Saturday, January 17, 2009

I’m Only Going to Say This Once

Mark 1:21-26

Most fathers have the ability to elicit response from their children simply by changing their tone of voice. Apparently, they also experience great pain when they have to repeat themselves, as I often heard my father say, “Son, I’m only going to say this once”. As a father, I have found myself using that phrase as well, and not because it hurts to talk, but because I expect results.
The reason that our fathers used that phrase was that it was an exercise in authority. By stating it once, and phrasing that he wasn’t going to say it again, the father is showing his position as the head. What he says should be heeded to, and that in a hurry.

Jesus encountered a centurion, whose servant was at home sick. The man asked for Jesus to heal the servant, and when Jesus made to go to the house, the centurion stated that he was not worthy for Jesus to come under his roof. If Jesus could but speak the word, he said, his servant would be healed, and then he said, “For I also am a man set under authority” (Luke 7:8). The word “also” is most telling, because it is the centurion’s way of revealing to all who would hear that he knew that Jesus was not only able to give orders but also able to take them from His heavenly father. This man knew the chain of command.

Someone else that knows the chain of command is the forces of darkness. They were aware of who Jesus was from the beginning, though the Pharisees would never see it. When Jesus arrives in Capernaum in our text, they cry out, “Leave us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24). They knew that He was the Holy One of God. They recognized His authority.

When he spoke to the demon possessed man in verse 25, His words are simple and few, and are directed at the demons themselves. “Hold thy peace, and come out of him,” he says. Two commands are mixed into one sentence: Stop making noise, and get out of the man. However, verse 26 tells us that they ignore both commands! They tear him and cry with a loud voice before finally coming out of him.

Jesus has spoken His victory, bought and paid for into your life, and there is no force of darkness that can stop it. “But Pastor Paul, I am still struggling with the same old sin that I thought I was over”, you might be saying. Don’t despair my friend. Jesus spoke and the demon kicked, but he did come out. Jesus has done the work and you may be seeing the manifestation of Satan attacking you, trying to convince you that you are not saved, but don’t worry, it is just his last gasp. Christ has spoken, and He is only going to say this once. He need not die again, Calvary was His statement against your problems (Hebrews 10:10).

This that you are learning about your position in Christ is going to be so amazing, so stunning and so different that people are going to say of you what they did of Jesus in this passage, “What thing is this? What new doctrine is this?” (Verse 27). It is no new doctrine; it is the doctrine of Christ and His finished work. When He says “it is finished”, you can rest assured, regardless of the symptoms or the circumstances, “IT IS FINISHED”!

Friday, January 16, 2009

Know That You Are God’s Beloved

Matthew 3:17-4:1

Satan’s attacks against your place as a member of God’s family, is not unique. He attacked Jesus in the same way in the wilderness. God had just spoken from heaven, with Jesus standing in the Jordan River, and the Spirit, like a dove, descended on Him. The proclamation that God made was the stamp of approval on all of the years that Jesus had lived in quiet, and it was the ammunition that Jesus would need to face the wilderness, the world and the cross. The knowledge that He was the “beloved Son” would guard him against everything.

The enemy went after Jesus’ place as Son, immediately, tempting Him to turn the stones to bread, “If thou be the Son of God” (Matthew 4:3). When that didn’t work, he tried it again, telling Jesus to cast himself off of the cliff, so that angels would catch him, “If thou be the Son of God” (verse 6). Again, Jesus overcame.

Finally, Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world, if Jesus will bow down and worship him. While Satan makes no overt reference to the son ship of Jesus here, he knows that no Son of the Creator of the universe will bow down to get what is rightfully His, so this, as well, is an attack on the Son. As you know, Jesus does not bow.

While these are important temptations to study, it is even more important to emphasize not only what Satan said, but what he did not say. God said that Jesus was His, “beloved Son”. The word “beloved” shows us that Jesus was not only Son by rights but He was greatly blessed and highly favored of His Father. Satan drops “beloved” because it is one thing to question the son ship, but he wants to take no chance in reminding Jesus that He is beloved. It may be left out of the conversation, but it is deep within Jesus’ heart.

There is great power in the believer knowing just how loved that they are. The church culture often chides Christians for not loving the Lord enough, saying “you should love the Lord more”, and they point to doing things to show that love. No one can love the Lord more by simply trying to. Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord with “all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength…” (Mark 12:30). Honestly, do you love God that way? The truth is “No”, we do not love Him like this, at least not every moment of the day, but He does love us that way. The Law tells us to do it, but doesn’t show us how. God’s grace shows us how:

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins…We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10, 19).

Know that you are God’s beloved and you too will overcome the temptations of the enemy. Know that you are God’s beloved, and you will walk in His goodness and kindness. Know that you are God’s beloved my friend, and that He is well pleased, not because of you, but because of Jesus who has delivered you!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

His Light on My Perfection

Ezra 2:61-63

Most of the nation of Israel stayed behind in Babylonia by choice, with a small remnant coming back into Israel when they were released. This remnant retained a heart for God, and their priest Ezra restored the law and ritual.

The second chapter of Ezra records those returning remnants, listing first the people that returned, then the priests, the Levites, and the descendants of Solomon’s servants, followed by a list of priests whose pedigrees were lost. The take-over by the Babylonians had caused much confusion with the records of Israel, and there were several men who claimed to be priests but they were unable to prove their heritage by genealogy. Because they couldn’t prove who they were, they were, “as polluted, put from the priesthood” (verse 62).

Babylon had a foreign governor that ruled over that portion of Israel called, the Tirshatha. He ordered them to abstain from the unleavened bread and the sacrificial meat, which belonged to the priests, until someone could judge them with the Urim and the Thummim. These two stones date all the way back to Exodus 28, when God ordered the high priest to wear them in a pouch near his heart, under his priestly garments. They were often used in order to ascertain the will of God. Other than this, we know nothing about them, other than what their names mean in Hebrew. Urim is translated “lights” and Thummim is rendered “perfection”.

The light was needed to shine on their pedigree, to prove to everyone that these men were who they claimed to be. Only a priest could use Urim and Thummim, and God spoke through these stones. The Bible does not record the result of their usage in this case, but I think that it is safe to say that if they were found to be liars, we would have heard of such. Obviously, the light shined on their perfection, revealing them to be heirs of the priesthood.

Satan spends every possible moment that he can trying to cause the believer to doubt who they are in Christ. He will mock you, condemn you, torment you and cause you to believe that you are less than the Word promises that you are. You need your High Priest Jesus to shine His light onto the perfection that He has given.

It is my job, as a gospel preacher to shine a light on your perfect place in Christ. What a great job I have! Paul said that you are complete in Christ (Colossian 2:10), you are the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21) and that you have been perfected forever because of sanctification (Hebrews 10:14). Let those words encourage your soul, and use them as a defense against the accuser who will try to get you to question your place in Christ. Feel no need today to prove your son ship to the enemy. You are what the Bible says that you are, no longer a servant, but a son (Galatians 4:7).

May the God of peace shine His heavenly light of love into your soul, revealing the perfection of Jesus. As He is, so are you in this world (1 John 4:17).

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

As If the Cross Never Happened

2 Chronicles 7:14

This response of God to Solomon seems to be one of the most frequently quoted promises of God in the Old Testament. I have seen entire revivals and camp meetings make this verse their theme. I have heard sermons on it by preachers of all types of denominations and styles. It would appear as if this one verse is widely regarded as the single most important verse in the entirety of God’s Word as it relates to how God moves among the church.
This conclusion is entirely wrong!

2 Chronicles 7:14 is God’s response to His own statement of verse 13. In that verse He says: “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people…” (2 Chronicles 7:13, 14). Verse thirteen ends with a semi-colon, and verse 14 is a continuation. God is saying that if He sends something as judgment, then the only way for it to be taken off is if the people humble themselves, beg Him and turn from their wickedness. Only then will He even hear them, and then He will forgive them and heal them. These are the actions of a God that is angry with sin and rebellion. These are the actions of an Old Covenant God.

What if we were to emphasize another promise of God in the Old Testament with as much fervor as we do this one? How about Isaiah 54:7-10? “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.”

This promise is God saying that because of Isaiah 53, where it pleased the Lord to bruise Jesus and God was “satisfied” with the death of His Son (verses 10, 11), He will no longer be angry with us! He was angry with Jesus, so that we could be blessed. God takes this so serious that He views the cross as He does the promise to Noah. Never again will he flood the earth, and never again will He judge you for sin.

Some are preaching the Old Testament as if the cross never happened. They teach that God curses Christians when they sin or when they skip church or don’t read their Bibles or don’t put tithes in the offering. God has certainly dealt with mankind in this manner before, but Jesus came and placed Himself under the curse, for us, so that we would not be cursed (Galatians 3:13), and that Abraham’s blessings of promise could come upon the whole world through Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:14).

Saint, rest in the assurance that God will never be angry with you again. You are His child and He cares for you. This does not mean that He will not discipline you and train you, but His blessings are not waiting on your humility and your turning. Your humility is why you are saved in the first place. It was that humility that brought grace into your heart. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

(Need more on this subject? Contact the ministry and request Pastor Paul’s sermon by the same title, “As If the Cross Never Happened”.)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The Case of the Missing Story

1 Chronicles 20:1

Chronicles is a retelling of the story of Israel and Judah. Most of what you read in these two books is first found in the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings. The stories are not in chronological order in every case and the Chronicles gives more details in many areas.

This is why 1 Chronicles 20:1 is so odd. It is first told in 2 Samuel 11:1. As a matter of fact, the wording in both books is close to identical, with Samuel’s version ending with “David tarried still at Jerusalem”, which Chronicles tells you as well. However, in Chronicles, the next sentence has Joab smiting Rabbah and destroying it, with verse 2 telling us that David took the crown off of the king’s head and put it on his own. In Samuel, these events do not happen until 2 Samuel 12:26, nearly two chapters later! Why the big gap? What happens in chapter 11 and 12 that the Holy Spirit does not deem necessary to repeat in the retelling of Chronicles?

The 11th chapter of 2 Samuel is one of the saddest in the Bible. It records the lust filled David, taking Bathsheba as his own and then conspiring to murder her husband. He then goes nearly a year with this cover-up unknown to anyone but the two of them, before God sends the prophet Nathan to show him his sin. David appeals to God in Psalm 51, asking for forgiveness and mercy without sacrifice. Nothing but faith in a coming redeemer could have taught David that someday salvation would be available by faith alone, without lambs dying. David seeks God’s grace, nearly 1000 years before the cross and God gives it, telling David, “Thou shalt not die” (2 Samuel 12:13).

David writes of this kind of grace in Psalm 32, when he makes a statement that Paul would quote in his great epistle to Romans: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:7, 8).

Then Paul writes this: “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Because of the finished work of Calvary, God does not impute sin to us anymore! We are guilty of our own version of David and Bathsheba. We have done things that we are not proud of and that we hope will never be found out nor repeated. Praise God that in the retelling of your life’s story, God will remove all of those moments, and make the story sound as if they never happened. We are “justified by faith” (Romans 5:1), which means that it is just as if we’d never sinned. Our sins are not counted against us, and there are many “missing stories” in all of our lives.

Thank God for Jesus and His glorious finished work at Calvary. Because He died I have been reconciled to God, with all of my old stories vanishing from the retelling. Because He lives, I now live also. Today let Him live that life through you. Go in grace.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Nehushtan: A Thing of Brass

2 Kings 18:1-4

In the 21st chapter of Numbers, Israel was plagued by venomous snakes biting and killing thousands. God ordered Moses to make a brazen serpent and put it on a pole and all who were bitten could look upon it and be healed. This was a type of Christ, crucified and lifted up, in the form of a curse, brazen by the fiery judgment of God; all who look to Him will be saved.

Seven hundred years have passed by the time that we arrive at 2 Kings 18, and we find that Israel is still burning incense to this brass serpent (verse 4). Newly crowned king, Hezekiah breaks it into pieces, calling it Nehushtan, which means “thing of brass” in Hebrew.

What God had intended for healing and deliverance they had turned into an object of worship, forgetting that it was only a “thing of brass”. It took God’s chosen king to bring them back to the knowledge that there is no object that is to be worshipped and revered. There is no hope for the believer in hanging a picture of Jesus or wearing a cross around their neck. These are objects that are neutral within themselves, but if perspective is lost, they become a Nehushtan that should be avoided.

There are many wonderful things that we do in our church services that we all identify with as being special. They represent great and mighty things, but we must never be more in love with the formula of doing them than we are with the Jesus that they are about. Some have made a Nehushtan out of water baptism, the sacraments, their denomination, the Pentecostal experience, the church building, the preacher and even their favorite style of praise and worship. These are representatives or means to an end. Let’s worship Him, not His stuff!

There was never any power in the brass serpent, but it brought them back to the government of God, where man would look to a redeemer by faith. The fact that they had kept it around for 7 centuries teaches us some things that are similar to today’s church: They had lost consciousness of why they looked to the serpent. Some have forgotten that Christianity is all about Jesus, not them.

The presence of the serpent also shows that they were still hungry for God. People may not be going to church for all of the right reasons, but they are going, and that shows that many still hunger for God to be relevant in their everyday life.

Examine your life today, and be sure that there are no Nehushtans. These things do not take away your salvation, for nothing can do that, but they do impede your walk with your Savior, taking your focus off of Him and His finished work and placing it on an object that will someday pass away.

Open the gift of righteousness that Calvary has afforded you today, and let goodness and mercy hunt you down!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Worshipper Is Wise

1 Kings 4:29-31

When young Solomon sought God for wisdom, he did not request riches and fame for himself. He felt that as king of a great nation, he needed wisdom to govern; understanding to relate to people and their needs; and largeness of heart to show the compassion befitting a man of God. God granted him all of these things, and the riches and fame to boot.

When the author of 1 Kings relates to us the wisdom of King Solomon, he tells us that Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the children of the east country, of which the wise men would come at the birth of Christ, bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh. He was even wiser than all of those in Egypt, who were world renowned for their intellect in all things, including architecture and science.

More telling than his comparison to the wise men of the east or to the intellectual giants of Egypt is the author’s comparison of Solomon to the characters in verse 31 of chapter 29. It tells us that he was “wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations round about”.

Who are these wise men that are named by the Holy Spirit? What made them so wise? Notice their occupations: Ethan the Ezrahite was the author of Psalm 89, which spoke of the arrival of the Holy One; Heman was the author of Psalm 88, “O Lord God of my salvation”, and the choir director under King David; Mahol is the father of three of these men named, and his name means “dancer” in the Hebrew. Two of these men are song writers, one of them a choir director and a third one, a dancer. Solomon’s wisdom is being compared to worshippers! God viewed those who wrote of His greatness and glory and danced before Him as the wisest men in the world before Solomon.

When the believer worships the Lord, they do it, “in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (John 4:23). Jesus takes the worship away from an object and a formula and makes it personal, coming from the heart of man. No worship is proper worship that does not have at its core, the truth, which is Jesus. He is the truth, so to lift up Him and His finished work is to worship in truth, and that is to worship in wisdom.

God viewed the wisest people in the world as those who sang and danced of His goodness. You and I as believers can worship Him for His goodness every moment of every day, in our hearts. True wisdom is found in true worship. Do you have a pressing need today? Worship Him, and watch wisdom flow in your heart of understanding.

Be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove today. Remove an unholy fear of God and replace it, like Jesus did in the wilderness, with worship. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:8). Go in grace and favor!