Month: September 2010

Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God!
Ps 3:7

In Conformed to His Image this week, we’re considering “Who Does God Say I Am?”  We’ll basically be reading a list of Bible verses declaring who God says we are.  I don’t want to spoil the verses we’ll read in that study, so I thought I’d instead list verses from a recent study of passages that speak of who God is.  I’m not talking about verses that describe God (“God is able…” or “God is faithful”) but verses that define Him (“God is love” 1 Jn 4:8).  In the process of studying these passages, I ran into many that placed a personal pronoun before the noun that defined God.  These verses answer the question “Who Is My God?”  They were such a blessing, that I simply wanted to share them with you.  If you can say along with David in the passage above that the LORD is “my God,” then these verses belong to you!  Enjoy…

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome…” Deut 10:17
(He is not limited in any way.  There’s a no problem too great for Him to solve or any foe too great for Him to conquer!)

“He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen.” Deut 10:21
(Consider what great things He has done for you and give Him the praise of which He is worthy.)

“The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, and will say, ‘Destroy!’” Deut 33:27

“Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is with those who uphold my life.” Ps 54:4

“I will wait for You, O You his Strength; for God is my defense.” Ps 59:9
(If God is on our side, who can stand against us?)

“My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Ps 73:26
(God is our inheritance!  What more could we ask for?)

“Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘ For YAH, the LORD, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’” Is 12:2
(If this statement wasn’t true, we would have no hope.  We could never save ourselves?  Thank you Lord for being our salvation!)

From this time many of His disciples went away into the things behind, and no longer walked with Him. (Interlinear)
John 6:66

I like The Interlinear Bible’s version of the verse above.  If you’re not familiar with this translation by Hendrickson Publishers, I would highly recommend it.  It gives the literal translation of the words in the original Hebrew and Greek.  In most translations, the above verse simply reads that many of Jesus’ disciples “went back” or “turned back.”  I don’t disagree with these translations.  They capture the point to the text, but the Interlinear’s version highlights to what Jesus’ disciples turned back.  They went back  to the way things were, to the things behind.  At the  beginning of this chapter of the gospel of John, the Lord feeds the five thousand.  These same individuals are the ones that turn and leave in Jn 6:66.  Why did they leave?  Christ was bringing them into a place of greater spiritual light.  He was turning their minds from the physical bread they had eaten earlier to the spiritual bread that we must consume to be eternally sustained.  That living bread was none other than Christ Himself!  This truth was beyond what they were willing to consider, so they turned back to their old way of thinking, “the things behind.”

Be careful about the temptation to go back to where you were spiritually when the Lord is leading you on into greater revelation.  These men wanted to go back to the loaves and the fishes instead of following Christ into these deeper waters.  He led them into the spiritual, but they wanted to remain in the flesh.  He had led them to faith, but they wanted to stick with sight.  “Remember Lot’s wife”! (Lk 17:32) She had left Sodom in body, but her heart remained there.  It cost her life!  The Lord is very plain in Lk 9:62: “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”  We must press on with Christ.  We must go where He leads us.  We would be foolish to think we’ve got a proper understanding of all things.  God’s bigger than we think, and as we seek after Him, He will reveal more of Himself.  Be ready for Him to tear down false concepts.  When He does, learn to say, “Yes, Lord.”  Even if you can’t fully grasp what He’s teaching you, don’t throw it away just because you’ve always heard differently.  Instead, be like the Bereans that searched the Scriptures to see if the things they were hearing were true. (Ac 17:11) Approach him with the understanding that “…if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.” (1 Cor 8:2)

Our text above is also pertinent to the topic we will consider this week in Conformed to His Image.  We’re on pg 34 looking at “Loving Ourselves Correctly.”  To do this properly, we must understand what we were before God saved us, but we must also live in the awareness of what we are now in Christ.  We cannot live in the victory that we have in Christ and the joy that should accompany it (Jn 16:33) if we’re controlled by the guilt of what we used to be.  Paul never forgot that he had once persecuted Christians, but he remembered this fact only as a reminder of the amazing grace that Christ had bestowed upon him.  That awareness fueled His love for Christ and prompted him to labor harder than the other apostles. (1 Cor 15:10)  But, when it came to following the Lord, he didn’t make the mistake of returning to “the things behind.”  He had one rule: “…one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Ph 3:13, 14) I’ve said recently that I believe God is growing our Bible study group.  I’m not talking about numbers, but we’re growing on the inside.  He’s revealing more of Himself and maturing us in the faith.  May we press on in this journey and drop any baggage that religion has hung around our necks.  May we come not to know about God, but may we come to know God!  I hope we see there is a difference between those two statements…

Jamie

Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation…of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
Heb 6:1, 2

Last week, we finally finished answering our last question related to the text above, namely “Will the wicked suffer eternally?”  You might be surprised to find out that a number of professing Christians now answer emphatically “No!” to this question.  An unbalanced presentation of the God of the Bible by preachers and teachers in our day as well as a lack of personal study by church members have led to the erroneous conclusion that God is too loving to condemn men to suffer forever.  Nevertheless, the Scripture is clear that those outside of Christ will indeed experience pain and torment that will never end. Just consider words like “eternal” and “everlasting” in a sample of the many texts that deal with this topic:

Mt 25:41, 46 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels…And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Mk 3:29 “but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”

Rev 20:10,15 “The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever…And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”

The verses above are just a few of the many passages related to eternal judgment, but they are more than enough to show us that the wicked will suffer forever.  It is a doctrine that needs to be clearly declared today even as Christ did in his day (Mt 10:28) for it will prompt men to fear the Lord, which Pr 9:10 tells us is the path that leads to wisdom.  If you’d like to view an outline of what we covered on the topic of “Resurrection and Judgment”, you can access the PDF version by clicking here.

Having finished this side topic, Lord willing, we will pick back up where we left off in Conformed To His Image this week.  Even as God is a righteous God that will most assuredly judge the wicked, He is also the source of all true love in the universe for “love is of God” and “God is love”! (1 Jn 4:7-8)  We’re on pg 29 this week considering “God’s Love For Us”.  I look forward to seeing each of you.

Jamie

Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation…of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
Heb 6:1, 2

It has truly been amazing to see where the Lord has carried us as we began to consider the passage above.  We have thus far dealt with two questions:

• What is the state of the physically dead right now?
• What happens at the resurrection?

I fully intended to finish our final question on this topic last week, but the Lord had different plans.  We were trying to look at verses related to the eternal suffering of the wicked, but just a few minutes into our study, our direction changed when I read the following statement by a professing believer insisting there was no way God could condemn any man to suffer eternally:

“Does the traditional teaching of ‘eternal hell’ make any sense? Would or could an all-loving, all-powerful God stand back and watch any of His children spend eternity suffering indescribable agony and torment? Does that really make sense?”

I had two questions about the above statement. What does the term “all-loving” mean and who are “His children.”  If God’s children are all men without exception, I don’t find scriptural proof for that supposition.  In 1 Jn 3:10, God says mankind is divided into two groups: “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.”  Jesus also makes this distinction when he corrects the ungodly who claimed God was their father in Jn 8:44.  Jesus says, “You are of your father the devil” in contrast to those that are “of God” in v. 47.  How did we become natural children?  By a birth, right?!!  God, Who is a Spirit (Jn 4:24), also has children that are spiritually born to him (Jn 3:4-8).  It is these alone who have the Spirit of God within them that are sons of God and therefore have the right to cry out to God as their Father.  Consider Rom 8:14-17:

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

And, what does a person mean if he says God is “all-loving?”  If the point is that we can’t know love apart from God, that all true love comes from God, then I agree because according to 1 Jn 4:7-8, “love is of God” and “God is love.”  But, if by such a statement, a person means that God loves all men equally, to the same degree and in the same way, then I have to disagree.  Scripture is clear that God has a special love for His people compared to the rest of the world.  We can understand this truth in the natural if we consider the special love we have for our children or our spouses compared to others.  In fact, that’s exactly what God compares his love for His people to in Eph 5:25 when He says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church…”

To hold to the belief that God loves all men exactly the same, you’re going to have a hard time dealing with verses like Rom 9:13 where God says, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”  Look up the word “hated” in the original Greek, and you can’t explain it away.  “Hated” is an accurate English translation also used in various passages that speak of the world hating the church and Christ.  Likewise, the word is translated “hate” in Lk 14:26 which refers to the believer hating father, mother, wife, children…even his own life in order to be a disciple of Christ.  We recognize that hate here is not the opposite of love (we’ve already seen Eph 5:25 explicitly tells husbands to love their wives) but means that we are to love God in a way that far exceeds our love for any other.  In similar manner, God loves his people (represented by Jacob in the verse in Romans) in a unique fashion compared to the rest of the world.  Those that are in Christ are, as Titus 2:14 says, “His own special people.”  God makes a difference between the church and the world even as we see Christ praying only for believers in Jn 17:9,20 while specifically stating, “I do not pray for the world.”

Lord willing, we will attempt again to answer our last question on resurrection and judgment this week, namely: “Will the wicked suffer eternally?”  Maybe we’ll finish this thought and maybe not.  One thing is clear to me.  God is maturing our little group.  I hope you can come and grow with us.

Jamie