Category: devotional

Influences Matter

pastortravislv

Who speaks into your life? Whose voice matters? We all need people to counsel us, to challenge us, and to encourage us. But if we make bad choices regarding the voices we will listen to, we can allow ourselves to be led into some serious difficulties.

Toward the end of the book of 2 Chronicles, we see a king whose life perfectly illustrates this point for us. His name is Joash.

2 Chronicles 24:1-2 – 1 Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. 2 And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

Joash, as a young man, was advised by Jehoiada the priest. And so long as Jehoiada was helping Joash, he followed the ways of the Lord well. Chapter 24 of 2 Chronicles highlights great reforms that Joash made and a great return of the people to the temple of God.

But, when Jehoiada died, things in the kingdom changed.

2 Chronicles 24:17-18 – 17 Now after the death of Jehoiada the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them. 18 And they abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.

After the death of Jehoiada, Joash heard different voices. Like King Rehoboam long before him, Joash was influenced by younger men who flattered him and convinced him to walk a different path than that of wisdom. Joash seems to have been convinced not by Scripture and not by wisdom but by the homage offered to him by these nobles. His hunger to be praised led him to choices that brought the wrath of God upon the land.

What voices do you listen to? Are you able to listen to a wise, older counselor? Are you able to take it when a person questions the wisdom of a choice you want to make? Or are you easily flattered?

The book of Proverbs repeatedly warns us that flattery is a dangerous thing. After all, the one who flatters us is not often out for our best interest. And the one who flatters us is very seldom interested in the glory of God. Flattering lips are those which would seek to manipulate us for another’s gain. Joash fell victim to them. We need to be careful.

How can we be careful here? First, be sure that you surround yourself with a few believers who will honestly speak Scripture to you that is rightly understood and applied. You would be wise to be sure that you do not limit all the voices you hear to your own generation. Jehoiada was a much older, much wiser, and much more experienced person who could offer Joash counsel. Watch out for flattery. Do not let yourself grow to love the sweet words of others so much that you let them lead you with short-lived thrills of praise. And, in all things, be sure that you know the word of God well enough that you do not let any counsel that opposes Scripture slip through.

Justice

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Justice is quite popular in discussions today. People are crying out for all sorts of things they call justice. But when we look at the word in Scripture, how do we know what it means? After all, it seems like people are strongly disagreeing with one another regarding what justice truly is.

For many people, a call for justice is a call for punishment. For them, to ask God to do justice is to ask God to properly punish the guilty. This is, of course, a part of justice, but only a part.

Others consider a call to justice to be a call to take power or privilege away from one group and spread that power around to those who did not previously have it. Thus, these would consider justice to be fairness. If one group has been hurt by another, the strong group should receive equal or even greater hurt in return.

The question is, when the Bible talks about justice, what picture is drawn? Take a peek at this poetic parallelism and see what it tells us.

Psalm 106:3

Blessed are they who observe justice,
who do righteousness at all times!

God pronounces a blessing on those who do justice. This is no surprise. But what does that mean. The second line in the verse goes on to explain. Observing justice, in this verse, is equal to doing righteousness. Doing what is right in accord with the law, the word, the standard of God.

So, if we want to see justice done, we must begin with and remain firmly entrenched in the word of God. What does God say is righteous? That is what we must do.

The reason that justice is often connected to crime and punishment is that the word of God shows us God as the righteous final judge. God will properly punish what opposes him and God will rightly and sweetly reward his followers who are under his grace and obedient to his commands. Heaven and hell are displays of God’s justice and his righteous mercy. And, yes, the law of God shows us clear standards for crime and punishment as well.

But there is more. Loving your neighbor as yourself is righteousness, because such is obedience to the command of God when done for the glory of God. Acting to oppose immorality of all sorts, immorality as defined by Scripture, is doing justice because it is biblical righteousness. Protecting life, preserving marriage, punishing crime, all these are justice.

When you hear a call to justice, ask some important questions. Is the action I am being asked to take commanded in Scripture? Can I conclude that the action being championed is the direct result of proper application of biblical principles interpreted by faithful and consistent hermeneutical principles? Is the action that I am being called to champion going to treat others in an unrighteous way in order to achieve what one group is calling justice? Are there biblical examples of the action others want me to take? Would Bible-believing Christians of all cultures, globally and historically, be able to affirm the actions or standards being proposed?

Christians, we want to observe justice. We want to do righteousness at all times. This honors the Lord. And the only possible way for us to do so is for us to so marinate in Scripture that we think and bleed Bible in all our thoughts. Only the sanctifying word of God will lead us to true justice, to truly doing what is right in all things.

Politically Correct or Biblical

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I would love it if my nature had never been corrupted by the modern influence of secular political correctness. The funny thing is, most who are deeply concerned about such things would assume that I have never been influenced by that idea. Perhaps you also think that the unbiblical standards of our society have not influenced you. But I wonder.

When I was reading through Psalm 104, I came across the ending. Like the endings of several psalms, it says some things that do not sound, well, sensitive in a modern context.

The psalm opens with a great deal of praise to God. The author praises God for his power in creation and in how he sustains all of the universe. Such is pretty easy to read and not feel any tension. But then the ending comes.

Psalm 104:33-35

33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.
35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!

The praising of God is generally socially acceptable, at least at the time of this writing, generally, perhaps, in some parts of the country, if you do it in a non-offensive way, well…. Either way, what I am saying is that verses 33-34 are not what most are going to notice.

Look at verse 35. It’s ending is all nice too. Bless the Lord is acceptable in our minds and does not cause us any discomfort. But how do you, Christian, deal with the beginning lines of verse 35? God’s word says, in a song, “Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!” That, dear friends, is not socially acceptable.

But stop and ask a pair of questions. The first one is the bigger one. Are you going to sit in judgment of the word of God? God’s word is inspired and profitable. God’s word teaches us, rebukes us, corrects us, and trains us in righteousness. Are you going to dare suggest that his word, his revelation of himself and his ways, is not up to your standard? Be very careful. We are to be conformed to the image of God, not the other way around.

The second question involves the content itself. I think that many cringe at lines that suggest that it would be a good thing for God to wipe out the wicked. But what do you really want? Do you want the Lord to leave the world full of wickedness?

Have you ever considered the basic inconsistency of those who are upset by lines like the ones at the end of this psalm? Is it not interesting that the group which opposes the faith often does so for contradictory reasons? These folks express that they are mad that God allows evil people to do evil things—how can God not jump in and stop such people. They are also mad at the idea that God would ever judge the wicked so as to remove them from this world or to punish them for their deeds—I can’t believe in a God who would judge someone or violate their free will. But you cannot keep both of those objections and be logically consistent.

The world looks at lines like those in verse 35 and decries the hatred and violence of the faith. But this is an unfair criticism. Christians who are biblical do not attempt to spread the faith through physical force. Any who have attempted to use the threat of violence to force a supposed conversion are well beyond the warrant of Scripture. It is not hatred to look at actions that are opposing the standard of the word of God and call said actions sin. That is precisely what we are supposed to do. Jesus certainly did. The psalmist here has no qualms about calling wickedness wicked.

Christians, let’s be careful not to let ourselves be so shaped by the world around us that we try to explain away lines like those at the end of this psalm. Yes, we want to see people turn from sin and be saved. But we also should long for the Lord to do justice, including bringing his judgment on the wicked. This is not us thinking we are better than others. We have been the wicked ourselves. What makes us different is the saving grace of Jesus. So we do not look at anyone as if we are superior. We simply look to the Lord, see his standards, and pray, your kingdom come; your will be done.” And we who know the word know that such a prayer includes a call for his justice as well as his saving grace.

God Outlasts Creation

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The world can be awfully depressing. Political discussions are discouraging. The character of the nation seems to be diving off a cliff. Rotten people try to do others harm. Even those who should be gracious to one another are nasty on social media. So much seems wrong.

What are things we should consider when all seems out-of-place? In Psalm 102, the psalmist was feeling the sorrow of a world gone wrong. He had suffered. He was mourning over his losses. He knew that his city had been hurt by enemies. And he desperately wanted the Lord to act.

After several verses expressing his concern and sorrow, the psalmist closes with the following words of confidence in the Lord.

Psalm 102:25-28

25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.
28 The children of your servants shall dwell secure;
their offspring shall be established before you.

God created. This is where the psalmist begins to find his hope. In a broken world that looks uglier and uglier, the psalmist takes his mind and heart back to the fact that God made the universe. God made the heavens. God made the earth. God is. While the universe came into being, God always is.

The psalmist also understood that God will be beyond the universe we can see. God may change the universe like we change clothing, but his eternal perfection will not change. Nothing changes the Lord. He might roll up the heavens like a scroll, but this will in no way impact him. Stars can die. Planets can crumble. Or galaxies can, at God’s will, wink out of existence. None of these things have the power to change the Lord.

Even when the Lord changes the entire universe around us, we can know that God is unchanging. And this fact leads the psalmist to confidence. The changelessness of God leads the psalmist to say, “The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.” Because God does not change, those who are under the grace of God may know that the Lord will keep us. If we are his children, if we have been adopted by him, we can know that he will establish us and not let us go. Even if the earth were to shatter around us, God would not lose us.

OF course this does not mean that we know that our lives will be painless. God is sovereign over all things, and sometimes he leads his children through the valley of the shadow of death. But God wants his children to remember that he is eternal, he is unchanging, and he will never let his people go.

So, Christian, think about the universe. Think about how stable it seems. You cannot imagine it going anywhere. You cannot imagine the earth not being. You cannot imagine the sun ceasing to rise or shine. You cannot imagine galaxies beyond your vision fading away. All seems too big, too steady, too unchanging. But God wants you to know that he is before these things, he is beyond these things, and he will keep you in his eternal life even when he changes the stars like a man changes his clothes. Let this lead you to worship the Lord. Let it remind you to be confident that, regardless of how easy or hard your life on this earth goes, there is something infinite beyond it. And let this all give you hope when the world seems too hard to handle.

Hope or Vanity

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Is it worth it to follow God? That was the question that I asked in a message on Malachi 3:13-4:3. You see, at the end of Malachi 3, we saw that there were some people who were claiming that following God was vain, useless, worthless. Why? They were upset that it looked like good people were not being rewarded by God and bad people were not being judged by God. And these folks believed that, if God was not making their lives better, God was not worth following.

The answer in Malachi from God was one of eternal perspective. God said that a day was to come when he would make it clear who had been his follower and who had not. In 4:1-3, God talked about the day of the Lord, a day of coming judgment and reward. God promised he will do justice. God promised he will reward those who have honored and feared him.

But what about the New Testament? Are we to think like Malachi? Or are we who are in the New Covenant to expect that things are different today? Should we assume that, regardless of what happens after we die, we get our best lives now?

In my reading through 1 Corinthians, I was reminded that Paul preached a nearly identical message to Malachi. Take a look.

1 Corinthians 15:19 – If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

When Paul faced those who were denying the concept of the resurrection, both that of Jesus and the future resurrection of all believers, he said this is a big deal. In fact, Paul points out that hope in this life alone would be vanity for the Christian. It is meaningless to live for this life and not for the one to come. No matter how good we may or may not get things now, hope in this life alone would make us of all people most to be pitied.

Malachi acknowledged that life is hard in the here and now. But he said that following God was worth it for the hope of eternity. Is that Paul’s message too?

1 Corinthians 15:58 – Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Paul says that we can know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. How? If you look back over the chapter, you will see that Paul pointed to the day of Christ’s return. Paul pointed to Jesus raising the dead, giving all believers new, eternal, resurrection bodies, and completing the arrival of his kingdom. Paul pointed to what will come in eternity future, and he said that it is because of that hope that we can know, in a hard here and now, that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Following God is worth it. Sometimes it is a real joy in the here and now. Sometimes it is really hard with joy deep down holding us together. But in the light of eternity, in the light of the judgment, in the light of Christ’s return, we can know that it is truly worth it to follow and obey Jesus, to honor and fear the Lord. That message did not change from Old Testament to New. So, let us set our minds and hearts on the eternity to come which proves to us that laboring in the Lord today is worth it.

On How You Identify

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One of the beautiful things about Scripture is that it is all breathed out by God and profitable. We need to learn that everything the Bible teaches us about God is true. We also should understand that what the Bible teaches us about thinking about God and what the Bible teaches us about thinking about ourselves is also true. We learn both from the claims of the Scripture as well as from the rationale, the reasoning, of Scripture.

I began to think a bit about how the Bible’s rationale teaches us when reading Paul’s statements about the church and our unity in the body with our variety of spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12:15-16 – 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

In context, Paul is presenting for us an argument to prove that every person in the body of Christ, every person in the church, is valuable and has a role to play. Some have gifts that appear more spectacular than others. Some have gifts that are more hidden. Some have greater needs for help. Other seem more self-sufficient. But we all are gifted by God to help each other and we all need each other. No member has the biblical right to think that any member of the body, including himself or herself, is worth more or less than any other member in the body.

Paul suggests to us that, even if a person thinks they do not matter to the body, they still do. A foot cannot say that, if it does not get to be a hand, it is not really part of the body. And a person not allowed to preach from the pulpit cannot say to the body that they are not genuinely a valuable part of the body. And a person who cannot sing must not think they are less valuable than the big voice sitting next to them. And the person who struggles to read and comprehend a paragraph is just as valuable as the one who devours a book a day.

All that is beautiful and in context. But there is something else that strikes me when I look at this passage. It is not Paul’s argument that catches me this time, but an understood truth in his reasoning. This reasoning is significant and biblical. When Paul speaks of the people as parts of the body, he talks about things they say about themselves. He talks about their self-identification. And notice that, in the mind of the apostle, inspired by God, the declaration of a foot or an eye has no bearing on that item’s reality. A foot cannot declare itself not a part of the body simply because it does not like its shape. An eye cannot declare itself not a part of the body simply because it does not like its function. Paul is clear in his rationale, a rationale he expects Christians through the ages to understand, that things are what they are in actual point of fact; their reality is not determined by how they choose to identify themselves. Nor is their reality determined by the opinions of others.

It might be helpful, Christians, for you to stop and consider how important it is that God would show us, in how he inspired his own Scripture to be written, that he believes that the reality of a thing or a person to be important. There is no foot to hand fluidity. There is no ear to eye flip-flopping. Paul is not saying that your foot can be a part of your body from one point of view, but from another, it is clearly not. The reasoning of the apostle tells us that truth matters.

I was born in the United States in the 1970s. I cannot be telling the truth and identify myself as a native-born Korean under the age of 25. I might be able to learn the language and enjoy the food. I might be able to grasp the culture and even enjoy hanging out with folks who are what I claim to be. I might be able to hide behind a made-up on-line presence and pretend to be what I tell people I am. But the reality is, no matter what happens, I’m still an
American in his 40s.

Do not, by the way, read this as intentionally mean-spirited. I understand that, for many people, our reality of who we are or even what we are can be difficult. Remember, I’m blind. I would prefer to be able to see. It would make several things in life far easier. I have to adapt to function. I have to let go of doing certain things I really might enjoy doing. But you know what? Were I to suddenly declare myself sighted, that would not change the fact that, were I to try to drive, I’d crash the car.

Christians are to be a people of truth. God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). We do not help ourselves or others by pretending that false things are real. We do not help a foot by letting it pretend to be a hand or by letting it pretend not to be a part of the body. We do not help ourselves if we live in fantasy and refuse to acknowledge reality. For certain, the reality that we acknowledge is not necessarily acknowledged by the rest of the world. Some think we are nuts for believing in a Creator who spun the planets into space or in angels, demons, life after death, etc. But we are not claiming these are both real and unreal. We are believing in biblical truth claims. We are not pretending that they simultaneously exist and do not exist depending on one’s point of view. We are bound by truth. We do not look at blue and call it red. We do not look at light and call it dark. We do not look at life and call it not life. We do not look at people and call them something they are not. We follow the rationale we see in Paul’s direct reasoning that a thing does not become another thing by its declaration. Neither does a person.

Cup of Demons

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One of the sad results of our modern age is that even Christians have been taught to look down our noses at the supernatural. Perhaps we understand that miracles happened in biblical times. Perhaps we will be like the world and look for naturalistic explanations to explain away what biblical authors clearly knew to be miracles. But for many Christians, there seems to be a bit of a blush, a shaking of the head, a shrugging of the shoulders when topics like angels and demons come up. It is as if we are people who have an embarrassing drunken grandmother whom we still have to claim as family; we wish we did not have to, but she is family, and we love her nonetheless.

But, Christians, if you love the word of God, you cannot shake your head at the word’s claim of the supernatural. You must believe that God created the earth out of nothing but his word. You must believe that Jesus lived, died, and rose again. You must believe that supernatural spiritual beings called angels and demons exist. And no matter how modern you want to be, you cannot ignore these points.

Look at what Paul said about those who worshipped idols in temples back in the first century.

1 Corinthians 10:19-20 – 19 What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.

Paul said that pagans in temples offered sacrifices to demons. Note that Paul is not saying that nothing spiritual or supernatural took place in those religions. Rather, Paul said that the worship in those temples was evil, men sacrificing to and worshipping demons. It was very real, very spiritual, very evil.

The reason we need to think about this today is that we must not become so scientifically smug in our generation that we ignore the very plain word of
God regarding the spiritual world. Angels are real. Demons exist. Things beyond the scientifically explainable have happened, still do happen, and will happen in the future.

What should we do with this thought? Not much, really. Know that we live in a world that is far more complex than what we can see or explain. Know that the miraculous is not foolish, primitive superstition. Know that it is quite possible that those who claim miraculous spiritual encounters from other religions may well be telling the truth, even if the spirits they encounter are demonic. Stop letting yourself think that we somehow understand the universe better than did Jesus or Paul. Don’t go on a mission to find and cast out the demons like you are in a bad Christian novel. Just obey God, believe his word, and take the spiritual seriously.

Amazing Examples for Us

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When reading through the Old Testament, Christians often shake our heads at the ancient people of Israel. How could they be so disobedient? They gave in to idolatry, sexual immorality, testing God, and grumbling against the Lord. Why did God put up with them? Why did he let them keep going?

Interestingly, the New Testament answers those questions for us, and in a way that I think many of us would find to be a surprise. You see, God has always been working out one plan. And we see evidence of that one plan in what Paul says to the Corinthians even as he warns them against committing the same sins as did Israel in the desert.

1 Corinthians 10:6-13 – 6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. 12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Take note of the repetition in verses 6 and 11. God let these people sin as they wanted and then recorded the outcome for our instruction. These things happened as examples for us to teach us. Or, as Paul says, “They were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”

Before even looking at the sins, stop and think. God says that the things we read in the Old Testament are recorded for our example and our instruction. Israel in the desert with their unfaithfulness is there for us to learn from. Their bad example is a warning for us.

Again, do not see this as a coincidence. God is not saying that, since that stuff happened anyway, it should at least be useful as an example for us. No, God allowed the nation to follow their sinful heart for the purpose of warning the people of God in the latter days. Paul does not say that these things took place for no reason, but we can learn from them. Paul says that these things took place for us to learn from them. God was working out his purpose for his church more than a millennium before Jesus walked the earth.

What are we to learn? Briefly, we see that idolatry, sexual immorality, testing the limits of God’s patience, and grumbling against the Lord are all temptations that we too will face. Notice especially that the idolatry is tied to the people rising up to play, to party around a golden calf. Our temptation toward idolatry is not likely to be to bow down before a statue so much as it will be to worship our pleasure, our autonomy, our sexual liberty. Sexual immorality has been a human temptation since early on. Pushing our limits and grumbling that God does not do what we want is a normal failure. And all of these are destructive.

God tells us to look at Israel, see her failures, and learn. Learn to be guarded against sin. Learn to take sin seriously. Learn to take heed lest we fall. Learn that God offers us a way to battle every temptation. Learn from the example that God gave us through years of Hebrew unfaithfulness.

This passage should cause us to take heed and guard against sin. It should cause us to watch out especially for the sins listed. But it should also cause us to praise God and be in awe of his ways. This stuff happened for our edification, our instruction, our example. May we praise the God who was preparing lessons for us more than three millennia ago.

God’s Claim of Exclusivity

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One of the most offensive things about biblical faith to those who do not agree is the claim of exclusivity. People are often put off strongly by the claim of a Christian that Jesus is the only way that anyone can be right with God. The world in general is not offended if we say that Jesus is our way to find peace or a way to be right with God, but they are deeply offended when we suggest that those who try another way are under the judgment of God.

But the Lord has always been clear that he is the only God. He is clear that there is no other way to be forgiven and to have a future of joy after this life. There is one God and one way to life.

Psalm 96:4-5

4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.

Look at the simple words recorded above in Psalm 96. God is pulling no punches. God is to be praised. Why? Because he is the only true God. There is one and only one God, the Lord, the God of the Bible.

What does God say about those who would follow other religions, other deities? What does God make of other faiths? It is not inclusive. In verse 5, we see this, “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols.” God calls false gods worthless idols. They cannot save.

But what claim does God make about himself? Why does he have the right to claim that following him is the only way? Verse 5 also says to us, “but the Lord made the heavens.” That is a simple factual claim. If it is true, the psalm suggests, it proves that God has the right to declare himself utterly different than the gods of all other religions. God claims to be the Creator.

The funny thing is, for many, the claim of fact here is something they often ignore. This is assumed to be a relative claim. Relative claims are claims of value, of preference: Chocolate is better than vanilla; football is better than basketball; red is better than blue. But God is making no such claim. God is declaring ownership of the universe because he made it. Either he did or he did not. Either this is truth or a lie. There is no middle ground, none at all.

If the words of the Bible are true, God is the only God. He created the universe. And the only way for us to escape eternal judgment is to enter into his grace by being made right with the Creator. The only way to be made right with the Creator, according to John 14:6, is through Jesus Christ.

It seems to me that people are offended by the exclusivity of the faith because they assume that the simple claim of fact is read as a relative claim. God is creator. That is a yes or no. There is no other option. But many see that as a preference, “I like this deity over that one. I like this system of morality over that one. I think I am better than you because I like my system of morality over yours.” But that is not at all what the Bible is saying. It is not at all what the Christian is saying. We are simply saying that we believe the Bible. Believing the Bible requires that we believe that there is one God over the universe, the one who created it, and we owe him everything. We believe that there is one way to be right with that God, by grace and through faith in Jesus Christ alone. We are not claiming to be better or worse than any religion. We are claiming to be factually correct. The alternative is that we are completely wrong. But we are not claiming personal superiority. We are simply believing that Jesus is the only way to salvation. This ought to be no more offensive than a claim that 2 + 2 = 4 or that the moon orbits the earth. If we are wrong, we are completely wrong. If we are correct, we are completely correct.

A Call to Repentance

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When we call people to salvation in the Lord Jesus, if we are being most biblical, we call people to repent and believe. Both of those terms are used time and time again to depict how a person comes to salvation. The two are not separate things.

We know in general what believing in Jesus looks like. But what does repentance look like? WE have pictures in the Bible. IN fact, we see the Lord give us a picture of repentance at the end of the book of Hosea.

God, speaking particularly to Israel, has called them out for their sinful unfaithfulness to him. But in the final chapter of this prophecy, he calls them to repent.

Hosea 14:1-3

1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
2 Take with you words
and return to the Lord;
say to him,
“Take away all iniquity;
accept what is good,
and we will pay with bulls
the vows of our lips.
3 Assyria shall not save us;
we will not ride on horses;
and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’
to the work of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy.”

The word for return here in verse 1 is a repentance word. It literally means to turn back or return, to turn from one thing or direction to another. The word could speak of a person walking in one direction and making a turn. Or it could mean a person turning back from evil and toward righteousness. Obviously, in this context, God is calling Israel to a spiritual change of direction.

In verse 1, we see that returning involves a turning from their iniquity toward the Lord their God. They are to stop chasing after their sin and start (or start again) seeking after the Lord.

In verse 2, God tells them what they should be saying: Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips. This is the people going to God, seeking forgiveness for their past wrongs and promising to obey the commands they have been previously disobeying. They are saying they have been wrong in the past, but, from now on, they will return to being under his lordship.

In verse 3, the people are to say to God that they will no longer run to foreign nations for their deliverance. Instead, they will trust in him. They will not trust in their own prowess on the battlefield, mounting themselves on horses, but will trust in the Lord’s protection. It is a turning from self-reliance to reliance on God. It is the kind of thing that God had commanded Israel to do, to trust in him instead of the pagan nations around them, but they were refusing to do.

At the end of verse 3, the people were to say, “And we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands.” The nation had fought against God by looking at their own inventions, the crafting of idols, and declaring things they put together to be their deities. Repentance would mean that they stop seeing false things as divine, and they would only call God the one true God. And in this repentance the people would find grace.

In truth, what Israel needed to do is very much the same for us today. A person who repents of sin to turn to Christ in faith must turn from self-reliance. We must stop thinking that we are in charge of our lives. WE must stop thinking that we can rely on sinful things to take care of ourselves. We must determine that we desire to follow and obey the Lord. And we must stop calling divine that which is not God. Repentance involves surrendering to the Lord, turning from self and all other evils, and fully turning toward the God who made us. Repentance involves bowing before the throne of God and declaring him our Master.

Part of that repentance is belief, faith. It requires repentance for a person to believe the truth about Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh who came to earth. Jesus lived a perfect life. Jesus died a sacrificial death. Jesus rose from the grave. Jesus forgives all who come to him in faith. There is no religious action or ceremony that contributes to our salvation. No act earns us God’s favor. Only the one who comes to Jesus, repenting, empty-handed, relying on him and him alone will be saved. This requires a repenting belief in Jesus apart from works. And this is how we can say that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. And this is how we can say that a person must repent and believe to be saved.