August 30, 2006

Unless Jesus loved Judas Iscariot as much as He loved the Eleven, he would have had an excuse for his sin, for no one can come to the Savior unless he is “drawn” (John 6:44). And Christ’s love is not love unless He draws “all” ( 12:32, 33). Therefore, Judas could not be an exception. Jesus loved him too.

But how could Christ love the man who He knew from the beginning would betray Him (6:70, 71)?

The Father favors the just and the unjust alike (Matt. 5:45, 46), thus treating every person as though he had not sinned, and as though he will not be lost. This is because He has won for “all men” a “judicial ... verdict of acquittal” by His sacrifice (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB, KJV). For “every man” Jesus has died his second death (since the “foundation of the world,” Heb. 2:9; Rev. 13:8). That blanket “verdict of acquittal” included Judas, who need not ever die the second death except that like Esau he chose to “sell” and “despise” the “birthright” that Christ had won for him and given him (cf. Gen. 25:33, 34; Heb. 12:16, 17). Jesus also gave the same birthright to us all (1 Tim. 4:10).

For Him to be fair, He must have given that same “verdict of acquittal” to Judas during the years of His fellowship with the Twelve; Jesus respected him courteously, genuinely, sincerely, for Judas had natural abilities. He was a soul for whom Christ was giving Himself. Jesus thought of him as “My own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate My bread, has lifted up his heel against Me” (John 13:18; Psalm 41:9; some scholars see Judas in 55:12-14; Jesus addressed him at the betrayal with special, wounded endearment, Matt. 26:50).

In the story of Judas Iscariot we see Jesus contending with the raw “mystery of iniquity,” defeated in His quest to save a dear one eternally who would not let himself be saved. Painful. His pain will be repeated in the final death of every unbelieving soul.

August 29, 2006

Did Jesus love Judas Iscariot, the man who eventually betrayed Him? Did He love him a little less than He loved the Eleven disciples? How could Jesus love Judas the same if He foreknew that he would double cross Him and sell Him for the price of a slave?

And if Jesus did actually love Judas less than He loved the Eleven, wouldn’t Judas use that as an argument at last in the final judgment, “It’s Your fault I am lost! You didn’t do the same for me that You did for those people who are safe inside the City!” Many have a hard time with this question; they sympathize with Judas. They feel drawn as by an undertow to feel that God pre-programmed Judas to be lost, “predestinated” hell for him.

And they feel the same deep undertow sweeping them into the idea that they too have been predestinated to be lost. The result: despair. Can we find unmistakably clear truth in the Bible?

(1) “God our Savior ... will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3-6). Clear as sunlight: (a) God wanted Judas to be saved. (b) He would have been saved if he had “come to a knowledge of the truth” (“knowledge” = epignosis which is more than head awareness; it is to “know upon,” “full discernment,” “acknowledgment,” Strong 1922).

(2) “The man Christ Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all,” including Judas Iscariot. When the Savior looked in Judas’s eye and said, “Judas, do you betray the Son of man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48), the knowing glance was there—I am dying your second death (Hebrews 2:9 says it).

(3) When Jesus washed his feet in John 13:2-5, the betrayer’s heart thrilled with a thought that he must kneel down and confess his crime and “be ... reconciled to God.” But he steeled his heart and committed the unpardonable sin of rejecting the final overture of God’s much more abounding grace seen in His love. He scorned agape.

No one, no one, is predestinated to do that!

Jesus loved Judas “unto the end” (vs. 1). He loves you that far, too—up to your last breath.

August 28, 2006

The gospel is “everlasting” (Rev. 14:6), therefore had to be preached in Old Testament times as in the New (Gal. 3:8). For example, Noah was a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5). But the people’s unbelief had become as perverse as that of many today, for they turned their beautiful world into a hell of wickedness and violence (Gen. 6:11), bringing on themselves the Flood. (The Lord Jesus tells us how that history pictures the world of today [Matt. 24:38-42]. There must be another “Noah,” a church that is “a preacher of righteousness”—by faith, the only kind there can be.)

From Eden, Christ conquered Satan, not merely wounded him. He “bruised [the] head” whereas the serpent “bruised [His] heel” (Gen. 3:15). In “the likeness of sinful flesh” which we all inherit from our fallen Adam, Christ “condemned sin,” trampled upon it as you would the head of a poisonous snake (Rom. 8:3). To all who believed on Christ in Old Testament times, He granted to “overcome” as He grants us today to “overcome even as [He] overcame” (Rev. 3:21).

In Abraham’s “seed” [Christ], “all families of the earth” are in fact “blessed,” not merely provisionally, or possibly, or perhaps, but in reality (Gen. 12:2, 3).

Again the blessing is for “all the families of the earth” in the dream the Lord gave to sinful, “supplanter-Jacob” at Bethel (28:12-14). The gift of salvation is assured to unworthy sinners; but they must receive it. But if they don’t receive it, the gift nonetheless was truly given!

The universal nature of this “gift” is taught in the daily burnt offering in the Levitical service (Ex. 29:38-42). It “covered” the sinner who had not yet learned to repent; it included “the stranger” within the gates. Its ultimate significance included “all men” who need a judicial acquittal in order not to die (Cf. Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). But again, the “cover” must not be presumed; but for Christ there remains the legal condemnation “in Adam.” “Behold the goodness and severity of God” (Rom. 11:22).

August 27, 2006

In a great evangelistic campaign broadcast by satellite the speaker continually assured the worldwide audience that “Jesus wants to be your Best Friend.” Night after night this assurance was offered; but the implication was that He is not—not until you do something to make Him become your Best Friend, that is, you must first believe and obey.

There are sincere people who are alienated from God. They believe that He exists, but they have suffered so much pain in their lives, often from childhood beyond anything they did, good or bad, that they find it difficult to believe that He is already actually their Best Friend. They wish He were; but this idea has a resemblance to the carrot-on-a-stick allurement. Jesus will become your Best Friend IF, IF, you take the initiative in a change of your heart.

Is that the “evangel” that the Lord Jesus wants them to be told? Some say yes, or that wouldn’t have been told night after night.

He has commanded us to “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel ...” (Mark 16:15). But what is the gospel?

Scholars and theologians contend endlessly; the best answer is the simple words of Jesus: “God so loved the world that He gave ...” (John 3:16). That love came first; it was not dependent on any change of heart on the part of the sinner.

So much did He love that He gave His only Son; the deed already done. The giving on His part was for eternity; for each individual of the human race He “tasted death” (Heb. 2:9, Greek).  In other words, He died everyone’s “hell,” everyone’s second death (Acts 2:27). Yours.

Do you want a better Best Friend than that?

Thank Him from the depths of your soul for what He already is; and let the revelation of His love lead you to consecrate yourself totally to Him.

August 26, 2006

The four gospels demonstrate a universal gift of grace to “all men.” Jesus never asked for a prerequisite condition for healing, even for raising the dead, other than simple believing, or faith. Often didn’t ask for even that.

• Matthew 3:17: the Voice that embraced “My beloved Son” embraced the human race. As He is the Second Adam, all are “in Him.”

• 14:19-21: no tickets or prepayment were required for the “5000” to have a meal.

• 25:14, 15: “talents” given to “every man.”

• 26:28: Christ’s blood shed “for many for the remission of sins,” that is, for all (“remission” = taking the sins away from the heart).

• Mark 4:3-18: the Lord’s “seed” sown everywhere, much wasted.

• 8:2-9: 4000 have a free meal, no repentance, worthiness required.

• 14:3-9: Mary’s prodigality with “very precious” ointment illustrates a prodigal, universal justification Christ gives to the world—much of which appears “wasted” as was her perfume.

• 16:15, 16: good news of what Christ has already accomplished for “all the world” to be proclaimed to every individual; then “he who believes and is baptized” is saved to eternal life; this present life a prelude to that.

• Luke 2:9, 10: the “you” to whom comes “good tidings of great joy” is “all people” (panti, each person) for unto them “is born ... a Savior.”

• 3:3-6: “all flesh [parsa sarx] shall see the salvation of God,” obviously the Loud Cry yet to lighten the earth (Rev. 18:1-4).

• 23:34: all who crucified Christ forgiven before they ask to be forgiven.

• John 1:4: “life” possible only because all are already “redeemed” in Christ.

• Vss. 5, 9: only by much more abounding grace can “every man” be so “lightened” (Rom. 5:20).

• 1:29: as “Lamb of God [He] takes away sin of the world,” not just of the saints.

• 3:14-19: implies two-fold redemption, (a) this present life for “all,” (b) eternal for those who “believe.”

• 4:42: He is “Savior of the world.” If you breathe, you’re included. Don’t despise the salvation He gives you and “sell” it (Heb. 12:16).

• 10:10: far more than physical existence the animals enjoy; includes the blessings of “the more abundant life” Baby Boomers or Gen-Xers enjoy in such generosity from His hand. Isn’t it time they learn to appreciate the Source of it all?

• 16:8: the Spirit cannot “convict of sin” unless first the world has been given salvation in Christ. He can’t convict of sin not committed.

August 25, 2006

• John 3:16: God has taken and continues to take the initiative in anyone’s salvation. In this respect “Calvinism” is true.

• Verses 18, 19: the lost will have taken the initiative in their own damnation. In this respect, “Calvinism” is wrong; that wasn’t God’s initiative.

• John 4:42: Christ is the Savior of the world, not only of those who believe.

• Luke 19:14: unbelievers refuse to let Christ be what He is, to them. 20:17: they willfully “reject” Him and throw Him out of the world.

• Leviticus 25:10: Christ has given “liberty” of choice to everyone.

• John 6:32, 33, 53: His sacrifice has given every one all the good, all the happiness and peace he has ever known, including love. Arminianism supporters understand that the cross does no one any good unless he believes and obeys;

• 1 Timothy 4:10: thus they question that He is the Savior of “all men.”

• Romans 3:23, 24: the “all [who] sinned” are the same as the all who are “justified freely by His grace.” Arminianism supporters say “all” are not “justified freely” until they take the initiative to believe and obey.

• Romans 5:15-18: the same “all men” upon whom came legal condemnation in the first Adam have been given the “gift” that grace gives—legal justification in the One who is the second Adam.

• Deuteronomy 25:1: justification is more than a legal assumption or even a “making” righteous; a Hebrew judge must examine the evidence and “declare” a verdict; he couldn’t “make” the accused to be either.

• Galatians 2:16-21: the evidence in our case is totally Christ’s righteousness in that He has identified with our fallen humanity and conquered sin therein. It is in our fallen, sinful nature where He won the decisive battle for ever.

August 24, 2006

It took an earthquake to alert the man to ask the question: “What must I do to be saved?” (he was on the verge of suicide, for “he ... was about to kill himself,” but Paul had told him not to do it, Acts 16:25-30). (There’s a “health reform” message embedded here—value the life God gave you, stop any unhealthful practice; let your mind be clear so you can understand the voice of God; stop shortening your life).

Many “evangelists” will try to answer the man’s question of what to “do to be saved.” Paul’s immediate answer was, “‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved’” (vs. 31; that’s the inspired answer!).

But what does it mean to “believe”?

(1) It’s something you “do” with the heart. Rom 10:10. Your choice is involved.

(2) It’s not a terrorism ultimatum; it’s a heart appreciation of the love involved in the text, “God so loved that He gave ...” (John 3:16-18).

(3) Ponder that “love.” Let it in. It “casts out fear” (1 John 4:8; Rom. 5:5).

(4)There’s a better motivation for serving the Lord than terror of the Lake of Fire, and it involves that love (2 Cor. 5:14-21).

(5) But believing also includes doing, for you “come to Me,” says Jesus (Matt. 11:18-30).

(6) You can’t “come” unless you humble your proud heart, for He is “meek and lowly in heart,” He adds. That repels or attracts you.

(7) “He who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). You simply must believe that He is already your Friend, and also your Savior from the second death (2:9).

(8) You join the believing thief who is crucified with Jesus, and pray, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” (Luke 23:42).

(9) “You mean I must ‘join’ riff-raff people, like that thief?” Yes, that’s where we all belong (Rom. 3:23). The only other alternative is to join the other thief who was also crucified with Jesus.

We cannot evade making this choice. The whole world will eventually stand with the one or the other, and this will be included in the mark of the beast or seal of God choice all will make (Rev. 13:15-17; 6:1-4). Let’s permit the Savior to “draw” us (John 12:32, 33)! Don’t resist Him.

August 23, 2006

Quarrels and contention come because of our love of self, says the apostle James (4:1-3). Whether it’s a marital, family, neighborly, or even theological quarrel, we feel the pressing desire to justify ourselves by our defence of what we did or said, shielding ourselves from accusation.

How infantile we can become!

But thank God, there is a growing-up process now taking place. We have come to Daniel’s “time of the end” (11:35, 12:4). It’s not only a time when “signs” in heaven and earth proclaim that the coming of the Lord draws nigh (James 5:8), but it’s a time for spiritual growth in preparation for meeting the Lord of glory face to face at His second coming. A blessed time!

The preparation process is the experience of “justification by faith.” We don’t seek to justify ourselves; we wait upon the Lord to do it for us, in other words, we wait for justification-by-faith. That’s the meaning of David’s telling us, “Wait on the Lord, ... wait, I say, on the Lord” (Psalm 27:14). “Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (37:5). It will take Him some time, but oh, it’s so much better than our fighting our way to “justification” on our own and winning our quarrel (we think)! “He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday” (vs. 6). “Wait patiently for Him” (vs .7).

In this “time of the end” there is also the final cosmic Day of Atonement, the time for the special work of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. It’s the ministry of the Savior as High Priest in preparing a people to stand in the final moments of time. “In your patience you possess your souls,” says the Savior, speaking of this time (Luke 21:19); but patience is impossible unless there is faith—unless we believe “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5). And that’s “present truth.”

Whether you’re a teen or a centenarian, this is “present truth” for now (2 Peter 1:12).

August 22, 2006

Exuberance and joy are the way we live when we understand what the Son of God has accomplished for us, in other words, when we grasp the objective gospel: “The death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, ... but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead” (Rom. 6:10-13; “dead” = the second death).

How joyous we are when we realize that we’ve been delivered from some disaster, like a friend on cloud nine a few days ago—she narrowly missed a lethal car crash. The more clearly you realize how you’ve escaped disaster through the merciful intervention of the Lord, the more ready you are to consecrate your all to Him. Now, “our beloved brother Paul” (cf. 2 Peter 3:15) is reminding us here that we have escaped hell, the second death. The fact that you live proves that. In such joy, “present yourselves to God.” You will hold nothing back.

I read somewhere in an old, old book that every newborn baby is in fact “resurrected” as from eternal death—by virtue of Christ’s giving of Himself. That’s what He means when He says, “The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven, and gives life unto the world. ... The bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:33, 51). That’s objective gospel truth. The newborn baby doesn’t realize it; many go all the way through life into old age and never realize it subjectively. Sometimes it may be because no one told them “the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5).

Where is all this supposed pain and sorrow and “sacrifice” in giving ourselves to the Lord Jesus instead of to the world?

August 21, 2006

Psalm 87 is a little gem. I never began to understood it until I was reading Psalms in Moffatt: “‘Egypt and Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, I count as mine, ... but Sion!—her name shall be Mother, for every follower of Mine belongs to her by birth.’ The Eternal writes of every nation, in His census, ‘This follower of mine was born in it.’”

There was a couple in my congregation who were having endless marital friction. Both were sincere members of the church, but their marriage seemed to be hopeless.

They came to me saying, “Pastor, it’s useless to try to counsel us! When we got married long ago we were doing everything wrong; we had rebelled against our parents, ran away, went to the world, so that God had nothing to do with our marriage and it’s hopeless for us to try to patch up anything.”

As a pastor, I can’t preside over the breakup of a marriage! I didn’t know what to say, but I offered a little silent prayer, “O Lord, please teach me what to say!” Then I remembered Psalm 87, and read it to them. “What’s that got to do with us?” they queried.

Then I told them: you two didn’t know the Lord when you married; but when you come to Him (as you have done, both of you), He alters your very birth certificate and declares that you were born in Zion! The blessings of justification by faith are yours from when you first believed!

I wish you could have seen their faces when I told them this News. The last I heard they were happy together thereafter.

August 20, 2006

Since time began, we humans have been mystified by the miracle of love. Why should one man and one woman be drawn to each other in the bonds of a “till-death-do-us-part” love?

The wonder takes us back to Eden where we see Adam painfully aware of his loneliness and then meeting Eve as the one his heart yearned for. To find her was ecstasy; love was infinitely more than sex. It was something akin to God Himself who says He “is love” (1 John 4:8), yet in no sense is man the same as God. Says a wise writer, “Love is a precious gift which we receive from Jesus.” Love is not self-love—that’s its counterfeit, the perversion of all that’s beautiful and noble. Self-love is the pure evil of Spiritualism, learned from the fallen Lucifer.

The love of man/woman cannot be pure and therefore holy without being redeemed by the cross of the One who is the Giver of love, Jesus Himself. Love remains childish and selfish until one is forgiven and forgives. Both learn to kneel in His presence; both “grow up” while “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:13-15). They come to realize that their love for each other is “in Christ” (1:3), and therefore a love they both share for truth, for Jesus says “I am the truth” (John 14:6). We can’t truly sing “I Love You Truly” unless we also love truth! Then the law is our “delight” and it is impossible ever to be untrue; “fornication [can not] be once named among you” (Eph. 5:3). As God “hates divorce,” so do we (Mal. 2:16).

Therefore love is eternal, as Abraham Lincoln told Mary Todd (with all her faults and failings). It makes you captive forever. “Close your heart to every love but mine; hold no one in your arms but me. Love is powerful as death, ... strong as death itself” (S.S. 8:6). Love makes it easy to obey God’s commandment!

August 19, 2006

King Zedekiah in terror asked the prophet Jeremiah, “Is there any word from the Lord?” The prophet’s answer was succinct: “There is” (37:17; 38:2). The Lord had a solution for them that would be Good News: surrender to the king of Babylon and accept the humiliating chastisement of the Lord for their good, and at least your lives can be saved and you can live in order to repent.

As the world reels from the horror of the recent Hezbollah/Israeli war (which might be the beginning of World War III, thoughtful people have said), if they should ask, “Is any word from the God of heaven who is above all the nations? The answer is, there is. “The hour of God’s judgment is come” (Rev. 14:6, 7). The grand, final Day of Atonement is on us. We’re in it.

“Atonement” means reconciliation; it’s the final hour of earth’s long history, the hour in which at last a corporate body of believers gathered from all humanity become fully, finally reconciled to God. It’s never happened in all our 6000 years; the blessed result will be the fruitage of the “cleansing of the sanctuary” prophesied in Daniel 8:13, 14.

It’s not a time for sorrow and sadness, no; to “him who overcomes” (that is, to those who overcome) the time has come when Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and Savior of the world, invites them to “sit with Me on My throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:20). They are given executive authority, sharing with Him the final ending of the great controversy between Christ and Satan. At last hearts are at one with the heart of Christ, as a bride’s heart is at one with her bridegroom’s. Pride and arrogance are gone forever; now at last the church kneels contrite before the cross of Christ, sharing with Him the corporate burden that the sins of the world have laid on Him. Yes, “there IS” word from the Lord!

August 18, 2006

It was encouraging when we considered a few days back how God has “dealt a measure of faith” to “each one among you” (Rom. 12:3). What else has He done, for “each one”?

He has “tasted death for every one” (Heb. 2:9). That’s the second one; tasting our first would have been easy, simply going to sleep—which is what Jesus would have loved to do while hanging on His cross, like the two thieves crucified with Him; they bit down hard on the sponge filled with narcotic and just passed out—oh, so lovely! Jesus refused it. He must keep His full consciousness, so as to endure the horror of bearing the curse of God (Deut. 21:22, 23; Gal. 3:13). He must endure hell for each individual of the human race, so far—the only person (human/divine) in time and eternity to die the second death.

The Lord gave to each of us something else—the unique, different ability to win a certain soul to Christ (see 1 Cor. 3:5). Each of us was born in a different womb with different circumstances of life from day one. The infinite God has “ordained” each of us uniquely. Hold your head high; you are somebody—through the grace of the Savior (Psalm 139:1-6).

Each of us will receive praise from the Lord Jesus in the judgment. Contrary to what we’ve thought of it, a time when each will be reprimanded and at best barely squeak into His kingdom, Paul anticipates the judgment as a time when the Savior will hand out unexpected kudos on all sides (read 1 Cor. 4:5). That crown you’ve always wanted—forget it; this will cause your soul to tingle with far more delight.

We could go on and on endlessly. Here’s one more: each man or woman has his/her own “gift” of marriage or living without it (1 Cor. 7:7). When we grasp that, we’ll be happier people

August 16, 2006

Have you ever been despised and rejected by someone important in your life, whom you deeply loved? You remember the pain was wrenching.

Can we conceive of Jesus Christ experiencing that? On an infinitely grander scale? For millennia our human souls have been concerned for our own salvation; in my youth I remember sincere, grey-haired ordained elders declaring to me that the most important issue in life is the salvation of our own souls. This is almost universally accepted as the essence of orthodoxy. “Evangelism” is crafted on that premise. But there’s a more important issue.

In undertaking the salvation of this world, Jesus took our humanity upon Himself; He knows how we can love; the “one” so deeply loved by Him as His bride-to-be is His church.

Has He known the bitterness of unrequited love, as we can know it—only on a cosmic scale? Can the companionship of multitudes of holy angels compensate for what His heart yearns for in the absence of His church’s response to His love?

The pain of Calvary was for only a few hours (we think); indeed, it was intense. But the Hosea-like pain of extended nuptial alienation is Calvary’s pain extended.

Christ declares Himself as endlessly “knocking on the door” of His Beloved (Rev. 3:20), waiting for a “certain one” (tis, Gr) to respond as a satisfaction to His own lonely divine-human soul. He is still the One “despised and rejected.” He wants to be with His people on earth even though earth rejected and expelled Him; heaven is simply no longer “home” for Him.

On this grand Day of Atonement, a change has come: the most important question in life is now for us to honor and vindicate Him. He deserves His reward; it is He who must be “crowned,” no longer we who seek that honor.

August 14, 2006

It always comes afterward—when I have thought I’ve done my duty and represented the Lord Jesus aright before the people (maybe, preached a sermon before them!), then when I get home and can settle down and think a bit I see where again self has entered in and marred my day.

The people may not have noticed it; but when I can pause and pray “in secret” to “Our Father which art in heaven,” alone with Him, I know He saw it.

I can only beg forgiveness, and ask Him to give me that victory over self next time. “Pardon” isn’t good enough. He can go on pardoning me for a thousand years while I go on failing; what my soul yearns for is victory over the love of self. Lord, give me grace to preach ONE sermon where self does not mar the presentation!

There are some sermons in the Bible where self did not get in to spoil the work. For example, Jesus’ “sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5-7). The night after, Jesus could lie down to sleep in genuine gratitude to His heavenly Father for blessing. No one could ever convict Him of the sin of self-glory (John 8:56).

Then there was Stephen’s sermon before the Sanhedrim, the highest council of the Jewish nation three and a half years after when Jesus had prayed for them all, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34; Acts 6:15-7:60).  But that was Stephen’s last sermon—the benediction he pronounced was in his dying. We have the sermon recorded; no self got in.

No “prophet of Baal” could preach such a sermon, nor can proclaim to the world that message of Revelation 18 that “lightens the earth with glory” and prepares a people to meet Jesus when He comes.

August 13, 2006

Some people may be backward, slow; it can take them a long lifetime just to learn who they are.  The recent issue of Newsweek suggests in its cover article how that may be true even of dear Billy Graham, our famous presidents’ pastor in his old age. These people are the “heavy-laden” whom Jesus invites to “come unto Me,” but they’ve been a lifetime still coming. They can’t say even yet that they’ve “arrived.”

Over a near century of living we’ve been “coming” every day, but that doesn’t mean we’re unhappy. It’s a joy to feel each new morning as Paul did, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; ... I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those [bad] things which are behind and reaching forward to those [good] things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12-14).

These dear people seem never to get out of the kindergarten, they always hesitate to claim promotion even to the first grade. Life is too happily exciting where they know the Lord has placed them, even though it’s a lowly spot.

Sometimes people as old as Billy Graham wish they could have learned who they are when they were back in their teens (maybe 18?; one should be a little mature at that age!). But Psalm 139 becomes a mantra of comfort: “You have formed my inward parts; You have covered me in my mother’s womb. ... When I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, ... [my] days [were] fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them” (vss . 13-16). That’s your psalm, even if you’re not worthy of it.

August 12, 2006

The Lord Jesus Christ has said it plainly—“whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Sounds like He wants everybody to be saved, doesn’t it? And yes, specifically, He does, for we read, He “desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4).

But “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23); and by nature all are alienated from God so that the call is to us all, “We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). How can we believe while we’re “alienated”?

And for many people, that idea of “believing” seems difficult; for them, that is the one great hurdle in the way of salvation: they don’t know how to believe. They think they can’t.

But right here is where what we tried to say yesterday comes into focus: “God has dealt to each one a measure [metron, Gr] of faith” (Rom. 12:3).

Here’s the idea: no matter how badly you have been mis-educated, or have sinned, or been perverted, or wandered away, or how deeply against Him you have rebelled, God has given you that “measure [metron, Gr] of faith.” Yes; He doesn’t say that He has offered you a measure of faith—, He has “dealt” to you that measure of faith. The original word means to “part,” “deal,” “distribute,” “divide,” “give part.”

You have been given your “metron” of faith (so have I been given mine). You have already received the ability to “believe.” God has “put enmity between [the serpent] and the woman” (Gen. 3:15). Now face up to reality: nothing but your own perverse choice to deny, to expel, to crush, to trample upon that “measure of faith” God has already given you, can keep you out of the eternal kingdom of God.

August 11, 2006

Romans 12:3 is the one key on my soul-computer keyboard that I hit every day. It’s the prayer that I pray endlessly from the advice that the apostle Paul gives me:

“I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure [metron, Gr.] of faith.”

I can pray the first half easily—“not to think of [myself] more highly than [I] ought to think.” No problem. The answer is easy: I am “chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15), “less than the least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8), “an unprofitable servant” (Luke 17:10), etc., etc.

But it’s the second half of the verse that perplexes me and is difficult. What does it mean for me to “think soberly” about myself?

What “measure of faith” is a “sober” measure?

Well, it is some faith; no person in the wide world can say in the final judgment that God forgot to give him/her that “measure.”

Now, your job and mine from henceforth is to exercise that “measure of faith” which He has already given us. And it will be fully sufficient to take us all the way, hand in hand with the Savior, into His eternal kingdom. No person’s faith is weak; God gave it to him/her.

Paul’s counsel above is not to humiliate us into the dust; you and I have been given that “measure of faith” that enables us to hold our head high in the world, and yes, high in the Lord’s church, too.  A healthy, even vigorous, self-respect is the gift that “faith” gives us here and now.

August 8, 2006

World War III (if that’s what this conflict is, in the Middle East) is vastly different than any we’ve had before. Daniel, the major and minor prophets, Jesus Himself, Paul, and of course Revelation, all tell us a great “time of trouble,” military, political, social, is coming in the last days (cf. Dan. 12:1; Matt. 24:21, etc.). Many who say they believe the Bible wonder if this will lead into Armageddon.

A letter writer in the Sacramento Bee today speaks for millions—the modern nation are the same “Israel” whom God recognized in the Old Testament as His one and only “chosen” people; therefore He will give victory to modern Israel and woe to any nation that doesn’t help her. This supports the millions in money and in military support America gives Israel continually. Religion is at the bottom of this conflict.

Radical Muslims also claim Abraham as their “father” and see Israel as the same as America; hence their hatred directed West. But all seems well for Israel, and its establishment appears to be divinely ordained.

But one little detail of history is disturbing: in the personal presence of the Son of God (no other nation got that close!) the leaders of the Jews, while they were still His constituted people, renounced their nationhood under God and His special protection. In their blind fury against Jesus of Nazareth they voted: “we have no king but Caesar,” John reports (19:15). Thus they surrendered their special ethnic birthright as Esau did his (Gen. 25:33, 34; Heb. 12:16). Now they depend only on their force of arms, which until now in conflict has always prevailed. (And God loves them as He loves any nation.)

Meanwhile, remember that we live in the great solemn Day of Atonement, when the heavenly “sanctuary” is to be “cleansed” (Dan. 8:14). That means our hearts must first be cleansed!

August 7, 2006

Welcome back to our friends after those days when we couldn’t send out our little mini-morsels of “bread.” Thank you for keeping in touch.

There is worldwide pain felt at the Middle East hostilities that Newt Gringrich says are “the beginning of World War III.” What does our heavenly Father think? the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ (although it’s August, vacation for multitudes, He stays on duty)? the Holy Spirit, who is so easily grieved with the cruelties on earth?

1. Unlike Israel and the “administration,” God has wanted a cease-fire from the first violent word or act on either side—total, ongoing.

 

2. He still wants “peace on earth, good will to men” (Luke 2:14).

 

3. His four angels are poised to hold the near-loosened straining of the “four winds” of world passion (Rev. 7:1-4). They had to let the “winds” loose for World War I (1914-18) and again for II (1939-45); again in the Viet Nam war (horrible atrocities are just coming to light after all these years! God is keenly sensitive to all this horror, Isa. 63:8, 9).

 

4. God has people who should cooperate with Him in helping those four angels to “hold, hold, hold, hold.”

 

5. Revelation specifies how they can: proclaim the “present truth” sealing message that God wants to go (6:1-4). He is weary of the ongoing misery and longs for the great cosmic “controversy” to be finished so the Lord Jesus can keep His promise and “come again, and receive you unto Myself” (John 14:1-3).

 

6. God has never intended that sin and misery should reign eternally (Nahum 1:9).

 

7. As our “last Adam” Christ reversed the evil that the first Adam brought on the human race, intended that every soul should be saved (Rom. 5:18; 1 Tim. 2:3, 4; 4:10; 1 Cor. 15:45).

 

8. While you pray for a cease-fire, pray also that “this gospel” may be brought to all the billions starved for the bread of life (Matt. 24:14).