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Why do churches compromise? Why do entire denominations move away from biblical faithfulness toward theological liberalism? Why did preachers in the 19^th century so easily allow themselves to stop believing and proclaiming the miracles of the Bible and change the message they brought to the people?

 

Interestingly, the change of message is not often motivated by the kind of evil that one might think. Those who face the greatest temptation to compromise on either part of the message or the entire gospel itself are seldom tempted that way out of a desire to destroy the faith. In truth, if you look at those who have changed the message most, the desire they proclaim is that of wanting to protect Christianity more than to weaken it.

 

The thing that we must realize, however, is that we cannot protect the faith by destroying it. WE cannot make Christianity relevant to a modern age by denying miracles. WE cannot make Christianity popular in the 21^st century by changing the moral laws of God to fit the sensitivities of modern rebels against God.

 

Paul faced the same frustration that many modern Christians face—the frustration of seeing people deny the faith for the sake of making it more pleasing to outsiders.

 

Galatians 1:6-10 – 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

 

Look at the uncompromising passion with which Paul writes in that section. If you know Paul’s writings, there are passages of such mercy, grace, and beauty that this one rings solidly against our ears. Paul says that if any person, man or even angel, comes preaching a supposed gospel that is different than the original, that person should be accursed. That is the strongest language that I think he had available to him. Paul basically just said that a person who changes the gospel should be consigned to eternal hell immediately. Then Paul backs up his statement by repeating it.

 

Why such a passionate statement? I think it should be obvious. To change the gospel message is to destroy it. Imagine that you are driving and you reach a fork in the road. To the left is a road that ends suddenly with a drop off a cliff. To the right is a road that leads to safety and to a place of great happiness. To change any part of the gospel would be the same as switching the road sign so that travelers would think it safe to turn left and head for the cliff. To change the gospel moves it from being a message for life to a false message that leads to destruction. Such, in Paul’s inspired mind, is a damnable offense.

 

Then, in verse 10, Paul showed us that somehow, in the midst of all this, the preaching of the gospel message is compared to attempting to please men. The alteration of the gospel message from many is a message intended to please those who do not know the gospel. Many out there who preach the faith have been tempted to compromise on the gospel message or the ways of God inn order to make the message more alluring to those who are outside of the faith. But Paul tells us in verse 10 that to attempt to please men in such a way is to let go of pleasing God. We must not do such a thing.

 

So, let us never compromise, even if we think that such a compromise will please men and draw them to our cause. To win people with a compromised gospel is to win them to something other than genuine Christianity. Such a victory is of no value, and it puts us in a very dangerous spiritual place.

In Nehemiah 8, after the Jews rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, the people heard from the word of God. Ezra and other leaders opened the word, blessed the Lord, and led the people. And the response, to me, is interesting.

 

Nehemiah 8:5-8 – 5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. 6 And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. 7 Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. 8 They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

 

Look at all the things that happened in this setting, and recognize the significant points that should mirror our own worship. The central thing, the thing that fed all the forms of worship, was the opening of and explanation of the word of God. Scripture is at the heart of genuine worship. True worship is always our human response to the revelation of God. And the revelation of God is Scripture.

 

Notice as well that worship included different things from the people. There was not exactly one way to know if the people were worshiping. There was verbal agreement with truth. The people shouted, “Amen!” They declared to be true what God’s word said was true. At the center of worship, therefore, is the affirmation by the people of God of the truth of the word of God. Thus, whether we are singing or speaking, true worship in our lives must be focused on the declaration of truth about God and not on mere emotional sentimentality.

 

People had physical responses that were different. WE see people raising their hands, which in Scripture is always a prayer posture. People heard the truth of God, declared their agreement with it, and they entered into prayer. This is right for our worship too.

 

And, when the Bible declares that they worshipped, notice what the people were doing. They were bowing down. Worship involves reverence and humility. Worship involves us lowering ourselves before God the king. Worship is us making living declaration that our Lord is our Lord and that we are his subjects. We will submit to him, yielding to his commands, agreeing with his truth. This is worship, and, again, it is not mere emotionalism.

 

I can recall a person declaring to me once that he could tell just by looking if the congregation was worshipping. The point he was making is that he could tell by the looks on people’s faces if they were into worship. Sadly, he was judging the depth of worship in a setting, not by measures of truth, Scripture, or humble response to the Lordship of Christ, but rather by the emotional reaction of the people to the music. This is not the biblical measure of worship, and it never has been.

 

If you want to examine your worship in a church service, you might start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Is my worship centered on Scripture?
• Is my worship an affirmation of biblical truth?
• Is my worship prayerful?
• Is my worship a humble and reverent declaration that God is my Lord?

 

May we be a people of genuine, biblical worship for the glory of God and the joy of his people.

One of the fun things about having a child in the house is the fact that stories do not get old. Any of my 3 children, when they were little, would want to watch the same video or hear the same story again and again. Kids, with a sense of wonder, do not seem to lose interest in the tale, no matter how often the tale is told.

 

I think that Scripture wants us to understand something of that kind of wonder. God shows us in his word that hearing the story repeatedly is good for our souls.

 

Psalm 105:5-7 – 

5 Remember the wondrous works that he has done,

his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,

6 O offspring of Abraham, his servant,

children of Jacob, his chosen ones!

7 He is the Lord our God;

his judgments are in all the earth.

 

Psalm 105 is one of a set of psalms where the writer wrote a song about the history of Israel. It is a longer psalm, and it comes off as a history lesson. It tells of God and his repeated covenant promise. It tells of how God preserved his people and passed the promise on. For those of us who are Christians, it shows our heritage through Israel as recipients of God’s ultimate promise to bless all nations through Jesus, the promised one descended from Abraham.

 

Why would they sing this? Why would God have people tell this story again and again? I would suggest, from reading the psalm, that it reminds us of God’s faithfulness.

 

Knowing that God has been faithful in the past gives you and me confidence of God’s faithfulness in the present and in the future. Life hurts. The world looks messed up. But God has always been faithful. God will continue to be faithful.

 

Look back over your own life. Where has god been faithful to you? Has the Lord provided for you? Has the Lord protected you? Has the Lord been gracious to you? If he has been faithful in your past, why doubt him in the future? Add to that the biblical tale. How powerful has God shown himself to be? How kind? How loving? How capable of preserving his own?

 

May we allow the past faithfulness of God to bolster our hope in the present. May we remember God’s faithfulness to his biblical promises. May we remember God’s faithfulness to us personally. May we remember and trust in the Lord.

When we think of the Great Commission, we often immediately mentally go to Matthew 28:18-20. But, the Great Commission from Jesus to his disciples appears in other forms in the other gospels. Just as we need the 4 gospels to get a more fully accurate picture of Jesus, we need all of the gospel perspectives in order to understand what Christ has really charged his church to do.

 

Take a look at the Great Commission in Luke.

 

Luke 24:45-47 – 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

 

Matthew records Jesus telling us to make disciples of all nations in three ways: going, baptizing, and teaching. Luke here focuses on the proclamation we make as we go through this world. What do we proclaim? I fear that what Luke tells us to proclaim is not actually the message proclaimed by many Christians who desire to be evangelistic. Luke shows us Jesus telling the church to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name.

Please, dear Christian, do not exclude repentance from your gospel. Often, the gospel presentations I hear focus on belief. Often the presentations ask you if you are willing to believe in Jesus and ask him to forgive you. Some of the older presentations include the phrase, “ask the Lord Jesus into your heart,” “accept Christ,” or something similar. Those are good things as far as they go, containing an element of truth, but they are not the biblical command.

 

In Scripture, faith and repentance are inseparably connected as we discuss salvation. Even in this version of the Great Commission, we are called to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins. WE proclaim something bigger than simple mental acknowledgement of Jesus. Yes, salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. But faith that saves is always connected to repentance for forgiveness.

 

So, as you share the gospel, yes call people to believe. But help them to see that saving belief in Jesus includes a yielding of your life to Jesus. Saving belief includes repentance, a turning from wrong to right. We turn from being our own personal authority to bowing to God’s authority. WE turn from living in sin to desiring to obey God’s commands in righteousness. If such a turning does not take place, if repentance does not take place, then the faith a person had is not a genuine saving faith.

 

The reason we say that people are saved by grace through faith alone is not to exclude the call to repentance. Rather, the reason is to say that no activity, no religious ceremony, no church blessing saves a person. Faith in Jesus is the only way we are saved. But faith in Jesus is always, truly always, connected to repentance if forgiveness of sins is to result.

How did Jesus defend his claims? What did he rely on to convince people of the truth of who he is and what he has done? How might we use the same tools?

 

At the end of Luke’s version of the gospel, Jesus meets a pair of unnamed disciples walking to a nearby town. On the way, the disciples were speaking about their sadness at Jesus’ death. The Lord did not at first allow the men to recognize him, but walked along and anonymously joined in the conversation.

 

As the men talked about Jesus, the Savior helped them to see that they had misunderstood his identity and his mission. These disciples thought of Jesus as a prophet, but they had missed his identity as God the Son and as the suffering servant who would rescue God’s children by sacrificing his own life.

 

Look at what Jesus did to help the men understand.

 

Luke 24:25-27 – 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

 

What is the primary tool Jesus used to convince these men of his identity? He used Scripture. Jesus led these men on a walk through the Old Testament to show them that all of the prophets had all been pointing to Jesus. He showed them not only that Messiah would be great, but that he would suffer and rise from the grave.

 

Luke 24:33-35 – 33 And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

 

The other tool that Jesus used to help the men to understand his identity was his resurrection. The fact that the men saw Jesus alive after his death was the powerful proof to them that the words of Scripture had been fulfilled. The disciples believed once they saw the Lord Jesus alive.

 

So, the two tools that we see Jesus using as an apologetic, as a defense of the faith, in Luke 24 are the Scriptures and his resurrection. Jesus showed that hundreds, even thousands, of years before his ministry, God promised all he would do. Read Psalm 22 or Isaiah 53 sometime and see the perfect predictions of the sacrificial work of Jesus. And then Jesus proved all this was true of him by fulfilling the prophecies even to the point of rising from the grave after his sacrifice.

 

I think there is a wisdom in Christians understanding apologetics to a point. I think there is good in knowing how to help people see that their own arguments have holes in them so that they might listen to the truth we proclaim. But, at the end of the day, I believe that we have only the tools that the Lord Jesus has given us to really help people to believe. By the Spirit of God, we prayerfully use the Scriptures and the resurrection as our arguments. Regardless of the issue at hand, the Bible and the fact that Jesus is alive are our powerful arguments to help people to grasp that all that Jesus said about himself is true and that he is the only hope of all in this lost and dying world.

#END

 

 

When Nehemiah was working on finishing the walls of Jerusalem, enemies of the people of God tried to stop him. At times they used distraction. At times they used threats. At times they used lies. But they constantly clamored for Nehemiah’s attention to prevent him from doing what the Lord had called him to do.

 

Nehemiah 6:2-4 – 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. 3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” 4 And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner.

 

Nehemiah had a job to do. He had a work to oversee. He could not just let the work go so as to have a round-table discussion with the enemies of the Lord. This was especially true when Nehemiah knew that these men intended to do him harm. They had no good intentions.

 

Later, that same group would write a false letter to share with the Persian king to attempt to discredit Nehemiah. But Nehemiah would not stop the work because of their threats. Eventually they threatened Nehemiah with violence and tried to convince him to sin against God by running and hiding in the temple, a place off limits to Nehemiah.

 

Nehemiah 6:11-13 – 11 But I said, “Should such a man as I run away? And what man such as I could go into the temple and live? I will not go in.” 12 And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me.

 

Nehemiah did not let himself get distracted from the work. He did not compromise the standards of the Lord, not even for his own safety, and the Lord took care of him.

 

I think we can learn from this in our present political predicament. As Christians in the U.S., we find ourselves facing distractions. People want our attention. People want us to focus on anything other than the actual mission of the church. People want us to compromise. People want us to stop doing what God calls the church to do. But we must not give in.

 

Eventually, the same people who wish first to distract us and shift our focus from the Lord will try other means. They will try threats both political and physical. We, as people of God, must not give in. We must learn that the Lord has always been able to use his people, regardless of their political situation. We must not compromise. WE must not run and hide. We must, instead, be faithful to the Lord and to his word.

 

We are called, Christians, to love the Lord our God with all our hearts. We are to obey the Lord Jesus. We are to call true and right what God says is true and right in his word regardless of popular opinion. We are to tell people that they need Jesus for salvation. We are to worship Jesus and make his glory our number one priority. We must not let ourselves be distracted with political in-fighting or threats. We simply are to be the people of God as God has called us. WE cannot hide through compromise. WE must stand on the word of God, faithfully honoring the Lord, if we wish to be what the Lord has called us to be.

The book of Nehemiah is well known among many Christians for the tale of Nehemiah leading the people of Judah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. We remember Nehemiah praying as he spoke to the king. We remember Nehemiah standing strong in the face of opposition. We remember Ezra and Nehemiah opening the word of God to call the people to repentance. But do we remember the Tekoites?

 

Chapter 3 of Nehemiah lists for us the names of the families and clans who built up sections of the walls of Jerusalem. Each group was responsible for working a section, and as they worked together, the walls came up. Every group has a positive thing said about them, except for one.

 

Nehemiah3:5 – And next to them the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord.

 

The nobles of the Tekoites would not stoop to serve their Lord. How sad. How terrifying. Can you imagine if that was the only thing written about you and it was preserved in Scripture forever? This is a big deal, and we should learn from it.

 

God has always wanted his people to work together. That was true in Nehemiah’s day. It is true for the modern church. We are supposed to join together, to serve one another, to help each other out, and to all contribute to the task at hand. None of us is exempt from the call to serve. Whether rich or poor, young or old, male or female, educated formally or informally, you are supposed to jump in with the rest to get the job of the church done.

 

How might you be called to serve in the church? How might you be called to serve the mission of Christ? It could be evangelism and missions. It could be in helping the congregation to worship. It could be in giving. It could be in simple acts of service. It could be in counseling those in need. It could be in offering care and love for someone who is hurting. It could be in preaching or teaching. It could be in prayer and leading others to pray.

 

Here is the point: Do not be like the nobles of the Tekoites. Do not refuse to stoop to serve your Lord. Serve, even when there is no prize in it for you. Serve, even when it is hard. Serve, even when others do not see it. Serve, even when it is not clean or simple. Serve, even when it costs you free time. Let us be a people who serve the Lord and who honor him by serving the body of Christ, the local church, where god has placed us.

When I was younger, I remember people asking me if I had been saved. The funny thing is, I knew I had not. I also did not know what exactly needed to happen in order to be saved. People told me to believe in Jesus, which of course I did already. Then they talked about lots of other things that did not make sense to me at all: asking Jesus into your heart, accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, giving your life to Jesus, etc.

 

It was not until much later that I began to understand the biblical process that is present in one who repents and believes to salvation. And even a bit longer from that, I saw that process clearly depicted in one Bible story.

 

Luke 23:39-43 – 39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

 

If you remember, when Jesus was crucified, both criminals who were crucified next to him mocked him. But later in the day, we see the exchange above. In that exchange, we see a criminal saved by Jesus, believing in Jesus for life. And in that encounter, we can see four things that we all should do if we are saved.

 

First, the criminal understands that he is a guilty sinner. His words show that he knows that he is receiving a proper penalty for his crimes. All who are saved must recognize that we are sinners before the Lord and deserving of his judgment.

 

Second, the criminal turns from sin, he repents. How? The criminal started off mocking Jesus. But in the encounter above, the criminal defends Jesus and calls the other man to stop mocking Jesus. There is a turning away from sin and toward what is right. Now, the man does not earn his salvation by that turn. But, any person who is saved must be willing to turn toward following God rather than following our own sinful desires.

 

Third, the criminal believes. Jesus is dying on the center cross. Yet the criminal asks Jesus to remember him when Jesus comes into his kingdom. The criminal has faith that Jesus is the promised king from God. The criminal understands that Jesus is not meeting an end on the cross. The criminal also believes that Jesus is able to grant him entrance to the kingdom of God. All who are saved must believe in Jesus.

 

Finally, the criminal asks for grace. The criminal, in the phrase “remember me,”  is asking Jesus for mercy. He is asking Jesus to forgive him. All who are saved should ask God for the salvation that only comes by God’s grace through the vehicle of faith in Christ apart from any works of our own.

 

Does this help you to know what is required for salvation? Have you been saved? Have you believed you are guilty? Have you expressed a willingness to turn from sin and follow Christ? Have you believed in Jesus? Have you asked him for mercy and salvation?

There are some things in Scripture that are so obviously true that you wonder why they had to be written down. But then, as you examine your life or you see the life of another, you realize that not everybody does what God says should be simple to understand.

 

Proverbs 15:32

 

Whoever ignores instruction despises himself,

but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.

 

OK, that proverb is about as simple and straightforward as you can imagine. If you care about your wellbeing, you will listen to others when they give you instruction. When somebody warns you about a danger in your life, you will pay attention. But, the opposite is true. If you do not listen to the opinions of others, when you do not let others speak into your life, you put your life in a place of disadvantage. The Proverb says you actually hate yourself if you will not listen to others.

 

As I said, that is just about the definition of common sense. Yet, we know that not all people around us hear it. And, if the truth be known, not all of us are able to follow it either. We often fight against allowing others to speak into our lives. We often hold back from putting ourselves in a position to learn from others and grow toward greater maturity.

 

A little life experience on my part tells me that this is not always an across-the-board problem for us. What I mean is that I will often be open to reproof in some areas of life. I have some categories that I will openly confess my shortcomings to others and ask for counsel. But there are other areas, pride points, where I do not eagerly receive the advice or counsel of others. There are areas where I am just sure I have it all figured out, and in those areas, I am not open.

 

We need to be wiser than all that. We cannot be islands to ourselves. We need to be connected to others in the family of God. WE need to be open enough to let others see our true selves. We also need to be wise enough to let others speak into our lies, even into those places where we think we have it all together. The truth is, we are all sinful and frail enough that we need help in any category. No Christian is so strong that he or she cannot still grow.

 

Let me add in one more piece of wisdom from this Proverb. Keep in mind the principle: If you hate yourself, you will not receive counsel; but if you listen to reproof, you gain intelligence. This is simply not something that a Christian can do apart from genuine and intentional connection in the local church. Yes, you can talk with people over social media or even on the phone. Yes, you can keep up with people from miles away or listen to messages from conference speakers. But if you really want to see genuine growth in your life, you cannot remove yourself from connecting to the local church. You need to be open with those who are with you from week to week. You need to be honest and seek the counsel of elders. You need to listen to reproof, even when it comes from someone you think has it less together than you. Sometimes it is from the weaker brother or sister that you and I will find points of growth. No, we do not allow people to demand we change to fit their preferences all the time. But we do listen and learn. And one of the clearest places the Lord has given us to learn in this way is the local congregation.

 

Are you wise or foolish? Are you growing or self-despising? The answer to these questions boils down to the answer to whether you receive counsel from others or refuse to listen. Let us be wise and make this commonsense proverb even more common.

After Judah went captive to Babylon, God brought back the people to rebuild the city and restore the temple. Under the leadership of Zerubbabel around 538 B.C. to the times of Haggai and Zechariah around 520 B.C., the work on the city and temple went forward. But there were problems. Locals in the land who were not part of God’s people first tried to be included in the building process and then tried to discourage the people of God from building at all.

 

Ezra 4:1-3 – 1 Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, 2 they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.” 3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”

 

In our modern world, it is sort of assumed that, if a person claims to be a part of the religion, we should accept them as part of the faith. The modern world sees all claims to Christianity as equally valid. But they are absolutely not.

 

Just as the people of Judah told the locals in the land that only the Judeans had the right to participate in the rebuilding of the temple, so biblical Christians should not be afraid to say to those who claim to worship God that only those who come to the Lord biblically, by grace through faith in Christ alone, are part of the family of God. Not all who claim to follow the Lord actually do. Not all who claim to worship the Lord actually do. Not all who claim that they know the Lord actually do.

 

This all should not be difficult to grasp. If two people make claims that are mutually exclusive, no way can they both be correct at the same time and in the same way. If one group says that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone while another group says that salvation is by grace through faith plus works, they cannot both be correct. If one group says that the Bible is the perfect, inerrant, infallible, inspired word of God while another says that the Bible is evolving and contains errors, they cannot both be correct. If one group says that no person is forgiven apart from the grace of Christ and another says that all religions eventually lead to God, they cannot both be correct.

 

We might wish to learn from the strong response of the Jews to the people in their land. The Jews understood that those in the land were not truly following God. They were not part of the people of God. And the Jews had no shame in telling the people of the land that they are not included in the work.

 

Similarly, let us be honest. Yes, please let us be loving and kind too. But may we never give the impression that the family of God includes anyone who rejects the person and work of Christ. Let us not pretend that someone can be forgiven in any way other than by God’s grace alone through personal faith alone in Christ alone. May we be real enough with others to tell them of their need to come to Christ to seek mercy. And may we not be ashamed to say to others, even others we love, that we are not all on the same team.