23,000 EAGER AND ITCHING EARS PART I

 A pastor with a worldwide ministry stands before his 23,000 member church, a number which includes satellite branches. He's teaching that massive number of listeners a myth. But this pastor's influence isn't limited to that number: hundreds of pastors eagerly attend his conferences to learn his message and his methods of church growth.(One of those methods is, "Do not preach verse by verse through a book in the Bible."

He's instructing the 23,000 with a myth he believes is true and he's warning them so they won't continue, as he puts it, to base their faith on the Bible. (!) He doesn't believe that what he's teaching is a myth; he believes that it's the gospel truth and the assembled pastors and his congregation need to know this "truth" so they can instruct their flocks not to base their faith on what they believe to be an infallible Book. As he said,"Good luck with basing your faith on the Bible!"

As he progresses through his sermon, he confidently declares that the church didn't have a Bible for first 400 years of church history. He tells the congregation, "The first century Christians turned the world upside down and they didn't even have a Bible." (You can see how such a statement would downgrade the Bible in the  eager and itching ears of the 23,000.) 

That sounds good to those eager ears who would, if they believed that declaration, conclude that we don't need the Bible either since they did what they did without one. Summary: they didn't need THE Book, so neither do we and we shouldn't base our faith on what it says.

"They didn't have a Bible?" Really? This pastor is a dynamic speaker, there's never a verbal slip of the tongue or a moment's pause; he can rivet the attention of thousands. So, with his eloquent mastery of the English language and oratorical skills, he is persuading literally thousands of the myth that the early church was bereft of the Word of God and was in that state for 400 years.

Let's examine this myth. The truth is that they did have a Bible and there's a name for that Bible; we call it "The Old Testament." all 39 books. If you go by my large print Bible, they had 1,498 pages of the Bible. 

There's something else we need to add: Christ and the Apostles incessantly referred to those 1, 498 pages as the ultimate authority. Jesus quoted from the first 5 books of the Old Testament over 64 times. No need to stop there; if you look at His quoting the Old Testament in Matthew - John you would find that it's 74 times. Then if you combine His direct quotes with His allusions to the Old Testament, the estimate is somewhere between 250-400 times!

He chastised the religious leaders by asking them, "Have you not read . . ." referring to a quotation in one of those 39 books. In Luke 4, Jesus went into a synagogue and read from the scroll of Isaiah, then announcing to the congregation, "This day this Scripture is fulfilled!" 

At the Incarnation, Herod the Great wanted to know where the Messiah would be born, the scribes turned in their Bibles to Micah 5:2 and found the answer: Bethlehem. 

Fast forward to the Apostles' preaching after the Ascension and we hear them citing the Old Testament in sermon after sermon, so many times that if we take the total number of Old Testament citations found from Matthew 1:1 to the last verse in Revelation, the total is an astounding 845 times! In their preaching, the Apostles would make a declaration and then to prove it, they would quote their Bible, the Old Testament. They would quote the Psalms, Isaiah, Joel et al.

We turn to the Dead Sea Scrolls dated  from the third century BC to the first century CE. They contain every book in the Old Testament except Esther and Nehemiah. The scrolls contain almost the complete book of Isaiah!

So, yes, the church did have a Bible all those 400 years. 

Another factor in refuting the myth is that during the first century, the Apostles were writing and circulating the inspired books of the New Testament, passing them along from church to church as Paul required in Colossians 4:6. 

Then when we look at the writings of the church fathers, we find that they are quoting from various epistles. For example, "The letters of Ignatius, written very close to 107 A.D., quote from several New Testament books. He uses quotes from the Old and the New Testament books. 

"Below are some Old and New Testament quotations of Ignatius. For each letter, the chapter is given, followed by the New Testament reference. This is not at all an exhaustive list, just representative of books Ignatius uses.

Letter of Ignatius to the Ephesians in which he quotes from:

2 – John 8:29 3 – John 17:11-12 5 – James 4:6 6 – names Onesimus, as in Philemon 6 – John 1:14 7 - 1 Tim 4:10 8 – 1 Pet 2:9 9 – Matt 5:2, 2 Tim 2:24-25, Luke 23:34 11 – Rom 2:4 12 – Matt 23:35, Acts 9:15 13 – Eph 6:16, 6:12 14 – Luke 10:27, Matt 12:33 15 – 1 Cor 4:20, Rom 10:10, 2 Cor 8:18 16 – 2 Cor 6:14-16 18 – 1 Cor 1:20   Therefore, in the words of Sherlock Holmes: CASE CLOSED.

THEY ARE LINING UP

Zechariah 12:3: "It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it."

In a future day, the campaign of Armageddon, the Bible tells us that ALL the nations will come against Israel. The operative word in the prediction is ALL, and, to state the obvious, "all" means "all." 

Therefore, although America is not mentioned in prophecy, "all" will include the United States. The alignment against Israel today is an apparent setting of the stage for the eventual fulfillment of Zechariah's prediction. 

According to "The Times of Israel," The United Nations General Assembly passed more resolutions critical of Israel than against all other nations combined in 2022, contributing to what observers call an ongoing lopsided focus on the Jewish state at the world body. President Joe Biden has restored hundreds of millions of dollars of UN funding that was cut under President Donald Trump." (From "The Council of Foreign Relations") This means that this Jew-hating body would not exist without American taxpayers. 

As of this writing, Jew-hatred has reached a fevered pitch in Amsterdam: "There has been at least one attempt at kidnapping an Israeli, and many have barricaded themselves in stores and buildings.

"Multiple videos showed Israelis jumping into canals to avoid the protesters. Multiple outlets are reporting that anti-Israel mobs are chasing down Israelis and savagely beating them on the streets of Amsterdam Thursday following a soccer game. Dozens of extremely disturbing videos are being posted to X depicting violent beatings as individuals are surrounded and then pummeled."

Zechariah 12:3 expresses a timeless truth: Israel is a heavy stone; all who lift it will be severely injured. The attackers will find the stone so heavy, it cannot be moved. America included. The nations are aligning themselves against Israel, the immovable object.

 

 

WHEN YOU NEED ENCOURAGEMENT IN THE FAITH

There is a conversation Jesus had with a desperate father whose son has been terrorized and controlled by a particularly vicious demon that had attempted to kill him through convulsions during which he tried to burn him to death or drown him. The poor father had been having to deal with this malignant spirit since the youth's childhood. 

He first encountered Jesus; disciples who, one one occasion, Jesus had given them His authority to cast out demons but this time they had been humiliated--they failed. Jesus arrives, meets the father and demands that they bring the boy to Him. The following conversation ensues: 

"They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he began rolling around and foaming at the mouth. ²¹ And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. ²² It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” ²³ And Jesus said to him, “‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” ²⁴ Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

And there is that wonderful verse of encouragement: "I do believe; help my unbelief!" We live in a fallen world in which perfection is not within our grasp. From the father's statement we learn that our faith will never be perfect in this life. As the hymn writer, Arthur A. Luther, wrote, 

"Earthly friends may prove untrue,
Doubts and fears assail;
One still loves and cares for you,
One who will not fail."

The world, the flesh, and the devil may cause us to fear and doubts may assail, but our salvation based on Christ alone thorough faith alone, imperfect and wavering that faith may be, we are kept by the One who loves us still, the One who cannot fail. 

The rest of the story? 

"Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him ^[c]again.” ²⁶ After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and the boy became so much like a corpse that most of them said, “He is dead!” ²⁷ But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up."

When fears and doubts assail, wrap yourself in Mark 9:24-27.   

JUDAS AND LORDSHIP SALVATION

 Before Judas went out and hanged himself, he checked the boxes required for salvation according to those who hold to the position known as Lordship Salvation. We know this because we have the record of his activities before he tied the noose around his neck and attached it to that dry branch. 

Consider:

1. Judas felt sorry for his sin. The record says, "Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” Feeling sorry for one's sins isn't biblical repentance; "feeling sorry" and "repent" are two different Greek words. The former means "regret," "sorrow," the latter means, "a change of mind."

2.  Judas made restitution for his sin. The betrayer returned the money with a forceful gesture. This was a good deed on his part. 

3. He mended his ways. He loved money so much that he stole it from the other disciples since his duty was to care for the money given to their ministry. He who loved money came to hate 30 pieces of silver.

But he never did the only thing required for salvation: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." His sorrow for his sin, his moral act, his believing Jesus to be innocent and not deserving the death penalty were not faith alone in Christ alone. 

A lady once said, "God will not forgive you unless you say you're sorry." Judas was sorry. Thomas Jefferson believed that Jesus was innocent in the sense that He exhibited and taught the highest ethical system in the history of mankind. 

But the record states the final, accurate assessment of Judas: "The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” and, Jesus prayed to the Father "While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled."

Judas checked the boxes required for salvation among those who hold to Lordship salvation, boxes which put the spotlight on us and our works, not on Christ and His finished work. 

One of the leading advocates of Lordship salvation, John MacArthur, writes that the following text, James 4:7-10, is a clear presentation of the gospel, and therefore, there are ten things that a person must do to be saved:

"Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you."

Ten things? That's strange because in the most famous verse in the Bible, we don't find those ten requirements: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." 

I can't find those ten in Acts 16:30-31: "And after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?³¹ They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

In the Gospel of John, written to tell a person how to be saved, those ten aren't there; "believe" is, 99 times. 

Therefore, there are none of his or any lordship salvationists' books that I would recommend because, although they may be correct on  other doctrine, if they are wrong on the gospel, they are wrong on the most important thing (I Cor. 15:3): "For I delivered to you as of first importance [the gospel]."

Do you find lordship salvation authors on your book shelves or in your church library? Why? Paul is very clear on this: Read and heed Galatians 1:8-9. 

 

 

HAVE YOU SEEN ROMANS 8:28-29?

 The problem with some is that when they look at Romans 8:28-29, they see something that's not there and consciously or unconsciously, they read that something into the text. Here's Romans 8:28-29: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹ For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren."

Upon reading the word, "called," we see that in this text, Paul does not inform the reader concerning how God calls them, also He doesn't say that God only called them. He explains how God calls by the the gospel in other texts: II Thessalonians 2:14; Galatians 1:6-7; Romans 1:15-16; 10:17. To say that this "call" is irresistible or that there are two types of calling is to see what's not there in the text. 

Who are the ones Paul is talking about: "those who love God"? What are they per-appointed to? "To be conformed to the image of Christ." To say that they were pre-appointed to salvation is to see something that's not in the text. The two, loving God and salvation are not the same. Those who respond positively to "the call" of the gospel are per-appointed "to be conformed to the image of Christ."

When will the ones who responded to the call be conformed to the image of Christ? Not in this life but when they are resurrected from the dead. Jesus is said to be the firstborn through His resurrection (vs. 30). The reader is in a resurrection context, an eternal security context. God's calling and pre-appointment all depend, according to vs. 28, on whether a man loves God, not on some decisions made in eternity past as to what few go to heaven and the majority of those who have ever lived go to hell, all decided before they were ever born, according to the philosophical system of Calvinism. To say that this text is saying that is to see what's not there

God's foreknowledge is not an act of God; God's foreknowledge is an attribute of God. One should also notice that regeneration is not in the list given in the verses.

Once a person responds positively to the gospel God pre-appoints him to be conformed to the image of Christ at the resurrection. as I John 3:2 promises, "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

RAHAB AND THE GOVENOR OF MINNESOTA

 It's been an on-gong discussion, all centered on the record of Joshua 2: "And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” ⁴ But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. ⁵ It came about when it was time to shut the gate at dark, that the men went out; I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” ⁶ But she had brought them up to the roof and hidden them in the stalks of flax which she had laid in order on the roof.^"

^{She was a believer in Jericho, a Gentile, who protected the Jewish spies from being captured, tortured, and executed. The discussion focuses on the fact that she lied to save them and lying is a sin. There are those who would say, "It's always a sin to lie; she should have turned them over to the authorities and certain death. Not only that, but she disobeyed an order of the government and believers are supposed to submit to the government, aren't they? Yes, that's what Romans 13 says.} 

^{This position holds that when the Nazis came knocking on the door where Anne Frank and her relatives were hiding, the home owners should have turned that little girl and her family over to those monsters to do whatever their evil and perverted minds wanted because, to say, "No Jew is here," is lying. Lying is a sin.}

^{What about this scenario instigated by the man who wants to be the Vice President of the United States, Tim Walz? In March of 2020, Walz, the governor of Minnesota,} launched a tip line for Minnesotans to call to report their neighbors if they were breaking the government's COVID guidelines. "In October 2020, the tip line was used to alert authorities to a Lutheran church service that didn’t fit with the governor’s 'legal requirements.' This type of complaint was not uncommon."

If you were a Christian and a member of that church, would you have turned the church into the authorities for what it was planning. It was a government directive to do so.

Let's examine Rahab's lying through her teeth from the Scriptures, and when we do, we'll find some surprising facts. Lets start in Exodus 2:15-19: 

 "Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; ¹⁶ and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” ¹⁷ But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?” ¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.”

This king is a precursor of Hitler in his order to these women to commit genocide! They lie. They disobey. And what was the result?

Exodus 1:20: "So God was good to the midwives."

David lies to a priest about why he and his men have come to the Tabernacle. They're hungry and on the run from Saul. The priest gives them the bread that the Law said was only for the priests and David  lives to fight another day.

Daniel's 3 companions refuse a government order to bow before the image, God blesses them. The same government orders Daniel and every one not to pray to god other than the king; Daniel does so openly in rebellion against the 30-day statute and survives the den of hungry lions by divine protection

Going against the principle of Romans 13, Peter and John who were ordered not to say, "Jesus" violated the edict. 

What's going on? Is this situational ethics? No. Because each truth holds as absolute in its own area. But when one truth overlaps into another such as, "Thou shalt not lie," collides with "Obey those who have the authority over you, the government, the believer makes the choice based on the question, which decision will cause the less harm? 

The less harm comes by lying to save human life whether it's the lives of the spies, the babies, or Anne Frank. The higher principle is, only God can take human life, not the king of Egypt or King Herod whose demand the Magi disobeyed and went home without reporting back to him as he had told them to do.

 

 

PUT THE COOKIES ON THE BOTTOM SHELF

The title of this article reflects a popular platitude, one directed at pastors, a saying that has become trite. For decades (at least) it has been given as homiletic advice to pastors and other teachers of the Word of God. The intent of the bromide can be summarized: "Whether speaking or writing, do so in such a way that the youngest, simplest person can understand what you're trying to say." 

However, Dr. Charles Ryrie, author of the Ryrie Study Bible, et al. reacted strongly against the platitude. It connotes the idea that the Bible contains simple material, is easy to understand, but the truth is, there are portions of the Good Book that are deep and in need of serious study; the Bible is not "Dick and Jane Go to the Farm." 

Dr. John F. Walvoord, the second president of Dallas Seminary, told the students, "The Bible is going to take all the intellect you've got and more. Every student learned the truth of those words in his classes!

The apostle Peter wrote about Paul's epistles, "As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction." (II Peter 3:16)

There were statements Jesus made in His teaching that were not on the bottom shelf: "So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.'" 

In order to understand much of the New Testament, the teacher must be a student of  the 1st century Roman Empire to delve into Galatians 4:4, Galatians 3:24; Matthew 8:22 et al. In addition, the teacher must study the Koine Greek, for example word  "to" in Galatians 3:24 needs exposition. What about the problem of divine sovereignty vs. free will? Instead one pastor advised other ministers, "Don't teach Romans 9-11," meaning it's too hard.  

What about the great doctrines of the faith: the doctrines of the hypostatic union, unlimited atonement, pneumatology, eschatology, the essence of God? What about the four covenants given to Israel: the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and the New Covenant. Instead, people sit and listen to "How to have growing bank accounts, upward mobility, and radiant health." Easy: Just name it and claim it. Yeah, right.

We often hear those who rail against the dumbing down of  America and we agree that they have a point but what about the dumbing down of the American church member with sermonettes? (Sermonettes are for Christianettes.) 

In the great-used-to-be, a 1st grade teacher divided her students into three reading groups: the Blue Birds, the Red Birds, and the Yellow Birds. Each group, when called, would come to the front of the room, sit at a table with their book, and go around in the circle learning to read, then reading to the teacher while the other students would sit quietly at their desks doing the assigned work for the day. 

The Blue Birds were the best readers, the Red Birds were in the middle, and the sad Yellow Birds were the poorest and needed serious help in learning how to read.

The tragedy would be for a Yellow Bird to remain a Yellow Bird, never advancing, never growing to become a Red Bird, then a Blue Bird. Putting the cookies on the bottom shelf assures that believers won't grow and that they will be Yellow Birds all their lives, as the pastor chirps out sermonettes Sunday after Sunday to the assembled Yellow Birds. 

Peter's last words to the church were, "Grow in grace."