What Kind of Soil are You? (The Hardened Ground Hearer)

Matthew 13:3 and 18-19

The seed is the word of God that is proclaimed or taught.  It is the Scripture with its life giving message.  The seed is always sown on the heart – the heart is the center of your person.  It is the unique combination of what one believes/thinks and what one wants/desires.  One who is hardened ground is one whose heart is not receptive to the seed that is sown and this primarily means that one does not understand the meaning or import of the Word that was spoken or heard. 

John Gill comments on the hardened ground hearer.

He is one that is careless and inattentive, negligent and forgetful; has some slight notions of things as he hears, but these pass away as they come; his affections are not at all touched, nor his judgment informed by them, but remains as stupid (dull), and as unconcerned as ever; his heart is not opened to attend to, and receive the word, but continues hard and obdurate; and is like the common and beaten road, that is trodden down by everyone, and is not susceptible of the seed, that falls upon it.

Whenever the Word is sown the evil one is present.  He shows up in church and at Bible studies and in one’s own personal time of Bible reading and meditation.  He shows up and is on the lookout especially for those who are not understanding or perceiving what they are hearing.   He is at work in those hearts to snatch the seed away. 

The problem is not with the seed or the word that is proclaimed or taught – the problem is with the one who does not understand.  Yet according to Jesus those who do not understand are culpable before God for their lack of apprehension or failure to grasp the importance and meaning of the Word or the Gospel message. 

The problem again is not one of intelligence but of one suppressing the truth that is known about God due to the fact that in the heart one has come to prefer one’s own rule to God’s rule.  This is what everyone does apart from God’s transforming grace. An alcoholic who gets behind the wheel of a car in one sense does not have a clue about what he is doing – he has no apprehension or comprehension – it is called DWI DUI – but that one is still held responsible for driving in that condition and for any accidents which occur.  Men and women live their entire lives under the influence of hearts that cannot really tolerate God’s rightful claim over their lives.  We all do some pretty creative thinking and readjustment of our view of reality so as to live under this influence and escape the truth.  This is the natural and predisposed stance of our hearts – what we think is shaped by earthly values rather than eternal ones and what we want is the promotion of our own agenda rather than God’s.  Thus we are under the influence of idolatrous attachments and commitments and it is from this stance that we receive the word sown onto our hearts – such a stance blinds us to the meaning and import of the word so that when it is heard it is not understood.

Remember the Gospel is God’s command for people to turn from their rebellion and self-centered focus and come home to him and be assured that because of what Jesus Christ has done they will be forgiven and restored to a right relationship with God.  The Gospel is God’s gracious lever to bring us back into willing submission to our Creator.  There are also all kinds of implications that we should be able to grasp from this word of grace and command to repent and trust in Christ.   So as long as we live under the influence of sin’s rebellious and deceptive power in our lives our hearts will remain hardened and not receptive to the word that is sown – yet we are accountable to God to receive the word.

Even those who are good soil in that God has determined by grace to work in their hearts so that they become receptive ground, may demonstrate lack of real understanding and perception to the word that is sown.  This means that if you are indeed a genuine believer in Jesus in whose heart grace has been planted then you must be concerned to be sure that you understand what you hear from the word.  If you persist in such hardness of heart (which was not the case with 11 of the 12 first disciples) then this will be evidence that you really do not know Christ.   So you must always be careful how you hear the word.  He who has hears let him hear – let him pay attention.  Let him seek God’s divine aid to really understand the word and its meaning.  Otherwise when the word is sown on your heart, because you do not understand – because it does not penetrate deeply with light into your heart, the evil one comes and snatches it away.  The word brings none of its life giving grace and power into your heart.   One who continues to hear the word in this manner remains under God’s judgment and is held accountable for living under the influence of such a self-centered and rebellious heart that is hardened to the sowing of the Word – what kind of soil are you?

What do you do with what you hear?  How often do other interests or concerns fill your mind as you hear the word?  How quickly does the word vanish from your thinking and heart? How easily and quickly do lesser concerns come flooding in as soon as the last hymn is sung and the benediction pronounced?  What is the nature of the conversation that you have with others at the close of the service?   The evil one will use a variety of means to snatch the word from the heart of those who hear it but do not understand its meaning and import.  The evil one comes to church too to prey on those who lack perception and understanding of the word.  Perception means that you understand its truth and meaning but also see how it applies to your life too.  There should be an eagerness to understand, to perceive the meaning of the word. 

So you need to come as active listeners and prayerful listeners of the Word that is sown.  Stir your heart to this task and seek God’s help. Come praying for understanding, illumination – come eager to hear – be aware that the understanding of the word must be given to you by the Spirit.  It is not simply a matter of brain power.   Failure to grasp the meaning of the Word should cause concern in your heart…seek understanding and appreciation for the word in prayer from the Father.  The stakes are high.

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them for they are spiritually discerned.  1 Corinthians 2:14.  

Covetousness: Its Idolatry, Its Remedy

Musings on the Tenth Commandment

Exodus 20:17

 Saul of Tarsus was a self-confident man.  He was certain that regarding the most important matters of heaven and earth he was set.   His self-assessment was that he was a righteous man pleasing to God in all his ways.  He could say of himself that regarding the righteous requirements of the law of Moses he was blameless.  Yet, like most of his fellow Pharisees, Saul was blind to just how interior was the operation of his own sin and depravity.  For him complying to the demands of the law was basically a matter of external conformity: not dishonoring of parents, not committing adultery, not stealing etc.  He was able to comply with the law in these matters and he went along feeling just fine about himself. 

Then one day Saul gave a tad more attention to the final commandment and something new happened.  When he read and considered these words "You shall not covet what belongs to your neighbor" it was like a volcanic eruption occurred from deep within his heart.  Here are his words:  "What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."  But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.  I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died" (Romans  7:7-9).

"All kinds of covetousness" - it was like he could not put a lid on the covetous desires that came flowing out of his heart.  The tenth commandment clearly goes to the heart.  It begins where the other nine end.  All the commandments concern the heart yet the first nine address the behavior and then move into the heart, to the desires, affections and motives.  The tenth bypasses the behavior and penetrates immediately into our hearts.  The Lord God is not only concerned about our deeds but about our desires. 

Desire itself is not sinful.  God created you with the capacity to desire things.  In one way it is our desires that move us along in life and stimulate responsible productivity.  Yet desires can also malfunction and at that in a huge and destructive fashion.  A desire becomes a covetous desire when it is inordinate.  We desire something so much that we are consumed by the desire and hence we cease at that moment to trust God and we may take steps to realize what we desire in ways that are sinful, harmful to others and displease God.  We can become enslaved to our desires.   Our desires lead us into conflict with others and are often the reason we hurt others.  It should not surprise us that at the core of every sinful behavior and act there are accompanying sinful desires.  We can sinfully desire sinful things and we can also sinfully desire good things.  So covetousness occurs when our desires become all consuming and take over our lives. 

Here is what we desperately need to see about covetousness: it is idolatry.  It is this nature of covetousness that connects the tenth commandment with the first - you shall have no other God's before me.  To covet something (again this is to have an inordinate desire for something) is basically to fashion it into a god to which you are giving your heart.  In Colossians 3:5 the Apostle Paul defines covetousness to be idolatry. 

We were created in such a way that in order for us to live well we need to manage our desires and in order for that to happen we all need to pursue that one overarching superlative desire that will give us such contentment of heart and soul that we will be enabled to manage the other desires.  Now Christianity is not Buddhism.  Buddhism teaches that to make it through life and to reach heaven we need to kill all our desires. Buddhism teaches that you are truly free when you have no desires.  No, you are truly dead when you have no desires!  Because God created us with the capacity for desire it is impossible to thwart desire.  This is not the answer to the problem of covetousness.  The answer is the Gospel that frees us from idolatrous and misplaced desires and gives us that One Great Object of desire that when desired will enable us to manage all the other desires so they will not become covetousness.

There are only two realms toward which we can direct our desires.  They are both proper realms but we need to be sure that in our heart of hearts we have them in the right order.  Moderate desires fit the earthly realm, whereas an inordinate (superlative) desire is suitable only for the eternal realm. Yet here is a secret. When an inordinate desire docks in the eternal realm it no longer is inordinate but life-transforming.  For the eternal realm is the only realm that can bear the weight of such a strong desire.  In fact to have an inordinate desire for any earthly or temporal good or object is in a strange way to have too weak a desire.  It doesn't seem weak but rather all consuming.  It seems that way because the object you desire is too small for the desire.   So when you have an inordinate desire for an earthly object that desire doesn't fit the object.  It is more than the object can bear and in this sense the desire has become too weak on a certain level.  It is also out of order in your life and brings your life out of order with reality.  The energy of the desire not only becomes a kind of poison that eats away at your soul but it is a form of false worship that offends the true and living God.  Covetous desires turn the objects one desires into objects of worship - what is longed for and believed will make one's life worth living.  So with this you not only violate the tenth commandment but also the first for the object of your inordinate desire has become a functional god in your heart.

So here is the solution to covetousness.  It is to begin to worship the only object great enough, glorious enough and worthy enough for such an intense desire.  This is where the Gospel brings us.  The Gospel gives us the capacity by grace to turn from all forms of covetousness or idolatrous longings and desires and begin to worship the Triune God in Spirit and in Truth.   The Gospel is not demand or command to worship God.  The Gospel is God in love and grace not only pardoning us of our sins and justifying us before his presence but in doing this he is also giving Himself and His kingdom to us even though we are undeserving.  The good news is that the Creator offers himself to us in Christ and when we open our hearts to this offer we find that he promises never to leave us and never to forsake us. You cannot say that about any earthly good upon which you set your heart. He promises to use all his resources to provide for us in this life and in the one to come.  Worship rises out of a heart that believes and treasures the offer of the Gospel.  When you truly believe the offer of the Gospel and open your heart to God who makes that offer you cannot help but worship because you begin a love relationship with the Creator that is filled with desire for him above all things. 

There are four responses to the Gospel that we need to take in order to put covetousness to death within our hearts and experience the power of holy desires ruling there.  From Luke 12:22-34 we are taught by Jesus regarding combating covetous the following:

 

·         Be sure you know and embrace the Bible's teaching on God's sovereign power and care over creation.

·         Know what it is that you are to desire the most - that his the kingdom of God.

·         Believe the promise that as you seek God's kingdom first the Father will provide all that you need for your daily living.

·         Cultivate the practice of generosity with your material resources.

We obey the tenth commandment not simply by not allowing inordinate desires for evil or good things to rule our hearts but by cultivating contentment of heart with what we do have in terms of earthly possessions and positions.  Such contentment comes when we know and believe that no matter what we possess in this life we have the true and living God as the center piece of what it is that we possess.  Because he in Christ is our heart's portion in this life and the life to come we can truly learn to be content with what we have.  Covetousness and a whole host of the miseries it produces will have no place to set up shop in such a contented heart. 

Meditate on these three texts this week and ask the Lord to grant that you truly possess in your heart what they teach. 

• You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.  Psalm 16:11
•  ^"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever"  Psalm 73:25-26
• Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  Hebrews 13:5

The only way to root out a sinful, unholy and covetous desire is by the expulsive power of  holy desires. How we need to seek Gods grace for such desires. John Piper speaks in this manner: "Delight in the glory of God includes, for example, hatred for sin, fear of displeasing God, hope in the promises of God, contentment in the fellowship of God, desire for the final revelation of the Son of God, exultation in the redemption he accomplished, grief and contrition for failures of love, gratitude for undeserved benefits, zeal for the purposes of God, and hunger for righteousness. Our duty toward God is that all our affections respond properly to His reality and so reflect His glory."  Amen

Stewards of Our Property, Respecter of Our Neighbor's

Some Musings on Eighth Commandment

By Scott Foster

Exodus 20:15

We need to be reminded that the Law of God really encompasses every command we read in the Bible.  Now to be sure there has been a change in the arrangement of how God's people live their lives in this world and gather to worship God between the Old and New covenants.  So there are certain commandments from the Old Covenant era that are no longer binding, like the prohibition against eating shellfish or the requirement to offer animal sacrifice in order to draw near to God in public worship.  The main reason for such changes has to do with how in the Old Covenant arrangement we find the shadow of Christ and in the New Covenant Christ has come and fulfilled the law.  He brings the temple and much of its worship to an end because he is its fulfillment. 

Nonetheless, when it comes to at least nine of these ten commandments we find them reiterated in the New Covenant Scriptures.  Here is the moral law of God that has a bearing on our conduct as followers of the Lamb.   The Law first instructs us regarding our sinfulness and sins and then points us to Christ as the Savior of sinners.  As we come to trust in Christ and are justified before God, we are then directed by Jesus back to the law as it is further amplified in his teachings and the rest of the New Testament.  Yet the power to keep these laws do not reside in them or in us but in Christ and by faith in him we can keep the law.  Granted we do not do it perfectly but we can experience change over old patterns of sin and disobedience.   The Holy Spirit has been given to us to lead us in paths of obedience as we manifest his fruit in and through our lives.  The fruit of the Spirit is summed up in a life of love and it is by love that we in fact keep the law.

Now the eighth commandment concerns honesty in the use of ours and other people's property.  We are simply not to steal, not to take from others what is not ours or to withhold from others what is theirs.  We are not to take what belongs to our neighbor without his or her permission.  So the commandment affirms the right of owning property.  It is not wrong to own property.  This applies not only to objects one might personally possess but to our wages.  We own our wages.  It is our money.  With the proceeds of our wages we take out a loan to buy a house or a car.  We purchase furnishings, clothes and food.  Our neighbors do likewise.  So the commandment actually affirms the right of personal property.  However, the Scriptures also teach that we do not own such things in an ultimate sense.  They are gifts to us from the Father and as such they are entrusted to us to use as stewards of the kingdom.

Like the other commandments we find the meaning to entail not only what is forbidden but also what is required of us if we are to keep this commandment.   Again, there are no better sources of explanation than some of the confessional standards of the Protestant Reformation.

The Westminster Larger Catechism

Q. 141  What are the duties required in the eighth commandment?

A. The duties required in the eighth commandment are, truth, faithfulness, and justice in contracts and commerce between man and man, rendering to every one his due restitution of goods unlawfully detained from the right owners thereof; giving and lending freely, according to our abilities, and the necessities of others; moderation of our judgments, wills and affections concerning worldly goods; a foresightful care and study to get, keep, use, and dispose these things which are necessary and convenient for the sustaining of our nature, and suitable to our condition; a lawful calling, and diligence in it; frugality, avoiding unnecessary law-suits, and suretyship, or other like engagements; and an endeavor, by all just and lawful means, to procure, preserve, and further the wealth and outward estate of others, as well as our own.

Q. 142  What are the sins forbidden in the eighth commandment?

A. The sins forbidden in the eighth commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, theft, robbery, manstealing, and receiving any thing that is stolen; fraudulent dealing, false weights and measures, removing land-marks, injustice and unfaithfulness in contracts between man and man, or in matters of trust; oppression, extortion, usury, bribery, vexatious lawsuits, unjust inclosures and depopulations; engrossing commodities to enhance the price; unlawful callings, and all other unjust or sinful ways of taking or withholding from our neighbor what belongs to him, or of enriching ourselves; covetousness; inordinate prizing and affecting worldly goods; distrustful and distracting cares and studies in getting, keeping, and using them; envying at the prosperity of others; as likewise idleness, prodigality, wasteful gaming; and all other ways whereby we do unduly prejudice our own outward estate, and defrauding ourselves of the due use and comfort of that estate which God hath given us. 

The Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 110.What does God forbid in the eighth commandment?

Answer: God forbids not only those thefts,  and robberies,  which are punishable by the magistrate; but he comprehends under the name of theft all wicked tricks and devices, whereby we design to appropriate to ourselves the goods which belong to our neighbor: whether it be by force, or under the appearance of right, as by unjust weights, ells, measures, fraudulent merchandise, false coins, usury, or by any other way forbidden by God; as also all covetousness, all abuse and waste of his gifts.

Again we see how all encompassing this commandment truly is.  What the commandment underscores is that we are to be stewards of the wages, resources, property and possessions the Lord has given to us.  Our attitude toward our possessions must be shaped by the Gospel and the grace God has given to us in the forgiveness of sins we have in Christ.  While all these earthly gifts come to us from him, his greatest gift is his Son and only when we embrace Christ will we be able to exercise stewardship over them in a way that glorifies the Giver. 

Three aspects of Gospel or Kingdom Stewardship rise from the foundation of this commandment.

•     As stewards we are to manage our personal possessions in such a way that the Lord receives the first of our income. 

•     As stewards we manage our personal resources, property and possessions by making sure we support ourselves and our families. 

•     As stewards we are to cultivate contentment with what God has given us.

It is not enough simply to avoid stealing.  We certainly need to do this.  However, the eighth commandment endorses a stewardship frame of reference over all our possessions along with respecting the property of our neighbor.  Flowing out of this commandment we find the call to be industrious, frugal yet sacrificial and generous.  We may certainly enjoy our possessions for they are given to us by God to enjoy but we are to guard our hearts from having them possess us.  So we need on the one hand to shun all forms of asceticism that would disparage God's gifts of property etc, while at the same time avoid all idolatrous attachments to such gifts.  These along with a frugal and generous spirit form the perimeters of Christ-centered stewardship and will enable us to indeed keep the eighth commandment to the glory of God.

J. C. Ryle wrote the following on the nature of stewardship.  “Anything whereby we may glorify God is a talent. Our gifts, our influence, our money, our knowledge, our health, our strength, our time, our senses, our reason, our intellect, our memory, our affections, our privileges as members of Christ’s Church, our advantages as possessors of the Bible – all, all are talents. Whence came these things? What hand bestowed them? Why are we what we are? Why are we not the worms that crawl on the earth? There is only one answer to these questions. All that we have is a loan from God. We are God’s stewards. We are God’s debtors. Let this thought sink deeply into our hearts.”  Indeed let it sink very deeply!

The Sanctity of the Truth

by Marian Trinidad

One of the underlying ideologies of our age is that of relativism.  It is fashionable in many circles to tout the notion that there are no ultimate certainties, no absolutes, no fixed rights or wrongs.  Truth is not that which exists in an objective place outside of the individual.  Truth is relative to the individual.  We each may have our own truth.  “That may be true for you but I don't see it that way.  I have my own view on the matter.  You have your truth and I have mine.” In reality no one can really live like this.  This is especially the case when a person who holds these notions becomes a victim of a crime. They will not sit around in some relativistic state wondering if they were really mugged or vandalized or had their car stolen out of their drive way.  When things like this happen we all know that a wrong has been perpetrated and where there is a wrong there must be a right. 

Truth in terms of the existence of absolute values and truth in terms of our complying with those values and having them as standards that we either follow or violate can not be so easily done away with.  This is also the case with telling the truth over against telling a lie.  Why is lying a problem?  It is a problem because it undermines the truth and truth is vital to human relationships.  This is indeed what the ninth commandment is all about.  It concerns covering over the truth so as to bring harm to my neighbor.  “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  

This commandment's particular focus is that of not bearing false witness in court against someone – committing perjury that will bring harm to an accused person.  You are not to bear false witness in court by either lying or withholding the truth.   Yet this commandment also has a broader focus that forbids lying in any of our speech or actions. We are to hold to the sanctity of the truth. 

When we lie we lie in three arenas: We lie to ourselves, we lie to others and we lie to God.  Sin by its very nature is filled with darkness.  The sin that remains in us easily deceives us.  From this place deception and lies flow out of our hearts, blinding our minds and muddying the waters of all our relationships.  All of us have lied (dare I say all of us are liars!).  We do it so easily, yet we can not tolerate when people lie to us.   It is so important that we consider this problem of self-deceit in each of our hearts and lives.  As soon as you think it is not a problem in your own heart it is loose and operating.  What the Scriptures teach is that sin is deceitful and since we still have the remnants of sin within our hearts we still face the prospect of self-deceit.  Its work in our hearts not only blinds us to its presence there but it prevents us from seeing the truth that is outside of us.  In other words sin's deceitfulness blinds us to truth itself – or to what is true or real.   So we find ourselves lying – that is we find ourselves lying to ourselves, to others and to God. 

John Calvin expressed it this way: “The human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.”

We can also lie for a variety of reasons but here are three: lying in order to harm another, lying to promote yourself, lying out of fear so as to protect yourself.  Whatever the motive lying or not speaking the truth is a violation of the ninth commandment.  

We need to remember that God is light and in him there is no darkness whatsoever.  If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another.  This light covers all of the virtues that God is, including the truth.   Since we have been reconciled to the God of truth his grace will indeed be working a love for the truth within our hearts.  Of this element of a believer's progressive sanctification Charles Spurgeon said, “Saints not only desire to love and speak truth with their lips, but they seek to be true within; they will not lie even in the closet of their hearts, for God is there to listen; they scorn double meanings, evasions, equivocations, white lies, flatteries, and deceptions.”  May this be increasingly true of us.

The good news is that Christ has secured forgiveness for the lies we have told and also provides grace to create within us a heart that is filled with light and loves the truth.  By God's grace to us in Christ we are able to put off the old garments of lying and deceit and put on garments of honesty and speaking the truth as we are admonished to do in Ephesians – the first garment of the transformed life is that of speaking the truth.  But that is not the way you learned Christ!-- assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,  and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. (Eph 4:20-25 ESV)

Unconditional Election by Grace

In considering the depths of God’s grace we come face to face with the Bible’s teaching on God’s election and predestination to eternal life of undeserving sinners.   All without exception are lost in the guilt and bondage to sin.  The deepest sin beneath all our sins, flaws and mess-ups is our addiction to our own autonomy or self-rule.  This is the taproot sin of which all the others are just the fruit.  We are helplessly guilty before a holy God and helplessly enslaved to our waywardness and we prefer it this way although at times the consequences of our rebellion break into our lives with devastating effects. 

God is under no moral obligation to remedy our sinful guilt or bondage.  Yet the only way anyone is rescued from the total depravity and the total inability due to sin is by the sovereign grace of God.  In fact if we have any degree of sensitivity to just how lost we are as slaves to our passions and pride we would yearn for God’s mercy.  Yet even such a yearning comes only as God graciously brings us to the end of ourselves and convicts us of our guilt and bondage to sin.  So the question we need to consider is a simple one: who saves sinners?  Is salvation a joint work where God does his part by sending his Son to die on the cross to make salvation possible and we do our part by responding in faith?  Many sincere Christians hold this view but it begs these questions.  How can those in bondage to sin liberate themselves?  How can those who are dead in trespasses and sins make themselves come to life?  How can those who are blind make themselves see, or deaf make themselves hear or lame make themselves walk?

The Bible teaches that salvation is wholly and solely the work of the Triune God and that this work of salvation is from start to finish accomplished by his powerful and unmerited grace and it has its origin in the eternal purpose of God to elect a people in Christ and predestine them to become his adopted sons and daughters thus delivering them from the guilt and bondage of sin.   We see this in the two major texts that teach this doctrine: Ephesians 1:3-14 and Romans 9:1-24. 

The Bible’s teaching on election has been called unconditional election.  What this means is that God’s choice of who of Adam’s fallen race he would save is not conditioned by anything within the them.  The elect are just as lost in their sin as the non-elect.  They are just as deserving of condemnation and just as enslaved to their addiction to their own autonomy.  In fact many of the elect are, at least on a human level, worse sinners apart from grace than the non-elect.   God’s choice on whom he will have mercy and who he will harden – i.e. let them stay in their bondage to sin and its guilt – is rooted in God’s sovereign purpose to bring glory to his name in both the vessels of mercy and in the vessels of wrath (Romans 9:19-24). 

Now some would affirm that the Bible does teach the doctrine of election but deny that the Bible teaches unconditional election.  Based on a passage like Romans 8:29 – “Those whom God foreknew, he also predestined” – they would stress that God’s work of election is based on God foreknowing who would respond in faith to the Gospel.  God elects to salvation those who accept the Gospel.

Yet what God is said to “foreknow” is not the response of those he predestined but the persons he predestined.  It is not the action of the person but the person that God foreknew.  Certainly God foreknows what a person will do or not do.  Yet this is not what “foreknew” means in this text.    Based on texts like Galatians 4:9; Psalm 1:6; Jeremiah 1:5 and others, the Bible’s teaching on the concept of God’s foreknowledge when applied to people is a synonym for election.  The idea really is that of God fore-loving or loving beforehand those he predestines to eternal life.  This is reflected well in a passage like Ephesians 1:4-5, “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ.” 

God’s election is unconditional.  It is based in his free and sovereign grace and not upon anything that comes from us.  God’s election is not based on his foreknowledge of our faith in Christ.  Certainly, his election is not based on anyone’s moral goodness or intellectual prowess.  We are all lost in our sins – enslaved to our passions and pride.  So election is unconditional and rests solely upon God’s own purpose and grace.

Having stated the doctrine it must also be said that many have taken a wrong turn with it.  This doctrine must never be separated from the Gospel.  Here is what this means.

1.       The Bible’s teaching on election by grace must never be used to undermine the Bible’s clear teaching on passionate evangelism or prayer for the lost.  Rather when understood it gives us every incentive to be deliberate in sharing the gospel and confident that by God’s grace there will indeed be fruit from our prayers and labors. 

2.       The Bible’s teaching on election by grace must always be set side by side with the Bible’s teaching on the free offer of the Gospel.  Since the number of the elect and non-elect is kept from us and God does not place a mark on people’s foreheads, we are called to freely offer the Gospel to all without respect to election or non election.   

3.       The warrant or reason to believe the Gospel is not based on one having to ascertain his or her election.  Rather the warrant to believe the Gospel is everyone’s need for the Gospel.  The Gospel invitation (Isaiah 55; Matthew 11:28; John 3:16; 5:35-37; Acts 16:20) is made to sinners.  It is for those who need Christ and all without exception do.  In fact all are commanded to repent and to believe the Gospel. 

4.       This means that if you are convicted of your need for Christ and want him to be your savior you may indeed come to Christ and he will not turn you away.  All you need do is see your sin, confess such to him and tell him that you believe that his word is true and that he came for sinners and he will not turn sinners who come to him away.  This is the only way you will discover your election!

5.       The caricature of election by opponents of the teaching, as well as, the way some who accept the doctrine have mishandled it give the impression that there are many who want to come to Christ but cannot because they are not of the elect and there are others who don’t want to come to Christ but since they are elect they will come even against their wishes.  This is not the case at all.  All those who indeed want to come to Christ may.  He will not cast anyone away from him who wants to come.  Likewise those who don’t want to come to Christ will not be forced against their will to come. 

Those of you who have believed on Jesus Christ as your redeemer from the guilt and bondage of sin – continue to look to Christ.  Hold fast your faith in him and make every effort to make your calling and election sure by a life of faithful obedience and endurance.  Genuine saving faith holds Christ continually precious to the soul and grows in assurance and in obedience.  This is how we make our calling and election sure.  Don’t presume that you possess Christ based on a mere decision but rather make sure your faith is alive in you and that Christ is most precious to you – give evidence of this in humble obedience to His Word.

For you who have not yielded to Jesus.  I urge you to hear the offer He makes to you even now.  Jesus came not for the well-adjusted or those who wrongly think they are okay and have no need of God.  Jesus came for those who know they are damaged goods (and everyone truly is).  If you are convicted of the deeper sin of your addiction to your own self-rule and are troubled by this as the root cause of all your other flaws and sins – the good news is that Christ welcomes you and will indeed rescue you from the guilt of your sins and your bondage to sin.   He said “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”  This is a certain and clear promise from the Lord Jesus Christ addressed to all people without distinction or exception.  It is the offer of the Gospel!  

Repudiating the Flesh to Gain Christ

"Followme" by Brent Nelson

Musings on Philippians 3:4-8

The “flesh” is one of those words that the New Testament uses (this is especially true of the Apostle Paul) that needs some explanation.   The Old Covenant sign of circumcision was in reality a cutting away of a portion of a male child’s flesh.  The Lord had given this sign to Abraham.  It was the sign of the special relationship or covenant that the descendants of Abraham had with Jehovah.  It marked them as his special covenant people.   Yet it in itself was never intended to become the source of their confidence of acceptability with God.   It was to be a reminder of the fact that as God’s chosen people they were to live out this relationship with the appropriate heart-response.   Moses reminded them of this in Deuteronomy 10:15-16. 15 “The LORD delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.”

God’s election of Israel was not due to anything within them.   The Lord’s delight in them was for the sake of loving them.  Such love called for a response.  They were to circumcise the foreskin of their hearts and be stiff-necked no longer.  Later in Deuteronomy 30:6 Moses says that the Lord will circumcise their hearts so that they will love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul that they might live (see also Jeremiah 4:4).   What happened over the course of time is that many of Abraham’s descendants began to depend upon their circumcision (and hence their ancestry and the very fact that God had given them the Law of Moses) as a mark of superiority to others and acceptance with God.   They in essence began to place confidence in the flesh i.e. in their circumcision.   Rather than see how far their hearts really were from what circumcision meant and cry out to God for a greater kind of circumcision that only God could give, they began to pride themselves on what they had and did.   The phrase “the flesh” in Paul’s writings became a way of describing human prowess and strength set over against God’s prowess and strength, which sinful and fallen people truly needed.  This prowess and strength of God is His grace given to sinful, weak, proud and self-centered people through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Since this wrong understanding of circumcision promoted human pride it reflected a sinful and twisted self-focus.  So Paul uses the idea of the flesh to underscore our self-centeredness over against what we should be and that is God-centered.  The flesh not only was to be seen in what we wrongly placed our confidence but also in what we wrongly desired and wanted.  So the New Testament speaks of the desires or lusts of the flesh (Galatians 5:6; 2 Peter 2:10; 1 John 2:16).   The flesh therefore describes all human pride and passion that is self-focused and hence cut off from where our proper focus is to be and that is in God.  This is where we find ourselves.  We are dependent upon, in pursuit of, holding to and coddling the flesh.  This is first and foremost offensive to God.  He sets Himself in all his holiness and glory against our self-centeredness.  This is an offense to His glory.  He alone is worthy of such a focus from us his creatures.  Secondly, our love affair with self – the flesh - brings only death.   The greatest judgment in this life that we can experience is when God allows the flesh to work for us.  It is a severe judgment when He allows our broken cisterns to leak slowly rather than rapidly (see Jeremiah 2:12-13).  It is a terrible but just judgment when he gives us over to what our flesh wants.  Yet to remain self-focused will bring one to eternal loss before the judgment seat of Christ.  This is what Jesus meant when he said, “that whoever seeks to save his life will lose it.  For what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and is himself lost?”  (See Matthew 16:20-28; Mark 8:30-9:1 and Luke 9:21-27)

Paul tells us here that there was a time in his life that he too had confidence in the flesh.  He saw his race, family, social status, attainment and accomplishment as what made him find approval in the eyes of others and what he thought also secured him God’s approval.  These things were not in themselves bad or necessarily wrong.  Rather it was how Paul viewed them in his heart and mind that was wrong for it promoted his pride and fostered his self-centeredness.  It offended God (although he thought just the opposite).  Yet Paul’s heart needed to be circumcised if his love affair with the flesh was to end.  It was the esteem and value Paul placed on the flesh that had to change.  He saw these issues as gain for his ego and he was not going to give them up for something he saw to be of less or even equal value. 

The truth that we need grace to see is that God is the only reality that is inherently valuable.   Due to our intrinsic self-centeredness we are blind to this glorious truth.  We fail to see that God as the fountain of living waters is infinitely more precious than any number of our broken cisterns.  We are fools devoted to our feeble self-centered and autonomous focus!  The Gospel’s message is that God graciously offers Himself to undeserving broken cistern drinkers in the Person of His Son the Lord Jesus Christ.  What is even more astounding is that for God to do this and remain true to His holiness and glory His Son took upon himself human flesh to die in the place of sinners fulfilling God’s law that all who sin must die.  How wonderfully valuable and rich is God’s offer to us in Christ.  Yet to embrace this offer we must see it to be infinitely more valuable than our self-centered treasures.  We must see that all that we think is gain apart from Christ is really worthless.  Our attachment, dependence upon, desire for this earthly existence must be seen as utterly worthless.  Yet the only way this will happen is if we begin to see that knowing Christ far exceeds all the fleshly trinkets, baubles, badges and tin cups that we have amassed and secured in the treasure chest of our hearts. 

In order to gain Christ you must repudiate the flesh.  This is not hard to do if you see that knowing Christ is gain and that holding on to the flesh and its allies is in fact worthless refuse or dung.   To be justified before God a person must come to see that all that he has depended upon and desired that reinforced his self-centeredness has to be considered loss for the sake of gaining and knowing Christ.  Saving faith sees the superior and inherent worth of having a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Yet such faith continues to see this and continues to hold Christ as valuable and precious in contrast to all things that would tempt us to embrace them and once again secure a sinful self-focus and preoccupation.   As followers of Jesus Christ we need to continue to esteem the wonderful reality of our knowing Him so that we might continue to honor Him and in so doing overcome the pull and tug of the flesh. The Apostle John describes this self-centered focus as our twisted love affair with this world and life that consists of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and pride in what earthly stuff we possess. May we repudiate all of this to gain all of Christ!

The Problem with Valuing Moral Values

Some musings on Romans 2:17-29

The more I consider the political and cultural landscape of our country the more concerned I become that many professing Christians are confusing the fight for moral or traditional values with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Are we as followers of Jesus Christ to be engaged in what even some Christian leaders are calling the culture wars for “moral values?”  Certainly, the Gospel runs against the grain of our secular and post-modern western culture.  Yet where the lines seem to be increasingly drawn is on the political front where the Red states are viewed as “Christian land” and the Blue states are viewed as “Pagan land.”  Now I know that a great deal of those who would identify themselves as walking with a left leaning gait imbibe a pagan ideology, which is a world view that the Gospel confronts and challenges.  Yet it is biblically naïve to conclude that all those who walk with a right leaning gait are “the righteous in the land” whose values comport with the Gospel simply because they are wear red.  Does not the Gospel of Jesus Christ run against the grain of conservative ideologies and values also? 

Advocating moral values that are not rooted in the grace of God that comes to sinners in Christ is just as antithetical to that grace as is godless secularism.  The solution to liberal ideologies is not the advocacy of generic moral or traditional values.  The solution to both is the Lord Jesus Christ. To rely on one’s esteem of traditional values, moral values or family values can be as godless as atheism or paganism.  What we as professing Christians need to guard our hearts and minds against is to see ourselves as being somehow superior to the liberal elite and the Hollywood media because we hold to the Bible, or to morality or even to Jesus.  We can easily turn Jesus into a political and cultural billboard that declares our moral illumination over our culture and this means that we will have turned our hearts away from Jesus as the savior of sinners of whom we are the chiefs! 

The Jews of Paul’s day saw themselves as the guardians of moral values.  They saw themselves as taking the moral high ground and were thus in a superior position to give guidance to those poor liberals of Greece and Rome!  Yet in their pride they were failing to see that simply possessing God’s Law and having circumcision did not make them culturally or morally right.  In fact what Paul is saying is that unless in themselves they could obey all God’s Law then relying on the Law and circumcision put them on equal footing with all the Pagan Gentiles who had neither.  What seems so similar between the moral party of Paul’s day and many today, who are waving the flag of moral values is this air of superiority and pride that comes across in the public square of cultural discourse.   Now the problem with the conservatives of Paul’s day and many today is not in their valuing of the teaching of God’s Law, nor even in the particular traditions that are valued.  Rather the problem lies in the failure to understand the problem of the human heart and how all men and women are sinners in need of God’s grace.  This is the message of the Gospel.  Even we who value God’s Law cannot keep it in our own strength.  We need God’s grace and the work of the Spirit to give us new hearts.  It is Savior that we should be offering to our culture and not the Law of God for apart from knowing Jesus no one can even come close to keeping those laws.  Ministering to our culture with humility holding out truth and grace is what is needed!

Holding to moral values changes no one’s heart.  Paul said to the conservatives of his day, “Because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth – you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?  You who preach against stealing, do you steal?  You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?  You who abhor idols do you rob temples?  You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?  As it is written” God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”  Generic or even Biblical moral values offered as what will save the culture is not the commission that Jesus gives the church.  The Gospel enters the culture wars not as an ally to either the blue or the red but to the King who said that his kingdom is not of this world.  His Gospel alone is what confronts our culture with life-changing power and hope.