Abraham faced four crises in his life, each with a beloved member of his family: twice with Sarah, twice with Isaac.
First with Sarah, recorded in Genesis 12:10-20. Abraham, a 75-year-old neophyte in the faith-life, decided to leave a famine in Canaan for Egypt’s fertility. However, Sarah’s beauty, of which Abram—his name at the time—stood in awe, caused him to lie about their marriage. God rescued him by afflicting Egypt’s court with disease. Second, with Sarah in the twelve months between the time God promised her pregnancy and her conception of Isaac. Genesis 20:1-18 records the centenarian Abraham, with 25 year’s experience in the faith-life, still using the old lie about their marriage. With her sexually pure, and awaiting conception, her husband betrayed her into another man’s power. God again intervened, threatening Abimelech with wholesale death of his kingdom if he touched her. If Abraham decided that no fear of God existed in Gerar, why live there? Indeed, where danger threatens the presence of faith in God in any Christian’s life, why have any relationship with the person, the experience, the relationship? End Part I
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“He said to another man,” ‘Follow me.’ “But the man replied,” ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ “Jesus said to him,” ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God’ Luke 9:59-60.
Society has many spiritually-deprived or dead, people. They care for nothing relating to God, but avidly volunteer for community projects. Such tasks care for physical, economic, political issues, but lack the immediacy of God’s Kingdom even in a secular culture. Remember, Alexander Campbell had it right when saying the only Christian nation in society is the Church. Always has been that way. Always will be. Biblical Christianity needs NO support from culture to survive and thrive. In fact, uniting Christianity with any political party weakens the Gospel while failing to strengthen politics. Remember that Biblical Christianity waged a spiritual campaign against Satan for the first two decades of the first century. Then, with Constantine’s conversion, found an ally of a once-hostile Roman government. Through the contamination of politics and economics, Christianity became Christendom. And while in this day Christendom is in crisis, Biblical Christianity ISN’T, WON’T BE and succeeds whatever support or opposition comes from secular sources. That’s the point of Christ’s reply to the mañana sentiment when facing his call to discipleship: tomorrow or sometime, when other issues are resolved or problems solved. Most people won’t sacrifice their self-interest issues for spiritual obedience. But Jesus calls us to do exactly that, whatever our self-interest. Nothing can be more important than obedience to him. Lesser duties for lesser people. Immediate commitment to Jesus for anyone with spiritual values. If any collision occurs between our allegiance to Christ, and our duty to our relatives, nation, business associates, or employer, all take a secondary place. Christ receives our attention first, before anyone or anything. If we must offend someone, it must be anyone but Christ. We must never be so concerned about offending men that we shred Christ’s gracious invitation to bits. Historians have no problem ascribing success of the Constitutional Convention to the influence of George Washington and Ben Franklin. The proceedings had often been so fractious that Franklin despaired ever reaching common ground. He later commented that viewing the picture of the sun on the wall behind Washington’s chair made him wonder: did it symbolize a Setting Sun for the colonies? Only with agreement reached did he have confidence it symbolized the Rising Sun of a nation.
The same historians who understand the political influence of human leaders discount the spiritual influence of Jesus. How could the Gospels writers ascribe so much to him? Surely his disciples, in an excess of zeal, overstated his nature. That reveals the same lack of objectivity regarding Jesus that they blindly accept about lives of secular figures. It’s the old satanic lie: only secular history needs to be accurate in detail; sacred history is by faith. Which makes GOD irrelevant. This writer has written four of more volumes called Their Own Best Defense. Each details why the disciples, as men of their age, could ever create the MAN of the AGES Jesus Christ proved to be. And, indeed, knowing themselves incapable of teaching and doing what he achieved, they admit their inability to create him. Not letting the facts get in their way, however, skeptics reduce Jesus to mythical status while elevating his believers to demi-god status. It’s the same prejudice Alexander Graham Bell found from professional inventors. Except Jesus Christ alone could have chosen such a group of misfits as disciples and kept keep them together based on their common faith in him. Just as Jesus Christ alone could appeal to a broadly-based leadership corps in Antioch of Syria and organize them into the spiritual fathers of the first missionary endeavor into Gentile territory Acts 13:1-3. Fini Christ’s blazing spiritual originality had polar-opposite effects on listeners. First, he created the wildest acclaim in those who delighted in the freshness, authority and depth of teaching, Mark 1:27 and Matthew 7:28-29, but two of multiple examples. His words stirred hope in them when heard as flint sparks when struck on stone.
However, two polar-opposite groups had credibility issues with him. The former lay people, the latter clerical. The former because of his birthplace, the latter from his independence. First, the professional religious leaders, like the professional inventors with Bell, considered Jesus a threat. Without a nexus to a renowned rabbi, John 7:15, he possessed an intellectual parity with and a spiritual brilliance far beyond them. THAT to the leaders, meant he had no right to be THAT knowledgeably wise. Second, his Nazarene acquaintances. In his first visit there as Messiah, Luke 4:14-30, he came as an Army of One, with a reputation for good works in Jerusalem. In his second, towards the last of his Great Galilean Ministry, he came as an Army of Thirteen, endowed with a national reputation for teaching and miracles Mark 6:1-6. Neither mattered to the Nazarenes. They found no fault in him BUT…to their disgrace, they detected no excellence, priority or grandeur! End Part II Alexander Graham Bell’s grandfather developed a strategy to cure stuttering. His father wrote books on speech patterns. Bell himself studied the human ear. When he called his associate from another room by an electric pulse through a wire, creating the phone, he revolutionized verbal communication.
Professional inventors dismissed his efforts. He couldn’t succeed they claimed, because he had no background in electricity. And Western Union refused to buy his invention for $100,000. Life History of the United States, Vol. 7, p. 40 His story has spiritual applications. First, sounds, words, talk and speech remain the means that humans alone have when communicating orders, ideas, impressions and convictions. Sorry only that we spend so much time with idle chatter. Some of us complain of an information overload when writing lessons or preparing messages. Then we remember what a fellow student told this writer. He had worked hard developing a message for a preaching engagement. He preached so well that the people wanted him to speak that night. Terrified at his lack of depth, he spent all Sunday afternoon scraping bits of information gleaned and remembered from classes. He regretted the lack of depth. He had sufficient information for one pump at the well—which then went dry. (Thanks to Don Wortman for this story.) To this day, many preachers needlessly fill the air with what Bro. Charles Mills called “sweet air.” The moral is: complain only if we have to struggle to find ideas to preach. And complain if we preach only from an overflow of information in our minds. God’s people deserve the depths of a preacher’s thoughts, not merely froth from the top. End Part I Jesus assured fruitful disciples that God would prune/clean them for even more fruitful production John 15:1-2. While the pruning meant cutting, and that meant discipline/pain, the disciple could wonder whether he suffered mere discipline or severance. How do we know we remain in Christ’s VINE when experiencing adversity?
First, from what Jesus said in John 15, we can distinguish the two actions. And our response to the challenging circumstance(s) may well determine pruning from severance. The eleven disciples remined clean by adhering to Christ’s word. Judas had been severed by rejecting that word. Second, in that sense Hebrews 12:1-13 tutors us. If we remain faithful to Christ throughout the trial:
Only if we experience the above can we be sure God seeks greater service, fruit, Christ-likeness from us. The alternative…well, NO ONE wants to go there! 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:
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