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The Coming Battle of Gog & Magog

January 27, 2015Written by Rick Shrader

The Coming Battle of Gog & Magog

by Rick Shrader

Recently I overheard someone talk about the good old days of prophecy conferences when we used to fear Russia and communism. Aren’t we even closer to the Lord’s return today than we were back then? I have often said myself how those preachers from a generation ago could not have conceived a world like we live in today. Israel, as a nation, has never been in such dire straits as it is today; never has east and west been at such tension as it is today; never has there been the real possibility of total annihilation of large cities and small countries; and, sadly, never has America’s strength in the world been doubted as it is today. The nations to the south, north, and east of Israel have never put forth the kind of pressure that is applied today and seldom with the same vitriol.

It also appears certain that a conflict of some kind is coming with those nations, especially to the north of Israel, because of their threat, not just to Israel, but to western nations as well. While we have learned (sometimes the hard way) not to be date setters or prognosticators of political circumstances, we have also learned not to reject prophecy because the circumstances don’t seem to work out the way we want. There are no “signs” of the rapture, and the tribulation will come upon the world as a thief who comes unexpected. But that should not keep us from preaching prophecy and expecting the Lord to come at any moment. Even the most conservative prophecy preachers knew that sometime the stage would be set for the scene to begin. Even if it doesn’t this time, it will sometime.

With the Islamic extremists spreading their terror around the world, and their obvious intention to wipe Israel off the map, and their boldness in attacking Christian-based countries, it seems we are headed for a world-wide conflict with Islamic terrorists. As I write, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has just died, and Yemen’s president Abd-rabbu Mansour Hadi has resigned. The absence of these two “friendly” leaders leaves Israel surrounded by even greater potential threats. There is no way of knowing in any definite way that such a conflict will be what the Bible predicts of the tribulation time and it would be foolish to preach it as such. Yet one of these times the stage will be set as God alone knows and wants, the rapture will occur, the antichristian king of the west will sign a treaty to protect Israel, and the tribulation will begin, and kings of the east, west, north, and south will begin making their moves on the chess board of the world.

These things will happen some day. If I lived in the 1930s I would surely have thought that this scenario was imminent. But it wasn’t. In the 1970s, every time Henry Kissinger (a German-born Jew representing western American interests) left for Israel, we pretribulationalists began getting ready for the rapture. But that wasn’t it either. And what we see today may or may not be the setting for the tribulation that only God knows and will cause to happen. We may go another hundred years. But then, it could happen now as I am writing or as you are reading. One thing is for sure, we’re closer to it now than we’ve ever been.

So let’s review one of those great prophecies of the tribulation period, not making any predictions, but simply realizing that one day these things will happen and, yes, it could be soon.

The overall picture

A time of tribulation is coming that will last seven years. This is the seventieth week of Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 9:24-27) and is divided into two halves of three and a half years each (see Rev. 11:1-3 for the designations of “forty two months,” and “a thoussand two hundred and threescore days,” in addition to “time, and times, and half a time” in 12:14). The tribulation officially begins when a treaty is signed by the antichrist with Israel (Dan. 9:27, called the “covenant with death” and “agreement with hell” in Isa. 28:18). The antichrist will rise to power during the first half of this time as the rider on the white horse of Rev. 6:2, going forth “conquering and to conquer.” In the middle of the tribulation he will break his treaty and desecrate the sacrifices in Jerusalem (2 Thes. 2:4). This is called “the abomination of desolation” by Jesus (Matt. 24:15, also Dan. 12:11). The second half of the tribulation (“great Tribulation,” Matt. 24:21) will bring great wrath upon those left alive.

The whole conflict will end at Armageddon (Rev. 16:16). Some emphasize the final conflict in the valley of Megiddo, and some emphasize a whole war lasting the entire three and a half years. Ryrie says, “Probably both emphases are valid, for there will be several battles encompassing more than just the local area of Megiddo that precede the final and climactic battle at Megiddo.”¹ One of those battles is called “Gog and Magog” and is described in detail in Ezekiel 38 and 39. This is not the final battle often called the battle of Armageddon, but a previous battle that sets the stage for the final conflict.

The geographical participants

In the whole campaign of Armageddon there are essentially four main participants, five if you include the Lord from heaven Who is the final Victor after the last battle. These four earthly participants are easily designated as the kings of the east, west, north, and south. The kings of the east, who come late in the campaign, are described as a great hoard of 200 million (Rev. 16:12, 9:16). The kings of the south and north are mentioned by Daniel (11:40), not to be confused with the contemporaries of Daniel described in 11:5-35. The king of the west is the antichrist, the “prince that shall come” (Dan. 9:26) of Daniel’s vision, the one who breaks the covenant in the middle of the 70th week.

The battle of Gog and Magog concerns the king of the north and his invasion into the land of Israel early in the campaign. This king is described in Dan. 11:36-45 as “the king of the north;” in Isaiah 10:5, 30:31, and 31:8 as “the Assyrian;” in Joel 2:20 as “the northern army;” and in Ezek. 38:2 as “Gog, of the land of Magog” (NKJV). This battle will be the first major conflict affecting Israel in the tribulation, and, with the defeat of the northern king, will allow the king of the west to become the primary power in the war.

The time of the battle

There are varying views as to when the battle of Gog and Magog takes place. Some put the battle before the rapture so that it would be a current event even for the church; some put it in the millennium when Jesus returns to the earth; but most put it within the seven year tribulation. Of those, the two major views are that this battle is essentially Armageddon, or that it happens at or near the middle of the week and is the catalyst for the next three and a half year campaign. I think the latter is the preferred view.

That the battle of Gog and Magog takes place at the middle of the tribulation makes sense for a number of reasons. Daniel’s vision of this northern invasion in Dan. 11:40-45 is followed in 12:1, “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to the same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” This defense of Israel by Michael is described again in Rev. 12:7 immediately following the mention of the 1260 days in verse 6. This places Michael’s action at the middle of the tribulation, and therefore, places Daniel’s northern invasion “at that time.”

Dwight Pentecost lists ten reasons why he believes the battle takes place at or near the middle of the tribulation.² Included in these is that Israel is still dwelling in peace when the invasion takes place; that Satan is cast out of heaven at this time and leads the northern army against Israel; and that the defeat of the northern army allows the antichrist to turn against Israel, breaking the covenant and desecrating the temple sacrifices. In addition, the time it takes to clean up after this battle (7 years to burn the weaponry, and 7 months to bury the dead, Ezek. 38:8-16) fits this time better than at the end of the tribulation.

Gog and his allies

Ezekiel gives a list of allies who will participate with the king of the north in the invasion of Israel at the middle of the tribulation. First, Gog is described, “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against them” (Ez. 38:2, NKJV). Here, we are told that Gog (most likely a title meaning chief or head) is the head over the lands of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. Then in verses 5-6 we are given the names of five allies that join with Gog, “Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you” (Ez. 38:5-6, NKJV)

There is considerable discussion over the identity of these places. This is important because these names may identify nations that exist today and are ready to participate in the destruction of Israel. Older prophetic writers (simply early or mid 20th century) commonly identified Rosh as Russia and Meshech and Tubal as cities of Russia (Moscow and Tobolsk).³ They quote Josephus, Jerome, and later Gesenius, as well as the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge as sources. Therefore, these identities cannot be dismissed out of hand. But more recent writers have questioned the connections, especially based on linguistic-sounding names. Others caution reading modern names into the text which, 2500 years ago, may not have known today’s nations at all. Even by 1969, Charles Feinberg wrote, “It is not worthy of the prophecy to make identifications merely on the basis of similarity of sounds. . . There have been many writers who connected the name Rosh with the Russians, but this is not generally accepted today.”⁴ I would say that such may be the case, but we must remember that God was not bound to time, and He wrote what would take place in our day or yet in our future, and we shouldn’t rule out such an eventual result. In addition, it is not really “reading into a text” to try to fit the prophecy with current events. There is nothing wrong with asking if the stage could be set for end-time events. That is not to say that this is absolutely what Ezekiel saw, but only that perhaps it could be what he saw. The mention of the “far north” (38:6, 15, 39:2) also shows that Gog comes from a land, not just north of Israel, but far north. This leaves quite a wide berth of possible fulfillment as to the land of Magog.

The other five associates of Gog mentioned in verses five and six have also undergone much scrutiny. I would suggest Ryrie’s conclusion written in 1999, for the general identity of all the associates.

“The countries of that northern coalition are listed in Ezekiel 38:2-6; they include the territory of Magog, which will be ruled by Gog and was identified by Josephus as the land of the Scythians, the region north and northeast of the Black Sea and east of the Caspian Sea. Today, these are the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States including Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan and perhaps some of the smaller states of the commonwealth. Meshech and Tubal includes the area of modern Turkey. Persia is modern Iran; Ethiopia, northern Sudan; Put, Libya; Gomer, probably the eastern part of Turkey and Ukraine; Beth-togarmah, the part of Turkey near the Syrian border. Many, but not all of these nations, now have large Muslim populations.”⁵

What is important for us today is Ryrie’s last sentence. The radical Muslims today are surrounding Israel and would gladly join in such a confederation for this common cause. Renald Showers has also written, “It should be noted that the present government of Turkey is being threatened by Islamic fundamentalists. As a result, some leaders fear that Turkey could become another Iran. If that happens, then all the nations named in Ezekiel 38:5-6 will be characterized by a militant Islamic hatred of Israel.”⁶ Showers, writing in 1996, did not see the events of the last few years as Turkey has pulled away from western alliances and become more friendly toward the extremists.

Thus, if the rapture were to happen today, this battle of Gog and Magog would be a short three and a half years away. The lands described in Ezekiel easily describe the countries surrounding Israel and that have common cause for Israel’s destruction. Regardless of the ancient or modern names, the land never changes, and neither do God’s purposes.

The result of the battle

The invading armies from the north come into a land that is dwelling in “unwalled villages” and “at rest” and that “dwell safely” (38:11). This is because Israel is protected by the western king’s treaty. But Gog has had enough, and with her allies she believes she can plunder and destroy without intervention from the west. It is at this point that God miraculously intervenes. Ezekiel 38:18-23 describes the northern armies being destroyed on the mountains of Israel in such a way that the world takes notice and fears. Showers describes it,

“He will then actively intervene to destroy the massive invading force through a fierce earthquake, landslides, self-destructive panic, pestilence, excessive rain, great hailstones, and fire and brimstone (38:19-22). The destruction of the invading army will be so extensive that the mountains and open fields of Israel and a valley near the Dead Sea will be congested with corpses. God will bring fowl and beasts to eat many of them. It will take all the Jews seven months to bury the rest of the dead and seven years to destroy their weapons (39:3-5, 9-20). If this invasion takes place shortly before the middle of the Tribulation, then this destruction of weapons will continue into the early part of the Millennium.”⁷

In addition to God’s miraculous intervention to save His people Israel from human destruction, 38:21 says, “And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains.” Some believe this “sword” is God’s use of the antichrist, the western king, who also comes to defend his treaty. Once the king of the north is destroyed, however, the western king has no need of such a treaty and turns against Israel and rises to world dominance. This we know will be true of the antichrist.

And So . . .

A showdown is coming between the west and the Islamic terrorists countries surrounding Israel. The tension continues to build around the world as violent attacks against the west continue to escalate. The situation we see today may or may not be the precursor to the great battle of Gog and Magog that Ezekiel describes, but one day this scenario will happen. Nothing must take place for the rapture to occur, and if it were to happen today, these events would immediately begin to align as the tribulation would begin.

“And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12).

Notes:

Charles Ryrie, “The Campaign of Armageddon,” Countdown to Armageddon, various contributors (Eugene: Harvest House, 1999) 198.
J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969) 350-355.
See Pentecost, Things To Come, pp. 326-331; John Walvoord, The Nations, Israel and the Church in Prophecy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967) 105-108; Leon J. Wood, The bible & Future Events (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973) 122.
Charles L. Feinberg, The Prophecy of Ezekiel (Chicago: Moody Press, 1969) 219-220.
Ryrie, 199.
Renald E. Showers, “Gog and Magog,” Dictionary of Premillennial Theology, Mal Couch, ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996) 124.
Showers, 125.

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The Humility of Incarnation

December 4, 2014Written by Rick Shrader

The Humility of Incarnation

by Rick Shrader

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:5-11

A summation of the Christmas message is captured in this “kenosis” passage by the expression “made himself of no reputation.” One of the most difficult things with which humans wrestle is the thought of having no reputation, of being found more as a servant than as a person of great fame and notoriety. Yet as Christians we are specifically instructed in this great passage to let this same attribute of the incarnate Christ be in us, to actually think that to be humble and obedient is good.

Every time I read through one of the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, I come to emotional frustration realizing that the very incarnate God was rejected, scorned, mocked, and crucified by a sinful world who actually deserved it, and yet He was as a Lamb who is silent before the shearers. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). “The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Matt. 11:19). “And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself” (Mark 3:21). “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day. And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it” (Luke 9:22-24).

Even the disciples, right up to the end, were much more happy to dream about sitting on thrones in the next life than to be stripped of reputation in this one, but that is exactly what their life was to be. “Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with” (Matt. 20:23). Paul assured Timothy, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us” (2 Tim. 2:12); and Paul, having been stoned and left for dead admitted, “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

I am not here thinking of the absolutely incredulous unbelief of the world in celebrating Christmas without so much as a mention of God, Christ, incarnation, or even a religious hymn. To them, Christmas is a mystical self exaltation in positive thinking. I am rather thinking of a much more difficult and manly belief, of accepting a good and religious life that, because of acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, submits itself to the same humble status as its Lord. “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord” (Matt. 10:24). There will be time enough for reigning in that actual eternity when we also, similar to our Lord, will be highly exalted above our present calling. But Christmas to us is an historical fact. It is the fact of God becoming one of us, to redeem us from our own iniquity, and needing to suffer in order to accomplish that great fact. So our mind must be as His mind in the short time we have to walk as He walked.

It should be said, in relation to this pure religion of non-reputation, that the Lord sees fit to place all of us in the places He wants. James said, “Let the brother of low degree rejoice when he is exalted: but the rich when he is made low” (James 1:9-10). This chaism of language uses the word tapeinos twice, from which we get the word “tapestry.” If God so wills that we be lifted up and placed on a wall for all to see, then rejoice. Yet if God so wills that we be placed on the floor to comfort the soles of men, so be that as well. It is not ours to ask why God does what He wants with His servants. Oswald Sanders, in his classic book on leadership, said, “A desire to be great is not necessarily in itself sinful. It is the motivation that determines its character. Our lord did not discount or disparage aspiration to greatness, but He did pointedly expose and stigmatize unworthy motivation.”¹ That is why most great men did not necessarily desire greatness, but rather to be godly men, and then God used them in great ways. Spurgeon said, “Many through wishing to be great have failed to be good; they were not content to adorn the lowly stations which the Lord appointed them, and so they have rushed at grandeur and power, and found destruction where they looked for honour. . . A man does well to know his own size.”²

There is an abundance of examples in the Bible of men that did not seek the limelight but were thrust into it. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30) and yet Jesus said of John “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11). The apostle Paul was the greatest evangelist that ever lived yet he saw himself as the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). The apostle John began writing the great treatise on prophecy but described himself as “your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:9). John Calvin said of himself, “Being by nature a bit antisocial and shy, I always loved retirement and peace . . . . But God has so whirled me around by various events that He has never let me rest anywhere, but in spite of my natural inclination, has thrust me into the limelight and made me ‘get into the game,’ as they say.” ³

It is one thing for a well-known or reputable man to recount how God placed him in high places, but it is quite another for a good and godly man to graciously and gladly accept anonymity from his Lord. For the one, and we have known many such good and reputable men, we “rejoice” as with James’ admonition. My own life has been blessed and made better by sitting under, hearing, and learning from such well-known men. I count them my mentors. But then there are the unsung heroes. I heard a friend pray the other day in a small six-person prayer meeting, a black inner-city preacher whom few would know, and bring us all powerfully before the throne of grace. I also heard a retired pastor pray for communion in a small, unknown church in such a wonderful way that it brought tears to one’s eyes. Who would venture to say which, of all these servants, is the greatest in the Lord’s eyes?

There is a record of a great but unsung servant in the book of Acts: Philip the deacon and evangelist. Here is a man who started out on a path that seemed unlimited. His co-worker Stephen served his Lord in a short but triumphal way, and then Philip took the reins and became the leading evangelist in those days. He was blessed of God to preach city-wide in Samaria and yet gladly accepted the one-on-one ministry in the desert of Gaza. But then, and almost suddenly, Philip is removed from the story and placed in Caesarea for twenty years without notice. Even Cornelius, while in Caesarea, was instructed to find Peter for the message, not Philip. I will let the great Alexander Maclaren tell the story:

“What a contrast to the triumphs in Samaria, and the other great expansion of the field for the Gospel effected by the God-commanded preaching to the eunuch, is presented by the succeeding twenty years of altogether unrecorded but faithful toil! Persistence in such unnoticed work is made all the more difficult and to any but a very true man would have been all but impossible, by reason of the contrast which such work offered to the glories of the earlier days. Some of us may have been tried in a similar fashion, all of us have more or less the same kind of difficulty to face. Some of us perhaps may have had gleams, at the beginning of our career, that seemed to give hope of fields of activity more brilliant and of work far better than we have ever had or done again in the long weary toil of daily life. There may have been abortive promises, at the commencement of your careers, that seemed to say that you would occupy a more conspicuous position than life has had really in reserve for you. At any rate, we have all had our dreams, for

‘If Nature put not forth her power

About the opening of the flower,

Who is there that could live an hour?’

And no life is all that the liver of it meant it to be when he began. We dream of building palaces or temples, and we have to content ourselves if we can put up some little shed in which we may shelter.

Philip, who began so conspicuously and so suddenly ceased to be the special instrument in the hands of the Spirit, kept plod, plod, plodding on, with no bitterness of heart. For twenty years he had no share in the development of Gentile Christianity, of which he had sowed the first seed, but had to do much less conspicuous work. He toiled away there in Caesarea patient, persevering, and contented, because he loved the work, and he loved the work because he loved Him that had set it. He seemed to be passed over by his Lord in His choice of instruments. It was he who was selected to be the first man that should preach to the heathen. But did you ever notice that although he was probably in Caesarea at the time, Cornelius was not bid to apply to Philip, who was at his elbow, but to send to Joppa for the Apostle Peter? Philip might have sulked and said: ‘Why was I not chosen to do this work? I will speak no more in this Name.’

It did not fall to his lot to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. One who came after him was preferred before him, and the Hellenist Saul was set to the task which might have seemed naturally to belong to the Hellenist Philip. He too might have said, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ No doubt he did say it in spirit, with noble self-abnegation and freedom from jealousy. He cordially welcomed Paul to his house in Caesarea twenty years afterwards, and rejoiced that one sows and another reaps; and that so the division of labour is the multiplication of gladness.

A beautiful superiority to all the low thoughts that are apt to mar our persistency in unobtrusive and unrecognized work is set before us in this story. There are many temptations today, dear brethren, what with gossiping newspapers and other means of publicity for everything that is done, for men to say, ‘Well, if I cannot get any notice for my work I shall not do it.’

Boys in the street will refuse to join in games, saying, ‘I shall not play unless I am captain or have the big drum.’ And there are not wanting Christian men who lay down like conditions. ‘Play well thy part’ wherever it is. Never mind the honour. Do the duty God appoints, and He that has the two mites of the widow in His treasury will never forget any of our works, and at the right time will tell them out before His Father, and before the holy angels.”⁴

In 1793 William Carey helped begin the Baptist Missionary Society with Andrew Fuller and others as they sat up late at night in the widow Wallace’s house in Kettering. They took up an offering among themselves that night of 2 shillings, 6 pence, about 13 pounds. But Carey was so poor, pastoring a small church and working as a cobbler and teacher to keep his family alive, that he could not contribute to the new missionary fund. But this humble servant who had a year before preached, “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God,” said to the others that since he had no money to give he would give himself. “I go to India to mine for souls. You hold the ropes.” Fuller, his dearest friend and the pastor in Kettering, took the challenge personally and became the first (and life-time) treasurer of the society, holding the ropes until his death. Carey went to India for the rest of his life, never returning a single time to his native England. No one knew much at the time about those small-town ministers, but their unselfish service was blessed and multiplied by God.⁵

Thousands of other great servants of God will make equal sacrifices with no recognition in this life. That is what the Bema Seat of Christ is all about. Paul simply said, “Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon . . . Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it” (1 Cor. 3:10, 13). I’m glad we will not be judged for how much, but simply for how we have served. It is still God Who gives the increase.

Our almost one-year-old grandson was home last week for Thanksgiving. He is at that stage where he loves to go up the stairs from the first floor landing to the second floor. He does a great job of going up. He only has one problem, however. He has no idea how to go down—except, of course, head over heels. So I was standing over him on the stairs waiting for the moment he would stand and topple backwards, and at that moment I would catch him. In addition to the guardian role, I began to teach him how to stretch his legs downward, one at a time, feeling for the lower step, until he could feel secure in lowering himself downward, sliding on his stomach. We did not accomplish the task during our visit last week, but he will soon enough. And he will find that going down is as rewarding a task as going up.

I’m glad my heavenly Father stood behind me and caught me all those years when I didn’t know how to go down, only up. But His strong arms and divine patience kept me safe until I learned that peace and contentment comes not in going up or in going down, but in going where He leads.

The greatest Christmas gift we could receive from our heavenly Father this year is the graciousness and joy of accepting the “no reputation” status. Those Pharisees who rejected Jesus because He did not offer what they expected, needed trumpets sounding before them as they walked down the street. “Verily, they have their reward” (Matt. 6:2).

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. . . Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 6:6, 12-14).

“And thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:4).

Notes:

J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971) 10-11.
C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, vol. VII, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1978) 87.
From Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (Dallas: Word, 1995) 256-257.
Alexander Maclaren, Maclaren’s Expositions of Holy Scripture on Acts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959) 260-262.
Rick Shrader, syllabus, “Discovering Baptist History Tours.” aletheiabaptistministries.org.

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Things We Should Not Forget

November 12, 2014Written by Rick Shrader

Things We Should Not Forget

by Rick Shrader

The apostle Peter explained to his readers that his intention in writing was to “stir you up by putting you in remembrance” (2 Pet. 1:13) and “stir up our pure minds by way of remembrance” (2 Pet. 3:1). Believers have “pure minds” in that we have the mind of Christ revealed in His Holy Word (1 Cor. 2:16). The holiday season is a time in which we can and should do this. We will soon be sitting around bountiful tables with family and friends, bowing our heads and saying about our God, “Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). We may eat turkey, beef, or pork, but we will remember that, “every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4-5). Thomas á Kempis said, “God doth well for us in giving the grace of comfort; but man doth evil in not returning all again unto God with thanksgiving.”¹

Kyle Yates, the Old Testament scholar, reminded us that “the one who thinks will thank,” because “thankfulness in the old English is thinkfulness.”² Proverbs says, “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (23:7). “A Christian believes in thinking and thinks in believing.”³ In order to be a thankful people, therefore, we must be thinking right. There is a well-known story of Matthew Henry (though it has been told in various editions) when he was robbed by highway robbers: “Let me be thankful first, because I was never robbed before; second, because, although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed.”⁴

The Bible says “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). There may be many ways in which this is true, but one is that we simply cannot see many of the things we believe in. Even of Jesus, Peter wrote, “Whom having not seen ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8). Even fearing God becomes largely a matter of believing what He has said. If I disobey Him because I can’t see the Holy Spirit Who lives within me, I am not fearing God. The only way to guard against that is to think correctly about things I can’t see. In fact, I can’t see how God has providentially worked all things together for my good, but I surely believe He has. Knowing this in my mind makes me thankful.

God is Sovereign

This means primarily that God is the supreme power in the whole created universe. A “sovereign” in a country is one who is the highest authority, who has a sovereign right over everything in the realm. The Psalmist said, “Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Psa. 135:6). James proclaimed, “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). Paul wrote, “In whom also we obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11).

Of the many attributes of God revealed in Scripture, consider just a few. God is a faithful Creator (1 Pet. 4:19). The One Who created everything that exists outside Himself is able to start anything, stop anything, undo anything, or continue anything. No wonder Peter said we can trust such an One in times of trouble and commit our souls to Him. I can thank Him for every situation because I know He is in total control. He will not suffer me to be tested beyond what I can stand (1 Cor. 10:13).

God is the Sustainer. “I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me” (Psa. 3:5). Of the second Person of the Godhead, Hebrews begins: “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). Paul wrote, “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col 1:17). George Washington, in his first inaugural address said that God is “the invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men.”⁵ We should remember, therefore, around our Thanksgiving tables, that it is God Who has sustained us and provided these things at our hands.

God is eternal. “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy” (Isa. 57:15). At Christmas we will hear the story of Jesus in Bethlehem, and that “out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2). We usually think of eternity past and wonder how old God must be! But then we realize He is not “old,” He just “is.” But remember also that God will exist (in fact, does exist) in the future as well. We are not headed into a “Star Wars” kind of future where worlds collide and unheard of creatures rule. All things that He has promised will come to pass.

Satan is Powerful

There are two things that believers often forget, or at least do not pay enough attention to: We have a sinful nature that is powerful, and we have an adversary, Satan, who is very powerful. He is the usurper of this world. When Adam, as the king of God’s creation, forfeited his (and our) inheritance in the earth, Satan became the temporary landlord. He once offered the kingdoms of this world to Jesus (Matt. 4:8-9). Sure, he is not sovereign, but he has temporary control, enough to give it to whomsoever he will. Christ would not worship him, but one day an antichrist will, and all the world with him.

He is the god of this world. “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4). He is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:1). He will be bound for a thousand years “that he should deceive the nations no more” (Rev. 20:3).

Satan is highly organized. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). “In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). Satan is also highly energized. He is “as a roaring lion,” walking about, “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Though humans in high places are not without blame, we should remember that God has allowed Satan to usurp control and deceive the nations for a time. Men are not a match for him, are mere puppets in his hand. It is a strange but true comfort to realize that evil men are not my underlying enemies, but the very devil who controls them.

The Church is not Earthly

It was not Israel nor Rome nor the Reformers who separated the Church from the State. Israel was the only true theocracy that ever existed. Others have tried (Islam, for example) to make their religion the rule of the government, but the true God has only done this once and that was at Mt. Sinai. Rome did successfully marry the state to a remade Christianity but it has been tyrannical everywhere it has been tried. The Reformers did no better, as shown in Luther’s Germany or Calvin’s Geneva.

America’s separation of church and state has been the greatest blessing to the world in the last 200 years. We have the Baptist Roger Williams to thank for it. John Barry compares the efforts of Puritans to again unite church and state, to Williams’ argument against it: “He was saying that mixing church and state corrupted the church. He was saying that when one mixes religion and politics one gets politics. . . Williams’s [sic] ambitions for liberty started with Rhode Island, but they went beyond Rhode Island.”⁶

Leonard Verduin has written, “The First Amendment of the Federal Constitution of these United States, has, as has been intimated in this volume, carved out the kind of pluralistic situation for which the Stepchildren toiled; it has secured, by the highest law of the land, the kind of cultural and societal composition for which they labored; it has laid low the sacralism against which they fought. And it has done so with apparent blessing.”⁷

What these and many other historians are saying is that we as Americans ought to thank God that He has given us a country where the church is not controlled by the state or the state by the church. The church can remain faithful to God regardless of the sickness of the state.

The Church is Heavenly

The church is made up of those baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ from Pentecost to the Rapture (1 Cor. 12:13). “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). “God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name” (Acts 15:14). In this sense the church is universal. It has no earthly country to call its own, no single language common to all its members, no kingdom on this earth. It only has local expressions, local churches, made up of believers who happen to reside in the same place at the same time.

Therefore, the church is heavenly. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). Our Savior is in heaven, our home is in heaven, our rewards are in heaven, and our “conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). We are “strangers and pilgrims” (1 Pet. 2:11) who look for a city whose builder and maker is God.

The church is a mystery. “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:5). In this sense the church is a parenthesis in God’s prophetic program. We are not Israel of the Old Testament, and we are not (yet) in the kingdom. This “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:2) in which we live makes us unseen to Old Testament believers.

Though we are last in time, we will be first in position when that kingdom comes. In this sense the church is future. We are only now betrothed to our Groom, but we will be taken home to be married, and return with Him to live and reign on the earth for a thousand years. We may have little now “with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last first” (Mark 10:30).

The New Jerusalem is Home

The church looks forward to going to the Father’s house. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2-3). McCune writes, “Hitherto the saints looked forward to a resurrection day when God would come down and dwell on earth with them forever in His glorious kingdom. Now, believers were told of the prospect [of] Christ’s absence during which time He would be preparing dwelling places for them in a non-earthly dimension, in what He termed ‘the Father’s house.’”⁸

This house that is waiting for us in heaven seems to be the same as, “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). Many believe this city will circle the earth during the millennial reign of Christ and be the home of the church, since they will arrive in resurrected bodies, fit for earth or heaven. It definitely is the eternal home of the saints after the earth is destroyed by fire after the millennium. It has the streets of gold, the crystal river, the tree of life, the gates of pearl. This is our future abode to which we look with anticipation. We, like Abraham, look “for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10).

And So . . . .

The degree to which we forget these kinds of things is the degree to which we become unthankful for how God has blessed us. The fact is that the modern world has given us many things that our forefathers did not have, and we are thankful for them. Of course, there are may evils that modern society brings also. We should “in all things give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thes. 5:18). Whether our Thanksgiving table be large or small, it is all from God.

Yet we do not measure our blessings merely by things on our table or in our house, or on this earth at all. We are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Pet. 2:9-10).

The story is often told of the cynic sitting under a nut tree and arguing with God why it was necessary for such a large tree to bear such small fruit. Just then a nut fell and hit him on the head. “Thank you, God, that it wasn’t a watermelon!” Our lives are filled with our surmising about God’s world. We actually think we could have planned it better. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad people never seem to suffer in this world? I heard an atheist in a university classroom ask how things could be so bad in this world if there really is a good God. The answer was given, imagine how bad it would be if there were not a good God Who is in control of it all! Rather, we should be able to say with Paul, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).

Thanks to God whose Word was spoken

In the deed that made the earth.

His the voice that called a nation;

His the fires that tried her worth.

Thanks to God whose Word incarnate

Glorified the flesh of man,

Deeds and words and death and rising

Tell the grace in heaven’s plan.

Thanks to God whose Word was written

In the Bible’s sacred page,

Record of the revelation

Showing God to every age.

Thanks to God whose Word is answered

By the Spirit’s voice within.

Here we drink of joy unmeasured,

Life redeemed from death and sin.

R.T. Brooks

Notes:

Thomas á Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Chicago: Moody, 1984) 112.
Kyle Yates, Preaching From the Psalms (New York: Harper & Bros., 1948) 168.
Attributed to Augustine, Douglas Groothuis, Christianity That Counts (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994) 13.
In Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations (1990) 1456.
George Washington, “The First Inaugural Address,” Orations from Homer to McKinley (New York: Collier & Son, 1902) 2506.
John Barry, Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul (New York: Viking, 2012) 308.
Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964) 277.
Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology, vol. III (Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010) 365.

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Wandering Stars

October 3, 2014Written by Rick Shrader

Wandering Stars

by Rick Shrader

Jude, the brother of James and half brother of Jesus, declared that apostates are spots in a church’s gatherings, clouds that can’t hold water, trees that produce no fruit, waves of the sea that foam up all kinds of filth, and wandering stars that appear in the sky briefly and then disappear into the blackness of space forever (Jude 11-13). Such are those who make pretense of faith in Christ but are deceivers and themselves deceived.

I’ve always loved the stars. Who hasn’t? There is no more majestic spectacle in all of God’s wonderful creation than peering into space on a clear night and seeing the lights of the sky placed there by the God of lights. God has put earth in the Milky Way Galaxy which, by average estimates, has over 400 billion stars in it. Some galaxies have a trillion stars. And (my mind loses comprehension here) there are over 170 billion galaxies!

Isaiah described the immensity of God, “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with the span” (Isa. 40:12). The Psalmist declared, “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names” (Psa. 147:4). Imagine! God holds the universe in His hand and knows every star by name! Try to picture that on a clear starry night!

I have enough trouble finding a few planets that appear in the night sky and the big dipper. I can tell if the moon is waxing or waning and I can always find the north star. I have one of those phone apps that I can point in a certain direction at night and it will give me the names of the constellations and planets in that direction. Pretty amazing! One of the thrills that we always remember when we look at the night sky is the shooting star. These pieces of rock, or meteoroids, come streaming out of the darkness, creating enough heat by entering the earth’s atmosphere to leave a streak of light, and sometimes a tail of glowing particles, and then disappear as quickly as they appeared. Jude simply called them “wandering stars.”

Jude’s word choice is typical and yet unique. “Wandering” is the word planētai, from which we get our word “planet.” Some have thought that Jude intended to signify the very planets which circle the sun but are never in a fixed position (The north star is the only celestial star that remains fixed). Most agree, however, that Jude referred to the shooting stars that disappear into the darkness. The word is appropriate. Planē in its various forms takes on the meaning of going astray, deceiving, seducing, wandering, and of being out of the way.

Besides our sun itself, the brightest objects in the sky are the least reliable. The shooting stars are fantastic to see, but can’t be counted on at any given time. The moon is bright but it is in a different position each night and throughout the month. The planets are the brightest “stars” but pass quickly across the sky and come only seasonally. The constellations are always there but are not always visible either. Jude’s description of apostates as shooting stars depicts them as the most thrilling but least reliable of the night lights.

The word planē, planaō, and planos, are together used over fifty times in the New Testament in a number of different contexts. A few times the word is morally neutral and signifies a direction as when the writer of Hebrews tells us that the persecuted saints “wandered in deserts” (Heb. 11:38). He also wrote that Christ is a High Priest for those who are “out of the way” (5:2). Jesus used the word in the parable of the one sheep that had “gone astray” (Matt. 18:12), and Peter reminds us that we were “as sheep going astray” (1 Pet. 2:25). But the great majority of uses for this word have to do with the deceptions and the deceivers of this world. We should realize that these “wandering stars” are not reliable guides for the believer.

Satan and his ministers

We know so much about Satan that we almost take him for granted. Most of us can give a quick biography of his history and future prophecies and speak about him as if he were a political contemporary. Well, he does control spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12) and he does have ministers preaching all around us (2 Cor. 11:15). In the book of Revelation our word planē is used six times to describe his world-wide activity, each time translated as “deceive.” He is the one who “deceiveth the whole world” (12:9), whose false prophet “deceiveth them that dwell on the earth” (13:14), whose antichrist and false prophet “deceived them” (19:20) with the mark of the beast, and who will be bound for a thousand years so that he can “deceive the nations” no more (20:3, 8, 10).

When we are warned not to love the world (1 Jn. 2:15), it is because Satan controls the world through deception. This is the proper point with which to begin. The other ways in which we are deceived are overseen, influenced, or controlled by Satan’s great power in the world. He deceives whole nations, and therefore “it is no great thing” (2 Cor. 11:15) if he controls businesses, churches, families, and individuals with his ministers and “doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). He was able to offer the Son of God the “kingdoms of the world” (Matt. 4:8) because he is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), and is, in fact, “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4).

He truly “has blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4). Sinners are simply “taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). Luther wrote in his great hymn, “For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe, his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.”

We should not leave this thought without also remembering that as believers we can “resist the devil, and he will flee” from us (Jas. 4:7), and that we do not have to “give place to the devil” (Eph. 4:27), and he is one whom we can “resist in the faith” (1 Pet. 5:9). When we put on the armor of God, we can “stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11). Satan is a wandering star who will one day fade into the blackness and darkness forever. No one has to go with him.

False religions

Much as our familiarity with Satan dulls our fear of him, our knowledge and “fairness” toward world religions dulls our differences with them. Any religion that denies the gospel of Jesus Christ is false and is taking people to a Christless eternity. “Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 Jn. 2:22). John would then say, “These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce [planaō] you” (2:26).

Paul told Timothy, “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13). These false religions are wandering stars themselves and are causing people to wander away with them. Jesus told the Sadducees, a religious group that denied the doctrine of the resurrection, “Ye do err [planaō], not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God (Matt. 22:29). Jesus severely criticized the church of Thyatira because they suffered “that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols” (Rev. 2:20). This was the inroad of an ancient religion which would destroy the church. The same danger was also in the old teaching of Balaam (Rev. 2:14). John also saw the harlot, the one-world religious system, and said, “for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived” (Rev. 18:23).

Paul gave the Ephesian church an interesting word picture concerning false teachers of false religions when he wrote, “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:14). Those that are lying in wait to deceive God’s church are like leaves being carried around with the wind, and are like cubes (“sleight” is from kubeia), or the rolling of the cubes i.e., the dice. Here are two more pictures of those who deceive: blowing leaves and rolling dice! You take your chances on where you will end up.

Lusts and desires

In the end, we will not be able to blame Satan or religions for our sin. “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Tit. 3:3). James said, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren” (Jas. 1:14-16). When the sinner stands before a holy God and hears his fate read, it will be for no other reason than that his own sin was not forgiven through Jesus Christ. It is our own sin that makes us wandering stars “To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).

Paul wrote, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). Paul also wrote, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption” (Gal. 6:7-8). John would conclude, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn. 1:8).

To be deceived by our own sin is so serious that hell is waiting for us. The pale horse of the Apocalypse was named Death, “and hell followed him” (Rev. 6:8). We naturally recoil at the thought of a literal hell of fire and brimstone being eternal, without ending. Surely, we think, a loving God would not send someone there. One cannot think of a more horrible punishment. And why? For sins during a moment of life on the earth? But the only answer can be that a holy God must determine it so. Sin is so contrary to God, so appalling to His holy nature, so foreign to His holy heaven, that the punishment can never fully be paid. This is how serious our sin is and how deceived we are by being led astray by it.

Worldly culture

The debate still rages over the definition of culture. I think the older definitions are unbiased and more correct. T.S. Eliot called culture “The incarnation of religion.”¹ Later, Ravi Zacharias also said, “Religion is the essence of culture while culture is the dress of religion.”² That is, culture is not a neutral phenomenon that just happens to exist, that we can copy without caution or reserve. Culture is the expression of man’s nature. It is what man really believes. It is what the Bible means when it uses the word “world.” “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 Jn. 2:15).

God became grieved with Israel in the wilderness because they created a culture contrary to His law. “Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways” (Heb. 3:10). When we follow our natural desires and beliefs, we are following a worldly culture created by ourselves and not God. That’s why James could say, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (Jas. 4:4). When believers try to appease the world, they are becoming an enemy of God. John cautioned against the false teachers who did that very thing. “They are of the world: therefore they speak of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” (1 Jn. 4:5-6).

Many today look at the culture as something inviolable. They think it is like the north star, unchangeable and something by which to set your compass. So rather than working to change the culture, they change themselves to fit the culture. To be “cultured” used to mean to have refined yourself, to have changed your culture. Now it means to be changed by your culture. This is the “spirit of error,” or of planē.

Antichrist, and many antichrists

The antichrist will be the great deceiver of humans. He will foster a lie that the whole world will follow (2 Thes. 2:11) and be deceived. John warned, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (1 Jn. 2:18). Jesus taught that this will be especially critical in the last days, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:4-5).

In his second epistle John wrote, “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2 Jn. 7). Not only will the antichrist himself be a world-wide deceiver, but until then there will always be the spirit of antichrist. Anyone or anything that lends itself to that final apostasy is antichrist. This is why John taught that we cannot bid “God speed” to false teaching (2 Jn. 10-11). When we do, we are “partakers” (koinōnei, fellowshippers) of that evil deed and are deceived by it.

And So . . . .

Isaac Watts put Psalm 147 to verse in this way:

Praise ye the Lord; tis good to raise

Our hearts and voices in his praise;

His nature and his works invite

To make this duty our delight.

The Lord builds up Jerusalem,

And gathers nations to his name;

His mercy melts the stubborn soul,

And makes the broken spirit whole.

He form’d the stars, those heav’nly flames;

He counts their numbers, calls their names;

His wisdom vast, and knows no bound,

A deep where all our thoughts are drown’d.

Great is our Lord, and great his might;

And all his glories infinite:

He crowns the meek, rewards the just,

And treads the wicked to the dust.

Sing to the Lord, exalt him high,

Who spreads his clouds all round the sky;

There he prepares the fruitful rain,

Nor lets the drops descend in vain.

He makes the grass the hills adorn,

And clothes the smiling fields with corn;

The beasts with food his hands supply,

And the young ravens when they cry.

What is the creature’s skill or force,

The sprightly man, the warlike horse,

The nimble wit, the active limb?

All are too mean delights for him.

But saints are lovely in his sight,

He views his children with delight;

He sees their hope, he knows their fear,

And looks, and loves his image there.³

Notes:

T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture (New York: Harcout Brace, 1949) 101.
Ravi Zachariah, Deliver Us From Evil (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996) 82.
Isaac Watts, Psalm 147, The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997) 265-266.

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Why Professing Christians Fall Away

August 30, 2014Written by Rick Shrader

Why Professing Christians Fall Away

by Rick Shrader

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Jeremiah 8:20

We have all seen it and been grieved by it. Someone makes a profession of being saved, stays around for a little while, and then is gone. Correctly, we turn immediately to our discipleship efforts and critique ourselves. Did we do all we could to strengthen them in their new faith? But the problem is often deeper than that and believers cannot always blame themselves for the decision others make regarding their walk with the Lord. It is an increasingly difficult day to be a Christian. The temptations and reasons to abandon the faith multiply as the age continues toward its end. If Peter had to warn the believers at Pentecost to “save yourselves from this ontoward generation” (Acts 2:40), how much more must we? Isaiah warned of “hasty fruit” (Isa. 28:4), and Daniel likened believers in the end time to “chaff of the summer threshingfloors” which “the wind carried away” (Dan. 2:35).

Jim Vogel recently wrote, “Long gone are the days when we could expect the lost in our communities to come to us. We are no longer living in a church-going culture. Interest in spiritual things is waning. People stay away in droves.”¹ This seems to be the case not only with the unchurched (as we call them) but also with the “churched.” I have been in church-related ministry of one sort or another since 1972. The game I have hated the most is what I call “hide and seek.” That is when someone, an individual or an entire family, simply quits attending the church without any explanation and you have to go find them. You always try to be fair and give absentees the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they have been ill or on an extended vacation, or maybe they just needed time away for some reason. You always hate to assume the worse: that they are upset about something, or that they have been offended by someone. Surely they would have told you if that were the case. Maybe they have fallen into some sin and are embarrassed to come to you for help. The sad thing is that in over forty years of ministry I cannot recall a single time when they came to the church rather than the church having to take the initiative to go find them. And that is all right, it is the church’s job to find the one sheep that has gone astray! But doesn’t that also say something about profession of the Christian faith in our generation?

When I have pondered the reasons for this phenomenon, I come to only two conclusions. Either the person is unsaved and therefore has gone back to his old life, or as Peter described it, “The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Pet. 2:22), or the person is truly saved but is, or has remained, in a carnal position and has lost interest in spiritual things. This is a man “overtaken in a fault” (Gal. 6:1); one who is saved “yet so as by fire” (1 Cor. 3:15); or as some who have “cast off their first faith” who are “already turned aside after Satan” (1 Tim. 5:12, 15). One of the sad results of these two conclusions is that we cannot always tell them apart, and their departure from the brethren leaves loved ones with doubt as to which is the real case. That is unless, of course, your final conversation with them uncovers the specific reason for their leaving. These two reasons may be caused by a number of underlying issues.

Reason 1: They are not truly saved

John said, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John 2:19). The verse that follows proclaims that “you” who have stayed among the brethren have the Holy Spirit, in contrast to the ones that have left. Jonathan Edwards said, “Sinners in Zion are all hypocrites. They make a profession of the true religion. . . But all is hypocrisy.”² A.T. Robertson said, “Outward ceremonial ritualism may only cover a brood of scorpions in the heart.”³ Hypocrisy, at the bottom line, is unbelief. It is to profess to be saved but to possess no saving faith, and no Holy Spirit. What happened to create such a false decision?

Pressure by a soul winner. I believe in soul winning. “He that winneth souls is wise” (Prov. 11:30). But we have also seen a lot of people make false professions of faith due to pressure applied by a Christian for whatever reason. I must confess that I have had my share of my own converts who evidently were not the Lord’s converts! Tozer said, “Some of the unsaved with whom we deal on the ‘quick and easy’ basis have such little preparation and are so ignorant of the plan of salvation that they would be willing to bow their heads and ‘accept’ Buddha or Zoroaster if they thought they could get rid of us in that way.”⁴ How true that has often been.

Pressure by a church invitation. I believe in invitations also and give one after every sermon. But just as the soul winner can get carried away pressing for a decision, so can the preacher. I can remember invitations in which the speaker would not quit until everyone in the auditorium had indicated that they had made some kind of commitment. Grandma Jones finally got hungry enough for lunch that she made a commitment to love her mother! Perhaps the evangelist needed the 100% report for his next prayer letter. I have seen people singled out and pulled down the aisle (almost literally) to get saved.

These kind of converts create seed that is sown by the wayside. The wicked one comes quickly and takes away the seed sown in the heart (Matt. 13:4, 19). To be fair, let me say that this happens as well in proper invitations due to lack of understanding.

Pressure by follow-up programs. That may sound odd, but I am only saying that a lost person cannot last long around the teaching of the Word. Either he has to get saved or get out. No doubt multitudes have begun church discipleship programs who have never finished them. I don’t think the teacher should feel bad about this, it is inevitable. The verb tenses of Gal. 6:6 indicate that, “Let him that is [being] taught in the word communicate unto him that [is teaching] in all good things.” When there is no reciprocal communication by the student, the teacher can go no further.

Pressure by the situation. Sometimes people make a profession of faith because they are put in a situation where it is expected of them. I have begun premarital counseling with couples where one person is obviously not saved. The born again person is anxious for the other to get saved (for the wrong reasons of course) because he/she knows the marriage won’t take place unless both are believers. The unbeliever is usually primed for this situation and is ready to “make a profession of faith” for sake of the marriage.

On a similar note, sometimes a married spouse will get saved and very badly wants his/her spouse to be saved. The same pressure is then brought upon the counselor to “lead the person to the Lord.” After all, that is what the minister is there for, right? This is like the seed that fell in stony places that, although is was met with immediate joy, it only endures for a short while (Matt. 13:5-6, 20-21). I think Judas himself must have been put into a similar situation to make a profession of faith and be baptized by John because all the family was doing it.

Pressure by success and culture. The prosperity gospel has appealed to the lost world on the basis of success. If you will just receive Christ, all of your personal problems will be solved and you will begin to be successful in life. If that is really the case, why not try it? In many businesses it is a badge of integrity to be a Christian who applies biblical principles to business. There are many people looking for such businesses and being able to advertise that way is a great plus. Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8 was convinced that professing to be a Christian would bring him further success in his business. The sticky part is that business about getting saved and baptized and maybe joining an upscale church. But surely there is one out there that will accommodate me.

But the unbeliever cannot last long among spiritual things. The seed that fell among thorns first sprung up, but the cares of this world quickly choked it out (Matt. 13:7, 22). The flesh will always have a greater desire to please the cares of this world than the cares of lowly Christians. The bottom line is, if a person is truly not saved, no attempts to tie him to the church is going to (or should) work. Oil and water will not mix.

Reason 2: They are carnal Christians.

Carnality is a reality in the Christian life. The pull of the world can still be strong upon the immature believer and desire for the things of God usually grows slowly over a period of time. However, salvation cannot be made into a prolonged education process just because there are real hypocrites. No one can guarantee the sincerity of the convert other than God and the convert himself. But salvation comes as an instantaneous act of God by faith through grace. Spurgeon described his own conversion like this, “As, the moment before, there was none more wretched than I was, so, within that second, there was none more joyous. It did not take any longer than a flash of lightning. It was done, and never has it been undone.”⁵ Matthew Henry once advised those who doubt their salvation to remedy it in the following manner, “Are you in doubt about your spiritual state? Put the matter out of doubt by a present consent—if I never did, I do it now.”⁶ That being said, there are still reasons why true believers fall away due to carnality.

Lack of follow-up. A new convert is a babe in Christ and babies need to grow. But babies can’t do it all by themselves, they need adults to help them. This takes both the personal touch of a father or mother in the faith, and also a corporate touch of a family. The first steps need to be taken which are baptism and church life. There are dangers for little ones that can only be avoided by patient instruction. As a pastor I see the need for the safety of the church family in the life of a new believer. Church should not be something that the new convert someday grows into, it is a must, just like the traditional family is a must for all children at the earliest age.

Lack of expectations. Sadly, there may not be much expectation for godliness and growth in Christ in many churches today. If we are willing to admit that the spiritual level of the average church is alarmingly low, so will the role model be for the new believer. What expectation could there be for a new convert in the church of Laodicea? They thought they were mature and had “need of nothing” but in fact were “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:14-22).

Lack of encouragement. New believers begin their spiritual journey with their sins confessed and forgiven, and filled with the Holy Spirit. Their past is wiped clean by the blood of Christ and they have a new life spread out before them. Ironically, one of the dangers the new convert faces is rubbing shoulders with older believers. He is immediately pulled downward, not upward. His joyful expectations of his new life in Christ are sadly cooled by older believers who have settled into a more comfortable existence and don’t want a new zealot upsetting things. Even the penitent man in Corinth, after he had repented of sin and made things right with God, was in danger of being “swallowed up with overmuch sorrow” (2 Cor. 2:7) without the encouragement of the congregation.

Lack of teachers. The danger here is not so much a lack of people teaching good doctrine as the danger of falling among the many false teachers in the world today. This was a constant threat even in the first century even with the presence of apostles (see Acts 20:29-30; 2 Cor. 11:2-4; Gal. 1:6-9; Phil. 3:18-19; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 1 John 4:1-6). Paul warned Timothy of Hymenaeus and Philetus whose false teaching was like gangrene and had already overthrown the faith of many (2 Tim. 2:16-18).

In this information age the threat is multiplied. The new convert does not know where to turn and who to trust. By the click of a mouse he may be infected already by false teaching that will spread in his soul like cancer. We have all seen such duped individuals fall away from the faith. A shepherd must constantly be on the alert.

Lack of example. A new convert knows almost no one in the church. Most likely, he/she will not take the initiative to make new Christian friends. This must be done by mature believers who see and understand this real need. Some years ago I wrote about what I called “hypocrite finders.” Even spiritual water seeks its own level. Hypocrites will find other hypocrites in the church. Spiritual immaturity will make friendship with spiritual immaturity, and this will happen quickly if other believers don’t step in first and befriend the helpless convert.

Teens and other younger ones are especially susceptible to this. I pastored a church with a balcony in which few ever sat because it was not needed to seat the Sunday crowd. I have watched young people who normally sat near the front on the main floor, bring a friend and sit with him on the back row of the balcony! I guess the church member didn’t want the visitor to think he was too spiritual. This is not new. Even Barnabas himself was “carried away” with Peter’s “dissimulation” (Gal. 2:13), the opposite of the needed “assimilation.”

Lack of strength. The bottom line for a new convert is that the world’s allurements are still strong, and without positive growth, saved flesh can become affected and act the same as unsaved flesh. This is a real danger that causes many believers to fall away from the Lord. When Demas forsook Paul in prison (2 Tim. 4:10), he left us wondering if he had fallen into carnality or was really unsaved. He had before been commended by Paul for his faithful work (Col. 4:14; Phile. 24). It is only out of sympathy that we still count him as a brother even though he fell away.

And so . . . .

There is a conundrum here that confronts us all. How can some fall away from the faith so easily? How is it that such ones can walk away from a faith so precious to the vast majority of believers? How can some be content to be saved by the skin of their teeth? How can some who profess to know Christ have little or no concern for the final destination of their souls?

Carl Trueman said the following concerning these things,

“Only those who have an overwhelming grasp of the transcendent holiness of God will ever struggle with lack of assurance. For those who think of God as, well, pretty much like themselves, or like some other common or garden god, or simply as a projection of their own sentimentality, there is no problem with assurance. If God is not that holy, then sin isn’t that awful, and I’m just not that bad. Thus, if your view of God’s holiness is shaped by the standards of your own mediocrity, then you are unlikely to worry too much about whether you’re going to be acceptable to Him. . . God will look after my reputation if needs be; He has given me other work to do.”⁷

Notes:

1. Jim Vogel, “Guiding The Local Outreach Program,” The Pastor: A Guide for God’s Faithful Servant (Schaumburg: RBP, 2012) 161.

2. Quoted by Randall Pederson, Day by Day With Jonathan Edwards (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005) 46.

3. A.T. Robertson, Paul and the Intellectuals (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1959) 96.

4. A.W. Tozer, Mornings With Tozer (Camp Hill, PA: Wing Spread Publishers, 2008) May 3.

5. Charles Spurgeon, My Conversion (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1996) 42.

6. Allan Harman, Matthew Henry (Scotland: Christian Focus, 2012) 145.

7. Carl Trueman, Fools Rush In Where Monkeys Fear To Tread (P&R Publishing, 2012) 63.

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The God Who Speaks

August 2, 2014Written by Rick Shrader

The God Who Speaks

by Rick Shrader

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” Hebrews 1:1-2

America is quickly leaving a word-based society and becoming an image-based society and so is the church of Jesus Christ. Christians have always been readers and listeners. The invention of radio was a simple diversion where simply sitting and listening began to overtake the struggle of reading. The advent of printed images in magazines increased the ease of perusing through a magazine where one could look at the pictures rather than read the articles. With moving pictures came the theater and the modern wonder of bringing images to life, which was eventually brought into the living room with the television. Few living Americans today have ever experienced a time when these things were not commonplace.

But movies and television are ancient history to today’s young people. They have not known a time without computers and the internet. Many young Christians have never experienced a church service with simple singing, praying, and preaching. Their world is a world wallpapered with images and sounds at home, in the car, at school, in the mall or restaurant, and also at church.

The epitome of image is the commercial—a professional moment created by people who want to make money that invades the world of people who live by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. If one wants to get a true picture of the moral level of a society, he only needs to go as far as the radio, television, or online commercial. Consider the commercial where a product is being sold that supposedly will help you lose weight or increase bodily function of some sort. The pictures shown portray a happy, loving, successful person who is experiencing a perfectly happy moment. But while the pictures are being shown, by law the commercial must audibly say that taking the product may harm you in a number of different ways, actually causing a reaction opposite of what was intended, and in some cases may even cause death. But these ubiquitous commercials obviously work evidently because people watch but do not listen. Of course, the next commercial break will feature a law firm telling you that if you’ve taken the same drug, call because you will be able to sue them for damages and false advertising.

Some feel that our image-based world began in the 1930s in Nuremburg when Adolf Hitler held the first multi-media rallies. Thousands of people crowded shoulder to shoulder watching huge pictures with lights and music. Hitler was spewing the worst audio message imaginable but people were persuaded to follow because of the visual effects. Hitler knew this better than anyone and specifically describes his goal of brainwashing by this image-based methodology, calling it “the magic of influence of what we designate as mass suggestion.”¹

Some feel that this all started in 1960 with the first televised presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. Nixon had been in the hospital and came to the debate physically weakened and looking emaciated. Kennedy, on the other hand, was young, tanned, and good looking. Those who watched the debate on television thought that Kennedy won, but those who listened on radio thought that Nixon won. Image wins in a debate every time. That is why today’s presidential debates are everything to do with image and almost nothing to do with substance.

While attending a pastor’s conference in Denver some years ago I listened to a young pastor explain why we must now fill our preaching and teaching times with multiple visual aids, because today’s youth are now learning from multiple sources that feed all the senses of sight, sound, feel, and even smell. This is how they learn today in school and the church cannot afford to be behind in its pedagogy. Another pastor then asked why the American student ranks almost last in most of the important educational categories world-wide. The leader had no answer.

Ironically we call the historic period of image-based worship the dark ages. Carl Trueman has written, “As regards the cultural trend away from words to images, one could make a case for seeing this as, theologically, an undoing or a reversal of the Reformation and a reversion to aesthetic and sacrament-centered church life of a kind that defined much of medieval Catholicism.”² He refers to a time when the images filled the beautiful cathedrals and sight and sound became the essence of worship, not the preaching of the Word. God brought Christianity out of this first with a Renaissance of learning, then the invention of the printing press, and finally (and most importantly) a return to the Book in the Reformation. The Reformers believed that God speaks through His Word and therefore the Word must be central in any worship service—sola scriptura!

Much has been written and spoken about the effects of postmodernism on our image-based culture. Authur W. Hunt, III, wrote, “Much of what is going on in our church sanctuaries falls under my definition of postmodernism—that is, a turning from rationality and an embracing of spectacle.”³ Trueman points out that postmodernism has left us with two dangerous results: the death of the author and the medium as the message.⁴ Postmodernism posits that language changes so quickly that we cannot know the original intent of the author. The author, for all practical purposes, is dead. Therefore, we have to read all writing, especially old writing, without trying to discover the author’s meaning but rather ask what it means to us right now. In postmodernism this is the only possible knowledge we can gain from writing. No wonder Americans today do not believe we can even discover what the writers of our constitution meant. This is why so many argue for a fluid meaning rather than a historical meaning. Applied to the Bible, however, this means that for all practical purposes God is dead and the only question we can ask is what the Bible means to me, not what the original writers meant. This also means that exposition of a text is largely a waste of time. Emotion and inward searching of the soul become a better hermeneutic.

On the heels of this, the medium virtually becomes the message. How the message is conveyed basically determines what the message is going to be. In this way the hearers (or experiencers) become the final authority. If the author of the text is dead, the hearer becomes his own god by determining what message can fit the medium. Is this a return to medieval Christianity? Have screens and speakers taken the place of icons, altars, incense, and stained glass? Albert Mohler wrote, “Though most evangelicals mention the preaching of the Word as a necessary or customary part of worship, the prevailing model of worship in evangelical churches is increasingly defined by music, along with innovations such as drama and video presentations. Preaching has in large part retreated, and a host of entertaining innovations have taken its place.”⁵

If God has spoken and speaks today through His Word, the Christian has an imperative that cannot be compromised. The preaching of the Word is God’s ordained means of communication and the exposition of that Word is the most important job of the teacher or preacher. And, we might add, filling of the Spirit Who inspired the sacred text, becomes the most essential methodology in worship. Hebrews 1:1-3 and 2:1-5 make important statements about the God Who speaks.

God spoke in time past

God spoke at sundry (various, NKJV) times and in divers manners. Beginning in Genesis chapter one, we find, “And God said, let there be light” (1:3); “And God called the light Day” (1:5). This pattern continues throughout the six days of creation. In addition, and wonderfully, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit speak among themselves (one in essence, manifested in three persons) “Let us make man in our image” (1:26); “Behold, the man is become as one of us” (3:22); and later, “Let us go down and confound their language” (11:7). From the beginning God has been a God who speaks. God spoke unto the fathers by the prophets. From Abraham and the patriarchs to Moses and the prophets, God spoke in various languages, visions, dreams, handwriting, inspiration, and other miraculous means.

When liberalism tried to “demythologize” the Bible, it wasn’t to take myths out, it was to remove any mention of God speaking through these miraculous means. This has been Satan’s method from the beginning, “Yea, hath God said?” But when Eve “saw” the fruit she was more impressed by the visual than by the word. Why will the unbelieving world today not accept creation? Because it was a miracle, and they have long ago decided that the miraculous never happened and that God has not spoken.

God spoke through His Son

Hebrews also makes plain that God spoke in the most unique way, through the incarnation of the Son both personally and prophetically. God spoke through Christ personally because Jesus Christ was God in the flesh and in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 1:19, 2:9). He is called the Word, or Logos (John 1:1) because He conveyed the true message from God’s mind to us.

But God also spoke through His Son prophetically i.e., through the very words that Jesus said. “For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him” (John 3:34. See also John 6:63; 6:68; 8:26; 12:48-50). This was an historic occurrence that cannot be erased. Our very calendar forever will testify to the fact that God spoke historically through the Son. The gospel is the historical fact of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This can never be undone. The preaching of it can fail, the belief of it can wane, but the fact of God speaking through His Son will judge men in the end.

God speaks to us today

Such a statement as this is much used and abused. I hold to cessationism, i.e., that the miraculous sign and revelatory gifts ceased with the apostles and are not operative for today. However, God also did something in the first century through the apostles which was for us today—He gave us His inspired Word, “once for all delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). Through the Bible God is still speaking with the same authority with which Jesus spoke. Hebrews 2:1-5 tells us that Jesus spoke to those that heard Him (the apostles) and the apostles’ words were confirmed by their own miracles. Mohler said, “If you do not believe that God now speaks from His Word—the Bible—then what are you doing every Sunday morning? If you are not confident that God speaks as you rightly read and explain the Word of God, then you should quit.”⁶

There have been two errors made historically about God giving us His Word. The first is that God never started. These are those who, through their liberal presuppositions, could never accept that God inspired a Bible. To them the Bible is as any other book, a product of good and enlightened men, but not a divine product of the Holy Spirit. The second error is that God never stopped. These are the cults who believe that God is still giving the gift of inspiration to add to the Word of God—Mohammad, Joseph Smith, etc. But God spoke once through inspiration (of course, 66 times over 1500 years, but “once for all delivered unto the saints”). But every time we read the Word of God, God is speaking through it directly to us. That is why exposition of the Word is vital to worship.

And so . . . .

By leaving a word-based culture and turning to an image-based culture we are forfeiting the very power of God in our worship. It is not that we cannot use pictures, screens, power point and so forth, but these must always be secondary and illustrious to the main thing, the written and spoken Word of God. After all, God gave us two illustrations to use in our preaching: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But the difference in these illustrations and all others is that the very Word which they illustrate commands their use and explanation. An image-based worship is a return to a more ignorant time, not a progression forward. Arthur Hunt wrote, “Paganism never really died in modern western culture; it was only restrained. American Protestantism effectively suppressed many pagan forms up until the twentieth century; but the advent of the image-based media has brought forth a revitalization of the pagan gods in popular culture.”⁷ One would be hard-pressed to deny that the common scene at a rock concert is a return to paganism. In fact, it is the world’s idolatry. The church should be very careful in copying it.

Carl Trueman also wrote, “What we need to be concerned about is the replacement of preaching and doctrine in many generic evangelical churches with drama, with so-called liturgical dance, with feelings, emotions and mystical experiences, and, sometimes, with elaborate sacramental ceremonies which make the Catholic Church look positively Puritan by comparison. These all speak of the transformation of Protestantism from a word-based movement into something more concerned with aesthetics of one form or another.”⁸

If these warnings are not sufficient to make us pause, consider the warning in Revelation 13, a scenario which could realistically happen a short three and a half years from now if the Lord were to come today. Here the “beast” or antichrist is “worshiped” by the whole world, empowered directly by Satan. The whole worship scene is enhanced by “another beast” or the false prophet. This beast constructs the final multi-media, image- based worship service before Armageddon happens. He does it with “great wonders” and “miracles” (both from semeia, image, sign). The whole world will be tattooed with a “mark” upon the skin that shows solidarity with the movement. Is the world not conditioning itself for this type of worship?

Perhaps this article ought to be closed with Paul’s admonition to Timothy,

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

Notes:

1. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (New York: Houghton & Mifflin, 1971) 479. Interestingly, this comes from a section titled “The Significance of the Spoken Word.”

2. Carl Trueman, The Wages of Spin (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2004) Kindle, 793.

3. Authur W. Hunt, III, The Vanishing Word (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2003) 202.

4. Trueman, part 2, “”Short, Sharp Shocks.”

5. Albert Mohler, Jr., He Is Not Silent (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008) Kindle, 260.

6. Mohler, 764.

7. Hunt, 25

8. Trueman, 359

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Mary Slobodian: 1931 – 2014

July 30, 2014Written by Admin

Mary Slobodian: 1931 – 2014

by Admin

On July 22, Mary Slobodian, wife of BIEM and Baptist Global Mission founder, Peter Slobodian, passed into eternity. She went to join her husband, Peter, with the Lord, peacefully at her home in Gladstone, Missouri. She was 83 and is survived by 3 children, 11 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

The funeral service was on Saturday, July 26, 2014.

Interment at Lincoln Memorial Gardens, Zionsville, IN.

A pictorial history of Dr. Peter and Mary Slobodian from BIEM Missions on Vimeo.

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day:and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8).

This is Peter Slobodian’s biography, “Giving God the Glory.” It can be purchased through Baptist International Evangelistic Ministries.

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America in Christian Perspective

June 26, 2014Written by Rick Shrader

America in Christian Perspective

by Rick Shrader

“Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” Proverbs 16:34

America has been the greatest nation in the age of grace. We share our Christian values with our mother England, but she has fallen from her graceful place generations ago and her favorite son may not be far behind. As we approach our “Independence Day” celebrations, I doubt that many in our great land will think of the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Almost all holidays, religious or national, have become mere opportunities to play and party. We don’t take time to reflect on what brought us this freedom or how we came to be so blessed.

The true believer in Jesus Christ lives in a nationalistic conundrum. Can we rejoice in present-day America with its rejection of God and its blatant sins? Or can we be thankful for what we have had in the past even though we are living off the spiritual capital of our forefathers? Or can we be positive about our future, hoping that there will be some reprieve or revival or relief? Or can we be assured that these are the last days and that Jesus Christ Himself will rescue His Church before the dark and terrible days of tribulation to come? John’s tribulation riddle was, “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Rev. 13:10).

I have been in several countries of the world and have mostly enjoyed every place I’ve gone. Of course, this is largely because I’ve gone there to fellowship with believers and share the things of God with like-minded brothers and sisters. I am always reminded that most believers in this world do not enjoy the privileges and blessings that we have in America. In many ways, non-American believers deserve more of God’s grace than we do, and most pay a much dearer price for their faith than we. Do we not bear a much greater responsibility for the stewardship of God’s blessings, and deserve greater judgment if we squander them?

Anthony Daniels, speaking at Hillsdale College last month said of his native England,

“Certainly the notions of dependence and independence have changed. I remember a population that was terrified of falling into dependence on the state, because such dependence, apart from being unpleasant in itself, signified personal failure and humiliation. But there has been an astonishing gestalt switch in my lifetime. Independence has now come to mean independence of the people to whom one is related and dependence on the state.”¹

Likewise in America, rather than dependence upon our Creator for the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of (true) happiness, we have turned to our own ways and that usually means making government our god who will always supply our need. In fact, the “liberation” theology of preachers such as Jeremiah Wright and others is actually a “dependence” theology making citizens dependents of the state which is, in this interpretation, the only god there is.

What is a Christian to do? As I have thought on these things as a patriotic American Christian, I believe there are Biblical truths that we must honor and follow regardless of what happens in our country. At the same time, we must ask that “for a little space grace might be shown from the Lord our God . . . to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage” (Ezra 9:8).

Principles of a Christian Nation

God instituted human government after the flood of Noah. From that time to this it has been God’s will that men collectively govern themselves for good while punishing the evil. Romans 13 makes it clear that such power is seen as the minister of God for good. Here are some things that we must be aware of in America.

First, Satan hates Israel and America is Israel’s only friend in the world. Any nation should fear to read that God has said He would bless them that bless Israel and curse him that curses Israel (Gen. 12:3). Satan knows what the future has in store and still believes that he must destroy Israel if his plan to control the world can succeed. To do this he must first destroy the biggest obstacle to that objective, and that is the United States. Anyone who knows Biblical prophecy knows how the scenario works out. In history, Germany, the land of Reformation, could not stand when it became anti-semitic. Russia fell when it persecuted its Jewish citizens. For the first time in our nation’s history we have a cold relationship to Israel and in the grand scheme of things, that is a precarious place to be.

Second, America is founded on God’s providence. Yes, every nation is to some extent, but in God’s providential working America has been especially blessed. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” (Psa. 33:12). This verse speaks specifically of Israel, but the next verse reads, “The Lord looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth” (vss. 13-14). To whom much is given much is required, and God has certainly given America much of which we are His stewards. To this point we have used our wealth to bless other nations and promote Biblical faith. That’s why we have been “blessed.”

Third, America was founded upon a Protestant ethic.² It is only in a euphemistic sense that we say “Judeo-Christian” ethic. Our forefathers fled the Church of England in the way that England and all of Europe fled Roman Catholicism even though our tent is large and excludes no “Christian” interpretation. Henry Morris wrote,

“It is significant that all [of the signers of the Declaration] were at least nominal believers in the God of the Bible and in His supernatural creation of all things in the beginning, and in Jesus Christ as the chief Founder of our nation’s religion. None were atheists or Muslims or Buddhists or from any other non-Christian religion, and the same was true of the body of distinguished men who several years later formulation our national Constitution. It is understandable why God has signally blessed our nation. Indeed, ‘happy are the people whose God is the LORD.’”³

Fourth, there have always been just wars and America has always been on the right side. When immigrants to this land were truly seeking freedom to worship the true God according to their conscience and the Word of God, we fought for the dissolution of our ties with a tyrannical England. When slavery had engulfed us, we sacrificed a half-million citizens to right that wrong. When Germany would have destroyed the free countries of Europe we came to their rescue in WWI. When Hitler would have conquered the world we led the bloody charge clear to Berlin in WWII. In all the messy wars since then we were the protectors and the liberators. Gog and Magog is on the horizon, but America’s future moral compass will only be measured by her Biblical faith.

Fifth, America is not in Biblical prophecy, except, of course, in the most general sense as all nations of the earth that will exist at that time. What that means is that she may or may not be around when the Tribulation begins, depending on how far away that inevitable event is. Our most frequent prayer ought to be that America will still be promoting the preaching of the gospel until Jesus comes.

Sixth, Democracy is the best form of government for the age of grace. God dictated Israel’s law, and Jesus will rule the kingdom of God with a rod of iron, but in this interim the American experiment has proved to be the best sinful men can achieve. A monarchy rests on the good nature of one man and there is no such man until Jesus comes. An oligarchy rests on the goodness of a few but the chances of those few being in the best interest of the people are slim. A democracy depends on the goodness of the majority and their representatives. The chances of that happening have lasted longer than the other forms. But it is only a matter of time until the first believing generations fail to pass on the faith to the next generations. Then the majority will rule according to their own lusts.

What has been called “American Exceptionalism” really rests on America’s lapsarian understanding of man’s sins. We are a rule of law precisely because “the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners” (1 Tim. 1:9), and Christians understand that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). The casting off of the rule of law is to promote sinful man above the law and to lose our humility before a righteous God.

Principles for Christians in a Christian Nation

First, Christian people who are blessed enough to live in America ought to live godly lives as members of a local church. We understand that this is the age of the local church. That is the entity God has chosen to work through to carry out His plans. It is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). A baptized believer without a local church family walks alone in the world and is being unbiblical. If God’s people would do what God has commissioned Christians to do through the church, the nation of their residence would be greatly blessed and strengthened. Our troubles have not come because Christians have not been involved enough in politics, but because they have not been involved enough in their own local churches, and those churches have not been involved enough in doing what the church is supposed to do.

Second, Christians in America should be model citizens. Paul taught us to pray “for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior” (1 Tim. 2:2-3). “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Rom. 12:18). If we practice the fruit of the Spirit rather than the lusts of the flesh, “against such,” we find, “there is no law” (Gal. 5:23).

Third, Christians in America should be productive citizens. “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you” (1 Thes. 4:11). God made us to work and work is fulfilling and blesses our family and others. It was God who “gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17), not the government’s welfare programs.

Fourth, Christians in America should defend their own country in law enforcement and military service. Since God has established government as His ordained means to control sinful men, it is not wrong for a Christian to make that his/her profession. After all, they are “ministers of God for good” (Rom. 13:4) also. No doubt, corruption in high places will frustrate the Christian civil servant, but as long as the agreed upon law of the land is still good in principle, the Christian may enforce it with all good conscience. From time to time, believers have had a tendency to almost worship patriotism because of a country’s blessing to them, but that has generally been better in history than having to flee for one’s life because of the evil nature of one’s country, as in communist or radical countries.

Fifth, Christians in America and everywhere else should remember that God is in control of it all. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it withersoever he will” (Prov. 21:1). “Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: and he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding” (Dan. 2:20-21). We don’t know the mind of the Lord, nor why we live in this land and not another, nor why we were born at this time and not another. Mordecai calmed the nervous Esther by reminding her, “and who knoweth whether thou are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). After all, “our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 4:20). We are stewards of the time and place in which we live.

And So . . .

It may seem right now that we have two Americas existing within the same geographical boundary. We have never been so split over values, morals, religion, and politics. There is no more land to begin a new nation. We will live through the present crisis and serve God either way. History does not teach us that men get better but worse. Prophecy teaches us that the darkest days are still ahead but there is a blessed hope for the church of Jesus Christ. As with the death of the body, we don’t know how or when, we just know it will happen, so also with the nations that exist before the Day of Jesus Christ.

As a citizen of this great country, my emotions can swing from joy to sadness. As a pastor of a local congregation, I have a responsibility to prepare God’s people, especially the next generation, for whatever is coming. In most things in life we prepare for the worst case scenario and then thank God when it turns out better. A blithely positive attitude is great if that negative scenario doesn’t come. But if it does come, will God’s people stand in the evil day, and having done all, stand? Some generation will see the dark days and be translated out, will it be us?

In the meantime, let us take William Carey’s admonition, “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.” A wise man said if he knew the Lord was coming tomorrow, he would still plant a tree today. This indeed should be the Christian’s finest hour. “To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints” (1 Thes. 3:13).

Am I A Soldier of the Cross?

A fol-l’wer of the lamb?

And shall I fear to own His cause,

Or blush to speak His name?

Must I be carried to the skies

On flow-’ry beds of ease,

While oth-ers fought to win the prize,

And sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face?

Must I not stem the flood?

Is this vile world a friend to grace,

To help me on to God?

Sure I must fight if I would reign-

Increase my cour-age Lord!

I’ll bear the toil, en-dure the pain,

Sup-port-ed by Thy Word.

Isaac Watts

Notes:

1. Anthony Daniels, “The Worldview that Makes the Underclass,” Imprimis, May/June 2014.

2. See D.G. Hart, That Old Time Religion in Modern America, chapter 3, “Evangelicals and the Politics of Morality. Also see, John M. Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul, part VI, “Soul Liberty.”

3. Dr. Henry M. Morris, “The Pursuit of Happiness,” originally written in 2005 and adapted for Acts & Facts, July 2014.

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God’s Strength In Our Weakness

June 2, 2014Written by Rick Shrader

God’s Strength In Our Weakness

by Rick Shrader

“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

The last four chapters of 2 Corinthians is a roller-coaster ride of emotions from the apostle Paul. In chapter 10 he is proving his apostleship to the doubters in Corinth; in chapter 11 he is contrasting his own testimony with the false apostles (who really were ministers of Satan) by listing his own perils suffered for Christ’s sake; in chapter 12 he takes the reader to the heavenlies where he was raptured to see the glory of God, and then explains that God also gave him a thorn in the flesh so that he wouldn’t glory in himself; then in chapter 13 he concludes that just as Christ was crucified in weakness but raised in power, so we, though weak in our sufferings, can live by the power of God.

Though we may not suffer as many have throughout our history, every believer suffers in some fashion under the mighty hand of God. If we be without this chastisement of God we are illegitimate and not real sons. We learn nothing without effort and struggle and so it is with our knowledge of the love and grace of God. It is part of our nature to resist, to take the easier path of avoiding hardship, but softness comes by inactivity as well as lethargy and laziness.

John Bunyan was a man acquainted with suffering, spending twelve years in prison simply for preaching the gospel. He said,

“I count therefore, that such things are necessary for the health of our souls, as bodily pains and labour are for [the health of] the body. People that live high, and in idleness, bring diseases upon the body: and they that live in all fullness of Gospel-ordinances, and are not exercised with trials, grow gross, are diseased and full of bad humours in their souls.”¹

Most of us would admit that our suffering for Christ has been of the more inward type, that is, we may have been wounded in spirit, gossiped about, slandered, or simply have been forced to go through a time of heart ache for someone else. I am not necessarily talking about those things we suffer because we live in a sinful world such as accidents, disease, or simply the pains of growing older. Those things are brought upon us by the introduction of our own sin into God’s originally perfect creation, and are allowed by God that we might see ourselves as we really are. No doubt, God will faithfully help us through these also. But there are sufferings that are specifically for Christ’s sake, as Peter wrote, “if ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye” (1 Peter 4:14). And why should we be happy about this? “for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.” Or, as Paul wrote, “when I am weak, then am I strong.”

Perhaps if we suffered for Christ more in our very flesh we could see the work of God in us more directly. Yet when we suffer in our spirit, which is by far the more common form of suffering for the average Christian, the work of His grace in us is more difficult to grasp and therefore the more difficult to grow thereby. If we could really see how much we can learn from such circumstances, we would desire the fellowship of His sufferings even more. Not for revenge, nor for self-reward, but because, though some unknowing person did us harm, we know it was more Satan who desired the ruin of our spirit than the human instrument of his use, and also because we will grow by it if we learn to let Him increase as we decrease.

The abuse of prejudice

Those who fight against Christianity don’t always do it by brute physical aggression. Paul himself suffered from the prejudice about his physical appearance. “For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible” (2 Cor. 10:10). To be prejudiced is to make a judgment about someone based on one’s previous ideas before obtaining any first-hand knowledge of the person. Samuel had this prejudice when he went to the house of Jesse expecting to find a king for Israel. When he saw Eliab he thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him. But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:6-7).

Many men and women in God’s service have not measured up to the physical standards of what society thinks or wants in a leader. Fanny Crosby said of herself, “I’m four feet three inches tall. I was four feet five, but I’ve shrunk up some. I weigh eighty-four and a half pounds. My grandmother used to call me ‘Fanny Flewit,’ because I flew around the house so.”² But her physical size and appearance did not stop God from using her in a marvelous way. George Whitefield was evidently a very short man and probably cross-eyed, and perhaps even spoke with an impediment, but neither England nor America has produced a more powerful preacher of the gospel.³

The list of God’s servants with physical “shortcomings” could go on and on. My professor, Dr. Harju, in Life of Paul class, used to call the apostle Paul “a hook-nosed, runny-eyed, little Jew.” And maybe he was. Paul said he prayed three times for God to change him but God does not deal in divine eugenics. He had a greater blessing for Paul. “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” And so Paul answered, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9).

By Paul’s testimony, therefore, we ought rather to thank those who persecute us because they have brought an opportunity for us to learn the greater blessing of God’s grace. We are the winner and they are the loser. Even though any person, Christian or not, will answer to God for slander and railing, the Christian will be greatly rewarded if he does not fall into retaliation himself.

God is not a respecter of persons (Rom. 2:11) and neither should the Christian be (Jas. 2:1). How can we bless God with our tongue, and then with the same tongue curse another human being made in God’s image (Jas. 2:9)? But we have seen it often. A pastoral candidate may not look like the perfect pastor; a youth pastor may not be “cool;” a singer may not be the prettiest girl in the church; or worse yet, a visitor may not measure up to the cultural expectations of the neighborhood (Jas. 2:2-3). To display this kind of persecution toward a brother or sister is a sin and displays a woeful lack of spiritual perception. But to receive this kind of persecution, or any other kind, is a hidden blessing.

The abuse of unforgiveness

People without Christ really don’t know how to forgive. Forgiveness to them usually means overlooking transgressions. Politicians, athletes, actors, performers and even ministers can commit the most immoral things and are excused with the false piety of “I just forgive.” Of course, this only happens if the person in question is politically correct. Then all can be forgiven. Sometimes such misplaced forgiveness comes by comparing this sin with another’s. “Well, many people throughout history have done the same thing.”

The fact is, until a person has been forgiven much by God, he/she cannot know to forgive even a little with another person. In the parable of the two debtors, the master said, “O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?” (Matt. 18:23-35).

The few times as a pastor that I have had to deal with public discipline, I always begin my remarks by saying, “There are a few things we believe. Sin is real, repentance is real, and forgiveness is real.” If the first two have truly taken place, then the third should also. Paul had to scold the Corinthian church in his first epistle for not even dealing with the sin. But in his second epistle, when they had dealt with it in a proper way and had forgiven the man, he urged them, “So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow” (2 Cor. 2:7). In a similar way Paul admonished the believers in Galatia, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:1-2).

In a recent message, Dr. Kevin Bauder listed the sins of many prominent Christian leaders and rightly pointed out the usual lack of accountability. Then he said, “But we also need to establish real protections against slander and destructive accusations—for they, too, are a form of abuse, and those who engage in such activities are themselves abusers.”⁴ If you have ever seen a person either repent or apologize (whichever is appropriate for the offense) and then are taken back by brothers or sisters who refuse to restore such a one, or want a pound of flesh (so to speak), it is a discouraging and distasteful display of (the lack of) Christian love. It is disobeying the law of Christ, rather than fulfilling it. These forms of persecution come from the flesh, whether saved flesh or lost flesh, and they are destructive to individuals who are then overcome with much sorrow, and also to churches in sowing seeds of discord which God hates (Prov. 6:16-19).

But at this point let me also repeat that trials are growing times for the Christian. The truth about all our sin is that we deserve much more than the pain our sin brings; yes, we deserve hell itself for eternity! It is by the grace of our Lord that He paid that debt for us and forgave us. We are left on this earth, in this faulty flesh, for a variety of reasons, one of which is that we may continue to grow and be more like Christ, and solid growth comes of pain. Do not be bitter toward those whom Satan has duped into using. Bless God for His mercy and grace in that hour and use it to your eternal benefit.

The abuse of self-revelation

It is a dangerous thing to claim to receive a message from God. There is a fine line between saying that God has “led” me to do something, and saying that He “told” me specifically what to do. One is to say that the Holy Spirit works in me and leads me according to His will, while the other is to say that God has revealed something to me clearly and plainly. Current religious culture has created a panoply of confusing propositions with the words dream, vision, whisper, voices, revelation, prophecy, and so on. Bible believing people are properly cautious, not wanting to say in any way that God has not made Himself known to us, but also not wanting to wish “God speed” to someone who is changing the Word of God.

Albert Mohler rightfully insists that, “If you do not believe that God now speaks from His Word—the Bible—then what are you doing every Sunday morning? If you are not confident that God speaks as you rightly read and explain the Word of God, then you should quit.”⁵ But Mohler is not saying that every Christian will hear his/her own special revelation from God. Rather he is saying that God now speaks through His Word because it IS His Word. If you hear the Bible being read, you are hearing God speak—today! But if you seek other verbal communication from God, you are not hearing God’s Word but some human wisdom about God.

The examples of this are myriad. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, a Vineyard minister, Rev. Ken Wilson, claimed he received a “strong nudge from Jesus” to change his view on homosexuality and to support homosexuals in the church.⁶ Did he really? Of course not! But when someone claims that his view came directly from God, it becomes difficult to refute without a semester course on theology. Eliphaz the Temanite used this trick to lecture Job, “Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair on my flesh stood up” (Job 4:12-15).

Recently, congregations have been pressured into drastic changes by pastors who have had such “visions” from God. What can be said in opposition to that? Can you fight against God? But, again, the fine line is, talking as though “vision” only means a leading of the Lord, and yet practicing as though “vision” means a revelation. Too many times their orthodoxy may explain it one way but their orthopraxy results in a stronger way. The fact is that God has spoken the same thing to all churches and it is our job to apply that revelation in the best way we can. But let us not pressure people into something by claiming divine revelation about it.

This has been a fact of our generation. Men want so much to be seen as great leaders, and this is a way to accomplish that. But God has not asked that of us. He has asked us to preach and practice His Word. If we do other, verily we have our reward! But, again, how should we respond in such an environment? Be faithful to God’s Word. Don’t strive to be a Warren or an Osteen or a Hybels or a Hinn, who would want to be? God has not asked us to work for the applause of men or churches. God, who sees in secret, will reward us openly at His Bema Seat. And that is enough.

And So . . . .

I could go on. There is an abuse of silence. This is when you find you have offended someone but they never let you know. If it really didn’t matter, that would be one thing. But you find that they have been hurt by it and have even left the church, or some such thing. To find that a brother or sister has done this without coming to you is disheartening. I call this hide-and-seek Christianity. All you can do at that point is take the initiative yourself (there is wisdom in the Lord’s directive) and pick up what pieces you can.

There is the abuse of gossip which is much more well known. The terrible thing about gossip is that someone is harmed by it, and harmed in a way that can never be undone or recovered in this life. We can make it right by repenting and going to the offended person, but the words are like fire that continue to burn around the world. Surely this kind of persecution against the spirit will be severely judged by God.

I could add the abuse of hypocrisy, whereby a false believer takes advantage of an unknowing brother or sister and then goes out from us because they are not of us. Many times destruction and hurt are left in the wake.

James’ cure is the best: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3:17-18).

Notes:

1. John Bunyan, Advice To Sufferers (Louisville: Vintage Puritan Series, nd) Kindle, 91.

2. “Recollections of Fanny Crosby.” The Christian Herald, March 17, 1915.

3. Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994) 41.

4. “A Story Worth Repeating,” preached at Trinity Baptist Church, March 28, 2014.

5. Albert Mohler, He Is Not Silent (Chicago: Moody, 2008) Kindle, 764.

6. “Minister claims he received ‘strong nudge from Jesus to announce support for homosexuality,” The Beacon, May, 2014, p. 2.

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Marijuana and the Christian

May 1, 2014Written by Rick Shrader

Marijuana and the Christian

by Rick Shrader

The culture in America is changing quickly, and not necessarily for the good. Christians generally agree that issues such as abortion, pornography, or same-sex marriages are immoral, unbiblical, and harmful to society at large. Not all agree about substance abuse in areas such as alcohol, tobacco, and drugs like marijuana. Churches have long had to develop convictions as well as policies concerning these substances in defining their membership and spiritual leadership roles. The rapid legalization of marijuana is quickly forcing the church to include it on its list of substances for qualification.

In 1969 only 12% of Americans supported the legalization of marijuana. Today it is 58%. 50% of Catholics favor legalizing the drug as do 58% of Protestants in America. 21 states have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana with similar bills pending in 16 other states. 2 States, Colorado and Washington, have legalized recreational use of marijuana with 13 other states pushing for the same and these numbers change almost daily. This has caused the Department of Justice to announce it will not enforce federal laws (because possession of marijuana is still a federal crime) and create conflict in those states. It does not look like this will be abated soon.

The Marijuana Plant

Marijuana is one of the varieties of the Hemp plant or Cannabis Sativa L. The Hemp plant has been around for thousands of years because it is the best source for many products including rope, textiles, foods, paper, body care products, detergents, plastics, and various building materials. The industrial Hemp is grown for its stalk which can grow to 15 feet tall. It contains only about .01% of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinoids), the addictive ingredient that makes a person high.

The Hemp plant, or Cannabis, can also produce the marijuana variety grown specifically for its flower, not its stalk. This variety grows only about 5 feet tall but produces 10-15% THC (although the marijuana of the ‘60s had only about 1 to 2%). The marijuana plant has 60+ cannabinoids, the active ingredients (of which THC is one) that make the plant marijuana. These ingredients can be made into liquids called tinctures which can be taken internally, mixed with foods, and used medicinally. There are also synthetic liquids that are legal in Canada and the UK. These liquid forms have been available for a number of years in prescription form to be used for pain relief though users usually prefer the smoking variety.

Growing Issues

The legalization of marijuana has growing momentum and probably will not stop until it is available in all 50 states. An internet search will show a great diversity of opinion as to the positive and negative effects of marijuana on the human mind and body. Whereas pro-drug websites boldly state that marijuana is not harmful and in fact may be good for you, medical opinion is beginning to come in that shows the opposite, or at least is not nearly so optimistic.

“We don’t have as good data as we have for alcohol, but the evidence is already clear,” said Susan Weiss, policy chief for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Marijuana is not good for you.” Frequent, prolonged marijuana use has been linked to depression, psychosis, anxiety, and other mental disorders, especially among teenagers. A decades-long study in New Zealand found that adolescents who used pot at least four times a week lost an average of 8 IQ points between the ages of 13 and 38. Studies suggest that about 9 percent of all users become dependent on marijuana, and that pot smokers have far higher rates of workplace injuries and school absences than non-users. One study of 46,000 Swedish soldiers found that even infrequent pot smokers were more than twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as non-smokers; regular users were six times as likely.¹

Just this month (April, 2014) Northwestern University released a study on the negative effects of marijuana. This study was a collaboration between Northwestern Medicine® and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. On their website, Northwestern reported, “This is the first study to show casual use of marijuana is related to major brain changes. It showed the degree of brain abnormalities in these regions is directly related to the number of joints a person smoked per week. The more joints a person smoked, the more abnormal the shape, volume and density of the brain regions.”²

In addition to the medical issues related to marijuana, there are legal issues where federal and state laws conflict. There are issues related to prison terms such as a man in Missouri who has already served 20 years of a life sentence for possession of marijuana, an action that wouldn’t even get him arrested today. There is the issue of whether prohibition actually works or is just fueling the fire of possession. There is the issue of pain relief for some who claim they have found no other way of relief. And then there is the issue of whether marijuana should be any more illegal than alcohol or cigarettes. These issues and more are also causing differences of opinion among Christians as to the proper attitude to take toward marijuana.

Common Reasons Given in Favor

In reading various websites, even some Christians give arguments in support of marijuana use. “It is no worse than alcohol.” Of course, no one knows yet what the effects of marijuana will be on society. This answer is a wish, not a conclusion. The fact is, if marijuana is only half as bad as alcohol it is far too bad. Alcohol has been one of the most harmful substances that sinful man has used and abused. God warned of its use (Prov. 20:1) and so have many medical and law enforcement officials. To say that something is no worse than alcohol is like saying that your upcoming surgery is no worse than a root canal, so don’t worry about it.

“God gave us all herbs to enjoy.” God did give us His creation to use but not abuse. This is usually spoken in regard to the Hemp plant which has varieties that can be used in good or bad ways. Most things that mankind makes are this way because this is a broken, or fallen, world. God may have given us the raw materials but the artwork is ours (Mic. 5:13; Acts 17:29). Because God gave us sound doesn’t mean that all music is good; because God gave us color doesn’t mean that all pictures are good; because God gave us trees doesn’t mean that all boats made from them are good boats. God gave us the ingredients for various poisons too, but I don’t think a wise person will take them in their final form as gifts from God. Almost all of the earth’s raw materials can be used in a positive or negative way.

“Almost everything is bad for you. Because car exhaust is bad, am I going to stop driving?” No, you are not going to stop driving, but you won’t put your mouth over the exhaust pipe while the car is running either. We live in a sinful world with many harmful things and it is our stewardship to navigate this world to the glory of God with the best of our ability. We can succeed or fail at that (1 Cor. 9:27).

“The jails are full and yet the drugs are still available. The ban on some drugs like marijuana is too costly and doesn’t work.” Again, this is a wish not a fact. No one knows what the legalization of marijuana is going to do to our neighborhoods, schools, gang problems, and a host of other issues. Solving the problem by abandoning all restraints is kind of like jumping over a cliff and then deciding half way down that it wasn’t such a good idea. America is about to jump over this cliff and we have no idea what it will be like. When men take their own path with little regard to God’s direction, it ends in harm and regret (James 4:15-17).

Lastly, “Smoking marijuana has given me the only relief I can find for my constant pain.” Actually, I have the most sympathy for this person. Pain is personal and we all deal with it differently. I have heard parents make this argument for children who went this route. First, I have a hard time thinking that with all of our medical technology there really isn’t better pain relief than marijuana. Second, there are other variations of the same drug available in prescription form that are more controllable. But third, I would hope that in such a circumstance I would still refuse, or at least greatly resist, the use of a substance that harms me in other ways as much as it helps me in one way (Col. 3:17, 23).

Biblical Reasons Against

Our Body. First and foremost is the Biblical reason that many Christians have grown tired of—our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and what is purposely used though it harms our body is not good, and, in fact is sinful. Paul says that the believer’s body is a “member of Christ” (1 Cor. 6:15) and therefore he should not give it to a harlot and become one in body though he can never become one in spirit (vs. 17) with her. Then he applies that well known statement that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we have been bought with a price, which is the very death of Christ (vss. 19-20). We are not to be drunk with wine wherein (“in which is”) is excess but be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). We are to be vessels “unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21). Just as God raised up the body of Christ, He will raise our bodies to be in His presence because they are important to Him (1 Cor. 6:14).

To simply say that we cannot attain complete purity of our bodies in this life and therefore it is futile to try, is to give up proper spiritual effort. We know the difference between positional and progressive sanctification. To rest in one’s position in Christ with no concern for ongoing sanctification is to be disqualified for the race (1 Cor. 9:27). Even the apostle Paul, late in his life, said he would press toward the finish line of life’s race (Phil. 3:14) “but I press on, that I may also lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me” (vs. 12, NKJV).

Our Witness. It is disconcerting that we have largely abandoned the method of using our abstinence (of worldly things) as a means of witness for Christ. Whereas we used to believe that abstinence brought conviction to the lost person by explaining why we do not do the activity, now we seem to believe that participating with the lost person and somehow befriending him in that way better draws him to Christ. I think we have turned from relying on the Holy Spirit for conviction to relying on our own means of drawing them. And besides, we really don’t like the tension the first method creates.

This doesn’t mean, as some will surely try to point out, that we become unfriendly and caustic in our abstaining witness. In fact, this is where the witness is greatly enhanced, when we can speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). But we can’t have a powerful witness with just the love. There must be the truth also. Paul’s use of the great separation passage (“come out from among them and be ye separate” from Isa. 52:11) in 2 Cor. 6, follows a scolding of the Corinthian church for not understanding that trying to make righteousness have fellowship with unrighteousness, or light to have communion with darkness, is to be unequally yoked with unbelief (2 Cor. 6:14-18). That is not to be light in the world but darkness. Surely Paul understood the proper balance of love and truth.

Our Family. The family is God’s creation for nurturing children from infancy to adulthood. Parents are supposed to protect, educate, discipline, and train the children to become productive servants in God’s vineyard (Eph. 6:4). Also the children that are under a parent’s care are to obey them that “it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest life long on the earth” (Eph. 6:3). Pastors and their wives are to offer their children as examples to the whole church of good order and godliness (1 Tim. 3:4-5; Titus 1:6). Christian families ought to be the first in society to take the “high road” when it comes to issues of morality, service, friendliness, hospitality, godliness, and even safety. The reason we can’t imagine a parent wanting a child to smoke marijuana or use any other illicit substance is because we understand that a parent’s heart has a God-given sense of protection toward its children (Prov. 4:1-6).

Our Church. The local church has the right and the obligation to set boundaries for itself (meaning its members) concerning things which it believes is harmful, sinful, or disruptive to the Biblical function of its ministry. This may be in the form of a church covenant to which members agree upon joining the church or the constitution (By-Laws) which the church adopts by vote and agreement. No one is forced to join any local church and no one is forced to stay. It is a voluntary society which believing families join if they think it will be the best place to worship and raise their children.

Churches have always had to deal with issues such as alcohol, tobacco, pornography, and various drugs. This is becoming more important in our generation, not less. It is not good to see many churches have little concern about the use of addictive substances within their membership. Most conservative churches have valid concerns for how these things affect them. The coming ubiquity of legal marijuana will force churches to include it among their constitutional agreements.

The church in Jerusalem gave specific advice to the churches in Galatia regarding idols, fornication, and dietary rules about meat (Acts 15:20) and the Galatian churches gladly adopted those for their situation (Acts 16:4-5). Paul (as the apostle) directed the Corinthian church to settle upon matters of law courts, fornication, abuse of the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, and even false teachers. The churches established and overseen by Timothy and Titus were given many directives for healthy and godly living (1 Tim. 2:8-9; 2 Tim. 2:14-26; Titus 1:10-16). The world they lived in dictated swift and specific action be taken regarding these harmful things.

And So . . . .

I doubt that the practices of Christians and substances will change much with the addition of legalized marijuana. Those that have already allowed moderate drinking will probably allow moderate use of marijuana. It is interesting that most church covenants don’t mention tobacco in any form but there is usually a conviction about it that is well known in the church. Families will probably allow marijuana or not according to how they presently deal with these other substances. This will, no doubt, be a growing concern for youth leaders as the pressure on Christian kids mounts over the next few years.

I would hope that conservative churches and families will become more convicted about abstinence toward these harmful substances and will seek fellowship with others of like mind. Issues like marijuana will create even broader differences in our culture but Christians, of all people, must be willing to stand for moral and decent principles. This stand will not hurt us but will help us and give us another platform from which to share our faith in Christ as we speak the truth about this in love.

Notes:

1. http://theweek.com/article/index/236671/is-marijuana-bad-for-you?

2. http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2014/04/casual-marijuana-use-linked-to-brain-abnormalities-in-students.html.

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