The Need of Sent Laborers
March 31, 2010
The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into His fields. – Matthew 9:37b-38 (NLT)
No one would deny the great need for laborers for the gospel in this hour. Not only is there the great need among the nations of the, but previously evangelized cultures in the western world are growing more and more ignorant of the gospel and more and more in need of a gospel witness.
The need for the gospel to go forth with power is clear and the need is as great as it has ever been in history. There are more men lost and in bondage on the earth now than ever before in human history. God is laying this burden on the hearts of believers all over the earth, but it is imperative that we do not merely respond to the call but that we return to the apostolic method of missions whether we have in view missions to the lost in our neighborhood or to an unreached people group.
What are we to do when are hearts are burdened by the great need of the gospel to go forth in power? Though our first impulse is to zealously enter into activity, Jesus summarizes the apostolic missionary method in Matthew 9:38. Before we undertake any activity, if we are truly burdened for the overripe harvest fields, we are to enter the place of intercession asking God to send out laborers into the fields and I fear that our familiarity with the language of the Scripture has masked just how radical Jesus’ instructions are.
Human Zeal
Most of us, burdened with the great need of the gospel to go forth, immediately devise ways of motivating others to the call. We find new and innovative ways to call people to the great need of the sharing the gospel. We use charts and graphs to clearly indicate the great need. We devise powerful sermons that move the human heart to respond. We create training programs to equip individuals to evangelize. We teach new and innovative methods to communicate the gospel. In other words, once we get even a hint of the burden of God’s heart for the gospel we set ourselves immediately to activity and completely bypass Jesus’ instructions on how to respond to an overly ripe harvest.
We fall prey to this error for many reasons, but one reason this course of action is so deceptive is because the activities we have already listed are all necessary to the cause of world evangelism. Individuals must be called to share the gospel. They must be trained and equipped. Believers must understand how critical the hour we are living in is. It is not that what we are doing is wrong, the issue is that, in the rush to activity; we are setting the cart before the horse. Matthew 9:38 exposes our error in clearly declaring that laboring for an apostolic sending of men from heaven is the horse that must pull the cart of missions.
Saints, we have had a lot of gospel activity but the reality is what we have had little fruit. A lot of sweat, tears, blood, effort, and money have been expended and yet we have not seen the kind of results that the apostles saw. While there are many reasons for our lack of fruit, Matthew 9:38 identifies one of the critical errors.
The Apostolic Pattern
Saints, if we desire to again see apostolic missionaries of the same kind as the early apostles were, we must return to the apostolic method of missions and the apostolic method is to first pray to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers. The most well known apostolic missionary, Paul, was sent out of a community in Antioch that was obedient to the apostolic pattern. In Acts 13:2, the saints were in the place of prayer and the Spirit expressly sent Paul and Barnabas forth to the gentiles and so began the career of one of the greatest apostolic missionaries of all time.
Part of the secret of Paul’s success was that he did not just go to the gentiles with a burden and under the compulsion of human emotion, but he was sent by the Spirit. After all, that is exactly what is means to be apostolic. Apostolic simple means a “sent one.” In fact, it is a clear indicator of our lack of understanding of what it means to be apostolic that we constantly attempt to define what is apostolic according to role and function. We define an apostle by what he does, but an apostle is defined by who his is. To be apostolic is to be sent and only the Holy Spirit can effect a sending. When we begin defining what is apostolic by the activities that accompany it rather than by the God initiated sending that is the basis of all that is apostolic, we have already lost the essential elements of what it means to be apostolic.
The Holy Spirit is the Grand Architect
We must understand that man is not the grand architect, nor even the executor, of the plan of world evangelism, but rather that the Holy Spirit is the architect of the cause of Jesus on the earth. In the book of Acts we clearly see the Holy Spirit actively directing the work of the church. While we would acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit, we are much more prone to use the “wisdom” of 2,000 years of history to prop up human effort while we give the Holy Spirit lip service and then ask Him to provide the miraculous power when we need a “sign” or a “wonder” to back up our gospel claims.
And is it not part of our fundamental problem that our gospel campaigns our often our campaigns and not His? Saints, the Holy Spirit has not changed His role. He is still God. He is still the grand architect of the church as He is the one that makes known to us the mind of Jesus and tells us what is on His heart. Is it not the height of arrogance that we build so much of our gospel activity on human wisdom and human zeal and then ask the Holy Spirit to sprinkle a few miracles on it as though He is simply power for our programs?
We ignore the Holy Spirit as a person and as the all-wise God and instead use Him for power and then we stand amazed that so little power is on the gospel. Frustrated, we read the accounts of the apostles and become disillusioned that there is not power on the gospel, but when we have not followed the apostolic pattern, we should not wonder that the Holy Spirit does not gives His full endorsement to our activities.
We must again give the Holy Spirit His place as the grand master architect of missions and as the possessor of the mind of God if we expect His power to accompany our proclamation. It is true that He always uses men and that is precisely where the confusion comes in. He uses men and then we come to believe that something is intrinsic in man and so we seek to duplicate the pattern we see played out in a man rather than go back to the place of the sending of the Holy Spirit that is what made the man unique in the first place.
Apostolic Sending
The issue of missions then is putting the Holy Spirit back in His place through the application of Matthew 9:38 and one of His primary roles, as the initiator of gospel activity, is to send men and women. As already noted, this is foundational to the understanding of what is apostolic because contained within the very definition of apostolic is the understanding that one who is apostolic is one who is sent.
It is true that the community of saints must send and individual, but that sending must be a secondary sending. When a community sends an individual whether it is to pastor a local church, or to go labor across the earth that sending must be an affirmation and acknowledgement of a sending that has already taken place, because before one can be properly sent by men they must have been marked as a sent one by the Holy Spirit.
Saints, one sent men can do more to turn the world upside down then a thousand believers sent by human effort and motivated by human zeal. The great need of the earth right now is not laborers, it is sent laborers and there is a tremendous difference. There is a reason that Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 1, and Acts 9 are such pivotal passages and the reason is that they mark the sending of a man from heaven. Men that are sent from heaven change history. Men that are sent from man merely increase activity. God, in His kindness, may give some measure of blessing to man’s efforts, but He will not give an apostolic outcome where the apostolic pattern is not followed.
If the great need then is sent men is there any way we can increase the number of heaven sent laborers in our generation? Matthew 9:38 holds the promise for us. Are you burdened for the gospel? Do you feel the Lord’s heart both for your own nation and for the nations of the earth? If so, then the first thing is not to preach your burden or call others to missions, although that may very well come, the first thing to do is drop to your knees and ask the Lord of the Harvest to send men.
If you truly understand the great need of the harvest and the vast need for laborers you will understand the gross inadequacy of human effort and be pressed into the place of intercession crying out that God would send men knowing that a sending from heaven is the only solution to the great need of the earth in our hour.
Contending for Sent Laborers
The place of prayer is the place where the great missions enterprise is lost or won, for it is only in that place that we can secure the favor of heaven to send men for white harvest fields demand sent men, not merely laborers sent of energy, zeal, and humanistic motivations. Jesus’ instructions to His disciples were radical. They were ready for His call to lay down their lives and labor in the harvest fields, but I suspect they were surprised to hear Jesus’ admonition to rather pray that God might send men. As a measure of how significant Jesus’ words were, Acts 6 reveals that the apostles learned this lesson well as they gave themselves to prayer and the Word that sent ones might go forth and they shook the powers in their generation because their labor in prayer secured sent ones.
How different Jesus’ value system is from ours! We rush to activity, and the fact that we rush so quickly to activity betrays the fact that we have so little confidence in prayer and the reason we have little confidence in prayer is that we have little confidence in God Himself. We are more confident in our ability to labor than we are in God’s ability to send, though it is the heaven sent ones that are truly apostolic and that change history.
Does laboring on our knees preclude laboring in works? Certainly not. We must put our hands to the tasks in front of us in obedience to Jesus. He certainly calls us to labor, but He calls us first and foremost to the labor of prayer. He calls us first to gaze upward and cry out for sent ones to again walk among us and advance the gospel with power as the apostles of old did. We will labor until our bodies are exhausted and spent, but we must labor as sent ones from heaven, and it is the place of prayer that will secure this sending. Jesus’ command does not give us the luxury of praying and then refusing to go when sent.
The Holy Spirit has not changed. He is still jealous for Jesus’ glory. He is still the grand architect of the gospel enterprise. He waits only for a company of people who will resist human initiative and lay hold of Him in prayer beseeching Him to send men of His own initiative into the harvest. He will send men if we stand before Him and ask for apostolic witnesses. He will anoint the gospel with power when it goes forth according to the apostolic pattern.
A Witness that Condemns the Age
February 9, 2010
By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the rightesouness that comes by faith. – Hebrews 11:7 (ESV)
Have we fully considered the faith of Noah? He believed what he heard from God in spite of what was around him. We find that he alone had confidence in the word of God and the promise of God. What is even more amazing than his belief is the fact that Noah’s obedience condemned the world. The very way that Noah lived pronounced a judgment on the age in which Noah lived. (It is important to understand that, in the context of the verse, condemning the world is more rightly described as condemning the age rather than the earth. It is a condemnation of the systems and values of this age rather than a condemnation of the creation.) The word used here has the idea of declaring the verdict but not necessarily executing it. The execution of the verdict belongs to God always, but our very lives are a part of declaring the verdict.
How then should we live? As our lives are lived under firm confidence in the Word of God, our lives are proving the truth of His promise by the way His promises shape our lives. Our unseen, mostly future, hope then becomes the very evidence that the unseen thing for which we hope exists (Hebrews 11:1). Our lives are designed to be a witness and testimony to the truth (Acts 1:8).
Have we considered that our very lives are going to be testimony against the damned? God is calling us to live in such a way that we give a witness to the truth that is so authentic that it condemns those who do not believe. Saints, do we live this way? Do you live in such a way that your life pronounced a judgment on all who turn away from the gospel? Are you such a vibrant witness to the living, risen Son of God that for men to reject your witness is to condemn themselves?
Jesus did not leave the world without a testimony. We have the testimony of the infallible Scriptures. We have the testimony of creation which Paul argues in Romans is sufficient to bring one to at least a rudimentary knowledge of God. We have the inner witness in man that we call the conscience that leads a man into truth. We have the testimony of the very Spirit of God who convicts this world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8).
Besides these witnesses God has given, He also intends us to be the primary witness to the world. How that should cause our hearts to tremble. Who we are and how we live is to give vibrant and living testimony of Jesus. In other words, on the day of judgment when men stand before Jesus, should a man try to claim ignorance, Jesus will point to you and me and say, “They were a living flesh and blood example of Me. They were evidence that every word I spoke was true. There is no way you could have seen then and not seen Me. You are without excuse because the testimony of their lives was too compelling.”
Who is sufficient for this? Can you and I honestly say that we are witnesses to the extent that a man encountering us is as though he has encountered Jesus Himself? Does our witness have the power to condemn men? Can men who have seen us be condemned for having seen the reality of God and rejecting it? This is what the author is saying of Noah. Noah so carried what God had spoken in his heart that to reject Noah was to reject God Himself. Noah was a man of flesh and blood just like you and me, but what he carried in his life was so vibrant, so alive, that it was enough, in God’s eyes, to be a revelation of Himself to the unbelieving world.
Are our lives so much a revelation of Jesus that they would count as a verdict against the world? Are we enough of a witness to condemn the world when it rejects us? Remember the inverse is true as well. If our lives are so authentic that they can bring condemnation that means they are also authentic enough to bring men to life. It means that we are so full of the living God that there is a river of living water flowing from us (John 7:38) from which men can drink. If our lives are a real enough testimony to condemn men then they are also real enough to bring men into life.
Demystifying the Kingdom of God
January 12, 2010
We often speak of the “Kingdom of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven” in Christian circles but I am afraid that very few of us actually know what we are talking about. I say this because there seems to be volume upon volume written on the kingdom, each volume trying to present the kingdom slightly differently and, at the end of the day, it seems most believers are confused as to what the kingdom actually is and are unable to clearly articulate the kingdom when asked to define exactly what the kingdom of God is. I have seen a teacher pose that question to seasoned believers and the saints questioned looked dumbfounded and were at a loss for words to clearly articulate exactly what the kingdom is. It is a significant issue that we struggle to understand something that is at the cornerstone of Christian theology and is at the heart of the apostolic proclamation of the gospel.
Now, obviously I cannot give the kingdom a full treatment in one post. Volumes have been written on the kingdom so any small thing I can post here cannot even begin to be exhaustive. However, I believe a few short words about the essence of what the apostles, and Jesus, actually meant when they used the term “The Kingdom of God” may help to demystify the kingdom making it much more approachable and understandable.
Two Primary Misunderstandings
I believe there are two primary misunderstandings that have caused confusion about what the kingdom actually is. The first misunderstanding arises in the fact that the word kingdom is a foreign word to the western mind. We operate in governmental structures that are rooted in the ideas of democracy and, to a lesser extent, a republic and so the word kingdom is foreign to us. For us it is a word that we encounter only in fairly tales and ancient history. It is not something that we can tangibly relate to. Dictator would probably be the closest word to kingdom that we could understand, but it has negative connotations that make its use unsuitable.
The second misunderstanding that causes confusion is the influence of Greek thought on Christianity. Because of Greek influence on western thought and culture, we spend more time looking for the “ultimate meaning” of a passage rather than wrestling with the literal words in front of us as the Hebrews would. Compounding the issue is Matthew’s description of the kingdom as the “Kingdom of Heaven” which, because of the Greek dualism which separates “heaven” and “earth” that we have embraced, makes the kingdom even more ethereal. So, because of our heritage of Greek thought, we are looking for the ultimate meaning of a kingdom that seems just as ethereal and mystical as “heaven.” Because we think that “heaven” is some other ethereal realm, we struggle to create ways to make the “kingdom of heaven” relevant and tangible to existence on the earth. Understanding the misunderstandings that have clouded the definition of the kingdom for us, let’s now look at a few simple concepts that will help us gain a better understanding of what the kingdom actually is.
The Kingdom is Simply a Government
The simplest way to properly view the kingdom, coming from a western perspective, is to use the word government rather than kingdom. When you swap this word it is amazing how clear Biblical passages become. When Jesus or the apostles declare the “kingdom of God” they are essentially declaring the “government of God.” When you read a passage and substitute the word government for kingdom, just that word substitution will immediately enable the western mind to better understand the passage as the apostles intended.
The second concept that can help us understand the kingdom, or government of God, is understanding why Matthew uses “Kingdom of Heaven” rather than “Kingdom of God.” First, Matthew never wrote “Kingdom of Heaven.” He wrote “Kingdom of Heavens.” (Use any Bible software, or consult commentaries, and you will see clearly that heaven in the book of Matthew is always plural even though it is translated in English in the singular.) Now, this did not make sense to the Greek mind and so translators have rendered it “Kingdom of Heaven” in accordance with the Greek concept and model of reality which defined two distinct realities consisting of “heaven” and the physical, or earthly, realm rather than according to the Hebraic understanding of one unified reality consisting of both the heavens and the earth.
So what is the “Kingdom of Heavens”? This is explained in Genesis 1:1 when we are told that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God created the heavens as the place of His throne, or His government, and then created the earth as man’s place of government. The earth then was under the heavens, or subservient, to God’s throne. This idea is all throughout the Old Testament once you understand what the language means and understand that the word “heaven” is never in the Old Testament as a singular but is always plural.
The Old Testament is filled with consistent references to the heavens as God’s dwelling place and as the seat of all power and authority over the earth. This was the Jewish, and apostolic, understanding of the universe. The key is understanding that the Greek idea of “heaven” is foreign to the Jewish mind. Once you understand the basics of the Jewish concept of “the heavens” the Old Testament becomes much more understandable and the simplicity of the Jewish understanding of the cosmos becomes very apparent when you read the Scriptures.
The Apostolic Proclamation of the Kingdom
Now it is a popular misconception that earth is under satan’s rule until Jesus returns. This is actually false. The earth is still completely under the power of the heavens. This is actually the correct understanding of the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God is not primarily His ability to manipulate events to produce a desired outcome, but rather His present rule over all of creation. The Bible makes this completely clear in multiple places. Just a few references that are helpful on this subject are Daniel 4:32, Psalm 103:19, Romans 13:1-2, and 1 Peter 2:13-23. (Leave a note in the comments if you are struggling to understand the present authority of God and I’ll try to write a post on that topic in the future.)
So we now can understand that “kingdom” is another word for government and “heaven,” or the more accurately “the heavens” is a reference to the throne of that government. Now notice how Young’s Literal Translation helps us understand this even futher:
And in those days cometh John the Baptist, proclaiming in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, ‘Reform, for come nigh hath the reign of the heavens,’ – Matthew 3:1-2 (YLT)
Young’s translation, being literal, makes the text clear. John was proclaiming the the ruler of the heavens, in other words God Himself, was coming near to them. Can you see now why the people flocked to John to repent and to cleanse themselves in an act of baptism? John was not announcing some sort of ethereal or “spiritual” kingdom, but rather was declaring that the ruler from the throne over all creation was coming near among the people. The ruler of the heavens, the location of God’s throne, was now coming near His people as a man.
If ever anything would drive men to repentance this would be it! And so it did with the people flocking to John to prepare their hearts for his arrival. They knew full well how disastrous it was when God appeared to His people in the wilderness during the Exodus so they were now preparing their hearts for His visitation in their day and time. You can see now also why Matthew used the phrase “Kingdom of the Heavens.” He was writing to a Jewish audience so that phrase clearly conveyed what he was trying to convey which is that the very ruler of the government of God was among them. In addition, the Jews would have read “the Heavens” as a euphemism for God since the heavens are His dwelling place. This would allow Matthew to clearly convey the Kingdom of God to a Jewish audience.
The other writers were targeted on a wider audience than Matthew so they used the phrase the Kingdom of God because the Greeks, and others, did not necessarily have the same understanding as the Jews of the heavens so they, rather than using the euphemism that Matthew used, just plainly used the term the kingdom of God which clearly communicated that they were referencing the very government of God.
And Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus – Acts 17:7 (ESV)
We can see clearly that the apostolic presentation of the gospel continued in this same vein. They clearly preached the government of God. In fact, this is one of the major factors in the early persecution of the Christians. The Jews shared the morality and monotheism of the Christians, but it was the aggressive message of the early apostles of a real and present government over the government of Caesar and the coming of the ruler of that government, Jesus, to shatter all the governments of the earth that caused such an uproar. The Romans could not tolerate such preaching because they were declaring another kingdom that was going to usurp Rome.
In fact the Greek words used to refer to the preaching of the gospel in the New Testament are the same words that were used of a messenger of Caesar who was delivering Caesar’s decree to the people in remote places. In other words, the proclamation of the gospel was a governmental decree carried by messengers of God’s government called “apostles,” which simply means “sent ones.” The apostles were offering the people redemption and forgiveness that they might have right standing with God’s government and be kept safe in the hour when God Himself chose to smash the rebellion of the nations and to move His governmental headquarters from the heavens to the earth.
Can you see now why Paul who write letters encouraging the saints of their citizenship in the kingdom of the heavens and their role as ambassadors of this government? The early church clearly understood the “Kingdom of God” to be a governmental reality that they were declaring, both as a present reality and as a coming reality in the installment of Jesus as an earthly, as well as in the heavens, king and the destruction of all unrighteous government. This why the church in Thessalonica, though Paul was only with them a very short time, had been taught eschatology. Paul simply declared the government of God and the repentance that was necessary before that government destroyed the rebellion of other governments. The apostolic proclamation of the kingdom was governmental.
This is also why Jesus could say that the kingdom was within us when our hearts were submitted to His government. The earth at present is in rebellion against His government and is in the delusion that the rebellion is successful. Those who have repented understand that there is a higher government consisting of a present king that is also coming to destroy the delusion and rebellion on earth. In their repentance, they now become messengers of this government, carrying the reality of it in their hearts and in their witness. This coming government, along with the offer of redemption and immorality through the Spirit, is the cornerstone of the apostolic proclamation of the gospel.
Why is the kingdom demonstrated when signs and wonders occur? It is simple. Healing and other signs serve two purposes. First they demonstrate the nature of God’s government. Satan has deceived man that God is a tyrant who desires to inhibit man from true freedom. Healing and deliverance oppose that lie by demonstrating the true nature of God’s government. These signs clearly demonstrate that satan is actually the tyrant and it is God’s government that brings the maximum freedom and pleasure to man.
The second purpose these signs serve is to validate the governmental proclamation of the gospel. We are to declare a present ruling King as well as a King that is coming. How are men, under the delusion of the present rebellion, to know that this proclamation is valid? In order that men might know, God grants signs and wonders as a miraculous testimony that our proclamation is true because they demonstrate an authority beyond that which man, or satan, can exert.
There is much more than can be written on this topic, but this should help to simplify the issue of the “Kingdom of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Hopefully you can see that it is much simpler than we have made it out to be. It is simply God’s present government which also includes a future military action, led by Jesus, in which He will destroy all rebellion and relocate the headquarters of His government from the heavens to the earth. Many valid insights have been taught over the years, but I fear we have made the kingdom too mystical and not as practical and real as it is.
Let us return to the roots of the faith and the simplicity of the gospel proclamation rather than trying to examine the apostolic proclamation through hundreds of years of philosophy and cultural mindsets that are different from the cultural understanding that Jesus and the apostles preached from.
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit Part 2
September 5, 2009
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:3 (ESV)
One of the core issues of embracing poverty is the issue of self-existence. What makes God unique in all the universe is that He is self-sustaining. Only He can sustain Himself by Himself. All the rest of the creation is dependent on God both for its very existence and for its continued sustenance. When Moses pressed God for a name in Exodus, God declared Himself to be the self-sustaining One that exists with no dependencies on anyone or anything. He is the One that exists irrespective of the existence of any other.
Man, on the other hand, as a created being requires the sustenance from God that He might live and this is at the root of the issue in the garden. The enemy was attempting to divorce man from His reliance on God. He presented this as a deception so that man would imagine that becoming self sustaining, choosing for himself what things are good and evil, would allow Him to ascend to a place like God when in reality it would bring him into a place of death and decay. The glorious life that man was given required the sustenance of the Creator. Man is not self-existent, but lucifer was determined to deceive man because of the tragedy of his own revolt.
As the most beautiful being yet created, lucifer challenged God because his heart was so full of pride that he imagined he could sustain his own beauty. When he staged a rebellion based on the confidence that he could sustain himself without the Creator, to his own horror he became the most horrific and corrupt creature in all of creation. No longer exalted and beautiful, a death of a sorts came in when he attempted independence from the sustainer and it destroyed the beauty in him corrupting all that was beautiful into something horrific and hideous. Lucifer now became satan.
Satan, filled with pride and now finding himself in this horrible place where he was still in subjection to God but now as a hideous, evil being rather than one of beauty, expressed his anger towards God by taking aim to corrupt God’s prize creation. He immediately went to man in the garden and offered man the same decision that he himself had made without telling man of the horrific consequences. Man fell to the same temptation that had seized satan’s heart, that of being self-sustaining or independent of God’s wisdom and sustaining power, and immediately man’s being fell from a place of glory to a place of death. The most beautiful of God’s creatures in the heavens, lucifer, had fallen and become infected with death. Now, the very height of God’s creation, man, had also fallen for the same ruse and now death infected man in that same way that evil had destroyed lucifer’s beauty.
We find this same foundational issue in the next great temptation in human history when satan comes to Jesus in the desert again trying to thwart God’s plan by taking advantage of Jesus’ humanity in the same way that he destroyed the man in the garden. The scene is no longer a plush garden, but this time it is a barren wilderness. When satan first tempted man, he had to convince man there was something better than the beauty and provision of the garden. This time, Jesus was in a barren wasteland. He was surrounded by a hard place and desperately hungry. Surely satan imagined he had the advantage. In the garden, he had to be deceive a man that was completely provided for, living in bliss and in communion with God. This time he only needed to offer a deception of relief to a man exhausted in a dry and barren place that so illustrated man’s fallen condition. Surely he could get Jesus to escape this place. Surely Jesus would long for the place of comfort and sustenance.
With this in my mind, satan went straight to the primary issue and attacked Jesus with the temptation of self sustenance. Satan came and immediately challenged Him to use His divine power to self-sustain Himself as a man in turning bread to stone. Jesus clearly understood what was at state and quickly replied, from the Scripture, that man should not live by bread alone but by every word proceeding from the mouth of God. In other words, man must rely on something proceeding from God to live. Even if He could turn the stones to bread, the issue was that He, as a man, would be sustained by God and not by Himself. Jesus refused self sufficiency as a man, even when it could be obtained using His own divine power, rebuking the enemy by declaring that man, as a creature, was designed to live dependent on God. Satan had begun with the temptation that caused his own fall and that he used to effect the fall of man, but this time Jesus immediately resisted.
In order to make the issue even more clear, God has also given us a parable in our own bodies. Scientists tells us how our bodies are self-sustaining with the cells constantly replenishing themselves until the aging process shuts down cell replacement and we slowly die. From this we can see that the human body was made to sustain itself and live immortally as the Bible teaches. However, no matter how marvelous the human body’s capacity may be, it requires food. Though the body can sustain itself once it obtains fuel, we are still dependent on an external source of nutrients to supply our bodies with the fuel necessary to sustain life. Though our bodies were designed to live forever, they were designed so that they cannot live without any external nutrients. We are dependent on external food sources to fuel the life that is in our bodies.
So too our spirits are designed to live forever and yet are dependent on a fuel which we receive from the only One that is ultimately self-sustaining. We can live in a delusion that we have enough to supply ourselves because we may be popular or talented in ministry, but the reality is that our spirits starve and die if we are not constantly being fueled from the One who is the sustainer of all things. It is those who, like Jesus, live in that place of dependence on the eternal One for daily fuel for their spirits that will be fit to participate in the heavenly government. The poor and the hungry eat everything that is offered to them. It is only those that imagine themselves to be full that push away the gift of food from another. When we truly know our inner poverty, it will cause us to lay hold of the One that can supply and sustain us. Living in that manner will fit us to stand before the One who alone is self-sustaining as we understand, acknowledge, and even celebrate our great need of His abundance.
Really the root issue is dependence. Creation is made to be dependent on God for its supply. Not because God is some sort of ego, but rather because He simply is the only self-sustaining One that exists and He sustains His creation with love and tender care. However, when creation refuses this dependence, death enters the equation because once you cut yourself off from the One that is eternal life the only option is death. If you get the root of the issue with those in the western world that mock the gospel and are the most vocal opponents of the gospel it will come down to the issue of dependence. The mockers of the gospel refuse to be in the place of dependence. They do not want to depend on Him for their life and they refuse to depend upon Him for the definition of morality. Man desires to do what he wants, the way he wants, even when it ends in death. This is the corruption whose only remedy is poverty of spirit.
This is why in John 17 Jesus defined eternal life as the intimate knowledge of God (John 17:3). Apart from intimate communion with Him from a heart posture of poverty, there is no life. I fear that we are too full in our spirits and unaware of how much fuel we really need from the One upon the throne that our spirits may have the fuel that is necessary. Let us go to Him daily in poverty of spirit that He might fuel us with Himself.
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
September 3, 2009
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:3 (ESV)
Jesus promises a governmental position in the government, or rule, of the heavens to all those that are poor in spirit. Remembering that the heavens, being the location of God’s governmental throne, are clearly above the earth, we can see that Jesus is promising a place of authority in His own personal government that is ruling over all that exists both on the earth and above it. What is clearly implicated here is that poverty of spirit is a necessary requirement for ruling in God’s government. Lucifer was cast down because he lost poverty of spirit and chose to embrace the power and strength of his own spirit. This led to him becoming so deluded that he challenged God in his own might, resulting in a flash when God cast him down from his privileged, governmental position.
When lucifer embraced personal power in his own spirit, he changed from being one of the most beautiful of all creatures to being the most dark and terrible of all beings. He was transformed from one filled with light to one filled with oppressive darkness. His rejection of poverty of spirit transformed his being into a selfish, dark, and evil being with a capacity to destroy that has brought destruction not just to his own nature, but has also brought manifold destruction to others in his corruption of one third of the angels and his subsquent acts in corrupting all the earth. Lucifer so successfully transmitted this disease to humanity, that we too embraced strength in our own spirit, with the end result being that our inner man became corrupt and depraved as well and human history has became the tale of the dark deeds of humanity. Do we consider the disastrous consequences of embracing the strengh of our own spirit, rather than the poverty of it as Jesus exhorts us to do? Do we consider that strength of spirit may be cloked in religious language and religious ambition so that we may end up pursuinig the very thing Jesus desires us to reject within a religious framework?
Jesus, on the other hand, calls us to poverty of spirit. He calls us to return to the primary issue of the garden and re-embrace the leadership of God in refusing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Rather than embracing the promise of its fruit, we are to bring our spirit in poverty before God desiring to once again know the thrill of being filled with His spirit rather than dominating others with our own. His Spirit alone is capable of ruling over others while keeping the well being of others as His first priority. Our spirits are not equipped to rule as His is and so any time we attempt to live out of our own spirits, the inevitable result is selfishness, pain, and suffering. Only God’s Spirit has the capacity to rule others in a way that is ultimately selfless. We do not have that capacity in our own spirits and to thing otherwise is delusional, though it be couched in religious language.
For this reason, only those that embrace poverty of spirit will be equipped to rule in the government of God. This is truly a high call because Jesus is offering us access, not just to the government of the earth, but to the government of the heavens. As we noted at the start, the government of the heavens sits over all creation and is the location of God’s very own throne. How high an exaltation Jesus offers us! Yet, at the same time, the qualifications for that exaltation are paradoxical. To ascend to the high place, our spirits must embrace a low place. We sit enthroned in government with God only when we acknowledge our total lack and poverty, not when we stand on our own accomplishments and power. Who can embrace such a thing? Who will empty themselves that they might be exalted by God? Who can lay aside from our natural methods of improving ourselves? Who can reject our human ideals of embracing power, ability, and stature thinking that our strength offers something to God that is necessary to His government? Do we desire what Jesus offers or do we have the secret desire that we may rule over our brethren in the age to come?
Only the poor in spirit can stand in the place God desires us to stand. Only the poor in spirit will endure in that place. Anyone else, no matter how talented, gifted, or accomplished, when raised to the right hand of God will fall in corruption just as lucifer did, corrupting both himself and others. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything any creature in creation does reverberates throughout creation impacting others. For that reason, God cannot allow an individual to be open to the place of corruption because an individual’s corruption never remains isolated. When you and I fall, others fall as well. Our corruption touches all those that we make contact with and so our corruption is not just an issue of our own personal nature, but it is an issue of our effect upon others. For this reason, a ruler in God’s government must lay aside his own strength, which will enslave and corrupt others, that he might be filled with the strength and Spirit of God which alone is fit to rule over others in a benevolent way.
Poverty in spirit is not just a phrase, it is a critical reality that you and I are called to embrace. To neglect this offer is to suffer great loss for Jesus is offering us an incredible place of privilege if we are willing to embrace His requirement. The offer is great, but the cost of that position is high as well. Forget your own achievements, ministerial or otherwise. In Matthew 5:3 Jesus gives you what He wants to see on your resume if you desire a place in His government, and it’s a poverty in your own spirit, not the massive strength that sadly we spend so much time pursuing. Let us embrace His paradigm so that on that great day, He can invite us with joy in His voice to sit on His very own throne with Him participating in His brilliant rule.
In short, the answer is clear. Embrace lack that you might prosper. Ask for emptiness that you may be filled. Beware the temptation of your own spiritual fullness though and in your filling, stay in the place of poverty.
As in the Days of Noah
June 26, 2009
Recently I was spending some time with one of my daughters and at her request, we ended up watching one of her videos. When it stopped, the television defaulted to a Christian channel and they were showing a movie of Noah and the ark. She begged to watch it, so we watched some of it. It was a great example of what I would call “Biblical film making.” The dialogue was a little humorous in that the language was so archaic that it made King James English almost seem conversational. At the same time Noah seemed to always be looking off into the distance making profound statements with an air of wisdom about him. Regardless of Noah’s depiction, their depiction of the ark was actually interesting. They had an interesting view of how the ark was laid out and what life was like inside the ark both for people and animals. However, after the initial ark scene, I was totally unprepared for what was about to happen.
After the ark was loaded, Noah and his family were secured in the ark and soon the rain began to fall. As the rains fell the ark slowly began to be lifted and drift on top of the waters. At the same time the people outside the ark were panicking and frantically climbing to the highest places they could find to escape the water that was slowly overtaking them as a steady and unstoppable force. In the midst of this, there is a scene inside the ark where you can hear the muted sounds of screaming and shrieks from from all those that are lost outside the ark and frantically trying to escape the ever encroaching waters. As you hear these sounds, Noah’s wife has a look on her face of horror. Up until now the family hasn’t fully considered their predicament, and suddenly the full realization of what is going on strikes them. Noah’s wife looks to Noah and their eyes meet. Her expression is begging the question, “am I really hearing what I think I’m hearing?” Here Noah’s family is saved in the midst of cataclysmic destruction and yet the realization is finally hitting them that everything is real. Everything Noah had been preaching had been words up until this point, but now those words were reality and the terror of the reality was more than any of them anticipated.
I was so struck with that scene that I trembled on the inside. My mind raced to the Scriptures and I considered more and more how every time I pick up the Scriptures I am seeing such a clear declaration of the coming Day of the Lord. Whether it is the historical books, the prophets, the gospels, the acts of the early church, or the apocalypse of Revelation, there is a consistent and persistent declaration of the Day of the Lord in the Scriptures. It is almost as if there is a veil causing us to miss the preeminence the Day of the Lord has in the Scriptures and when that veil begins to lift, one is astounded as just how much of the Scriptures is given over to declaring that God is coming to the planet and that coming is something so dramatic that words fail in the description of it.
The prophets saw and declared this coming day. The Jews so anticipated that day that when John Baptist declared that Messiah was coming, they were baptized in repentance to prepare themselves for the day. In fact, the primary stumbling block for the first century Jews was that they were expecting the ultimate day of the Lord and not a coming that, in kindness, made available a redemption prior to that cataclysmic day. In Paul’s writings, we find that he motivated both himself and the saints he wrote to by exhorting them that they would be found in Christ on that day.
The coming of that day and the ensuing events were the cornerstone of the apostolic proclamation and the motivation to declare the gospel to the earth that as many as possible might be saved in the great day of God that was coming. Remember that salvation Biblically is mostly presented as a future thing and what we have failed to perceive is that future salvation is not just salvation from hell, but salvation in the great Day of the Lord. This doesn’t negate the present need of an encounter with God or of being born again, but rather our present experience of redemption and the indwelling presence of the Spirit, among other things, gives us assurance of full salvation on that day.
Every temporal judgment is a warning of an ultimate day of reckoning for the earth and those who have walked upon it. While we often focus on whether current events are judgments or not we miss the fact that any present judgment event is merely an illustration that is meant to point us to that ultimate day and warn us of a judgment that far surpasses anything we have presently experienced. Even the flood, as cataclysmic as it was, was not an event in itself, but rather meant to be an prophetic picture to shock and awaken us to the nature of what’s coming when God comes to the planet.
The issue of God’s coming is not an issue merely of an angry deity, but rather the issue of what happens when the One who is truly perfect and good comes into full contact with all the evil on the earth and in man. The drama of that day is actually part of the love and kindness of God because the present evil that we tolerate is having horrific effects on creation that we don’t even recognize because we are so numb to it. Since we are part of the environment and over it we can’t even see the full effects on our environment of the evil dwelling within us. God is not content to see this destruction continue forever and so His coming brings a massive judgment that is rooted, not in anger, but in perfect love.
I have to believe that, like Noah’s family, this event may be a part of our creeds and theology, but that our hearts have not truly anticipated just how devastating and traumatic this day is going to be. The Scriptures clearly describe an event that man cannot endure and that even the earth can barely endure. Regardless of how literal your hermeneutic is, and the further I go the more convinced I am that the Scriptures are far more literal than we have imagined, as you read the prophetic scriptures concerning this day, anyone who seriously considers these events will come to the conclusion that this day is going to be beyond anything any of us have imagined.
Jesus said that the end would be “as in the days of Noah.” He chose the days of Noah as the example of the end. Just as in the days of Noah, men live totally ignorant of the impending judgment. Men scoff at the idea that God is going to judge all wickedness and restore the earth in purity and goodness just as He has promised. As in the days of Noah, God has made an ark of escape in Jesus that we might endure that terrible day when God comes to earth in holiness and in zeal to cleanse and redeem the earth. And the real terror of that day is that, as in the days of Noah, the horror of what is coming will not be fully evident until the event is fully in motion and there is nothing that can be done.
The real horror of the look on Noah’s wife’s face is that she only understood the magnitude of what was happening after it was too late to take any more action. By the time she fully understood what was going on it was too late to do anything about it. It was too late to prepare any more. It was too late to warn others, and it was too late to rescue any more souls. The door was closed and the deluge had come and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. So too the real terror of the Day of the Lord is going to be that we will only fully grasp it on that day and on that day it will be too late to prepare our hearts to face the fullness of God and too late to declare to others the need to repent that they may be saved in that day. What has been done will have been done. In that moment, the fog will lift and we will clearly see our lives and actions for what they were and the pain of regret, which for some will be an eternal terror, will be immense.
Just like Noah’s family in the movie, believers are living in intellectual assent to the idea that Jesus is coming but with virtually no understanding of just what that day is going to be like and no preparation for it. Our theology may be correct in our hearts, but in our hearts we live as though everything that day will destroy is actually permanent. That day will literally shake the earth. Men will seek the escape of death because of the appearance of a holy God on the planet. We must begin to read the Scriptures simply, taking them at face value, and see that throughout the entire book there is a consistent declaration that God is coming to physically dwell on the earth among His people, and that coming will demand a complete judgment of all that is wicked and a restoration of the earth. We must also begin to see that all other themes in Scripture are in the context of this coming day and God’s purpose for it.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; – Isaiah 61:1-2 (ESV)
We are presently living in the year of God’s favor. It is the time period when salvation is made available. God in His immense love and kindness has repeatedly, though His Word and through messengers each generation, warned us of the events to come and provided, at the cost of His own blood, an ark of escape in that great day. However, this salvation makes little sense without the context of the day of vengeance against all wickedness, no matter how minor or how subtle, that is coming. One thing is sure: Something is coming far beyond what we can imagine. We are presently blessed with a period of time to come under God’s mercy and allow Him to prepare us that we might stand on that day, but this blessing will be a curse in that day if we find, like Noah’s family, that it never was real to us.
If you are not right with God through Jesus Christ, I don’t have words that are strong enough to urge you to turn your heart to the cleansing in Jesus Christ that you might be prepared for that day. If you are already a believer, I would challenge you that you probably do not live in preparation for that day. Like Noah’s family, we have heard the message but we really haven’t anticipated exactly what that day will be. Most of us are expecting the inauguration of some sort of utopia and heavenly retirement age and this bears no resemblance to the way the Scripture describes this day. While the end result is a cleansing and a perfect dwelling with God, we have grossly estimated the trauma of that process and the full purity of our God.
The reality is that this coming day is so dramatic that none of us can fully anticipate what is coming. Even those who give their hearts to prepare will, in some measure, stand like Noah’s family trembling under the weight of it all when it actually unfolds. Saints, that day is clearly described in Scripture if we only open our eyes to read it. Let us prepare our hearts in accordance with what the Scriptures really say while allowing our hearts to take the message to all those who are unprepared for this day. Malachi perhaps has the best summary of our predicament:
But who can endure the day of His coming, and who can stand when He appears? – Malachi 3:2a (ESV)
Politics and Government
February 23, 2009
Politics is like marrying and crying and laughing and buying. We should do it, but only as though not doing it – John Piper.
The Christian response to the recent elections has been somewhat troubling to me. On one side, there are the despondent ones. These act as though the Kingdom of God is almost subservient to the government and seem to believe that God is finished with America since the government is in the control of the “liberals.” On the other hand there are those that are engaging in a bitter spirit of political contention. They tend to appear to be more passionate about conservative talk show hosts than Christ, and are more energized by the liberal versus conservative debate than they are the eternal elements of the kingdom. They seem to have forgotten that God is not a Republican, nor a Democrat, and that no system of man, moral or not, is a substitute for the coming kingdom and the coming King.
Please do not understand. I know the moral policies that the government embraces are significant and have significant consequences. I believe in passionate intercession for the nation and understanding the criticality of the hour the western nations are in. Yes, we must vote and maintain a voice for righteousness. By all means let us cry out that God might have mercy and overturn unjust laws and give us righteous leaders. However, let us always keep this in eternal perspective and realize just whose kingdom we truly are citizens of. I believe you will find John Piper’s post election comments to be a refreshing exhortation that is valuable in mainting the proper perspective.
Read on here for the rest of what he had to say:
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14639
I have had some tell me that when they click the link, they cannot read the entire article. Apparently the article is available if you are referred by Google, but not by other sites. Here is how to read the article:
- Go to Google. Enter the following as your search: “Marry. Cry. Rejoice. Buy. john piper”
- The article will be the first search result. Click on it and World magazine will display the entire article. Yes, I know this is bizarre, but it works.
John Piper also wrote essentially the same thing before the election and you can read it at the Desiring God block by clicking on this link.
Greater Works than These
February 12, 2009
I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. – John 14:12
Many of us have heard this passage preached many times with various interpretations of the passage. While I do not want to try to evaluate what the proper interpretation of the passage is, I do want to propose that there is a nugget in this passage that could radically affect the culture of ministry that we operate in.
The Ministry Culture of Jesus
If you examine Jesus’ ministry, one thing that immediately stands out is how limited His sphere of ministry actually was. While His ministry was spectacular, it is also amazing how He limited Himself to a specific area, refused the promotion of men, devoted only 3 years of His life to public ministry, and poured Himself into His disciples. To understand why Jesus orchestrated His ministry in this way, it is critical that we examine how He launched the gospel through the disciples.
What is so amazing is that rather than seeking the largest public platform, Jesus poured Himself into the disciples. In some cases, His ministry was limited to the 12 and in other cases it was the 70, and at times it included some other followers. Regardless of the exact number, the point is that Jesus really only gave Himself to a small number of followers. He also freely shared His power with them even when they were immature. Not only did He send the disciples out with power, He even sent Judas out with supernatural power on him. That alone should astound most of us.
Have you considered that Jesus invested His life in this small group of people and then He entrusted them with the propagation of the gospel to the nations? If you think about it, it is almost inconceivable that Jesus would ascend just after His moment of triumph and leave the declaration of His victory to a handful of unstable followers. If we are honest, we have to admit that we would consider Jesus’ ministry strategy to be ridiculous.
How many of us would adopt that kind of strategy? How many of us would repel the crowds that were ready to exalt us and instead invest in a small group that were struggling with proper theology? How many of us would put power on a group of young men still struggling with their own egos? How many of us, at the very height of victory, would step aside from visible ministry and instead give our spirit to others that they might be empowered to take the gospel to world and do great exploits?
Now, understand the point here and don’t read too much theology into it, but if you judge Jesus purely by ministry output you will see that the apostles superseded Him in virtually every way. Most of them had much longer ministries, affected much wider areas, and produced more converts. What was so radically different about Jesus’ value system that caused Him to minister in this way? The answer has profound implications for just how deep our own ministry can go. Continue Reading Greater Works than These »
The Law – Part Four – The New Testament Law
January 6, 2009
In the last post, we discussed how a proper understanding of God’s law affects our evangelism and saw that our evangelism is a strong indicator of our theology and also has serious implications for the future vitality of the church itself. As we have discussed the New Testament law in this series, we have made a few observations. One is that Jesus extended the reach of the law by pressing it past man’s outward behavior into the thoughts and intents of the heart. We have also noted that Jesus came to complete God’s law that it might accomplish the thing that He gave it to accomplish.
In addition, the point has been made repeatedly that it is critical that we live in light of the fact that we are still under a divine law and in light of that, we must acknowledge that God continues to have the right to place demands upon on. While we have examined these characteristics of the New Testament Law, we have not examined what the declarations of the New Testament law are. We have seen clearly that the scope of the law extends to all things, and we have seen that the depth of the law presses it deep in the heart of man, but is there a clear list of the directives of this law? Well, though it receives little attention, Jesus clearly details for us the requirements of the New Testament law.
The Definition of the Law
In a very real sense, the Sermon on the Mount could be seen as a law giving moment. Just as Moses ascended a hill and descended with the written requirements of God, so to Jesus ascended the hillside and clearly spoke forth the code and law He came to bring. In that sense, we should see the Sermon on the Mount, not just as a nostalgic ideal, but as the present requirement of God. God does not simply give us instructions and values that we might then live “under grace” in the commonly understood meaning of the term. We can never discount grace, and we will address it in the final post, but God desires that grace become something that empowers us to live within that which He demands. To understand the New Testament law, the Sermon on the Mount then is the proper starting place so long as we can begin to see it as Jesus’ parallel to Moses’ directives given from Sinai and not just as an idyllic sermon that is not actually binding on every day life.
While the Sermon on the Mount is perhaps the foundational passage for the New Testament law, there are a few other passages we should examine. These passages are all familiar, but we have not considered these passages to be as weighty as they truly are. Consider Jesus’ answer to one seeking salvation:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets. – Matthew 22:37-40 (AMP)
Notice that just before the cross, Jesus affirms this requirement to His disciples:
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love and live on in it, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commandments and live on in His love…This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than to lay down his own life for his friends…You are My friends if you keep on doing the things which I command you to do…This is what I command you: that you love one another. – John 15:10, 12-14, 17 (AMP)
Again, we are familiar with these Scriptures, but we must ask ourselves if we see these passages as Jesus’ requirements for His people or do we see them as cute phrases and New Testament ideals? I fear that because of a misunderstanding of grace that we do not consider the full weight of these passages. In these passages, Jesus is putting a requirement on us and defining the way that He expects His people to live.
No one would deny that believers often fail to experience the full materialization of the promises recorded in Scripture, but could is be that we fail to obtain some of the benefits of the gospel because we have not esteemed the requirements of the gospel as such? Perhaps if we saw these commands as just as binding upon us as Moses’ Law was on the nation gathered around Sinai, we might become a radically different people.
The Weight of the Law
We began by pointing out that Jesus filled up the law and turned its requirements inward that He might deal with the very root of sin rather than merely prescribe good behavior. That consideration alone has the power to greatly alter our understanding of Jesus’ statements. After coming into that understanding, we have now considered some of the direct commands that Jesus gave to believers.
Now, we must ask an honest question which is who can fulfill such a law? While we are rightfully grateful that Jesus freed us from the outward bondage of Moses’ law, we fail to consider with much gravity the requirements of the law Jesus instituted. While Moses’ law was full of outward obligations that one might follow in some measure, Jesus law completely supersedes all outward observances and leaves men under greater condemnation than before.
If we honestly examine what He required, we must say, “who can fulfill such things?” for Jesus’ law is all encompassing. Can we not honestly say that every mode of life comes under the requirement to love God with all that we have and then extend love to others just the same as we would love ourselves? Beloved, this is a weighty requirement indeed. Moses’ law at least had specific requirements and limited scope, but Jesus’ law decrees that every thought, every desire, and every action are to be with regard to the supreme love of God and love of one another.
Can anyone among us have the audacity to declare that they could fulfill such a law? Can you see now that when the Spirit gives unction to preach such a law that there is no man who can stand in smug, self-righteousness? Saints we need to pray that God puts power on us again for the proclamation of this gospel. We have awkwardly proclaimed, at the same time, both the conviction of the Mosaic Law and the freedom from it, but we have not pressed men with the Law of Christ.
The reality is that God has not changed His demands upon man; He has only now intensified them in the revelation of Jesus. In the revelation of Jesus, He reveals what he created man for all along. You see, God does not intend to have a people that can merely follow a few moral axioms or fulfill religions ceremonies, He desires a people that are a physical display on earth of Himself. This is what it means that man is made in the image of God.
We are made in His image and so He presses upon us the same law that He Himself demonstrates in all that He does. He makes a requirement on us that no man can possibly fulfill, and yet He has every right to demand it because He made us in His own image that we might live as a physical demonstration of Himself and spread the knowledge of God by our very living. This requirement should crush all our righteousness and drive us to Christ both for forgiveness and for transformation to live in this manner, but tragically our gospel proclamation seems to have lost the weightiness of both of these values in its rush to declare us free from Moses’ prescribed diet and ceremonies!
Because we have lost these values, our evangelism is weak and anemic and our proclamation to the saints is hollow. We are content to gaze horizontally at our own righteousness and not gaze upwardly that we might demonstrate Him; the very thing to which we are called! We are content to demonstrate something a little better than other men rather than putting on display the glory of God and that is the fundamental issue. Continue Reading The Law – Part Four – The New Testament Law »
The Law – Part Three – Evangelism
December 24, 2008
In the last post in this series we discussed the issue of genuine repentance. At this point we must discuss a related topic which is the issue of evangelism, so let’s take a moment and examine evangelism in light of the New Testament law. Evangelism is always a critical indicator of what our practical theology is. I use the word practical because most of us would assent to correct doctrine if we were given a test on proper belief systems, however often there is a great gulf between our mental theology and our practical theology. Our practical theology is on display in the way that we live and interact with others. In our daily living we demonstrate what we truly believe rather than what we may simply assent to or think that we believe.
Beyond our theology, there are also three things that evangelism uniquely reveals. First, it reveals how we view man’s interaction with God. The way that we communicate the context and requirements of the gospel reveal how we practically believe that man and God relate. Secondly, it reveals how we view ourselves. In our interactions with others and the sharing of our “testimony,” we reveal in a great measure how we view ourselves in general, and in particular how we view ourselves before God. Thirdly, our evangelism reveals what we think about others. The way that we relate the gospel to others, or whether we relate it at all to others, shows how we view those who are presently dead in sin.
The Effects of the Law on our Gospel Presentation
As we have demonstrated, most believers have a decidedly Old Testament understanding to God’s law rather than the New Testament understanding that Jesus clearly laid out in the Sermon on the Mount. While many might dispute that point, the reality is that our methods of evangelism illustrate this disconnect perhaps better than any other place. Let’s examine a few characteristics of western evangelism that illustrate the great ignorance of the church with regard to the law.
To begin there is the issue that we have already covered which is that we know only how to apply the law to outward behavior, rather than to the inward motives of the heart. This brings several problems both to our gospel presentation and also to our own understanding of ourselves. For one, because we are so outwardly focused, we tend to be quite ignorant of our own inward depravity. The depravity, or wickedness, of man as it is inherited from Adam is one of those things that we might be able to check off on a theology quiz, but it is not a doctrine that we believe to the point that it affects the way we view ourselves and others.
Because we do not truly grasp our own inward depravity, we are at a loss to press the gospel upon another individual who appears to be relatively moral outwardly. We are at a loss for words when they fail to have an interest in a salvation that they do not see the need of. Why do they not see the need of salvation? Because we have largely presented them with an outward salvation over an inward one and this flows from the fact that we do not articulate the inner requirements of God’s law, only the outward requirements of a law that, once they are saved, we argue against lest we embrace “legalism” over grace.
Because we do not truly understand, or perhaps even believe, in the depravity of man, we are also tempted to justify wicked behavior in both ourselves and others. As we noted, the people we present the gospel to often have a level of moral conduct that is very similar to our own. When we try to present the need for Christ, we fail because we do not know how to properly convict the heart at the root of the issue. We struggle and stumble to present to an individual their great need of Christ because the reality is that we are not really convinced that the person is all that bad, mostly because we have not ever considered ourselves to be “that bad.”
In fact, from this lack of understanding of depravity has arisen various modes of comparison, such as “good person” compared with “bad person” and the idea that some sin is worse than others. True, some sin has more extensive effects in this age, but in the eternal age, all wickedness is evil. We fail to understand this because we fail to see unredeemed man, “good” or “bad” as essentially wicked. We fail to see them as essentially wicked, because we do not clearly see how the law of God cuts beyond behavior into the very essence of each thought and impulse of the heart. The proof of man’s wickedness lies not in what impulses he restrains and what impulses he allows, the proof of man’s wickedness is that fact that the evil impulse arises at all within his being. Continue Reading The Law – Part Three – Evangelism »
The Issue of Dispensational Thinking
December 2, 2008
My heart has been stirred lately on the issue of dispensationalism. Proponents of dispensationalism would argue that it has been taught in the Scriptures since the New Testament. For the sake of clarification, what we need to examine is more what we might call the effects of the dispensational theology that was initially formalized in the 19th century. Now many might wonder why it is significant to examine this issue. Others might point out that more recent dispensationalists seem to have moderated their position and perhaps corrected the errors of earlier dispensationalists. While that may be true, that is not the fundamental issue.
One of the crisises that may well be brewing in the church in America is that the average churchgoer has little appetite for theology. Now, lest you think I am promoting intellectually driven seminaries (some would call them “cemeteries”) or large, dusty books written by well educated men debating nuances of doctrine let me explain myself. Theology is simply the study of God. It is what we believe about God. Now, the core essence of God is perceived by the Spirit and transcends human understanding. It is important that we understand that, or we will be given to boxing God into human models of understanding. With that being said, God gave us a capacity to think and to know. This capacity is modeled after His capacity because we are made in His image and yet it is far beneath His capacity.
While this capacity must necessarily operate below the revelation of God’s Spirit to man’s spirit, it is still a vital part of our makeup. Because of this it is vitally important how and what we think about God. When we do not think rightly about God, it causes great loss to the believer and ultimately the church. We must become very jealous for the issue of theology. We must always be careful not to reduce God to diagrams and systems of theology that man can comprehend, and we must remain ever vigilant of a concept of God that is man derived and man comprehended. With those proper guardians watching over our heart, we must then make every effort to allow God to reveal Himself to us that we might think great thoughts about Him. We must also be ruthless in discerning and rejecting thoughts and ideas about God that are untrue. These ideas can taint the lens through which we view the world causing us to miss God’s revelation and fall into error.
Now with that being said, let me set a few caveats in place. Dispensationalism, like any other movement or doctrine, does exist across a wide spectrum. An examination of every particular flavor of it is certainly beyond the scope of a blog post, so let it suffice to say that we will examine specific effects of the results of dispensationalism thinking rather than examining every individual dispensational tenet. I am not attempting to paint all dispensationalists as heretics with a single broad stroke, but rather want to examine specific ideas that have been associated with or have come as a result of various streams of dispensational thought.
I also acknowledge up front that I am not an expert in dispensational theology, so theologians of that persuasion may have addressed some of the issues that I raise; however my primary concern over specific tenets of doctrine is the effect of this way of thinking on believers at large. So, again, I am dealing with the effects of ideas and ways of thinking over specific beliefs and have no desire to paint a broad stroke of “heresy” on anyone. In that spirit, just because we see some dangerous ideas, let us not label everyone from here on that uses the word “dispensation” as a heretic. Let’s continue in Christian love and charity contending for proper ideas and thoughts about God, but not allowing ourselves to execute improper judgment on individuals simply because of the use of a single word or phrase. With these warnings and caveats out of the way, let’s now examine the effects of dispensational thinking. Continue Reading The Issue of Dispensational Thinking »
Two Powerful Quotes
December 1, 2008
While working on a new post, I came across two powerful quotes I wanted to pass along. Both are worth some time and consideration. Thanks to Becky over at IHOP for posting these.
First from John Piper, Hunger for God, p. 14 -
The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of the triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.
The Second from Allen Hood, The Excellencies of Christ -
Satan the adversary, the ‘bringer of light,’ opposes the advances of the Gospel primarily through the realm of ideas and deception. The object of his deception and the subject matter of his deception is who? It is Jesus.
That is why for the first four-hundred years the Church fought vigorously for the Person of Christ, to the shedding of blood to the laying down of their life. There is a reason why they could not worship at the emperor’s altar. Beloved, if Jesus is just a good teacher, if He just shows you the way to God, then they can easily worship at the altar of the emperor. Yet hundreds and hundreds of thousands of believers year after year after year were led to the lions, were filleted alive, were skinned alive, were run through, were crucified upside down, were hung on crosses, they were burned and set on fire. Why?
Because He is not optional. He is the unique, supreme, revelation of the Living God. When you have Him you have it all. When you do not, you do not. Satan will oppose that revelation over everything, and he will do it through the most popular polished people on the globe. He does not mind feeding the poor. He minds the testimony of Jesus who is the only King who will return and set the poor truly free… [The testimony of Jesus Christ] is the subject matter that will enflame our hearts and set us on fire and make us fearless before the most powerful men and women of the earth.
Economic Crash Course
November 4, 2008
No doubt the economy is one of the biggest topics around right now. That being said, what is startling is how little the average American really knows about our economic system and how it really works. This was startlingly obvious recently when the bailout bills were being debated. The reality is that if the average citizen really understood what the nation was facing, they would be terrified. That terror would in turn lead them to alter their lifestyle and this lifestyle subsequently would even further negatively affect the system due to its inherent flaws. That leaves us with a system that is fatally flawed being run by power brokers who have a massive investment is maintaining the status quo for as long as possible. Tragically, this is terribly irresponsible. We are like those on the Titanic that are swaying to the music on the deck rather than saving those in the icy waters on the hope that we will be dead and gone before the ship sinks and forces us into the cold, icy waters. I believe our current refusal to deal with these issues is criminal with regard to what we are going to be leaving our children. Sadly, politicians and power brokers do not communicate the reality of things because they know they cannot get elected on that platform, and apparently no one has the leadership and character to stand up to the nation and tell us that we need to make some hard decisions and make some sacrifices or risk a certain catastrophe.
If nothing else, the year 2008 has shown the cracks in our economic foundations. Sure, many will tell us that it is patched, but it like applying a patch to the Titanic. We are still steadily taking on a lot of water. Do not believe that this is limited to Wall Street either because Wall Street and Main Street have become inseparably joined. If we are going to be leaders, as believers and as citizens we must educate ourselves about the risks our economy faces and the immense challenges that are coming. We must do this to prepare ourselves and our families. We must be wise and prepared for the days ahead. We do not prepare out of fear, but out of sobriety that we might be prepared when the financial system that has been built by the ingenuity and greed of man begins to collapse. How tragic it will be if believers are swallowed in the collapse rather than being lighthouses that can rescue their neighbors and demonstrate a life established on eternal realities!
With this in mind, I want to offer an excellent tool to educate yourself. Chris Martenson has put together a free video class that explains both how our economic system works and the challenges it faces in the years ahead. He is not alarmist, nor is it full of propaganda. He remains serious and let upbeat and stays very factual. He uses easy to understand language so that you can clearly understand what is going on. In fact, if you and your children understand his material, you will know more about economics than the vast amount of Americans and you will be well prepared for the days to come. His class is also broken up into short topics and videos (3-20 minutes in length) to make it easy to view a little each day and still grasp the material. For the sake of yourself and your family, please view this material and pass it along to other believers that we might be prepared for the days to come.
Here’s the link to his presentation:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crash-course/chapter-1-three-beliefs
Are you Jealous?
September 5, 2008
I have been deeply moved the last few days over the issue of Jealousy for the Lord and for His name. Are we truly jealous for the name “Jesus” and the demonstration that are attributed to His name? As the world continues to use that precious name as nothing more than an expletive and ministers use it for their own purposes, I wonder if we are truly jealous for His name or if we have slowly become desensitized to it all. Recently I have watched some videos of various ministers and ministries that have simply made my heart sick. The antics on stage, if not blasphemy, were probably as close as you can get and yet the crowd loved it. In all of this I wondered, where are those that are jealous for the Lord and for His name? As I noticed the crowd laughing and taking it all in, I wondered where are those jealous for the bride? I mean this is Jesus’ wife we are talking about and these men are making a spectacle of the Lord before His own bride and she is drinking it all in. In a dream I had recently there was both a deep anger and a deep weeping over things.
Something within is burning and asking the deep question, are we not jealous for Him? I understand there are differences in ministry styles, personalities, and giftings and we have to give grace to different members of the body, but I was observing things that were clearly demeaning to the Lord and His people and they were being opening attributed to the Lord and His Spirit. They were allowing the Lord, His name, and His Spirit to be demeaned and mocked by men claiming to be ministers. Where are those who will stand and separate the holy from the profance? Where is the holy jealousy that caused Jesus to overturn money tables?
As I considered this issue of jealousy, I began considering what a pure and holy jealousy really is. After all, many are “jealous for the Lord,” but what they often mean is that they are jealous for their ministries, or their own perception of how things should be. Often “jealousy for the Lord” is really the desire to criticise and tear down those you do not agree with. Seeing then as jealousy for the Lord is an urgent need in our time and, at the same time, there is much jealousy that is not truly jealousy for the Lord, how are we to discern the difference? Continue Reading Are you Jealous? »
A Solemn Prophetic Warning
June 5, 2008
The days we are living in are very serious. We must prepare for the days ahead. They will be days of great glory as God visits His pure church and days of great terror as judgment comes and evil increases. We must stay so very close to the Lord that we may endure and overcome (note Jesus’ message to each of the 7 churches at the beginning of revelation).
I recently came across this prophecy from Stanley Frodsham. Stanley was involved in the Pentecostal movement in the first part of this century. He knew Smith Wigglesworth who actually performed his wedding. I am not posting this in response to anything in particular, but just because I think it is incredibly valuable for us to heed this word and allow God to speak to us through it. It is truly preparation for the days ahead. This is very long for a blog post, but read on. It is worth it. Continue Reading A Solemn Prophetic Warning »
The Power of Faith
December 24, 2007
Faith is a significant issue in the Scriptures. We are told that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:16). We are told that faith is the door to access salvation and unlock the benefits thereof. Jesus is very clear that at His return He is going to be looking for faith on the earth (Luke 18:8). Paul exhorts us to walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). Throughout the Scriptures faith is very clearly presented as the thing that operates the Kingdom of God. We cannot be redeemed without it. We cannot please God without it. We cannot even access God without it.
Why is faith so important in God’s economy? Why does He put such an emphasis on it? In this age of materialism and science where we trust only what we can inspect and verify with our hands, faith seems to be a superstitious relic to a non-believer, and the believer often fails to grasp its significance and operation as well. To really understand faith, you must go back to the garden to an interchange between Eve and the serpent that literally changed human history forever. Continue Reading The Power of Faith »
Spirit of Abortion
November 8, 2007
The pro-life campaign 40 days for life just ended. It was 40 days of seriously considering the abortion issue before God. Early in the 40 days I was outside a local abortion clinic just quietly considering the issue of abortion in prayer. As I was considering the issue of physical abortion, immediately the issue of the spirit of abortion and how it permeates our society and our lifestyle came to me. It was as if the Lord was saying that the most critical thing was to consider the spirit of abortion in my own heart that I could then have power on the issue of physical abortion. When we think of abortion we tend to think primarily of the brutal, physical act of abortion in the womb. However, this physical act is only the most brutal demonstration of a principle that is found throughout our culture.
At the root of the issue of abortion is the issue of pleasure and the free pursuit of it with no accompanying responsibility and no pain. This pursuit of pleasure becomes intense enough that we are willing to sacrifice even ourselves and others in our pursuit of it. I fear that this root runs much more deeply in us, believers included, than we know. Take a minute and just consider a few of the ways this spirit has quietly permeated our lifestyles. Continue Reading Spirit of Abortion »
I am God’s Wheat
October 29, 2007
The issue of martyrdom is central to a vibrant Christianity. Tertullian famously said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” The reality is that the church is called to martyrdom. The Greek word “martus” that is used in the New Testament can be translated in the English to “martyr” or “witness” depending on the context. For example, in Acts 1:8, Jesus called His followers to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. The word for witnesses there is martus. We are called to be His martyrs. Whether or not we are forcibly killed for the gospel is actually a minor issue. Following Jesus requires an inward martyrdom from the word and it’s system. It requires a death to the ways of thinking and understanding that we were born with. In short, we must first be martyrs in our heart if we are to be true witnesses on the earth.
This concept is particularly difficult for western Christians. For one thing, the world is so appealing and comfortable that we find it difficult to root ourselves in an eternal reality. It is just too comfortable in this time and in this age. Secondly, western culture and the church have become intertwined in such a way that we sometimes assume our western culture is the equivalent of a Christian culture. While Christianity and Christian ideals have been a significant influence on western culture, we cannot consider western culture to be equivalent with a kingdom that Jesus clearly said was not of this world. Continue Reading I am God’s Wheat »
A Kingdom of Weakness
October 22, 2007
One thing is for certain. Jesus is coming and He is bringing His kingdom with Him. There is no doubt in my mind that this is at the top of God’s current agenda. While considering this, what causes me to tremble at times is to consider how radically different His kingdom is from our perception of what a kingdom should be. I think we often fail to realize that, in the limited demonstration we have of the kingdom, the kingdom is always disruptive. There is simply no way around that. It is a confrontational kingdom that confronts every other system and kingdom that has been, is, or ever will be. Yes, Jesus is coming with His kingdom, but His kingdom will not be an improvement an an existing structure, rather it will be a radical overthrow of everything that we have known up to this point.
What makes me tremble at times is to consider how confident we are in our understanding of the kingdom. Sometimes I think we almost have a chip on our shoulder as Christians expecting that Jesus is going to come at the last minute and vindicate our religious system collectively known as Christianity. In the midst of this I believe we fail to see that His kingdom is going to be completely disruptive, not only to the kingdom of the antichrist, but to the kingdoms that we live and participate in on a daily basis. Continue Reading A Kingdom of Weakness »