Pastors Blog

“When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.  And I saw the seven angels who stand before God and to them were given seven trumpets.  Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar.  He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.  The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand.  Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.”

                                                                                                                                                                Revelation 8:1-5

                As the visions in the book of Revelation unfold we are introduced to a profound mystery.  What John “sees” repeatedly calls him to prayer.  What the Sovereign God does seems to come about in response to the prayers of the saints.  In fact it seems as if nothing happens without the praying of God’s people.   George Beasley Murray writes in his commentary entitled The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Mich., Eerdmans, 1981, page 151).

“The significance of this picture can hardly be overestimated.  No one was more aware than John of the limitations to what individual men and women can do to change the course of history and to bring in the kingdom of heaven, particularly in the face of the cosmic forces against them and the transcendent character of the kingdom itself (none of us can raise the dead).  But we can pray to Him who has almighty power, and it would seem that God has willed that the prayer of His people should be part of the process by which the kingdom comes.  The interaction between the sovereignty of God and the prayers of the saints is part of the ultimate mystery of existence.  Faith is called on to take both seriously.”

                We face the mystery of life as weak and broken people.  We are sinners, desperately needing redemption in Christ.  This weakness, when acknowledged, opens us up to become recipients of the power of God which was at work in the cross and resurrection of Christ.  This power is not our own, it is God’s power at work in us through Christ crucified.  It must be asked for in faith.  Beasley Murray calls us to recognise our weakness, and then to come to God in humble prayer asking for God’s power to be at work in us.

Jacques Ellul puts it even more strongly in his Prayer and the Modern Man (New York: Seabury Press, 1970, page 167).

“The Christian who prays acts more effectively and more decisively on society than the person who is politically involved, with all of the sincerity of faith put into the involvement.  It is not a matter of seeing them in opposition to one another, but of inverting our instinctive, cultural hierarchy of values.”

                Each of these scholars are in their own way calling the Church to sincere, committed, prayer as the means by which society will be transformed.  Our belief must be that prayer is one of our primary tools that we use in the advancement of God’s kingdom.  It not something that we tack on to the end of our meetings, and our days, after all the important work is done.  It is our calling.  The Apostles in Acts 6:4 declare that they will give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.  The mystery contained in the whole of Scripture is that God has willed this.  How often, in His Word, do we see God acting in response to His people crying out to Him?

If we want to see our friends and neighbours come to Christ, our Church growing deep in the Word of God, our cities, nations, and world transformed by God’s grace then we must pray.  We must ask for God to create in us a desire for prayer.  We must also ask that He teach us how to really pray.  We have much to learn here.  James confronts us on our prayerlessness when he writes, “You do not have, because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasure.” (James 4:2b-3)  Here there is a call to prayer as well as a promise of sanctification that will take place as we pray.

John introduces us to the mystery.  God’s kingdom unfolds on the knees of His people.  Make no mistake, He is firmly, and sovereignly in control of all things.  He has willed that we prayerfully advance His work.  I know that for me this is a call that must be seriously embraced.  How about for you?

“Even to your old age and grey hairs I Am He, I Am He who will sustain you.  I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will carry you.”

                                                                                                                                                                                Isaiah 46:4

                What a wonderful text of Scripture containing one of the most precious of promises for every human being.  Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached upon this text in a sermon preserved in the second volume of Spurgeon’s Sermons (Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2011, p. 361-379).  The sermon entitled “The God of the Aged” develops the theme of this text in Isaiah 46 by looking at the text’s doctrine and application to believers who are advancing in age.  To me this is becoming a doctrine which grows sweeter with age.  It has now been 41 years since I first gave my life to Christ.  In the beginning years of my walk with Christ my faith was strong but untested.  Now it has been tempered in the testing fires of life and has as a result become more precious.  As Spurgeon focus our attention on the doctrine in this text his desire is for us to focus upon God’s faithfulness to His covenant promise to us in love.  He is unchanging and therefore remains faithful in the carrying out of His unchanging purpose to redeem us through the cross of Christ.  There is more here however.  When we take a careful look at this text some other doctrines leap out at us.

1)      As Spurgeon stated our God is unchangingly faithful to His promise to love us sacrificially.  For Him to become unfaithful would be to deny His very nature.  Isaiah cries out “I Am He!”  God’s Name, His very nature tells us that He will be faithful because He is the eternal, covenant keeping God.  He will not become ill, or weary, or uninterested in the promise He has made to us.  This is true over the whole span of our lives.  It is also true over all of the years since the LORD Jesus Christ was crucified.  In fact it is true over all of the years of recorded history.

2)      The doctrine of humanity is found here as well.  We are described as those in old age with grey hair.  There was a time when we were youths.  All of the future was before us.  We revelled in our strength and energy, feeling that nothing was impossible for us.  The years have passed and the toxic consequences of sin have borne their fruit in our lives.  With each passing day we find ourselves feeling that our best days are behind us.  Here is a wonderful learning opportunity for us however.  The LORD is preparing us for eternity.  We may be weakening but we are also discovering that He is unchanged.  As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)  He is trustworthy to continue to lead us in the same way He did when He first called us to faith.

3)      This is a promise of great scope and comfort for all who put their trust in Christ.  For the youth just beginning to follow Jesus it is a promise that the ending of their lives they will find that He is still faithfully with them.  For the middle aged who are just beginning to see the weakening of their physical bodies it is a promise that He who called you is still faithfully working out that same calling today.  For the aged who feel that they can no longer serve the LORD with the vitality they once had it is a promise that His grace is still sufficient for their every need.  It has always been about grace.  It has never been about our own personal strength.

4)      For each of us, no matter what our age it is another promise as well.  This is that He is mighty to save us today.  Many have reflected upon the necessity of evangelising the young.  It is then that they can most easily be brought to Christ we think.  The reality is that the work of evangelism is an impossible work at any age if we are depending upon our flesh to accomplish it.  It is not our work, it is the LORD’s.  Nothing is impossible for Him.  He can save the youth and how we rejoice when a youth comes to put their faith in Christ.  He can also save the elderly.  It brings even greater joy to us when an aged man or woman comes to faith in Christ.  About twenty years ago an eighty eight year old man surprised his young Pastor with a simple question.  “Can you baptize an old man?”  It seems that after a lifetime of living as an unbeliever this man had come to understand the Gospel and had given his life to Christ.  He then said to his Pastor “I have been living for myself all these years.  Now I want to live the rest of my life for Him.  I must bear witness to my faith in Christ because I have children and grandchildren who must come to know that it is necessary at any age for a person to begin to follow Christ.”  About a year later an eighty year old woman with a heart condition moved into a home near our Church, she began to attend services and gave her life to Christ.  One Sunday she showed up at the Church Service with a doctor’s note stating that her health was sufficiently good for her to be baptized by total immersion.  She had done her homework so that she could bear testimony to her new found faith before family and friends.  As each of these senior saints was baptized there was not a dry eye in the Church such was our joy in what the LORD had done.  The lesson that we learned on those days was that our faithful God has the power to save anyone at any age who comes to the LORD Jesus Christ in faith.

“While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, He asked, “How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David?  David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: “The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”  David himself calls Him ‘Lord’. How then can He be his son?””

                                                                                                                                                                Mark 12:35-37a

                As Mark continues to describe the means that the Lord Jesus Christ used to bring His disciples to faith he takes us further into the teaching of our Lord.  Mark has just presented us with a teacher of the law who is presented as a man who is “not far from the kingdom of God”.  Mark immediately goes on to this question asked of the crowds, and perhaps of the deeply convicted teacher.  It is a question raised by the teaching of the 110^th Psalm.  In this Psalm, which was understood to be about the coming Messiah a confusing piece of teaching is given.  David is writing this Psalm about one of his descendants who was believed to be the Christ, the Hebrew Messiah.  As a descendant of David this person is assumed to be inferior to David, but David addresses him as his Lord.  How can this be?  That David was speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and therefore was writing Scripture was understood by all present in the Temple.  What was not understood was how the Messiah could be both David’s descendant and his superior at the same time.  It is this question which Jesus asks the crowd.  The approach that Jesus takes here is to ask a question which will force those who sincerely want an answer to engage in an intense, Spirit directed study of God’s Word in order to discern God’s answer.  James 1:5 tells us “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given him.”  This is the expectation that the Lord Jesus Christ has for everyone who truly wants to enter into the Kingdom of God.

This text tells us several things about the process by which we become disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

1)      What is required is that we come to real faith in Christ as He is revealed to us in the Scriptures.  The Lord convicted His hearers on this point.  He asked them questions designed to force them to wrestle with what the Scriptures really taught.  How often do find ourselves failing to take the teaching of Scripture seriously?

2)      He put His disciples in positions where their failure to live up to God’s standards would be exposed.  He does the same to us.  So often we fail to see the reality of our hardness of heart.  Paul writes in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the Kingdom of God.”  He writes “all” not “some”.  The way into God’s Kingdom is always through real humility.

3)      The Discipleship process for Jesus’ followers was an intense and lengthy one.  There was some much unbelief and hardness of heart to deal with.  Can we expect that it will not be as difficult for us?   If we are to bear fruit for Him then we must expect trials.

4)      He was with them through the whole process.  Not even the atoning death on the cross could remove Him.  On the third day He arose.

5)      At the heart of the process that Mark describes here is the cross.  Jesus sets His face to obey His Father by going to the cross.  The teaching of the Gospels is that we to must travel the way of the Cross if we are to be Disciples of Christ.

                “He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does.  And when the south wind blows you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is.  Hypocrites!  You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky.  How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?””

                                                                                                                                                                Luke 12:54-56

On the back jacket of Knowing The Times by D.M. Lloyd-Jones we read the following important words.  “Every Christian has to be able to apply biblical principles to the age in which they are living.”  The calling to biblical discernment is absolutely vital to living the Christian life in this twenty first century.  Much of the present weakness in the mission of the Church in this world today is owing to the fact that we are, to use the words of a friend spoken many years ago, Biblically Illiterate.  We have difficulty, even as Christians understanding clearly what the Bible teaches.

We are living in a particular time in history.  We are in what Peter calls the last days as 2 Peter 3:2 tells us.  This is a time, stretching between the two advents of the LORD Jesus Christ, in which the Gospel is being proclaimed and is advancing.  With it comes conviction of sin, judgment, a call to real repentance, and the announcement of cleansing from sin to all who receive the One at its centre, the Son of God who gave His precious life as our sacrifice of atonement.  Such blessing cannot be earned, or demanded.  It can only be received by faith.  This is trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross for us.  As the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 3:23-25a, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood – to be received by faith.”

                In the text at the head of this post there is a particular concept of time, which is used to describe the times in which we are living.  It does not refer to time as passing, one minute after another, but as the significant time.  It is that time in which God is acting in history.  For Jesus He meant His time.  Did His hearers understand that the One who was speaking to them was the Son of the Living God who had come to bring them salvation from sin?  Do we understand what is being offered to us in the Gospel?

                When we look at Luke 12 we see that there is a shift in focus.  Jesus has been speaking to His disciples outlining the life of discipleship which they are to live as His followers.  He then shifts focus to the crowd who have been listening in.  Jesus reveals that His primary purpose, as well as the primary purpose of all His followers is evangelistic.  There is a world which we are called to proclaim the Gospel to.

There are significant times in history.  There are times of warning, of judgment, of repentance, of grace, and of revival which come upon us.  There are times when God’s Gospel work is to be consolidated and there are times when it advances boldly.   This applies not only to the big movements of history but also to our own personal lives.  We hear the Gospel clearly and know that we are being called to make a decision to believe in the LORD Jesus Christ.

What this means for us is that we are called to search the scriptures seeking to understand God’s invitation to us personally to believe the Gospel.  This is vital!  Have we committed ourselves each day to prayerful meditation and reflection upon God’s Word?  Do we wrestle with the Word of God that we might unearth its treasure?  Do we apply it personally to our lives, our Church, our city and our Nation?

God is calling His people to repentance and to believing the Gospel.  Have we heard Him, and do we believe Him?

                “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

                                                                                                                                Romans 12:1-2

 

The twelfth chapter of Romans begins a long section of the letter in which the Apostle Paul applies the doctrinal message which he has been exploring in the first eleven chapters of the letter.  What this tells us is that practical Christian living is always the result of correctly understanding and incorporating Biblical Christian doctrine into our lives.  The doctrine describes the fundamental way in which we come to abide in the Lord Jesus Christ.  A Christian is a person who by faith abides in Christ.  It is not a philosophy or a lifestyle, it is not even membership in a Church, it is a relationship which is characterized by a trusting commitment to the Son of God.  The Apostle Paul outlines this in the first eleven chapters of the letter.  Then he begins to apply these truths to the life we live.  He starts with a very interesting statement in the first two verses of chapter twelve.

This is that our response to God’s mercy which has been revealed in the Gospel must be to surrender ourselves to God.  In verse one Paul uses the word “offer” or “present” here.  Back in chapter six verses 13, 16, and 19 he uses the same word which is always translated as “offer”.  The word refers to the offering of a sacrificial animal on the altar.  The animal so offered was considered to be fully and unconditionally devoted to God.  The Apostle Paul is stating here that the consequence of God’s grace revealed in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is that we surrender every part of our lives unconditionally to God in Christ.  Such surrender is not partial or conditional.  It is total and complete.  John Miller in Outgrowing the Ingrown Church describes it in this way in regard to his own life.  He says that when he came to terms with his own unbelief which resulted in ingrownness in his life he recognised that the way out was through first of all giving himself unconditionally to God.  Then he began to courageously obey God in every area of his life.  The ability or power to do this came, he recognised, not from himself, but from God’s Spirit.

This is what the Apostle Paul is writing about as he applies God’s truth to our lives.  It requires courage to obey God in this.  It also requires a growing faith.  This is the test, do we truly believe that God will keep the promises that He has made to us in His Word?  When we truly do believe it then the results are life transforming.  It all begins with a living sacrifice.

““Awake, O Sword, against My Shepherd, against the man who is close to Me!” declares the LORD Almighty.  “Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn My hand against the little ones.  In the whole land,” declares the LORD, “two thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one third will be left in it.  This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold.  They will call on My Name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’””

                                                                                                                                                                Zechariah 13:7-9

                It never ceases to amaze me whenever I explore the depth of the message of the prophetic Scriptures that they bring out in great detail the missionary purposes of the LORD God Almighty.  Mark J. Boda, in his commentary on Haggai and Zechariah, writes in reference to Zechariah 14 words which provide direction to our reflections on the end of the thirteenth chapter as well.

Zechariah 14 speaks to the Church today, first as a revelation of God’s work inaugurated in and through Christ.  In that way it has enduring relevance to us today as we celebrate this work, but also as we take to heart the way this passage shaped this community’s vision of God’s design for them in this world (a holy community for the nations) and the way it ministered to the community of God in its time (offering hope as well as warning). (Boda, Mark J. The NIV Application Commentary, Haggai and Zechariah, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2004, p. 533)

                Boda goes on to explore two key related concepts which come out of this prophesy.  These are holiness and mission.  To be redeemed in Christ is to be set on a pathway to sanctification.  Such a life of increasing Christ likeness cannot be lived apart from a vision for mission in this sin ruined world.  Holiness and mission are so closely linked that we cannot really have the one without the other.  This reality is one which every Christian tradition affirms.  The abiding fruit of our salvation seems to be an increasing burden for, and involvement in mission.  One example of this is C. H. Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle with its Sunday Schools, Orphanages, and numerous other organizations for the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ.

This is something to be more fully explored in a study the fourteenth chapter of Zechariah.  Today we need to reflect a little more carefully on the message of 13:7-9.  In the past we have looked at this passage reflecting upon the command of God to strike down His Shepherd.  We noted that this event which will be of redemptive importance is not an accident or a tragedy it is in fact the decree of God meaning that it is God’s method of bringing his grace to a lost world.  Salvation is in fact God’s doing.  It enters into this world in personal terms, through God’s only begotten Son.  It brings about a confrontation in which our sin is exposed and judged in the Cross.  It takes the cross to bring about the purpose of God for us.

Zechariah also tells us here that God’s missionary purpose advances through to crisis created by the cross.  John Miller writes,

“Through the years I have learned to dislike Church conflicts and personality clashes with intensity, but I have slowly learned that the Kingdom of Christ can only grow through conflicts.”(Miller, C. John, outgrowing the Ingrown Church, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1999, p. 114)

Earlier in his book Miller paraphrased Johannes Blauw in a moving passage dealing with the impact of this Gospel in our experience.

“Blauw notes that the purpose of this revelation of the divine glory is to confront the world’s darkness with the gospel.  I would add that this is a head-on confrontation between the world and the deeds (“the praises”) of God.  They are produced by the Holy Spirit’s application of the gospel to the lives of sinners.  The divine glory is the difference between the former deeds of these who were once deeply stained sinners “living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry” and their deeds now that they have become the holy people of God.  This glory shines into the world’s darkness as a confronting power, and more of the world’s unwashed are saved as their consciences are stirred by seeing the renewed lives of God’s people.” (Miller, p. 46)

                Zechariah tells us that the cross will lead either to judgement on those who refuse to repent or a crisis leading to faith in God’s Redeemer causing God’s people to repent and to renew the covenant relationship with God that they have been called to.  This is the wonderful news that the gospel proclaims to us today.  How have you responded to it?

                “Blessed is the Nation whose God is the LORD, the people He chose for His inheritance.”

                                                                                                                                                                                Psalm 33:12

                In examining this text, which was the focus of our meditation at First Baptist Church Brampton this past Sunday morning I find myself confronted with some key thoughts regarding the needs of my nation.  From a personal point of view when I meditate upon the needs of my nation, Canada, I am confronted with one key issue.  That is that what Canada needs is real Godliness.  This is not a call to an adherence to a superficial morality, and especially not to its imposition upon our lives.  We have had enough, in the past, of that type of self-righteousness which mars the testimony of Christ.  What is needed is the reality of the new birth.  What the Wesley’s and George Whitefield discovered in the 18^th Century is what is needed now.  Their discovery led to the Great Awakening of the 18^th Century.  The new birth, or regeneration, of the people of our nation is crucial.  How is this to be accomplished?

Robert Murray McCheyne once responded to a question regarding the greatest need of his Church with the following answer.  The greatest need of his Church was a Godly pastor.  We could say that the greatest need of Canada right now is our own personal Godliness.  In 2 Chronicles 7:14 we read,

“If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My

Face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

                There are several key things here.

1)      We must truly be God’s people.  We must be born again, gospel people.  Nothing is more important than this.  Reform, renewal, revival is impossible without laying this solid foundation in the LORD Jesus Christ.  The Apostle John writes in 1 John 3:23 “And this is His command: to believe in the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.”  The question we must answer first, and Biblically, is “Are you Born Again?”

2)      We must humble ourselves.  Psalm 33 focuses upon the Nation whose God is the LORD.  This does not mean that we possess the LORD, but that we are His possession.  We belong to Him.  The message of the 33^rd Psalm is that God speaks and we hear Him in humble obedience to His Word.  “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.” (Hebrews 1:1-2a) Humility hears and obeys Him.  The truly humble person’s life is conformed to God’s Word.

3)      We must become a people who intercede for the need of our land.  In doing this we find that our praying is seeking for a genuine knowledge of the LORD Jesus Christ.  We must come to know the holiness of God, revealed in Christ, as well and His compassionate love.

4)      We must personally and corporately turn from all known sin.  This is not self-righteousness; it is a personal encounter with the holy and gracious God in Christ, and abiding in Him.  It is living according to His Word, and loving one another in Christ.  What comes from this?  God promises to hear from heaven, to forgive our sin, and to heal our land.

Isn’t this what we need?

“Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”  And they divided up His clothes by casting lots.”

                                                                                                                                                                Luke 23:34

                Luke gives us here a very precious word from the cross.  This word opens up to our understanding the whole purpose of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.  He gives up His life as a sacrifice of atonement through which we receive the forgiveness of our sin.  Luke presents it in such a wonderful way here that we find ourselves being overwhelmed by the sheer grace that is extended to us.  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”  On the cross, in agony and humiliation, the Lord Jesus Christ is praying for those who are killing Him.  Of all people who have ever lived on this earth the Lord Jesus Christ was the least worthy of death.  He had no sin.  He was compassionate and holy in every way.  Yet they turned against Him and nailed Him to a cross.  His response was to forgive them.

This verse raises several important questions for us.

1)      Who was Jesus praying for?  Was it the soldiers who were nailing Him to the cross, dividing up His clothes by lot, and doing everything they could to humiliate Him?

2)      Was it the people of Israel who were His own people, to whom He came as their God, and who responded to Him with rejection because they did not recognise Him as the fulfillment of all that the Prophets had promised?

3)      Was it the Gentiles, the Romans who drove the nails into His hands and feet?

4)      Or was it all of them?  The truth is that each and every one of us was in one way or another responsible for the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.  In His compassionate love the Lord Jesus Christ intercedes for the soldiers that they would be forgiven the awful crime of crucifying the Son of God.  He prayed for the Jews that they would recognise Him and receive forgiveness.  He prayed for the Gentiles that they would be grafted into the vine that would give them real abundant life.  He interceded for you and me that we too would receive the forgiveness which was purchased for us on the cross.

In praying in this compassionate way the Lord Jesus Christ was not offering a blanket amnesty for all sin.  He was praying that these soldiers, Jews, Gentiles, and all of us would come to repentance and faith in Him.  Right away as Jesus dies on the cross we see the first answer to this prayer as the Centurion praises God and confesses Christ.  Over the next forty years as judgment on Jerusalem was delayed countess Jews came to faith in Christ. Over the centuries since then millions of Gentiles have come to faith in Christ, all in answer to this compassionate prayer.  If you are a believer you owe your forgiveness to this one prayer.  The Son of the Living God while in agony on the cross prayed that you would be forgiven.  That prayer was answered as the grace of God was poured out upon you bringing you to faith.

This prayer is an invitation to faith and repentance as well as a call to compassionate prayerfulness as well.  Steven in Acts seven prayed this way and Saul of Tarsus was brought to faith.  Can you or I be any less prayerful seeing we are surrounded by countless lost people who do not know what they are doing?  Each one of them desperately needs the forgiveness which you and I enjoy today.

DIGGING INTO THE WORD OF GOD

                “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning.”

                                                                                                                                Luke 12:35

                As Jesus speaks to His disciples, and to us, His call to serious service focuses our attention upon the need for us to be ready for service.  In the verses which follow He calls us to develop a commitment to readiness.  This can mean an attitude of readiness to serve God and others, a prayerful life, believing the Gospel, loving one another, and diligent Bible Study.  It is this last point that I want to focus upon here.  Charles Spurgeon writes the following thoughts.

“We must not rest content with having given a superficial reading to a chapter or two; but with the candle of the Spirit, we must deliberately seek out the hidden meaning of the Word. Holy Scripture requires searching—much of it can only be learned by careful study. There is milk for babes, but also meat for strong men. The rabbis wisely say that a mountain of matter hangs upon every word, yea, upon every title of Scripture. Tertullian exclaims, “I adore the fullness of the Scriptures.” No man who merely skims the book of God can profit thereby; we must dig and mine until we obtain the hid treasure. The door of the Word only opens to the key of diligence. The Scriptures claim searching. They are the writings of God, bearing the divine stamp and imprimatur—who shall dare to treat them with levity? He who despises them despises the God Who wrote them. God forbid that any of us should leave our Bibles to become swift witnesses against us in the great Day of Account. The Word of God will repay searching. God does not bid us sift a mountain of chaff with here and there a grain of wheat in it, but the Bible is winnowed corn—we have but to open the granary door and find it.” —Charles Spurgeon  (from “God-breathed Scripture (Free Grace Broadcaster Book 239)” by Charles H. Spurgeon, John Murray, Arthur W. Pink, Louis Gaussen, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Thomas Boston, Charles Hodge, Benjamin B. Warfield, Wilhelmus a Brakel, Octavius Winslow)

For me the application of Spurgeon’s thoughts is that I am called to engage in all of the necessary work to prepare myself for the ministry of service that I am to engage in.  Each and every Christian is called to bear fruit in the LORD’s service.  John Miller in Outgrowing the Ingrown Church states that the place to begin is with our giving ourselves without reservation to the LORD, then to the work.  This means first of all surrendering ourselves to the LORD’s leading, and work within us.  In His Providence He is working out His plan in our lives.  “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”  (Ephesians 2:10).  To step out in faith to do the work then involve in the first place diligent digging into the Scriptures.  There is no substitute for the Spirit led persistent study of the Word of God.  It is here that we find the treasures of God’s wisdom which will see us through the trials and tribulations of our lives.  For me this has meant a year’s long commitment to the McCheyne Bible reading plan.  It is amazing how many times this has yielded fruit in my life at just the right time.  Secondly, the work requires dependant intercessory praying.  Thirdly, I am called to seek to have grace filled conversations with those that the LORD brings into my life.  At the heart of this call to readiness for service is a desire to be a person whose life has been the awareness that God’s purpose for all believers is that our lives be saturated with the Gospel of the LORD Jesus Christ.  This is the personal relationship that the Word of God calls us to be living.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.  For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it has been written: “The righteous will live by faith.””

                                                                                                                                                                Romans 1:16-17

                A number of years ago I had an experience as I was driving back to First Baptist Church from running an errand which illustrated very powerfully the issue that the Apostle Paul raises in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans.  As I was driving and approaching a red light that I knew had an advanced green light which would allow traffic to start early in the oncoming lanes, I was bringing my car to a stop when to my great surprise the car in the curb lane beside me sailed unconcernedly through the intersection against the red light.  The driver of that car either was unaware of the red light, or was unconcerned about it, and as a result put themselves, as well as every other driver in great danger.  As I saw the scene unfolding before me all I could do was offer an insufficient warning with my horn.  Perhaps the driver, or one of the others crossing legally into the intersection, would hear and respond to the warning.  Thankfully all of the oncoming traffic stayed put, and the unaware driver sailed safely through the intersection.  The events of the morning however got me to thinking.  How often do I see people who are unconcernedly living their lives without the knowledge of God and do nothing to warn them?  The danger they are facing is far greater, because it is in fact an eternal danger.

Today I am meditating upon that question within the context of the Apostle Paul’s theme statement at the beginning of his letter to the Romans.  To paraphrase what he tells the Romans Paul glories in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it is in fact God’s powerful word which redeems anyone who believes it.  Robert Haldane in his Geneva Commentary on Romans (Banner of Truth, page 47) writes.

“For it is the power of God unto salvation. – Here the Apostle gives the reason why he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.  The Gospel is the great and admirable mystery, which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God, into which the Angels desire to look, whereby His manifold wisdom is made known unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places.  It is the efficacious means by which God saves men from sin and misery, and bestows on them eternal life, — the instrument by which He triumphs in their hearts, and destroys in them the dominion of Satan.  The Gospel, which is the Word of God, is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.  By it, as the word of truth, men are begotten by the will of God, Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23; and through the faith of the Gospel they are kept by His power unto salvation, 1 Pet. 1:5.  The exceeding greatness of the power of God exerted in the Gospel towards those who believe, is compared to His mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand, Eph. 1:19.  Thus, while the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, to those who are saved it is the power of God.”

                What Haldane writes here puts things in their proper experience.  It also helps me to put into words my own conversion.  The Gospel is in fact a living Word from God.  It is personal in that it is in fact the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, living, and active among us.  His Word of the Gospel is powerful to accomplish the purpose for which it was spoken.  As I was living my life, blindly unaware of my danger, the Lord spoke the Word of the Gospel and it became something which arrested me.  It stopped me in my tracks.  It awakened concern for my eternal destiny.  It became an irresistible force in my life calling me to put my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

As a Christian it now raises another question for me.  Do I believe that it has the power to do what it did in me for others?  If I do believe that is has that power then I will never tire of glorying in the Gospel because it is the Word of life for anyone who believes it.  It does not matter whether the person I am speaking with, or preaching to, looks like a good candidate for salvation.  I certainly did not look like a good candidate when I first heard the Word of Christ.  That is not the issue.  This Gospel proclamation is God’s power to save.  So do I slumber on keeping the Word to myself?   Or do I Preach it, believing that it can save anyone who believes it?