November 29, 2006

Proverbs 22:14 states a sobering truth: “The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit; he who is abhorred of the Lord will fall there[in]” (NKJV, KJV). Ecclesiastes states the reverse truth: “He who pleases God shall escape from her.” Surely we can understand the corollary: an immoral man is a deep pit for a woman to fall into, and she who pleases the Lord will escape that captivity. The biblical use of the male pronouns is generic.

Bathsheba proved to be that woman to King David; he fell into that pit of pornography. And he was that “pit” for her; true, by means of the adultery she was “promoted” to be the queen of the realm, but the painful repentance of Psalm 51 was as much hers as his. We must not think that a woman in David’s day was a helpless victim of male aggression; Tamar resisted Amnon’s rape and screamed and is honored in the Bible although no one heard her. Bathsheba knew the story. “The grace of God that brings salvation to all men teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness” even if tempted by a king (Titus 2:11, NIV), and that grace was as much given then as now. Both David and Bathsheba stumbled into that “deep pit.” David recognized that he had come within a millimeter of losing his soul for eternity (Psalm 51:11).

What does it mean to be “abhorred of the Lord”?

It doesn’t mean that He doesn’t love you. He can love you dearly and “desire [you] to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:3, 4) while at the same time He abhors you for your iniquity. That was His attitude toward Saul of Tarsus who actually hated the Lord Jesus Christ, and was mean and cruel to Him in the person of His people (Acts 22:4-8), conduct surely “abhorrent” to the Lord. But behold how the Lord loved him nonetheless (vs. 14; 9:15).

To one who knows he/she is “abhorred of the Lord,” “the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” is freely given—if only it is accepted in a repentance like that of Psalm 51 so that honest justice is seen by the world and by the universe. The only appropriate response of sinners like you and me is repentance; and even that is the gift of God’s “giving” (cf. Acts 5:21).

Repentance is not a “work” whereby we “pay” for our sin and buy our way back into His favor. Millions of sincere people have been wrongly taught to think that they can do that by “works of penance” prescribed by a priest. It’s easy to think that by doing some “missionary work,” giving some extra tithe and offerings, by dull Bible reading or extra “prayer” we can make some kind of deposit to even our account in God’s bank.

Repentance is what the Roman soldiers and Pharisees should have done when they crucified the Lord of glory; that’s what is the “abhorrent” thing that is adultery and fornication.

November 28, 2006

The man whom Jesus described as “Solomon in all his glory” (Matt. 6:29) was not really a wise man, even though he has the reputation of being the wisest man of all time.

He was conceived in an experience of broken-hearted repentance (his father David’s Psalm 51 kind, “blood-guiltiness”). He was reared in what must have been a “Christian” home saturated with tragic lessons derived from sexual immorality.

But when he came to maturity, he dived into the same pit, and went into apostasy disastrously. Then when he reached a miserable old age, he wrote his book Ecclesiastes. One has to search diligently in it for any morsel of the gospel that God Himself had “preached to Abraham” (cf. Gal. 3:8) and which should have been the well-known philosophy among God’s people at that time, and above all, of the king.

Probably, in order to be ultra kind, we could say that Solomon’s last book is some kind of sanctified cynicism. His “good news” is simply the popular current “don’t-do-as-I-did,” ex-drug addict kind of counsel that gets featured at great Christian gatherings today.

But in the book of Proverbs, written obviously before his fall, Solomon has some sanctified wisdom to share with us. One of his burdens of heart is the wrongness of pre-marital and extra-marital sex. He writes about it with consummate skill. The King James Version adds a touch of holy reverence to his delicate poetry (it can go in any language and is still poetry!):

“When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant to thy soul; discretion shall preserve thee ... to deliver thee from the strange woman, ... which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. ... None that go unto her ... take hold of the paths of life” (1:10-19). Very severe; “none”?

Who is this “strange woman” throughout the book? Any who is not already your lawfully wedded spouse, to whom you have solemnly and in public made your vows of fidelity, joined together by God, the one whom He has given you.

“The lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb”(there she is again). For the married he adds, “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let [not] thy fountains be dispersed abroad, rivers of water in the streets. Let them be only thine own ... and rejoice with the wife of thy youth” (5:3-18; read 19-21 also; Malachi picks up on the phrase and berates the Israelite men of his day who “dealt treacherously ... [with] the wife of thy covenant” (2:14-16).

God’s genuine love is at times very severe, but always true. Through Solomon He tells us how He regards the popularly innocent forays into pre-marital sex: “he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall” into that “deep pit” (Pr. 22:14).

But what does it mean to be “abhorred of the Lord”? Sounds very bad. Maybe tomorrow.

November 27, 2006

Next to Jesus Christ, the most famous man in the Bible is Abraham. The reason: he is the one man who most amazingly responded to the call of Jesus Christ. God called Abraham “My friend” (Isa. 41:8; 2 Chron. 20:7), designated him “the father of many nations” (Gen. 17:5, 6), promised him children as the stars “if you are able to number them” (Gen. 15:5), and that through him “all families [all homes and marriages] will be blessed” (15:3).

Abraham shared with Jesus a rare experience. On His cross, Jesus was terribly tempted to feel that God had “forsaken” Him forever; the taunts and ridicule of the leaders of God’s true church pierced His soul with horror (Matt. 27:41-44). Everything pointed toward their being right; yes, here He was, stripped naked, hanging before the world as its Megalomaniac supreme; this is the end that He has come to. So it seems.

Abraham was tempted in a way likewise; God has declared his marvelous destiny, and when he arrives in the “land of promise” everything seems to go against him: the Caananites already possess the land God has supposedly given him—is this “gift” a joke? He doesn’t get a title deed to even one square foot as long as he lives (Acts 7:5); a famine drives him out of this wonderful “promised land, fearful even for his survival he goes to Egypt; then to top it all off, Abraham worries unceasingly about the real problem of his life: Sarah can’t get pregnant and it looks like the Lord’s promises are his megalomania. How can Abraham dare to believe that he will be “the father of many nations”? It looks like He will die childless, forgotten by all generations to come (the same idea as being lost forever). His two schemes to help God keep His promises are both a failure (adopt Eliezer as his heir, and take a second wife and have Ishmael as his heir).

This goes on and on until the poor man is 99 years old, and Sarah has become hardened in disappointment and unbelief, at 89. She is definitely on the outs with God, blames Him for her shameful trouble, He’s the One who keeps her from getting pregnant (Gen. 16:2). She’s bitter. When she overhears the Lord promise Abraham that in nine months “your wife Sarah will bear a son,” she laughs contemptuously. How could God bless someone who ridicules His promise?

But Hebrews 11:11 fills in the missing page in the Genesis story. When the Lord rebukes her directly for laughing and lying, for being derisively flippant (Gen. 18:15), she is sobered; humbled on her knees, she repents. She can never stand side by side with Abraham as “the mother of many nations” until she repents on behalf of all the women in the world (17:16). Only in melting of heart before the Savior of the world can Sarah be healed and her reproductive organs be set free to function. She “judged” the Savior in a different light.

Abraham and Sarah at last truly become “one.” Courtship begins again when you’re 100 (and 90). A lesson for the world about married love.

November 25, 2006

The warnings are coming more frequently and more insistent even in the media: Americans are in grave danger of losing their fundamental Constitution-granted liberties. Most people would barter liberty for security in an age of terror. That’s a far cry from Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!”

In the craven love to live in opulence and pleasure rather than uphold justice and righteousness, we put ourselves in the wrong crowd that Friday morning in Pilate’s judgment hall. We vote either that self be “crucified with Christ,” or we vote to “Crucify Him!”(John 19:6). That episode before the Roman governor was the world’s judgment hour; we all are there.

Quietly, unnoticed as a midnight thief, says Jesus, young people judge themselves for life, setting their course even in their teens. (The Holy Spirit may speak to them again, but He may not!) At the same time we adults judge ourselves for eternity (this is going on just now). In Luke 20 Jesus discusses judgment in respect of those who will come up in the first resurrection from the dead: “Those who are counted worthy to attain ... the resurrection from the dead ... [cannot] die any more” (vss. 35, 36). But He speaks also of those who will be alive when He returns the second time: “Watch therefore, and pray always, that you may be counted worthy to ... stand before the Son of Man” (21:36).

Obviously, that judgment must precede His second coming because we read that “He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect, ... from one end of heaven to the other”(Matt. 24:31); how else will they know whom to resurrect at this first resurrection, and whom to leave to sleep on until the second resurrection 1000 years later when the lost will arise for their judgment? The judgment must be finished before the angels go on this errand!

That means we are living in this time of pre-advent judgment just now.

“Morning by morning” the Holy Spirit calls us to awaken us to “hear as the learned.” Even if we have sinned the day before in neglecting Him, He is not resentful; He tries again with each new day (Isa. 50:4, 5).

Our motivation for listening is not terror-driven (even though from a common-sense viewpoint that could make sense). No, a higher motivation possesses God’s people in these last days: the honest, sincere desire to honor Christ, to witness on His behalf. That’s what it means to have a humble part in crowning Him King of kings and Lord of glory.

November 24, 2006

What does it mean to believe in Jesus? Sometimes we spend a lifetime searching for an understanding. “Faith works by love” says Galatians 5:6, which must obviously mean the change of heart and life that is so essential for inheriting a place in God’s eternal kingdom. The gospel is the power of God to salvation, but it’s only through “faith” that it can “work” (Rom. 1:16). So, again, what is faith?

The helpless addict of whatever devilish slavery to sin is the “pit” into which we have fallen cries out to understand what it means to have “faith.” Jesus tells the distraught father in Mark 9 that “all things are possible to the one who believes,” that is, exercises faith (vs. 23), and the poor disheartened man cries out in his tears, “I believe; help my unbelief,” or my failure to exercise or to have faith (vs. 24, and the Lord heard that prayer!).

Is faith the same as “trust”? Many so define it; but there are different words in the original Greek of the New Testament to define either faith or trust. They are not identical. “Trust” implies a self-centered concern, like you trust your bank or you trust the police; to “trust” or “believe” in Jesus in order to escape hell or to obtain the reward of “mansions in the sky” cannot be the meaning of “faith which works by love [agape].”

To understand what is “faith” we need therefore to explore the meaning of agape, otherwise we shall be imprisoned in the lukewarmness of the “church of Laodicea” (Rev. 3:14-17). That seventh church needs above all else to understand what is “the gold tried in the fire” that Jesus says we need above all else ... which is “faith.” But empty words don’t help. Must we spend a lifetime without discovering soul-saving truth? We must not! We must not hear the Lord tell us at last, Sorry, “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23).

In reading the treasures of Second Corinthians we come upon a guide: 9:15 says, “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!” That outburst of gratitude is revealing. Gratitude is not a prayer asking for something; gratitude is the response of the heart for having received something, or having learned something. The Greek word “unspeakable” includes the negative “a” followed by “expressible,” a heart appreciation for something that is beyond suitable expression of understanding.

Agape is the love that drove the Son of God in His incarnation to “taste death for every man,” to “taste” the accumulated crime, iniquity, sin, disgrace, depravity of “all men” when He was “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). It was painful.

The conclusion would be that faith is a heart appreciation of the love of a Savior who would and who did die your second death; who “poured out His soul unto death” (Isa. 53:12), who “emptied Himself” (Phil. 2:8). If that is the genuine thing, then it is understandable how “the agape of Christ constraineth us ... henceforth [not] to live unto ourselves but unto Him who died for [us]” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). You still have your free will, but it’s joyously captive in a sense more sublime than when you “fall in love” in our earthly sense. Now it’s your eternal joy to be His slave, a constant, eternal willingness motivated by love.

November 22, 2006

It’s a never failing encouragement to “arise and go down to the potter’s house ... to hear [the Lord’s] words” (Jer. 18:2).

(a) You are a “vessel” He has been forming on the potter’s wheel. He has a happy purpose for you to be useful in His great work of lighting the earth with the glory of His “everlasting gospel” message.

(b) No matter who you are, as a vessel you have in some way been “marred,” because “all” of us “have sinned, and [do] come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). The only “vessel” the Potter has succeeded in turning on His wheel that has turned out perfect is Jesus Christ Himself. His experience on the “wheel” is illustrated in Isaiah 50:4, 5, where the Father awakened Jesus “morning by morning ... to hear as the learned.” The Father taught Him during those early hours. He constantly resisted our temptation to be “rebellious” and “turn away back.”

(c) The divine Savior-Potter never throws any marred vessel (us) in the trash, no matter how lowly it may have become in its being “marred.” There’s always a useful purpose left that you and I can serve. There is the “good news” encouragement.

(d) Always the {Potter “[makes] it again into another vessel, as it seem[s] good to the Potter to make” (v. 4). This is redemption in action.

(e) Every “vessel” is made to receive something, from which it can be poured out in some act of service to others. It’s a container to be filled and emptied continuously.

(f) But the “vessels” are living beings who have been given freedom of choice who can “resist God’s will.” “But who are you, my friend” asks Paul, “to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Rom. 9:19, 20, GNB).

(g) Obviously, the “clay pot” needs to be reconciled in heart to the Potter! This is accomplished in an amazing way.

(h) The Potter Himself has become clay; the Son of God Himself has emptied Himself in those seven steps of condescension in Philippians 2:5-8, “even [to] the death of the cross” which involved enduring being “made” the “curse of God” (cf. Gal. 3:13). Tried and tempted, feeling “forsaken” by God, He has known to the full what no other human being in history has known to the full—what it feels like for the Potter to throw someone into the trash. He “took” upon His sinless nature our “sinful flesh” that He might “in every way be tempted that we are, but did not sin” (Heb 4:15). Then He died the world’s “second death” for every man (2:9), so that no one of us might have to feel what it’s like to be thrown in the eternal trash heap (cf. Rev. 20:15).

(i) Each of us is an empty vessel each new morning of life. But “God has poured out His love [agape] into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us” (Rom. 5:5, GNB). He fills each empty, willing vessel.

November 21, 2006

What does the Bible means when it says, “Whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6)? If you truly believe in Jesus, must you awaken every morning to a new scourging?

The author of Psalm 73 thought so, and the Lord saw fit to include his cry in the Bible: “Is it for nothing ... that I have kept myself pure and have not committed sin? O God, You have made me suffer all day long: every morning You have punished me” (vss. 13, 14, GNB). And it’s pathetic how David cried out, “Don’t punish me any more. ... I am about to die from Your blows. You punish a man’s sins by your rebukes. ... Leave me alone so that I may have some happiness ...” (Psalm 39:10-13, GNB). Do you feel that way?

All the psalms that pour forth such frank honesty end in a joyous note of triumph, but there is one exception: Psalm 88 is unrelieved disappointment throughout. It expresses the total despair that Christ experienced when He cried out on His cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

When you think of these things, back in your mind is that reassurance, “Whom the Lord loves, He chastens ...” and you are comforted. As you kneel before Him in personal, private prayer (shut in with the Lord intimately), you are reminded always that the Lord honors you as His “child”; that’s why He “chastens” you. He considers you somebody important in His vast plan of redemption for a lost world. It’s part of His process of inviting you to “sit with [Him] on His throne”(Rev. 3:21) and share with Him executive authority in bringing to a close the great cosmic controversy with Satan. No one is worthy of such a high position, no one could function in that capacity who has not endured the Lord’s severest discipline. You don’t earn a PhD without serious testing.

And you can’t say, “Lord, I don’t want the discipline; just let me be saved without it; I’ll ride on a third class ticket, just so I can squeak through the pearly gate somehow.” No; if the Lord invites you to be one of the “144,000” you cannot decline, asking for a lesser responsible honor. That is contrary to the basic principles of the gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14, 15).

Then there is Psalm 94 with its assurance of Good News in the Lord’s discipline: “Blessed [happy] is the man [or woman] whom Thou chasteneth, O LORD, and teachest him out of Thy law; that Thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, ... for the Lord will not cast off His people, neither will He forsake His inheritance” (vss. 1-14, KJV). And in His nadir of despair on His cross, the Lord Jesus “overcame” and died in glorious victory (cf. Psalm 22:21-31).

Whatever you do, don’t despise “fellowship with Christ in His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10; 1 Peter 4:13). You don’t want to miss the greatest joy any human can ever know!

November 20, 2006

Does the Lord practice with us as individuals what He likes to do in “calling those things which do not exist” as though they do exist? (cf. Rom. 4:17).

He did with Abraham, you remember, telling Him that He had already “made [him] a father of many nations” when it sounded wildly impossible.

If Abraham is “the father of us all”(Rom. 4:16), that would suggest that the Lord does speak of us not as what we are now but as what we will become, by His grace through faith (Eph. 2:8, 9). In Psalm 139 He tells us that when we were in the womb He saw what we would become as adults (vss. 15, 16). And the idea is not a negative one; He saw what noble men and women we would become through the faith of Jesus, highly honored in this life and in His coming kingdom. Our mistakes and failures will be buried in the depths of the sea, deeper than the Titanic.

God “saw” humbled, childless Abraham as the prestigious “father of many nations,” the “father” yet to be; He sees you and me, not as we are today, but as occupying a high position in His kingdom. All to be by His grace, through the faith of Jesus which we have embraced as ours.

For us to believe this now is not to become arrogant, proud, or self-sufficient; such new covenant faith does not feed our self-esteem. But it does establish our true self-respect, “in Christ.” We are “somebody,” not for what we are by nature or by our own achievement, but for what we will be in new covenant faith in Christ.

The “true light, which lights every man who comes into the world” (John 1:9), shines into the heart as a fulfillment of what Genesis 3:15 says—a God-given “enmity” against the “serpent.” Our humanity has been redeemed but we do not realize it until we understand and believe the gospel. But in every human being the Holy Spirit has imparted a sense of right and wrong and a deeply buried desire for righteousness and truth. Satan wars against this God-given yearning; but to each of us is given the power of choice. We can let the Holy Spirit purify these roots deep in our souls. We can continually pray the never-denied prayer—“Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24, KJV). Such faith “works by love” which constrains us to live “henceforth” not unto self, but to a life of obedience to the One who died our second death (Gal. 5:6; 2 Cor. 5:14, 15). “By grace, through faith.”

Those deep-seated yearnings of your soul coincide with God’s new covenant promises for you. Choose to believe His promises, and walk out into the sunshine.

November 19, 2006

It is true that God “calls those things which do not exist as though they did.” It’s strange; but on the basis of that principle He declares to childless Abraham “I have made you a father of many nations” (Rom. 4:17). How could He declare that to a man who is in fact hopelessly childless, and whose wife is undeniably beyond the age of childbearing? And it’s also morally a problem, for he has no right to take a second wife in order to maneuver a supposed fulfillment of God’s promise as in siring Ishmael by Hagar.

On the same unearthly but divine basis God declares for the entire sinful, rebellious human race a “verdict of acquittal” because “the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to [the] many [that is, everyone]. And the gift is not like that which came through the one man who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation [a legal verdict], but the free gift which comes from many offenses resulted in justification” [a verdict of acquittal]” (Rom. 5:15, 16; cf. NEB).

But what moral right does God have for making this declaration? It seems so contrary to reality!

Is He playing a game of make-believe?

There is a grand event which underlies this apparent moral injustice: it’s the cross of Jesus Christ.

He has taken over from the fallen Adam the true Headship of the human race, by virtue of His incarnation. By so doing He is in a corporate sense the human race, and the human race is in a corporate sense “in Him.”

In that capacity He goes ahead on His own without asking our permission and dies the second death “for every man” which the entire human race deserves; it’s an act of grace unbounded (cf. Heb. 2:9; 2 Cor. 5:21). It’s a fait accompli, a done-deal, for the “all men” of Romans 5.

And now having died “every man’s” second death, Christ has acquired the moral right to declare of “all men” what He desires for them, for He has paid their debt. Now He can treat “every man” as though he has not sinned; He can encircle the earth with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air we breathe; He can shower the field of the wicked with rain (if He wants) as well as let His sun shine on them, too (Matt. 5:45).

And what does He “desire” for “all men”? Eternal salvation (1 Tim. 2:3, 4). And it will be theirs if they do not resist and reject His ongoing gift of the new covenant of His grace.

Having the power of choice, they can reject if they want, and many do. But you can choose to accept the “gift.” Please do!

November 18, 2006

In His infinite wisdom, the dear Lord chose to have the apostle Paul define clearly for us all what it means to live under the new covenant (the Letters that he wrote were decades before the apostle John wrote his Gospel). God inspired Paul’s writing of Galatians, Thessalonians, Romans; these went everywhere in the young church. Paul defined the idea as God’s justification of the world. It’s the new covenant principle of God calling those things which do not exist as though they exist already. It’s like His telling Abraham that He has already “made him a father of many nations” while he is still helplessly childless (see Rom. 4:17).

So, Paul says, while the lot of us in this world are sinful, selfish enemies of God, He has “justified” us! Sounds crazy to people who still love the old covenant. It’s saying something about us that isn’t yet practically true as though it were already true. It’s objective Good News spoken by God long before it becomes subjectively true in our personal lives.

But ever since Mt. Sinai God’s people have had trouble believing this new covenant principle. John wraps it all up as “unbelief.” “He who believes in [Jesus] is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, ... and this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light ...” (3:18, 19). In other words, they love the old covenant more than they love the new. Joyously living the new covenant is always preceded by personally believing the objective truth of what God has declared even though it seems impossible.

But this same unbelief today hinders that wonderful work of lighting the earth with the final Good News message of glory (cf. Rev. 18:1-4).

Let’s review how Paul says it: “As through one man’s offense [Adam’s] judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation [a judicial “verdict of condemnation,” NEB], even so through one Man’s righteous act [since the world began, there has been only one “righteous act”!] the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life” (Rom. 5:18).

As Paul has explained in verses 15, 16, “justification of life” is a “judicial” “verdict of acquittal” (NEB) pronounced upon the world while the world is still at enmity with God. It’s what makes it possible for God to “make ... His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and [to] send rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). Christ has taken the sin of the world upon Himself in His own soul, in His body, “made to be sin for us”(2 Cor. 5:21). For the one who believes, who appreciates this new covenant truth, his faith enables him to “become the righteousness of God in Him.”

If the Lord gives us a tomorrow, maybe we can dig a bit deeper.

November 17, 2006

We’re still thinking about what it means to live under the new covenant. Something is going on that is radically different from the way we humans normally think.

Abraham (his name at first was Abram) is the key to this radically different way of thinking, because in Galatians the apostle Paul singles him out: “To Abraham and his seed [descendants] were the promises made, ... who is Christ. ... God gave [the inheritance] to Abraham by promise. ... And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise ” (3:16-29). Now note the strange thing that happens.

What is going on?

“God ... calls those things which do not exist as though they did.” It’s all illustrated in Abraham’s life story: God said to him, “I have made [past tense] you the father of many nations” when by all laws of observation as we humans view things, Abraham didn’t yet have baby #1 (Rom. 4:17). What was to happen many years later God declares has already happened! It’s something like creating a world out of nothing, just speaking, and there it is.

We see the same idea revealed in what the Father said when Jesus was baptized by John in the River Jordan. He said about Jesus, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” and then He put His arms also around the entire sinful, selfish, rebellious human race and said the same thing! It would be a long time before the human race is “well pleasing”! Another instance of “calling those things that do not exist as though they did”!

We see the same idea in Ephesians 1 where we read that we are sitting “in heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” “chosen ... in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, ... predestinated ... to the adoption as sons. ... He has made us accepted in the Beloved” (vss. 3-6). Again, the past tense describes what just isn’t in existence yet! That’s objective truth awaiting its subjective fulfillment.

Abraham was the one man in all the world at that time who took that mighty leap of faith and chose to believe all of this “not yet” promise. “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, ... fully convinced that what He had promised He was able to perform” (Rom. 4:20, 21).

We live under the new covenant when we believe as he did.

November 16, 2006

We have our choice: we can live under the old covenant (the still popular way as for millennia), or under the new. And if we choose to live under the new covenant, all will go well with us; right?

If we are driving, all the lights will change to green for us; the boss will give us a raise; our spouse will smile sweetly at us; our investments will prosper. Right?

Jesus surely lived under the new covenant, but He also died under it; from His boyhood He met constant opposition and turmoil that led Him eventually to the cross. No, new covenant living is not a picnic.

As a student in the “school of Christ” you are under serious, loving discipline (Heb. 12:5-10). Some setbacks and disappointments may be good for you in the long run. But the Lord tempers our trials, giving each of us the benefit of infinite wisdom. To each of us is given the “measure of faith” that makes life where His providence has placed us a thing of quiet, steady joy.

Even Jesus in His incarnation endured discipline. We read that “He ... learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (5:8). You will someday thank the Lord Jesus for permitting certain disappointments to come to you; your present happiness can be greatly enhanced by anticipating this through your confidence in His faithfulness. The joy of the future can become yours in the present through faith.

The first message Jesus gave to the assembled disciples after His resurrection was, “Peace be unto you (John 20:19). This is no vain compliment; peace of heart is what you long for and He gives it to you today. “My peace I give to you, and that is in the midst of tribulation. The peace comes with your believing the new covenant promises, all seven of them in Genesis 12:2, 3.

You may have to pray the prayer of Mark 9:24: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” A wise writer assures us that we can never perish while we pray that prayer. Every little prayer you pray, making that choice, makes you stronger in the Lord.

November 13, 2006

We read in 1 Timothy 2 that God “desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (vs. 4). We believe it.

But how seriously does He “desire” that?

(a) He gave (did not merely lend) His Son to be our Savior (vs. 6).

 

But for anyone to be “saved” truly, he must learn to be happy in heaven, to be “pure in heart” (Matt. 5:8). That means a change of heart, a “renewed mind”(Rom. 12:2), a total change of character. But what is God doing to make that possible for sinners? Has He piled up roadblocks to make it difficult?

 

(b) He gives us the Holy Spirit whose first work is to “convict [convince] the world of sin” (John 16:7, 8). He cannot employ force. But the Holy Spirit does more than merely convict us of sin; He does all for us that Christ did 2000 years ago for the people of His day, for He convicts “of righteousness, because [Christ has gone] to the Father, and we see Him no more” (vs. 10). So the Spirit does all that Christ did long ago!

 

(c) The third work the Spirit does for us to convict us of “judgment, because the prince of this world [Satan] is cast out” (vs. 11). The Holy Spirit assures us that His power is stronger than the power of Satan; and that is the reason why Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light,” because as it was with Saul of Tarsus, “it is hard for [us] to kick against the goads” (Matt. 11:30; Acts 26:14).

 

(d) So much does the Lord “desire” us to be saved, that Jesus says the Holy Spirit actually makes it hard for anyone to be lost! We can resist and reject all that He does for us; but a wise writer has said that “all along the road that leads to [eternal] death there are pains and penalties, there are sorrows and disappointments, there are warnings not to go on. God’s love has made it hard for the heedless and headstrong to destroy themselves.”

 

(e) Jesus says His “yoke is easy” and it is “hard” for us to resist Him. The Father “desires all men to be saved,” and He cannot do more to save those “all men” than He is doing!

November 12, 2006

Sent in by a Thoughtful Reader:

“When you say the new covenant is summarized best in ‘Believe and live,’ are you not opening your words to a big misunderstanding? This sounds exactly like the mantra of superficial Evangelicalism, which focuses on grace as divine pardon without an equal emphasis on grace as divine power to enable us to overcome sin.”

Thank you for a thoughtful observation!

If we believe in the papal/pagan doctrine of natural immortality (which is popular), we cannot truly appreciate the sacrifice that Christ made on His cross, or believe that He truly died. And if we cannot believe that, we cannot appreciate “the width and length and depth and height” of the love [agape] revealed there that “passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, 19).

The inevitable result: faith is limited, circumscribed, paralyzed, because faith is a heart response to the love demonstrated in the sacrifice of Christ. When faith is devitalized, so then is our spiritual life.

The death which Jesus died for us was the equivalent of “the second death.” Thus His commitment to the cross meant to die the very death of hell—not a measure of physical pain in decibels, but the total abandonment of Himself to the eternal “curse of God” (cf. Deut. 21:22, 23; Gal. 3:13). His cry on the cross was not superficial, “Why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus endured in His own soul what the lost will have to endure in the final judgment at the end of the 1000 years (Rev. 20:11-15). Thus He was “made to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). That’s the Bible definition of love (agape).

When faith is a melted-heart “believe and live” rather than an ego-motivated “obey and live,” we are tapping into the message that will lighten the earth with glory (Rev. 18:1-4). This understanding is implicit in Hebrews 2:9: Christ “tasted death for every man,” that is, the real thing. To understand that truth is what we mean by “believe and live.” The “living” from then on is in obedience to all the commandments of God, heartfelt, beyond fear of hell or thought of reward. Such love “constrains” us to that total heart obedience (2 Cor. 5:14).

November 11, 2006

Some 70 times the Bible speaks of God as the “Almighty” One. Now in His resurrected state, Christ as the Son of God sits at the right hand of the Father; is He also “Almighty” now?

If so, He does not need any help from His people.

Among the people who think of themselves as the Lord’s, questions arise: can they “hasten” the second coming of the Lord Jesus in any meaningful way? Or is the second coming a date fixed by the Father, beyond any influence of His people—either their faith or their unbelief?

Jesus says that even He does not know that date (Mark 13:32). But one wise writer declared that His disappointment in its delay is “beyond description,” and that is understandable if Christ’s level of omniscience does not include knowing the actual time of His second coming which He says “no one knows ... but the Father.”

What we do know is that Christ is also a “Bridegroom” eager for His marriage to take place and it has obviously been delayed (cf. Rev. 19:7, 8). Can His people do anything about that? (The church is the “Bride-to-be,” and the New Jerusalem city is the “Bride” in the sense that the “city” is its inhabitants and not merely its material walls and streets; Rev. 21:10).

Jesus invites “the angel of the church of the Laodiceans” (the last of the seven of Revelation 2 and 3) to take a very responsible position “in [His] throne”(3:21). That is not an empty honor just to have one’s picture taken; He invites that seventh church to share with Him responsibility for bringing to an end the pain of the great controversy between Christ and Satan.

Suppose President Bush were to invite you to become Defense Secretary charged with the job of ending the Iraq war; that won’t happen, but suppose Jesus needs you to help Him in ending “the [really] great controversy.” The truth is, He does; “God is love” [agape], and for that reason Christ cannot come the second time until He has a people ready, otherwise they would be destroyed by the brightness of His coming (2 Thess. 2:8). Your getting ready in this great Day of Atonement will help Him; we honor Him, or we disgrace Him. Each one of us is important in His plan. There is a healthy self-respect we can know, by faith. To believe in Him is serious business today.

November 10, 2006

Anyone who watched the president’s bruising (and being bruised) post-election press conference can think of the words of Jesus: “on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity” (Luke 21:25). The plural (“nations”) can include “the coalition.”

A “blue House” will find the Iraq tragedy as perplexing as it has been for the “red.” Jesus said that people’s hearts will be “failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth” (vs. 26). His “fear” embraces more than our modern terrorism; now there is the deeper fear of dictatorship in the land that once prided itself on its love of liberty in law, under a precious Constitution that terror-induced fear would vitiate.

What could metamorphose this lamb-like, liberty-loving second “beast” of Revelation 13 into a fearsome “dragon” that reproduces the terrible tyranny of the Dark Ages (vss. 14-17)? The next chapter of Revelation answers:

(a) Just after the 1260 years of papal oppression finally end in 1798, a new interest in Bible truth emerges. One small example: the unquestioned love of Christ that motivated the early Church of England missionaries to Uganda. Theirs was genuine spiritual life.

 

(b) Then comes the spiritual disaster of the fall of “Babylon” (14:8), the “fall” primarily of Protestantism (“the church of Sardis”) which had “a name that you are alive but you are dead” (Rev. 3:2). The “fall” was the ceasing of Protestantism to protest, in the rejection of the “everlasting gospel” of the first angel’s “advent message” of 14:6, 7.

 

(c) The abandonment of “the everlasting gospel” is the root problem. The horror of “9/11” signals the loss of the invulnerability we had always thought our two oceans provide us. The “fear” Jesus spoke of is now becoming intense.

 

But “fear” or terror is not an option for a child of God; “we will not fear,” says the inspired psalm (46:2). The “will” is significant: you can’t “fear” unless you “will” to do so (“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,” John 14:27). Whatever time of trouble comes, if we understand that “everlasting gospel,” we see it as an opportunity to reveal the message to the world. So, what’s to many as fear-inducing is to God’s people a privilege.

November 9, 2006

Regardless of whether we have expressed ourselves in our vote as leaning toward “red” or “blue,” as a corporate body of people America fits into the biblical prophecy of the second “beast” of Revelation 13.

It “came up” in the vast expanses of North America as a nation with the character of a lamb proclaiming to the world twin principles of civil and religious liberty (vs. 11). It was a wonder to the masses of Europe who had sustained the persecuting power of the first “beast” who had ruled for those 1260 years from 538 to 1798 A. D.

Now when judgment had finally fallen in 1798 (vs. 10), the lamb-like character of the young United States of America just “coming up” shone brightly around the world. My wife and I remember the “yo-para-America!” spirit that pervaded Europe when we spent six weeks there in 1945 on our way to East Africa as missionaries. There was hope that Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!” spirit might pervade the world; and in that spirit of love of liberty the world’s masses might come to understand and appreciate God’s “law of liberty” as “the everlasting gospel” “by which Christ has made us free” (Rev. 14:6-12; Gal. 5:1).

God’s foreknowledge of our national character (expressed in Revelation 13) has not been predestination; the American populace has indeed been “free” politically and religiously to enjoy the greatest economic and military power of any nation in history.

But Revelation 13 also chronicles in advance the apostasy of that national character to one that is willing to enforce the denial of those great principles (vss. 12-17). Often as we have proclaimed this prophetic picture, loyal citizens have protested saying that “we” could never as a nation do such things in national apostasy. But the raw fear of terror combined with a prevalent “post-Christian” mindset undermines Patrick Henry’s love of liberty; and whether we are “red” or “blue” in our political persuasion, our new national spirit seems ready to exchange liberty for economic and military security.

Or is it? Thank God for a minority still willing to sacrifice self for the upholding of God’s principles of truth. That minority will fearlessly proclaim the message of Revelation 18! No need for anyone’s heart to “fail [him] for fear” (Luke 21:26).

November 8, 2006

The Evangelical mega-church movement in North America is reeling under a shameful, humiliating scandal that tries the faith of multitudes. One of the movement’s most glittering bright lights has flashed out—Pastor Ted Haggard, a meteor that has streaked across the sky.

When a male prostitute discovered that his regular client was the prominent church leader of thousands of trusting church members, even he felt a revulsion of soul and chose to expose him publicly. As often happens, when sexual infidelity is exposed, the adulterer adds to his violation of the seventh commandment the violation of the ninth, and lies about it. Then when cornered by the full exposure, he breaks down and confesses both the sexual sin and the sin of lying about it.

Paul reminds us when we are forced to witness such a horrid fall from grace that we must not suppose that we are made of better stuff: “If a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted” (Gal. 6:1). Strangely, it seems that ordained ministers of the gospel, of whatever persuasion, are peculiarly susceptible to sexual temptation. To stand in a pulpit with many sincere Christian people looking up to you as a messenger of God is a scary place to be in. Lurid temptations lurk in the most unlikely places. And yes, ministers of the gospel and ordained “priests” are no better than anyone else in the flesh; all are sinners by nature.

John Bunyan, in writing Pilgrim’s Progress (a book that breathes the spirit of heaven), reminds us that directly by the gates of the New Jerusalem is a tunnel that goes down to hell. The higher one is in the eyes of people the greater is his peril.

But we must ask the ultimate question: why wasn’t the gospel that Ted Haggard thought he was proclaiming powerful enough to save him from falling into this abysmal pit? “The mouth of an immoral woman [and we can add, male prostitute!] is a deep pit; he who is abhorred of the LORD shall fall therein” (Pr. 22:14). But why can’t the true gospel save one from becoming “abhorred of the LORD”?

Maybe there’s the ultimate problem: is the Evangelical “gospel” of justification by faith the true “everlasting gospel” of Revelation 14:6?

November 7, 2006

Again, what does it mean to “live under the new covenant,” or the promise of God?

All God’s promises were made to the “Seed” (singular), which is Christ (Gal. 3:16), and the only way we come into the picture is “in Christ.” But thank God, that’s our “way.”

Christ was known as “the son of David” not only through physical ancestry, but because in His incarnation He “lived” in David’s psalms. As the leadership of God’s true church condemned Jesus, so the divinely appointed leadership of His true church in the days of King Saul condemned David. Saul was “the anointed of the Lord,” and David’s agony was not only the physical exertion of constantly fleeing from Saul but wrestling with the greater temptation to doubt that God had truly anointed him to be king of Israel, when “the anointed of the Lord” condemned him. He had to overcome, to believe that God would take care of him.

Thus we have David’s psalms written during his exile (57, 59. for example); repeatedly, the future king begins by wrestling with fear (old covenant-inspired!), and before the end of the psalm he erupts in new covenant joy of believing that the LORD will not forsake but vindicate him.

A millennium later the Son of God, “sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” which He had taken upon Himself, wrestles with the same temptation. Again He is “tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15), triumphing again over our old covenant fears, emerging day by day into new covenant sunlight (cf.. Isa. 50:4, 5). This goes on continually in His earthly life until the greatest temptation of all to old covenant unbelief as He hangs on His cross in the darkness crying, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” And there on the cross He wrestles His way through the darkness into the sunlight of new covenant faith, crying out joyously as His heart was already bleeding to death, “You who fear the Lord, praise Him! ... He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted [Me!], nor has He hidden His face from Him [Me!], ... He heard”! (Psalm 22:23, 24).

Jesus has taught us how to live under the new covenant.

November 6, 2006

A thoughtful person writes asking to understand more clearly about the two covenants: (a) What is the “everlasting covenant” (Gen. 9:16; Heb. 13:20)? (b) What does it mean for us to live under the New Covenant today?

May the Lord save us from controversy and confusion!

 

(a) Obviously, “the everlasting covenant” of Gen. 9:16 and Heb. 13:20 has to be the same, for “God is not the author of confusion”(1 Cor. 14:33). And Gen 9:16 makes clear that it is a promise that God makes to “every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth,” symbolized by the rainbow. God’s covenants are never bargains He strikes with man; they are unilateral promises He makes.

 

(b) But we humans are in love with the idea that we can make bargains with God; we want to be able to help save ourselves. It is too humbling to our proud souls to realize that we are dependent 100% on God fulfilling His promise to save us. The rainbow is a “promise” from God to every human being, good or bad. Because of that promise, God is able to treat every human with grace, as though he/she had never sinned. The grace in that “everlasting covenant” makes it possible for Him to make “His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and [to] send(s) rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).

 

(c) The same “everlasting covenant” is God’s promise to every human being on earth to “make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever” (Heb. 13:20). That’s why the Father gave His Son that “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Christ loves the world, He died for the world, He redeemed the world, He died the world’s second death (Heb. 2:9), “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21), the “us” being “every man.” He wants “all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3, 4; if we had the courage to tell “every man” that “knowledge of the truth,” the full truth, more would believe).

 

(d) But every man has freedom of choice, and many resist and reject what Christ has already done for them, promised them, and given them because acceptance includes deep humbling of heart before God. They deny and nullify His grace for them and so they condemn themselves.

 

(e) Thus the “old covenant” is always based on man’s promise; the “new covenant” is always God’s promise. Come, get under the “new.”

November 5, 2006

Someone says, Yes, God considered this girl Rebekeh to be Isaac’s wife long before she knew of him because Eliezer prayed for God’s guidance to lead him to the girl whom “Thou hast appointed for Thy servant Isaac” (Gen. 24:12), and he later realized that this girl Rebekeh was the one (vs. 44).

But how do we know that God is as careful and considerate for us ordinary humans as He was for Isaac? Does He regard every girl as Mrs So-and-so yet-to-be, so having sex with her is already adultery? Does He respect every boy that highly?

Because of His love (which is agape), God respects us humans far more than we respect ourselves! He considers us as “sons of God” (1 John 3:1), and children of Abraham on a level with Isaac (Gal. 3:8; 4:6, 7). As high as heaven is above earth, so high is His ideal for each child.

If by the grace of the Lord teens can see what the crucifixion of Christ was like, how the Jews and the Romans degraded His physical body, crucifying Him naked, yet this hated, abused, despised Man was the divine Son of God, they will begin to know a sacred reverence for the human body which is “the temple of God” (1 Cor. 6:19. 20). Sexual intimacy before marriage is not true friendship—it’s a violation of the dignity of God; that’s what the crucifixion was.

Every human being is sacredly created by God, and his/her maleness or femaleness is specifically “in the image of God”(Gen. 1:27). That’s why Proverbs says that “whoever touches her shall not be innocent”(Pr. 6:29) and since “there is neither male nor female, you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28) it makes just as much sense to say that whatever girl “touches” a boy in the same way “shall not be innocent.” Pre- or extra-marital sex (and foreplay) “is a deep pit; he [she]who is abhorred of the Lord will fall there” (22:14).

But the Lord loves people whom He “abhors,” because His abhorrence is not for them personally, but for the sin that they fell into. King David fell into that “deep pit,” and he tasted its horror. The Lord “brought [him] up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set [his] feet upon a rock and established [his] steps” (Psalm 40:1-3). Ask Him; He will do the same for you.

November 4, 2006

The pastor’s collection of prayer letters was washed up at the beach in a plastic bag, letters containing heart breaking stories of human anguish.

They were intended to have been laid on the altar in a Baptist church and the pastor and congregants praying that God would notice their pleas and respond. (If they had known, they needn’t have tried to “pray” this way.)

There was the teenage girl who prayed, “Lord, I know that I have had an abortion and I killed one of your angels. There is not a day that I don’t think about the mistake I made.”

Imagine the anguish she knew and the pain that followed. In some way it poisoned her life ever after—even after forgiveness may have been grasped. Premarital sex among Christian youth is the source of enormous beneath-the-surface pain. Says one devout psychologist: “Fornication causes more suffering in America than theft and perjury and random violence combined. ... Churches are unwilling to give this sin the attention it so richly deserves” (Dr. Reo M. Christenson in Spectrum).

God took pains to talk about it in the Bible. Enclosed in the heart of His holy law is the New Covenant promise to all who believe His Good News in the Preamble to the Ten Commandments, a promise that says: “You will not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14, sex with anyone not already one’s lawfully wedded spouse). Any pre-marital teen is already someone’s spouse in God’s loving foreknowledge; see Gen. 24:14, 16; Pr. 6:29 (sexual titillation is not God’s ideal for teen recreation); 22:14; 1 Cor. 6:18, 19.

But sexual license is mankind’s obsession. Sir Julian Huxley admitted it was the driving force behind evolution: “I suppose the reason we leaped at The Origin of Species is because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.” Aldous Huxley: “The liberation we desired was ... from a certain system of morality.” Hence the enormous popularity of evolution.

How can teens be blessed for time and for eternity? Instilling fear is not the answer. There is an often undiscerned truth in “Christ and Him crucified” that is powerful: “The love [agape] of Christ constraineth us ... that they which live should not [cannot!] live unto themselves [to self], but unto Him which died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15, KJV). There is power.

November 3, 2006

In Bible times, the LORD, “the Judge of all the earth” (Gen. 18:25), kept an account with nations and empires, and judged them on the basis of the light He had permitted them to see in their corporate nationhood. He judged cruel Babylon accordingly, then Medo-Persia. The pagan Roman Empire was finally judged for its cruel “teeth of iron, and his nails of brass,” being “exceeding dreadful” (Dan. 7:19).

The Northern Kingdom of Israel was what we would call today “post-Christian” in that it was in apostasy from truth God had permitted them to see; He judged them by letting the Assyrians snuff them out of nationhood. The Kingdom of Judah was likewise in judgment; God did not personally harm a hair of the head of the people—He stood back and permitted the Babylonians to capture them likewise for their “post-Christian” apostasy.

The United States has known a Christian conscience; its president once confessed the divine judgment against the awful corporate sin of slavery and in the president the nation bowed consciously beneath the divine lash.

We acknowledge the judgments of Almighty God against Nazism.

Now will God judge us for our post-Christian “culture”? We who once were known worldwide for speaking “as a lamb” in defense of civil and religious liberties are becoming known for speaking “as a dragon” (cf. Rev. 13:11). Is it “Christian” or post-Christian to acquire the reputation of the world’s outstanding (that is, most prominent) nation that tortures?

A thoughtful Christian essayist has seriously suggested that our national response to 9/11 should have been inspired by the Amish. Our “tooth-for-a-tooth” response has not yet brought us closure nor an enhanced world image. Yet we claimed to have the “Christian” response.

Now comes U S News’s latest sober editorial chronicling our national moral descent into widespread “cheating.” There is visible progress again in what can only be honestly labeled as “national apostasy.”

November 2, 2006

The Lord has mercy on anyone who has sinned away his life and confesses the truth. The Savior knows what failure feels like—no one has ever been “forsaken of God” as He on His cross; that experience has enabled Him ever after to sympathize with people who at last know they deserve to be forsaken of God, and feel heartbroken.

The Bible is full of “come’s,” inviting those who know they have sinned:

(1) “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden” (Matt. 11:28, KJV). Who? The angst-laden souls convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit.

 

(2) “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37). Note: the invitation is specific: just those who are thirsty. You must feel it.

 

(3) “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). This “come” will be spoken in the last Judgment Day, but if you come to Him as a sinner today you will revel in anticipating those words at last, for you will know and believe today that the kingdom was prepared for you from that long ago. That’s included in justification by faith.

 

(4) In the wild storm on the lake, Peter saw Jesus walking on the water and begged, “‘Lord, ... command me to come to You on the water.’ So He said, ‘Come’” (Matt. 14:25-29). He was totally unfit to walk on water, yet the Lord did not discourage him from doing what he wanted. He never discourages you in your desire to honor Him and to bless your fellowmen.

 

(5) “He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, “Come after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). How can He make you become a soul-winner? Simon and Andrew have moved aside; the call is now to you. Keep on “following [Him].” “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven, and also to eight” (Eccl 11:1, 2). That’s a promise of soul-winning success. Be patient, and let it be fulfilled in you.

 

(6) “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid [hinder] them” (Mark 10:14). We must pray for forgiveness for blocking their way so often! When they see us as humble fellow-sinners, they will respond.

 

(7) To rich and powerful people (in this context), Jesus says, “‘Come, take up the cross and follow Me.’” We (He means all of us) are “to sell whatever you have and give to the poor’” (10:21). At this juncture on His great, final Day of Atonement, that makes good sense.

November 1, 2006

Two men, 90, meet in their little foothills town after 20 years of separation, one having been felled by Alzheimers, the other apparently in fine health. Both were servants of the Lord Jesus, proclaimed the gospel as best they knew it, were faithful to the light the Lord had given them. One is in the casket, the other conducting the memorial service.

Why was one stricken, and not the other?

Millions around the world would like to know, but the Lord does not grant us that privilege; the elder who survives realizes that he has not an iota of merit—every ounce of mental or physical life granted him these two decades is only lent to him so that he senses a constant obligation to consecrate his all to the One who is the Savior of them both.

Why some people must suffer and others go free gets a good discussion in the Bible. Jesus Himself takes on the problem in Luke 13. An accident had happened in Jerusalem in which a “tower” fell on eighteen people and killed them; could have been an accident in building, or a contractor’s cheating, as sometimes happens. People thought the 18 must have been especially “worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem,” but Jesus emphatically said, “I tell you, no”! (vss. 2-5).

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is simply the possible lot of all humans who survive infancy, only to meet tragedy some other time or place. Jesus speaks up decidedly to defend the victims; they are just as dear to the heart of God as those who never meet it. Jesus classified the “18” as in no way more guilty than us all, but added that repentance is equally incumbent on us all—a truth proud humans don’t like to face.