If I Be Lifted Up...

A man starts to share to his friend about his fiancé. He tells him about all the different restaurants they go to and all the different foods they eat. He goes on to inform him about the movies they’ve seen together and the similar tastes they have. This man describes her car and the part of the city in which she lives.

Now at this point his friend interrupts him and asks him to describe the fiancé herself because up to this point he has only spoken of the things they do. So his friend begins again, and he tells his friend about all the rules they’ve established about their relationship. He says they have agreed to watch what they say to each other and to put parameters on their physical relationship. They’ve agreed not to drink alcohol and to avoid drugs.

Again his friend interrupts and asks the friend to describe his fiancé, not all the rules they’ve established. Now this man starts to tell his friend all about many other couples with which they disagree. He tells him that so many couples drink and stay out to all hours of the night. He tells his friend that he and his fiancé would never do that, and in fact they doubt whether these couple were even engaged. This man goes on to tell his friend that many of these couples don’t even believe in the accepted definition of what a couple is, and in that in and of itself means they are not even a couple.

By now the listening friend becomes frustrated and once again asks his engaged friend,

“Man, what does your fiancé look like? What does she sound like? What qualities does she have? Can you describe your love together? I mean, how do you personally feel about her?”

The friend answered,

“What are talking about? I just told you all that.”

How many people talk about their rules and stands on issues, and in that they let that become their description of the Savior? How many speak of the ones with which they disagree and again that suffices to describe their Savior? How many speak of compassionate deeds done in His name, and those will describe the glorious Lord? How many speak of their particular church or shade of theology, and never really speak of the Living Christ? How many are consumed with letting everyone know with whom they disagree and yet never breathlessly sharing their intimate relationship with the their Friend and Master?

How many speak predominately about Jesus couched in a antiseptic, doctrinal dissertation without ever revealing a walk that resembles a little child with his Creator?

Jesus is more than a date and much more than part of a well rounded earthly experience. Jesus is more than rules, more than what he isn’t, more than a doctrinal test, Jesus is our everything. Start there and work your way out. You have all eternity to communicate Who Jesus is through words, lives, and emotions. People will listen to someone who has had a genuine encounter and relationship.

A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.”

Behold...the End Approaches

I see a dark sail, on the horizon
Set under a black cloud that hides the sun…

Time continues to unravel, unwilling to pause. The message of truth distills into a modern pottage that is contained in no certain bowl, and all semblance of gospel authority cascades through the kaleidoscope of human thought and not as the revealed Word of the Author. How much more thread remains on the time spool is for the Sovereign to exclusively know, but His warning of evil days goes unheeded.

The young men rejoice and the old men weep, both seeing the same metamorphosis and yet both being impacted differently. Deception runs to and fro, masquerading sometimes as truth and sometimes as error and most times as both, but all times as sincere. Carnality has been renamed relevant, Scripture as story, truth as perception, witness as food, and these names themselves continue to change seats in the expanse of the ever present dialogue. The alluring cruise ship of hedonism continues to board, ready to set sail for places already known, and promises of enlightenment upon its decks of earthly pleasures. And the intellect of man is applauded as a talisman that will lead to the spiritual mother load.

Ever learning, ever learning, ever learning, and never able to come to the truth. The training camp for hell itself, if there ever was such a place. Imagine the existence of an eternal place of punishment. Imagine souls there right now and as the rich man begging someone to warn their earthly loved ones. Lennon writes “Imagine there’s no heaven or hell” and a Christian group writes “I can only imagine” about heaven, but where are the cries that call for the Spirit to attach Himself to the imagination of people and by divine revelation bring the reality of the coming judgment to their imagination. The flesh says "hyperbole" and the Spirit cries "Watch". The fire burns in the distance ready to bring its destruction to this planet, and so unsophisticated is that truth that any who teach such a thought can only be mentally unhinged.

The end sails into this harbor as the beginning for all those who wait to leave, but for all those still in love with this world this vessel will provide an eternal nightmare. Observe how far this world has come and with the spiritual body of its Creator in tow. The assembly that should be at the end of the dock, clean and separate from the degradation they have left, are now fully engaged and reflecting the former journey they claim to have forsaken. It is impossible for someone like me to fully express how troubling and even depressing it is to see what passes for the Christian life in today’s ecclesiastical genre.

Crass speaking and even cursing coming from preacher’s mouths, and all the lemmings defend and accept it as if the Lord approves. Provocative and sexual references publicly used to describe Christian wives including the preacher’s are applauded as revealing true love. Not “my wife is Godly woman who loves Jesus”, no, she is “hot”. Yea, that is how Jesus describes His bride too. It is most disgusting but screams out to all of us that the end is upon us. Anyone who has known the Lord for over thirty years would never have ever thought we would have heard some preacher describe his wife as hot. Aren’t we all so cool and relevant? I believe the Bible says worldly.

The visible church is a worldly mess and full of its own flesh. No more sacredness, no more fear of God, and no more sacrificial seeking of God’s face. We are in the slough of carnality and like Samson we don’t even know that our power is gone. Talk, talk, talk. The only escape is through unusual prayer and a hunger for the Word that eclipses anything we’ve known thus far. And I for one have no faith for that.

And so the whirlwind that is God’s wrath steams toward mankind. Some say God cannot be that angry over mankind and their sin. Oh, you and I have no idea. The Father sacrificed His own Son and offered Him up for us all, and all those who refuse Him will suffer at the hands of an angry Father. Do not discount and minimize the wrath of Almighty God, that would be a colossal mistake. Look around, everyone here is happy and the church spends the majority of her time to make us even more happy. Tears? Forget about it. Fear? Not on your life. Elongated and beseeching prayer? God is not amused.

Flee the wrath to come and be very prescient concerning the wild donkey called the church. She dances and prances in the meadow of her own making, shunning the lush pastures of God’s Word. Playing the harlot she embraces the world and soothes her conscience saying she is showing love. She rises early to put her hands to mischief, her warm breath clouding in the new morning’s mist. Overhead the storm clouds are gathering unnoticed, and the games continue.

Go ahead and ignore the clouds of God’s warning and lay down to sleep. Oh are we not meant to enjoy every last lustful moment of our life, then have angels escort us into heaven? Sure, everything is for our pleasure and the Father delights in our enjoyment. Close your ears to any negative protestations to the contrary, the fury of the end is a fairy tale which will be swallowed up in God’s relinquishing of His justice universally.

Maybe you have placed your own soul on that hope. If you have, you will perish in an unimaginable place of everlasting judgment. Please, repent and believe the gospel, there you will find the only refuge from what is to come.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

Golgotha's Portal

There is only one portal to eternal life. The whole world seeks to extend their life. Only those who have arrived at such hopelessness and despair that they take their own life do not wish to live longer. And all men wish to live after death. Over the centuries men have made various talismans as their surety to the other side.

There is only one portal to eternal life. It cannot be found in the conspicuous darkness of man’s intellect. It is absent in the conjured up morality of the fallen human conscious. The eastern mystics, the philosophers, and all the religious stoics have not found this unique place of everlasting transport into the presence of the Creator. Ever searching and ever failing, ever sure but ever mislead. Oh how man has thirsted for some of the glory, some of the praise in not only finding this entrance, but in creating it also. And in his fleshly desire he has doomed himself forever.

There is only one portal to eternal life. It cannot be found in the general acquiescence of the existence of a god, or like Einstein who thought because he acknowledged a design he could tip his intellectual hat to an obscure designer and in that find this portal. The new and exciting age that is now upon us beckons a sophisticated view of a god that it intertwined with man himself, and strives to find that this god is a super “man”, not an august Sovereign.

There is only one portal to eternal life. Even the visible church has crafted attractive gateways that entice the flesh and treat the cross with revulsion and an act of history, tragic but irrelevant for today. No brokenness, no humility, no sacrifice, no, these new and lust laden doorways lead back to their own lives and garner self aggrandizing accoutrements meant to exalt their own existence and not the life of the Everlasting One.

There is only one portal to eternal life. This portal continues to be scorned and rejected of men, despised and with no esteem. This portal finds little attention even among the religious lemmings of today, chirping with each other as they shuffle through these mortal coils. Oh how it seems that the cross of our Majestic Sin-Bearer bears disdain and disgust as reflected by the church as she ignores its life giving flow and exchanges it for our own best lives now.

There is only one portal to eternal life. This glorious gateway remains still open today, but as God closed the door of Noah’s ark so shall the grace of this entrance soon close. Oh what an incredible tragedy, should not we who have been risen from the death of sin trumpet the cross across the globe and to the far flung corners of this sin cursed world? Why should we not shout it from the housetops, “The cross of Jesus is the only gate to eternal life!!”.

Go ahead all you ministers of the flesh, tell the people what they desire to hear, not what God is speaking. Go ahead and scramble the words of men and pretend they are the Words of God. Go ahead and encourage your listeners to go after the things of this world while you only give a tip of the hat to the cross. God is reviled by your prideful disdain and He will soon appear at His appointment to meet with all those who ignored His cross.

This is no game, this is no light thing. To lose your soul is to lose everything. There is a coming visitation upon this earth that is beyond our imagination, and it is being ignored. There is more talk of potential comets than the surety of God’s coming wrath. Oh it sounds so superstitious and medieval, surely not for those who have been educated enough to chuckle at such nonsense. God is angry? Most certainly not, God is a god of love who will reward us all for our sincerity and striving. The whole world lies in the Wicked One, and the Day rapidly approaches. Over the futuristic horizon rides the divine storm, gathering intensity and pace, and fulfilling the ancient Words of the prophets.

The escape is also the entrance.

It is not of this world and it lacks the glitter of this world. Oh yes, there is only one portal to eternal life…

The portal found just outside Jerusalem, the portal upon a hill called Golgotha, the portal lifted high upon a tree of death. If you believe that this is the only portal to eternal life, you must drop what is in your hands and bend low to get through.

Golgotha…to…Glory.

I Need an Answer

I am asking anyone who reads this to present me with Scriptural evidence that shows either in principle or open commandment where the New Testament speaks of God's endorsement of violently overthrowing the government over taxes. Over freedom? Over religious freedom?

Why am I asking this? Because we as Christians who live in America have somehow become convinced that God directed the birth of America and that we were born as a Christian nation. God nurtured the part of His body which dwelt in this nation, but it has never been a Christian nation. There is no such thing and it actually mixes the sacred (church) with the profane (government). God birthed the notion of earthly government, and everything exists beneath His august sovereignty, but the glorious body of Christ should never be joined to any government or nation. And even in Christian schools they display paintings of men like Jefferson who was a blasphemer because they combine Americanism with Christianity.

And the next time you go to church, if your church displays the American flag outside (most do inside), ask your pastor why the American flag must be displayed over top of the Christian flag. And if you see that display, ask God how He feels about it. And since your church displays the American flag inside God's meeting place, write your represenatative and ask him or her if Congress or the White House displays the Christian flag. Are you beginning to see what has happened? The church whose citizenship is in heaven displays the American flag, but the so called "Christian" nation won't even display the Christian flag. Don't worry, God isn't impressed with flags one way or the other, He desires our hearts.

The idol of democracy has overtaken our hearts, and when the Palestinians vote in Hamas we then reject that democratic act. Democracy was birthed by the humanistic Greeks, and it turns the ruling over to the pluralistic citizens to rule themselves with their hedonistic needs as their major pursuit. We are not the government, and we are not a democracy. We are a monarchy and our King is Jesus the Christ. Separate and different, a peculiar people whose allegiance is all to our Sovereign, not to be divided among the things of this world.

And so now the idol called the Republican party has put forth adulterers and murderers as leaders of their party. Are you now convinced that America and her politicians care nothing for our Master? How is it that so many are still blind even when infidels rub shoulders with those who we exalt as conservatives, whatever that is. Let us nor care about conservatives, let us care about Bible believers whose platform are their knees, their constitution the Bible, their election from on High, and their voting booth the prayer closet.

Revival is what we need, a million elections will not solve one eternal problem. So again, someone provide me with Scriptural exhortation that allows us to kill those in governmental authority when we disagree with anything, much less taxes. And if you find such teaching, let us send guns to our Chinese brothers and sisters, their own "Boston Tea Party" is way overdue!

I'm waiting...

The Paradoxical Paradigm

He who loses his life shall find it. Jesus, circa 35 A.D.

You are important, expand your life. Church, circa 2007 A. D.

Who will you believe?

The Roman Catholic Church

Before we begin our little discussion let me present some things that should accompany our study. We must have a love for the people caught in the strong religious deception we will call the RCC in this post. Humility must be our garment and in and of ourselves we know nothing. Unless the Spirit reveals things through the inspired Word of God everything is just sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. This is an important subject since there seems to be such an opening to any and every wind of doctrine in order to project unity. Who would have believed that the day would come where evangelicals would embrace the RCC as a sister church in Christ?

Are you willing to investigate some of the things I will share about Catholic teachings, or will you just minimize doctrinal differences because you feel like being kind and loving? We should pray for and reach out in love to the Catholic people, but we need also to be “wise as serpents” while being “harmless as doves”. May the Holy Spirit of God not only teach us His truth, but may He give us the wisdom to lovingly communicate the absolute truth of the gospel.

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It would be impossible to completely deal with all the twisted and mercurial theological teachings of the RCC especially as it pertains to history. The RCC once taught that salvation could only be gained through their church. They once taught no lay person should read the Scriptures. They once taught that giving money would allow you to exercise some sins without judgment. I do not think they believe those things anymore, so I will deal with a few they still hold to today.

1. The RCC teaches that salvation come through baptism including infant baptism.

2. The RCC teaches that the Lord’s Supper is actually the blood and flesh of Jesus and that participating in the mass is a means of grace whereby one can get less and less time in purgatory.

3. The RCC teaches that priests can forgive sins because Christ has anointed them with that authority.

4. The RCC teaches that the pope is infallible in teachings of doctrine.

5. The RCC teaches that Mary was born without original sin.

6. The RCC teaches that Mary’s body was brought to heaven by God right after her death.

7. The RCC teaches that Mary is a perpetual virgin.

8. The RCC teaches that Mary is co-redemptrix with her Son.

9. The RCC teaches that good works can help you gain an entrance into heaven.

10. The RCC teaches that people can pray to dead saints.

11. The RCC teaches that Mary answers prayer.

12. The RCC teaches that most Christians must go to purgatory after death to pay for some of their sins that were not totally forgiven.

13. The RCC teaches that after death and while in purgatory living Christians can give money to help get them into heaven.

14. The RCC teaches that pious Moslems can be saved without Christ.

15. The RCC teaches that if you are excommunicated from their church you will not enter heaven.

16. The RCC teaches that truth can be known through a mixture of the Bible, the church, and traditions.

OK, I’ll stop. Now ask yourself this question, are any of these beliefs consistent with Scripture. Do these teachings seem more like cult than a true church? Let me ask you this: If there never was a Roman Catholic Church, and next year a group of people decided to start it with the teachings I just mentioned, would you still endorse that church as true? The Roman Catholic Church has led more people into a Christless eternity than any other “Christian” denomination in history. Let us stand firm for truth while reaching out to the Catholic people. And if you do not see anything wrong with any of the above points, you may want to include Scripture in your comment. By the way, when you witness to a Catholic person, do not attack their church.

Lift up Christ and His gospel!

I Will Glory in the Cross

Gal.6:14 - But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...

Christianity. In secular dictionaries it is described as one of the world’s great religions started by a man name Jesus about two thousand years ago. The world sees it as a religion of love and one whose followers try and emulate Jesus. They see many different denominations with many different beliefs and practices. Throughout the centuries movements and denominations and even cults redefined and altered the essence of Christianity. Some like the Jehovah’s Witnesses denied the divinity of Christ and teach a salvation of works. The Mormon church again changed Jesus and have a host of bizarre teachings. The Seven Day Adventists attempted to combine the Old and New Testament as a modern day practice including Sabbath worship and food laws. The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the true church built upon the Apostle Peter and they also teach a salvation through works. And there are many, many more offshoots of the true faith with every day seeing the birth of new ones.

But sometimes under the radar during even the most apostate times was the true and invisible church of Jesus Christ. These believed that the church of Jesus Christ was built upon the Rock which is Christ Himself, and that entrance into this body was by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Without being born again no one would see the kingdom of God and to believe on the Lord Jesus was to surrender your life and pick up His cross and follow in His steps.

Becoming a believer was to also become a follower, the two substantiated each other and a life of sacrifice was taught from the Word itself.

But today we see a rushing mighty wind of change without the power of the Spirit or the tongues of holy fire, this is the wind of man. Religious men write books of intricate and thought provoking spiritual nonsense that has much of the immature church spellbound by its post modern newness. The modern “theologians” can no longer abide a cross centered Christianity with the atonement at the center, today’s writers take a more liberal and humanistic view of Christianity that has at its forefront deeds of man rather than the deed of God. Christianity has now been dismantled and the many different streams of doctrine are carving out a course which runs downstream and eventually fully emptying into the ocean of a man made religion that uses not follows the Lord Jesus.

Peruse the bookstores, the sermons, or the blog nation and search for writings that center and speak of the cross. Do you find many? The center of Christianity, in fact, the center of all history is the cross. Repulsive and unsophisticated to today’s menu of intellectualism, the cross is more jewelry than reality. But any Christianity that downplays the cross is not Christianity at all, it is a collection of teachings that are missing the single mooring that must authenticate them all. The Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world has His most sacrificial and redemptive act of love relegated to a doctrinal nod and not the center of our very lives. Without the cross you have the sounding brass and tinkling of carnal man.

If you had to define Christianity in two words they would be Jesus, and the cross. And those two words, one the Author the other His act, are being maligned, twisted, and contoured to fit conveniently into this new age of post modern Christianity. And the sing-song musings that sound so nice and present themselves as exciting explorations of refreshing perceptions of those two words are actually dismantling them both. I cannot imagine the Lord God Almighty anything but angry at what men are doing to the immutable essence of His Son and His cross.

Since the first creative Word, God’s eyes were fixed upon Golgotha. Now I believe in the orthodox view of the Trinity, but I have often wondered if God always existed in separate Personhoods. I wonder if God separated Himself for us, so He, God, could come to this earth without leaving His heavenly dwelling place. It doesn’t matter but this I know, God embraced the cross before He even came as the Lord Jesus.

So instead of dwelling and loving and bowing and meditating and weeping before the cross we find it struggling to find a place in our preaching, much less our conversation. When was the last time you saw a brother or sister in the grocery store and as you fellowshipped you made a remark about the cross? People would think you were unbalanced. Have you ever picked up the phone and called a friend to share how much the cross means to you? We speak of that blessed tree in the abstract as a point of doctrinal order, but can we speak with quivering lips and broken hearts over the glory of God’s suffering gift to us? Nothing can cast a shadow over the cross, it has cast an eternal shadow over all of creative history, and the glory of His wounds remind all of heaven that the cross has provided the redemptive triumph that gained us the entrance into His resurrected presence.

Can you fathom it, we will be afforded an entrance into the very presence of the Risen Christ, for ever and ever. The very words seem so superficial because we are still bound by this body of sin, but I cannot imagine trying to find words with which to worship the Lamb that was Slain. The cross. God on the cross. God on the cross for me. God on the cross suffering for me. God on the cross suffering for me and enduring my sinful shame. Who can really know it, and if we ever actually caught a definitive glimpse of the cross would our knees buckle no matter where we were? As I pumped gas and the Spirit afforded me an unusual picture of the Crimson Tree would I fall to my knees immobilized, or would I retain my precious composure?

I was walking in utter darkness seeking my own pleasure filled existence, a rebellious enemy of God with my fleshly eyes set on my own. And one day, in March of 1975, I saw the cross, and Him who suffered upon it. The Spirit quickened my understanding and suddenly I saw all the crosses on churches, and around the necks of men and women, and painted on buildings, I saw them all as poor representations of the glory that was the cross. A good Jew on a Roman cross suddenly exploded into my understanding as Savior and Lord. I was drawn to Jesus and His cross, and then one glorious day I realized it was for me, He suffered for me. Oh wonderful day, the day I saw the cross and the Lamb it carried for what it was, my redemption. I was nothing, I had nothing, and suddenly I felt like I was His which was all I have ever wanted or needed.

So let all the new movements relish their intellectual gyrations, their innovative doctrines, their dismantling etymologies, and their mercurial banter, I will glory in the cross.

Simple, but forever glorious.

So I desire this little post to do one thing, raise high the cross of Jesus for all to bow before and again, afresh and anew, say “Precious Lord, You and You alone are worthy to receive all the glory. We see Your cross and are amazed at our sin and Your blameless suffering…for us".

Selah…Selah.

Passing Passion

There are those tortured souls who cut themselves and in that find some temporary solace. There are those who find an attraction they never wanted or sought, but are in bondage to the perversion that captures them wholly. There are those children who dread bedtime, and instead of serenity and safety, they listen for the footsteps that will add to the nightmare others call a childhood. There are those who suffer such daily pain that they long for death but find none. There are those whose depression so strangles them that they are drawn to escape through death’s door. There are those who feel so unloved, so unwanted, that they withdraw into a lonely dungeon deep within their own minds. There are those who receive a death sentence at age four because of their mother’s careless behavior. There are those who will be murdered as a child, carefully disposed of, and no one will ever miss them.

There are a million others that suffer unimaginably here on this cursed earth, those who endure the evil that escaped through Adam and thrives throughout the human race. And with that knowledge, where is our passion? We have these antiseptic discussions about should a Christian curse, while millions writhe under the weight of the curse itself. We have become a people of the round table, certainly not the prayer closet that begs with tears for the power to rescue the perishing. With the one life we have to passionately reflect the Master, we live in bondage to the hedonistic and mundane dictates of our own livelihoods. There are those who even Christ’s followers shed no tears for, and the compassion that was His has left with Him.

Have we not tired of the endless theological merry-go-rounds that accomplish nothing but titillate our fallen pride, and should we not break up the fallow ground that has grown cold and fruitless. Where is the power that broke prison doors and blinded the eyes of God’s enemies? Where are the tears that once fell for Jerusalem, when will we feel the warm, salty tears for the whole world? And after the initial changes that come with conversion, where is the sacrificial pursuit that thirsts for Christ like a deer thirsts for water. Is that just a nice song that shames us?

There are those who give their very lives for the glory of serving Christ. There are those who refuse the dainties of this attractive world, but are filled with the very Words that come from His very mouth. There are those who are consumed with Him, speaking of Him to them who will and will not listen alike. There are those who spend endless hours before His throne, inclining their ears to hear what He would say. There are those who are never content with the present condition of their intimacy with Him, but press on and on to be in His presence that will change them into His image. There are those who have died for His name, with His praise on their transporting lips.

The time for this passion is passing before us, ever so slowly, yet ever so quickly.

A farmer went into his fields to take inventory of his crops. He noticed that his crops were almost at harvest, but they did not seem to be what the seed had promised. So he thought if he plowed the field under and started again it would be costly and inconvenient. But if he did start anew it just might yield much more than what he would harvest from this crop. In the end he settled for what he had.

The time for this passion is passing before us, ever so slowly, yet ever so quickly.

Love's Embodiment

God is love...

God does not just give love, or show love, or bestow love, but God is love. You may as well throw away the earthly definitions that are embedded with the term love, for they do not apply here. The world’s view of love is either physical or romantic, they know nothing of the divine power called love which even though God needs nothing, He sacrifices everything. Man has a need for love, God is love, He needs nothing more than Himself. So exactly what kind of love is it that comes in the form of death?

Not the swashbuckling love that faces danger to rescue his damsel, that love results in an enhancement to the hero’s reputation, but God’s love comes with no reputation. Hollywood’s love responds to the beauty and innocence of a lady in distress, God’s love rescues the repulsive enemies of His own nature. Storybook love defeats the enemy with skill and daring while God’s love triumphs with the shame of death’s cross. Fairytale love paints the characters as deserving objects of affection, God’s love pulsates from Himself without the dilution of an attractive object, His love is purely Him and operates from the unconditional glory that defines Him.

And behold, what kind of love, even when given in the smallest particle, is still the whole? What kind of love gives the whole and yet the supply is never diminished? What kind of love gives out its own essence without consideration of its object's worthiness? And when you receive the love of God you receive Him, in all His fullness, and interconnected with the entirety of God’s love to mankind, Himself in Jesus. God did not just send His love, He came as His love and to everyone who believes He seals His love with Himself inside the spirit of every born again follower of Jesus, our Lord and Lover.

The love of God has no depth or width or length or height, it is immeasurable and like the cruse of oil given to the Shunammite woman by the Prophet Elisha, God’s love will never fail. The supply cannot suffer loss and it is embodied in the Lord God Himself and made manifest unto us by the Lord Jesus Christ. God has in times past spoken to us in many different ways and through many different people, but He has in these last days spoken to us through His Son the Lord Jesus.

Oh the love that drew salvation’s plan…

We did not deserve a tiny piece of the afterthought of God’s love, but we have been made recipients of it all. By His matchless grace we have been made worthy of His love by His love. Go ahead and run that one around in that serotonin cesspool we are so proud of, but without the Spirit we cannot even see. God loves us with an everlasting love and the same love wherewith He loved the Son He has loved us also, as has the Son. Now after we have discussed all the many different ways in which God exhibits His love, and after we talk about the love of a mother to her child, and after we submit to the truth that God loved us first, someone might ask, “Can we see God’s love?”. Now no one has seen God and lived, but if you want to see God’s love in all its fullness don’t look into the vast star filled universe; don’t go to Bethlehem’s stable; don’t go to the tomb of Lazarus; don’t go to the parade route into Jerusalem. In those you will see magnificent representations of the God who is love.

But if you want to see God’s love in all its glorious fullness, complete and wanting nothing, then you must remove your shoes, fall to your knees, and lift your head to an inconspicuous place just outside Jerusalem’s gates. You will see soldiers, but they are not your focus. You will see thieves, but they too are not your focus. Open your eyes and your heart and place your entire focus upon the figure in the very center of this bloody scene, hanging upon a horrific cross, bleeding from all parts of His body, mocked and despised, brutally beaten, almost naked before His mother, and abandoned by His Father, and if you get just a glimpse in a moment of understanding,

you will have seen the embodiment of God’s love in all its eternal fullness.

Jesus
Praise His Matchless Name Forevermore.

Our God and us

Saying, Amen: Blessing and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.

Oh stop and hear the Spirit speak
To hearts of men not ears
His voice is still, and sometimes small
But strong enough to speak to all
And warn of coming fears

It is His love that stays His hand
From judgment’s iron rod
And still the necks remain so stiff
And ears would only open if
They heard the Word of God

But as He warns He offers love
Where God has paid the cost
Escape the judgment that will come
It is the only refuge won
That drips from Calvary’s cross

Incline your hearts and listen well
To what the Spirit speaks
He’ll never slumber, never tire
With circumstances getting dire
To reach the world with gospel fire
Our precious souls He seeks.

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He who seeks a reason, who seeks a cause, will find a road that simply and purely leads to Him. And there He stands the Victor, holding forth the only everlasting reason for it all, Himself. At the very first moment in His heavenly presence we will see Him as He is, but we will still be far from absorbing His Majesty in all its glory, and under the power of His presence will we not fall before Who He is and always will be?

The “why’s” have no answer and all the “how’s” are past finding out, but the Who is an irresistible journey that begins and never ends with Him. And when time evaporates into eternity and all man made puzzles of existence are exposed as meaningless frauds, there He stands, drenched in His own glory, and drawing all His subjects to be consumed with Him and Him alone. Without tiring or boredom, discontent or distraction, all of creation will bow in worshipful recognition that He is worthy and He is Ruler and He is everything. And this surrendered worship will be total, unwavering, and exhaustive. No hint of any varied intensity, and every moment will be as fresh as the first breathtaking glimpse when our new beings became acquainted with just the glory of His unveiled face.

On this earth the Spirit attempts to give us some morsels of imagery that excite the spiritual palate and both satisfy while creating an unquenchable thirst for more…of Him. Like a painter’s canvas the Spirit takes the well defined colors of the Word and mixes them together, applying them to our hearts and minds, and causes us to squint at the overwhelming light of His majesty, even if through a glass ever so darkly. August in the heavens, and yet living inside a little girl, He is the glorious package that can never be fully unwrapped, but oh the grace that takes the eyes of our understanding and urges us to keep unwrapping this unspeakable gift. And when we think we have found the final tiny box that will reveal Him to us in all His fullness, and when we tearfully and with brokenness peek into this precious gift that comes labeled as the “spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him”, we discover that we have again been transported to the very beginning again, and again we are desperately thirsty for Jesus, only Jesus.

We should never have been granted a one second audience with Him. Never did we earn any right to His throne room. It is unjust for us to be allowed to view Him. For us to be pronounced eternally guilty, tied up and tortured, and just before being cast into the lake of fire we are granted a moment to bow before Him, would be infinitely more grace than any sinner deserved.

But to be called as sons, but to be granted forgiveness for our heinous transgressions, but to be called to be His witness, but to be identified with His cross, but to be allowed to follow in His resurrection, but to be brought to His eternal dwelling place, but to be granted access to His throne room, but to be made like Him, and finally to be permitted to worship Him forever and forever and forever is grace beyond the most unbridled imagination, and our very eternal beings will redound to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We being like Him, will worship Him, and He will forever be All in All as all of creation reflects the Creator Messiah perpetually.
And we will be there…selah…

To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

The Growing Darkness

In the midst of my joy which I find in the Lord Jesus, I feel a profound sense of sadness and spiritual grief as I watch what is happening to the church, His body. When I was a boy I would be playing a game of baseball with my friends when we might hear the voices of some of their mothers calling them to come. I remember seeing my friends as they one by one started to leave the game. I was sad. I now see many of the preachers who once bellowed out the Word with authority and anointing walking away to seek new and relevant approaches. To them the Word is no longer relevant.

I cannot believe how fast things are changing all around us. The core of the written revelation that came through the pen of man straight from the heart of God that was meant to enlighten, guide, and teach, is now being treated as a self help book that contains some good advice but is not the authentic and inerrant Word of the Living God. And even those who on paper claim to believe the Word of God teach it as a lunch pail/tackle box literary series rather than the powerful, Spiritual food that convicts, corrects, teaches, edifies, and exalts the Person of Jesus Christ. And worst of all the deviations from the truths of the gospel have now become widening caverns, and the guides to these falsehoods wear their altered truths as medallions of honor.

And as the majority of evangelicals turn their hearts from a consuming passion for the Word and unto a consuming passion for money and entertainment, the discernment between false and true teaching diminishes. Have you ever been outside and suddenly it becomes darker and darker and then in a few minutes a storm arrives with rain and violent wind? Well the spiritual atmosphere today is not only growing darker with each day, it is ripe with wide and varied forms of deception. This deception is not just from false religions such as Islam, Buddhism, and others, no, many deceptions are coming from within the Christian church, even from evangelicalism itself.

Does your spirit grieve over the transformation about everything from the Bible to the Lord Jesus Himself. When I fell in love with the Lord Jesus in 1975 I never dreamed that we would come to such a time as this, and now the darkness accelerates at an incredible rate masquerading as a search for truth. Lots of excitement, many wonderful conferences, and a plethora of books and tapes that line the pockets of preachers from every doctrinal perspective are the norm. Conferences about how to improve your life or getting the power to succeed attract the American believer. And even in orthodox conferences, with the church immobilized by powerlessness and sin, a preacher gives a series about “Why I am a Calvinist”. Absolute worthlessness and designed to garner the applause of the choir while absent what God would say to the most hedonistic, deaf church in the world.

The darkness continues to overtake us, ever so slowly yet simultaneously at an alarming rate, it has enveloped the western church and with a sweet song that appeals to the flesh it has piped and we are dancing. Our children live in front of television while never even realizing that there is something called the power of God in revival much less ever seeing it first hand. If you want to teach the little ones or the teenagers about revival you will have to go to the history books because we have not seen one in our lifetime. Incredibly, we are not even thirsty for one.

Is.41:17-18 - When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys, I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water.
Is.44:3 - For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring.

In 1986 I had gall bladder surgery. When they wheel you to the recovery room they watch the clock and begin to attempt to wake you up from the anesthesia. At first you can hear a distant voice calling your name, and then the voice gets a little clearer but no matter how you try and wake up you cannot. And so it is with the church today, some can hear the voice of the Spirit calling for the church to…

“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light”.

The time is short, the situation is desperate, but are we? The devil sleeps with your children, he has vicious plans to destroy them in the future, are you desperate? Your marriage is under attack, seminars are only a band aid, are you desperate? While we sleep the Bible is being carefully and quietly slipped out from under our arms, are you desperate? There are children being molested and abused within walking distance from your home, are you desperate? Men are laying with men in your general neighborhood, are you desperate? The days are evil, they tick by and every morning we are left with one day less to serve our wonderful Lord and Savior, are you desperate for Him? The whole world lies in the Wicked One and the events scream out that the end is near, are you desperate?

The darkness is now palpable, but this dense darkness is only a prophetic sentry telling those who would listen that a divine storm of eternal destruction and judgment is rapidly approaching this very planet and in God’s eternal providence we are alive now. We are being called to an unusual ministry of reconciliation and to spread and exhibit the awesome power of the everlasting gospel and its Author.

But where is the power to awaken from this earthly slumber and not only confront the darkness but spread the incandescent Word of the Living God? Where is the revival we need to violently wrest us away from the things of this world that hold such sway in our hearts and lives? We can barely keep Christian men away from pornography and lust, how can we possibly find the power to accomplish the apostolic mandate to flood the earth with God’s glorious gospel? The prayer lives of Christians and the churches they attend are an embarrassment to the cause of Christ and an affront to His Majesty’s Name, so how will we continue to pretend we have His power? With every new strategy, new relevancy, new worldly method, and new translation designed to appeal to sinners not convict them, why have we not realized we are powerless, void of the power of the Spirit that fell upon dirty, uneducated, common, and insignificant followers who turned the world upside down two thousand years ago? And they had nothing but the fullness of God’s Spirit and the desire to preach Christ and Him crucified.

We are left with this, either Christianity is a lie or we are living one. Can you imagine a man like Christopher Hitchins debating the Apostle Paul and winning the debate? Can you imagine Wesley sitting in a round table discussion on Larry King and blending in? Can you imagine Finney coming to a church and preaching a little series about finances? If you and I were the apostles called on the Day of Pentecost, would the gospel have spread around the world? It is impossible to list and catalogue all the signs of worldliness and death so evident in the church today. We are all asleep and happy to be so. Until we allow the Spirit of God to awaken us from this slumber and fill us with divine desperation, all things will remain the same since the fathers slept.

The darkness grows…the storm is upon us.

But the tigers come at night, with their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart , as they turn your dream to shame…

Sinners

In that while we were yet sinners...

The title seems so antiseptic and innocuous, not to mention a sense of universal camaraderie that helps spread the guilt. But that name has a deep and unimaginably sinister meaning, which the very nature of the sin itself attempts to minimize accompanied by a tacit admission of a general guilt. “Everyone is a sinner” is used as a badge of protection in order to accept the guilt but dulling the painful truth by spreading the complicity. A sinner is a complete and aggressive enemy of God Almighty that is filled with moral and spiritual treason against his loving and Holy Creator. He is absolutely worthless and stands adjudicated as eternally guilty without any opportunity of early release on his own, not only because he is incapable of self exoneration, but he is also unmotivated and sees no need to seek such forgiveness.

Have you ever looked into the bathroom mirror and attempted to see yourself from any other perspective than that which has your eyes fixated upon the mirror? It is impossible to see the back of your head without using your own eyes and another mirror, so in essence you are always seeing yourself from your own perspective. It is the same way with sin, we cannot see and understand God’s perspective of sin simply by using the eyes of our own understanding, we must rely completely on someone else’s perspective. God’s. The enemy of all mankind is death and sin is its author. At the very core of sin is the human desire to usurp the authority of God and become its own lord and master. It rejects God and by its action it denies Him fully, and all the while experiencing all the carnal emotions that are the unified siblings arrayed against the Sovereign in useless rebellion. The entire scene is both horrific and senseless and abjectly stupid.

Without realizing that the only reason every sinner hasn’t been destroyed is due entirely to the mercy of God, sin continues to strut and fret its hour upon the stage in a foolish and temporary season of false bravado which will eventually be exposed. And those created souls who have been permeated by sin invite its company and enjoy its escapades. Thinking they have gained an enhancement to their hedonistic lifestyles, sinners have lost it all. Eternity is not just for the reward of those in Christ who have had their sin removed, eternity also looms large for a tormented justice that will continue forever and ever. Every sin will be judged either at one time and place called Golgotha, or forever in the lake of God’s fire of justice.

Does that seem too unsophisticated for your post modern sensibility? Does the talk of hell and the lake of fire make you recoil because it seems like so much Dante’s fairy tale and very little of a coming reality? It is this eternal place of justice that should give us a glimpse of how God views sin and its hosts, and with that tiny perspective should we not endeavor to be free from this albatross that will be our everlasting undoing? And instead of seeking relief the whole world invents more and newer nuances of sin to minister to the basest instincts and display the deepest, most blasphemous attitude openly before the Lord of All the Universe. Make no mistake, He has seen everything.

And in the church even the blood washed sinners who have had their eternal penalty removed by the blood of the Lamb of God, continue to conform to their previous lifestyle in an amazing display of ungratefulness or worse yet, a display of an unchanged condition. Sin is not a polite guest, it doesn’t just sit where you tell it to. It may come into a life as a small and submissive friend but as a power hungry parasite it will begin to demand more power while attempting to remain unnoticed, but one day even if noticed it will have gained enough power to resist any assault from its host. And all the while this sin takes on a substantive role in universally excoriating the holiness and authority of the Lord God, no matter how small the sin. Murder and an insignificant lie both equally attack God Himself viciously and tear at the fabric of the law of the Eternal Lawgiver, and in the face of such monstrous horror we feel nothing when we say that men are sinners. As if saying that men are just on another team than God is, we have not only indicted ourselves we have crafted a self serving depiction about which the Great White Throne Judgment will destroy and prove a costly lie.

So with just a little peak from a pitiful pen, have you seen a glimpse of how our Sinbearer sees sinners? Well, you ask, if we were that repulsive how can God love us? Let me suggest that as deep and deathly is the subject of sin, eternally deeper and life giving is God’s love. And in that depth stop fighting it and drown in God’s waves of redemptive love, because if you will by faith drown in Calvary’s blood, the Lifeguard will save you.

Christ died for us.

The Glory of the Risen Christ

II Tim.2:10 - Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
II Cor.4:6 - For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The glory of the Lord. We understand finite and earthly glory to suggest a title or office or even power. But all those are of the earth and are only substantive when it is bestowed upon a man, not that he has that intrinsically of himself. Take a baby that is born to a king and bring him to another nation and he is nothing. His princely bloodlines are not recognized in that country so he is without the benefits of his birthright. So in essence he is just another baby if his royal birth is not acknowledged by the people because his comes from a man made king and his blood is only just that, it is not royal in substance.

So that is man’s glory, that which comes from one man to another which can be withdrawn at anytime and exists at the whim of man. Man’s glory is confined to this world and is fallen and passing. Caesar is no longer king, neither Tutankommen or Hitler or Charlemagne, all have passed and are no longer given esteem or power. And this man made glory can pass off a living person also. Soon after a sitting president is not re-elected he loses much of his protective entourage and although he may be still respected the glory he once had is now gone. The glory of man is only of value in the mind of man itself.

But not so with the glory of God. God’s glory of course includes His mighty deeds but they are only a reflection of the glory that abides in the Godhead itself. God’s glory is God Himself. The absolute divine glory that radiates in many forms both visible and invisible generates from Who God is eternally, and His acts of love and mercy and power are vehicles through which His existent glory manifests itself. Before God spoke the first created Word He dwelt in infinite and colossal glory. We who are so dependant on the visual have a difficult time envisioning the glory of God before creation because creation itself reflects His glory, but go a little further in your worship. God is glory in and of Himself and the reflections of that glory are actually reflections of Him.

Now the most visible manifestation of God’s glory is Jesus Christ Himself which again is God Himself. I realize we are going into deep, deep waters but can you not sense the Spirit leading us into the more intimate and breathtaking reflections of the glory of God? If anyone desires to see God in all His inherent glory do not look at the stars, they are reflections. Not the mountains, not the seas, not the planets, they are still magnificent reflections of God’s glory. But there came a day when God said He would remove the veil and reveal a manifestation of His glory that would eclipse any and everything we had seen heretofore. Cast you faith gaze upon Jesus the Christ, He is not just a reflection of God’s glory, behold, He is God’s glory because His is God.

No man has seen God in His fullness and lived, as when the Lord Jesus came to earth He softened the brightness of His glory by a human body. But make no mistake that glory which authenticated His divine Lordship as God and Creator, peeked through His humanity and gave majestic glimpses as to who this earthly stranger was and always had been. God of God, Very God of Very God. Now the God of the Old Testament dwelt among men and displayed the glory of His presence between the cherubim above the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies. One significant night in Bethlehem God removed His glory from the Temple and brought God's glory with Him in the form of a human son of Judah. The angels gathered in a cloud of God’s glory and proclaimed His arrival to the world but they were just magnificent created instruments of God’s glory, this baby was God in all His glory. To explain it is to diminish it, Paul says it is a great mystery. It is beyond the human mind to realize that as the shepherds peered over the trough and saw the hours old infant they were looking into the face of Him Who had made them. The mysterious God who man had considered unapproachable had now come to both proclaim “I am” and also completely pay for the sin that stood in the way of the knowledge of the Holy One.

So this God man lived upon the world He had made and sinlessly struggled through this cursed earth until He arrives at Jerusalem. This was the battlefield which would decide the eternal glory, and this was the cross that would meet death. The Lifegiver would meet death on its own turf and in an incomprehensible act of glorious power He momentarily surrenders His glory. Or did He?

Oh please, do not ever believe that Jesus the Creator ever gave away any of His glory, on the contrary, the glory of the cross bound Savior shines most brightly upon this instrument of death. While the carnal eyes of the flesh see a dead Jew, the eternal eyes of the Spirit recognize the immensity of a victory that would eternally redound to the glory of its very “victim”. The enemy of death had stalked Bethlehem’s arrival since the day He was born. Having caught up with Him on Golgotha death is suddenly captured in its own snare. The Incarnate One captures death in His own prepared body and defeats it for whosoever will receive it by faith in the Victor. The gore, the cuts, the thorns, the nails, the stripes, and the blood reflect the glory of the sacrificial Lamb, if you can see through the Spirit.

But as infinitely glorious was the cross, the incubation of three additional earth days holds in it a glory that will forever be matchless in its praise. The Captain of our Salvation has not only defeated death in His own body and removed our sins, He has resurrected from that same death. Oh if the enemies of God had only known they might have realized that God was actually using their own evil schemes to perfect His ultimate plan. And on the third day that prepared body rises from the loaned slab with death in shambles, enters into life again, and a new glory walks from Joseph of Aramathea’s tomb. It is now not just Bethlehem’s divine baby, not just the miracle working Messiah, not just Calvary’s Lamb, this is the Risen Christ!

So at the ascension the Risen Christ in all His eternal glory again enters heaven from whence He had come.

“Lift up your heads, O ye gates and be lift up ye everlasting doors and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle!

The Second Person of the Godhead rides as it were back into His eternal dwelling place and there is a throne reserved for Him. Oh look and wonder at Him, He had left with all the fullness of the glory of the Godhead, but can you not see that He has about and in Him an everlasting glory that He has gained through His victory? The Author of Life has defeated death and is the first born from the womb of the grave and His glory illuminates all of heaven. Shield your eyes all you earth dwellers because you will buckle under the weight of such enduring glory. He is He who was dead, Who now lives forevermore, exuding a everlasting glory that crowned His incarnate head when “up from the grave He arose, a mighty Victor ore His foes”.

How is it possible that God, who has all glory, can gain more glory? That question from a son of man exhibit’s a profound lack of understanding about the strength of death found in sin. The victory that Christ won by His death and through the eternal promenade of His resurrection is beyond words. And to document the path to His resurrection He maintains His nail scars, glorious wounds of remebrance lest we forget. And those of us who caused His sufferings can by faith be granted an entrance into His actual presence and allowed to fall before this Majestic Lamb of Glory and worship Him forever. Selah.

So go ahead those of you who feel any sense of awe at the feats of man, or those who swoon at dignitaries and monarchs, or who follow sports figures, or are breathless at great buildings, go ahead. But there is coming a day when upon the very first glimpse of the glory of the Risen Christ all the glories of men and angels will be forever swallowed up in the pitifulness of their own inadequacy, and in just the shadow of His glory will they be seen as darkness.

And all of heaven will at one great and august moment bow before the throne and will be eternally consumed with the object of their worship, the glory of the Risen Christ.

Irreconcilable Differences

Is it wrong to go against one’s conscience and what you believe to be the revealed will of God? What other recourse is there if you are even a modest student of the Word and upon embracing what you honestly discern as God’s truth you see whole movements and teachings either compromising these truths or worse yet changing them altogether? Are these teachings of the Almighty to be taken lightly or even flexible enough to make room for other points of view, or are they of such immutability that our understanding compels us to remain intransigent in our stand? Is there something of eternal value at stake or does the Spirit soften us enough to expand their original intent to such an extent as to make former men of God appear confined by their generation as to their ability to fully develop their encyclopedic and unrestricted nature?

The times they are a changin.

The currency that continues to pay for the right to change the quintessence of faith necessary for revelation concerning the gospel and in some cases the very meaning of salvation is good intentions. The heart relationship between a sinner and the Lord Jesus has been redefined as plutonic rather than a life long commitment of surrender, obedience, and worship. Now either throughout the previous centuries the expansiveness and exclusivity of the gospel has been completely misrepresented thereby disallowing many to enter into the salvation offered by the Christ, or it is being misrepresented by today’s costless discipleship which sees millions entering as it were into a believing followship of the Lord Jesus without a cross and carrying all the earthly hedonistic accoutrements they came with heretofore. There is a theological tension between these two historical views which makes them both mutually exclusive. In other words they cannot both be true.

I do not say this to make my own or anyone else’s experience a matter of pride or even as a theological substance, only the Scriptures can be the absolute basis of truth. But is this question not one of such eternal importance that it comports us to prayerfully and excruciatingly study the will of God in order to glorify our Father and divest ourselves of deceptive complicity? And as far as dialogue can be used of the Spirit to leverage our spiritual understandings let it be so, but let us never be convinced outside the sphere of Scripture itself. And as comfortable and enjoyable it may be to interact with brethren from a different persuasion, no one must rely on the persuasiveness, oratorical prowess, or literary dexterity of any human when it comes to one day standing before Almighty God and give an account for that which we believed. Do you not think that God will hold all who could read and had the written revelation of His Word responsible for discerning His precious truth or will He consider it of little value?

So what are we speaking of when we deal with the gospel, the only message of salvation? Everyone knows the facts. Christ was God in the flesh, He died for our sins on the cross, and on the third day He resurrected. There are the cold, hard facts that even the devil knows. So what does a sinner have to believe to be saved and how should we present the gospel in a clear and urgent way absent any manipulation? And if creative and attractive manipulations are used do they so cloud the truth that the intended responses are of little value and only represent an earthy data base rather than an addition to the Lamb’s Book of Life? These are serious questions for all of us, orthodox, seeker friendly, purpose driven, and emergent alike. It is easy to succumb to the clandestine machinations of the flesh disguised as, of all things, the love of God. Ever softening and ever contouring God’s truth so as to attract believers eventually will not only present the gospel of man, but it will become accepted as the gospel of God.

So to what degree does a person have to understand the nature of sin and specifically his own, or does he only have to understand an innocuous “flannel board” explanation that has all its attachment to Adam and little if any to himself? And if a person desires heaven and wants to avoid hell is that in and of itself enough to be saved? And can a person walk into a service unconcerned about his spiritual situation and at the end of a theatrical presentation that includes lighting, heart stirring stories, and mood music believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved? The answer is yes, by the Spirit. But is it also possible that at the end of such a well oiled production a sinner can make a shallow commitment based on the atmosphere rather than the leading of the Spirit and then be falsely told he is saved? The answer is also yes. It is an extremely serious matter to tell a person he is saved and completely irresponsible and the height of careless conjecture when that pronouncement is endued upon a complete stranger. And when that same pronouncement is conferred like a college degree through the pages of a book and upon an unknown reader it goes beyond irresponsible, it is both reckless and cruel.

Giving false assurance is the devil’s business, not ours. So if a sinner does not have even a elementary comprehension of his sinful standing before God he cannot be saved. Any so called commitment would then be based on a dangling carrot with a disregard for the very nature of the cross. This is what appears to be happening today with great joy and numerical results but little sacrificial disciples. The “count the cost” dimension of the gospel has been completely dismantled and replaced with the “ask Jesus into your life” convenient and costless model which has millions running toward it to get an extreme makeover, which of course is translated into a positive and culturally enhancing experience. This was foreign to the early disciples and much of the former generations of Christians to say nothing of the Fox’s Book of Martyrs.

So the sum total of this little essay is this,

“The differences between the historical salvation gospel presentation and many of the presentations and definitions of the saving gospel today are irreconcilable”.

More to come.

Following His Steps

I Pet. 2:21 - For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.

These words are not so simple when applied to a variety of areas of a saved sinner’s earthly life. Peter doesn’t say that we should just follow Him, or just keep Him in sight, or even follow Him closely. The Spirit exhorts us to follow His actual steps. Oh we sometimes boast that we are not only following Jesus, we are actually stepping right into the divine steps of the Incarnate Christ Himself. Wow, what a claim! Now before you get an actual bone fide legal description that substantiates your walk let us examine just a few short snippets of the miraculous life of the Lord Jesus. And for those who claim it is so very easy to become a Christian, they may be holding to a faith doctrine that is sometimes stripped of any teeth of obedience.

First let me praise my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. To even attempt to follow in His steps is a glorious privilege that outshines anything we were ever given. Have you ever turned around and seen an undesirable person following you and wish they would stop? Well our amazing Lord not only desires us to follow Him, He helps us. As a matter of fact, without His power we are helpless and will quickly stop the Christ following journey or at least change the route to accommodate our own desires. He is glorious and He is Majesty captured in a Person. Have you never experienced the time when your utter worthlessness came face to face with His infinite Holiness? And just when you thought you were going to be cast away forever, He gave you the repentant faith to believe on Him. Only a born again believer, sealed by God’s Spirit, can truly and vicariously identify with what I just described. And it is joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Now read carefully because this is not just semantics, it is the path to a deeper understanding of Who He is. Our walk that desires to step where He steps can only be dictated by watching Him. What I mean is that if you concentrate on where you are stepping without watching where He steps, well, that can become either frustrating or self righteous. And you can easily lose the joy and the broken worship that only comes from learning of Him and allowing the Spirit to lead to His steps. Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. How can we do that?

Secular books can teach you about Jesus to some extent, but only the miraculous, written revelation of Jesus Christ given by and through the Holy Spirit can open the “eyes of our understanding” and lead us to a deeper understanding of Who He is, and by the Spirit we plunge deeper into intimacy between a servant and His Lord, and if you look down you will see that the footsteps into which you step have nail scars. And all the promises in Him are yea and amen. You see, the precepts and commandments are not only contained in Him, they are Him. I am doing a really bad job of communicating what I believe the Spirit is showing me, and in many more ways I am a very poor example of this teaching.

The Spirit uses the Word to teach the Word. Not just comparing Scripture with Scripture, but the Word reveals the Word (Jesus). And the rewards of walking in His steps are not confined to God’s approval of obedience, no, many are the glorifying rewards and crowns that accompany that crucified walk. The obedient walk of a follower whose eyes and heart are not transfixed upon his own steps but are lovingly glued to the forerunner Himself comes with other rewards inherent in that walk. There is the ability of God to use the life of His own child to reach the lost when that believer is supernaturally walking in the Son’s steps.

There are other rewards, but perhaps the supreme treasure is the gracious expanse of the enlightening of our spiritual eyes in seeing, understanding, and loving the Lord Jesus. So in effect walking in His steps creates an increasing desire to more faithfully follow Him which creates an increasing desire to more faithfully…you get the point. And oh the glory that comes from pleasing Him. It sometimes takes you out of this present world and catapults you into the very presence of the One who made the footprints for us to follow.

Following in the revealed footprints of the Incarnate Christ starts with the Scriptural narratives and teachings that you will find are drenched in blood. But Jesus can never be captured in one or two paths that lend themselves easily and predictably to the path follower, no, His steps sometimes lead where you may not have anticipated or even wanted them to go. Just when you have settled into a step by step path that you believe you have mastered, Jesus veers off the course you have prepared for and now you must again choose, His steps or yours. I must confess that many times I have come to a fork in my journey and of course I assumed I know which way Jesus had gone so I go that way. Not long into this path I suddenly look up and realize that I can no longer see Jesus. Where did He go? I again look down and I still see steps but upon a closer examination I can no longer see any blood. I place my foot in the footprint and “what is this?”. This footprint I am stepping in is actually my own, not His. I have taken my own way and followed my own steps and am now on my own path.

You see what I’m saying? Sometimes we have all our doctrinal “I”s dotted and our “t’s” crossed and we have turned on the footsteps “autopilot” and off we go. And suddenly we are compromising where we shouldn’t, judging when He would show compassion, we feel self confident when we should be humble, and most blatant of all we have become religious not spiritual. Make no mistake, we have all been found from time to time lost on that carnal road and by God’s grace have been granted a repentant return to following the One we had thought we were. I have over 32 years changed in some of my doctrinal beliefs about some understandings, not any core beliefs but some clearer teachings about some Biblical truths. If you are a believer for any length of time the Spirit will help you also.

But there have been times when I was convinced that I was following in the steps of Jesus only to discover later I had missed a few steps. I have been bellicose when He desired gentleness, I have been quiet when He desired me to speak up, I have been judgmental when He wanted compassion, I have dialogued when He called me to reprove, and other times when in the moment I thought I was following His steps only to discover I was blazing my own trail. So after many years I’ve discovered that following His steps requires more of me than being right, it many times calls me to ask me how I should be right.

Now after I have sought Him diligently about the way He is going, and after I’ve sought Him in prayer and the instruction of the Word, I lift my eyes and watch where He is going. As He takes His first step I, by faith, lift my left leg and begin to place it in His footprint. Just as I am ready to put my weight upon the first step I hear the Spirit gently but clearly call out for me to wait. Wait? But why, I see my Master’s footprint clearly so why wait? The Spirit lovingly reminds me,

“You have forgotten your cross”

Grace and Truth

Jn.1:14 - And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Like Siamese twins that share the same heart, grace and truth are inseparable and exist together in God and as the verse specifies they dwell in their fullness in the Lord Jesus. Without grace truth is death and without truth grace is hollow. And so where is the correct mixture? That my friends is a continuing balance that requires much prayer and attending to the Scriptures. Jesus was filled with both.

How is grace presented in the context of truth and how is truth presented in the context of grace? There exists between them both a tension and yet a kinship that substantiates them both. The doctrine of God’s grace is truth and the truth of God is filled with grace. It is a challenge to be both John the Baptist and Barnabas without compromising one element of God’s message at the expense of the other. It is the balance that only the Spirit can walk inside of us and through a consecrated tongue.

And our flesh can find enjoyment of an out of balance presentation of either of these truths. The flesh loves a sloppy grace that requires nothing and offers a continuing of our own selfish and hedonistic lifestyle. (Rom.6:1-2) And of course the flesh enjoys using truth to clobber and destroy people without any buffer of grace. The flesh will gleefully accost a person who smokes while turning a blind eye to its own pride. It will enjoin doctrinal purity with meanness and tell itself “well done”.

This is the chameleon like aspect of our flesh, it can appear religious and yet be of the same substance that drives a drunkard to the gutter. And taking inventory of our own flesh and the part it plays in any and every aspect of our lives requires a painful honesty and openness before our Father. And if you bow before the Father and ask Him to reveal any flesh that has surreptitiously become an active part of your walk, and if the Father says there isn’t any, that isn’t the Father of lights it is the father lies. Paul had to die daily and can we do any less?

There is no salvation besides the grace of God found in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the condition for regeneration is repentant faith. God will not pour out His grace upon an uninterested and unconcerned sinner, and although surrendering completely is a process, He will not bestow His grace upon anyone who refuses to even begin that process. Today we are telling people that God has reserved a place in heaven for them simply based upon a repeated prayer and with no chance to disciple them and see the fruit of that first engrafted seed. It surely comes from the American competitive spirit and the numbers game which is designed to elicit the applause of men. Grace is inactive and a religious lie without truth.

But truth also contains the magnificent offer of God’s grace within it. As a matter of fact, even the understanding of God’s truth must be through the grace of God. Now this is a very treacherous obstacle course when we speak the truth of God’s Word while striving to have it seasoned with grace. When we speak the truth of God to a lost person we seem to make sure we are speaking the grace of God, but when we are speaking corrective truth to someone who has strayed from the Word our flesh envisions us as a reincarnation of John the Baptist. At times like that we don’t want the beatitudes, no, give us the turning over of the money changers. We reject the weeping over Jerusalem model, we emulate the “you brood of vipers” model and claim that we are just imitating Jesus. Oh yea, you want to do what Jesus did? OK, listen up, you may just want to audit that class.

First, sell all that you have or better yet leave it all - TODAY. OK, that is step one, are you there yet? Wait a minute, we cannot go any further until you complete Jesus 101, so go ahead and leave everything. Well all the miracles, all the weeping, all the humility, all the rejection, all the giving of oneself totally and completely to God’s work will have to wait, you are stuck at phase one. See, I thought you might want to reconsider acting as if you enjoy all the earthly authority of Jesus without the same sacrifice.

So now we are back to being a sinner saved wholly by the grace of God. The difference, you ask? Now we will still speak what Jesus spoke, but in utter humility and filled with God’s grace, which He was filled with. So what happens when you hear someone teaching things that go against the Word of God? You speak with conviction and clarity what the Word teaches and you forcefully correct them, in love. In love? How do you do that and with what tone do you use? You see, we don’t even know how to really do that because we’ve been so concerned with truth we’ve neglected the grace side. The first step is to again focus on honoring God in both ways and in that become more dependant on the directives of the Spirit than we have apparently been. And when we see error, instead of quickly picking up a club, let us ask and hear how the Holy Spirit would have us proceed. Your method and His may just be different from time to time.

And those of you who see nothing wrong with the modern and ever widening parameters of grace without any hint of surrender, you must also take time to seek the Word of Truth to see if your opinions or anyone else’s are valid against the Scriptures. And just because some movements are growing disproportionately does not mean they have God’s approval, you have a responsibility to separate men’s personalities from the Scriptures. Are there legitimate questions being asked and is God’s truth being compromised by attractive packages? And if the Bibles clearly teaches that there will be a falling away and that in the last days teachers will scratch the lustful ears of people, where is this falling away and who are these preachers that will please people? Look around and hold up God’s truth to these new movements and see if it matches, not just so you can change camps, but so you can please the heavenly Father.

There you have it, grace and truth. Both are in their complete fullness in the Person of Christ and so in essence we are not looking for the correct balance, we are looking for…

Him.

An Open Letter to Ken Silva

There is no joy, or at least there shouldn’t be, in correction of another believer and especially a pastor and elder. That Pastor Ken Silva is a pastor and an elder is self evident and he serves the Connecticut River Baptist Church as pastor. Let me also say that he was the person whose writings first illuminated me to the movement known as “emergent” so I am grateful that he was used in my own personal life. I do not know him personally, but I have communicated with him via e-mail a number of times.

I am an ordained Baptist preacher not presently in a paying position who has written a blog now for several years and I generally see the doctrinal and presentation dangers exhibited by the seeker/purpose/emergent movements that are rapidly changing the way the church addresses truth itself. When I began my blog I did not even know what a blog was but was encouraged to adjust my e-mail articles into blog form by a brother in Christ. He paid for the set up himself and I am grateful.

I do not remember how I came across Slice of Laodecia but when I read some of the articles I became aware that there were others who were disenchanted with the direction of much of evangelicalism. I am sure to their present dismay two of my articles were posted on that site. So I began the process of being a “blog watchman” which varies in intensity and tone depending on the person. After a few months I noticed that Ingrid, the former manager of Slice, was posting personal and harsh articles about almost everything and anybody, some with so little to do with the general theme of doctrinal falling away that I made my concerns known to her. I was reproved by Ingrid herself which then led me to re-evaluate a woman’s role as a blog manager that corrects ordained men. I still believe that a Christian woman can teach and post doctrinal issues but not personally attack or correct an ordained elder. That is unbiblical.

Well Slice disappeared and then came CRN. Pastor Ken had been a regular contributor to Slice and he now became the editor of the Christian Research Network blog. When Ken became the main writer the tone and communicative style became even more aggressive and disrespectful and sometimes outright immature. I have seen unbelievable things said in Ken’s posts and comments around the blog nation. I have contacted him several times concerning this issue and he continues to claim that I am obsessed with the issue of humility. He is absolutely right, I am very concerned with all of us remaining expressively humble in the midst of the ongoing battle over Biblical interpretation and authority.

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And so after much prayer and concern about how we represent the Lord Jesus even when speaking His truth I am writing this open and public letter.

Ken, you have been given a forum to address issues of great importance to the body of Christ and many people need to hear some of the facts about many of these issues, but you have let yourself and your demeaning and name calling style obscure what you are saying. I have also been guilty of some of that (I.e. Spiritual Pedophiles) but God has shown me that I cannot sacrifice Christlikeness on the altar of doctrinal truth and correction and as a matter of fact Christlikeness is doctrinal truth. You cannot use certain statements and events in the life of Christ to justify your words while you ignore the overwhelming number of verses that call us to be “clothed with humility”.

There must be a balance which is a journey that continues to lead all of us to the very heart of humility, the cross. You did not discover truth yourself, God showed it to you and you cannot creatively wrap that truth in demeaning, condescending, and self promoting words and expect people to listen, especially those who need to hear it. And being an ordained pastor does not give you or anyone else license to ignore common courtesies when expounding doctrinal errors even to the offender himself. There is a dramatic difference in being a voice of strong conviction and a dialogue bully.

You are prolific in your research and writing, but you continue to turn a deaf ear to what those who love you as a brother and even agree with your general direction are attempting to share with you. I ask you not to respond but take these and other words before the Lord and listen to Him. I have no unique access to God’s throne but I know He has brought me down to see that I am nothing while still allowing me the privilege to speak forth the Word of Life even in correction. This Spiritual struggle is no competitive game, the stakes are high and the people on all sides are precious to God even if some have been deceived. In fact, demeaning a deceived person is akin to making fun of a blind person who trips over a rock. Even in rebuke we must remain humble and careful in our words and tone, and we must always have the person‘s interest in heart because that is what glorifies our Lord. Winning an argument and a “come and get me” attitude is all flesh and of no Spiritual use. To see what we truly believe we see and then to speak to it is a gut wrenching experience and should never descend into a flippant “tit for tat” conversation.

Our hearts should be broken not only about the falling away, but our own powerlessness. And if indeed there is no change in your tone and haughty hyperbole I will continue to encourage blogs to remove CRN from their blog links. We serve Christ alone and He must increase and we must decrease.

This post is prayerfully for your good and the glory of God from one who is nothing but on a very slow journey to be like Him.

In Christ,

Rick Frueh