The Judgment Seat & The Wedding Of The Lamb

Posted on December 13, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Victoria Priessnitz on Unsplash

We’ll be in two texts tonight. The first will be in Revelation 19:6-10, and the second is in 1 Corinthians 3:9-15. Turn to Revelation first.

Last Wednesday we saw the Apostle compare the Church to a garden and to a building. We also talked about how Jesus had no wife as we do while He walked this earth.

Jesus does have a Bride. The Bride is His Church.

The Apostle compared the Church to a Bride in:

Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

In 2 Corinthians 11:2 the Apostle said the Church was “betrothed or engaged to Jesus”. In Revelation 19 we see that one day the Church will be married to the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. This is a spiritual marriage, a legal binding together of the body of believers in Christ with Jesus Christ Himself. It is our Covenant Union with Jesus Christ that gives us an inheritance with Jesus in eternity. The Bible says:

Ephesians 5:23-24 … the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. 24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Following the Rapture of the Church, the works of all believers will be judged, and following this judgment we will be part of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

There Will Be A Marriage Supper Of The Lamb

Revelation 19:6-9 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. 7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. 8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. 9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

In Revelation 19 we see all of Heaven praising God! “Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. 7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come”. David Guzik in his Enduring Word Commentary notes:

“One reason this great multitude is so filled with praise is because the time has come for the Lamb of God to be joined unto His people, in a union so close it can only be compared to the marriage of a man and a woman.”

The “Lamb” is Jesus Christ (see John 1:29; John 1:36; 1 Peter 1:19). Prior to the Marriage of the Lamb the Bride “made herself ready”. How is the Church made ready? It is a GRANT or a GIFT from God. The Scripture says, “to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints”. The Bride (the Church) does not make her own wedding gown. The adornment of the Church is “granted”, that is the Greek δίδωμι dídōmi, {pronounced did’-o-mee}. This literally means “it was given or bestowed on”. The “righteousness of the Saints” is not our own righteousness, but the righteousness we have through faith in Christ Jesus.

That which clothes the Saints is the salvation we have by faith, and ALSO the works that we did to glorify Jesus while on this earth. The Bride’s GOWN is the REWARDS of the faithful Saints.

Christians are saved to shine for Jesus. Salvation is a free gift, but the free gift has a purpose. We are told in …

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Most people stop reading at this point. But if you do, you miss a very important truth. In the next verse we read:

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Word Study: God has ordained (Greek προετοιμάζω proetoimázō, [pronounced pro-et-oy-mad’-zo]) or decreed in advance that we who are His will walk IN good works. The Bride will be adorned with the righteousness of Christ, and the righteous works that we did for Christ while on this earth. Guzik notes:

Believers are created for divinely prepared good works.

There will be a wedding celebration in glory for all of Christ’s believers. C.H. Spurgeon noted:

“The Bride of Christ is a sort of Cinderella now, sitting among the ashes. She is like her Lord, ‘despised and rejected of men’; the watchmen smite her, and take away her veil from her; for they know her not, even as they knew not her Lord. But when he shall appear, then shall she appear also, and in his glorious manifestation she also shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father.”

What a glorious day that will be! We will be bound to Christ as His Covenant people forever, each of us a part of His Spiritual Bride. I can hardly wait. There are, however, things that must occur in eternity prior to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The Bride must be cleansed of all false religion, and all impurities. This will be done by Jesus Christ at His Judgment Seat.

All Works Are Judged By Jesus

Jesus said:

John 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

If Jesus is the GROOM, and the Church the BRIDE, and Heaven the HOME of the Bride and Groom, it makes sense that Jesus does all the judging!

Illustration: We as Christians are saved to do good works for Jesus. We strive to do the right thing, to honor our God. But there are times we fall flat. I heard about the little boy who played a “wise man” in the Church Christmas program. When he stepped forward to say his lines, he improvised – and brought the house down. He said:

“We are three wise guys, and we are bringing gifts of mold, common sense and fur!”

In our world today I’d love to see someone bring a little common sense and responsibility. EVERYONE is going to stand before Jesus one day and be judged. Solomon said:

Ecclesiastes 12:14 (ESV) For God {this is Jesus Christ} will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

The Apostle Paul, agreeing with Solomon, noted:

Romans 2:6 (ESV) {God the Son} will render to each one according to his works:

Preach!: Some will stand before Jesus and, because of their faith in Him, be given eternal life (Romans 2:7). Others will stand in front of Jesus and, because they would not receive Him as Lord and Savior, they are promised only eternal condemnation (Romans 2:8-9).

Everyone will give an account of their life to Jesus! The Apostle did not mince words when he wrote:

2 Corinthians 5:10 (ESV) For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Prior to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb Christ’s people will have their works judged by God. This is not the “Great White Throne” of Revelation 20:11-15. That judgment is for the Unbeliever, and a frightening judgment it will be! But there is a cleansing or preparation of the Bride through the Divine Judgment of every work that we as believers did while on this earth.

The Judgment Seat Of Christ Is The Weaving
Of The Bride’s Gown

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 3. Last week we looked at the phrase “You are God’s Garden”. Today we see the Apostle’s exposition of the phrase, “You are God’s Building”. This section deals with CHRISTIANS and their WORKS only.

1 Corinthians 3:9-15 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. 11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. 14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Salvation is entirely a gift of God. When a person realizes that he or she is Great Sinner in need of a Great Savior – and that Jesus is that One and Only Savior – and turns to Him believing then that person is saved.

Titus 3:5-7 (KJV) Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior; 7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

We are “Justified” or “made right with God” through the shed Blood of Christ. This is POSITIONAL TRUTH. God changes our status in HIS eyes once our hearts are given to Jesus. Jesus took our penalty so we can become sons of God. We are God’s building. Our FOUNDATION is what Jesus Christ did for us on the Cross and at the empty Tomb. God gives us a foundation in Christ.

The Foundation is laid when a person is saved.

1 Corinthians 3:10 (KJV) According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon.

Word Study: The Apostle Paul laid the FOUNDATION of Corinth, by preaching salvation by faith in Christ. This is what saves us. Paul was not just a builder, but a “wise master builder”. Paul calls himself a sophos architektōn, a wise architect or a chief constructor. Paul was careful to make sure that the foundation was not human works, Paul’s works and abilities, or anything that was not purely the Grace of God. It is not a sophos architektōn, or a wise architect who, on drawing out the plans for a building, specifies substandard materials. The Church is built on the genius of Christ.

The Church is the Building of God, a people working together for His Glory. The Christian is the Temple of God, the Bride of Christ.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 (KJV) Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

The Christian is the Temple of God, founded on the Bloody Cross of Christ. The Church is the Building of God, founded on the finished work of Calvary.

Solomon wrote in Psalm 127:1, “Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it”. When Paul was Saul, he went about persecuting the Church because it was NOT like Judaism. But once Saul was knocked down on the Damascus Road and discovered the Church belongs to Jesus (Acts 9:5), from that point on Saul became Paul. He was not about to build the Church on anything but the Grace of God by faith in Christ Jesus!

Brothers and sisters, you cannot work your way to Heaven. You cannot be good enough to be saved. “By one man (Adam) sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for ALL have sinned” (Romans 5:12). No one is good enough to get beyond God’s indictment that “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23). However, as the Apostle states a few verses further down, “if through the offense of one (adam) many be dead, MUCH MORE the grace of God, and the gift by Grace, which is by ONE MAN, Jesus Christ … (Romans 5:15).

The FOUNDATION is salvation by faith in Christ. But NO building stops at a foundation. The glory of the building is in what is built ON the foundation.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11 (KJV) …. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. 11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The foundation of every person’s faith is Jesus Christ. But once saved we begin to build on that foundation. Every work we do is based on that tremendous act of grace that our Lord Jesus gave us. Everything we build on that Foundation (Jesus Christ) must be worthy of Jesus Christ. Every room cobbled

The Foundation is Jesus Christ, and everything built on that Foundation is to be honoring to Jesus Christ.

We live to bring glory and honor to our Savior. We do the things we do to honor Jesus. Christ is the Foundation of the Church. Christ is the Foundation of the Christian Way of Life. Christ is the Rock on which we are to be built. It is His Word that brings stability to the Life we have. We are meant to NOT STALL after salvation, but to BUILD on that foundation of saving faith the things that Jesus bids we build. Jesus said:

Matthew 7:24-27 (ESV) Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

Whether wise or foolish, each one BUILDS their house. The Christian builds their house on the genius of Christ Jesus.

The Judgment Seat Of Christ Is The Preparation Of The Bride, The Judging Of Our Earthly Works Prior To The Marriage Supper

1 Corinthians 3:12-13 (KJV) Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest…

At the Judgment Seat of Christ prior to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, our works – built on the FOUNDATION OF OUR SALVATION – will be judged. Notice that the works are graded by the Apostle Paul into six categories:

gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble

These six items were commonly used in building construction in the Apostle’s day. “Hay and stubble” were used in building, but only when mixed with clay to make bricks. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Online notes that:

“The cognates of Hebrew tebhen, “straw” and qash, “stubble,” have been retained in the modern Arabic terms tibn and qashsh. Tibn applies to the straw which has been cut up into short pieces and more or less split by the threshing operations. … Tibn is mixed with clay for plastering walls or for making sun-dried bricks. It is also mixed with lime and sand for plastering. The children of Israel had their task of brick making made more arduous by being required to gather stubble and prepare it by chopping it up instead of being given the already prepared straw of the threshing-floors”

Hay and stubble without clay had little use other than for animal fodder. It was useless in a building if it stood alone. God breaks out the six different types of works that believers do on this earth. Gold and silver when fired, becomes more rather than less precious. Precious stones when fired may crack or burn, losing value. Wood, hay or stubble will soonest burn up if exposed to fire.

I believe the “Fire” that will be used to test our works in Heaven is the Shekinah Glory of God through Jesus.

The Bible says “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). When Israel left Egypt, God led them as “pillar of fire by night” (Exodus 13:21). When God spoke to Moses, He spoke out of a “burning bush” (Exodus 3:2-3). John the Baptist said that our Jesus would “baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Luke 3:16). When the Holy Spirit came to the disciples on the Day of Pentecost, He appeared as “tongues of fire that rested on each one of them” (Acts 2:3). God promised in the prophecies that there would be a day when He would “test them as gold is tested. They will call upon My name, and I will answer them” (Zechariah 13:9).

Jesus will test our works Himself. The purpose of the test is to make the work MANIFEST. Do our works honor Jesus our Lord?

1 Corinthians 3:13 (KJV) Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the FIRE shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Our Jesus will examine our works, “His eyes like a flame of fire” (Revelation 1:14; Revelation 19:12-13). He will judge our works to see if they glorified God or not. Jesus said (John 5:22) “The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.”. He Who was pierced with nails and beaten with whips and hung shamefully and nakedly shall judge the works of His people. He shall gaze upon all that we have built on the Foundation of His Sacrifice. Some of our works will – like gold and silver – become more pure under His gaze. Other of our works will burn like wood, hay or stubble.

1 Corinthians 3:14 (KJV) If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

Some have said they do not want a reward when they get to Heaven. You misunderstand the reward. The reward you receive is like a patch on a quilt. The righteous deeds we do on this earth shine forth as the Bride’s “Gown” at the Marriage Feast.

We should seek to live for Jesus in this life, so that we will merit rewards from Jesus in the next life. Just as a parent is proud of a child who excels in school, Jesus wants to be proud of us. The works that we do in this life for Jesus are the only things that we will take to Heaven with us. One commentary notes:

“… rewards in heaven glorify God and provide us with joy, peace, and wonder as we consider God’s work in us and through us. The closer we were to God during this life, the more centered on Him and aware of Him, the more dependent on Him, the more desperate for His mercy, the more there will be to celebrate. We are like characters in a story who suffer doubt, loss, and fear, wondering if we will ever really have our heart’s desire. When the happy ending comes and desire is fulfilled, there comes a completion. The story would not be satisfying without that completion. Rewards in heaven are the completion of our earthly story, and those rewards will be eternally satisfying (Psalm 16:11).”

Christian are encouraged to live so as to one day receive a reward in Heaven. We read in:

Colossians 3:23-25 (KJV) And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; 24 Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. 25 But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons.

What we SOW we shall REAP. If we build Christ honoring works on the Foundation of Christ Who is our salvation then we will one day be rewarded for our obedience. But the Apostle says:

1 Corinthians 3:15 (KJV) If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

If the work’s judged are without merit in Jesus’ eyes, there is no reward for it. However, you, dear believer, will still be saved. Yet I suspect there will be tears in our eyes when we realize we could give no tiny scrap of a patch back to Jesus to build His Bride’s gown! Oh, how I wish to live so as to honor my Jesus in glory. Is this not your heart as well?

Good works do not save, but to those who have no love for Jesus, our Master has a word for them. He will tell them:

Matthew 7:23 (ESV) …. ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

That would truly be the greatest of miseries. If you belong to Jesus, you love Jesus, and do not disparage working for Him. It is a joy to serve the risen Savior. Let us draw near to Him more and more each and every day! Amen and Amen. May God the Holy Spirit draw you close to His side, Beloved, and give you the eyes to behold Him daily. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen and Amen.

Posted in 1 Corinthians, Revelation, Sermons Preached | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Stand Firm In Your Faith Or You Will Not Stand At All

Posted on December 12, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash

Turn with me to Isaiah chapter 7.

Last Sunday in Sunday School we studied:

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

There were several questions asked me about the text itself, and it’s fulfillment as prophecy. The text is very interesting, and has been the source of some confusion. The great Preacher (and my mentor) C.H. Spurgeon said of this text:

“{This text is} One of the most difficult in all the Word of God. It may be so; I certainly did not think it was until I saw what the commentators had to say about it, and I rose up from reading them perfectly confused.”

If you studied this in Sunday School last week and couldn’t grasp it, don’t feel badly. Today, with God the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we will examine this wonderful text, and see if we can understand the wonderful treasure it is.

Isaiah 7 was initially written to King Ahaz of Judah (Southern Israel). Let’s start at:

Isaiah 7:10-16 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, 11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. 12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. 13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. 16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

To Understand The Bible, You Must Understand
The Background And The Context

The Bible is written by God, through men that God moved. “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:21). The Bible is not like a man-made writing. It’s words come from the infinite and immutable Creator of all things. “The Word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12, ESV). It’s best to keep this in mind when you read the Scripture.

Every prophecy of Scripture can have a NEAR application, and a FUTURE or FAR application.
We’ll see that today.

The Book of Isaiah was written by the Prophet some 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. The passage that we are looking at today is where God, through Isaiah, is speaking DIRECTLY to the evil King Ahaz, the King of Judah. Around 930 BC Israel had a civil war. The Northern Kingdom of Israel (ten tribes), also known as Ephraim, broke away from from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. From that point in Scripture the prophets referred to the Northern Kingdom as “Israel” or “Ephraim”, and the Southern Kingdom as “Judah”. The Northern Kingdom very quickly decided that they would establish their own Temple in Samaria, as they wanted to have nothing to do with the King or Jerusalem.

Southern Israel or “Judah” continued to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem. Over time, however, Judah began to drift away from faith in God. As we come to Isaiah 7, an evil king named Ahaz is ruling Judah or Southern Israel. Ahaz was twenty years old when he ascended the Throne of David, and ruled Judah for sixteen years. The Bible says:

2 Kings 16:2-3 (ESV) … {Ahaz} did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God, as his father David had done, 3 but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

Ahaz sacrificed one of his own sons to the false god Molech, burning him in a fire. The man was a horrible ruler. And, as he ruled, his poor leadership led Israel into idolatry and blasphemy. Ahaz and Judah had an enemy in Ephraim or Northern Israel. Now we can begin to understand our text:

Isaiah 7:1-2 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it. 2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.

Judah – And Ahaz – Are In Trouble!

The “king of Syria” and the “king of {Northern} Israel” joined forces to destroy Judah and Ahaz. The two nations actually signed a joint force agreement. That’s what “Syria is confederate with Ephraim”. Again, “Ephraim” is another name for Northern Israel, or the ten tribes. When Ahaz was told that Syria and Ephraim were coming to destroy Judah, the Bible says:

vvs 2 his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind

That’s very picturesque! If you’ve ever seen the wind in the trees, it causes the leaves to shimmer and shake. Syria is a powerful nation, as is Northern Israel or Ephraim. Judah and her leadership were afraid, and didn’t know what to do. Syria and Northern Israel had already attacked Jerusalem once, but

but could not prevail against it {against Jerusalem}

Ahaz had made an unholy alliance with Assyria. Ahaz didn’t go to God, but to man for help. The scripture says:

2 Kings 16:7-9 (ESV) … Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” 8 Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. 9 And the king of Assyria listened to him.

Ahaz blasphemed God, and gave the silver and gold utensils of the Temple to the King of Assyria as a bribe. He sought Assyria’s help rather than God’s. Though this initially worked, it could not ultimately defeat the enemy.

Sometimes God allows us to do something foolish so that we can learn the error of our ways. Ahaz’s treaty with Assyria would eventually lead to his downfall.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:5-6 (ESV) Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. 6 He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

God often allows trials to come our way when we wander away from Him. Trials are often the paddle that our Lord uses on His errant children. When we get away from God we, like the Prodigal Son, only “come to our senses” when eating miserably out of the pig trough (Luke 15:16-17). Ahaz should have returned to the Lord! Judah should have returned to the Lord!

God told the Prophet Isaiah to go and meet with Ahaz. Isaiah was to tell Ahaz:

Isaiah 7:4-7 Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Because Syria, Ephraim {Northern Israel}, and the son of Remaliah {the King of Ephraim}, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, 6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal: 7 Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

God went on to tell Ahaz,

Isaiah 7:8 …. within threescore and five years {65 years} shall Ephraim {N. Israel} be broken, that it be not a people.

Northern Israel and Syria are to God “two tails of these smoking firebrands”. They are “has beens”. God has decided to use Assyria to destroy both nations. The capital city of Syria, Damascus, will fall in 732 BC. The capital city of N. Israel, Samaria, will be destroyed in 722 BC. Our God is in control! Now God gives an ominous warning to King Ahaz.

If You Will Not Believe, You Will Not Be Established

Isaiah 7:9 … If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

Word Study: The phrase “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established” is the same Hebrew word twice: the Hiphil IMPERFECTof “אָמַן ʼâman, [pronounced aw-man’]”, and the Niphal IMPERFECT of “אָמַן ʼâman, [pronounced aw-man’]”. A clearer translation would be “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all”.

God is calling on Ahaz to repent and believe in Him. God has already promised that within 65 years both Syria and Northern Israel (Ephraim) will be destroyed because of their lack of faith and obedience to Him. The same thing will happen with Ahaz and Judah if he and his people do not REPENT and RETURN to Him. Oh Beloved, it is as the Apostle Peter said:

2 Peter 3:9-10 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night…

God does not rejoice in destroying people. God loves people. People are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27; Genesis 9:6). God would rather redeem the sinner than destroy the sinner. God would rather all repent, and walk with Him. God would rather that all enter Heaven rather than hell. God would rather we all live with God as our portion (Psalm 73:26), and have blessed lives through Jesus Christ our Lord. So God gives Ahaz another chance to repent and return from where he’s fallen. The King who sits on the Throne of David must NOT follow any god other than David’s God. Period!

Ahaz, Will You Repent?

Isaiah 7:10-12 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, 11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. 12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.

God asks Ahaz through Isaiah the Prophet, “ask Me for a sign – ANY sign – and I will give it”. Ahaz was told there was no limit to what he could ask as a sign. God said “ask it either in the depth, or in the height above”. God knew Ahaz’s heart, but wanted those around Ahaz – and us – to know how bad Ahaz had drifted from the faith. What was Ahaz’s reply to God? He said, “I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord”. This sounds very spiritual, for Jesus said:

Matthew 4:7 … Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Yet it’s not a sin to ask God for a sign when God ASKS YOU to ask for a sign. God told His people in Malachi 3:10, “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need”. God asked to be tested, but Ahaz was settled in his unbelief. It is as Jesus said:

John 3:20 (ESV) … everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Ahaz was resting in his evil lifestyle. He did not want to walk with God! God replies to Ahaz’s foolish remark:

Isaiah 7:13-14 And {the Prophet Isaiah} said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Word Study: Isaiah told Ahaz, “You may not want a sign, but “the Lord himself shall give you a sign”. Now here’s where you need to pay attention. This prophecy has two fulfillments, and it all has to do with the word translated “virgin”. This is the Hebrewעַלְמָה ʻalmâh, [pronounced al-maw’], which can be used for either “a young woman of marriageable age” OR “a virgin”. There is another Hebrew word for “virgin” which is the Hebrewבְּתוּלָה bᵉthûwlâh, [pronounced beth-oo-law’]. This word is usually translated “virgin”. But ʻalmâh can mean either a virgin, or a young woman ready to marry. Ahaz was unbelieving in God.

So God gave Ahaz an unbeliever’s sign. In Ahaz’s royal household a “young woman of marriageable age” would have a child, and name that child “Immanuel”.

Word Study: Now the name “Immanuel” means “God is with us”, but the Jews often named their children to honor God. The name “Joshua” is the Hebrewיְהוֹשׁוּעַ Yᵉhôwshûwaʻ, [pronounced yeh-ho-shoo’-ah], which means “Yahweh is salvation”. The Prophet “Isaiah’s” name is the Hebrew יְשַׁעְיָה Yᵉshaʻyâh, [pronounced yesh-ah-yaw’], which means “Yahweh will save”. One commentary notes “There was a normal conception in Ahaz’s day”. The Enduring Word Commentary notes: “Many commentators think that this was immediately fulfilled when a young woman in the royal household shortly married, conceived a son, and unknowingly naming him ‘Immanuel’ ”. God would have a child born in Ahaz’s palace named “God is with us” to continually remind him of his failure to repent and return. If Ahaz had just realized God was with him – and followed God – Judah would not need to fall to the enemy.

This prophecy had two fulfillments. The first was a NEAR fulfillment for a wicked, unbelieving King Ahaz. The second is a FAR fulfillment for the Christian.

Matthew 1:18-23 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. 20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. 22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Adam Clarke notes, “In what sense then, is Christ GOD WITH US? Jesus is called Immanuel, or God with us, in his incarnation; God with us, by the influences of his Holy Spirit, in the holy sacrament, in the preaching of his word, in private prayer. And God with us, through every action of our life, that we begin, continue, and end in his name. He is God with us, to comfort, enlighten, protect, and defend us, in every time of temptation and trial, in the hour of death, in the day of judgment; and God with us and in us, and we with and in him, to all eternity.”

God is with us. God has always been with us. So my question today is this: Will you believe in God? Will you repent, and turn your heart to Jesus, committing to following Him? Or will you, like Ahaz, be merely religious but unbelieving. God says to us today, “Ask Me for a sign, any sign, whether high or deep. Try Me, and see if I am not faithful and with you”. Our God is faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9; 10:13). Give your life to Jesus, and stand in your faith.

For if you’ll not stand in your faith, you will not stand. Amen and Amen!

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Laborers Together With God

Posted on December 10, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Hudson Hintze on Unsplash

1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.

God’s people are supposed to be “laborers together with God”. We have a wonderful application of this truth in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus chose 12 disciples to walk with Him, and these 12 grew into a greater group of believers. Our Lord Jesus did not do all of His ministry by Himself. Though God in the flesh, He called these people to follow Him. “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19).

Christians are called to follow Jesus, to work
with Jesus. Jesus had NOTHING but God.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”. To “come after Jesus” is to do the things He did, to live with HIS purpose. Jesus said in John 14:9, “Whoever has seen Me, has seen the Father”. Jesus told His mother in Luke 2:49, “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”. Though Jesus’ stepfather Joseph was a carpenter, this was not the business Jesus was about.

Jesus lived His life with purpose to glorify the Father
and His Kingdom.

The Son of God denied Himself. Though eternal God with us (for He is Emmanuel, “God with us” – Matthew 1:23) Jesus denied Himself every comfort for our sake. He told one man:

Matthew 8:20 …. The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Jesus came into this world having nothing. While most children have cribs and nurseries, mobiles and swings, stuffed animals and special soft clothing, our Jesus had little.

Jesus had a manger for a crib.
Jesus had swaddling clothes – strips of cloth

in place of a diaper and pajamas. Jesus had no stuffed animals to cuddle with, nor a special blanket.

Jesus’ bedding was hay, His baby blanket crude.
The music of His nursery was clucking and mooing.

When a baby is born, the family gathers around to take pictures, to hold the child. Jesus’ first visitors were strangers, poor shepherds. All Heaven rejoiced at His Birth:

Luke 2:12-14 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Heaven rejoiced, but earth slept. Few knew of His first coming until after His death on Calvary.

Though King of Kings and Lord of Lords (1 Timothy 6:15), Jesus had no silver and gold crown while He walked this earth.

Jesus’ earthly crown was thorns and mockery.

Matthew 27:27-31 the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. 28 And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. 29 And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! 30 And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. 31 And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.

Jesus had no wife to lie with to comfort Him at night.

Many of Jesus’ Apostles had wives. Peter was married, because he had a mother in Law (Matthew 8:14). You don’t get one of those without being married! Jesus demanded that the Pastor or Overseer of the Church be the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2-5), and that Deacons also be married (1 Timothy 3:12) to a wife. The Apostle Paul, though unmarried, wrote:

1 Corinthians 9:5 Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?

Jesus had no wife as we are allowed, no person to confide in, to shed tears with. The mourners at His execution were His mother and the Apostle John.

Jesus had no money.

The Bible says that Judas Iscariot kept the purse (John 12:6) for the disciples. During the Christmas season most people run about, buying all they can buy, but forgetting that things and the joy they bring are but temporary. The Psalmist said:

Psalm 73:26 (ESV) My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Jesus had NO fancy clothing.

Jesus wore a mantle or overcoat with fringes (Mark 6:56), much like a large shawl. Jesus wore sandals (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:7; Mark 6:9; John 1:27) as many Jews did. Jesus wore a tunic or a robe that finished slightly below the knees. Jesus did not wear long robes, but chastised the scribes for doing so …

Mark 12:38 (ESV) … in his teaching {Jesus} said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces …

Only the rich wore long robes. Jesus wasn’t rich. Jesus’ robe or tunic was made of one piece of cloth. When He was crucified we read:

John 19:23-24 (ESV) .. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, 24 so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture [here Psalm 22:18 is quoted] “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

One piece tunics were the cheapest made, as most tunics were made of two pieces sewn at the shoulders and sides.

Jesus’ clothing was very basic. In Heaven Jesus would be royalty. But on earth, the only robe worthy of a king was given Him by the Idumean, King Herod. Herod was not of the Tribe of Judah, and had no Biblical right to the Throne of David. Yet this usurper mocked Jesus:

Luke 23:11 … Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.

Jesus didn’t get to keep this fine clothing, this royal robe. It was removed from Him when He was beaten before Pilate, and put on Him again before He went to the Cross (Matthew 27:27-28, Mark 15:15-17). Our Jesus had nothing.

Nailed to the Cross to die, after Jesus passed, shouting …

Luke 23:46 (ESV) … out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.

Jesus had no grave to call His own. Joseph of Arimathæa “loaned” a tomb to Jesus, as His body was prepared and laid on a rocky shelf.

The only thing Jesus owned on the face of this earth was suffering. His life was filled with suffering. Why?
It was for YOU!

The Bible says in

2 Corinthians 8:9 (ESV) For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Jesus Endured Nothingness So He Could Create
A Bride For Himself, His Church

Jesus put everything away so that He might, in love, raise up His Church. I said earlier that Jesus had no wife while He walked this earth. That’s very true. But Jesus built Himself a wife that He calls “The Church”. When Jesus walked the earth, the Church was FUTURE. He said, “upon this rock [that Jesus is the one and only Christ] I will build my Church” (Matthew 16:18a). Jesus said of His Church, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18b). Jesus built His Bride with His own blood. The Apostle said:

Ephesians 5:25-27 (ESV) Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

The Bride of Christ is not a sexual or sensual bride,
but a Spirit driven Bride.

2 Corinthians 11:2 (ESV) … I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

The Church is called to be faithful to Jesus. This means that every believer in the Church is called to walk faithfully with Jesus. We are not to allow worldliness to creep in. James, the stepbrother of Jesus wrote to a wayward Church:

James 4:4 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.

The Church exists on the riches of Grace because Jesus Christ gave up everything for us. We are to be fully devoted to our Lord and Savior. As I and my wife work together throughout this life, keeping our family whole, the Church is to work together with Jesus. We are laborers together with God. We are laborers together with one another, unified, following Jesus.

The Bride of Christ – The Church – Works Together With Her Groom

1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.

The Apostle uses two words to describe what the Church should be: “husbandry” and “building”. The word translated “husbandry” is the Greek γεωργιον, georgion, [pronounced gheh-ore’-ghee-on], meaning “that which is cultivated, a farm or garden”. Most people have had gardens. I like a small container garden every year, and I particularly like to plant tomatoes. I love tomatoes. Not those artificially red things that come from Mexico, but genuine vine ripened tomatoes. Nothing tastes better to me!

Consider the Garden: When I plant my garden, I CHOOSE what seed will be planted. Periodically in my garden things grow up that I didn’t plant, weeds and other noxious, unwanted things. These things I pull from my garden. I don’t just clip them off, because if I do so they will grow right back. But I pull them up by the roots, and toss them outside of the garden to wither and die. I never feel sorry for the weeds, because I never planted them in the first place. They might have been dropped in the waste of a passing bird, or they might have, like the dandelion, been caught up on the wind to settle in my garden. But I want none of it! I pull it out, and toss it into the growing grass, where I will pass over it with the blade of my lawn mower.

You, dear Church, are GOD’S GARDEN. You do not belong to yourselves, but to God. God plants His Garden to bear certain types of fruit. God wants His Garden to bear the fruit of the Spirit, not the works of the flesh. The works of the flesh are WEEDS that God never planted. The Apostle says:

Galatians 5:19-22 (ESV) Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If it doesn’t belong in the “kingdom of God”, it doesn’t belong in Christ’s Bride! God plants spiritual fruit in His Garden. We read:

Galatians 5:22-24 (ESV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Those who “belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires”. We put whatever does not belong in God’s Garden onto the Cross. It might still be living, but it is also dying on that Cross.

We do not allow anything to be sowed into the Garden of God BUT that which God wants in His Garden.

The Garden always has more than one type of vegetable in it. That’s fine. Every good garden has several varieties of fruit. But weeds are forbidden. Weeds are torn out, and cast off by the owner of the Garden. The garden is unified in pleasing it’s owner – and WE are GOD’S GARDEN. Are there disagreements in the Garden? Possibly. But if there are, we WEED the Garden the way that Jesus said. He said:

Matthew 5:22-24 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. 23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

God does not want the weed of murmuring or criticism in His Garden. Jesus said:

Matthew 18:20 where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Jesus does not linger in a weed overgrown garden. He said:

Matthew 18:15-17 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. 16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. 17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

The Garden is to be unified in serving Jesus. Now let us,

Consider The Building: The Church is God’s Building. Every building must have a flawless foundation. I have heard of building collapsing, where a balcony or a second floor collapses and kills people. In every instance this occurs, it is because the building was created with substandard materials.

The foundation of Christ’s Church is
Jesus Christ Himself.

Jesus humbled Himself to save us. We are built on His foundation. We are to humble ourselves, to live together in loving harmony. The Lord said:

Philippians 2:2-5 Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus

We come together to glorify Jesus Christ, to please the Father. We are to love one another as Jesus has loved us (John 13:34; John 15:12). This Building that belongs to God is to “be framed together, growing into a Holy Temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21). We are to be …

Jude 20-21 … building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

We are called to work with God, building up one another in the faith. We are to live to glorify our Lord. Let us be the Church that Jesus wants us to be. May God the Holy Spirit drive this His Word deeply into your hearts. Amen and Amen!

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Laborers Together With God

Posted on December 6, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Please turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

When the Bible was written, it was written as a series of letters and books, but had no chapter nor verse divisions in the text. In the early 13th century Archbishop Stephen Langton developed the chapter divisions in our Bibles. Wikipedia notes that:

“The first English New Testament to use the verse divisions was a 1557 translation by William Whittingham (c. 1524–1579). The first Bible in English to use both chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible published shortly afterwards in 1560. These verse divisions soon gained acceptance as a standard way to notate verses, and have since been used in nearly all English Bibles and the vast majority of those in other languages”.

Why am I telling you all this? Because often the chapters (being man made devices) divide at the wrong place. That’s the case with tonight’s focal text. Read with me:

1 Corinthians 2:12-16, 3:1-2 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.

Chapter 3 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

The Apostle makes a distinction between three types of people in today’s text:

1: There is the believer in Christ who, on salvation,
receives the Spirit of God

1 Corinthians 2:12 … we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God

Though the King James translation has “spirit” in the lower case, it should be capitalized to “Spirit”. The Scripture says that all Christians have the Holy Spirit of God. Romans 8:9 tells us “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”. Christians are Spirit indwelt!

A Christian is born again by becoming like a little child when approaching God. Jesus showed us this in:

Matthew 18:2-4 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

No one enters the Kingdom of God full grown.

We humble ourselves as little children, and run into the arms of Jesus. We obediently follow Jesus, knowing that in His footsteps is where safety is. “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21 ESV). We are to stay close to Jesus, as a child might stay close to it’s mother while out in the harsh world. The Christian has a purpose greater than “going to Heaven”. Christians are to grow in their faith, becoming more like Jesus every day.

2. There is the “natural man”, the unsaved person
driven by the spirit of disobedience

1 Corinthians 2:14 … the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned…

Word Study: The “natural man” is the son of Adam, the child of disobedience, the unbeliever. The unbeliever will not come to Jesus Christ to be saved. The “natural man” (ψυχικός psychikós, [pronounced psoo-khee-kos’]) literally means “the one governed by breath or senses, governed by feelings”. This is a picture of the lost soul. The Apostle says that two things are true of the lost:

  • The lost soul will not “receive” (δέχομαι déchomai, [pronounced dekh’-om-ahee]) the things of the Spirit of God. Notice the word “things” used by the Apostle. The lost soul does not consider the truths of the Scripture (“Thy Word, O God, is TRUTH” John 17:17) to actually be true. What the Spirit has said through His Apostles and Prophets are but “things”, opinions of dead men that are to be forgotten in history. The lost cling to their sensuality, their feelings, and continue to make themselves the center of the YOUniverse. Jesus told those who believe in Him:

Mark 6:11 … whosoever shall not receive (déchomai) you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.

The lost person is in love with the darkness. Jesus said, “Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. You will not come to Me, that you might have life” (John 5:39-40). The Spirit of God wrote this text, this precious Scripture. “Holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Jesus said:

Mark 10:15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive (déchomai) the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

Word Study: Oh Beloved, you must receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior if you are to be saved. “But as many as received (λαμβάνω lambanō, to grab hold of) {Jesus}, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12). The lost stay lost for they will not receive the truths of the Spirit of God. Secondly,

  • “Neither can he know them”. The lost person cannot “know” (γινώσκω ginṓskō, [pronounced ghin-oce’-ko]) the truths of the Spirit of God. This word literally means “to understand at an intimate level, to understand so as to be able to apply these truths to your own life”. Jesus told the highly religious Pharisees who chased after Him:

John 8:43-44 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

There should be a great divide between the Kingdom of God (the Church that Jesus rules) and the world. The world says of our Christ, “Foolish!”. The world says of our faith, “Foolish!”. The world says of our shunning of what God calls sin, “Foolish!”. Yet as we have learned before,

1 Corinthians 1:25 the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

3. Then There Is The “Carnal” Christian,
Frozen In Spiritual Childhood

1 Corinthians 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

We who have received Jesus as Lord and Savior are now “the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). We are of God’s Kingdom. Jesus Christ is our King and High Priest. It is God’s intent that we follow Him through His Word, and draw close to Him daily for blessing and sustenance. As believers in Christ:

We were saved by becoming little children, but as believers we are to “know the things that are freely given to us of God”. God gave the Church the Bible, and God gives the Church pastors and teachers. The Apostle said in:

Ephesians 4:11-15 And {God} gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting {καταρτισμός katartismós, [pronounced kat-ar-tis-mos’], or better, EQUIPPING} of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect {τέλειος téleios, [pronounced tel’-i-os], better FINISHED} man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: 14 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; 15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

God saved us by faith in THE Son of God, and wants us to heed His Word, applying it to our lives, until we become mature sons of God.

It is all right to start out as a Christian and be a baby. In fact, it is normal. But all of you know that someone who stays a baby indefinitely is an abnormality. When parents have a child that cannot walk after a certain time, who cannot speak or form sentences after a certain amount of time, or cannot feet itself after a certain amount of time, the parents will take the child to specialists. The same is true of the Christian. From the point of salvation we are to mature, becoming more and more like Jesus. This is the standard Jesus set for us. Here is the normal Christian life:

John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

We are to love the way Jesus loved. The Corinthian Church (and many Churches today) fall far from this standard. This should not be. If you were here when I preached on 1 Corinthians Chapter 1, you know that believers are:

“Sanctified or set apart from the world in Christ Jesus” (1:1), and
“Called Saints” (1:1)

The Church at Corinth is a saved body of believers, but they are stalled in childhood. They should not be stalled. The Apostle said:

1 Corinthians 2:16 – 3:1 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ. 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.

Why Was Corinth Stalled In Spiritual Childhood?

A Church Stalls In Spiritual Growth When It
De-emphasizes The Scripture

Corinth Rejected The Importance Of The Word Of God,
And Embraced The Spirit Of Worldliness

The Apostle Paul and Sosthenes (a leader from Corinth who went to visit Paul – see 1 Corinthians 1:1) who help found and pastor Corinth “have the mind of Christ”. The Christian is supposed to “have the mind of Christ”. What gives us the “the mind of Christ”? It is the Word of God and the Spirit of God. The Lord told us that:

John 16:13 when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

The Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of truth”, is given to every Christian to guide us in this wonderful Bible, the WORD of Truth. We are to feed on God’s Word. We are to cherish God’s Word. The Prophet Jeremiah said:

Jeremiah 15:16 Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.

We are saved by receiving the Living Word of God, Jesus, as little children. We become mature sons of God by receiving the Written Word of God as His children. We cherish God’s Word, and, through the intervention of the Spirit of God, apply it to our lives. Jesus warned us:

Matthew 7:24-27 … whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

The Corinthian believers were just not growing. Is it Paul’s fault? Did Paul do something wrong to make them stall? No! Is it Sosthenes fault? Did Sosthenes do something wrong? No, it was the Corinthians fault.

Worldliness Entered The Kingdom Of God.

1 Corinthians 3:2-3 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

When the Apostle founded Corinth, he fed them with milk. He preached the simple Gospel to them, and they were saved by receiving that Gospel. This is wonderful! However, Paul says “ye are yet carnal”, σαρκικός sarkikós, [pronounced sar-kee-kos’], “under the control of fleshly or animal appetites”. The Christian is to be governed by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. The Corinthians, like many professing Christians today, are governed by their appetites and opinions.

They do not seek the glory of God in their actions,
but self glory and promotion.

The marks of the Christian who is worldly and childish is that they are always doing things for SELF love, but doing little or nothing for OTHER love. The Apostle writes:

1 Corinthians 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: {sarkikós} for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal: {sarkikós} and walk as men?

When the atmosphere in the Church is the same as the atmosphere in the world, then there will be no life and no growth there. Paul defines the problem the Corinthians have in three words:

  • envying: ζῆλος zēlos, [pronounced dzay’-los], which means to look at what someone else has, and desiring it, to take action to take it. Envying is a violation of God’s Tenth Commandment in …

Exodus 20:17, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.”

It is the work of God to “distribute to each person as He will” (1 Corinthians 12:11). Our God gives us what He wants us to have. We are encouraged to “be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). God has been good to us all. Enjoy what you have, but do not try to take another person’s gifts, things, position, or family.

  • strife: When Christians get off base and become envious rather than loving, it always brings “strife” (ἔρις éris, [pronounced er’-is]), that is, quarrels, battles, contention. God commands us to “walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife {éris} and envying.” This is the second time Paul addresses this, for we read in:

1 Corinthians 1:11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions [better, strife {éris}] among you.

  • Divisions: Where envy and strife are, there will always be “Divisions” {διχοστασία dichostasía, [pronounced dee-khos-tas-ee’-ah]}, a reference to a Church that has walked away from unity. One of the worst things that can happen to a Church is divisions. The Apostle said in another place:

Romans 16:17-18 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. 18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

The Corinthians hid their divisions by cloaking them in in holy jargon. We read:

1 Corinthians 3:4-5 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? 5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?

The Apostle Paul was not going to be drawn into the fray. The Christian is called to honor God, to magnify the name of Jesus. The Apostle did not take credit for the growth of Corinth, but told the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 3:6-8 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.

God calls every believer to honor Him, and to work to the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on this earth. We are to love one another, not loath one another. Every Christian shall “receive his own reward according to his own labor”. We are called to work for Jesus ourselves. To let the Spirit of God lead us as we, through the study of His Word, become more like Jesus.

We will end with this verse tonight, though we will return another day:

1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.

We who are Christians are to work together with one another, and with God our Savior. Every Church is both “God’s husbandry” and “God’s building”. The word translated “husbandry” is the Greek γεώργιον geōrgion, literally “Garden”. Everything in a Garden is put there by the Gardener to produce fruit. Weeds are not welcome! Let us all work together for the glory of God. May God the Holy Spirit draw you closer to Him today. May you live with purpose to glorify the Lord. Amen and Amen!

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About The Ninth Hour

Posted on December 5, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Turn with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter 3. This historic Gospel was written – along with the Gospel of Luke – by the Physician Luke, a companion of the Apostles. Luke, thought by many to be a Gentile, also wrote the Gospel of Luke. An early Church Pastor named Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-202) wrote, “Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.”

In the Book of Acts the outreach of the Apostles are recorded. The Apostles ministered in a culture that despised Christ. The Jewish hierarchy thought Jesus was a heretic, and His followers a cult. The Gentile hierarchy thought the “Christians” (a term invented by unbelievers to mock the followers of Christ) were either simple minded or treasonous. Yet the Apostles preached the “Good News of Salvation” through faith in the name of Jesus Christ.

After the Day of Pentecost some 3000 believers were added by God to the Church. The Church “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” (Acts 2:42). The Bible says the Church “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” (Acts 2:46-47).

So what did the Apostles do after this? Did they build a big building, and take a break as they organized their “megachurch”. No, they didn’t do that. As the Apostles were all Jewish (Saul had yet been converted to Paul the Apostle), the Apostles lived out their daily lives, but with Jesus guiding them. We read:

Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.

Devout Jews would, if able, have prayer at the Temple three times a day: 9 am, noon, and 3 pm. As Peter and John loved God, they continued to go to the Temple every day, three times a day. “The ninth hour” refers to the ninth hour from sunrise, so this would be around 3 pm. As Peter and John go into the Temple:

The Apostles Meet A Broken Man

Acts 3:2-3 And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; 3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.

Peter and John enter into the Temple through the “Gate Beautiful”. The historian Albert Edersheim (himself a Jewish convert to Christianity) wrote that all the other gates of the Temple were covered with gold and silver plating. But the “Gate Beautiful” was …

“far more magnificent than any of them was the ninth or eastern gate, which formed the principal entrance into the Temple. The ascent to it was from the terrace by twelve easy steps. The gate itself was made of dazzling Corinthian brass, most richly ornamented; and so massive were its double doors that it needed the united strength of twenty men to open and close them.”

This gate was always opened first at the beginning of the day. It was the main entrance to the Temple, the eastern gate.

Imagine this beautiful gate, glittering in the sunlight, looking somewhat like I imagine the street of gold will be like in Heaven (Revelation 21:21). It must have been glorious! And in the midst of this opulence, as people enter the Temple to pray and worship God …

… lays misery. We are told “a certain man lame from his mother’s womb” is sitting at the foot of this massive gate. The man is not friendless. The Bible says that “they laid {him} daily at the gate of the temple”. He had people who were concerned for him. They helped him get to the Temple every day. They carried him from where ever his home was, and brought him to this place to sit.

The man has been sick for so long, he no longer looks to God for help, but to man. It is the “ninth hour”, a time when believers should be praying. He’s not praying. He’s calling out for help. He’s looking at those around him for alms. Year after year he has been crippled, unable to walk at all. He has grown used to his misery. When he first became aware he was crippled, perhaps he prayed to God, seeking relief. But over time it seemed clear to him. God doesn’t care. If God cared, He would have healed him. So the man looked to charity.

Does God care for you? Sometimes it seems as if He doesn’t. The Psalmist David in the midst of suffering wrote:

Psalm 22:1-2 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? 2 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

We have all been there. We have suffered, and cried out in the midst of our suffering, but it seemed as if God wasn’t listening. It’s like that Brooks & Dunn song, “God Must Be Busy”:

Last night in Oklahoma
Some twister took thirteen,
And they’re praying that they find,
The missing three.
God must be busy.

It is in our humanity that we sometimes think “God must be busy”. When our Lord Jesus Christ hung on the Cross of Calvary, He spoke seven times. One of the times He spoke He cried out the same thing David did. It was at the ninth hour – about 3 pm – that Peter and John went to pray with other God fearing Jews. The Gospel tells us:

Matthew 27:46 … about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Jesus cried out “about the ninth hour” in anguish, praying to the Father as He turned away from His beloved Son. God the Father often said “This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). The Father loves the Son with an infinite love, and the Son loves the Father with an undying love. Yet as Jesus suffers on Calvary, the temperature is raised on the offering. Jesus must not just be slain – He must be burned as a burnt offering! As the heat of judgment falls on an innocent Man, Jesus cries out, tears on His face and anguish in His voice. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”?

God must be busy. No, He is not. Jesus knows why He is there on Calvary. He is the “good shepherd {that} giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Calvary is no accident. Suffering is no accident. God knows what is happening – but God has His timing. But oh, do not doubt the love of God. God is always with us. Has He not said:

Isaiah 41:10 (ESV) fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 43:2 (ESV) When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Psalm 32:8 (ESV) I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

1 Peter 5:6-7 (ESV) Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Psalm 34:17-18 (ESV) When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

God was not busy nor uncaring when Jesus hung on that Cross.
God was not busy nor uncaring when David suffered.
God was not busy nor uncaring when this man was born lame.
God is not busy nor uncaring when you and I suffer.

But God has a higher purpose. God tells us:

Isaiah 55:8-9 my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

This man at the Gate Beautiful has given up on God, but God has not given up on him. God has a purpose for this man being there. God wants this man – and you – to understand the greatest thing in life is to be in a daily loving relationship with the God Who loves you so. We must love God more than anything else.

We must NOT make ourselves the YOUniverse. We must look upward, and seek the loving care of God even in the midst of our brokenness. For GOD is our completion. GOD is the reason Jesus cried out in anguish. GOD loves us so!

The Way To Healing Is Repentance

Acts 3:4-5 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. 5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.

It is significant that Peter didn’t ask this man his name. Peter told him, “Look on us”. The Greek Blepō eis hēmas! This is an Imperative verb in the Greek, a command:

stop looking for money, hear us!
get your attention off of money,
off of the passing crowd,
off of the world,
off of your destitute condition

And turn your mind to Someone Greater than all these things. This man’s only hope was that he repent, metanoeo, turn his eyes and his mind from where he was to where Jesus is.

Peter didn’t say, “Have faith in us”, for there is no power in Peter, nor John, nor anyone born of Adam. The power of healing is in Jesus. The power of salvation is in Jesus. The power to convert the sinner to Saint is in Jesus. Our Jesus:

1 Peter 3:22 (ESV) … has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Peter said, “Look on us”. What he is saying is what I feebly try to say every week. “Listen to ME. Turn from where you are going, and follow my voice to Jesus!”. Peter doesn’t care what this man’s name is, but he cares that the man hear about Jesus.

Acts 3:6-7 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. 7 And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

The man was looking for “Silver and gold”, for charity, for a handout. Instead, Peter gave this man “Jesus Christ of Nazareth”. Now there are charlatans on television that go about slapping people on the head, and proclaiming them healed in the name of Jesus. Does God heal today? Yes, I believe He does.

The greatest thing is not you be restored to health, for eventually all must die. “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). The greatest thing is to repent and come to Jesus.

This man without Jesus had suffered so long that his feet and calves had atrophied. But hearing the powerful name of Jesus, his feet and calves regenerated. This unnamed man joins the ranks of the other unnamed people that Jesus healed.

  • Jesus healed a woman with an issue of blood. She reached through a crowd, touching the hem of the Master’s garment. Repenting and reaching out to God, she was healed! (Matthew 9:22).
  • Jesus healed a Canaanite woman’s daughter who, humbling herself, said “Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (Matthew 15:27).
  • Jesus saved a woman taken in adultery. “Where are those who condemn you?” “They are gone, Lord.” “Neither do I condemn you – go and sin no more”. (John 8:11)

  • Acts 3:8-11 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. 9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God: 10 And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. 11 And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.

This man was not quiet about his healing. I myself was not quiet the day that Jesus Christ saved me. I ran down that aisle, and knelt at the altar, crying out to Jesus for salvation. On that day Jesus took my broken heart like He took this broken man’s body and soul, and began the process of healing it.

When Jesus heals, He changes.

What I was before Jesus was crippled from birth. Low self esteem and sin enslaved me. But Jesus grabbed my hand, and pulled me to His feet. Praise Him forever!

The people saw this man “walking and praising God” through the Temple. Again, this is the “ninth hour – the hour of afternoon prayer”. In the midst of this somber time where people are praying, this man is jumping and shouting and praising God like a child plagued with super attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). If the preacher was preaching, he didn’t care. God wasn’t busy. God did love him. And he was going to praise God. The man was overjoyed because of Jesus! Just as King David of old danced in the street as God’s Ark came into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:16), this blessed man danced because Jesus Christ, that wonderful Ark of Salvation, came into His heart. The love of God lifted him up to walk, whereas the love of his friends could only leave him sitting at the gate Beautiful. But here’s the thing. We read:

all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering

This man was crippled from his birth for a reason. This man is also healed from this crippling for a reason. A greater reason. It is so that others can hear about Jesus Christ.

Peter Now Preaches Jesus

Acts 3:12 And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?

As a journalist would say, Peter doesn’t “bury the lede”. He starts out by telling the people it is not by “our own power or holiness” that this man is healed. There is no power in the preacher. God did not make the Apostles supermen. Notice that Peter says “it is not our power, NOR OUR HOLINESS” that brought this about. The power is in Jesus Christ. Peter addresses the Jewish crowd:

Acts 3:13-15 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. 14 But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; 15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.

Peter doesn’t mince words. Peter tells them that it is Jesus Who healed this man. This is the same Jesus that the Pharisees and Scribes and Priests “delivered up” (paradidōmi, to hand over) Jesus, turning Him over to Pilate. Though the Bible says that Jesus was:

Acts 2:23 … delivered by (here the Greek ékdoto)the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God …

this does not lessen the wickedness of those who should have known better. Jesus was an innocent Man, turned over to death by people who knew they were guilty. According to Peter, Pilate was “determined to let {Jesus} go”. Nonetheless, the “religious crowd” had Pilate release Barabbas, a known “murderer”, while they pushed the execution of “the Prince of life”. Jesus Christ died on that Cross of Calvary. He did not swoon. He did not pretend. He died. He was a corpse. Lifeless. Gone.

But Jesus did not stay dead! Peter said “God hath raised {Jesus from} the dead”. The proof that Jesus is alive is found in this crippled man now leaping and dancing and praising God.

Acts 3:16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

It is the power of Jesus’ name which, when believed in, brings life where there was only death. This man’s legs were dead. But now, they live!

Jesus Only Comes When You Repent

Acts 3:17-20 And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. 18 But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. 19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. 20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:

The crippled man was brought to life because he repented, and believed in Jesus. Peter now tells his Jewish audience that, yes, they did what they did to Jesus in ignorance. They were led to kill the “Prince of life” because of sin. Sin darkens the mind. Sin enslaves the heart. For 3 ½ years Peter and John followed Jesus, but never actually repented. Who can forget Peter? It was Peter who rebuked Jesus, when our Lord told the disciples:

Matthew 16:21 … how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

Peter told Jesus, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.” (Matthew 16:22). Jesus told Peter,

Matthew 16:23 … Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Peter allowed himself to be used of Satan. John used to argue with his brother James as to who would be the “greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18:1). But Peter and John now know that there is nothing of power in themselves. It is Jesus Who heals, Jesus Who saves, Jesus Who restores life and light to the dead and darkness. Peter tells the crowd listening:

Acts 3:19-20 … Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. 20 And he shall send Jesus Christ,

What causes sins to be “blotted out”? This is the Greek ἐξαλείφω exaleíphō, {pronounced ex-al-i’-fo}, which means “to wipe off or wipe away”. Those who are listening to Peter are all guilty of murder. They knew that Jesus was innocent, and yet pressed for His execution anyway. The fact that this is in accordance with the will of God does not erase their responsibility. They are responsible. God said:

Revelation 21:8 … as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Revelation 22:15 … Outside {of Heaven} are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

No sinner goes to Heaven. Heaven is a Holy place, owned by a Holy God. Sin causes a breach between God and His creation. So how can sin be erased so that God cannot hold it against us? Only by faith in the Lord of Life, Jesus Christ. Peter said “Repent ye therefore, and be converted”.

There is one thing we do (repent), and one thing that is done to us when we do that one thing (be converted).

Peter calls on the crowd to “Repent”. This is the first step to being right with God. The word “Repent” is the Greek metanoeō, which means “to change your mind”. To stop justifying your rejection of Jesus Christ. To turn, and embrace the salvation that God offers only through Jesus. When you “Repent”, genuine repentance leads you to be “converted”. And Jesus will come to you. The Father “shall send Jesus Christ” into your life, praise be the Lord. When you repent, you will be converted, changed from lost to saved. You will be changed by God from,

Son of Adam to Son of God
Lost to Found of God
Tare to Wheat
Goat to Sheep

With repentance and faith in Christ, you will become:

Galatians 3:26 (KJV) “… the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

Before Moses died, he told Israel in Deuteronomy 18:15-19 that God would raise up another Prophet like Moses was a Prophet. Peter quotes this text to the religious crowd around him:

Acts 3:22 … Moses said, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. 23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.

Jesus Christ is that Prophet. He is the Messiah, long promised by God throughout the Scriptures. And only by faith in Jesus do we have salvation, forgiveness of our sins in the eyes of God. The Bible says:

Acts 4:12 … there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

It is not the faithful Jew who, praying three times a day, will be saved. It is not the Priest in the Temple, nor the Preacher in the pulpit. It is not the Scribe, the student of Scripture, the Seminarian who will be saved. It is not the Pharisee or Sadducee that shall be saved. Who shall be saved? Only those who repent from following the gods of this world, and who cling to the name of Jesus Christ. These shall be saved. For there is “no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved”. May God the Holy Spirit move all who hear or read this message to draw near to Jesus Christ by faith. It is He and He alone Who can give life, eternal life. Amen and Amen.

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Abortion A Terrible Scar On America

Posted on December 4, 2021 by bibleteacherorg

Isaiah 49:1 … Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Tragedy struck Oxford High School in Detroit, Michigan yesterday when a 15 year old boy shot and killed three people, and injured 8 others. News journalists wring their hands while calling for stricter gun control legislation. The problem is not the guns. The problem is that life is not reverenced in America. Children watch wanton killing on television, and play video games that reward blowing away opponents. Life is advertised as cheap, throw away, of no matter. That is so sad.

Part of the problem started in the midst of America’s sexual revolution and free love generation. Life became cheapened when, in 1973, Roe v. Wade became the law of our land. Legalized abortion became further entrenched in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case. Since Roe became the Law of our land there have been over 62 million abortions. From 1975 – 2012 our nation saw more than one million abortions each year. What a tragic waste of life!

In 2018 Mississippi passed a state law known as the
“Gestational Age Act”

… that banned the abortion procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Law was immediately challenged by the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion provider in Mississippi. Lower courts suspended the law’s impementation pending appeal (per 1440 news digest). This Law TODAY is undergoing examination by our U.S. Supreme Court.

I now quote an article entitled “Why Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban is the one heading to the Supreme Court”:

“the biggest threat to Roe {v.Wade}now sits before the high court: Mississippi’s 2018 law, which bars abortions after 15 weeks, with narrow exceptions for medical emergencies or “severe” fetal abnormalities. In May, the Supreme Court agreed to review the law by taking up the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It will hear arguments in the case on Dec. 1, (today, Wednesday, December 1, 2021)and a decision is expected next June.”

John Stonestreet and Glenn Sunshine writing for Breakpoint Daily write: “If the court decides the law should stand, the power to determine and limit abortion rights would effectively be returned to the states.” Bill Johnson for Americandecency.org notes, “The president of the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights acknowledges … ‘The court cannot uphold this law in Mississippi without overturning Roe’s core holding.’”

Abortion is not a private matter. The death of a child, whether viable or not, hurts all of America.

Every child has potential to become someone great, to do something great in technology, medicine, the arts, religion, or science. As Clint Eastwood said in the movie Unforgiven:

“… killing a man. You take away all he’s got
and all he’s ever gonna have.”

The fundamental question that the Supreme Court examined in Roe v. Wade is the viability of the fetus. “Viability” is defined as the moment the fetus can live outside the womb on it’s own. When the fetus is nonviable, the Law does not consider the fetus a person requiring protection under the Constitution. The decision in Roe noted:

“Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks”.

“With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘compelling’ point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. ” {emphasis mine}

In short, if the fetus is nonviable then it may be aborted, but viable may only be aborted in order to save the life of the mother. Here’s my question: What has GOD said?

The Fetus Has Purpose

When God spoke of two of His greatest Prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, God considered both viable on the basis of His eternal purpose. God told Jeremiah (1:5):

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations”

According to law and medicine, the fetus is not viable before certain organs are formed. But according to God, He “knew” Jeremiah before he was formed in the belly. God had a plan for Jeremiah when he was but a fertilized egg in his mother. Before Jeremiah was born, God “sanctified” him, that is, God set him apart to be a Prophet. Similarly God told Isaiah (49:1):

“from the bowels of my mother hath
{God} made mention of my name”

God puts no time limit on the viability of either of these Prophets. They were to God viable, and were designed by God with a purpose greater that just being alive. The Psalmist David wrote:

Psalm 139:13-16 (ESV) For you {O Lord} formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a] Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

David said of God that “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me”. According to American Law, David was nonviable. But according to God, while David would have been considered “unformed substance” God included him in His Book of Life. Every child has purpose. The Prophet Job told God:

Job 10:11-12 (ESV) You {O God} clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. 12 You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

The Fetus Is More Than Mere Tissue

As we come into this special time of the year, we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though it is true we do not know exactly when Jesus was born, we celebrate the fact that the Son of God became the Son of Man to save us from our sins. One of the most interesting pro-life Scriptures is found in Luke chapter 1. Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 1.

Luke 1:5-11 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 7 And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years. 8 And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest’s office before God in the order of his course, 9 According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense. 11 And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

This couple, Zacharias and Elisabeth, were both believers in the Lord. Both loved God. Zacharias himself was a priest whose lineage was about to end. His wife was unable to have children. But God intervened. God sent the Angel Gabriel to Zacharias with a message:

Luke 1:13-17 … Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. 14 And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. 15 For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. 17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of {Elijah}, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

God promised that when the Messiah came, that the Messiah would have a Herald that would go before Him (Isaiah 40:3-5; Malachi 3:1; Malachi 4:5). This was the one we know as John the Baptist. John had purpose before he was ever formed in his mother’s womb. John was empowered, “filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb”.

When you read Luke carefully, you can see that God carefully orchestatrated the birth of John with the birth of Jesus Christ. We are told:

Luke 1:24-25 And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, 25 Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.

“After those days”, that is, after Gabriel spoke to Zacharias, “Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months”. I suspect Elisabeth hid herself to protect the forming child, as she was advanced in years. Note the next verse:

Luke 1:26-27 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, 27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

As we were told Elisabeth hid herself 5 months and, in the next verse, “in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent”, the two are connected. God waited until Elisabeth was six months pregnant before He sent Gabriel to speak to Mary about her miraculous coming birth. The Angel Gabriel told Mary:

Luke 1:30-33 … Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. 31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: 33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Mary became pregnant with the Messiah six months from the time Elisabeth became pregnant with John the Baptist, the Herald of Christ.

This is not a coincidence, but carefully planned by God. Both of these fetuses, John and Jesus, had a wonderful destiny planned by God the Father. Once the Angel explains to Mary that:

Luke 1:35 … The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Gabriel goes on to tell Mary about Elisabeth’s coming birth:

Luke 1:36-37 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. 37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.

Mary willingly surrendered to the plan of God … and IMMEDIATELY traveled to be with her cousin Elisabeth. Mary would stay with Elisabeth “about three months” (Luke 1:56), helping her prepare for the birth of John. But here’s what’s interesting. When Mary enters the house of Zacharias, and salutes Elisabeth,

Luke 1:41-44 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: 42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. 43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

As soon as Elisabeth heard Mary’s voice, John the Baptist, still in his mother’s belly, testified that Mary was the “mother of the Lord”. John was in his 24th week, and obviously was viable. But note this.

The fetus in Mary at this time could have only been a few days old – and yet the yet unborn John recognized Jesus as viable. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it! Both John and Jesus were “viable” and had purpose according to God’s standard. And isn’t that the standard we should follow?

As a Church I am calling on us all to pray for the Supreme Court of the United States, and for this nation. I call on every believer to pray that this travesty of abortion be ended I our land. Overturning Roe v. Wade will not end abortion, but return the question to the states where each citizen can have their say. My prayer is that the practice of abortion, like the practice of slavery, will become relegated to the pages of our sad history. I am praying that we will all begin to understand that life matters – especially in the womb. May God the Holy Spirit lead us all to a return to righteousness. Amen and Amen.

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As For You

Posted on November 29, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Please turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter six.

Opening: I came across another sad notice the other day as a professor in Christ, a beloved Pastor, took his own life. His name was Quinnzhahn Barnes (Selah Fellowship Temple, Houston, Texas), known to many as “Rodney Barnes”. He died from a self inflicted gunshot wound to his head. Rodney was 45 years old.

It is heartbreaking when someone takes their own life, and particularly heartbreaking when it is a Pastor or a leader in a local Church. In 2013 Pastor Teddy Parker, Jr (Bibb Mount Zion Baptist Church, Macon, Georgia) was found in the driveway of his home with a self inflicted gunshot wound. When something like this happens, it causes every member of the Church effected to question their faith. This person led people to the Lord, spoke of faith weekly, and then kills themselves. It’s tragedy on a massive scale.

And not just when suicide strikes. I have known of Pastors and Church leaders found guilty of molesting children, or taking advantage of women in their flock. The latter is causing quite a stir among the Southern Baptists. I know of several Pastors who allowed themselves to be drawn into fistfights. Again, this causes all types of problems in the Church. At one Church I knew years ago the Youth Minister’s wife began a sexual affair with a well respected Deacon in the Church. It destroyed the Youth Minister’s effectiveness at that Church, and hurt the Church for years by scandal.

The possibility of these things occurring at any Church is very real. This is why the Apostle Paul addressed the young Pastor Timothy. Read with me:

1 Timothy 6:11-12 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. 12 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.

“But thou”, or literally “as for YOU”. If you are a Christian, there are standards that Jesus not only EXPECTS, but DEMANDS. We are not to follow darkness!

Christians are to walk in the light with Jesus by their sides. And yet from the beginning, too often professors of Christ are those who(se):

“Faith becomes shipwrecked” (1 Timothy 1:19)
“Departed from the faith” (1 Timothy 4:1)
“Cast off their first faith” (1 Timothy 5:12)
“Erred from the faith” (1 Timothy 6:10)
“Are not standing the test concerning faith” (2 Timothy 3:8)

In our text today Paul gives four actions that every believer in Christ needs to commit to if they want a powerful, victorious faith in Christ:

1 Timothy 6:11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things

#1: FLEE The Love Of The World

Do not play with the evils of this world. So many Christians today are becoming entrapped by Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, Parler, et al), and are guilty of dragging the name of Christ through the mud. Jesus expects His followers to use …

1 Timothy 6:3 … wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness

Word Study: That which is translated “wholesome” is the Greek ὑγιαίνω hugiainō, [pronounced hoog-ee-ah’-ee-no], which means “HEALTHY or SOUND” words. Jesus spoke “healthy words”. He did not spend His time tearing people apart, but instead encouraged others to follow the way of life. We as believers are to run away from the word of the world and run toward the Word of God. What God has said is true, though all the world consider it a lie. God in His Word always knows what is best. God’s Word is timeless, and applicable to every generation – even ours! God’s standard for us is that we …

Ephesians 4:14-15 … 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; 15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into {Christ} in all things, which is the head, even Christ

The believer’s target is to hear the Word of God, to apply the Word of God, to feed our souls on the Word of God, until we develop a Christlike worldview.

Our target is to, as sons of God, to be like THE Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord. We are to flee the doctrines of man, and embrace the truths of Scripture.

We are to flee the love of money and prosperity. Some preachers today are so called “Prosperity Preachers”. They teach that – since God loves you – God wants you to be wealthy. This is patently untrue. False teachers are guilty of …

1 Timothy 6:5-10 {these are} supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

God does not want every Christian to be rich. In fact, very few Christians can handle being rich. Of the original 12 Disciples, which one fell miserably into sin? It was Judas Iscariot. The Bible says:

John 12:6 (ESV) {Judas Iscariot} was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Judas allowed his love of money to get between himself and the Lord Jesus Christ. Judas had all the benefits that the other eleven disciples had. And yet, loving money above all else, Jesus considered Judas “a devil” (John 6:70). In time, Judas would betray the Master to His death. Going to Jesus’ enemies, Judas asks:

Matthew 25:15 (ESV) “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.

The faith of Christ is not meant to be greedy, nor sneaky and conspiring. The faith of Christ is meant to be loving and caring, nurturing and sharing. We are called to “love one another, as Jesus loved us” (John 13:34; 15:12), not to betray one another. Poor Judas ended up hanging himself (Matthew 27:5). Peter said, “falling headlong {Judas} burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out” (ESV – Acts 1:18). What a horrible death!

Flee worldliness! As Joseph ran away when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him (Genesis 39:12), run away from worldly thoughts and practices. Keep viewing your life through the lens of God’s Word.

#2: Follow The Lord Who Loves You

1 Timothy 6:11 .. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

We are to follow after “righteousness”. Righteousness is what God has said is right, not what man has said is right. The Bible says:

Deuteronomy 6:25 And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.

It is “the righteous God Who will judge our hearts and emotions” (Psalm 7:9). God knows what is right. From the beginning of our creation, humanity has tried to define what we think is right and wrong. It didn’t work in the Garden of Eden, and won’t work now.

God loves righteousness, and hated wickedness (Psalm 45:7), because of what sin does to people.

Psalm 50:6 … the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.

It is sin that is tearing families apart. It is sin that addicts people, and turns people into murderers and rapists. God calls His people to pursue righteousness. Not self righteousness, but God’s righteousness. If you want a great living example of righteousness, seek out and study the life of Christ. The Apostle said:

Philippians 3:8-10 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

We are called to live our lives “in Christ Jesus”, following His “way, truth, and life” (John 14:6).

We are to follow after “godliness”. We are to imitate God.

Ephesians 5:1-4 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. 3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; 4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.

We are called to “walk in the light, as {God} is in the light, {and} have fellowship one with another” (1 John 1:7).

We are to follow after “faith”, not our feelings.

Our feelings cannot be trusted – but God can be trusted! I remember when I first learned to ride a bike. I had no training wheels, but had a daddy that ran behind me telling me to peddle and steer. I trusted that daddy wouldn’t let me fall, though I felt like there was no way that two wheels were going to hold me up. Then daddy let go – and I rode. I soared! Had I listened to my feelings, I would have never rode a bike, or learned to swim, or learned to weld and operate bindery equipment. The Bible says:

Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV) Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

We are to follow after “love”.

Romans 13:8-10 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

When you love others as Christ commands, then you are doing the main thing. Jesus emphasized this when He said:

Matthew 22:37-40 … Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

We are to follow after “patience”.

Pastor Marshall Segal of Desiring God ministries writes:

“Impatience is a dark and prevalent sin that we love to explain away. We were worn out. We were busy. We were distracted. The kids were being difficult. We were carrying too much at work. Our spouse was short or cold or harsh again. We didn’t sleep well last night. What excuses do you reach for when your patience runs low? … Impatience is a child of our pride and unbelief. It rises out of our frustration that we do not control what happens and when in our lives. ..”

God’s ways are not our ways. We love things quickly – but God, Who is eternal, only answers our prayers when the timing is right. The Stepbrother of Christ, James, writes:

James 1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

If we will not be impatient as we go through the valleys, and wait upon the Lord, He will use our patient waiting to make us mature believers in Christ, “entire, wanting nothing”. Along with pursuing patience, we are to:

Follow after “meekness” (πραότης praotēs),
which is humility.

When the valleys come, use them as an opportunity to humble yourselves before God, trusting in His provisions. We would do well to remember that Israel murmured and grumbled herself out of the blessings of the Promised Land. God says:

1 Peter 5:5 …. all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

We are not just to FLEE worldliness and FOLLOW our God, but we are to:

#3: Fight The Fight Of Faith

1 Timothy 6:12 … Fight the good fight of faith

The Apostle Paul taught that salvation is a “free gift” and a “gift by Grace”:

Romans 5:16-17 (ESV) … the free gift is not like the result of {Adam’s} sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Salvation is a free gift from God. It is free in the sense that you cannot earn it nor deserve it. But ..

Salvation, though free, comes with a cost.
Salvation is a LIFE EXCHANGE.

Jesus laid His life down for you. When you receive Him as Lord and Savior, you lay your life down at His feet. Jesus takes our punishment, and we take Jesus’ Lordship. From the point of salvation “we are NOT OUR OWN – we are BOUGHT WITH A PRICE” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 7:23). When you are saved, you are “transferred from Satan’s kingdom of darkness, and into the kingdom of Christ” (Colossians 1:13).

But the devil doesn’t like this. The devil will do anything he can to draw you back into his kingdom. Faith is a fight! Faith is a race, a marathon, not a sprint. The Bible says:

Hebrews 12:1-2 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Saving faith is often painful. Jesus said:

Luke 9:23 … If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

To “take up his cross daily” means to be willing, just as Jesus was, to stand up for God even though all the world mock you. The cross is not comfortable. The cross is harsh, painful to bear as Jesus did, heavy. It is much easier to drop the cross and meld into the crowd. But this is not what God has called us to do. We are to fight the devil. We are to cast the talking snake out of Eden. We are to stand should to shoulder with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and stand firm on what God has said. Finally, believers are to:

#4: FIX Our Minds On Eternity

1 Timothy 6:11-12 But thou, O man of God … 12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called

Word Study: The words “lay hold” is a long Greek word, ἐπιλαμβάνομαι epilambánomai, [pronounced ep-ee-lam-ban’-om-ahee]. It means “to take possession of, to seize upon and draw something to yourselves”. As believers in Christ we are to always fix our minds on Heaven, remembering that all we are currently experiencing is just temporary duty.

Illustrate: When I was in the Air Force, there were times I had to go TDY, or “On Temporary Duty Assignment”. I had to leave my wife and children, the Church and community I loved, and go to strange places to serve our nation. While on assignment in Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Egypt, and Germany I was a “stranger in a strange land”. Where I was was not my home. But I honored the nation that owned me. I did my duty, then returned home. The longest tour of duty I had was fourteen months in Korea. That is a long time to be away from your family and friends. The way I got through that tour was to daily fix my mind on my home. Every day I would pray for my wife and kids, and ask God to protect them and bless them. Every day I focused on getting to my final destination – home!

Christian, this world is not your home. Your home is with Jesus in Heaven. Right now you are on Temporary Duty Assignment for the Lord. Never forget that.

This world is not my home I’m just a-passing through
My treasures are laid up Somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me From heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home In this world anymore.
Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you
If heaven’s not my home Then Lord what will I do?
The angels beckon me From heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home In this world anymore.

Do not be like the world – you are children of the Most High. As for you, live for Jesus! May God touch your hearts through His Word and His blessed Spirit. Amen and Amen!

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The Testimony Of God

Posted on November 28, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

1 Corinthians 2:1-9 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught: 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

The Church at Corinth was one of Paul’s biggest successes. As we studied before, Paul “reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.” (Acts 18:4). Paul emphasized to the Jews that “Jesus was Christ”, but they rejected that message (Acts 18:5). At that point, the Apostle focused on the Gentiles. This brought it’s own challenges.

Corinth was a Roman Colony, populated largely by freed slaves . As the city existed because of the benevolence of Rome, the citizens would have participated in banquets honoring the Emperor. To show loyalty to the empire, the citizens were expected to honor the gods of Rome, and in particular the chief god, the Roman Emperor. One commentary notes:

“Corinth is probably the Church of the New Testament that is most like the modern Church.”

Though Corinth had many faults, it was by the Grace of God and the Power of His Spirit that the Church stood at all. As Paul writes Corinth, he reminds them that he relied on the Testimony of God – The Gospel – to found Corinth.

The Testimony Of God Is That We Are Broken,
And Only Christ Can Fix Us

1 Corinthians 2:1-2 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Corinth was known for it’s philosophers and scholars, for it’s athletic achievement and strength. When Paul came to Corinth, he did not depend on “excellence of speech” (hyperochē logos, elevated or inspiring words). This does not mean that Paul consciously avoided deep truths. Some of the Pauline writings are very deep. The Apostle Peter wrote of Paul’s letters in

2 Peter 3:16 (ESV) … There are some things in {Paul’s writings} that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

The Chief Apostle Peter, himself a ordinary fisherman, found in Paul’s epistles “things .. that are hard to understand”. This was not because Paul sought to be fancy, but because Paul was a very educated man. Paul was educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of Israel (Acts 22:3). Paul had a distinguished background. He told the Church at Philippi:

Philippians 3:5-6 (ESV) … {I was} circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

When Jesus spoke the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Paul could have played the part of the Pharisee, for he was a Pharisee, a “Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee”. When the Pharisee and the Tax Collector went to God to pray, the Pharisee said:

Luke 18:11-12 (ESV) ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

But the poor Tax Collector would not even lift his eyes to Heaven, but said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13). Jesus said the Tax Collector would have been justified or made right in God’s eyes, but not the Pharisee.

Paul could have been that Pharisee in that parable.

Paul was so certain he was right before God, that he went about attacking Churches, and persecuting Christians.

Paul (then called Saul) was there when the Evangelist Stephen was martyred. (Acts 7:58). As Saul, he led a great persecution against the Church in Jerusalem, and scattered believers, running for their lives, throughout Judea and Samaria. The Bible says “Saul was RAVAGING the church, entering house after house, dragging off men and women to prison” (Acts 8:3). Saul’s very BREATH – expelled from a self righteous and hate filled heart – stank of “threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1).

Then Saul met Jesus on the Damascus Road.
And Saul became Paul.

Illustrate Self Righteousness: Beloved, self righteousness is no more than self worship, making of yourselves more than you are. I read a wonderful illustration of self righteousness the other day. I read a daily devotional called “Beside Still Waters”, and came across an article written by Brother Winfred Zimmerman (Clayton DE) called “Brownfields of the Heart”:

“Scattered across the U.S. are areas designated by the government as “brownfields”. These are parcels of land that are so contaminated with hazardous chemicals that nobody will use them. On the worst of these, the damage is obvious. The landscape is depressing … the ground is barren and useless.”

I never knew about brownfields, but when I read that article it really struck home. You cannot fix a brownfield by covering it up with good soil, for the bad will eventually creep up through the good, and contaminate the whole. The only way to fix a brownfield is to remove all the pollutant, no matter how deep it goes.

So it is with the human heart. We are all terribly flawed, broken by sin. We all “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We can cover over our sin with a shallow covering of good works, but truthfully, unless the heart is changed, the pollutant is still there. Jesus said:

Mark 7:18-23 (ESV) Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus [Jesus] declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Good without God is Bad: It is the heart that needs to be changed, or the brownfields of the heart, the sin within, will eventually bubble to the top. When Jesus was being tried by the High Priest, the one who was supposed to be God’s Representative to Israel, the High Priest knowingly collaborated to bring in liars (a violation of the 9th commandment). Matthew 26:60 notes that “many false witnesses came forward”. The Priest, robed in splendor on the outside, was but a covered brownfield.

Such was Saul before he was Paul. But now Paul operates differently.

1 Corinthians 2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.

Paul said “my focus was not my pedigree, nor my education, nor my status as a Roman citizen”. He said, I declared “unto you the testimony of God”. What is God’s “testimony”?

God’s testimony is that we are all born into this world sinners. We are, as the theologians call it, “Totally Depraved”.

The Prophet Isaiah cried out, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way” (ESV Isaiah 53:6) “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. 7 And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.” (Isaiah 64:6-7).

We are born wandering away from God. Our “righteousnesses are as filthy rags”. We fall far short of God’s standard, the standard that He set in the Garden. The Psalmist David said:

Psalm 51:5 (ESV) … I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Psalm 58:3 (ESV) … The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

Our first birth brings forth a broken, sinful creature. Those who know not Christ are “dead in trespasses and in sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Those without Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are those who, according to God, “by nature deserve God’s wrath” (Ephesians 2:3).

We All Need A Second Spiritual Birth

Preach: The first birth is corrupt. This is why we all need to be born again, born a SECOND time, born SPIRITUALLY into the Kingdom of God. The testimony of God is that we are all broken, born broken into this world. But God’s testimony is also this: God HIMSELF was born into this world, and lived a perfect life, a life without sin. The Bible says “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8). And yet Jesus Christ, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23), pleased God. The Father said of Jesus, “THIS is MY BELOVED SON, IN WHOM I am WELL PLEASED” (Matthew 3:17; 17:5). God went on to say “Listen to Jesus!” (Mark 9:7). In the flesh we cannot please God, but the God-Man Jesus pleased God. All that He did pleased God. Jesus said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus Christ was perfect Man, sinless Man, holy Man, righteous Man, the Son of Man. And Jesus Christ died for our sins. Jesus WILLINGLY died. Jesus came into this world with one thing in mind.

He wanted to save you. He was willing to die for you. Jesus said:

John 10:11, 15, 17 … I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. … the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. … the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

Paul told Corinth,

1 Corinthians 2:2-5 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Paul did not put on airs, or make himself something that he was not. Paul showed the Corinthians that he was but a man. He was with Corinth in “weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling”. Paul was not doubting his calling as an Apostle. But what he relied on was not his own strength, but on the power of God’s Holy Spirit and the Testimony of God. The Cross is the Testimony of God.

  • The Cross testifies as to what God thinks of SIN. SIN is what God says is wrong. There are all kinds of sins. Sometimes called “the works of the flesh”, sin is defined in Scripture like

Galatians 5:19-21 (ESV) … sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (ESV) … do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Sin is horrible. It separates us from God. It is an eternal offense against the righteousness nature of the Creator. Sin is no “mistake” or “accident”, but the outward action of a heart dispossessed from God. Do you want to know what God thinks about sin? Look to the Cross. Look to ..

1 Corinthians 2:2 …. Jesus Christ, and Him crucified

Jesus Christ was crucified for us, for our sins. The Prophet said:

Isaiah 53:3-5 (ESV) He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins in full. Paul did not mince words as her preached to the Corinthians. Any hope that anyone has to be right with God depends on casting yourselves upon Jesus.

Jesus gave Himself for us. When we give ourselves to Him, we gain righteousness in God’s eyes. We gain the status of children of God.

God’s Testimony Is That He Will Change Places With You, If You Will But Believe In Christ

The Apostle writes:

1 Corinthians 2:6-8 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught: 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

When Jesus was crucified on Calvary, the “princes of this world” though nothing of it. To them, an unknown carpenter’s Son had gotten on the wrong side of the law. It was a matter of, wrong place, wrong time. But that wasn’t true. Jesus Christ was, is, and will always be God’s only way to rightness with Him.

We are saved by taking our defective and sin riddled lives to the Cross. We give ourselves to Jesus, and Jesus gives His life to us. The Apostle Paul wrote of his old life as Saul, saying:

Philippians 3:7-11 But whatever gain I had {in my previous life}, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Paul in effect said, “I exchanged the old, broken down, sin and fame loving me for a life believing on Jesus. And I am not regretting it!”

When you trade your old, flesh driven life for a life bound to Jesus, your life changes for the better. We who are saved by faith in Jesus have a right relationship with God. The Apostle said:

1 John 2:1-6 (ESV) My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the {COVERING} for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Salvation is necessarily a free gift from God. You cannot earn it, nor deserve it. To be saved you give yourself to Jesus as Christ, the Messiah. You give Jesus the broken you, and follow Him. Jesus causes you to be born again, and gives you a Christ following, God loving you.

The only way to be saved is through faith in Jesus. Jesus was clear:

John 14:6 … I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

There is but one way to have peace with God, and that is by laying your life down at the feet of Jesus. “Our faith does not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God” (vvs 5). Jesus said:

Matthew 16:24 (ESV) If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Before we were saved, the unbeliever selfishly lived for themselves. You see it all the time on television.

“You do you”
“Be yourself”
“Love yourself”

The way of the Cross is different. The way of the Cross is to be like Jesus, to lay your life down for a greater good. You are called to do love. You are called to reject selfishness. You are called to be “lights in the midst of darkness” (Matthew 5:16). The Christian is not as he or she was – you are changed, and will continue to change until you reach eternity. We are no longer bound to the darkness. The Apostle said in:

Colossians 1:12-14 (ESV) {daily be} giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

One thing that every Christian has in common is that we are heavenward bound. The Apostle writes:

1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

If you love God, you are headed toward an eternal life that is unimaginable in it’s beauty. We are, dear believers, sons of God headed for home. Until that day comes we are to daily take up the Cross, and follow Jesus. Let us live our lives so as to honor and glorify our Savior and Lord.

Do you know Jesus Christ? Is He your Savior and Lord? If so, glory awaits you. But if not, the pit of hell is your destiny. Please, do not go one more minute without receiving Jesus Christ as He is – your Lord and Savior. May God through His Word and His Spirit draw multitudes into His family this very day. Amen and Amen.

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We All Need This Exercise

Posted on November 22, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Arek Adeoye on Unsplash

Turn with me in your Bibles to Jeremiah 9:24.

I do not discuss politics in the Lord’s Pulpit. When I stand here, I stand for Jesus, not for Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, or Libertarians. I hope you understand this isn’t a political message.

As I was preparing for this message, the Lord led
me to think about one term Presidents.

There have been 23 one term Presidents in our nation’s history, as of this moment in time. President Joe Biden is our 46th President. This tells us that half of our Presidents have been elected to more than one term of office, and half to just one term.

The longest serving President was Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). He served three terms, and died 2 months and 23 days into his fourth term. Roosevelt, a Democrat, was President during the Great Depression, and led the United States through World War II. Roosevelt died in office April 12, 1945 right after that war ended. Though Roosevelt was crippled and wheelchair bound from a paralytic illness thought to be polio, he was very popular. Roosevelt used radio to speak directly to the American people. He gave 30 “fireside chats” where Roosevelt comforted the nation. One source said that he…

“… spoke with familiarity to millions of Americans about recovery from the Great Depression, the promulgation of the Emergency Banking Act in response to the banking crisis, the 1936 recession, New Deal initiatives, and the course of World War II. On radio, he was able to quell rumors, counter conservative-dominated newspapers and explain his policies directly to the American people. His tone and demeanor communicated self-assurance during times of despair and uncertainty. Roosevelt was regarded as an effective communicator on radio, and the fireside chats kept him in high public regard throughout his presidency.” (Wikipedia)

Presidents can no longer serve four terms. After FDR’s time in office, the Twenty-second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was drafted to limit the Presidency to two terms. That Amendment was approved by Congress March 1947, and ratified into law February 27, 1951). According to Wikipedia, it was FDR’s Presidency that led Republicans to push for term limits for the President. Since 1985, when Ronald Reagan (a very popular Republican, and our 40th President) was in office, there have been attempts to undo the Twenty-second Amendment, but it still stands. Though Roosevelt was a Democrat, and Reagan a Republican, both men had one thing in common:

Roosevelt and Reagan were visiblykind,
even to their enemies.

Jeremiah 9:24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.

Our God Is Kind

Kindness matters. Our world is coarse and harsher today, I believe, because there is a lack of kindness among our leaders. The world is starving – and dying – for kindness.

Every creature under the glow of God’s sun is broken. The Scripture is adamant: “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We all mess up. No one has a reason to be holier than thou. No one need pretend they are perfect. We aren’t. We are all broken.

As we look at Jeremiah, not what God says of Himself. This is God speaking. Again, this is GOD SPEAKING. God tells us:

Jeremiah 9:24 I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness

Word Study: God “exercises”. That doesn’t mean He goes to the gym and works out. The word translated “exercise“ is the Hebrew עָשָׂה ʻâsâh, [pronounced aw-saw’], which means “to advance or accomplish, to do“. God doesn’t talk about kindness, He actually does it.

Word Study: Of the three things God “delights” in doing, He enjoys “lovingkindness” first. This word is the Hebrewחֶסֶד cheçed, [pronounced kheh’-sed], which is translated in the King James text mercy (149 times), kindness (40 times), and lovingkindness (30 times).

The heart of kindness is mercy. Mercy shows compassion or forgiveness toward others, even when it is in your power (and even your right) to punish or harm.

God does not just “delights” in lovingkindness, but close on it’s heels we see that God delights in “judgment, and righteousness”. God has a standard that He expects creation to follow. When the world turned so far away from God that:

Genesis 6:5 … the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Then God decided to do a hard reset. He brought a worldwide flood that killed all of humanity but eight (Noah and his family). The judgment and righteousness of God led to the mass destruction of the flood, but the lovingkindness of God caused Him to provide a way that humanity could still exist.

Lovingkindness does not eradicate God’s righteousness and judgment – but it does temper them.

People are fond of saying that “God is love”, and He is indeed “love”. But He is also righteous, the God of judgment. Our God determines right from wrong. If God determines a thing is wrong, it is wrong regardless as to what we think or believe.

In Jeremiah chapter 9 God is foretelling Judah that they will be carried off into captivity. Why is Judah going away into captivity? Because they have drifted away from a right relationship with God our Savior. Judah has allowed itself to compromise with the darkness. God’s people are not to compromise with evil, but to wrestle against it. The Scripture says:

Ephesians 6:12 … we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Preach: When God’s people wander away from their Lord and Savior, there is no “light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). We as God’s children are to “let our light shine before all, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven”. Those who do not love Jesus are in the grip of “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4), that fallen angel we call Lucifer. We who are Christ’s by faith are “delivered from the power of darkness” (Colossians 1:13), and called to walk in Christ’s Kingdom of Light. When God’s lights (that’s the believer ion Christ) compromises with the darkness, we do so by becoming less light and more dark. In time, God – Who is the righteous Judge – will move to punish His children (Hebrews 12:7-8). God’s method of punishing Judah was to have that nation overthrown, and taken into captivity for 70 years.

What did God think of what He was being forced to do? We read:

Jeremiah 9:1-3 Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! 2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. 3 And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord.

The lovingkindness of God caused Him to weep over what He must do. Nevertheless, He had no choice but to do it. His people would not repent. They would not return to a right relationship with Him. So God would not only allow Judah’s collapse, God would engineer it. This should not have been a surprise to Israel. Right after God freed Israel from Egypt, God defined His character to Moses by saying:

Exodus 34:6-7 the LORD passed by before {Moses}, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness {KINDNESS, Hebrew cheçed, pronounced kheh’-sed]} and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

God is “abundant in KINDNESS”. The Psalmist praised our God, saying:

Psalm 36:5-7 Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. 6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O Lord, thou preservest man and beast. 7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.

If God Is Kind, And We Are Made In God’s Image,
As His Creation We Should Be Kind

We live in a day where people can go online and, through “social networks”, express the darkness of their hearts without consequence. I think this is why unkindness is reigning in America (and the whole world) today. The devil is doing his best to create disciples of unkindness through the internet. When I was growing up, people tempered their anger or displeasure with patience and kindness – else they might get a punch in the nose! The internet is conditioning America to be unkind – and it is spilling out of the social networks and into the streets.

The lost world will follow its master Lucifer as far as he will take them. But God’s people are called to imitate God. The Scripture says:

Ephesians 5:1-2 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.

We are to “walk in love” as Jesus Himself walked in love. When the Bible defines the word “love”, it states:

1 Corinthians 13:4 (ESV) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant…

One of the components of love is kindness. Pastor Don Carson wrote in his book “Showing The Spirit: A Theological Exposition Of 1 Corinthians 12-14”:

“Love is kind – not merely patient or long suffering in the face of injury, but quick to pay back with kindness what it received in hurt” (pg 79).

God expects His children to be kind. Though the Apostle Paul and those who worked with him were often persecuted by “stripes, imprisonment, and confusion” (2 Corinthians 6:5), he and the other Apostles as leaders of God’s Church responded with:

2 Corinthians 6:6 By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,

They could have been ugly when they were brutalized. In fact, in one instance the Apostle Paul allowed his humanity to outshine his spirituality. When the High Priest Ananias slapped Paul in the mouth, Paul said “God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?” Paul quickly recanted what he did, saying, “I didn’t know he was the High Priest. It is written: you shall not speak evil of the ruler of My people” (Acts 23:4-5). The Apostle was quoting Exodus 22:28.

God commands that we be kind.

In another place, the Apostle lists the characteristics of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, saying:

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, {KINDNESS, χρηστότης chrēstótēs, khray-stot’-ace} goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…

I do not believe there is anyone in the world who has more enemies than the Lord Jesus Christ had, and has. Jesus was constantly harassed by the religious establishment. The Pharisees and the Scribes sought to find fault with Jesus at every turn. And yet, Jesus was kind, and encouraged we who are His disciples to be kind. Jesus said:

Matthew 5:43-45, 48 … Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. … 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

We are to be like our Heavenly Father. Love the unlovable. Do good to those who do evil to you. In short, be kind, whether they deserve your kindness or not.

What You Do, Or Do Not Do, Matters

God tells Judah that He is going to send them into exile. He says:

Jeremiah 9:13-16 And the Lord saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein; 14 But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them: 15 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. 16 I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.

The very fact that God is warning Judah of His coming discipline is in itself an act of kindness. God as Savior and Creator of His people has the right to do with them as He wishes. But God is driven by not just righteousness and judgment, but also with kindness. If the people would REPENT, God will not do as He says. But if they hold the course of ignoring His Will, and continue to chase after the false gods of this world, then God will discipline.

And it won’t be pretty!

God tells us as His children to be kind – and to leave vengeance to Him. Rather than responding to hurt with wrath, God tells us:

Romans 12:19-21 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Let love prevail. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). Let your kindness delight God. He will bless you for it.

May God the Holy Spirit and His Word draw you closer to Him this very day. Amen and amen!

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Glory In The Lord

Posted on November 21, 2021 by bibleteacherorg
Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

1 Corinthians 1:30-31 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: 31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Last Sunday night we began a journey through the book of 1 Corinthians. Though all of the “Church Letters” (writings like Romans, Colossians, Philippians, Thessalonians – to name just a few) are necessary for the local Church to learn, I believe 1 Corinthians is a particularly timely book for the day we live in. I came across an article submitted to the Gospel Coalition entitled “Self-Worship Is The World’s Fastest Growing Religion”. Author Thaddeus Williams noted:

“In their recent book Good Faith: Being a Christian When Society Thinks You’re Irrelevant and Extreme, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons document that 84 percent of Americans believe that “enjoying yourself is the highest goal of life.” … Further, 86 percent believe that to enjoy yourself you must “pursue the things you desire most.” … And 91 percent affirm this statement: “To find yourself, look within yourself.””

You can see this everywhere you look. A commercial came on television the other day for H&M, a Swedish multinational clothing company. A stylish black man comes on screen, and as he walks toward the camera telling us “You do you. The most important thing is to love yourself. I know I do.”

It is this attitude that got us in trouble from the beginning of humanity. When Adam heard the serpent (Satan) say, “The reason God didn’t want you to eat of the tree of knowledge is because He doesn’t want any competition. He’s trying to keep YOU from becoming a god, too! (paraphrase of Genesis 3:5). Who wouldn’t want to be a god? So Adam ate, and we all lost Paradise. We should have learned from that.

When Israel waited for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai, someone suggested “let’s build a god to lead us”. Everyone chipped in a little jewelry, gave it to Aaron the High Priest, and he made them all a golden calf. (Exodus 32:4). When Moses came down off the mountain, he made Israel drink the ashes of that calf (Exodus 32:20). I don’t think it tasted that well, but the point is clear. Any god that we make with our own hands is not only lacking in nutrients, but it’s not fit to drink. And it eventually ends up in the toilet!

In the Medical News Today newsletter we are told that today, “Gender is different than sex. Although genetic factors typically define a person’s sex, gender refers to how they identify on the inside. Only the person themselves can determine what their gender identity is.” Some people say that there are 72 genders, and others 57 genders. This is what happens when people become gods, and reject the true God of the Holy Scripture. The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) – but we are definitely NOT God nor little “g” gods. God tells us:

1 Corinthians 1:19-20 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. 20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

Said to be unsinkable, the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank April 15, 1912. As families gathered at the White Star Line office in Liverpool, England, they waited breathlessly to hear if their loved ones survived or not. Dr. Joe Pettigrew noted:

“”On both sides of the main entrance notices were posted. One {notice} said ‘KNOWN TO BE SAVED’; the other {notice} said, ‘KNOWN TO BE LOST’. From time to time a company official walked out with a piece of paper which contained the name of another passenger. When he held it up, a deathly stillness swept over the crowd as loved ones of the missing waited to see which side he would write the name on.”

In Heaven there is a book called “The Book of Life” (Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12; 20:15). The only ones that will enter into God’s Paradise we call Heaven is “those whose names are written in the Book of Life” (Revelation 21:27). Those in the Book of Life are those ‘KNOWN TO BE SAVED’. How do you get your name in that Book? It is not by human wisdom, or human knowledge and strength. You get in that all important Book by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.

Only The Cross Will Get You Into God’s Kingdom

1 Corinthians 1:17 …For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

In the Church at Corinth, the believers there had become to believe their salvation was better than another’s salvation because the Apostle Paul, or the Evangelist Apollo, or the Chief Apostle Peter, or the Messiah Jesus baptized them. Paul wanted the Corinthians know that, though Baptism is an important part of our faith (for Jesus commanded water baptism – Matthew 28:19-20), it is only the Gospel and how you respond to it that saves. When Paul says that “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel”, he is emphasizing that it is only your response to the Gospel that saves or damns you. Let me put it this way.

Some Christians are baptized by immersion in water. I believe this is the New Testament standard. But other Christians are baptized by having water poured over them. Yet others are baptized by having a few drops of water sprinkled on them from a chalice or a cup. Each group is baptized by a different method, and they are following their conscience.

But salvation is not brought to a person because of baptism. Salvation only comes by the preaching of the Gospel (Greek εὐαγγελίζω euangelizō). That same phrase “preaching of the Gospel” can also be translated “to bring or declare good news”.

Illustrate: On my keychain are several keys. They are all good keys – I don’t keep old keys – and each key opens a certain door. I can take a perfectly good house key and try to open the doors of this Church building with it. It won’t open. Why? Because it’s the wrong key. Only the right key will open the doors to this sanctuary.

Only the right key will open the door to God’s Kingdom. That key is the Gospel or Good News of the Cross.

1 Corinthians 1:18 … For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Word Study: The word “preaching” is actually the Greek λόγος logos, which means “WORD”. The Apostle doesn’t want the Corinthians nor us to believe that only the preacher can lead a person to salvation. The power of salvation is not in me, nor in any holy person, not even the so called “Pope”. The power of salvation is in the “WORD OF THE CROSS”. The Scripture says:

Psalm 33:6 By the WORD OF THE LORD were the Heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

God and God alone made all that you see around you by speaking it into existence. He made SOMETHING out of NOTHING. When God made mankind, and entered mankind through Jesus Christ His Son, He sent His Only Begotten Son to die for our sins.

Oh, we are broken and sinful creatures.

Two tricks that Satan uses to try and get us all to reject the Word of the Cross is (1) “You can become gods”, and (2) “You can be good enough”.

Hell will be filled with people who felt they were “good enough”. The Bible is quite clear, that,

Romans 5:12, 17-21 … By one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: … 17 … by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) 18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: 21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Adam brought sin and death into the world. Adam broke fellowship with God, and lost the key to Paradise. But Jesus came, the anti-Adam, and living a perfect and sinless life, went to the Cross to make payment for our sins. John the Baptist famously said of Jesus,

John 1:29 … BEHOLD, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world …

Jesus took away the penalty of sin by taking our punishment for us.

Illustrate: The legendary preacher C.H. Spurgeon was saved at the age of 15 years old. He stumbled upon a small chapel where an unknown and illiterate man shared the Word of the Cross. His text was Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” As the man preached, Spurgeon heard his words:

“Jesus said ‘Look unto Me, I am sweating great drops of blood. Look unto Me, I am hanging on the Cross. Look unto Me, I ascend unto Heaven. Look unto Me, I am sitting at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me!”

Spurgeon testified, “I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. That happy day when I found the Savior and learned to cling to His dear feet was a day never to be forgotten by me. … I listened to the Word of God; and that precious text led me to the Cross of Christ”.

That is how a person is saved. The person hears the Word of the Cross, and believes that Jesus Christ died for them. And not just died, but rose again to lead His people toward glory. So many people today are trying to be gods, or trying to be good, and think they are leaving this life for glory. Yet they are not. Pastor John Piper wrote:

“Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. The people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God.”

God is the Gospel. God the Son gives Himself for our sins. We give ourselves to Him, loving Him, and He promises to bring us to God. Not just later, when we pass from this life and into Heaven, but right now, right where we are. The Apostle said:

1 Peter 3:18 (ESV) Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

1 Corinthians 1:21-22 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

The Bible says “the world by wisdom knew not God”. The Gentiles in rejecting Christ cling instead to human wisdom. “How can one Man – even Jesus – make payment for another man’s sins? It makes no sense”.

It makes better sense than what Progressive Liberal believe!

Pastor (Dr.) W.A. Criswell shared this little poem:

Once I was a tadpole, beginning to begin;
Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in;
Then I was a monkey in a banyon tree;
And now I’m a professor with a PhD!

The world does not understand the Gospel – but God’s wisdom is much greater than ours. “The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom”. Jesus showed the Jews sign after sign when He walked the earth.

Jesus was born of a virgin in Bethlehem.
Jesus walked on water.
Jesus rebuked the wind, and calmed the seas.
Jesus healed the lame so they could walk.
Jesus gave sight to the blind so they could see.
Jesus cured the leper, restoring him to his family.
Jesus cast out demons.
Jesus fed thousands with a child’s meal.
Jesus restored life to the dead.

They always wanted just one more sign. Jesus finally told them:

Matthew 12:39-40 (ESV) An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

God has given us all the signs, and all the reasons He is ever going to give us. Jesus clearly died on Calvary, and laid in a tomb for three days and three nights. Rising from the grave, our Lord taught on the earth 40 days after His resurrection, then ascended into Heaven. He did all this so that you could be a part of His family.

But I’m Not Worthy To Be Saved

As I said before, Satan uses some little tricks to keeps us from the Word of the Cross. He uses, (1) You can be gods, and (2) You can be good. But there’s another ruse Satan uses. I hear this quite a bit. It is, “I’m not worthy to be saved”. Beloved, if your mind is in the place of “I’m not worthy”, my answer to you is “None of us are worthy”. The Apostle writes:

1 Corinthians 1:26-27 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

When God calls people to salvation, He does not focus on calling the best and brightest according to the world. He calls those who are broken, and know they are broken. Of those who God calls to salvation, the Scripture says “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called”. It doesn’t say “not any” but “not many”. God does not go out of His way to exclude people. The Gospel is inclusive. The Gospel of salvation is a “whosoever will” proposition. Jesus said, “He or she that has ears to hear, hear and respond!” But sadly many people disqualify themselves because they place importance on other things, rather than heed the Gospel call.

Jesus was told “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” (Luke 14:15). When Jesus heard this, He said:

Luke 14:16-24 (ESV) “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Why is it that “not MANY wise, not MANY might, not MANY noble have been called”? Because those with “superpowers”, the bold and the beautiful, the jocks and the movie stars, they are busy worshiping THEMSELVES. They are out inventing genders, and twisting Scriptures, and ignoring the Word of God. They could have been saved, but always had something better to do. They are those who refuse to assemble with a Church because a football or baseball game is on television.

When Jesus walked the earth, who was most blessed by Him? I seem to remember one Centurion, one Synagogue leader, the wealthy Joseph of Arimathæa, and one member of the Sanhedrin named Nicodemus. There may have been more Jews or Gentiles of note, but if so, it was a short list. Who were most of the people who were blessed by Jesus? Lepers. Cripples. Blind people. Widows. Fishermen. People who were never named. Common folk. Mary Magdalene. Mary of Bethany. Lazarus. Martha. Just plain folks who realized they needed Jesus. Just plain people willing to break open an alabaster box of ointment to anoint the Master’s feet.

1 Corinthians 1:28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

Word Studies: God called “base things”, the Greek ἀγενής agenḗs, [pronounced ag-en-ace’] meaning “low born, ignoble, people of no class”. Jesus cast demons out of that wild man who lived among dead bodies in the tombs (Mark 5). When the man was healed, and wanted to go be with Jesus, the Lord told him: “No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.” (NLT – Mark 5:19). The people no one wanted to be around – Jesus called them, and saved them. God the Son came to save “things which are despised ”. The least and the less. Jesus came to call “things which are not”, people that are nothings.

I am one of those nobodies. I am one of those nothings. Jesus called me! Before I met Jesus, I was nothing. Now I am a child of God with Heaven as my home.

1 Corinthians 1:29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.

When we get to Heaven (if we get to Heaven), we will not look back on our lives and strut up that street of gold to the Throne of Christ. We won’t be able to brag about how “we made it”. If we get to Heaven, it will be because JESUS made it for us.

1 Corinthians 1:30 But of Him {of God} are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

If you are saved, it is because of God. God sent the message and the messenger to you. God rolled back the fog of sin around your mind, so you could hear that Word of the Cross. Then God through Christ gives us “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption”. It is all a gift of God, our salvation. So if you want to brag – if you want to be proud of anything – be proud of God. Brag on God.

1 Corinthians 1:31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Let us brag on the Jesus Who saves us, and keeps on saving us. Let us brag on the Jesus Who loves us so. May God draw you close to Him today and, if you are not saved, into a saving relationship with Him. For His glory. Amen and Amen.

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