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Guest post by Jon Cressey: Methuselah – a long life wasted?

hostmaster — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:27:09 +0000

Have you ever sat down and worked your way through the years of the first few generations of mankind (Genesis 5)? It’s a few minutes work, but it is worth it. There are a few surprises that grab your attention straight away.

And one of them is a particularly sobering one – Methuselah.

Biography
Methuselah comes onto the scene in world history with what seems at first to be an outrageous claim by Moses that Methuselah lived to the ripe old age of 969 years, the oldest man in history by a long margin. The remaining information about his life in the Scriptures is that at the age of 178 he became the father of Lamech and then later, had a few more nameless, sons and daughters.

And that seems to be it. Not much to say for such a long life – and not much to inspire the generations that would follow.

But there is more that can be read between the lines without going into spurious claims and myths.

A great name to live with?

My name, Jonathan, means “Gift of God”. I don’t always feel like that, but essentially as far as a name goes that is what it means. Imagine then the pressure of living with the name given by Enoch to his first son, Methuselah. Methuselah has 2 variations of meaning; “Man of the spear”, or alternatively “when he dies it shall be sent”.

Imagine life as the years roll on and on, and the promise overshadowing you, but yet passing others by as they also grow old and die, that when you die, it shall come. But not knowing what was to come.

Methuselah would be 250 years of age when Adam dies. Methuselah has walked with Adam and no doubt knows all about the Garden of Eden and what life was like having uninterrupted access to God before the days of the fall. He’s also privy to the mystery concerning Enoch. He knows all the stories, he’s met all the main characters of history, and yet, it hasn’t deeply and profoundly affected his walk before God.

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. Genesis 6:5-8

Methuselah receives no commendation by God, and it is his grand-son alone that finds favour in the eyes of God.

And so for Noah, a 100 year project gets under way to build the most important ship in history, and painfully, Methuselah is never mentioned once as standing beside Noah and his family as they obey the command of God. And all the time, the man called “When he dies, it shall be sent”, carries a prophetic message, but does not benefit from it.

Jewish teaching has it that Methuselah died 7 days before the beginning of the great Flood, and the 7 days were given by God to allow for Noah to mourn his departure. Whether or not that is true, is of no real account to us. What we do know is that as the great flood arrives, maybe days before, Methuselah dies.

And as Methuselah dies and the waters of the earth begin to rise, a new day dawns on the earth that is going to be a transition to new discoveries. The day of Adam and those who knew him has passed, and history moves quickly to a new set of characters, Noah and Abraham.

Sounds of silence
The weakness in all of this is that we are arguing from silence here – it may be that Methuselah turned to God during the days that Noah was building the Ark. we just do not know, but we do know what God had said in the above verses.

There are many in our generation that know all about God, they have heard the stories of revival, they have listened excitedly to the tales of dynamic stories of signs and wonders and miracles – but yet deep down, are untouched and unaffected by those encounters.

It is to them that God again and again, comes with the message of the gospel. I urge you that if you feel that you have heard all these things before and feel unmoved, to be wise. Ask God to help you not to be like Methuselah, but to turn your heart to Him.

God is always very, very gracious to all who call on Him.

Jon Cressey is a part of City Church Sheffield. You can visit his blog here: joncressey.com

Hear Behe, an advocate of Intelligent Design in the UK

hostmaster — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 19:07:45 +0000

This month you can attend a number of meetings that Behe will be speaking at. I may well be at next Monday Evenings one in Westminster chapel. There are a number of other events you can read about on their site: Darwin or design?

Michael Behe, a biochemistry professor, is a key figure in the emergence of the modern Intelligent Design (ID) movement. He is one of an increasing number of scientists around the world who consider that there is a very substantial body of biochemical evidence which challenges the basis of Darwinian evolution.

In particular, Behe has become associated with the idea of ‘irreducible complexity’ (IC). An example of IC in our ordinary world is a mechanical mousetrap. A mousetrap has several pieces, all of which are needed for it to work. Take one away and the trap is broken. Behe points out that many of the molecular machines that science has discovered in our cells are also IC, and therefore obstacles to Darwinian evolution. He concludes that Darwinism is a poor explanation for much of life.

These ideas, of course, are considered seriously heretical by many in the scientific community and it is regularly claimed that they are easily refutable. But the truth is that Behe’s arguments do not go away and remain a persistent thorn in the flesh of dogmatic Darwinian theorists.

Michael Behe’s seminal book, ‘Darwin’s Black Box – The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution’ was first published in 1996 and continues to cause a stir in the scientific community. He followed it with the no-less-controversial ‘The Edge of Evolution – The Search for the limits of Darwinism’ in 2007. In both of these books he argues his case clearly and he has, subsequently, presented a comprehensive response to all his major critics.

via Overview.

Guest Post: The Grand Design? Part Two

hostmaster — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 17:18:22 +0000

Professor Edgar Andrews continues his review of The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and LeonardProfessor Edgar Andrews reviews The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and LeonardMlodinow (Bantam Books, September 2010):

Mighty M-theory

Chapter 5 surveys the development of physics during the past 200 years, including general relativity (which describes the large-scale behaviour of the universe) and quantum mechanics (which describes its microscopic behaviour). Although containing nothing new, this is by far the best part of this book.

The chapter concludes, however, with comments on M-theory that rang alarm bells (p.118). In the book’s opening chapter, M-theory is no more than ‘a candidate for the ultimate theory of everything, if indeed one exists’, and is ‘not a theory in the usual sense’ but ‘may offer answers to the question of creation’. Physicist Lee Smolin is doubtful: ‘… we still do not know what M-theory is, or whether there is any theory deserving of the name’ (The Trouble with Physics, Allen Lane 2007, p.146). Indeed, on p.117 the authors themselves admit that ‘people are still trying to decipher the nature of M-theory, but that may not be possible’.

But suddenly on p.118 this intractable mathematical model is somehow transformed into a theory so powerful that its laws are ‘more fundamental’ than the laws of nature and ‘allow’ for ‘different universes with different apparent laws’. This is a huge leap of atheistic faith.

Witches brew

The final three chapters rapidly descend into a witches brew of speculation and misinformation, confusingly blended with normal science. It certainly gave me a mental hangover — and I am no stranger to the territory. It is difficult to discern where science ends and speculation begins, but the key reasoning seem to be as follows.

1. The ‘big bang’ model predicts that the universe began life as such a tiny object that quantum theory must be applied to its origin (p.131). But hold on a moment! Quantum theory has only been validated under normal conditions of space, time, pressure, temperature and so on. We cannot know whether it applies to the supposed conditions at the origin of the universe, when space was intensely warped, time was at best fuzzy, and the pressure and temperature both approached infinity. What we do know is that massive objects do not exhibit quantum behaviour. No one can be sure that a new-born universe would obey quantum theory as we know it.

2. ‘In the early universe all four dimension [of space-time] behave like space’ allowing us to ‘get rid of the problem of time having a beginning’ (pp.134-135). But if time and space were equivalent, and time did not begin, then space didn’t begin either! The universe was still-born. In fact the authors are appealing to the ‘no-boundary’ model described by Hawking 22 years ago in A Brief History of Time but are economical with the truth. The earlier book makes it clear that the model is valid only in imaginarytime, not in real time (see WMG p.121). But here this caveat vanishes and imaginary time is misrepresented as real time.

The narrative then descends into farce. They claim that ‘the realisation that time behaves like space … means that the beginning of the universe was governed by the laws of science and doesn’t need to be set in motion by some god’ (p.135). So apparently the universe did ‘begin’ after all, but not in time. Confused? Me too.

3. Picturing the early universe as a quantum particle (something they themselves describe as ‘tricky’) the authors consider how it might evolve from point (state) A to point (state) B by applying Feynman’s sum-over-histories method thus:

‘[Since we are considering the beginning of the universe] there is no point A, so we add up all the histories that satisfy the no-boundary condition and end at the universe we observe today. In this view the universe appears spontaneously, starting off in every possible way. Most of these correspond to other universes.’

But by saying that point A does not exist they assume that the universe springs into existence somewhere between nothing (point A) and the present universe (point B). This tells us nothing about how or why the universe began; simply that it did begin. We knew that already.

4. Finally, p.180 does offer an explanation of spontaneous creation. The conservation of energy means that universes can only be created from nothing if their net energy is zero, with negative gravitational energy balancing out the positive energy of matter and radiation. This necessitates that a law of gravity must exist. Because a law of gravity exists it must and will of itself create universes out of nothing (no reasoning given).

So gravity is God. Unfortunately the authors have no time to tell us who created gravity (earlier they rule out God because no one could explain who created him). Nor can they tell us why matter and gravity should pop out of nothing, except to argue that ‘nothing’ undergoes quantum fluctuations. However, this requires that (like gravity) the laws of quantum mechanics pre-existed the universe and that ‘nothing’ possesses the properties of normal space, which is part of the created order and cannot be its antecedent.

A grand design? Only in the sense that this book is grandly designed to bamboozle the unwary and cloak atheistic philosophy in the garb of science. Fortunately, the clothes don’t fit.

Guest Post: The Grand Design? Part One

hostmaster — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 17:18:29 +0000

Professor Edgar Andrews reviews The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (Bantam Books, September 2010).

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking sold over nine million copies of his book A Brief History of Time. Now, 22 years later, he has co-authored The Grand Design which immediately hit the No.1 spot in the New York Times best-seller list. But the sequel is so inferior to the prequel in intellectual quality that a reviewer in The Times Saturday Review (London, 11 September 2010) writes: ‘It reads like a stretched magazine article … there is too much padding and too much recycling of long-stale material… I doubt whether The Grand Design would have been published if Hawking’s name were not on the cover’.

So why is the new book a runaway best-seller? Because it claims that science makes God redundant. Let’s take a closer look at the claims advanced in The Grand Design.

Philosophical skulduggery

The introduction asserts that ‘Philosophy is dead’ (p.5) and science alone can provide ‘New answers to the ultimate questions of life’ (the book’s hubristic sub-title). But the authors then produce their own brand of humanistic philosophy, christen it ‘science’ and base their book upon it.

They say; ‘this book is rooted in the concept of scientific determinism which implies … that there are no miracles, or exceptions to the laws of nature’. But ‘scientific determinism’ is simply the philosophical assumption that the laws control all events. I argue precisely the opposite in chapter 11 of my own book Who made God? (WMG in further references).

Again, in chapter 3, They maintain that ‘reality’ is a construct of our minds — implying that there is no such thing as objective reality (Irish philosopher Bishop Berkeley had the same idea in 1710 but he wasn’t widely believed). They conclude that ‘there is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality’ and propose what they call ‘model dependent realism’ as a ‘frame-work with which to interpret modern science’ (pp. 42-43). Clearly, an interpretive framework for science cannot be science but belongs in a different category altogether, namely, philosophy.

Since the mental models we construct ‘are the only reality we can know … It follows then that a well-constructed model creates a reality of its own’ (p.172). The problem with this, of course, is that it undermines the very concept of reality. Hawking’s ‘reality’ excludes God while my ‘reality’ majors upon God. These two ‘realities’ are mutually exclusive but both (according to Hawking) are equally ‘real’. This is postmodernism by the back door and it is wholly inimical to science, which depends on there being a genuine reality to investigate.

Determinism

The authors also embrace another philosophy, namely, scientific determinism. ‘Though we feel we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets’ (pp.31-32). So we are mindless automatons and everything we do or think is predetermined.

The reality is, of course, that biological processes are overwhelmingly ‘governed’ not by physics and chemistry but by structured information, stored on DNA and expressed through the genetic code. It is information which controls the physics and chemistry of the living cell, not the other way round.

Furthermore, if our minds are simply by-products of molecular processes in the brain, then all our thoughts are meaningless including the authors’ own theories. Thinking atheists such as Bertrand Russell and J. B. S. Haldane long ago recognised and admitted this dilemma explicitly (WMG chapter 16) but Hawking and Mlodinow seem oblivious to it.

Chapter 4 is devoted to explaining the ‘many histories’ formulation of quantum theory proposed by Richard Feynman. This is well done except that by ignoring other formulations of quantum theory the authors give the false impression that Feynman’s is the only valid approach. This is tendentious because they need Feynman’s idea as a springboard for their own multiverse hypothesis. To admit that ‘many histories’ is just one of several equally valid formulations of quantum mechanics would weaken their argument considerably.

Continued tomorrow

When it is Great to be Wrong!

hostmaster — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:26:56 +0000

I received another email (see the first), which I have permission to share anonymously. It shows that I was not entirely right. I still believe, however, that for most people leading our evangelism with creationism is not the best way. I think that stories like this tell us that we must treat every inquirer as an individual, and what might be helpful for one person might not be for another:

My email may be one of so few that your point (I am convinced that very few unsaved people will be converted to Christianity by arguing with them to convert them from an evolutionist to a creationist) is proved or not, but thought it worth sharing none the less.

Brought up in a completely non-Christian environment and subject to all the usual media / school output of evolution as fact. It seemed plain as day to me (as an A Level student) that evolution removed any need for God. That didn’t mean I’d ever fully understood how a fish that jumped out of the sea ever came to be anything other than a dead fish no matter how many times fish did it. However, I was astonished to find people who believed in a creation which led to me reading a booklet written by a friend’s mum.

I was equally astonished to find the book making sense and creation suddenly seemed to make a lot more sense than evolution. Hand on heart this was a massive factor in my ongoing wrestling with ‘who is this Jesus and what does it mean to be in relationship with him’. This was not least in the area of the reliability of the Bible. I laughed out loud when reading Genesis first time – not chapters 1 – 3, but the the ages of the people in the following chapters. But within a few months of my ‘creation conversion’ the final step came along.

I have never gone back on my unbelief in evolution though I don’t make an issue of it now as I first did. The change came while at a seminary when arguing about this issue with a friend (curiously my seminary took quite a strong stand for evolution and holding a different view felt as abnormal as you’d expect it to feel in a ‘normal’ college). In the argument I said ‘Well if evolution’s not true then I’m not a Christian’ which was a poor attempt in winning the argument. The words stayed with me and led to me accepting there were other views.

I still think it’s an important issue and one that people (perhaps students more than others) still want to engage with particularly with Professor Dawkins prominence and incredible influence on the media. Also, non-evolution creation doesn’t seem to require the same theological somersaults that theistic evolution requires when it comes to sin & death. However there is so much material these days and some of it’s so technical that there just isn’t time to find clarity for most of us.

Where I would hang my ‘if that’s not true them I’m not a Christian’ hat these days is much more to do with Jesus, and especially the resurrection (1 Cor 15:15-19).

Is it Really Possible to Believe in a Form of Evolution and Still be a Christian?

hostmaster — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:28:32 +0000

I received the following email, and with the writer’s consent, thought it would be good to publish it here. Remember that the discussion I intended is not about what I personally believe on this issue, nor about what it is best for a Bible-loving believer to believe. Rather, it’s about whether arguing about evolution is a good thing to do when evangelizing, or even teaching new Christians:

Regarding your most recent blog post . . . I am afraid I have to disagree with you over a few points :-(

You say: “I am convinced that very very few unsaved people will be converted to Christianity by arguing them from being an evolutionist to being a creationist.”

I say: “I am aware of many people who have had the last barriers to their coming to Christ removed by being shown that Evolutionism (Macro) is not true and equally not scientific.”

If evolutionism (macro) is true then the Bible is not…period. To try and show that Christians can be evolutionists is misleading at best and deceptive at worst.

As you are aware there is no scientific support for macro evolution, absolutely none. There never has been and there never will be. So just what are these people trying to show is conducive to Christian belief; Believing in something that claims to be based on science, but in fact is based on the lies of the enemy?! How can that be of benefit to anyone let alone Christians?

In fact one might as well replace the word ‘Evolution’ with any other lie and as such the title “Darwin and the Christian – A Tour By Christian Evolutionists” could just as easily be replaced with “Buddha and the Christian – A Tour By Christian Buddhists.”

I have quickly viewed materials on the associated web site and I found the same sad claims which tell me I am related to apes – Genesis should be read with reference to other creation stories of the period so as to give a better understanding of the ‘story’ in Genesis etc, etc.

In the end it is simply another compromise attack on biblical Christianity and the truth of God’s Word.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

“We accept the biblical teaching with regard to creation and do not base our position upon theories of evolution, whichever particular theory people may choose to advocate…. Now someone may ask, “Why do you care about this? Is this essential to your doctrine of salvation?….”

If we say that we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, we must say that about the whole of the Bible, and when the Bible presents itself to us as history, we must accept it as history.

I would contend that the early chapters of Genesis, the first three chapters of Genesis, are given to us as history”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, What is an Evangelical? (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1993), 74-75.

SERMON – Building for the Glory of God: Nehemiah 3

adrianwarnock — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:50:00 +0000

Last Sunday I preached on Nehemiah 3. You can download the sermon, listen to it right here, download the video via the vodcast or by rightclicking on this download link. or read the edited trancript below. You can

Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brothers the priests, and they built the Sheep Gate. They consecrated it and set its doors. They consecrated it as far as the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Tower of Hananel. And next to him the men of Jericho built. And next to them Zaccur the son of Imri built.

The sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate. They laid its beams and set its doors, its bolts, and its bars. And next to them Meremoth the son of Uriah, son of Hakkoz repaired. And next to them Meshullam the son of Berechiah, son of Meshezabel repaired. And next to them Zadok the son of Baana repaired. And next to them the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord.

— Nehemiah 3:1-5

We are looking today at Nehemiah, chapter 3. We’re going to look at the chapter as a unit, and although it can, at first glance, seem like a list of names, you can draw a sort of graph of the wall of Jerusalem with all the different gates and places that were built. It might seem like a kind of catalogue, but it’s actually a very important chapter, and it’s important for two main reasons.

The first reason is this—it demonstrates to us that God is interested in people. All of these men and women actually built something for God, and God made sure their names got into the Bible. That’s pretty exciting, isn’t it? So God cares about the individual. He cares about you and he cares about me. The second reason it’s important is because the whole book is about building. And today we’re looking at the chapter when they were actually doing the building.

WHY BUILD?
Why did they build? What prompted them to do it? Why were they interested in building? I think that while we don’t see it directly in this chapter, we have already seen that when Nehemiah arrived, Jerusalem was in disrepair—there was a shame, a mocking that was going on. The line behind that was a concern for the honor and the glory of God. We need to understand that Jerusalem was God’s home. God’s reputation was tied up with Jerusalem because Jerusalem was the place where God dwelt. Originally the temple was in ruins. That had now been rebuilt. But when you see the walls of the city in ruins, what are you going to think about God? “Oh, so your God is the kind of god that allows his precious city to fall into ruin, is he?” This is the problem we have today, of course, because many people look at the Church, particularly in the West, and say it’s in ruins. It’s a mess. So they were concerned for the glory of God.

So why build? We build because our motivation for the work is that God may be glorified. We’re not like the people who built the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:4. Those people said, “Come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” There are many people today who are interested in making a name for themselves. I trust that we are interested, not in making a name for ourselves, but in making a name for Jesus. We want to see Jesus famous again in the earth. And not just infamous as a swear word, as a blasphemy that is used so often, as a name to be trampled in the mud, a word used in the same way that people use for excrement. One minute they’re saying, “Oh excrement!” (whatever that word might be), and the next minute they’re saying the name of our precious Savior. That has to stop. We want to see Jesus famous again. They wanted Jerusalem to be a place that was solid, strong, yet safe from enemies, but more than that, that it would demonstrate that God was who he said he was. That God keeps his promises. Because God’s reputation is on the line. He put his reputation on the line for the Israelis. And he puts his reputation on the line for you and me. If we’re Christians, he cares about us. But also the bounds on his glory. Jesus wept over Jerusalem in his day, saying, “Why could I not gather you?” Also, the heavenly Jerusalem is seen as a picture of the Church. We are the new Jerusalem. And one day Jerusalem will come out of heaven, the heavenly Jerusalem, and will be here on earth. The dwelling of God will be with men and women forever. We will no longer be separated from God.

You will notice that when Nehemiah comes to the people, he actually, in the short-term, doesn’t promise them anything. He doesn’t say, “I’m going to give you lots of money if you work.” Instead he says, “I’ll give you sweat.” It’s a bit like when Winston Churchill said—“All I have to offer you is blood and sweat and tears . . .” and the whole nation of Britain rose up as one man. Why? Because we have a desire within us to live for something bigger than ourselves. A reason, if you like, beyond ourselves. Living for the glory of God. If you live for the glory of God, then a number of things become the norm. It becomes normal to love God, it becomes normal to have a passion for his Church, to care about his bride, the bride that so many people diss today, that so many people are negative about today, hateful about, say all sorts of evil things about. God loves his bride and God loves his glory, and he loves those who love his glory. The question is very simply this—Will we do what God’s glory deserves? It’s not so much what God will do for us. It’s what we can do for God and for his glory. What can we do for God’s glory? If we will respect God and live accordingly, then God will actually honor us and bless us too. Our purpose is to be those who live for the glory of God. There’s the old Puritan saying, the old statement of faith—What is the chief end of man? It’s this—to glorify God and to enjoy him forever and ever.

WHAT EXACTLY DO WE BUILD?
We’re not building a physical temple. We at Jubilee meet in a cinema. We don’t even have our own building. But even if we had our own building we wouldn’t be so concerned about the building. What we are concerned about is the people. How are you building your life? The Bible thinks of our lives as being like a building. Matthew 7:24-27 says:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And when the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does no do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

There are many things that shake us in this world. Things can shake us individually. Things can shake us as families. Things can shake us as communities. Things can shake us as whole nations. And right now there are things that are shaking us as the whole world. We are facing some interesting financial storms at this time. We have to ask, “Were the banks building on sand or on a rock?” Oh, it can look very nice for a number of years. It can look very attractive. You can start talking about billions of pounds; in fact, trillions of pounds—and that can all be wiped out when the storm comes, as the foundations are exposed. I want to challenge you this morning not to assume that you have the foundation right. I want you to ask, “Have I got the foundation right?” Jesus tells us in those words how we know if we’ve got the foundation right. This is not how you get the foundation right. Please understand there’s a big difference here. Being a Christian is about a relationship with Jesus. But how do you know if you’ve got that right? How do you know if you’ve been born again? Let me tell you. Jesus said this—if you do the things Jesus says, that’s how you know. Do you do the things that Jesus says? Do you live a godly life? Or is your life no different from the world? Are you sleeping around? Are you consuming too much alcohol? Are you rowing with your wife or your husband in an inappropriate way? Well, Jesus would seem to say here—be careful! Is your foundation right? Look again at your foundation. The truth is this, of course—we all sin. We all fail. Even Christians who have been Christians for ten, twenty, thirty years still sin. I’m not saying we have to be perfect to know that we’re going to heaven. The question is simply this—is the foundation there? And what is that foundation? The foundation is Christ himself. He’s the solid rock on which we stand. All other ground is sinking sand. If you stand today on the basis of “Oh well, I’m a good Christian. I go to church. I pray. I read my Bible.” That’s no foundation. No, Christ is the foundation, and what he did for us on the cross. Paul explains this very well in 1 Corinthians 3. I do want us to be slightly unsettled for a moment and again look at our foundation. Am I relying on Christ for my salvation or am I relying on my own good works? Do I think I can be good enough for God? No, none of us can be good enough for God. 1 Corinthians 3 says this:

. . . like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

And when I say “Jesus Christ,” what I mean is this—I mean his perfect life, his sinless life. I mean his undeserved death, taking our punishment for us. And I mean his resurrection from the dead, raised to life, glorious, victorious, conquering death that we might not have to suffer death eternally. Oh, we may taste death at some point in our lives, but we will not suffer it eternally if we are saved. That’s the foundation—his life, his death, his resurrection—what is laid, Jesus Christ.

Now maybe you do have the foundation right. But Paul says, “Be careful!”

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

There are two key questions that we need to ask ourselves here.

Do you have the foundation right? Are you a believer? Has God caused you to be born again? Has God granted you that new life? Are you aware that you are relying on him, on Jesus, on what Jesus has done? Have you truly repented from your sins? Have you truly given your heart to him? Have you given yourself to follow him? That’s just the foundation for that. But if that foundation is there, then you will go to heaven. But so many Christians stop there and say, “Well, if I’m going to heaven, that’s fine.” But notice this. Paul is saying here that there’s building to be done.
How are you building your life? Are you building your life for the glory of God? Or are you building your life for comfort? Are you building your life to get more money? Are you—dare I say it?—even shamefully trying to use God as a means to get more money so that you can be more comfortable? Nehemiah never offered them comfort. In fact, he said, “Come away from your comfortable houses now and work. Pick up the trowel.” I want to challenge you. Have you picked up the trowel in your own life? Or is your life a ruin? Is your life a mess? So many lives are wasted. So many lives are wasted by wrong decisions and the consequences of those wrong decisions working themselves out over years and years and years. Sometimes a life needs to be knocked down and rebuilt by the grace of God. If you have wasted your life, God can help you restore it and renew it. God is in the business of restoring. And he doesn’t just want you to get to heaven by the skin of your teeth. He wants you to get to heaven where he can look you in the eye and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. We worked together. We built together. We built together in your life. We built together in your family.” Its not just for the sake of your kids being comfortable and you having that nice modern life style, but for the glory of God.But notice this. It’s also about the Church. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus says this: “I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Actually, the church is built up with lots and lots of lives that themselves are being built well. If your life is being built well, God would challenge you, not just to be a passenger, not just to be a seat warmer in these nice comfortable seats, thinking, “Oh, yes, I liked that sermon. Or, I didn’t like that one as much. Wish we could get the other preacher back.” Or, “The worship was okay this morning.” No, the question is this—what are you contributing? Are you building the Church? Are you building the life of your neighbor? The person sitting next to you? The person in your small group? Are you actively seeking what God might want you to do? And I want to challenge your this morning. If you are a Christian here this morning, it’s time to pick up the trowel. And if you’re not a Christian, this is an opportunity to get a foundation that is laid by Christ. You see, only Christ can lay the foundation, but we all, with God’s help, can build on that foundation.

HOW SHOULD WE BUILD?
My third point is simply this—How did they build? And of course, “How then should we build?”

An interesting thing is this—when they built, they had a strategy. And they built in such a way that the work was designed in a very clever way by Nehemiah. Nehemiah rode around the wall and he identified different bits of the wall. And he said, “Okay. This bit of wall you can do. And this bit of wall you can do. This group of people—you can go there.” So they submitted themselves to Nehemiah. I wonder when you read a story like Nehemiah whether you have a tendency to identify with Nehemiah and say, “Oh, yes, God is calling ME to be a Nehemiah, and God is going to give ME a vision.” And maybe that’s right. God will give us a vision. But I wonder actually whether we ought not to be looking to identify with these ordinary people. Not everyone can be a Nehemiah. I know I’m not a Nehemiah. But I do know this. I can serve a Nehemiah’s vision. And I can build. And actually, I can build with a team alongside me. I haven’t invented my own vision. I have no desire to do that. I’m building the Church of God that has been purchased by Jesus. And I’ve given my life to that. I’ve given my life to this place; to helping in whatever way I can. With maybe a group of people who are under me, if you like, who I’m leading and supervising and helping—yes.
But what if the question is this—What can I do to help? How can I serve? There are many ways in which you can serve in church. There are all kinds of things. It’s not just about preaching. It’s not just about leading worship. Sometimes people come into church and the very first thing you hear from them is—“Oh, yes, I used to do this and that and the next thing in my last church.” But hold on for a second. The question is this—Will you just muck in? Will you just do what God is calling you to do? Will you just do what is needed? There are all kinds of jobs. Welcome people are needed to show others the way in from the car park when it’s cold. And it’s going to get harder in the English winters soon. I can just see it now, shivering out there, while everyone in here is singing, “Oh, we worship Jesus!” And you’re saying, “You know, I’m just freezing for Jesus.” But that’s what you’re doing—you’re freezing for Jesus. And God will reward what is done in secret. There’s a God who will honor you and who will give maybe a bigger crown to you than to that person you’re envying, who is at the front every week. God sees when you miss a sermon to go out and teach, not to a whole room full of people, but to a few kids. And I can tell you this. Thirty years on—I still remember one of my Sunday School teachers particularly. A lady called Janita Ring. She wasn’t a preacher on a Sunday morning. She didn’t lead a church. She didn’t do any of those things. But she inspired a young boy to love God, and I’m very grateful for Janita Ring. I’m very grateful for my Christian parents. I’m very grateful for all the other Sunday School teachers whose names I don’t necessarily remember, but I do remember the impact. And God remembers. God sees. There was some guy who invited Billy Graham to a crusade when he wasn’t saved. Imagine that! Your job in life could be to invite a young boy to a crusade! If that was all he did in his whole Christian life, that would have been pretty impressive, no? And I don’t even remember his name.
What we see if we look in the Scripture here is that every man is committed to the work, everyone of them. Look in verse 1—what do we have? The priests simply sanctify the wall. I wonder what that looked like. They said they sanctified the wall. Have you thought about that? It probably involved a lot of blood because everything in the Old Testament involved blood. The priests were pretty enthusiastic, and there were two other places that they built as well. Then you have the men of Jericho. In verse 2, we see the men of Jericho. They did their bit then in verse 7, the men of Gibeon and Mizpah. We’re talking about aliens. We’re talking about people who are not from Jerusalem. We’re here in London, God loves London. We’re building a church here in the midst of London for the glory of God that we want to see hve an impact on our city. We want to see a changing expression of Christianity in this city. We want to see people take notice that there’s something glorious going on. And some of us actually didn’t come from London. Some of us didn’t even come from England. I came from England, but not from London—God called me here, and God called many people here. We have many people in our church who God has taken from other nations— for example from Africa. Everyone can play a part. In verse 13, we have Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah—I mean, who are these people from Zanoah? In verse 8, we have the goldsmiths, and they also seem to be pretty keen. They get up to it again in verses 31 and 32. We have perfumers. I mean, whoever taught perfumers how to build a wall? And in verse 9, we see the ruler of half the district building, and that happens again, actually, later on—rulers building. And verse 10 is just someone building opposite his own house. Have you ever thought about your neighbors? What can you do for God with your neighbors? In verse 12, we see it says, “and his daughters helped,” so it’s not just the men, it’s the women too. And then we see a ruler building the Dung Gate. And we see goldsmiths and merchants, basically business people. Business people can make a difference for God. And many of you think, “I want to lead the church. I want to work for God full-time.” You can work for God full-time and be paid, not by the church, but by some other master.

So I urge the Christian—Please don’t be like the nobles. The Tekoite nobles wouldn’t stoop to serve their Lord. Perhaps a small group leader comes up to you. “Would you mind doing the Bible study this week?” And you reply, “Oh, I’m not sure I can really manage. I think I’ll leave that up to you. Because, you know, I’m still quite a young Christian.” And you think you’re being humble—you’re not. Actually, you’re being proud. You saying, “I refuse to stoop to serve my God.” Or someone comes up to you and says, “Would you come early one week and help with the teas and coffee?” And you say, “Well, I might be at a party the night before.” You won’t stoop to serve the Lord. That’s the posture of humility—to stoop. If it’s for the glory of God, then I will do it. Will you do it for the glory of God? It’s not about your glory. It’s not about your fame. It’s about the glory of God. Whatever he asks us, we need to be prepared to do it.

I want to close with one verse of a psalm. Psalm 127:1 says this, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” I want to ask you this, “Are you still trying to build your own house? Are you someone who maybe has the foundation right, but you know you’re building with straw. And you think, “It’s okay. I’ll get to heaven.” I would challenge you, because the Bible isn’t very clear sometimes about how we know, how we determine who is one of those people who is going to get to heaven by the skin of their teeth because the foundation is right. They do believe in Jesus. They’re just messed up a bit as their life has gone on. They haven’t really contributed. They haven’t really earned their place in the universe, if you like. And who will be the ones who Jesus will look in the eye and say this, “Away from me, I never knew you.” My passion is this—I don’t want anyone in this room to be in that group because there will be church-goers in that group. They will even be church leaders in that group, because the Bible says that there will be those who have cast out demons in the name of Jesus. There will be those who have healed the sick in the name of Jesus. And you sit there thinking, “Well, I’m all right. I’ll just scrape in by the skin of my teeth.” Are you so sure? Are you so proud that you think, “Oh, yeah, I know better than God.” See, what God says to you is this—Give me your whole life. Let’s do this business of life together. Let’s build your life my way. Let’s do things my way. And then on that glorious day when the fire comes, what you have built will stand a lot better than the British banking system. I saw a statistic today. Apparently if you want to put your money somewhere safe, they say send it to Botswana. The Botswana banks are safer than the British ones right now. That’s what it said! I guess they haven’t loaned out so much money foolishly. Don’t be like the British bankers. Put your life on a firm foundation, on a sure foundation, on trust that’s not trust in some half-witted idea that money is going to keep on growing forever. No, it’s trust in the living God who loves you, who came, who died for you to save you, and to give you that new life.

Dare to Ask God for Success

adrianwarnock — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:48:00 +0000

Yesterday, at two different times during the day, I was confronted with the idea of God granting success to people. The first time occurred while I was reading the story of David and Jonathan where, in one chapter, the idea is repeated several times.

1 Samuel 18:5 — And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.

1 Samuel 18:14 — And David had success in all his undertakings, for the Lord was with him.

1 Samuel 18:15 — And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in fearful awe of him.

1 Samuel 18:30 — Then the princes of the Philistines came out to battle, and as often as they came out David had more success than all the servants of Saul, so that his name was highly esteemed.

Then, later in the day, someone reminded me of a verse in Nehemiah:

Nehemiah 1:11 — O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.

In fact there are also several other examples of God giving success to his people and/or them asking him for it.

Psalm 118:25 — Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!

Genesis 39:2 — The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.

Proverbs 3:3-6 — Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him,and he will make straight your paths.

It struck me that those of us who believe in the sovereignty of God have a common temptation to react so strongly against “faith” teaching that we feel fearful to ever follow this biblical example and ask for success. But it really does seem that a mark of the Lord being “with” someone is this surprising success that seems disproportionate to a person’s natural ability. This is what the grace of God is all about. It means that God often chooses someone and plucks them from obscurity to be successful. It also means that we should not feel so shy about asking for God to grant us success.

God doesn’t grant such favor in order for us to be proud. Quite the opposite, because it is his to give and he makes us look better than we are, the glory goes to him alone.

1 Corinthians 1: 26-29 — For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

NWA08 – John Piper on Treasuring Christ and the Call to Suffer, Part 2

adrianwarnock — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:00:00 +0000

UPDATE
Desiring God has now made the audio of this sermon available for free online.

Once again, Piper prayed and acknowledged his sense of unworthiness.

Romans 8:20 makes it plain that all suffering is judicial. It is a judicial act of God that brings these things on the earth. Because you have done this God says, “I will surely multiply your pain . . .” (Genesis 3:16). Natural evil is a weak testimony to the ghastliness of evil. This sin includes even our mere preferring of other things to God.

Having said that all suffering is a judicial sentence on the universe, verses 1 and 3 of chapter 8 make an important qualification. That is that no Christian experiences suffering as condemnation. Jesus absorbed all the condemnation of all the people who are united to him by faith. All of your suffering is not judgment and punishment—it is something else. It would be a tremendous dishonor for you to feel judged by God if you are in Christ.

Suffering in the Bible has many designs. For those who are unbelievers, all suffering is punishment, but all suffering is purification for believers. For those who are on their way to being Christians, suffering is to awaken them. For a non-Christian, what will happen with suffering will depend on what they do with Christ. If they turn to God it will have been in order to get their attention, and is thus redemptive, or it will be part of an everlasting life of judgment culminating in hell.

In the fall, God was doing more than merely responding to sin. He never is merely responsive. Instead he was permitting it by design so that he could carry out his purposes. God was fulfilling an eternal plan in order that the apex of his glory would be revealed through grace. The apex of his grace would be Christ. The apex of Christ’s manifesting of grace would be his death on the cross. This is the reason the universe exists.

WHAT MORE WAS GOD DOING IN UNLEASHING SUFFERING?

Ephesians 1:6 says that we were predestined “to the praise of his glorious grace.” We exist to bring praise to the glory of his grace. Grace means being treated better than we deserve. Grace assumes demerit. If we were perfect we could not receive grace. Only fallen people can receive any grace! The world had to be allowed to fall in order for this to happen. This is not mere logic—it is driven by verses of the Bible! “. . . because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.” (2 Timothy 1:9). The grace was all there and planned and given to us before the world was even made.

“. . . everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8). The word literally means slaughtered. It was not clean; it was not quick; and it was gross. You would have thrown up, or screamed, or run away. If the book was called the book of the killed one before the foundation of the world, then the slaughter was planned before the foundation of the world. If so, then the world was created and the fall allowed so that we might be forgiven. Some people say that in heaven we won’t remember horrible things. But the main thing we will remember is the most horrible thing that ever happened in the world.

We should not be thinking big thoughts about suffering, but big thoughts about Jesus’ supremacy. He is the center, the reason for everything. It is all about Jesus. Everything is pointing to Jesus as Creator and Redeemer of the universe. The main expression of grace is the crucifixion of Christ. When God subjected the world to Judas-like murderous treachery, he was preparing the cross in order for us to be saved.

In Christ’s death on the cross there is a glory that is manifold. First, he purchased deliverance from pain for all those who are in him. “By his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53). Second, he purchased our faith. This faith is sustaining and will uphold us when we are not healed.

God is both healer and the one who satisfies the suffering soul. We can glorify God by being healed. Piper said he believes wholeheartedly in the gift of healing. He thinks we should ask God to heal people by placing hands on the sick person’s shoulder. No need to add magic words. “If it be your will.” Just ask. Do what you would want someone else to do for you. If you love people, you will pray for them.

But in verse 23 we groan inwardly. In the midst of suffering that is not removed by healing, the cross purchased the grace to still be satisfied in God. Even we groan. This is there to prevent over-realized eschatology. Since Christ has purchased healing some say it is all now. Excessive charismatics get the notion that we can have every healing now. In fact, the sustaining grace is normal in this age, and the healing grace seems less common. God wants the people around us to marvel at the worth of Jesus when we love him in pain.

Why does the proportion of these two graces work the way it does? When a person is miraculously healed of a cancer, there are several things about that which do not bring as much glory. There are several ambiguities about healings that mean less praise might go up to God. First of all, people doubt the medical side of it and say that the original pictures were wrong. Second, are people praising the glory of Jesus or are they giving glory to health? Third, a few years later the healing is probably largely forgotten and there are no more prayer meetings for that man. In a sense that is perhaps why God doesn’t always heal—in order that the value of Christ might be seen in a man who goes on loving God in the midst of suffering.

WHAT HELPS ARE THERE FOR US?

After this time there will be a glory for us to see, that will satisfy our soul. We love to see greatness. We will be granted the soul-satisfying sight of the greatest reality in the universe.
But, as we see in verse 19, there will be a revealing of the sons of God to the universe. We don’t look like children of God yet. Our faces will shine like the sun in the kingdom. We will be changed (verse 21). Creation will be set free into the freedom of the glory of the children of God! We will be glorified. There is a freedom. We are bound up. We will become fit to see and enjoy. Our British restraints won’t matter any more, or the fact that your dad beat you up. It’s all going to change. The sting of death will have been taken away. We will be capable of infinite happiness in Christ.
We will see a rearrangement of creation that will allow all this to happen. The universe is about people. He changes us, then changes everything. Mountains and seas will not be thrown away. The new heavens and earth are this world renewed. We will be satisfied.
God promises that the miseries of the universe are not death throes, but birth pangs. If you are in the kingdom now, every pain is about something new coming. If you hear a scream in a hospital, you will interpret it differently, depending on if you hear it in a cancer ward or a labor ward.
We are to be more than conquerors. Not just death lying dead before you. What is better is if you say, “Death, get up and serve me well!” Your enemies become your servants in Christ. Whatever suffering comes your way will serve you. All things are ours—even life and death. (1 Corinthians 3:23) “Death, you think you are my enemy. Make my day!”

Piper finished with a quote of which I only caught a snippet. He said he longs for us to “Hold our lives cheap, live dangerously, and be reckless in his service!”

Mark Driscoll – Putting Preachers in Their Place

adrianwarnock — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:41:00 +0000

This is the first post in several I’ll be doing in what I call “remote blogging.” A few times when Tim Challies and others have been at conferences, I’ve shared extracts from their posts here on my blog. This time Tim is not at the Resurgence Conference on Preaching, but the Resurgence folks are offering live videocasts of their sessions.

Here, then, are my thoughts on Mark Driscoll’s talk, which is taking place right now as I’m listening to it sitting in my room here in London. (Incidentally … No! I’m not in my pajamas!) The usual “rules” apply—these are my notes taken in real time, and I may well have missed important bits or imported a few of my own ideas as I go along! This was posted within seconds of Driscoll ending his sermon. I’m trying to decide whether to stay up another hour or so to cover Mahaney. I know I won’t be able to do all of them! Whether I do CJ’s will depend on if they have worship or start straight with him at 4 p.m. Seattle time.

In the first session Driscoll began with a rallying call to put preachers in their rightful place. The world came into existence with a sermon preached by God. The Bible is full of “God said …” God’s Word does what it is intended to do and brings life. We preachers are following God’s example. God is not the only preacher. In Genesis 3, the serpent preached a false message. Satan tells us we need not preach because he would like his voice to be the only one heard. Our forefathers listened to the wrong sermon, but even after that, God preached another sermon which promised the coming of Jesus.

Proclamation is crucial—Jesus was announced by John the Baptist’s preaching. Jesus’ own ministry began with preaching, and so should ours! Jesus was a proclamation preacher; he didn’t say, “Let’s discuss it in groups”! It infuriates Driscoll that ANYONE can call into question the validity of preaching when God does it, then comes to earth and preaches! Yes, Jesus did other things, but he was a preacher first and foremost. He drew crowds. Jesus had thousands come to hear him.

The first thing that must be proclaimed is the cross of Jesus for our sins and in our place. Liars who work for the devil will tell you that you don’t need to proclaim the cross centrally as it is offensive. But if you don’t preach it you will offend God. Seeker insensitivity is “hot.” Preaching needs to be anointed by the Spirit. When the Spirit came at Pentecost, they immediately went out and preached! And the Church was born! The preached word brought forth the Church, just as God’s original preached Word brought forth creation.

We should connect the ground war with the air war, that is, connect the small groups to the Sunday sermon and apply them there. The Apostles were devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Driscoll went through Acts showing the emphasis that was placed on proclamation preaching.

We must keep on preaching in spite of persecution. Some of us are too cowardly. After one lousy e-mail, we’re in the fetal position and our wives are rubbing our backs. We need courage. People will react. When people say we need to do things in the way the early Church did them, Driscoll agrees. “Let’s yell at people!” We have to protect our people from the wolves! The world is full of wolves—they’re publishing books, making videos, etc. There is so much preaching in Acts. Don’t let your people dishonor the pulpit. Some of us, in an effort to be humble, allow others to be proud.

The reformers defined the Church. The Church is both universal and local. The Church is both visible and invisible. They discussed what constituted a rightly gathered Church. They said it was about preaching the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. The Church is led by Jesus. He is not just our example. He is no longer merely a humble marginalized peasant. If we could see Jesus today we would see him like Isaiah saw him—glorified! We must teach Jesus’ exaltation, not only his incarnation.

The Church needs qualified leaders. These need to be male. This issue is a “border issue.” If you don’t teach male elders, then you are in a different country! Everything will be seen differently. The gospel must be preached by those men. The sacraments must be administrated—baptism and communion, and Church discipline must be carried out. In preaching, the Word is heard, in sacraments the Word is seen, and in Church discipline the Word is protected.

Driscoll challenged us. When was the last time you called your people to repentance and brought them to the Lord’s table? When was the last time your church disciplined someone who persistently lived an unrepentant life while claiming to be a Christian? The authority comes from the head of the Church. Elders must be godly. Their life styles need to be worthy of imitation. Preaching is not all that we must do in churches—but it is the FIRST THING WE MUST DO! It is the air war. Everything else comes after it—the ground war. Everyone is looking at the effects, no one is asking about the cause!

Driscoll was very clear about the invalidity of many groups today who function as “house churches,” but have no authority and no preaching. God’s grace is one-way, and so is preaching. Many emerging churches try to build communities without leadership, and without a declaration of God’s Word. How can such a group be a church if no one is preaching the Bible?

The devil tried to have a debate—did God really say? Why should anyone tell you what you have done wrong?

Preachers—you must preach FOR your church. You must preach knowing what a church is. Leaders must build, defend, protect, and shepherd their church. “Internet churches” are not churches as there are no sacraments, no authority, no relationships, and no church discipline. Multi-campus churches need a bit more than just a screen for the preaching to be displayed. Although Driscoll’s church does have many campuses, each campus has its own pastor who performs the sacraments, disciplines, and pastors.

Driscoll ended with the last sermon preached—that in Revelation 14. It was preached by an angel. God was the first preacher. An angel is the last preacher. In-between, we are to preach. What an awesome responsibility!

SERMON – Ephesians 6 – The Christian’s Warfare

adrianwarnock — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:12:00 +0000

The following notes are based on a sermon I preached yesterday at Jubilee Church, London. It draws to a close our series on Ephesians. You can download the mp3 or listen right here:

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Ephesians 6:10-20)

During World War II, if you lived in London you were in a war. You could try and deny it. You could pretend it wasn’t happening. But to do so you would be a fool. Every air raid siren, every mad scramble to the shelters, every destroyed home would remind you—the enemy was REAL and he was coming to get you.

Some people today act like the world is at peace. It is not. We all face a danger more deadly than air raids or suicide bombers. There is an enemy who is at work to destroy the world. You and I were born onto a battlefield, and we will live all our lives and then die on a battlefield.

The devil has many schemes. Today we will look at some of the main ones. First, he has two over-arching strategies.

He loves people to become fascinated with him. It was his pride that made him evil. He wants the attention and praise that is due God. Every time someone visits a medium or reads a horoscope, he has succeeded in turning someone from trusting God for their future. We see a rise in all kinds of strange spirituality because people are looking for a power encounter. Sadly an experience of power is all too often not available in the church—which is the one place where it should be seen! Meditation which empties the mind, hypnotism, witchcraft, and many other similar things all come from the devil, and the Christian has no business playing with them.
Even within the church the devil uses this strategy. There are those who spend much time praying against the “spiritual forces in power in the air” which they say are over an area, forgetting that Jesus is Lord and has already defeated the evil powers! Or they blame the devil for every cold that comes their way—we live in a fallen world; let’s not give the devil too much credit. But in reacting to this ploy of the devil of drawing attention to himself, too often we fall into the opposite error.
The devil loves to make people ignorant of him and his schemes. In the sophisticated West we easily forget him. He is happy for us to do so. Dressing himself up as the god of Mammon, we fall in line and worship him more dutifully than the so-called “ignorant, and uncivilized” people who worship spirits. “More, more, more,” says Mammon. Just a bit more. Feed your flesh. Feed the hunger I am causing. You don’t need God, you need ME. More, more, more. Just a bit more. Then you will be happy. Last year’s mobile phone? That’s no good now—what you need is the latest … the best … your provider will even upgrade you for free if you sign up for another year’s service!!

“Not ignorant of his schemes.” 2 Corinthians 2:11 NIV.

He is often disguised.

“A thorough knowledge of the enemy and a healthy respect for his prowess are a necessary preliminary to victory in war. Similarly, if we underestimate our spiritual enemy, we shall see no need for God’s armour, we shall go out to the battle unarmed, with no weapons but our own puny strength, and we shall be quickly and ignominiously defeated.”

Stott, J. R. W. (1979, 1980). God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians (263). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Story of Jewish exorcists in Ephesus (from Acts). Need to be properly prepared!!! The burning of the occult books was also in Ephesus. So the readers were well aware of the role of the devil.

Don’t underestimate Satan and his demonic powers!

Our enemy is powerful—“the cosmic powers …”

Our enemy is wicked—“spiritual forces of evil.”

Our enemy is crafty—“the schemes of the devil.”

In this passage we see the antedote to some of the devil’s schemes. Lying behind Paul’s description of our fight and the armour we are to use are the ways in which the devil most likes to attack.

First, the devil encourages us to substitute ourselves for God. In Genesis it is the devil who tells Eve, “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:4). Of course, his real goal is not that we become lord, but rather that we end up worshipping him. Like he said to Jesus, he tells us he can make us lord if we just bow the knee to him. 1 Samuel 15:23: “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” (KJV). Our response to this is simple—NO, we will be strong IN THE LORD, not in ourselves! James 4:7: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Do you realize that pride is demonic? We should flee from it as much as we flee from devil worship.
The devil loves to distract us by making us think people are the real enemy. But “OUR ENEMY IS NOT FLESH AND BLOOD.” He would even be happy if our focus was on opposing his servants. Behind every enemy of the gospel lies a far more deadly enemy—Satan. Our war is with him. Everyone else is just a casualty of war, enscripted by the evil master. When we meet someone who serves the devil we should still hold out the hand of Christian love to that person and aim to win them over! “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). We are not to be like that! We are not looking for someone to devour and criticize and prove wrong! He is the accuser of the brothers (Revelation 12:10). He sows disunity and bitterness between us. He loves to destroy relationships, especially marriages. Every time we give in to the temptation to be nasty to someone, we give the devil a foothold (Ephesians 4:27).
The devil teaches us to lie. He lied to Eve. “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Lies can be flagrant or they can be subtle. They are all of the devil. Jesus had the following very strong words to say of some Jews of his day: “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me” (John 8:44-45). Every “white lie” is inspired from the pit of hell. It’s demonic. Every bit as much so as sorcery or devil worship! It is interesting then to see what the first piece of armour Paul mentions is—the belt of TRUTH. How do we primarily fight the enemy? By replacing his strategies and tools with the opposite. We fight a lie with the truth.
The devil teaches us to substitute our own righteousness for that of God’s. There are a lot of theological arguments these days about the basic Christian doctrine of us having received from God an alien righteousness with which to cover ourselves and by which we can be justified. The picture here of a breastplate of righteousness expresses the image wonderfully. We are now clothed in the righteousness of God. It is expressed here as part of the armour because to inspire doubt in this righteousness is, of course, one of the devil’s main schemes. We don’t tend to think of doctrine as a demonic battleground, but it is. We don’t tend to think of doctrinal error as coming from Satan, but it does.Let’s see how Paul responded to the Galatians, who had slipped away from grace into legalism:

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’?” (Galatians 3:1-6)

BEWITCHMENT. That’s a strong, demonic word. Because this is one of the devil’s KEY strategies. If he can persuade us to throw away our confidence in Jesus and substitute confidence in our own righteousness, he has won. For if we lose this, we lose the gospel. Never forget the enemy’s role in leading the church astray doctrinally. How do we fight it? By cherishing doctrine and living in the good of it!
The devil prevents evangelism and the reception of truth. “Feet fitted …” 2 Corinthians 4:4: “… the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” We fail to recognize this work of the enemy. When we share the gospel and some one fails to respond, we give up. We think “we did it wrong” or “they just aren’t interested.” Then we become disheartened and are no longer ready to share the gospel. This is warfare beloved! We have to understand and recognize that rejection of the gospel is demonic. It is inspired by the enemy. So how do we fight this? We fight it by being ready to share the gospel!
The devil breeds passivity in us. There is another strategy we can discern here—the opposite of readiness is passivity. Adam was there in the Garden and did nothing. He said nothing. He sat by and watched his wife fall. That was surely as demonically inspired as Eve’s active sin. This one is especially for the men among us, but it is also for each of us. Spending our entire lives sitting on the sofa flicking TV channels while we let the world quite literally go to hell is inexcusable. If the devil can inspire us to just sit back and do nothing he has won. This is particularly true in evangelism, but it is true in all of life. Have you ever thought that the raging desire in your heart to “just rest”—that longing to spend your life in leisure, might actually be demonically inspired? Of course, God invented rest and we need to rest! But to allow rest and passivity to rule in our hearts is to cede defeat to the enemy! This one is there throughout this passage—“stand,” “be strong,” “be ready,” “wrestle,” “stand firm,” etc….
The devil breeds doubt, fear, and mistrust. This is the opposite of faith. “Did God really say?” said the serpent to Eve. “God has withheld something good from you,” or “Will he really act on your behalf?” We, of course, fight this by determining to trust in God and not think he is a liar. That is my definition of faith: Not accusing God of being a liar! Growing in our confidence in God’s love, power, and goodness really is a shield of faith that protects us.
The devil plays tricks with our minds. Thinking about salvation protects our minds. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).
The devil misinterprets God’s Word. He adds to it (“touch it and we will die”); he twists it (“every tree,” when God banned only one). Our offensive weapon is the Bible! Satan used the Scriptures to tempt Jesus. Beware of any preacher or book which tells you a complicated story of why a verse doesn’t really mean what it seems to simply mean. This is one of the devil’s favorite tricks. It means that even in our study of God’s Word and the writings about it we must be aware of the devil’s schemes. Remember the danger of pride in our learning. “’Knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 7:1).
The devil distracts us from prayer. This is why Paul urges us to pray here.

So how do we fight the devil?

We fight him by using the opposite strategies.
We fight him with the Word of God.
We fight him in prayer.

In closing . . .

Which side are you on? We need to be wholehearted one way or the other. If the devil is God, why not serve him fully? If God is God, why not sign up as his soldier?

Mark Driscoll at MenMakers in Scotland

adrianwarnock — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:48:00 +0000

This second session, and sadly for Tope and myself our last session, was taken by Mark Driscoll. Mark was introduced by Andy Owen as someone who is a gift from God to the entire body of Christ.

Mark started by telling his story. His upbringing, salvation, and the way his father also was saved made a moving story. He was thrilled to be able to report that the gospel really does work.

Mark took us to Genesis 1-3 in order to look at our first father, Adam. The race is named man because men rule humanity. We are made in the image of God. We are to glorify God, because we are the glory of God—in the same way we look at our sons and say, “You are my glory!”

We are not incompetent idiots; we are made to be the glory of God. Whatever Satan tells us, remind ourselves we are the glory of our Father. The man and the woman are created like a king and queen to rule over all of creation as stewards.

We are equal by virtue of creation. But we are different. We have a culture that tries to raise people. We need to raise sons and daughters. Mark’s daughters love to shoe shop, the sons love war! His sons were outside wrestling and one of his daughters brought them a snack. We are not as strong as each other. We are different. Equal, but not identical. We are good at different things.

God wants to bless his sons and daughters. Our God does not have to be manipulated to be good to us, he loves to be good. Fatherhood is to subdue the earth and fill it. Today fatherhood is not encouraged. If your father is the devil, you think differently about marriage, sexuality, and children. Wisdom is thinking God the Father’s thoughts after him.

There is a distinction between lower animals and the human race. We were specially created by a loving Father to bear his image. Day begins in the evening. Begins with rest, then work! Prepare your heart to glorify your Father.

Biblical stories are often beginning-middle-beginning rather than our way of beginning-middle-end. So there is a re-telling of the creation story in chapter 2. Life is like that; it is circular in nature.

Only mankind was created with the hand of God rather than simply speaking out a command as he did with the rest of creation. God made us to also work the earth. Even in Eden, temptation was in the middle of the Garden. We have to choose every moment of every day to walk past temptation.

We must keep walking past temptation. The fool stops, sits, and then sins. If we do not work enough, we will sin too much. Work is a gift of God to keep us out of trouble. Young men are like trucks, they will drive straighter if they are carrying a heavy load. Work is worship. Everything done for the glory of God is worship.

Too many men have their life’s ambition to make enough money so they can stop working.

God gives us plenty and wants to bless us. He gives us good things:

A wife—so thank him for her rather than despising her and going after what God has forbidden.
Your job—someone else’s might be, for you, forbidden.

We each have a role to fulfil that is intended for us. We should not go after what has not been given to us.

The only thing that was described as “not good” before the fall was man being alone. Some single guys are strange, and what they need is a woman. There is nothing that sanctifies a man like a woman can sanctify him. Many young men run away from responsibility and think being alone is good. This is not true. The difference between a man and a boy is the responsibilities they carry. You need help! God is not denigrating the woman by calling her a helper. “Remember—the Holy Spirit is a helper. God is our helper. The woman is a helper suitable for the man. Our wives are designed by God for us. Burn the list you have for what you want your wife to be like if you are a single man. Your wife may turn out to be opposite to you in every way but still be your suitable helper—designed by God to help you.

God is not alone. He is trinitarian. Man does not have that relationship in himself. He cannot fully reflect God unless he has someone alongside him—namely a woman. The woman does not come from behind him, or ahead of him; she comes from the side of him. God brings the woman to him. The man has to talk to her! The first recorded words: he sang poetry to her. If you have any such ability use it, if not steal some!

The process is this: leave your parents, be your own man, meet a woman, get married, have sex with her. Don’t get this order wrong. We become “one” with our Father. Out of the many there is one. Be a one-woman man. Men want sex, women want oneness. The ladies are more biblical. Sexuality need not be associated with shame. It is a great gift to have a clear conscience.

Eve became Adam’s standard of beauty. Let your wife become your standard of beauty.

Everything falls apart in chapter three. The devil puts everything wrong. Pride is the root of all sin; self-esteem is just another word for pride. The devil was thrown out of heaven for being proud. He is not equal to God, he is a created being. He usurps the order and speaks to the wife.

The first attack was on the Word of God. Do we believe him or not? The words really matter. Satan comes and undermines hermeneutics. He misinterprets. The problem is not our ability to interpret the Bible, but our willingness to obey the simple words of the Bible. “Did God really say . . .?” Do not talk to everyone. She didn’t have to talk to the devil. She adds “you must not touch it.” SO many people do that. God’s Word is sufficient we shouldn’t add to it. The devil then says, “God is a liar.” But Satan is the liar. The temptation is always that God is withholding from us a good thing. He says, you don’t need God you can be a god. We don’t interpret the Bible, it interprets us. It reveals my sin. It teaches me about God and my need for him.

2 Corinthians 2:11—we must be aware of his schemes. He doesn’t have many schemes. One is to attack your wife, one is to tell you there is something that God has withheld from you, and the other is to undermine you trust in God’s words. Adam was not away. Where was he? He was there. What was he doing? NOTHING. That is the greatest sin of Adam and our greatest sin is doing nothing. We watch our countries go to rack and ruin. We watch the gospel undermined. We see false teachers. The world is full of men who do nothing, say nothing, give nothing, and change nothing. They are sons of the devil. You are the glory of God. You are not to act like sons of the devil. Satan attacks wives, and we must speak the truth to them. Adam was with her and didn’t do this. Adam said nothing and did nothing. We need God’s help to not be just like him.

Credit God, Blame Man, Or Why Double Predestination is Error – Charles Simeon

adrianwarnock — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:01:00 +0000

Last week, as you may know, I preached on Jacob. During my preparation I was, not surprisingly, taken once more to the glorious doctrines of grace—the so-called “TULIP.” Jacob is used in Romans as a supreme example of God’s free grace.

This post is part of a mini-series highlighting quotes from others on each of these five points of Calvinism. It will also provide links to some old posts I wrote on Calvinism. We began the series with a quote that claims the doctrine of total depravity helps your marriage.

To some degree the doctrines of grace, or rather one aspect of them, Unconditional Election, came up in my sermon last week (although I didn’t use the words). One quote I have been meaning to share with you, but the baptism debate got in the way, has been the following from Simeon, whose works are now available from Logos Bible Software.

Like Spurgeon and myself, Simeon is adamant that there is no such thing as what some call “double-predestination.” Thus, people are wholly to blame for their own damnation, while God is wholly credited with saving us. God does not foreordain that some go to hell in the same way he foreordains that some will be saved. This might sound illogical, but it is, I believe, biblical and a great mystery we cannot fully fathom.

Charles Simeon puts it like this in a quote that should whet your appetite for the rest of his works, which are proving to me to be as useful as Spurgeon’s:

“If, as the Apostle says, ‘there is a remnant according to the election of grace,’ we are ready to suppose that those who are not of that number are not accountable for their sins, and that their final ruin is to be imputed rather to God’s decrees than to their own fault. But this is a perversion of the doctrine. It is a consequence which our proud reason is prone to draw from the decrees of God: but it is a consequence which the inspired volume totally disavows. There is not in the whole sacred writings one single word that fairly admits of such a construction. The glory of man’s salvation is invariably ascribed to the free, the sovereign, the efficacious grace of God: but the condemnation of men is invariably charged upon their own wilful sins and obstinate impenitence. If, because we know not how to reconcile these things, men will controvert and deny them, we shall content ourselves with the answer which St. Paul himself made to all such cavillers and objectors; ‘Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?’ And if neither the truth nor the authority of God will awe them into submission, we can only say with the fore-mentioned apostle, ‘If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.’ As for those, if such are to be found, who acknowledge the sovereignty of God, and take occasion from it to live in sin, we would warn them with all possible earnestness to cease from their fatal delusions. In comparison of such characters, the people who deny the sovereignty of God are innocent. We believe there are many persons in other respects excellent, who, from not being able to separate the idea of absolute reprobation from the doctrine of unconditional election, are led to reject both together: but what excellence can he have, who ‘turns the very grace of God into licentiousness,’ and ‘continues in sin that grace may abound?’ A man that can justify such a procedure, is beyond the reach of argument: we must leave him, as St. Paul does, with that awful warning, ‘His damnation is just.’”

Simeon, Charles: Horae Homileticae Vol. 1: Genesis to Leviticus. London, 1832-63, S. 210

SERMON – Jacob, the Missional Rebel

adrianwarnock — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 04:36:00 +0000

I preached the following sermon at Jubilee Church, London yesterday. You can read the notes, download the audio, or listen to it right here:

HEROES—At the outset I should warn you that Jacob is not your typical biblical hero. We often go to the Bible to learn about how to behave. We want to read about great men of God who we can model ourselves after. We want to learn how to behave, how to be a good father, a good husband. Jacob is not that kind of hero. Actually it is fair to say that none of the biblical heroes are without flaws. Jacob, I am sorry to say, had many flaws. He was not a good husband. He was not a good father. In fact, there is very little that we can positively learn from the way he lived his life. He constantly made mistakes. Initially, I wondered why this story was even in the Bible:

Because it is TRUE—an evidence for the Bible’s truthfulness we often forget is the terrible flaws of its heroes. No other nation on earth describes its founder in such unsavory terms.
It is there to teach us a message—possibly one of the hardest messages we come across in the whole of Scripture.

Romans 9:13 “. . . when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

I guarantee that you will have all kinds of questions about that verse; I know I do But the life of Jacob shows us that what the Apostle Paul says in Romans is true —God chose him not because of anything in him, but because he chose him. God’s love for Jacob is so great that in comparison it is as though he hates Esau.

We have to ask ourselves a simple question: If we are a Christian, is it because of something in us or is it because of something God has done for us? When we look at an unbeliever, do we feel superior to them, or does it make us tremble to think that God could also have passed us by and left us in the mess we have made of our lives?

We might say, “Haven’t I got free will? Yes, but God’s is freer!” (Terry Virgo)

God is the initiator. He can never be forced to act. He is sovereign and we must remember—HE IS GOD AND WE ARE NOT!

John Piper says it in this way, imagining what God might have said to Jacob:

“I have loved you with free, sovereign, unconditional, electing love; that is how I have loved you.

My love for you is electing love because I chose you for myself above your brother Esau.

My love for you is unconditional love because I chose you before you had done anything good or evil—before you had met any conditions—while you were still in your mother’s womb (Genesis 25:24).
My love for you is sovereign love because I was under no constraint to love you; I was not forced or coerced; I was totally in charge when I set my love upon you.
And my love for you is free because it’s the overflow of my infinite grace that can never be bought.”

“. . . Why do I tell you this?

To humble you.

To take away your presumption.
To remove every ground of boasting in yourself.
To cut the nerve of pride that boasts over Esau as though your salvation were owing to anything in you.
To put to naught the cavalier sense of self-reliance that lets you dally in my presence as though you were an equal partner in this affair.
To make you tremble with tears of joy that you belong to God.”

The story of Jacob is the story of God’s unstoppable mission. Nothing Jacob can do will stop God’s determination to bless him. It’s not about Jacob, it’s about God.

Actually that can be very encouraging for us. As I have been spending time getting to know Jacob, I have been encouraged. Here is a man who makes me feel like saying, If God can use him, perhaps he can use me too!

We see in the life of Jacob that it really is not all about him. We often say in this church that it’s “all about Jesus.” Jacob’s life truly was “all about Jesus.” It was all about a plan that God had set in motion to call a people to himself. Jacob’s grandfather had received promises. Despite being a man of faith—the father of faith—he hadn’t really founded a nation. Isaac, Abraham’s son, had repeated many of his father’s mistakes (passing off his wife as his sister) and had also not fathered a nation.

Jacob was an “expressive” leader, but he was not always received; he lived in the future, but tried to help God out. He got angry; he told people what to do; he wasn’t reserved. But somehow he was charming. He had strong reactions.

We can look at JACOB’S CHARACTER by examining some of the words he said.

Jacob’s first recorded words: “Sell me your birthright now.” (Genesis 25:31). And also verse 33: “Swear to me now.” He steals from and blackmails his brother, and then cheats him again.

“Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.” (Genesis 27:11). Not “But mum, that would be wrong!” and then lies to his own dad and steals from his brother.

We then see Jacob, whose name means “grabber” or “supplanter” or basically “thief” running away. When God appears to him, we might expect God to punish him, maybe strike him dead.

“He was in disgrace, had incurred the bitter hatred of his only brother, and had shown himself a thief, liar, and scheming, mercenary wretch.” (McMillin, Bib Sac Volume 91 [1934]: Jacob At Penuel).

But by his grace, God instead reaffirms his promise to bless him. God makes an unconditional promise to an unreliable man.

Genesis 28:13-15: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

JACOB’S RESPONSE was to make God a conditional promise!

“If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God . . . .”

He would have made a good 20th century Christian—if God will look after me, I will follow him. Too often our faith is about what we can get out of God rather than how we can serve him.

We then see that when he meets the shepherds of Laban, he immediately begins to boss them around and tell them what to do!

He then BUYS his wife! “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”

Then he was tricked himself as he and Laban try to outdo each other in trickery.

He was a terrible husband (Genesis 29:30-31) “So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.”

He was incredibly insensitive. “Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (Genesis 30:2)

He even let himself be bought for the night.

He had a RIGHTS BASED approach to life. He argued with Laban about who had tricked each other the most. Christianity is not a rights-based religion. Instead, it is about our responsibility.

Finally, having left Laban and heading back to an uncertain meeting with Esau, he humbles himself. His prayer is finally something we can copy!

Genesis 32:9-12 “And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

God never could prevail against one who used the weapons of “weeping” and “supplication.” (McMillin)

Jacob’s wrestling with God was in some ways reminiscent of his life—he had been one who fought with God and man. God doesn’t get rid of the fighting spirit, but directs it appropriately, and even names his people “one who struggles with God.” Are WE those who struggle with God?

“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26)

“For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” (Genesis 32:31)

Why delivered? It was Jesus who would save him and allow him to be hidden in his brother, not as a deception, but by the will of the father, and not so that he remained unchanged, but that he would be changed by being united with Christ. In fact, he was changed.

God made him say and own his name one more time before it could be wiped away. This is what God wants us to do. It’s not “I had a bad father; he loved my brother, Esau, not me” or even “I am struggling with a problem.” NO . . . it was “I am a deceiver, I am a cheat, I am selfish. I am in need of you. I need your blessing, Lord. I have messed up my life, but you keep blessing me.”

Actually lots of so-called “fighters” are as fearful and weak underneath as we later realize Jacob was. We are just better at hiding it! Fear leads some to be timid, and others to put a brave face on things.

GOD OPPOSES THE PROUD BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. (James 4:6)

God does take on fighters sometimes. He certainly isn’t frightened of them. If, like me, you are a bit of a fighter by nature, then know that if God takes you on, it might be a painful process. He will bring you low. He will take the brash over-confidence of youth and strip it away like he did with Jacob. As an older man he is almost quite timid, frightened of Esau. Then when God gets you to a timid, dependent state, he will cause you to rise up again—this time in HIS STRENGTH rather than your own, acknowledging HIM as King, and this time because ONE MAN PLUS GOD is the majority. No one will be able to fight against you. Why would you go on fighting against people and God? Why not surrender to the KING and let him lead you to fight on HIS side?

GOD IS GOD AND WE ARE NOT!

Finally became humble. Then he humbles himself with his brother, and is honored for his faith in passing on the blessing at the end of his life.

“The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys; and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” (Genesis 48:15-16)

I love the way Isaiah 41 describes this way of God handling us:

But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand . . .
Fear not, you worm Jacob,
you men of Israel!
I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord;
your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge,
new, sharp, and having teeth;
you shall thresh the mountains and crush them,
and you shall make the hills like chaff;
you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away,
and the tempest shall scatter them.
And you shall rejoice in the Lord;
in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.

To become a valiant warrior for God we must first surrender to him and recognize we are “a worm.” Some of us have issues we need to resolve with God today.

Illustration of my debate with myself about getting up to go to the prayer meeting. You know what the outcome of this debate is going to be—give up the struggle and walk with God today!

Lig Duncan Speaks Up for Paedobaptists

adrianwarnock — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:07:00 +0000

Lig has written about his main reasons for believing in paedobaptism. What he hasn’t said is whether he thinks he should be allowed to become a member in a baptist church if he wanted to, or whether a baptist would be free to join his church. Here are Lig’s arguements for christening babies:-

1. God, in both the Old and New Testaments, explicitly makes a promise to believers and to their children (Genesis 17:7; Acts 2:39).

2. God, in both the Old and New Testaments, explicitly attaches specific signs (respectively, circumcision [Genesis 17:10] and baptism [Acts 2:38, cf. Colossians 2:11-12], to this promise that he gives to believers and their children.

3. Therefore, since God has given an explicit promise to believers and their children, in the New Testament, and attached a sign to this promise, and enjoined us (in the new covenant) to administer that sign [baptism, Matthew 28:19-20], then we should give the sign of the promise he has made to believers and their children, to believers and their children, in humble obedience to biblical command and example. QED.

Just in case those arguments are causing any good baptists out there to wobble in their convictions, Justin Taylor has constructed a quick reply to Lig though he is planning a fuller one soon. He said -

. . . as a credobaptist, I think that Peter’s command and promise says more than the paedobaptists want it to say. It reads:
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
Note the portion I’ve italicized. “You,” “your children,” and “all who are far off” are all on the same level. In other words, (1) the condition and the command (repent and be baptized) as well as (2) the promise (you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit) are designed not only for you and your kids, but also for all people . , ,

Abraham – The first missional believer

adrianwarnock — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:19:00 +0000

This past Sunday I preached on Abraham. You can download the sermon or listen to it here. I will share some brief notes with you here.

Isaiah 51:1-3
51:1 “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. 2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him. For the Lord comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.”

We should obey this passage and consider Abraham – we have much to learn from him.

In Genesis 12:1 The Lord said to Abraham, go and leave your fathers house and family to the land I will show you and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and I will bless those who bless you and those who dishonour you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. And Abraham went…

These verses tell us that we can be in the blessing of God.

We might make a big event involving the media etc, but God starts a mission in other ways. He went to one man and said, ‘GO!’

We can feel like an alien, being the only christian in our context. Abraham had to leave all that was familiar.

Summary of God’s mission: ‘Go, be blessed, be a blessing to others!’

Israel was characterised by being blessed and being persecuted.

God has put us on a mission….its His mission: To start a people.

GOD takes one man to bless the world contrast with what came before. Different nations initially a punishment but throughout the rest of scriptures were seen as a positive thing – multi-coloured wisdom of God.

God always chooses one person to bless the many. The summary of God’s mission is this – GO, I will BLESS and then make YOU a blessing! Are we a blessing at school? Workplace? Family?

We will look at most of the words of Abraham since there are few better ways of getting to know someone than examining their words

1. THERE IS A TIME NOT TO SPEAK
Chapter 12

He doesn’t speak in first half response to God “so Abraham went”

“So he built” SOMETIMES ITS BEST NOT TO SAY ANYTHING JUST OBEY
Don’t give up the habit of meeting together, for example. When the bible says do something, we should do it, and when the bible says don’t do something, we shouldn’t do it.

2.THERE IS A TIME TO SPEAK MORE OPENLY

The first time Abraham is recorded to have spoken he makes a mistake. In verse 11 he tells his wife to say she is his sister, ie. lies by telling a half-truth. Being economical with the truth is not appropriate!

When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” Gen 12:11-13

When caught the first time he was perhaps wise to keep quiet and slip off…

Like us sometimes he didn’t learn from his first mistake!

Genesis 20:2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah.

Genesis 20:11-13
Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, He is my brother.’”

He was a man of no tact!

3. THERE IS A TIME TO LAY DOWN OUR RIGHTS

He was meek, despite God having given him the whole land. He did not stand up for his rights.

Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. [1] Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand [1] to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.” Gen 14:22-24

Meekness should be the characteristic of all christians.

4. THERE IS A TIME TO BE ‘REAL’ WITH GOD

He was honest with God BUT TRUSTED HIM

FAITH- trust but we can be honest “Oh Lord I believe help my unbelief”

Genesis 15:2-3 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue [1] childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”

He is not ‘making a faith declaration’, but is being honest with God. God, you promised, but what is going on here? Abraham faced the facts, yet believed God. Do we face the facts?

….v6 And he believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness.

FAITH=TRUST and it is THE critical thing to our salvation and our ongoing walk with God.

We have all done things we are ashamed of, but we can still trust in God, like Abraham.

Romans 4:3-5, 16-25 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in [2] him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness…

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24
but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

His faith was not perfect, and he is still called the father of faith despite his struggles TWENTY FIVE YEARS before had son

….v8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

5. THERE IS A TIME NOT TO LISTEN TO OTHERS! or THERE IS A TIME TO NOT RUSH AHEAD OF GOD

Gen 16:2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children
[1] by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

Gen 16:6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

6. THERE IS A TIME TO BE BOLD WITH GOD

There is a fine balance – sometimes we need to hold back and be patient, other times we need to boldly press in – knowing which takes wisdom.

Genesis 18:23-25, 27
Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”…

Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?”…….

There is a contrast between when we need to be patient, take a step back and wait for God, and times when we need to press in and be bold. Other wise Christians can help you make that distinction. It is important to make that distinction.

7.THERE IS A TIME TO TAKE MASSIVE RISKS AND MAKE MASSIVE SACRIFICES

Jesus said, that if we will not lay down everything for Him, we are not worthy to be called his disciples.

Remember, we do not have such an accurate route of communication with God. God WILL NOT ask you to copy Abraham by killing your son, but he might ask you to kill your dream. GOD MAY BE BRINGING SOME DREAMS BACK TO LIFE BUT MAY BE ASKING YOU TO LAY DOWN OTHERS.

Sometimes God might ask you to kill a bad relationship, for example, or to kill a good dream. You can sometimes lay down a dream with the faith that it will come back. Later God may say, ‘let the dream live again!’

Issac represents the PROMISE OF GOD. Looking at the words of Abraham throughout this story is revealing….

Genesis 22:1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”

Genesis 22:5 Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy [1] will go over there and worship and come again to you.”

Genesis 22:7-8 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here am I, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a
burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a
burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

Genesis 22:11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”

Genesis 22:14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

ABRAHAM UNWITTINGLY PROVIDES POSSIBLY THE RICHEST PICTURE OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN AT THE CROSS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. THERE IS NO ANGEL TO STAY GODS HAND WHEN HE KILLS HIS SON. THERE IS NO LAMB TO TAKE JESUS PLACE, BECAUSE HE IS THE LAMB WHO TOOK OUR PLACE.

Isacc carried the wood up the mountain, as Jesus carried his own cross, both willingly. We can get caught up with blaming God for not looking after us properly but the truth is the only thing he “should” do is wipe us out the moment we first sinned. Jesus was the lamb who took our place, who took the wrath we deserve. God is more angry with sin than we think He is. It is only because of Jesus that His wrath can be turned away. That love that Abraham felt for his son, God feels for us.

The way Abraham trusted God should inspire us to serve the GOD who sacrificed so much for us and who has made us a part of the people of Abraham and hence caught up on the same mission Abraham was.

God wants us to go from being a consumer, to being a producer, in the context you are in. Have a part to play, however small. It is still a crucial part.

TOAM07 – Seminar: Guy Miller and Julian Adams On Prophesying in Power

adrianwarnock — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:48:00 +0000

Here I am, sitting in a cinema next door to the conference center. Those of you who read regularly will realize that I’m feeling very at home, since the London church of which I’m a part also meets in a cinema. There is something about these venues that encourage you to shut out the world and close yourself in with God. I love the banked seating that enables you to see what is going on down below. That’s another point — in an age when some churches elevate the role of the pastor too much, it somehow communicates something good when our leaders are standing beneath us rather than up on the stage. There is nothing wrong with stages, but it’s possible for them to be misinterpreted as raising our leaders too high. If you have a large room and fill it with people, there are only two choices — either lift the leaders up on a stage or lift the people up on tiered seating. Anyway, back to the seminar.

Julian Adams
Julian is originally from Bay Community Church, Cape Town, South Africa, where he was an elder. He moved to the UK last August in response to God’s leading for him to be with Terry Virgo for a season and become part of Church of Christ the King, Brighton. Julian has an amazing prophetic gift and has travelled widely over the past few months serving the Newfrontiers churches in the UK.

Guy Miller
Guy Miller leads the Bournemouth Family Church, UK and leads apostolic teams that serve the Wessex Region with seventeen churches. He also overseas the work of 21 churches in the North and West of India and two churches in Portugal. He is a passionate family man, married to Heather with four children, and loves fishing.

Julian began by explaining that we need to raise the level of prophecy. We need to avoid the weird mystical things that go on in the world of prophecy. Our prophecy needs to be full of truth and must be weighed with a clear biblical understanding and application. We must be able to spot false prophetic ministry.

Guy then spoke about how Jesus has given to his Church power gifts to know him and extend his kingdom. Sometimes these gifts are trivialized and treated like wrapping paper, or they can be placed to one side and we are told we don’t need them. There is sadly so much rubbish that goes on. It’s no wonder that the Scripture warns us both to not put out the Spirit’s fire and to test and weigh prophecy.

The roots of prophecy are found in the OT. Genesis 20:7. God spoke of Abraham as a prophet. But the one which is used as a normative one is Moses. Deuteronomy 18:14. Prophets in the OT are clearly people who are called and have a clear role among the people of God. The prophet’s primary role is to bring a clear proclamation. There is a connection between the people of God and the living God. Prophets bring a living connection to God. Prediction is not primary, God is primary. The prophet brings the presence of God. Our God reigns.

Prediction is, however, a part of the prophetic movement. They see something over the horizon. The scope of the prophet is wide. Prophets see. Prayer is also a key part of the life of the prophet. These men knew where the power came from. The prophet himself was not the final judge of the validity of their own revelation. Fulfilment is not the supreme and genuine test of a prophet. False prophets can get it right sometimes. The true test is much more theological. The false prophet will draw people away from a true relationship with God. A true prophet will draw people into adoration and a closer relationship with God and the holiness that results.

Prophecy forms the greatest line of continuity between the Old and New Testaments. The last OT-style prophet was John the Baptist, who pointed to the One who was the fulfilment of all prophecy.

Shoots of prophecy. 1 Corinthians 14:1-5. The NT gift is something to be eagerly desired. Paul wanted everyone to prophecy. ALL. Men and women, young and old. We should be a prophetic community. Prophets are those who are recognized and move in a continuous way in this gift. The truth is that the Holy Spirit’s gifts are gifts of a loving God to be used in love by God’s loving people. How much do I love God? How much do I love these people? If you have a prophetic impulse, the motivation should be to share it — it should bring encouragement and maturity to the hearers.

This gift speaks to men for their strengthening. Prophecy is not adding in any way to the bible. It is under the bible. We judge it by the bible. The bible is like our map, we judge everything by it. Prophecy is like a compass which helps us know where we are on the map. We need the prophetic, and we must also be devoted to the scriptures.

How do we prophecy? We must be submitted to authority. We must be under the word of God, but also in the context of the local church. We must be submitted to the church’s leaders. Prophecy should not lead to individualism, but rather it should be part of a loving community. Prophecy is clear, intelligible, scriptural, and truthful. There can definitely be too many prophecies in a meeting.

How does God speak? In visions. In words. Preaching can be prophetic. It can be through things we see in the world around us. We want this gift to not be in the isolated “Lone Ranger” world. We want to be a part of the community of God. The fruit of prophecy is edification — strengthening, encouragement, and comfort.

Edification — there must be a building process. We should feel closer to God and closer to our brothers and sisters.

Encouragement and comfort — there should be a courage transfusion that takes place.

Unbelievers falling down — prophecy is not always seeker-sensitive. They need to experience the power of God! Prophecy is intended to bring people to Jesus. Meeting with God. Let’s not try and tame our meetings. We need the dynamic of the Spirit.

__________________________

Those of you who read my blog and who were there will know that I was singled out for some specific personal prophetic words during the ministry time. They impacted me so much that I didn’t get the chance to jot down some of the things that were said. If you heard the words, do feel free to send me an e-mail with what you remember at adrian.warnock@gmail.com — but as they are, of course, personal, don’t share them in my comment box or elsewhere on the web!

TOAM07 – Session 6: Dave Devenish on World Mission

adrianwarnock — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:46:00 +0000

There was a slightly longer break between the last session and this one. I took advantage of the opportunity to doze. I didn’t think I was heavily asleep, but a friend of mine said he knocked loudly on my door and called my name without getting any response! As a result of my sleep, I do feel a lot fresher and am now even more eager to hear from Dave Devenish, who will be preaching to us this evening.

David Devenish
Dave Devenish of Woodside Church Bedford UK now leads teams working with churches in the Ukraine, and other eastern European nations.

See also Andrew Fountain’s notes from this talk: The Ephesus Mission – A Pattern for World Evangelism.

David is a unique gift of God to our family of churches. His voice and delivery are unique and his passionate love of the global work of God in and through His Church are impossible to miss. Dave took us to Acts 19. He gave his talk the title, “The Ephesus Mission — A Pattern For World Evangelization.”

We in Newfrontiers are all being mobilized to go on a mission together to the ends of the earth. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This promise of God is repeated in several places in the Scriptures. Devenish explained that this verse keeps him going through all the challenges of building churches around the world, and in some of the most challenging nations in which he works. The mission of God is that he will be glorified in all the earth. We are witnesses from God. What is my inheritance in your mission to this world?

Ephesus was a church with influence. God wants to build large churches that will make a difference. In Bedford we have around 1% of the population in a Newfrontiers church. In Ephesus God was made known in contrast to the false Gods — “These man-made gods are no gods at all!” The city and the province were filled, and there was also opposition.

We need to follow the same strategy we see in Ephesus, even if it takes a lot longer than three years. So what was Paul’s strategy?

He established a base church that would become an Apostolic base. Paul planted key churches in cities and let them fill in around them. The Lord’s message rang out from individual churches. Amazingly, back in Acts 16, Paul was kept from going to Asia. There was a need to act in line with God’s prophetic timing. God’s timing is critical. Paul did go briefly, and sent a pioneer couple who he left there in faith.
He insured that key values were established in the core group. When Paul arrived, he met some disciples, and realized something was wrong. An area of weakness in establishing a church is not making sure that the key people understand the core values. An example might be not setting some of the first converts free from fear. Suddenly the whole church can be full of fear. Paul was firm in his desire to plant a community of the Spirit. We need people to have the power of God to deal with everything they are going to face. The core group needs to know and understand what we are going to build.
Paul taught consistent teaching of Apostolic revelation daily. Standing in one hall and teaching led to a whole region hearing the Gospel. What was taught was so clear that everyone heard. Such commitment to teach and such hunger to receive will have such benefits. Dave has a body of doctrine that he teaches almost everywhere he goes; he shares what he believes is an Apostolic foundation for the church. There is a body of foundational truth that we have to teach in every church. There is a need also to grasp the big picture from Genesis to Revelation — the purposes of God revealed, fulfilled in Christ, and the part you play in fulfilling God’s work in response to what Christ has done. God has started remaking the world. Christ is the seed of Abraham and through him every nation will be blessed. We have our part in bringing those blessings to the world. God’s kingdom is being revealed in the son of David. Christ’s reign has begun now. We are part of that kingdom — a new people from every nation who are all one in Christ.
Power Evangelism. Paul did no ordinary miracles! There was a tangible anointing. It is interesting to see that there was a transferable tangible thing that could even be imparted via handkerchiefs that had touched him. The ordinary things of Paul’s trade were touched by God’s power. God wants us to become more familiar with his anointing. Healings can happen suddenly and sovereignly by God without us doing anything to trigger them. Sometimes healing can happen when we, in faith, cry out to God to heal. Dave also had some stories to share of his own experience in this area.
They confronted the culture and worldview. The strongholds of a culture need to be addressed. There was a very dramatic example of that in this chapter. Ephesus had a large number of gods, so someone tried to adopt Jesus as just another one. The demons knew not only who Jesus was, but who Paul was. Demonic strongholds had to be confronted. Church life in the West panders to consumerism or business management efficiency without really challenging our culture with the Gospel. When the people saw the power of God manifest, they dealt with the manifestations of their magical culture. They repented of the hidden things. Often people can believe on a fragment of truth and a felt need, but there are things that then need to be confronted.
Paul models relational servant leadership. Paul calls on the elders to imitate the way he led them. Paul had a relational style of leadership. He wasn’t just on platforms, but house-to-house. There was much weeping when Paul told them he wouldn’t see them again.
Paul endured massive opposition and pressure. Paul spoke of the hardships he suffered in the province of Asia in his letter to the Corinthians. It led almost to despair. We can’t underestimate what a challenge it is to go into a place where there are no believers.
He prepared for future advance. While revival was happening, he was planning to move on. He knew he had to move on. The savage wolves were the elders’ responsibility — he wouldn’t stay because he had to move on. Apostles are not the senior managers of a region; they are called by God to train leaders to establish the Church and then move on.

The kingdom of God needs to come to every area of our world and every type of people. God is calling us to be on a mission together. Let’s follow this way.

J. I. Packer on the Atonement

adrianwarnock — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:53:00 +0000

I received the following two articles from the communications director of the UCCF, and they have been kind enough to give me permission to republish them here. The first article is by J. I. Packer, and the second one is by Richard Cunningham, and were originally published in a UCCF magazine.

Penal Substitution Revisited
J. I. Packer
Throughout my 63 years as an evangelical believer, the penal substitutionary understanding of the cross of Christ has been a flashpoint of controversy and division among Protestants. It was so before my time, in the bitter parting of ways between conservative and liberal evangelicals in the Church of England, and between the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (now UCCF) and SCM in the student world. It remains so, as liberalism keeps reinventing itself and luring evangelicals away from their heritage. Since one’s belief about the atonement is bound up with one’s belief about the character of God, the terms of the gospel and the Christian’s inner life, the intensity of the debate is understandable. If one view is right, others are more or less wrong, and the definition of Christianity itself comes to be at stake.

An evangelical theologian, dying, cabled a colleague: ‘I am so thankful for the active obedience (righteousness) of Christ. No hope without it.’ As I grow old, I want to tell everyone who will listen: ‘I am so thankful for the penal substitutionary death of Christ. No hope without it.’ That is where I come from now as I attempt this brief vindication of the best part of the best news that the world has ever heard.

It is impossible to focus the atonement properly until the biblical mode of Trinitarian and incarnational thought about Jesus Christ is embraced. The Trinitarian principle is that the three distinct persons within the divine unity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, always work inseparably together, as in creation, so in providence and in every aspect of the work of redemption. The incarnational principle is that when the Son took to himself all the powers and capacities for experience that belong to human nature, and began to live through his human body, mind, and identity, his sense of being the Father’s Son was unaffected, and he knew and did his Father’s will, aided by the Spirit, at all times. It was with his own will and his own love mirroring the Father’s, therefore, that he took the place of human sinners exposed to divine judgment and laid down his life as a sacrifice for them, entering fully into the state and experience of death that was due to them. Then he rose from death to reign by the Father’s appointment in the kingdom of God. From his throne he sent the Spirit to induce faith in himself and in the saving work he had done, to communicate forgiveness and pardon, justification and adoption, to the penitent, and to unite all believers to himself to share his risen life in foretaste of the full life of heaven that is to come. Since all this was planned by the holy Three in their eternal solidarity of mutual love, and since the Father’s central purpose in it all was and is to glorify and exalt the Son as Saviour and Head of a new humanity, smartypants notions like “divine child abuse”, as a comment on the cross, are supremely silly, and as irrelevant and wrong as they could possibly be.

As in all the Creator’s interacting with the created order, there is here an element of transcendent mystery, comparable to fog in the distance hanging around a landscape, which the rising sun has effectively cleared for our view. What is stated above is clearly revealed in God’s own witness to himself in the Bible, and so must be given the status of non-negotiable fact.

Again, the atonement cannot be focused properly where the biblical view of God’s justice as one facet of his holiness, and of human willfulness as the root of our racial, communal and personal sinfulness and guilt, is not grasped. Justice, as Aristotle said long ago, is essentially giving everyone their due, and whatever more God’s justice (righteousness) means in the Bible, it certainly starts here, with retribution for wrongdoing. We see this as early as Genesis 3, and as late as Revelation 22:18-19, and consistently in-between. God’s mercy to guilty sinners is framed by his holy hostility (wrath) against their sins.

Human nature is radically twisted into an instinctive yet deliberate and ineradicable habit of God-defying or God-denying self-service, so that God’s requirement of perfect love to himself and others is permanently beyond our reach, and falling short of God’s standard marks our lives every day. What is due to us from God is condemnation and rejection.

The built-in function of the human mind that we call conscience tells everyone, uncomfortably, that when we have misbehaved we ought to suffer for it, and to that extent conscience is truly the voice of God.

Both Testaments, then, confirm that judicial retribution from God awaits those whose sins are not covered by a substitutionary sacrifice: in the Old Testament, the sacrifice of an animal; in the New Testament, the sacrifice of Christ. He, the holy Son of God in sinless human flesh, has endured what Calvin called ‘the pains of a condemned and lost person’ so that we, trusting him as our Saviour and Lord, might receive pardon for the past and a new life in him and with him for the present and future. Tellingly, Paul, having announced ‘the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation (i.e. wrath-quencher) by his blood, to be received by faith’, goes on to say: ‘This was . . . to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus’ (Romans 3:2-26, my emphasis). Just justification — justified justification — through the doing of justice in penal substitution, is integral to the message of the gospel.

Penal substitution, therefore, will not be focused properly till it is recognized that God’s redemptive love must not be conceived — misconceived, rather — as somehow triumphing and displacing God’s retributive justice, as if the Creator-Judge simply decided to let bygones be bygones. The measure of God’s holy love for us is that ‘while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ and that ‘he . . . did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all’ (Romans 5:8, 8:32). Evidently there was no alternative to paying that price if we were to be saved, so the Son, at the Father’s behest ‘through the eternal Spirit’ (Hebrews 9:14), paid it. Thus God ‘set aside . . . the record of debt that stood against us . . . nailing it to the cross’ (Colossians 2:14). Had we been among the watchers at Calvary, we should have seen, nailed to the cross, Pilate’s notice of Jesus’ alleged crime. But if, by faith, we look back to Calvary from where we now are, what we see is the list of our own unpaid debts of obedience to God, for which Christ paid the penalty in our place. Paul, having himself learned to do this, testified: ‘the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20).

This text starts to show us how faith in Christ our penal substitute should be shaping our lives today; which will be my final point for reflection. Thirty years ago I wrote an analysis of insights basic to personal religion that faith in Christ as one’s penal substitute yields. Since I cannot improve on it, I cite it as it stands.

God, in Denney’s phrase, ‘condones nothing’, but judges all sin as it deserves, which Scripture affirms, and my conscience confirms, to be right.

My sins merit ultimate penal suffering and rejection from God’s presence (conscience also affirms this), and nothing I do can blot them out.
The penalty due to me for my sins, whatever it was, was paid for me by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in his death on the cross.
Because this is so, I through faith in him am made ‘the righteousness of God in him’, i.e. I am justified; pardon, acceptance and sonship (to God) become mine.
Christ’s death for me is my sole ground of hope before God. ‘If he fulfilled not justice, I must; if he underwent not wrath, I must to eternity’ (John Owen).
My faith in Christ is God’s own gift to me, given in virtue of Christ’s death for me: i.e. the cross procured it.
Christ’s death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.
Christ’s death for me is the measure and pledge of the love of the Father and Son to me.
Christ’s death for me calls and constrains me to trust, to worship, to love and to serve.

(Cited from Tyndale Bulletin 25, 1974, pp. 42-43)

A lawyer, having completed his argument, may declare that here he rests his case. I, having surveyed the penal substitutionary sacrifice of Christ afresh, now reaffirm that here I rest my hope. So, I believe, will all truly faithful believers.

In recent years, great strides in biblical theology and contemporary canonical exegesis have brought new precision to our grasp of the Bible’s overall story of how God’s plan to bless Israel, and through Israel the world, came to its climax in and through Christ. But I do not see how it can be denied that each New Testament book, whatever other job it may be doing, has in view, one way or another, Luther’s primary question: ‘How may a weak, perverse and guilty sinner find a gracious God?’; nor can it be denied that real Christianity only really starts when that discovery is made. And to the extent that modern developments, by filling our horizon with the great meta-narrative, distract us from pursuing Luther’s question in personal terms, they hinder as well as help in our appreciation of the gospel.

The Church is and will always be at its healthiest when every Christian can line up with every other Christian to sing P. P. Bliss’s simple words, which really say it all:

Bearing shame and scoffing rude
In my place condemned he stood,
Sealed my pardon with his blood
Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

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EXPLANATORY NOTE
Following the unilateral termination of the Word Alive Partnership by Spring Harvest (over the issues of Steve Chalke’s denial of Penal Substitution and his resulting status as a non-speaker at Word Alive) UCCF and Keswick Ministries have formed a new partnership (chaired by Hugh Palmer) to deliver New Word Alive (an all age event) at PW next year with Don Carson, John Piper and Terry Virgo as the main speakers. In the light of this we have asked our Director, Richard Cunningham, to comment on the significance of this doctrine and the stand UCCF has taken on it.

The issue of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) can leave some Christians scratching their head wondering whether it is really worth falling out over such a nuanced, forensic-sounding doctrine. The reality (which Jim Packer draws out so magnificently . . . ) is that the Gospel itself is at stake.

PROBLEM FOR GOD
Would God be good if he was merely pained, disappointed, and hurt by our sin? If God is not filled with wrath (a settled righteous indignation) at human sin, how can he also be good, holy, and just?

“Standing with my boots deep in the reeking muck of a Rwandan mass grave where thousands of innocent people have been horribly slaughtered, I have no words, no meaning, no life, no hope—if there is not a God of history and time who is absolutely furious, absolutely burning with anger towards those who took it in their own hands to commit such acts.”

Gary Haugen (Former Director of the United Nations genocide investigation in Rwanda)

God’s primary business is not to dispense forgiveness on fallen human creatures, but to be true to his own Just and Holy character; to demonstrate the righteousness of his sovereign reign and so bring glory and honour to himself. Forgiveness only becomes possible if God in Christ is punished for our sin and thus manages to satisfy (propitiate) God’s wrath towards human wickedness.

PROBLEM FOR US
The unity that we enjoy as confessional evangelicals around the core Evangelical distinctives (such as PSA) is extremely precious. UCCF’s Doctrinal Basis is a wonderful unity document. For we are to be as exclusive as it demands (on the atonement for instance) and to be as inclusive as it allows. The temptation for Classical Evangelicals in such times is to get this the wrong way round and to maximise exclusiveness and minimise inclusiveness. This easily leads us to make too much of our tribal (that is cultural and stylistic) distinctives. Most (though not all) of the differences between confessional evangelicals (be they Anglican or NonConformist, Charismatic or non-Charismatic) are down to vocabulary, style, and culture. By contrast the differences between confessional Evangelicals and pragmatic/liberal Evangelicals (regardless of their other tribal loyalties—NonConformist, Charismatic, etc.) will, in time, become substantive, doctrinal, and (necessarily) ethical. If I do not hold firm to the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, what will be the pastoral and ethical implications for my Christian faith?

LICENTIOUSNESS
On the one hand I might conclude that God has wonderfully and mysteriously expiated my sin. But I will wonder how a holy and just God can merely pronounce sin ‘forgiven’ since without the shedding of blood (a violent death) there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). I may end up concluding that sin is not such a big deal to God and neither should it be for me.

LEGALISM
Alternatively, a denial of PSA will leave me with no assurance that God in Christ has taken my sin, and in exchange has imputed to me Christ’s righteousness. Consequently I will become unsure of my status before God and will do all I can to please him and merit his forgiveness. Liberalism invariably presents itself as balanced, attractive, and relevant. In reality it is death! For it will inevitably lead to either licentiousness or legalism. By contrast Confessional Evangelicalism leads us to a Grace-centred and Grace-motivated gospel:

How much more, then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:14)

I find it comforting to remind myself that this is not a new issue for the church. Richard Niebuhr makes the following comment on C19 liberalism:

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.

A PROBLEM SOLVED
But now (Christ) has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26)

The writer to the Hebrews contrasts the unfinished work of the OT priest (who is forever standing and sacrificing) with the finished work of Christ (who is now seated and waiting for his enemies to be made his footstool.) Hebrews 10:11-14

This is why Christ cried out, “It is finished.” (John 19:30). Not “I am finished.” No, this was a cry of triumph. “Finished” (teleo) is the word you would use having paid the last installment of the mortgage or a student would use it having sat their last exam. IT IS FINISHED! Nothing more to pay, nothing more to do—Finished!

NEW WORD ALIVE
By God’s grace the New Word Alive will get the exclusive/inclusive balance right. It will not be culturally narrow, emotionally clenched, or mean spirited anymore than it will be doctrinally liberal and ‘Open Evangelical’. As soon as I informed Don Carson, John Piper, and Terry Virgo (respectively) about our situation with Word Alive they instinctively recognised that this was a key moment for British Evangelicalism and made space in their over-busy diaries to be with us. We would be thrilled if you and a group from your church came to join us for this significant event as together we seek to serve the church and reach the world with the glorious gospel.

The Atonement – The Terrible Problem of Sin

adrianwarnock — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 02:00:00 +0000

In the last post in this series on the atonement, we examined some wrong ideas about the cross. Today we will simply list some verses for us to meditate on which address the terrible problem of sin.

This series is based on teaching I first gave at Jubilee Church. If you want a sneak preview of what is coming you can download the audio (you may need to right click and save to your PC) or listen online here:

Today I want us to spend some time thinking about the following verses. Go away and look them up in their context. Mull them over. Ponder them. Worry about them. The truth is — unless we understand the depth of our problem, we will never understand the wonder of the solution God has provided for us.

“You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)
“On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:23-24)
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” (Romans 1:18)
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
“For the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)
“. . . your iniquities have separated you from your God.” (Isaiah 59:2)

Continues with “The Atonement – N. T. Wright Attacks Both Sides of the Debate”