Jeremiah 36:23-24
23 As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot. 24 Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor Did they tear their garments.
I have to say, reading this text is always shocking to me. Jeremiah, clearly a man who brought the word of God, has written a message from God for the people. The king hears it, but does not like the message. So, what does he do? He takes a knife and slices the scroll up as it is unrolled. The king then tosses the scraps into the fire, burning up the word of God and ignoring the warnings of the prophet.
I grew up in a home that was not a Christian household. However, as I grew up, my parents instilled in me a respect for churches and the Bible. No matter how superstitious that fear was, the concept of a person cutting up the word of God and feeding it to the fire would have astonished me even as a non-believing child. How much more awful is it to me as a grown up pastor?
Yet, I have to do a double-take and ask myself some serious questions. When I hear the word of God and put forth no particular effort to obey the clear commands of God, how am I different? I know that my righteousness is not of my own making. I know that obeying no law will get me to heaven. Yet, when God has clearly spoken to me in his words and I still fail to take those words to heart, am I really different than the king who warmed himself next to a fire of scripture?
I’m not wanting to be overly dramatic here, but I think we all can learn from this. If we love the word of God and the God of the word, we will hear and strive to obey. Let me tell you, this is not always as easy as you might think. God’s commands are not always in line with my thinking. God wants me to love people I don’t’ want to love. God wants me to offer forgiveness to people I don’t want to speak to. Gods’ word wants me to help those I don’t really want to help. Gods’ word tells me to lay down my supposed rights when I don’t’ want to lay them down. God’s word tells me to love my wife in a way I don’t naturally want to love her. God’s word tells me to not be entertained by things I find entertaining. God’s word tells me to think more lowly of myself than I do. God’s word tells me to set my heart on heaven when this world is constantly screaming for my attention.
No, It is not easy for me to not be just like that king. Yet, I know I must not be like him. I must hear God’s word and put forth the effort to follow it. I have to change. It is not merely outward behavior either. I have to change from the inside in order to love the word that shows me my flaws at every turn.
How about you? Where might you need to stop cutting away columns of Scripture? What words from God do you hear and immediately disregard? How might God be calling you to love him and his word more?
Believe in Jesus and Receive Life (John 4:51-54)
John 4:51-54
51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
On his way home, the royal official who had asked Jesus to come and heal his son met his own servants heading to Cana. Jesus had not agreed to go with the man, but had said that his son would be well. The servants were seeking him to tell him wonderful news. His son was well! The fever was gone!
The man asks them a question that teaches us as much as it teaches him. He asks when did the boy get well. When the servants give him the answer, the man realizes that the boy was healed at exactly the moment when Jesus told him that he would live.
Think of the great power of Jesus. He healed a boy from twenty miles away, a boy he had not ever physically met. He healed the boy immediately, not over time. He healed the boy completely, not a little bit. And, let’s remember, this boy was on the verge of death, otherwise his father would not have been nearly so desperate. Jesus has great power.
Because of all these circumstances lining up, the royal official now understands who Jesus really is. He believes. The way that this “believes” is used, it certainly tells us that this man has come to real faith in Jesus. He recognizes that Jesus is more than a magician or doctor; he does things only God can do.
Remember John’s prologue:
John 1:11-13
11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
When we truly believe in Jesus, he gives us the right to become God’s children. He gives us eternal life.
This man wanted Jesus to come to Capernaum so that his son could be healed. Instead of doing what the man asked for, Jesus heals in a way that the man did not expect, and by doing so, Jesus reveals himself to the man. The man believes, and thus becomes a child of God. He tells his family about what has happened, and the entire family comes to believe in Jesus.
As the puritan preacher Matthew Henry wrote, “The nobleman himself believed. He had before believed the word of Christ, with reference to this particular occasion; but now he believed in Christ as the Messiah promised, and became one of his disciples.” Henry continues, “What a blessed change was here in this house, occasioned by the sickness of the child! This should reconcile us to afflictions; we know not what good may follow from them.”
Like the first of Jesus’ miracles in Cana, this one results in a group of people having true saving faith in Jesus. True faith in Jesus leads you to life. The boy lived, physically, but so much more than that. The boy and his entire family lived, spiritually, because of their faith in Christ.
Not only should you believe that Jesus’ words are true, you must also believe in Jesus for life. He does not allow you to seek only the signs he can perform or the warm fuzzies he can give. He demands that you seek him. When you do, he promises to give you more than physical earthly goodness, he promises you life, true goodness, with God.
Life’s Not Fair (Ecclesiastes 9:1-3)
Ecclesiastes 9:1-3 (ESV)
1 But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. 2 It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath. 3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
Ecclesiastes 12:14 (ESV)
For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
The book of Ecclesiastes has at times a strong sense of despair. The author does not like the way that things happen in life. It does not seem fair. Why do the good not get the best of life? Why do the evil prosper? Why do the good suffer? Why are the evil not punished? Why are hard workers not always rewarded? Why are slackers sometimes rich?
The major lesson to learn in such passages is to see that these things feel wrong. Indeed, they are wrong. If everything worked exactly as it should—if sin were not a factor—everything would be fair. Hard work would be rewarded. Folly would be punished. But our world is sin-darkened. All of creation is fallen because of the fall of man in the garden. Since that time, not everything has appeared to be fair, right, or just.
Let’s make two quick points about the fact that not everything appears fair or just. First, remember that you have greatly benefitted from the fact that the wicked are not always immediately punished by God. All of us have sinned. IF God gave us justice, all of us would have died the moment of our first sin. The fact that you draw breath, that you are reading a blog on a computer, that you live at all is a reminder that God has been more gracious to all of us than we deserve. WE have all benefitted from this oddly functioning universe.
Second, to keep the Book of Ecclesiastes in right focus, you must have the end in mind. God will set all things right. God will judge every sin. God will reward all righteousness. God will ultimately put all of the universe in order, so don’t fear a lack of justice.
And, in case that concept of God punishing every sin has you worried, remember that Jesus Christ died to pay for the sin of all of God’s children. Every one of the Christian’s sins has been justly punished in Christ on the cross. Every one of the lost persons’ sins will be punished rightly in that person’s eternal condemnation. God is just, and he will do right justice. This is why we call for all people everywhere to repent and turn to Jesus for grace before their lives come to an end.
A Fresh Look at the Woman’s Question (John 4:19-24)
John 4:19-24 (ESV)
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
This passage is one in which my understanding of it differs from what I most often hear taught. When many Bible teachers come across the question of the Samaritan woman in verse 19, they teach that she was attempting to change the subject, to angle the deflector shields as it were, in order to keep Jesus from pursuing the topic of her own personal sin. It is as if she brings up a question of religious disagreement in order to make the conversation less personal and more hypothetical in nature.
However, I do not think this is at all the case. In the previous verses, Jesus has just exposed the depth of this woman’s sin and shame. She has been taken in and used by a number of men. Now she lives with a man who is not her husband. She is at the well in the middle of the day, clearly wanting to be alone. There seems to be a sense of shame in this woman.
What is the right thing for the woman to do when her sin is exposed? Well, it obviously depends on what God is doing in her heart. If God has left her heart dead to him, she will recoil in anger. She might become haughty. She will shake her head at Jesus and tell him to mind his own business.
However, if God is doing something in her heart, if he has begun to make alive a sinfully dead and hopeless heart, something else will occur. In fact, it would seem most natural for the woman to cry for help. She has sinned. She needs grace. She needs to be forgiven. It seems logical that she would ask a question that would help her to identify how it is that she might be forgiven.
What does the woman do? She asks Jesus a question about which temple is the right one in which to worship. Is this a stall tactic, or is it something more? Our problem is that we view the concept of worship as modern people who go to church buildings for congregational gatherings of worship. This was not in her mind. People did not go to the temple for congregational singing and preaching. No, this woman is asking where she must go in order to make the proper kind of sacrifice in order to regain the favor of the God she has spurned. She wants to know where to go that she might find forgiveness.
I think Jesus’ answer to the woman shows that my interpretation of the woman’s question is correct. Jesus helps the woman to know that, indeed, the temple in Jerusalem is the one in which God has made it possible for people to worship him. The temple on Mount Gerizim never had any way of helping people to rightly sacrifice before the one true God. But Jesus also tells her that this system of going to a temple to worship is about to come to an end. Very soon, in fact, those who wish to worship God will not do so through bloody burnt offerings, but will instead worship the Lord in spirit and truth. Salvation is not going to be about anything related to the temple, it will soon be by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
It is logical that, were the woman trying to avoid spiritual discussion, Jesus would have exposed more of her need. Instead, Jesus answers her question and gives her a very real answer. “If you want to know how to be right with God,” he says in effect, “You need to know that it is a spiritual worship, a true worship that will bring you to peace with God.” Jesus does not send this woman away as he did the rich young man of Mark 10:17-22. No, Jesus told her how to find grace, because her heart was already despairing over its sin. Jesus saw the Spirit’s work on this woman’s heart, and he gave her the good news.
True Prosperity (Jeremiah 29:10-14)
Jeremiah 29:10-14 (ESV)
10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
The above passage is one of those passages that is often quoted by believers who are looking for comforting, positive, prosperous promises. Indeed, it is all of that. However, there is a context to the passage that many do not remember as they joyfully quote verses 11 and 13.
Remember that Judah had sinned against God. They had rebelled against him and were rightly exiled to Babylon. The above verses are God’s promise to restore the people to their land after their captivity and their repentance. So, yes, God promises them good, but the good that God promised them comes after 70 years of exile and after their humbling themselves in light of their former sin.
Can we apply these verses in modern Christian life? Of course we can. However, they are not blank checks of prosperity to be claimed. As some seem to think. Instead, they are reminders that God’s people, humbled under God’s grace, turning from sin and seeking his face, will receive his good. Even in hardship, if we seek God and turn from sin as his children, God will be kind to us, will pardon us, will give us himself, the ultimate good.
Remember, God is not interested in us seeking things other than him. If we seek good things that are not God, we dishonor God. When we seek God, he will grant us what we need. Thus, we need to remember that the promises of prosperity from God in Jeremiah 29 are promises of prosperity in him, not apart from him.
Christians, turn your eyes and your heart to the Lord who saved you. Trust that he has plans for you. Know, however, that those plans involve you turning from sin and knowing him more. Hunger and thirst for righteousness, and God will satisfy your hunger. Seek after the King of kings, and he will grant you what you seek. Seek prosperity apart from him, and you are bowing to an idol. Seek the Lord, and he will be found by you.
A Great Encouragement for Me (Isaiah 43:1-3a)
While spending a little time in a workbook that I’m going through with some friends, I read the following text:
Isaiah 43:1-3a (ESV)
1 But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
3 For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
Last night, I led in the hymn “How Firm a Foundation.” In that song, we sang the concepts found in these verses. What a joy it is to know that, if we are Christ’s, we are truly in his care. Though we may go through deep waters, dark valleys, or fiery trials, God is still there with us. God is with us to comfort us, to keep us, to strengthen us.
Why does God strengthen us? It is certainly not out of any obligation to us that we have earned. No, we earn nothing good from God. Yet God, because of the life he has given us in his Son, will stand with us and sustain us. God, for the sake of his own name and out of his own love, will not let his children be totally overwhelmed.
I’m sure you know what it feels like to look up and feel like you have no hope. It is not a surprise to find ourselves at the end of our rope. It is not a surprise to see that we cannot fix our lives on our own. God did not design us to live in this sinful world as lone rangers. Thus, it is a comfort to hear our God declare to his covenant people that he is with them, he will guard and guide them, and he will watch over them because he loves them and they are his.
Have you gotten under this love of Christ? There is only one way to have these verses apply to you—by trusting in the Lord Jesus. WE are sinners. We must be covered by God’s grace to be saved. Cry out to Jesus for mercy and find that you have become God’s child.
IF you are God’s child, revel in these verses. Let them comfort and strengthen you for life. We cannot beat the challenges of the day. WE cannot even straighten out our own hearts on our own. But our God is with us. He is mightier than any trial we face. HE will not lose us, for he is our God and he declares his love for us.
The Water that Satisfies (Jeremiah 2:13)
Jeremiah 2:13
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
It is amazing how self-defeating is our sinful search for satisfaction apart from God. We try all sorts of things to fill our empty souls. Some try success, others pleasures, still others fame or fortune or strange substances. When will we learn that such things, while they offer pleasure for a moment, will not satisfy?
What a glorious thing God has said to us in Jeremiah 2:13. He describes how his people have turned their backs on him to seek their satisfaction in other things. In context, he is telling Judah how faithless they have been and how they have, by their continual sinfulness and idolatry, turned away from God toward destruction.
But in another sense, this passage has a great deal of hope for us if we will see it. Not only is God saying that some have turned from him toward what will not satisfy, but God is also saying that, if we will serve him, we will find satisfaction in him.
The imagery that God uses is of a clean pool of sweet water in comparison to muddy, brackish, stinky water in a broken cistern. We have far too often turned to the mud puddle for a drink. This is sad. But there is good news. There is a fountain of living water. There is a bubbling pool of the sweetest, coldest, clearest water for us to drink. The message is not that we must choose between muddy water and no water. No, the choice is between muddy and poisonous water and the wonderful, joyous, soul-satisfying water of God.
Don’t miss the point. There is joy to be had. Turn from this world. Turn from your sin. Turn from the things that this crazy life tempts you with. Turn to Christ. Find that in the Lord are all the joys and pleasures that your soul has ever truly desired. God is a fountain of life, a river of joy. When we truly behold him in his majesty and glory, when we are truly part of bringing him glory, we will find him to be the great Satisfier of our souls. We will find him to be the water for which we have thirsted all our lives.
The Fear of Pastors (Jeremiah 1:17)
Jeremiah 1:17
But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them.
There is a fear that eats at the hearts of ministers of the gospel around the world. Whether he is in a large church or a small one, whether his people are wealthy or poor, whether the setting is urban or rural, the same fear is present. Can we truly teach the word of God to the people of God without compromise?
You might think that this is an easy question with an easy answer. Of course pastors are supposed to preach the word without compromise. But, you know what, it’s not happening. Look around. Visit a grand variety of churches. Seldom is the pulpit ringing with the words of the Lord from the Scripture. Seldom do you hear the word taught without gimmick or apology. Seldom do you hear the word applied as it makes its points itself. Seldom do you hear the gospel of God’s holiness, man’s utter helplessness, God’s wrath, man’s rebellion, Christ’s atonement, man’s surrender, and God’s faithfulness.
If you look around, what you will often see is churches that take the word of God, and tinker with it. Men stand in pulpits (if the churches still have pulpits) and offer counsel from their own minds that they back up with contextually disconnected and topically-driven points. Churches often see their numbers of attendees increase, not because the word is taught, but because the church has put together an entertaining program, a sparkling children’s recreation time, or a fantastic support-group system.
But then we look back at words like God’s to Jeremiah. God told Jeremiah to stand before a rebellious people and to proclaim his word to them without fear. This is what is missing from so many pulpits today. Where are the men who will, without fear of man but with great fear of God, stand erect and proclaim to the people the full counsel of the word of God? Where are the men who will call sin what it is? Where are the men who will call the people of God to holiness? Where are the men who will call the lost to fall on the mercy of Christ, not walk through a 4-step process? Where are the men who will speak truth, even when truth does not add to the budget?
Not all churches which preach the word will find themselves in a battle between the word and the people. There are those which will experience the grace of God in wonderful growth. There are those which will hold aloft the light of God’s word, and they will experience the nations being drawn to it. There are those which will preach the word to the people and then marvel as the people stand up, stride into the community, and share the true gospel with the lost.
Know this, regardless of what kind of church you are in: your pastor is under pressure to compromise. There are business models and methodologies that will tickle the ears of the world and draw crowds to hear a watered-down and socially-sanitized version of the gospel. Your pastor is under pressure to bring more people into the pews and more pennies into the plates. There are church members and management gurus who would tell your pastor to preach differently, to tone down the Scripture, and to make the message more like the kind of truth that the local culture wants to hear.
But also know this: the Lord commands the man of God to tell the people what he, their Creator, has said. The pastor’s job is to proclaim the word with faithfulness and boldness. The pastor’s job is to fear God more than the world. The pastor’s job is to not be dismayed by the people, but to fear the Lord first and foremost. The pastor’s job is to pray for, to feed, and to lead his people into greater holiness. You, if you want to know God more, want a pastor who will proclaim the word of God to you without compromise and without fear of man.
the Defense of Union with Christ (Colossians 2:11-12)
Guard against man-centered philosophies and false religion by acknowledging the believers union with Christ.
Colossians 2:11-12
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
One trick of a man-made and man-centered philosophy is to add some sort of religious work to what Christ did in order for a person to be saved. In the early first century, for example, Jewish believers tried to force gentile believers to follow their traditions. They tried to impose on the gentiles dietary laws, rules about holidays, and even the practice of circumcision. In many of Paul’s letters, we see him have to fight tooth and nail against the notion that, for a person to be saved, they have to have something physically done to their body.
Paul here takes away any notion of salvation having to do with something we physically do. Speaking to a gentile church, a group of mainly uncircumcised people, Paul says that they were spiritually circumcised by Christ. This means that Christ spiritually marked them as his own and cut away from their souls the worthless works of the dead flesh. When did Christ do this? He did this at the moment of their salvation.
Paul shows that there is some similarity between circumcision and baptism. What is baptism displaying? Baptism is the act of obedience in which a believer publicly declares that he has been united with or identified with Christ. When a person is lowered into the waters of baptism, it displays the spiritual truth that God counts us as having died on the cross with Christ so that our sin can be completely paid for. When a person is raised from the waters of baptism, it displays that Christ is risen from the dead and we too are raised with him to live new lives.
Putting all this together, then, we see that Paul is using the work of Christ and baptism to help protect us from false teachers. Baptism depicts union with Christ. If you are saved, you are united with Jesus. If you are saved, God looks at you with the love he has for his own Son.
Picture it this way. Imagine that there are two files side-by-side. One file is the list of all of the perfections of Jesus. The other is the list of your failures. If you are united with Christ, God no longer looks at the record of your failures when he looks at you. Instead, God looks at the file of Jesus’ perfections, and he counts that as yours.
How does this protect against false and worldly philosophies? Every false religion in the world tells you that you have to do some kind of spiritual work to maintain your salvation. Every type of false philosophy tells you that you can lose your standing with God if you do not keep up the good work. Only Christianity, genuine Christianity, tells you that, if you have faith in the risen Son of God, you are counted as one with him. You can never be lost. You will never be lost. You will live differently, there is no doubt of that; but that different living is not what saves you. You are saved by grace alone through faith alone. Guard against man-centered philosophies and false religion by acknowledging the believers union with Christ.
The Defense of Christ’s Deity (Colossians 2:9-10)
Guard against man-centered philosophies and false religion by acknowledging the deity and supremacy of Christ
Colossians 2:9-10
9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
How do you battle against false religion? Apparently, the first key is to have a proper grasp of the person of Jesus Christ. If you are going to properly grasp salvation, you had better first properly understand who is the Savior.
While it may seem like we have made this point a thousand times, we have to start where the Scripture starts. Verse 9 declares for you and me to understand that Jesus is God. That is what Paul means when he says that in Jesus is all the fullness of deity. Jesus Christ is fully God. Jesus is not a lower deity, a lesser emanation of the true God. No, Jesus is God in flesh. Jesus is not a creation of a greater deity, Jesus is God.
In Jesus, the fullness of deity dwells bodily. Jesus is God in a human body. Jesus is simultaneously perfectly God and totally man. He is not a pretend human. Jesus is not a man who gained deity at some point in his life experience. Jesus is God the Son, part of the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit revealed in Scripture.
Everything in our faith rides on the truth of the fact that Jesus is God and not less. Were Jesus not God, Jesus could not have lived with absolute, God-satisfying perfection. Were Jesus not God, the price he paid for our sins when shedding his blood could never have been enough to pay for the sins of all who will trust in him. Were Jesus not God, his acceptance of worship would have been sinful and evil. Because Jesus is God, he is the head of all rulers and all authorities in the universe, be they spirits or people. Jesus is God, and thus he has all authority.
Jesus also fills his followers. That word for fills has to do with completeness. Jesus saves completely all who trust in him. Do you want to know that, if you trust Christ, you will be saved forever? Know then that Christ, God the Son, completely saves as only God can. When Christ Jesus saves, no one can unsave the saved, because no one in all the universe can defeat God the Son.
Man-made and worldly philosophies do not focus on Jesus as God. They try to deny or lessen Jesus’ deity. Such claims are soul-destroying. Whether someone claims Jesus to be just slightly less than the one true God, or whether they claim him to be a mere man who was a good teacher, all who miss that Jesus is truly God miss out on the truth of Christianity If you miss who Jesus is, you miss that he is the God who can fully, completely, totally rescue you from your sin and make you right with God forever. Guard against man-centered philosophies and false religion by acknowledging the deity and supremacy of Christ
