On Monday of Christ’s Last Week, Greeks who had come to Passover sought Philip with a request, “Sir…we would like to see Jesus” John 12:20-21. Every preacher should have those scripture verses staring up at him from his pulpit top: “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” And whenever the preacher faces the question, “What should I preach?”, the Holy Spirit shouts his command, “Preach Christ!” That’s the ongoing demand the Spirit imposes on every Pastor—and from which he never releases us.
Culture—people—always run the risk of wanting preached only what pleases them; Jesus wants them confronted with TRUTH they need to learn. They may want to hear about an easy discipleship; Jesus instead imposes the burden of self-denial. They may want to be entertained; Jesus urges education in his truth and commitment to his Lordship. They may want a minimum of responsibility; Jesus demands faithfulness to his Word, whatever price we have to pay. They may desire pleasant changes imposed on their behavior; Jesus demands wholesale conversion from self-centered goals to God-centered living. They may want FUN; Jesus settles for nothing less than REJOICING in “The Lord as our strength.” He won’t allow a temporary diversion from the hardships of discipleship; he gives a lasting daily power over them. He had no desire to make us HAPPY; he offers a permanent contentment of faith that in JOY overcomes the world I John 5:4. In summary, Jesus wants preached whatever Gospel truth confronts believers with his LIFE, his CHALLENGES, his TRUTH…so the Holy Spirit can encourage, stimulate and harvest his fruit from human lives.
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God – without . people resort in vain, Finale
Consider a few lessons learned from Solomon. First, how far his spiritual life had degraded between inauguration and exhaustion as king. Little resemblance exists of the king praying in I Kings 3 and the philosopher speculating in Ecclesiastes. This reminds us that growing older won’t automatically translate into growing wiser, more dedicated to and interested in God. We CAN fall from grace, regardless of Calvin’s assurance that we can’t. Second, God honored Solomon with the wisdom he sought. He also granted him wealth beyond calculation. As a wise he could have managed such privilege by filtering all experiences through God’s grace. He could have…had he remained close to his Benefactor. Since Solomon didn’t, his spiritual insights diminished, eroded and, finally vanished in interfering interests. As Jesus warned in the Parable of the Thorny Soil, every Christian can fail to become GOOD SOIL by welcoming too many interests in life. Third, becoming a Christian means we surrender all we are, and hope to be. It’s called Self-Denial Matthew 16:24. Someone I read made that point clear. Then wrecked it by saying that God would return to us what we had sacrificed to him. That’s untrue. From Christ’s viewpoint, he may insist we do without what we would like back. From our standpoint, we may not want back some of the things or habits we once thought irreplaceable. Having Christ as Lord renders those things, relationships and habits completely, if not easily, replaceable. Growth as a disciple has the most disarming way of changing us for the good! Fourth, for lack of space, thank God he didn’t allow an apostate believer to author the last book of the Bible. What faithful disciple would want to live in such a tormented personal world? One possible hope emerges from Ecclesiastes. Could Solomon have had a re-awakening of a long-lost wisdom in 12:13-14? Fini Ecclesiastes 2:1-22 teaches useful lessons. Put it in a modern context, we see the fruitless, empty ways people try to satisfy themselves, increase their self-worth and find mental and emotional peace.
1. Pleasures – whatever makes them happy—not understanding the difference between happiness and joy. Joy being Christ’s bequest Philippians 4:4. 2. Laughter – listening to comedians, watching comedies on TV or movies—kings had jesters/ fools to beguile them. Inner contentment from God’s transcending peace the spiritual counterpart. 3. Wine – alcohol—commercials always stress the camaraderie, not the effects, of drink. Many who use it want to forget…memories, low self-esteem, alienation from God. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is the spiritual counterpart. 4. Projects – builders constructing, thinkers creating constructs to appease their desire to KNOW and DO…to make or create or leave behind as a monument to themselves—forgetting that a Christ-like example is our most important bequest to others. 5. Agriculture – growing living things; make diet better, offer more nutritious foods; ignoring the role of Christians in helping people grow “like weeds” in grace. 6. Slaves – substitute corporate or military leadership…the satisfaction of leading others…forgetting our greater pleasure of following Jesus, the GREAT LEADER. 7. Possessions – one of humanity’s most egregious mistakes…buying things that wear out to satisfy egos that can’t be satisfied. Neglecting the relationship with Jesus that’s so satisfying we find low-to-no-desires for things. 8. Entertainment – movies, shows, plays, baseball, football. You name it, people seek many ways to be entertained. Many churches have adopted the entertainment approach to worship: singing, skits, lights, noise. Forgetting that worship focuses on GOD, not on us. End Part I Understand that all mortals decide to trust something or someone as their ultimate authority. Thus, both believers in God and unbelievers have faith, but in polar opposites: we God Almighty in all his mystery and dominion; they what their five senses detect, particularly what their high intellect determines is possible. God’s ultimate MIND remains our final authority, human intelligence theirs.
Since they use derogatory terms to denigrate God’s people, let’s use strong terms to characterize them. By accepting God’s grace, we enjoy spiritual enlightenment. By rejecting his grace, unbelievers suffer the curse of spiritual darkness, however elevated their intellect. The contest, then, remains, as it has always, Spiritual Light shone by God in Christ versus spiritual darkness by rejecting the Light their presence in life always shines on individuals and societies. That embodied the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. The Master so far excelled Moses that his personal light blinded rather than enlightened them. But do not forget: Jesus Christ shined the same light at other equally intelligent men in Israel who accepted the brightness as the prelude to understanding it. Just as many men and women today, fully as intelligent as the infidels, hold strong creationist convictions. In summary, it takes Faith to believe God created the heavens and the earth in 6-24-days. But… understand…nowhere near the faith it takes to believe spiritually-darkened mortal minds have ultimate answers to human origins and destinies. Fini So another evolutionary biologist is dead—Francisco Ayala. The New York Times obituary acclaimed him as the champion of evolution against “the forces of religious fundamentalism.” Those five words attracted my attention. San Diego U-T, 3/21/23
If they meant just fundamentals of Biblical faith, it’s true: those of us who believe in God and Christ hold to and strenuously defend the basic facts of life: God Is, God is Sovereign, Creator, Sustainer and Finisher of Life. But unbelievers don’t use the word that way. They use it pejoratively, as an insult, a profanity, a denigration as if they alone can decide how humanity originated. Indeed, they hold in contempt Christian men and women fully intellectual as they, with equally impressive academic credentials, and DEVOTED to Creation by Almighty God. Understand that fact! Don’t forget that fact. It’s crucial to confidence in a six-day, 24-hour creation of the heavens and earth in all their vast array Genesis 2:1. The Institute of Creation Research (ICR), perhaps the pre-eminent organization, with others, defends the Genesis account. Note: IF uneducated or initially educated child intellects believed in God’s Creation, that would be an improvement over adult intellectuals preening themselves as the only ones to KNOW. Remember that Jesus saw the idea Kingdom subject as a child, not any of the adults looking on Matthew 18:1-4. However, given the intellectual hubris in humanity, God calls brilliant minds as his defenders against those self-appointed experts. End Part I NEXT: Part II, the Finale, explores the basic difference between believers and unbelievers in the seminal question: where did humans originate and by what process? Cowpox, an infectious disease of cows gave immunity to smallpox. That inspired Edward Jenner to develop a vaccine using the milder cowpox virus as protection against the violent smallpox. His discovery remains the modern basis of protection. Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, p. 673. Jonas Salk found a vaccine for polio by injecting a weakened version of it, beginning with himself, his wife and three sons. It built immunity to the more malevolent form of the disease. Our Century, 1950-1960, p. 61.
Question: does that medical procedure offer a spiritual cure for sin: teach people to sin in little ways as a cure for BIG ones? After all, many people think so, hope so and plan to plead their small sins to God as the means of being allowed into Heaven: “I’m not as bad as so-and-so.” The Corinthians had that bad habit II Corinthians 10:12. But NO. At the beginning of history, God teaching the First Couple to obey ONE law, saw them instead break it. Their sin—disobeying God’s word—could never be reduced by injecting morality into the human genome. God instead provided the removal/forgiveness of sin. First provisionally by sacrificing an animal, Genesis 3:21—the basis of the entire sacrificial system under Moses—and finally in the SINGLE sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary Hebrews 7:27-28, 8:7-13. Having introduced sacrifice as the sole means of forgiving and removing sin from humanity, no way exists for humanity to ever find peace with God, and entrance into heaven, without FORGIVENESS of sin. Let that warning drive us to our knees in repentance and, on our knees, knee our way to Jesus for his gracious forgiveness AMEN! A San Diego preacher has written that Jesus didn’t ask us to be right, but to love. Union Tribune, 3/19/23. However, if Jesus didn’t demand we be right, how can we know its “right to love?” The Transgender debate is nothing but a poorly camouflaged pretext of homosexuals to make their sexual depravity an acceptable alternate lifestyle. Only an all-time Biblical ignorance or intentional disregard of God’s Word keeps the issue alive in society and in many churches.
Let the proponents of transgender charge, rant and rave. Let them:
They’re not just going to lose; they have already LOST! GOD has spoken. What are their claims and demands, assertions and complaints in comparison but bleats and howls? In Matthew 21:44 and Luke 20:18 Jesus warned the Pharisees of their impending doom for rejecting him. In whatever way people have an encounter with the Great Stone, they lose. And whatever way mortals disagree with God, they suffer. God’s Mt. Everest-Truth crushes their mole-hill-lies. A disclaimer: it isn’t always how a message is preached that determines its effectiveness. It may depend on how carefully it’s received by the listener Matthew 11:15.
For brevity, consider that God holds preachers accountable for the content of their messages. Initiative in preaching, then, lies with the messenger, not the people. They may not initially want mind-stretching messages. But hearing such remains the best way to help disciples prioritize faith in Christ and remove obstacles to deeper commitment to him. Once listening to such messages, believers may be forced to tolerate lesser preaching, but they’ll value what demands more of them. If they desire FEWER demands, they’re in danger of being thorny soil. Thus, the preacher must think more deeply about what he preaches. And listeners must develop the desire to hear something that takes time to mature them in belief and behavior. In summary, Christians would spiritually prosper without the interference of SO MUCH STUFF going on in their lives. And the best corrective of the thorny soil person is preaching that by its power as God’s Word urges obedience to God, not satisfies listeners with self. If STRONG, thoughtful Bible messages won’t change listeners who retain restraining influences that reduce the effectiveness of faith in Christ, WEAK preaching never will. And by preaching better messages the spokesman will at least have discharged his God-appointed duty. Jesus accepted rejection of his word. We need not despair when ours is rejected. As he continued proclaiming God’s truth in powerful ways, we can at least improve our messages to be better instruments of the Holy Spirit’s use. Finale Note: if I can, I’ll avoid lengthy, multi-part blogs. V In Matthew 13:18-23 Jesus summarized four reactions to Gospel teaching: Negative, Superficial, Conflicted, Productive. This blog won’t consider Productive.
The Pharisees embodied the Negative, opposing Jesus from his first public appearance, John 2:18, to his Last Week of Ministry. Often listening to and seeing him for 3½ years, they still couldn’t decipher where he got his authority. Judas embodied the Superficial. In Avoiding the Judas Complex, this writer suggested six reasons why Judas fell from enthusiasm for Christ to disillusionment with Christ until…a year before Calvary, he had become a Satan John 6:70-71. However, countering the Calvinism so prevalent in Bible scholarship today, Judas had originally been a member of the Twelve. Note carefully that in Acts 1:16-17, Simon Peter said, “he was one of our number….!” He had the perfect opportunity to precede Calvin by saying, “he never was one of our number.” But Peter said he WAS! Demas embodied the Conflicted II Timothy 4:9-10. Whatever drew him to Thessalonica from his companionship with Paul—family, a girl, night life, etc.—conflicted his mind. And that led him to consider present pleasure more important than eternal satisfaction. Demas warns American Christians: we can diminish our interest in Jesus simply by having TOO MANY competing interests in our daily life. Worse than that, we can LOSE interest in Jesus by feeling the need of present pleasure to God’s lasting presence. End Part IV Next: In Finale—how preachers can help their people guard against this response. |
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