Robert J. Morgan's Blog, page 10

December 13, 2023

Falling Out of Love

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

Introduction

Earlier this summer a series of very disturbing newspaper articles appeared in the New York Times and other outlets about the way the People’s Republic of China penetrated and brutally disrupted American espionage operations within their country. For many years, the CIA and other covert agencies within the U.S. government had built up a network of Chinese informants, and by 2010 the American government was getting some excellent intelligence about what was happening in Beijing and within the Chinese government. Many of these informants were Chinese, but they had American handlers, who secretly met with them at restaurants and other places. But then, these informants began dying. One by one, the sources dried up. Some of the informants were shot. One man was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of the government building where he worked. Others were sent to jail. The American handlers found themselves in real danger.

It appears that China somehow infiltrated our operations and found out what we are doing and who was working with us. According to the newspapers, American officials still don’t know what exactly went wrong. Some believe the Chinese hacked into the CIA’s top secret computer network. Others think the CIA handlers got careless and used the same restaurants and drop off points and meeting spots too often. Some believed we had a traitor, and every employee of the American Embassy in Beijing was scrutinized.

The most prominent theory points the finger at an ex-CIA agent, a man who was stationed in Asia, but who left the agency, retired from the CIA, and decided to stay in the region as a businessman. He had access to a lot of data, and some officials suspect that the Chinese government bribed him and turned him into a double agent.

We may enjoy watching spy shows on television, but it’s a different thing to imagine yourself actually living that kind of life. What would it be like to be stationed in a land not our own – in a difficult and hostile and dangerous land – located there on temporary assignment, living with a different agenda from everyone else, to advance a cause in which you believed, knowing that you needed an exit strategy you could trust when things went wrong?

Without being overly dramatic, I think you can see that’s precisely the situation we find ourselves in as followers of Christ.

We are stationed in a land not our own –in a difficult and hostile and dangerous world – located here on temporary assignment, living with a different agenda from everyone else, to advance a cause in which we believe, knowing we have an exit strategy we can trust.

The New Testament writer who seemed to most appreciate this was the apostle John, and it’s very interesting to trace the way that he talked about the “world.” When you read the Gospel of John and the epistle of 1 John, you noticed that John had a preferred vocabulary. He used a set of words over and over and over—and one of those words was “world.” And to John, when we become Christ-followers, we’re longer at home in this world. We begin living like ex-patriots in a dangerous place.

For example, let me show you some verses in the Gospel of John.

In John 15:18-19, Jesus said to us: If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.And in His great priestly prayer for us in John 17, Jesus said: I have given them Your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it… As you sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world (verse 14-18).

This is a remarkable way of looking at ourselves. If you are a follower of Christ, you are not of this world, you do not belong to this world, and you are actually hated by the world, but you have been sent to the world on temporary assignment, and while you are here doing your work the heavenly Father has to protect you constantly from the evil one.

Now when we turn over to the book of 1 John, we come to this same theme—but it is presented to us as a warning.

In other words, since we are citizens of heaven and ambassadors for the King, stationed in a world to which we do not really belong, located here on temporary assignment, living with a different agenda from everyone else, to advance a cause in which we believe in, and knowing we have an exit strategy we can trust—since all that is true, we must be careful in our thinking and not become compromised in our values or in our sense of identity. We don’t want to be like a spy who switches sides.

The first words of this passage give us the central command: Do Not Love The World or Anything In The World.

He is not talking about the people that are in the world. He does not say, “Do not love the people of the world or anyone that is in the world.” He is saying, in effect, “Do not love this world system or anything that it offers. You are citizens of heaven. You are people stationed here on this planet for a very brief assignment. You are in a hostile environment. Go ahead and love the people, of course; but do not fall in love with what they are doing or how they are living or with this world system.”

To make sure we don’t miss it, the apostle John subdivided his emphasis into three sections. There are three zones in this world in which you must be particularly careful. There are three territories that are especially dangerous.

Don’t Fall in Love with Your Appetites

The first has to do with our appetites. Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh….

When God created our bodies, He created them with certain needs. We have physical needs. We’re not like rocks or water or mountains or inanimate things. One of the aspects of being alive is that we have certain physical needs. We need food. We need water. We need air. We have sexual needs. We need rest – all these are good and proper needs and the Lord provided for every one of them. But from the days of Adam and Eve, the devil has exploited our needs to trap us in self-destructive patterns and even in addictions. We have to be careful or our appetites get away from us. We ate too much. We drink too much. Our sexual habits become unhealthy and decayed. Our addictions take over and we are virtually controlled by the lust of the flesh. Every day the news headlines are talking about the opioid crisis in America. We are all prone to addiction by nature – because of our fallen nature – and the devil exploits that against us as people and as a society.

I read an interview last week with actor James Franco. He said, “I have a very addictive personality. When I was a teenager, I got over certain addictions, and that’s when I started acting, at age 17.” But he said, his life as an actor created more addictions and more problems. He said, “I really threw myself into it (acting), and that became everything, to the point where I didn’t even socialize. And then after, like 10 years of that, at age 27, I realized, ‘Man, I’m so depressed. On the surface, my life seems pretty good—I have a career and everything—but I feel isolated and lonely.’”

So he turned to surfing and to hip-hop dancing, and those things have become his sources of therapy. And now he has moved from being an actor to being a director. And do you know what television show he is directing right now? It’s a new upcoming HBO drama series centered around the pornographic industry. He is directing sex scenes that are very graphic and very lewd and he is creating images for television that will feed the addictions of more and more people.

Here is a man whose whole life is centered around the lusts of the flesh—and he is indicative of our whole nation and of our entire world.

We all know how powerful these urges within us are, so how do we gain a measure of victory over them? How do we stay healthy? It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of determination. It takes a lot of falling down and getting back up. But most of all, it takes a heart that cultivates a love for God. Notice the way John puts this: Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh….

If we love the world, including all the pleasures the world brings us, it means we don’t really love God. Here is what we have to do. We have to say to ourselves: God created me. He made me in my mother’s womb, and He knows all my weaknesses. He loves me more than I can ever imagine. He came into human history and took upon Himself human flesh and died a terrible death that involved the shedding of His blood. He rose again. He is coming one day for me. He has work for me to do. He has a plan for me to fulfill. And I’m going to decide to love Him with all my heart and soul and mind and strength, and as I learn to love Him more and more, I will modify and change my behavior more and more to please Him.

It is not unreasonable to change our behavior to please someone we love.

Imagine a young man who, from the age of twenty until the age of thirty, went clubbing every Friday night. He spent his weekends in nightclubs. He has lived in debauchery. He has done things he is ashamed of. But now he has met a young woman and fallen in love with her and married her and he loves her as if she were a princess. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Now he wants to spend his Friday nights with her. Instantly and permanently his nightclubbing ended. His love for her has modified his habits.

Here is a married man, and he travels all week long for his job. He flies out of town on Monday and he flies back in on Friday. He lives in hotels. He is faithful to his wife and he loves her and they talk several times a day. But the couple has a little girl with blond curly hair, and this man misses her birthdays. He misses her recitals. He misses her plays at school. He worries about that all the time, and one day his beautiful little girl with the blond curly hair says, “Daddy, I wish you were home more. You are always gone.” And do you know what that man does? He quits his job. He says, “I’d rather make half the money than miss watching my little girl grow up.” And his love for her modifies his behavior.

We cannot control the lusts of the flesh unless we are motivated by and empowered by a love for the God who made us, who has a plan for us, who gave us His Word, who died for us, and who is coming again.

Don’t Fall in Love with Your Acquisitions

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes….

This next phrase brings us to our second dangerous zone — our acquisitions. The phrase, “…the lust of the eyes…,” refers to the things we see and want. We all struggle with this all the time because we’re living in an affluent age. Our world has never been filled with so many houses and cars and bright and shiny objects, and it’s very difficult to know whether we should make a purchase or not. I have a very hard time with that. I see a shirt or an appliance or a gadget or a new version of some electronics product – and should I buy it? Should I spend that money? Or should I save the money? Or should I give the money away?

We all battle this every day. Should I spend five dollars for that cup of coffee at Starbucks? Should I spend twenty dollars for that steak? Should I go on that vacation? Should I buy a second car?

How do we make wise decisions on our acquisitions in an age of affluence?

Well, sometimes I don’t know myself how to do it—but I do know this. We must never fall in love with the things we buy or become too attached to them. Because according to 1 John 2, they are all passing away. They are all temporary. We aren’t going to have them or want them or use them or keep them for very long.

So there are two things that help me a great deal, and these two things are great blessings from God.

The first is the practice of tithing. When we resolve that at least the first ten percent of all our income goes to the Lord and to His work, it helps us keep our priorities right.

The second is the habit of reminding ourselves that everything we will ever buy from our first toy to our last suit – all of it, all the houses and land and furniture and cars and boats and electronics and clothing and appliances – everything is highly disposable. It’s all as disposable as a disposable razor or a paper towel. We have it for a little while, but we aren’t going to take as much as one copper penny with us to heaven. And so we shouldn’t become too attached to any of it. Our lasting possessions are in heaven.

I think one of the most useful phrases in the Bible about the lure of materialism is in 1 Corinthians 7 when the apostle Paul said: “Time is short… Those who buy something (should live) as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of this world (should live) as if they were not engrossed in them. for this world in its present form is passing away.”

Don’t Fall in Love with Your Approval Ratings

There is a third dangerous area for us, and that is in our approval ratings, in our popularity, in our desire to be noticed and recognized. The passage continues:

We’re living in such a narcissistic age that none of us can quite cope with it. But if we love God with all our hearts, that translates into an attitude of humility—and that’s the secret of true greatness.

For many years, Katharine Graham was one of the most stellar personalities in Washington, D.C. She was the publisher of the Washington Post, and her dinner parties and banquet events were legendary. She probably met more famous and powerful people than anyone else in her generation. One day one of her guests asked her a simple question. “Mrs. Graham, you have hosted the greatest leaders from around the world. What is the single most important trait of all great leaders.”

Without hesitation, Katharine Graham said, “The absence of arrogance.”

Put this to the test. Think of the greatest leaders in history and in the headlines – the men and women who really changed this world for the better. I think of people like Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and, in a class all by Himself, Jesus Christ – these were people who weren’t stuck on themselves. They truly wanted the best for others, and that fueled their leadership.

True humility only comes when we love God more than we love the applause of men or the approval ratings of our society.

Conclusion

The passage concludes like this: Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

If we’re going to be in the world but not of the world, we have to keep an eternal perspective. We must let Jesus Christ, who gives us eternal life, be at the very center of our affections and priorities. He must be Lord of all there is in our lives. Let me wrap up my message by showing you what else the apostle John says about the world in this little epistle.

Look at chapter 3, verse 1: See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

The world does not know us!

Look at chapter 3, verse 13: Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.

Look at chapter 4, verse 4: …the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God….

And chapter 4, verse 16: God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.

Look at chapter 5, verse 4: …everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

Look at chapter 5, verse 19: We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true by being in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

In other words, keep yourself from loving anyone or anything more than you love the Lord your God through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.

We are stationed in a land not our own – in a difficult and hostile and dangerous world – located here on temporary assignment, living with a different agenda from everyone else, to advance a cause in which we believe, knowing we have an exit strategy we can trust. And our operations manual tells us:

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Published on December 13, 2023 11:29

Don’t Be Rattled; Just Be Rock Solid

Introduction

My friend, David Burtt, told me of a time when he was overcome with feelings of inadequacy, of not being good enough for what he wanted to do. But he came across Martin Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” and he started singing it. He came to the second verse:

Did we in our own strength confide,

Our striving will be losing,

Were not the right man on our side,

The man of God’s own choosing.

Doest ask who that may be?

Christ Jesus, it is He;

Lord Sabaoth His name;

From age to age the same,

And he must win the battle.

The phrase, “Lord Sabaoth” means the “Lord of hosts” or the “Lord of the armies of Heaven.”

David told me, “That verse hit me hard, and suddenly that phrase, Lord Sabaoth, became my favorite name for our Lord. I was struck by its totality, its weight and power and mystery, and I received complete peace. I sang that verse over and over.”

There is a great power in our hymns and spiritual songs, which is why Martin Luther championed the singing of both old and new music during the Reformation. At that time, there was little or no singing being done by congregations in churches, but Luther knew that his Reformation message would spread more quickly through music. So he wrote new hymns, and he encouraged other German musicians to do the same. And he also went back to the older Latin hymns and translated them into German, so the church could sing songs both old and new.

The apostle John also knew that his congregations needed music, and so he wrote a song for them to sing. I believe it’s a song because it is poetic and lyrical, and John knew what every minister knows – that music is critical for Christian education and maturity. These three verses have repetition and rhythmic flow. They are poetic. They are musical. So let’s read John’s simple, little song, recorded for us in 1 John 2:12-14:

Scripture

12 I am writing to you, dear children,
    because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.
13 I am writing to you, fathers,
    because you know Him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
    because you have overcome the evil one.

14 I write to you, dear children,
    because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
    because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
    because you are strong,
    and the word of God lives in you,
    and you have overcome the evil one.

Background

Let’s deal with a couple of background issues. First, John wrote 1 John because of a crisis that had arisen in the churches over which he was overseer. He had finally written his Gospel, and many of the Greek or Hellenistic thinkers in the churches could not accept his literal view of Christ being God who came incarnate as a man to die and rise again to serve as the Messiah. So they were leaving the churches, and they were upsetting those who remained. John wrote this letter to reassure them. His basic message is, “They are wrong, and we are right. They have the spirit of the antichrist, but we have an anointing from the true Christ. They are of the devil; we are of the Lord. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t be rattled; just be right. Be resolute. Be reassured.”

That’s the great theme of this book. That’s why we go to 1 John to find strengthening reassurance about our solidity, our solidarity in Christ.

Now, there is a second preliminary issue. Why did John single out these age-groups—children, young men, older people. Some people believe this was John’s way of addressing three levels of people here—new Christians; more experienced Christians; and very mature Christians. But I think in fact he is addressing everyone, and that’s also the view of most commentators. It’s as if I was preaching and I said, “I want every child, every young adult, and every older adult to listen to me.” John is addressing everyone, those who had remained in his churches and had not deserted the cause of Christ. He is writing to reassure them, to tell them they are right, that they are real. And he uses this lyrical formula because he intends for them to sing these words, which sum up his epistle.

John presents six rock-solid realities for the born-again Christian—things that aren’t true for anyone else on earth, but they are true for those of us who know Jesus as our Savior and Lord.

1. Your Sins Have Been Forgiven

First, our sins have been forgiven. Verse 12 says: I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.

I think a lot of us have heard this so much in church services and Bible studies that we take it a little more lightly than we should. We are living in a world that is overwhelmed with feelings of guilt. I thought it might be a good idea to research this in the popular press and especially in newspaper and on-line advice columns. Here’s what I found. I’ll list for you some of the questions that showed up very frequently:

Why do I feel guilty all the time?Why do I feel guilty for no reason?Why do successful women feel so guilty?I feel so guilty over giving someone COVID. What should I do?What do I do about my feelings of guilt over my loved one’s suicide?Why do I feel so guilty about spending money?One person said: Sometimes I feel so guilty I get nauseous.Another: I feel guilty for having more money than my siblings.Another: I totally missed the fact my teen was struggling and I feel so guilty.I feel guilty that my current relationship is causing my former partner so much pain.Why do we feel so guilty about using our vacation days?Why do I feel guilty for feeling good?One person wrote: “Is it normal to feel so guilty you want to die?”Jennifer Lopez says she struggles with guilt because her kids are having a lot of trouble being in a famous family.Carrie Underwood said she struggles with guilt about leaving her kids at home while she’s touring with concerts.Children struggle with survivor’s guilt years after school shootings. Soldiers can struggle with survivor’s guilt for decades, or feeling of guilt about their combat experience.Even lottery millionaires struggle with what is called winner’s guilt.

What if there was one thing—and only one thing—that could wash away the reality of anything and everything that makes us guilty? John has already said in chapter 1: The blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all guilt.

He has already said in chapter 1: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

John has already said in chapter 2: If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

And now He says: I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.

We need to learn to tell ourselves that our guilt has been covered by the blood of Christ. It’s human to feel guilty, but it’s Christian to overcome those feelings on the basis of the Atonement. We have to tell ourselves, “I’ve felt guilty longer than I can bear it. God no longer sees that guilt. He just sees the blood of Christ. Now I’m going to take His view of it. I’m guilty no longer.

Paint companies have hundreds of shades of red you can choose for painting your room, but there is only one red in all the universe strong enough to cover sins forever—the blood red sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

2. You Know Jesus Christ

Second, not only have we been freed from all guilt, but we also have a priceless relationship with the one who accomplished this for us. We personally know Jesus Christ. Look at verse 12 and 13 again: I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning.

This is how John identified Jesus Christ at the beginning of his Gospel and at the beginning of His epistle: In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God; and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh and lived among us….

I’ve been fortunate to know the great Gospel singer Babbie Mason. The last time I was with her I looked at her, and said, “I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus.” She beamed back a warm smile, because that’s one of her signature songs:

I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus,

How I found a friend in Him so strong and true.

I would tell you how He changed my life completely;

He did something that no other friend could do.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus;

There’s no other friend so kind as He.

No one else could take the sin and darkness from me.

O how much He cares for me.

3. You Have Overcome the Evil One

There’s a third reality for genuine Christians. We have overcome the evil one. He says this twice for emphasis. Look at the passage again:

12 I am writing to you, dear children,
    because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.
13 I am writing to you, fathers,
    because you know Him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
    because you have overcome the evil one.

14 I write to you, dear children,
    because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
    because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
    because you are strong,
    and the word of God lives in you,
    and you have overcome the evil one.

This is John’s title for the devil.

Look at 1 John 3:12: Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.And 1 John 5:18: We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

John got this title from Jesus. The title, “the evil one” isn’t found in the Bible until Jesus used it in the Sermon on the Mount. After that, it’s one of the primary titles for Satan.

Jesus told us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37).In Matthew 13:19, He said, “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart.”In His high priestly prayer of John 17, Jesus prayed for all of us, saying, “My prayer is not that You take them out of the world, but that You protect them from the evil one” (verse 15).The apostle Paul wrote, “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, which with you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16).Second Thessalonians 3:3 says, “But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.”

When John tells us here in his lyrics that we have overcome the evil one, He means that when we give our lives to Jesus Christ, we are choosing to leave the dominion of the evil one and live under the protection of Him who defeated Satan by His death on the cross and by His glorious resurrection. The devil and his demonic forces have infiltrated our world, our governments, our entertainment, our schools, our politics, our finances. But Jesus Christ has defeated Him and we belong to Jesus Christ.

John says this very plainly in the next chapter. In 1 John 3:8, he writes, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”

Going back to the great Reformation hymn, “A Mighty Fortress,” let me remind you of verse 3:

And though this world with devils filled

Should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear for God has willed

His truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim,

We tremble not at him;

His rage we can endure,

For, lo, his doom is sure.

One little word shall fell him.

Someone asked me the other day what that little word was, the one that will lead to Satan’s downfall. What Luther meant was that it will only take a single word from the lips of Jesus to consign the devil to the everlasting pit of hell. One breath from Jesus is vastly stronger than all the powers of darkness.

4. You Know the Father

Fourth, John tells his readers that true Christians have been forgiven of their sins; they know Jesus Christ; they have overcome the evil one; and they even have a relationship with almighty God the Father, the Yahweh, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Verse 14 says: I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father.

This again goes back to what John wrote in his Gospel. John is doubling down on everything he said in the Gospel of John. If you read the Gospel of John and count all the times the word Father is used, you’ll find over 100 occurrences in the 21 chapters, and the vast majority of them refer to God.

It begins in John 1:14: The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus said, In My Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you (John 14:2).

He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me (John 14:6).

He said, As the Father has loved Me, I have loved you (John 15:9).

He said, As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you (John 20:21).

How can we get our minds around the fact that through Jesus Christ we have a personal relationship—especially in prayer—with the Almighty, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Holy, Loving, Supreme, Eternal Creator of the Universe?

Immortal, invisible, God only wise

In light inaccessible hid from our eyes.

And yet, He is our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!

5. You Are Strong

The fifth rock-solid truth is that when you are in Christ, you are strong. Let’s read our passage again:

14 I write to you, dear children,
    because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
    because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
    because you are strong,

If you’re like me, you don’t always feel very strong, but our strength isn’t in ourselves. Remember what Luther said, “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing; were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing.”

It’s the Holy Spirit within us that makes us strong, able to withstand the difficulties, able to advance the cause.

I recently read one of the most gripping stories I’ve ever seen. The book was entitled In Peril on the Sea, and it was by Robert W. Bell, who, as a child, had lived through a horrendous crisis. The hero was his mother, missionary Ethel Bell. Ethel was a widow, but she served faithfully with her small children as missionaries in Africa. In 1942, Axis powers overran the African Colonies, and Ethel had to take her children and evacuate. They boarded a ship bound for home, but on the high sea that ship was torpedoed by a German submarine, and it sank in less than two minutes. Ethel gathered her children and ended up on an eight-by-ten raft with 19 people, including 14 sailors. No one knew the ship had sunk, and sharks constantly swam around the raft. During the day, they were exposed to blazing sunlight, and at night they shivered. Little Robert was among them, and years later when he wrote this story he said:

[My mother] could feel her energy draining away. Three nights without sleep and the constant watching over the four children in her care had left her with no reserve for tension. For the first time she felt a wave of weakness, a flood tide of discouragement and self-pity sweeping her away from her strong moorings in hope. She seemed so helpless, so outnumbered. How much longer could her faith hold out before it cracked and gave way to the realities of their circumstances? They were lost at sea! Now the men were threatening to fight among themselves. The captain had lost his strength. How long would it be before ultimate disaster struck and they all found themselves devoured by the sharks? It could happen! What could prevent it?

But then, Bible verses began coming into her mind. She began to quote Scripture aloud, including Psalm 34: “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him and were radiant.”

Later that night, while the men moaned in restlessness and cursed their misfortune, Ethel Bell watched the moon passing among the silhouettes of clouds. It had been a more difficult day than any since the shipwreck—perhaps the most difficult she had faced since George’s death six and a half years before. But in spite of her own discouragement and seeming lack of faith, she had somehow been able to restore faith for others. Out of her emptiness had come fullness; out of her weakness, strength.

And that leads us directly to the final rock-solid reality of the born-again Christian.

6. The Word of God Lives [Abides] in You

Our strength comes because the Word of God lives in us. Let’s read this passage one more time:

14 I write to you, dear children,
    because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
    because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
    because you are strong,
    and the word of God lives in you,
    and you have overcome the evil one.

The word “lives” is the same word that Jesus used in the Upper Room and is often translated “abides.” The Word of God abides in you. In John 15:7, Jesus said, If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

When we abide in Christ, we want His words to abide in us. That simply requires study and, if I can say so, memorization of Scripture. On that raft, Ethel Bell didn’t have a Bible. The ship had sunk in five minutes, before anyone could gather anything. But she had portions of God’s Word in her mind, and that was her Bible.

Kenneth Berding is a professor at Talbot School of Theology. He has an excellent article on how to memorize Scripture. He learned this from his favorite professor, who was 90 years old at the time. It’s a matter of selecting the portion of Scripture you want to learn, and then saying it out loud and with expression fifty or more times over a period of days.

You don’t really try to memorize it, as such. You just keep reading it aloud with expression until you discover that you know it. Right now I’m doing that with a passage here in 1 John—chapter 3 and verses 1 through 3:

Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! And so forth.

Everyone else in the world may try to intimidate us. We may have deserters and deconstructionists and those who sound virtuous by their false philosophies and dangerous ideas.

Don’t be rattled by that; just be rock-solid, because…

Your sins have been forgiven.You know the Lord Jesus Christ.You have overcome the evil one.You know the Father.You are strong.And the Word of God abides in you.

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Published on December 13, 2023 11:05

December 9, 2023

Don’t Be Rattled; Be Righteous

A Study of 1 John 2:3-11

Introduction

Whenever I write a book, if possible we also publish a separate study guide. Some people use the study guide individually, but it’s most often used for small groups. Many Christian books have study guides, which are designed to help readers apply the content set forth in the main book. Sometimes I write the study guide; other times people on our staff do. But the purpose is always the same. We want people to think about and assimilate the truth about which we are writing. We want it to be real and relevant to daily life.

I think we can call 1 John a study guide for the gospel of John. The apostle John covers the same territory, emphasizes the same themes, and makes the content of His Gospel relevant to daily life. The relationship between the Gospel of John and the book of 1 John is remarkable. But while the gospel of John is narrative and doctrine, the book of 1 John is practical and conducive to application.

So we are studying the study guide for the gospel of John, and that study guide is this small epistle of 1 John. Today we’re coming to chapter 2, verses 3 through 11:

Scripture

3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.

9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. 10 Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. 11 But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.

Background

If you’ve been listening to these studies, you know the proposed background. John wrote and began to circulate his Gospel, the Fourth Gospel, which emphasizes the fact that Jesus is both God and man, and that He both died and rose again.

But there were nominal believers in the church without strong theological foundations. They had a strong Hellenistic background, and they held gnostic-like views. They reacted to John’s Gospel, criticized him, rejected him, and probably they said, “He was a great man in his day, but now he is old and senile.”

These critics left the churches. There was a population drain from the churches in that area, which was very alarming, especially to those who stayed behind. They were berated and criticized by the deserters, who planted doubts in the minds of those who remained true. They said, “You are as foolish as John and as senile.” So the people who remained in the churches were riddled with doubt and insecurity. John wrote this letter to give them answers and assurances. That’s why the book of 1 John is so rich in talking about the assurance we have in all aspects of our salvation.

In this passage, John comforts and strengthens his people with three biblical ideas.

1. Genuine Christians Have an Assured Faith

First, he told them they had an assured faith. The theme of this paragraph is in the first nine words: “We know that we have come to know Him….” That’s really the theme of the entire book. This is a theme that threads itself through every verse of this letter.

I want you to notice something about this. In the gospel of John, the apostle states his purpose for writing it at the end of the book. He does the same thing in this letter of 1 John. These two statements of purpose are very similar, yet there is a distinct differentiation between them.

John 20:30-31: Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.1 John 5:13: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

John wrote his gospel so that we would have the information we need to believe in Christ and thereby to have eternal life. He wrote his first letter to those of us who have done that, to reassure us that we may know we have eternal life.

And so 1 John 2:3 says, “We know that we have come to know Him….”

One of my favorite Gospel Songs talks about this assurance:

Jesus, what a friend for sinners,

Jesus, lover of my soul.

Friends my fail me, foes assail me,

He, my Savior, makes me whole.

Hallelujah, what a Savior! Hallelujah, what a friend!

Saving, helping, keeping, loving

He is with me to the end.

The song was written by evangelist J. Wilbur Chapman, who came to Christ as a teenager. He decided to prepare for the ministry, but he began to have doubts about his salvation. Was he really saved? Was he really going to heaven? One day he had the opportunity to talk with the famous evangelist, D. L. Moody, and he confessed to him that he had no assurance of salvation. He didn’t know if he was really saved.

Moody quoted John 5:24, which says, “Very truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to live.”

Moody said something like this: “Have you heard the Gospel and believed in Christ?”

The young man said, “Yes.”

“Then do you have eternal life?”

“That’s just it,” said Chapman. “I don’t know for sure.”

“Well,” said Moody, “see here, young man. Whom are you doubting?”

In a flash, Chapman realized his lack of assurance was really the sin of doubting the plain-spoken words of Christ, and from that moment on he had assurance. And he went on to write the hymn I love: “Jesus, what a friend for sinners; Jesus, lover of my soul.”

The apostle John has always been an excellent source of encouragement for people who are doubting their salvation, and here in verse 3 he tells us we can know that we know Him. We can have an assured faith.

2. Genuine Christians Have an Improved Life

But let’s go on with verse three. There is a conditional statement. The verse says: We know that we have come to know him if we keep His commands.

What does he mean by His commands? Does he mean we have to perfectly keep the Ten Commandments? That doesn’t seem to be what John means. The key to understanding this is to see how he uses the word “command” in his book of 1 John. He uses this word a total of fourteen times. As we read through the book, it becomes clear he uses it in a very specialized and limited way.

Look at 1 John 3:21, where John wrote: “And this is His command: to believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.”

In other words, on the basis of the finished work of Christ on the cross, we enter into an authentic relationship with the living God, and His Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us. The Holy Spirit brings with Him a divine, supernatural kind of love that the Bible calls agape. Suddenly we find ourselves beginning to be concerned with the physical, emotional, spiritual, and eternal needs of people around us.

Let’s go on to verses 4 and 6: Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

John does not say that when you come to Christ, all your problems will be solved and all your difficulties will go away. What he does say is that we begin the process of learning to live as Jesus did. We begin the process of becoming more Christlike.

Let me show you another verse about this. Over in 1 John 4, we have verse 17. Notice the very last part of the verse: In this world we are like Jesus.

This is our improved life. We live as Jesus did. In this world we are like Jesus. The way this works is gradual and very simple. When we receive Jesus as our Savior and make Him the Lord of lives, the Holy Spirit comes into us—into our bodies, minds, and souls. He takes the Scripture we are reading, the truth we are absorbing, the sermons we are hearing, the problems we are facing—He takes all of it and uses it to gradually create in us a Christlike personality.

If none of that has happened in your life, you cannot have assurance of salvation. But we know that we know Him if we have trusted in His name and He is beginning to do a work of sanctification and transformation inside of us.

As I researched this sermon, I found the testimony of a man named Larry Nemitz of Minnesota. When he was a boy, he gathered with his parents to watch a Billy Graham Crusade on their black-and-white Zenith television set. As Larry listened, he believed, and he literally felt a bolt of electric power running through him. From that point, he believed in God. But as a teenager and young man he didn’t live for the Lord. Years later, while reading a Christian book and listening to Christian messages on cassette tapes, he prayed again to receive Christ as Savior with greater understanding.

He said, “This time no power came upon me, and I wondered why. After eight to ten months of listening to [the] tapes and studying the Bible and asking Jesus into my life, I realized that even without the feeling of power, I was changing. I stopped swearing, stopped going to bars to meet the ladies, and I couldn’t get enough of studying my Bible. A deep desire began to grow in me to share the salvation message….”

Nemitz admitted that he didn’t know if he was truly saved or not at age 12, but he gained assurance of salvation when he reconfirmed his decision and saw how the Lord was changing his habits.

Look again at this paragraph of Scripture:

3 We know that we have come to know Him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know Him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in Him: 6 Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did.

The truly born-again Christian has an assured faith, an improved life, and thirdly a distinctive love.

3. Genuine Christians Have a Distinctive Love

Let’s continue with verses 7 and 8:

This sounds like a riddle doesn’t it? I am not writing you a new command, yet I am writing you a new command. What does John mean?

There is virtual agreement among commentators that John is talking about the command to love one another. That is the Old Command. Look, for example, at the next book in the Bible, or the next letter—2 John, and verse 5: And now, dear lady I am not writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that you love one another.

What is the New Command? Look at John 13:34, where Jesus said: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

John was using a kind of riddle to emphasize his point. He was saying: I’m not telling you something new, but something old—love one another. I’m not telling you something old, but something new—love one another.

The command to love one another went back to the Old Testament, where the two greatest commandments were to love God and to love one another. But when Jesus came, He personified love and made it available to us in a fresh way by His Holy Spirit.

Romans 5:5 says, “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

We’re not very good at loving God or others in our own fallen, sinful personalities. But when we are yielded to and walking with and filled with the Holy Spirit, the love of God is spread abroad in our hearts and we’re able to love even the unlovable.

One commentator said, “To walk as Christ walked is to put in practice the old commandment and so make it new (ever new and fresh), as love is as old as man and fresh in every new experience.”

Recently I read a fascinating article by Karl Faase, who leads a Christian ministry called Olive Tree Media. The story was about Karl’s father, Hans, who was born in Germany in 1932. Like all young people of that era, he was in the Hitler Youth Movement, though not by choice. When he was eleven years old, he was put on a train with other children to be taken away to fight in the war. His mother bravely pulled him off the train. If she had been caught they both would have been killed. After the war, Hans snuck out at night to steal potatoes to keep his family alive.

In 1955, he immigrated to Australia, met a woman named Florence, and got married. But inside he was full of turmoil. He said there were dark spots inside of him because of his family’s dysfunction and his upbringing and the Hitler movement. His relationships were unhealthy and dysfunctional.

Then a new pastor came to their town who had been influenced by the Billy Graham crusades. He held an evangelistic mission, and Hans attended. During the course of the meetings Hans trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior. Here is what he said:

He spent the next day working on the farm and then as he returned back to their home on the property, he wrote:

Going home that night seemed to be something special. The two boys came running to meet me and hand in hand we walked home. Florence seemed to have a different aura about her too. Things just seemed to be different and a pleasure to be in. But the truth was, at that moment, I had no idea what it was about or the reason for it.

As time went by, he realized what the difference was: Jesus had come into his heart and was beginning to teach him how to truly love others.

Now, John goes on to make this explicit in the last part of our paragraph:

Here again John is talking especially about the deserters, about those leaving the church because they were rejecting the implications of the Gospel of John, which the apostle had recently published. John was saying, those who are deconstructing their faith and rejecting the true identity and Lordship of Jesus Christ are walking in darkness. They cannot be channels of His love. They don’t know what they’re doing or where they’re going. They don’t love you.

But because you belong to Christ, you have an assured faith, an improved life, and a distinctive love. You are walking in the light as He is in the light. You have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

Conclusion

This is a good time to ask yourself if you are certain you know Christ as Savior. This is a part of my own testimony. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t trusting Jesus as my Savior. I grew up in a very Gospel-filled family and church, and from infancy I heard about Jesus Christ. I grew up praying and reading my Bible and feeling I had a relationship with Christ.

Then when I was twelve years old or so, an evangelist came to our church and preached about the danger of thinking you are saved when, in fact, you are not. A lot of people are cultural Christians. Maybe they have a Gospel background; maybe they go to church; perhaps they’ve even been baptized. But their lives have never been touched and transformed by the blood of Christ. He told us we needed to make sure, to know for sure.

That evening I went home troubled. What if I’m not really a Christian? I was too shy to talk to anyone about it, but I went in the bathroom, which I knew was private, and I knelt down and prayed something like this: “Dear Lord, I think I’m a Christian, and if I am, I thank you. But if I’m not, I want to become your child right now. Please, if you’re not in my heart, come in right now.”

And then I got up, left the bathroom, and have felt assurance of my salvation ever since.

Perhaps someone listening needs to do the same. Nail it down. Make sure. And let the Lord Jesus Christ give you an assured faith, an improved life, and a distinctive love.

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Published on December 09, 2023 19:08

Don’t Be Rattled; Be Reassured

A Study of 1 John 1:5 – 2:2

Introduction

Recently while traveling through Europe, I boarded a train and was seated directly across from a gentleman who looked as if he had come right out of central casting in the role of an old KGB agent. He looked like one of the old spy handlers in a Bourne or Mission Impossible movie. He was dressed in a rumpled suit and tie, and he spoke English with a heavy accent. He was clearly an advocate for the Russian government. I said, “Tell me what’s going on in Russia.” He said, “When it comes to Russia you cannot understand her; you can only love her.”

I said, “What do you think of Vladimir Putin?” He said Putin is answering to many different groups, but that Russia always has time, that Russia is patient, and that Putin knows this. I said, “What do you think about the war in Ukraine?” He shrugged and said, “What is the Ukraine but Russia? And what is war but diplomacy by another name.”

I shared the Gospel with him, going through the plan of salvation a couple of times because of the language difficulties. He understood what I was saying and he replied, “I wish that I could believe as simply as you do.”

I said, “But you can,” and quoted John 3:16 to him.

As the train pulled into the station he looked at me with a weary smile and said, “I’m sorry this has not been a relaxing conversation, but then, these are not relaxing times.”

With that we ended our conversation with something we could agree on. These are not relaxing times. So how do we navigate these difficult times? It’s easy to be rattled all the time. That’s why we have this letter from John. The whole book of 1 John was written to give us assurance, more assurance, reassurance, and more reassurance.

Background

To understand what John is saying we have to know something of the background of this book. In his commentary, Dr. Colin Kruse gives us a brilliant idea as to what caused the apostle John to write this letter. He suggests that near the end of his life John published his Gospel, the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John. This Gospel, more than any other, stresses the duel nature of Christ—that He is both God and human. John stresses the deity of Jesus Christ. In a multitude of ways, John tells us that Jesus Christ was, is, and always will be Almighty God. The climactic point in the Gospel of John is when Thomas cried out to Jesus, saying, “My Lord and my God!”

John sent his Gospel abroad, especially among the churches in Asia Minor over which he had responsibility. Some of the people, particularly those with strong Hellenistic backgrounds, thought John was going too far. They said, “John is old and senile. If you continue to listen to what he says and read what he writes, you are foolish.”

It precipitated the desertion of large numbers of people from John’s churches. The key to all this is 1 John 2:18:

18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.

John said in effect, “A lot of people have left us. They have left our churches. Their propaganda has made you feel like you’re foolish for not joining them. Some of you feel hurt and troubled and unsure of yourself and your beliefs. But don’t be rattled; Be reassured.”

Let me quote from Dr Kruse: “(John’s) Readers needed… reassurance because their confidence had been shaken by the propaganda of the successionists…. (His) primary aim in writing 1 John was to assure his readers whose confidence had been shaken by the activities of the successionists (or defectors). Assurance, then, is a pervading theme in this letter….”

Today let’s focus on the second paragraph of the letter—1 John 1:5 – 2:2.

Scripture

5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

John’s opening statement is that God is light, without a flicker of darkness. The terms light and darkness are used symbolically or metaphorically many ways in Scripture. The context here suggests that what John is saying is this: God is so pure, perfect, holy, and faultless that there is not the tiniest trace of sin, pride, selfishness, or any impurity in Him.

You know how it feels when you wake up in the middle of the night and turn on a light. It hurts your eyes. Even staring at a light bulb for a few seconds can hurt your eyes. The flash of the camera can blind you for a moment. When the solar eclipse occurred a couple of years ago we all had to wear very dark glasses to protect our eyes. God is a billion times brighter, infinitely brighter, than any light we can ever imagine. His holiness radiates the light of all the stars and suns in the heavens combined, multiplied by billions.

Based on that, John now makes three statements with contrasting ifs. He says, first, “If we do this or if we do that.” And then again: “If we do this or if we do that.” And a third time: “If we do this or if we do that.”

He is contrasting those who are wrong with those who are right. He is drawing a contrast between those who have deserted the churches and left, and those who have remained.

If We Claim to Have Fellowship

Let’s look at the first set of ifs in verses 5 through 7:

5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.

The deserters claimed they had a relationship with God, that they had fellowship with Him, yet they had rejected the Gospel truth about Jesus Christ and were not living out the kind of life Jesus exemplified and exhorted us to have. John said they were lying. He said they were wrong, despite all their claims to high moral caliber.

This is precisely what is happening in our own day. Anti-Christians are popularizing every kind of devious moral choice and pronouncing it normal, healthy, to be celebrated. I read a children’s book recently that’s being used in some schools. The title was It’s Perfectly Normal. Inside were drawings and explanations of all kinds of sexual activities, and the message of the book is that everything you feel like doing is normal.

But saying so doesn’t make it so. If we claim a form of godliness and yet walk in darkness, we are lying. We are not living out the truth. How many people today claim to have fellowship with God but walk in the darkness!

But here is the counterpoint. Verse 7 says: “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”

What does it mean to walk in the light? John is using some of the same language that he used in beginning of His Gospel. In the Gospel of John, chapter 1, John wrote about Jesus, saying:

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

To walk in the light means to receive Jesus, to believe Jesus, to be a child of God because of what Jesus did for us, and to emulate Him.

If that’s true we have fellowship with one another.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used this verse in officiating weddings. I could do so because Katrina and I proved it true in our own experience. My wife, Katrina, and I were very different. But we were both committed to Jesus Christ, and we had both been taught to start every day with our daily Quiet Time, during which we went to our respective desks and we both read and studied the Bible and prayed. At the end of the day, we joined together in prayer. Neither of us was perfect, but we both had a relationship with the Lord, and that was the glue that kept us together. That glue never cracked, or dried up, or lost its adhesive power.

If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and furthermore, the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord cleanses us from all sin. John is only seven verses into his letter, yet he has already brought up the cleansing power of the blood of Christ.

Yellow Fever is an infectious disease spread by mosquito bites, and there are still outbreaks in Africa and South America. It’s called yellow fever because many of those sick with it develop jaundice. In 1925 the Rockefeller Foundation determined to find a vaccine to protect people from yellow fever. Their efforts failed until they found a 28-year-old man in Ghana named Asibi. He had a case of Yellow Fever. He was sitting on a stool, his head in his hands, and he had a temperature of 103 degrees. Mosquitoes were swarming around him. The doctors took blood samples from him, and there was something about his blood that was efficacious in developing a serum. From his blood came a vaccine, which is still being used today, nearly a hundred years later. That man’s blood has saved millions of lives.

But that’s nothing compared to the blood of Christ. His blood cleanses us from sin, and not just sin but from all sin.

If We Claim to Be Without Sin

And that leads us to the second contrasting set of ifs:

John was still thinking of those who had flooded out of his churches. Some were telling the others that there is never a need to ask forgiveness. They had a set of beliefs that in some way, they thought, rendered them sinless. We aren’t sure about the details of what they were saying, but at some level they were claiming a kind of sinless perfection.

These deserters were making the others feel insecure and uncertain. But John said, “Don’t be rattled. These people are deceiving themselves. We must learn to confess our sins, because God is faithful to all of the promises He has made about forgiving us. He is a just God who provided salvation through the sacrifice of His Son. When we confess our sins He will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Several years ago I was preaching about this on a Sunday night. The house lights were low, and I made a comment about keeping short accounts with God. By that I meant we shouldn’t let our sins or bad habits or mistakes or bad attitudes accumulate. As soon as we realize we’ve disappointed the Lord, we should confess it. Suddenly I heard a man shout out from the back of the room. He said, “Sir, Sir, that isn’t right!” I saw the silhouette of a young man standing in the congregation near the back, and he went on to say that when we receive Jesus Christ as Savior all of our sins are forgiven—past, present, and future. We are totally forgiven. We are eternally forgiven. And we never need to confess our sins again.

I thought that was a very good point, which deserved an answer. What I didn’t realize at the time was that everybody in the room had suddenly become wide awake, shocked by the interruption, and afraid. There had been some violent incidents in churches, and just as I was trying to answer the young man I saw several big ushers surround him and lead him out of the room.

Nevertheless, even in his absence I went on to answer his question. It is absolutely true that when we receive Jesus Christ we are made righteous in God’s sight and all our sins are forgiven—past, present, and future. We are saved, safe, and secure. Let’s say, for example, that a born again Christian man was walking down the street and saw a scantily clad woman. An arrow of lust goes through his heart. In his distraction he steps off the curb and is stuck and killed by a car. I believe, based on the mercy and grace of God and on the blood of Christ, that man would go to heaven, even though his last conscious thought was sinful and he had no opportunity to confess it.

But even though our sins don’t cause us to lose our salvation, they do grieve the Holy Spirit. They quench the Spirit. They damage the vitality of our Christian life and hinder our fellowship with the Lord. That’s why we confess them. We want to abide in Christ and have unhindered fellowship with the Lord day and night.

When I was a boy I drove my father’s tractor into a tree and broke the headlight. He would have understood and worked with me to fix it, except that I tried to hide it from him. When he found out, he was angry with me because I had not been honest. Was I still his son? Yes. He never disowned me. But until I apologized and was honest and sought his forgiveness, there was a darkness over our fellowship.

Is there anything in your life you need to confess to the Lord? Anything that hinders your fellowship with Him and your walk with God? John said:

If We Claim We Have Not Sinned

Now we come to the final set of contrasting ifs.

10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

These apostates and deserters were saying they were doing the right thing by leaving the church and rejecting the Christ of the Fourth Gospel. They said they were not sinning. They said they could ignore what John was writing; they could ignore his ministry; they could ignore the Fourth Gospel; and they would be right to do so. They would not be sinning.

But John said to those who remained, in essence, “Actually, everything that I have written is a preventative for sin. If you will read my Gospel and if you pay attention to this letter, it will help combat sin in your life. But if and when you do sin, you can be sure of this: You have an advocate up in heaven representing you before the Father. It is Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and for the sins of the whole world.”

Conclusion

One of my heroes is Bill Bright, who founded Campus Crusade for Christ, or Cru. When he first started serving the Lord, he struggled with certain attitudes. He tended to be proud and demanding. He snapped at people. He was selfish, and he sometimes felt defeated and frustrated.

He compared himself to Romans 7, where Paul said that what he wanted to do he often didn’t; and the things he didn’t want to do, those he did. Dealing with temptation can be very difficult. On the one hand we want to serve Christ with all of our hearts; on the other hand our sinful nature gets in the way.

One night in Portland, Oregon, a particular biblical pattern flashed into Bill Bright’s mind. He noticed what happened when he was breathing. He would exhale carbon dioxide and pollutants and things his body did not need. Then he would inhale fresh air and oxygen. This process was so continuous it was almost unconscious.

He realized his spiritual respiratory system worked in the same way. The Holy Spirit is compared in the Bible to wind and air. We breathe in the Holy Spirit, we fill our lungs and our hearts with the Spirit. We pray for His fullness and yield to His influence. We breathe out and exhale our confessions and our sins.

The Cru booklet about this says:

Spiritual breathing (exhaling the impure and inhaling the pure) is an exercise in faith that enables you to continue to experience God’s love and forgiveness.

Exhale — Confess your sin — agree with God concerning your sin and thank Him for His forgiveness of it, according to 1 John 1:9 and Hebrews 10:1-25. Confession involves repentance — a change in attitude and action. Inhale — Surrender the control of your life to Christ and appropriate (receive) the fullness of the Holy Spirit by faith. Trust that He now directs and empowers you according to the command of Ephesians 5:18 and the promise of 1 John 5:14-15.

We are not living in relaxing times. But we don’t need to be rattled. We can be reassured. We can breathe. God has given us His Word so that we will not sin. But if any of us do sin, we have an Advocate speaking on our behalf before the throne of God. It is Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but for the sins of the whole world.

So don’t be rattled, be relieved. Be redeemed. Be reassured.

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Published on December 09, 2023 18:46

August 27, 2023

This and That

The Prologue of 1 John

1 John 1:1-4

Introduction

Has anyone ever caused you doubt your beliefs?

Has anyone said: “Do you really believe that nonsense about Jesus Christ? Do you really believe the stories about a big fish swallowing a man? About someone turning water into wine? About someone returning to life after death? Don’t you know that heaven is simply a fairy tale?”

I’ve faced all those questions and more, and I’ve studied through them and I’m intellectually convinced of the truthfulness and trustworthiness of Scripture. But what about you? Have other people sowed troubling doubts in your mind?

That happened in the days of the apostle John and to the people in his churches. He answered by writing the epistle of First John. It begins with this eloquent and powerful prologue. We’ll draw out seven incredible factors of our faith:

Scripture: 1 John 1:1-4

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.

Background

Many people say the book of 1 John is the most difficult to outline and organize in the Bible. But after studying it over and over again, I think I have begun to understand the way this book is structured, and why.

We have to figure out why John wrote this letter to begin with. The person who has helped me the most with this is Dr. Colin Kruse in his very excellent commentary on 1 John.

The apostle John was now the last surviving member of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He’s the elderly bishop of Ephesus and he oversees the churches in that area, looking to present his Christian memoirs. So he wrote the Fourth Gospel. In that Gospel he stated emphatically that Jesus Christ was, is, and always will be almighty God. Jesus was and is God Himself who was made flesh and dwelt among us, who died and was resurrected, and who did so to give us fellowship—a relationship—with God.

This literal view of the dual nature of Jesus Christ, both God and man, both dead and resurrected, was too much for some of the Greek-oriented thinkers that populated the churches in John’s region. Their philosophical background made it difficult for them to accept this, so they began leaving the churches.

After these skeptics began leaving the churches, those who remained no longer had assurance they could believe what John was saying. The defectors had planted doubts in their minds. So John wrote 3 letters to deal with this crisis: 1, 2, and 3 John. His basic message was—we are right and they are wrong.

The key to the whole book is in chapter 2, verses 19 and 20: They [these deserters] went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.

In other words, you know the truth. You are on the right side of this, and they are wrong. Don’t be bullied, don’t be dismayed, don’t be spooked, and don’t let people plant spurious doubts in your mind.

In this first letter, John is going to give his listeners (and all of us) one assurance after another, one affirmation after another, that we are right and they are wrong. But he began with this wonderful, beautiful prologue, which summarizes in four verses the 21 chapters of his recently-published Gospel, which had provoked such a reaction. And in that prologue he very clearly gives us seven faith factors that undergird our Christian beliefs.

1. Jesus is God. He Has Been God From The Beginning

Let’s begin with verse one: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched….

This is very similar to the way that John began his gospel. The gospel of John, chapter one, verse one, says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Now, I want to take a moment to explain something. When the Jews of the first century went into their synagogues for worship, the Hebrew version of the Scripture was often read. But most of the people in the New Testament era spoke Greek or Aramaic. So Jewish scholars developed a series of Aramaic-speaking commentaries and paraphrases of the Old Testament, and these were called Targums (an Aramaic word meaning translation). We have written Targums going back to the second and third centuries, but they were based on earlier ones, on oral targums dating back to before the first century. In these targums, the Jewish scholars didn’t want to use the holy name of Yahweh, so they substituted the Aramaic word Memra.

Memra was the Aramaic term for Word.

I’ll give you just one example. Genesis 15:6 says, “Abraham believed Yahweh.” In the Targums, it said, “Abraham believed Memra.”

He believed the Word, meaning he believed God.

The Aramaic term Memra is the same as the Greek term Logos. And this was John’s name for Jesus: “In the beginning was the Memra or Logos.” John’s listeners would have known the term Logos was the term by which they identified Yahweh. They would have known in the first sentence of his Gospel that he was presenting Jesus Christ as God Himself. Look at the Gospel of John 1:1-4 and 14:

In the beginning was the Memra or Logos—God the Word, and God the Word was with God, and God the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him—God the Word—all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

God the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So emphatically was John claiming that Jesus was God that some-shallow thinking Greek attenders of the churches were shocked. That’s why they began leaving the churches. But in the prologue of his epistle John doubled down on his assertion. He was not going to yield the point. Yet he also makes it abundantly clear that Jesus Christ was also fully human.

2. Jesus is Human

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched….

This is John’s way of telling us that Jesus Christ was God who also became human. He said we heard him speak with our ears, we saw his face with our eyes, we touched his body with our hands. He wasn’t vapor, He wasn’t spirit, He wasn’t a phantom; He was literal physical flesh and blood.

3. Jesus Died and Rose Again

Third, Jesus was dead and He came back to life. You say, “Where is that in this sentence?” Well, it’s a clear allusion to what John said at the end of His Gospel, in John 20. John said that when Jesus first appeared to the disciples after the resurrection, Thomas was absent. Thomas later said, “I don’t believe it. Unless I feel the scars on His body, I will not believe.” The next week Jesus appeared again, and this time Thomas was present. Jesus said, “Here, look at My wounds, look at My scars, put your hands here and touch Me. Fill Me, and stop doubting but believe.” John said that he and the other disciples had felt, and with their hands had handled, the resurrected body of the Messiah.

So in the first half-sentence of his epistle, John doubled down on the fact that Jesus was both God and man, both slain and resurrected.

4. I’m Never Going To Stop Proclaiming This Message

Now let’s go on to the last part of verse one: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

Here John again uses the term Logos to identify Jesus Christ, and he said, “I’m going to proclaim this from the housetops.”

I love that word proclaim. John was being assertive. He was doubling down. He was retreating not an inch. He was going to keep on proclaiming the truth about Jesus.

Something amazing happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s among young people in America: the Jesus revolution or the Jesus movement. And the unofficial song of this movement said, “I’ll shout it from the mountaintops, I want my world to know the Lord of love has come to me, I want to pass it on.” And that has been the driving desire of my life ever since. And all the ways available to us, we want to shout it from the rooftops and from the mountaintops. This we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

Can you believe that all of this tremendous content is contained in simply the very first verse of this little book of First John?

5. This Is The Message of Eternal Life.

Now let’s go on with verse two. John is going to repeat himself and take things a bit further, as he unrolls his content sentence by sentence and thought by thought.

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

There’s a kind of progressive parallelism here. John is repeating himself, but taking matters a little further. He said, in effect, “Jesus Christ dwelled with God the Father and highest heaven but He came down to earth and appeared to us, and we saw Him with our eyes. As long as I live, I’m going to testify about this and to proclaim it to you, because it is the source and the secret of eternal life.”

No one in the Bible loved talking about eternal life more than the apostle John. It was one of the great themes of his Gospel. In the fourth gospel, he said:

… whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life (3:36)Very truly I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life (5:24).For My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day (6:40). Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in Me has eternal life (6:47). I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish (10:28).

We have that kind of talk all the way through the Gospel of John, and also all the way through the First epistle of John. One of His glorious themes is that because Jesus is both God and human, both slain and resurrected, we have the potential of living forever, everlastingly, eternally.

The Christian Broadcasting Network recently carried the story of Tina Hines, who had a cardiac emergency and whose heart stopped beating. Emergency responders got her to the hospital, restored her heartbeat, and put her on a ventilator. The next morning after they removed the ventilator and Tina woke up, her husband placed a pencil and notebook in her hands and she wrote two words. They were difficult to make out, but he finally recognized that she had written “It’s Real!” He said, “What is real? The pain? The hospital?” But no, she was referring to heaven. During her time of unconsciousness she had evidently come face to face with Jesus and with heaven. Now she has an entirely new perspective on death and dying.

Stories like that are intriguing, but we don’t base our theology or our beliefs on them. We base our assurance of eternal life on the resurrection of Jesus Christ and on the biblical promises regarding Heaven. And based on that, we can say with full assurance and total confidence, “It’s real!”

6. This is the Basis of All Enduring Relationships

Now, let’s go on to verse 3 and we can add another point to John’s reasoning:

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

The idea of fellowship is having a wonderful, personal, active relationship with someone. When you meet another Christian anywhere in the world, there is an unusual bond that is difficult to describe. Recently I got a taxicab from my hotel to the train station in Naples, Italy. As we bounced through the streets, I noticed that on the driver’s dashboard he had a fish symbol with the word JESUS in it. I told him that I liked his symbol. He said in broken English, “Jesus! He’s Number One. He is my life!” I told him the same.

When we arrived at the train station, I gave him a friendly pat on the back and said, “My brother in Christ!” On the curb there were two young men who appeared to be in their 20s. They were Brazilians who had just arrived at the train station and needed a taxicab. When they heard me say, “My brother in Christ,” they cried out, “Us too! Us too!” They said they were Jesus’ followers who were traveling in Italy.

I expect that in the coming ages in heaven we’ll look each other up and revisit the experience.. It’s our commonality in Christ that gives us a kind of relationship that nobody else has in the world, and it’s because our fellowship it’s not just with one another. It is with the Lord Himself – it is with Christ. Look at verse three again:

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

7. This Brings Unspeakable Joy to Our Lives

Now, there is one more thing to say. Look at verse 4:

We write this to make our joy complete.

This is one of those times when we have a text critical issue. Some old Greek manuscripts say, “We write this to make your joy complete.” Others say, “…our joy.” And both are true. The reality of what John is talking about gives us all joy. It gives us joy unspeakable and full of glory.

It’s taken me about a half-century to begin to understand and practice the joy of the Lord. Even now, I don’t practice the joy of the Lord perfectly. We all have different personalities, some melancholy by nature. But I’m a far different person now; I have more of the joy of the Lord in me.

How do we develop it? John said, “I am writing something to you. I am giving you some inspired Scripture. And if you study it, I will have more joy and you will have more joy.”

Perhaps he was thinking of what he had earlier written in his Gospel of John, when he quoted Jesus as saying, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

The Psalmist said, “Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart” (Psalm 119:111).

Jeremiah said, “When Your words came, I ate them; and they became unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jeremiah 1:16).

As we prayerfully and patiently study this wonderful book, there’s something about it that feeds and fuels our joy. And that’s our seventh faith factor:

This living relationship brings unspeakable joy to our lives every day by what we read in God’s Word.

So don’t let anyone undercut your faith. There will always be detractors and defectors. But remember this powerful prologue to John’s letter.

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Published on August 27, 2023 14:49

August 6, 2023

Just a Humble Little Boat

Introduction: I want to tell you about Father’s Day: not the holiday, but the boat. It’s a very small bright red boat that was designed and built by a man named Hugo Vihlen. He built his small vessel and named it Father’s Day. It was only five-feet-four-inches long. He woke up every hour during the night to check his bearings, and as a result he never drifted off course. He sailed across the Atlantic in 105 days in 1993. Father’s Day, now in a museum in England, still holds the world record for being the smallest vessel to cross the Atlantic.

I want to tell you about another small boat that was even more spectacular. You know, we don’t have to be large or great or famous or wealthy to be used in this world by our almighty God. The Bible says, “God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things–and the things that are no–to overturn the things that are, so that no one might boast before Him” The Lord Jesus specializes in using humble, human dads and moms and all manner of Christians.

Let me tell you about one little fishing boat from Galilee; it’s not a speed boat, a yacht, or a cruise ship. God isn’t so interested in razzle-dazzle, but in the run-of-the-mill, given over to Him. It’s not the sensation that He uses, but the humble. It isn’t the extravagant, but the everyday. Not the theatrical, but the ordinary.

So let’s study the biography of this little boat.

A Message That Instructs Us

First, we learn from this fishing boat that Jesus has a message that reveals information to us that we need. He came as a teacher, as an instructor, as someone who could tell us things we needed to hear in order to be healthy and holy and happy. He wasn’t just a proclaimer and motivator. He was a teacher and a rabbi. Look at Luke 5:1:

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret…

This message is very fresh in my mind because I was just there recently. I had the opportunity of leading 68 people on a trip to the Holy Land, and for three nights we stayed on the shore of this beautiful little lake, which was scooped out by God at the beginning of time to be the ministry arena of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lake of Gennesaret is another name for the Sea of Galilee. We think of the word “sea” as being somewhat equivalent to the word “ocean.” But the Sea of Galilee is simply a lake, and a relatively small lake at that. It is 13 miles long and only 8 miles wide at its widest point. It is harp-shaped, appropriately; and it is a beautiful spot. In fact, the word Gennesaret, which is used here, or the modern equivalent Ginosar means “garden of riches.” It speaks of the beauty of this natural lake in the hills of Galilee.

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around Him and listening to the Word of God.

Jesus didn’t come with fallible human opinions. It was God Himself speaking. If you want to know what God thinks, read the words of Jesus. If you want to know God’s insights into any subject, listen to Jesus. If you want the wisdom of God, listen to the words of Jesus.

Even as a child, our Lord’s words were profoundly divine. When He was twelve years old, He started asking questions and giving answers in the Jewish Temple among the rabbis, and it was said, “Everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers” (Luke 2:47).As a young man He went to His hometown synagogue and gave the sermon on a certain Sabbath day. Matthew 13:54 says: “He began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. ‘Where did this man get this wisdom…,’ they asked.”During His ministry, according to Mark 10:24, “The disciples were amazed at His words.”In John 7, the Jewish national leadership sent temple guards to arrest Jesus and bring Him to trial. These soldiers went and listened while Jesus spoke, and they were the ones who were arrested. They were arrested by the force of His words. Our Lord said things like, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within him.” The guards returned without their prisoner, and when the chief priests demanded to know why the mission failed, the guard simply said, “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46).Luke 4:22 says, “All spoke well of Him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His lips.”Luke 4:36 says, “All the people were amazed and said to each other, ‘What words these are!’”Luke 19:48 says, “The people hung on His words.”Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away” (Mark 13:31).He said, “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock” (Matthew 7:24).He said, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask whatever you will and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).

Jesus taught the Word of God, and He is even called the Word of God. If you want to hear the voice of God, read the Sermon on the Mount about everyday ethics and practical righteousness. Read the Olivet Discourse on the signs of the times and the end of the age. Study His Upper Room Discourse about peace and comfort and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Read the Parables of the Kingdom in Matthew 13, and the Bread of Life sermon in John 6, and the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Ponder His seven “I Am” statements in John’s Gospel and His seven last words on the cross.

The words of Jesus and the Word of God are synonymous and perfectly corresponding. The Bible says that He taught them the Word of God. Well, you can imagine that such a preacher would attract a large crowd and that’s what happened. According to Luke 5, so many people converged on the scene that Jesus was nearly pushed into the lake. Verse 2 says:

He saw by the water’s edge two boats, left there by fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then He sat down and taught the people from the boat.

Jesus knew how to turn a boat into a pulpit. This is one of the most beautiful scenes from the life of Jesus. Bobbing around in that little fishing boat, Jesus sat and taught as the crowds on the shore listened. The backdrop was the azure water of Galilee and, just beyond, the rising ascents of the Golan Heights. The water of the lake formed a natural sounding board to carry the tone and texture of His voice into the ears and hearts of His listeners.

There have been more elaborate pulpits, but never a more effective one. That little boat represents the greatest pulpit the world has ever known for the greater preacher who ever lived. And every time we read the red letters of the Gospels, we are standing in the crowds and hanging onto His words.

A Miracle That Changes Us

But that fishing boat, which represents the ministry of Jesus, also represents more

Verse 4 says: When He had finished speaking, He (Jesus) said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because You say so, I will let down the nets.”

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”

So they pulled their boats up to shore, left everything and followed Him.

When we hear His words and see His power, it causes us to confess our sins and leave everything to follow Him. John Piper, noted Christian author and pastor, wrote the book Don’t Waste Your Life. He begins by sharing a word of testimony. He wrote that his father was a traveling evangelist. The elder Piper often began with some humor, and then got into his text and into his subject. There would be a certain squint of his eye and tightening of his lips, and near the end would come an avalanche of biblical texts and a forceful appeal to come to Christ.

One night at the end of a sermon, an old man came forward. This was a man who had resisted the Gospel all his life, despite the prayers of many people. But that evening as the crowd dismissed, the man sat down with evangelist Piper and with many tears and much sobbing he gave his life to Jesus. But that didn’t stop the man’s weeping. In fact, he began sobbing and weeping even more, saying of his life, “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!” His happiness at being saved was tempered by his awareness his life was almost over and he had wasted many years on things that didn’t really matter.

Piper said, “This was the story that gripped me… In those early years God awakened in me a fear and a passion not to waste my life.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a fisherman; but in the case of these particular fishermen and boat owners, that was not God’s will for them. He wanted them to become fishers of men. He wanted to call them to missionary service. He wanted to send Peter and Andrew and James and John to the ends of the earth. So they pulled their boats up to shore, left everything, and followed Him.

The Lord has an individual plan for each of our lives. It doesn’t really matter whether it is big or small, whether here or there. The only thing that matters is our saying, “Lord, I don’t want my will but Yours to be done in my life. What would You have me do? What do You want me to do today? I’m here, reporting for duty, willing to follow You whatever it means.”

A Master Who Calms Us

Now, there is a third lesson in this old fishing boat. Turn over a few chapters to Luke 8, and let’s begin with verse 22:

One day Jesus said to the disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, He fell asleep. A squall came down the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”

He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” He asked His disciples.

In fear and amazement they asked on another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him.”

This image of an exhausted Jesus, sleeping on a cushion in the back of the boat as a storm arises, somehow speaks of our Lord’s humanity. And then His dramatic stilling of the storm tells us of His deity. But most of all, when He turns and rebukes His disciples for their fear, we come to understand that our Lord’s primary concern wasn’t the storm; it was the fear and unbelief of His disciples.

There are several stories in the gospel of the disciples on the sea of Galilee, and there were times when these seasoned sailors and fishermen were terrified. Jesus caused them to be led into places of tremendous stress. But He did it to teach them to trust Him. Sometimes we face storms in life, but the Lord always wants us to trust Him. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths, he will correct your paths, He will elect your paths, He will perfect your paths.

The Lord is always in control, even when it appears He is sleeping. And His primary concern isn’t the intensity of the winds or the turbulence of the waters; it’s whether or not we are trusting Him in the storm.

That little boat represents a Master who calms us. As the old hymn says: “No storm can swallow the ship where lies / The Master of ocean, and earth, and skies.”

If you’re in a storm today, the important thing is not the fierceness of the winds but the faith in your heart. Over the howling of the wind and the spray of the waves, we can often hear our Lord say: “Why are you so afraid? Where is your faith?”

A Mission that Engages Us

There were several occasions when the fishing boat became a missionary ship. Look at verse 26:

They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, He was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a longtime this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

Jesus cast the demons out of the man, and when the local townspeople came to investigate, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind.

Verse 37 says, Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So He got into the boat and left. The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with Him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.

Many a missionary has traveled to some harbor city, boarded a ship, and sailed off for the mission field. Prior to recent history, it was always by ship. In so doing, they were following the example of Jesus, who did just that very thing in Luke 8. He traveled across the lake and found one man who was in the grip of the devil.

How did the demons manifest themselves? This man was naked; he enjoyed casting off his clothing. He was loud. He was obsessed with death and with darkness. He was impure. He was ungovernable and self-destructive.

Whenever you look around you and you find a culture that is obsessed with nudity, with loudness, with impurity, with ungovernable self-destructive impulses – well, that’s a pretty good indication the devil has the upper hand. Those are indications that a culture is under demonic influences.

But even in such a place, here or there you’ll find a few people—in this case only one or perhaps two as we read the parallel accounts—who long for healing and holiness. And Jesus Christ saves us. He heals and helps us. He sets us free from Satan’s power. And He tells us, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” And so we go away and tell all over town how much Jesus has done for us. We’re all commissioned as missionaries. We’re all to go and say, “Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy.”

Conclusion

One of the most interesting archaeological discoveries of recent times is called the Ancient Boat, or the Jesus Boat. Back in the 1980s, the water level of the Sea of Galilee dropped dramatically during a drought, and fishermen from Kibbutz Ginosar found the remains of an ancient boat submerged in the mud. It dates from the first century and has been restored. It is very possible it’s the remains of the very boat we read about in the Gospels, although we can’t identify it with specificity.

That little fishing boat was the lifeboat of the ages. It was the fellowship of the Savior. It was the greatest vessel that ever sailed. It represents a message that instructs us, a miracle that changes us, a Master who calms us, and a mission that consumes us. God uses the ordinary – ordinary boats like us – and He came to do great things in and through our lives.

Just a humble little fishing boat

upon a blustery sea,

crafted by some carpenter,

perhaps from Galilee.

Its hull of wood, its smell of fish,

its owners rough and worn,

till Jesus came and sat and taught;

And commandeered the storm.

And from that day until our own

no other barge or boat

so navigates the tides of time

and keeps our hearts afloat

as the vessel of the Master

of the Sea of Galilee,

as the Captain of salvation

who cries: “Come and follow Me.”

Jesus says to you: “Permission to come aboard.”

And when He does, He makes us a vessel fit for the Master’s use.

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Published on August 06, 2023 14:22

August 5, 2023

Ask The Animals

Late last year, evolutionist Dr. Erik Svensson (professor of biology and evolution at Lund University in Sweden) wrote an article entitled, “The Study of Evolution is Fracturing—and That May Be a Good Thing.” Here is part of what he said:

Charles Darwin’s theories might be over 150 years old, but major questions about how evolution works are far from settled. Evolutionary biology is now undergoing one of the most intense debates it has had for more than a generation. And how this debate plays out could have a significant impact on the future of this scientific field…. Some go so far as to say that evolutionary theory itself is in crisis and must be replaced with something new…. That evolutionary biology is increasingly fractured does not worry me… as long as we recognize that a plurality of approaches is not a weakness, but a strength. If physicists cannot agree upon a grand unified theory of the universe, why should biologists expect to agree on one beyond what we have already achieved?

He concluded, “Maintaining a coherent overview, either the modern synthesis or some extension to it, seems increasingly hopeless.”

I read the article twice and it seems to me that what the author was saying is this: We’ve been studying evolutionary theory for 150 years and we’re running into more and more problems with our hypotheses. But since we’re committed to evolution, let’s just keep exploring and see what happens.”

Well, I’m not a scientist, but I am a student of a great book about the wonders of Creation, and I want to show you a few Bible verses and then introduce you to an interesting area of science and apologetics. That brings us to the verse I quoted earlier.

Job 12:7-10 says: But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

Ask the animals and learn from them. Ask the birds. Ask the fish. Ask the earth. In other words, the Lord is saying to us—look at My Creation and learn from what I have made. Let’s do that.

Dams

When I was a boy, my father took us to Hoover Dam. It’s one of the most breathtaking construction projects of the twentieth century, and as a little boy I felt totally overwhelmed by this massive structure. But long before anyone thought of building dams and creating lakes and reservoirs, do you know who was doing it? Beavers! They are the most incredible animals. They have huge orange front teeth that can cut through a tree. Why are they orange? Because they are reinforced with iron to make them strong enough for gnawing. When they get a tree limb in their mouths, their lips can close behind their teeth so they can swim underwater, and they become like submarines. They have a set of transparent eyelids that are like goggles, allowing them to see underwater. And they know how to fashion those sticks and limbs into a dam that can last for hundreds of years. They first drop large trees into the river to slow the flow of the water. Then they gather smaller sticks along with mud, carry all this in their mouths to their spot, and use their front paws to construct their homes, which includes altering the river enough to create ponds. These beaver dams contain different rooms for eating, for nesting, and with underwater entrances. They are marvels of engineering.

Now, if the Hoover Dam required intelligent engineers to design and build it, don’t you think there is an intelligent designer behind the Beaver?

Bridges

Whenever I’m in New York, I like to walk across the East River on the Brooklyn Bridge. It was built in 1883, and at that time it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. The story of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge has been told in books, novels, documentaries, and every other kind of media. At least 25 workers died while building the bridge, and after it was built showman P. T. Barnum took 21 elephants across it to show everyone it was safe.

But long before suspension bridges were built, tiny little spiders were building bridges and spinning webs that rival our greatest feats of engineering. To us a spider web is a nuisance. But truly, each one is a marvel of engineering. To build a web, a spider will climb to somewhere like the end of a leaf and start releasing a cable. With any luck, the wind will blow the other end of the thread against a twig; and when the spider feels the tug, he will tie his end to something and start walking across the thread, releasing more cable as he goes. He’ll come at it from another angle, then from another. By the time the web is completed, it’s a geometrical wonder. Scientists tell us that for its size, spider silk is stronger than steel—yet it has qualities steel doesn’t have. It is flexible, stretchable, and hard to break. Human beings have never been able to replicate anything like it. It’s as though the most brilliant engineering mind in the universe put a tiny bit of his genius into the tiny brain of each tiny spider.

Radar

Or think about radar. The science of radar began in the 1880s when a German physicist determined that radio waves could bounce off of solid objects. Then, a Russian man discovered these waves could be detected. The science of radar developed in the 1900s, and before World War II several nations had secret programs for developing radar technology. The ability to detect incoming planes helped save the British Islands during the War and probably changed world history.

But long before radar, there were bats. As bats fly through the air or in and out of caves, they emit extremely high-pitched sounds, far above the hearing capabilities of humans. The sound travels through the air, bounces off objects, and echoes back in the big ears of the creature. The bat’s brain instantly processes the information and determines its flight plan. The bat can instantly tell how far away the object is, how big it is, whether or not it’s moving, and if so in what direction and how quickly. All of that is instantly translated into a flight pattern. God was the original inventor of radar as He installed it into the structure of the bat.

If bridges and radar require intelligent design, what about spiders and bats?

Helicopters

Or consider the helicopter. I can’t tell you the thrill of strapping into a helicopter and hovering high above the ground. But long before helicopters, there were hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are very small creatures with wings that beat about eighty times a second. That makes a humming noise, which gives the birds their name. They can hover. They can fly up and down, left and right, backward and forward, and even upside down. They are the only kind of bird that can fly backward, and they can dive at sixty miles an hour. They expend enormous energy, and they have the fastest metabolism of any other animal on earth. They routinely consume three to four times their body weight every day. For me, that would be like eating about 300 pounds of food each day. They are God’s little helicopters.

GPS

We can also mention GPS. My wife and I traveled across Canada for our honeymoon. We had to rely on old-fashioned maps that would never fold back up correctly.

Now our phones beam our location to a satellite, which maps our route and sends a voice back to tell us where to go. It’s a marvel of technology. But long before we put a navigational satellite into space, the migratory birds had an internal GPS that guided them on their long-haul flights between continents and around the world. Do you know which species of bird makes the longest journey each year? The Arctic Tern travels from the Arctic to the Antarctic. The average annual round-trip is about 44,000 miles. How do they know where to go? How do they know when? What prompts them to pack their bags and move north or south for the winter? How do they find their nests? God implanted billions of GPS units in birdbrains around the world, and our greatest telecommunication innovations are pale comparisons.

Other Examples

Think of solar panels to capture the sunshine for the purposes of renewable energy. Solar farms have miles and miles of panels aimed skyward. But why do you think the leaves of plants are? What do you think photosynthesis is? Every tree and every plant and every flower contains organic solar panels beyond number.

We’re also proud of our electrical generating plants, but the electric eel had that down from the beginning of creation. One electric eel is capable of generating an electric shock of 600 volts, and it can generate two types of electrical discharge—low voltage and high voltage.

The Wright Brothers designed their flying machine after studying flying pigeons.

When we think of the electric light bulb, we think of Thomas Edison, but down in the depths of the ocean are species of fish and ocean creatures that generate light through the processes of bioluminescence and biofluorescence. Some of these fish remain illuminated all the time, and others can turn their lights on and off. Or you can look out your window on a summer’s night and count the lightning bugs. These gentle little insects fly around in the evening turning their light bulbs on and off, and sometimes you can see them by the hundreds.

Biomimicry

All of this is a category of both science and apologetics known as biomimicry. Biomimicry is the study of how some of our most advanced technologies simply mimics what God first placed in the world of nature.

In Japan, I stood on the platform as a bullet train whizzed by. But when the train first started running a few years ago, it would create a problematic sonic boom. A Japanese engineering team was hired to solve the problem, and the head of that team was an avid bird watcher. The team studied the kingfisher bird and noticed how the bird was able to slice through the air without a ripple and to dive into the water without a splash, and they designed the front of the train to conform to the design of the beak of the kingfisher.

If you look at the soles of your athletic shoes and compare them to the pads of a dog’s paws, you’ll see a resemblance. The reason is because in 1935, Paul Sperry noticed that his shoes would slip on wet surfaces while his cocker spaniel had no trouble walking beside him. Sperry studied the dog’s paws and saw wave-like grooves, and he started the Sperry Shoe Company based on that design.

In 1946, Joseph Cox studied the teeth of a timber beetle larva and used the design to invent the chain saw.

Velcro was invented when a Swiss engineer studied the burrs he was trying to get off his clothes and out of his dog’s fur.

As I researched all this, I came across a fascinating article by Dr. Grady McMurtry, who is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and has gone on to earn several postgraduate degrees. He’s an apologist who focuses on biblical creation. He wrote about an insect called the Bombardier Beetle.

Various species of Bombardier Beetle are found around the world. They are about one-half inch long. Inside their bodies they have chambers and they produce various chemicals along with both reactant inhibitors and accelerants. When these beetles are attacked they initiate a chemical reaction that takes place just outside their bodies. The beetle has produced hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide which is mixed to produce a series of violent explosions. The temperature reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit, which turns the water left over from the reaction into steam; then at up to 500 times per second; and speeds that range from eight up to 43 mph through a twin set of spray nozzles whose direction can be controlled; these beetles spray hot toxic chemicals onto their attacker….

In essence, the Bombardier Beetle has a small rocket engine built into its body. The design of its internal chambers and defense mechanism has been used to improve the ignition systems of gas turbines and the inflation systems for automobile air bags.

My Conclusion

But as I’ve been thinking about all of this, I’ve arrived at a conclusion and written an essay about it. I’m going to read it to you. It’s not a long essay. The title is: “I Don’t Believe in Inventors.”

I have investigated modern technology. I’ve driven across the Golden Gate and read about the engineering behind our most advanced bridges, spans and viaducts. I’ve seen radar installations on the British coast and along the Sinai Peninsula and in other places around the world. I have ridden on helicopters and marveled at their ability to hover in the air like hummingbirds. I’ve studied the science behind the propellers of the ocean liners and the technology behind GPS and satellite navigational guidance. I’ve seen solar farms and electrical generating plants. My grandparents used candles and oil lamps, but I was fortunate enough to grow up in a world lit by electricity and filled with modern conveniences that prior generations could not even imagine. But I now believe that, despite suggestions to the contrary, none of these things were actually designed by human intelligence. None of them were, in fact, designed at all. No scientists envisioned them. No engineers charted them. No manufacturers made them. The stories of the world’s great inventors are legends, and the reports of their inventions are myths. All these things—bridges and aircraft and generators and sophisticated, fine-tuned devices and equipment—came into being by chance plus time, merely as a result of random bits of junk coincidentally coming together in an unpremeditated and unplanned set of blind processes. Whatever we have been taught in the past about engineering, science, technology, inventions, innovation, human intelligence and intelligent design is false and fictitious and fanciful.

Of course, such a view would be foolish.

Of course it would—wouldn’t it?

The Bible says, But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

Romans 1 says: What may be known about God is plain… because God has made it plain…. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse (verses 19-20).

The Psalmist said, The heavens declare the glory of God; and the skies proclaim the work of His hands (Psalm 19:1).

The Bible opens with the words, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

All this should cause us to praise the Lord, the King of Creation, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

Psalm 148 says: Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and women, old men and children [and we can add scientists, educators, and engineers]. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens (verses 7-13).

Let me end with this classic creation hymn:

This is my Father’s world,

And to my listening ears

All nature sings, and round me rings

The music of the spheres.

This is my Father’s world:

I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas,

His hand the wonders wrought.

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Published on August 05, 2023 13:51

July 10, 2023

They Are Wrong, We Are Right.

1 John Background

The book of First John was a mystery to me for many years for two reasons. I want to tell you what they are in this podcast and show you what I’ve been learning recently about this mysterious epistle near the end of the New Testament.

The writer, John, was prolific. He wrote the Gospel of John, the three letters ascribed to him, and the book of Revelation. In last week’s podcast, I delved into his background and personality, and in today’s podcast I want to do the same for this little epistle.

Introduction

As I said, the book of First John was a mystery to me for many years for two reasons.

First, I believed then and still do that the New Testament is a progressive curriculum in Christ’s School of Discipleship. It begins with the simplicity of the evangelistic book of Matthew and ends with the more difficult book of Revelation. As in any school, the material builds on what comes before and grows progressively deeper. Since 1 John is near the end of the Bible, it represents some of the deepest teachings of the New Testament. And yet the Greek text of 1 John is so simple that it’s often the first part of the Bible that Greek students are assigned to translate as they begin their studies. The words and language are very simple, and yet the content of the book is very challenging. That confused me.

Second, for years I was unable to find any plan or pattern to this book. It seemed to go around in circles, and it was very hard for me to figure out what the book was really about. Any one single sentence made sense to me, but trying to put the sentences in any kind of arrangement gave me headaches. It didn’t help that my favorite professor in Bible college, who was the greatest analyst of the Scripture that I knew, said there was no observable plan to 1 John, a view I ran into over and over.

To me, First John was the hardest book in the New Testament to get my head around.

But I kept reading it and studying it, year after year, and then two things happened. First, I began to actually detect divisions in the content, and I started to see an actual kind of plan and organization to the book.

Second, I found a commentary by Colin Kruse. It’s part of the Pillar New Testament Commentary series. Dr. Kruse presented something I had never before considered, and it totally changed the way I thought about 1 John. Finding a plan for the book and reading the insights of Dr. Kruse has opened this book to me in a fresh and exciting way.

The Key to Understanding This Book

The key is found in 1 John 2:19: They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none to them belonged to us.

Dr. Colin Kruse wrote a sentence in his commentary that opened my eyes to 1 John more than anything else I’ve ever read. He said, “Anyone seeking to make sense of the Letters of John [that is, 1, 2, and 3 John] needs to have a working hypothesis concerning the events that lie behind them.”

In other words, what set of circumstances caused John to write these letters? By this time he was an old man, the bishop of Ephesus, who oversaw the community of churches in what we would call today Eastern Turkey. He was the last surviving apostle. His brother James was dead; Peter and Paul were dead; all the original apostles had been killed. John alone was left, and he was laboring as hard as ever in his old age among these churches. But something happened that caused him to stop what he was doing and write this letter.

Based on the verse I read a moment ago, it was precipitated by the desertion of large numbers of people from John’s churches. Let’s read this passage again, starting at 1 John 2:18:

This is really the key to understanding the book. John said in effect, “A lot of people have left us. They have left our churches. Some of you feel hurt and troubled and unsure of yourself and your beliefs.”

Not only were these people leaving the church, but they were also trying to take as many as they could with them. They were sowing doubt among those who remained. Look at 1 John 2:26: I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.

And 1 John 3:7 says: Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray.

John was writing to those who had stayed in the churches and saying, in essence: “I want to tell you something. These people who have streamed out of our churches never really belonged to us to begin with. They have an anti-Christ spirit. They are wrong and you are right.”

So that brings up the great question behind this epistle. What had happened that caused so many people to defect from John’s churches? A church that had 100 on an average Sunday now had 75. A church that had 75 now had 50 people.

For a pastor, that’s a very challenging thing. When I was a pastor I looked at the attendance figures every week to see if we were growing or declining or stagnant. If we were growing, I felt excited. If not, I was anxious. I wanted to be winning more and more people and serving more and more people. When large numbers of people leave in a wave of defections, it’s very troubling. And it wasn’t just happening at one church; it was happening in churches all across John’s zone of ministry.

Here he was, the last surviving apostle. And his churches were not growing; they were declining. People were leaving in droves. And the ones who stayed now wondered if they should go too. Were the secessionists right and were they foolish to continue to listen to an old man who was well past his prime and, according to some, too weak and senile to lead the church?

The Defections Had to Do with the Identity of Jesus Christ

So that was the situation, but of course it raises a further question. Why exactly were these people leaving? What had precipitated this crisis? As we read through 1 John over and over, we realize it had to do with the identity of Jesus Christ. The one thing John stresses throughout his epistle is the two-fold nature of Jesus Christ as both God and man, both divine and human.

In Chapter 1

In Chapter 2

20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.

In Chapter 3

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ…

In Chapter 4

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

In Chapter 5

20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

What Had Precipitated This Crisis?

So something had happened that had precipitated a crisis in the churches of Asia Minor, and droves of people were reacting to this crisis by leaving the church. The point of controversy had to do with the identity of Christ. So what exactly had happened to spark this issue? Why had it come up?

That’s where Dr. Colin Kruse filled in some huge blanks for me with his hypothesis.

Anyone seeking to make sense of the Letters of John [1, 2, and 3 John] needs to have a working hypothesis concerning the events that lie behind them…. The following scenario proceeds on the assumption that there is a very close relationship between the Fourth Gospel and the three letters of John.

In other words, the three letters of John were written after and because of the publication of the Gospel of John. Let me say that again: the three letters of John were written after and because of the publication of the gospel of John, which was the last of the four gospels to be published.

As I said, John was the last survivor among the apostles. He had read the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke. He said to himself, in essence, “They are similar to one another and all very good and very true, but I have some stories they left out. And there is one big truth I want to emphasize even more than they did. I want to make clear to everyone and for all the ages that Jesus Christ was both truly God and truly human. He was and is both God and man.”

And so he wrote his Gospel or perhaps, as Dr. Kruse believes, he wrote an early draft or version of his Gospel, and he published it. And it was the publishing and circulation of John’s Gospel that caused the reaction.

Dr. Kruse wrote:

Sometime after the writing of this early form of the Gospel, difficulties arose within this community. Some of the members had taken on board certain beliefs about the person and work of Christ that were unacceptable to the author of the letters and those associated with him. These beliefs involved a denial that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, come in the flesh, and that His death was necessary for the forgiveness of sins. A sharp disagreement arose which resulted in the secession [or departure] of those who embraced the new views.

The secessionists or false teachers were not content to keep their new beliefs to themselves. Instead they organized a group of itinerant preachers who circulated among the churches and propagated their beliefs with a view toward winning people over to their understanding of things. This created confusion among those who remained loyal to the Gospel as it had been proclaimed from the beginning, the Gospel that had come down from the eyewitnesses. As a result of the confusion, these believers began to question whether they really knew God, whether they really were experiencing eternal life, and whether they were really in the truth. The primary concern of the author was to bolster the assurance of such people by providing them with a clear description of the Gospel message they had received from the beginning.

He also provided them with criteria they could use to evaluate the false claims being made by the secessionists and with which they could also reassure themselves that they were in the truth….

Now, I think you’ll see this hypothesis reflected throughout the book. For example, look again at 1 John 4:1-6:

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Dr. Kruse goes on to say that about the same time this circular letter was written, John wrote two other shorter letters to the churches. Second John is a brief letter to one of the churches warning it not to entertain the false teachers; and 3 John is to a man in another church, commending him for entertaining the true teachers that were sent by John.

How Did the Remaining Christians Feel?

One other thing. These secessionists were loud and defiant, and they bullied the remaining Christians and made them feel insecure in their faith. The remaining Christians were shell-shocked.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been part of a major disagreement in a church, but it is very painful. For the Christian, having a good church is like having a close family. We are fellow pilgrims on earth, surrounded by a hostile world. When we’re at church, we’re meeting with Jesus Christ and His children, and it should be one of the most glorious things we ever do. When someone throws a grenade into this fellowship, it does a lot of damage.

So the remaining Christians were damaged, and some of them were wondering: Are we right? Do we really understand things correctly? Do the successionists have a point? They seem so sure of themselves. How do we really know?

And that’s why John wrote the letter of 1 John, to reassure those who remained faithful that they were, in fact, correct, true, saved, and bound for Heaven. Here is the message of 1 John in my words: “They are wrong. We are right. Don’t be deceived and don’t be intimidated. We know Jesus Christ, and we know that we know Him, and we know that in knowing Him we have eternal life.”
And the last verse of the epistle sums it all up: 1 John 5:20 – We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true by being in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

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Published on July 10, 2023 19:17

June 11, 2023

First Impressions

A Study of 1 st John

The Disciple Whom Jesus Loves: Who Was the Apostle John?

Introduction: In my library, I have a whole wall of bookcases filled with biographies. Many of these are the stories of great Christian leaders through history; others describe the lives of kings or presidents; other books are about celebrities. Sometimes I run across a villain I want to read about. I’ve learned so much through my lifetime by reading the lives of others, and I always discover something about myself whenever I’m reading the life of another person. In many cases, I feel these people are mentoring me.

I have another library—a second library—that is also filled with biographies. Many of them are of great Jewish or Christian leaders; others are kings; some are celebrities. There are villains in this library as well, and I never enter this library without learning something about others and about myself. I can hold this entire collection of books in one hand. It’s my Bible, of course. And the Lord filled it with the true stories of men and women for our benefit. One of our favorite ways of studying the Bible is with character studies—examining the life of some individual whose name is found in God’s Word.

So before we plunge into the little book of 1 John, let’s study the life of its author—John the Disciple; John the brother of James; John, who liked to describe himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

Note that I’m not talking about John the Baptist. There were two prominent men named John in the Gospels—John the Baptist from Judea, who introduced Jesus and was beheaded; and John the Apostle from Galilee, who became our Lord’s disciple and wrote five books of the New Testament—the Gospel of John, the three short epistles I’ve already mentioned, and the book of Revelation. This is the man we want to study so we can better understand why he wrote 1 John. In the process we’ll draw some lessons to help us in navigating our own lives as a disciple of Jesus.

I’d like to give you a glimpse of the historical John so you can better see him in your imagination.

Let’s start with a short portion of Scripture that absolutely fascinates me. It tells something that happened just after Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. Our Lord was taken to the house of the most famous and powerful Jew in all Israel—the high priest, a man named Caiaphas.

Scripture

John 18:15-16: Simon Peter and another disciple [that was John’s modest way of referring to himself] were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, but Peter had to wait outside the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, spoke to the servant girl on duty there and brought Peter in.

This paragraph is quite astounding when you come to it in your regular reading. John was not simply an uneducated Galilean fisherman; he was personal friends with the high priest of Israel and his family. How could that be?

A Young Person

I’m convinced the Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation. There is some disagreement about the dating of that book, but we can make a strong case for putting it in the last decade of the first century. The New American Commentary says:

The widely accepted date of approximately AD 95, placing Revelation as the last book of the New Testament, still appears to have the better support. The first evidence for this arises from the virtual unanimity of the earliest witnesses. [Dr. R. H.] Charles notes, “The earliest authorities are practically unanimous in assigning the [book of Revelation] to the last years of [Roman Emperor] Domitian….” The preponderance of the evidence favors the date for the composition of the [book of Revelation] to be A.D. 95.

We also know John was an old man who was serving as bishop of Ephesus and the surrounding region. We don’t know how old he was, but it seems reasonable to assume he might have been in his eighties. Let’s say 85, which would be a very advanced age in the first century. He had met Jesus of Nazareth approximately 65 years earlier in about the year AD 30. So that would have made John 20 years old when he began following Jesus.

That helps us visualize him in the scenes in the Bible.

A Fisherman

We also know John’s occupation: a fisherman on Lake Galilee.

Dr. David Fiensy is the Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Kentucky Christian University, and he has a fascinating book entitled The Archaeology of Daily Life: Ordinary Persons in Late Second Temple Israel. He reported that the fishing industry on Lake Galilee was a huge operation.

Bone evidence also comes from fish remains found both in cities like Jerusalem, Sepphoris, and Caesarea and in towns like En-Gedi. Excavators have extracted from the ruins fish bones in some locations that are not near a lake or ocean. We know that one of the major Galilean export items was fish. The Sea of Galilee contained many varieties of fish edible to both Jews and Gentiles. These fish were pickled or salted and then sold all over Palestine. Many were involved in this trade, from the fisherman—who could be day laborers—to the owners of the fishing boats and the merchants who marketed the fish….

The cities evidently consumed a lot of fish, even though they might be miles from either the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, or the Sea of Galilee….. Many saltwater and freshwater fish were transported miles away from their sources.

Dr. Fiensy points out that excavators at Caesarea have found evidence of a fish kiosk that sold fish to the crowds at the hippodrome just like hotdog stands near a ballpark today.

He also reveals what the excavations at Magdala have uncovered. Magdala is a town just down the shoreline from Capernaum, about six miles south. It was the home of Mary Magdalene. Like Capernaum, it was a fishing village. When I first started leading tours to Israel, we didn’t know where Magdala was. But now the ruins have been uncovered. The Greek name of the town is literally translated as “Place of Processing Fish.”

Dr. Fiensy wrote:

Historians universally agree that the small city lived from the fish industry, both catching the fish and preparing them for shipment to the far reaches of Palestine and beyond. Not only do we have the literary references to the pickled fish of the Sea of Galilee, but we also have in the Magdala ruins two indicators of the importance of fishing: numerous lead weights for holding nets in the water and installations probably used in the salting process. It is possible that excavators have discovered some of the fish vats where the fish were pickled/salted as well as possible aquaria where the live fish were kept until ready to be killed and processed. The pickled fish were well known in antiquity…. Fish bones from the Sea of Galilee turn up even in far-away places like (a tiny village) on the south end of the Dead Sea.

Let me go to another source. In an article by Jerome Murphy-O’Conner in the journal, Bible Review, we read:

The quantity of fresh fish available did not meet the demand [in the first century]. This inevitably pushed up the price…. Our sources complain bitterly at how expensive fresh fish was…. High prices often put fresh fish out of the reach of the poor…. The poor could afford only dried and salted fish, which was the basic food of the lower classes in the cities, slaves, peasants and soldiers in the field.

The Gospels clearly convey the importance of fish in the diet of first-century A.D. Palestinian Jews. Tellingly, the Gospels never mention meat. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks, “What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?” The disciples who followed Jesus into the desert carried bread and fish. The references, of course, are to dried or salted fish, which was broiled to make it palatable….

We have a surprisingly good picture of the scale of Simon Peter and Andrew’s fishing operation. They worked in partnership with James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who had employees…. The impression that they were men of substance who controlled their own lives is confirmed by the quality of their house at Capernaum. Known as the House of Peter since the fourth century, it is larger than most of the other houses excavated in Capernaum.

But that is not all…. Given the average size of families at the time, it seems very likely that more of the family must have been involved in the fishing business on the Sea of Galilee than just Simon Peter and Andrew, and the family income would have been proportionally greater than that of two men working alone. Against this background of a relatively well-off family, it becomes possible to understand how Simon Peter and Andrew were financially able to drop their work and become, first, disciples of John the Baptist and then disciples of Jesus.

I want to suggest this helps explain the strange passage we read earlier in John 18. Why would a young fisherman from Galilee be well acquainted with the most famous and most powerful man in Israel? My theory is that John was a young, outgoing, friendly, intelligent sales representative for his family’s fishing business. He arranged for the delivery of fish to the rich and famous of Jerusalem, and to the Jerusalem markets. When Jesus was arrested, John knew the employees at the residence of Caiaphas because he was their fishmonger. He had even met Caiaphas.

Why is this important? Well, it simply speaks to John’s personality and intelligence and standing. It simply helps us visualize him a bit better and feel like we know him better. He was at home in both Galilee and Jerusalem, he was entrepreneurial, he must have had a very outgoing personality, and he was a successful businessman even at an early age.

A Disciple

This is the young man the Lord recruited to be among His first disciples. Mark 1:16-20 says:

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed Him. When He had gone a little farther, He saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Him.

This wasn’t out of the blue. These young men had already been caught up in the revival that was taking place under John the Baptist. We know that from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. The Lord had been preparing them for this moment.

It’s a wonderful feeling to sense the Lord Jesus saying, “Come, follow Me.” This week I was at a meeting and listened while a Marine named Brandon Blair gave his testimony. When he saw the twin towers collapse on September 11, 2001, he decided to join the Marine Corps and go to war. He graduated from Parris Island and joined the infantry. As he was boarding the bus at the airport that would take him to his military flight overseas, a fellow with a cane was leaning against the bus and offering Gideon New Testaments to the boys. Brandon took one and put it in his left breast pocket, and there it stayed. He was a machine gunner in a mobile assault platoon. He worked outside the wire in Iraq, outside the base. It was very dangerous.

Brandon was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, and as he lay there in the street outside of Fallujah, Iraq, he begged God to spare his life. They took him to the hospital on the base in Fallujah, and there he had never felt so much personal suffering, so sinful, so ashamed of how he had lived, and so much sorrow. There was no one to comfort him. But he remembered that little New Testament and he could reach his cammies, and he pulled that little New Testament and as he read it he heard Jesus say, as it were, “Come and follow Me.”

Brandon ended his testimony by saying, “I’m thankful for the Marine Corps; they gave me a purple heart. But I’m most thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ because He gave me a brand new heart.”

That’s the way Jesus operates, and He says to each of us at a pivotal point in our lives—Come, follow Me.

It seems that John was a person of deep emotions. Jesus gave a nickname to him and his brother, James, calling them, “Sons of Thunder.” On one occasion, he asked Jesus to call down fire on a village that had rejected them. On another, he and his brother James ask to sit with Jesus on the throne when the Kingdom appears. But John matured quickly.

He, Peter, and John became the inner circle of the disciples who joined the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration.

He sat next to the Lord at the Last Supper, stood close enough to the cross for Jesus to entrust His mother to Him, reached the empty tomb before any other disciple, and was the first to believe in the resurrection. He wrote more about love than the other three Gospels combined.

John shows up with Peter at some of the early stories in the book of Acts, then he disappears from the narrative portion of the New Testament.

A Bishop

But we know from early evidence that at some point, the apostle John ended up in the city of Ephesus and became the head or bishop of the churches in this area. This is the church that Paul established and Acts 19. The cities around Ephesus had been evangelized during this time, so there was a community of churches in this area.

After Peter and Paul were killed in Rome, John apparently took over as the leader or the Bishop of the Church of Ephesus and the surrounding towns. How do we know that? From very early patristic sources. The word patristic is related to the idea of being a patriarch or a father, so when we talk about patristic sources we’re talking about the early church fathers, those who followed the apostles in the chronology of the early church.

For example, Justin Martyr was born about the time John would have died. He referred to John as one of the Apostles of Christ, an eyewitness of Jesus, who lived at Ephesus.

We also know a lot about one of John’s disciples, a man named Polycarp. He was born shortly after Peter and Paul were executed in Rome. As a young man, he heard the apostle John and was converted to Christ and mentored through the ministries of those who, like John, were eyewitnesses of our Lord and were still alive.

We have an interesting description of Polycarp’s ministry from an eyewitness named Irenaeus, who wrote to a friend, saying:

When I was a boy, I saw you in lower Asia with Polycarp. I recall the events of that time more clearly than those of recent years. For the things you learn in childhood grow in the soul and are united with it.

I am able to describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat as he preached and taught, his goings and his comings, the character of his life, his physical appearance, his speeches to the multitudes, and the accounts which he gave of his interactions with John and with the others who had seen the Lord.

I also recall when he remembered their words, and what he heard from them concerning the Lord, concerning his miracles and teaching. What Polycarp received then from eyewitnesses of the Word of life, he related in its entirety in harmony with the Scriptures. By the mercy of God, I listened to these things attentively, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart. By the grace of God, I always recall them faithfully.

After the death of John, Polycarp continued in Smyrna until he was martyred probably in his 86th year. So we have this very interesting chain of testimony beginning with the Lord Jesus, who called the apostle John to follow Him; John reached Polycarp, who in turn had an impact on Irenaeus, who died about the year 200. Four men in history who passed the baton of the Gospel one to the other over a period of 200 years—the first 200 years of the history of the church.

A Disciple Whom Jesus Loved

So John was the intelligent, entrepreneurial, outgoing son of the owner of a large fishing business in Galilee. He evidently represented his father’s company in Judea and in Jerusalem, even in the kitchen of the high priest of Israel. When he was about twenty, he became caught up in the revival of John the Baptist, and he was responsive when Jesus of Nazareth came by saying, “Follow Me.” He became in some ways our Lord’s closest friend, the man to whom Jesus entrusted His mother. After the resurrection he served the Lord in Jerusalem, and at some point became the bishop of Ephesus. It was there in his later years that he wrote the three letters at the back of the Bible, along with the Book of Revelation

But let’s and where we began. John repeatedly described himself as, “The disciple whom Jesus loved.”

In John 13, John wrote about the moment Jesus told them that one of the disciples would betray him. Verse 22 says, “His disciples stared at one another at a loss to know which of them He meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one He means.”In John chapter 19, we read, “Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to her, ‘Woman, here is your son,’ and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on this disciple took her into his home” (verses 25-27).Now look at John chapter 20: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”In the next chapter, John 21, Jesus appeared to the disciples as they were fishing on the Sea of Galilee. Verse seven says, “Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter it is the Lord!”And down in verse 20: “Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them.”

Five times John describes himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He did not say this out of arrogance but out of humility. He didn’t mean that Jesus loved him more than our Lord loved the other disciples. He never described himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved more. He was simply aware, constantly aware, gloriously aware, that Jesus loved him very much. That defined his life.

From the age of 19 or so when Jesus called him to the age of 90 or so when this last surviving apostle passed away and arrived in heaven John was simply aware constantly, aware gloriously, aware that the most important description he could ever ascribe to himself was the disciple whom Jesus loved.

That description was never trademarked by the apostle John. You can adopt it for yourself. What a difference it would make in our self-perception and in our self-image if we thought of ourselves as the disciple whom Jesus loves. And it’s true. When you follow Jesus you become a disciple whom he loves, and that becomes the defining description of your life. There is none better.

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Published on June 11, 2023 16:28

June 4, 2023

What’s Our World Coming To?

A Study of Psalm 2

Introduction

Never have we seen the world in such jeopardy. Our problems are beyond human imagination and beyond human solution.

One of our many threats is coming from the Chinese Communists. This nation is emerging as the greatest threat in the history of America. President Xi Jinping has created an electronic surveillance state that offers no privacy or independence for his billion citizens. The millions of Christians in China are at particular risk. He and his government know where everyone goes, what everyone says, and how everyone lives. He has turned Hong Kong into a prison, and he wants to do the same for Taiwan.

Truth be told, he wants to do that to America too. The Communist government of China is buying up thousands of acres of American farmland near our military bases; they are hacking into our computers; stealing our secrets and intellectual property; flooding us with dangerous drugs; buying up our debt; undercutting our economy; producing our medicines; and dominating the world market of rare minerals necessary for modern technology. At the same time, the Chinese are developing the most advanced military machine the world has ever known.

Dr. John Mack wrote an article about all this, and it was published by the U.S. Army War College last month. He said:

The U.S. military strategy to combat China cannot be sustained…. U.S. military forces are too small, their supply lines are too vulnerable, and America’s defense industrial capacity is far too eroded to keep up with the materiel demands of a high-intensity conflict….

China is now what the United States used to be, in terms of economic power and industrial capacity. Unlike the Soviet Union, the United States and most Western nations are economically reliant on China. China has built a capacity to sustain a protracted war of any type. More directly, China is well-postured to sustain a protracted high intensity war of attrition. The United States is not currently capable of doing so.

We can debate the underlying reasons an increasingly unfit and nationally ambivalent generation of Americans does not worry about the threat of war; however, it is evident that many Americans take their security for granted and do not likely consider that the horrors of war could be visited upon them directly….

The United States is at one of its most vulnerable positions in history.… History shows Americans can be reluctant to act until war forces them to. With respect to China’s threat, that may then be too late to protect the U.S. Homeland or the Western liberal international order.

Yet China is only one of the threats facing the United States. We are living on a planet that is facing multiple existential crises. What is our world coming to? It’s very important for every Christian on earth to know the truth contained in Psalm 2. Scarcely any Scripture is more relevant to our situation in the world today than the second Psalm. It gives us a theology of world history and current events, and I want to study it with you. It says:

Why do the nations conspire
    and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
    against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break their chains
    and throw off their shackles.”

4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
    the Lord scoffs at them.
5 He rebukes them in his anger
    and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 “I have installed my king
    on Zion, my holy mountain.”

7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son;
    today I have become your father.
8 Ask me,
    and I will make the nations your inheritance,
    the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will break them with a rod of iron;
    you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

10 Therefore, you kings, be wise;
    be warned, you rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear
    and celebrate his rule with trembling.
12 Kiss his son, or he will be angry
    and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Background

This is a very unusual Psalm because it’s composed from the perspective of five different speakers. If we were doing this Psalm dramatically, I would have five different people on the stage reading the four paragraphs. Or if you were listening to this on the radio, you might hear five different voices. In my own Bible, I have taken a pencil and put these five speakers over the four paragraphs. Each of the speakers adds something to our understanding of what in the world is going on and what it means to us. Let’s analyze it by looking at these five speakers and what they want to say.

1. The World Has Something To Say

The first speaker is composed of the current rulers of this world, people like Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin.

Verses 1-3 tell us what these rulers have to say: Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying – and here is what the nations of the world say: Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles. That is, Let us rebel and break free from God and His restraints and His rules and His sovereignty.

Our astronauts who go into space, especially those who have gone to the moon, have looked back at the earth and it appears to be a little blue marble dangling in the dark void of space. And almost without except, they have come back saying something like this: “When I look at our little planet with the only known life in the entire universe—8 billion of us on a small marble—it seems inconceivable that for thousands of years all we have been doing is waging war against each other, developing weapons to kill each other. How can that be?”

Well, the answer is in verse 2. The agitation of this world represents at its core a rebellion against the God who made us and against His Messiah: The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed….

The world is in rebellion against the Lord God Almighty and against His Anointed One, or, in Hebrew Mashiach [pronounced Ma-shee’-ak], or, in English, Messiah. The question is: Who is this Messiah? Who is the Lord’s anointed? The world is rebelling against God and His Anointed One. Who is that?

There are two answers. In the immediate context of David’s writing this, He is talking about himself. The prophet Samuel anointed David as King of Israel, and David was ruling as the Anointed One or Mashiach under the authority of almighty God. In this context, the nations of the world were rebelling against the God of Israel, and God has anointed David as king and placed him on the throne to maintain the kingdom of Israel in a hostile world.

But David was also speaking prophetically. How much of this he understood at the time we don’t know, but the Holy Spirit was directing him to write about the ultimate Messiah who was to come.

We see this clearly in Acts 4, where the Jewish Sanhedrin had placed Peter and John on trial because of their faith in Jesus. The Jewish leaders bullied and threatened and persecuted the disciples. And when they were released, Peter and John went back to their friends. Look at what it says in Acts 4, beginning with verse 23:

On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David [and now they quote directly from Psalm 2]:

“‘Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
26 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed one.

27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Psalm 2 is Messianic. The Jews and Gentiles, in their leadership, rebelled against God and His Messiah. They went so far as to crucify Him. To this day, the whole world is in rebellion against God, except for the followers of God and His Mashiach, Messiah, Anointed One—the Lord Jesus Christ. According to Psalm 2, verse 3, the nations want to break free from the influence and rules and righteousness of God and this is what they have to say: Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.

The world rulers say: “Let’s get rid of God and do whatever we want.”

2. God the Father Has Something to Say

Now we come to the second speaker of Psalm 2. While the world conspires in rebellion, the Lord has something to say. God the Father speaks in the second paragraph. He laughs in ridicule. Look at verse 4: The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying, “I have installed My king of Zion, My holy mountain.”

Most commentators say the laughter here is anthropomorphic language. The Lord may not literally laugh, but this is the writer’s way of using human responses to tell us how ridiculous it is to God that anyone or any nation could successfully rebel against Him. The Lord looks down at Xi Jinping and laughs at him. He looks down at Kim Jong-un and scoffs at him. He looks down at Vladimir Putin and has something to say to him. He looks down at America and is not in the least intimidated by godless secularity.

What does He say? He says, I have installed My King on Zion, My holy mountain.

The Anointed One is also a King. When he wrote this, David was thinking of himself. He was saying, “The nations around me think they can destroy Israel, but the Lord laughs at them. He has established me as His king and we will win the victories.”

But the Holy Spirit was thinking beyond David, to David’s great descendant, Jesus of Nazareth. The Lord God says, “I have an answer for all the turmoil on earth. I am going to put My Messiah, My King, on the throne in Zion.” God’s answer to the turmoil of the world is to place Jesus Christ over the arc of history.

3. God the Son Has Something to Say

Now in verse 7 we come to the third speaker. The Anointed One Himself speaks. This is subtle but unmistakable.

The Anointed One, who is the King, says: I will proclaim the Lord’s decree. I will tell you what My Father told Me: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”

Here again the immediate application is to David. He was going back to what God had told him in 2 Samuel 7 when the Lord had made a covenant with him. The Lord said to Him in 2 Samuel 7, in my paraphrase: “I am making you into a dynasty that will produce an ultimate King, and with this covenant I am saying to you and to your descendants: ‘You will be my son and I will be your father.’”

But now look at Paul’s sermon in Acts 13, beginning with verse 32: We tell you the Good News: What God promised to our ancestors, He has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.”

The book of Hebrews says the same thing. Hebrews 1 says, in effect, “God wasn’t speaking to angels but to Jesus Christ when He said, “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.”

And the Father invites His Son, the Anointed One, the King to ask Him for something. Psalm 2: 8 says: Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.

This will be fulfilled when Jesus comes again. This passage about Jesus breaking them with a rod of iron is alluded to in Revelation 19, which is a description of the return of Christ:

11 I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13 He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14 The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15 Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”

Our Lord came the first time to offer salvation to the world. He is coming again to close that opportunity, to judge the world, to rule the nations during the Millennium, and to usher in His eternal kingdom.

Now, we come to the final speaker.

4. God the Holy Spirit Has Something to Say

The world says, “Let us break free from Almighty God.” The Lord laughs and says, “Not so fast. I have installed My Anointed One as King in Zion.” The Messiah says, “He is My Father, I am His Son, and He has given Me the nations as My inheritance and I am going to come as King of kings and rule both heaven and earth.”

And now the Psalmist, inspired by the Holy Spirit, adds his own voice, beginning in verse 10: Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate His rule with trembling. Kiss His Son, or He will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for His wrath can flare up in a moment.

In other words, Almighty God through His Son, Jesus Christ, is the ruler of Heaven and Earth. The Most High rules in the affairs of men. God is in total control, and these little potentates and autocrats and dictators and presidents and premiers rise and fall. They come and go. They live and they die and they stand before God and are condemned. If they had any real sense, they would bow down right now and embrace the Son of God and kiss Him and serve Him and celebrate His rule. A single flareup of His wrath, and they are no more.

So the world says: Let us break free from God. The Lord says, I have anointed my Son as King. The Messiah says, I am God’s Son and He is My Father and He has given Me the nations as My inheritance and I am going to rule them with an iron scepter. The Psalmist says: If you are smart, you will bow down and celebrate His rule.

Now we come to the crowning final sentence of the Psalm. After we hear what the world has to say and what the Lord has to say and what the Messiah has to say and what the Psalmist has to say, what is our great conclusion as the children of God and the followers of Jesus? What do we say? What do you have to say?

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

This Psalm ends where Psalm 1 begins—with the word “blessed.”

Blessed are those who take refuge. That’s a very common word, and it shows up over forty times in the Psalms. Isaiah also used this term a lot. What does it mean?

I was in Oklahoma recently, and on my first night there tornados erupted all around the area I was staying in. They didn’t come directly toward the hotel I was at, but a nearby town was almost demolished. The next day I was visiting a bank. It was First United Bank in Moore, Oklahoma. They had sponsored my visit. We began talking about the storms the night before, and the lady who was showing us around told us of a time when she and her fellow bankers had fled for the safest place one could possibly be during a tornado—in the vault of a bank.

I looked it up later, and the newspaper had reported the story. It was during the terrible outbreak of tornadoes that nearly destroyed this town some years before. On this day, the tornadoes came so quickly and powerfully there was almost nowhere to hide. There were 22 people in that bank—both employees and customers. The youngest was a ten-year-old boy. They all fled to the vault for refuge. It was encased in concrete and steel. They stayed there until the storm passed them by.

When they finally opened the door and ventured out, nothing was left of the bank. Nothing was left of the entire block. Everything was gone, in a junkyard of debris. Only the vault had survived.

And I thought of Jesus Christ. In Him are all the riches of glory, and He is our hiding place. In a perilous world, we find safety in Him. Blessed are all those who find refuge in Him.

He is our spiritual refuge, for He died to keep us connected with God through His precious blood. He redeems us, saves us, and protects our souls.He is our emotional refuge, because He strengthens us every day by His Spirit and by His promises.He is our eternal refuge, for He has promised us an eternal Home described for us in Scripture.

The only answer to a dangerous and hellbent world is found in our King, our Messiah, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is our refuge from the tornadoes of this tempestuous world.

Jesus Shall Reign Where’re the Sun

Doth its successive journeys run;

His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,

Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

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Published on June 04, 2023 13:02