Turn! Turn! Turn!

The title of the classic hit by The Byrds came to my mind as I pondered the Scriptures this morning. Although the lyrics are based on Ecclesiastes 3, that’s not the text I was reading. It was actually Exodus 32, where we find the account of the Golden Calf.

You know the story. While Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments from God, the people of Israel became impatient and convinced Aaron to make an idol shaped like a calf out of their gold earrings. (When you have a whole nation of people handing you their jewelry, it adds up fast — more than enough to make a statue of gold.) The ringleaders, celebrating the bull-calf as a symbol of power and fertility, proclaimed, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought your up out of the land of Egypt!” (Ex. 32:4). At that point Aaron built an altar before the calf. The next day the people sat down to feast and drink, then got up and indulged in pagan revelry (Ex. 32:6).

This is where the song title “Turn! Turn! Turn!” coincides with the account in Exodus. For in the verses that follow Israel’s worship of the golden calf, three different “turns” take place.

Turning from God

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. they have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it….” (Ex. 32:7-8)

It’s easy for us to shake our heads and wonder how the Israelites could do such a thing. That’s because in ancient times, people didn’t hide their idols. They were out in the open for everyone to see. But people today are good at masking their idols. Idols are anything that we desire more than God. They can be good desires (e.g. adequate finances, good health, obedient children, pleasurable activities, etc.), that become “evil desires” (James 4:1-4) when they turn us away from God.

The Israelites’ sin reminds us that if we are not careful, we can “turn aside quickly out of the way” that the Lord has commanded us.

Turning to God

When the people of Israel turned from God, Moses turned to God in prayer, imploring him to turn from his anger and not destroy them (see Ex. 32:7-14).

Whereas Moses mediated between God and and his people under the Old Covenant, “Christ is the mediator of a new covenant” (Heb. 9:15). Having paid the price for his people’s sins on the cross, Jesus now reigns at God’s right hand. “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who drawn near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 9:25).

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea —
A great High Priest whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

Praise God for the gift of his Son! “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:5-6). God’s testimony concerning his Son is that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave to save sinners like us from God’s righteous wrath.

Primarily, Moses’ prayer of intercession for the Israelites prefigured Jesus’ ministry of intercession for all who come to God through faith in him. But in a secondary sense, Moses’ prayer also serves as a good example for us when we become aware of sin among God’s people. We should turn to God in prayer (Eph. 6:18), asking the Lord to graciously bring them to repentance.

Turning with God’s Word to People

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand…. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God…. (Ex. 32:15-16)

With God’s word in hand, Moses went to confront the people about their sin. This is where most believers drop the ball. We may be troubled about sin in the camp. We may even go to God in prayer about it. But we’re not willing to confront them about it. There may be several reasons for our reticence:

• We have not dealt with sin in our own lives.

• We don’t want to come across as judgmental or “holier than thou.”

• We don't want to risk losing the relationship.

• Confrontation is uncomfortable in general.

The bottom line is: do we care enough to confront? Do we care about God and his glory? Do we care about our fellow believers? Do we care about the health of the church and our corporate witness to the world? What is it that we care about more than obeying God’s Word in this matter (Gal. 6:1-2)?

What idol is making us idle?

May we, like Moses, have a holy zeal for God coupled with an earnest love for his people. These traits will cause us to turn in the right way at the right time for the right reasons.

1st Class Servants: Part Two

Billy Graham once said, “The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service.” This concurs with what Paul writes in Romans 12:2: “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship.”

Jesus is the ultimate Servant, for he came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Paul expounds on Jesus’ humble service in Philippians 2:1-8 and tells us to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. At the end of this chapter, Paul points to two men who adopted such a mindset: Timothy and Epaphroditus (see Phil. 2:19-29).

In part one of this article, we looked at their genuine concern for others. Today we’ll consider a few other traits that made them 1st class servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Proven Worth

Paul writes to the church, “But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel” (Phil. 2:22). During his second missionary journey, Paul met up with Timothy in Lystra and decided to take Timothy with him (Acts 16:1-3). Even though Paul had visited Lystra on his first missionary journey (Acts 14), he didn’t take Timothy with him at that point. Instead, he left him behind so that he could become part of the church fellowship. It was there that Timothy matured in the Lord and earned a good reputation among his fellow believers.

Timothy gained additional ministry experience as he traveled with Paul and eventually took on a leadership role himself. The church affirmed Timothy’s “proven worth,” that he was a faithful, reliable servant of the Lord.

Many people who want to be leaders have never allowed themselves to be led. They’ve never taken on the role of a servant. Yet a key trait for leaders is that they must have a servant’s heart. Jesus said so (see Mark 10:42-45).

Team Spirit

Timothy served alongside Paul like a son working with his father. Epaphroditus was described by Paul as “my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier” (Phil. 2:25). He stood shoulder to shoulder with Paul in the “good fight of faith.”

Choice Representative

In Philippians 2:19, Paul says, “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon….” A few verses later Paul adds, “I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus” (Phil. 2:25). These are the men Paul wanted representing him. They were the cream of the crop when it came to Christian service.

Timothy is mentioned two dozen times in Paul’s letters, yet Epaphroditus appears only in Philippians. This goes to show that you don’t have to be prominent in order to be a model servant. You don’t have to be well-known to make an impact for Christ. Roger Ellsworth says of Epaphroditus, “although his time in the galaxy of Scripture is very brief, he leaves a lasting impression. He is like a meteor that shines briefly but brilliantly.”

Paul told the church to welcome and honor such men. The best way we can do so is to pursue Christlikeness ourselves. As believers, we should celebrate and imitate men and women who serve others like Jesus.

1st Class Servants: Part One

A pastor-friend of mine spoke of a church in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that had only one door to the sanctuary. Above it was a sign that said “Servants’ Entrance.” There was no way in or out of that church except through the servant’s entrance! That’s a good reminder that every believer is called to serve the Christ, and to serve like Christ! That is the main point of Philippians 2:1-11: Imitate Jesus by humbly serving others.

In the last part of this same chapter (Phil. 2:19-29), Paul talks about two choice servants who model Christlike character and behavior in their relationships with others. Their names are Timothy and Epaphroditus. As I read the biblical description of these men, certain characteristics stood out:

Genuine Concern

Paul, writing from Rome, tells the church that he hopes to send Timothy to them soon. Then in the very next verse Paul makes this shocking statement: “For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare” (Phil. 2:20).

In all likelihood there were hundreds of believers in Rome around this time. Paul mentions twenty-six of them by name in the last chapter of his letter to the church at Rome. Perhaps Paul wasn’t talking about the whole church but only those he had access to at the time. Whatever the case, Paul wrote, "they all seek their. own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 2:21).

Sadly, many Christians serve with insincere motives. They may serve out of guilt, or to look good in front of others, or to feel good about themselves. But when the stakes are high and the cost is great, those who genuinely care for others rise like cream to the top.

Timothy was such a person. So was Epaphroditus. He was the second person Paul was going to send. Paul describes him as “my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need” (Phil. 2:25). Epaphroditus had travelled more than 800 miles from Philippi to Rome to deliver a gift to Paul on behalf of the church (see Phil. 4:18). This arduous trip took such a toll on Epaphroditus, that he almost died. In Philippians 2:26-28 Paul writes,

For he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and no only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.

Did you catch that? Epaphroditus was “distressed” knowing that the church had found out about his illness. The word “distressed” is the same word used to describe Jesus in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:37). Epaphroditus was in agony, not because of his condition, but because he didn’t want others worrying about him!

Over my thirty years of pastoral ministry, I can recall many times when church members got upset that people didn’t pay more attention to them when they were sick, had surgery, or were laid up for some other reason, but I can probably count on one hand those who were distressed at the thought of people worrying about them! Yet such was the case with Ephaphroditus — even though he was so sick that he nearly died!

Roger Ellsworth said that Paul’s words regarding Epaphroditus “are like a splash of ice cold water in the face.” It should wake us up to our tendency to put ourselves at the center of the universe and have everything revolve around us. But Timothy and Epaphroditus show us that because God is at work in us (Phil. 2:12-13), we can imitate Jesus by humbly serving others.

Tomorrow we’ll look at some more admirable traits of these two men. In the meantime, what can you do to set aside your own interests and show a genuine concern for others today?

Our Story in The Story

This past weekend my wife and I visited a couple who have been members of our church for almost 50 years. They told us a bit about their upbringing, how they met, how they came to Christ, and the difference the Lord has made in their lives.

I love to hear such stories. Before we knew it, two hours had passed. As we grabbed our coats and said goodbye, we told our friends Don and Joan how wonderful it was to have an unhurried conversation and hear their testimony.

At that point Don mentioned that he had been talking to another elder who had expressed his desire to hear their testimony at some point. Don told him in the meantime to read Ecclesiastes 2 and 4, Psalm 25, and John 15:5. Don said, “My testimony is all in there.”

Right away I knew what my friend meant. Even though each Christian’s salvation testimony is unique in that the Lord providentially orchestrates various circumstances to bring that person to faith in Christ, there is still a sense in which each person’s story is found in the big Story of redemption, as recorded in Scripture.

Our story is in the Story.

I woke up on Sunday with our visit and conversation fresh on my mind. So I opened my Bible to the Scriptures my friend had mentioned in closing. Here are excerpts from these passages, in the order that he listed them:

I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11)

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed — and they have no comforter! And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 4:1, 4)

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust….
Make me to know your ways,
O Lord; teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, Lord, are good.
For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great….
Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.
Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sin.
(Psalm 25:1, 4-5, 7, 11, 16, 18)

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
(John 15:5)

As it turns out, the man that led this couple to Christ was my uncle, who came to this couple’s home every single evening for a whole week in the middle of February in the mid-1970’s to read and explain the Gospel of John to them. This couple has belonged to Christ and the Webster Bible Church family ever since. My uncle Harry was their pastor then, and I am their pastor now — more than four decades later.

The lady that gave my uncle their phone number, so that he could contact them in the first place, recently went home to be with the Lord. Her homegoing was felt deeply by this couple, given the role she played in their eventual coming to Christ and their longstanding friendship in the same church all these years.

A typical movie is two hours long. Some movies have good storylines. But none of them beats a beautiful gospel testimony. To hear how the Lord orchestrates the circumstances of a person’s life in order to save him is a wonder that continually amazes me.

What’s your story?

We Need a Hero

Editor’s Note: Today we’re blessed to have my youngest son Timothy (21 years old) as our guest blogger for “Family & Friends Friday.” Timothy is in the second semester of his junior year at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, where he is pursuing a business degree with an emphasis in marketing. Timothy also plays for the Union Jaxx (the Ultimate Frisbee team for Union University), serves as a Resident Assistant, a tour guide, and plays on a worship band.

We thank the Lord for saving Timothy and for blessing him with good health, spiritual gifts, and natural abilities. The name Timothy means “honoring God,” and we pray that this will always be the theme of our son’s life.

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve loved superheroes. The movies, the books, the action figures. — I even had a costume of my favorite superhero: Spider-Man. Almost embarrassingly, my family still calls me “Spidey” from time to time. There is something so awe-inspiring to see your favorite hero empowered to overcome seemingly insurmountable evil to save the day, rescue the city, get the girl, etc.

But what is just so cool about these movies? Some of the first superhero comics came out over 80 years ago, yet movies like The Avengers series are still shattering box office records? We know the good guys win, yet we still wait in line and watch from the edge of our seat, with bated breath, to watch them triumph.

I believe that this stems from every human’s innate need for redemption. Scripture tells us, that humans are born into this world imperfect. Ever since the fall of mankind in Genesis 3, we see that humans are born sinful, incapable of doing good. We need saving, but lack the means to rescue ourselves. Just like a powerful and ruthless villain seeks to harm all that the hero holds dear, we see that sin has infected our lives, damning our eternal state. Romans 3 tells us that there is “no one righteous, no not one,” and that “ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” If our own good deeds were all that we had to combat our constant sinful state, it would make for a pretty miserable movie — we can’t win! Ephesians 2 says we are “dead in our trespasses and sins.”

However, the credits haven’t rolled yet!

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-6),

Just like a radioactive spider bite or a secret serum can transform a weakling into a wonder, so depraved humans like you and me can be sanctified and empowered through the renewing blood of Christ who died as our sin-bearing substitute on the cross.

When humans, Christian or not, watch a superhero movie or rescue story, it ignites something inside us. This is a small taste of the redemption Christ has provided for each soul He has called. Humans were created by God to glorify Him by enjoying Him for all eternity. Even though sin has left a gap in that relationship, God desires to restore it by rescuing us.

May we, as Hebrews 12:2 instructs us, be “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

The Greek word translated “founder” in this verse is archēgon (ἀρχηγὸν). It can also be translated as “pioneer, leader, victor, or champion.” May we look to Jesus, the champion of our faith, the victor of our faith, and what His work on the cross accomplished for us: the ultimate rescue … eternal salvation!

So, next time you sit down to watch a Marvel movie, let us first “marvel” at the greatest victory ever won, when Jesus Christ defeated sin at the cross and paved our path to eternal glory. Let us praise Him as the true Hero of our salvation!

Grumble-Free Living

Isn’t that what we all want — to have a positive outlook on life? To be marked by gratitude instead of grumbling? Yet complaining comes so naturally to us, doesn’t it? It’s part of our sinful bent, despite the many blessings that God has given us.

Shortly after God had miraculously rescued his people from their slavery in Egypt, “the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron” (Ex. 16:2) because they were hungry. They even began to talk about how good they had it back in Egypt (talk about a distorted memory!), and how they wished the Lord would have just killed them there.

Moses and Aaron told the people that by grumbling against their leaders, they were really grumbling against God, and that God heard their grumbling. Yet God in his grace would provide food and water for them in the wilderness. Given all that God had already done for them, why would they have doubted this in the first place?

Surely once God provided for them, the people would have learned to trust God and be grateful from that point on, right? Nope. In the very next chapter, “the people grumbled against Moses” again. They even accused him of leading them and their children out into the wilderness only to kill them with thirst. They were even ready to stone him! Once again God graciously provided for his ungrateful people.

But eventually God’s patience grew thin. At the beginning of Numbers 11 we’re told,

And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp.

People died as a result of the Lord’s discipline! How God hates grumbling!

In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit applies Israel’s experience in the wilderness directly to us, saying,

with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things took place as examples for us…. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did…, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed…. (1 Cor. 10:5-6, 9-10)

When I was a kid, the Christian singer and songwriter Patch the Pirate came to our church and taught us a song that came to mind as I thought about grumbling. The lyrics go like this:

In country town or city,
Some people can be found,
Who spend their life in grumbling,
At everything around
O yes they they always grumble
No matter what they say
They spend their lives in grumbling
And they grumble night and day

Oh they grumble on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Grumble on Thursday too
Grumble on Friday,
Saturday, Sunday
Grumble all the whole week through.

They grumble in the city
They grumble on the farm
They grumble at their neighbours; they think it is no harm.
They grumble at their husbands,
They grumble at their wives.
They grumble at their children,
And their grumbling never dies.

Will Bowen, author of the bestselling book, A Complaint Free World, has said that complaining is like bad breath — you notice when it comes out of someone else’s mouth, but not when it comes out of your own. Yet it has been estimated that the average person complains 15-30 times each day — and that’s only counting complaints that we express out loud. How much more grumbling goes on in our heart?

The psalmist proclaimed,

Blessed be the Lord,
Who daily loads us with benefits,
the God of our salvation!
- Psalm 68:19 -

God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ (Eph. 1:3). Paul tells believers, “Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Cor. 3:22-23). So Scripture says, “Give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:20).

An anonymous poet once wrote,

Forgive me, God, when I whine.
I’m blessed indeed, the world is mine.

Because this is true, Paul writes, “If there is anything worthy of praise, think about such things” (Phil. 4:8). Let’s make it our business to be a grateful people. Let’s get rid of our grumbling and give thanks instead.

Count your many blessings,
Name them one by one,
And it will surprise you
What the Lord has done.

The Vastness of God's Love

A young man was determined to win the affection of a young lady who showed no interest in him. He decided that the way to her heart was through handwritten love letters. After all, in this technological age, handwritten notes are a rarity. He was convinced that, over time, they would captivate her heart. So he wrote to this young lady almost every day. Multiple times a week she got a love letter from this man. Months passed. She still wasn’t responding. So he doubled his efforts and sent her even more letters. Finally, she fell in love. She wound up marrying the mailman!

The Bible is a collection of God’s love letters to humanity. These letters all point to the very one who would be the ultimate messenger, indeed, the exact representation of God himself: Jesus Christ. “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Furthermore, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5).

God has taken every measure to convey his love to his children – those who have been adopted into God’s family as a result of their faith in Christ (John 1:12).

In Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul utters a beautiful prayer for God’s family, that we would increasingly experience the vastness of God’s love for us.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

At the heart of this prayer is Paul’s request that God’s people would “be strengthened with power through his Spirit in [our] inner being.” When the Holy Spirit fills our hearts, Christ feels at home, and we enter into a fuller experience of his love. Paul even incorporates the use of dimensions to describe the vastness of Jesus’ love – “the breadth and length and height and depth” of it. Some have explained these dimensions this way:

Breadth refers to the extent of God’s love to all peoples, to all nations, to the ends of the earth.

Length speaks of the continuance of God’s love throughout the ages, from eternity past to eternity future.

Depth emphasizes God’s love in “its stooping to the lowest condition, with a design to relieve and save those who have sunk into the depths of sin and misery” (Matthew Henry).

Height points to the supreme elevation to which God’s love brings us – to heavenly happiness and glory.

Paul tells us that such love surpasses knowledge. But the glory of the gospel is that through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can truly experience that which we cannot fully comprehend. That’s the thrust of Paul’s concluding doxology. So inexhaustible is God’s grace, that it will always exceed what we ask — or can even imagine!

Such is the vastness of God’s love for you. Therefore rejoice, O Christian!

God versus Pharaoh

In my daily Scripture reading I came across a statement that God made to Pharaoh after having already sent six plagues on Egypt because the king refused to heed the Lord’s command, “Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1). Before unleashing the seventh plague (hail) on Egypt, the Lord declared,

By now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. (Exodus 9:15-16)

We know from Scripture that the Lord “makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and he dispenses them” (Job 12:23). We rightly affirm that “it is God alone who judges; he decides who will rise and who will fall” (Psalm 75:7 NLT). When we see certain people or political parties come into power, we may wonder why God would allow such a thing, especially when “the wicked strut about, and evil is praised throughout the land” (Psalm 12:8 NLT).

But in God’s pronouncement to Pharaoh, the Lord told him the precise reason he had raised Pharaoh to power and allowed him to live in that state for a time. It was to show Pharaoh who was really in charge – and not just Pharaoh but everyone throughout the rest of human history who would read this story of Israel’s redemption from Egypt. As explained on GotQuestions.org,

In those ancient days, the Pharaoh was considered a god, and his every word was law. There was no one who could stand against Pharaoh, so the Lord used him to demonstrate His own superior power. The Lord’s plan to use plagues and miracles to free the nation of Israel was not conceived in reaction to Pharaoh’s rebellion. God is never reactive; He is always proactive. He had orchestrated the back-and-forth with Pharaoh and the exodus from the very beginning (see Isaiah 46:10). Four hundred years prior to the exodus, Joseph prophesied on his deathbed that God would lead His people out of Egypt to the Promised Land, and he made his relatives promise to carry his bones with them when they went (Genesis 50:24–25).

Seen as a symbol of the world’s ungodly system, Egypt represents the enemies of the Lord (cf. Ezekiel 29:1–6). God used Pharaoh’s hardheartedness to showcase His own glory and to show the world His supremacy over all the kings of the earth (Psalm 2:10–11; Ezekiel 20:9; 36:22).

In Romans 9:17, Paul quotes God’s declaration to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:16 as an illustration of God’s sovereignty in salvation. God has the right to show mercy on whomever he wishes, yet he never acts unjustly toward anyone.

In fact, when the Lord pronounced his judgment on Pharaoh in Exodus 9 just before unleashing the plague of hail upon the Egyptians, God gave them the opportunity to seek shelter so that they would not be destroyed by the plague. Matthew Henry wrote,

When God’s justice threatens ruin, his mercy at the same time shows us a way of escape from it, so unwilling he is that any should perish. See here what care God took, not only to distinguish between Egyptians and Israelites, but between some Egyptians and others. If Pharaoh will not yield, and so prevent the judgment itself, yet an opportunity is given to those that have any dread of God and his word to save themselves from sharing in the judgment.

What a picture of salvation! Scripture implores us to turn from our sin and to trust in “Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). God preserved the story of Pharaoh and Israel’s liberation from Egypt to point us not only to the Lord’s sovereignty, but also to the great salvation that he mercifully provides for all who take him at his word and put their trust in him.

Right Word, Right Time

After thirty years of pastoral ministry, I still get butterflies in my stomach whenever I’m about to step into the pulpit. Preaching the Holy Scriptures is both a glorious privilege and also a weighty responsibility. No wonder the prophets of old referred to the Lord’s message as “the burden of the word of the Lord” (Mal. 1:1; cf. Jer. 23:28).

Yesterday morning, the burden felt extra heavy as I was about to preach a difficult text — not because it is hard to understand, but because it’s hard to accept. Plus I knew that I had to bring up a specific point of application that could be a highly sensitive issue for many in the congregation.

But a short while after I awoke and was prayerfully reviewing my sermon notes, I received two short messages from two different pastor-friends. The first message was a text from a former professor and coach from my Bible college days. We reconnected a few years ago at a pastors’ conference, and every since then he’s sent me an encouraging text almost every Sunday morning. Today’s text said,

“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11). “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you” (1 Sam. 12:23). Holding the rope for you today, brother. May you be courageous, confident, and clear in serving our Lord today. And may He grant you grace to see the reward of your faithfulness.

These three characteristics — “courageous, confident, and clear” — are exactly what I needed as I preached, and my friend was praying for that specifically on my behalf. Knowing that encouraged me and emboldened me!

Moments later I received another message (via Facebook Messenger) from a pastor-friend at a nearby church who sent me a quote from George Whitefield, the 18th century open-air evangelist, who said,

Sometimes preaching can bring honor we weren’t expecting: I was honored today with having a few stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cat thrown at me.

True, we usually don't think of being “honored” in such a fashion, but Whitefield’s testimony is utterly consistent with Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:11-12:

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The quote from Whitefield made me smile, as I thought that it was unlikely that anyone would be throwing pieces of a dead cat at me as I preached! Indeed, countless messengers of the Lord have suffered far more greatly than I ever have. And even if I were to suffer such ridicule and rejection, I would be honored indeed, for I would find myself in the company of the apostles and prophets, and my Lord Jesus himself.

The reason I’m sharing these tidbits with you is because it goes to show how a timely word of encouragement can make the difference in a person’s day. Scripture says, “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad” (Prov. 12:25).

Last month I wrote an article entitled “Prompted to Pray.” The main point was that we never know how the Holy Spirit might be working in a given situation, and how he uses our prayers to accomplish his purpose. So always respond to every impulse to pray. I would extend this same principle to words of encouragement.

Proverbs 25:11 says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” It’s the auditory equivalent of an attractive centerpiece that catches and pleases the eye. It is God’s gift to a specific person at the very moment that he or she needs it.

Who could use an encouraging word today? Why not be the one to deliver it? Be God’s messenger of mercy!

Precedent

Editor’s Note: Once again I’m blessed to have my father, James W. Fletcher, as our guest blogger on “Family and Friends Friday.” Dad’s previous contribution was A Christmas Day Poem. As I said when introducing my father the first time, Dad has a knack for writing poetry. Some of his poems are humorous, while others are more serious and thought-provoking.

The following poem definitely belongs to the latter category. It is a new poem, it is an important poem, and it is a timely poem. Exactly 48 years ago today, on January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand in all 50 states. On January 13, 1984, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation designating January 22 as the first National Sanctity of Human Life Day. Christians all across our nation set aside this day to celebrate God's amazing gift of life, to commemorate the many precious lives that have been lost to abortion, and to commit themselves afresh to protecting human life at every stage.

This poem is my dad’s most recent contribution to that end.

PRECEDENT
by James W. Fletcher

Our legal system, long renowned,
And lauded as the best around,
Alas, still has a fatal fault,
To which we ought to call a halt.

I speak, of course, of precedent —
That oft disputed element
That binds our judges hard and fast
To that decided in the past.

The principle is plainly wrong —
My strong conviction all along.
So something’s sacrosanct somehow,
Since it was settled prior to now?

Weren’t all decisions made back then
The work of merely mortal men?
Did God with wisdom them endow
That’s greater than those living now?

Sure, past pronouncements ought to stand,
But only if they’re hand-in-hand
With truth that’s real and absolute,
Thus placing them beyond dispute.

But if a judgment’s rendered wrong,
It should not—must not—stand for long.
Judicial practice and review
Should out the false, retain the true.

The best example’s Roe v. Wade —
There never was decision made
So ill advised and deeply flawed,
Which half the country still applauds.

Abortion’s such a grievous sin!
To snuff the fragile life within!
They stretched the Constitution wide,
To find it therein justified.

I’m not a legal scholar, true;
But that does not negate my view.
I offer more than one defense:
The Word of God and common sense.

For He is Lord of life and breath,
And Who alone sets time of death.
So woe to those who would presume
To kill a baby in the womb!

So may my message give you pause,
Who sit atop the nation’s laws;
Reverse the ruling, I exhort,
Or answer to the Highest Court.

A Place for Patriotism: Part 2

“My son, fear the Lord and the king, and do not join with those who do otherwise” (Prov. 24:21). “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jer. 29:7). As we saw in yesterday’s devotional, Christians are dual citizens. We are citizens of God’s kingdom, and we are citizens of the earthly nation to which we belong.

The word of God not only delineates our responsibilities as Christians in relation to our government, but Scripture also seems to indicate that there is a place for genuine patriotism. Theologian Wayne Grudem describes this as a patriotism “which always seeks to promote the good of the nation [and] would honestly criticize the government and its leaders when they do things contrary to biblical moral standards.” [Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible, p. 109]

Grudem goes on to share 7 benefits of genuine patriotism, which I have listed below, straight from his book:

1. A sense of belonging to a larger community of people, which provides one aspect of a person’s sense of identity and his obligation to others.

2. Gratitude for the benefits that a nation provides, such as the protection of life, liberty, and property, the existence of laws to deter wrongdoing and encourage good, the establishment of a monetary system and economic markets, and … a common language or languages.

3. A shared sense of pride in the achievements of other individuals to whom one “belongs” as fellow citizens of the same nation (including pride in athletic, scientific, economic, artistic, philanthropic, or other endeavors).

4. A sense of pride for the good things that a nation has done, something that is developed by a proper understanding of a nation’s history and a sense of belonging to a group of people that includes previous generations within that nation.

5. A sense of security with respect to the future, because of an expectation that the larger group - that is, everyone in the nation - will work for the good of the nation and therefore will defend each person in the nation from attacks by violent evildoers, whether from within or outside its borders.

6. A sense of obligation to serve the nation and do good for it in various ways, to defend it from military attack or from unfair criticism by others, to protect the existence and character of the nation for future generations, and to improve the nation in various ways where possible, even through helpful criticism of things that are done wrong within the nation.

7. A sense of obligation to live by and to transmit to newcomers and succeeding generations a shared sense of moral values and standards that are widely valued by those within the nation. Such a sense of obligation to shared moral standards is more likely to happen within a nation than within the world as a whole, because a person can act as a moral agent and be evaluated within the context of an entire nation, but very seldom does anyone have enough prominence to act with respect to the entire world.

Regarding the last point, we must keep in mind that, as Christians, our moral values and standards are determined by Scripture, not popular opinion. We should work toward common ground while never compromising the truth of God. Who knows what influence we can have as individual citizens and households on the generations that follow us?

After listing the benefits of patriotism, Grudem goes on to address “the opposite of patriotism,” which is “an attitude of even scorn for one’s nation, accompanied by continual criticism of one’s country.” What Grudem says here is important, because I think many Americans have become frustrated with those living in our country who have nothing but negative things to say about it.

Rather than sharing in gratitude for the benefits provided by the country and pride in the good things it has done, those opposed to patriotism will repeated emphasize any negative aspect of the country’s actions, no matter how ancient or how minor compared with the whole of its history. They will not be proud of the nation or its history, and they will not be very willing to sacrifice for it or to serve it or to protect and defend it. Such anti-patriotic attitudes will continually erode the ability of the nation to function effectively and will eventually tend to undermine the very existence of the nation itself.

Grudem then shares a few examples of how genuine patriotism might play out in some other nations besides the United States. To cite one example,

a patriotic citizen of Germany might say, “I love my nation and I’m proud of its historic achievements in science, literature, musical and many other areas of human thought, though I am deeply grieved by the evils perpetrated under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, and I am glad that we were finally liberated from his oppressive rule.

I give these examples to illustrate the fact that even citizens of countries with evil rulers can retain a genuine patriotism that is combined with sober and truthful criticism of current or past leaders. But such patriotism will still include the valuable components mentioned above, such as a sense of belonging to that particular nation, gratitude for the benefit it gives, shared pride in its achievements, a sense of security, a sense of obligation to serve and protect it … and a sense of obligation to follow and transmit shared values and ideals that represent the best of the country’s history.

If such things can be true of even … bad governments, then certainly patriotism can be a value inculcated in all the other nations of the world as well. In this sense, a Christian view of government encourages and supports genuine patriotism within a nation.

In what ways have you benefitted from being a citizen of your country? Thank God for these blessings.

What problems or challenges plague your country? Seek the Lord humbly in prayer for the welfare of your nation, wisdom for your leaders, and salvation for all (1 Tim. 2:1-6).

What else can you do to contribute to the welfare of your nation? Seek to do these things with the Lord’s help.

Be the best citizen you can be — for the good of your country and for the glory of God.

A Place for Patriotism: Part 1

Today at noon (Washington D. C. time), President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America. The theme of the inauguration will be “America United,” which was a major emphasis of the Biden/Harris campaign. According to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, this theme “reflects the beginning of a new national journey that restores the soul of America, brings the country together, and creates a path to a brighter future.”

That’s a loaded statement, and given Biden’s checklist for his first day in office, our nation’s journey toward unity and a brighter future may be a long one.

In fact, the only nation that will ever unify all of its citizens and give them a bright future in the ultimate sense is the “holy nation” of “God’s own special people” — those he called “out of darkness and into his wonderful light” (1 Pet. 2:9). The subjects of God’s eternal kingdom are those who, by grace through faith, have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior (Eph. 2:8-10). He is “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15). The apostle Paul reminds us, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).

So in a very real sense, Christians are dual citizens. We are citizens of God’s kingdom, and we are citizens of the earthly nation to which we belong. For this reason we are to “be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution” (1 Pet. 3:13), to pray for our governmental leaders for the sake of the gospel (1 Tim. 2:1-4), to pay “taxes to whom taxes are owed” (Rom. 13:7), “to be obedient, to be ready for every good work … and to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:1-2). These are some of our primary biblical responsibilities as Christians in relation to human government.

But is there also biblical support for patriotism? Theologian Wayne Grudem seems to think so, and I’m inclined to agree. Not a blind patriotism, but a genuine patriotism, “which always seeks to promote the good of the nation [and] would honestly criticize the government and its leaders when they do things contrary to biblical moral standards.” [Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible, p. 109]

The Old Testament saint Job affirmed that God “makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away” (Job 12:23). Grudem rightly notes,

One benefit of the existence of nations is that they divide and disperse government power throughout the earth. In this way they prevent the rule of any one worldwide dictator, which would be more horrible than any single evil government, both because it would affect everyone on earth and because there would be no other nation that could challenge it. History has shown repeatedly that rulers with unchecked and unlimited power become more and more corrupt.

God not only establishes nations, but he also enriches them through the wholesome influence of his people. When the Lord sent the people of Israel into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, the Lord said, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer. 29:7).

So God’s establishment of individual nations, coupled with the biblical commands to pray and give thanks for our government leaders, to show proper respect and support for them, along with a readiness to do good and seek the welfare of the nation where God has placed us – all indicate that Christians can be true patriots, even as we testify that we are “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb. 11:13) and that our ultimate allegiance is to Christ and his kingdom.

Tomorrow, in part 2 of this article, we’ll consider seven benefits of patriotism. In the meantime, let us pray today for the peaceful transfer of power and for God’s continued blessings on the United States of America, so that we might be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth.

Believe the Best

A lady walking downtown quickened her pace as she grabbed her phone and called her friend. “You’re not going to believe this!” she said in a voice quivering with excitement. “I just walked past a café, and through the window I saw my pastor having lunch with his secretary. They were talking and laughing, and suddenly he leaned over and kissed her!”

Her friend drew a deep breath and replied with amazement, “Wow. I had no idea your pastor’s wife was also his secretary!”

Instead of assuming the worst about her friend’s pastor, the woman who heard this news assumed the best.

When describing the qualities of love in 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul states in verse 7,

“Love … believes all things.”

This doesn’t mean that love is gullible. (By the way, did you know that the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary? – If you believe that, you’re gullible!) The point of this statement in 1 Cor. 13:7 is that instead of thinking the worst about people, love believes the best. Love is not suspicious or cynical. If there’s a doubt about a person’s motives for doing or not doing something, love always opts for the more favorable possibility.

If you have ever been misjudged by others, you know how unpleasant such an experience can be. Several years ago Alistair Begg, the popular radio preacher and lead pastor of Parkside Church, was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent surgery. Thankfully it was successful. But the recovery process was slow and painful. For the first little while after surgery, Alistair had to take “baby steps” to get from point A to point B.

One day during this recovery period, Alistair was walking across the street at a pace much slower than the other pedestrians. He could feel the glare of the drivers as they grew impatient. As I recall Alistair’s telling of the story, one of them honked at him and chided him for taking his “good ol’ time.” Alistair had a perfectly legitimate reason for walking slowly. Had the drivers known that he was actually in pain and progressing as quickly as he could, they would have been more patient and understanding.

Alistair then thought, “How many times have I grown impatient while waiting for people to cross the road? How often have I thought that they were just being jerks, without knowing their circumstances? Perhaps they, too, were in pain or had some other reason for walking slowly.” Having been on the receiving end of other people’s misjudgment, Alistair sought to be more understanding himself – to give others the benefit of the doubt, to assume the best about them rather than the worst.

That’s what love does. Let’s make it our aim to do so, with the Lord’s help.

Turning Point

For Jacob’s wife Leah, the anguish of being unloved by her husband was worse than the pain of childbirth. The names of her oldest three sons — Reuben, Simeon, and Levi — reflect Leah’s longing to be loved (Gen. 29:31-34). But when Leah gave birth to her fourth son, she said, “‘This time I will praise the Lord.’ Therefore she called his name Judah” (Gen. 29:35). Judah sounds like the Hebrew for “praise.”

The birth of Judah was a turning point for Leah. Instead of looking for love from Jacob, she looked to the Lord.

Judah would have his turning point too. But it would come later in life — after a long hard road. For many years, Judah went in the wrong direction. When Joseph’s brothers stripped him naked and threw him into a pit, it was Judah that suggested that they make a profit by selling Joseph as a slave to the Ishmaelites on their way to Egypt (Gen. 37:26-28). Judah literally “sold out” his little brother! Then Judah and his brothers tricked their father Jacob into thinking that Joseph had been devoured by a wild animal (Gen. 37:31-35). Jacob almost wept himself into an early grave. What cruel deception!

After that, Judah spiraled downward rapidly. “It happened at that time” – just after Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egypt, when Judah was probably in his late teens – “that Judah went down from his brothers” and made friends with an Adullamite named Hirah (Gen. 38:1). Could it be that Judah left his brothers out of shame for having suggested that they sell Joseph into slavery? Was there a falling out between them?

Judah ended up marrying a Canaanite, breaking the custom of the patriarchs which would be formalized into law during the days of Moses (Ex. 34:11-16) in order to keep the people of Israel from idolatry. But Judah married her anyway, and she bore Judah a son.

“But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death” (Gen. 38:6). I can’t imagine the grief this must have been to Judah. It was probably compounded by guilt, knowing that he had not been a godly example to his son.

Judah gave his daughter-in-law Tamar to his second son Onan, so that he could raise up offspring for his brother. “But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother’s wife he would waste his semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.” (Gen. 38:7-10)

More heartache for Judah! He had a third son, Shelah, who was not old enough to get married yet. So he promised Tamar that Shelah would marry her once he was old enough.

But Judah broke his promise.

Then Judah’s wife died.

After Judah was done grieving, he took a road trip. Tamar found out about it and disguised herself with a veil. Judah thought she was a prostitute and slept with her.

Three months later Judah found out that Tamar was pregnant. Assuming that she had been immoral, Judah said, “Bring her out and let her be burned” (Gen. 38:24). But then Tamar presented evidence that Judah himself was, in fact, the father of her child.

It was then, at that moment, that Judah declared, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to to my son Shelah” (Gen. 38:26). The text says that Judah never slept with her again.

This was a turning point for Judah. He humbly acknowledged his sin and did an about-face. The next time we read about him, he’s back with his father and brothers. Then later, when Jacob’s sons urge their father to let Benjamin go with them to Egypt, Judah takes personal responsibility for his safety (Gen. 43:8-9).

When Joseph (whose identity is still unknown to his brothers at this point) plans to keep Benjamin in Egypt while letting the brothers go home, Judah makes one of the most moving, heartfelt appeals in the Old Testament. He offers to take Benjamin’s place so that his brother can go free and return to his father (see Gen. 44:18-34).

At this point Joseph loses control and begins sobbing. He tells his brothers his real identity, and they become reconciled. Better yet, Joseph moves his entire family to Egypt, thus saving them from the famine and providing for them the rest of their lives.

As it turns out, Judah was the son through whom the Messiah would be born (Gen. 49:8-12), hence Jesus’ title, “The Lion of Judah” (Rev. 5:5).

Judah’s testimony is a good reminder that we should never write anybody off. God delights to save sinners and show them his undeserved kindness. The one who was named “praise” finally lived up to his name, to the glory of God’s grace.

Have you reached your turning point? Have you repented of your sin and put your trust in Christ alone for salvation? If you’re still breathing, it’s not too late. Make today the first day of your new life in Christ. the Bible says,

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.
(2 Cor. 5:17-18)

A Young Man's Life

Editor’s Note: Today for “Family & Friends Friday,” we’re blessed to have my son Ethan Fletcher as our guest blogger. Ethan is our fourth oldest child, is 23 years old, and one of the hardest workers I know. When Ethan was young, we were told that he’d never graduate from high school or get a driver’s license. But by God’s grace and Ethan’s grit (plus the help of his parents, teachers and tutors), he accomplished both. In fact, Ethan went on to earn his Commercial Driver’s License (CDL).

I would say more, but Ethan is actually going to tell you a bit about himself. It’s a snapshot of a young man’s life which pretty much revolves around family, church, and work. The Bible has much to say about these three realms of life, and we thank the Lord for Ethan’s continuing development and maturity in each area.

To have Ethan as my guest blogger on this particular day is extra special because it is my mom’s birthday. My mom went home to be with the Lord 20 years ago, but I have no doubt that she is rejoicing in heaven over the young man that her grandson, Ethan Fletcher, is today.

Hello all! My name is Ethan Fletcher. I am a 23 year old man who lives in Webster, NY, and was born in Canada. I am very blessed to come from a lovely family of seven that God has given me. I love them dearly and cannot be more grateful to have such a loving family in my life!

Today I would like to take the time to share from my heart the areas in my life — what I do and why I have such a passion for these things in my life.

I have been going to Webster Bible Church for almost 10 years and have been a member for almost 4 years. To this day I serve in the nursery and also on the church Security Team. I love working in the nursery, because personally I have always had a heart for little kids and babies. It’s important for their parents to know that when they drop off their precious little children and babies. they are well protected and cared for. I love to see little babies look at me with a smile and lift their arms up in the air to show that they want me to hold them. To know that they want me to hold them makes me very happy beyond words!

I know that parents are concerned for their children’s safety and want them protected. That’s a man’s job, so that’s why I serve in the nursery and also on the Security Team. I have a strong protective personality in me, and the people at Webster Bible Church are people I love that God has brought into my life. They are important to me, and I would never want to see any of them get hurt in any way.

For my work, God has gifted and blessed me with a few jobs! I work at Meridian Associates Commercial Flooring as my full-time and first-priority job. On the side I work for two landscaping companies and also for Wendy’s here in Webster. I love and enjoy to work! I am big on wanting and liking to stay steadily busy throughout each day and week. I try to be known as a man who is not afraid to get his hands dirty and work hard.

God has gifted us men in this world, some more than others, with strong, healthy bodies! I am truly thankful for mine. I believe we should put our strong healthy bodies to use and work hard in a way that pleases the Lord! I am so very grateful for the healthy, strong body God has given me.

In conclusion, after everything I’ve said and shared, I truly from the bottom of my heart am grateful for all that God has blessed me with in my life! I hope going into 2021 that I will improve my appreciation to God, who I love truly!

Be watchful,
stand firm in the faith,
act like men, be strong.
Let all that you do be done in love.
- 1 Corinthians 16:13 -

Be Bold, Do Right

Last evening our small group enjoyed the benefits of modern technology. We interacted with our missionaries to Nigeria (currently stateside) along with a few other members of our group that were quarantined due to Covid.

As our missionaries told us about God’s continuing work in Nigeria, we were reminded that the gospel of Jesus Christ does not advance without cost. Some of their own colleagues and friends have suffered greatly due to persecution. They have had family members beaten, raped and killed, their possessions stolen and their houses burned. While we go to sleep in relative peace, they go to bed wondering if they will be attacked in the dead of night. In one case, armed assailants raided Gora Gan village after dark, killing a dozen people and forcing hundreds to flee. This took place a day after assailants gunned down 18 wedding guests in a nearby village.

Our missionaries told us about another case – the tragic kidnapping of Leah Sharibu, which occurred almost three years ago (Feb. 19, 2018), when Leah was just 14 years old. At that time, Boko Haram kidnapped 110 girls during a raid on a school in the the town of Dapchi, in Yobe state. A month later, in a deal with the government, Boko Haram released 104 girls, with the last five thought to have died in captivity. Leah, however, has remained a captive, because she refused to renounce her faith.

When her friends were released, Leah sent a message to her mother, saying:

My mother, you should not be disturbed. I know it is not easy missing me, but I want to assure you that I am fine where I am…. I am confident that one day I shall see your face again. If not here, then there at the bosom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to the organization International Christian Concern,

[Leah] has likely been forced to learn Islamic rules and Arabic as the groups tries to force her to change to their beliefs. They have also likely used physical torment and mental attacks to try and break her faith in Christ. These kinds of tactics, to include beatings, brainwashing, drugging and sexual abuse have been commonly reported from women who have escaped Boko Haram captivity.

As our small group listened to how our Christian brothers & sisters in Nigeria have suffered for their faith, we were humbled as we heard their two main prayer requests:

1. That they would be bold in their witness for Christ, not flinching in the face of persecution.

2. That they would do right and not seek revenge on their enemies, but love them for Jesus’ sake.

This report and these requests came at the end of the day on which our President was impeached, and a week after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, waving Jesus and Trump flags. These missionaries and their Nigerian friends are praying for us that we also would be bold and do right.

May we, like our Nigerian brothers and sisters, pray like the early church did, so that we too might experience a similar outpouring of the Holy Spirit:

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness…. And when they had prayed, … they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness … and great grace was upon them all. (Acts 4:29, 31, 33)

A Warning to the Church

A week ago, a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, forcing Washington into a temporary lockdown. USA Today has provided a timeline of that fateful day. Since then, various folks have asked me to write a blog about it. I’ve been reluctant to do so for several reasons:

1. My goal in blogging is to provide encouragement from the gospel, but this article is more about encroachment on the gospel.

2. Space is limited. I empathize with one evangelical writer who told his critics, “I am sorry that I could not address every specific issue, with the nuance and caveats you would have, dealing with every concern with the detail it requires, in this 1000 word article.” (That’s how long my article today will be.)

3. Countless writers far more capable than I am have already addressed key issues.

4. I don’t want to be misunderstood and then ostracized by my dear friends and colleagues as a result.

But I’ll say it anyway, because I think it needs to be said. I’ve picked just one aspect of this ordeal that evokes a haunting lesson from history: “the church in Germany appeared to be too preoccupied with the problems of the nation to see what was happening before its eyes.”

So wrote Erwin Lutzer over 25 years ago in his award-winning book, Hitler’s Cross: The revealing story of how the Cross of Christ was used as a symbol of the Nazi agenda. This book came to my mind after the Capitol riots began. A pastor friend of mine tweeted:

To the people storming the capitol with Jesus flags, please repent and promote peace and the rule of law. If not, please leave the Jesus flags behind. He’s nowhere near this.

The rioters who stormed the Capitol, destroyed property, killed a policeman, and injured others, were anything but “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20).

Let me add two qualifying statements:

1. Many of the peaceful protesters were sincere Christians who simply wanted their voice to be heard and were exercising their First Amendment rights.

2. I am NOT comparing President Trump to Adolf Hitler (as some have done).

My chief concern is not about any one person, but rather the people of God in America. Christians are allowing their political views and loyalties to color their perspective, confuse their identity, rearrange their priorities, and tarnish their testimony.

Scripture says, “Now the works of the flesh are evident…” (Gal. 5:19). Such sins include “enmity, strife, … fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions” (v. 20). The way that some Christians have expressed their opinions and handled their differences, especially on social media, is disgraceful.

Have we lost sight of the fact that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36)? Pastor Matt Chandler shared some good thoughts along these lines in a brief video message last week, saying in part,

I want us, by the grace of God, to pray for our nation [and] to consider how we got to this moment. Personally, I think it’s a mixture of biblical illiteracy, a lack of spiritual power, and a lack of serious discipleship.

In Hitler’s Cross, Lutzer points out that Hitler’s “political machine swallowed the church whole because the church had lost its biblical mission.” In the days of Hitler, “the Nazis wrapped the cross in the swastika, making the cross a weapon to further Hitler’s agenda.”

On one side we see the danger from the political Left. In his newest book, Live Not By Lies, Rod Dreher warns us that “a progressive — and profoundly anti-Christian militancy — is steadily overtaking society.” We see this in the destruction of the nuclear family, the erosion of moral values, plus the rise of identity politics, intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, cultural Marxism, and other humanistic ideologies and philosophies. Dreher writes, “the Left pushes its ideology ever deeper into the personal realm, leaving fewer and fewer areas of life uncontested.”

So it’s easy to see why Christians are concerned and want to “contest” such wrongs. But as Trevin Wax states in his critique of Dreher’s book,

My point isn’t that Dreher is wrong to warn against cultural currents that sweep us into soft totalitarianism. I only wish he had explored how this tendency toward soft totalitarianism could wind up being as much of a feature of a nationalist surge from the far right as it could … from the far left.

Dr. Albert Mohler addressed this same concern in today’s episode of his daily broadcast, The Briefing. The first segment is entitled “What is Christian Nationalism and What Is the Danger? Understanding the Different Roles of the Church and Nations in God’s Plan.” To listen to the broadcast or read the transcript, click here.

I’m already over my usual word limit, so I’ll wrap up quickly. I realize that I’ve mostly raised a concern rather than resolve it. But I think that’s fairly simple (if not easy), so long as we remember who we are, whose we are, why we are here, and what we’re to do. Dr. Daniel Aiken summed up the matter well in his tweet earlier today:

The Great Commandments

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt. 22:37-40)

The Great Commission

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:18-20)

Here endeth the lesson.

AAA Membership

Are you a Triple-A member? You’re probably thinking of North America’s largest travel organization, which has over 60 million members and provides many benefits. But I’m referring to another Triple-A membership that’s far better in the grand scheme of things. Jesus talks about it in Mark 11:22-25 when he tells his disciples,

Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

Here Jesus teaches us a three-fold lesson on faith. We could call it the “Triple A of Trust.”

1. Anchored in God

“Have faith in God.” Everyone has faith. But the defining issue for life and eternity is where that faith is placed.

Just prior to his conversation with his disciples, Jesus had cleansed the temple in Jerusalem, declaring, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17; cf. Isa. 56:7). The people’s focus was no longer on God but on the beautiful buildings and “big business.”

In his book, Coming Home: Timeless Wisdom for Families, James Dobson writes,

The Taj Mahal is one of the most beautiful and costly tombs ever built, but there is something fascinating about its beginnings. In 1629, when the favorite wife of Indian ruler Shah Jahan died, he ordered that a magnificent tomb be built as a memorial for her. The shah placed his wife’s casket in the middle of a parcel of land, and construction of the temple literally began around it. But several years into the venture, the Shah’s grief gave way to a passion for the project. One day while he was surveying the sight, he reportedly stumbled over a wooden box, and he had some workers throw it out. It was months before he realized that his wife’s casket had been destroyed. The original purpose for the memorial became lost in the details of construction. (p. 122)

That’s what had happened with the temple in Jerusalem. The same thing happens in many churches today. So Jesus tells his disciples, “Trust in God.” Our faith must be anchored in him.

2. Able to move mountains

Faith in God, expressed through prayer, has exponential power to accomplish God’s purposes. Jesus used the symbol of a mountain to convey this point. From the Mount of Olives, where this conversation was taking place, the disciples would have been able to see on the south horizon a peak shaped like a volcano. The peak is actually the Herodium, one of many citadels built by Herod the Great.

Herodium seen from Artas village (next to Bethlehem)

As John Beck notes in Bible Study Magazine,

The Herodium is the only mountain in view that had a history of being moved — a fact that Jesus alludes to in his lesson. Herod directed his builders to remove part of the mountain adjacent to the Herodium in order to provide material to create an artificial slope…. With its high elevation, unique shape, distinctive architecture, and history of being moved, the Herodium is the most likely referent of “this mountain” ….

When Herod built it, he used slave labor to transfer the earth from an adjacent hill to form the foundation and support structure for the fortress. Herod literally moved a mountain to build his fortress!

Yet as impressive as this construction was, Jesus said it’s nothing compared to what God can do through those who place their faith in him. Herod’s architectural ambitions had changed the landscape of Judea, but those who trust in God can change the landscape of human history.

3. Always ready to forgive.

What does forgiveness have to do with faith? Forgiveness toward others is the outworking of one’s faith in God.

Joseph exemplified this beautifully. After their father Jacob died, Joseph’s brothers were afraid that Joseph would inflict vengeance on them for selling him as a slave to Egypt years earlier. So they told Joseph that before Jacob died, he had expressed his wish that Joseph forgive his brothers. But their pleading was unnecessary, for Joseph had already forgiven them.

Joseph was able to do so because of his faith in God. He told his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). Faith can see the hand of God working even in the most unjust circumstances. Such a perspective wields a lot of power — enough to move a mountain.

Are you a “Triple A member”? Is your faith anchored in God ... able to move mountains ... always ready to forgive? That’s the kind of faith that God uses to accomplish his purposes and alter the landscape of history.

The Princess That Perplexes Me

When reading through Genesis, my impressions of Sarah tend to be more negative than positive. I’ll get to that in a moment. But first I should clarify that the reason I refer to her in the subject heading as “princess” is because that’s what her original name Sarai means. God later changed her name to Sarah, “mother of nations” (Gen. 17:15). She was the wife of Abraham, whose name God also changed — from Abram, “exalted father,” to Abraham, “father of a multitude” (Gen. 17:5).

Sarah was “a woman beautiful in appearance” (Gen. 12:11). So Abraham got himself a catch — a beautiful princess for a wife! So far, so good.

Abraham and Sarah were initially from Ur, which was located in what is now the country of Iraq (Gen. 11:31). But the Lord told Abraham to leave his country and family to go to a land that God would show him. God also promised to bless Abraham and make his name great so that he would be a blessing. (Gen. 12:1-3). Abraham obeyed God and took his wife Sarah with him.

God led them to the land of Canaan, but there was a famine in the land, so Abraham and Sarah “went down to Egypt” (Gen. 12:10). Eventually they came back to Canaan, where Abraham and Lot parted ways. Abraham and Sarah “settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron” (Gen. 13:18).

Fast forward a few chapters later, and that’s where I start seeing Sarah in a somewhat negative light. In Genesis 16, Sarah is still barren, even though God has promised Abraham a son (Gen. 15:4). So Sarah tells Abraham to have children by Hagar, Sarah’s maid. So he has sexual relations with Hagar, and she winds up pregnant. When Hagar finds out she’s pregnant, she starts treating Sarah with contempt. But then Sarah deals so harshly with her, that Hagar runs away into the wilderness. The angel of the Lord tells Hagar to go back and submit to Sarah, while at the same time promising Hagar that the Lord is aware of her affliction and will make her son great.

In Genesis 17, God reassures Abraham when he is nearly a hundred years old and Sarah is ninety, that she is going to give birth to a son “at this time next year” (Gen. 17:22). In chapter 18, God reiterates this promise to Abraham. When Sarah overhears it, she laughs in disbelief. The Lord asks Abraham why Sarah laughed at the notion of having a baby. Afraid, Sarah denies it, saying, “I didn’t laugh.” But the Lord says, “No, you did laugh” (Gen. 18:15).

Sure enough, Sarah bears a son, and Abraham names him Isaac, which means “laughter” (how appropriate!). Later, when they hold a feast on the day that Isaac is weaned, Sarah’s sees Hagar’s son Ishmael laughing. Sarah tells Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son” (Gen. 21:10). This grieves Abraham, since Ishmael is his son. But God tells Abraham, “Do not be upset over the boy…. Do whatever Sarah tells you…” (Gen. 21:12).

So early the next morning Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away with nothing but a loaf of bread and a container of water. Later on this mother and her son are so famished, they’re about to die. Hagar puts her son under the shade of a bush and sits by herself a stone’s throw away, saying as she bursts into tears, “I don't want to watch the boy die” (Gen. 21:16). But God hears her cry and rescues them. Long story short, Ishmael becomes a great nation, just as God promised.

But I couldn’t get over why Abraham, given how rich he was, sent Hagar and her son away with so little. A loaf of bread and skin of water? But then I remembered the Lord’s words to Abraham: “Do as Sarah tells you.” Could it be that Sarah cruelly insisted that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away with nothing more? This certainly seems to be the case.

So, to summarize, Sarah tells Abraham to have a son by Hagar, then gets mad when he does, and she treats Hagar horribly. Later, Sarah laughs at God’s promise that she will bear a son. Then she denies laughing when confronted about it. After Isaac is weaned, and Sarah sees Ishmael laughing, she insists that Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away without even enough food and water to survive.

Sarah has some serious hangups and glaring flaws! She’s quite the sinner! Yet the New Testament makes her look like a saint! Hebrews 11:11 says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” (Apparently she ended up believing God after all.) Peter refers to Sarah as a holy woman of God who made herself beautiful by obeying her husband (1 Pet. 3:4-6).

As I thought about God’s assessment of Sarah in the New Testament, I went back to the Old Testament and began to think about some other things, like how hard it must have been Sarah to move away from her family and home in order to follow her husband, who went without knowing where he was going (Heb. 11:8). I thought about how Sarah obeyed Abraham, even when he wasn’t always right and seemed more concerned about this own well-being than hers (see Gen. 12:10-13).

So Sarah is the princess that perplexes me. She is, at the same time, a woman of faith and a woman with flaws. But I really shouldn’t be all that perplexed, because each and every child of God is, as the Reformer Martin Luther put it, Simul Justus et Peccator — “at the same time righteous and sinful.” In and of ourselves, we’re still sinners. But through our faith in Christ, God counts us as righteous (Rom. 5:1).

As the late theologian R. C. Sproul stated, “This is the very heart of the gospel” — and it gives us every reason to celebrate. We are forgiven and reconciled to God, not by our own righteousness, but the righteousness of God himself which comes through faith in Christ (Phil. 3:9).

If you can, take an extra few minutes to watch R. C. Sproul explain this glorious truth in a simple, colorful way. It’s a great reminder that although we are great sinners, Christ is a great Savior!

The Ultimate Victory

Note: I’m blessed to have my friend and fellow elder, Brad Wade, as our guest blogger on “Family & Friends Friday.” Brad and his wife Peggy have been married for 22 years, and have two children: Ryan (in college) and Megan (in high school). They have been at Webster Bible Church for nearly 13 years. They were among the first believers I baptized when I came on as pastor in 2011. Brad and Peggy have a genuine love for Christ which is reflected in their relationships with others, especially those in our own church family.

Brad is also big into sports, as you will see in today’s article. Enjoy!

I love sports, and I love competing. I’ve spent much of my life either playing or coaching a sport where a major theme is to pursue victory. Of course, there are many benefits one can gain from competition including:

1. physical fitness

2. developing improved teamwork

3. learning how to deal with both victory and defeat in a healthy, Christ-honoring way.

However, all of that is accomplished in the participant’s pursuit of victory. There is a saying in sports: “That’s why they play the game.” This means that no matter what the pregame odds are or what each team looks like “on paper,” no competition is ever a sure thing. I could give example after example of this from my own many years of personal experience. One of the more recent examples comes from my son’s senior year baseball and basketball teams. Both teams ended their season with a win in the championship game where, in both cases, the other team was heavily favored and had already beaten our team multiple times during the season.

Turning to the professional world of sports, growing up a Buffalo Bills fan, the phrase “wide right” still haunts me and other Bills fans to this very day, even though that infamous kick happened almost 30 years ago! While on the topic of the Bills, just this year, while playing against the Bills, the Arizona Cardinals snatched victory from the jaws of defeat as they caught an extremely improbable “Hail Mary” pass on the last play of the game. Another sure victory for the Bills literally ripped away from them!

As a big baseball fan and a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, one of my favorite television sports moments came during game 6 of the 2011 World Series where the St. Louis Cardinals were 1 strike away from losing the World Series to the Texas Rangers. In fact, they were down to their last strike multiple times in both the 9th inning and then in extra innings, yet somehow still managed to win that game in walk-off fashion and then, ultimately winning game 7 to give them their 11th world championship.

There are so many other examples of competitions like this. Year after year, one of my favorite sporting events is the NCAA basketball championship tournament. The main reason I love it is because the games are typically so close, regardless of the seed (rank) of the teams, and it seems that there are nightly highlights of shots floating through the air as the final buzzer sounds. Shots that, if made, will send one team on to the next round, and if missed will send a team home and will end the careers of some of the players on the team. After a hard-fought game, it all comes down to one final shot.

Outside of the world of sports, the line between victory and defeat can often be very slim as well. In the 2000 presidential election, the winner of the Florida electoral votes would win the presidency. When all was done, George Bush won Florida and it’s electoral votes by only 537 total votes, a margin of 0.009%.

So here’s the point:

In our lives and in this world,
no victory is certain.

So many of the contests we watch or participate in can go either way and ultimately can’t be determined until the very end of the game, the election, the match, or whatever.

HOWEVER, there is One for which all victories are known, clear & decisive. You guessed it - God Almighty! There is no need for a final “Hail Mary” (no pun intended), buzzer-beater, recount, or any of that. God doesn’t squeak by His opponents — He obliterates them!

The Holy Scriptures are full of examples of God’s clear victories and is, in fact, the theme of the Bible as a whole! Consider how God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, as told in Exodus. He didn’t have them sneak out in the middle of the night hoping no one would spot them. No, he delivered them in broad daylight, ultimately swallowing up Pharoh’s army in the Red Sea. Wow!

Or how about the story of David and Goliath - a young shepherd boy versus a huge battle-tested warrior. God delivered a swift and clear victory to David using just a sling and a stone. It was so decisive, it can barely be considered a fight at all!

Another one of the many examples of God’s clear and decisive victories is recorded in the book of Joshua. God delivered Joshua a victory over the city of Jericho by telling Joshua to march around the city over 7 days, blowing a trumpet, and shouting. The walls of Jericho then collapsed and the army was able to charge in and take the city. Another clear victory!

This leads me to the most important and most decisive victory in the history of the universe - Christ’s once and for all victory over sin, death, and Satan! In Genesis 3:15, commonly called the “Protevangelium” — a term that essentially signifies the idea of the “first gospel proclamation.” The Lord said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” In living the perfect life that we couldn’t, in the shedding of His blood and His death on the cross, and finally in His resurrection and ascension into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father, Christ earned this eternal decisive victory, known from the beginning of time, once and for all! In THIS victory is where we find OUR eternity! If you have received Christ as your Lord and Savior, you share in this victory! You have eternal life! If however, you have not yet received Christ, you can still join the winning team! In Acts 16, someone asks the all-important question “What must I do to be saved?”. The answer is given: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” Oh what an awesome victory celebration it will be one day with the whole team in Heaven!

So, regardless of the outcome of the first Bills home playoff game this millennium, or the outcome of any other situation in your life, just remember that for those in Christ, the ultimate victory is ours!