I greet you all and with good news that He loves us and is waiting to call us, His bride, home to Him soon. He is preparing the place in which we will dwell for all eternity, untainted by sin at last. We will gaze at one another through the spotless lens of the Holy One who redeemed us to Himself, and we will love Him and each other perfectly. His light will shine upon us untainted by clouds, pure as the blazing Light that shines supreme, transcendent, unmatched, our eyes shining as the reflection of His matchless glory. Angels will sing praises to Him and we will join in, love glowing out among all creation in glory. Why He chooses to share Himself with us, I will never know. Why He desires communion with sinful people (made holy), I’ll never understand. But that knowledge and fact only makes me love Him all the more. He saved a wretch like me, and changed me from sinful creature to daughter of God!
I sincerely hope you all are well. If you are not, then I hope that good news of what awaits us revives you, that we have the perfect assurance of the incomparable riches of His grace. His grace is sufficient for me, and if I feel this overwhelmed with it now on earth, what will it be like when I get there? Think on that brethren.
“Beloved, these things are true, these things are noble, these things are just, these things are pure, these things are lovely, these things are of good report, there is virtue and they is praiseworthy—meditate on these things”. (Phil 4:8-9 paraphrased)
God will judge the unrighteous. But we love Jesus and love casts out all fear. Whoever is in Jesus has no fear, because He is GOOD! His promises are true. His mercy endures forever. See these promises-
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; (Lamentations 3:25)
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. (Psalm 27:14)
In that day they will say, Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation. (Isaiah 25:9)
Are you glad in His salvation? We wait, and we love, and we endure, but are we glad? He saved us! The most important Person in the universe who was and is and is to come, came down from his Holy Mountain to serve us, teach us, and save us. He left glory to give us His righteousness so we could dwell with Him in glory. Be glad in it. Even as we wait for the trumpet call, we have more days to rejoice in the hope in us, and to be the light to others in that hope.
This post first appeared on The End Time in September 2011. It’s been slightly edited.
————————————–
Many people believe in a god. If, as people say, ‘a god’ does exist, then it stands to reason He is far above us in ways and thoughts. And if He is far above us in ways and thoughts it stands to reason that He is perfectly holy, just, and wise. For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. (Ephesians 2:14).
It also stands to reason that if He is so far above us, then we are below Him in ways and thoughts and wisdom. We are not equals, that is for sure.
Now, the standout attribute of our God (not ‘a god,’ because He is the only one, of course) is that He is holy. Holiness is described as “A quality of perfection, sinlessness, and inability to sin that is possessed by God alone.”
What is it that makes Him holy and us not holy? Our sin. Sin is anything we think, say, or do that displeases God. It is cosmic treason, as RC Sproul said. It is disobeying His holy Law.
Since we cannot go through life perfect, then we sin, and we displease God. Our sins keep us from having a relationship with Him because He is holy and we are not. Every sin we commit is a brick in a wall between us and Him. If we die with that wall there, it stays there for eternity and we will go to hell and be separated from Him forever. There.we are punished for those sins we had committed while alive on earth.
But He made a way for us, sinful though we are, to have a relationship with Him. He desires communion with His people. The way He made, is through His son Jesus. He said to His Son, (Hebrews 5:5; Psalm 2:7) in effect, ‘I am going to ask you to set aside your divinity, pour yourself into human flesh, and live a life on earth, be accused though you are sinless, and die a terrible death on the cross. You will exhaust all My wrath for sin, being the sacrificial Lamb in the people’s stead. Once your blood is shed, it will pay the debt humanity owes me for their sins and they will be covered.’ Jesus said ‘OK.’
After Jesus died on the cross and was buried, on the third day God made Him come to life again. He ascended and dwells with God in heaven. He welcomes believers home to Him when they die! (Hebrews 1:3) It is simultaneously a beautiful and a horrific plan.
What a person has to do to find faith is to believe that Jesus was and is the son of God, died for our sins, and rose to life again. If you believe that then by default you also believe that you know you’re a sinner and you ask Him to forgive the sins. Because His blood covers you, your confession and belief will enact your pardon. The brick wall will come down. We are justified and regenerated.
Jesus says that once you believe, THEN He makes all the truths of the Bible come alive in your brain. The Bible will no longer be a dry, dusty, incomprehensible book but the Living Word from a Living God who loves us. You know what else He does for us after a you believe? He sends the Holy Spirit to be inside us to help us resist sin and temptation. Oh, we still sin, we’re human after all. But the more we submit to the Spirit’s leading, the less we WANT to sin, and the more He helps us resist it. Like I said, it is a relationship.
For that relationship to begin, you must first understand that you sin. Do you believe this?
How can a person obtain faith? “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.“—Romans 10:17. Charles Spurgeon preached on this topic, “How can I obtain faith?“. Click the link to read the whole sermon. He began with saying this:
It is difficult to make men understand that the salvation of the gospel is not by works but entirely by grace, that it is not presented to men as the reward of their own endeavors, but is given to them freely upon their accepting it by an act of simple faith or trust in Jesus Christ.
That is all there is. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. We obtain faith by grace. It is all His grace given to us.
Faith comes by hearing the Word. “For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14).
Our Christian forebears were fallible men and women, but so are we. And we fool ourselves to simply assume that we would have had the courage to act differently when every societal pressure was pushing one direction. They had blind spots which we see clearly now. But we too have blind spots that our children and grandchildren will speak of with shame.
Greear was specifically speaking of slavery, but his concept applies to theology too. There has never been a time when the fundamentals and the tangential items of the faith were completely settled. During Jesus’ day, His ‘new’ theology, which was really the original theology, was misapplied, misunderstood, and rejected. Even Nicodemus, THE Teacher of Israel, whiffed the concepts of suffering servant/sacrificial atonement/new birth. The Pharisees certainly didn’t get it and at one point even John the Baptist, who’d had the Spirit in him since the womb, asked if Jesus was the one or should they wait for another.
During the Apostolic age, there were many points of theology to be settled, and the succeeding councils during the centuries after to hash them out are testament to the fluid nature of man’s understanding of the Kingdom. Early church fathers were certainly fallible men. Origen’s theology (c. 184-c. 253) was hailed either as the “height of faithful theology or the depth of horrendous error.”
Augustine (354-430) adhered to many theologies that were solid but he clung to many that were not. Hailed as a brilliant thinker, at the same time, his philosophies “also considerably skewed the Christian vision.”
I could go on, but far be it for anyone to think that the faith delivered once for all to the saints is understood widely by all the saints for all time. In every era men struggle with certain elements of it due to their cultural blind spots of the time in which we live.
Jonathan Edwards
By the time of the Reformation, the understanding of the faith delivered once for all to the saints had been polluted beyond saving, and the Puritans started afresh, breaking completely with the Roman Catholic Church.
Suffice to say that the theologians in each era were duly conscientious of their thinking, striving to understand all that is required, and to explain it in ways the common man could understand, too. But they had blind spots, being products of their own generation. This is the way of it. We in this era have blind spots too, being products of our own generation. When we read a modern book, we nod and say, yes, yes, not realizing that the constructs of our own culture and time are blinding us to this or to that. Our grandchildren will look at our books of the millennium na shake their heads at us.
This is why it is important to read the products of the ancient and historical thinkers. We see their blind spots clearly, and we are happily exposed to theology that can and does enhance our understanding of the faith.
But oftentimes the ancients and historical fathers are difficult to read as well. Language changes. When reading Spurgeon, (1834 –1892) his words seem quaint. Backing up a hundred years, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is a bit more difficult. By the time we get to the Puritan John Owen, (1616-1683) his works present comprehension difficulties nearly impossible to overcome. Even the great theologian JI Packer called Owen “cumbersome” and Kris Lundgaard took an hour to read just 8 or so pages of Owen, re-reading sentences three and four times and using a dictionary to look up certain words. The common man who finds these hurdles insurmountable miss out on great thinkers and founding fathers of the past.
What to do?
I have a few tips on how to grapple the ancients and the historical men who’ve contributed mightily to the faith but whose works present difficulties.
I’ve found that pairing books helps. For example, this summer I read John Bunyan’s spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners paired with A Pilgrim Who Made Progress, the Life Story of John Bunyan, by William Deal. I found that Deal’s book offered historical information that helped me understand some of Bunyan’s spiritual choices. That Deal’s book is aimed at the Youth demographic was actually a help.
If you’re interested in Augustine’s Confessions, the biography by Peter Brown is a good pairing. Brown’s treatment of Augustine seems to have become THE standard bio of Augustine since its publication nearly fifty years ago. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography.
Another kind of paring I’ve done is for example, I read Kris Lundgaard’s The Enemy Within paired with John Owen’s Indwelling Sin. Lundgaard’s book is essentially a re-write/Cliff’s Notes to Owen’s towering work. My version of Owen’s book was from the Puritan Paperback series. Where Lundgaard’s is a total re-write using modern examples, the PP series is a slightly edited and slightly modernized version of the original Puritan work. It’s put out by Banner of Truth Trust, an organization, you can, well, trust!
Fra Angelico, The Conversion of St. Augustine
I read Lundgaard on Mondays and the same Owen chapter the next day. I found that Lundgaard’s version helped me prepare my heart and my mind for the depth of the main meal Owen serves up.
Lundgaard also wrote Through the Looking Glass: Reflections on Christ that Change Us as a modernized re-write of Owen’s Glory of Christ, so that could be another pairing.
For Moby Dick, a theological but difficult book, (1851) there are many are study guides online. I used this one as I read the book itself.
For Pilgrim’s Progress, (a 1678 Christian allegory) there are study guides also. I bought The Pilgrim’s Progress Study Guide by Maureen L. Bradley.
The Pilgrim’s Progress, written by John Bunyan over 300 years ago, is one of the most widely-circulated books ever to be published in the English language. In spite of its popularity in the past, many people today are not familiar with this masterpiece. Join Dr. Derek Thomas as he leads a guided tour of this allegorical work, showing that Christians have as much to gain from this book today as they did hundreds of years ago.
The first video is free. The remainder of the series are fee-based.
So, you can pair books with re-writes of books. Or you can pair books with a biography of the author you’re trying to read. You can use a study guide. Go through a teaching series. Buy a Puritan Paperback which is lightly modernized and abridged.
Any way you do it, don’t let the classics languish. There is a multitude of good theology in them we should not lose our connection to. I’ve offered some ways to ease the difficulty so to speak. If you have ideas, please do share them.
During the summer several of our regular Thursday night discussion groups disbanded. In their place, the elders instituted a Tuesday night class going through the first 8 chapters of Romans. It has been a wonderful study. In the hour before the class starts, the elders are also raising up younger men by allowing them to select a short text and teach it to a smaller audience. Though the period is jokingly referred to as The Inferno, the men receive comments and encouragement after, not criticism.
This week, one of the younger guys taught through several texts centering on the concept of Christians being sojourners. That concept is worthy of a lengthier study and I’ll be doing that later this month. But one of the texts he mentioned was from 1 Chronicles 29 and it is beautiful.
To set the context, the Israelites have been repatriated. The building of the temple is commissioned. The kingdom is transitioning Israel from warlike kingship (David) to Solomon and the ongoing worship at the newly built temple. The people had gathered incredible offerings in exultation of this fact.
David’s Prayer
So David blessed the LORD in the sight of all the assembly; and David said, “Blessed are You, O LORD God of Israel our father, forever and ever. “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth;
Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. “Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. “Now therefore, our God, we thank You, and praise Your glorious name.
“But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from You, and from Your hand we have given You.” (1 Chronicles 29:10-14 NASB).
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary says of the 1 Chronicles passage:
10-19. Wherefore David blessed the Lord—This beautiful thanksgiving prayer was the effusion overflowing with gratitude and delight at seeing the warm and widespread interest that was now taken in forwarding the favorite project of his life. Its piety is displayed in the fervor of devotional feeling—in the ascription of all worldly wealth and greatness to God as the giver, in tracing the general readiness in contributing to the influence of His grace, in praying for the continuance of this happy disposition among the people, and in solemnly and earnestly commending the young king and his kingdom to the care and blessing of God.
The fact that God is sovereign, and delivers all that we have, without Him we would have nothing, reminds us of the verse in James 1:17,
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
And Jesus reminded Pontius Pilate that he had no power in himself,
Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. (John 19:1a).
Let our life and prayers be infused with a warm and effusive gratitude for not only the things God has given us (from common grace all the way to salvation and adoption) but a gratitude for being allowed to worship Him in spirit and in truth. What we have to give him, comes from Him. Our tongues to utter prayers, the air filling our lungs, the tithes and offerings from our work, all of which He has given us.
But who am I and who are my people that we should be able to offer as generously as this? Who am I? Indeed, a sinner, redeemed by His grace, and who are the people? a Body of worshiping, forgiven sinners united in knowledge that apart from Him we can do nothing. All that we are and all that we have is from Him. He is GREAT! And worthy to be praised- and thanked.
It’s a hot one, mid-summer in Georgia, and many of my friends and colleagues are out in the world somewhere on their vacations. Though we are only a little past the Fourth of July, the idyllic time at home on summer break from school is rapidly coming to a close. In twenty more days and I will be sitting in a large auditorium with 500 other school system colleagues, listening to an address by our new superintendent, and then heaving myself to my school, changing into scrub clothes and moving furniture to set up the classroom. Though the summer days are surely precious and annually awaited, there is an undeniable eagerness in starting a new school year. It affords me a time to start fresh, work with new children, forge ahead in a new cycle with my teacher, and alternately be challenged and fulfilled each day.
Meanwhile, summer marches on. It’s a fun time of pool noodles, fireflies, sandy flip flops, BBQs, ball games, family, and rest. Here are a few essays I hope you enjoy.
~~~~~Men & Women~~~~~
Here are some good links looking at the current issues of the day through the lens of gender.
Today, we continue to see the Church of Jesus Christ suffering from a lack of manliness. This has been the result of the radical feminist attack as well as the problem of perpetual adolescence that continues to prevent men from rising up and taking lead within the local church. These problems together create added friction over offices, giftedness, and the need for strong leadership. We would do well to remember Paul’s words to the church in Corinth—”act like men.”
If I could only leave five “how-tos” to the next generation of Christian women coming up behind me, ‘how to be an apologist’ would be one of them. The benefit and joy that can come from this work is hard to measure.
~~~~~Wrath of God~~~~~
Here are a couple of links focusing on the wrath of God. I don’t enjoy the wrath but I feel it is a responsibility of every Christian not to cave in to the demands of liberal Christianity never to mention it. It’s real. It already abides on all who are not saved. (Romans 1:18; Matthew 3:7). It looms ahead for all who will not repent. (Luke 21:23; Revelation 6:16).
God is forgiving, gracious, merciful, and loving, but we cannot ignore that He is also the wrathful Judge. God is holy and just and cannot ignore sin. God demands perfect justice and this requires all sin to be punished. The price of sin will be satisfied either in eternity in hell or through Christ’s blood.
So that thus it is, that natural Men are held in the Hand of God over the Pit of Hell; they have deserved the fiery Pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his Anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the Executions of the fierceness of his Wrath in Hell,
~~~~~Resurrection~~~~~
I appreciate DebbieLynne Kespert’s writing. Here she begins a study through 1 Corinthians 15 and the resurrection of believers. As of today, she is up to #8 in the series. Enjoy. According To Scripture: Study #1 On The Resurrection
Yet typical Gospel presentations in today’s evangelical culture virtually ignore the resurrection, instead emphasizing substitutionary atonement. As vital as it is to understand that Jesus died for our sins, however, it’s just as vital to embrace the fact that He has risen from the dead.
I’m always surprised at how many of my Reformed brethren interpret the pertinent passages of the resurrection events such as the coming kingdom symbolically, or replace Israel with the Church. If it please the reader, this is not so.
As noted in a previous article, Revelation 20 has long been considered the clearest and most convincing argument for the eschatology of premillennialism. But in recent years, an increasing number of amillennial voices have insisted that Revelation 20 actually provides more compelling evidence for their own view.
~~~~~Ascension~~~~~
There is lots of focus on the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. But little on His ascension. Just start looking for credible essays on it. You’ll see.
Evangelicalism, properly conceived, has been from the beginning cross and gospel centered. But let us consider this question: does the doctrine of the ascension get minimized or neglected in our evangelical theologizing?
It is plain from Scripture that Jesus’ ascension was a literal, bodily return to heaven. He rose from the ground gradually and visibly, observed by many intent onlookers. As the disciples strained to catch a last glimpse of Jesus, a cloud hid Him from their view, and two angels appeared and promised Christ’s return “in just the same way that you have watched Him go” (Acts 1:11).
The Fourth of July is so fun for a kid. It’s a day when the grownups stay home and we all get to play. For some, that means swimming in the lake or at the beach. For others it means parades and cookouts. For just about everybody it means fireworks.
Our family did lots of different things on the holiday. We spent summers at the Cape. We went to the Park and listened to the Boston Pops. We had pool parties with BBQs. But mainly what I remember is our grandparents’ beach house on the Bay, cousins, and all the uncles leaving to go buy fireworks and returning laughing carrying a huge box. Cherry Bombs and rockets and roman candles, and most delightfully, sparklers.
I loved the sparklers. I’d run up and down the beach waving them as I passed all my other cousins who were doing the same thing.
Is there anything more fun or beautiful than colorful fireworks streaking overhead? Jimmy Buffett has a song called, “The night I painted the sky”.
Independence Day
And all I remember
Was a midnight rainbow
That fell from the sky
As I stand on the beach
I slowly surrender
To the child in me
That can’t say goodbye
The rockets in the air
And the people everywhere
Put away their differences for a while
Oh I am still a child
When it comes to something wild
Oh that was the night
I painted the sky
The prominent memory is the family- nuclear and extended, gathered together on the 4th. Fun, family, eating, family, laughter, family.
There’s some negative reactions these days from Christian conservatives when a person even tiptoes over to the rah-rah America side of things. I unashamedly love my country. Though I love America, I know my ultimate citizenship is in heaven. But the Lord birthed me in 1960 in America and kept me alive throughout these 50 odd years and I can’t complain about His ordination of his time and place for my life. It wasn’t China in 645 BC or Iceland in 1828 or Germany in 1944. It was America, 1960.
I’m glad I live in America. I think it’s a great nation and it has afforded me a good life. My great-grandparents and grandparents, all 4 of them, came (legally) to America. They chose America to immigrate to, and that says something. They raised their kids here and the men fought the wars to protect here and eventually all the Pratas gathered at the beach house and we ran up and down waving sparklers in freedom and in love for our country.
Here in America today people will gather in sidewalks to see parades or in backyards to eat hot dogs or in parks to hear music…whatever you’re doing I hope it’s with family, a structure the Lord ordained as a foundational building block of the nation. And I hope it affords you means to behave in Gospel ways and to speak of the Savior to others. Because we live in America, we can still do that. We can assemble freely and practice our religion freely.
It’s a day that also can remind us that no matter how much we delight in painting the sky with lights, no matter how we enjoy family, eating great food, or just relaxing from our labors, the Country that’s coming in which we will dwell will afford us more peace, more joy, and more light and beauty than we can imagine. We love America, but it will pass away to a better country: the New Jerusalem. Think of today not only of building family, not only as a day to share the Gospel in gatherings, not only as a day off from hard work, but a day that foreshadows the greater Day when our citizenship will be united not around an earthly nation but around perfection in Jesus.
But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? (2 Corinthians 3:7)
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)
There is another kind of face:
Therefore the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come; yet you have the forehead of a whore; you refuse to be ashamed. (Jeremiah 3:3).
and thou hadst a whore’s forehead; was impudent and unconcerned, repented not of sin, or blushed for it, though such judgments were upon them; ~Gill’s Exposition
We gain a bit of context here about the Jeremiah verse, from Ligonier devotional-
This analogy lies behind today’s passage wherein Jeremiah accuses the old covenant community of having “the forehead of a whore” and refusing “to be ashamed” (3:1–3). A harlot can only “work” consistently if she suppresses the shameful feelings that attend her deeds. She must lose all sense of embarrassment and be unable to blush. Israel has a harlot’s forehead, she no longer turns red with shame over her wickedness (6:15). ~Ligonier
So there’s two kinds of faces. The one that glows as it basks in the light and glory of Jesus, and the face that turns away to seek sin, and is so taken by it that it refuses to blush.
John Owen wrote about Indwelling Sin in the Believer, and here in chapter 8 in modernized language he discusses the deceitfulness of sin,
It is always carried on by degrees, little by little, so that the whole design and aim is not revealed at once. … Now, this effect of the deceit of sin is worked upon the mind. The mind or understanding, as we have shown, is the guiding, the conducting faculty of the soul. It goes before — in discerning, judging, and determining — to make the way of moral actions fair and smooth to the will and the affections.
For our faces to glow, as it were, our face must be looking at Jesus, our mind consumed with Him, stirring our affections, convicting us of sin, transforming it to His mind.
When we look away, the deceitfulness of sin will draw us away as James 1:14 KJV says
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
You see the order of things. The temptation comes after he is drawn away. We are drawn away when we look away.
The solution: don’t look away.
Be vigorous in prayer life, stay reading the Word, assemble with the saints regularly, fellowship with believers to whom one can be transparent and accountable, and frequently enough so they will know you.
You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, LORD, do I seek.” (Psalm 27:8)
Nice slow-motion footage of smaller magnets engulfing larger magnets. The self-organization is beautiful to watch…
I love magnets. Don’t you love magnets? I remember in grade school, science lessons where they gave you magnets to experiment with. It was fun and absorbing.
As is this video is absorbing, mesmerizing, actually!
And now for the spiritual twist. As I was watching the little magnets be drawn to the Master Magnet, I was reminded of the verse from John 12:32,
“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
Salvation is like that in the video. The little magnets were minding their own business, at enmity with God, apart from Him. And along comes Jesus, inexorably drawing the ones He has elected since before the foundation of the world, to draw unto His grace, His body, his faith.
“God’s grace is so powerful that it has the capacity to overcome our natural resistance to it.” RC Sproul
Think on that ladies. He sought us, easily overcame our formidable enmity, cleaned us with His righteousness, and is now interceding for us at the throne as we draw ever nearer to Him!
Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25).
There is nothing that will happen to us today that is stronger than that reality.
All that the Father giveth me will come to me. (John 6:37).
Satan tempted Jesus with life, to avoid the cross. (Matthew 16:23).
Jesus resisted it all, answered with the word of God. He remained sinless, never falling into any of satan’s wiles.
He went to the cross, taking all of God’s wrath, dying as a humiliated sacrifice, separated in darkness for hours, “Father why have you forsaken me?” and then He died.
He did this,
Illustration by Chris Powers, fullofeyes.com
The Father resurrected Jesus. He took our wrath because God placed our sin onto Him…He gave us His righteousness, which we could never possess.. Double imputation. (2 Corinthians 5:21).
So He could do this:
Robe of Righteousness, by Lars Justinen
Let us take a moment to praise, honor, and glorify our precious Savior.
This first was published on The End Time in October 2011. It’s a lesson we need more than ever today, 8 years later and the world grows ever more hostile to Christianity and the name of Jesus.
It’s a tough crowd these days, isn’t it? Lots of people are hard of hearing when it comes to Jesus, sin, and things of faith. Atheists and agnostics are heart-hardened, and even more so these days. Liberal Christians are hardened to Jesus, too. They want to stop talking about hell, sin, judgment, and courts, but only speak of love, peace, joy, and freedom. They, and their mouth-pieces, the ACLU and the like, tell Christians to sit down and shut up. Others simply warn, “stop saying that!” But we won’t.
As the cursed world spirals ever downward to its prophesied end, physical illness, cataclysmic wrath events like tornadoes and floods keep happening, spiritual darkness hovers over families, we might be tempted to give up crying out to Jesus for comfort and help. Don’t cease crying out night and day. Persevere in prayer and petition.
Consider Bartimaeus—
[Blind Bartimaeus] began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him here.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.” Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus. And answering him, Jesus said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And the blind man said to Him, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!” And Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” (Mark 10:47-52)
Son of David was a Messianic title. The blind man’s choice to address Jesus that way was an immediate indicator that the blind man knew who Jesus is. His very next comment was a plea for mercy. Sinners know they need mercy, and this blind man knew he was a sinner, and that Jesus could dispense mercy to him.
But the people were shouting loudly for the blind beggar to sit down and shut up. I can just hear them say, “Hush! You’re making a scene“…when the crowd and the noise and the scene around Jesus must have been unlike any other near Jerusalem, ever! And they were telling the blind man to be quiet, over all that noise…that is how inappropriate they thought he was being. But would the blind man be quiet? No. He shouted LOUDER.
Jesus stopped, and He called for them to bring the man to Him. Just as He told the disciples not to shush the children but bring them to Him instead, (Mark 10:14) He ignored the people’s warnings for the man to be quiet and said for him to be brought.
The world will call for evangelical Christians to be quiet and that is precisely the time when the world most needs to hear of sin, and the remedy for it, Jesus. Keep shouting, make a joyful noise, sing, rejoice, make a clamor! We shout redemption! We shout pardon from sin’s judgment! We shout the cross and Him crucified! Told to be quiet, we shout louder! We have the Good News, we see Jesus coming, we call out, take courage, stand up!
“Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zech 9:9)
“O clap your hands, all peoples; Shout to God with the voice of joy.” (Psalm 47:1)
“They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the LORD’s majesty” (Isaiah 24:14)
Recognize the Messiah, son of David, and shout to Him for your own salvation! Your faith will save you.
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