The Restoring Ministry of the Holy Spirit

Recently a dear sweet lady who is a faithful member of my church came to me and asked me a very good biblical question. I love it when church members come to me with biblical question because it reveals to me they are digging into the Word. Her question was regarding the verse in David’s great Psalm of confession, NIV Psalm 51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. She said, “I have read this verse many times. I don’t know if I have ever really thought about it or if I have always just focused on the first part of the verse, but what do you think it means, ‘grant me a willing spirit?’”  The Hebrew word translated willing is nadiyb and can be translated generous. It has the idea of a free movement of the will to do service for someone. It is a willingness which is pleasurable to the doer. I think this is a reference to the work of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, God’s Spirit is generous and willing to help render aid to the believer in times of greatest need. So in other words, the Holy Spirit takes pleasure in sustaining the believer. In the context of Psalm 51 what was David’s (the writer of the psalm) greatest need?  Psalm 51 was written in response to David’s sin with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12). David yield to lust, committed the scarlet sin of adultery with Bathsheba and sought to cover it up which ultimately led to the death of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, who was a very loyal soldier to David. God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David over his “secret” sin. In response to Nathan’s message and God’s discipline David wrote this great song of confession being overwhelmed with guilt and conviction. David’s greatest need at this time was forgiveness and total restoration of fellowship with God.

When a believer sins against God what is one of the greatest obstacles on the road to restoration? It is overcoming the tendency to be cast down and depressed. After a great moral or spiritual failure we want to give up, we want to quit. We have a tough time forgiving ourselves. The writer of Hebrews said there are two basic extremes a believer must resist when we are disciplined by the Father. Hebrews 12:5 says “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you.” One extreme is to take God’s discipline lightly, the other extreme is to lose heart and just quit. David was no doubt overwhelmed with the guilt of what he had done. He needed at this moment to be upheld and sustained by God’s generous and willing Holy Spirit. When the man in the church at Corinth sinned by committing gross immorality, then repented some time later, Paul wrote to the believers in that church telling them how to act around the repentant man. ESV 2 Corinthians 2:7-8 “so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.” This man needed to be upheld. That is exactly what the Holy Spirit will do for a repentant and guilt ridden soul. An example of this is also demonstrated in the ministry of Jesus. When Peter sinned and denied the Lord he afterward repented and wept bitterly. But he was also so overwhelmed with guilt that he quit. John 21:3 says, Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” The verb “going” is a present tense Greek verb meaning he was going back into the fishing business. In Peter’s mind he had messed up so much that he didn’t think he could be restored. At that time Jesus went out of His was to affirm Peter. Three times Peter denied Jesus and three times Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me? Then feed my sheep.” It is in these times of our failure that Satan works to place the believer on a major guilt trip. It is at times like these that we need to be constantly affirmed and upheld by God’s gracious Spirit.  If Peter and David needed this restoring ministry then no doubt other believers need it after they have confessed and submitted to God’s discipline. There are two applications for our lives from this verse. First, let us learn from this that we need to yield ourselves to be instruments in the Holy Spirit’s hand to affirm other believers after they have fallen and repented. Second, let us also be like David and ask for the gracious sustaining and restoring work of the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives after we have come to our senses and repented. I close with the words of the great Puritan Matthew Henry commenting on this verse, “I am ready to fall, either into sin or despair; Lord, sustain me; my own spirit (though the spirit of a man will go far towards the sustaining of his infirmity) is not sufficient; if I be left to myself, I shall certainly sink; therefore uphold me with thy Spirit, let him counterwork the evil spirit that would cast me down from my excellency.”

Ten Reasons We Fail in Evangelism

Graffiti from the 1800s discovered by workers renovating the Washington Monument has quite a different tone from that usually found today on the sides of buildings and subway cars. The markings in the lobby of the monument were covered over when it was decorated at the turn of the century. They were found when workers removed marble wainscoting as part of a year-long $500,000 renovation which was completed. The inscription read: “Whoever is the human instrument under God in the conversion of one soul, erects a monument to his own memory more lofty and enduring than this.” It is signed BFB. No one knows who that is, or who left the small drawings and 19th century dates on other walls. The person was obviously someone who was passionate about being used of God to win precious souls to Christ.

The desire of my heart as a Pastor and Christian is that I lead my church to become just as passionate and intentional in evangelism and reaching souls in 2010. It seems as if churches and Pastors are content to trade disgrunted or malcontented church members and call it growth rather than seeing true growth through evangelism. Dr. Kermit Long says, “With all our education, our fine buildings, our image of the church, we are doing less to win people to Christ than our unschooled forefathers did. We’re no longer fishers of men, but keepers of the aquarium, and we spend most of our time swiping fish from each other’s bowl.” Consider the following statistics:

• Ninety-five percent of all Christians have never won a soul to Christ.
• Eighty percent of all Christians do not consistently witness for Christ.
• Less than two percent are involved in the ministry of evangelism.
• Seventy-one percent do not give toward the financing of the great Commission.
• 63% of church leadership, including deacons and pastors, have not led one stranger to Jesus in the last two years.
• 49% of the leadership ministries spend zero time in an average week ministering outside of the church.
• 89% of the leadership ministries have zero time reserved on their list of weekly priorities for going out to evangelize.
• 99% of the leadership ministries believe that every Christian, including leadership, has been commanded to preach the gospel to a lost world.
• 97% believe that if the leadership had a greater conviction and involvement in evangelism, that it would be an example for the church to follow.
• 96% of the leadership believe their churches would have grown faster if they would have been more involved in evangelism. [“Street Level Evangelism, Where is the Space for the Local Evangelist,” by Michael Parrott, Acts Evangelism, Spokane, WA, 1993, pp. 9-11.]

Because of this, our results in evangelism have been mediocre, at best. Recently as I was meditating and thinking about this I listed ten reasons for our failure to be more effective in our evangelism. 

1. We are not soul conscious.  What does it mean to be soul conscious? It means that we must realize everyone has a soul. A soul is that spiritual part of man that lives apart from the body with all the senses in tact. The soul will spend eternity in heaven or hell. Remember the story Jesus told in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus who died? Both had an eternal soul and one went to heaven and the other to hell. Everytime we come into contact with someone we must be senstitve to the fact that they will spend eternity somewhere. Being soul conscious should provoke us to witness. Jesus is the example in this attitude. Luke 19:10, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” The great Evangelist D. L. Moody made an covenant with God that he would witness for Christ to at least one person each day. One night, about ten o’clock, he realized that he had not yet witnessed; so he went out in to the street and spoke to a man standing by a lamppost, asking him, “Are you a Christian?” No wonder God used him to win so many people to Christ.

2. A failure to pursue God’s glory. This is the greatest motivation for evangelism. God is glorified in our witness. Joseph Aldrich said, “God’s evangelistic strategy in a nutshell: He desires to build into you and me the beauty of his own character, and then put us on display.” Charles Spurgeon said,  Our great object of glorifying God is to be mainly achieved by the winning of souls. [Charles Spurgeon  Lectures to My Students (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1954), 337.] Jesus said in John 15:8,  “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”

3. We fail to understand the value of a soul. Scripture says in Matthew 16:26, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Charlemagne (742-814) was the most famous ruler of the Middle Ages and a key figure in European history. It is reported that after his death, King Charlemagne was buried wrapped in royal robes sitting in a marble chair. On his lap was a Bible opened to Matthew 16. His finger pointed to verse 26. A man may have all the wealth the world can offer, attain all his heart and flesh desire, fulfill every personal ambition and yet die in spiritual poverty. It would do well for many to wake up and realize the value of the soul is far greater than anything this world can offer. The value of a soul can be understood in seeing the price God was willing to pay to ransom it from hell. The men that God has used greatly in the history of the church have been men who understood this and have longed for souls to be saved. When John Knox, in the enclosure behind his house, pierced the stillness of the night with the thrice-repeated, intense appeal, “Give me Scotland, or I die!” that eager, yearning, well-nigh broken heart got its Scotland. While David Brainerd, one of the most celebrated of our missionaries, was laboring among the poor, benighted Indians on the banks of the Delaware, he once said, “I care not where I live, or what hardships I go through, so that I can but gain souls to Christ. While I am asleep, I dream of these things; as soon as I awake, the first thing I think of is this great work. All my desire is the conversion of sinners, and all my hope is in God.”

 4. We don’t believe in eternal punishment. This is one doctrine that people would just as soon not talk about. It is the doctrine people try to forget. We don’t want to think about a soul being in hell for eternity. Some teach annihilationism, that the soul is destroyed in hell and consequently is not there for eternity. In recent days it has become popular to deny this existence of hell and the result is a loss of evangelistic fevor. How deeply has the tendency to deny hell penetrated evangelicalism? One survey of evangelical seminary students revealed that:

• Nearly half—46 percent—felt preaching about hell to unbelievers is in “poor taste.”
• Worse yet, three out of every ten self-professed “born again” people surveyed believe “good” people will go to heaven when they die—even if they’ve never trusted Christ.
• One in every ten evangelicals say they believe the concept of sin is outmoded. [Ashamed of the Gospel, John F. MacArthur, Jr., 1993, Crossway Books, p. 65] 

R. A. Torry was right when he proclaimed, “If you in any way abate the doctrine of hell, it will abate your zeal”

 5. We lack compassion. Many believers are like Jonah. Jonah did not want to warn the wicked! He didn’t care for the people of Nineveh. He wanted to see them perish! In fact that was the very reason he ran from God (Jonah 4:2). We need to repent of our calloused and hard heart. We need to ask God to baptized our hearts with compassion for the lost! “Tell me,” says Alexander Maclaren, “the depth of a Christian man’s compassion, and I will tell you the measure of his usefulness. The wealth of Egypt’s harvest is proportioned to the depth of the Nile’s overflow.”

6. We are unwilling to bear the reproach of the gospel. There are some Christians who lack boldness and are unwilling to suffer rejection from the world for the gospel’s sake! Many want the benefits of the gospel but are unwilling to bear the reproach of the gospel. Timothy had this tendency and was at times a bit timid about sharing the gospel. Paul several times had to encourage him. Paul challenged him to never be reluctant to share in the suffering of the gospel, 2 Timothy 1:8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.  

7. Fear of failure. Some people think that if the people that I witness to and preach to don’t get saved than I have failed. What makes people hesitate to share their faith? Here are some of the fears that have been mentioned to me:

• “I am afraid I might do more harm than good.”
• “I don’t know what to say.”
• “I may not be able to give snappy answers to tricky questions.”
• “I may seem bigoted.”
• “I may invade someone’s privacy.”
• “I am afraid I might fail.”
• “I am afraid I might be a hypocrite.”
• Perhaps the most common fear, however, is that of being rejected. 

We must understand that we don’t control the results. We can’t make a person come to Christ! That is not within our power. It is God who gives the increase!Success in witnessing is simply taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, then leaving the results to God. There was a time when I got discouraged from soul winning because I felt like if people didn’t make decisions then I was failing! God delivered me from that by teaching me that salvation comes from the Lord! 1 Corinthians 2:1-5  teaches that Paul didn’t use man’s wisdom to produce the desired result. It wasn’t Paul’s persuasive or overpowering personality and charm that was necessary to produce conversions. Paul confessed that he was with them in weakness and fear and much trembling. He simply preached Christ and depended upon the power of the Holy Spirit to bring the result! He declared in 1 Corinthians 3:4-8 that it is God who gives the increase. Paul didn’t want the Corinthian believers to give more credit to men then they deserve! (1 Corinthians 4:6-7) The psalmist was absolutely right when he said “God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God” (Psalm 62:11).

8. Failure to understand God holds us accountable if we don’t witness. Did you know that God holds us accountable if we fail to witness? In Ezekiel 3 God compared His servant to a watchman. Watchmen were stationed on city walls, hilltops, or specially designed watchtowers. A watchman was to be on the alert for approaching enemies and warn the city’s people of any impending attack. This gave city dwellers outside the walls an opportunity to seek protection and gave the people time to secure the gates and man the defenses. God was saying to Ezekiel you are a watchman for Israel. You are to warn the wicked (Ezekiel 3:18-19). Someone may say, “Wait a minute this is talking about an OT prophet warning Israel. Does this really apply to a NT believer sharing the gospel? Does this have a NT application?”Read what Paul wrote in Acts 20:26; “Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. 27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” Paul draws upon this OT passage to declare his accountability to preach the gospel. If God places a person in my path and I fail to share the gospel of Christ and warn him of his sin then I will give account of it in the day of judgment! 

9. Bad theology. Any theology that teaches that it is not our responsibility to preach and teach the gospel to every creature is a wrong theology! I oppose any theological system that denies that the gospel is not for every man and that every person does not have a genuine opportunity to be saved! Someone might say, “Well does not the Bible say that God has an elect.” It does. The Bible calls God’s people the elect. Some say, “Well if God has an elect then why worry about it?” Let me tell you who the elect are, it is whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord. The elect is anyone who wants to trust Jesus Christ. In order for them to hear they must have a preacher. What is unclear about the Great Commission? There are some students of Scripture that as they study they begin to learn about the sovereignty of God and suddenly that is all they focus upon. They forget that the responsibility of man is as equally true as the sovereignty of God. Man is responsible to repent, man is responsible to believe! Anyone who wants to be saved can be saved (Romans 10:13-14). When a man gets so high in his theology that it prevents him from passionately pursuing after sinners there is something wrong! C. H. Spurgeon said, “I had rather bring one soul to Jesus Christ then to uncover all the mysteries of the divine Word.” 

10.  A lack of faith in the power of the gospel. Some feel as if the gospel doesn’t work. They feel the gospel needs help. Churches today are using worldly methods to market the message and thereby cheapen the gospel. The philosophy of church growth today is pragamtism, whatever works do it! An article in The Wall Street Journal described one well-known church’s bid “to perk up attendance at Sunday evening services.” The church “staged a wrestling match, featuring church employees. To train for the event, 10 game employees got lessons from Tugboat Taylor, a former professional wrestler, in pulling hair, kicking shins and tossing bodies around without doing real harm.” [R. Gustav Niebuhr, “Mighty Fortresses: Megachurches Strive to Be All Things to All Parishioners,” The Wall Street Journal (13 May 1991), A6.] Such a spectacle is a disgrace to God and demonstrates a lack of faith in the power of the gospel and the Holy Spirit.  There is no denying that these antics work– that is they draw a crowd but are you really building a church? Using gimmicks rather than the gospel demonstrates that one does not have faith in the power of the gospel to do the work!

On January 21, 1930, the name of Harold Vidian became synonymous with heroism. On that day, England’s King George V was scheduled to give the opening address at the London Arms Conference. The king’s message was to be sent by radio all around the world. Donald McCullough, in his book The Trivialization of God (NavPress, 1995), tells us that a few minutes before the king was to speak, a member of the CBS staff tripped over an electrical wire and broke it, cutting off the whole American audience. With no hesitation, chief control operator Harold Vidian grasped one end of the broken wire in his right hand and the other in his left, thus restoring the circuit. Electricity surged through his body. Ignoring the pain, Vidian held on until the king had finished his address. I see in this a challenge for Christians. The message of the King of kings must go to the whole world. But only as we allow God’s power to pass through us can the Lord’s saving gospel be transmitted. Paul wrote, “How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?” (Rom. 10:14). If we are willing to serve as conduits, regardless of the cost to us, the good news will be proclaimed around the world. Will you be a conduit for the King’s message? 

May God forgive us for our failure. May He give us a holy passion to see people come to Christ. I believe God is waiting to bless a church and pastor that will not be ashamed of the gospel but will strive to preach the pure truth and depend solely upon the power of the Holy Spirit to bring conversion and blessing. May God in His grace grant to us that we see His power unleased in our lives.

Preaching in Honduras

In October God gave me the great opportunity to take a  missions trip to Honduras with several people from Ellendale Baptist Church. Our missions team leader was Stuart Grey and his wife Dottie. His daughter and son-in-law met us there. In the picture on the left Stuart’s daughter Joy Hernandez served as a translator. She is excellent in Spanish and did a tremendous job. Others in our mission team included: Youth Pastor at Ellendale Nathan Pellegra, Robin Snyder, Josh Mathis, Luis Hernandez, and a host of others from Honduras that met us there. 

This is a picture of our mission team sitting on one of the ancient Mayan temple ruins. We ministered in the city of Copan Ruinas which is a major archaeological site of  the ancient Mayan people. The citizens of that city are, for the most part, descendants of the Mayans. In between services we had the opportunity to explore the ruins of Copan. This of course is why the city is named Copan Ruinas.  We saw the very altars which were used for human sacrafice 3,000 years ago.

The Mayans built two types of pyramids, those that were meant to be climbed and those that were not. This pyramid with steps from the ground up was obviously one meant to be climbed. Those that were not were considered too sacred and were not to be touched. The pyramids served several purposes. Music was sometimes played on top with the hope that its sound was pleasing to the rain gods. They also served as a place of sacrifice and burial chambers for the elite.

This is the entrance to the tomb of the notorious Mayan King Yax K’uk Mo. Enemies of this king would square off in a game much like modern soccer. They used a 9 lb. rubber ball. Often times the winning captain would be offered in human sacrifice. It seems strange that the winner would lose their life but to the Mayan King they were giving the best person from among them to appease the gods who in return would send the rain.

This picture of the courtyard was taken from the top of another temple site I managed to climb. Just to the right of the stone structure is the area where the deadly ball game was played. Over 6,000 ball courts like this one have been discovered all over Mexico and Central America. There seemed to be no end to the stone temples, courtyards, altars and beautiful stone carvings we encountered while visiting this site.

 

The greatest thrill I had while in Honduras was the privilege to preach the Word of God to the people. Every service was broadcast live on TV all over western Honduras. I was told that due to the viewer response they rebroadcast every service in the evenings. The people of Honduras have such a deep hunger for God’s Word and it was a blessing to minister to so many believers as well as Pastors and Christian workers.

Another great blessing was the opportunity to share the gospel in a village not far from Copan Ruinas. Our mission team conducted VBS and several of us traveled on foot through out the village sharing the gospel. I was  privileged to lead six people to Christ. Two of those who professed faith in Christ were a young couple expecting their first child. They came to the service the very next day and are now part of a new church that is being planted in that little village. I later learned that we were the first Americans in the history of that village to ever come and share the gospel. Please remember these people in your prayers.

A Plea for Family Worship (Part One)

Recently I talked with a godly parent and they were lamenting the fact that now that their children are adults they hardly ever darken the door of a church. They were somewhat disillusioned to say the least. As a family they attended church faithfully, a church that preached the Bible. Their children were part of the Sunday School program and the youth program.  Growing up in a great Baptist church in the south they participated in all the activities, camps, retreats, and programs the church had to offer. Yet now that their children had graduated and left the nest and no longer had to answer to parental authority they forgot the faith altogether. This parent was bewildered and asked, “How can this be? How is it that we had our children in church all their lives and they turn away from the faith?” The question the parent was really asking was this, “Where did the church go wrong?” This is not the first time a parent has asked me this question. In fact this same scenario of a bewildered Christian parent has played out before me over and over. In some cases they blame the church, the youth pastor, the children’s worship leader, the Sunday school program, or pastor. In other cases they blame the Christian school to whom they paid thousands of dollars expecting in return a well balanced, academically excellent spiritual giant. Some may read this and think, “Surely this is an exception and not the norm.” Not so! According to the latest figures from the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention 88% of churched youth leave their church after they finish high school. Researcher George Barna’s statistics are only slightly better. He noted, “When [church going teens were] asked to estimate the likelihood that they will continue to participate in church life once they are living on their own, levels dipped precipitously, to only about one out of every three teens” saying they expect to stay in church. That is alarming! What is the problem? Why are our children forsaking church and God after they get on their own? The test of how well we have taught and trained our children is what they do when Mom and Dad no longer have the final say so! So what is the problem? More importantly, what is the solution?

Some would surmise that we simply need better programs. We need better activities, better camps, better music, and fun things that attract youth. Their solution would be to try the same things only work harder! Is that really the answer? Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Not only do I not think that it is the solution, I think it is part of the problem. Parents have pinned their hopes of the thorough spiritual training of their children on these things. In most cases there is nothing wrong with these programs and ministries if they are based on biblical principles. But the problem is parents have placed their trust in them! I recognize this as a pastor and again I have seen this before. When I was an Administrator of a Christian school I saw this same dynamic at work. Parents would send their children to the school with the expectation that the school program would produce the desirable values and virtues that would make them proud parents. When the school program failed to live up to their expectations the parents made a bee-line to my office wanting to know what was the problem. They were, after all, paying the tuition (at least some of them) and they were expecting us to produce. Like an angry drive through customer at window number 2 expecting their “happy meal” they were wondering what was the hold up! At this point I would refer them to the wise words of Solomon. Proverbs 17:16 Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it? In other words why put money (tuition) in your child’s hand and send him to the Christian school with a note saying “make him wise” if he has no desire for it? Yes, there is the tuition in his hand and the petition from his home, but what you have failed to take into consideration is the condition of his heart! They have no desire for spiritual things whatsoever. The parents sent us Dennis the Menace and wanted D.L. Moody in return. They sent the school Madonna and wanted the program to give back to them Mother Theresa. What the home put to death they expected the program to resurrect.

The problem is parents have spent zero time at home cultivating the heart of that child with regard to spiritual things. No prayer, except grace at the table now and then. No reading of Scripture together, no family worship! No time to memorize Scripture or teach the Bible! No study of the ten commandments which break up the fallow ground of a child’s heart cultivating it making them ready for the seed of the gospel! No talk of the holiness of God, no time cultivating a fear of God in the heart of the child which the Bible says is the beginning of wisdom. Parents expect the church to do all that because they are extremely busy trying to make ends meet. If you are too busy to do those things you are busier than God intended!

In the average Christian home today, the father is passive or apathetic spiritually. The mother is working full-time outside the home plus a second job in the home. T.V. is raising and instructing our kids. Yet, despite all of this we expect the weekly dose of church to take care of all the spiritual training of the child. The parents come to church but for most it is Sunday morning only and sometimes not to Sunday School. So their children get one or two hours a week of spiritual instruction and training and even then they were up late Saturday night and half asleep when they come. On the way home the parents critique and sometimes criticize the sermon and pastor or evangelist so the child learns to never really take anything he says seriously. Yet we wonder why our children as soon as they get on their own leave church and don’t come back. We vaccinate our children with a mild form of Christianity so they will not catch the real thing.

Every once in a while God is His wonderful grace and mercy will do a wonderful work of salvation in the heart of a kid from a nominally Christian home or even from a home that is not Christian at all, to show everyone in that family and remind everyone in the church what real Christianity looks like! But then the poor kid has the zeal and vitality of his Christian walk and passion for Christ sucked out of him by a lukewarm family.  In addition he has to contend with the youth group at church which consists of kids from Christian homes who are worldly and have no desire for the things of God! 

The root problem of all of this is there is no spiritual training in the home.  In America today we have out sourced all the duties that come with raising the children! We pay professionals to do everything for us! We have professional babysitters and nannies to watch them. We have professional tutors to help them with their homework. We have professional coaches to help them learn to play ball and professional psychiatrists to help them cope with hardship. We have professional doctors to give them medication so they will behave. We have professional lawyers to take their case when they get into trouble! It just makes sense that we have professional Christians to help them get to heaven and make them spiritual. Meanwhile we have parents that have paid everyone else to do their responsibilities for them. Parents never really get to know their children. They are too busy working to pay all the professionals! PARENTS YOU CANNOT OUTSOURCE THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING AND TRAINING OF YOUR CHILDREN! The church and the school can only supplement the steady diet of spiritual food you must feed them at home. Don’t get me wrong I am not relieving the church of its responsibility. Some churches have capitulated to the pressure to give our youth what they want rather than what they need but that is a subject for another blog. Parents don’t depend on church programs only to make the gospel clear to your child.

God’s plan from the very beginning is that parents teach their children the things of God! Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. All through the OT and NT God has laid the responsibility of spiritual training at the feet of the father! God organized the human race through families and has dealt with them through the headship of the father! God expects fathers to pass their faith on to their children and holds us responsible to do so! Douglas Kelly wrote, “Family religion, which depends not a little on the household head daily leading the family before God in worship, is one of the most powerful structures that the covenant-keeping God has given for the expansion of redemption through the generations, so that countless multitudes may be brought into communion with and worship of the living God in the face of Jesus Christ.” We need to get back to family worship where fathers read the Scripture to their family, teach them and pray with them. Teach them the gospel yourself! Then depend upon the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit to do the work of transforming your child’s heart! If you don’t know the gospel well enough to teach it then learn it! What is more important?  Most if not all of these teens (who never come back to church after high school) have no lifelong sweet memories of family worship. Spurgeon said, “Brethren, I wish it were more common, I wish it were universal, with all [Christians] to have family prayer. We sometimes hear of children of Christian parents who do not grow up in the fear of God, and we are asked how it is that they turned out so badly. In many, very many cases, I fear there is such a neglect of family worship that it’s not probable that the children are at all impressed by any piety supposed to be possesses by their parents.” Even in our best churches little to no family worship takes place. Barna reported that 85% of parents with children under age 13 believe they have primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious beliefs and spiritual matters. However, a majority of parents don’t spend any time during a typical week discussing religious matters or studying religious materials with their children. Parents generally rely upon the church to do all of the religious training their children will receive. This post is a plea for the church and families to get back to family worship. In the next post I want to give some practical suggestions on how to do it! Meanwhile I would encourage parents in reading up on this subject. The picture of the book above is one I would recommend for fathers to read. It is called Thoughts on Family Worship by James W. Alexander. There was a time in church history when this was considered an indispensible part of spiritual training. May God help us to get back to it.

Wise Unto Salvation: Leading Your Children to Christ

As Senior Pastor of a church I have a tremendous responsibility. I don’t take that for granted. I feel the weigh of this responsibility every day of my life. I daily cast myself before the Lord pleading for His wisdom to lead God’s beloved people in the right way. Although this is a heavy burden there is an even greater weight that I bear and that is the weight of being a father. There is nothing I desire more in this life than that my children come to know Jesus Christ as Savior, that they love Him and live a life that brings glory to his name. I know this is likewise the desire of every Christian parent. If I fail in winning my own children to faith in Christ I have failed as a preacher. But if I can, by God’s help, bring my family to faith in Christ and yet have few converts in my ministry I will be a success in God’s eyes. Noah had very  few converts but the converts he did have were his children and their wives. There is no greater responsibility that I have than to lead my children safely on board the Ark of salvation. In this awesome task I am  totally dependent upon the grace and mercy of God. But I also must seek God for wisdom. In this post I would like to share some thoughts I received from meditating on 2 Timothy 3:14-16. In verse 15 of that passage Paul said to Timothy, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are able to make thee wise uto salvation.”

1. Begin early – “that from a child…”The Greek word for “child” [brephos] is a word that speaks of the earliest beginning of a child. In fact it is used in Scripture to speak of infants not yet born (Luke 1:41) and of a newborn infant (Luke 2:12). Research on brain development is clear that the first three years are critical to a child’s future success. It is amazing how much children begin to learn at an early age. This is an opportune time to begin to teach them select simple verses of Scripture. It is never too early to begin to plant the seed of God’s Word in their heart. Scripture also affirms the God begins to reveal truth to “babes.” Jesus said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things [Biblical truth] from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matthew 11:25). Charles Spurgeon the Prince of Preachers said, “Let none despise the stirrings of the Spirit in the hearts of the young. Let not boyish anxieties and juvenile repentances be lightly regarded. I, at least, can bear my personal testimony to the fact that grace operates on some minds at a period almost too early for recollection.”

2. Teach them the trustworthiness of Holy Scripture. – “thou hast know the holy scriptures…” Children must understand that the Bible is the inspired and authoritative Word of God. We teach them this by how we as parents value and live according to the principles of Scripture.  The Bible has been under attack through the years among evangelical Christianity. First, there was the attack on the inspiration of Scripture.  There was a long hard battle over this issue and the battle was won. The attack now is more dangerous and insidious. The attack now is on Scripture’s sufficiency. Is God’s Word sufficient to teach me how to live and deal with the problems of life? We tell kids today, “Oh yes the Bible is God’s Word but unfortunately it is not enough. We need to go outside of Scripture to find certain answers that pertain to life and godliness!” By doing so we inadvertently teach them to trust in man’s wisdom rather than God’s. I want my children to know the Bible is God’s Word and that it is sufficient for them. There is not a problem they face where the Bible does not have the answer! If children do not believe the Bible is God’s Word and that it is authoritative for their life then they will not respect it nor trust it as a reliable guide!

3. Teach them the Ten Commandments – “which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.”  The sacred scriptures that Paul refers to here was obviously the Old Testament. The New Testament was not complete nor part of the canon when Paul wrote this let alone when Timothy was a child. Paul’s point is learning the Old Testament will make one wise unto salvation! What part?  The law, specifically, the Ten Commandments, prepares a child’s heart for salvation making them wise unto salvation! The Psalmist said, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7). Paul wrote in Galatians 3:24, “Therefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” The word “schoolmaster” is the Greek word paidagogos meaning a tutor i.e. a guardian and guide of boys. Among the Greeks and the Romans the name was applied to trustworthy slaves who were charged with the duty of supervising the life and morals of boys belonging to the better class. The boys were not allowed so much as to step out of the house without them before arriving at the age of manhood. They were responsible for the whole process of teaching and instructing the child morally. The law, specifically, the Ten Commandments, is like that schoolmaster preparing young hearts to receive the message of the gospel. That is why it is a great tool for evangelizing children. It was a master stroke of the devil to have the Ten Commandments removed from public places. Why? The devil does not want them to be viewed or heard because of the truths they teach about God.

A. The Ten Commandments teach children God is holy.

This is a lesson that we don’t emphasize enough with children! We teach them God is love but the first lesson they must learn is the first lesson Israel learned at Mt. Sinai (Exo. 20). God is a holy God and therefore He hates sin! It is a fearful thing to sin against a holy God.

B. The Ten Commandments teach children that God demands perfection.

God has an absolute standard of perfection, and none of us are able to attain it! When childen come to realize that they are sinners and fall short of God’s perfect standard they begin to see they are in need of  God’s forgiveness. It prepares their heart for God’s message of mercy found in the gospel.

C. The Ten Commandments teach children to fear God.

Children need to learn to fear God. They must understand that God is a holy God who punishes all sin. They must understand that this holy God hates sin to the degree that one sin is enough to damn a soul to hell for all eternity. When children begin to grasp the concepts of God’s holiness and wrath for sin it begins to make them wise unto salvation. Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Jonathan Edwards said the first doctrine we should teach children is the doctrine of eternal torment. He felt as if there was a lack of the fear of God in the hearts of youth.

D. The Ten Commandments teach children they are sinners.

The law brings us face to face with our sinfulness. That is what is necessary before salvation can take place! Children must understand the concept of sin and their own innate sinfulness. The law is like a mirror that display not the outer man but the inner man. The Ten Commandments reveal to the individual what they look like on the inside. It reveals our sin nature. It brings us to the end of any hope within oursleves of goodness and righteousness before God. The law breaks us because of our sinful condition.

The Great Reformer Martin Luther is a great example of the convicting power of the law and the brokenness it brings!  One day in July year 1505 Luther, a university student at the time, was traveling along a parched road. Suddenly a violent thunderstorm came upon him. A bolt of lightning came crashing down next to him knocking him to the ground. He cried out in terror, “St. Ann, help me and I will become a monk.” Shortly after his experience Luther paid his vow and became an Augustinian monk. As a monk Luther had an acute awareness of the holiness of God. He set out to be a perfect monk He fasted for days, indulged in severe forms of self-flagellation. He went beyond the rules of the monastery in matters of self-denial. He sought to keep the Ten Commandments rigorously. He sought to obtain grace and salvation through his own merits.

Yet, the harder he tried to merit salvation and keep the commandments the more sinful he felt. Luther went to confession everyday. He would drive the Priests crazy because he did not just stay for few minutes, he stayed for hours. He wanted to make sure that no sin in his life was unconfessed. On one occasion Luther stayed in confession for six hours confessing the sins he had committed the previous day. The superiors of the monastery began to wonder about Luther. They considered the possibility that he was a “goldbricker” preferring to spend long hours in confession rather than doing his priestly chores. But Luther was in torment he had no peace. He knew that he stood before God a great sinner and that God was Holy. Someone asked Luther why are you so cast down, don’t you love God? Luther responded, “Love God? Sometimes I hate him. He seems to me as nothing more than an angry judge, with a sword in His hand.” Luther knew that he could not meet God’s standard of righteousness and thought God was unjust, unfair.  His superiors sent him on a pilgrimage to Rome hoping this would help him. Catholics believe that by looking on sacred relics merit was gained and grace was thus imparted. But this only made Luther worse. He saw the corruption in the church. He ascended the Holy Stairs the “Santa Scalia”  on his knees stopping to pray on each step until he reached the top. But nothing he did brought peace to his troubled soul.

Finally, one day as Luther was studying the Book of Romans. He was meditating on the phrase “the just shall live by faith.” Suddenly, like a lightning bolt from heaven it he saw it. It was gloriously simple, it was simply glorious. One is not saved by works, laws, rituals, ceremonies, indulgences, penance or merit. One is saved by faith in Jesus Christ He later wrote of that experience, “Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt thus to be reborn and to have gone through open doors to paradise…The Scripture took on a whole new meaning…. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.”  Just as God’s law brought Luther to see his need of God’s mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ even so it will do the work of making our children wise unto salvation.  

Purity in a Pornographic World (Part 2)

In the last post I talked about the problem of keeping a pure heart in today’s visually driven world that bombards us with lewd and graphic images. With the Internet, pornography has never been more easily accessible and seducing. Pornography is a moral plague upon our land that is ruining lives, marriages, and public morals. According to the U.S. Justice Department, “Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions.” [U.S Department of Justice, Post Hearing Memorandum of Points and Authorities, at I, ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (1996)]. But if you are expecting our U.S. government to help us in this battle you will be sorely disappointed. When President Barack Obama was elected he quickly nominated David Ogden as Deputy Attorney General of the United States. David Ogden as a lawyer was described as a First Amendment extremist and one of the leading legal defenders of the pornography industry. He even argued against laws against child pornography. So the pornography industry now has a friend in the high office in the Department of Justice. What a sad state of affairs. What kind of a message is President Obama sending to America families with this nomination?

Clearly then we have only one place to look for help in this battle for purity in our world and it is to God and His Word. In the last post I suggested that if as a Christian you are struggling with this issue the first step towards victory is to confess and forsake all known sin (please see part 1 from last week). The next step is:

2. Refuse to entertain any vain or ungodly thoughts. Unfortunately because of our sinful and corrupt nature, as well as the outward images fed to us, we must come to realize that we will at times have a vain or ungodly thought placed in our mind. Like soldiers storming a fortress they will seek to invade and set up a filthy beachhead. Satan will be sure to cast fiery darts our way at unguarded moments. We must make a determination that at that moment we will take that thought into captivity by the Word of God. At that very strategic moment we must pray asking for God to give us grace to cast the dart aside and bring to our mind Scripture. This is where is the Word of God is indispensable. Memorizing Scripture not only feeds the soul and builds an inward resistance and shield to these visual grenades, but God’s Word also comes to the rescue when the heart is being attacked. Like white bloods cells that kill inner infection God’s Word can put to death the spiritual bacteria injected by the world, the flesh, and the devil. There is simply no way to overestimate the value of hiding God’s Word in the heart. In short I am encouraging you to do what King Solomon advised to his son, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life”  (Proverbs 4:23). When we talk about the heart normally we are referring to the physical organ in our body that pumps blood, but when the Bible speaks of the heart it normally is referring to our mind or the thinking process. For example Proverbs 23:7 says “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” Your are the sum total of your thoughts. Your character is determined by what you think in your heart. The Psalmist said in Psalm 19:14 “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight O Lord my strength and my redeemer.” So keeping the heart is a matter of guarding your thoughts.

The Puritan John Flavel wrote a classic work on this subject presently titled Keeping the Heart. I love reading the Puritans and Flavel is one of my favorites. If you want a life changing read I encourage you to pick up The Mystery of Providence. That book truly changed my outlook regarding the providence of God. It helped me learn to discern the hand of God at work all around me. Keeping the Heart is another of Flavel’s books that I am presently reading and digesting. Admittedly, the Puritans are at times hard to read. One must develop a knack for it. But the spiritual insight and depth that one receives is well worth the effort. I find when I have finished reading a Puritan work that most modern books one might find in a Christian bookstore seem very superficial. In Keep the Heart Flavel calls the heart the “faculty of the soul.” He rightly proposed that just as our physical health is dependent upon the soundness of the heart, even so the state of the whole man depends upon the condition of the soul. He likens the heart to a fortress under attack. According to Flavel a man will diligently guard his fortune, and his home which are of temporal value; but how carelessly do most men guard that which is of eternal value, their very soul.

In the beginning of the book Flavel lays out six acts to keep the heart carefully. He defines keeping the heart as preserving it from sin which disorders it, and maintaining that spiritual and gracious frame which fits it for a life of communion with God. Flavel presupposes a previous work of regeneration where salvation has taken place and God has given the heart a new spiritual bent and inclination.

Act 1: Frequent observation of the frame of the heart, turning in and examining how the case stands with it. Flavel calls upon the believer to constant examine the state of their heart citing Psalm 77:6 “I commune with mine own heart.” He declares, “The heart can never be kept until its case is examined and understood.”

Act 2: Deep Humiliation for heart-evils and disorders. Flavel points to instances in Scripture when God called upon His people to humble themselves because of their sin. Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart (2 Chronicles 32:26). “So the upright heart cannot be at rest till it has wept out its troubles and poured out its complaints before the Lord.”

Act 3: Earnest supplication and instant prayer for heart-purifying and rectifying grace, when sin has defiled and disordered it. Again Flavel cites many instances in Scripture when saints cried out for cleansing and purifying. When they did it normally included great emotion. He suggests that we should really not cease confessing until we feel some brokenness of heart for sin.

Act 4: Imposing strong engagements and bonds upon ourselves to walk more accurately with God, and avoid the occasions whereby the heart may be induced to sin. Simply put Flavel is calling for believers to enact spiritual disciplines in their life. He wrote, “Well-composed, advised, and deliberate vows are, in some cases, of excellent use to guard the heart against some special sin.” Develop some rules to live by. Job is an excellent example of this “I made a covenant with my eyes, how then shall I think upon a maiden.” If your are unable to keep yourself accountable through such disciplines develop an accountability with another trusted believer.

Act 5: Constant holy jealousy over our own hearts in order to preserve us from sin. Flavel is encouraging a vigilant watch over our hearts. The moment we sense a stirring in our passions the soul  must discover and suppress them with the spiritual means God has given us.

Act 6: Realizing God’s presence with us and setting the Lord always before us. This principle is to me the most powerful of all in the battle for purity. We must always remain conscious of the fact that God is watching, listening, and examining our heart. There is no sequestered spot from the presence of God. If we truly believe He is omniscient and omnipresent it will change how we live. We must live Coram Deo, before the face of God. Flavel wrote, “When the eye of faith is fixed upon the eye of God’s omniscience, we dare not let out our thoughts and affections to vanity.” 

May God bless you and grant you grace in your battle to live a pure life before the face of God.

  
 

Purity in A Pornographic World (Part 1)

On Sunday mornings at Ellendale Baptist Church I have been preaching through the Gospel of Matthew. In the last eight weeks I have preached on the Beatitudes. Each of the sermons can be downloaded from our church website www.ellendalebaptist.org. When we posted the sermon “Purity in A Pornographic World” based on Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God,” the dowloads shot up almost overnight. Obviously the sermon hit upon an area where help is desperately needed. How does one maintain a pure heart in such a corrupt and evil world? No matter where one may go in today’s world we are bombarded by sexually explicit images and pictures. Not to mention people who have no concept of modesty in dress. Not only is there the outward enticement we face on a daily basis, but there is also the inward battle which stems from an evil heart. Jesus made it clear that it is the things that come from out of the heart that defile a man (Matthew 15:19). The corruption we see in society today is the evil fruit which originated in the heart of man. Jeremiah said “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Recent statistics on the growth of the pornography industry affirms that fact. Consider these alarming facts: every second – $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography, every second – 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography, every second – 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography, and every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the United States. The total porn industry revenue for 2006 was 13.3 billion in the United States; 97 billion worldwide (Internet Filter Review). According to a Focus on the Family poll 47% of famlies said that pornography is a problem in their home. 57% of pastors say that addiction to pornography is the most sexually damaging issue to their congregation (Christians and Sex Leadership Journal Survey 2005). The average age of first internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old. The largest consumer of internet pornography is the 12-17 year old age group.

It seems that even ministers are struggling to maintain purity of heart. Over half of evangelical pastors admit viewing pornography last year. In a 2000 Christianity Today survey, 33% of clergy admitted to having visited a sexually explicit website. Of those who had visited a porn site, 53% had visited such sites “a few times” in the past year, and 18% visited sexually explicit sites between a couple times a month and more than once a week. Roger Charman of Focus on the Family’s Pastoral Ministries reports that approxiamately 20 percent of the calls received on their Pastoral Care Line are for help with issues such as pornography and compulsive sexual behavior. Those are just a few stats I discovered in research, we could go on and on. Suffice to say that this is a serious problem!

This is not, however, a new problem. One of the reasons God destroyed the earth by a universal flood in Noah’s day is because of the corrupt condition of the heart of that antediluvian generation.  “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” (Genesis 6:5). So what is the answer? How is the heart cleansed and purified? The psalmist asked the same question thousands of years ago, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” (Psalm 119:9) The answer that was true then is still true today, “By keeping it according to Your word.” The Word of God is the way to purity. Psychology may present to society today all types of solutions for this type of “addiction.” But the only real solution to the corrupt human heart is the sanctifying power of the Word. Trying reading, memorizing, and meditating on Scripture and see! The psalmist added, “Your word have I treasured in my heart that I might not sin against You.”  Let me offer several steps that can aid in keeping your heart according to the Word.

1. Confess and forsake all known sin. The key word here is forsake. Walk away from it and stop it! You might say, “Well I can’t I have an addiction.” Addiction is the secular term, let me give you the Biblical term, it is “slave.” Scripture says you are a slave to whomever you yield yourself to. Paul said in Romans 6:16 “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin [In this case pornography] resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” Bottom line, you choose what master you want to serve either pornography or Christ! The choice is yours. Don’t believe the lie of Satan that says you can’t help it. If you are a Christian you have the power of the Holy Spirit in you, don’t tell me you can’t make a choice of obedience and righteousness. You can choose which master, it is as simple as that! The reason some choose pornography is because they want it more than Christ. They would rather yield to that than to righteousness. The Bible does not give some magic formula nor give some long drawn out psycho-therapeutic solution, it simply says you choose the master, sin or Christ! Others have suggested, “Well, I need to bring my sin to God and lay it at His feet.” That sounds real pious and spiritual but show me one place in the Bible where we are suppose to take our sins to God. We are suppose to confess and forsake them. We are commanded to put to death evil desires and sins by dwelling on the beauty and purity of Christ revealed in the Word. We are to meditate on these things and give ourselves wholly to them (1 Timothy 4:15). That in turn grants us the inner desire to deny the flesh and thereby put the evil desire to death! God through His grace has given you, His child, that ability. So choose your master. Next post I will continue giving some steps that will aid in guarding the heart. I also want to borrow some material from the great Puritan John Flavel (1630-1691) who wrote a classic volume “Keeping the Heart.”

Walk Humbly! Micah 6:8

In the two previous posts I have examined the first two of three mandates that God requires of us if we are to live a pleasing and acceptable life before God, according to Micah 6:8. The final mandate is to “walk humbly with your God.” What does it mean to walk humbly? To gain a clear understanding of this we must again consider the context. In Micah’s day the people were going through the outward motions of worship but inwardly their hearts were far from God. As a result their sacrifices and offerings were unacceptable to God. Sacrifices were meant to be an outward expression of  inner devotion, dependence, and trust in God. That is why thousands of rams, or 10,000 rivers of oil, or even their own firstborn would not appease God’s wrath on the people (Micah 6:6). Micah asked those rhetorical questions to suggest to Israel that nothing—not even the most extreme sacrifice—could atone for what she had done. Also this emphasized that God did not want them to “pay” Him. Instead God wanted them to change their actions and attitudes. God did not want them to be related to Him in only an outward ritualistic way. God wanted to be related to them inwardly. He wanted their obedience to be based on a sincere love from a pure heart. He wanted a people whose heart longed for fellowship with Him. No gift or sacrificial ritual no matter how costly could be a substitute for a heart that loved God preeminently. 

I am convinced that people today enter into God’s house with the same superficial, outward, and mechanical type of worship today. We sing songs with no heart, we listen to the sermon the same way we listen to the evening news, and we give our offering with the same reluctance that we pay taxes. We do all these things in the name of worship and think we have done God a service and in some way have made Him rich. Once when my son was a toddler he was sitting on the carpet of our living room eating a bag of Cheetos. I was walking through the room having just finished lunch and was on my way to my study. But I wanted to have fellowship with my son. So I laid down on the floor next to him. I opened my mouth and pointed to his bag of Cheetos and to my mouth hoping he would get the message that I wanted some of his Cheetos. I was curious as to how he would respond. Sometimes children pull back and don’t like to share. But to my delight he smiled and began to push Cheetos into my mouth one after another. He laughed as he stuffed my mouth full and finally I had to tell him to stop. Now someone might read this and think, “Shame on you for taking your little son’s Cheetos.” Look, I was not hungry and I really didn’t want his Cheetos. In fact, I don’t even like Cheetos. I could buy enough Cheetos to bury him in them if I wanted to. What I wanted was his heart, I wanted his affection, I wanted him to be willing to share with me something that he loved and thus show me his love. Each time he reached into his little bag and shoved a Cheeto into my mouth in his own little way he was giving me his heart. It was evident from the joy on his face that he loved his Dad. I immediately thought that is what God wants from His children. He wants their heart. When we bring our offering or sacrifice or gifts to God’s house we are not making God rich. He already owns all things. God said in Psalm 50:12, “If I were hungry I wouldn’t tell you, for the world is mine and the fullness thereof.” What God wants is our heart and our fellowship. When we seek Him daily and worship Him from a sincere heart we walk with Him.

Another aspect of walking with God is a daily dependence upon Him. By bringing our sacrifice and gifts to the altar with sincere thanksgiving and love we acknowlege that we are dependent upon God. God wants us to walk humbly with Him in total dependence upon Him for all things. We trust in Him on a daily basis just as the Jews who walked through the wilderness following the glory cloud. One of Rabbi Ben Jochai’s scholars once asked him, “Why did not the Lord furnish enough manna to Israel for a year, all at one time?” The teacher said, “I will answer you with a parable. Once there was a king who had a son to whom he gave a yearly allowance, paying him the entire sum on the fixed date. It soon happened that the day on which the allowance was due was the only day in the year when the father ever saw his son. So the king changed his plan and gave his son day by day that which sufficed for the day; and then the son visited his father every morning. How he needed his father’s unbroken love, companionship, wisdom and giving! Thus God dealt with Israel and deals with us.” In Deuteronomy 33:25 God said to His people, “As thy days so shall thy strength be.” God wants us to depend upon Him one day at a time for sustanence and strength. When we worship Him daily in our own personal devotions we are acknowledging our total dependence on Him. To walk with God, therefore, is a daily humble dependence, sincere worship, and loving fellowship with our God. This is what is acceptable to God and what He requires of us. May God grant us the grace to walk humbly with Him.

Love Mercy! Micah 6:8

Micah’s ministry was to a nation of spiritual hypocrites. Outwardly they went through the motions of worship but inwardly their hearts were far from God. The hardness of their hearts was clearly manifested by the sarcastic question they asked. “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my belly for the sin of my soul?” The question was not asked sincerely but mocked the idea of their sin. The terse response of the prophet revealed he was not amused. Instead he thundered back at them what God required. God had not left anyone in doubt with regard to his expectations. “It has been declared to you, O man, what is good.” The language here transcends ancient Israel. The fundamental expectations which follow are addressed to “O man,” i.e., any man or humanity in general. “Good” is what Yahweh requires, what brings his blessing. The Lord looks for three qualities in all mankind. In order for one’s life and worship to be acceptable to God one must 1) Do justly 2) Love mercy and 3) Walk humbly with God. The second part of Micah’s threefold mandate is the focus of this article, to love mercy.

Theology teaches the concept of the “simplicity of God.” Simply put this means God is not made up of parts. He is not part holiness, part wisdom, part justice etc. Rather He is wholly just, wholly wise, wholly holy and so on. God’s attributes are not a part of Him but each one is wholly true of Him. His attributes are wonderfully balanced and majestically blended so that each one can define completely who He is. Therefore, one cannnot say that one attribute of God is more important than another. Nor can one say that one particular attribute is more true of God than any other. That would present a distorted view of God and lead to error. Scripture, however, reveals that God delights at times to emphasize some of His attributes above others. In Exodus 33-34 Moses interceded on behalf of Israel after their “golden calf” sin of idolatry. Moses, who was growing in his understanding of the nature and attributes of God, wanted to know if God could forgive such monstrous sin and restore Israel completely. In short, He wanted to know God’s innermost nature and being. God in response passed by Moses and declared His divine name amd nature to him. First on the list of attributes was mercy! Mercy is the attribute that God delights to emphasize about Himself! In addition He has chosen to share that attribute with us. We as creatures created in His image were given the ability to show mercy. He delights is showing mercy Himself and delights in us when we show it. In doing so we show forth His glorious nature to the world.

The principal Hebrew word for mercy speaks of an emotional response to the needs of others. It means to feel the pain of another so deeply that we’re compelled to do something about it. People in Bible times believed that the seat of emotions was found in the intestinal area. That’s why the King James Version uses the phrase, “bowels of mercy.” William Barclay defines mercy this way: “To get inside someone’s skin until we can see things with his eyes, think things with his mind, and feel things with his feelings; to move in and act on behalf of those who are hurting.” Mercy can be defined as: “good will toward the afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them.” Thomas Watson wrote, “It is a melting disposition whereby we lay to heart the miseries of others and are ready on all occasions to be instrumental for their good” [The Beatitudes, 143]. The Biblical concept of mercy, therefore, has three elements to it. 1) Conception – I see the need 2) Compassion – I am moved by the need 3) Correction – I am moved to meet the need or correct the problem. It is compassion with action! Jesus demonstrated this in Matthew 14:14: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” The word “compassion” means that Jesus was so moved that His stomach churned, or literally, “his bowels yearned” for the crowd. Notice that this churning led Him to do something about it. He saw the need and then He went into action. Mercy in theory is absolutely meaningless. Mercy must move us. Kent Hughes noted it is beautifully illustrated in the story of the 19th century man whose horse had just been accidentally killed. A crowd gathered and offered words of sympathy, but a preacher stepped up and spoke to the loudest sympathizer, “I am sorry five pounds. How much are you sorry?” Then passing the hat, he showed the true meaning of mercy. “True mercy demands action” [Kent Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount, 47].

In Luke 10:25-37 Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan which revealed the elements of mercy better than any other passage in the NT. A man who was traveling down the dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho (known as the “Bloodly Way”) fell among theives who left him for dead. A priest and a Levite each passed him by before a Good Samaritan “saw him” (that’s conception) “took pity on him ” (that’s compassion) “went to him” (that’s correction). Anyone who has read the story knows how the Samaritan nursed the beaten man’s wounds and arranged for him to stay at an inn until he was well. He gave the inn keeper two days wage which was enough for the beaten man to stay for at least a month. Dr. Adrian Rogers said there are three classes of people in every community. The beater-uppers, those who steal kill and destroy and say, “What’s yours is mine, and I’m going to get it.” The passer-uppers, those who see the need but walk on by and say “What’s mine is mine and I’m going to keep it.” The picker-uppers, those who move from conception to compassion to correction and say, “What’s mine is yours and I’m going to help you.” That was the attitude of the Good Samaritan and that is the attitude of the one who loves mercy. Make a commitment then that when God places in your path a hurting person, who has been beaten down by the cruelty of this life, you will not just pass by. Remember that God requires of us to love mercy!

Do Justly! Micah 6:8

The prophet Micah had a difficult ministry. He prophesied in the eighth century B.C. about the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom and later the defeat of the Southern Kingdom by the Babylonians. The book of Micah basically consists of three messages, each one beginning with the exhortation to “hear” or “listen.” His messages are primarily to the Southern Kingdom demonstrating that Judah was just as guilty as Israel which had already been carried into captivity and scattered among the Gentile nations. Judah too would soon be disciplined by God. Chapter 6 of Micah opens the third cycle of messages with a dramatic courtroom motif between the Lord, who pleads His case, and the people who respond in conviction. Micah acts as a lawyer for the plaintiff. Micah argues the Lord’s case before the mountains and hills which acted as witnesses against the guilty. The mountains were present at Sinai when Israel entered into a covenant with God. The hills witnessed the commandments being written and heard Israel’s oath to keep them. Speaking for the nation, Micah asked a penetrating question: What would it take for the people to regain favor from the Lord and for their worship to be acceptable? Should he approach the Lord with burnt offerings? Should he go with calves ready to sacrifice? Would the Lord want a thousand rams, ten thousand rivers of oil, or even his firstborn child, the fruit of his body for the sins of his soul? None of these things will suffice. Micah then turns to the nation and clearly thunders out exactly what God did desire from them. Micah’s harsh tone indicates that they should have already known the answer to the rhetorical question. The people had been hypocrites with outward ritualistic worship and yet inwardly they were sinful. The things that were good and beneficial in God’s eyes were 1) To do justly 2) Love mercy 3) Walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).

The focus of this article is on the first of these three mandates. God wants a people who will do justly. The context of this message helps us understand specifically what God meant. How did the original audience hear this? The people in Micah’s day were not dealing fairly with others. The poor were being oppressed by the affluent. The rulers were corrupt, closing their eyes to injustice and their ears to the cry of the poor. Micah sums up their lack of uprightness in 6:11 “Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?” Dishonesty in business practices, taking advantage of the poor, and unfair practices were prevalent. In addition, violence by the rich and lying by almost everyone were common (6:12). The corruption was so deeply engrained in Judah that God challenged Jeremiah to find one man in Jerusalem who told the truth and did justly, but Jeremiah could not find one! (Jeremiah 5) Simply put, Israel and Judah suffered from a serious lack of integrity! It ultimately sealed the fate of the once great nation. One cannot help but notice the parallel in our country today. Just as Micah and Jeremiah searched in vain to find one man of integrity; even so, men of integrity are a rare commodity today! Many a man proclaims his own loyalty, but who can find a trustworthy man? (Proverbs 20:6). Jeremiah expected it to be difficult to find an honest man among the common people, but what shocked him was that even when he went to the “great men” he still could not find a man of integrity. If leaders are liars, what hope does the nation have? (Jeremiah 5:5) Could it be that the financial crisis that has seized America has at its root the very cause that sealed the fate of Judah?

One can see therefore how important integrity is to the heart of God. David asked, “Who may dwell in your presence and abide in your holy hill?” The answer is clear, “He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, And speaks truth in his heart” (Psalm 15:2). Integrity is essential for anyone who desires to glorify God, walk with Him, and be used by Him. The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin, 1992) defines integrity as “steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code,” “the state of being unimpaired; soundness,” or “the quality of condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.” It comes from the word integer, which means “whole” or “complete.” Integrity means to hold to a set of ethical standards or convictions with a single-hearted devotion. In the believer’s case it is God’s standard. The psalmist captures this focused devotion in Psalm 119:106, “I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.” A conviction is a Bible based belief or duty that God requires of us. A person who has integrity holds to their God given convictions even though they may have to pay a price for it. “He swears to his own hurt.” (Psalm 15:4) A person who lacks integrity says one thing and does another. Their life is dominated by compromise. Compromise is the inability to deal with Biblical commands or standards because one is overwhelmed by their own personal desires.

It was not until Judah had been carried into exile (605 B.C.) that a Micah 6:8 man emerged. His name was Daniel. When faced with a choice of compromising God’s law by eating meat sacrificed to pagan gods, Daniel showed tremendous courage and resolved that he would not defile himself (Daniel 1:8). For a moment in time Daniel stood alone against the most powerful man in the world. But that is what men of integrity must do. Their conscience is held captive by their convictions. Athanasius, early bishop of Alexandria, stoutly opposed the teachings of Arius, who declared that Christ was not the eternal Son of God, but a subordinate being. Hounded through five exiles he was finally summoned before emperor Theodosius, who demanded he cease his opposition to Arius. The emperor reproved him and asked, “Do you not realize that the entire world is against you?” Athanasius quickly answered, “Then I am against the entire world!” That is precisely how it was for Daniel. He stood alone against the world. Daniel’s resolve could have been an insult to the king. It could have cost him his life! He stood in the face of peer pressure not worrying if his unorthodox behavior would jeopardize his chances of advancement. He didn’t allow his reason to be clouded by the typical arguments offered by the fainthearted. He knew it is never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right. In the end God promoted him and Nebuchadnezzar judged him to be ten times better than his contemporaries. Godly resolve always leads to godly reward. Daniel’s example should have been a great lesson to the nation of Judah. An adolescent with conviction was able to stand face to face with the most powerful king on earth, the same king that brought the nation of Judah and its leaders to their knees. The difference was integrity. A man once said to me, “You have been swimming upstream all your life!” I began to reflect on that statement. It dawned on me that in a world where the currents of compromise are overpowering and integrity is rare even among the “great men,” the person who really desires to walk with God will have to learn to swim upstream. That’s what Daniel did and that’s what a Micah 6:8 man will do. May God give us grace to swim upstream!