such bad luck. But in fact, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit convicting us of sin itself (John 16:8). Paul experienced a healthy “Christian experience” which illustrates what it means to live in tune with God on this great Day of Atonement, this cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary (cf. Dan. 8:14). To sense that indeed you are genuinely, truly, not merely rhetorically, “less than the least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8) is not an unhealthy experience. It may be the beginning of your at-last deep conversion. You are at last actually experiencing what Zechariah 12:10-13:1 is talking about. Not until Moses was at last deeply humbled before God was it possible for his face to shine with the light of heaven, light that astonished the people (Ex. 34:35).

September 28, 2005

Around the world, millions are beginning to open Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, for special study. There is some evidence that the apostle intended the letter to go to everybody, not only to the believers in that city.

About half of the letter is concerned with telling the world what Jesus Christ did for us even before any of us were born. He “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (1:3). But who is the “us”? The believers in Ephesus, yes; by all means; but is it only they?

Then the apostle goes on: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,.... having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (vss. 4, 5). Now Paul brings the reader to a point of decision; we must decide: (a) Does he mean that God has “predestined” some people before they are born to be saved, and therefore the “us” means He has “predestined” “all” to be saved? Or (b), has He predestined other wretches before they are born to be lost?

If we choose to believe (b), we raise an enormous barrier against the cardinal truth of the entire Bible—that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). There is no way under heaven that any rational human being can believe that a God who is love would determine some poor people to be lost before they are born, in spite of their desire (and trying) to be saved! If “God is love,” He must give every one free choice; and a divine predestination to hell is no free choice!

The “us” in Ephesians one has to be the entire human race. It’s the same “all men” of Romans 5:15-18 who are given “the free gift” of election and justification in Christ their Substitute. (But we can reject what we are given!)

September 27, 2005

Thank God that Rita was not as terrible as feared. It did swamp New Orleans again, and brought too much intense suffering and devastation everywhere it touched.

In our American history, previous disasters by fire, earthquake, war, and storm, have left us to emerge every time to re-assume our position as the world’s most stable and prosperous big power. But thoughtful among us have recognized that it’s not our two oceans that have been our defense, but it’s our Constitution that has been our “levee” to save us from disaster. If that be breached by subtle apostasy from its basic principles, national ruin inevitably must inundate the republic. The possibility looms.

The combinations of Iraq, economic costs for Katrina and Rita, plus our continuing subsidies to Israel (and, yes, to her enemies too) sink us deeper in the morass of unimaginable national debt. Thoughtful people cannot help but worry, the president notwithstanding. Suppose our creditors should become enemies? Some see hints of that possibility revealed in Bible prophecy. There is also downright worrisome sexual moral rot. All this while the message of Revelation 18 is trying to get our attention.

The most simple biblical common sense tells us: “Come out of [Babylon],” close the avenues of the soul to worldly entertainment; open the door of the heart to the Voice of the Holy Spirit. Eat, “masticate,” the “bread” of the word which is the broken “body” of Jesus. Distinguish between the imitations of religious videos and the study of the inspired Book itself. Let the elusive thirst we cannot even feel be quenched by drinking from those “rivers of living water” (cf. John 7:38). Pray as desperately as those people praying to be saved from Katrina and Rita. Eternal survival is more and more seen to be at stake.

Evacuate “Babylon” NOW! It’s a massive religious, spiritual deception that is lethal.

September 26, 2005

One of the most common-sense suggestions in the Bible is in 1 Corinthians 11. Paul has been discussing the Lord’s Supper (vss. 23ff); the bread is a symbol of the body of the Lord Jesus “which is broken for [us].” We are to observe this ordinance “in remembrance of [Him].” But then he warns us against eating “this bread or.... [drinking] this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner,” for such careless, thoughtless irreverence makes us “guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,” in other words, guilty of crucifying “again” for ourselves “the Son of God, and put[ting] Him to an open shame” (Heb. 6:6).

Then the apostle says “let someone examine himself,” for “he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” This guilt can even cause sickness, and “many sleep” (die prematurely). The reason is that the Lord’s Supper teaches us that “every meal becomes a sacrament.” If we eat our daily food without discerning and recognizing that all we have comes because of the sacrifice of the Son of God we “eat and drink judgment to ourselves.” Then comes the eminent common sense: “If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged” (vs. 31). Why wait until the final judgment to face judgment? Wouldn’t it make sense to do a self-judging process first, and get it over with before the final condemnation?

The Holy Spirit’s job is to “convict of sin” (John 16:8), and enable us to do the self-judging now. It’s all in a friendly basis, though it feels severe. The primary sin at the bottom of everything is, we do “not believe in” Him (vs. 9). If we do believe, not only will those “rivers of living water” flow out of our inmost soul, but we will see righteousness in Jesus going to His Father, and we will know that “the ruler of this world” has been cast out of our lives (16:8-11). We will “trample” upon that enemy! (cf. Luke 10:19).

September 25, 2005

Because of Katrina and its aftermath, people who want to “fear God and give glory to Him” (Rev. 14:7) are racked with perplexity: is He sending a message? There have been many Caribbean/Gulf hurricanes, even when the Spanish galleons transported our gold to Catholic Europe; “we” have simply rebuilt more lavishly than before. God hasn’t entered into “our” thinking—much. But Katrina is a cause celebre; is it a judgment on a “decadence,” Mardi Gras abandon, pro-gambling life in post-Christian America?

Is God calling the whole world to observe His cosmic Day of Atonement—the antitypical fulfillment of the Yom Kippur still observed by devout Jews? Or is His call limited to a relatively small group who at present discern it in the Judeo-Christian Bible?

What we know for sure is this:

(a) God so loved the world that He gave....” (John 3:16).

(b) Christ is “the Saviour of the world, specially of those that believe” (1 Tim. 4:10).

(c) The Old and New Testaments teach a cosmic Day of Atonement truth; the same Savior who redeemed the world now calls the world to accountability for redeeming it from eternal death (Matt. 25:31, 32).

(d) Christ’s Day of Atonement message (“the hour of His judgment”) is to be proclaimed “to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6).

(e) That truth as good news is to be proclaimed with unprecedented “great power, and the earth [is to be] lightened with His glory;” “a strong voice” is to proclaim, “Come out of [Babylon], My people” (18:1-4).

(f) As “the Judge of all the earth” (Gen. 18:25) and as the God who “is love” (1 John 4:8) who did “taste death [the second] for every man” (Heb. 2:9), He has the undisputed right to make a statement to the world. And “every man” for whom He “tasted [that] death” has the duty to listen. What is He saying?

September 23, 2005

Have you ever marveled at the devotion and self-sacrifice we see in the life of the apostle Paul? He said, “For me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). But he was not a fanatic and he was not a masochist; he loved life as much as anybody, but still he rejoiced that he was permitted to suffer for the sake of Christ who had suffered so much for him. On and on he went through life, scorning retirement, motivated by the love [agape] of Christ in his ministry to people, finally laying his head down on the block while the Roman soldier severed it.

Has Paul earned a first class ticket to heaven while the rest of us must be content with third class passage (if we get there!)? Will he enjoy a mansion in the earth made new while we will be content with a shack if we can squeeze through the pearly gates, or maybe just sleep on the grass? Is the all-out devotion such as Paul’s possible for us whose lot is cast in the First World’s economy of comfort and luxury? It’s not our fault we are heirs to the life-style we enjoy! In the final Judgment, will we step shamefully aside while Paul gets his very special reward? Or is his devotion possible for us?

In these last days it will be repeated in that mystic number of “144,000” of Revelation 14:1-5, who “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” It wasn’t some special trait of character in Paul; he was a selfish sinner like we are, by nature. He simply saw something we have not as yet clearly seen: Jesus poured out His life (precious to Him as it can be to us!), “poured out His soul unto death” (Isa. 53:12)—the second death. Paul was able to “comprehend” what we haven’t yet clearly seen—“the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of this “love [agape] of Christ which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:17, 18).

September 22, 2005

Something significant has happened recently. A prominent Protestant church leadership in Germany has published for all the world to see, their confession of involvement in the horrors of Nazism. In its early days “they” looked upon Adolph Hitler as a blessing from God. “Their” patriotism went over the line, and “they” contributed more encouragement to the Nazi government than the government actually asked for. The modern leadership of this same church are repenting for what they now recognize was a sin of pride and blindness on the part of their church leadership of a previous generation.

In actuality not one of the present leadership of this church (who have thoughtfully declared this repentance) did those things. They were all irresponsible children, or teenagers, when their elders supported Nazism. But this generation are repenting in behalf of that generation, responding to what must be a conviction from the Holy Spirit.

We humans are incapable of “seeing” our own sin except for His blessed ministry, for Jesus said that after His resurrection He will send the Holy Spirit who will “convict the world of sin” (John 16:8). Only He can convict people of guilt for sin they did not personally commit. It’s what the ancient Jewish leaders should have done when Jesus convicted them of the murder of “Zecharias son of Barachias whom ye slew” in Solomon’s Temple—but it was some 800 years earlier! Jesus fixed on the Jews of His day this murder (Matt. 23:34-36; 2 Chron. 24:20). The scribes and Pharisees of their Sanhedrim should have repented on the spot; but unrepentant instead, they went on to murder their Messiah.

Not one of us was present when the Jews cried out to Pilate, “Crucify Him!” [Jesus]. But we confess that their sin is ours too. This is corporate guilt. And what the church in Germany has experienced is corporate repentance. This is significant good news.

September 21, 2005

We read that God the Father so loved this world that He gave (not merely lent) His Son “that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Now, a question: would He be content that the message of this Gift should be so distorted and misrepresented that Christ would be deprived of His power to save people FROM sin?

Suppose millions, yes billions, of lost humans should hear only the news of a “Christ” who could not “condemn sin in the flesh” of mankind? That would result in the widespread idea that “the righteous requirement of the law” cannot “be fulfilled” in people who think they are believing in Jesus; it would lead to the teaching that it is impossible for humans like you and me who have been born with a sinful nature to “condemn sin” in our fallen nature, and it would mean that we cannot “overcome even as [Christ] overcame” (Rev. 3:21). Conclusion: we must conclude that we are unable to resist the alluring temptations of sin. In other words, nobody can become “perfect in character” as Christ demonstrated perfection of character in the fallen, sinful flesh which He “took.” To state this widespread false doctrine another way: it ends up with the idea that transgression of the seventh commandment is impossible for ordinary virile people to avoid. So, therefore, “abstinence before marriage” is also impossible. And in places like Africa you just have to live with lethal AIDS proliferating unless you saturate the continent with condoms and expensive drugs. Indulgence just has to be accepted as unavoidable.

This is what happens: “Christ” belongs in stained glass windows in the cathedral, not in the truck drivers’ stops or in the schools where the teens are overwhelmed with sexual allurement. Just be sure you keep your ongoing sins confessed; and when you die you’ll be saved. Is there anywhere a church proclaiming the true Christ clearly and unitedly?

September 20, 2005

George F. Will dares once in a while to tell some unsavory truths. In Newsweek’s first issue of 2000 he pleaded for some new John Wesley to go to sub-Saharan Africa and save the continent from ruin, as the Reformer saved England from the ruin of the French Revolution. The AIDS curse feeds on widespread sexual promiscuity in professedly Christian Africa.

Now Will has put a disturbing finger on the real problem that Katrina has revealed about New Orleans’s poverty stricken masses. It’s the same thing. He speaks of “three not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: graduate from high school, don’t have a baby until you are married, don’t marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey these rules,” he says, “poverty is minimal.” Uncomfortably true. Very many of Katrina’s victims “were women with children but not husbands,” says Will. And raising male children without fathers is “a constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented adolescent males,.... translat[ing] into chaos.” “In 2003, 34.6 percent of all American births were to unmarried women,” says the National Center for Health Statistics; “the percentage among African-American women was 68.2.” Are we a national machine that produces poverty?

The world’s heavenly Father sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” in order to save the world. “The righteousness of the law [is] fulfilled in [those] who walk not after the flesh, but after the [Holy] Spirit” (Rom. 8:3, 4, KJV). But the greatest “Christian” church in the world has nixed this truth that Jesus Christ saves from sin and teaches that He saves in sin. Is there one Protestant church anywhere that proclaims boldly and unitedly that Romans 8 Bible truth about Jesus? George F. Will may not be conscious of all that is involved, but he is pleading for some church somewhere to send the world a new John Wesley with a message to save it.

September 18, 2005

A faithful, Bible-believing reader of DDB has written us a rather serious rebuke for hesitating to say that the horrors of Katrina are the direct judgment of God on New Orleans. We have said that the destruction and loss of life and livelihood are what Satan loves to wreak on humanity, and that the judgment of God is seen in that He has given Satan permission to do this awful work (The Great Controversy, page 36, has been our model).

Either way, it is evident that God has made a statement. We should pay Him respect and listen. What complicates the picture is that now the entire nation (nearly) is moving toward the moral equivalent of New Orleans. That city’s advertising has gloried in its devotion to “decadence.” For many decades, California tried to eschew the moral degradation that legalized gambling brings; now the state is becoming saturated with Indian gaming casinos where thousands go instead of having to drive up to Nevada. Are we also ripe for judgment? The answer: yes. We are indebted meanwhile to that “restraining power of God.”

The Bible tells us to take a good look at history: nations that have had some contact with God’s plan of salvation but have apostatized therefrom have always suffered “national ruin”—whether directly from Him or from His withdrawing His protection (when Satan rushes in to fill the vacuum). “We would have healed Babylon,” the Lord says, “but she is not healed..... Her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up to the skies..... Come and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God” (Jer. 50:9, 10). We face the solemn truth that God has tried to “heal” this nation that has enjoyed such rich blessings from His hand. A “post-Christian” society is under far greater judgment than a Third World “Iraq” that has never known such blessings of God as a Constitutional history like ours. Katrina is causing much serious thought. Signs of divine judgment are unmistakable.

September 16, 2005

The apostle Paul stands out as totally consecrated to God, a rare character who could dare to tell people to “follow” him as he followed the Lord (1 Thess 1:6; 2 Thess 3:7). The Lord honored him highly, so that in vision he “was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:3-7, KJV).

But he was not a monk alone in a monastery; he was in the thick of life everywhere. As the Bible tells us that Jesus was “in all points tempted like as we are” (Heb. 4:15, “yet without sin”), so Paul confides in us, confessing that he has been heavily tempted like everybody else. He is not some “goody goody man” who doesn’t know what alluring sexual temptation is! He was a healthy man, a “whole man” as susceptible as anyone else.

In Romans, he confesses that he had never understood what the real definition of “sin” is until he discovered what it’s like to be tempted by a woman who was not, and could never be, his! He says, “I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” (The original says, “thy neighbour’s wife” [Rom. 7:7; Ex 20:17]). Paul, like every healthy man in the world, had to wrestle with the lure of lust.

But again, temptation is not to be equated with sin; the sin comes only in yielding to the temptation. The battle in Paul’s heart was severe: “I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, I do not; but what I hate, that I do” (vss. 14, 15). He kept seeing someone in his dreams that he knew he should not see. He learned that sexual temptation is alluring! It’s “sin that dwelleth in me,” he said (vs. 17). “The evil that I would not, that do I” (vs. 19). But Paul discovered in his next chapter the glorious secret of victory over this kind of temptation. If the Lord gives us a tomorrow, we will look at it.

September 14, 2005

God did a wonderful thing for us all when He called Saul of Tarsus to become Paul the apostle. Paul had a mighty intellect but was gifted with a humble, honest heart that enables him to connect with us everywhere who are deeply tempted, some one way, others, another. In Galatians 5, he details many of the ways in which “the works of the flesh are evident,” but he cites sexual temptations at the top of the list: “adultery, fornication, uncleanness [dirty language, lurid imaginings?], licentiousness [the word means unrestrained sin],...... revelries [that’s the Mardi Gras, “southern decadence” of New Orleans and of the world].” “Our beloved brother Paul” frankly tells us “that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (vss. 19-21; cf 1 Peter 3:15). We need that honesty!

Paul confesses that he has wanted deep in his soul to “delight in the law of God” but some evil force is “bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:22-24). That’s the cry of millions of human hearts worldwide.

Now Paul tells us the most precious truth of Romans 8:1-4: The Father knows our problem. Our “flesh” is “weak,” and the law is powerless to help us. So, “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,” sent His own Son right into the cesspool of human sin in order to save the world. Christ “was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” that we might “become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). He took upon Himself the same sinful flesh that we all have, and conquered sin right there where it feeds on our souls. Receive that faith of Jesus and “the righteous requirements of the law [are] fulfilled” in you as you “do not walk according to the flesh but according to the [Holy] Spirit.” He is stronger than all the allurements!

September 13, 2005

A Mr. Gugino is an Army veteran in Pearlington, Mississippi, one of the thousands who have to “start again” after Katrina. He doesn’t know what to do. All his construction tools are ruined. He voices the feelings of many: “God came at us with a vengeance. I can’t understand it.”

I don’t know how to reach Mr. Gugino; if I could, I would tell him:

(1). It wasn’t God who came at you with that apparent “vengeance. “

(2). It was Satan; even so, you “can’t understand it,” for why did God permit him to do it? Worse than losing your construction tools would be the tragedy of losing your confidence in the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of us all.

(3). Dear man, let’s face the truth: your new name just now is “Mr. Job,” the man who has a book named for him in the Bible. He too had lost everything in “natural disasters”—his family of children included. And when the book begins, we see him sitting on a pile of ashes in physical pain and total wretchedness (2:8).

(4) But his physical torture is the least of his problems: his wife now turns against him too (vs. 9), and still worse,

(5), he now exists with the unspeakable horror of thinking that his life-long Friend, God, has done all this to him (1:21; 2:10)! If he could know that Satan has done it, he could still be happy trusting in God, but he doesn’t “feel” that blessed truth. The result: Job is in the pit. Is this familiar?

Yes, your name is Job; but Job’s name is another name for Jesus Christ who cried out on His cross in identical agony, feeling hopeless, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” But His Father had not forsaken Him! And neither has He forsaken you; what you can’t understand, choose to believe. I can’t talk to you, but please believe that God is still love (1 John 4:8).

September 11, 2005

A BIBLE STUDY ABOUT DISASTERS

I. INTRODUCTION.

A. The Bible clearly says that God has sent disasters on the earth: the Flood, Gen. 6:7; Sodom and Gomorrah, 18:20-32; 19:13, 24, 25; the Assyrians, 2 Chron. 32:21.

B. Jerusalem itself severely punished, and good Jeremiah had to suffer with it: 36:15-17; Babylon, Dan. 5:25-28.

C. Story of Nineveh: Jonah 3:10; 4:1, 11. God had pity on the thousands who didn’t understand the truth.

D. How Jesus met the question of disasters: Luke 13:1-5; He articulated the principle of corporate guilt, corporate repentance. Repentance is a principle and a duty.

II. THE CHARACTER OF GOD.

A. It is love (agape): 1 John 4:8; Matt. 5:45; 1 Cor. 13.

B. Significance of the Day of Atonement: Isa. 22:12-14. This passage is “present truth” on how to live.

C. God calls for serious living on this cosmic “Day of Atonement.” Lev. 16:29-31.

D. What Revelation says about the Day of Atonement while the seventh trumpet sounds: 11:14-19; 7:1-4; 19:7, 8.

E. Christ reveals the Father’s character: John 14:7-10.

III. WHAT JESUS SAYS ABOUT OUR TIMES TODAY.

A. Luke 21:22-26, 32; plenty of “perplexity” now.

B. “Take heed”: vss. 34-36. “Watch, pray always.”

IV. OUR DUTY TO HELP IN DISASTERS. Prov. 24:10-12; Luke 10:31.

A. None of the wealth we possess is ours by right.

B. Having food and raiment, be content; share all we have beyond that: 1 Tim. 6:6-9.

V. GOD’S CALL TO “FLEE.... BABYLON” (Jer. 51:6; Zech. 2:7).

A. Jesus said we must “flee” wicked Jerusalem (Matt. 24:16).

B. Good people staying in wicked places will suffer (Rev. 18:4)

September 10, 2005

Does the God of the Bible, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “the Lord of the spirits of all flesh” (Num. 27:16), judge nations for their apostasy? The Bible answer is yes.

Consider Israel, God’s own special people. He did not personally chastise them physically, but He was forced to abandon them to the tender mercies of their enemies. For their deep apostasy, the northern kingdom was left to the Assyrians who put an end to it.

The southern kingdom learned no lessons from them, and God was forced to let them fall into the hands of the Babylonians. Due to the apostate perfidy of King Zedekiah and his court, the judgment was very severe. Jeremiah had to suffer through it like the rest.

King Nebuchadnezzar, for all his harsh rulings, had an honest heart (he eventually wrote a chapter in the Bible, Daniel 4); but his grandson Belzhazzar apostatized from what uprightness there had been, and Daniel 5 records the “decadence,” Mardi Gras feast, that brought God’s judgment when the kingdom came to its end by the Medo-Persians. They had some regard at first for justice. Then they had their two centuries of probation, and their apostasy brought the end of their empire to Alexander the Great. On and on it goes.

Does God keep an account with the nations today? The more light a nation has had, the more severe will their judgment finally be. The fall of ancient Babylon remains in the New Testament a metaphor to describe God’s coming judgment on the nations today (Rev. 14:8; ch. 18). But let us remember that always in God’s dealing with individuals and nations, “in wrath [He remembers] mercy” (Hab. 3:2). He is still the “God [who] is love,” the world’s heavenly Father (1 John 4:8; Matt. 6:9). Don’t doubt the truth: He is love all the way through!

September 9, 2005

How shall we live in our post-Katrina world? We should live “in the fear of God” even if there had been no Katrina. But to common people worldwide the message is clear: “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near” (Isa. 55:6). The Lord is not always going to be “near” as He is now!

Geoscientists cannot explain the flood of Noah except that “the Lord saw the wickedness of man in the earth, and it was great” (Gen. 6:5). Only one man was “righteous,” and God spared him so he could become “the heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Heb. 11:7). Common sense would convince us that we too should so live in a sinful world as the heirs of righteousness by faith!

This is not to “judge” New Orleans in the least; “judge not that ye be not judged” is the law of Jesus. The sins of others would be our sins (and are ours!) but for the grace of a Savior who took upon His sinless nature our sinful nature that He might in all things suffer temptation as we suffer it, yet lived “without sin” (Heb. 4:15). He was not merely an impossible-to-equal-Example, but He is a Savior from sin. Watch the graphic pictures on TV of the total devastation of places like Waveland, and then consider your house you live in—“there but for the grace of God am I.”

In that light, our only possible conclusion: “the love (agape) of Christ constraineth us...... henceforth we should not [yes, cannot!] live unto [ourselves] but unto Him which died for [us] and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15, KJV). Let the world [or even the church?] judge us as being fanatical; but how can we “judge” otherwise?

And the “fear of God” we sense is not selfish terror, but a heart-melting sense of the “fear” in Psalm 130: “Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord....... If thou, Lord shouldest mark iniquities, O lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared” (vss. 1-4, KJV). The “fear” in the first angel’s message of Revelation 14:6, 7 is thanks for forgiveness!

September 8, 2005

If you have thought about the horrors of Katrina’s aftermath (now classed by some as the worst disaster since the Civil War), you long for some good news from the word of God. There are many around the world, but especially in America, whose “hearts [are] failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken” (says Jesus in Luke 21:26). No matter what unbelievers may say and how they scoff, the ordinary person who reverences the Bible is solemnized by this most significant disaster in the history of the United States.

Yes, there is “good news” from the Lord. If you are one of the hundreds of thousands packed tight in the Astrodome or in other emergency shelters, get a Bible and read Psalm 130, “Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord,...... there is forgiveness with You...... I wait for the Lord,...... more than those who watch for the morning...... Hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy.” If you know yourself to be a sinner, cherish that.

Read Psalm 23: the world’s heavenly Father invites you to make this your own song. “The Lord is [your] Shepherd, [you] shall not want.” You—having fled from your ruined home, with no foreseeable future—“YOU shall not want”! If you have never before learned to cast your helpless soul on that Savior, do so now. Like a faithful Shepherd, “He leads [you] besides the still waters, He restores [your] soul....... Yea, though [you] walk through the valley of the shadow of death, [you] will fear no evil, for [He] is with [you].” Even what appear to be punishments from Him. “they comfort [you.]” Now the time has come for you to take a leap of faith and believe this precious promise of God, and make this your own confession of faith, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow ME all the days of MY life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” The best good news you’ll ever hear.

September 7, 2005

Something has happened that appears on the surface to be bad news, but it is in reality very good news. God has given the world a glimpse of His wrath—just a glimpse. It’s terrible, and it’s heart-rending, but a slight taste in advance of what “the day of the Lord” will be like is good news for young people. They need to know that God is for real, that His justice is in contrast to the alluring immorality that has all but captivated the world.

“Katrina” intervened just in time to cancel the wild celebration of homosexual immorality scheduled for New Orleans during “Katrina’s” week. They proudly call it “Southern Decadence”—actually glorying in the “decadence” word itself. Thousands come to it from all over the world, reveling in an abandonment of moral restraint for a few days. It’s a new Sodom and Gomorrah. But God’s message got through, for He knew how to get top billing in the media. All the psychologists in the world cannot erase the impression burnt into the minds of thoughtful youth: God has expressed His white-hot wrath against civic “decadence.” He is not angry with the people; but His anger burns hot against sin itself.

As soon as there can be some material recovery, the decadence-lovers will return to insulting Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But for a brief unforgettable moment “the Lord has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations.” The world has intently watched this humiliating “fall” of New Orleans. God can command world attention! But the good news is in the rest of that verse: “And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isa. 52:10). The presence of bad news proves that good news is coming—the loud cry of the pure “most precious” gospel of Christ’s righteousness in Revelation 18:1-4. God’s “holy arm” has been covered; now it’s beginning (only beginning) to be “made bare.” From now on the “final movements will be rapid ones.”

September 6, 2005

No one would dare to say that Jesus Christ is a Pessimist. His name is “‘Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:23). And “God is love” (1 John 4:8), the divine ultimate in holy Optimism. But Jesus has said some things that do not sound like immediate “good news.” Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 report on a sermon Jesus gave just before He was crucified. He tells of great “distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken” (Luke 21:25, 26). There are now numerous “first-evers” in tragedy.

How can we “eat, drink, and be merry” when many thousands of our fellow citizens “next door” are suffering anguish and the fear of death? Even the very water that inundates New Orleans is a brew of death. Is there anguish anywhere in the Third World as distressing? A great and famous city in America is ruined. “Our alabaster cities [should] gleam, Undimmed by human tears,” says the hymn, “O Beautiful for Spacious Skies.” But the combined wisdom and expertise of state and national governments seems perplexed about what to do.

In the violence and terror of New Orleans we see prefigured the world itself if and when the Holy Spirit is withdrawn. When the Father gave His only Son, He also gave us the Holy Spirit. He is the representative of Christ; He has been given to the world, to “convict the world of sin” (John 16:8). He will not abandon the world, but the world can abandon Him, reject and banish Him.

Let’s thank God for the life and security we have today, and dedicate our all to Him and His service. He has promised, “Not a hair of your head shall be lost” (Luke 21:18).

September 4, 2005

The big headline in our local newspaper read, “New Orleans Given Up for Lost.” As we sympathize with those poor people who have lost everything, our hearts go out to them in their suffering. A mat on the floor in the Astrodome in Houston for literally months to come is small comfort. Never have Americans in their own homeland suffered as these people must suffer now. Through the news media we all share their pain. It is becoming our pain.

As our human hearts are touched by it all, how does God feel? We can taste the agony He feels when His people suffer so as we read the little-known Lamentations of Jeremiah. Jerusalem was “given up for lost” two times (the Babylonian conquest in 486 B.C. and the Roman in 70 A.D.). Jeremiah recorded vividly the feelings of the people, much like that of the citizens of New Orleans. “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,...... The children and the infants faint in the streets of the city” (Lam. 1:12; 2:11). God, who is a Person and who feels anguish, felt the people’s anguish. “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them” (Isa. 63:9). We can say, that refers only to people who believe in Him; and surely He hears their prayers. But God also has compassion on spiritual “infants,” those who have never learned of His character, who do not know Him, have never understood His gospel of good news. They are human beings in need. A sobriety is taking over the thinking of the people.

There is a growing-up, a spiritual maturity process, going on in America. The people of ancient Jerusalem have taught us a lesson: we must not rebel against God: “Let us search out and examine our ways, and turn back to the Lord; let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven” (Lam. 3:40).

September 2, 2005

Did God send “Katrina”? Is it a judgment from heaven?

New Orleans has built for itself a world reputation as the “Big Easy,” the city filled with gambling, Voodoo, and the wildly loose merriment of Mardi Gras. A Christian looking into shops in the French Quarter feels ill at ease, wants to get out. The humble fear of God, reverence for His holy law, was not known to be welcome. Now, for sure, the Holy Spirit is not in the present looting.

The phrase “gambling hell” is one undoubtedly inspired by the Holy Spirit. Gambling is a sinful addiction that has brought untold misery to many families; God hates it because it blights the lives of so many children whose parents waste the family’s support on this useless curse.

In the light of the righteousness by faith which the Holy Bible teaches, the answer to our question appears to be an unqualified “yes.” Many are concluding that the unspeakable horrors of Katrina must be a judgment of God. But wait a moment, the same gambling and Mardi Gras spirit has taken over a large segment of life in the United States. Why should the “Big Easy” take all the punishment?

The fact is that Katrina is going to affect life all over this country. Thanks to TV, we all share the woe which appears to be terribly close to the horror of what the Bible describes as the “seven last plagues.... in them is filled up the wrath of God” (Rev. 16:1). But it is not yet the “seven plagues,” because “filled up” means that when they begin to fall, the door of mercy will have been forever closed; and that time has not yet come—thank God. Strictly speaking, God Himself did not send this killer hurricane; it’s a satanic spin-off from the Flood of Noah. But where the Holy Spirit is banished, God’s protection that He wants to give must then be withdrawn. That’s dangerous.

September 1, 2005

The ongoing news reports and coverage of “Katrina” make clear that this is one of the major natural disasters that the USA has suffered. One’s heart goes out to all those people who not only suffered the horror of living through the wild storm itself, but who now face months of homelessness. It seems that everything has conspired against them—no power, no drinkable water, plus, no homes. Even those who sought refuge in the Superdome are in misery; and when they get out, then what? One lady went back to see her home, found it flattened, all she saw that was hers was one shoe.

In all the disasters that have occurred since sin began, the dear Lord and Father of mankind has “remembered mercy” (Hab. 3:2). So must we. Now will come the calls to give to help this disaster—it’s not in Darfur, or Iraq, or Niger, or any other of the Third World countries that so often suffer disasters and famines; it’s in our own wealthy and powerful USA. Let us be merciful.

How can any of us think of what we happen to possess as really “ours”? It’s poignant to watch CNN or Fox “cover” the disaster and the suffering, then have to sit through the TV ads for luxury cars, SUVs, et al. The ads were designed before this tragedy, true; but don’t they look dreadfully out of place in this context?

So is selfish living “out of place” in this great Day of Atonement in which we live.