What Can We Learn
From The Rich Young Ruler?
Mat 19:16-22, Mk 10:16-22, Luke 18:18-23
The incident with the rich young ruler is often preached on, seldom interpreted correctly, and often interpreted very wrongly.
To see this in our minds as we need to see it, we must place this man in the present day, and later in the lesson we will do that.
The major problem in Christendom for the past half century has been a false brand of evangelism which has led to millions of fake believers in a fake Gospel populating sham churches which are often little more than religious social clubs.
We must assure that we understand some basics.
--We must know what the Gospel is
--We must depend on the pure preaching of the pure Word and Holy Spirit conviction,
--We must own up to the fact that many churches have lulled millions into a false faith which, if not changed, will result in eternal loss.
--The typical “Bible Believing” church in our area and nation today has a few basic problems:
--The majority of churches and professing Christians don’t know what the Gospel is. To many, it has become much like that of the church of Rome, a superstitious ritual of saying the right words at the right time and being pronounced saved.
--The majority of churches and professing Christians don’t know what a Christian is
--The majority of churches and professing Christians don’t know what a church is
--The majority of churches and professing Christians don’t know what a Pastor is
--The majority of churches and professing Christians don’t know what a pastor’s job description is.
--WE have met the enemy, and he is us.
--So, given this great challenge, what can we learn from the Rich Young Ruler?
1. First, Who Was This Young Man?
a. His identification
(1) “one”
(2) Rich and young—Matthew
(3) Ruler—Lk 18—MacLaren says that the young man was a synagogue official, very unusual for one who can still be called “young.”
(4) He had GREAT possessions—but note, they were of no comfort to him!
b. His religion—good points
(1) He was serious, sincere, humble (this took place in public) and concerned about eternal things—he wanted to be right—but by the questions he asked, he was showing that he knew he did not have the peace and the relationship with God that others had.
(2) He understood the central issue in his mind—eternity
(3) He ran to Jesus and fell at His feet, so he felt the urgency of need—Mark 10:17
(4) In spite of his religion, as with his wealth, he had no peace—deep down inside, he knew that he was at war with a Holy God, and that he must eventually be converted or die.
(5) The problem with this—any number of false religions would take him thus far.
c. His religion, negative points
(1) He had only a surface understanding of the Law, or he would never have claimed to have kept it
(2) The Sermon on the Mount settles once and for all, that we cannot keep the Law
d. The Lost Religious Person
(1) Christ Jesus, in that passage, shows the depth of the Law is not in outward obedience, but in heart obedience and love of God and Love of His Law, and the single verse above all others that should frighten any who would earn salvation by the Law—(Mat 5:48) ""Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
(a) Now, some would point out that the word for “perfect” here is teleios, which can mean “mature,” and does not have to delineate absolute perfection. The Truth is that both meanings can be borne by the word, each dependent upon context
(b) Places where the word teleios means “fully mature”
(1 Cor 2:6) "However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing."
(1 Cor 14:20) "Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature."
(Eph 4:13) "till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;"
(James 1:4) "But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
(Heb 5:14) "But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."
(Phil 3:15) "Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you."
(c) Places where “perfect means perfect”
(i) Is God’s Will Perfect, or fallibly mature? (Rom 12:2) "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
(ii) Is the Presence of God in Heaven a place of maturity or a place of perfection? (Heb 9:11) "But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation."
(iii) Does God give imperfect gifts? (James 1:17) "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."
(iv) Is the Word of God mature, or perfect?! (James 1:25) "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."
(2) Bottom line—in the Sermon on the Mount, the standard of behavior taught there is that we are to be perfect AS GOD IS PERFECT—AND NO ONE CAN FULFILL THAT STANDARD EXCEPT BY IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS.
(3) The Law and the lost religious person
(a) The Law cannot save, it can only kill—Rom 7:7-14
(b) The Law teaches us about sin and our utter lack of righteousness—Rom 7
(c) The Law shuts our mouths—Rom 3:19-20
.
(4) He was self righteous—he thought he had kept the Law
(5) He did not really know who Jesus was
(6) He was, in short, a heretic—his understanding of eternal life was that he would work his way to heaven
(7) His reason for coming—he was not satisfied yet—works will never satisfy.
(8) Perhaps here we have a type of conviction, BUT
(a) He would avoid Hell
(b) He would get Heaven
(c) But there was no dread, no repentance
(d) There was no confession
e. A.T. Robertson’s comments are helpful here.
(1) “…What lack I yet? (ti eti husteroôö) Here is a psychological paradox. He claims to have kept all these commandments and yet he was not satisfied. He had an uneasy conscience and Jesus called him to something that he did not have. He thought of goodness as quantitative (a series of acts) and not qualitative (of the nature of God). Did his question reveal proud complacency or pathetic despair? A bit of both most likely…”
f. Bottom line—
(1) He thought that he could buy eternal life with one great deed.
(2) This was one of the theological ideas floating at the time—that a man could do one great deed, or be very holy in one area, and so merit heaven. This is the reason for the question which was asked by more than one of the Jewish leaders in forms slightly different, but yet the same question—Mt 22:36, Mark 12:28—Which is the most important commandment in the Law?
(3) Jesus’ answer was uniform—He summed up the whole law!
(4) This young man’s religion was vastly different from the Pharisee in the temple, praying to himself
(Luke 18:10-14) ""Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men; extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 'I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.' 13 "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' 14 "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.""
(5) —The Pharisee thought, “I thank thee Lord that I am soooo good.”
(6) The Rich Young Ruler Knew He had a need, but he did not know what it was.
2. What can we learn from Jesus’ reaction?
a. First, Jesus “flunked evangelism 101…” (John MacArthur)
(1) This man was READY—or was he?
(2) “He has come looking for eternal life, he has come to Jesus, lead him in the sinner’s prayer, settle it once and for all…” Or, can we?
(3) Jesus did something very unusual to our minds, He stood this man up with a series of questions and sarcastic remarks—Jesus knew this man was lost—but how did He know? Why did Jesus react this way? Is it just because, as the God-man, that He knows man (John 2)? NO!
(4) Jesus saw what any Christian worker or preacher should look for—He saw a man who had no repentance, and who was looking to an improvement to his own self-made religion.
(5) At this point, this man could have been led in “the sinner’s prayer,” and he would have dutifully said all the right words and signed the card
(a) He would have been baptized, ASAP to make sure he did not get away
(b) He’d have been taught about tithing right away!
(c) In months, he would have been teaching a class
(d) In a couple of years, he would have been made a deacon
(e) One big problem—he was not for real! His religion was a sham!
b. Instead of welcoming this man, instead of making the sign of the cross over him, Jesus, the Master Fisher of Men, made several questions and statements to and about this man
(1) First Question: "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.”
(a) In other words, “do you know who I am?”
(b) Have you had this revealed to you, as it was to Peter? (Mat 16:16-18)
(c) Of course, the young man did not have this knowledge, but being self-righteous, he assumed that some men were good, and he sensed that Jesus was a cut above the ordinary—an understatement to be sure—so he referred to Christ as “good master.”
(d) Major problem—calling Christ a good teacher and going no further is an insult to His Person and Work.
(e) Christ Jesus is not a teacher of Truth merely, He IS Truth (Jn 14:6)
(2) Question 2—The true or false question—“But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments."
(a) Jesus is not teaching false doctrine here—if anyone COULD obey, they could enter into life
(b) The problem is that we are born sinners, we have a congenital disease called “sin,” inherited from our first father, Adam, and manifested and practiced in our own lives.
(c) Jesus threw out this comment to show just how self-righteous the man was.
(3) Jesus Told Him to Keep the Law
(a) First, Jesus picks the “easiest” commands, the ones concerning interpersonal relationships between human beings. He skips the hardest questions, having to do with out worship of God and our devotion to Him. However, even this abbreviated test is beyond the ability of the young man, as it is for us.
(b) The lists of commands are somewhat different in the three gospel accounts—and they include two things that are not directly part of the 10, “Love your neighbor, and do not defraud.” Why are these included, especially together, and especially the second?
Mat 19:20 "You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother.' " and, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"
Mark10:19 "You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Do not defraud,' 'Honor your father and your mother.'"
(c) These last two were a setup for the hammering conviction of covetousness, which not only involves the worship of possessions, but it also involves envy of others, and a desire to have their stuff.
(Exo 20:17) ""You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.""
(d) Covetousness is a true heart sin, a thing of the soul, something where superficial faith cannot even pretend to be real.
(e) The unbridled desire for “stuff,” when it interferes with God, family, church, is a symptom of this sin of Coveting.
(f) Coveting is not about wanting stuff, it is beyond that—it is wanting your neighbor’s stuff. It is not keeping up with the Jones’, it is looting them in your heart—(Exo 20:16-17) ""You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.""
c. The Rich Young Ruler’s Response is even more shocking—19:20: The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?"
(1) Here again is his shallow understanding of the Law, and here again is his cluelessness with regard to his own sin.
(2) Yet, still, there is this doubt in his mind.
3. Jesus Gives a Test, and the Ruler Fails it—19:21-22
a. Did Jesus hereby command us, or, for that matter, anyone else, to live by this? Absolutely not. He dealt with many wealthy and influential people in his ministry, and He never said any such thing to any other.
b. This was a test, given to this man who was a slave to his possessions and his position—John 12:46—and the man failed the test, proving that he would have faired no better with the first half of the Pentateuch.
c. Jesus’ often forgotten words— (Mat 19:23-26) "… 23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 "And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 25 When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" 26 But Jesus looked at them and said to them, "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.""
(1) Few passages in the Gospels have been so abused as this one. A.T. Robertson’s comments are helpful: “It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye … Jesus, of course, means by this comparison … to express the impossible. The efforts to explain it away…[such as] narrow gorge or gate of entrance for camels which required stooping, etc. All these are hopeless, for Jesus pointedly calls the thing “impossible” (verse 26). “
(2) His real conclusion is this—only God Saves Sinners.
d. So the rich young ruler got away—and many, if not most evangelism manuals and methods of today would scold the Lord Himself for letting it happen
c. But one thing that did NOT happen—there was not a fake salvation of a self-righteous, religious, heretical man, and the kingdom was not weakened by welcoming into its fellowship one who could not be a part of that fellowship.
4. So, What Can We Learn from the Rich Young Ruler?
a. The Eagerness of a “seeker” tells us nothing
(1) Just because a person is eager to be saved (as they understand salvation) and join the church does not mean they have been or are about to be, saved.
(2) Was this man’s understanding of his own situation correct? NO
(3) Was he looking for salvation on God’s terms? NO, he was looking for something he could DO to inherit eternal life.
(4) Had the Holy Spirit finished the job of conviction in this man’s life? Absolutely NOT! There is no evidence that the Law had killed him and showed him his lost condition.
b. Over-Eagerness on our part can create a monstrosity.
(1) It is well to take time to talk to a person who comes for counsel.
(2) This is required even when that profession comes under a pulpit ministry which preaches the Truth.
(3) But, when that desire comes from other sources, or when it arises in doubtful circumstances, we must be double careful.
(4) There is nothing wrong with investigating the profession of a person who expresses initial faith in Christ, just as believers are to self-examine their own salvation from time to time.
(5) 2 Cor 13:5
(6) 1 John—the whole book.
c. We also learn that a highly-placed religious leader can be lost—he was a ruler of the synagogue
d. We learned that someone can be well-versed in the Bible and not be a genuine seeker
e. We learned that someone can be upstanding, humble, and to a degree repentant, and still not be a genuine seeker.
f. We learned that, if the Law has not done its work of killing us, that the Gospel cannot be used to save us.
Gardiner Spring, in his book, The Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character, notes that the following are of no good in discerning true salvation
1. VISIBLE MORALITY................................. 5
2. SPECULATIVE KNOWLEDGE..................... 10
3. FORM OF RELIGION .................................. 13
4. EMINENT GIFTS....................................... 16
5. CONVICTION FOR SIN ............................... 17
6. STRONG ASSURANCE .......................... 20
7. THE TIME OF YOUR SUPPOSED CONVERSION .... 22
But Here are some things which ARE marks of true conversion
1. LOVE TO GOD ....................................... 24
2. REPENTANCE FOR SIN............................ 28
3. FAITH IN CHRIST..................................... 33
4. EVANGELICAL HUMILITY .................. 37
5. SELF-DENIAL............................................ 40
6. DEVOTION TO DIVINE HONOR ANDGLORY OF GOD
7. THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER ......................... 51
8. BROTHERLY LOVE ................................ 55
9. SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD.......... 59
10. GROWTH IN GRACE................................ 64
11. PRACTICAL OBEDIENCE ...................... 69
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Where Are The Leashes?
Defending the Bible
In An Age of Satanic Deceit
Bro. Charley Buntin
Sunday School Teacher
Trace Creek Baptist Church
Mayfield, KY 42066
--One of my favorite illustrations about the Word of God is a story attributed to Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, certainly the greatest preacher in the English language
--The Story goes that a young preacher boy came to Spurgeon and said, “Brother Spurgeon, don’t we need to defend the Bible?” Spurgeon is supposed to have answered—“The Bible is a like a lion, young man, if you unleash it, it will defend itself.”
--This story is has the ring of truth, and I love it, but there is a problem with this picture: Not all of the leashes that bind the Bible are easily seen. If we are to unleash the lion of the Word so it can defend itself, we just remove every imposition of man, including those of saved men who are unduly influenced by the world and its lusts,
--We need to unleash the Bible from all of the abuses and restraints that men have put on the Word, but we must find all of the leashes, all of the problems, and some of them might be on our shelf or in our desks, or in the television programs we watch.
1. What and where are the ties that Bind the Bible? What Are the Issues?
Of necessity I have preached on the sufficiency of Scripture that the Word of God is true, it is inerrant, it is inspired, it is complete. It brings all revelation to an end. Nothing more is needed than the truth of the of the Word of God applied by the Spirit of God. It is clear and it is sufficient...it is sufficient. Not all these attacks, by the way, come from people outside Christianity, most of them come from people who call themselves Christians, liberal theologians, experientialists, existentialists, pragmatists, occultists, cultists, etc., etc., all claiming to represent God and attacking Scripture’s inspiration, inerrancy, historicity, canonicity, uniqueness, power, clarity and sufficiency. And so we’re always going to need to go back and defend Scripture. (John MacArthur, sermon manuscript, God’s Defense of the Scriptures, Part 1)
a. Identifying the usual suspects (MacArthur’s List expanded and explained)
(1) Liberal theologians—“Liberal” in this case does not necessarily refer to the politics of the theologian, but to their theological beliefs, more more specifically, disbeliefs. Liberal theologians come in all shapes and degrees of heresy, but there are some common threads.
(a) Liberal theologians are more distinguished by what they don’t believe than what they do believe.
(b) Liberal theologians consider the Bible to have been written by the church, and by mere men, and not inspired (God-breathed) by God.
(c) Liberal theologians usually deny all or part of the Bible, and apply whatever meaning they want to apply to everyday life and Christianity.
(d) Liberal theologians tend to deny the supernatural and have some “spiritualized” understanding of all of the events that the Bible represents as miraculous.
(e) Liberal theologians usually don’t believe the central elements of “the faith once delivered to the saints…” Jude 3
(2) Experientialists—A experientialist is one whose who life and faith are dominated by experiences, with no way to test the validity of those experiences—and they always “spin” circumstances to make it seem as if they have something going for them. An experientialist doesn’t care how much Truth you have, he has his experience which in his mind trumps all Truth.
(3) Existentialists—This philosophical view teaches that we really can’t know for sure what is true, so if a thing or situation seems OK with us, then we are all right.
(4) Postmodernist—This philosophy goes one step beyond the existentialist.
(a) The postmodernist believes that we really can’t know any absolutes, because there are no absolutes except those that exist for us in our own little world.
(b) The Postmodernist believes that it is impossible to know the meaning of the Bible, and that those who do careful, verse by verse exposition are being “arrogant” to presume that the Bible can be understood.
(c) Many of us sometimes fall into this very subtly by the “God given verse.” The testimony in these cases goes like this: “I prayed to God, and He gave me this verse, and this is what it means to me.” This sound so wonderful, but the Truth is that it makes no difference what you think the verse means, it can only mean what it was intended by God to mean. It is true that sometimes prophetic scriptures have a present and later fulfillment, and that we can take various applications sometimes from a passage, but at the heart, if a passage means one thing for you and another for me, IT MEANS NOTHING AT ALL TO ANYONE.
(5) Pragmatists—A pragmatist designs a theology that works for them, and the guide point is always, “does it work?” and, of course that means the pragmatist writes his own criteria for success anyway.
(6) Occultists—those who combine New Age mysticism with some degree of Christianity
(7) The Adders. One of the most feared family of snakes in the world are the Adders, and in theology, this is greatly more important. Here what we mean is those who add to the Bible.
(a) Cults usually add a book or more to the Bible
(b) The church of Rome has added several books; these are books that were declared by their own great Doctor of the Church, St. Jerome, to be NOT part of the Bible.
(c) But in reality, any prophetic utterance or writing that claims to be in addition to God’s written revelation in the OT and NT is automatically heretical—the Bible cannot be added to.
(d) That is why all I have to read of Joel Osteen’s book is the title, and I don’t need to read what is inside. The very statement: Your Best Life Now, is a heresy—the rest can be no better!
(e) Currently there are at least two unusually poisonous Adders puffing around theological circles, probably more.
(i) One is The Journal of the Unknown Prophet, purporting to be a message direct from Jesus
(ii) The other is Don Piper’s “90 minutes in Heaven,” a Christless trip to a Christless place!
b. The Easy list of issues
(1) Mac’s List
(a) Inspiration—what is the origin of the Bible? Is it a man-made book, a man-made book guided by God, a God-influenced book with the errors of man showing through, or is it God-breathed, originated with Him?
(b) Inerrancy—Does the Bible contain actual factual errors, or is it fully without error in all that it teaches, narrates, or proclaims? [One of the subtle trickeries of men who oppose the word of God is to point out that characters in the Bible say things that are incorrect or sinful, “so the Bible has mistakes…”. ] A child should be able to deal with that bit of illogical fluff! If the Bible is narrating an event or relating a saying or discourse, what the Bible says was said, was said, and what the Bible says was done, was done, both just as the Bible said so.
(c) Historicity—Are the Bible histories accurate, or are they allegories to be interpreted any old way that we please?
(d) Canonicity—Are these the only God-breathed books, and who picked and how?
(e) Uniqueness (exclusive nature)—are the books of other religions equally valid?
(f) Power—Does the Word of God possess the power to change lives?
(g) Clarity—Does the Bible make sense, and can we come to understand it?
(h) Sufficiency—Is the Bible incomplete on any areas touching the human soul or Spirit?
(2) Biblical Infallibility
(3) Biblical Authority
(4) Is there continuing revelation?
c. A less obvious list
(1) Biblical relevance—is the Bible just a thing of the past, does it need to be re-invented?
(2) Cultural relevance—Is the Bible hopelessly wed to ancient cultures and therefore do we need to remove and slice and dice to make it appropriate for today? (This is a particularly problematic situation, because to get the full meaning of texts we do have to put them in the historical and cultural context in which they were written. However, those men who call for “cultural relevance” usually mean to re-define the Bible along the lines of modern morals and culture. The bottom line here is that Culture does not have a right to correct the Bible, the Bible should shape culture.
(3) Biblical Sufficiency—“the counseling question”—“Is the Bible missing some insights into human character and behavior that only psychology can supply?
(4) “Prophetic Words” Can we receive a different meaning for a text because of some mystical connection?
(5) Is the Bible the ONLY true way, or are there others?
(6) Is the Canon of Scripture Closed? Are there continuing revelations today?
(7) Can we prove the veracity of the Bible from outside the Bible? NO. That would create a standard outside the Bible that claims greater authority than God’s Word.
(8) There are those today who wrongly dividing the Word—many who claim to believe and defend the Bible have such irrational and incorrect hermeneutical schemes that they undermine the very Bible they attempt to defend. This often comes up when talking about the relationship to the OT Law and the NT, and when attempting to deal with the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most misunderstood parts of the Bible.
d. There are four books of God’s revelation Three of them are at best incomplete and they cannot save, and the fourth book must be everything to us.
(1) Nature—which can tell us much about God, but not enough to save us—Ps 19:1-6, Rom 1:19-21
(2) Providence—God has expressed Himself in History, but the revelation is far from complete and cannot provide sufficient information to save—Is 46:8-11, Acts 17:24-26
(3) Conscience—The Law written on the hearts of men (Rom 2:15).
(a) It cannot save, only convict
(b) It is filtered through our sin and corruption
(c) It can be seared nearly shut by wanton sin in a person’s life.
(4) The fourth, and only sure and reliable witness, is the Word of God itself.
(James 1:21) "Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls."
(1 Pet 1:23) "having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,"
(1 Pet 2:2) "as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,"
(Heb 5:12-14) "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."
(Acts 6:2) "Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables."
(Acts 6:4) ""but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.""
(Acts 6:7) "Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith."
(Acts 13:44) "On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God."
(Acts 13:48) "Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed."
(Acts 20:32) ""So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified."
(2 Tim 2:15) "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
(2 Tim 4:2) "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching."
(5) From 19:7-9, there are six descriptions of God’s Word, six attributes of God’s Word, and six benefits of God’s Word.
(6) 19:10-11 give the value and usefulness of God’s Word
(7) 19:12-14 we see the benediction of the Psalmist
2. The Introduction to the Bible—Ps 19:1-6
a. This is the answer to the old saw that “I can worship God on the lake as much as I can in church—you can’t
b. What we can learn from The “book” of nature is sufficient to make us guilty but not sufficient to save our souls!
(1) The Glory of God
(2) Some of the Attributes of God (Rom 1:19-21)
(3) The universality of Creation—it is obvious to anyone who really looks that an almighty God created all things
(4) Only four possibilities about Creation
(a) Everything has always existed
(b) Everything created itself
(c) The Aliens brought it in (Where did they get it?)
(d) God created all things
c. What we cannot learn from nature
(1) From nature, we cannot learn the nature of the Triune God
(2) From nature, we cannot learn who Jesus is and what He has done
(3) From nature, we cannot learn of our sinfulness
(4) From nature, we cannot learn how God wants us to live (conscience helps a bit, but only from the Word can we learn what is right and wrong.)
(5) From nature, we cannot learn how God wants us to worship
(6) But most important of all, From nature, we cannot learn how to be saved
(a) The preaching of the Cross—1 Cor 1:18-21
(b) Faith comes by hearing the Word—Rom 10:17
(c) There are definite things you must know and must believe in order to be saved—Rom 10:9
d. Descriptions of the effects of God’s Word in 19:7-9
e. In General, these are not so much descriptions of particular types of Bible writing, but they all apply to all types of Bible writing.
f. The main message here is a celebration of the various effects the Word of God has on those who hear and obey the Word of God
g. What The Word Does
3. The Law of God Converts “…7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul…”
a. First, what is “law?”
(1) Law—the doctrinal teaching of The LORD—Yahweh, or Jehovah
(2) “Law” is used in different ways
(a) Sometimes, “Law” means the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses
(b) Sometimes “Law” means the whole Old Testament
(c) Sometimes, “Law” means the Whole Bible
(d) Sometimes, “Law” is talking about a general principle
(e) Sometimes, “Law” refers to the Gospel—
(James 1:25) "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."
(James 2:12) "So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty."
(Gal 6:2) "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
(f) How do you distinguish? Context!
b. What do we mean by “perfect?” It means integrity, truth:--without blemish, complete, full, perfect, sincerely (-ity), sound, without spot, undefiled, upright
c. The Law of the Lord Converts—the word means to turn—it speaks of repentance to turn from sin and evil, to turn back to God—God’s Word has the power to bring about repentance.
d. This is perhaps the most neglected understanding of evangelism: “you can’t get them saved unless they realize they are lost!”
e. The most important purpose of God’s Law in all its forms, and throughout all the ages of time, is to cause man to see his sin and repent unto salvation—(Rom 3:19-20) "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin."
(1) Knowledge = epignosis, an overall and overwhelming experiential knowledge that we are lost and undone without Christ.
f. Conversion is the convicting power of the Word when wielded like a sword by the Holy Spirit—the Law “…converts the soul…”
(Acts 2:37) "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?""
(Acts 9:5-6) "And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" Then the Lord said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads." 6 So he, trembling and astonished, said, "Lord, what do You want me to do?" Then the Lord said to him, "Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.""
(Heb 4:12) "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
4. The Law of God Instructs— “…The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple…”
a. Testimony—another synonym for the whole of the written Word. It refers to the testimony of a good witness—God Himself witnesses, the Holy Spirit Witnesses, The Lord Witnessed, and His apostles witnessed. The testimony of a true and good witness cannot be refuted, and must be believed.
b. Sure—the word speaks of faithfulness, dependability, certainty—you can depend on what God’s word says, you can not only stake your life on it, you can build your life on it.
c. Simple—the word refers to “open minded,” not foolish. The fool, in the Bible, is one who does not believe and does not want to believe. The “simple” person is open to what God has to say, and they will believe it.
(1 Cor 1:27) "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;"
(Mat 11:25) "At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes."
d. In the book of Acts, there is a particularly pointed example of this—(Acts 4:5-13) "And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, 6 as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. 7 And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, "By what power or by what name have you done this?" 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: 9 "If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, 10 "let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. 11 "This is the 'stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.' 12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." 13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
(1) This passage has often been used by those who have an agenda against studying of the scriptures, to try to say that study and learning about the Bible is not important. Nothing could be further from the Truth
(2) These men had not been to the apostate and false schools of the Pharisees for sure, but they had been in the school of Jesus! For three years, these men had been taught by Word and by example; they were the prototypes for discipleship done God’s way.
(3) Truly in their case the testimonies of God had made the simple wise—not wise after the world, but wise in the things of God.
5. The Law of the LORD Brings Joy—“…8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart…”
a. Statutes—rules given by a properly constituted authority to guide us in our life
b. His Word is RIGHT!
(1) The word in the Hebrew refers to that which is straight as opposed to what is crooked.
(2) God’s Word is absolute
(3) God’s Word is true
(4) God’s Word is steadfast
(5) God’s Word is unwavering
(6) God’s Word is unchanging
(7) What is right is right, what is wrong is wrong, get plugged into His Word, and He will cause you to rejoice in HIM!
c. Christianity is NOT a conduct-neutral faith! God expects His people to live for Him
(1) What a mess the churches and professing believers are in!
(2) We have allowed Satan to creep in and convince us that obeying God is optional for the believer—when growth in Grace and Holiness are mandatory for every believer.
(3) God is not a cosmic killjoy—he is a wise parent, knowing the pitfalls and dangers in “the jungle out there…”, and His Word is not meant to kill joy, it is meant to bring joy.
(4) But if you think that Joy in God means living like the Devil and expecting God to pick up the tab, you are sadly mistaken.
(5) If you think, like the old Jazz song, that you can live on “one day of prayer and six nights of fun,” and if you can live that way without being constantly being convicted, then you aren’t saved anyway. At a recent youth conference, a nationally known speaker was lamenting the fact that a survey had shown that 75% of Christian youth nationwide did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. A much wiser and perceptive speaker corrected this data by saying this—“That is a lie and an insult to truly saved young people, because if the youth don’t believe in the Resurrection of Christ, then they aren’t Christian youth…”
d. True Believers rejoice at the teachings of His Word because they love His Word
(Psa 119:97) "Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day."
(Psa 119:113) "I hate the double-minded, But I love Your law."
(Psa 119:163) "I hate and abhor lying, But I love Your law."
(Psa 119:165) "Great peace have those who love Your law, And nothing causes them to stumble."
(1) Do you want peace and joy in your life? Then get into God’s Word
(2) Do you want true happiness and fulfillment? Then soak up all of God’s Word and let it be a light to your path and a lamp to your feet.
(3) Men, Young and old, to you want to put a rod of stainless steel into your spine and make your stand for Christ? Then you get into this Word and let it rock your world with Truth!
(4) Ladies, do you want to be able to minister to women in need around you? Get a handle on this Word, and you will have an endless supply of healing words, comforting Truth, and soul-changing power!
(5) Young people—do you want to be able to rock your school for the LORD? Do you want to have hope for the hopeless children around you? Then wear out your copy of this Word, learning it, cross-referencing it, soaking it up to your skin.
(6) Preacher boys, do you want to never have to worry about getting a message up or having something to preach? Then study and learn God’s Word until you bleed Bible.
6. God’s Word Brings Enlightenment—“…The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes…”
a. Commandment—The commandment of the Lord—A name of the law of God from the idea of setting up, appointing, constituting.. The idea here is not so much that the thing is right in itself as that it is appointed or ordered by God; that it is what he requires.
b. When we can’t see our way, He lights our way!
c. God’s Word is pure—there is no mixture of error in it.
(1) What God’s Word says is so, IS SO
(2) What God’s Word says is right IS RIGHT
(3) What God’s Word says happened, TOOK PLACE
(4) What God’s Word says was said WAS SAID
d. Trusting His Word brings the ultimate Light into our life: (2 Cor 4:6) "For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
(1) “According to the expressive Hebrew idiom, it is to the soul what food is to the worn and fainting body…” Perowne
(2) (Eph 1:18) "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,"
7. God’s Word brings acceptance of and appreciation for His chastening Hand—“…9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether….”
a. There are two parallel statements here—one refers to the inner, unseen working of God’s Word, and the other to what we and others can see outwardly
b. Fear—of the Lord, based on what we read
c. Judgments of the Lord—God judges according to His word
John 12:48-50 ""He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. 49 "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. 50 "And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.""
8. Overall Value of God’s Word.
a. Its worth
(1) It is worth more than the valuables of this world, even in large quantities
(2) It is worth more than the many small pleasures of this world, even those that are morally OK—honey and the honey comb
b. Its usefulness if observed and kept
(1) First—the depth of discipleship—Mat 28:19-20
(2) 2nd—it serves as a warning. The sense of the word here is of those who are so bright that they shine—those who take the Word seriously will be warned and see the dangers coming.
(3) Great reward
(a) For the lost person who hears, heeds, and believes, salvation is the reward, Heaven itself the prize
(b) For the saved person who makes the Word the only guide to his life, the reward is a fulfilled life here and great rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
9. Case Study—the Psalmist himself—Ps 19:12-14
a. The Psalmist fears the onset of secret faults and errors—
b. His prayer
(1) He asks God to keep him from moving away from God’s plan for his life
(2) “Do not let them have dominion…” Paul said that sin SHALL NOT have dominion over us, so the Psalmist is asking God for what God will promise to give.
(3) I shall be blameless and innocent—the man of God and the woman of God should see this as their greatest challenge
c. His Benediction—He wants his words and thoughts to be right, that he might please his Savior.
Defending the Bible
In An Age of Satanic Deceit
Bro. Charley Buntin
Sunday School Teacher
Trace Creek Baptist Church
Mayfield, KY 42066
--One of my favorite illustrations about the Word of God is a story attributed to Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, certainly the greatest preacher in the English language
--The Story goes that a young preacher boy came to Spurgeon and said, “Brother Spurgeon, don’t we need to defend the Bible?” Spurgeon is supposed to have answered—“The Bible is a like a lion, young man, if you unleash it, it will defend itself.”
--This story is has the ring of truth, and I love it, but there is a problem with this picture: Not all of the leashes that bind the Bible are easily seen. If we are to unleash the lion of the Word so it can defend itself, we just remove every imposition of man, including those of saved men who are unduly influenced by the world and its lusts,
--We need to unleash the Bible from all of the abuses and restraints that men have put on the Word, but we must find all of the leashes, all of the problems, and some of them might be on our shelf or in our desks, or in the television programs we watch.
1. What and where are the ties that Bind the Bible? What Are the Issues?
Of necessity I have preached on the sufficiency of Scripture that the Word of God is true, it is inerrant, it is inspired, it is complete. It brings all revelation to an end. Nothing more is needed than the truth of the of the Word of God applied by the Spirit of God. It is clear and it is sufficient...it is sufficient. Not all these attacks, by the way, come from people outside Christianity, most of them come from people who call themselves Christians, liberal theologians, experientialists, existentialists, pragmatists, occultists, cultists, etc., etc., all claiming to represent God and attacking Scripture’s inspiration, inerrancy, historicity, canonicity, uniqueness, power, clarity and sufficiency. And so we’re always going to need to go back and defend Scripture. (John MacArthur, sermon manuscript, God’s Defense of the Scriptures, Part 1)
a. Identifying the usual suspects (MacArthur’s List expanded and explained)
(1) Liberal theologians—“Liberal” in this case does not necessarily refer to the politics of the theologian, but to their theological beliefs, more more specifically, disbeliefs. Liberal theologians come in all shapes and degrees of heresy, but there are some common threads.
(a) Liberal theologians are more distinguished by what they don’t believe than what they do believe.
(b) Liberal theologians consider the Bible to have been written by the church, and by mere men, and not inspired (God-breathed) by God.
(c) Liberal theologians usually deny all or part of the Bible, and apply whatever meaning they want to apply to everyday life and Christianity.
(d) Liberal theologians tend to deny the supernatural and have some “spiritualized” understanding of all of the events that the Bible represents as miraculous.
(e) Liberal theologians usually don’t believe the central elements of “the faith once delivered to the saints…” Jude 3
(2) Experientialists—A experientialist is one whose who life and faith are dominated by experiences, with no way to test the validity of those experiences—and they always “spin” circumstances to make it seem as if they have something going for them. An experientialist doesn’t care how much Truth you have, he has his experience which in his mind trumps all Truth.
(3) Existentialists—This philosophical view teaches that we really can’t know for sure what is true, so if a thing or situation seems OK with us, then we are all right.
(4) Postmodernist—This philosophy goes one step beyond the existentialist.
(a) The postmodernist believes that we really can’t know any absolutes, because there are no absolutes except those that exist for us in our own little world.
(b) The Postmodernist believes that it is impossible to know the meaning of the Bible, and that those who do careful, verse by verse exposition are being “arrogant” to presume that the Bible can be understood.
(c) Many of us sometimes fall into this very subtly by the “God given verse.” The testimony in these cases goes like this: “I prayed to God, and He gave me this verse, and this is what it means to me.” This sound so wonderful, but the Truth is that it makes no difference what you think the verse means, it can only mean what it was intended by God to mean. It is true that sometimes prophetic scriptures have a present and later fulfillment, and that we can take various applications sometimes from a passage, but at the heart, if a passage means one thing for you and another for me, IT MEANS NOTHING AT ALL TO ANYONE.
(5) Pragmatists—A pragmatist designs a theology that works for them, and the guide point is always, “does it work?” and, of course that means the pragmatist writes his own criteria for success anyway.
(6) Occultists—those who combine New Age mysticism with some degree of Christianity
(7) The Adders. One of the most feared family of snakes in the world are the Adders, and in theology, this is greatly more important. Here what we mean is those who add to the Bible.
(a) Cults usually add a book or more to the Bible
(b) The church of Rome has added several books; these are books that were declared by their own great Doctor of the Church, St. Jerome, to be NOT part of the Bible.
(c) But in reality, any prophetic utterance or writing that claims to be in addition to God’s written revelation in the OT and NT is automatically heretical—the Bible cannot be added to.
(d) That is why all I have to read of Joel Osteen’s book is the title, and I don’t need to read what is inside. The very statement: Your Best Life Now, is a heresy—the rest can be no better!
(e) Currently there are at least two unusually poisonous Adders puffing around theological circles, probably more.
(i) One is The Journal of the Unknown Prophet, purporting to be a message direct from Jesus
(ii) The other is Don Piper’s “90 minutes in Heaven,” a Christless trip to a Christless place!
b. The Easy list of issues
(1) Mac’s List
(a) Inspiration—what is the origin of the Bible? Is it a man-made book, a man-made book guided by God, a God-influenced book with the errors of man showing through, or is it God-breathed, originated with Him?
(b) Inerrancy—Does the Bible contain actual factual errors, or is it fully without error in all that it teaches, narrates, or proclaims? [One of the subtle trickeries of men who oppose the word of God is to point out that characters in the Bible say things that are incorrect or sinful, “so the Bible has mistakes…”. ] A child should be able to deal with that bit of illogical fluff! If the Bible is narrating an event or relating a saying or discourse, what the Bible says was said, was said, and what the Bible says was done, was done, both just as the Bible said so.
(c) Historicity—Are the Bible histories accurate, or are they allegories to be interpreted any old way that we please?
(d) Canonicity—Are these the only God-breathed books, and who picked and how?
(e) Uniqueness (exclusive nature)—are the books of other religions equally valid?
(f) Power—Does the Word of God possess the power to change lives?
(g) Clarity—Does the Bible make sense, and can we come to understand it?
(h) Sufficiency—Is the Bible incomplete on any areas touching the human soul or Spirit?
(2) Biblical Infallibility
(3) Biblical Authority
(4) Is there continuing revelation?
c. A less obvious list
(1) Biblical relevance—is the Bible just a thing of the past, does it need to be re-invented?
(2) Cultural relevance—Is the Bible hopelessly wed to ancient cultures and therefore do we need to remove and slice and dice to make it appropriate for today? (This is a particularly problematic situation, because to get the full meaning of texts we do have to put them in the historical and cultural context in which they were written. However, those men who call for “cultural relevance” usually mean to re-define the Bible along the lines of modern morals and culture. The bottom line here is that Culture does not have a right to correct the Bible, the Bible should shape culture.
(3) Biblical Sufficiency—“the counseling question”—“Is the Bible missing some insights into human character and behavior that only psychology can supply?
(4) “Prophetic Words” Can we receive a different meaning for a text because of some mystical connection?
(5) Is the Bible the ONLY true way, or are there others?
(6) Is the Canon of Scripture Closed? Are there continuing revelations today?
(7) Can we prove the veracity of the Bible from outside the Bible? NO. That would create a standard outside the Bible that claims greater authority than God’s Word.
(8) There are those today who wrongly dividing the Word—many who claim to believe and defend the Bible have such irrational and incorrect hermeneutical schemes that they undermine the very Bible they attempt to defend. This often comes up when talking about the relationship to the OT Law and the NT, and when attempting to deal with the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most misunderstood parts of the Bible.
d. There are four books of God’s revelation Three of them are at best incomplete and they cannot save, and the fourth book must be everything to us.
(1) Nature—which can tell us much about God, but not enough to save us—Ps 19:1-6, Rom 1:19-21
(2) Providence—God has expressed Himself in History, but the revelation is far from complete and cannot provide sufficient information to save—Is 46:8-11, Acts 17:24-26
(3) Conscience—The Law written on the hearts of men (Rom 2:15).
(a) It cannot save, only convict
(b) It is filtered through our sin and corruption
(c) It can be seared nearly shut by wanton sin in a person’s life.
(4) The fourth, and only sure and reliable witness, is the Word of God itself.
(James 1:21) "Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls."
(1 Pet 1:23) "having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,"
(1 Pet 2:2) "as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,"
(Heb 5:12-14) "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."
(Acts 6:2) "Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables."
(Acts 6:4) ""but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.""
(Acts 6:7) "Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith."
(Acts 13:44) "On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God."
(Acts 13:48) "Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed."
(Acts 20:32) ""So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified."
(2 Tim 2:15) "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
(2 Tim 4:2) "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching."
(5) From 19:7-9, there are six descriptions of God’s Word, six attributes of God’s Word, and six benefits of God’s Word.
(6) 19:10-11 give the value and usefulness of God’s Word
(7) 19:12-14 we see the benediction of the Psalmist
2. The Introduction to the Bible—Ps 19:1-6
a. This is the answer to the old saw that “I can worship God on the lake as much as I can in church—you can’t
b. What we can learn from The “book” of nature is sufficient to make us guilty but not sufficient to save our souls!
(1) The Glory of God
(2) Some of the Attributes of God (Rom 1:19-21)
(3) The universality of Creation—it is obvious to anyone who really looks that an almighty God created all things
(4) Only four possibilities about Creation
(a) Everything has always existed
(b) Everything created itself
(c) The Aliens brought it in (Where did they get it?)
(d) God created all things
c. What we cannot learn from nature
(1) From nature, we cannot learn the nature of the Triune God
(2) From nature, we cannot learn who Jesus is and what He has done
(3) From nature, we cannot learn of our sinfulness
(4) From nature, we cannot learn how God wants us to live (conscience helps a bit, but only from the Word can we learn what is right and wrong.)
(5) From nature, we cannot learn how God wants us to worship
(6) But most important of all, From nature, we cannot learn how to be saved
(a) The preaching of the Cross—1 Cor 1:18-21
(b) Faith comes by hearing the Word—Rom 10:17
(c) There are definite things you must know and must believe in order to be saved—Rom 10:9
d. Descriptions of the effects of God’s Word in 19:7-9
e. In General, these are not so much descriptions of particular types of Bible writing, but they all apply to all types of Bible writing.
f. The main message here is a celebration of the various effects the Word of God has on those who hear and obey the Word of God
g. What The Word Does
3. The Law of God Converts “…7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul…”
a. First, what is “law?”
(1) Law—the doctrinal teaching of The LORD—Yahweh, or Jehovah
(2) “Law” is used in different ways
(a) Sometimes, “Law” means the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses
(b) Sometimes “Law” means the whole Old Testament
(c) Sometimes, “Law” means the Whole Bible
(d) Sometimes, “Law” is talking about a general principle
(e) Sometimes, “Law” refers to the Gospel—
(James 1:25) "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."
(James 2:12) "So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty."
(Gal 6:2) "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
(f) How do you distinguish? Context!
b. What do we mean by “perfect?” It means integrity, truth:--without blemish, complete, full, perfect, sincerely (-ity), sound, without spot, undefiled, upright
c. The Law of the Lord Converts—the word means to turn—it speaks of repentance to turn from sin and evil, to turn back to God—God’s Word has the power to bring about repentance.
d. This is perhaps the most neglected understanding of evangelism: “you can’t get them saved unless they realize they are lost!”
e. The most important purpose of God’s Law in all its forms, and throughout all the ages of time, is to cause man to see his sin and repent unto salvation—(Rom 3:19-20) "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin."
(1) Knowledge = epignosis, an overall and overwhelming experiential knowledge that we are lost and undone without Christ.
f. Conversion is the convicting power of the Word when wielded like a sword by the Holy Spirit—the Law “…converts the soul…”
(Acts 2:37) "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?""
(Acts 9:5-6) "And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" Then the Lord said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads." 6 So he, trembling and astonished, said, "Lord, what do You want me to do?" Then the Lord said to him, "Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.""
(Heb 4:12) "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
4. The Law of God Instructs— “…The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple…”
a. Testimony—another synonym for the whole of the written Word. It refers to the testimony of a good witness—God Himself witnesses, the Holy Spirit Witnesses, The Lord Witnessed, and His apostles witnessed. The testimony of a true and good witness cannot be refuted, and must be believed.
b. Sure—the word speaks of faithfulness, dependability, certainty—you can depend on what God’s word says, you can not only stake your life on it, you can build your life on it.
c. Simple—the word refers to “open minded,” not foolish. The fool, in the Bible, is one who does not believe and does not want to believe. The “simple” person is open to what God has to say, and they will believe it.
(1 Cor 1:27) "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;"
(Mat 11:25) "At that time Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes."
d. In the book of Acts, there is a particularly pointed example of this—(Acts 4:5-13) "And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, 6 as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. 7 And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, "By what power or by what name have you done this?" 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: 9 "If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, 10 "let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. 11 "This is the 'stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.' 12 "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." 13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.
(1) This passage has often been used by those who have an agenda against studying of the scriptures, to try to say that study and learning about the Bible is not important. Nothing could be further from the Truth
(2) These men had not been to the apostate and false schools of the Pharisees for sure, but they had been in the school of Jesus! For three years, these men had been taught by Word and by example; they were the prototypes for discipleship done God’s way.
(3) Truly in their case the testimonies of God had made the simple wise—not wise after the world, but wise in the things of God.
5. The Law of the LORD Brings Joy—“…8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart…”
a. Statutes—rules given by a properly constituted authority to guide us in our life
b. His Word is RIGHT!
(1) The word in the Hebrew refers to that which is straight as opposed to what is crooked.
(2) God’s Word is absolute
(3) God’s Word is true
(4) God’s Word is steadfast
(5) God’s Word is unwavering
(6) God’s Word is unchanging
(7) What is right is right, what is wrong is wrong, get plugged into His Word, and He will cause you to rejoice in HIM!
c. Christianity is NOT a conduct-neutral faith! God expects His people to live for Him
(1) What a mess the churches and professing believers are in!
(2) We have allowed Satan to creep in and convince us that obeying God is optional for the believer—when growth in Grace and Holiness are mandatory for every believer.
(3) God is not a cosmic killjoy—he is a wise parent, knowing the pitfalls and dangers in “the jungle out there…”, and His Word is not meant to kill joy, it is meant to bring joy.
(4) But if you think that Joy in God means living like the Devil and expecting God to pick up the tab, you are sadly mistaken.
(5) If you think, like the old Jazz song, that you can live on “one day of prayer and six nights of fun,” and if you can live that way without being constantly being convicted, then you aren’t saved anyway. At a recent youth conference, a nationally known speaker was lamenting the fact that a survey had shown that 75% of Christian youth nationwide did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. A much wiser and perceptive speaker corrected this data by saying this—“That is a lie and an insult to truly saved young people, because if the youth don’t believe in the Resurrection of Christ, then they aren’t Christian youth…”
d. True Believers rejoice at the teachings of His Word because they love His Word
(Psa 119:97) "Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day."
(Psa 119:113) "I hate the double-minded, But I love Your law."
(Psa 119:163) "I hate and abhor lying, But I love Your law."
(Psa 119:165) "Great peace have those who love Your law, And nothing causes them to stumble."
(1) Do you want peace and joy in your life? Then get into God’s Word
(2) Do you want true happiness and fulfillment? Then soak up all of God’s Word and let it be a light to your path and a lamp to your feet.
(3) Men, Young and old, to you want to put a rod of stainless steel into your spine and make your stand for Christ? Then you get into this Word and let it rock your world with Truth!
(4) Ladies, do you want to be able to minister to women in need around you? Get a handle on this Word, and you will have an endless supply of healing words, comforting Truth, and soul-changing power!
(5) Young people—do you want to be able to rock your school for the LORD? Do you want to have hope for the hopeless children around you? Then wear out your copy of this Word, learning it, cross-referencing it, soaking it up to your skin.
(6) Preacher boys, do you want to never have to worry about getting a message up or having something to preach? Then study and learn God’s Word until you bleed Bible.
6. God’s Word Brings Enlightenment—“…The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes…”
a. Commandment—The commandment of the Lord—A name of the law of God from the idea of setting up, appointing, constituting.. The idea here is not so much that the thing is right in itself as that it is appointed or ordered by God; that it is what he requires.
b. When we can’t see our way, He lights our way!
c. God’s Word is pure—there is no mixture of error in it.
(1) What God’s Word says is so, IS SO
(2) What God’s Word says is right IS RIGHT
(3) What God’s Word says happened, TOOK PLACE
(4) What God’s Word says was said WAS SAID
d. Trusting His Word brings the ultimate Light into our life: (2 Cor 4:6) "For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
(1) “According to the expressive Hebrew idiom, it is to the soul what food is to the worn and fainting body…” Perowne
(2) (Eph 1:18) "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,"
7. God’s Word brings acceptance of and appreciation for His chastening Hand—“…9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether….”
a. There are two parallel statements here—one refers to the inner, unseen working of God’s Word, and the other to what we and others can see outwardly
b. Fear—of the Lord, based on what we read
c. Judgments of the Lord—God judges according to His word
John 12:48-50 ""He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. 49 "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. 50 "And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.""
8. Overall Value of God’s Word.
a. Its worth
(1) It is worth more than the valuables of this world, even in large quantities
(2) It is worth more than the many small pleasures of this world, even those that are morally OK—honey and the honey comb
b. Its usefulness if observed and kept
(1) First—the depth of discipleship—Mat 28:19-20
(2) 2nd—it serves as a warning. The sense of the word here is of those who are so bright that they shine—those who take the Word seriously will be warned and see the dangers coming.
(3) Great reward
(a) For the lost person who hears, heeds, and believes, salvation is the reward, Heaven itself the prize
(b) For the saved person who makes the Word the only guide to his life, the reward is a fulfilled life here and great rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
9. Case Study—the Psalmist himself—Ps 19:12-14
a. The Psalmist fears the onset of secret faults and errors—
b. His prayer
(1) He asks God to keep him from moving away from God’s plan for his life
(2) “Do not let them have dominion…” Paul said that sin SHALL NOT have dominion over us, so the Psalmist is asking God for what God will promise to give.
(3) I shall be blameless and innocent—the man of God and the woman of God should see this as their greatest challenge
c. His Benediction—He wants his words and thoughts to be right, that he might please his Savior.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Why Would Jesus Want To Die For Human Beings?
The Cross, Part 2—Rom 5:7-8
The Human race has little to commend itself to anyone.
1. God’s Illustration: Dying for Another is Rare—(Rom 5:7) "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die….”
a. “…Righteous and good…”
(1) “…Righteous…” refers to a man who is just in the sight of God and who lives a life consistent with that
(2) “…good…” refers to a person who does benevolent and kind things for other people
(3) In a mere surface understanding of these two words, there have been, and are, those who by God’s grace (for believers), who were righteous and good—but this is by grace only.
(4) Any “righteousness” and/or “goodness” that is self-generated, even by believers, is not real
(5) Any “righteousness” and/or “goodness” that comes from a lost person, is like filthy rags
(6) In reality and in the fullest sense, none of us are righteous and none of us are good.
b. It is a Remarkable Thing to Die for Another
(1) The annals of heroism hold in highest esteem those who died for others, who made the highest sacrifice.
(a) The mother who died defending her children.
(b) The soldier who died protecting the lives of others.
(c) The police officer who dies in defense of public order.
(d) The middle school teacher in Jonesboro who died shielding a student.
(2) It is rare even to die for someone worthy.
c. It is Even More Remarkable to Die for the Undeserving
(1) Though it is rare, and though we hold it in high esteem as evidence of great nobility of spirit and character, we can understand a mother sacrificing for her children, a father dying for his family.
(2) Though it is rare, and though we consider them great heroes, we understand somewhat how a man could die for his country or to protect his buddies.
(3) Though it shows unusual character, we can understand a teacher shielding a student or a policeman protecting a citizen, and paying the ultimate price.
(4) But to die for someone totally undeserving, or worse, for someone who deserves anything but this sacrifice, that is rare indeed, nearly totally missing in the annals of mankind, with the exception of the death of One Man, who died for the unlovable.
2. God’s Demonstration—“…8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…”
a. “But God…”
(1) Here again we come to a doctrinal crossroads—a contrast, a turning point
(2) Whatever heroic actions a man might do in dying for another man or group of men, even for a nation, as Nathan Hale or another hero, they pale in comparison to the act of God in sacrificing His Son for us.
(3) Man can say and do what he will, and all the imps of Hell can scheme and fret all they want, when “But God” is said, things change in drastic ways.
b. Language: The word here is sunistesin, to “… recommend, comment, give approval to..” and it is in the present tense, which means it is ongoing, it does not cease.
(1) God’s “own” love!
(2) ”We” and “us” in the Greek are the same construction, so it is talking about the same people.
(3) The Actor in the commending of His own love to us is God, because we had nothing to contribute to the matter.
(4) God’s love for us came first—(1 John 4:10) "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
(5) In our natural state, we don’t love God! (Rom 8:7) "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be."
(6) Man, in his natural, unregenerate state, hates God and hates God’s people, no matter how calm and seemingly friendly a front that a lost man presents
(a) The world naturally hates believers—(John 7:7) ""The world cannot hate you,[said to his brethren, who were unbelievers at that time] but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil."
(b) The World hates Jesus, (the REAL Jesus), and the world hates His people (John 15:18-19) ""If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
(c) The World hates God (the REAL God, not the man-made imitation). (John 15:23) ""He who hates Me hates My Father also."
(d) The World hates even the Light shed by Christ and His followers. (John 3:20) ""For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."
(8) And it was in THIS state of hating God and hating God’s people, and hating even the Light that comes from God, it was while we were at our worst that God Loved Us beyond all measure in the Person and Work of Christ on our behalf!
c. “… while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…”
(1) God did not peer through a crystal ball at the future and see us as righteous and worthy of His sacrifice
(2) Apart from Christ we are not righteous, and we were not and are not worthy of His sacrifice because of anything in us.
(3) God saw us in the depth of our depravity, rebellion, and sin, and He died a substitutionary death—he died as our substitute—to save us.
d. It was a voluntary act of Love by a Sovereign, Triune God
(1) Christ did not die because He was too weak to get out of it.
(2) Our Lord and Savior was no helpless victim—as He demonstrated when He said, “I am” and they all fell down (Jn 18:4-6), Jesus could have wiped out the Roman Empire with a word and called for twelve legions of angels to do the light work and mopping up.
(3) No third party arbitrated a settlement between God and the human race—God did it Himself. John 10:11-18, 1 John 4:10, Rom 3:24-26, Heb 9:14
(4) The Triune God Authored and Acted out the Cross.
(a) The Father Sent the Son—Jn 3:16
(b) The Father Poured Wrath out on the Son—Rom 3:25, 5:9
(c) The Son laid down His life—Jn 10:14-18
(d) The Father Accepted the Sacrifice—Romans 4:25
(e) The Spirit was involved in a way that the Bible does not specify—Heb 9:14.
(5) The Cross, therefore, was all a work of God! It was undeserved by us, it was uncaused by us, it was All of God!
3. The Doctrine of the Cross—Substitution, Satisfaction, Blood Atonement, Propitiation!
a. The Cross is a substitution--Christ actually died in the place of sinners--He specifically took the punishment that should have been theirs
(1) 2 Cor 5:21, Isa 53:5
(2) How can the death of One man accomplish this? It is possible because He is infinite--He is God, and His blood sacrifice is of infinite worth.
b. The Cross is a Satisfaction –(of the Law's demands).
(1) Unlike the "gods" of the world's religions, who either disregard sin or forgive it capriciously, the God of the Bible can state that all the demands of His law have been met. Rom 3:28-31
(2) And on the cross, God showed to the world that as He forgives people through faith in the blood of Christ, He has dealt with their sin...
(3) to demonstrate His righteousness, Rom 3:26
(4) There are three things in which Christianity is vastly different from the various human religions:
(a) We serve a risen Savior
(b) Our way of salvation is totally apart from human effort
(c) In the Cross, a Holy God DEALS WITH SIN
c. The Cross was a Blood Atonement—
(1) Every blood sacrifice made, every lamb, goat, bull, calf, or dove sacrificed, foreshadowed the great sacrifice Christ would make. He shed real blood for the real sins of real people!
(2) As on the first Passover—“Exo 12:13 "And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt."
(3) The New Testament is full of references to this: Mat 26:28, Acts 20:28, Eph 1:7, Eph 2:13, Col 1:14, Col 1:20, Heb 9:14, Heb 10:19, 1 Pet 1:2, 1 Pet 1:19, 1 John 1:7, Rev 1:5, Rev 5:9,
d. The Cross is a Propitiation— we shall be saved from wrath through him
(1) Rom 3:25 whom God set forth--We can never let this get away from our minds, that God is the Author of the Cross...as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, Jesus’ death on the Cross was a propitiation--this is a word in the Greek which carries several shades of meaning.
(2) It is the same word used for mercy seat--that place in the temple where the blood was sprinkled on the day of atonement
(3) In the context of the wrath of God revealed against sin, it means a sacrifice which turns aside the righteous wrath of God against our sin and rebellion and makes reconciliation.
(4) This is a place where the doctrinal lines must be drawn with utter precision.
(5) Liberal theologians want to eliminate any sense of the wrath of God, but the entire premise of the long Romans passage on sin and justification is the statement in Romans 1:18 -- “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,...”
(6) But too many folks who love to manipulate people through guilt go off in the other direction and create a cave-man kind of God who is just plain bloodthirsty--WE must avoid both extremes and look at what the Bible is telling us here......
(7) God propitiated His own righteous wrath which was aroused because of the interaction of His holiness and our utter rebellion against Him—John 3:36, Rom , 1 Th 1:10
e. The Cross is a finished work—John 19:30
(1) It cannot be repeated è(Heb 9:27-28) "And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation."
(2) It cannot be supplemented by human works: His suffering ended on the Cross
Jn 19:30..."It is finished!"
The Human race has little to commend itself to anyone.
1. God’s Illustration: Dying for Another is Rare—(Rom 5:7) "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die….”
a. “…Righteous and good…”
(1) “…Righteous…” refers to a man who is just in the sight of God and who lives a life consistent with that
(2) “…good…” refers to a person who does benevolent and kind things for other people
(3) In a mere surface understanding of these two words, there have been, and are, those who by God’s grace (for believers), who were righteous and good—but this is by grace only.
(4) Any “righteousness” and/or “goodness” that is self-generated, even by believers, is not real
(5) Any “righteousness” and/or “goodness” that comes from a lost person, is like filthy rags
(6) In reality and in the fullest sense, none of us are righteous and none of us are good.
b. It is a Remarkable Thing to Die for Another
(1) The annals of heroism hold in highest esteem those who died for others, who made the highest sacrifice.
(a) The mother who died defending her children.
(b) The soldier who died protecting the lives of others.
(c) The police officer who dies in defense of public order.
(d) The middle school teacher in Jonesboro who died shielding a student.
(2) It is rare even to die for someone worthy.
c. It is Even More Remarkable to Die for the Undeserving
(1) Though it is rare, and though we hold it in high esteem as evidence of great nobility of spirit and character, we can understand a mother sacrificing for her children, a father dying for his family.
(2) Though it is rare, and though we consider them great heroes, we understand somewhat how a man could die for his country or to protect his buddies.
(3) Though it shows unusual character, we can understand a teacher shielding a student or a policeman protecting a citizen, and paying the ultimate price.
(4) But to die for someone totally undeserving, or worse, for someone who deserves anything but this sacrifice, that is rare indeed, nearly totally missing in the annals of mankind, with the exception of the death of One Man, who died for the unlovable.
2. God’s Demonstration—“…8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…”
a. “But God…”
(1) Here again we come to a doctrinal crossroads—a contrast, a turning point
(2) Whatever heroic actions a man might do in dying for another man or group of men, even for a nation, as Nathan Hale or another hero, they pale in comparison to the act of God in sacrificing His Son for us.
(3) Man can say and do what he will, and all the imps of Hell can scheme and fret all they want, when “But God” is said, things change in drastic ways.
b. Language: The word here is sunistesin, to “… recommend, comment, give approval to..” and it is in the present tense, which means it is ongoing, it does not cease.
(1) God’s “own” love!
(2) ”We” and “us” in the Greek are the same construction, so it is talking about the same people.
(3) The Actor in the commending of His own love to us is God, because we had nothing to contribute to the matter.
(4) God’s love for us came first—(1 John 4:10) "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
(5) In our natural state, we don’t love God! (Rom 8:7) "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be."
(6) Man, in his natural, unregenerate state, hates God and hates God’s people, no matter how calm and seemingly friendly a front that a lost man presents
(a) The world naturally hates believers—(John 7:7) ""The world cannot hate you,[said to his brethren, who were unbelievers at that time] but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil."
(b) The World hates Jesus, (the REAL Jesus), and the world hates His people (John 15:18-19) ""If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
(c) The World hates God (the REAL God, not the man-made imitation). (John 15:23) ""He who hates Me hates My Father also."
(d) The World hates even the Light shed by Christ and His followers. (John 3:20) ""For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."
(8) And it was in THIS state of hating God and hating God’s people, and hating even the Light that comes from God, it was while we were at our worst that God Loved Us beyond all measure in the Person and Work of Christ on our behalf!
c. “… while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…”
(1) God did not peer through a crystal ball at the future and see us as righteous and worthy of His sacrifice
(2) Apart from Christ we are not righteous, and we were not and are not worthy of His sacrifice because of anything in us.
(3) God saw us in the depth of our depravity, rebellion, and sin, and He died a substitutionary death—he died as our substitute—to save us.
d. It was a voluntary act of Love by a Sovereign, Triune God
(1) Christ did not die because He was too weak to get out of it.
(2) Our Lord and Savior was no helpless victim—as He demonstrated when He said, “I am” and they all fell down (Jn 18:4-6), Jesus could have wiped out the Roman Empire with a word and called for twelve legions of angels to do the light work and mopping up.
(3) No third party arbitrated a settlement between God and the human race—God did it Himself. John 10:11-18, 1 John 4:10, Rom 3:24-26, Heb 9:14
(4) The Triune God Authored and Acted out the Cross.
(a) The Father Sent the Son—Jn 3:16
(b) The Father Poured Wrath out on the Son—Rom 3:25, 5:9
(c) The Son laid down His life—Jn 10:14-18
(d) The Father Accepted the Sacrifice—Romans 4:25
(e) The Spirit was involved in a way that the Bible does not specify—Heb 9:14.
(5) The Cross, therefore, was all a work of God! It was undeserved by us, it was uncaused by us, it was All of God!
3. The Doctrine of the Cross—Substitution, Satisfaction, Blood Atonement, Propitiation!
a. The Cross is a substitution--Christ actually died in the place of sinners--He specifically took the punishment that should have been theirs
(1) 2 Cor 5:21, Isa 53:5
(2) How can the death of One man accomplish this? It is possible because He is infinite--He is God, and His blood sacrifice is of infinite worth.
b. The Cross is a Satisfaction –(of the Law's demands).
(1) Unlike the "gods" of the world's religions, who either disregard sin or forgive it capriciously, the God of the Bible can state that all the demands of His law have been met. Rom 3:28-31
(2) And on the cross, God showed to the world that as He forgives people through faith in the blood of Christ, He has dealt with their sin...
(3) to demonstrate His righteousness, Rom 3:26
(4) There are three things in which Christianity is vastly different from the various human religions:
(a) We serve a risen Savior
(b) Our way of salvation is totally apart from human effort
(c) In the Cross, a Holy God DEALS WITH SIN
c. The Cross was a Blood Atonement—
(1) Every blood sacrifice made, every lamb, goat, bull, calf, or dove sacrificed, foreshadowed the great sacrifice Christ would make. He shed real blood for the real sins of real people!
(2) As on the first Passover—“Exo 12:13 "And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt."
(3) The New Testament is full of references to this: Mat 26:28, Acts 20:28, Eph 1:7, Eph 2:13, Col 1:14, Col 1:20, Heb 9:14, Heb 10:19, 1 Pet 1:2, 1 Pet 1:19, 1 John 1:7, Rev 1:5, Rev 5:9,
d. The Cross is a Propitiation— we shall be saved from wrath through him
(1) Rom 3:25 whom God set forth--We can never let this get away from our minds, that God is the Author of the Cross...as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, Jesus’ death on the Cross was a propitiation--this is a word in the Greek which carries several shades of meaning.
(2) It is the same word used for mercy seat--that place in the temple where the blood was sprinkled on the day of atonement
(3) In the context of the wrath of God revealed against sin, it means a sacrifice which turns aside the righteous wrath of God against our sin and rebellion and makes reconciliation.
(4) This is a place where the doctrinal lines must be drawn with utter precision.
(5) Liberal theologians want to eliminate any sense of the wrath of God, but the entire premise of the long Romans passage on sin and justification is the statement in Romans 1:18 -- “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,...”
(6) But too many folks who love to manipulate people through guilt go off in the other direction and create a cave-man kind of God who is just plain bloodthirsty--WE must avoid both extremes and look at what the Bible is telling us here......
(7) God propitiated His own righteous wrath which was aroused because of the interaction of His holiness and our utter rebellion against Him—John 3:36, Rom , 1 Th 1:10
e. The Cross is a finished work—John 19:30
(1) It cannot be repeated è(Heb 9:27-28) "And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation."
(2) It cannot be supplemented by human works: His suffering ended on the Cross
Jn 19:30..."It is finished!"
Sunday, July 6, 2008
The Cross, Part 1
Reading: Rom 5:1-11
Text: Rom 5:6
1. Introductory Thoughts
a. Gal 6:14 But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
b. In the above passage in Galatians, Paul was opposing false teachers who had perverted the gospel by leaving out the essential message of the Cross and substituting a return to the Jewish ceremonial laws.
c. The false teachers in the churches of Galatia, the men whom Paul opposed with vigor, were men whose teachings and actions may be summed up as
(1) Glorying not in God, nor in the Cross of Christ, but in man’s religion, in the flesch
(2) They did not possess THE FAITH, that set of Biblical doctrines so often referred to in the New Testament
(a) Historic Christianity is called “THE FAITH.”
Acts 6:7 "… great company of the priests were obedient to THE FAITH."
Acts 14:22 "… and exhorting them to continue in THE FAITH…”
Acts 16:5 "And so were the churches established in THE FAITH…"
Rom 1:5 "By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to THE FAITH …”
1 Cor 16:13 "Watch ye, stand fast in THE FAITH, …”
2 Cor 13:5 "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in THE FAITH…”
Eph 4:13 "Till we all come in the unity of THE FAITH…”
Phil 1:27 "… with one mind striving together for THE FAITH of the gospel;"
Col 1:23 "… continue in THE FAITH grounded and settled,…"
Col 2:7 "Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in THE FAITH, …”
1 Tim 1:2 "Unto Timothy, my own son in THE FAITH: …”
1 Tim 3:9 "Holding the mystery of THE FAITH…"
1 Tim 4:1 "… in the latter times some shall depart from THE FAITH,…”
2 Tim 3:8 "… men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning THE FAITH."
2 Tim 4:7 "… I have kept THE FAITH:"
Titus 1:13 "… rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in THE FAITH;"
(a) Jude adds a very powerful and defining phrase when talking about THE FAITH, he calls it THE FAITH “Once Delivered…” A sacred trust of doctrine to be handed down.
2 Tim 2:2 “…the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”
Heb 4:14 "… let us hold fast our profession."
Heb 4:14 "… let us hold firmly to the faith we profess."
(3) Not possessing THE FAITH, the false teachers of Galatia could not and did not teach THE FAITH, but as Paul told timothy in 2 Tim 4:1-5, these false teachers taught “fables,” or as Peter said in 2 Pet 2:1ff, “damnable heresies…”
(4) Paul says they taught these fables, these falsehoods for the love for the world and out of the fear of men.
b. So today the false teachers of the new heresies have ignored, denied, diverted and perverted the message of the Cross, and have done so for the same reasons.
(1) A crucified Savior, dying for the real sins of real people is not popular.
(a) He makes us face our sin, and admit to its ugliness.
(b) He brings us face-to-face with our spiritual inability, and with the depth of the darkness of our souls.
(c) Once God has saved us, then we are bound by His Spirit and His Word to take up our own cross, to deny our selfish desires and live for Him as He died for us.
(2) This is not the gospel of ease and enjoyment that people seek to soothe their bruised egos.
(3) For true believers today, we must Glory in the Cross--in the True, Biblical act, fact, doctrine, and way of life that emanates from the Cross, and we must live with reference to the world in the way that Paul describes here--the world is crucified to us, and we to the world. We must ask a series of provocative, searching questions about our Faith.
(4) Essential Questions on the Cross
(a) What is the essential Act, Fact, Message, Meaning and Power of the Christian faith?
(b) What is far more important than therapy, miracles, health, wealth, good self-esteem, or correct politics?
(c) What event is the one fulcrum, the single pivot point of the history of the universe?
(d) What event was the most important battle ever fought and won in the entire history of time?
(e) What deed far surpasses all the deeds ever done, even creation itself?
(f) What glorious act demonstrates the wrath, justice, sovereignty, truth, love, mercy, and power of God all at once?
(g) What supreme, mysterious, glorious, awesome, Act of God is the only reason His people stand today, whole, saved, and testifying of God's greatness?
(h) This act, fact, message, meaning and power of our faith is this (and we must personalize these statements to give them the full impact of their Biblical basis):
(i) The Almighty Creator, Jehovah God Himself, God the Son, became flesh for me.
(ii) This God-Man lived a perfect life for me.
(iii) This Perfect Lamb of God demonstrated His own power over nature, sin, Satan, disease, and death for me.
(iv) This Ruler of the Universe Incarnate was arrested, beaten, tortured, convicted in a kangaroo court, and hung on a cross for me, and By My Sin!
)
(v) This Sinless Substitute took my sin upon Himself, suffered the equivalent of eternal Hell, and laid down His own life for me.
(vi) This Fountain of Life arose from the dead for me.
And all of our preaching and proclamation must be done in the light of the glory of the Cross of Christ—to convict us, to save us, to sanctify us, to disciple us, to conform us to His Image (Rom 8:29
2. What We Were Before He Saved Us—“…For when we were yet without strength…”
a. Context
(1) The apostle has just told us that Hope makes not ashamed, that the Holy Ghost has spread the Love of God abroad in our hearts—
(2) What is the basis of this hope?
(3) What is the great act of God’s love which has been done on our behalf?
(4) The Cross is the basis of our hope.
b. “…when we were yet without strength…”
(1) God’s plan of redemption did not include some contribution from us—when God conceived it, He conceived it in the knowledge that we would be without strength.
(2) Not weak, not with a little bit of strength, but without strength
(3) God’s love for us was uncaused by anything in us—it was ungenerated by any good or merit in us.
1 John 4:10 "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
c. Without Strength—lost people are sinners, dead, deaf, insensitive to God, hating God and His Gospel, and such were we!
d. One of the glories of the Cross is that we were totally helpless and totally alien to God, yet He sent His Son to die for us!
3. “…in due time…” The cross was part of an ancient plan, conceived by God, and carried forth in His time.
a. in due time…. The plan was conceived by God
(1) When was this plan conceived?
1 Pet 1:19-20 " the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
Titus 1:1-2 "Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; 2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;"
(2) Remember… The Gospel is Good News, but it is Not New—The Gospel is older than creation itself. The Gospel is older than time.
Rom 1:2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)
(3) God had promised the Gospel by His prophets, but the Gospel did not start there.
(4) The Gospel started before time began.
(5) The Bible doesn't tell us all that took place before time began, but it tells us a lot....
b. Before Time Began--
(1) Jehovah God was God--God has no beginning-- a concept hard for us to even grasp, because everything we know in this world has a beginning and an end (in this world, anyway).
Psa 90:1 LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
(2) Before Time Began, the Triune God existed in a loving, mutual relationship—
Jn 17:24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. See also Heb 9:14
(3) Before time began, the Bible was written down in Heaven
(a) The Bible is unique to all books.... The Bible is not some afterthought—
(b) Psa 119:89 Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.
(c) Psa 119:152 Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old that You have founded them forever.
(4) Before Time Began, God ordained a Mysterious Purpose--The gospel was not an afterthought--the gospel was part of an eternal plan which predated the first act of creation......
“…Eph 3:8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; 9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Chris…”:
(5) God ORDAINED his purpose--He made it an eternal law--and that eternal mysterious purpose was done for our benefit and glory.
“…1 Cor 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,…”
(6) Before the world was made, God ordained the method of redemption and the redeemer--He filled in all the blanks in the plan.
c. In Due Time….The plan was announced and prophesied.
(1) The prophecies were given—Rom 1:1-4 "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) 3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:"
(2) Rom 3:21 "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;"
(3) There are dozens of scriptures that predict the Messiah, in excruciating detail.
(a) The Time of His Birth
(b) The Place of His Birth
(c) The Manner of His Birth
(d) His Forerunner
(e) The Character of His ministry
(f) The manner of His betrayal
(g) The Manner of His death—and crucifixion had not even been invented at the time Ps 22 was written! Ps 22:14-18
(h) The time of His Death—the evening sacrifice
(i) His resurrection, that He would not see corruption
(j) His Second coming as well as His first
(4) The prophecies were so mysterious that the prophets did not even understand what they were writing.
1 Pet 1:10-12 "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: 11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. 12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into."
d. In Due Time…..
(1) The plan was carried out by God. Gal 4: 4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
(2) The plan was carried out by God
Acts 2:22-23 "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: 23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:"
Acts 4:27-28 "….. both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, 28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done."
4. “…Christ died for the ungodly…”
a. Not for the Godly, because without His Cross, there would be no Godly!.
John 10:11-18 "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. …… 14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. 15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. …... 17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father."
(1) He was not murdered as a helpless victim
(2) He was not caught up in some thing over which He had no control.
(3) He was not part of some miscalculation by God
(4) He gave up the ghost, He laid down His life, He died, He was in control from beginning to end.
b. “…Christ died for the ungodly…”.
(1) The death of Christ was a real death—He did not “swoon” as the liberals would say.
(2) The Roman soldiers certified He was dead—and they were experts in death.
(3) His side was pierced, and water and blood flowed out, signifying a heart that had literally exploded in His chest—He was dead.
c. “…Christ died for the ungodly….”
(1) The death of Christ was a substitution.
(2) He died in the place of particular people—He died that we could live, He sacrificed, that we could be free, He died in our place.
Isa 53:5-6 "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
d. “…Christ died for the ungodly…”
(1) He did not die for good people, there are no good people.
(2) He did not die for the innocent—none are innocent
(3) He did not die for His friends—without the intervention of God, we would still be His enemies.
(4) Christ died for sinners, ungodly sinners, unholy sinners, dirty, rotten defiled sinners—sinners in need of a Savior, sinners totally without any spiritual resources whatsoever, lost, doomed sinners.
e. And this is why we have Biblical Hope, not a maybe so thing, but a certain thing—
“…(Heb 6:17-19) "Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, 18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil…,"
f. And this is the Love of God that has been shed abroad in our hearts…And this is the basis for all we are in Christ
Rom 5:6 "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."
5. Applications
a. For believers—surely we should rejoice and praise His Name without end, for he has died for us, and has brought us to Himself.
b. If God is for us, what difference does it make who or what is against us?
c. The Cross must rule the lives of believers—Our feelings about the world, our relationship with it, our walk in it, and our increasing detachment from its rule are all determined by the Cross.
d. As far as Paul was concerned, the world was dead--the praise, advancements, approval of the world were not important . For the Apostle, as for every believer, the world was not his real home--but unlike many of us, he knew it, and he lived like it. Paul proved his allegiance to the rule of the cross. He had made choices in his life; he had chosen the Gospel's Truth over family background, tradition, and riches—Phil 3:1-10
e. As John Brown of Edinburgh said, it is that "...we view the world system as crucified, cursed, useless, of no influence, of no matter, of no importance to us at all. The world is not to be desired, listened to, followed, or worshipped1 ..” Rom 5:6, 1 Jn 2:15-17
f. For unbelievers—the only remedy for you is to run to the Cross as fast as you can go! Flee to Christ, Flee to Christ, Flee to Christ!
Text: Rom 5:6
1. Introductory Thoughts
a. Gal 6:14 But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
b. In the above passage in Galatians, Paul was opposing false teachers who had perverted the gospel by leaving out the essential message of the Cross and substituting a return to the Jewish ceremonial laws.
c. The false teachers in the churches of Galatia, the men whom Paul opposed with vigor, were men whose teachings and actions may be summed up as
(1) Glorying not in God, nor in the Cross of Christ, but in man’s religion, in the flesch
(2) They did not possess THE FAITH, that set of Biblical doctrines so often referred to in the New Testament
(a) Historic Christianity is called “THE FAITH.”
Acts 6:7 "… great company of the priests were obedient to THE FAITH."
Acts 14:22 "… and exhorting them to continue in THE FAITH…”
Acts 16:5 "And so were the churches established in THE FAITH…"
Rom 1:5 "By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to THE FAITH …”
1 Cor 16:13 "Watch ye, stand fast in THE FAITH, …”
2 Cor 13:5 "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in THE FAITH…”
Eph 4:13 "Till we all come in the unity of THE FAITH…”
Phil 1:27 "… with one mind striving together for THE FAITH of the gospel;"
Col 1:23 "… continue in THE FAITH grounded and settled,…"
Col 2:7 "Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in THE FAITH, …”
1 Tim 1:2 "Unto Timothy, my own son in THE FAITH: …”
1 Tim 3:9 "Holding the mystery of THE FAITH…"
1 Tim 4:1 "… in the latter times some shall depart from THE FAITH,…”
2 Tim 3:8 "… men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning THE FAITH."
2 Tim 4:7 "… I have kept THE FAITH:"
Titus 1:13 "… rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in THE FAITH;"
(a) Jude adds a very powerful and defining phrase when talking about THE FAITH, he calls it THE FAITH “Once Delivered…” A sacred trust of doctrine to be handed down.
2 Tim 2:2 “…the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”
Heb 4:14 "… let us hold fast our profession."
Heb 4:14 "… let us hold firmly to the faith we profess."
(3) Not possessing THE FAITH, the false teachers of Galatia could not and did not teach THE FAITH, but as Paul told timothy in 2 Tim 4:1-5, these false teachers taught “fables,” or as Peter said in 2 Pet 2:1ff, “damnable heresies…”
(4) Paul says they taught these fables, these falsehoods for the love for the world and out of the fear of men.
b. So today the false teachers of the new heresies have ignored, denied, diverted and perverted the message of the Cross, and have done so for the same reasons.
(1) A crucified Savior, dying for the real sins of real people is not popular.
(a) He makes us face our sin, and admit to its ugliness.
(b) He brings us face-to-face with our spiritual inability, and with the depth of the darkness of our souls.
(c) Once God has saved us, then we are bound by His Spirit and His Word to take up our own cross, to deny our selfish desires and live for Him as He died for us.
(2) This is not the gospel of ease and enjoyment that people seek to soothe their bruised egos.
(3) For true believers today, we must Glory in the Cross--in the True, Biblical act, fact, doctrine, and way of life that emanates from the Cross, and we must live with reference to the world in the way that Paul describes here--the world is crucified to us, and we to the world. We must ask a series of provocative, searching questions about our Faith.
(4) Essential Questions on the Cross
(a) What is the essential Act, Fact, Message, Meaning and Power of the Christian faith?
(b) What is far more important than therapy, miracles, health, wealth, good self-esteem, or correct politics?
(c) What event is the one fulcrum, the single pivot point of the history of the universe?
(d) What event was the most important battle ever fought and won in the entire history of time?
(e) What deed far surpasses all the deeds ever done, even creation itself?
(f) What glorious act demonstrates the wrath, justice, sovereignty, truth, love, mercy, and power of God all at once?
(g) What supreme, mysterious, glorious, awesome, Act of God is the only reason His people stand today, whole, saved, and testifying of God's greatness?
(h) This act, fact, message, meaning and power of our faith is this (and we must personalize these statements to give them the full impact of their Biblical basis):
(i) The Almighty Creator, Jehovah God Himself, God the Son, became flesh for me.
(ii) This God-Man lived a perfect life for me.
(iii) This Perfect Lamb of God demonstrated His own power over nature, sin, Satan, disease, and death for me.
(iv) This Ruler of the Universe Incarnate was arrested, beaten, tortured, convicted in a kangaroo court, and hung on a cross for me, and By My Sin!
)
(v) This Sinless Substitute took my sin upon Himself, suffered the equivalent of eternal Hell, and laid down His own life for me.
(vi) This Fountain of Life arose from the dead for me.
And all of our preaching and proclamation must be done in the light of the glory of the Cross of Christ—to convict us, to save us, to sanctify us, to disciple us, to conform us to His Image (Rom 8:29
2. What We Were Before He Saved Us—“…For when we were yet without strength…”
a. Context
(1) The apostle has just told us that Hope makes not ashamed, that the Holy Ghost has spread the Love of God abroad in our hearts—
(2) What is the basis of this hope?
(3) What is the great act of God’s love which has been done on our behalf?
(4) The Cross is the basis of our hope.
b. “…when we were yet without strength…”
(1) God’s plan of redemption did not include some contribution from us—when God conceived it, He conceived it in the knowledge that we would be without strength.
(2) Not weak, not with a little bit of strength, but without strength
(3) God’s love for us was uncaused by anything in us—it was ungenerated by any good or merit in us.
1 John 4:10 "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
c. Without Strength—lost people are sinners, dead, deaf, insensitive to God, hating God and His Gospel, and such were we!
d. One of the glories of the Cross is that we were totally helpless and totally alien to God, yet He sent His Son to die for us!
3. “…in due time…” The cross was part of an ancient plan, conceived by God, and carried forth in His time.
a. in due time…. The plan was conceived by God
(1) When was this plan conceived?
1 Pet 1:19-20 " the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
Titus 1:1-2 "Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; 2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;"
(2) Remember… The Gospel is Good News, but it is Not New—The Gospel is older than creation itself. The Gospel is older than time.
Rom 1:2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)
(3) God had promised the Gospel by His prophets, but the Gospel did not start there.
(4) The Gospel started before time began.
(5) The Bible doesn't tell us all that took place before time began, but it tells us a lot....
b. Before Time Began--
(1) Jehovah God was God--God has no beginning-- a concept hard for us to even grasp, because everything we know in this world has a beginning and an end (in this world, anyway).
Psa 90:1 LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
(2) Before Time Began, the Triune God existed in a loving, mutual relationship—
Jn 17:24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. See also Heb 9:14
(3) Before time began, the Bible was written down in Heaven
(a) The Bible is unique to all books.... The Bible is not some afterthought—
(b) Psa 119:89 Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.
(c) Psa 119:152 Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old that You have founded them forever.
(4) Before Time Began, God ordained a Mysterious Purpose--The gospel was not an afterthought--the gospel was part of an eternal plan which predated the first act of creation......
“…Eph 3:8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; 9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Chris…”:
(5) God ORDAINED his purpose--He made it an eternal law--and that eternal mysterious purpose was done for our benefit and glory.
“…1 Cor 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,…”
(6) Before the world was made, God ordained the method of redemption and the redeemer--He filled in all the blanks in the plan.
c. In Due Time….The plan was announced and prophesied.
(1) The prophecies were given—Rom 1:1-4 "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) 3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:"
(2) Rom 3:21 "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;"
(3) There are dozens of scriptures that predict the Messiah, in excruciating detail.
(a) The Time of His Birth
(b) The Place of His Birth
(c) The Manner of His Birth
(d) His Forerunner
(e) The Character of His ministry
(f) The manner of His betrayal
(g) The Manner of His death—and crucifixion had not even been invented at the time Ps 22 was written! Ps 22:14-18
(h) The time of His Death—the evening sacrifice
(i) His resurrection, that He would not see corruption
(j) His Second coming as well as His first
(4) The prophecies were so mysterious that the prophets did not even understand what they were writing.
1 Pet 1:10-12 "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: 11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. 12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into."
d. In Due Time…..
(1) The plan was carried out by God. Gal 4: 4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
(2) The plan was carried out by God
Acts 2:22-23 "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: 23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:"
Acts 4:27-28 "….. both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, 28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done."
4. “…Christ died for the ungodly…”
a. Not for the Godly, because without His Cross, there would be no Godly!.
John 10:11-18 "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. …… 14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. 15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. …... 17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father."
(1) He was not murdered as a helpless victim
(2) He was not caught up in some thing over which He had no control.
(3) He was not part of some miscalculation by God
(4) He gave up the ghost, He laid down His life, He died, He was in control from beginning to end.
b. “…Christ died for the ungodly…”.
(1) The death of Christ was a real death—He did not “swoon” as the liberals would say.
(2) The Roman soldiers certified He was dead—and they were experts in death.
(3) His side was pierced, and water and blood flowed out, signifying a heart that had literally exploded in His chest—He was dead.
c. “…Christ died for the ungodly….”
(1) The death of Christ was a substitution.
(2) He died in the place of particular people—He died that we could live, He sacrificed, that we could be free, He died in our place.
Isa 53:5-6 "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."
d. “…Christ died for the ungodly…”
(1) He did not die for good people, there are no good people.
(2) He did not die for the innocent—none are innocent
(3) He did not die for His friends—without the intervention of God, we would still be His enemies.
(4) Christ died for sinners, ungodly sinners, unholy sinners, dirty, rotten defiled sinners—sinners in need of a Savior, sinners totally without any spiritual resources whatsoever, lost, doomed sinners.
e. And this is why we have Biblical Hope, not a maybe so thing, but a certain thing—
“…(Heb 6:17-19) "Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, 18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil…,"
f. And this is the Love of God that has been shed abroad in our hearts…And this is the basis for all we are in Christ
Rom 5:6 "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."
5. Applications
a. For believers—surely we should rejoice and praise His Name without end, for he has died for us, and has brought us to Himself.
b. If God is for us, what difference does it make who or what is against us?
c. The Cross must rule the lives of believers—Our feelings about the world, our relationship with it, our walk in it, and our increasing detachment from its rule are all determined by the Cross.
d. As far as Paul was concerned, the world was dead--the praise, advancements, approval of the world were not important . For the Apostle, as for every believer, the world was not his real home--but unlike many of us, he knew it, and he lived like it. Paul proved his allegiance to the rule of the cross. He had made choices in his life; he had chosen the Gospel's Truth over family background, tradition, and riches—Phil 3:1-10
e. As John Brown of Edinburgh said, it is that "...we view the world system as crucified, cursed, useless, of no influence, of no matter, of no importance to us at all. The world is not to be desired, listened to, followed, or worshipped1 ..” Rom 5:6, 1 Jn 2:15-17
f. For unbelievers—the only remedy for you is to run to the Cross as fast as you can go! Flee to Christ, Flee to Christ, Flee to Christ!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Marriage Seminar
This is the table of contents to our marriage seminar.
Finding Your True Love, One Verse At a Time
An Expositional Marriage Seminar
By Brother Charley Buntin
Bible Teacher
Trace Creek Baptist Church
Mayfield, KY
Introduction
There are lots of marriage seminars and marriage gurus in our world today, because there are so many marriages in trouble. Some seminars and gurus are, as far as God’s purpose is concerned, totally useless. Others have one degree or another of useful information, but don’t seem to have a long-lasting effect. This seminar is presented with one constant focal point—if believers in Christ are obedient to His Word with regard to the family, their marriage will work and their family will prosper. If believers are not obedient, their marriage will not work and their family will not prosper. Marriage was and is God’s idea—He invented it, He instituted it, and it is the “Holy institution which He loves…” (Mal 2:10), therefore, it should be obvious that only His instructions will work over the long haul. The writer of this seminar claims no special revelation, nor any particular expertise, except as a man of God and Bible teacher and as a participant in a marriage that happily endures after 37 years. I am a beggar who has found where to get free bread—the bread of life—and I want to help other beggars find the same.
This seminar is here presented in outline form, for two purposes. For the believer or seeker who would study God’s Word with reference to Marriage, here is a guide to self study. Read the brief comments, look up the verses, pray for understanding, and live what it says. For the busy pastor or Sunday School teacher, here is a tool to use in teaching. You may teach it freely.
The goal of this project is that God would be glorified as marriages are saved from the ravages of our times. May He so use this booklet.
Nearly half of this set of notes is dedicated to the first two chapters, on Worldview and Authority. The reason this is so is that instruction in marriage is of no use if the recipients of the instruction do not hold to the Christian Worldview and do not accept the inerrancy, inspiration, authority and sufficiency of the Bible.
Ten Sessions
1. The Christian Worldview—John 18:36-38, 1 Cor 6:18-20
2. The Authority and Sufficiency of the Bible—2 Tim 3:15-17
3. What Is Manhood? Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-16
4. What is Womanhood? Genesis 1:26-28, 2:18-23
5. What is True Love? 1 John 4:7-11, 1 Cor 13:4-7
6. What is Marriage? Genesis 2:18-25, Mat 19:1-11, Eph 5:21-33
7. What a Woman Must Give Her Man— Eph 5:21-24, Eph 5:33, 1 Pet 3:1-6
8. What a Man Must Give His Wife—Eph 5:25-33, 1 Pet 3:7
9. The Broken Covenant—Mal 2:10-16
10. The Broken Covenant Restored—Eph 5:30, Luke 15:11-32, 1 Cor 7:10-11, Mat 18:15-35
Finding Your True Love, One Verse At a Time
An Expositional Marriage Seminar
By Brother Charley Buntin
Bible Teacher
Trace Creek Baptist Church
Mayfield, KY
Introduction
There are lots of marriage seminars and marriage gurus in our world today, because there are so many marriages in trouble. Some seminars and gurus are, as far as God’s purpose is concerned, totally useless. Others have one degree or another of useful information, but don’t seem to have a long-lasting effect. This seminar is presented with one constant focal point—if believers in Christ are obedient to His Word with regard to the family, their marriage will work and their family will prosper. If believers are not obedient, their marriage will not work and their family will not prosper. Marriage was and is God’s idea—He invented it, He instituted it, and it is the “Holy institution which He loves…” (Mal 2:10), therefore, it should be obvious that only His instructions will work over the long haul. The writer of this seminar claims no special revelation, nor any particular expertise, except as a man of God and Bible teacher and as a participant in a marriage that happily endures after 37 years. I am a beggar who has found where to get free bread—the bread of life—and I want to help other beggars find the same.
This seminar is here presented in outline form, for two purposes. For the believer or seeker who would study God’s Word with reference to Marriage, here is a guide to self study. Read the brief comments, look up the verses, pray for understanding, and live what it says. For the busy pastor or Sunday School teacher, here is a tool to use in teaching. You may teach it freely.
The goal of this project is that God would be glorified as marriages are saved from the ravages of our times. May He so use this booklet.
Nearly half of this set of notes is dedicated to the first two chapters, on Worldview and Authority. The reason this is so is that instruction in marriage is of no use if the recipients of the instruction do not hold to the Christian Worldview and do not accept the inerrancy, inspiration, authority and sufficiency of the Bible.
Ten Sessions
1. The Christian Worldview—John 18:36-38, 1 Cor 6:18-20
2. The Authority and Sufficiency of the Bible—2 Tim 3:15-17
3. What Is Manhood? Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15-16
4. What is Womanhood? Genesis 1:26-28, 2:18-23
5. What is True Love? 1 John 4:7-11, 1 Cor 13:4-7
6. What is Marriage? Genesis 2:18-25, Mat 19:1-11, Eph 5:21-33
7. What a Woman Must Give Her Man— Eph 5:21-24, Eph 5:33, 1 Pet 3:1-6
8. What a Man Must Give His Wife—Eph 5:25-33, 1 Pet 3:7
9. The Broken Covenant—Mal 2:10-16
10. The Broken Covenant Restored—Eph 5:30, Luke 15:11-32, 1 Cor 7:10-11, Mat 18:15-35
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