Tag: Travis Peterson

2 Kings 18:1-5

1Now it came about in the third year of Hoshea, the son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king. 2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. 3He did right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father David had done. 4He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan. 5He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him.
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Today, I listened to a solid message presented by Dr. Chad Brand, professor of Christian theology at Southern Seminary. Dr. Brand taught from 2 Kings 18, an obscure text where Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses made in Numbers 21. Back when the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, God sent snakes into their camp as a judgment for their rebellion. God also showed grace by allowing Moses to craft a bronze snake upon which the people could simply look and be healed by God. Seven hundred years later, Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent because the people of Judah had begun to worship it, as though it had the power instead of the God who commanded Moses to make it..

Dr. Brand rightly pointed out that there is a great danger when we confuse the form of power with the source of power. There is a great danger when we begin to believe that the power of God is captured inside a particular tool or strategy. We need to remember that no program, strategy, or style is the particular thing that has the power. God has the power. He uses all sorts of different tools to accomplish his will. We need to seek him, and not to give into the temptation to look to an old tool as if it was what made the difference.

To think of this practically, imagine a church that grew greatly during a series of revival meetings in 1985. Today, that church is struggling, and the members want to see God do a work like he did back then. If they look back to 1985, remember the joy and glory of that time, and let that encourage them for the present and future, that is a good thing. However, if they look back at 1985, and think that the way to have the same experience is to repeat the exact same program steps, bring in the same speaker, have him preach the same messages, use the same music, etc, they have missed the point entirely. It was God who brought revival, not the speaker, not the musicians, not the “revival” meetings. It is time for this church to stop living for 1985, and to start living for today. It is time to let 1985 encourage them to seek God anew, and to have the confidence that he will meet with them again, but perhaps in a different way than he did in 1985.

Now, none of this is to say that we turn away from the things that God has made clear. For example, the Bible is not an empty tool like a bronze snake or a particular program. The Bible is the inspired revelation of God. It is central to everything we do. The preaching of the word with boldness, honesty, and passion is vital to the ministry of the church in all generations. The same can be said for prayer, worship, and Christian love and service. These are not programs, and we always turn to them. So, let us turn to them today, and not live our Christian lives focused on trying to recapture a moment from the past, but instead, let us live for a fresh encounter with our God.

To download and listen to Dr. Brand’s message, as well as many other great messages from Southern Seminary’s chapel services, click here.

Ruth 2:4 – And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, “The Lord be with you!” And they answered, “The Lord bless you.”

Ruth 4:11-12 – But Boaz answered her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!”
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Boaz was a man of blessing. When we meet this man of God, we know right away that he is a good man. One of the ways that we know this is that the first words out of his mouth are a blessing. Then, just a few moments later, he again pronounces a blessing on Ruth.

We live in a world in which people are far more apt to curse than bless. Even as Christians, we are more eager to gripe about what a person does than we are to pronounce a blessing on somebody. While the language of blessing, “The LORD bless you,” may sound strange to our ears, it does not sound strange to the ears of God. His people are supposed to be the kind of folks who bless others in the name of the LORD. So, let us learn to be such people. Let us replace sarcasm and cutting remarks with “God bless you.” Let us replace griping about what someone did wrong to, “May the LORD bless him.” Let us become people of blessing, just as the Godly man Boaz was.

Lord, you well know that it is far easier for me to be sarcastic and silly than for me to offer serious blessings. I ask that you will change this about me. Forgive me for failing to speak blessings in your name more regularly. I ask that you will help me to change this pattern in the future. Help me to put away wining and griping, and to replace it with words that befit a child of God.

Judges 17:13 – Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, because I have a Levite as priest.”

Judges 18:19-20 – And they said to him, “Keep quiet; put your hand on your mouth and come with us and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and clan in Israel?” And the priest’s heart was glad. He took the ephod and the household gods and the carved image and went along with the people.
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By the time we get to this point in the history of Israel, everything has gone wrong. Throughout the book of Judges, the nation has been on a downward spiral. Here that spiral reaches almost as low as it can go. First, we have a man, Micah, who makes for himself an idol out of the money that he stole from his mother. Then, we have a Levite, a grandson of Moses, who is wandering around Israel with no purpose. This Levite should have been teaching the Torah of God to the people, but he was just wandering to see whatever.

When the Levite comes to Micah’s house, he should have immediately condemned Micah for his wicked practice. The commandments of God are explicitly clear as to the evil of idolatry. But, the Levite wants a comfy job, and so he goes for the rank and prestige. As soon as the Levite is installed as priest, Micah actually believes that he will be blessed of God, because he has a Levite as his priest. He is missing, of course, the fact that the priest is doing something expressly forbidden by God.

Then, the story gets even worse. The men of Dan, who had not taken the possession originally allotted to them, go scouting for a place to stay. When they come across this Levite in the house of Micah, they encourage him to come along with them and be their priest. The young Levite, instead of teaching God’s law, willingly leaves behind the house of Micah for a bigger, more comfy job, as priest to an entire tribe.

There is so much wrong in these two chapters of Judges, it is hard to know where to begin. With the man, Micah, we see an incredible misunderstanding and sinful disobedience to God’s law. It is not enough to have a priest. You have to have your heart aimed in the right direction. Micah was happy just to be religious. He forgot that the object of worship is more important than the worship itself.

In your life and mine, we need to remember that “faith” is not the highest merit. Many people believe that with faith, we can accomplish anything. Many people are happy to applaud a “man of faith.” The problem is, no one ever says, “Faith in what or whom?” Faith in an idol is sin. Faith in a false God or false religion will lead to your ultimate condemnation. Your amount of faith in something does not make that thing any more legitimate an object of faith. You might, as Josh McDowell once said, believe with all your heart that a tree will save your soul, and you will still be damned; because the tree is a false object of faith. Let us never mistake religious zeal or blind faith with true, God-honoring worship. God demands that our faith be in him. He demands that our faith be genuine. He demands that our religious practices grow out of a heart of true faith in the one true God.

From the Levite, we also should learn a lesson. He was wandering around seeking a fortune. God never calls us to do that. He should have been teaching the law of God to the people of God. He sought prestige, status, and comfort. He jettisoned his principles, the word of God, for a cushy job and a nice title. Then, when other people came along, he left behind his first master for men more evil, simply because he liked the career advancement. This man is sinful from the beginning to the end.

We are not created by God to seek fortune. We are not designed by him to wander around the world trying to find ourselves. He has called us all to love him, worship him, and tell others about him. That is our purpose. We exist to glorify him and to spread that glory to the nations. We dare not compromise that job for earthly comforts or career advancement.

Lord, this whole story is just plain wrong. The people forgot about you, and set up their own religion and their own standards. I pray that I will never lose track of you as the central focus of my life. Let me never compromise your word for my comfort. Let me never fail to teach truth to your people. Let me never sell you out for a comfy job or a title. I desire to serve you and you only.

Acts 20:26-27 – Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
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In nearly every philosophy class, business management class or self-help seminar, the hypothetical question is asked, “what would you want to have written on your tombstone?” The point of this question is to help people think forward to the end of their lives, and to truly ponder what will make them feel as though their lives counted.

Here in Acts 20, Paul delivers his final address to the elders of the church in Ephesus. He called them to a nearby town to say his goodbyes. What Paul says, here at the end of his ministry to this congregation, is exactly the thing that every minister of the gospel should want said about him when he finishes a season of ministry anywhere.

Without question, I want this to be the mark of my ministry anywhere I go, that I would not shrink from declaring to the people the whole counsel of God. I want those who sit under my ministry to know that, when I am no longer there, they heard from me the true gospel. I desire to model by my preaching and counseling that the word of God is valuable, inspired, inerrant, totally true, and trustworthy. I want people to know that salvation is a free gift of God, by his grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. I desire that people know everything about the gospel of Christ, the hard as well as the easy. And so I strive in my labor here to preach to the people the word of God, in season or out of season. I live to declare God’s glory, his love, his righteousness, his mercy, his justice, his faithfulness, and his wrath.

In your own life, take time to think about what others would say about your spiritual influence on them. Are you someone who shrinks back from declaring to others the whole counsel of God? Are you one who hides or shaves the rough edges off the truth? Or, are you, like Paul, a person who tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth for the glory of God? Let your goal be to declare the whole counsel of God, and do not shrink back in the face of any opposition.

Lord, your word is far too valuable for us to shrink back from telling the truth to those around us. I pray that, whenever I leave this ministry or this world, I would be able to declare with honest humility that I did not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God to all who would listen. Bless me, I pray, with the opportunity and the courage to preach your word with boldness, confidence, and effectiveness.

Job 40:8 – Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?
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This verse, spoken by God directly to Job, is a powerful pair of questions that expose for us one of our greatest weaknesses. Job suffered greatly under the attack of Satan, and he believed his suffering to be unfair. As Job’s friends attempted to comfort him, they all tried to get him to confess and repent of whatever sin he had committed to cause his suffering. Job, however, had not committed any sin for which he was being punished.

The dialogue between Job and his friends began to wear him down. He began to feel more and more unfairly treated. He began to accuse God of doing him wrong. He wanted to question God, to take him to court, and to plead his case.

For the last several chapters of Job, God has been answering Job. He did not answer Job’s question of why this was happening to him. Instead, God asked Job a series of questions to prove to him that God’s ways are far beyond our human understanding.

In this verse in chapter 40, God asks job if he would honestly dare accuse him of being in the wrong. Would Job, a mere mortal man, ever, under any circumstances, be so foolish as to accuse God of wrongdoing? That is what God asks, and then he will go on for two more chapters pointing out to Job how much greater God is than Job.

This dilemma of Jobs is an evidence of the Bible getting right down in the pain of our human lives. How often, when tragedies strike, do we hear people ask the question, “What kind of a God would let something like this happen?” People actually are saying that, if God really exists, he must be either evil or impotent to allow such a terrible thing to occur. They assume that they know better than God what should have happened, because what happened caused great pain and loss.

God’s response to such angry and arrogant accusations is not to explain his reasoning. God does not sit us down and say to us, “Now, I know that hurt, but if you will just look at what I am doing, you will see that it will all work out well in the end.” Instead, God lets us know that he is God, and we are not. He is good, and we are not. He is holy, and we are not. He knows all things, and we do not. He is perfect, and we are not. He is the very definition of righteousness, and we have no righteousness of our own that he did not give us.

No human being, under any circumstances, has the right to question God. Sure, we may ask God, in his mercy, to help us to understand what is unclear. But never, under any circumstances, do we have the right to demand an answer of God. Nor do we have the right to be angry with God. To be angry with God is to be angry or opposed to righteousness, and that is sin.

Job teaches us that it is not OK to be angry with God, nor is it OK to demand answers from him. God is God, and he is holy. We dare not impugn that holiness. Job also teaches us not to foolishly, as Job’s friends did, assume we know and can explain why God allows anything to happen or not to happen. We are to rest in the fact that God is sovereign and that he will do what is right.

Let me add this as a warning: the lesson here taught is not for a hospital room or funeral parlor. The time to learn that God is God, and we dare not question him is when we are not suffering. We need to know of God’s character and our place before him long before the time of tragedy strikes our own lives. Then, we can suffer tragedy and mourn with the right knowledge of our position before God. But when someone is suffering greatly is not the time to try to teach them such a hard lesson. If you have waited to teach your family and friends the truth of God’s sovereignty in our suffering until after they are suffering, you have not taught them well or kindly. Teach them the truth before they need it, then you can comfort them, hold their hand, and weep with them in the midst of the pain, knowing that they already know that God is good and his will is best.

Lord, I pray that you will help me to prepare others to suffer long before they have to suffer. Help me to show them that you are righteous, perfect, and sovereign. Help me to truly be a comfort to those who are suffering, because I have already taught them the truth of your goodness. Help me never to question your will. Help me never to accuse you of wrong. Help me always to trust you, and to lead others to trust you. I pray that you will keep me and my family from harm. But I also know that, should we suffer, you are still God. Help me to remember that truth for your glory all the days of my life.

Judges 12:1 – The men of Ephraim were called to arms, and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house over you with fire.”
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This passage in Judges demonstrates the utter silliness and depravity that was happening in Israel during the days of the Judges. Jephthah won a great military victory to rescue Israel from the oppressors. He was brash, however, and vowed to sacrifice the first thing he saw when he got home. His daughter was what he saw first, and he actually carried out this evil vow. This shows that Jephthah no more followed the ways of God than did the evil nation who was oppressing Israel.

Then, when we think things have gotten as bad as they could be, the men of Ephraim come to Jephthah, and threaten to kill him because he did not include them in his plan to fight. They were offended that Jephthah did not let them go with him to war, and they want to do him violence because of it. Jephthah does not respond kindly to it, and 42,000 men of Ephraim die.

If nothing else is to be gained here, this story shows us the utter evil of human jealousy. The men of Ephraim should have been happy with Jephthah. They should have congratulated him on his success. If they wanted to condemn him for something, it should be for how he made such an evil sacrifice. Instead, they are upset that they were not involved in the glory of battle and the spoils of victory. They act with evil intent, and they suffer greatly because they covet Jephthah’s victory.

How do you respond when you see someone else blessed? Do you respond with joy for them? Do you congratulate people for their successes, or do you begrudge what they receive? Be careful, lest your heart is like the hearts of these evil men of Ephraim. They caused civil war because they felt that they had been left out. Do not be like them. Do not demand that you be allowed to participate in every event, good or bad. Do not demand that you also be recognized when others are recognized. Do not fight for fame or glory on earth. Check your heart, and drive from it, by God’s help, any evidence of self glorification, selfish jealousy, or covetousness.

Lord, I look at this event, and I see the evil in men’s hearts. It does not take me long, however, to see that my heart can be like that too. I have a heart that will fight for my own glory if I feel I have been slighted. This is sin. I have no reason to fight for the sake of my own name or earthly treasure. I have no reason to begrudge others rewards that they receive in this life. I pray that you will forgive me for such feelings, and help me to root out all forms of pride, covetousness, and jealousy.

Acts 19:18-19 – Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.
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One thing here is for sure, the life of a true believer is different than it was before. In this account, many people, after receiving Christ, repented of their studies of magic—studies which God strictly forbids. They came together and burned their old books, and the Bible tells us that those books were of great financial value.

Imagine for a moment how easy it would have been for these people to try to rationalize their way out of doing what they did. They could have said to themselves that they were not intending to practice magic any longer, but they should not destroy something of such great value. They could have tried to reason out a way that they were not bound by God’s prohibition of such things. They could have tried to at least sell the books, and get some sort of financial benefit out of getting rid of them. But these folks did none of that. They saw the books, recognized them as evidence of evil in their past, and they destroyed them.

We could certainly learn a thing or two from this crowd of excited young believers. The fact is, the life of a new believer is different than it was before Christ. It is not just changed because the person has hope and joy in Christ. It is not just that a religious aspect is added to the person. The person who comes to Christ has a new heart, and it does not look like the old one. Sure, even new believers or long-time veterans of the faith can slide back into old habits. It is easy to do. As one pastor remarked, “slipping back into old sinful patterns can be like slipping on an old pair of shoes. They may look terrible, but they are so comfortable and familiar.” However, if we are to truly honor Christ, we must continually participate in the process of being made new by God. We are to become so new that, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17, we become new creatures with the old gone and only the new remaining.

We can also learn, practically from this group, that we need to get rid of old stumbling blocks from our lives. There can be no excuses, no treasuring of old sin. It has to go, and it has to go completely. We do not try to benefit in a earthly way from its removal. We do not try to excuse it, or pretend that we can keep it and it won’t hurt us in the future. We have to perform radical surgery on our lives. We have to cut out what causes us to sin, as Jesus called us in Matthew 5:27-30.

Lord, I thank you for showing us this group of believers who truly changed because of the gospel of Christ. I ask that you will reveal to me anything that is in my life, like the old magic books of these people, that is an evidence of old sinful patterns. Help me to cut it out of my life once and for all. Help me to see it, hate it, and repent of it. Let me not slide into comfortable old patterns of sin. Let me, instead, put on the new, glorious life of Christ.

Acts 18:26-28 – He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.
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This passage, which comes after the arrival of Apollos in Ephesus, is useful for believers to know how we are to go about teaching and learning. Apollos was an eloquent communicator, and he knew the scriptures well. Apollos had a few things missing in his understanding of Christianity, so Aquila and Priscilla took him aside and taught him the way of God more accurately. After Apollos was better educated in theology, he went out and taught the gospel to others boldly and accurately from the scriptures.

What grabs my attention today, is that Apollos reasoned strongly from the scriptures to prove his point. Apollos did not simply rely on his solid ability to communicate. He did not pull out a philosophical textbook for apologetic techniques. He did not look for a scientist who taught what he believed. Apollos simply trusted God’s word to be enough to change the lives of the people around him.

Do you want to think rightly about Christ? Do you want to help others to believe rightly about Christ? Do you want to have an impact on the lives of others that lasts? The way to accomplish this is to prayerfully teach the word of God to them. People are not convinced by clever arguments. People’s lives are not changed by the latest fad drug or psychological technique. People change when God changes them through his word and his power. You and I must rely on God’s word to strongly refute error in both religious and non-religious teaching. We must rely on God’s word as the weapon in our arsenal that will truly do the work of God.

Lord, I thank you for your word. I ask that you will help me to know your word more and more so that I might know you more and more. Help me not to be tempted to rely on worldly wisdom to help people. Help me, instead, to rely on your word, which is all sufficient to change lives.