“He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20)
Everyone loves to speculate on the exact coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The buzz lately about the Mayan calendar ending on December 21, 2012 has everyone in the same fever pitch that the Y2K scare caused. We saw that turn out to be much ado about nothing. If we are still around on the Mayan “D-Day”, it will be interesting to see all the press leading up to that day. We can be sure that CNN and Discovery Channel and all the others will overhype it more than ESPN does the Super Bowl (if that is possible). This incessant fixation on finding the exact day of the return of the Lord is unhealthy, yet so many believers are taken in by it. We have been talking about it for generations. I remember the early 80’s and how it was so certain to be “any day now” that people were doing all sorts of dumb things like selling their house or running up their credit cards or taking their kids out of school. Here we are 30 years and a full generation later, and the hype is still there. Just the other day I heard of a group predicting the rapture on May 9, 2011. I think the Lord sits in heaven shaking his head at that junk. What if May 9th was the day? Jesus would have to delay his coming just so that fringe nut group could not go through eternity bragging about hitting the date. Why don’t we just all shut up and let him come when he does? The more date setting we do, the bigger fools we become in the eyes of a skeptical world. They need Jesus. The more we fiddle-faddle with this, the less likely they are to trust him.
Jesus said, “Occupy till I come.” (Luke 19:13) He did not tell us to sit around and speculate on the exact date. The reason people want to do this is because they get some sort of sugar-high spiritual buzz out of knowing something others don’t know. The human race is infected with that disease from the garden. Eve was promised that if she took of the forbidden tree that she would “be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Our first parents desired to be “in the know” in an area God said would not benefit them. Billions of lost souls later, we still reap the consequences of that sin. Yet we never learn. We still have to know something others don’t. That is why you watch to 24 hour news channels. Ted Turner was not as dumb as they said he was when he founded CNN. He knew enough of human nature to sell us lemmings on the idea of around the clock news saturation. He recently gave $1 billion (with a B) to the United Nations – perhaps the biggest waste of money in the history of the world. He got it from suckers like us who cannot live by faith and trust God to take care of the details.
I believe the date of the rapture is clearly in the Bible. I also believe that God has hidden it from man until it happens. When we get to heaven, we will slap ourselves in the forehead and cry out, “Why couldn’t I see that?!” Until then, trust him. Occupy – do what he asked you to do. Clean up your life for his glory. Share the simple truth of a Saviour to those who desperately need him. If you knew for certain the rapture would happen on such-and-such a date, what would you do? If it was 3 months away, would you pay your mortgage? I wouldn’t. That’s one of the main reasons God won’t show us. He knows us too well like that.
Others will get all spiritual and say, “Well, if I knew, I would witness and clean things up and…” Why don’t you do those things now? Live every day like it was your last, because it might be. At the same time, you should live every day like you have a full life in front of you because your chances of that are just as great. God expects a full life lived for his glory from start to finish. He does not expect you to “hide your talents in a napkin” (Mat 25:24-25, Luke 19:20) by sitting around trying to know more than the next guy. God is not impressed with what you know. He knows more. He is moved by the heart that trembles at his word (Isa 66:2) and seeks to do it. God doesn’t care WHAT you know, he cares WHO you know – his Son Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Free at Last
“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
This Monday was the official national holiday to honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King. We all know that he campaigned vigorously for equality among the races and that his life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet. His life’s passion was very controversial at the time, but nearly 50 years after his famous speech, the results of his vision are being seen. True, there is still very much yet to be done, but the world today is much different than the one Dr. King lived in. Despite huge issues that remain, more people than not have finally seemed to figure this out. People are people and what they look like doesn’t matter a hill of beans. Those who haven’t realized that yet are in the minority, and they are the losers. I would tell you to go ahead and greet them with the big capital “L” sign across your forehead, but that would be unkind. True, but still unkind.
Yet there remains an element of oppression and bondage that is even more severe than in the days of slavery that we fought a civil war over. In the same context of the verse I quoted above, Jesus said in verse 34, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” Mankind was plunged into sin by our first parents, and we have been held in its powerful grip ever since. Those who make a lifestyle of it find that their particular pet sin grabs hold of them and won’t let go. Cigarettes and alcohol are classic examples, and I am sure you could name others. Proverbs 5:22 says, “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.” You know how it goes. We dabble in a sin once or twice, and we like it, so we try it again. The “pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25) lure men and women into a lifestyle. When there are only a few occasions of sin, there are very few “cords” to hold us. Most of us can break through a simple thread wrapped around us a few times. But sin is deceitful. Wrap that same thread of sin around a person 10,000 times and even the “Governator” in his prime can’t break it.
Campaigning peacefully for civil rights was and is a noble cause. Liberating oppressed societies from brutal oppression as was done in Iraq makes the world better and safer for all. But what good is it to free someone from political and societal oppression just so they can remain in their sin and live in that bondage? What benefit is derived from freeing the masses only to have them plunge into the eternal damnation of the lake of fire without Christ? The gains are temporary. The so-called “freedom” a person or a group receives is short lived if it does not include liberty from the bondage of sin that is found only in Jesus Christ.
Freedom is bound in the human spirit; it is the eternal longing of the heart of mankind. It stems from the garden of Eden, when man was free because he was created in the image of God. He was given only one limitation – the commandment not to eat of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil. It was a test to see if he would follow God or his own desires. It was necessary for God to do that. Love forced on someone without choice is not love. Despite the boundless liberty Adam and Eve had, Satan convinced them that they really were not free, and in the process, they “were taken captive by him at his will” (II Timothy 2:26). Despite every effort of man since then to rid himself and others of bondage, the only true liberty that exists is found in Jesus Christ.
“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (II Corinthians 3:17) Only the Son can truly make a lost man free. Only the word of God can truly free a believer from the stranglehold of sin in his life. A man can be free from discrimination and still be held in the desperate bondage of sin. Others can be oppressed, abused, and even in a political jail, yet dwell in the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Only Jesus gives us that true freedom. Do you have it? Do you seek to pass it on to others?
This Monday was the official national holiday to honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King. We all know that he campaigned vigorously for equality among the races and that his life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet. His life’s passion was very controversial at the time, but nearly 50 years after his famous speech, the results of his vision are being seen. True, there is still very much yet to be done, but the world today is much different than the one Dr. King lived in. Despite huge issues that remain, more people than not have finally seemed to figure this out. People are people and what they look like doesn’t matter a hill of beans. Those who haven’t realized that yet are in the minority, and they are the losers. I would tell you to go ahead and greet them with the big capital “L” sign across your forehead, but that would be unkind. True, but still unkind.
Yet there remains an element of oppression and bondage that is even more severe than in the days of slavery that we fought a civil war over. In the same context of the verse I quoted above, Jesus said in verse 34, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” Mankind was plunged into sin by our first parents, and we have been held in its powerful grip ever since. Those who make a lifestyle of it find that their particular pet sin grabs hold of them and won’t let go. Cigarettes and alcohol are classic examples, and I am sure you could name others. Proverbs 5:22 says, “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.” You know how it goes. We dabble in a sin once or twice, and we like it, so we try it again. The “pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25) lure men and women into a lifestyle. When there are only a few occasions of sin, there are very few “cords” to hold us. Most of us can break through a simple thread wrapped around us a few times. But sin is deceitful. Wrap that same thread of sin around a person 10,000 times and even the “Governator” in his prime can’t break it.
Campaigning peacefully for civil rights was and is a noble cause. Liberating oppressed societies from brutal oppression as was done in Iraq makes the world better and safer for all. But what good is it to free someone from political and societal oppression just so they can remain in their sin and live in that bondage? What benefit is derived from freeing the masses only to have them plunge into the eternal damnation of the lake of fire without Christ? The gains are temporary. The so-called “freedom” a person or a group receives is short lived if it does not include liberty from the bondage of sin that is found only in Jesus Christ.
Freedom is bound in the human spirit; it is the eternal longing of the heart of mankind. It stems from the garden of Eden, when man was free because he was created in the image of God. He was given only one limitation – the commandment not to eat of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil. It was a test to see if he would follow God or his own desires. It was necessary for God to do that. Love forced on someone without choice is not love. Despite the boundless liberty Adam and Eve had, Satan convinced them that they really were not free, and in the process, they “were taken captive by him at his will” (II Timothy 2:26). Despite every effort of man since then to rid himself and others of bondage, the only true liberty that exists is found in Jesus Christ.
“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (II Corinthians 3:17) Only the Son can truly make a lost man free. Only the word of God can truly free a believer from the stranglehold of sin in his life. A man can be free from discrimination and still be held in the desperate bondage of sin. Others can be oppressed, abused, and even in a political jail, yet dwell in the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Only Jesus gives us that true freedom. Do you have it? Do you seek to pass it on to others?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The Hippy Dippy Weatherman
“Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?” (Job 38:22)
For those of you reading this who are not in Kansas City, I am looking out my office window at the accumulation of about 6 inches of yesterday’s snow, our first real snow of this winter. It was 6 degrees this morning when I took my wife to work at 6:00am, and the overnight low is forecast to be a balmy 5 below zero. I know some of you north and east of us have had it much worse, so I feel your pain. But right now, it is not easy to deal with the outside conditions where I live. Do not be surprised if someday I decide to open a seasonal branch of Crest Bible Church in Tampa that runs from December to March. Anyone care to join me?
The Bible has a few things to say about the white fluffy stuff that falls from the sky. Job said there are treasures in the snow. In many parts of the world, they never experience snow, and although we long to “retire” to places like that, there are disadvantages to year-round summer. We take an annual missions trip to Belize, where the record low overnight temperature in the villages is about 50 degrees. When it plunges into the 70’s, people wear coats and sweaters like we do now. It would be great to live in a climate like that, but the problem they have with bugs is unbelievable. You can saddle up and ride the cockroaches. Mosquitos eat you alive year round. It may be brutally cold outside today, but there are no bugs. They have orange trees in their yard, but you can’t get apples or raspberries in Belize because they need an annual freeze to produce fruit. Snow is a challenge on the roads, but there is no question the blanket of white is beautiful to look at once you get adjusted to the “snow blindness”. I guess I am just trying to convince myself that it is nice to have our current weather conditions. I don’t think I am succeeding.
Isaiah 55:10 -11 says, “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Rain and snow falls from the sky to provide a blessing and purpose. It grows the crops so we can sustain life on this planet. But it has a larger purpose in demonstrating to us the blessings of the word of God. Without water we would die, and without the precious words of the living God, our spiritual life withers on the vine as well. God has a purpose for the snow. It covers the perennial flowering plants with a blanket of moisture protecting them from bugs and preparing them for their season of fruit bearing. We don’t like the snow, but we must understand that we have a spiritual “season of fruit bearing” for our Lord as well. Psalm 1 tells us that we bring forth fruit in our season when we allow the precious rain and snow of the word of God to water our lives. We enjoy the beautiful clear days of spring and summer so we can participate in all the great outdoor activities. I won’t be playing golf this week. I will have to wait for a couple more months at least before I can enjoy that passion. But today’s snow makes the course better for the spring days when the game is played.
Another great benefit of the snow is the picture it paints of the Lord and his sacrifice for our sins and the righteousness he gives to those who trust him. Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” Snow in the city is beautiful, but it doesn’t take very long for the slush and road grime to make it look yucky. A snow storm in the Rockies yields a much different view. The intense brilliance and pristine whiteness blinds us until our eyes can adjust. Those who have trusted Jesus as their Saviour will someday be conformed to his image, as white as snow (Rev 1:14). His scarlet blood transforms us into his glorious beauty. We have it on the inside now. One day, we will have it eternally as we will be glorified in him. May that day come soon!
For those of you reading this who are not in Kansas City, I am looking out my office window at the accumulation of about 6 inches of yesterday’s snow, our first real snow of this winter. It was 6 degrees this morning when I took my wife to work at 6:00am, and the overnight low is forecast to be a balmy 5 below zero. I know some of you north and east of us have had it much worse, so I feel your pain. But right now, it is not easy to deal with the outside conditions where I live. Do not be surprised if someday I decide to open a seasonal branch of Crest Bible Church in Tampa that runs from December to March. Anyone care to join me?
The Bible has a few things to say about the white fluffy stuff that falls from the sky. Job said there are treasures in the snow. In many parts of the world, they never experience snow, and although we long to “retire” to places like that, there are disadvantages to year-round summer. We take an annual missions trip to Belize, where the record low overnight temperature in the villages is about 50 degrees. When it plunges into the 70’s, people wear coats and sweaters like we do now. It would be great to live in a climate like that, but the problem they have with bugs is unbelievable. You can saddle up and ride the cockroaches. Mosquitos eat you alive year round. It may be brutally cold outside today, but there are no bugs. They have orange trees in their yard, but you can’t get apples or raspberries in Belize because they need an annual freeze to produce fruit. Snow is a challenge on the roads, but there is no question the blanket of white is beautiful to look at once you get adjusted to the “snow blindness”. I guess I am just trying to convince myself that it is nice to have our current weather conditions. I don’t think I am succeeding.
Isaiah 55:10 -11 says, “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Rain and snow falls from the sky to provide a blessing and purpose. It grows the crops so we can sustain life on this planet. But it has a larger purpose in demonstrating to us the blessings of the word of God. Without water we would die, and without the precious words of the living God, our spiritual life withers on the vine as well. God has a purpose for the snow. It covers the perennial flowering plants with a blanket of moisture protecting them from bugs and preparing them for their season of fruit bearing. We don’t like the snow, but we must understand that we have a spiritual “season of fruit bearing” for our Lord as well. Psalm 1 tells us that we bring forth fruit in our season when we allow the precious rain and snow of the word of God to water our lives. We enjoy the beautiful clear days of spring and summer so we can participate in all the great outdoor activities. I won’t be playing golf this week. I will have to wait for a couple more months at least before I can enjoy that passion. But today’s snow makes the course better for the spring days when the game is played.
Another great benefit of the snow is the picture it paints of the Lord and his sacrifice for our sins and the righteousness he gives to those who trust him. Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” Snow in the city is beautiful, but it doesn’t take very long for the slush and road grime to make it look yucky. A snow storm in the Rockies yields a much different view. The intense brilliance and pristine whiteness blinds us until our eyes can adjust. Those who have trusted Jesus as their Saviour will someday be conformed to his image, as white as snow (Rev 1:14). His scarlet blood transforms us into his glorious beauty. We have it on the inside now. One day, we will have it eternally as we will be glorified in him. May that day come soon!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Heart Disease
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)
My daughter gave me a book for Christmas by one of the notable atheists of our day, Christopher Hitchens, titled “god is not great”. (No, that’s not a typo; he refuses to capitalize God). In the book, he makes his case for the non-existence of God, and he does so in a very intelligent and substantive way. Of course, he is dead wrong, but many of his arguments are compelling enough to provide the skeptics of God and the Bible with plenty of ammunition for their position. There is a lot of the typical nonsense about contradictions in the Bible which really are not. These are things I have heard repeatedly for years from all sorts of places, and they are totally bogus. For example, the skeptics complain that the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke “contradict”. As a result, the Bible cannot be trusted because of all those errors. Well, hello, Einstein. Do you have a mother and a father? Then you have two genealogies, and I hope to God they contradict. If not, maybe we have another problem to discuss. I have heard that “two genealogies” complaint from several different sources. It’s funny how these “free thinkers” all think alike!
The subtitle of Hitchens’ book is, “How Religion Poisons Everything”. It is amazing how totally dead on right someone can be and at the same time be so totally and tragically wrong. He makes the case powerfully that religion is the root of virtually every conflict and problem on earth. He cites all the “holy wars”, ethnic cleansings, and conflicts just in the last century, and shows how each one was launched in the name of some “god” with justification for torture and genocide. The facts he presents are well researched and accurate. But the conclusion he draws blaming God for the problem is wrong. Religion does poison everything, because it is man’s attempt to buy off God without trusting his Son to save them from their sins. I have a personal relationship with the God of the Universe through my Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, and not a religion. In fact, the word “religion” plays a very inconsequential role in the Bible. It only appears in four places, and only one has anything positive to say. James 1:26-27 says that a man who uses his religion for purposes such as Hitchens reports on has a vain religion. The passage has nothing to do with a personal faith in the risen Saviour, and even if someone employed their “religion” in the correct way as James reports, that alone won’t get them a smell of the glories of heaven because it is based solely on works and not faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us clearly that our salvation is based on faith and not works. The other three places religion shows up in the Bible (Acts 13:43, Acts 26:5, and Galatians 1:13-14) are all in a negative context. All three of them support the conclusion of the atheist skeptic who claims religion is the source of all of man’s problems. So Mr. Hitchens actually lines up with the Bible when he makes his case against religion. Again, as I have said more than a thousand times, man lives by the Bible whether he believes it or not.
As for the “atheist” – he spends more time talking about God than the average Christian does. In a frantic attempt to drown out the claim of God upon his life, he screams, “There is no God!” He thinks if he can do this long enough and loud enough, that God will just go away and leave him alone. But as the bumper sticker said, “God does not believe in atheists, therefore atheists do not exist.” The problem is not in the head, it is in the heart. “The fool hath said in his HEART, There is no God.” An atheist can’t see God like he can’t see a bowling ball in a bathtub. He isn’t looking, and he doesn’t want to look. Seeing God in your life is like seeing your own shadow. It is right there all the time. The only way to ignore your shadow is to get in total darkness. Even then, your shadow still exists, you just can’t see it because you have placed yourself in conditions that will not allow you to see it. If you have doubts about God, come out of the darkness. And by all means, stay away from religion. Place your faith in the only man who lived sinless, who, by the way, was murdered by religious zealots, and condemned their religion as forcefully as Mr. Hitchens does today. Let the glorious light of the risen Son of God be your guide.
My daughter gave me a book for Christmas by one of the notable atheists of our day, Christopher Hitchens, titled “god is not great”. (No, that’s not a typo; he refuses to capitalize God). In the book, he makes his case for the non-existence of God, and he does so in a very intelligent and substantive way. Of course, he is dead wrong, but many of his arguments are compelling enough to provide the skeptics of God and the Bible with plenty of ammunition for their position. There is a lot of the typical nonsense about contradictions in the Bible which really are not. These are things I have heard repeatedly for years from all sorts of places, and they are totally bogus. For example, the skeptics complain that the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke “contradict”. As a result, the Bible cannot be trusted because of all those errors. Well, hello, Einstein. Do you have a mother and a father? Then you have two genealogies, and I hope to God they contradict. If not, maybe we have another problem to discuss. I have heard that “two genealogies” complaint from several different sources. It’s funny how these “free thinkers” all think alike!
The subtitle of Hitchens’ book is, “How Religion Poisons Everything”. It is amazing how totally dead on right someone can be and at the same time be so totally and tragically wrong. He makes the case powerfully that religion is the root of virtually every conflict and problem on earth. He cites all the “holy wars”, ethnic cleansings, and conflicts just in the last century, and shows how each one was launched in the name of some “god” with justification for torture and genocide. The facts he presents are well researched and accurate. But the conclusion he draws blaming God for the problem is wrong. Religion does poison everything, because it is man’s attempt to buy off God without trusting his Son to save them from their sins. I have a personal relationship with the God of the Universe through my Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, and not a religion. In fact, the word “religion” plays a very inconsequential role in the Bible. It only appears in four places, and only one has anything positive to say. James 1:26-27 says that a man who uses his religion for purposes such as Hitchens reports on has a vain religion. The passage has nothing to do with a personal faith in the risen Saviour, and even if someone employed their “religion” in the correct way as James reports, that alone won’t get them a smell of the glories of heaven because it is based solely on works and not faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us clearly that our salvation is based on faith and not works. The other three places religion shows up in the Bible (Acts 13:43, Acts 26:5, and Galatians 1:13-14) are all in a negative context. All three of them support the conclusion of the atheist skeptic who claims religion is the source of all of man’s problems. So Mr. Hitchens actually lines up with the Bible when he makes his case against religion. Again, as I have said more than a thousand times, man lives by the Bible whether he believes it or not.
As for the “atheist” – he spends more time talking about God than the average Christian does. In a frantic attempt to drown out the claim of God upon his life, he screams, “There is no God!” He thinks if he can do this long enough and loud enough, that God will just go away and leave him alone. But as the bumper sticker said, “God does not believe in atheists, therefore atheists do not exist.” The problem is not in the head, it is in the heart. “The fool hath said in his HEART, There is no God.” An atheist can’t see God like he can’t see a bowling ball in a bathtub. He isn’t looking, and he doesn’t want to look. Seeing God in your life is like seeing your own shadow. It is right there all the time. The only way to ignore your shadow is to get in total darkness. Even then, your shadow still exists, you just can’t see it because you have placed yourself in conditions that will not allow you to see it. If you have doubts about God, come out of the darkness. And by all means, stay away from religion. Place your faith in the only man who lived sinless, who, by the way, was murdered by religious zealots, and condemned their religion as forcefully as Mr. Hitchens does today. Let the glorious light of the risen Son of God be your guide.
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