Examine the Bible Yourself

It is lamentable that most people find the evening news more credible than the Bible.  The stories we read in the newspaper, magazines, or rumours passed along through email on the internet are more quickly believed than spiritual truth from God!  I am amazed with some of the nonsense that is believed and passed on before it has been looked into.  An earnest Facebook message turns out to be the third cycle of an internet rumour which started in 2003!  People read the claims, assume it must be true, and perpetuate a lie.  I don't know who said it first, but it bears repeating:  truth can stand examination.  Snopes is not faultless, but the Bible is!

What I find more remarkable than frail arguments against the Bible, is that many who perpetuate them don't care for them to be answered.  I doubt that in the last thousand years there have been any new assaults upon the veracity of scripture.  The arguments have hardly changed.  In the words of C.H. Spurgeon, "Unbelievers only 'glean their blunted shafts, and shoot them at the shield of truth again.'" (Lectures to My Students, pg. 270)  As useless as their blunted shafts may be, unbelievers are happy to gather them back up even after they have been blocked harmlessly to the ground.  Blunted arrows may look intimidating in the quiver of an adversary, but they do nothing to stop the advance of truth.  There is such a thing as a sincere skeptic, but they are a rare breed which must be moved into the "wilfully ignorant" category when they refuse to acknowledge God's truth.

It is not that people have examined the Bible and found it lacking:  they have likely not even examined it themselves.  Many justify their own unbelief by parroting the baseless critiques of others!  When a man reads God's Word, it immediately goes to work upon His mind and soul.  It is not like other books written by men, where one paragraph can be highlighted and another page crossed out.  It is to be believed completely or not at all; it is either truth emanating from the Most High God, or it is a deception without any merit.  God does not force a man to believe Him, but the Holy Spirit compels the conscience to decide.  The whole of scripture exists to reveal to man the Gospel truth:  God has created all things; God made man; man rebelled from God and is separated from God by sin; God sent His Son Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for sin to reconcile man to Himself; Jesus was buried and rose from the dead; He ascended to the Father and bids all to join Him.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

No one can make another person believe.  This is part of God's divine order to the end that people would freely believe, trust, and love Him.  No man can "make" a woman fall in love with him.  But his tireless pursuit, constant affirmation, notes, gifts, and genuine love go far in winning the heart of his beloved.  God has shown a love of a far greater depth and breadth in giving us His Word and His Son.  The Bible proclaims that every person has a Divine Admirer they would not have known without God's revelation.  Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  It is a demonstration of great folly to burn a winning Lotto ticket because you had never won previously.  It is far more ridiculous to discredit and throw out the Bible as irrelevant when you have not first examined it yourself.  How much more valuable is eternal life and love over money!

Jesus Does the Impossible

Last night during family devotions we read from Mark 6:45-53 when Jesus told His disciples to go to the other side of Galilee.  When the disciples reached the middle of the sea, they faced strong winds which hindered their progress.  They rowed hard, but the wind was contrary and blew upon them.  Despite their prior experience and strong effort, they made no headway.  When they were in the middle of the sea, Jesus approached and would have overtaken them, walking on the water!  Seeing Christ walking upon the water, the men thought He must be a ghost.  But Jesus told them not to be afraid, climbed into the boat, and the wind and waves ceased.  His disciples were amazed over the power of Christ to transcend the laws of nature.

Jesus told His disciples to go to the other side of Galilee, knowing they would be incapable of doing so.  The stormy, contrary winds and waves were not a surprise to Him.  Being the Creator, the forces of nature are nothing for Him to overcome through His divine resources.  From this we learn that will God command us to do things we cannot do.  Things God tells us to do are frankly impossible for our flesh to accomplish.  We are incapable, but God is able.  When the power of Christ is brought to bear on our impossible situations, Jesus does for us what we cannot.  Our lack of faith hinders us from obeying Christ.  The disciples thought they could muscle up with their oars and make it across the sea, but all their sweat and toil was in vain.  It is never through fleshly effort we can accomplish God's directives, for it is not by might, nor by power, but by God's Spirit we are victorious.

Do you sometimes feel you are pulling at those oars day and night and gaining no ground?  Your hands are blistered, the cold spray lashes the face, all sense of direction has been lost, and your effort seems so fruitless that the only option seems to be to give up and go with the tide.  But when you invite Jesus into your life, right into the midst of the storm, He is able to bring you to the desired haven.  This truth is illustrated in John 6:18-21:  "Then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing. ¹⁹ So when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat; and they were afraid. ²⁰ But He said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." ²¹ Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going."  When we willingly receive Jesus in faith, He can bring us to where He wants us to be.

Don't try to ride out the storm without Jesus.  When we submit to His rule in the storm He is able to calm both us and the storm.  May we never cease to be filled with wonder and amazement as He saves us!

Purge out the Old Leaven

What do you associate with the power of Jesus Christ?  Perhaps His resurrection or the miracles He performed come to mind.  The wisdom of Jesus in teaching, when He cast out demons with a word, and His supernatural ability to know the hearts of men are all demonstrations of His power.  When a paralytic was brought to Jesus, He said "Son, your sins are forgiven you."  The scribes who sat by criticised Him in their hearts saying, "Who does this blasphemer think he is?  Only God can forgive sins."  Knowing their hearts, Jesus asked the men:  "What is easier - to say 'Your sins are forgiven? or to say to the paralytic 'Rise, take up your bed and walk?'  So you know I have the power to forgive sins (and am God in the flesh), rise, take up your bed and walk!"  Immediately the man stood to his feet and walked, much to the amazement of all the witnesses.  Anyone can say "Your sins are forgiven" because there is no physical means to discern whether spiritual cleansing has taken place.  Healing a paralytic takes more than words:  it takes actual power which Jesus demonstrated over and over again.

Christians are sinners who have trusted in Jesus Christ to forgive their sins and clothe them with His righteousness.  We are born again through spiritual regeneration by the Holy Spirit and corporately make up the Body of Christ (the church) of which Jesus is the Head.  Once a believer follows Christ in faith, the lifestyle of Christians ought to reflect this inner transformation:  we are to put off sin and hindrances which easily weigh us down.  We do not claim perfection, but daily we are sanctified to that end.  In the early church in Corinth, some of the people were using grace as a cloak for sin.  There was a well-known couple that openly participated in an adulterous and incestuous relationship.  Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 5:4-5:  "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁵ deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."  Paul says in so many words, "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and with His power, deliver unrepentant sinners who profess to be Christians to Satan's control."  Open sin cannot be tolerated in the Body of Christ.  It would be better to be without a hand or foot and enter into heaven maimed than to enter whole into Hell.

It seems almost ironic that the power of our LORD Jesus enables us to deliver a sinning brother unto Satan.  Though on the surface this may seem extreme, the one who remains in sin has already made a conscious choice to serve Satan, not Christ.  If fellowship with the Body of Christ continues, it is false fellowship.  Instead of holiness, hypocrisy, uncleanness, and wickedness are the influences sinning believers bring to the whole.  Where strength and victory ought to be a nominal believer supplies weakness, division, discord, and confusion.  Such a cancer must be cut out of the Body, even as gangrenous rot is cut from flesh.  No accommodation for sinful living is provided by Christ for the church.  After effort has been made to graciously encourage and restore such a one (Gal. 6:1), love demands we sever ties with those who are called brothers and sisters who without repentance embrace and pursue sin.  It is the power of Christ which enables us to do so.  Only the power of Jesus can save those who are dead in sins or restore those who have been overtaken by a trespass.

The world treats symptoms and thinks short-term:  God looks upon the heart and keeps eternity in perpetual focus.  Jesus is not only our Saviour, but He is our Standard.  Those who claim allegiance to Him while serving Satan do so to their own hurt and damage wholeness and compromise the unity of the Body.  Man is pleased to be soothed into Hell under the delusion he is a saint, but to this persuasion love cannot submit.  Love does not allow the name or church of Christ to be maligned, nor allow disease to remain in the Body untreated.  A little leaven leavens the whole lump.  It would be better for the body of a sinner to be destroyed on earth so his soul will be saved for eternity.  Once Satan and the world chews us up and spits us out we are granted clarity and new depths of devotion for God we did not posses before.

A great example of God's loving discipline, power, and salvation is seen in the life of Jonah.  Jonah was given a message by God to deliver to the people of Nineveh but he rebelled at God's command.  He ultimately ended up being thrown into a prison of flesh:  he was swallowed by a great fish God had prepared for that purpose.  For three days his body was burnt by digestive juices as he gagged in the suffocating stench of the bowels of the fish.  He lay pressed by folds of flesh in utter darkness, hearing the pulsing of the heart of the creature which compassed and crushed him.  It was only after three days in that prison that Jonah committed himself to God again in obedience.  He was then vomited up by the fish and God used Jonah powerfully to save an enormous city of people.  God saved Jonah so he could save others.  Sometimes a man needs to be imprisoned before he will honour God with his freedom.

When we turn our eyes upon Christ and repent, the power of Jesus frees us from the chains of sin, bondage, and death.  How many of us have been vomited out of prisons of addictions, lusts, and sins and by God's grace entered into new life!  Let us never forget the prison we have been delivered from and walk uprightly, lest we willingly return there as shamed inmates.  I conclude with Paul's admonition in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8: "Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. ⁸ Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

Honey from the Rock

Honey is an interesting subject.  A natural food, bees gather nectar from flowers and make sweet honey encased in a wax honeycomb.  Someday I would love to take up beekeeping as a hobby!  If packaged properly in the right conditions, pure honey has an incredibly long shelf life.  Proverbs 24:13-14 reads, "My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste: ¹⁴ So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off."  Honey is good, and it is good for you.  It is a natural source of energy and some even have dubbed it "The Perfect Food."  Whether it is perfect or not I do not know, but one point on which all people agree is that good honey is sweet!

God promised to bring His people out of the land of bondage in Egypt and into the Promised Land, a land "flowing with milk and honey."  It was a land of fatness and sweetness.  It was a place of prosperity, freedom, and victory.  In a similar way, Jesus Christ through the Gospel brings sinners from death to life by grace through faith.  It is a life of freedom, victory, and sweetness.  Just because the Israelites were brought into Canaan, it did not mean the battles were over.  In fact, there were many new battles to be fought with nations long entrenched in the land.  When we are born again and become Christians through faith in Jesus, we have battles to fight against the habits and desires of our flesh, the sway of this world, and Satan.  It is only through God that we can be victorious in these battles.

Sometimes we can be so caught up in fighting, putting on the whole armour of God, resisting the devil, and being sober and vigilant, that we forget that the life of a Christian is not limited to the field of battle.  Perhaps there are some soldiers who can fight day and night for years without respite, but they are as elusive in reality as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster.  Even Jesus was ministered to by angels after 40 days of fasting and satanic assault.  God made our bodies to need sleep, and Jesus knows that we need rest for our souls.  Let us never remove our spiritual armour, continuing to walk in the Spirit.  Let us keep the Sword of the Spirit - God's Word - at the ready.  But let us not neglect our need for nourishment and physical and spiritual vitality which comes from resting in Christ and meditating on His Word.  If we will fight on effectively, times of rest and recovery are vital.

This Sunday at Calvary Chapel Sydney we spoke about the time in 1 Samuel 14 when God used Jonathan and his armour bearer to smite a Philistine garrison.  After the battle, Jonathan and some of the victorious men ventured into a forest where they saw honey dripping.  Because King Saul had placed a curse on anyone who ate before evening, no one ate any of that honey.  They were faint and famished but they feared the consequence should they indulge in just a taste of the sweet honey which dripped to the ground.  Jonathan, having been attacking the Philistines all day, was not aware of the oath of the king.  He gathered up a bit of honeycomb with the rod in his hand and tasted it.  His eyes instantly lit up and he felt refreshed.  How good that honey tasted!

God had promised His people a land flowing with milk and honey, yet the people were afraid to eat of the honey because of their king's foolish oath.  There is a class of Christian today who heavily emphasises the fact we are in a spiritual battle and must be able to endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ.  Everything is a battle, everything is a bitter fight, and they feel everyone is against them.  Weary and tired, even after being concussed from a thrown lower millstone which glanced off their head, they try to grimly continue on alone.  Monks of old would buffet their bodies with whipping and fasting, thinking their cold cells and hard beds were the means of gaining spiritual vitality.  Please do not misunderstand:  there is a place for denying the flesh through fasting.  It is certainly true we are in the midst of a spiritual battle of epic proportions:  open war is upon us!  But let us not think that a miserable life is the most holy one.  There will always be a fight, even as there will always be needs in the world.  All Christians can be weary and wounded.  In Christ we are to labour with our hands faithfully, but there is sweetness and rest in our Saviour.

Honey is an interesting study in scripture.  After God freed His people from slavery in Egypt, He caused bread to fall from heaven called "manna."  Exodus 16:31 says the taste of manna was like wafers made with honey.  Jesus later compared Himself to manna:  the Israelites ate the food of heaven and prolonged their lives on earth, and He was the "Living Bread" come down from heaven (John 6:30-37).  All who partake of Christ through faith will live forever!  There is sweetness in Christ.  Deuteronomy 32:4 says of God, "He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He."  And what do God's people draw from this Rock?  Deuteronomy 32:13 says, "He made him ride in the heights of the earth, that he might eat the produce of the fields; He made him draw honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock..."  From Christ, the Rock of our Salvation, flows Living Water to satisfy our thirst, honey to give us energy and enlighten our eyes, and oil to keep our lamp shining bright.  Our God has indeed provided everything for life and godliness - even sweetness.

God could have provided us a lifetime of spiritual gruel, grey and flavourless.  Instead He has provided great sweetness through Christ and the Word.  Ezekiel 3:3 tells of when the prophet was told to eat the scroll which contained God's words:  "And He said to me, "Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you." So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness."  What sweetness we have in God's promises towards us!  Is your life one of bitterness of sweetness?  When the children of Israel came to the waters of Marah, they could not drink of those waters because they were bitter.  They complained with the LORD:  three days without drinkable water was just too much!  Exodus 15:25 reads, "So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet..."  Jesus drank the bitter cup of God's wrath when He was crucified on the tree on Calvary so we can partake of His sweetness.  Instead of bitter herbs and wormwood we can draw sweet honey from the Rock.  Have you tasted and seen that the LORD is good?  Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!