We know Jesus created the heavens and the earth by God’s command, as Genesis 1:1ff declared and John 1:3, Colossians 1:16 and Hebrews 1:2 affirm. For a simple reason. Genesis 1:2 says the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. Since the Spirit proceeds from the unity of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son Jesus. The Trinity is revealed in the first two verses of the first book of the Bible. Then affirmed by Jesus to the disciples before his death in John 14:8-14, 15:15-18 as an example and to them after his resurrection Matthew 28:18-20.
John 1:1 declares Jesus as the Word of God, by whom God speaks to the world, whether by prophets, priests, kings, judgments, prosperity, victory, defeat or in PERSON. In every appearance of himself through Christ, God revealed something dramatic about himself. Such as his Singularity, or his Sovereignty over all history, nations and enemies. Or as obedience to God always shares his victories, as David proved, or, as Pharoah demonstrated, rebellion against God always experiences his wrath, and does nothing to weaken his victories. This fact emboldens Christians now, as it encouraged faithful Bible heroes. Christians have more than our share of failures and disappointments. Even now we live in mortal bodies with high aspirations and low behavior; in societies world-wide of increasing depravity despite Gospel preaching reaching a minority of the unsaved. America has seen a disgusting plummet in Biblical values in a nation now turned into a potpourri of world faiths. Do not despair, Christians. Lift up your hearts. Raise your voices in Praise to God. For as he relied on his own will to confront enemies through Abraham, David and Nehemiah, he still relies on HIS OWN WILL to conquer satanic enemies against Christianity. We persevere in discipleship, produce the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives, witness to those who want to learn and even to those who don’t want to learn. But GOD wins the victory over all his enemies by the Son he sent to forgive believers, the Spirit he sent to each believer’s mind and heart, the message of Grace he sent to restore repentant sinners and of Wrath that destroys all who dare oppose God! What, then, “can the righteous do when the foundations are being destroyed?” Psalm 11:3. Psalm 11:1, 7 tell us. Persevere in discipleship. Do the best we can to serve Jesus. BUT TRUST in God, not our efforts. For he remains in Heaven, sovereign. He sees all that happens on earth, His will succeeds and misses nothing, no matter the opposition. The wicked are cast into Hell, no matter their strength. Amen
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After surviving the Titanic’s disaster and rescue by the Carpathia in the cold North Atlantic, the man sent his mother a one-word telegram below his name: SAVED!
The Judge in St. Louis, Missouri, banished the guilty verdict of Lamar Johnson and ordered him freed. He had spent nearly 30 years trying to prove his innocence of a murder conviction. San Diego U-T, 2/18/23. At least two spiritual lessons can be gleaned from this story. One is negative. If we’re judged guilty at God’s Great White Throne, Revelation 20:11-15, WE ARE GUILTY. God will never accuse us of sin we didn’t commit. And will never forget any we have. The “books” opened to our page reveal ALL we had done that we shouldn’t have. One is positive. If forgiven at that Judgment, only what God imputes to us is seen: FREED, FORGIVEN, JUSTIFIED, SAVED! Whatever word appears on our release from condemnation! Faith in Christ as Savior and Lord, fortified by the good works that God planned for us to do, Ephesians 2:10, IMPUTES righteousness to us; DECLARES us righteous. Christians will protest that we’re sinners, not righteous, all too often have been lax in our discipleship, having failed Jesus much more than succeeding as his servants. All true before God and acknowledged by us, but GOD nevertheless DECLARES us FREE from any penalty by his magnificent GRACE Jesus Christ’s MERIT allows us. He doesn’t merely excuse us, using us despite our shortcomings; his Grace so thoroughly changes us that it Transforms us into bodies LIKE his—so when God looks at us, he sees little Christ’s—and loves each as his own adopted child. If Christians listen carefully to God’s Spirit in the WORD, we’ll be exempt from the influence of many conflicting voices pedaling philosophies and pledging nostrums for society’s ills.
Point of fact then: the distinguishing factor in life isn’t the age in which we live. Christians in every generation, peace time or war time, economic booms or busts, this or that the rage, have listened to many sounds. But listening to God speak has always clarified for them:
Essential things always come from God and demand our attention. Listening to those truths, and personalizing them in our minds and lives, build Spirit-characteristics, makes us useful citizens now, preserves spiritual values in society and restricts Satan’s influence in culture. God is the ONLY ESSENTIAL in life if we want the above realized. Silencing God’s Voice in the church, or in daily life, hastens the growth of wickedness and guarantees the fall of whatever group fights God. Jesus Christ remains in our day what he has always been in any day: God’s WORD embodied in a man Colossians 2:2-3, 9. Therefore, insisting that Jesus be muzzled or silenced in society removes the ONE ESSENTIAL voice that puts:
Therefore, God in Christ:
Therefore, Christians, consider commitment to Jesus your SINGLE DUTY in life. Like Cortes burning his ships at Vera Cruz prior to marching on Teotihuacan; like Caesar crossing the Rubicon prior to marching to confront Pompey. Consider that you have crossed over from death to life and Jesus empowers you as his warriors to use every gift of the Spirit and every promise of God to successfully wage spiritual warfare in his name. Sursum Corda, Christians. The battle belongs to God. We need only a discipleship whose spiritual antenna quiver only when God speaks in his Word. For centuries Bible-believing Christians have agreed that God said what he meant and meant what he said. But now, in the latter 20th and 21st century religious revisionists have decided that God didn’t say what he meant and didn’t mean what he said.
But, only in regard to human sexuality. Interesting…we have no trouble understanding God’s Word on any subject, except human sexuality. And that opinion has become more pronounced in American society as the homosexual lobby has become more vociferous in demanding their lifestyle to be alternative, not deviant. We would logically think that the issue isn’t about what the Bible says, but about the human desire to live as they please sexually and be accepted as normal. Consider that the issue resolves itself over two factors: God’s Love and God’s Truth. Homosexuals, in pride-full denial of God’s SPOKEN Word, choose to divide and conquer God’s Love from God’s Truth. Which is impossible since they exist perfectly in an indivisible tandem. Each with a specific role. God’s Love relates to his nature. God’s Truth relates to what he wants humans to know, to believe, to live, to defend. Indeed, to return God’s love to him by obedience to his Word. Refusing to accept that obvious reality, since it disallows their lifestyle as an alternative, homosexuals want clear Bible teaching about sexuality to be opaque:
Keeping God’s Love and God’s Truth in perfect harmony, homosexuals can never say Christians who oppose homosexuality don’t express God’s love. That’s a satanic lie and the rhetoric from evangelical revisionists championing homosexuality arrogantly assert human ego over God’s Word. Indeed, we love God SO MUCH we resist, denounce and correct those who demand the right to revise God’s Word out of existence in favor of their perverted opinions. They cannot claim intimacy with God’s Presence when their lifestyle distances them from God’s Word. For his Presence and his Word also share an indivisible togetherness. Fini We discover God’s MIGHTY VOICE when we listen to him speak in his Word. No other literature has his imprimatur on it. And it’s true, whatever other writings exist, even if they’re religious.
However, as a nation, like an ocean liner, continues to move along some time after her engines have quit running and her propellers have stopped turning, any number of spiritual controversies continue to exist long after God has eliminated any reason for their existence. Except that they remain alive by adherents and proponents refusing to face the fact that God has declared their favorite lifestyle a sin he will never accept and will definitely punish. You read the lists in Mark 7:20-23, I Corinthians 5:11, Galatians 5:19-21, Colossians 3:5-10. And especially I Corinthians 6:9-10, including homosexual offenders, though Satan never stops inspiring their defenders by suggesting, “Did God really say it was wrong?” End Part II Sounds galore exist everywhere. Consider:
Through it all, in a voice distinct from, and louder than all the rest, GOD calls humanity through his Word. Obviously, we need to know the value of voices to us, which:
In Luke 9:57-62 Jesus had conversations about discipleship with three men. Consider only 59-60 for this blog. The man wanted to follow Jesus, but put his customary family responsibilities first. Followed by Christ’s famous “Let the dead bury their own dead, you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Meaning, that Jesus:
Environmentalists despairingly wring their hands over what in creation is suddenly in short supply or vanishing. We have learned through repeated bitter failures that we can’t trust ourselves. Frantically searching for what seems more permanent, culture focuses finally on creation—believing the old American Indian myth that the “mountains, rivers and plains go on forever.” Which we now find has not been true, is not true, has never been true and is now more than ever close to annihilation.
Evidence keeps growing. Whether it’s the 36 million trees dying yearly in California by bug infestation, drought or disease. Or the loss of snow in the Alps or cross-country Austria trails. Or floods in Australia and Europe. Or plastic accumulation or sea floors world-wide. Or the threat of extinction of 34% of plant species and 40% of animal species. Or the avian flu that has re-configured itself into other animal species. Or the wild fires of the American West. Or the burning of Amazonian trees creating warmth that melts glaciers. San Diego U-T, 1/8, 2/8, 2/13, 2/23. And…a never studied-problem endangering global life: jet contrails forming their own clouds in the sky. But no one mentions the multiple tons of fuel poured into the atmosphere every single day by airliners. It may be TOO BIG a business for environmentalists to attack. After all, that’s how they jet around the world to study environmental abuse. In the first place, however, why would humans, made in God’s Image, and expected to seek him for answers, instead put their hope in creation? Which, while more permanent than we, will not go on forever. Indeed, while lovers of nature insist it be preserved, creation itself longs for Christ’s return Romans 8:19, 22. Though it brings the incineration of itself. II Peter 3:10, 12 then assures us…once the fires have achieved their purpose, and earth remains but an empty sphere, God’s creative handiwork fashions a new, eternal earth surrounded by a new, eternal atmosphere. Consider, then, that creation, in its present fallen condition, with all its problems, shortages and extinctions, MAY BE warning us that Christ’s Return is closer than Christians think and far more certain than environmentalists desire. God constituted creation to provide humanity with what he promised in Genesis 8:22. Therefore, could creation be warning us that OUR time—human history—is coming to an end, and we better be preparing to meet OUR GOD? Horatio Alger, Jr., authored Luck and Pluck, one of an excess of 100 novels. In each he encouraged clean-living and perseverance as the means of success when choosing a career. His personal life featured neither virtue. His pleasure-driven habits left him penniless at the end. Life History of U.S, Vol. 7, p. 134 (side-bar)
A fault never necessary or inevitable in Christ’s disciples. We CAN say one thing while living another, but our laziness or inattention will be to blame, ignoring the inherent harmony our spiritual DNA provides. As Luther’s stirring lyrics in Ein Feste Burg ist our Gott declare:
We can fail, but:
This has a powerful connection to the person:
He can blame only himself, not:
Old Simeon anticipated that individual when:
Therefore, Christians point:
Christian, WE continue to be the:
Nevertheless, WE’RE still the good guys in the White Hats compared to the unforgiven Black-Hat sinners. Massive fraud in the Federal government’s free money campaign during the Covid epidemic reflects every occasion when government opened its treasury to the public. The 19th century saw repeated Federal programs plundered by fraud: the Homestead Act in 1862; the Desert Land Act in 1877; the Timber and Stone Act in 1878; the Morrill Land Grant Act in 1862. Life History of the U.S., Vol. 7, p. 58. Greed, a sin overlooked in preaching today, has always existed in humanity, with no Bible believer exempt from the temptation to profit from well-meaning governments.
How does Jesus keep Christians from committing spiritual fraud? And don’t be deceived into thinking we can’t do that because we wouldn’t want to. We can do that, are often guilty of it, by the simple fact of taking our forgiveness for granted while not taking our discipleship seriously. Whenever we take the cup in communion, we can so aggressively celebrate Christ’s forgiveness—worshipping a dead Jesus—that we neglect the meaning of the loaf—the demands of the Risen Christ in our forgiven self! As if it doesn’t matter what occupation we have, or what morals we practice, or what speech we use, or how often we attend public worship…et al, et al. Any Christian taking both cup and bread in communion MUST accept as NECESSARILY EQUAL both Christ’s Lordship and Saviorhood! In Matthew 7:21-27 Jesus anticipated the problem of a professed discipleship bereft of our personal embodiment of it. He knew how easily we could claim him as Lord, while depending on our own efforts to be his disciples. After all, he hears his name spoken millions of times a day, many of them by professed Christians—but in vain profanity! “Father in Heaven, save us from being fraudulent disciples, who praise you, honor you and appreciate you, but lack the obedience that proved the Master’s perfection and characterizes our growing spiritual maturity.” If denominational leaders don’t follow the Bible’s directives against homosexuality, what is the next sin its devotees want legalized, protected and accepted? Take your pick of the lists in Mark 7:20-23, Romans 1:29-32, I Corinthians 5:9-11, Galatians 5:19-21, Colossians 3:5-10 and Titus 3:3, 9-11—and they don’t exhaust the behaviors God will not tolerate in his people.
However, everyone committed to them without repentance don’t want to hear them proscribed. So where will the three denominations listed draw a line not to be crossed by their members on the threat of punishment from God? Rest assured, friends, God condemns all sin whenever practiced without repentance. As he forgives all sin admitted by his people when repented. But to sin and call it virtue simply because we insist it IS, piles one sin on another in our lives. Church leaders must take their choice: either lose their soul as well as their service by letting people, not God, determine what’s acceptable behavior; OR, please God by remaining faithful to Bible teaching, however much their members object! One fact is certain: the Church, and its Christians, alone exist in society as the organism authorized and deputized to both KNOW and FAITHFULLY preach Christ’s everlasting Gospel. And…unless we remain faithful to that purpose, we have abandoned our reason to exist. For as merely a social group, we have nothing to offer society that other organizations don’t already, and do a better job of it. The stark reality facing church leaders: either be faithful to God’s WORD, or lack the reason for our existence, leaving humanity without a Standard of truth and behavior, with each person his own deity. Be assured, that’s the condition God drowned in water Genesis 6-7. Do we want him next to incinerate us? II Peter 3:10. Fini |
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