Was listening to a sermon today by a man called Mark Dever, one of the pastors of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. He was teaching from the passage where the disciples had tried to stop a man casting out demons in Jesus name and Jesus response was "whoever is not against us is for us." He went on to explain that we need to have the gospel at the centre of any unity we build, but for the glory of Christ we should unite wit anyone who is a Christian. Sadly an attitude of exclusivism is often a very clear example of pride and self righteousness in us. And a tendency for unity for the sake of unity is a sign of a lack of importance of Christ. AW Pink said "if you tune 100 piano's to a tuning fork, those piano's are automatically tuned to each other. In the same way, if every Christian fixes their eyes on Jesus, they will become more united than they ever would by looking at each other and trying to become united."
Mark Dever is a good example of this humble unity. He is involved in "Together for the gospel" uniting alongside the likes of John Piper and CJ Mahaney, but he is also good friends with Peter Masters in London. Pastor Masters is not CJ or Pipers biggest fan, infact he would speak against them a lot in articles, yet Mark seems to break that barrier to get on with them both. So maybe he is a man who understands what is talking about. He also comes from a much more critical background of the reformed camp.
This is an issue that matters to me. If I am guilty of sin in this area, it is the sin of desiring to glory in reformed theology to the extent that Gospel centred Arminians are excluded in my mind. Thankfully a friend of mine called Nathan has served as a practical measuring line for me. No matter how many times I have tried to show him God's sovereignty there is no way his view is changing. Yet he is a brother, and a brother who I respect and one who I love. His Godliness far out weighs me in my advantage on doctrine. Preaching a few weeks ago in a local Church, I was under so much conviction by the spirit of God to impress on the congregation that we cannot have unity around a vaccum, we have unity around Jesus! So this is something that has been playing on my mind for a fair while.
May love overcome minor doctrinal differences and may we live with our brothers and sisters in unity of purpose. May humility accompany our every theological discussion and a reliance on the word of God our heart beat.
Monday 1 March 2010
Friday 18 December 2009
50% Is Sin (Mal 2:1-9)
This morning was cold, genuinely cold. And when it gets cold and there is snow and my core body temp is seriously at risk, my brain goes incredibly strange. Try it brethren, 5am in the freezing cold! I know when I am reaching a stage of rank "craziness" when, like this morning, I pic up my bible to find Malachi and I can't believe its not next to Marks Gospel. You've got Matthew, Mark and then it goes to L! Ah yes.. the bible is not in alphabetical order and Malachi is in the Old Testement not the new. (The irony here before anyone points it out is that Malachi being the last book in the Old Testement does come right before Matthew in the order of books.)
When I eventually found it this morning Abi and I studied Malachi 2:1-9 where we find God rebuking his priests for being half hearted. Malachi is warning them, God is warning them about the danger they are in if they do not "set your heart to honour my name" (Mal 2:2) For a thinking person, this raises a question. Any half hearted interpretation of this text is going to say the following
If you don't read your bible, pray, and go to Church then watch out because God is going to smack you! He's going to curse you, and get you, so do the things you're meant to do or else you're in serious trouble.
That is legalism, that is NOT the gospel. And more than that, it is not what this passage is talking about. God was not warning the priests against forgetting to do their rituals. They were good at them. He is warning them about doing it half heartedly. Twice in v2 God mentions the sin of being half hearted. The priests were doing their work but they were not setting their heart towards God. And as a result you can see in v3-9 cursing a humiliation that the priests deserved because they were sinning in their attitude to what they are doing.
I am a married man, I take that responsibility seriously. I need too. So I am going to preach to myself here. And if any of my outworking works for anyone reading this then Hallelujah, I hope you can grow with me in this area. But the immediate application to me is this.
Jason, when you get up in the morning read the bible and pray. Start your day with the most important thing you can ever do. Go to God. Not out of tradition or legalism or because anyone who reads this blog will remind you of what you have said. Do it because you love Jesus. And when you wake Abi up, read and study with her. Pray with her. And comitt to be a pastor to your wife every day. Because she loves Jesus, and Jesus has given you the job of loving her like Christ loved the Church.
What is our motivation for being whole-hearted? It is almost a completely foolish question this one. Motivation should be something that comes naturally. As a "Church" worldwide, we seem to have lost the vital doctrine of regeneration. When we truly get saved, God does an immediate work. A work of giving us a new heart and new desires. We're babes still but we're at least alive. So as a Christian we need to be in a bad place not to realise that Jesus is the motivation. The gospel is our drive. We are whole-hearted people because we have a new heart that we want to give to the Lord.
I have been working for the past couple of days on an old sermon of mine, I am reworking in case I need to use it again in the near future at a different Church. The sermon was titled "the gospel is the hinge" and it was a study on a text in Titus. Personally, an incredible, life transforming truth. To look at it again has been a great pleasure for me and very humbling. It is a sad moment in my life that God can teach me this lesson every day and I seem to have forgotten it by a day later. As self righteous people we desperately want to do the "religion" thing rather than repentence, humility and sanctification (painful sanctification.) How often do I lose sight of this? Too often! And if you want to be a true friend to me, remind me about it often.
Another issue away from this passage that God has really spoken to me about today is selfishness. Selfishness as a husband particularly. But as I look back over my life, I have always been a selfish man. Selfish as a brother, selfish as a son, selfish as a husband. It doesn't matter what status I am at the time, I have always been selfish. It is the sinful nature's biggest trait and while by the grace of God I am waring and winning against it, it is something that we must take agressive action on it. If that is something you struggle with, then let me encourage you brother or sister that we are in the battle together.
Re:formation may have already set up their track listing for the debut album but I am always trying to write when I study the word, to produce more material that hopefully will be helpful and God honouring. Today I put together the rough little song called "Whole-Heartedly" which is a challenge to me, if noone else, that I need to be whole-hearted in my walk with the Lord.
Whole-heartedly
Music and Lyrics: Jason Ramsey
My heart is like a stone and plagued by sin
My worship and my words are paper thin
My heart is often far from what is true
Words seem false in the light of what I do
So as I come before my Holy God
Praising you that I have now been restored
Lord make me whole hearted in all I've done
Driven by the gospel of your Son
Sanctify me and make me yours
Make me live whole-hearted
Living for your glory
You took my sin, made me your own
Trusting in Christ alone
Living whole-heartedly
If you would be a true friend to me
Daily preach to me, this God given key
That I was saved by Jesus grace alone
And by that Grace he'll sanctify his own
If I fall and try to do it alone
Oh please would you come knock me off my throne
Magnify the grace of our God always
So we may magnify him all our days
Today's memory verse I am trying to learn is Romans 12:10. That is probably the most cutting and heart searching verse on the subject of selfishness I have ever read. Maybe it will help you too.
Your brother in Christ,
Jason Ramsey
When I eventually found it this morning Abi and I studied Malachi 2:1-9 where we find God rebuking his priests for being half hearted. Malachi is warning them, God is warning them about the danger they are in if they do not "set your heart to honour my name" (Mal 2:2) For a thinking person, this raises a question. Any half hearted interpretation of this text is going to say the following
If you don't read your bible, pray, and go to Church then watch out because God is going to smack you! He's going to curse you, and get you, so do the things you're meant to do or else you're in serious trouble.
That is legalism, that is NOT the gospel. And more than that, it is not what this passage is talking about. God was not warning the priests against forgetting to do their rituals. They were good at them. He is warning them about doing it half heartedly. Twice in v2 God mentions the sin of being half hearted. The priests were doing their work but they were not setting their heart towards God. And as a result you can see in v3-9 cursing a humiliation that the priests deserved because they were sinning in their attitude to what they are doing.
I am a married man, I take that responsibility seriously. I need too. So I am going to preach to myself here. And if any of my outworking works for anyone reading this then Hallelujah, I hope you can grow with me in this area. But the immediate application to me is this.
Jason, when you get up in the morning read the bible and pray. Start your day with the most important thing you can ever do. Go to God. Not out of tradition or legalism or because anyone who reads this blog will remind you of what you have said. Do it because you love Jesus. And when you wake Abi up, read and study with her. Pray with her. And comitt to be a pastor to your wife every day. Because she loves Jesus, and Jesus has given you the job of loving her like Christ loved the Church.
What is our motivation for being whole-hearted? It is almost a completely foolish question this one. Motivation should be something that comes naturally. As a "Church" worldwide, we seem to have lost the vital doctrine of regeneration. When we truly get saved, God does an immediate work. A work of giving us a new heart and new desires. We're babes still but we're at least alive. So as a Christian we need to be in a bad place not to realise that Jesus is the motivation. The gospel is our drive. We are whole-hearted people because we have a new heart that we want to give to the Lord.
I have been working for the past couple of days on an old sermon of mine, I am reworking in case I need to use it again in the near future at a different Church. The sermon was titled "the gospel is the hinge" and it was a study on a text in Titus. Personally, an incredible, life transforming truth. To look at it again has been a great pleasure for me and very humbling. It is a sad moment in my life that God can teach me this lesson every day and I seem to have forgotten it by a day later. As self righteous people we desperately want to do the "religion" thing rather than repentence, humility and sanctification (painful sanctification.) How often do I lose sight of this? Too often! And if you want to be a true friend to me, remind me about it often.
Another issue away from this passage that God has really spoken to me about today is selfishness. Selfishness as a husband particularly. But as I look back over my life, I have always been a selfish man. Selfish as a brother, selfish as a son, selfish as a husband. It doesn't matter what status I am at the time, I have always been selfish. It is the sinful nature's biggest trait and while by the grace of God I am waring and winning against it, it is something that we must take agressive action on it. If that is something you struggle with, then let me encourage you brother or sister that we are in the battle together.
Re:formation may have already set up their track listing for the debut album but I am always trying to write when I study the word, to produce more material that hopefully will be helpful and God honouring. Today I put together the rough little song called "Whole-Heartedly" which is a challenge to me, if noone else, that I need to be whole-hearted in my walk with the Lord.
Whole-heartedly
Music and Lyrics: Jason Ramsey
My heart is like a stone and plagued by sin
My worship and my words are paper thin
My heart is often far from what is true
Words seem false in the light of what I do
So as I come before my Holy God
Praising you that I have now been restored
Lord make me whole hearted in all I've done
Driven by the gospel of your Son
Sanctify me and make me yours
Make me live whole-hearted
Living for your glory
You took my sin, made me your own
Trusting in Christ alone
Living whole-heartedly
If you would be a true friend to me
Daily preach to me, this God given key
That I was saved by Jesus grace alone
And by that Grace he'll sanctify his own
If I fall and try to do it alone
Oh please would you come knock me off my throne
Magnify the grace of our God always
So we may magnify him all our days
Today's memory verse I am trying to learn is Romans 12:10. That is probably the most cutting and heart searching verse on the subject of selfishness I have ever read. Maybe it will help you too.
Your brother in Christ,
Jason Ramsey
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Dealing With Bad Advice (Nehemiah 6:10-14)
Intro
Go into a Christian bookshop and you can find books on pretty much everything. "How to lose weight with the Jesus diet" "7 steps to a brand new you" or "live your best life now!" Many of the books you'll see offer a wide variety of advice on life, under the brand of Jesus. To widen it even further, go into waterstones or any large bookstore and take a wander into their self help section. Shelf after shelf offering advice to the wanting consumer. The truth is, you can find advice books on every subject. From weight loss to relationships, from business ethic to being a successful athlete, you name it- there is a book to give you the answer.
But how do we know that the advice is right? Surely if there was only one right answer, you'd only need one book, and everyone of us could consult that one book and we'd all be thin, happy, athletic men and women in long term serious healthy relationships. The fact is, there are so many books, and so many contrary ideas. Which tells us for a fact that some of the advice available out there is wrong. It would be very niave and completely irrational for us to believe otherwise.
Maybe, we think to ourselves that we will remain safe from bad advice as long as we shop in Christian bookshops. Sadly that isn't true. Not every Christian bookshop sells Christian books. Sometimes they sell books that use the name of Jesus, they may even refer to the bible, but they do not use the bible as their basis. Such books, try to teach us their philosophies and ideas with reference to the bible rather than helping us understand the bible by sheding light on it's truths. Any book that does the first of these things is at best unhelpful and at worst satanic, while a book that does the second is helpful and God honouring.
How do we deal with bad advice? How can we discern which advice is god honouring and which is evil?
This evening, God issues us a "call for discernment." We are to learn how to deal with bad advice. Over the course of our lives, people will be involved in telling us things as "gospel truth" even though they are nothing more than Satan's lies! We must, by God's enabling, sort out the good from the bad, so that we are living, bible centred, God honouring, Christ magnifying lives for his glory.
Thankfully, the bible tells us how to deal with bad advice. In fact, it provides us a character study. Nehemiah has shown many good and praiseworthy leadership qualities over the past few chapters, but today we see his leadership link with his personal character as he recieves advice from someone you would expect to give Godly advice. He goes to see Shemaiah, a prophet in Jerusalem, expecting godly advice. If we may think of it this way, Nehemiah is taking a tour round the Christian bookshop and picked up a book entitled "how to solve a problem like Tobiah" by Pastor Shemaiah! He is expecting to hear good, helpful, Godly advice.
A prophet has two roles within the bible. Forth-telling and Fore-telling. A prophet within our Church today, would be our pastor. Someone who we expect to tell us what God has to say. Alongside Jon, there is Bill and myself and anyone else who stands in that pulpit or leads a pathfinders. Your job as you listen each Tuesday and Sunday is to work out, is this a good prophet or a prophet like Semaiah was to Nehemiah!
Today's lesson can be applied to every area of life. Not just books, not just preaching but also in friendships, the media and your own thoughts and ideas. Let's think about it this way. What God is helping us to do today, is put up safeguards, so that the only advice that moves us and changes us, is advice that is God given and biblical! This can be another step on the road to becoming a biblical Christian man and women.
How do we deal with bad advice?
1. Listen to the advice, not the reputation (v10)
Shemaiah was a prophet, and with that role came certain privilidges and responsibilities. The privilidges were that he would have been respected by the people, listened to by the rulers (such as Nehemiah) and have a chance to play his part in seeing God's people grow. Alongside that, a prophet has the responsibility to communicate God's truth correctly and effectively. He couldn't be bribed, or go off with his own thoughts and musings, his job was to simply and effectively tell people what God had to say.
Before we go any further, let's take this opportunity as fuel for our prayer lives. Pray for pastors! It is an honour for them to hold their position, and there is no better job than being paid to study the bible. But with those privilidges comes great responsibility. Can you imagine the horror of standing up in the pulpit, declaring to be speaking for God and to get it wrong? God has provided the pulpit for the benefit of his people, and the man who stands there to preach needs your prayer because the last thing he wants to do is to say something that is wrong. Can you imagine the damage of preaching that doesn't say what God has to say? We can stop imagining and start looking, because this land, and western society is marked with the devestation caused by Godless preaching. We need men, Godly men who will preach the truth in love. The need for biblical, God sent and God filled preachers in this town and this country is enormous. So pray for them! Their responsibility is huge, and they need our prayers.
Shemaiah was a man with a reputation. A reputation deserved by someone with that level of responsibility. Sadly though, Shemaiah was not a God filled pastor. Instead he was an evil, compromised, enemy sympathiser. Nehemiah faces serious danger. He goes to hear from God, and instead hear's from an enemy behind his own lines.
Can you see how easy it would have been for Nehemiah to put this advice into practice because of the man it came from? He could've heard the reputation above the advice itself. He went to Shemaiah expecting to hear from God. Good advice was a pressuposition in his mind for the meeting. But if he hadn't have been discerning he wouldn've accepted wrong advice.
Guys, because something is said in a Church does not make it right. God's word is the standard not the place from which it is said. We mentioned before that the pulpit is a place of privilidge and responsibility. We expect to hear the word of God, that is the responsibility of the preacher. But the pulpit is not a stamp of approval on the message coming from it.
Nehemiah is wise. He has done the right thing in seeking to hear from God, but he is wise enough to realise when the man speaking to him is trying to lead him into sin.
Sometimes the argument is used about preachers who get their theology wrong that "they're not intentionally leading people down the wrong path." After all they do use the bible and they do quote from it. But guys, often with wrong preaching, the preacher has broken the second commandment. He is using the bible and he is endevouring to tell you the truth about his God. But his God is not our God. He uses the same name, he even quotes from the same book but he is teaching about a God of his own imagination.
Have you ever heard someone say "God is a God of love, my God wouldn't send anyone to Hell." They're right, their God wouldn't, but that's because their God is a figment of their own imagination not the God of the bible. A Christian preacher, can preach about a God and quote from the bible, but if he does not handle the bible correctly, what he teaches is wrong and the God he tells us about does not actually exist.
This shows us something so clear, and yet so misunderstood by so many within Christianity. When it comes to listening to advice, it is the message, not the reputation we are to listen too. But if the reputation is irrelevant to the truth of the message, how do we work out if something is true?
Turn with me for a minute to Acts 17:10-15
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.
When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
Here we find a man with a little bit of a reputation in Christianity. The apostle Paul! He travelled around the known world, preaching the gospel and planting Churches. He was a man with a deserved reputation. He was a faithful follower of Christ. If anyone could be accepted purely on their reputation it is this man but does that matter to the Churches in Berea?
No! They don't care who the preacher is, they care about the message! And how does Luke (the writer of the book of Acts) react to this? Is he offended? Does he rebuke their mistrust? Does he ask them "do you know who this man is?" No! He commends them in v11
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
We could do a lot worse than taking a leaf out of the Bereans book. Ignore the reputation, the name, the TV show, the number of people who turn up to hear the guy preach each Sunday. And instead listen carefully to what is said. Search your bible to see if it is true. If it isn't- ignore it! If it is, then obey it as the word of God himself!
Youtube is a wonderful tool for Christians. There are many helpful video clips on there that help feed you during the week in your free time. But when you watch a video by John Piper, Billy Graham, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, John McCarthur or whoever else. Do not accept what you hear on who is saying it. Accept what you hear because what you hear is right!
It is worth saying that the reputation is a good indicator on which video's to spend your time. You can almost certainly say that the pastor of the largest Church in America, Joel Osteen, is not going to say anything worthwhile or helpful. Because he is a false teacher. That is another reason we shouldn't let the number of people attending a Church affect our decision. On the other hand something by John Piper is probably going to be helpful and worth the time you would devote to watching it. Sometimes reputations are earned, but they can only ever be used as a guide toward possible truth, not as the stamp of truth itself.
Listen to man, listen to the words, read the book, listen to the advice itself- NOT THE REPUTATION!
2. Reject it (v11-13)
Nehemiah has been confronted with this bad teaching and his response was to fight back with some venom.
Nehemiah realises that God has called him to do a job(v11)
But I said, "Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!"
He is the governour, he is the leader. If he goes into hiding in the temple, fearing for his life, then Samballot and Tobiah will have won. After all isn't that what they've been trying to do all along? Look back at v9
They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, "Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed."
The enemies knew that if they could get the people or Nehemiah scared then they would either slow or halt the work. The fact that the work had been so successful was the reason they were getting worried in the first place, the worst thing for Nehemiah and his men to do now would be to stop working. That is exactly what the enemy has been trying to get them to do, in v 6 of this Chapter we see Tobiah and his crew attacking Nehemiah personally, again to try and scare him and get him to come down to meet with them but as we saw in Nehemiah's response in v3
so I sent messengers to them with this reply: "I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?"
if he accepted their seemingly innocent offer, he would have caused the work to stop. That had been their plan all along. It comes in different forms but the same tactic is applied to try and harm the work.
Our great enemy is Satan. His attacks come in many forms and different disguises but they are always the same attacks. We must be aware of them. The areas he most often attacks are:
- The authority of Scripture
- The truth of one way to Heaven
- The way you can be saved
Again and again, Satan will attack us with the same tired old Hersey and yet, he is frequently successful. Universalism has been known Heresy for many hundreds of years, and yet we still see it appearing through popular writings like the shack, or a more toned down seeker sensitive approach within Evangelicalism, as well as the usual liberal avenues within the Church of England. Brothers and sisters, we must be alert, so as not to let this rubbish get through our guard. Stand on scripture alone. Just because someone looks good or has a good way with words does not make him right. Do not be fooled by advertising or popularity. Satan has many servants within mainline Christianity and we must be aware of this.
Nehemiah makes his intentions clear in v11 "I will not go!" He doesn't mess around, he doesn't consider the prophets point of view. He recognises the ungodliness for what it is and he makes his uncategorical stand. He will not be moved, he will not go. Jerusalem's leader stands by his convictions and his convictions are God's word. That is a good leader. It took a lot of guts to make that stand against a so called "prophet" but to give in would be for disaster to come, he makes his stand, he makes it clear, he will not go.
One of the real heroes of the protestant reformation was a man called Martin Luther. Who when everyone seemed to be against him he made his stand. The church of the time held to one view and yet Luther came out against them because his conscience was bound by the Word of God. And while I am sure he was scared, and while I am sure it would have been easier to shut up and hide away, he made his great proclamation "Here I stand!" He knew the truth, and he would stand for it, because it was God's truth, and he worked for a higher authority than the Church.
Stand with the likes of Martin Luther and Nehemiah. And make it clear that you are God's man or God's woman. Nail your colours to the mast so you can say
"Even though people will laugh at me, and people may mock, and people may think I have lost my mind. I belong to Jesus! Even though the world calls me, desires to make me it's own, and even though it promises me all manner of pleasures, I WILL NOT GO! Even though they may call me God boy, God girl, bible freak, I will not crumble because that is what I am. I am a Jesus freak. A bible basher. A God lover. Though they call me names to shame me, I will boast in Jesus Christ. And I will pray for them, plead with God to open their eyes, so that they too can have salvation from sin, and live to glorify God!"
Is that you? Is that us? Is that what we're all about? Sin is crouching at the door, it calls us to go over to it but WE WILL NOT GO! We love God and obey his word. Here we stand!
It is possible, on plain reading of these verses to think Nehemiah is being a little bit drastic and he could do with chilling out a tad. But if you think that, then you're wrong. Look at v12-13
I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.
Nehemiah has hit that horrible moment where he realises there is an enemy in the camp, one of his own side has been hired to intimidate him. His reaction is justified and praiseworthy. He had gone to a "man of God" seeking friendly, Godly advice and instead all he had gotten was a paid employee of the enemy. This man should have been the greatest of friends with Nehemiah, and his strongest ally. When Nehemiah was sturggling and feeling the pressure, this prophet should have been the one to put his arm around him, care for him and tell him to press on because God had ordained him and comissioned him to do this work. For poor Nehemiah it must have seemed like everywhere he turned people were out to get him, both outside and inside the walls.
Life can feel like there is nowhere to turn sometimes can't it? No matter where you turn all you see is difficulty, trouble and hardship. For a godly man or a godly woman in this world, seeking to grow in Holiness every day, it can seem like you're alone walking in the snow storm of ungodliness that surrounds you. It comes from your TV and radio, it comes from your friends and your schools, and most shockingly it comes from the pulpit in many churches across the world. Oh how frustrating, how difficult, is there noone we can trust?
Jesus! You can trust Jesus. Oh, that the Church would learn the great truth that Jesus satisfies. Jesus alone! And when all around seems to be against you, you can fling yourself into the loving arms of Jesus. Read his word, pray and let him care for you. You're not left on your own, to find your way to the end, the Holy Spirit is with you, caring for you, and sanctifying you. Oh Christian friend, never forget, that your God is not far off. He is here, and he cares, and you are in a personal relationship with him. Let Jesus satisfy you.
Reject the lies of the world. Once you have realised which advice is bad advice then reject it, just like Nehemiah. Take your stand against as many as you have too and cling to Jesus alone. Do it with the truth, do it resting on God, and do it with force. Reject bad advice.
3. Cling to God (v14)
Do you remember ealier on at the start of this series in Nehemiah I said that Nehemiah was a bit like a journal. It records the story of the rebuilding work, and at various points, Nehemiah records his prayers to God. Here in v14 we find the another one of these short recorded prayers.
Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who have been trying to intimidate me.
Nehemiah is under the greatest of pressure, all of those around him seem to be against him, his enemies are relentless and they are getting under his Skin and even the local pastor has turned away from God and towards Tobiah. The pressure is incredibly high! How does Nehemiah respond? He clings to God.
Let's ask ourselves a question, is clinging to God our first resort or last resort? Is it only when all our usual avenues of help have failed us that we go to the Lord in prayer, or do we go to him first? In a time of difficulty, the first person we go to is the one we trust the most.
Think back to your childhood, if you fell over outside and grazed your knee. Who did you go running too? Daddy? Mummy? Whoever it was, that was the person you trusted the most. Daddy could make things better. Granny would know what to do. Do you remember the simple, child like faith you had in your Mummy? At that moment, nothing mattered but getting to the person you trusted.
That is exactly what Jesus means when asks us to have a child like faith. Cling to Jesus. In good times and the bad, make him your first point of call. Just like that child who runs to their Mummy or Daddy, you can run to your Father, knowing that he is sovereign and he is in control of all things. He may use one of your usual support routes to help you, but the difference is you try and solve the problem having comitted it to your Father in heaven, rather than worrying about doing it without consulting him once at all. We can do nothing in our own strength, but we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.
Nehemiah realises that! And his first port of call is to God when he is devestated by bad advice. Notice also that Nehemiah asks God to deal with his enemies. Nehemiah is not a man who is afraid of beating people up. We're going to see that in future weeks. But in this case he show's that he is clinging onto God rather than his own strength by asking God to give his enemies what they deserve. He believes his God is big enough to deal with these people.
Where have we heard this before? Turn with me to 2 Thess 1:5-10
All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
Now look again at v6
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you
God promises in the New Testement that he will pay back trouble on those who cause us trouble. Maybe that will be in this world, maybe that will be in the after-life, it doesn't matter that punishment is guarenteed for the sinner. The only way they would not be punished would be if God stepped in and saved them, made them regenerate and made them your brother or sister.
Nehemiah doesn't go off in a rage and chop off the prophets head or start swearing and sticking his fingers up at Tobiah from the wall. Instead he does the job of a good leader, keeps his focus on the work and he clings onto God, telling God to deal with them. And God does- later on! Right now, the focus is the work, the focus is God's glory and Nehemiah shows remarkable self control and remarkable faith, he clings on to God.
Who are your enemys? The people you distrust or who really cause you get so angry at inside it is difficult to control. If that person is your brother or your sister in Christ then you need to repent and rebuild that relationship. But if that person is a true enemy, who tries to cause you trouble and halt the work of God- leave them to God. He is just, and he will punish the non Christians for their sin. As for the Christians? He punished their sin on Jesus.
Nehemiah sets us a great example, in the midst of difficulty and hardship he clings to God. When he recieves bad advice and is under pressure to accept it from all sides, he clings to God. Friends, we will not go far wrong if we learn to cling to God when we are given bad advice. Cling as if your life depended on it, cling as you would to someone you love, cling as you would to a rope ladder lowered down from a Helicopter taking you to safety. Cling on to God, and he will hold on to you.
Conclusion
It's easy to feel sorry for poor Nehemiah isn't it? He faces bad advice and he has to deal with it on his own. But the way he deals with it honours God as his Saviour. He listens to the advice rather than getting blown away by the reputation, he ignores it and makes his defiant stand by God and then he goes to God as his refuge, handing everything over to him.
Is there bad advice getting into our lives? Do not put up with it, deal with it, the biblical way, the Nehemiah way.
Next week, we see the completion of the wall, and I don't want us to move onto that without taking a step back and realising how big this is. Nehemiah achieves an amazing feat. How does he do it? Well, think back over the past 12 weeks. Every situation he has faced with prayer and practical wisdom. Nehemiah was a talented leader. But more than that, he never lost sight of who had given him the job. God was his refuge, God was his strength, God was the one who enabled the job to be done.
We're learning, week by week, that the only way to do work- is to do God's work, God's way!
Re:formation is a group of young people who believe passionately in a high view of scripture and a low view of man. Desiring theology and preaching above emotion driven cliche's. They aim to produce music that is both theological and God honouring. If you would like to be kept updated email reformationband@ymail.com
Go into a Christian bookshop and you can find books on pretty much everything. "How to lose weight with the Jesus diet" "7 steps to a brand new you" or "live your best life now!" Many of the books you'll see offer a wide variety of advice on life, under the brand of Jesus. To widen it even further, go into waterstones or any large bookstore and take a wander into their self help section. Shelf after shelf offering advice to the wanting consumer. The truth is, you can find advice books on every subject. From weight loss to relationships, from business ethic to being a successful athlete, you name it- there is a book to give you the answer.
But how do we know that the advice is right? Surely if there was only one right answer, you'd only need one book, and everyone of us could consult that one book and we'd all be thin, happy, athletic men and women in long term serious healthy relationships. The fact is, there are so many books, and so many contrary ideas. Which tells us for a fact that some of the advice available out there is wrong. It would be very niave and completely irrational for us to believe otherwise.
Maybe, we think to ourselves that we will remain safe from bad advice as long as we shop in Christian bookshops. Sadly that isn't true. Not every Christian bookshop sells Christian books. Sometimes they sell books that use the name of Jesus, they may even refer to the bible, but they do not use the bible as their basis. Such books, try to teach us their philosophies and ideas with reference to the bible rather than helping us understand the bible by sheding light on it's truths. Any book that does the first of these things is at best unhelpful and at worst satanic, while a book that does the second is helpful and God honouring.
How do we deal with bad advice? How can we discern which advice is god honouring and which is evil?
This evening, God issues us a "call for discernment." We are to learn how to deal with bad advice. Over the course of our lives, people will be involved in telling us things as "gospel truth" even though they are nothing more than Satan's lies! We must, by God's enabling, sort out the good from the bad, so that we are living, bible centred, God honouring, Christ magnifying lives for his glory.
Thankfully, the bible tells us how to deal with bad advice. In fact, it provides us a character study. Nehemiah has shown many good and praiseworthy leadership qualities over the past few chapters, but today we see his leadership link with his personal character as he recieves advice from someone you would expect to give Godly advice. He goes to see Shemaiah, a prophet in Jerusalem, expecting godly advice. If we may think of it this way, Nehemiah is taking a tour round the Christian bookshop and picked up a book entitled "how to solve a problem like Tobiah" by Pastor Shemaiah! He is expecting to hear good, helpful, Godly advice.
A prophet has two roles within the bible. Forth-telling and Fore-telling. A prophet within our Church today, would be our pastor. Someone who we expect to tell us what God has to say. Alongside Jon, there is Bill and myself and anyone else who stands in that pulpit or leads a pathfinders. Your job as you listen each Tuesday and Sunday is to work out, is this a good prophet or a prophet like Semaiah was to Nehemiah!
Today's lesson can be applied to every area of life. Not just books, not just preaching but also in friendships, the media and your own thoughts and ideas. Let's think about it this way. What God is helping us to do today, is put up safeguards, so that the only advice that moves us and changes us, is advice that is God given and biblical! This can be another step on the road to becoming a biblical Christian man and women.
How do we deal with bad advice?
1. Listen to the advice, not the reputation (v10)
Shemaiah was a prophet, and with that role came certain privilidges and responsibilities. The privilidges were that he would have been respected by the people, listened to by the rulers (such as Nehemiah) and have a chance to play his part in seeing God's people grow. Alongside that, a prophet has the responsibility to communicate God's truth correctly and effectively. He couldn't be bribed, or go off with his own thoughts and musings, his job was to simply and effectively tell people what God had to say.
Before we go any further, let's take this opportunity as fuel for our prayer lives. Pray for pastors! It is an honour for them to hold their position, and there is no better job than being paid to study the bible. But with those privilidges comes great responsibility. Can you imagine the horror of standing up in the pulpit, declaring to be speaking for God and to get it wrong? God has provided the pulpit for the benefit of his people, and the man who stands there to preach needs your prayer because the last thing he wants to do is to say something that is wrong. Can you imagine the damage of preaching that doesn't say what God has to say? We can stop imagining and start looking, because this land, and western society is marked with the devestation caused by Godless preaching. We need men, Godly men who will preach the truth in love. The need for biblical, God sent and God filled preachers in this town and this country is enormous. So pray for them! Their responsibility is huge, and they need our prayers.
Shemaiah was a man with a reputation. A reputation deserved by someone with that level of responsibility. Sadly though, Shemaiah was not a God filled pastor. Instead he was an evil, compromised, enemy sympathiser. Nehemiah faces serious danger. He goes to hear from God, and instead hear's from an enemy behind his own lines.
Can you see how easy it would have been for Nehemiah to put this advice into practice because of the man it came from? He could've heard the reputation above the advice itself. He went to Shemaiah expecting to hear from God. Good advice was a pressuposition in his mind for the meeting. But if he hadn't have been discerning he wouldn've accepted wrong advice.
Guys, because something is said in a Church does not make it right. God's word is the standard not the place from which it is said. We mentioned before that the pulpit is a place of privilidge and responsibility. We expect to hear the word of God, that is the responsibility of the preacher. But the pulpit is not a stamp of approval on the message coming from it.
Nehemiah is wise. He has done the right thing in seeking to hear from God, but he is wise enough to realise when the man speaking to him is trying to lead him into sin.
Sometimes the argument is used about preachers who get their theology wrong that "they're not intentionally leading people down the wrong path." After all they do use the bible and they do quote from it. But guys, often with wrong preaching, the preacher has broken the second commandment. He is using the bible and he is endevouring to tell you the truth about his God. But his God is not our God. He uses the same name, he even quotes from the same book but he is teaching about a God of his own imagination.
Have you ever heard someone say "God is a God of love, my God wouldn't send anyone to Hell." They're right, their God wouldn't, but that's because their God is a figment of their own imagination not the God of the bible. A Christian preacher, can preach about a God and quote from the bible, but if he does not handle the bible correctly, what he teaches is wrong and the God he tells us about does not actually exist.
This shows us something so clear, and yet so misunderstood by so many within Christianity. When it comes to listening to advice, it is the message, not the reputation we are to listen too. But if the reputation is irrelevant to the truth of the message, how do we work out if something is true?
Turn with me for a minute to Acts 17:10-15
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.
When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
Here we find a man with a little bit of a reputation in Christianity. The apostle Paul! He travelled around the known world, preaching the gospel and planting Churches. He was a man with a deserved reputation. He was a faithful follower of Christ. If anyone could be accepted purely on their reputation it is this man but does that matter to the Churches in Berea?
No! They don't care who the preacher is, they care about the message! And how does Luke (the writer of the book of Acts) react to this? Is he offended? Does he rebuke their mistrust? Does he ask them "do you know who this man is?" No! He commends them in v11
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
We could do a lot worse than taking a leaf out of the Bereans book. Ignore the reputation, the name, the TV show, the number of people who turn up to hear the guy preach each Sunday. And instead listen carefully to what is said. Search your bible to see if it is true. If it isn't- ignore it! If it is, then obey it as the word of God himself!
Youtube is a wonderful tool for Christians. There are many helpful video clips on there that help feed you during the week in your free time. But when you watch a video by John Piper, Billy Graham, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, John McCarthur or whoever else. Do not accept what you hear on who is saying it. Accept what you hear because what you hear is right!
It is worth saying that the reputation is a good indicator on which video's to spend your time. You can almost certainly say that the pastor of the largest Church in America, Joel Osteen, is not going to say anything worthwhile or helpful. Because he is a false teacher. That is another reason we shouldn't let the number of people attending a Church affect our decision. On the other hand something by John Piper is probably going to be helpful and worth the time you would devote to watching it. Sometimes reputations are earned, but they can only ever be used as a guide toward possible truth, not as the stamp of truth itself.
Listen to man, listen to the words, read the book, listen to the advice itself- NOT THE REPUTATION!
2. Reject it (v11-13)
Nehemiah has been confronted with this bad teaching and his response was to fight back with some venom.
Nehemiah realises that God has called him to do a job(v11)
But I said, "Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!"
He is the governour, he is the leader. If he goes into hiding in the temple, fearing for his life, then Samballot and Tobiah will have won. After all isn't that what they've been trying to do all along? Look back at v9
They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, "Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed."
The enemies knew that if they could get the people or Nehemiah scared then they would either slow or halt the work. The fact that the work had been so successful was the reason they were getting worried in the first place, the worst thing for Nehemiah and his men to do now would be to stop working. That is exactly what the enemy has been trying to get them to do, in v 6 of this Chapter we see Tobiah and his crew attacking Nehemiah personally, again to try and scare him and get him to come down to meet with them but as we saw in Nehemiah's response in v3
so I sent messengers to them with this reply: "I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?"
if he accepted their seemingly innocent offer, he would have caused the work to stop. That had been their plan all along. It comes in different forms but the same tactic is applied to try and harm the work.
Our great enemy is Satan. His attacks come in many forms and different disguises but they are always the same attacks. We must be aware of them. The areas he most often attacks are:
- The authority of Scripture
- The truth of one way to Heaven
- The way you can be saved
Again and again, Satan will attack us with the same tired old Hersey and yet, he is frequently successful. Universalism has been known Heresy for many hundreds of years, and yet we still see it appearing through popular writings like the shack, or a more toned down seeker sensitive approach within Evangelicalism, as well as the usual liberal avenues within the Church of England. Brothers and sisters, we must be alert, so as not to let this rubbish get through our guard. Stand on scripture alone. Just because someone looks good or has a good way with words does not make him right. Do not be fooled by advertising or popularity. Satan has many servants within mainline Christianity and we must be aware of this.
Nehemiah makes his intentions clear in v11 "I will not go!" He doesn't mess around, he doesn't consider the prophets point of view. He recognises the ungodliness for what it is and he makes his uncategorical stand. He will not be moved, he will not go. Jerusalem's leader stands by his convictions and his convictions are God's word. That is a good leader. It took a lot of guts to make that stand against a so called "prophet" but to give in would be for disaster to come, he makes his stand, he makes it clear, he will not go.
One of the real heroes of the protestant reformation was a man called Martin Luther. Who when everyone seemed to be against him he made his stand. The church of the time held to one view and yet Luther came out against them because his conscience was bound by the Word of God. And while I am sure he was scared, and while I am sure it would have been easier to shut up and hide away, he made his great proclamation "Here I stand!" He knew the truth, and he would stand for it, because it was God's truth, and he worked for a higher authority than the Church.
Stand with the likes of Martin Luther and Nehemiah. And make it clear that you are God's man or God's woman. Nail your colours to the mast so you can say
"Even though people will laugh at me, and people may mock, and people may think I have lost my mind. I belong to Jesus! Even though the world calls me, desires to make me it's own, and even though it promises me all manner of pleasures, I WILL NOT GO! Even though they may call me God boy, God girl, bible freak, I will not crumble because that is what I am. I am a Jesus freak. A bible basher. A God lover. Though they call me names to shame me, I will boast in Jesus Christ. And I will pray for them, plead with God to open their eyes, so that they too can have salvation from sin, and live to glorify God!"
Is that you? Is that us? Is that what we're all about? Sin is crouching at the door, it calls us to go over to it but WE WILL NOT GO! We love God and obey his word. Here we stand!
It is possible, on plain reading of these verses to think Nehemiah is being a little bit drastic and he could do with chilling out a tad. But if you think that, then you're wrong. Look at v12-13
I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.
Nehemiah has hit that horrible moment where he realises there is an enemy in the camp, one of his own side has been hired to intimidate him. His reaction is justified and praiseworthy. He had gone to a "man of God" seeking friendly, Godly advice and instead all he had gotten was a paid employee of the enemy. This man should have been the greatest of friends with Nehemiah, and his strongest ally. When Nehemiah was sturggling and feeling the pressure, this prophet should have been the one to put his arm around him, care for him and tell him to press on because God had ordained him and comissioned him to do this work. For poor Nehemiah it must have seemed like everywhere he turned people were out to get him, both outside and inside the walls.
Life can feel like there is nowhere to turn sometimes can't it? No matter where you turn all you see is difficulty, trouble and hardship. For a godly man or a godly woman in this world, seeking to grow in Holiness every day, it can seem like you're alone walking in the snow storm of ungodliness that surrounds you. It comes from your TV and radio, it comes from your friends and your schools, and most shockingly it comes from the pulpit in many churches across the world. Oh how frustrating, how difficult, is there noone we can trust?
Jesus! You can trust Jesus. Oh, that the Church would learn the great truth that Jesus satisfies. Jesus alone! And when all around seems to be against you, you can fling yourself into the loving arms of Jesus. Read his word, pray and let him care for you. You're not left on your own, to find your way to the end, the Holy Spirit is with you, caring for you, and sanctifying you. Oh Christian friend, never forget, that your God is not far off. He is here, and he cares, and you are in a personal relationship with him. Let Jesus satisfy you.
Reject the lies of the world. Once you have realised which advice is bad advice then reject it, just like Nehemiah. Take your stand against as many as you have too and cling to Jesus alone. Do it with the truth, do it resting on God, and do it with force. Reject bad advice.
3. Cling to God (v14)
Do you remember ealier on at the start of this series in Nehemiah I said that Nehemiah was a bit like a journal. It records the story of the rebuilding work, and at various points, Nehemiah records his prayers to God. Here in v14 we find the another one of these short recorded prayers.
Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who have been trying to intimidate me.
Nehemiah is under the greatest of pressure, all of those around him seem to be against him, his enemies are relentless and they are getting under his Skin and even the local pastor has turned away from God and towards Tobiah. The pressure is incredibly high! How does Nehemiah respond? He clings to God.
Let's ask ourselves a question, is clinging to God our first resort or last resort? Is it only when all our usual avenues of help have failed us that we go to the Lord in prayer, or do we go to him first? In a time of difficulty, the first person we go to is the one we trust the most.
Think back to your childhood, if you fell over outside and grazed your knee. Who did you go running too? Daddy? Mummy? Whoever it was, that was the person you trusted the most. Daddy could make things better. Granny would know what to do. Do you remember the simple, child like faith you had in your Mummy? At that moment, nothing mattered but getting to the person you trusted.
That is exactly what Jesus means when asks us to have a child like faith. Cling to Jesus. In good times and the bad, make him your first point of call. Just like that child who runs to their Mummy or Daddy, you can run to your Father, knowing that he is sovereign and he is in control of all things. He may use one of your usual support routes to help you, but the difference is you try and solve the problem having comitted it to your Father in heaven, rather than worrying about doing it without consulting him once at all. We can do nothing in our own strength, but we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.
Nehemiah realises that! And his first port of call is to God when he is devestated by bad advice. Notice also that Nehemiah asks God to deal with his enemies. Nehemiah is not a man who is afraid of beating people up. We're going to see that in future weeks. But in this case he show's that he is clinging onto God rather than his own strength by asking God to give his enemies what they deserve. He believes his God is big enough to deal with these people.
Where have we heard this before? Turn with me to 2 Thess 1:5-10
All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
Now look again at v6
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you
God promises in the New Testement that he will pay back trouble on those who cause us trouble. Maybe that will be in this world, maybe that will be in the after-life, it doesn't matter that punishment is guarenteed for the sinner. The only way they would not be punished would be if God stepped in and saved them, made them regenerate and made them your brother or sister.
Nehemiah doesn't go off in a rage and chop off the prophets head or start swearing and sticking his fingers up at Tobiah from the wall. Instead he does the job of a good leader, keeps his focus on the work and he clings onto God, telling God to deal with them. And God does- later on! Right now, the focus is the work, the focus is God's glory and Nehemiah shows remarkable self control and remarkable faith, he clings on to God.
Who are your enemys? The people you distrust or who really cause you get so angry at inside it is difficult to control. If that person is your brother or your sister in Christ then you need to repent and rebuild that relationship. But if that person is a true enemy, who tries to cause you trouble and halt the work of God- leave them to God. He is just, and he will punish the non Christians for their sin. As for the Christians? He punished their sin on Jesus.
Nehemiah sets us a great example, in the midst of difficulty and hardship he clings to God. When he recieves bad advice and is under pressure to accept it from all sides, he clings to God. Friends, we will not go far wrong if we learn to cling to God when we are given bad advice. Cling as if your life depended on it, cling as you would to someone you love, cling as you would to a rope ladder lowered down from a Helicopter taking you to safety. Cling on to God, and he will hold on to you.
Conclusion
It's easy to feel sorry for poor Nehemiah isn't it? He faces bad advice and he has to deal with it on his own. But the way he deals with it honours God as his Saviour. He listens to the advice rather than getting blown away by the reputation, he ignores it and makes his defiant stand by God and then he goes to God as his refuge, handing everything over to him.
Is there bad advice getting into our lives? Do not put up with it, deal with it, the biblical way, the Nehemiah way.
Next week, we see the completion of the wall, and I don't want us to move onto that without taking a step back and realising how big this is. Nehemiah achieves an amazing feat. How does he do it? Well, think back over the past 12 weeks. Every situation he has faced with prayer and practical wisdom. Nehemiah was a talented leader. But more than that, he never lost sight of who had given him the job. God was his refuge, God was his strength, God was the one who enabled the job to be done.
We're learning, week by week, that the only way to do work- is to do God's work, God's way!
Re:formation is a group of young people who believe passionately in a high view of scripture and a low view of man. Desiring theology and preaching above emotion driven cliche's. They aim to produce music that is both theological and God honouring. If you would like to be kept updated email reformationband@ymail.com
Tuesday 17 November 2009
The Real Jesus- Re:formation thought (1)
"I will not apologise for the real Jesus." This phrase occured to me the other evening as I was out walking and praying. I had been recalling in my mind the many "Christian" leaders I had seen on TV talk shows and radio shows and how disappointed I was by some of the things I heard. Why is it we feel the need to apologise for the real Jesus? The Jesus of the bible.
It is only ever the real Jesus that we need to apologise for it seems. The Jesus who teaches homosexuality is wrong. The Jesus who talks of sin and an eternity in Hell for all who do not bow the knee to him. Why is it that we feel under pressure about this truth? The answer was in the end simple. The world hates Jesus. They can take certain fragments of his teaching when convenient but they in reality, they hate him. His existence pricks their conscience and they know he is the Lord of LORDS yet they stand in open rebellion to him. And because Jesus, as he is portrayed in the bible, is so sickening for this post-modern world, we try to major only on his popular teachings so as not to lose those we're talking too.
But if we do that. We break the second commandment. We call our God Jesus but he is a Jesus of our own imagination. We have made an idol for ourselves by softening off the harder edges of the real Jesus.
You will never win the lost until you rely unashamedly on the truth of the gospel. The gospel is only good news once God has convicted someone of their sin. Until then the message of the cross will be foolishness to them. You'll not be popular if you preach that message- but you'll be right. Commit yourselves today to put yourself last and Jesus first. Put your trust wholly in him not just intelectually in him.
Do not apologise for the real Jesus! It was the real Jesus that saved you!
Re:formation is a group of young people who believe passionately in a high view of scripture and a low view of man. Desiring theology and preaching above emotion driven cliche's. They aim to produce music that is both theological and God honouring. If you would like to be kept updated email reformationband@ymail.com
It is only ever the real Jesus that we need to apologise for it seems. The Jesus who teaches homosexuality is wrong. The Jesus who talks of sin and an eternity in Hell for all who do not bow the knee to him. Why is it that we feel under pressure about this truth? The answer was in the end simple. The world hates Jesus. They can take certain fragments of his teaching when convenient but they in reality, they hate him. His existence pricks their conscience and they know he is the Lord of LORDS yet they stand in open rebellion to him. And because Jesus, as he is portrayed in the bible, is so sickening for this post-modern world, we try to major only on his popular teachings so as not to lose those we're talking too.
But if we do that. We break the second commandment. We call our God Jesus but he is a Jesus of our own imagination. We have made an idol for ourselves by softening off the harder edges of the real Jesus.
You will never win the lost until you rely unashamedly on the truth of the gospel. The gospel is only good news once God has convicted someone of their sin. Until then the message of the cross will be foolishness to them. You'll not be popular if you preach that message- but you'll be right. Commit yourselves today to put yourself last and Jesus first. Put your trust wholly in him not just intelectually in him.
Do not apologise for the real Jesus! It was the real Jesus that saved you!
Re:formation is a group of young people who believe passionately in a high view of scripture and a low view of man. Desiring theology and preaching above emotion driven cliche's. They aim to produce music that is both theological and God honouring. If you would like to be kept updated email reformationband@ymail.com
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