The parable of the sewer is one of those parables that I have heard well-meaning Christians debate fervently while both sides of the debate missed the point entirely.
Luke 8:5-8 – 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
This is a pretty familiar passage to believers. It is easy to remember because of the simple imagery. We can all imagine a farmer planting seed. WE can easily imagine some seed growing and some not making it. And we can see that Jesus makes multiple parallels to real life.
The argument that I have heard that misses the point has to do with what this parable may or may not say about salvation and eternal security. If you have been around believers for a while, you may have heard them discuss which groups of the seeds represent saved people. Should we assume that the seeds that were scorched and choked by thorns are saved people who did not grow? Or should we assume they were lost? Or, even theologically worse, do those two categories hint at a loss of salvation (they do not, as the Bible is clear that saved people remain saved and grow)?
It is at this point that I want to call on us to stop asking the wrong question. Jesus did not present this parable to share with us highly nuanced categories of believers, non-growing believers, and the lost. Nor did Jesus offer this as a way to teach on the truth of eternal security, perseverance of the saints—at least not in the way that many bring it up. Jesus had a simple point he wanted to make. And if we miss it because of our questions, we do not help ourselves or anybody else.
The point is simple: true Christians grow. That is it. There are lots of people who will claim to believe in God. Good for them. True Christians grow. There are lots who will claim religion so long as religion costs them nothing. I’m not worried about that. True Christians grow. True Christians learn to obey Jesus. True Christians repent of sin, worship the Lord, and share his message with the world. The point of the parable is that true Christians grow.
So, reading that parable, stop trying to make every little part speak to a theological concept of salvation. Why would you worry about whether the thorn-choked seeds represented saved people? Instead, why not point out that our goal is not to be those folks? Our goal is to grow in Christ. Our goal is to bear fruit. Our goal is to not let the cares of this life or a fading initial joy wipe us out. We are to be in it for the long haul. We are to be committed with our entire lives through any circumstances, joys, pains, poverty, etc.
The point of this parable is to teach us that true Christians grow. Are you growing? Are you sticking with your commitment even when the initial joy is a distant memory? Are you sticking with the faith even when it hurts your prospects for worldly success? Are you sticking with the faith even when it is hard? Are you communicating the faith to the next generation? Are you setting down deep roots in the word of God and in obedience to the Savior? Those are the questions we should be asking when we read the parable of the sewer.
Forgiven Much
Why do Christians talk about sin all the time? Isn’t that just discouraging? Isn’t it negative? Someone from outside the faith might think such things. Of course, the world makes fun of us for talking so much about what is wrong with us (see Ned Flanders).
But have you ever stopped to consider how understanding our sinfulness helps us? There is actually a tremendous joy in grasping just how messed up we are. Without it, we cannot grasp grace.
In Luke 7, a woman came to Jesus in great sorrow over her sin. A religious leader looked down on Jesus for allowing himself to be in the presence of such a sinner, but Christ rebuked the man. Jesus pointed out that the woman was loving God much because of how great was her forgiveness.
Luke 7:47 – Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.
So, the question is: How much have you been forgiven? That will help you to know how much joy you should have over grace. If you have not come to Christ for forgiveness, you have no reason to rejoice over grace with the exception of being grateful to God that you are still alive, and thus forgiveness is still available.
But if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, consider how great is your forgiveness. At this point, you may be tempted to go over your life and think of the worst sins you have committed—a very unpleasant task. Or, it is even possible that, if you have nothing major in your past, you will wonder if you are bad enough to love much as Jesus said. But both of those are the wrong direction for thinking of how great is your forgiveness.
Start your thinking with the Lord. God is perfect. God is endlessly, eternally, infinitely perfect. It is not that my goodness is a 2 and God’s is a 10. God’s goodness is infinity times infinity as the kids like to say. So, regardless of how good or bad I have ever been, the difference in measure between my goodness and God’s goodness is infinity. Now, sin is to fail to live up to God’s level of righteousness. So, my sin is equal to the gap between my goodness and God’s: infinite. Regardless of whether I am a former murderer or a lovely little church kid, my sin before God is an infinite gap.
Now, add in the justice of God. WE all know that the proper punishment must fit the crime. But our crime against the Lord is infinite, as we have fallen infinitely short of God’s perfection. Ponder that, let it sink in, and you will start to understand some majorly important things. Because of my sin, I deserve infinite punishment. No matter how big or little my sin is, my failure to live up to God’s perfection merits infinite wrath from God. This, of course, is why hell is a forever punishment for sin.
With that understood, I can now go back and reflect on how much I have been forgiven. Jesus, God the Son, the infinitely perfect one, came to earth to pay for my sin. Jesus took upon himself the proper penalty for my wrong. Jesus, because he is God in flesh, could successfully bear the wrath of God on my behalf, a wrath that would have cost me forever in hell. Jesus died and rose from the grave to prove that he fully paid the price for my sins and now I am forgiven by God’s grace alone through faith alone in the finished work and person of Christ alone.
When I recognize that my sin merited hell, no matter how bad it was or was not, and when I recognize that Jesus took a penalty I could have never finished paying for all eternity, I have reason to love much. I have been forgiven much. I have been forgiven just as much as any human being with any past. I have had an infinite judgment lifted from my record because of the grace and mercy and love of Jesus. And that should make me respond to Jesus with incredible, life-changing, soul-rejoicing gratitude.
Lord of the Sabbath
It can do us good from time to time to be sure that we think about the things that are being said in simple Scriptural statements. If you are like me, and you have been reading through the Bible year after year for a while, you will let phrases that ought to grab your attention slide past if you are not careful to pick them up.
I thought of this while reading through Luke 6. Jesus had allowed his disciples to pluck some heads of grain and eat them on a Sabbath day. The religious leaders protested, saying that Jesus was letting them break the Jewish law. But the Savior pointed out that the actions of the disciples were in keeping with other things we see in the Scriptures. The disciples were not violating the biblical commands, but were simply in conflict with the interpretations of the scholars of that day. They broke the leaders’ rules, not God’s.
Then Jesus makes a statement that, if we consider it, is stunning.
Luke 6:5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
Jesus was talking about himself and calling himself the Son of man. That is big enough for a whole post. But then Jesus claimed to be Lord of the Sabbath. That should make us tremble.
Consider, the Sabbath was a rule of God’s for his people set forth in the Ten Commandments. Moses carried those commandments to the people down from the mountain after they were carved in stone by the finger of God. These were a big deal. The Ten Commandments were God’s covenant terms with national Israel. They were God’s laws.
Jesus claims to be Lord of the Sabbath. That means that Jesus claims to be the Lord over one of the Ten Commandments. God gave those commandments. Thus, Jesus is claiming to be equal with God. But there is only one God. Thus, to claim to be equal with God is for Jesus to claim to be God. Here, in a simple sentence, Jesus let’s the Jews know that he is the very God who gave them these laws, who made the rules, and thus who is Lord over them.
Stop and think how it might sound if we heard someone claim to be the sovereign one over any other of the commands? If a person said they were fully in charge of the commandment of whom to worship, they would be claiming a position that only belongs to God. If a person claimed to be fully over, the Lord over, the command about murder, adultery, or stealing, you would know they are claiming to be fundamentally equal with the God who made that command. And in a similar way, we can see that Jesus, in one sentence that we often let slide by, declared himself to be the God of the Ten Commandments, the God of the Old Testament, the God who made and rules the universe.
This is not a violation of trinitarian theology. Jesus is God the Son. He is not God the Father. But the Father and the Son are equally God along with the Holy Spirit. It is a misconception to overly separate or to fail to distinguish these persons of the trinity. Jesus is as much the God of the Old Testament as is God the Father. God (not just the Father but the trinity) gave the Ten Commandments. Father, Son, and Spirit as one agreed on those laws as God gave those laws to Israel. And no person other than God could possibly have the right to declare himself or herself to be lord over that law.
Friends, let this simple reminder call you to praise the Lord Jesus, God the Son, God in flesh. He is Lord. We cannot please God without coming to God through the One he sent to be our Lord and Savior.
Responding to Holiness
Holy is one of those Christian words that ,if we are not careful, we will not think much about. We know that holy means perfect, pure, and right in every way. We also know that holy has to do with separation or being set apart. Yet, when we hear the word, we simply think of it as a term that makes things religious—a holy book, holy place, or holy gathering.
It would do us good, however, if we paid closer attention to what happens when people in Scripture recognize holiness. In Isaiah 6, when the prophet understood the holiness of God, he feared that he would crumble to dust in its light. In nearly every human contact with an undisguised angelic being, the person trembles or falls to the ground. Even the Lord warned Moses that he could not look upon the full glory of God and live.
In my reading through Luke, I came across another picture of a human response to holiness. Simon Peter was in his boat, and Jesus used it as a floating platform from which to speak to a crowd on shore. After his presentation, Jesus asked Peter to move the boat out toward deeper water and cast the net for some fish. Peter knows that this is not going to work, but he obeys Jesus. Then the net is so full of fish that the weight threatens to swamp the boat.
Look at Peter’s response to these happenings.
Luke 5:8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
When Peter saw what happened, he recognized something that is not said in this verse. He recognized that Jesus is holy. Peter recognized that Jesus is above and beyond him. And this recognition terrifies Peter. Peter falls to his knees and asks Jesus to go away because he fears the holiness of the Lord.
Why is this the case? When human beings, in our sinfulness, encounter the true God who made us, in his holiness, we recognize that we are not at all equipped to stand in his presence. We know that, if God does not protect us from his perfection, we will be consumed, destroyed, in an instant.
I once tried illustrating this point with the concept of an absolutely pure liquid. Pretend that a substance exists that is perfectly pure in every way and is infinitely powerful. Thus, the substance will never, under any circumstances, allow itself to be corrupted. Then imagine what would happen if something impure was dropped into that liquid. If the liquid were to remain pure, it would simply have to destroy every trace of the impure that was dropped into it, otherwise the pure would be corrupted, made impure.
Apply that to our being in the presence of holiness. We are sinners, every last one of us (cf. Rom. 3:10-23; Isa. 64:6). If we are plunged into the pure holiness of God without God somehow shielding us from his perfection, we will be, we must be, destroyed. To stand in such a place would be utterly terrifying.
It is that fear that made Peter ask Jesus to leave him. It is that fear that made Isaiah cry out, “Woe is me!” It is that fear that caused prophets to fall to the ground at a vision from God as if they were dead. Holiness necessarily terrifies the sinful, and we are all sinful.
With this in mind, there are two responses that should be almost immediate for the Christian of today. First, we should bow to the Lord, declare him holy, and offer him praise. We should be grateful to God for the perfect work of Jesus. Jesus lived a holy life on earth, a life none of us could possibly ever live. Jesus then died to actually take upon himself the proper punishment for our rebellion against God. Then Jesus rose from the grave proving that his work was done. In our salvation, God makes a trade: he credits Jesus with our sin(which was fully punished on the cross) and he credits us with the perfect life of Jesus so that we can enter his holy presence (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21). Thus, the grace of God in Jesus Christ becomes the perfect covering under which we may enter the holy presence of God and not be destroyed. Under the grace of Jesus, we can exist forever in the presence of God without being consumed, keeping our true selves, though without sin. How grateful to God we should be for this immeasurable gift.
Second, we should not lose sight of holiness. In our culture, in our worship services, inn our prayer times we risk missing holiness. We are familiar with other pictures of grace, being adopted into God’s family as his children, and we sometimes allow those pictures to make us forget God’s dangerous holiness. The Lord does welcome us. The Lord loves us. The Lord has fully paid for all of our rebellion against him if we have come to faith in Christ. But we should also not lose sight of the trembling and awe that must be ours when we consider the terrifying holiness of the God who saved us. He is utterly unapproachable if we are not under his grace. Even under his grace, we should approach him, yes in freedom and confidence (Eph. 3:12), but also in fear, trembling, and wonder. How do we cover both sides of confidence and fear? That, dear friends, is the mystery and beauty of true worship. That is the simultaneous mixture of joy and fear, of confidence and awe, of reverence and rejoicing.
C. S. Lewis tried to illustrate this concept in his children’s books. Lewis showed us Aslan as a mighty lion. The children could play with him, and yet the children also trembled at his roar. The children knew they were welcome with him, yet they could not gaze into his eyes without being aware that he was far greater than them, far more regal, far more dangerous. They learned early on that Aslan is not a tame lion, but he is good. And something of that picture should make its way into how we grasp the grace and holiness of God. And something of that joyful trembling must make its way into true worship for the Christian.
We Found a Book
Just before the southern kingdom of Judah went captive to Babylon, God allowed a good king to reign over the land. His name was Josiah, and he is described as one of the most godly of the Judean kings. He ascended the throne at age 8, and he was godly from the start. But Josiah’s true greatness as a king began when he was 26.
Josiah had commanded that renovations be performed on the temple in Jerusalem. Some things had fallen into disrepair, and Josiah wanted the people of God to be able to worship the Lord as they should. And in the process of the renovation, the workers discovered the book of the law of God.
2 Kings 22:8-10 – 8 And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 9 And Shaphan the secretary came to the king, and reported to the king, “Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Lord.” 10 Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it before the king.
Josiah, after first hearing the words of the law of Moses, the covenant that God had made with national Israel, recognized that he and his kingdom were in great trouble. Both in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, the covenant language is very clear. When Israel followed the commands of God, they would be blessed by the Lord. But, when Israel failed to follow the clearly agreed upon commands, they would suffer the judgment of God. And Josiah knew that the people of Judah had not been obeying the commands of God. He knew they had lost their faithfulness. In fact, they had misplaced the book of the law so that none of them were paying attention to the inspired commands of God.
This discovery led to some fantastic reforms on Josiah’s part. He moved around the land, tore down idols, took out high places, and brought about, for a brief time, obedience to the Lord’s commands. Sadly, things would not end well. After all, reform from the top-down does not always reach the hearts of the people. The individuals in the nation did not actually change their personal allegiance throughout Josiah’s reforms. But, for a time, the people at least stopped blatantly rebelling against the covenant they had with the Lord.
What I wonder is how many of us are like Israel under Josiah’s early reign? How many of us are like Josiah? How many churches fit this picture? Do we have some basic goodness in our actions and attitudes while somehow not actually following the written commands of the word of God? Do we need to rediscover the book, the word of God?
Friends, let this story from Josiah call you back to Scripture. You and I will never obey the Lord rightly without that obedience coming from his word. WE must not allow our churches or our households to become places of general morality or basic spirituality without first being founded on and directed by Scripture. We must not do what is right in our own eyes. Instead, we must let what is right come to us from the Bible. Anything less will leave us unable to actually follow the will of the Lord.
What would it take for you to find the book again? Are you reading the Bible daily, or at least most days? Are you sitting under preaching that is intentionally biblical and passionately committed to exposition? Are the sermons you hear full of sound teaching or are they more focused on delivering a particular emotion to you? Are your worship songs full of biblical truth or of sappy emotionalism? Are the lessons you learn basic, legally oriented, to-do lists, or are you actually seeing the meaning of the text? We cannot live apart from the spiritual food of the word of God.
Lucky Charms
How biblical is your faith? How much is your faith influenced by worldly superstition? How much do you think your understanding of angels, demons, and spiritual warfare is based on Scripture versus based on Hollywood? Or how much do you allow yourself to think that there is power in particular places, signs, or religious symbols? Do you believe there is power in relics?
Throughout Scripture, we see that the spiritual battle that we are to fight has nothing to do with mysterious symbols or artifacts. In the early church, God never commanded that people grab for a lock of a saint’s hair or a drop of their blood. Yes, in Acts, we saw that people were miraculously healed in some amazing ways, even by carried handkerchiefs. But such has never been commanded by God as a normal practice of the church.
In truth, if you look at Scripture, what you will most often see is that people have a tendency to confuse the method God has chosen to use for one particular moment with the God who is the source of that method’s power. People will hear of a miracle done in the name of Jesus, and they will think that “Jesus” is a magic word to drive out the demons. The Judaizers tried to teach that the physical sign of circumcision was required for salvation. The later Gnostics taught that there were secret truths that one had to learn to progress through higher and higher spiritual levels. Later Roman Catholics taught that there was grace present in artifacts blessed by or touched by certain saints until many churches all over Europe claimed to have a thorn from Jesus’ crown or a vile of milk from Mary.
In the Old Testament, there is a great example of what happens when people focus on a symbol instead of the grace of God. During the wilderness wanderings, the people had some trouble with snakes. God commanded Moses to fashion a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then, any person who was bitten by a snake could simply look upon the snake on a pole to find healing. This, of course, would point to the glorious future truth of salvation by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone as Jesus himself pointed out in John 3:14-15).
But, once the snake problem was over, there were folks who believed that there was secret power in the bronze snake. Instead of simply glorifying God and understanding that the sculpture was a tool that God used to accomplish his will, the people began to deify the snake itself.
Look at this verse speaking of King Hezekiah, a man who reigned several hundred years after the incident with the snake on the pole.
2 Kings 18:4 He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).
For hundreds of years, the people of Israel had made offerings to the bronze serpent. They had violated God’s commands never to worship an image. But they superstitiously believed that there was power in the object rather than understanding that the power is in the Lord who commanded the object’s formation.
Friends, this story should teach us how easily people can be led into pure foolishness. WE gravitate toward what seems both spectacular and tangible. It is human nature to want a lucky charm or object of power. But we need to understand that God has always turned people away from such things. There are no such things as genuine lucky charms. There are no items that focus or carry in them the power of God. There are no items to collect to give you special protections or to ward off evil spirits.
And when we let ourselves give into the notion of relics and charms, we, like the people of Israel for hundreds of years after Moses, dishonor the Lord. We are not supposed to find our hope in any object. We cannot channel the power of god through any earthly sign, symbol, or relic. We are to trust in God by his word. We are to obey the commands of the Lord, pray to the Lord, and trust in the Lord. We are not to think we can discover secret codes or magic words that will bring us spiritual victory. Instead, we are to bow ourselves to the Lord, entrust ourselves to his care, and follow him as his word has commanded. Anything extra will dishonor the Lord as our trust is no longer simply in the Savior but will be divided between God and our lucky charms.
Do not Fail to Point to Joy
There is a false impression that I fear we Christians give to the world. It is wrong-headed, mistaken, and confusing. I wish that we did not so easily take people here, but we do. And when we give this false impression, we do God a disservice.
What am I talking about? So often we allow our point of emphasis in the faith to be far too small. Often we focus on one aspect of Christianity, but to the neglect of some of the Bible’s other themes.
For example, when you talk about Christianity to others, what do you present? Is your gospel presentation merely legal? Do you point out sin, judgment, and redemption? Is vicarious, penal, substitutionary atonement all that you share? Don’t get me wrong, I love the atonement, but there is actually more to present to the world than our sin and God’s forgiveness.
Sometimes, if we are not careful, we fail to present the goodness of God. Sometimes we fail to present the life and grace and peace of the Lord to a watching world. Sometimes we fail to show that living in the presence of the Lord is the source of the greatest possible human joy. And if we fail to present that joy, we fail to present Christianity accurately.
See the following verses found in Psalm 84:
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah
10 For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
12 O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!
When others hear you talk about the faith, does it sound like the above? If not, your picture is skewed. It is good to know and love the Lord. There is no greater joy than to worship the Lord. to be in the presence of the Lord is our desire. To live, even for a day in his presence would be worth more than living for a millennium somewhere else. Because God made us, he has the capacity to satisfy our souls. WE do not have the capacity to satisfy our souls with anything beyond what we were made for. So we glorify god, which is our purpose, to find the joy for which we were made.
I fear that, because of prosperity preaching, we have decided to deemphasize the truth of the joy of living in Christ. WE should not do so. The word of God is full of promises of life, peace, and joy. These promises are not based on material health or wealth. The promises of God are deeper than worldly things, as these promises reach into the depths of our souls. Do not sell Christianity short by only pointing to a legal transaction to buy our pardon. We love that element for sure. But the truth is, that legal pardon leads to the opportunity to have a joy that is not available to anyone who is not forgiven in Christ. Let us point people to joy as we call them to faith.
An Independence Day Reflection
It’s July 4, and so many of us are celebrating the birthday of the United States. It is a great gift from God to have been born in a nation where the gospel of Jesus Christ has been clearly preached in many places. I’m grateful to God for the freedom to worship the Lord, to preach the word, to share the good news of Jesus. I’m grateful that this nation has never established a government-controlled state religion or required its people to worship or not to worship in any particular form. I’m grateful to the Lord for men and women who have sacrificed of themselves in countless ways to establish and protect the freedoms we enjoy.
I am also deeply concerned for the future of the nation where I was born and for which I am grateful. Though we are most certainly not the nation of Israel under covenant with the Lord, we can and should learn from the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel. I say that because I believe that we as a nation are guilty of so many of the very same things that brought the judgment of the Lord on that people.
For you who do not know the story, let me sketch in the history. In Genesis, God promised to send the Messiah (or Christ) into the world to rescue sinners, crush the devil, and set right what went wrong at the fall of man. God chose one particular family, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to carry this promise. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel and promised that Israel would be a nation through which God would fulfill his promise. And Israel agreed to obey the commands and ways of God in order to have God bless and protect the nation. Eventually, this led to the nation being led by a king named David, and God promised that David’s family line would carry his ultimate promise.
In around 9:30 B.C., The nation of Israel divided. Ten of the 12 tribes separated from the leadership of the descendants of King David and went their own way. That nation was still called Israel or the northern Kingdom while the descendants of David and carriers of God’s promise were called Judah after David’s tribe. In 722 B.C., the Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Assyrian Empire.
Look at how Scripture describes the fall of Israel and the reasons for its fall.
2 Kings 17:6-8 – 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
7 And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods 8 and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced.
Here we see that the nation of Israel had turned away from the things that please God and had begun to do things that god had forbidden. They modeled themselves after the surrounding nations instead of following the terms of the covenant they had made with the Lord. Israel did this even though the covenant agreement included severe consequences for violating God’s commands.
What did Israel do? From verses 9-18 of 2 Kings 17, God lists the offenses of Israel. They refused to worship God. Instead, the people of Israel began to worship false gods. They bowed down to idols. They even began to sacrifice their children to their false gods. Other books in the Bible tell of how God warned Israel to change. Amos, for example, called Israel to stop allowing the super-rich to live in luxury while they oppressed the poor and needy in their land. Many prophets instructed Israel to stop practicing sexual immorality and all forms of wickedness. But the nation would not repent.
And here we are, over 2,700 years later in a nation that the people of Israel could never have dreamed would exist. We are privileged beyond anything we could have ever imagined. But I wonder how long we will be able to stand. I do not doubt the American drive or the strength of will of our soldiers. But I do wonder if the Lord will allow this nation to stand strong forever given the way that we so eagerly embrace the things that brought God’s judgment upon Israel. No, we are not a nation in covenant with God like Israel. But, throughout biblical history, God would only allow the nations around his people to live in sin for so long before his judgment on them would fall.
As a nation, we have seen gloriously good things. We have seen the Lord honored as our people have preached and spread the gospel. It was our soldiers who made a dramatic difference to put down Hitler’s Germany in World War II and helped to rescue the world from one of the greatest threats in history. It was the U.S.A. that stood against the threat of Soviet Communism to see the Berlin Wall fall and that wicked system of oppression collapse. And I am so grateful for those things.
But we are also a people who have embraced things that God has called wicked in his word to a degree that is beyond imagining. We, as a nation, have allowed the sacrifice of our children, not to a statue of a false god, but by abortion to the idol of human freedom and autonomy. We have openly embraced what God calls sexual immorality, redefining marriage, loosening any restrictions on divorce, and leaving generations of children without fathers. We have allowed in years past the kidnapping and sale of human beings to serve as slaves simply based on their color of skin. In the present, we still fear one another and hurt one another if we look different from each other. Now the modern slavery involves the kidnapping and sale of young boys and girls into prostitution through human trafficking, a very real American sin. In truth, the things God commands are ignored in our nation while the things God forbids are celebrated.
So, I ask, how shall we stand? Even if we are not Israel, even if we are not in covenant with the Lord, how shall we stand? The answer, dear friends, must be repentance. Our nation has been great in many ways. Our nation is great in many ways. We have been blessed in many ways. But if we, as a people, are not willing to turn from our sin, bow to the Lordship of Christ, and seek his mercy, I fear for our future. The Lord let his judgment fall on nations as great as ours in the past. Egypt fell. Assyria fell. Babylon Fell. Persia fell. Grease fell. Rome fell. Every great empire in human history has fallen. So we dare not take our freedom and our stability for granted. We need to bow, turn to Christ, and seek the mercy of God.
I’ll wrap up with a prayer recorded in Scripture. The Prophet Daniel, a God-fearing, God-loving, righteous man, prayed a prayer of national confession and repentance. In so many ways, Daniel was not personally guilty of what others around him had been doing. But he did not pretend that his own goodness would save the nation. Instead, Daniel prayed to God, confessing the nation’s sin, and asked the Lord to have mercy. Perhaps we could do the same, praying that the Lord have mercy on the nation we live in, on the nation he has so blessed, on the nation we love, on the nation that has so turned against him and his ways. May we pray for God’s mercy as we celebrate our independence, but not an independence from our Creator.
Again, Daniels’ prayer is for the people of the house of David, Judah. We are not, in America, the people called by God’s name as they were. But perhaps we can learn from this prayer to seek the mercy and favor of God as we turn from sin and to him.
Daniel 9:3-19 – 3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him 10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. 11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. 12 He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. 13 As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. 14 Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
16 “O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. 17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
Security not Taken for Granted
Do you question your salvation? Should you?
I recall hearing preachers, when I was younger, talking to people about their conversion. A person would walk the aisle at a church and pray with the pastor after a service. The pastor would then announce to the congregation that we had a new believer in our midst. Then, the pastor would look the young man or woman in the eye, tell them to write down the date of when they believed, and never, under any circumstances, allow themselves to question whether or not they are saved.
On the one hand, the pastor was doing something right. The pastor knew that, if a person is genuinely saved, genuinely converted, genuinely rescued by Jesus Christ, nothing will ever change that fact. We do not earn our way to God. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So, if we are saved by Jesus, we become his and no force on earth, including us, can take us away from Jesus. Salvation is eternal, and Christ does not lose those he saves.
But, there is also a problem with authoritatively telling a person never to allow themselves to look back at an emotional event in their youth and question whether or not they are saved. Look at what Paul wrote to the Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
Paul called on the people of Corinth to look at themselves and test themselves to see if they are really in the faith. No way was Paul wanting them to look back for a date when they prayed a prayer with a pastor. Instead, Paul was asking them to examine themselves at present to see if they are saved.
What then should we do? Should we ignore our past? Should we doubt our salvation and never have confidence? No, that is not the way.
We should, however, look at our own lives and ask ourselves important questions:
- Do I believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for my sins and rose from the grave?
- Do I believe that my only hope for my eternal soul is in Christ and in Christ alone?
- Am I willing to submit to the Lordship of Jesus?
You must ask yourself those questions. If you answer them in a genuine affirmative, the Lord tells you that you have salvation. If you do not genuinely believe in Christ, if you have not genuinely placed your hope in him, if you are not genuinely willing to follow him as your Lord, you have a major problem. A past prayer may be the moment that you had genuine faith. But a past prayer, for many, is simply a sign of an emotional reaction to a religious service. The far more important question for us all is, “Am I, right now, trusting in Jesus and Jesus alone—his perfect life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection—as my only source of salvation?” Ask,” am I willing to yield all authority over my life and soul to Jesus?” This is how you test to see if you are in the faith. And, these are questions that believers should ask themselves.
Unbelief
In Luke 1, we get the account of the events leading up to the arrival of Christ on earth. The priest Zechariah receives the promise from an angel that his wife will conceive a son. That son will be the prophet to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.
In the conversation between Zechariah and the angel, the old priest asks a question. IN some ways, it looks similar to a question that Mary asks the same angel in the same chapter, “How will these things be?” But Mary gets a simple answer from the angel while Zechariah actually receives a rebuke. Why?
Luke 1:18-20 – 18 And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” 19 And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”
Why did Zechariah’s question get a harsh response? He did not believe. The bottom line problem was that Zechariah was asking out of doubt.
This leads to a very important biblical point. It is a point that we know in our heads as Christians, but which we somehow fail to see in its full light. Unbelief is a big deal.
You see, even when I say to you that unbelief is a big deal, it does not make you stop and think very much. On the one hand, you think, “I know that.” On the other, you do not let it go deep. To refuse to believe the Lord is a sin that is as ultimately insulting to the Lord who made you as any possible sin. Every other sin that mankind commits comes out of a lack of basic faith that God is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do.
Consider the fact that salvation from our sin comes to us by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We are saved when we believe in such a way that it leads to repentance. True faith in Christ always results in salvation. What then is to be said of a lack of belief? A lack of belief leads to judgment. To refuse to believe in the Lord is a huge deal.
The word of God is clear through all of its pages that to trust in the Lord leads to life. To ignore the Lord or to not believe him leads to destruction. May we ask the Lord to help us trust him more. May we realize that nothing is actually more important than to believe, genuinely believe, in the God who made us and in his Son he sent to save us. And nothing is more of an attempt to rebel against the Lord than to determine that we will not acknowledge his existence.
Pastor Travis Peterson 