God himself twice offered his people the right to TEST him: in Isaiah 7:10-14 when threatened with danger they feared; in Malachi 3:8-12 when they robbed God by refusing to tithe. Note: while on multiple other occasions the unsaved have unsuccessfully tried to Test God, only on those two occasions did he allow it.
God’s very approval of Jesus imposed a time of testing at the beginning of his public ministry Matthew 4:1-11. While the Father’s praise of Jesus there exceeded any he offered anyone else EVER, he never had less to say about him as his ministry progressed. He did have MORE, and MUCH MORE to say. So much more that, in 3 ½ years, Jesus worked in perfect obedience to God’s will. Read John 5:16-30, 36-47, 6:25-40, 7:37-39, 8:21-30, 48-59—splendid passages of many equally splendid expressing that truth. So much more that, when mockers demanded Christ’s exit from the Cross to prove himself the Son of God, God let him STAY there till he died because HE WAS the Son of God, the only person in history worthy to die as our substitute. And Jesus STAYED there till he died to prove that his death for human sin wasn’t too great a price to pay to perfect his LOVE for God and mankind. Which brings to mind the Master’s Gethsemane experience. Which is so sacred we have no right to approach, let alone the privilege of taking off our shoes and sharing it. For he alone, God the Son, struggled through groans and tears and drops of blood to retain his Perfect love for God the Father…AND…by struggling…ACHIEVED! We have no spiritual capacity to ever understand Christ’s devotion to God, let alone how he experienced it in the Garden. For God has never, for a moment, meant to us what he meant to Jesus forever and ever. We can only stand afar off and WONDER at such LOVE, then turn away, ashamed of our infinitely lesser love for both. End Part II
0 Comments
God first offered Jesus an encomium SOLELY HIS in history: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” He then immediately ordered Jesus, under compulsion from the Holy Spirit, “into the desert to be tempted/tested by the devil” Matthew 3:17, 4:1.
From this we learn the following truths. One what would prove a temptation to others, including Lucifer in time before time, Isaiah 14:12-15, II Peter 2:4, Jude 6, and to Eve in historic time, Genesis 3:4-5, proved only a TEST to Jesus in the wilderness. Two, Jesus had his Divine Sonship verified in his Baptism, and revealed only to John the Baptist John 1:29-34. Three, fully aware of his ROLE as God’s Son, he began his ministry with a perfect obedience to God never surrendered throughout the following 3 ½ years. Which shouldn’t surprise us since he had been perfectly obedient to his Father TO THE DAY baptized at age 30. Four, since God ordered TESTING for Jesus AFTER his tribute to Jesus, we understand that God made “the author of [our] salvation perfect through suffering” Hebrews 2:10. Why, then, would we think, want, desire or expect only BLESSINGS after our baptism? Or as the Sole possession of our Christian experience? When was the last time God said of us, “with you I am well pleased?” When was the first time? Having experienced punishment for seeking a privilege denied all created things, and only known and understood within the Godhead—God’s eternality—Lucifer went to the Hell created by God for him and his angels Matthew 25:41. However, content only when deceiving, harming or disrupting God’s mortals, Satan insinuated God’s fear that Eve would become “like God”, knowing good and evil when eating the forbidden fruit Genesis 3:4-5. An easy-to-pass test for our common parents. Wanting, but never having, equality with God, Satan suggested Eve could become like God by disobeying God. How she could receive a blessing by disobeying God Satan didn’t bother to explain. Nor did Eve bother to ask, SAP that she was by thinking WISDOM came from disobeying God when he clearly said it came through OBEDIENCE to him Genesis 2:15-17. Proverbs 2:6, 9-10 have the correct nexus: for knowledge to be pleasant, useful and productive, we must accept God as it source. To this day, we’ve discovered that educating unconverted minds produces only educated heathens, who mistake their knowledge for God’s wisdom. The very condition pervading American education and culture! End Part I Sunday morning, 2 September, 1945, Tokyo Bay, aboard the battleship USS Missouri. The historic occasion formally finalized the surrender of the Japanese empire to her Allied opponents, represented by a hundred plus Allied generals and Admirals in attendance.
The ship’s 3,000 man crew positioned themselves atop her 16-inch gun turrets to watch. Eleven Japanese men walked the gangway to the ship’s deck, the civilians formally-dressed, the military shabbily—symbolizing their failure in war. Across the surrender table stood men in their national military uniforms—symbolizing the crushing power of Allied armies. After Japanese civilian and military representatives signed the surrender document, MacArthur signed for the Allies, using three pens. The first he gave to General Wainwright, American commander who surrendered troops in the Philippines March, 1942. The second he gave to British General Percival, who surrendered Singapore in February, 1942. The third he stuck in his pocket as a gift to wife Jean. After he announced, “These proceedings are closed,” MacArthur walked towards Halsey’s cabin. On the way he put his arm on the Admiral’s shoulders and asked, “Bill, where the hell are those airplanes?” WWII History, pp 24, 72, August 2020. And almost immediately knew. For, from far away, and still-out-of-site, all aboard heard rumbling like distant thunder marching directly towards Tokyo Bay. Soon, spread across the sky an armada of 1900 carrier-based bombers and fighters became THUNDER itself, their advance an explosion of concatenated air power, flinging cascades of ear-deafening roars ahead and continuous ear-splitting claps above as they swept overhead into the distance beyond. For the victors, KNOCK-OUT Conquest. For the defeated, KNOCKED-OUT collapse. All this is a poor physical demonstration of the very powerful spiritual dynamic every believer has in worship. And a poorer example still of every new revelation God gives of himself when he gathers his people around THE throne—each in a new body and brain—and delights and surprises and exalts them with one glory after another. Forever and ever continued, one mouth-gasping ecstasy interrupted only to show a greater ecstasy that only our new brain and body can appreciate and understand. Amen. Fini. I preached in yesterday’s message, March 7, 2021, what could possibly have caused Lucifer’s banishment from heaven. Will send a copy to anyone requesting it. After writing it up for the message, it occurred to me that LEARNING something we didn’t know about GOD embodies our constant experience in Heaven. With all physical needs absent, and all fleshly desires non-existent, our sole desire will be to KNOW GOD as he revealed himself in Christ Ephesians 2:6-7. We will then perfectly fulfill the hunger and thirst for God each disciple should now have as the focus of life Matthew 5:6.
When our curriculum is GOD in CHRIST ONLY, ALONE, SOLELY and COMPLETELY, we shall begin an understanding of ourselves denied us now by keeping ourselves first Colossians 3:1-4. Get the priority of self-denial in life now as the pre-requisite to self being a fit vessel to fathoming Christ then. (Which emphasizes that all secrets about God but one will be open to discovery—the secret Lucifer may have coveted, and coveting, lost everything.) Perfected, glorified mortals shall have that experience—not angels, though higher than we now, for they aren’t subject to our coming glory. Which leads to the thought of this blog. Sometimes…if not often…our greatest learning experience in worshipping God comes by being filled with WONDER. No understanding necessary. No explanation possible. No communication in evidence. Simply the human spirit communing with God’s Holy Spirit—akin to what can happen in prayer Romans 8:26-27. Even now, in our limited spiritual capacity, we have those experiences with Christ beyond words or interpretation. And when God clothes our mortality with immortality, words equal to the experiences ARE the rule that has no exceptions I Corinthians 15:35-58. An event on Sunday, September 2, 1945 illustrates. End Part I In a broken culture Christians can evoke requests from unbelievers by living peacefully in uncertain, confidently in stressful and hopefully in final times. Christ’s peace guards our hearts and minds in the first Philippians 4:6-7; Christ’s prayer keeps us faithful to God in the second Mark 14:32-42; and Christ’s resurrection empowers our assurance in the third Philippians 1:20-21, II Corinthians 4:16-5:10, Hebrews 2:14-15.
Opportunities to witness, then evangelize, abound. When a birth or death occurs. When a move is contemplated or completed. When a person expresses faith in God, doubt about God, or questions relating to God, Christ or the church. When employment is gained, lost or needed. When marriage or divorce occurs. When a true or false statement about God or Christ is heard. And on and on. Roy Weece was the only man I’ve known who could begin a conversation about Jesus with a perfect stranger when standing in a line at a cash register. Roscoe Maguire is the only man I’ve know who can walk up to a perfect stranger and begin a joke that gets and keeps attention and draws laughter when finished. We may lack Roy and Roscoe’s spontaneity in witnessing about Jesus, or telling a joke, but we have no fewer opportunities than they in doing so. What we lack is the initiative to begin what the Holy Spirit can carry forward to HIS satisfaction. Consider Blair’s suggestion to develop a spiritual 30-second opening statement: when the weather is nice or stormy; when a crisis or prosperity occurs in the country; when the sun warms or cold freezes. For example, “I’m glad Jesus is my Savior and Lord…because…. Consider that Blair has in mind helping a person find work, but Christians want the lost to know how to be forgiven, how to love God as a Father, Jesus as a Lord and the Holy Spirit as our Life Companion. Would we want to share Blair’s frustration in failing to help a man find work KNOWING we failed to help someone live eternally in God’s Presence? NOTE. This writer has a 3-part lesson that gives interested Christians a simple tool that turns witnessing into evangelism. You memorize nothing. You simply read with the prospect messages that stress a single point of scripture: only those whose sins are forgiven by Jesus enter God’s presence. Yours for the asking. My privilege to send it to you in the hope that you succeed in seizing an opportunity to turn a witnessing event into an evangelistic conversation. God bless! Fini I read two of Wilbur Smith’s books—both excellent. Therefore Stand, an apologetics work, the other Biblical Doctrine of Heaven. An exceptional journalistic witness of Jesus, he proved equally incapable of a verbal witness. The man who could answer nearly any question asked about Jesus, and would write it eloquently, found himself tongue-tied when face-to-face with people. But Bro. Smith had the consolation of knowing that, in the gift God gave him, he excelled.
When we don’t verbally evangelize for Jesus, what consolation can we offer as our substitute? More often than not, we offer “witnessing”. That confuses witnessing and evangelism. Christians offer many witnesses to lost loved ones. A Christian couple in our Oceanside Bible Study had a burden for an unsaved couple. He hoped his and wife Helen’s example would elicit an opportunity to evangelize. Which is the import of I Peter 3:15. Christians should be so convincingly influenced by Christ that their very attitudes, language and demeanor attracts questions from the unforgiven. And from some it does. But, in the lives of some who have no interest in a Christian’s superior attitude, behavior and language, it doesn’t. They have grown so content with life in situ, they don’t bother seeing the contrast in the Christian; they need evangelism; and evangelism needs words that teach. The apostle Paul offered a witness on Malta. He participated when all who could found wood for the fire that warmed them after their swim ashore. Grabbing a bundle of sticks, he also gathered a poisonous serpent, which revenged its disturbance by biting the first flesh it found. When the apostle didn’t fall over dead, the Islanders (and likely the passengers) stared in wonder. Yet, Paul’s experience simple reflected the safety in danger all his first-generation apostles experienced Mark 16:15-18. What followed that witness came an invitation to other witnessing by the apostle Acts 28:7-10. Which led to many favorable impressions for Paul to evangelize. Since we extrapolate from what he could have done on Malta from what we know he did in Rome, Paul verbalized his witness. He word-of-mouth evangelized, explaining what the miracle meant, what the safety of their journey meant, when the message of Christ he brought meant to the Islanders. If Paul’s verbal preaching of Jesus in Rome reached throughout Nero’s “whole palace guard,” Philippians 1:13, we can be sure it would have reached throughout Malta in the three months they remained there Acts 28:11. End Part III In the finale, how Christians can evangelize, not merely witness. Virg One of at least three responses exist to Christian discipleship: Culture, our humanity, or Christ. Whichever dominates determines the value of a Christian’s witness.
A church in our city has a street sign that points to a building hidden behind other construction: the land likely purchased cheaply. The symbolism offers society’s response: remain an unknown religious presence: “Christians, keep your convictions hidden inside your worship services.” Our humanity is no less dangerous. It never stops saying, “If I have time”; “should no alternative exist”; “how could I make time for THAT, given all the other demands made on me?”; “I’ll give what’s left, not the first fruits”. This human response all too often characterizes the believer. “I’ll give Jesus whatever I have from the overflow of my life”; “time for Jesus comes when I don’t have other demands on my day”; “I don’t want to appear as a religious zealot.” Though we don’t mind being a rabid sports fan, a right-wing Republican or far-left-wing Democrat. Christ’s response alone satisfies him, guarantees his grace on our witness and keeps us in his will. He says we’re “the salt of the earth” Matthew 5:13. Therefore, we must be involved in other people’s lives to flavor and preserve them. He says we’re “the light of the world…a city on a hill” Matthew 5:14. Therefore, we can’t hide his light in our personal devotions or our church services. Both figures demand public influence by people willing to put Christ’s name on their clothing to let people judge his worth by proving their involvement when tragedy strikes. Wherever such men and women get involved, God’s Church exists as a public expression of God’s love and Christ’s grace. People who fail to be where God can reach them shouldn’t be surprised when they’re NOT reached; they have only themselves to blame. And Christians who fail to publicly engage as Christ’s disciples in the spiritual warfare so strenuously waged today can’t be surprised that society continues to plunge into deeper depravity. Since Christ is the sole means of saving the lost from sin, and his people the sole means he uses as messengers of his grace, whether we add to society’s problem or to its solution depends on how forceful our public witness remains. Will we as Christians dare to bravely call sin any attitude or behavior God denounces? And dare to bravely call a sinner anyone who refuses to be forgiven by accepting Christ? And dare to bravely be a Christ-like resurrected life so the lost can see their lostness in contrast I Peter 3:15? End Part II Phil Blair, who owns a Manpower Firm in San Diego, had a column in the 2/22/21 San Diego Union Tribune. He told a story that has very relevant Christian-discipleship applications.
Shaving at a gym where he had a morning workout, he chatted with a man standing next to him. During the conversation, Blair asked how he was doing. In reply, “Fine”—as the man walked away. Which wouldn’t have produced a story….but did, for two reasons. One, Blair knew the man had recently been laid off; two, the man knew Blair “owned a large staffing firm.” Both men missed an opportunity: the acquaintance to state his need of employment and Blair to offer his help in gaining it. Being a businessman, Blair suggested that those in the people business—and who isn’t, in some form?—should prepare a 30 second “elevator speech”, the average time one rides. During that time a person with a resource can help a person with a need. The point Blair made, “Never miss an opportunity to network, which is how 80% of jobs are landed.” This writer, by experiencing self-imposed isolation in ministry and journalism, understands the value of networking. The accident the United jet recently had departing Denver, scattering debris, including a huge engine cowling, over a large area, jogged my memory of a student I taught at Ozark Christian College. Where the company building the engine for United will wonder if they had flaws in their design, the student wondered if his company could have been at fault in the crash of the elitist airplane formation—Blue Angles or what I don’t remember. Since he and others ground lenses that such groups wore, could it have manufactured a design flaw that caused the crash? Each pilot followed the leader—and when the group’s leader misjudged his distance from the ground and ploughed into it, the other three, following his lead, followed him in. End Part I In the Genesis 5 genealogies a monotonous “and then he died” finalizes the person’s life in nine of the ten patriarchs. Only in the life of Enoch does a change occur. “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” 5:22. “For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God” Hebrews 11:5. Only Elijah had a similar non-death departure from this life II Kings 2:11-12.
However, Noah, a righteous man, walked with God Genesis 6:9. Being righteous before God and being moral within self differs as noon-day sun differs from black midnight. And Abraham had God’s special invitation to “walk before me and be blameless” Genesis 17:1. A tribute that made Abraham the first of God’s prophets, Genesis 20:7, and the father of many nations Genesis 17:2, 4-6, 15-16. Obviously, then, “walking with God” differs from merely living. As being a disciple of Christ, seeking to be like him, distinguishes the Christian from the unsaved in pursuit of any of a multitude of dead-end choices. Especially notice that confessing Christ before others means more than saying we believe in Christ. It means we publicly declare what our walk embodies: Christ-centered values based securely on his life and teachings that can’t ever be shaken, let alone shattered. (A fact our politically-correct society will have to learn by hard times since they don’t believe while in prosperity.) Dr. Charles Malik, famous Lebanese diplomat, and Christian witness, once noted that the Master’s words in Matthew 10:32-33 never stopped challenging him as a Christian. They encouraged and inspired him to WALK his TALK about God in Christ. They gave him the inspiration to live in God’s will, not merely exists as another dying mortal among all dying mortals. Christians…what evidence of spiritual dynamism do we offer the unsaved that shatters their castles-in-the-air-life and challenges them to build instead on the eternal ROCK of Ages, who will not be moved because he cannot be moved? As steel is a stronger form of iron, Christian is an infinitely stronger form of religious. And only we can be! I can’t say whether an old dog can learn new tricks, but age is no determining factor in learning how to become more Christ-like. Only the believer who doesn’t want to grow in his Savior’s likeness will be resigned to remain the same mortal. All who seek Christ’s change in them, however minute or incremental, shall GROW in his image. Only those who don’t stagnate in discipleship. Amen. |
Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|