God Requires to Set Up His Throne in Our Heart
July 17, 2010
God requires to set up his throne in the heart, and to reign in it without a rival: if he be kept out of his right, it matters not by what competitor. The revolt may be more avowed or more secret; it may be the treason of deliberate preference, or of inconsiderate levity; we may be the subjects of a more or of a less creditable master; we may be employed in services more gross or more refined; but whether the slaves of avarice, of sensuality, of dissipation, of sloth, or the votaries of ambition, of taste, or of fashion; whether supremely governed by vanity and self-love, by the desire of literary fame or of military glory, we are alike estranged from the dominion of our rightful Sovereign. Let not this seem a harsh position; it can appear so only from not adverting to what was shown to be the essential nature of true religion. He who bowed the knee to the god of medicine or of eloquence, was no less an idolater than the worshiper of the deified patrons of lewdness or of theft. In the several cases which have been specified, the external acts indeed are different, but in principle the disaffection is the same; and we must prepare to meet the punishment of rebels on that tremendous day, when all false colors shall be done away, and, there being no longer any room for the evasions of worldly sophistry, . . . “that which is often highly esteemed amongst men, shall appear to have been abomination in the sight of God.”
William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted With Real Christianity (1797). The book is available in its entirety at the link. Here is a three-page pdf file of this excerpt plus surrounding text. Note that, as was common in his day, when Wilberforce uses the word “religion,” he most often is referring solely to Christianity.
Christians and Political Advocacy
February 25, 2010
What does the Bible say about political advocacy?
In Romans 14, Paul discusses a specific issue: Should Christians have concerns about whether or not the meat that they eat has been killed according to Old Testament regulations? Paul does believe one side is right in this disagreement. But he emphasizes that loving our brothers and following our convictions are both much more important than being on the right side.
Today, the way animals are killed is not an issue many Christians worry about. But, as usual, Paul resolves the issue by looking at bedrock principles of who we are in Christ, and what motivations should underlie all that we do. His argument in this chapter is thus helpful for every issue not fundamentally related to salvation on which Christians may disagree.
What follows is a reworking of Romans 14, replacing Paul’s specific discussion of food issues with present-day, American political issues. I’ve arbitrarily labeled one side Democrat and the other Republican – feel free to reverse the labels if you wish. Verse 14 moves furthest from the original text, while verses 7-13, 18, and 19 are all unchanged.
The central point in Paul’s discussion is found in verses 7 to 9: We are not to live to ourselves. We are not to live aiming to increase our own comfort or status. All we do– from our seemingly trivial decisions like what we eat to our political decisions – should be focused on giving God honor, on glorifying Him.
So I encourage you: Read Romans 14, then read over this reworking of the chapter. See if this helps you to take to heart the lessons Paul is teaching. Ask yourself if my reworking is true to the basic principles Paul lays out. And then ensure that whatever you do – eating, drinking, or political advocacy – you do all to the glory of God.
As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions, or to convince him of your opinion. 2 One person believes he should vote Democrat, while another votes Republican. 3 Let not the one who votes Democrat despise the one who votes Republican, and let not the one who votes Republican pass judgment on the one who votes Democrat, for God has welcomed him. 4 Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5 One person esteems one party as better than another, while another esteems all parties alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who supports a party, supports it in honor of the Lord. The one who votes Democrat, votes in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who votes Republican, votes in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” 12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
13 Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. 14 I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that one party is better than the other, but it would be wrong for another believer to support that party to please me if he is convinced otherwise. 15 For if your brother is grieved by your political advocacy, you are no longer walking in love. By political advocacy, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. 16 So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. 17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of political advocacy but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. 19 So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. 20 Do not, for the sake of politics, destroy the work of God. One party is indeed better than the other, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by political advocacy. 21 It is good not to support a political party – or to do anything else – if that causes your brother to stumble.
(These related blog posts examine similar issues: Christians and Politics, How Should a Christian Vote?)
Responding to Disasters
January 14, 2010
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is devastated. Thousands and thousands of buildings have collapsed. Tens of thousands are dead. Thousands more are injured and doomed to die, as hospitals too are destroyed and the needs outstrip the remaining medical care.
How can we respond to such a tragedy?
The Bible is our guide in all matters. In His Word, God tells us who He is, who we are, how He rules the world, and how we should respond to Him. He tells us what we could never learn on our own, what we would grope after and never find apart from His revelation.
So what guidance does the Bible give us?
First, we must weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15). Our Lord wept over the coming judgment on Jerusalem (Luke 19:41); He wept at the grave of His friend, even though He was about to raise him from the dead (John 11:35). Ultimately, all sorrow and pain in this world is the result of sin – God’s initial creation was very good (Genesis 1:31). So let us weep over sin and its impact.
Second, we must pray. God works through prayer to bring about His purposes at all times (2 Corinthians 1:11), and so He exhorts us to pray about all our needs (Philippians 4:6).
Third, we must do what we can to help those in need (Luke 12:33). In so doing, we honor God (Proverbs 14:31), who has compassion on the poor and needy (Psalm 72:13). Now, in such situations we can do more harm than good – our attempts to help can hurt, as we noted earlier. So let us give to organizations that are cognizant of these dangers, who are working with local institutions, considering both the urgent relief needs and the longer term rehabilitation and development needs. Some suggestions (among many possibilities): Food for the Hungry, Child Hope International, and Water Missions International.
Fourth, we must take note of Jesus’ warning to those around Him as they considered a local tragedy:
“Those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Luke 13:4-5
Some people evidently were explaining the fall of the tower as God’s judgment on those eighteen people, saying that they deserved to die, and others (like themselves) did not. Jesus says, “Don’t think that way – but take the occasion of these deaths to examine yourself!” God’s judgment will come on all who do not repent (Romans 2:4-5) – and it will be much more terrible than the fall of the tower of Siloam, much more terrible than the Haiti earthquake, much more terrible than the Aceh tsunami (Revelation 6:15-17).
Fifth, we must remind ourselves of the Gospel. No one is righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10-12). We all deserve God’s condemnation, His wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3). Yet God sent His Son to live the perfect life that we should have lived, loving God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength every minute of every day, loving His neighbor as Himself (Hebrews 4:15; Matthew 22:36-40); He sent Him to the cross to suffer and die, taking on Himself the penalty we deserve (2 Corinthians 5:21); and He raised Him from the dead, showing that the penalty was sufficient (Acts 2:24). We who believe in Him (John 1:12), valuing Him above all else (Matthew 13:44), receive the benefits of this death, and are united with Him for all eternity (Romans 6:4-5, 23).
Finally, we can rejoice that God is sovereign over all affairs of men. He is the Almighty One, who not only knows the number of hairs on my head (Matthew 10:30), but watches over and superintends all the events of my life, and of all the lives of those who are united in His Son (Psalm 1:6). So we can pray with the psalmist, “When my spirit faints within me, you know my way!” (Psalm 142:3). May our hurting brothers and sisters in Haiti know this truth, and lean on our Rock and our Refuge (Psalm 61:2-3).
May we, by His grace, be as He is in this world (1 John 4:17) – and thus, knowing our sinfulness, knowing our weakness, serve humbly as conduits of His mercy, His compassion, and His Word to the downtrodden and the needy.
“Asking of Your Father” by Martyn Lloyd-Jones
October 17, 2009
[Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was a Welsh preacher who ministered in Wales and in London in the last century. God used him mightily, particularly in holding up the value of expository preaching when most ministers had abandoned it. The following is taken from his sermon on Matthew 7:7-11, which includes the sentence: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I quoted from this in last Sunday's sermon on God as our fatherly provider; this selection is also relevant for tomorrow's sermon on prayer. You can read and listen to Lloyd-Jones through this website - Coty]
If you should ask me to state in one phrase what I regard as the greatest defect in most Christian lives I would say that it is our failure to know God as our Father. . . . Ah yes, we say; we do know that and believe it. But do we know it in our daily life and living? Is it something of which we are always conscious? If only we got hold of this, we could smile in the face of every possibility and eventuality that lies ahead of us.
How then are we to know this? It is certainly not something based on the notion of the ‘universal Fatherhood of God’. . . . That is not biblical. Our Lord says something here that ridicules that and proves such an idea to be nonsense. He says, ‘If ye then, being evil’. You see the significance? . . . ‘Ye being evil’ means that we not only do things which are evil, but that we are evil. Our natures are corrupt and evil, and those who are essentially corrupt and evil are not the children of God. . . . No; by nature we are all the children of wrath; . . . by nature we are not His children. . . . God is your Father only when you satisfy certain conditions. He is not the Father of any one of us as we are by nature.
How then does God become my Father? According to the Scriptures it is like this. Christ ‘came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power (i.e., authority) to become the sons of God’ (John 1:11, 12). You become a child of God only when you are born again. . . . Believing in [Christ], we receive a new life and nature and we become children of God. Then we can know that God is our Father; but not until then. He will also give us His Holy Spirit, ‘the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father’; and the moment we know this we can be certain that God as our Father adopts a specific attitude with respect to us. It means that, as my Father, He is interested in me, that He is concerned about me, that He is watching over me, that He has a plan and purpose with respect to me, that He is desirous always to bless and to help me. Lay hold of that; take a firm grasp of that. Whatever may happen to you, God is your Father. . . .
But that does not exhaust the statement. There is a very interesting negative addition. Because God is your Father He will never give you anything that is evil. He will give you only that which is good. ‘What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?’ Multiply that by infinity and that is God’s attitude towards His child. In our folly we are apt to think that God is against us when something unpleasant happens to us. But God is our Father; and as our Father he will never give us anything that is evil. Never; it is impossible.
[Another] principle is this. God, being God, never makes a mistake. He knows the difference between good and evil in a way that no-one else does. . . . The earthly father at his best sometimes thinks at the moment that he is acting for the good of his child, but discovers later that it was bad. Your Father who is in heaven never makes such a mistake. He will never give you anything which will turn out to be harmful to you, but which at first seemed to be good. This is one of the most wonderful things we can ever realize. . . . If we but knew we were in the hands of such a Father, our outlook upon the future would be entirely transformed.
Lastly, we must remember increasingly the good gifts which He has for us. ‘How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?’ This is the theme of the whole Bible. What are the good things? Our Lord has given us the answer in that passage in Luke 11. . . . ‘If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?’ That is it. And in giving the Holy Spirit He gives us everything; every fitness we require, every grace, every gift. They are all given to us in Him. . . . You see now why we should thank God that asking, and seeking and knocking, do not just mean that if we ask for anything we like we shall get it. Of course not. What it means is this. Ask for any one of these things that is good for you, that is for the salvation of your soul, your ultimate perfection, anything that brings you nearer to God and enlarges your life and is thoroughly good for you, and He will give it you. He will not give you things that are bad for you. You may think they are good but He knows they are bad. . . .
That is the way to face the future. Find out from the Scriptures what these good things are and seek them. The thing that matters supremely, the best thing for all of us, is to know God, ‘the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom (he) hath sent’; and if we seek that above everything else, if we ‘seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness’, then we have the word of the Son of God . . . that all these other things shall be added unto us. God will give them to us with a bounty that we cannot even imagine. ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’
[Studies in the Sermon on the Mount Volume 2 (Eerdmans, 1960), p. 202-205.]
A Great Commission Resurgence?
May 29, 2009
For the last several months, Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has been advocating a “Great Commission Resurgence” in the Southern Baptist Convention. In his chapel address on April 16th (audio), Dr Akin laid out twelve axioms required for such a resurgence. Since then, SBC President Johnny Hunt has embraced this message, and modified the axioms somewhat, reducing them to ten, as available here.
In many ways, I am impressed with the Great Commission Resurgence document, and believe the SBC should move in the direction it lays out. Here are some of the axioms that clearly resonate with our theology, vision, and values:
1: We call upon all Southern Baptists to submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ in all things at the personal, local church, and denominational levels.
2: We call upon all Southern Baptists to make the gospel of Jesus Christ central in our lives, our churches, and our convention ministries.
Do You Have Ears? Then Hear!
January 24, 2009
[For a version of this devotion that is easier to print, follow this link.]
Do you listen? How is your hearing?
Jesus thinks listening is vital: He says, “Whoever has ears to hear had better listen!” (Mark 4:9 NET).
Most of us have the physical equipment to hear. And yet so often we fail to listen.
Listening is never easy, is it? All of us are so easily distracted – even in church. For example, when someone gets up during a service, perhaps to go to the bathroom, at least one-third of the eyes in the sanctuary follow the person out the door – making sure, I suppose, that the person doesn’t fall down.
Sometimes we listen, but don’t really hear. This was the case with Ezekiel. God tells His prophet that to the people of Israel:
you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice. (Ezekiel 33:32 NIV)
Ezekiel had become an attraction, an amusement. And note that the people responded to his preaching! They expressed devotion, but their actions belied their words. So Ezekiel was to them a performer, a maestro, fun to listen to but having no impact on their lives. They responded aesthetically – but they did not really hear him.
In Mark 4, Jesus emphasizes again and again the importance of truly hearing Him.
- Verse 3: His first word to the crowds is, “Listen!”
- Verse 9: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
- Verse 23: “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”
- Verse 24: “Consider carefully what you hear!”
- Verse 33: “Jesus spoke the word to them, [literally] as much as they could hear.”
In this chapter, He relates the parable of the farmer who sows seed on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns, and on good soil. The seed on the path is eaten by birds; the seed on the rocky soil and among the thorns initially springs up, but dies; the seed on good soil bears a hundredfold more seed.
We frequently understand this parable as referring to evangelism: the evangelist spreads the word; some people never respond; some people appear to respond, yet fall away eventually; others respond and bear fruit. That interpretation states an important truth.
But in context in Mark, I believe it preferable to think of the different grounds as yourself at different times. Ask yourself: How am I responding to the word I hear right now? What barriers prevent me from hearing the word and putting it into practice?
We all want to be like that good soil, multiplying the seed of the word, bearing fruit, giving to others God’s love and life. What does this parable teach us about overcoming barriers to hearing – so that we might be that good soil? Read more
Responding to Economic Turmoil
October 25, 2008
(For a version of this devotion that is easier to print, follow this link.)
Gyrations in the stock market. Banks losing billions. Dire predictions unless Congress does X. Congress does X, yet the situation deteriorates.
What does it all mean? How should Bible-believing Christians respond?
We should respond by trusting in God and in His Word.
Paul tells Timothy to know that hard times are ahead (in his case, from persecution and evil deceivers), but to “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:14-15).
Just so for us. Remain steadfast. Remind yourself and others of the truths of Scripture. God does not change. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His Word is our anchor; His promise is our hope, a “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). Read more
How Should a Christian Vote?
October 17, 2008
(For a version of this devotion that is easier to print, follow this link.)
Is there a Christian position on the political issues facing us today?
We have seen that all in the body of Christ are exiles in this present world, citizens of another kingdom. Our primary responsibility in this period of exile is to serve as ambassadors of our King, speaking and living out His message of reconciliation.
At the same time, we are to “seek the welfare of the city” where we are in exile (Jeremiah 29:7). In a democracy, this surely implies voting; for some individual Christians, it might well mean deep involvement in the political process. But our hope is never to be in any political candidate or party; our hope is in our coming Redeemer King.
Here are some biblical principles concerning voting that I commend to you during this political maelstrom. Read more
Abortion and the Election
October 10, 2008
(For a version of this devotion that is easier to print, follow this link.)
On November 4, we will decide who will serve as the next President of the United States. Two weeks ago, I wrote about our biblical role as citizens of the kingdom of heaven temporarily exiled in this country. Over the next couple of weeks, I will write about some important issues in this election. Today: Abortion.
Abortion is one of the clearest issues separating Obama and McCain. What does the Bible say about abortion? Where do the candidates stand? How much importance should we assign to this particular issue?
Today, I want to briefly outline answers to these issues for readers who believe the Bible is the Word of God, and thus has supreme authority. For those of you who would like to see this issue addressed without appeal to the Bible, I recommend Randy Alcorn’s book, Why Pro-Life? (available for free as a pdf file) and the Abort73.com website.
Consider these seven points: Read more
Christians and Politics
September 25, 2008
(For a version of this devotion that is easier to print, follow this link.)
What is the relationship of the Christian to politics?
As we move towards November’s election, what should role should Christians play?
As a church, we explicitly say in our vision and values statement: “We are not tied to any political party. We value speaking biblical truth to the issues that confront our society, regardless of what parties might be made uncomfortable by the proclamation of that truth.” Over the course of the next several weeks I will address issues facing us this election. My goal is to do just that: to bring out the ways that biblical truth sheds light on the issues discussed in this election.
But prior to looking at specific issues, we need to understand our fundamental role. To that end, consider some key biblical texts: Read more
