Truth War Today

One Of The Best Books You've (Probably) Never Heard Of

2012-02-07T13:34:00.000-08:00

When I first stumbled on this book I almost tore through it in two reading sessions. It is that good. It addresses quite a few issues that many Christians and non-Christians struggle with- hell, evil, the nature of the atonement, election, predestination, God's holiness, justice, goodness. It specifically deals with the un-biblical and dangerous belief in Universalism.

The author contrasts the theologies of George MacDonald (Universalist) and Jonathan Edwards (penal substitutionary atonement). He introduces himself as one who held to MacDonald's view but encountered numerous problems biblically had to abandon the MacDonaldinian position and embrace the biblical view of Edwards. Here are his own words:

My struggle to come to grips with the justice of God can be described as a long and difficult journey from George MacDonald to Jonathan Edwards. MacDonald introduced me to a God whose ways with human beings were understandable and reasonable. MacDonald’s theological method was simple: He took any attitude or action that might be attributed to God and asked whether it seemed compatible with God’s self-revelation in Jesus or with the image of a heavenly Father. Would a good and loving father ever condemn his children to endless punishment? Of course not! Well then, neither would God. God might well punish people, but only out of love and in order to bring them to repentance; His sole concern would always be to draw His creatures out of their sins and into His embrace.

Again, would a good father ever punish one child for the guilt of another, meanwhile letting the second go free? Heaven forbid! Well then, the traditional understanding of the Atonement must be mistaken, for it portrays God as transferring the guilt of sinners to the sinless Son of God and punishing Him for what He had not done. MacDonald’s way of constantly measuring traditional ideas against what he understood to be God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus and in ordinary human behavior impressed me, and for several months I found myself a wholehearted follower of his method and of his theology.

Soon, however, I ran into difficulty. As much as I liked MacDonald’s view of God, I couldn’t see that it really squared well with Scripture. MacDonald himself seemed to have been convinced that he was interpreting the Bible correctly, but I increasingly found points of conflict. I wanted him to be right. Indeed, I wanted it so badly that for a while I preferred his sermons to the Bible. And I vastly preferred them to such a book as J. I. Packer’s Knowing God, which I read for the first time at about this point. MacDonald’s God was easy to understand; one had only to reason from human fatherhood or from the behavior of Jesus in the Gospels to know what He would or would not do. Packer’s God was complex; to know Him one had to approach Him from all different angles, looking at His attributes one at a time and accepting a considerable amount of apparent contradiction among them.

The problem—the irritating problem—was that Packer’s view seemed more biblical. And, in the end, I knew that I could build a Christian life only on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. As attractive as MacDonald’s ideas were, if they didn’t match the teaching of the Bible, they would have to go. After much turmoil and with a great sense of loss, I laid aside my copy of his sermons and turned back to the Bible and the hard work of making sense of God’s justice in its pages.*

In my opinion it is a must read especially in light of the rise of Universalism and those with Universalist tendencies but refuse to call themselves such. People that say they believe in hell, redefine it, and say things like "who is to say that in the end God won't save everyone. God can do whatever he wants!"

Statements like the above reveal that any who teach such things do not understand (or simply reject) the Word of God as authoritative and final on all matters. The author deals with those passages used by Universalists and their ilk and show that they must be understood in light of the Bible as a whole since the bible is non-contradictory. He exposes the tendencies of Universalists to interpret the Bible according to our instincts and in doing so to make out own ideas and feelings the final authority.

Here is another snippet:

Although he would deny it, MacDonald sought to accommodate the justice of God to the sentiments of man. He was confident that he knew what a good God ought to do, and he was not greatly disturbed by the existence of biblical passages that contradicted his theories. Confronting such passages, his usual response was to insist that whatever they might mean, they obviously could not mean what they appeared to mean! Edwards’s approach was quite different. He recognized that man’s sense of justice has not been completely destroyed by the Fall and is therefore in some measure a guide to the ways of God, but Edwards sought always to subordinate human reasoning and feeling to the teaching of Scripture. MacDonald told me to trust my instincts about God; Edwards told me to distrust those instincts and cast myself on the Bible.*

Get your copy here.

Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

*Clotfelter, David (2004-10-01). Sinners in the Hands of a Good God: Reconciling Divine Judgment and Mercy (pp. 15-17). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

*Ibid, p. 17

Psalm 139:2-4 - The Intimate Omniscient God - Part 2 -

2012-02-05T20:37:00.000-08:00

http://adventuresinthanksliving.files.wordpress.com

"You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
   and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
   behold, O LORD, you know it altogether." (Psalm 139:2-4, ESV)

Last time we briefly touched upon the perfect omniscience of God, especially of His elect. It is that most intimate, most burning, most divine, and incomprehensible knowing to be found in the universe and even among the angels of God.

The connection between verse 1 and verses 2-4 must be noted, since it is because of God's omniscience of us that He knows "when I sit down and when I rise up." It is the following part of that verse that intrigues me, "you discern my thoughts from afar."

In order to "sit down" and "rise up," we must use our brain to communicate that order to the body. It is a most amazing thing that even before such command is given, before we can even think of twitching a finger, God "discern[s] my thoughts from afar." The wonderful and infinite truth that, in the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass" 1 is here most evident and most comforting. Why comforting? Because I can rest in the fact that the all-powerful, all-Sovereign, all-Omniscient God is precisely that, Sovereign, and that I do not carry the burden of a chaotic, aimless life without purpose, without meaning, without joy, and without hope. However, I can and I do rejoice in the fact that my God is absolutely Sovereign. Away with "free" will. All I need is God as God, and this God has known me and searched me and is acquainted with all my ways.

R.C. Sproul puts it this way, "If there is any part of creation outside of God's sovereignty, then God is simply not sovereign. If God is not sovereign, then God is not God." 2 Thus I cannot ascribe even my sitting down or my rising up, or my thoughts, or my path, or my lying down, or anything in all my ways to my own illusory "free" will. Verse 16, a verse we will look in more detail when we get there, further affirms this truth,

"....in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."

--
Whether we are awake or asleep, sitting or rising, standing or laying down, God is "acquainted with all my ways." Before I wrote the word "Before," before I had even thought of it, before a word is on my tongue, "behold, O LORD, you know it altogether" (ESV) or "you know it all" (NASB). My thoughts are there because the LORD ordained them to be there. He didn't just "permit" them and "knew about them," He Sovereignly ordained my thoughts and my every action, no matter how casual, to be performed at the precise year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, and millisecond of my life. Do you see how God's knowing cannot be separated from His ordaining? Do you see how wonderful and terrifying and awe-inspiring this truth is?

Charles Spurgeon puts it beautifully,

"Never dost thou misjudge or wrongly interpret me: my inmost thought is perfectly understood by thine impartial mind. Though thou shouldest give but a glance at my heart, and see me as one sees a passing meteor moving afar, yet thou wouldst by that glimpse sum up all the meanings of my soul, so transparent is everything to thy piercing glance." 3

"You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether" (Psalm 139:3-4).

Path, lying down, ways, word, tongue. Once again, the LORD doesn't simply "have knowledge of" our path, our lying down, our ways, our words, and what comes out of our hearts through our tongues; He searches it with His purifying flaming eyes, and purges it with His Word, which is like "silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times" (Psalm 12:6, ESV). Whether good or evil, our God knows it all, and therefore He chastises and prunes us as He seems fit for His glory and our sanctification (John 15). Day to day the Holy Spirit works in us to set our tongues ablaze with the flames of God's Word, and to quench the tongue that is set "on fire by hell" itself (James 3:6, ESV).

Every single thought, whether spoken or unspoken, is not only known, it is perfectly known by God. Thoughts command the body to sit, to rise, to walk, to lay down, or to speak; thus the LORD knows them all perfectly because He ordained every single event in every single second of every single day of your life. What hope is there of concealing our thoughts from Him? From hiding the poison that festers in our wicked hearts from the eyes of Him that "run to and fro throughout the whole earth" (2 Chronicles 16:9, ESV)? Keep in mind that we are only talking about God's "eyes," as a figure of speech that refers to His omniscience and Sovereignty, how much more all the rest of the attributes the psalmist speaks about in the rest of this Psalm? The LORD who knows "what is in man" (John 2:25, Matthew 9:4)?

Having this in mind, Spurgeon exhorts us,

"Our paths may be habitual or accidental, open or secret, but with them all the Most Holy One is well acquainted. This should fill us with awe, so that we sin not; with courage, so that we fear not; with delight, so that we mourn not." 3

And I pray with the psalmist,

"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!" (Psalm 139:23-24, ESV).

I can only bow down and say,

"Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it."

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Next weekend, God willing, we will look at verse 5 (and following) to have a brief discussion on The Intimacy of the Omnipresent God.

"You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me."

Stay tuned!

Eliezer Salazar

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1 "III:I." Westminster Confession of Faith. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. <http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/>.

2 Sproul, R. C. "Predestination and the Sovereignty of God." Chosen by God. 25th ed. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2011. 16. Print.

3 Spurgeon, Charles H. "Treasury of DavidPsalm 139." The Spurgeon Archive. Philip R. Johnson. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. <http://www.spurgeon.org/treasury/ps139.htm>.

When Not To Argue

2012-02-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

Far too many Christians enter into theological or doctrinal discussion when they shouldn't. That is not to say they should not ask sincere questions because they genuinely desire to learn. But even then they should be cautious in attempting to go further when they are not knowledgeable on the subject.

We tend to act like we are experts on every subject; many people simply desire to state their opinion or their position without knowing their opponents argument. Some people simply have not invested in the proper amount of study on a subject to interact on a given topic on a meaningful level. We are prone simply to just assert our own positions and being seen as always right.

No individual should ever enter into a doctrinal discussion if they do not understand or know what, well, what they are talking about. It is perfectly fine to admit ignorance on issues especially as long as you are willing to study and learn. But do not argue when you are without knowledge on the subject. By all means be informed of your own position. Not just what so and so says.

If you only know your own position on eschatology (study of the end times) and not that of others it is wise to avoid trying to prove them wrong and show your position right. In fact to do so would reveal your ignorance and not be helpful to your own view.

Take the time to listen and learn what your opponents believe. Many books have been written, sermons preached, conferences produced on given topics. It is just not very productive to prove your position is the most correct one when you have not shown for your opponent that you have invested in the proper study on what they believe. In fact you won't be interacting much because they may be spending far too much time correcting your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of their views. It becomes counter-productive.

For the longest time I refrained from engaging on the topic of baptism. I learned that I did not understand my paedobaptist brethren's position. So for years I stood back, listened, read and learned, from them, what they believed. It was not easy nor simple. Quite the contrary. It was time consuming and tiresome and really stretched my own mind because it challenged some of my own views that I had not really been challenged on (that tends to happen when you only interact with your own circle). Of course I remain a firm Reformed Baptist but now I understand, even though I disagree, with the paedobaptist position (to some degree). Now we can, hopefully, interact on the subject on a more meaningful and productive level.

In conclusion do not engage in argumentation if you are not serious about learning and have not learned what the other side believes. Remember this Proverb, "A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion" (Pro. 18:2).

Listen, learn and engage. Remember you are not always right.

Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

Love Believes All Things?

2012-01-30T18:35:00.000-08:00

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Co 13:4–7).

How many times have we heard this passage, especially v. 7 (believes all things), simply tossed out in discussions of who is and is not a part of the body of Christ, in hopes that the greater Christian community will embrace all who claim the name of Jesus. In other words if someone claims to be a Christian but denies the triune God, has a history of proclaiming modalism, but says they believe in the Trinity when pressed yet uses modalist language to describe the Godhead and feel "uncomfortable" with the word "persons;" prefers "manifestations" (because it is "Pauline"), and preaches a prosperity gospel, we are to embrace them as a brother in Christ because he professes to affirm the Trinity and because love believes all things then we must believe his profession of orthodoxy.

Let's not limit the situation to T.D. Jakes and the Elephant Room 2 debacle. Let's talk about others that say they "believe" the Gospel in private but in public they pervert it and preach a different Gospel. But because they say they are "Christian" we must think the best of them because love believes all things. I once had someone sit before me and tell me that they believed what I believe concerning the Gospel. But what I heard come from his mouth publicly was a different gospel. And the conversation I had with him was after this. Then his writings also reveal that he denies the Gospel. Since some take "believes all things" and divorce it from its context many would force us to accept this person in "unity." Must we take everyone at their word when the facts say otherwise?

Is that what Paul is saying here. Must we take everyone's word at face value? I do not believe that is what the Apostle is teaching. I do not believe him to be saying that we must believe the best about everyone and take their word for all things. I believe that those who wish to make it so would not even be consistent with their own position. Let's say they do believe the best about everyone and take them at their word. The whole prison system would be empty! Of course there is something called evidence which would really help in this matter. And they would not wish to free all that say they are "innocent."

Hence if a person has a history of saying one thing and then professes to no longer believe falsehood. We need to see some genuine repentance that their new position is indeed credible. We should see some public refutation of their former positions whether they were in writing or speaking and then proclamation of the truth. After all the verse that comes before says that love "rejoices in the truth."

What then does Scripture mean when it says "love believes all things?" Here we shall consult a few commentators:

In saying “love always believes” and “hopes,” Paul does not mean that love always believes the best about everything and everyone, but that love never ceases to have faith; it never loses hope. This is why it can endure. The life that is so touched by the never-ceasing love of God in Christ (cf. Rom. 8:39 is in turn enabled by the Spirit to love others in the same way. It trusts God in behalf of the one loved, hopes to the end that God will show mercy in that person’s behalf.*

Love “believes all things.” This does not mean that a Christian filled with love lacks the qualities of wisdom and discernment and thus becomes the gullible dupe of every falsifier. On the contrary, love is always wise and discerning.

The clause signifies that a Christian has faith in God, who will work out his divine plans even when all the indicators seem to point in different directions. Filled with love for God and neighbor, a believer trusts that God indeed will make his or her paths straight (Prov. 3:5–6).*

Charity believes and hopes well of others: Believeth all things; hopeth all things. Indeed charity does by no means destroy prudence, and, out of mere simplicity and silliness, believe every word, Prov. 14:15. Wisdom may dwell with love, and charity be cautious. But it is apt to believe well of all, to entertain a good opinion of them when there is no appearance to the contrary; nay, to believe well when there may be some dark appearances, if the evidence of ill be not clear. All charity is full of candour, apt to make the best of every thing, and put on it the best face and appearance? it will judge well, and believe well, as far as it can with any reason, and will rather stretch its faith beyond appearances for the support of a kind opinion; but it will go into a bad one with the upmost reluctance, and fence against it as much as it fairly and honestly can. And when, in spite of inclination, it cannot believe well of others, it will yet hope well, and continue to hope as long as there is any ground for it. It will not presently conclude a case desperate, but wishes the amendment of the worst of men, and is very apt to hope for what it wishes. How well-natured and amiable a thing is Christian charity?*

Love believeth all things — not that the Christian knowingly and willingly allows himself to be imposed upon — not that he divests himself of prudence and judgment, that he may be the more easily taken advantage of — not that he unlearns the way of distinguishing black from white. What then? He requires here, as I have already said, simplicity and kindness in judging of things; and he declares that these are the invariable accompaniments of love. The consequence will be, that a Christian man will reckon it better to be imposed upon by his own kindness and easy temper, than to wrong his brother by an unfriendly suspicion.*

We must never forget also that "love rejoices in the truth" (v. 6).

Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

*Fee, G. D. (1987). The First Epistle to the Corinthians. The New International Commentary on the New Testament (640). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

*Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953-2001). Vol. 18: New Testament commentary : Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. New Testament Commentary (461–462). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

*Henry, M. (1996). Matthew Henry's commentary on the whole Bible : Complete and unabridged in one volume (1 Co 13:4–7). Peabody: Hendrickson.

*Calvin, J. (1998). Calvin's Commentaries: 1 Corinthians (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; Calvin's Commentaries (1 Co 13:7). Albany, OR: Ages Software.

Psalm 139:1 - The Intimacy of the Omniscient God - Part 1 -

2012-01-21T10:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.credomag.com

"O LORD, you have searched me and known me!" (Psalm 139:1, ESV).

It is extremely important to notice and acknowledge the fact that David here calls upon YHWH, the I AM of Exodus 3, and not upon any other god. The raging Mount Sinai is here acknowledged by the Psalmist where he worships and bows down to no other god but the LORD. David goes on to point out a very important attribute of God that is part of what comprises His Sovereignty: His omniscience; He knows everything completely and perfectly. However, although it is true that the LORD has perfect knowledge of everything, the psalmist is specific concerning God's omniscience of him. He doesn't negate the fact that the LORD perfectly knows all things, but here, contrary to common Jewish corporate prayer, the Psalmist calls upon the LORD to praise Him for His omniscience of him. Spurgeon comments on this point,

"It is ever our wisdom to lay truth home to ourselves. How wonderful the contrast between the observer and the observed! Jehovah and me! Yet this most intimate connection exists, and therein lies our hope. Let the reader sit still a while and try to realize the two poles of this statement,—the Lord and poor puny man—and he will see much to admire and wonder at." 1

As Spurgeon further comments on this verse, we must be careful not to make this verse say something it does not in our efforts to study God's omniscience. God does not have perfect knowledge of His creatures because He searches them and knows them; it does not take an action from His part for Him to come to know us perfectly and intimately, for that suggests a measure of ignorance on His part that is corrected at a point in time in His searching us to know us (notice the order of the words in the Psalm). Let me quote Spurgeon once again,

"This infallible knowledge has always existed—"Thou hast searched me"; and it continues unto this day, since God cannot forget that which he has once known. There never was a time in which we were unknown to God, and there never will be a moment in which we shall be beyond his observation." 1

All the psalmist wants to convey is that the LORD knows us as if He was ever looking deep into our beings with His flaming eyes and uncovering everything we think we can hide.

As Hebrews 4:13 (ESV) says,

"And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

Let's look at four verses that will help us understand what the psalmist is saying:

"But you, O LORD, know me; you see me, and test my heart toward you." (Jeremiah 12:3, ESV).

"Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous - you who test the minds and hearts (Heb. "hearts and kidneys"), O righteous God!" (Psalm 7:9, ESV).

"You have tried my heart, you have visited me by night, you have tested me, and you will find nothing..." (Psalm 17:3, ESV).

"Would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart." (Psalm 44:21, ESV).

There is an overarching reality that encompasses these four (and many more) verses, namely, there is an intimate, personal, eternal searching of the soul of the elect by the LORD that the wicked do not take part on. Furthermore, this intimate searching of the soul is directly linked to God's knowing of the soul so that there is no confusion as far as God needing to search in order to know. This reminds me of what we have already discussed in Psalm 1, that the way of the blessed is known by God, meaning, the blessed themselves are known by God.

What does this knowing mean? To give you an idea of how intimate this is, the same word used in Genesis 4:1 for Adam consummating marriage with his wife Eve is used in this verse. That is how searching, examining, burning, and intimate God's knowing of us is. The fact that His perfect knowledge of His elect is not dependent on an action on His part, but has been so from eternity is even more mind-blowing. Why should the ruler of all the Earth ordain for such an intimate knowledge of His own? What's more, does this merely mean "to have knowledge of"? Why would the psalmist dedicate an entire Psalm to praise God for this if this merely meant "to have knowledge of"?

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For a more in-depth discussion on God's intimate foreknowledge of His own, see the following entries on Psalm 1:

Does Christ Know YOU? - Part 1
Does Christ Know YOU? - Study of John 10
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The LORD knows us as thoroughly and intimately as a man does his wife. Fittingly enough, this is the exact imagery God uses of His church. We are His bride, being purified and sanctified through His Word until He comes for us to "present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27, ESV).

The eyes of our husband are a "flame of fire" (Revelation 1:14, ESV) that "run to and fro throughout the whole earth" (2 Chronicles 16:9, ESV). Christian, let your meditation be on the fact that this majestic God searches you and knows you as intimately (and infinitely more) as a husband does his wife. You are His sheep because He knows you (please refer to the links above for a deeper study of this wonderful truth), and there is nothing you can hide from Him. What a wonderful and sanctifying truth for those of us who are His, and what a terrifying truth for those who are not His. The same eyes that lovingly chasten, comfort, strengthen, and sanctify His elect are the same eyes that will one day burn the wicked for an eternity. Stop for a minute and think about that!

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Next week we will look at verses 2-4 and see the psalmist expanding on what he said in verse 1 (remember the chapter/verse division was added later, and we must look at the Bible in context). Stay tuned!

Eliezer Salazar

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1 Spurgeon, Charles H. "Treasury of DavidPsalm 139." The Spurgeon Archive. Philip R. Johnson. Web. 21 Jan. 2012. <http://www.spurgeon.org/treasury/ps139.htm>.

Psalm 139 - Structure -

2012-01-14T12:12:00.000-08:00

http://www.boomerinthepew.com

I know I said we'd jump right into verse 1, but I think that when dealing with Psalms, and specially one like 139, it is important to break it down into sections that make it easier on the reader to study, analyze, understand, meditate, and praise God for what is learned about Him and about us as creatures in this Psalm.

The overarching attribute of God that encompasses all the others is, in my opinion, the Sovereignty of God. If God knows everything, it is because He is sovereign; if God is everywhere at the same time, it is because He is sovereign; if God is by nature Light and all darkness is consumed before Him, it is because He is sovereign; if God can create out of nothing, it is because He is sovereign; if God's Mind is infinite, it is because He is sovereign; if God is the only one who can judge in true righteousness, it is because He is sovereign; if God can (and does) hate the wicked enough to judge them, it is because He is sovereign; if God is truly the only one who can lead us into life everlasting, it is because He is sovereign. To be sovereign simply means to be ruler of all and in authority of all with the power to do all that is within His nature to do, even ordaining from before we were born whether we would spend eternity with Him, or whether we would rightly be condemned to eternal hell-fire. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans, who are we to talk back to God? We who are but clay? The same sentiment is expressed by the Psalmist here when he says,

"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand." (Psalm 139:17-18, ESV).

There comes a point when we as finite creatures cannot penetrate into the infinite mind of God and we must simply bow down and worship Him.

I would like to break down the Psalm into the following sections:

-The Intimacy of the Omniscient God: vv.1-6.
-The Intimacy of the Omnipresent God: vv. 5-13.
-The Receding Darkness before the God of Light: vv.11-12.
-The Intimacy of the Creator God: vv. 13-16.
-The Sovereignty of God: v. 16.
-The Infinite and Precious Mind of God: vv. 17-18.
-The Omniscient, Omnipresent, Holy, Creator, Sovereign, Infinite God who Judges: vv. 19-22.
-Righteous and Godly Hatred of the Wicked asserted: vv.19-22.
-The Intimacy of God the Leader: vv. 23-24.

I'd like to think this is the structure we will be following for the following weeks (maybe months) until we finish dissecting this Psalm in its entirety, as far as the Spirit of God enables me through the study of His Word, but maybe a few things will be changed as we go along the way. The point of this structure is simply to facilitate the study of the Psalm and to allow for a more careful and detailed exegesis of such an amazing song of praise.

Stay tuned and join me in this mind-blowing and heart-burning journey through the Psalm that magnifies some of the attributes of our Sovereign God.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Eliezer Salazar

More Carson On The Love Of God

2012-01-10T12:57:00.000-08:00

Even in the mid-1980s, according to Andrew Greeley, three-quarters of his respondents in an important poll reported that they preferred to think of God as “friend” than as “king.” I wonder what the percentage would have been if the option had been “friend” or “judge.” Today most people seem to have little difficulty believing in the love of God; they have far more difficulty believing in the justice of God, the wrath of God, and the non-contradictory truthfulness of an omniscient God. But is the biblical teaching on the love of God maintaining its shape when the meaning of “God” dissolves in mist?
We must not think that Christians are immune from these influences. In an important book, Marsha Witten surveys what is being preached in the Protestant pulpit. Let us admit the limitations of her study. Her pool of sermons was drawn, on the one hand, from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), scarcely a bastion of confessional evangelicalism; and, on the other, from churches belonging to the Southern Baptist Convention. Strikingly, on many of the crucial issues, there was only marginal statistical difference between these two ecclesiastical heritages. A more significant limitation was that the sermons she studied all focused on the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15). That is bound to slant sermons in a certain direction.
Nevertheless her book abounds in lengthy quotations from these sermons, and they are immensely troubling. There is a powerful tendency “to present God through characterizations of his inner states, with an emphasis on his emotions, which closely resemble those of human beings.…God is more likely to ‘feel’ than to ‘act,’ to ‘think’ than to ‘say.’ ” Or again:
The relatively weak notion of God’s fearsome capabilities regarding judgment is underscored by an almost complete lack of discursive construction of anxiety around one’s future state. As we have already seen, the sermons dramatize feelings of anxiety for listeners over many other (this-worldly) aspects of their removal from God, whether they are discussing in the vocabulary of sin or in other formulations. But even when directly referring to the unconverted, only two sermons press on fear of God’s judgment by depicting anxiety over salvation, and each text does this only obliquely, as it makes the point indirectly on its way to other issues while buffering the audience from negative feelings.…The transcendent, majestic, awesome God of Luther and Calvin—whose image informed early Protestant visions of the relationship between human beings and the divine has undergone a softening of demeanor through the American experience of Protestantism, with only minor exceptions.…Many of the sermons depict a God whose behavior is regular, patterned, and predictable; he is portrayed in terms of the consistency of his behavior, of the conformity of his actions to the single rule of “love.”
With such sentimentalizing of God multiplying in Protestant churches, it does not take much to see how difficult maintaining a biblical doctrine of the love of God can be.*

Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

*Carson, D. A. (2000). The difficult doctrine of the love of God (12–13). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.

Dr. D.A. Carson On The Love Of God

2012-01-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God—to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity.
The result, of course, is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable. The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized. This process has been going on for some time. My generation was taught to sing, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” in which we robustly instruct the Almighty that we do not need another mountain (we have enough of them), but we could do with some more love. The hubris is staggering.
It has not always been so. In generations when almost everyone believed in the justice of God, people sometimes found it difficult to believe in the love of God. The preaching of the love of God came as wonderful good news. Nowadays if you tell people that God loves them, they are unlikely to be surprised. Of course God loves me; he’s like that, isn’t he? Besides, why shouldn’t he love me? I’m kind of cute, or at least as nice as the next person. I’m okay, you’re okay, and God loves you and me.*

Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

*Carson, D. A. (2000). The difficult doctrine of the love of God (11–12). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.

Psalm 139 - Title and Authorship -

2012-01-07T11:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.goddiscussion.com

Before digging into the first verse of this amazing Psalm, I think it's important to have a brief study of what this phrase means,

"To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David." (ESV).
"For the choir director. A Psalm of David." (NASB).
"For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David." (ASV).

Music has played a huge role in the worship of the people of God since the time of Moses until today. Exodus 15 gives the account of the people of Israel being delivered by God from the hands of the Egyptians. We see Moses leading the people into worship by song, and in vv. 15:20-21 Miriam the prophetess, Moses' sister, leads the women of Israel into praising God for the destruction of the Egyptians and His mighty deliverance of His people. In 1 Samuel 10:5 Saul meets a group of prophets prophesying with, "harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre" (ESV). In Isaiah 26 we read a song composed by the prophet praising the faithfulness, forgiveness, and protection of God to be sung by God's people.

In 1 Chronicles 24-25 we read the account of the division of roles for the descendants of Aaron, who would be in charge of the priestly office of the worship of the Lord. In chapter 25 we see David assigning priests to the specific duty of worship and prophecy with instruments.

All through the Old Testament we see the prominent role music played in prophecy and the worship of the Lord and how the Lord is to be praised and worshiped in an orderly and magnifying fashion; so there were officers appointed for the specific task of worship. Here we see how king David took it as his responsibility to set this Psalm to music through the chief director. The magnificence with which David praises the omniscience, omnipresence, sovereignty, and creative nature of Yahweh is simply too grand not to be put to music!

As Charles Spurgeon says on this point,

"This sacred song is worthy of the most excellent of the singers, and is fitly dedicated to the leader of the Temple Psalmody, that he might set it to music, and see that it was devoutly sung in the solemn worship of the Most High." 1

--

As far as authorship goes, I will, once again, quote Spurgeon,

"A Psalm of David. It bears the image and superscription of King David, and could have come from no other mint than that of the son of Jesse. Of course the critics take this composition away from David, on account of certain Aramaic expressions in it. We believe that upon the principles of criticism now in vogue it would be extremely easy to prove that Milton did not write Paradise Lost. We have yet to learn that David could not have used expressions belonging to "the language of the patriarchal ancestral house." Who knows how much of the antique speech may have been purposely retained among those nobler minds who rejoiced in remembering the descent of their race? Knowing to what wild inferences the critics have run in other matters, we have lost nearly all faith in them, and prefer to believe David to be the author of this Psalm, from internal evidences of style and matter, rather than to accept the determination of men whose modes of judgment are manifestly unreliable." 1

As Spurgeon says, the whole body of the Psalm is unmistakably David's, it has David painted all over it. The intimacy, grandeur, and prose of this Psalm is simply characteristic of David and cannot be attributed to anyone else but to the "sweet psalmist of Israel" (2 Samuel 23:1, ESV).

--

Next week we will begin studying this Psalm by looking at verse 1,

"O LORD, you have searched me and known me!" (Psalm 139:1, ESV).

Stay tuned!

Eliezer Salazar

--

1 Spurgeon, Charles H. "Treasury of DavidPsalm 139." The Spurgeon Archive. Philip R. Johnson. Web. 05 Jan. 2012. <http://www.spurgeon.org/treasury/ps139.htm>.

Psalm 139 - The Intimate Omnipresent and Omniscient Creator God -

2012-01-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

http://cdn1.pastorgraphics.com

Psalm 139 is a Psalm that boggles the mind; it stretches it to a realm far beyond its boundaries into the very nature of the Almighty creator God who lives. This Psalm is the humble attempt of a fallen human being to describe the majesty of two attributes of God: His omniscience, and His omnipresence.

I will let John Calvin and Bishop Manth, respectively, introduce us to this Psalm,

"In this Psalm David, that he may dismiss the deceptive coverings under which most men take refuge, and divest himself of hypocrisy, insists at large upon the truth that nothing can elude the divine observation — a truth which he illustrates from the original formation of man, since he who fashioned us in our mother’s womb, and imparted to every member its particular office and function, cannot possibly be ignorant of our actions. Quickened by this meditation to a due reverential fear of God, he declares himself to have no sympathy with the ungodly and profane, and beseeches God, in the confidence of conscious integrity, not to forsake him in this life." - John Calvin 1

"Amongst its other excellencies, it is for nothing more admirable than for the exquisite skill with which it descants on the perfections of the Deity. The Psalmist’s faith in the omnipresence and omniscience of Jehovah is in the commencement depicted · with a singular and beautiful variety of the most lively expressions: nor can anything be more sublime than that accumulation of the noblest and loftiest images, in the 7th and following verses, commensurate with the limits of created nature, whereby the Psalmist labors to impress upon the mind some notion of the infinity of God." - Bishop Manth 1

Let me also turn to Charles Spurgeon,

"One of the most notable of the sacred hymns. It sings the omniscience and omnipresence of God, inferring from these the overthrow of the powers of wickedness, since he who sees and hears the abominable deeds and words of the rebellious will surely deal with them according to his justice. The brightness of this Psalm is like unto a sapphire stone, or Ezekiel's "terrible crystal"; it flames out with such flashes of light as to turn night into day. Like a Pharos, this holy song casts a clear light even to the uttermost parts of the sea, and warns us against that practical atheism which ignores the presence of God, and so makes shipwreck of the soul."2

As we journey through the Psalm and as we finish it, if it's God's will, may we join the Psalmist in exclaiming in awe, wonder, and fear that,

"Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it." - Psalm 139:6, ESV.

Join me as we journey through this majestic and lofty Psalm, stay tuned!

Eliezer Salazar

--

1 Calvin, John. "Psalm 139." Commentary on Psalms. Vol. 5. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 32. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Calvin College Computer Science. Print.

2 Spurgeon, Charles H. "Treasury of DavidPsalm 139." The Spurgeon Archive. Philip R. Johnson. Web. 05 Jan. 2012. <http://www.spurgeon.org/treasury/ps139.htm>.

Debunker No. 7 - "It's not about doctrine, it's about a personal relationship with Christ!"

2012-01-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

http://x40.xanga.com

Sounds pretty pious and humble at a quick glance, doesn't it? Having that intimacy and privacy with our great God and Savior uninterrupted and as simple and beautiful as the Apostle John's leaning on the Lord's side as his beloved Apostle. What can be more beautiful than that? It sounds so easy and practical not to have to do any study at all but to just walk with the Lord, doesn't it? It's actually very appealing to our modern mindset to put the Bible away and just walk with the Lord.

That, however, is the very problem. I turn to Michael Horton for stating the problem better than I ever could,

"For many Christians, words such as doctrine and theology - and especially systematic theology - conjure up images of intellectual pride, divisiveness, and the presumption that we can put God in a box, neatly explained by our categories and formulations. Of course, we are nearly infinitely resourceful in using good things with corrupt motives and for less than noble ends. We can exhibit spiritual pride also in our experience or morality However, it is the goal of good theology to humble us before the triune God of majesty and grace....Theology simply means "the study of God," and doctrine means "teaching." Since the main message of Scripture is the unfolding mystery of Christ, who reveals his Father and reconciles us to him, theology is a central concern of every believer. It would be off if we told our spouse or other loved ones that we wanted to spend time with them and experience their fellowship regularly but did not want to know anything about them - their characteristics, accomplishments, personal histories, likes and dislikes, and plans for the future.

Yet when it comes to God, people often imagine that it is possible to have a personal relationship with God apart from theology. In fact, some Christians assume that knowing doctrine and practical living are competing interests. The modern dichotomy between doctrine and life, theology and discipleship, knowing and doing, theory and practice has had disastrous consequences in the life of the church and its witness in the world." 1

I would add that without Biblical theology we wouldn't even know who to have a personal relationship with. If we don't need Biblical doctrine then why shouldn't we hold Buddha's hand and walk in the sand with him? Or maybe have a nice spiritual dinner with Mohammed; there is no compelling reason to have a personal relationship with the Triune God of Scripture apart from Biblical theology. Without it everything is up for grabs.

Some might say, "ok, theology is good if it's used in a balanced way." Sounds much like "drinking is good if not abused." Are we seriously going to lower the Bible to that? Both of Paul's letters to Timothy and the book of Titus' main message are to guard our doctrine and the Church from false teachers and to grow in the knowledge of God. His main emphasis is on doctrine and the application of it. There is no "balance" between theology and practice with Paul, there is both theology and practice at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive, they are one, and yet they are distinct.

True theology will make the heart burn with a passion for the true God. Without it we would never know we are supposed to worship God. Without it, we wouldn't know that no other gods exist before God or ever will, and thus we are commanded to worship only one God manifested in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and what is revealed of each of them.

Let's read the Nicene Creed and see whether we could ever believe in these things by only seeking a "relationship" with God apart from the Bible,

We believe in one God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
Very God of Very God,
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father
by whom all things were made;
who for us and for our salvation,
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man,
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried,
and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of the Father.
And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead,
whose kingdom shall have no end.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life,
who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified,
who spoke by the prophets.
And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen." 2

If we don't need doctrine, then not only will we not know we are commanded to worship Yahweh, but we will be in sin for worshiping gods of our own imagination.

The very phrase "It's not about doctrine, it's about a relationship with God" is a doctrine. Rejecting doctrine and advocating a "relationship with Christ" without it is not only unbiblical, it is an excuse for laziness and an open invitation to heresy and idolatry.

"Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." - 1 Timothy 4:16, KJV.

Sola Scriptura!

Eliezer Salazar

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1 Horton, Michael S. "I. Why Theology? Drama, Doctrine, Doxology, and Discipleship." The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology For Pilgrims On The Way. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. 13-14. Print.

2 "The Nicene Creed." Creeds of Christendom. Web. 04 Jan. 2012. <http://www.creeds.net/ancient/nicene.htm>.

A Tribute To A Hero: Athanasius

2012-01-02T10:34:00.000-08:00

Truth is important. Such a statement does not represent the sentiment of the majority of our culture today. Truth, today, is whatever you want it to be. To believe in truth that is universal and morally binding on all people- is considered being old fashioned, and irrational. Such was not the sentiment of a man who lived in the 4th century- whose name was Athanasius (and such should not be the sentiment of any Christian). The Apostle Paul was clear on the importance of truth. There was no room for compromise and tolerance for false teaching in his mind (1Tim 1:19-20, 1Tim 1:3-7,1 Tim 4:1-2,Titus 1:11,Titus 1:13-14). False teaching ought to be exposed, and false teachers ought to be confronted- Athanasius did just that.

A teacher by the name of Arius came in at the start of the 4th century, claiming that Jesus is not God, nor did He eternally exist. He claimed that Jesus was created by the Father from nothing. The biblical position (the position Athanasius defended) is that Jesus IS God, and has eternally existed with God the Father. Arius, despite claiming Christ was not God, held that Jesus was something more than just a creation. He acknowledged that Christ was something worthy of worship (If his proposition that Christ is not God is true- this is idolatry). Arius being a musician, put his theology to music, and popularized the idea. It soon seemed that all of Christiandom was dancing to Arius's tune.

Due to the dispute- a council was arranged by Constantine to deal with the issue. At the Council Of Nicea in 325 AD, the question of whether The Son is of the same substance as The Father (Orthodox/Athanasius)- homoouisos, or whether the Son is of a different substance- (Arius) heteroousios, was the debate. The council ruled that Arianism was not biblical, and affirmed that Christ is of the same substance. Hence the words from the Council:

"I believe..... in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father;"

One would think that all was settled, but, such was not the case. Many in power remained sympathetic towards Arius, and Arianism resurged stronger than ever. Arius claimed that he had been misunderstood, and made an attempt at sounding more Orthodox. Arius, though exiled, returned at the permission of Constantine. Athanasius refused to accept Arius back into fellowship. Athanasius was then exiled. Athanasius in his life time, was exiled five different times. While away from his church, He continued to preach and write about the deity of Christ, and against the heresy of Arianism. Arianism, it seemed, had triumphed. Jerome is quoted as saying " The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian". It seemed to Athanasius that he was alone in fighting this war, hence the phrase: Athanasius Contra Mundum (Athanasius Against The World). Arius eventually died, though, his heresy was still rampant. It plagued the church for decades. By the providential hand of God, men who loved the Trinity began to have a greater influence and Arianism saw its demise.

No matter what the odds were, no matter what Emperor was in power- Athanasius remained faithful to the truth. The truth that is found not only in Nicea, but, ultimately in scripture. It is said that Athanasius spent seventeen years of his life in exile. He could have sat back, and played nice with the Roman emperors. Athanasius refused to compromise, and the church is better today because of it.

Dr. James White comments:

Yet, in the midst of this darkness, a lone voice remained strong. Arguing from Scripture, fearlessly reproaching error, writing from refuge in the desert, along the Nile, or in the crowded suburbs around Alexandria, Athanasius continued the fight. His unwillingness to give place — even when banished by the Emperor, disfellowshipped by the established church, and condemned by local councils and bishops alike — gave rise to the phrase, Athanasius contra mundum: "Athanasius against the world."

Though he did not write it, the Athanasius creed resembles the conviction the early church father fought for. Here is a portion of that creed:

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
    neither blending their persons
    nor dividing their essence.
        For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
        the person of the Son is another,
        and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
        But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
        their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.

- awretchsaved

A Gift For the New Year from Jonathan Edwards

2011-12-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com

I thought I'd write an entry for the coming New Year (and maybe I will), but I thought that it would be better to let a godly man from the past speak relevantly to us today. His name is Jonathan Edwards and he was 21 years old when he wrote what came to be called, "the Resolutions." In these 70 Resolutions spanning a period of about two years he records his eagerness to live a life for God in increasing sanctification and righteousness; not a righteousness of his own, but one coming from the Lord.

The quality of this work at such a young age shows how theologically deep and rich was the commitment of the youth in those days to please the Lord and do His bidding through the proclamation of the Gospel and living completely dependent of Him. How tragic the reality of our generation is today.

Without further ado, I leave you with The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards and with his response to a letter by a young recent convert to Christ, commonly known as "Advice to Young Converts," which is more of a pastoral than moralistic letter, including large portions of Scripture in which Edwards advises her not to let her religion grow cold, but rather to increase the fire through the Word of God.

The Resolutions: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/the-resolutions-of-jonathan-edwards

"Advice to Young Converts": http://cmunki.net/articles/Advice_to_Young_Converts.htm

There is a booklet available for purchase which includes both the Resolutions and Advice to Young Converts which includes a description of each:

"Nichols opens with a brief introduction to Edwards’ historical context, the events of his life, and a brief note on the two texts themselves. “Resolutions” paints a picture of a young minister whose strength and trust lie in his God, not in the piece of paper documenting his graduation from seminary. He desires not just the ‘good’ in life, but the ‘best,’ which he roots in happiness found only in God.The final document in this little booklet is the oft-printed “Advice to Young Converts,” a response to a letter from a young woman in a nearby parish. Judging from Edwards’ opening comments, she has inquired about Christian conduct, and in true form Edwards responds by speaking to her heart. He begins by warning her against her religion growing cold (this letter was written in the midst of the first Great Awakening of 1740-7142) and cautions her to seek the same grace from God that she sought during conversion. Edwards includes large swaths of Scripture in his letter, rendering the tone of the letter pastoral rather than moralistic. No wonder Miss Hatheway treasured this letter, ensuring its survival to this day."

May we seek to live in ever increasing righteousness and holiness this coming year, as we are commanded to by Christ (Matthew 5:48). But let us live with the understanding that we can never claim any credit for our righteousness, but that we must live thanking the Lord because His righteousness has made us righteous.

Happy New Year!

Eliezer Salazar

-- Truth War Today 2011 --

What is Christmas All About?

2011-12-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.nowtheendbegins.com

Two years ago I wrote a very short entry on Christmas. I would like to re-visit Christmas with you today by asking one question: What is Christmas all about?

Answer: the wrath of God.

I can see the puzzled look in your face as you read that answer. But allow me to expand a little on what I mean.

We speak a lot of "being saved" and that "Christ died for us" on Christmas, yet most people today don't even know what that means. Saved from what? Saved from who? Died for what? Died for who? Why did He lay down His life? Why?

Answer: the wrath of God.

What was the will of God, YHWH (Yahweh), in sending Christ into the world?

".....it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief" (Isaiah 53:6,10, ESV).

I like the NASB better,

"But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief" (Isaiah 53:10, NASB).

If the Lord wills something, He must be pleased with it. Why? Because it's His will; that simple. Unless we want to say that the Lord is displeased with what He himself wills, we must conclude that whatever He wills, regardless of how we as fallen humans see it, must be pleasing to Him. Why? Because in whatever God wills He demonstrates His attributes: His mercy, His love, His glory, even His wrath and His power (Romans 9:22, ESV). Why is demonstrating His attributes pleasing to Him? Because it puts Him on display; it makes Him the center of all, it gives Him the praise and the glory for everything. Therefore, we can say with the prophet that God was indeed "pleased to crush [Christ]."

Why is God Angry?

The prophet tells us that as well,

"But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him." (Isaiah 53:5-7, NASB).

Before commenting on these verses, let's look at what the Apostle Paul has to say on this,

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." (Romans 1:18, ESV).

"But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. ." (Romans 2:5, ESV).

"....for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek." (Romans 2:8-9, ESV).

"....if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?" (Romans 3:5-6, ESV).

And now we come to the passage where the Apostle Paul quotes the Prophet Isaiah,

"Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”" (Romans 3:9-18, ESV).

And finally,

"....for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23, ESV).

The righteous wrath and judgment of God is revealed from heaven against all sinners; and all, both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jewish) have sinned and second by second humans store up wrath for themselves on judgment day. This is the reason Christ came. Because we are so radically depraved and wicked, it's stupid to even think that anything we do will save us from God's wrath. You may do lots of good things, but all of them are worthless because, as Paul says, you have "become worthless" and "there is no fear of God before [your] eyes."

What is the reason for the season? Christ coming to the world to appease the infinite wrath of an infinite, Holy, righteous God.

Tidings of Great Joy

The Apostle Paul has shown us that nothing we can do can ever make us merit the favor and grace of God because, no matter how "good" it may be, it is as "filthy rags" before God; why? Because we are corrupt, and everything we do is, before God, just as filthy and corrupt.

This is why the coming of the Messiah is indeed tidings of great joy! Mary, saints, prayers, giving of alms, helping the poor, repeating the sinner's prayer, going to Church, and even believing there is a God will not save you from the wrath of God. The Apostle Paul understood this and said,

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9, ESV).

If it was our own doing, nobody would ever go to heaven. Only the perfect work of the incarnate Son of God on the cross to save His sheep (John 10) can guarantee us salvation from God and to God. It is all God's doing, as again, the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:28-30 (ESV),

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."

From predestination unto salvation to glorification, from beginning to end, it is all Christ's doing. We see also in John 17 Christ as the intercessor for His own, keeping them from falling; The Apostle Paul goes on to say in Romans 8:31-39 (ESV),

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Oh what a wonderful truth! The unfathomable love of God: of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to work together to bring about the salvation of His elect through the slaughtering of the Son! What grace! What Child is this who bore the wrath of both men and God to save us from His righteous holy judgment! Who shall bring any successful charge against the elect of God? NO ONE! It is God who justifies, not only because He died, but because He was raised from the grave! Thus conquering death and sin once and for all!

Think about the words of the prophet Isaiah as you celebrate Christmas tonight,

"Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:12, ESV).

Not only did He die for us, but He also intercedes for us (read John 10 and 17). He is a perfect savior and God. What credit can we claim? Christ was born to die, bearing the sins of His own, bearing the wrath of God for His Church,

" Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless." (Ephesians 5:25-27, ESV).

I feel the tears welling up in my eyes as I write this. How unfathomable that God Himself emptied Himself of His glory to live a slave's life and appease the wrath of God!

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ isLord, to the glory of God the Father." (Ephesians 2:6-11, NASB).

Now we can sing with the heavenly choir,

"In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”" (Luke 2:8-14, NASB).

Now we can truly appreciate the word "Savior"!

All hail the power of Jesus name! That at His name every knee shall bow in heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth! Soli Deo Gloria!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Eliezer Salazar

Joseph - A REAL Man -

2011-12-22T17:42:00.000-08:00

http://connect.hopewdm.org

Christmas and manhood are two things that don't mean anything in our culture (and most of the Church) nowadays. For the world, Christmas means a time for discounted prices, giving of gifts, and spending time with the family and friends; for the world, manhood is womanhood and womanhood is manhood: men are expected to be women and women are expected to be men. How dire is our need for truth these days!

As Christmas approaches, there is one subject I'd like to briefly touch upon, and that is the subject of manhood.

How many men are willing to be men according to the Word of God these days? How many men are simply boys who know how to shave but nothing more?

We find in Joseph, Mary's husband, an astounding example of true manhood and righteousness, titles which very few people get throughout the Bible.

Let's take a quick look at the character of Joseph, shall we?

Firstly, he was a descendant of King David, as we see recorded in Matthew 1. He was directly descended from the royal line that God Himself promised to bless forever, and through which He promised His Messiah, Jesus Christ, would come.

Secondly, he was betrothed (engaged) to Mary, who was a virgin at the time. Betrothals back in this day were like engagements today; only that it was as if they were actually already married, they were bound to each other legally, Joseph had only to claim her as his wife.

During this time we read in the Gospel of Luke 1:26-38 (ESV),

"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her."

Notice that she never refused or rejected the angel's announcement. The Son of the living God, God incarnate, the one the prophets prophesied about, the promised Messiah, the Lamb of God, coming to her womb! God Himself forming within her womb! How infinite and overwhelming this must have been for Mary!

But there's a problem -- how to tell Joseph? Will Joseph actually believe that an angel revealed himself unto his bride to announce that she would supernaturally bear a son, not just any son, but the Messiah Himself, God Himself? Will Joseph abandon her if he does not believe her?

It is not recorded for us in Scripture, but I think it's fair to conclude that Joseph perhaps did not believe Mary; yet he loved her and, "being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her [publicly, as the law required when there was infidelity], planned to send her away [or divorce her] secretly" (Matthew 1:19, NASB).

Here is a man who, instead of disgracing his wife, chose to show mercy and grace to her. Put yourself in Joseph's shoes as we read from Matthew 1:18 (ESV),

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit."

Before they came together - meaning, before they had consummated marriage - she was already pregnant! Consider the fact that for about 400 years God had not sent a single prophet to Israel, that the Jews had been dispersed and conquered by the Romans without a single word from any prophet from God. Yet all of a sudden an angel comes to Mary to announce the coming of the Messiah through her? Surely this was hard for Joseph to understand and believe; yet, he did not act as unrighteous men would have. This is why the angel came to Joseph, not to Mary.

Matthew 1:20-23, ESV,

"But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for [for is a very important word you should always pay close attention to] that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”

(which means, God with us)."

Gabriel didn't come again to Mary to reassure her about Joseph, he came straight to Joseph for two things:

1) To confirm Mary's account of his visitation.

2) To remind him of his duty as a husband and a man toward his wife.

Notice that the angel never quoted the Old Testament to Mary, only to Joseph. The reason why I point this out is because, although Mary was indeed highly favored to carry the Savior in her womb, it was Joseph who needed to be reassured that what his wife told him was true. The angel confirmed the account by quoting the Old Testament, about to be fulfilled through his wife.

But the part that got me the most was verse 24,

"When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus."

He took his wife. How amazing is that!? Joseph did not care about the public ridicule they'd have to endure, "he took his wife," meaning, he married her; his family was probably cast in a bad light for having married a woman that was "unfaithful" to Joseph, as was probably Mary's family. They were exposed to shame every day of their lives, even up until Jesus ministry in John 8:41, where Jesus tells a group of Jews that they are not children of Abraham but of the devil because they do not do as Abraham did by faith, and they replied to Him,

"We were not born of sexual immorality."

What's more, Joseph chose not to consummate the marriage until after she gave birth to Christ. He sacrificed his desire for his wife, now that they married, for her comfort, her benefit. True men have their wives' best interest in mind always; they are ready to sacrifice their own interests for those of their wives. That is a true man.

Mary was probably devastated when Joseph did not believe her; he had probably started distancing himself from her. Her only comfort and support on Earth was fading, her husband did not support her. However, after the angel revealed himself to Joseph as well, Joseph went to her, claimed her as his wife with all the love he always had for her, and, from that phrase "he took his wife," I can imagine he said to her, "Mary, I believe all you said. The angel revealed himself to me and confirmed it all. I love you, and I will marry you. I will be your support and your comfort. Don't be afraid, I am here for you."

That is a true man! A man who will take his wife, claim her, and be her strength and rock, regardless of the cost.

It was to Joseph that the angel quoted the Old Testament to confirm the Messiah's supernatural birth, it was to Joseph that the angel commanded to take his role as a man and go to his wife, it was Joseph who named the child.

We see an angel appearing to Joseph a second and a third time in Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 (ESV),

"Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”....But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead.” And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene."

Not only does the angel appear to Joseph three times, he does so because Joseph is the leader, the guider, the protector, and the comforter of his pregnant wife. He does not appear to Mary to tell her to rise and go, he tells Joseph. Joseph had to lead Mary and her son safely to Egypt, protect them while in Egypt, and provide for them; he had to find a job in Egypt to provide for his wife and her baby; he had to stay awake during their traveling to Egypt, sometimes probably get no sleep at all as he protected her and her son. This gave Mary incomparable relief. Joseph had to do the same when he was told to return to Israel. Joseph had to endure cold, hunger, sleeplessness, tiredness, among others, so that his wife would feel safe, loved, protected, and cared for. We even see that he was afraid when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea, he probably interceded to God for his wife and her baby, so that they would come to no harm, and he was warned in a dream to go to Galilee; he had to find somewhere to stay as well, and, "so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled," he "went and lived in a city called Nazareth." True men are always obedient to God.

Perhaps Joseph was merely a young man, but his innate manhood sprung up when it was required of him, enduring it all for his wife. What guidance did he have other than the three times the angel appeared to them? He had to plan the route to travel, he had to be ready to protect his wife from any thieves or criminals on the road, he had to provide food and shelter for her while traveling and when they were settled. God, through his angel, had entrusted Joseph with the bearer of His Son and His Son Himself. Joseph knew what a man was required to do for his wife, not only to provide, but to love, guide, protect, comfort, endure, and forgive.

Joseph is one of those few people of whom it can be said that he was a "righteous man" (Matthew 1:19). What better thing for us men to do but learn from Joseph how to be men. This Christmas, remember Joseph the man, who, by the guidance and strength of God, protected Mary and kept her safe. This Christmas, before you jump from Matthew 1:24-25 to Matthew 2, stop and put yourself in his shoes, and learn from him how to be a man; not only a man, but a righteous man. This Christmas, men, repent if you have not been a man to your girlfriends or wives. This Christmas, commit to being a man this coming year. This Christmas, be a man.

Psalm 1 - Links to All Entries -

2011-12-22T15:32:00.001-08:00

http://4.bp.blogspot.com

Psalm 1:1

What Blessedness Is Not - Introduction -

What Blessedness Is Not - Part 1 -

What Blessedness Is Not - Conclusion -

Psalm 1:2

What Blessedness Is - Part 1 -

Martin Luther on Meditating on the Law of the Lord -

What Blessedness Is - Conclusion -

Psalm 1:3

Roots of Life - Part 1 -

Fruit: The Evidence of Life - Part 2 -

Vitality and Prosperity - Conclusion of Verse 3 -

Psalm 1:4

Roots of Death

Psalm 1:5

Excommunication and Punishment

Psalm 1:6

Does Christ know YOU? - Part 1 -

Does Christ know YOU? - Part 2 - Objection -

Does Christ know YOU? - A Study of John 10 - Conclusion of Psalm 1 -

Psalm 1 - Conclusion -

Summary

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Psalm 1 - Summary -

2011-12-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

http://readingacts.files.wordpress.com

The first Psalm 1 is considered "the entryway into the sanctuary of the Psalms." 1 It is a wisdom Psalm in the sense that it is meant to teach human beings what is good, what is bad, what pleases God, what does not, and the consequences of going one way or the other, both positive and negative. It is, as we have seen, much more than just a Wisdom Psalm. It is a Psalm about grace, and all that small yet infinite word entails.

This is a Psalm of black and whites. Nothing is relative or left to each person to decide. This is God himself establishing what pleases Him and what does not. What better way to begin the Psalms? What better than instructing us in the way of godliness and its importance? What better way than to start off a collection of songs and praises by reminding us of the grace of God in planting us by streams of living water (Christ) and granting us the ability to be fruitful?

It is also a Psalm of very sharp contrasts; I liken this Psalm to a roller coaster ride, many sharp drops, turns, and rises that all add up to the harmony and beauty of this Psalm. We are not to trust our own counsel (doctrine) and way, but rather, we are to put our absolute and complete faith and trust in the doctrine of God as revealed in Scripture. Only by meditating on it day and night and making it our absolute delight and joy will we be planted firmly in Him so that we are nourished to such an extent that our leaves do not wither, nor do they fall. Human counsel damns; divine doctrine gives life. Human way kills; divine knowing and predestining in love give eternal life.

We looked deep into the nature of blessedness: what it is, what it is not, its source and standard, and the recipients of blessedness. These are not there to just suck up nutrients, but to evidence their life by giving fruit, and fruit in abundance for the glory of God.

The wicked are not blessed because they look to themselves and willfully reject God and Christ. This leads to the realization that judgment and wrath are real, that Christ himself will burn the wicked, and that we, though forgiven and redeemed, are not to single ourselves out of the category of "ungodly," for we are still sinners reminded of the grace of God in saving us every day.

Finally, only those who are from all eternity known by the Father as the Father knows the Son and the Son the Father will not perish, but have eternal life. Not all are given to the Father because we know that not everyone will go to heaven and because we know that none of those whom the Father has given Christ will perish. Thus, Christ secured the salvation only of those whom the Father has given Him and these Christ laid down His life for and He will lose none of them. Those, however, who have not been known by Christ will perish.

The whole Psalm is one of GRACE, and it is, beyond a Psalm of Wisdom alone, a Psalm that sets forth not only His grace and infinitely divine love in knowing us intimately, but one that shows the terror of His holiness, justice, and wrath.

Let's hear from the pen of Dr. Martin Luther in his final words on this Psalm,

"First, exercise thyself in one Psalm, nay in one verse of a Psalm. Thou hast done much if thou hast learned to make one verse in a day, or even in a week, a living and breathing word by being felt in thy affections. And when thou hast attained unto this beginning all the rest will follow, and there will open unto thee an overflowing treasure of knowledge and affection; only, take heed that thou be not frightened away from beginning by any weariness or despair. This is truly to harp, or, as the scripture saith of David, to strike the harp-strings with the fingers. For the nimble fingers of the harpers which run over the strings and strike them, represent the affections running over the words of the Psalms and being moved by them; and as the strings do not sound without the fingers, so neither is the Psalm read or sung unless it touch the affections.

I wished thus to premise these things once in this first Psalm, that I might not have occasion to repeat the same through every Psalm. Though I know very well, that if any one be exercised in this matter, he will of himself find more in the Psalter than all the commentaries of all commentators put together can give him." 2

In Christ alone,

Eliezer Salazar

--
1 The Reformation Study Bible. Lake Mary, FL: Ligonier Ministries, 2005. Print.

2 Luther, Martin, 1483-1546; Lenker, John Nicholas, 1858-1929. Luther's commentary on the first twenty-two Psalms : based on Dr. Henry Cole's translation from the original Latin (Kindle Locations 1157-1159). Sunbury, Pa. : Lutheran's in All Lands Co..

Psalm 1:6 - Does Christ know YOU? - A Study of John 10 - Conclusion of Psalm 1 -

2011-12-22T14:04:00.000-08:00

http://oneprayeraday.adrianedwardmusic.com

John 10 is the great declaration of Christ as a perfect savior, - meaning, He doesn't lose or fail to save any of those whom He knows - as "the door of the sheep....the door....[and] the good shepherd" (John 10:7,9,11, ESV) - meaning that not only does He perfectly succeed in saving all those whom the Father has given Him, but that He keeps them from falling all the days of their life on Earth.

All throughout the chapter we see the relationship between the Father and the Son, the Father and the sheep, and Christ and the sheep. This chapter is fool-proof evidence not only that Christ is God, but that the Triune God works in harmony to bring about the salvation of those whom the Father has given to Christ because He has known them; and because the Father knows His sheep, because Christ knows His sheep, the sheep, in turn, know their good Shepherd and know who is the impostor and who is the true Shepherd.

"I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd....You do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no on is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." (John 10:14-16,26-30, NASB).

Let's not forget we are making a connection here between Psalm 1:6 and John 10. There is an unbreakable, divinely harmonious work between the Father and the Son in saving and keeping His own sheep. Christ is saying that He knows His own "even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father." Again, as we said in our previous entry, does this mean that the Father and the Son merely had knowledge of each other? It is interesting to see that the word "know" here is also a verb. 1

What does John 1:1-2 say of this "knowing" between the Father and the Son?

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God." (John 1:1-2, ESV).

And again in John 17:5 (another wonderful passage on Christ as a perfect and Sovereign Savior and His perfect unity with the Father, as at the same time He is God in the flesh),

"And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." (John 17:5, ESV).

It's not merely "having knowledge of something." Think with me for a little here; Christ is equating His knowing of the Father and the Father's knowing of Him with that of His sheep. Try to grasp that with your finite mind if you can. The eternal, divine, loving, intimate relationship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit is what Christ is equating with His knowing of His sheep! Christ's knowing of His sheep results in them knowing His voice and following Him! Furthermore, connecting the dots with Psalm 1:6, Christ's knowing of His sheep results in Him giving them eternal life so that they do not perish.

Which reminds me of John 3:16 - too often a grossly misinterpreted verse, -

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish have eternal life." (John 3:16, ESV).

The Father gives the sheep unto the Son (John 6), the Son lays down His life for the sheep (John 10), He saves all those that the Father has given Him and that the Son has known from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1), He keeps them until the end (John 17). Clearly, the Son has not died for every single person ever born, being born, and to be born. This would mean that some of the sheep for which He atoned for (meaning satisfied the wrath of God on their behalf) will perish and pay the eternal price which Christ had already paid for at the cross. But what we have seen and will see in a moment is evidence enough that Christ will lose none of His sheep, but save them from perishing.

The wicked do not believe because they are not from those that the Father has given unto the Son. Read John 10:26 closely and in context. They will perish because they are not His; if they were His sheep, they would hear His voice and follow Him because they cannot reject it after God has called them because not one of His sheep will perish.

Remember that only those who are born from above, who are given the new birth graciously by God and regenerated by the Holy Spirit - who is also God - can believe.

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:44, ESV).

Connect that to John 10:27-30,

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”"

Who will not perish? His sheep. Why? Because He calls unto them by name, and they follow Him. Again, why? Because no one can or will snatch them out of the Father's hand, which is also Christ's hand, which (in passing) proves the deity of Christ and that He is a perfect Savior who has intimately known His sheep from before the foundation of the world and saved them.

Finally, John 17,

"When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life,that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”"

I will let John 17 speak for itself. What a beautiful, wonderful, convicting, and divine prayer! What beauty in the unity and intimacy between the Father and the Son! And to think that that's what the Son asks for us! That we be one with the Father and with the Son and the Spirit! It is unfathomable. He has known us from before the foundation of the world because He loved us. We will not perish because we have been known by the triune God who lives! We will live forevermore and not perish because,

"....the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." (Psalm 1:6, ESV).

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This concludes Psalm 1. Next entry we will make a summary of what we have learned from studying Psalm 1 all these past weeks. May you be blessed and find this edifying for your souls and minds!

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1 Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for ginōskō (Strong's 1097)". Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2011. 22 Dec 2011. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
strongs=G1097 >

Satire Can Be Good For The Soul

2011-12-20T09:58:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up on a very satiric mood. It started off with politics and then I found this video floating around on Facebook. I couldn't stop laughing. I was laughing so hard that my wife was looking at me strange. Watch and enjoy!

For His Glory,
Fernando

Psalm 1:6 - Does Christ know YOU? - Part 2 - Objection -

2011-12-19T18:08:00.001-08:00

http://gregdespres.com

Today we will deal with an objection that may be raised to the interpretation given thus far to the verb "know." Many would say that I am not reading Psalm 1:6 entirely and correctly because it says that "the LORD knows the way of the righteous," not the person; if it is affirmed that God intimately and sovereignly knows (foreordains) to His salvation those whom He wills, then He is not a loving God because He is not thus with all; if, however, it is said that the Lord merely knows (ordains) the way of the righteous and their righteousness (making Christ's atonement merely a possibility, not a certainty because it is contingent upon man's will), then He is loving because He takes no action unless we mortal creatures use our Almighty free will andallow Him to save us. This objection naturally springs forth from rejecting the wonderful truth of Scripture that God is Sovereign and He "has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills" (Romans 9:18, ESV). Oh, the arrogance of such belief!

What we must understand is that a person sins because he is a sinner and believers do good works because they have been made righteous; that is, their natures have been transformed from ungodliness to righteousness. It is a matter of nature or essence.

Just as in the metaphor of the tree used in this Psalm we see that every part of it is indeed a part of it, so the way of both the godly and the ungodly are indeed part of them. When we read in the Psalm "the counsel of the wicked...the way of sinners...the seat of scoffers" (Psalm 1:1, ESV), we naturally conclude that the way by itself is nothing without the sinner: the counsel, way, and seat are named according to those who use them. So when the Psalmist says "counsel...way...seat," he is referring to the ungodly men themselves, not something abstract outside of them.

To illustrate this, allow me quote our Lord,

"And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person." Then the disciples came and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" He answered, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone;they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit." But Peter said to him, "Explain the parable to us." And he said,"Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."" (Matthew 15:10-20, ESV).

In Psalm 1:1, the "counsel...way...[and] seat" of the ungodly are not separate from the person, they represent the person, they are the person. In this section of Matthew 15 our Lord explains this by showing how man is not ungodly because something outside of him makes him so, but he is ungodly because he is inherently defiled by sin.

When Psalm 1:1 says "the counsel of the wicked...the way of sinners...the seat of scoffers," it is giving us the description of an ungodly man in his entirety: counsel, his doctrine; way, the application of his doctrine and what is in his heart; seat, the musings of the heart.

If Psalm 1:6 makes a difference between the righteous and his way, then the same difference would have to be made in verse 1. If such difference is made, then there is no reason why the "counsel...way...[and] seat" of the ungodly should be avoided, for it is then neither good nor bad, godly or ungodly, but just abstract concepts without meaning.

When our Lord lists the things that come out of the heart of a person, we do not say that they are separate from the heart, but rather, that is what the heart is: evil, murderous, adulterous, sexually immoral, false, slanderous, etc.

Finally, if such distinctions are to be made, what is it that will perish in the day of judgment in Psalm 1:6?

"....but the way of the wicked will perish."

Are we to understand from this that only the results of wickedness will perish in the day of judgment but not the wicked themselves? Certainly not.

Bringing this back to Psalm 1:6, therefore, we see that the way of the righteous, just as in v.1 the way of the unrighteous, represents the righteous person, not something outside of him/her.

--

In our final entry on Psalm 1:6 we will take a look at John 10 and the teaching of God's sovereign and intimate "knowing" of those who are His. Stay tuned!

Psalm 1:6 - Does Christ know YOU? - Part 1 -

2011-12-15T11:43:00.001-08:00

http://www.hospiceofmcdowell.org

"....for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." (Psalm 1:6, ESV).

For. Sadly, it is a word too often ignored or skipped in a hurry. In our previous entry we talked a little about the word therefore; it is a transitional word, it is the logical conclusion of a premise/s preceding it. In this case, we have the context for the word for in v. 5,

"....the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous."

There is a logical collection of thoughts in this Psalm. Part of this harmony of thinking was discussed in our previous entry as meaning that because the wicked are not as the blessed, who walk and stand on the law of the Lord, they will not prosper but will be judged with heavenly fire by the Lord himself. But there is a further conclusion or explanation to draw from the statement made in v.5, namely that because the wicked will not be able to stand in the judgment when they are raised and they will be separated as weeds from wheat and as goats from the sheep, we can conclude that they are not known by the Lord because they "will perish" (v.6). Contrary to the fate of the wicked, the righteous live and have their promise in God of glorification because they are known by the Lord.

This is huge.

The Hebrew word for "know" used in this Psalm is the word "יָדַע (yada)." It is a verb, not a noun. 1

Because it is a verb we can conclude that this is not talking about having knowledge of something, but rather, that the Lord actively, intimately, and specifically knows those who are His and those who are not because of His eternal decree of election and predestination; those who are not foreknown by the Father will perish because the Lord does not know them.

This is the same word used in Genesis 4:1, ESV,

"Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.""

Did Adam merely have knowledge of his wife Eve? If so, how can the fruit of that knowing have been the conception of Cain? Again, the word does not simply mean "to have knowledge of," but rather, something much deeper, beyond our human understanding, as used in Psalm 1:6.

Some Scriptures where this can be seen,

"I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul...." (Psalm 31:7, ESV).

" The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble;he knows those who take refuge in him." (Nahum 1:7, ESV).

"But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: "The Lord knows those who are his," and [the logical outcome or expectation of someone who is known by the Lord], "Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity [which is what the first verse of Psalm 1 speaks about]."" (2 Timothy 2:19, ESV).

"I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep." (John 10:14-15, ESV).

Did the Psalmist say in Psalm 31:7 that the Lord merely had knowledge of his soul's distress? How could that be a cause for him to "rejoice and be glad in [His] steadfast love" if the Lord took no action about his distress? The Psalmist calls upon an active God, not upon a passionate God that only knows about His distress but cares not to aid His saint. What about Nahum 1:7? Is the prophet merely stating the fact that God has knowledge of the number of those who are his? If so, how can he say that He is "good, a stronghold in the day of trouble"? The prophet is calling upon the God of Psalm 18, who comes down from heaven to aid and protect His own.

What about 2 Timothy 2:19? Is the Apostle Paul merely stating the fact that the Lord has knowledge of those who are his? How can that be considered by the Apostle himself the seal of "God's firm foundation"? The Apostle is attesting to the fact that the Lord actively enters into a loving, saving relationship with His own because of His decree of election from before the foundation of the world (Romans 9).

What about John 10:14-15, that wonderful declaration of the effectiveness and power of the atonement of Christ and of the fact that He will keep His own and never lose them? Is it merely stating that Christ has a knowledge of those who are his own? Is He merely saying that He has knowledge of the Father as the Father has knowledge of Him? Christ is clearly proclaiming His sovereignty in choosing His own flock, His own bride.

Is it important to differentiate between a noun and a verb? Is it really worth spending time making that distinction clear? Four passages and a brief comment on each have been enough to prove that it is important; no, rather, essential.

How deep the mystery of God knowing those who are His! How wonderful and absolutely mind-blowing!

NOTE: It is not the purpose of this specific blog entry to exegete (interpret from Scripture) the four passages given above. All I intended to do was to show the usage of the verb "know." John 10:14-15 will be addressed more fully in a future entry.

In our next entry we will deal with an objection that may be raised to the interpretation given thus far to the verb "know." Many would say that I am not reading Psalm 1:6 entirely and correctly because it says that "the LORD knows the way of the righteous," not the person; if it is affirmed that God intimately and sovereignly knows (foreordains) to His salvation those whom He wills, then He is not a loving God because He is not thus with all; if, however, it is said that the Lord merely knows (ordains) the way of the righteous and their righteousness (making Christ's atonement merely a possibility, not a certainty because it is contingent upon man's will), then He is loving because He takes no action unless we mortal creatures use our Almighty free will and allow Him to save us. This objection naturally springs forth from rejecting the wonderful truth of Scripture that God is Sovereign and He "has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills" (Romans 9:18, ESV). Oh, the arrogance of such belief! Stay tuned!

1 Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for yada` (Strong's 3045)". Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2011. 19 Dec 2011. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?

Strongs=H3045&t=KJV >

Psalm 1:5 - Excommunication and Punishment -

2011-12-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

"Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous...." (Psalm 1:5, ESV).

"Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." (Psalm 1:5, KJV).

--

Therefore. How often do we overlook this small yet extremely important word? It is a word that connects the previous idea with one following it; it strengthens the passage by giving it unity and harmony of thought.

For example: "You did not do your homework today, therefore you will not eat ice cream today."

A simple example, yet enough to convey the meaning and importance of the word. It is a word that connects cause with effect, first and last, action with consequence, and it should not, therefore, be read in a hurry. Every time you see the word "therefore," stop and consider what is before this word so you can understand what will come after that word.

What the Psalmist is saying here is basically this: "Because the wicked are not like the blessed and the godly in the sense that they are not trees firmly planted by streams of living water (the law of the LORD) and have not made it their delight or their daily and nightly meditation, because they follow their own counsel and live in open rebellion to God and mock His law by saying, "your law is insufficient and lacking, I shall follow my own law and counsel," because of this, the wicked will not be able to stand in the judgment of God, because of this they will be excommunicated from the congregation of the righteous, and because the LORD knows those who are His and those who are not, the wicked will perish."

Strong words from the Psalmist. The modern church's softening and "sissifying" of Jesus and His message would do well to take out large portions of Scripture like this out of it if they intend to maintain their twisted presentation of God's Word.

--

"Therefore the wicked will not stand...."

The Hebrew word for "stand" is the word "קוּם (quwm)." Srong's Lexicon (1) gives us the following definitions of this word:

1) to rise, arise, stand, rise up, stand up

a) (Qal)

1) to arise

2) to arise (hostile sense)

3) to arise, become powerful

4) to arise, come on the scene

5) to stand

a) to maintain oneself

b) to be established, be confirmed

c) to stand, endure

d) to be fixed

e) to be valid

f) to be proven

g) to be fulfilled

h) to persist

i) to be set, be fixed

In short, the verb here means two things: to arise or to be fixed in place. In light of the context of the Psalm, I favor both definitions to be in use in Psalm 1.

What would this mean, then? That this can be interpreted as meaning the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, one unto eternal life and the other unto eternal torment, respectively.

"For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man." (Psalm 5:4-6, ESV).

"But you, you are to be feared! Who can stand before you when once your anger is roused? From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still, when God arose to establish judgment, to save all the humble of the earth. Surely the wrath of man shall praise you; the remnant of wrath you will put on like a belt." (Psalm 76:7-10, ESV).

"Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him." (Nahum 1:6, ESV).

"But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:36, ESV).

--

I believe that Psalm 1 is largely eschatological (referring to end times) because of its sharp contrasting and immediate language of awards and punishment. There are many passages that could be addressed regarding this aspect, but we will look at only one in this entry:

Parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13): it is assumed that the wicked and the righteous share this world in this life, but that in the judgment they will be separated and judged accordingly.

When verse 5 of Psalm 1 says that "sinners...[will not] stand in the congregation of the righteous," it is obvious both by the testimony of Scripture and experience that they, in fact, do stand among the righteous in this life. Churches are filled with false converts, believers go to work and school with unbelievers, etc. Lest this be another opportunity for us believers to single ourselves out of the category of "sinners," we would do well to remember the previous metaphor of the tree as a metaphor of grace; undeserved, unmerited, free, effective, life-giving, grace to miserable wretched sinners such as ourselves. Those who are considered "righteous" in this Psalm are only considered so because the Father looks at them through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, so keep that in mind as the distinction is made between the righteous and the wicked.

But the truth remains that we do share this world with the ungodly. Matthew 13:24-30 (ESV) is clear about that. Let's read the parable first before addressing it,

"He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?' He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"

The Lord Himself commands His angels to let both the weeds and the wheat (wicked and righteous, respectively) grow together until judgment day. This is the day when, as we saw before, the rethorical question is asked "who shall stand when your anger is roused?" The answer is, clearly, no one.

Both grow together, and the weeds appear to flourish and prosper and have a firmness of their own in their own counsel; but when the harvest time comes, the reapers (angels) of God will easily pluck out the weeds from the soil, bind them, and deliver them to the Lord for judgment. The wheat, however, the righteous, the blessed, the forgiven, they will be gathered in to His barn forever.

We see the same thing being spoken about in Psalm 1:5. The Lord delays his judgment upon the wicked because He still has His elect among those who are still wicked. He must save them, they are His sheep. As the very familiar (but twisted) verse 9 of 2 Peter 3 (a passage that also deals with the Lord's judgment) says,

" The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

Which also reminds me of Romans 9:22-23 (ESV),

"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory."

We see, then, that the Lord is merciful and patient, slow in wrath and judgment. But the day will come when He will pour out His wrath on the ungodly, and that is what both Psalm 1:5-6, Matthew 13, and 2 Peter 3 talk about.

So, when judgment day comes, the wicked will not be able to stand when they are risen up for judgment before the Lord. For they, like chaff, will be burnt up by the Lord himself, as we have previously seen. They will be excommunicated from among the righteous, as weeds and wheat are separated. The result of this excommunication is punishment, and that punishment is eternal and real. Because sinners have offended a thrice holy, eternal God, their punishment must likewise be eternal.

It is a hard doctrine to come to terms with, that of the justice and holiness of God. It has vexed the saints throughout millennia. The early Martin Luther comes to mind as one who hated and fought against God for what he believed was an unjust, arbitrary, wrathful and vengeful God. The problem with the early Luther lay on His misunderstanding of the justice of God and the depravity of man. Man deserves not to be saved, but to be condemned. If God, by sheer mercy grants faith to a person to believe, that is mercy indeed; if God, by sheer justice and will to "show his wrath and to make known his power" (Romans 9:22, ESV) wills to damn a person, He does so justly and righteously, and who are we, men, to talk back against God? (Romans 9:20).

Martin Luther understood, after the Holy Spirit opened his eyes, that the justice of God was poured out on His Son for the atonement of His people. God is holy, but He is also merciful and "patient toward you, not willing any to perish but all [of you] to come to repentance." And those whom God wills to save will be saved. His will cannot be thwarted. Psalm 1:5 teaches us that a day will come when God will separate the weeds from the wheat, the sheep from the goats, the sinners from the righteous, the godly from the ungodly.

Why have I placed so much emphasis on these last entries on judgment and God's wrath? Because the Psalmist places as much emphasis on it as he does God's mercy, love, and patience. We ought to be faithful to what the original writers intended, always!

--

In our next three entries we will finish Psalm 1 by looking at verse 6 and how the Psalmist begins and ends the Psalm by making a sharp, eternal, abysmal contrast between the wicked and the blessed. How relevant this is for us Christians! Stay tuned!

1 Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for quwm (Strong's 6965)". Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2011. 15 Dec 2011. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?

Strongs=H6965&t=KJV >

Psalm 1:4 - Roots of Death -

2011-12-09T10:33:00.001-08:00

http://2.bp.blogspot.com

Our previous entries on Psalm 1 have dealt with warnings against following the doctrine of the ungodly, nature of blessedness and the blessed, the evidence of such blessedness, and the source of such blessedness. As this Psalm is one of very sharp contrasts (as most of the Psalms, if not all, are), we will now take a sharp drop in the Psalmist's roller coaster; he has taken us to see from death to life and now, once more and in greater detail, from life to death.

Let's now dive right into verse 4!

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"The wicked [ungodly] are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away" (Psalm 1:4, ESV).

The Psalmist makes use of sharp contrast to establish a very important principle: righteousness does not equal unrighteousness, godliness does not equal ungodliness, death does not equal life, and life does not equal to death.

Who are the ungodly? I will quote from Dr. Martin Luther's commentary on Psalm 1,

"When thou hearest the word "ungodly," remember those things which we have said above concerning ungodliness, lest, like the ungodly, thou shouldst banish these words from thee as applying to the Jews only, and to heretics, and I know not what others who are far off; and lest perhaps laying aside the fear of God, thou shouldst not tremble at this word of his. But as he is an ungodly one who is without the faith of Christ, you should tremble at these words, lest you also should be found to be one of the ungodly." 1

Which reminds me of the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 11:13,17-24 (NASB),

"But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles....if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?"

Again, as we have previously seen, the Psalmist, in concluding the use of his metaphor, reminds us that it is one of grace. Just because the Father has lavished the riches of His mercy on us and predestined us for adoption (Ephesians 1), that does not automatically rule us out from the category of wickedness, or ungodliness. There is a reason why salvation is entirely "from the LORD" (Jonah 2:9, NASB). There is a reason why even after we are saved we cannot boast in anything in ourselves, because we are still wicked sinners (Ephesians 2:9). We will never be able to say "I am godly and I know nothing of ungodliness or unrighteousness." As the Apostle John rightly says in 1 John 1:8 (NASB),

"If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."

"And the truth is not in us." That truth of which we talked about in previous entries where we established that it is not our wicked "counsel...way...[or] seat" that contains truth, but "the law of the LORD" (Psalm 1:2). We have seen the root of life (the law of the LORD), and we have also touched upon the roots of death (the "counsel...way...seat" of the ungodly). We will now see the consequences of turning our backs on the law of the LORD.

--

"But the wicked....are like chaff that the wind drives away" (Psalm 1:4).

Martin Luther on Psalm 1:4,

"Therefore there is no prosperity to the wicked; they have a withering leaf, and are not planted by the rivers of water." 1

That's precisely what the Psalmist is trying to convey. The godly, the blessed, they are those who are firm luscious, robust trees who give fruit in their season and their leaves don't fall or wither because they are planted firmly by the rivers of living water (Christ); On the other hand, the wicked, the ungodly, the cursed, they are those who have no foundation, who may look as firm, luscious, robust, prospering trees, but are really rotting, withering, dying, trees damned to eternal hell fire.

John the Baptist, that marvelous preacher of judgment, gives us insight into the destiny of the wicked,

"His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (Luke 3:17, NASB).

Job likewise said,

"“How often is the lamp of the wicked put out,
Or does their calamity fall on them?
Does God apportion destruction in His anger?
“Are they as straw before the wind,
And like chaff which the storm carries away?" (Job 21:18, NASB).
The wicked are not represented as simply chaff that sits there unharmed, it is "chaff that the wind drives away." Firstly, since we have seen that they are not grounded in the law of the LORD, which is a solid, unshakable, objective, immutable (unchanging) foundation, the ungodly are, as the Apostle Paul says,

"....we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, [meaning] by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming." (Ephesians 4:14, NASB).

What the Psalmist is saying in Psalm 1:4 is so huge! He is saying that the blessed are blessed because they are grounded upon the rock (Luke 6:48, Psalm 40:2); as opposed to the wicked who are driven everywhere by their own counsel and way (in Ephesians the counsel and way are spoken of as crafty, deceitful, wicked doctrine) and who will ultimately be burned up with "unquenchable fire" by the LORD himself (Luke 3:17).

Here, in Ephesians, we see how comparing ourselves to children can also be a damning thing. For as elsewhere we see the LORD encouraging us to "become like children" (Matthew 18:3, NASB), we see the Apostle Paul here exhorting us to move out of childhood into full manhood, which can be found in 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NASB),

"When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things."

What our Lord meant was that in our attitude we are to be like children: fully dependent on Him, always willing to grow and learn from Him. It is in complete harmony with the teaching of the Apostle Paul.

Ungodly, childish, wicked, deceitful, crafty, ignorant doctrine damns and it is like poison that feeds the roots of the trees of the wicked; objective, godly, righteous, Spirit-inspired doctrine is what feeds life into the roots of our trees.

John Calvin on Psalm 1:4,

"The meaning, therefore, is, although the ungodly now live prosperously, yet by and
by they shall be like chaff; for when the Lord has brought them low, he shall drive them
hither and thither with the blast of his wrath....although the ungodly man rise high, and appear to great advantage, like a stately tree,
we may rest assured that he will be even as chaff or refuse, whenever God chooses to cast
him down from his high estate, with the breath of his mouth" (Page 37). 2

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In our next entry we will look into Psalm 1:5 where the condemnation and separation of the ungodly is expanded. Verses 5-6 consummate the Psalmist's use of sharp contrast to show the eternal separation between the godly (blessed) and the ungodly (damned) in that they will not stand in "the congregation of the righteous" and will "perish" (v. 5).

Stay tuned!

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1 Luther, Martin, 1483-1546; Lenker, John Nicholas, 1858-1929. Luther's commentary on the first twenty-two Psalms : based on Dr. Henry Cole's translation from the original Latin (Kindle Locations 1029-1034). Sunbury, Pa. : Lutheran's in All Lands Co..

2 Calvin, John. "Psalm 1." Commentary on Psalms. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 32. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Calvin College Computer Science. Web. 24 Nov. 2011. <http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08.titlepage.html>

How to Answer a Jehovah's Witness - Psalm 102/Hebrews 1 -

2011-12-06T21:02:00.001-08:00

http://media.hamptonroads.com/

When neatly dressed men come to your door identifying themselves as "Jehovah's Witnesses," what is your reaction? As soon as you hear the bell ring on a fine Saturday morning do you immediately press the silent alarm button so that you and your family close all the blinds, lock all doors, turn the T.V off, hide the dogs, and finally, check the perimeter by taking a sneak peak through the closed blinds and windows? When they finally cease from ringing your bell or knocking on your door, do you then feel relief and have your sons trained to say, "the perimeter is clear, sir!"? Or do you take another way in which you don't press the silent alarm button, but you instead open the door, ask them if they are Jehovah's Witnesses, and when they respond in the affirmative, you immediately proceed, with a polite smile on your face, to give your ultimatum in the form of your declaration of faith by saying, "we are Christians, we don't believe in what you do, so not today, thank you," and close the door on them?

If you find yourself nodding to either one of the above, or to both of them, you are in direct disobedience to God's commandment to preach the gospel and defend the faith.

But there is a third alternative, and I just mentioned it: when Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door, open the door to them, if possible even invite them inside your house, and if not, then engage them. Of course, you must be prepared to both share the Gospel and defend the faith, as the Scriptures command.

Preaching the Gospel
"And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." (Mark 16:15, ESV).

And,

Defending the Faith,
"Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality anddeny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." (Jude 3-4, ESV).

For the purity of God's Word, which He holds above His very name (Psalm 138:2), for love for God, and for a passion for the lost, the third alternative is what is pleasing to God because it obeys what He has commanded.

--

So, how do you engage Jehovah's Witnesses? First of all, you must be aware that they study a lot more than most self-professing Christians do. The fact is that most Christians choose to act in the first two ways at the beginning of this entry because they are either 1) afraid that they don't know their own Bible, or 2) because they have an erroneous belief that evading Jehovah's Witnesses is somehow noble and Christlike because it avoids discussions and exchanges, things that, for the modern Christian, are "unloving" and "a waste of time." This can't be farther from the truth. And the truth is that in order to share the Gospel we must defend the Faith, and, in order to faithfully present the Gospel we must at times demolish every thought that sets itself against Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). That's how the Prophets did it, that's how John the Baptist did it, that's how Christ did it, that's how the Apostles did it (e.x.: Acts 17), and that's how they exhort us to do it.

This doesn't mean that you must become a Bible scholar and go get a PhD or go to seminary (which I'm not saying it's bad), but to a degree all Christians are commanded to be students of God's Word (2 Timothy 3:15-16, 2 Timothy 2:15).

--

I intend in this entry to lay out a short and straightforward approach to refuting the Jehovah's Witnesses heretical denial of the deity of Christ which will in turn shake the foundation of their trust in the NWT (New World Translation [or rather, mistranslation]) of the Scriptures, which will in turn also question the reliability of the Watch Tower as "the one and only channel which the Lord has used in dispensing his truth continually" 1

I intend to cover those topics in another entry. SO, let's get right into it!

NOTE: The following approach is taken and expanded from a lecture given by Dr. James White titled "The Forgotten Trinity." Dr. White has also written a book by the same name. He is the president of Alpha and Omega Ministries and he is a widely recognized and respected as a trustworthy apologist.

Here is the video (the approach is taking from the last 25 minutes or so of the lecture. The entire lecture is on the doctrine of the Trinity):

If the Bible represents Jesus as YHWH (Yahweh, or, in the NWT, Jehovah (which is actually a Germanic pronounciation of God's revealed name), then the debate is over.

For the sake of argument, use the word "Jehovah" throughout all this process. Ask them if they can read you some verses from their own Bible. Take them to Psalm 102:25-27. I will post here both the ESV and NWT translations,

"Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,

and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
but you are the same, and your years have no end." (ESV).

"Long ago you laid the foundations of the earth itself,

And the heavens are the work of your hands.

They themselves will perish, but you yourself will keep standing;

And just like a garment they will all of them wear out.

Just like clothing you will replace them, and they will finish their turn.

(Again, I will post both the ESV and the NWT. Remember, have them read from the NWT. Hebrews 1 is one of MANY passages in Scripture that have been twisted and deformed in the NWT. Don't worry about the differences you find, just read the passage).

NOTE: All direct quotes of Psalm 102 in this chapter of Hebrews can be recognized by the following insertion of my own: [Old Testament quote]

"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

For to which of the angels did God ever say,

[Old Testament quote] "You are my Son,

today I have begotten you"?

Or again,

[Old Testament quote] "I will be to him a father,

and he shall be to me a son"?

And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,

[Old Testament quote] "Let all God’s angels worship him."

Of the angels he says,

[Old Testament quote] "He makes his angels winds,

and his ministers a flame of fire."

But of the Son he says,

[Old Testament quote] "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,

the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions."

And,

[Old Testament quote] "You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;

they will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment,
like a robe you will roll them up,
like a garment they will be changed.
But you are the same,
and your years will have no end."" (ESV).

(I have put in bold all the modifications the NWT makes to the original text. Don't worry about them, don't even discuss them, read through until verses 10-12).

NOTE: All direct quotes of Psalm 102 in this chapter of Hebrews can be recognized by the following insertion of my own: [Old Testament quote]

"God, who long ago spoke on many occasions and in many ways to our forefathers by means of the prophets, has at the end of these days spoken to us by means of a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the systems of things. He is the reflection of [his] glory and the exact representation of his very being, and he sustains all things by the word of his power; and after he had made a purification for our sins he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in lofty places. So he has become better than the angels, to the extent that he has inherited a name more excellent than theirs.

For example, to which one of the angels did he ever say: [Old Testament quote] “You are my son; I, today, I have become your father”? And again: [Old Testament quote] “I myself shall become his father, and he himself will become my son”? But when he again brings his Firstborn into the inhabited earth, he says: [Old Testament quote] “And let all God’s angels do obeisance to him.”

Also, with reference to the angels he says: [Old Testament quote] “And he makes his angels spirits, and his public servants a flame of fire.” But with reference to the Son: [Old Testament quote] “[part omitted here] God is your throne forever and ever, and [the] scepter of your kingdom is the scepter of uprightness. You loved righteousness, and you hated lawlessness. That is why God, your God, anointed you with [the] oil of exultation more than your partners.” And: [Old Testament quote] “You at [the] beginning, O Lord, laid the foundations of the earth itself, and the heavens are [the] works of your hands. They themselves will perish, but you yourself are to remain continually; and just like an outer garment they will all grow old, and you will wrap them up just as a cloak, as an outer garment; and they will be changed, but you are the same, and your years will never run out.”" (NWT). 2

Jehovah's Witnesses will try to get you to discuss all of their modifications to the text, and I have fallen to this trap many times (I'm not saying they're not important, but the focus of this entry is a straightforward, simple, yet inescapable Biblical conclusion). Focus on the direct quotation made in this chapter of Psalm 102:25-27

Ask:

- Who is this passage about?

Jesus Christ (even Jehovah's Witnesses must admit that the passage is indeed speaking about Jesus, the Son of God. This entire approach has said nothing that is in disagreement (not yet) with Watch Tower theology, it is simply reading what's in the text).

- What attributes are ascribed to Jesus (what is said that Jesus is, what characteristics does He have in Hebrews 1:10-12?)

Eternal.
Creator.
Immutable (unchanging, unchangeable).

Can it be said of any created being that they are eternal (no beginning), that they have the power of creation, and that they are unchanging? Since Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus to be Michael the Archangel, can it be said of Michael the Archangel to have created anything that exists? Has Michael the Archangel lived eternally, or did he come into existence at a certain point in eternity?

Ask them:

- Can these attributes be said of any created being or thing?

No (Jeremiah 10:11-12, Psalm 96:5, Genesis 1:1).

- Would you say, then, that these attributes are exclusively of Jehovah?

Yes.

- Here these are attributed to Christ. You agreed with me that these attributes are exclusively of Jehovah, that no other gods or creatures can share these attributes. What conclusion does this lead us to about Jesus Christ?

That He is God.

If they have nothing to say to that (which they shouldn't), don't use that silence to pat yourself in the back for your victory in a sort of "gotcha!" way, but rather, ask the Jehovah's Witness if you can read another verse from their Bible. We will look at this verse (John 12:39-43/Isaiah 6) in the next entry!

Remember to always lead the conversation back to the Gospel.

In Christ,

Eliezer Salazar

1 Watchtower 1919 April 1 p.6414.

2 Online Bible: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. <http://www.watchtower.org/e/bible/index.htm>.

This Is How Pastoral Writing Ought To Be

2011-12-06T13:31:00.001-08:00

From the pen of J. Stafford Carson:

The task of the preacher and pastor is not only to explain and expound the great doctrines of the Christian faith , but to repeatedly put himself in the shoes of his listeners by asking the question, "So what?" A sensitive and effective preacher will imagine a recalcitrant listener sitting in the back pew during a worship service asking what the cash value is of the doctrine or truth that the preacher is expounding. If the preacher is to be faithful to his task, then he must give clear, practical application. It is the same for theologians. If theology is the application of the Word of God to all of life, then in any theological debate or discussion, we need to be able to flesh out the practical implications of what we profess to believe. The pastoral implications and applications of the doctrine of justification are numerous and crucial to the life and well-being of the church. Theologians know that doctrine of justification addresses questions which lie at the very heart of the Christian life, and that is why it is critical that such doctrines are not only stated clearly and accurately, but that their pastoral implications are also spelt out...In applying the truths about God's holiness and human sinfulness, preachers must not side step the issue of human guilt before God. When guilt is pushed into the background, and the sense of guilt becomes extinct, then Murray says "the grand article of the gospel becomes correspondingly meaningless." That "grand article" is, of course, the doctrine of justification by faith.*

I just received Justified In Christ yesterday and it is a blessing. Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

* K. Scott Oliphint, Justified In Christ (Great Britain: Mentor, 2007), 175,182

This Is How Preaching Ought To Be

2011-12-05T17:58:00.001-08:00

From Albert Martin:

God's multifaceted rescue mission that we call salvation, a salvation centered in the cross of Christ, has no "extra's." Every cross-secured redemptive privilege answers to a specific facet of sin's tragic effects upon the human race. In other words, Christ's work on the cross is what it is because we are what we are: sinners. When we begin to meditate on the various categories within which the accomplishments of Jesus' death are set before us, we find that each one of those categories answers a very specific aspect of sin's tragic influence in and upon us and also upon God's relationship to us a sinner.*

Albert Martin then goes on to list five categories of Christ's work on the cross corresponding to a specific area of humanity's sinful condition. I will list the five points without his elaboration. They are:

1. Sin produces guilt.
2. Sin provokes the wrath of God.
3. Sin creates real alienation.
4. Sin brings us into a state of bondage and slavery.
5. Sin has brought us under the control of sinister, evil powers.

To listen to his preaching go (with others as well) here or get the book found here.
Soli Deo Gloria!

For his Glory,
Fernando

*Joel Beeke , The Beauty and Glory of Christ (Gran Rapids: Reformed Heritage books, 2011), 104

Psalm 1:3 - Vitality and Prosperity - Conclusion of Verse 3 -

2011-12-02T21:15:00.001-08:00

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/

In our previous entry on Psalm 1:3 we looked at the logical outcome of being grounded "in the law of the LORD" (v. 2): fruit. Every good tree will bear good fruit, as our Lord said. Now let's look into the concepts of vitality and prosperity as the Scriptures explain them.

--

"....and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers." (Psalm 1:3, ESV).

I take this to illustrate the level of vitality or strength that a man grounded in the law of the Lord has. The tree's roots are so firmly grounded on the streams of living water that it is constantly feeding its own fruit, branches, and leaves. They do not wither and fall, as a weak tree's leaves would; rather, they prove that the tree is so healthy and robust that its leaves have no reason to fall idly and die; which is actually what the Psalmist illustrates the wicked as: weak, dead, withering, easily blown away, without support or firmness.

"....in all that he does, he prospers."

Let us look at this by looking at what Genesis 39:2,3,21-23 (ESV) says of Joseph,

"The LORD was with Joseph [he was grounded in the law of the LORD], and he became a successful man [as the rest of Psalm 1:3 says, all that the blessed does is prospered by the hand of the LORD], and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD caused all that he did to succeed in his hands [same principle applied]....But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison....The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge, because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed."

The man that is grounded in the law of the LORD and meditates on it day and night will not only yield fruit, but his fruit will be blessed by the LORD. We are not to take the word "prosperity" here to mean what modern preachers today force it to mean; that is, that all that Christians touch will become "gold." There is a sense in which many today interpret the word "prosperity" to mean "riches." Although it is true that the LORD blesses His people materially, the whole point of Psalm 1 is that the consummation of the blessedness God gives His elect through Jesus Christ is a heavenly reward, not an earthly reward. And even though it is true that we do receive some rewards here on Earth and that if we are walking on His law we will be blessed, our true blessedness will only be fully enjoyed when we are glorified by the same Lord who gave us His law. Therefore, I take "prosperity" here to mean God's blessing of the tree by the production of fruit through vitality gained from His streams of living waters. This is not conditioned to evil and dark times, for, as we also saw, firmly planted trees do grow on barren lands. The prosperity the Psalmist here speaks of transcends that which our finite minds can imagine. Support of this definition of prosperity is found here, in the story of Joseph, where we see that his lot was not prosperous (according to human standards). For he was hated by his brothers, sold by them, slandered, imprisoned, etc. And yet the LORD saw fit to make Joseph's tree grow through these dark times. Earthly prosperity was granted to Joseph as the prince of Egypt, but his true prosperity was evident in the grace he found in the eyes of his master and of the keeper of the prison. That is true prosperity.

A final word on prosperity, by Dr. Martin Luther,

"And with regard to this "prospering," take heed that thou understand not a carnal prosperity. This prosperity is a hidden prosperity, and lies entirely secret in the spirit; and therefore if thou hast not this prosperity that is by faith, thou shouldst rarher judge thy prosperity to be the greatest adversity. For as the devil bitterly hates this leaf and the Word of God, so docs he also those who teach and hear it, and he persecutes such, aided by all the powers of the world. Therefore, thou hearest of a miracle, the greatest of all miracles, v/hen thou hearest that all things prosper which a "blessed" man doeth. For what is more miraculous than that the faithful should grow while they are destroyed, should increase while they are diminished, should prevail while otliers prevail over them, should enter while they are expelled, and should conquer while they are conquered? For thus the world and its prince are overcome. Yet hath the Lord wonderfully ordained, that, to his saint, Ps. 4 4, that should be the height of prosperity which is the height of misery. This is the prosperity of the wise and the conversion of men" 1

In conclusion, we learn from the metaphor used in Psalm 1:3 that it is an example of Hebrew parallelism, in which an idea is repeated by using another literary form. Furthermore, we learned that this metaphor is a metaphor of grace and one which teaches us to look away from ourselves and into our only source of life: Christ. As a metaphor of grace, we are taught to look away from "the counsel of the wicked....the way of sinners....the seat of scoffers" and into "the law of the LORD." For in it we find life, and life that produces much fruit, which was ordained by the Father before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 2:10). True prosperity is that which the Lord blesses according to His good will and purpose, not our own.

Look away from man, look into Christ, the living water.

Next time we will look at the conclusion of this metaphor use in verse 4, as it is used in its negative form, that is, the contrary of what we have seen thus far. We will see how the Psalmist connects the conclusion of his metaphor to its explanation in verse 5 as judgment that leads to death. We have thus far seen God's judgment leading to life for the blessed; next time we will see God's judgment leading to death for the wicked and cursed.

Stay tuned!

1 Luther, Martin, 1483-1546; Lenker, John Nicholas, 1858-1929. Luther's commentary on the first twenty-two Psalms : based on Dr. Henry Cole's translation from the original Latin (Kindle Locations 1011-1018). Sunbury, Pa. : Lutheran's in All Lands Co..

Psalm 1:3 - Fruit: The Evidence of Life - Part 2 -

2011-12-02T19:22:00.001-08:00

http://sausagefingers.files.wordpress.com

In our last entry on Psalm 1:3 we discovered how the Psalmist employs the imagery of a tree, soil, and streams of water as a metaphor for grace. Grace is the reason why we were planted into good soil, grace is the reason why our roots receive living water and not death, grace is the reason why we can truly say we are "blessed" (v. 1).

--

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season..." (Psalm 1:3, ESV).

-We are expected to yield fruit for the Lord.

Are the righteous (Christians, "the blessed") expected to just sit there and suck up the nutrients from the streams of living water? Is that all they are for? The parable of our Lord in Luke 13:6-9 will answer this for us,

"And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any.Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’”

The natural outcome expected from being grounded on the law of the Lord, on meditating on it day and night, on "delighting" in His law, is fruit. Theology that is not accompanied by fruit is illogical, contradictory, and damning; it is in itself incorrect and incomplete theology. Conversely, fruit without theology is illogical, contradictory, and damning, because it does not produce fruit according to the law of the Lord (for it is not grounded on it), but according to their own counsel, which, as we saw in verse 1 of Psalm 1, and as we will see in verses 4-6, leads only to the wrath of the Almighty God of Scripture. We cannot divorce theology from fruit as much as we can divorce fruit from theology. They go hand in hand. Their relationship is an unbreakable one. Any attempts to despise theology for the sake of fruit and viceversa do not honor the Lord who commands us to be grounded in the Word so that we may bear "fruit in its season."

What Luke 13 tells us is that because it was grace that planted us in His law the logical outcome must be fruit yielded without delay and without failure "in its season." Notice that verse 3 talks about the fruit before it does the leaves. This is extremely important because we were saved to yield fruit.

" For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10, NASB).

There is a purpose to this grace bestowed on us sinners. It is not simply to just enjoy, but to do; not in order to be saved, but because we are saved. Fruit is the evidence of true life within.

"What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?" (James 2:14-20, NASB).

Again, James expands on the parable our Lord used in Luke 13 to show that true faith is accompanied by works. You cannot have faith without works, and you cannot have true God-pleasing works without true faith given to you by Him (Ephesians 2:8). In order to know what true faith is and what true works that accompany or evidence true life are, we must be grounded on the law of the Lord, as we have seen in Psalm 1:2.

Many will at this point heartily agree with me and say "See? We don't need to 'study' God's Word! We need to bear fruit not study!" As we have clearly seen in our previous posts, we cannot attain that blessedness of God through Christ (salvation and all that it entails) without having understood that through the study of His Word. The only other route to take would be human counsel (rationalization, emotionalism, empiricism, or fideism (sort of like "blind faith"). And once more, that will only lead to death.

The prevalent thought in the Church today is that the mind and the spirit must be separated; they cannot share in a 100/100% relationship much like Jesus was 100% percent human and 100% God. This is not right. This is not what Psalm 1 has taught us this far. We must flee from this way of thinking.

For further study on this relationship between the mind and the spirit, I highly recommend John Piper's book "Think."

So how are we to produce fruit? The Apostle Peter tells us in 1 Peter 4:8-11 (NASB),

"....keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaint. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

In short: let each use his gift given by God to [1] serve one another because [2] we are stewards of the "manifold grace of God," by "the strength which God supplies" (found in being grounded in His law), so that [3] "in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ [who, as we saw, is our source of life], to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

Next time we will look at the concept of "vitality" and "prosperity" found in this part of Psalm 1:3,

"....and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers."

Stay tuned!

Hijacking The Resurrection

2011-11-30T09:36:00.001-08:00

The resurrection of Christ is an essential Christian doctrine. As the Apostle Paul said "But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (1 Co 15:13–14). If, as the Apostle Paul says, Christ did not raise bodily from the grave then we as Christians are the most foolish people on the face of the planet. Not only that but we are liars speaking in the name of God about something that did not happen and were not commissioned to proclaim.

But Christ was indeed raised bodily from the grave. Thus securing that our bodies will be raised in glory or transformed imperishable. No more fear of death, corruption, decay, or sin because Christ triumphantly conquered all at the cross and in His resurrection. The resurrection is indeed essential to the Gospel message. G.K. Beale put is this way:

We should think of Christ's life, trials, and especially his death and resurrection as the central events that launched the latter days. These pivotal events of Christ's life, trials, death, and resurrection are eschatological in particular because they launched the beginning of the new creation and kingdom...Jesus's life, trials, death for sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit have launched the fulfillment of the eschatological already-not yet new-creational reign, bestowed by grace through faith and resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this new-creational reign and resulting in judgment for the unbelieving, unto the triune God's glory.*

However, many today have hijacked the resurrection. They accuse us of having a "defeatist", "dualistic vision of heaven", "reductionist" type of attitude about the age to come. While they promote "kingdom living", "inner transformational living" or "resurrection living." It is my opinion that they have done a hatchet job on the resurrection. They have hijacked it and divorced it from the cross of Christ. They have an over realized view of the age that is to come.

I do agree that they have properly diagnosed a problem with much of today's Christianity. That is- a failure to understand that heaven is only an intermediate state. The hope of God's people has always been the salvation of sinners in reconciliation to God in a new heavens and new earth in "which righteousness dwells" (Is. 65:17, Rev. 21:1-9, 2 Pe. 3:1-10). This all made only possible by the saving work of Christ Jesus in His life, cross and resurrection.

So they have rightly pointed out a problem but have answered with an even greater error. I should point out that I am not speaking in regards to our postmillennial- reconstructionist brethren. I'm primarily referring to the liberalism of what claims to be Christianity. The Emergent, "Seeker Sensitive" movements and the likes of them. In pointing out the problem they have sought to emphasize the resurrection as "transformational living" while ignoring and even rejecting the the saving work of the cross of Christ. While some of them pay lip service to saying they believe in it, for all their talk of "resurrection living" they neglect to mention of the cross of Christ in terms of deliverance of the wrath of God and reconciliation to Him, when they proclaim the "good news" ( a phrase they prefer over the Gospel).

A large emphasis is placed on human works wrapped in Emergent contemplative mysticism promoted by Dallas Willard and the Emergent crowd. Phrases like "transformational living", "kingdom living", "resurrection life" e.t.c. (as used by them) are nothing more than a cloak for works righteousness (salvation by our works) wrapped in fine sounding jargon and that all from a hatchet job on the resurrection of Christ.

My suspicion is that they use flowery language like that to avoid mentioning things the natural man detests ( that is when they are not attempting to redefine them). Sin, sinfulness, sinners, wrath, judgment, righteousness, holiness, godliness. Tis easier to gain a wider audience by saying "Jesus came to give resurrection life" than speak in Biblical terms like "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost" (Lk 19:10). Why is that? Because to tell unbelievers they are lost will require that you explain what it means to be lost (enemies of God under His wrath) and what happens in the end to the lost ( being consumed by the justice of God for all eternity in the lake of fire). Furthermore, why not speak in terms of biblical concepts when speaking of sanctification (that is what they are really trying to emphasize)? Holiness, godliness and righteousness are biblical words lacking in their flowery jargon. Why? Because the opposites are, again, not things people want to hear- sin, sinfulness, worldliness, unrighteousness,.

Is it possible to speak of "resurrection life" and still maintain biblical Christianity? Of course. G.K. Beale does a fine job of explaining it. Perhaps this will help to answer some of the false allegations from those that charge us with some "dualistic ethereal view of heaven." Beale writes:

We call can call this new living "ongoing Christian living" or "new-creational life" or "sanctification" ( as systematic theology has traditionally termed it). I use"sanctification" to refer to ongoing Christian life that is set apart from the old creation and set apart to the new eschatological new creation. Thus, inherent to the continuation of Christian living is resurrection life that has not transported a person from the old, fallen world into new creation. And when people begin to become part of the new creation, eschatological righteousness sets into their lives, a righteousness that was promised to be part and parcel of the new heaven and new earth. When this happens, they become a living part of the redemptive historical storyline, in which they are not only part of the new creation but also involved in the expansion of it in their own lives... The thesis of this segment is that only people who are part of the new creation and kingdom have the ability to obey the commands (emphasis mine).*

It is the last sentence that is of importance here. For the Emergent folks they have no distinction between justification and sanctification. In fact they seem to teach that sanctification is justification. Beale here makes it clear that the commands to participate in "resurrection life" are for Christians and not unbelievers. Where as the Emergents portray the concept of "resurrection life" to the unbeliever as just a simple matter of "follow Jesus' example" and partake of "transformational living." One teaches that the living is a result of the saving grace of God through repentance and faith in Christ while the other "transformational living" is itself faith in Christ. One teaches justifiation by faith alone in Christ alone while the other teaches a form of salvation by works. One says you participate because you believe, the other says your participation is your believing.

They have attempted to hijack the resurrection of Christ but we must never forget "No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Ro 4:20–25 emphasis mine).

Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

*G.K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), pp. 19,23
* G.K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 835-836

Dressing Up Bad Doctrine With Fancy Garb

2011-11-29T21:55:00.001-08:00

I pray and long to to see the Lord raise up and gift godly men to faithfully preach His Word. We are living in a time where truth seems to many as an inconvenience. Pastors have long abandoned the precious truths of God's written Word. No more is it the delight of the soul, the truth that causes us to behold the glory and greatness of Christ, as much a possible, until our triumphant King returns. It has now become something men pick apart to fill their own desires and "visions." The timeless truths of the Holy Writ seem to be an embarrassment them. Neglected are the difficult portions of God's declaration of men ( sin, condemnation, judgment, hell e.t.c.) while emphasized are the moral principles aimed at the greater good of humanity.

Even more so we find the congregations across the world have been trained to not only embrace such teaching but also to desire it. Any preaching that causes discomfort from the proclamation of Scripture is said not to be of God but to be from the misguided views of the "hell-fire and brimstone" preacher.

It doesn't help that congregations have become addicted to emotional highs which are derived from purely sentimental sermons. It matters not that many men in pulpits are espousing deadly and dangerous doctrines, while ranting against sound doctrine, as long as they are dressing up their sermons with how much "Jesus loves us" or how "great God's plans are for us" people will well endure it and crave it. Anything for that emotional fix.

Of course stirring sentimental emotions in people is not a bad thing. The problem lies with the poor doctrine that lies underneath the appeal to human sentiment. Let me me demonstrate what I mean. People love to talk and preach on the love of Christ (a most precious thing) but fail to mention how unlovable sinners are and that we are deserving of God's fiery judgment (what sinner, apart from the grace of God, is going to want to hear that truth?). Many today are not convinced of such truth a la the Emergent Church and their ilk. In fact those truths are mocked and scorned by them. But they will talk of how much "Jesus loves you." And these days that is all that has to be said for people to swallow foul theology hook, line and sinker. Just dress up that human centered theology with fine sounding sentimental words.

Dress up that bad doctrine with fancy garb and watch people fall madly in love with it. After all "love wins." Right? Wrong. The love of Christ for sinners, His death and our sin are all connected. Paul says "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Ro 5:6–8). It is impossible to preach on the love of Christ without understanding the utter sinfulness of man.

What we need is godly men to to fulfill the command that the Apostle Paul gives to Timothy, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth "(2 Ti 2:14–15). This involves unashamedly testifying to ungodly men and women that are enemies of God; at enmity with Him: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Ti 1:15).

Heralding such truth will inevitably make you enemies and cause people to leave your church murmuring "fundamentalist", "legalist", "reductionist." But the man of God must stay the course and faithfully fulfill his calling and commission by the sovereign King to shepherd the sheep. He must cut straight the word of God. He must proclaim salvation and damnation both to the glory of God. The man of God must do it among opposition. Like Ezekiel he must proclaim salvation through repentance and the fury of God upon the unrepentant, "On account of your unclean lewdness, because I would have cleansed you and you were not cleansed from your uncleanness, you shall not be cleansed anymore till I have satisfied my fury upon you. I am the LORD. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord GOD” (Eze 24:13–14).

There is no need to dress up such truth with fancy garb. The Spirit of God will apply the message of the saving work of Christ. We proclaim it no matter the outcome.

James Alexander writes:

The day was when churches were much more concerned than we, about the truths conveyed, and much less about the garb of the truths. Doctrine, rather than speaking, was what drew attention.*

Dr. Thornwell appears to me to show some greatness in devoting his preaching powers to the making of great theological sermons. Those who do this successfully leave their mark on their generation. It is not the turn of the age however. The young ministers who are coming out seem to me to preach sentimental, rather than argumentative sermons.*

We do not need anymore men preaching bad doctrine in fancy garb. We need faithful men that will preach the Word in season and out of season.
Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando

*James W. Alexander, Thoughts on Preaching ( Birmingham: Solid Ground, 2009), 32
*Ibid, p. 27