Sometimes we think that when people die outside of Jesus and they earn their final resting place in the fires of hell, they will be sorry. That at least we might have the comfort of knowing they see Jesus for who He really is, see their sin for what it was, and repent. Everyone should bow to Jesus in true repentance, and so, we might be tempted to come up with a fantasy of everyone being sorry and being contrite and repentant in the end.
Will the abuser be sorrowful for his deeds against his family?
Will the molester be repenting for his evil?
Will the serial adulterer be sad for what he did to his wife?
Will the neglectful parent be contrite for their perfidy?
No. They will not.
They will not repent in hell.
But this gives us two lessons.
1. Never underestimate the power of sin.
2. The hell-dwellers’ unrepentance should make us love Jesus for the savior He is. We need a power outside of us to bring us to repentance.
First, what in the Bible tells me they will not repent? Do I even have grounds for saying so? Hell is a very powerful motivator, isn’t it?
First, the Pharisees knew Jesus was from God. Nicodemus said to Jesus that ‘We know you’re from God…” (John 3:2). They personally saw His miracles. For example, no one had ever, in the history of time, been healed of blindness. (John 10:21). Yet they would not repent despite clear proof and sure knowledge of Hades. They saw Jesus for who He is, and refused to repent.
Lazarus’s Rich Man…he lived an expensive life of wealth and comfort. Lazarus the poor man lay at the rich man’s gate begging, with sores. When Lazarus died he went to Abraham’s bosom and a peaceful rest. The Rich Man went to Hades and torment.
Yet the Rich Man kept ordering Abraham to “send” Lazarus topside to perform tasks for him. Even though the situation was explained to the Rich Man, that he’d had his comforts and now Lazarus was receiving his, the Rich Man displayed not an ounce of compassion or generosity for poor Lazarus. He just kept wanting to disturb Lazarus from his rest to go do more stuff for the Rich Man.
In Revelation 16:9, it says,
They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.
They knew the plagues were supernatural and further, they know it was God’s doing. They did not repent. The Tribulation is hell on earth, wrath poured out. What makes anyone think that if someone is removed to a different location, hell under the earth instead of on the earth, that at last they would be sorry?
No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Luke 13:3 above indicates the timeline. Repent, OR perish. The time for repentance is topside. (Not that any person can change locations after death, but even repentance will not be possible, nor remorse.) The Rich Man was only sorry that his brothers might have to come to Hades, but he never said he was remorseful for anything he had done.
1. Never underestimate the power of sin in an unregenerated heart.
Eve and Adam sinned. They personally knew God. They lived in a perfect state of being- emotionally and physically. They sinned.
Lucifer was the most beautiful, the most high angel. He dwelled in glory in close proximity to God. He watched the power of God create the universe. Yet, Lucifer sinned.
Sin is the most powerful force in the universe under God. Sin enslaves. What can enslave a person? Something so powerful you cannot extricate yourself. A force beyond your control or ability to cope. That’s powerful.
Sin kills. That’s powerful.
People underestimate sin’s draw. They dabble. They worship their sin. They succumb to temptation. Sin is powerful.
2. Therefore, hell-dwellers’ unrepentance should make us love Jesus all the more for the Savior He is. Without Him, no one would be saved! We need a power outside of us to bring us to repentance. Grace is MORE powerful!! He chose to save us, despite our unrepentance and our hell-bound trajectory. He saved us with grace, grace, grace. What relief! What joy!
No, repent while you can, While the Light is here, before the darkness comes…while it is day, before the night.
Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7).
So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. (John 12:35)
So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Here is a VERY sobering essay from Banner of Truth:
I’m helping a new believer. She is hungry for the word and wide eyed with wonder at everything being new and shiny. She started watching TV Preachers and we in our local body (I) have the sad job to let her know that not all that glitters in the Christian world is gold. We have to protect the lambs.
I remember the days after my conversion. I thought I was safe and that everything would now and forever be OK. The change in my worldview was immediate, it literally was like scales fell off my eyes. In eternity, it is true that everything will be OK, but there will be a lot of work, struggle, vigilance and not-OK stuff happening until I get there. The church is less safe than I thought and definitely takes vigilance to remain on the upward path of sanctification. Satan and the flesh and the world wants to knock us off our pins. It is our job to help new believers learn how to avoid these traps and pitfalls false teachers lay for us.
One main way satan operates is seeding the church with false teachers. Did you know that every New Testament Book except Philemon has strong warnings about being alert for false teachers and false doctrine? Some books of the NT are entirely devoted to the topic! (Galatians, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, and Jude.)
Since it’s a big topic in the Bible, it should be a big topic for us. We shouldn’t focus on false teaching all the time, after all, the best way to spot a counterfeit is to learn the real thing. Thus, our study is God’s word, not false teachings. However, we do need to hone our discernment. (Hebrews 5:14).
Here are some good essays I’ve read lately that help us to identify false teachers.
The following are 10 signs that the Christian authors you’re following may be subtly teaching unbiblical ideas. I say “subtly” because I think most people would spot a problem immediately if a Christian said they didn’t believe in the Trinity. But it’s just as important to identify when less obvious warning signs—like the following—are present.
Given this obligation, it becomes all the more imperative to be able to identify false teachers when they emerge. Sometimes false teaching originates from outside of the church. Sometimes such teaching originates from within. The New Testament teaches that a more rigorous response is required when it arises within. Thus faithful pastors must learn how to identify and deal with false teachers. But how do we do that?
In my last post, we looked at six characteristics that help us to identify false teachers. In this post, we will consider what pastors and congregations are supposed to do in response to such persons who emerge in their midst.
The articles below are evidentiary findings on today’s most popular “divangelistas” (as well as a few male teachers and ministries in general). Please use them as teaching tools in the spirit of 2 Timothy 2:24-26 to help others understand the false doctrine these people are proclaiming, keeping in mind that the people who follow them most likely simply don’t know they’re following false teachers.
It takes careful discernment to see that the light is really darkness. Paul taught Timothy how to diagnose satanic darkness masquerading as divine light. Here’s how he described the key symptoms that identify those infected with the spiritual disease of false teaching:
In the same way Peter says, “There will be false teachers among you.” Notice the words “among you.” Peter is writing to the church and says, “There will be false prophets among you.” So he is not talking about New Age people on television. He is talking about people in the local church, members of a local congregation.
Luke Wayne at Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. I like this one because he mentions the behavior of a false teacher. It’s not only about doctrine. Examine the teacher’s doctrine AND life. (1 Timothy 4:16).
We can identify a false teacher or a false prophet by examining first and foremost their teaching and secondly their behavior in light of Scripture. If what they are teaching is not consistent with what the Holy Spirit has plainly revealed in Scripture, they are a false teacher and are to be ignored, even if they live extraordinary lives, even if they appear to have supernatural insight, or even if they seem to work great miracles.
We are one body. Help the new believers, our vulnerable lambs, stay in the flock, growing and maturing in healthy ways.
Embedded within Jesus’s lengthy speech on the Day of the Lord, He said,
Remember Lot’s wife. (Luke 17:32)
Remember Lot’s wife – See Genesis 19:26. She looked back – she delayed – perhaps she desired to take something with her, and God made her a monument of his displeasure. Jesus directed his disciples, when they saw the calamities coming upon the Jews, to flee to the mountains, Matthew 24:16. He here charges them to be in haste – not to look back – not to delay – but to escape quickly, and to remember that by delaying the wife of Lot lost her life. ~Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
God does a powerful and magnificent thing by raising up missionaries. He not only regenerates hearts but He establishes some to go to the hard places, live a hard life, and some even to die for His name. The selfish will of the natural man would never do that. The self-sacrificing heart of a regenerated Christian, would.
I think of many woman missionaries who lived and died for His Gospel. One of my favorites is Gladys Aylward, missionary to China. We remember the female missionaries of the 1800s and 1900s who first went places, like Lottie Moon, Amy Carmichael, Annie Jenkins Sallee, Mary Slessor, and Isabel Crawford… among many others.
We might be inclined to even think of them like super-Christians, given extra strength or morality or character, or who were extra spiritual. LOL, they were simply women, with the same sins, tendencies, and foibles as the rest of us.
In fact, you might be surprised to find that some female missionaries may have possessed extra doses of foibles and struggles as they considered the mission field. Some of them may have mixed their motives for going, struggling with the exact same issues we do today- feminism and being conflicted against prescribed gender roles.
After William Carey, missionary to India and considered the Father of Modern Missions, died in 1834, a fervor arose among the faithful. He had founded the Baptist Missionary Society, spent 41 years in India (without a furlough) and raised consciousness among Christians of the need for bringing the Gospel to the nations. Missions exploded.
In addition to the missions movement powerfully springing up in the mid 1800s, in which many Christians desired to go, another powerful movement sprang up too- First Wave Feminism. (1848-1920). Whereas previously, the only credible careers available to women were teaching or nursing, now, many women found that a missionary life afforded them a chance at a fulfilling career and even leadership opportunities on the foreign field that would not have happened back home. The Civil War had helped with that, either with women handling the homestead or the business while the men were gone, or serving in the army itself as doctors. Once bitten by the independence bug, many women found that missions offered similar opportunity to lead an independent life.
In 1834, New York businessman’s wife, Sarah Doremus, heard a sermon about the need for women on the field in China, in order to reach Chinese women. She tried to get an organization going, but it went nowhere. By the time of the Civil War in 1861, there was less opposition to females singly joining men on the foreign mission field. Doremus’s organization was finally founded with success: the Women’s Union Missionary Society.
Let’s look at a few of these missions ladies.
Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Moon (1840-1912) Missionary to China.
One of the earliest and easily the most famous single female missionary, Lottie Moon, seems to have been a relentless advocate for expanded women’s roles, a proto-feminist.
Lottie was indifferent to the Baptist religion of her parents until age 18, when she experienced an awakening during a series of revivals. She then attended Virginia Female Seminary and Albemarle Female Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia graduating in 1861 with the first master of arts degrees awarded to a woman by a southern institution.
Lottie taught at home for a while, but then responded to a call from her sister Edmonia in 1871 who had already been approved for the China mission field and had been there a year. Lottie’s other sister Orianna had previously served in the Confederate Army as a Doctor in the US Civil War.
Foreign missions often encountered an issue of gender. In many nations, only women could reach women. Men counseling or giving the Gospel or interacting in general with women presented a scandalous problem. The teaching career having palled for Lottie, she responded to her sister’s call and went to China to “go out among the millions” as an evangelist. Instead she wound up in the same work-situation as she had been back home, teaching what she termed as “unstudious children” in China and feeling like an oppressed class of single women missionaries.
In an article titled “The Woman’s Question Again,” published in 1883, Lottie wrote:
Can we wonder at the mortal weariness and disgust, the sense of wasted powers and the conviction that her life is a failure, that comes over a woman when, instead of the ever broadening activities that she had planned, she finds herself tied down to the petty work of teaching a few girls?
That was how Lottie viewed women missionaries teaching children on the mission field. It was “petty work.”
Lottie Moon was in fact ardent activist for women’s rights and a tireless supporter for an expanded sphere for women’s evangelistic work, despite what the Bible said women’s roles are to be. Her specific directive from the SBC Missions Board was to teach women, not to plant churches, evangelize, or teach men. Rebelling, Lottie did all three, loudly. She decided that to make a lasting impact she had to reach the men of the community. So she incited curiosity enough so that the men attended her teaching meeting, and Lottie ‘innocently’ said that she was just mainly preaching to women but would not send the men away if they chose to come. That attitude was similar to Beth Moore’s stance a hundred years later,
Being a woman called to leadership within and simultaneously beyond those walls [of an SBC church] was complicated to say the least but I worked within the system. After all, I had no personal aspirations to preach nor was it my aim to teach men. If men showed up in my class, I did not throw them out. I taught. ~Beth Moore
Lottie wrote,
“Simple justice demands that women should have equal rights with men in mission meetings and in the conduct of their work.”
Lottie did receive criticism from both men and women for her opinions, one of which included women entering the missions field in order to do the “largest possible work,” but other women abhorred Lottie’s “disorderly walk” and called for her to stop her “lawless prancing all over the mission lot.” Lottie didn’t.
She found it easier to advance her expanded view of female missionary work on the foreign field. When no men were available to preach, she did. Around 1885 Lottie decided on her own without permission from the home Board, to move to China’s interior, P’ingtu. Her heart was burdened for the many who were ‘groping ignorantly for God,’ and where incidentally there was also less Board oversight.
By 1886, Lottie had completely abandoned the “woman’s work for women” policy that had she had agreed to in order to receive her appointment as a Southern Baptist missionary to China. Her move to P’ingtu accomplished, she had no male protection, no male supervision, and evangelized as she saw fit, experimenting with various methods.
And of her Field Director’s attempts to redirect her efforts toward the call to which she agreed, teaching, she wrote-
“[His plans] would make him, through the Board, dictator not only for life but after he had passed from earthly existence. If that be freedom, give me slavery.”
Forgoing biblical submission, she threatened resignation. Lottie Moon was an egalitarian who did much to erode the SBC’s stance on complementarian roles for men and women. Her rebelliousness resonates to this day.
Lottie remained unmarried to her death. As regards her death, the common story is that Lottie gave away all her money and gave her food to starving Chinese during a famine, dying a board a ship at Kobe Harbor weighing 50 pounds. Other documents indicate Moon suffered from an infection located behind her ear, which the missions doctor theorized had invaded her spinal column and caused dementia. Part of Moon’s end-of-days dementia included fixations on lack of money and refusal to eat.
Lottie Moon was no doubt a lover of the Gospel and a lover of souls, but was also a fearless and relentless advocate for ‘women’s rights’ within the SBC, spending many years fighting the SBC (once on the field), rights that went far outside the bounds of biblical roles.
Mary Slessor 1848-1915. Scottish Missionary to Nigeria. Mary accepted a marriage
Mary Slessor
proposal from a man 30 years her junior, but decided not to marry him when the Board refused to allow him to leave Duke Town, and Mary refused to leave the interior. Mary chose missionary work over marriage, eventually appointed by Britain as Judge in native court, something that would not have happened back in Scotland. However, her impact on local culture was tremendous in a positive way, almost singlehandedly stopping infanticide, killing widows when their husband passes, and the practice of testing who is right by making both drink poison. She was also a noted “eccentric”, pushed into the interior against the Board’s wishes, and chose lone stations as a preference. She is regarded as a hero to this day both in her native Scotland and in Nigeria.
Annie Jenkins Sallee American Missionary to China. First woman to receive a Master’s Degree from Baylor U. in 1899. Married W. Eugene Sallee. Not a single female missionary, but Annie’s marriage was a close call. She resisted mightily. In “‘Women’s Work for Women’: Annie Jenkins Sallee in China” by Amanda Sawyer, we read of Annie’s uncertainty about marriage because it conflicted with her goals to the mission field-
Yet Annie remained uncertain. Though she said she loved Sallee a great deal, she also viewed marriage as a personal defeat. And despite this love, she remained uncertain about fulfilling the station of wife.
From Annie’s diary
I didn’t want to marry for many reasons, I had decided on so much work I was going to do. I feel a single woman can do so much more work than a married one with household cares. I feel I could have more influence with the young unmarried. I never did feel called upon to keep house for a man. I want to be in the work myself. As yet I have not been able to find the great importance and “privilege” as some term it of being a “wife”! It seems to me I’d be cut off from everything and shut up to house-hold cares.
Amanda Sawyer continues,
Marriage represented a giving up of the “feminist spirit” which Annie had so eagerly taken upon herself when she received her master’s degree, traveled to Chicago to be trained as a missionary, and set sail to China.
More from Annie’s diary. Annie related how Eugene pleaded with her:
I’ve told him [Eugene] how it seemed to me my education and all the years of training I had put on myself would be useless. He wouldn’t need it, and I couldn’t use it. It hurts him when I talk this way. He says he knows it is asking me to give up everything for nothing; but he loves me…I have learned such things and had such high ambitions for myself as a single woman that I can’t give all these up just now. I know that Papa says that a woman’s highest possible attainment in this world is to be a wife and mother but oh! I have seen the other side…the taste I had of public work, of the meetings with women, of moving whole audiences, and of helping people make decisions for God, of counciling [sic] with people about their work, and helping the discouraged–has taken a bigger hold on me than I thought and I flinch when I think of merging my own self, identity and all, literally losing right of self and all for him.
My how it hurts my pride. I don’t want to be ‘Mrs.’ Anybody. I don’t like married women as a general rule. … I don’t feel I can get used to being Mrs. S, and really don’t want to. I hate to think I gave up my name.
When Annie did eventually marry, she had the officiant take the word obey out of the vows and replace it with the word help.
(Source God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society By Susan M. Shaw)
It is a fact that God calls some to singleness, and that is OK. However, to choose singleness because there is a greater chance of renown, or of expanding one’s role, or of being independent, is another matter. In that case it would be a mixed motive that we women should be careful to examine before making drastic life decisions, most importantly, of the mission field.
Genesis 3:16 makes that clear that it is within all of us until the glorification to want to rule over a husband. And on top of that there is the general tendency of our sin nature to usurp God’s plan from all quarters, something satan is only too happy to help with. But is developing self or working to push gender boundaries God’s plan for women, or for any of us? We die to self, conforming our identity to Christ’s in a lifetime of submission and sanctification. Is the marriage institution that God created “for nothing” as Annie wrote? Or as Lottie wrote, is teaching girls ‘petty work’? If it is for the Lord, no work is petty. Did Paul deem it petty to make tents?
Any historical person will have had a blending of truth and myth attached to their name. We are all used to the mythologizing that surrounds Lottie Moon or Amy Carmichael (she will be looked at in a separate essay). There’s no doubt that these women mentioned and many others did have the Gospel and souls in mind when they embarked for the mission field. In the 1800s and early 1900s life was rough for these women (as it still is in many places). They endured hardships for the Lord’s name, but some of them also intentionally or perhaps unintentionally used the situation to advance an agenda that was not totally consistent with biblical roles for women.
It’s clear that single female missionaries were not all feminists nor did they all use the field to advance extra-biblical boundaries. The hard life, relentless cultural opposition, and some martyrdoms make it clear that God was first priority. Yet their mixed motives are not out of bounds to examine, nor is it unwarranted to say that the sometimes lack of rigorous oversight may have later incited some of these women to overstep, bowing to a natural tendency to usurp.
As in today’s times, with woman founding organizations, gallivanting the globe for social justice, or heading out on book tours (leaving husband and children behind), and calling it ministry, these subterfuges simply indulge the Genesis 3:16 tendency in women who knowingly or unknowingly want to live a role that seems more attractive to them than “wife”, a moniker that missionary Annie Jenkins Sallee actively chafed at.
This essay is not meant to impugn the good work of these women, but to warn and advise ladies who want to strike out for the mission field, to examine one’s own motives for doing so. It is also a call to examine everything with clear eyes, not to be clouded by mythologizing or romanticizing missions. It’s especially important to be clear-eyed about these more famous missionary women when using them for role models.
Many conferences rally young people to do extraordinary, counter-cultural, radical things for kingdom. High school, college, and seminary students are exhorted to do anything but settle for a predictable, cozy existence. The drumbeat, intentional or not, is risk, run, burn out, and die for Jesus.
“Quietly” does not mean that women are never to utter a word when the church gathers for worship. This would completely contradict what Paul says about women in 1 Corinthians 11, where he tells the women how to pray and prophesy in church. His assumption is that they will pray and prophesy, which means his assumption is that they will speak during church services. We may note that the term for “quietly” in verse 11 is similar to the term for “quiet” in verse 2. When Christians are commanded to pray for a “peaceful and quiet life,” that phrase does not describe a life in which no one talks. It aims rather at a life “without turmoil.”
As a wife, I am designed to help my husband be the best man he can be as he lives out his calling to make disciples. So this means that if I am married, I can be confident that I am following God’s calling when I support my husband in his calling. If you are called to singleness, you are still created to be a helper in a general sense to the body of Christ, but you are also able to maximize your giftedness in a unique, devoted way (1 Cor. 7:32-35). So if you are single, I would encourage you to find a ministry that you love with leaders that you can work under and help.
A dear reader emailed me, dispirited. She said that she had tried to reason with a major Christian publishing company as to the fact that they sell so many books of false teachers, and thus they promote false doctrine. She became discouraged when the Publishing Rep countered her concerns with scripture and dismissed them, politely of course.
She said she felt like “a drop of water against a tsunami.”
I empathized heavily. I think we all feel like that from time to time.
When I was first saved, I remember the headiness of my new worldview. Now everything made sense! I knew why people were evil, why things always went wrong in government, why hope died, why nothing fulfilled my heart! I looked at the church as a glowing city on a hill, the resolution to everything, and a happily ever after.
Then I remember learning that more danger is within the church than out. That every NT book except Philemon warns severely of false teachers, of wolves after lambs, of lions devouring. I learned that I needed to be even more vigilant than I’d thought would have been necessary inside of a church. Actually church didn’t mean safety, it meant danger! I was flabbergasted when I learned just how many false teachers there are, and not just TV preachers, but ones in the church down the street, or even inside my own church! What I thought would be a time of ease after the restlessness of 4 decades of searching for peace, turned into a never-ending battle against my own flesh and against waves of false teaching trying to sweep me away.
Sigh.
Sometimes standing for Jesus means we sometimes do feel like a drop of water against a tsunami, especially when a monolith like a panel of pastors, or a major publishing company, or a mega-church are against your concerns.
I agree, sometimes our work for Jesus to withstand the evil waves of false teaching seem hopeless and pointless. I’ve had my share of difficult conversations too. The same day my reader contacted me, someone came onto a thread I’d done on Beth Moore and asking seemingly harmless questions. I offered scripture, she ignored it. I offered topics of heresies, with scripture, she ignored it. Finally she flatly said “You don’t know what you’re talking about”. All righty then.
Why, oh why, don’t they see the truth through scripture? Because they don’t submit to scripture as authority. At root, false teaching appeals to people because they are making their own gods. The flavor of false teaching they choose matches the sin they refuse to slay inside them. (2 Peter 2:18). If they are greedy, they will like prosperity preaching. If they are prideful, they will like the renown they will receive from Charismatics by giving false prophecies and speaking babbling tongues. And so on.
When we stand for truth, the hearer may or may not listen at that time. She may or may not repent later. In any case, our stand is a tribute to Jesus, demonstrating our own obedience and faith for which He will richly reward. Oh, but how powerful a drop of water can be, when it’s energized by the Spirit.
The listener’s failure to engage along biblical lines or respond to scripture will be on her own head. And that’s out of our hands. Did we try when our conscience was pressed by the Holy Spirit? Good, then we have not committed a sin of omission. (James 4:17).
Either way, they will be judged according to the amount of faith they have been given (Rev 2:23; Romans 12:3); and according to the position they hold. (James 3:1).
It reminds me of Paul, in Acts 18:6,
And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’
In Ezekiel 2:4-5 God told Ezekiel to speak His words to the rebellious House of Israel.
The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ 5 And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.
Not that we are prophets, but the point is, when we speak God’s truth we do so whether they will hear or won’t hear. On the Day when they try to argue, they will have no excuse. (Matthew 7:21-23; Romans 1:20).
Barnes’ Notes says of Paul’s declaration in Acts 18:6-
I am clean – I am not to blame for your destruction. I have done my duty. The gospel had been fairly offered and deliberately rejected; and Paul was not to blame for their ruin, which he saw was coming upon them.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary says of v 18:5,
What that pressure was we happen to know, with singular minuteness and vividness of description, from the apostle himself, in his first Epistles to the Corinthians and Thessalonians (1Co 2:1-5; 1Th 3:1-10). He had come away from Athens, as he remained there, in a depressed and anxious state of mind, having there met, for the first time, with unwilling Gentile ears.
But he kept going. He knew when to cut off a conversation, sometimes we turn to more fertile soils when the Gospel has been rejected, and I mean to include discernment work among the Gospel umbrella. You’re making known ‘this same Jesus’ as in Acts 1:11 who ascended and will return, and letting hearers know they are clinging to a different Jesus.
I know how hard it is to go into a place where more than likely your heartfelt message will be rejected and perhaps you will even be slandered, marginalized, or cut off completely from fellowship, as has happened to some. It’s like knowing you’ll put your face into a buzz saw.
I know the dispiriting feeling when you come up against a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. While the wall may seem tall (or the tsunami wave high) it will fall like the walls at Jericho, either sooner or later.
Persevering honors the Lord in your obedience, it hones your own discernment, it establishes a prayer focus, but it also reveals how deep someone may be in sin.
Take heart. Even Elijah, John the Baptist, Thomas, Moses, and Jeremiah as a few examples, struggled in their ministry, at times saying, ‘what’s the point? They won’t hear me anyway…’
Either way the Lord can say to you, “Well done good and faithful servant.”
Sure, it feels like a drop of water against a tsunami.
Ovid said, “Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
This essay first appeared on The End Time on May, 2011
In a recent John MacArthur sermon, he said, “A well-known scientist named Herbert Spencer died in 1903. He discovered that all reality, all reality, all that exists in the universe can be contained in five categories…time, force, action, space and matter. Herbert Spencer said everything that exists, exists in one of those categories…time, force, action, space and matter.
Now think about that. Time, force, action, space and matter. That is a logical sequence. And then with that in your mind, listen to Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning,” that’s time…”God,” that’s force, “created,” that’s action, “the heavens,” that’s space, “and the earth,” that’s matter. Everything that could be said about everything that exists is said in that first verse.”
Yes, indeed. The Bible is amazing isn’t it? And I share with some glee that the scientist who believes all reality can be found in those five categories was an evolutionist who actually coined the term ‘survival of the fittest’ which Darwin subsequently used. But re-read Genesis 1:1, and you find truth in the five category theory. The Bible is a wonderful book of science.
I am not ashamed of the Bible. I am not ashamed of the Gospel. It is all I need to live on, for it is my bread of life and the fountain of water is rich to slake my thirst. I believe Jesus is God incarnate, lived on earth as a man, died as the only spotless sacrifice there is, was, or will be to pay the penalty God requires for sin. I believe He died and rose again on the third day. I believe He intercedes for us at the right hand of the Father, and will return to judge the earth. I believe He is preparing a place for us called New Jerusalem which is glorious and will be our home forever when He calls us to Him. I believe I am a sinner, not arrogantly believing I am good, or that I merit entry to heaven on my own, or that I never have done, said, or thought a wrong thing, but instead I am sinful to the core. I asked Him to forgive my sins, and He did. I believe Jesus did forgive my sins and I will rule and reign with Him after He calls us to Him. I believe the church age is winding down and I thank Jesus every day for my salvation that I am cleaned from unrighteousness and will be able to dwell with Him in blissful eternity- thanks to His work on the cross. I believe the time is short. I am ready.
I taught kids at church on Wednesday nights. I loved their conversations and their thoughts and their joy. I remember one night, they were asking about Jesus and heaven. They got so excited when they figured out that their friends will be in heaven too. They practically jumped out of their seats when they made the connection that they will actually see Jesus and hang out with Him. They started making plans, clapping their hands … It reminded me of Mark 10:13-16, “suffer the little children to come unto Me, do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Boy, does it ever. Let US be excited, innocent, planning, expectant, too. Are we? We should be!
I become so sad thinking about a similar joy that adults should display when thinking of the “Last Things.” Many adults don’t want to talk about eschatology because it’s “controversial” and “divisive.” It shouldn’t be. Jesus talked about it a lot. The disciples were eager to hear and asked Jesus to explain it. They had a long sit-down. (Matthew 24-25). The last things are not complicated, and in my opinion, are laid out pretty clearly in scripture. In any case, for people who hold opposite interpretations, (and only one can be right) we can and should share in the joy of our eager anticipation of Jesus’s return and our glorified state.
I read this article from Challies, his book review of a Dayton Hartman’s book Jesus Wins:
It’s ironic and more than a little pathetic that a doctrine as glorious and comforting as Christ’s impending return has been a source of such vehement disagreement among Christians.
I do not agree with the author’s premise that we should all return to the common eschatology expressed in the Apostle’s Creed, (which is watered down and amenable to everyone from Catholics to Unitarians to Ecumenical partnerships). Nor do I agree with Hartman that the exact details are unimportant (they are crucial because the details are the difference between hope and fear, AND because the Spirit wrote them down). “Jesus Wins” isn’t enough, not when those details are given to us for a hope and-
so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)
Paul urged the brethren to “stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). The teachings to which he refers are the Gospel, of course, and also the eschatological teachings Paul is reminding them of in 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians.
‘Jesus Wins’, yes, but how? Why? In what manner? Reducing your eschatology to ‘Jesus wins’ is like saying all one needs to know about the Son is that “He died and rose again.” There’s so much more!
Speak of the glories of His victory, diligently study the last things so you will know, and proclaim His last days plans to one and all. Don’t settle for a simplistic ‘Jesus Wins.’ There is so much more to it than that, and all of it glorious. Fight for it!
It is concerning that some churches today don’t take eschatology seriously. The very fact that God has revealed so many details about events to come in both testaments tells us that it is important. At the center of biblical eschatology is the blessed hope of the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13). Not only should we be interested in prophetic events to come, we are also looking for our Savior, with whom we will spend eternity.
An oracle is on the lips of a king; his mouth does not sin in judgment. Proverbs 16:10
And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe. And the Spirit of God came upon him, and he took up his discourse and said, “The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor, the oracle of the man whose eye is opened (Numbers 24:2).
The Lexham Bible Dictionary defines oracle as
A divine message communicated through a human mediator to one or more human recipients.
Wells, S. (2016). Oracle. In The Lexham Bible Dictionary.
So how an oracle different from a prophecy? Technically they both are divine messages delivered from the mind of God to the tongues of man, with intent to proclaim His revelation to a wider audience. God is using a human instrument for His tongue.
However, oracles were usually something that humans sought from God, instead of Him delivering a message unprompted by human inquiry, as usually happened with prophecy. These oracles were specific, someone was seeking an answer to a specific question, rather than the sweeping prophecies given that covered a general time frame. Of course, exceptions to this abound.
Many oracles were sought by kings and leaders for political purposes (“Will I win this battle?”) but the lay-people also sought oracles too. (e.g. 1 Kings 22:1-7)
Since some prophets or seers received compensation for oracles, the tendency was to then deliver favorable oracles to the consumer so the money would keep flowing.
Scholars like Westermann and Sweeney have identified a variety of subgenres for prophetic speech Two subgenres of judgment speech are:
1. oracles against foreign nations, best known from their collections in the major prophets (Isa 13–23; Jer 46–51; Ezek 25–32)
2. the woe oracle, which identifies wrongdoing and announces punishment much like typical judgment speech and is marked by the exclamation “woe” (e.g., Amos 5:18–20; Ezek 16:23). The New Testament also includes woe oracles spoken against individuals or groups (e.g., Luke 10:13; Matt 23:13–36). Wells, S. (2016). Oracle. The Lexham Bible Dictionary.
You might remember the Magic 8 Ball. It was a black ball made of hard plastic that a child could hold in two hands. It had a clear window at the top and you asked it a question, shook the ball, and waited until an icosahedron floated tot he window with a message in it. The answers always disappointed me as a kid. “Try again later,” or “Maybe.” The ancient world was rife with oracle locations. The two most famous were the oracles of Apollo at Delphi and Zeus at Dodona. When seekers arrived and asked the oracle a question, answers that came were often vague. So if you were frustrated as a kid receiving vague answers from the Magic 8 Ball, imagine the seekers at Delphi or Dodona! Yet still, many thousands still came to seek answers from the ‘gods.’
Of course, the only God there is, is Yahweh, and His answers (oracles) are true and specific. Romans 3:2 says
To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God, meaning, the Jews were entrusted to receive messages from God via a human medium, usually a prophet or a priest. How wonderful that He has grafted the Gentiles in, so now we can understand the oracles of God, His word via the Holy Spirit.
When we come back to the New Testament, we see that Christian teachers, functioning as prophets, also spoke the “oracles” of God. Peter said, “Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the oracles of God” (1 Pet. 4:11, NASB). The author of Hebrews also used the word oracles to describe the words of God that had originally been communicated to the believers (Hebrews 5:12). Source: In Holman treasury of key Bible words
A while ago I asked Do You Like or Dislike Podcasts? I’d admitted that my toleration level for any and all auditory stimuli is low, due to my autism. Therefore if I’m going to listen to something I’d rather it be a sermon or soft classical music (very calming).
The title question is a paraphrase from a Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood article which asked the men “Dude, Where’s Your Gravitas?“
Gravitas is a Latin word meaning dignity, seriousness, or solemnity of manner. Bible teachers, speakers, and podcasters are handling the word of God. They are conveying or teaching doctrines or concepts related to theology and its application to Christian living.
Sadly, many podcasts by both men and woman sink into silly behavior from the podcaster, especially when there are two or more hosts, or a host and a guest. There’s so much giggling, laughing, and off-topic, random chats that I usually reach my limit within just a few minutes, and turn it off or move the dial to something more productive. I also think it’s asking a lot of the podcaster to expect busy moms and outside the home working women to devote their limited time listening to their tee-heeing and non-productive repartee.
Quite often when I publish an essay regarding false doctrine brought by a false teacher, I receive angry comments and emails telling me to ‘judge not’ and the like. But strangely, the angrier emails and comments I receive come when I publish an essay urging women to behave biblically. My, how so many women resent being urged to behave like biblical women!
But the Bible demands certain behavior from all of the faithful in every age group. We women, we are told to be a graceful pillar
May our sons in their youth be like plants full grown, our daughters like corner pillars cut for the structure of a palace; (Psalm 144:12).
Pillars, ladies, Not a braying donkey.
A friend sent me a link to an Elisabeth Elliot talk on Youtube. Elliot (1926-2015) was a missionary along with her husband to the unreached group the Auca of eastern Ecuador. After what seemed a successful first few contacts, the Auca massacred her husband and four other missionaries with him. Elliot remained in Ecuador after her husband’s death for two years as missionary to the tribe members who killed her husband. She remained in Ecuador overall until 1963.
Elliot was a popular speaker and author. Many of her talks to women about wifelihood or missionary life were recorded, as the one my friend sent.
Something one notices immediately upon listening to Elliot is her demeanor. She speaks slowly, carefully, soberly. (Titus 2:3,5). I think of someone like Beth Moore, where her speech patterns are so frenetic that when Chris Rosebrough introduces a segment about her he plays “Flight of the Bumblebee”. Or Christine Caine, who, at Passion 2019, yelled a lot and never stopped striding around the stage (in a track suit). A Bible teacher’s demeanor like Elisabeth’s will cause one to stop, listen, and take what is said more seriously because of the gravitas inherent in the woman. She spoke of heavenly things with respect for heaven.
“That is a man of gravitas. There is a solemn weight to the way he carries himself. He believes in truth. He walks in love, joy, passion, and conviction. There’s an undeniable winsome seriousness evident in his character, his words, his thoughts, and his motivations.”
The Bible says of women, Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3-5).
From Strong’s,
reverent in Titus 2:3- means, befitting men, places, actions, or things sacred to God, reverent
self-controlled in Titus 3:5- sṓphrōn makes someone genuinely temperate, i.e. well-balanced from God’s perspective. This root then reflects living in God-defined balance.
The root is the root of “diaphram,” the inner organ (muscle) that regulates physical life, controlling breathing and heart beat.
Example: An opera singer controls the length (quality) of their tones by their diaphragm which even controls the ability to breathe and moderates heartbeat. Hence it regulates (“brings safety”) to the body, keeping it properly controlled.
A gracious woman gets honor, and violent men get riches. (Proverbs 11:16)
The word honor as used in the Proverb here means ‘of a woman’. It’s used elsewhere to indicate- a doe (Nahum 3:4); a precious stone (Proverbs 5:19); of ornaments (Proverbs 17:8; Proverbs 1:9; Proverbs 4:9; Proverbs 3:22.) Source, Strong’s.
One thing that Phil Johnson and Todd Friel remarked upon when discussing a “teaching” clip from Beth Moore was that her demeanor strayed from teaching the Bible with reverence and gravitas, to performance as a stand-up comedian. Dear sister, speaker, podcaster, ladies, if we are blessed with the gift of teaching and undertake that endeavor, do we want to point to ourselves in performance, or do we revere the subject matter enough to speak about our subject with not only skill and clear doctrine, but reverence and self-control?
If women are going to teach on Bible subjects, shouldn’t we act like the Bible says to act?
Just some thoughts. Let me know what you think.
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Further reading/listening
Podcast by The Thankful Homemaker: Cultivating Self-Control. Contains good thoughts on approaching Christian life and holy things with reverence, which includes self-control.
Michelle Lesley and Amy Spreeman are Christian bloggers, speakers, and teachers. They project a demeanor of joy without silliness. Both the theological content and their speaking style are, in my opinion reverent, and self-controlled. Check out their A Word Fitly Spoken podcast here.
Dr. Shelbi Cullen and Kimberly Cummings at The Women’s Hope podcast also speak with a quiet, self-controlled demeanor, respecting the biblical content with proper gravitas.
Not to say that they all speak with grave intonation as one would at a funeral, they speak normally but handle the material from heaven with respect and devoid of fluff, silliness, without random asides and without distractions.
The thread of Christianity from generation to generation depends on a mutual understanding of our important words. Hence the Word of the Week.
Past Words of the Week have included Justification, Transcendence, Immanence, Propitiation, Sanctification, Glorification, Orthodoxy, Heresy, Omniscience, Aseity, and Immutability. I then went to a series examining each of the 9 characteristics of the Fruit of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and on December 29, 2018, wrapped up the Fruit series with Self-Control. Now it’s back to individual words of the week. Last week I chose Angel.
This week the word is EXEGESIS
Exegesis – the study of a particular text of Scripture in order to properly interpret it; the process of understanding a text and making plain its meaning (see 2 Timothy 2:15)
Exegesis is when a person interprets a text based solely on what it says. That is, he extracts out of the text what is there as opposed to reading into it what is not there (Compare with Eisegesis). There are rules to proper exegesis: read the immediate context, related themes, word definitions, etc., that all play a part in properly understanding what something says and does not say.
Ex- means out of. As in excuse, Latin for ‘out of’ and cause, literally, free from a charge.
Expel, ex- meaning out and pellere, to drive.
Excentric (eccentric) out of, and center.
Exegesis: exēgéomai, (Greek) I explain, interpret and ex, out
The author of the exegesis definition immediately above puts to practice the rules for interpretation he’d outlined in the Exegesis essay. He shows how to interpret Matthew 24:40, the famous statement by Jesus about two people in the field and one taken and one left. Most people who do not apply the rules for exegesis interpret that by looking at the surface and thinking it means the rapture. But does it? See for yourself.
the-end-time.org 