The world is corrupt. We know this. We read our Bibles. All we have to do is look around. If we watch TV for any length of time (a minute?) we see how depraved the world is. But then the Lord peels back a layer and we see, no, it’s WORSE.
Haggai 2:10-14 – “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Ask now the priests for a ruling: ‘If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?'” And the priests answered, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered, “It will become unclean.” Then Haggai said, ” ‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.”
What does this mean? Matthew Henry explains it well. “Many spoiled this good work, by going about it with unholy hearts and hands, and were likely to gain no advantage by it. The sum of these two rules of the law is, that sin is more easily learned from others than holiness. The impurity of their hearts and lives shall make the work of their hands, and all their offerings, unclean before God. The case is the same with us. When employed in any good work, we should watch over ourselves, lest we render it unclean by our corruptions.” –End Matthew Henry
In other words, if you drop a white glove in the mud, the mud doesn’t get glovey.
In this, the end time, we are warned repeatedly to avoid being deceived. Deception is the watchword of the day, along with its brothers, false teaching/prophets, and apostasy. The only sure antidote for being deceived is to stay strong in the basic foundations of our faith: daily prayer, daily Bible study, daily worship- seeking His face by remaining receptive to the Holy Spirit.
The Haggai chapters also contain a phrase the LORD uses several times:
“Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Consider your ways” (1:7).
The word consider is used repeatedly in chapter 2. In the NIV it is “give careful thought.” Considering our ways is always a good thing to do. Falling away always starts subtly, and why not? “For the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.” (Genesis 3:1) He’s not going to grab you and drag you screaming behind the bushes. He’ll start subtly.
Do you have some creeping corruptions that are rendering you unclean? A little mud splatter? A peek at today’s horoscope, perhaps. Hanging with friends who swear, drink, or sleep around. Have you been unable to resist passing along that great piece of gossip? That’s how it starts. And before you know it, your work is unclean. And the more we fail to “give careful thought”, the more we become unclean.
Our uncleanness, (our sin) rubs off on people very easily. The more we fail to ask Jesus to reveal our unholiness to us the more the crafty serpent subtly creeps in, telling us that our unclenness isn’t that much, or isn’t that bad.
Don’t kid yourself that you are persisting with these friends because it’s a chance to witness. The consecrated meat does not consecrate the cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food. Rather, the uncleanness prevails, every time. If you drop a white glove into the mud…the glove does not make the mud white.
Christian, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” (II Timothy 3:1) Give careful thought to your ways, and stay clean in these perilous times!
The ultimate care for us is that God sent His Son, Jesus, to live a sinless life, die on the cross shedding His blood as the sacrifice required, be buried, be resurrected and ascend to the place of honor next to the Father. This process opened the door for humans to repent of sin and go to heaven through Jesus as the door, be justified from our sin, declared righteous. The Father sees a repentant human as having Jesus’ righteousness.
Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, 2 by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
3 For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as [e]to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. (1 Corinthians 15:1-8).
This is the Gospel.
God could have wiped out Adam and Eve when they sinned, but He did not, instead shepherding His lambs throughout the eons of history to culminate in the cross. What grace! What love! What care!
My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:29).
This care is permanent. It is eternal. Who can’t take us from Jesus after we repent and are justified? Who is greater than Jesus to be able to do that? Is there a strong man who can do this? No! This care is not only available, but it is eternal.
Examples of God’s care throughout these eons:
He took care of all the earth’s animals of their kinds, and took care of Noah and his family before, during, and after the terrible deluge.
But God remembered Noah and all the animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. (Genesis 8:1).
Short devotional explaining that God remembering does not mean that God forgot then came to mind. God Remembered Noah
When the Hebrews were wandering in the wilderness, their sandals and clothes didn’t wear out! His care extends from the sustaining of the universe so we can live within it, to the eternality of our souls, down to the minute details of life!
And I have led you in the wilderness for forty years; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. (Deuteronomy 29:5).
The fresh manna appeared every day except Sunday for 40 years. And meat, too.
At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God. (Exodus 16:12b)
He feeds the birds.
EPrata photo
Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? (Matthew 6:26).
Pau’s thorn was a care! God was guarding Paul from becoming conceited.
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2 Corinthians 12:9).
If your circumstances are dire, if you are anxious for the near future, just remember no matter the external conditions, your soul is safe, even your daily care down to the smallest detail is in the Father’s hand. Trust Him.
When a person dies, the eulogy tends to be flowery, and usually leaves out the negative characteristics of a person, and focuses on the positive. We want a dearly departed loved one to be remembered well. We erect gravestones, some larger or more ornate than others. Some of these have simple born-died facts, others have a life verse, motto, or even a flowery description.
“Seventeenth and eighteenth-century stones generally had solemn epitaphs which prompted passers-by to contemplate mortality and the fleeting nature of life on earth.” (Source).
These epitaphs or selected Bible verses on headstones were meant to demonstrate both how the person shepherded his or her life, and to cause those reading the gravestone to think about their own life after death.
“Behold And See As You pass By, As You Are Now So once Was I, As I Am Now So You Must be, Therefore Prepare To Follow Me.”
EPrata photo. “Resting in hope of a glorious resurrection”
An inscription probably from 5th century found in Sicily, reads in translation:
“Here lies Marinna who lived honorably and without blame, and left this world to go to the Lord at the age of 37 years, paying her debt on December 24, but she loved God.” source The Catacombs by Paul Carus.
Many early Christians’ graves were marked simply “without blame.” If you ponder that for a second you realize just how beautiful that is. To be a Christian is to be a person whom God sees as without blame (or spot or blemish- meaning, sin).
Catharine Wilcox, Jan 29, 1824 was laid to rest in Mt. Zion Presbyterian Cemetery. The Inscription and Notes read as follows, “Age 25. w/o Cyprian Wilcox. “She was a Christian” : “In that solemn hour when the last enemy appears, what conquering power like this I know my sins forgiven.” (Source).
In fact, if you look up the word ‘blameless’, you see it is often used in both the Old Testament and the New.
What does it mean to be without blame?
but now He reconciled you in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— Colossians 1:22
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. (Ephesians 1:4)
It doesn’t mean that they were without sin. Only Christ is without sin. It means, “not absolute or faultless perfection (compare Job 9:20; Ec 7:20), but integrity, sincerity, and consistency on the whole, in all relations of life (Ge 6:9; 17:1; Pr 10:9; Mt 5:48). It was the fear of God that kept Job from evil (Pr 8:13).” (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary).
It means that Noah and Job always chose to do good in God’s name, had integrity, and their character was faultless in their constant pursuit of holiness. Satan attributed Job’s character to his prosperity but it was the fear of God that kept Job blameless.
We have the gift of the Holy Spirit to aid us now, so anyone who has repented of sin and is in Jesus is seen by the Father through His Son as blameless, perfectly righteous.
What an incredible shepherding of life to have written on stone that the Christian was blameless in living. They must have borne much fruit to be seen so. Of course the true epitaph occurs in heaven, when we eagerly stand before Jesus upon our arrival and hope to hear those golden words, honey to our hearts,
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter the joy of your master.’ (Matthew 25:21).
How incredible to be ushered into eternal joy, spotless, blameless, all because of the sacrifice of Jesus. He laid down His life, shed His blood as God’s lamb, and was buried. Rising again and ascending to the Father, Christ is and was and always will be blameless. He is the true origin of blamelessness, and we are grateful He ordained His elect to be so, after Him and through Him.
If you’re interested, as I am, lol, in historic cemeteries and gravestones and epitaphs, here are some links that have more information.
And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ —Matthew 4:3
Did satan not know Jesus is the Son of God? Of course satan knew. We see that he and his demons knew this in Luke 4:41,
And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
And we see that the demons knew that Jesus is the Son of God in Mark 5:7,
And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”
And James 2:19 says even the demons believe, and shudder!
Throughout scripture we read that satan knows full well who Jesus is. So why would satan begin his temptation by saying, “IF you are the Son of God…”?
Because he wanted to get Jesus to doubt. Ergo, satan’s is a deceptive skepticism.
Satan himself has no doubt whatsoever that Jesus is the Son of God. However, satan’s issue is that he thinks he can beat Jesus in a contest of wills. Satan believes he can usurp Jesus from His position as King of KINGS and Lord of LORDS. We know satan knows that God is highest, and we read satan’s conviction that God won’t be God on his throne forever, that satan himself will usurp Him. These are the five “I wills” of satan in Isaiah 14:13-15. Satan doesn’t doubt a thing.
Satan isn’t skeptical of God’s existence nor is satan skeptical of who God is. Satan’s scheme is to get US to doubt.
Scripture warns us repeatedly about deception-
fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock… (Acts 20:29)
We picture a fierce wolf with fur standing up and fangs bared. But that is how they are inwardly. If we saw the fierceness in the wolf, we would know he was a wolf. What we see in false teachers is a pleasant demeanor, smiles, apparently helpful and meek. A Joel Osteen, not a Hulk Hogan. The false ones are disguised.
false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:13)
What they bring, however, is philosophy and empty deceit (Colossians 2:8)
Their disguise and pleasant demeanor hides a purposeful destruction-
false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies (2 Peter 2:1).
We see the philosophy and empty deceit in the tactic satan used with Christ, “IF you are the Son of God…”
Sowing doubt is an age-old tactic of satan, and why not? It works. However there has been a shift from false sowers who sow doubt about God’s word, (like Rob Bell) to those who claim to be Christian but sow doubt about God’s existence. (Like the IF:Gathering). It is a significant shift.
Ten years ago Rob Bell made headlines. He was a self-proclaimed ‘Evangelical’ who sowed doubt about the inerrancy of scripture as God’s perfect word. Bell was the perfect ‘Hath God said?’ guy. His method was to ask questions under the guise of sincerely seeking truth but what he was doing was actually sowing doubt and using dishonest skepticism to do it. The following are actual Rob Bell questions from his book Velvet Elvis-
What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and…
“But what if, as you study the origin of the word ‘virgin’ you discover that the word ‘virgin’ in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word ‘virgin’ could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being ‘born of a virgin’ also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?”
And these questions are from his book doubting the existence of hell, Love Wins,
What if heaven is open to all, rather than a select few?
What if hell doesn’t exist at all?
The women of the IF:Gathering, a subject on which I’ve written a three-part series, questions the existence of God. No, these women are not atheists. They are not Wiccans believing in goddess power. They claim to be Christians, and claim to study God’s word, IF He exists, that is. This screen shot is from the latest bible study:
Doubt in a believer happens occasionally. Doubting one’s salvation temporarily is natural. Doubting an interpretation of a doctrine is all right. Doubting that Jesus is the Christ was something even John the Baptist pondered. John the Baptist didn’t doubt the scriptures’ promise that Messiah will come. He doubted for a moment that Jesus was the promised Messiah that had arrived. There is a difference.
No, this is the ignoble doubt of God’s existence. Ignoble because God has shown Himself to all people and those who fail to accept His existence are suppressing that truth in unrighteousness. (Romans 1:18-19)
There is nothing noble about that. It is satan’s assault on our own faith and the baseline truth it rests on: God is One and there is no other. He is real. Believers don’t doubt God’s existence. If you doubt He is real, you’re not a believer. It is not a faith question, then, but a problem of deliberate suppression of the truth that brings wrath.
Believers are held responsible even for sincere or temporary doubts. Elderly Zechariah was rendered mute because of the doubt he voiced when the angel foretold that he and Elizabeth would bear a son. (Luke 1:18-20). And Zechariah was just doubting a one-time prophecy, not God’s existence entirely.
Jesus rebukes us for our doubts, even when they are honest, sincere, and soul-searching. Either harshly as in Matthew 14:31 to Peter, or gently, as in John 20:27-29 to Thomas.
We are told that when we ask for wisdom,
But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:6)
We must not doubt. (Mark 11:23, James 5:15, 1 John 5:14-16).
Dishonest skepticism is not doubt. Don’t confuse the two. Dishonest skepticism emanates from a false worker of iniquity. It is a satanic tactic designed to get you to doubt what you know and thus diminish your faith. Learn the difference and avoid any person, teacher, or organization that institutionalizes either skepticism or doubt.
Today in these times, there are a lot of women ‘teachers’ claiming that the best or only way to show women you value them in church is if they can lead and preach. The two biggest issues with alleged Bible teachers who go false, are that these women either claim direct revelation, or promote usurpation into a pulpit. Those are the two biggies.
History remembers. Revelation’s Jezebel was directly rebuked by the same Jesus she was allegedly hearing from in her false prophecies. I hope that threw cold water onto her sinful prophecies! Anne Hutchinson of the 1600s usurped and brought chaos to the Puritan colony. Beth Moore and Aimee Byrd stirred division in their respective entire denominations (Baptist and Presbyterian) with their prancing and their complaining. When women remain in their roles all goes well. When they don’t, chaos reigns.
There are so many wonderful examples of named women in the Bible who did submit to their roles and as a result the orderly workings of God’s plan proceeded apace, with many souls saved or many brethren edified. Isn’t this what we aim for in life? To glorify God by obeying Him and to love one another as ourselves? Yes!
Was Lydia’s or Martha’s hospitality for nothing? Was Dorcas’ sewing for naught? Was Susannah’s financial support for nothing? Did Anna waste her widowhood? Of course not!
Providentially, I learned of another woman who is engraved on the hearts of many in Baptist history. Martha Wallis of Kettering, England.
Beeby and Martha Wallis were staunch supporters of traveling evangelists, local preachers, and churches. They did all they could to help, including opening their home in Kettering. The Wallis’ were so well known for their hospitality, their home was fondly nicknamed The Gospel Inn. They were faithful members of Andrew Fuller’s church where Mr Beeby was a deacon for 24 years. Mrs Wallis was fully on board with her husband, helping for the last 20 years of hospitable service to those brethren who knocked at their door. Sadly, Mr Beeby departed this life on April 24, 1792.
Widowhood in the 1700s was no easy path. Even though she was still mourning, Mrs. Wallis continued the tradition of opening her home to the brethren for lodging, meetings, and support.
In October of 1792 there was one particular meeting of a local group of pastors that we know the details of to this day. At the prompting of William Carey, 12 pastors, one deacon, and one student, 14 in all, gathered at Wallis home AKA ‘The Gospel Inn’, and were served humbly by Mrs. Wallis, just as she had done these 20 years past for many others.
The group was to discuss how to catalyze the local ministers to support missions abroad. The Carey story is one that books and books written could not finish the glorious story. When William started out, circulating the idea that the Matthew 28 commission was a duty to fulfill in those 1700s times, he was called a “miserable enthusiast”. His group was thought of as “nobodies from nowhere”. Why?
Most of the men assembled led churches of fewer than 25 souls. Their congregations, indeed, the local area itself, was impoverished, illiterate, and ill-equipped to launch a global missions concept. Yet these men were undeterred by their congregation’s circumstances.
Mrs Wallis was undeterred as well, despite the loss of her beloved husband. By that standard, Mrs Wallis was as far as possible from what Jen Wilkin calls “visible leadership”, hosting then retreating so the men could discuss. Joseph Timms, who was a wool-stapler, had just been elected to fill Mr. Wallis’ place as a deacon, and Timms acted in Mrs. Wallis’ stead as official host. Martha Wallis was a nobody behind the nobodies!
Here we read from Carey’s great-grandson Pearce Carey,
“For the evening fellowship and bounty and business the ministers were welcomed, as so often before, into the hospitable home of the Wallis’s, the home that they used to call ‘ Gospel Inn,’ so many preachers having been guests there through the twenty years of its standing. Deacon Beeby Wallis himself had died just a while before : nonetheless his widow gathered them to her table, arranging, it would seem, with Joseph Timms (a wool-stapler) who had just been elected to fill her husband’s place on the Kettering diaconate, to act in her stead as nominal host.”
And what was the fruit of that propitious meeting? Global Missions! It was here the first churches decided to send, here that the organization that became The Baptist Mission Society was born. Here was the desire for faraway souls burst into flames. Here was the commitment to pursue the Great Commission. In a hospitable widow’s living room.
“After this fellowship and bounty they adjourned for the day’s chief business into the cosy lean-to back-parlour. The fire was lit within him, [William Staughton] always said, in Widow Wallis’s back- parlour. So American as-well as British Baptist Missions were in the womb of Kettering that night.” (Source “William Carey“)
How beautiful for a woman to provide a place where matters could be discussed, organized, cemented in the bosoms of men who go forth in loving honor for the Lord!
Mrs. Beeby Wallis continued her support and her hospitality until her death at about 1812. Her will bequeathed £400 to the minister and deacons of the Particular Baptist Congregation; as to £2 10s. to the minister for preaching occasionally in neighbouring villages, £2 10s. in Bibles and hymn books for poor of congregation, £5 to poor of congregation, £4 10s. in repair of Meeting House and residue for minister. (Source). She continued to take care of her people even after death.
The historic Wallis House is now the “Carey Mission House.” A featured attraction is the “Martha Wallis Court,” now a residential facility of the elderly. The room in which fourteen men met, on October 2, 1792, to form the Baptist Missionary Society, still contains the table and chairs they used.
That hospitable house, the Gospel Inn, is a place of honor today, to which many come to view, to see the spot where God moved momentously.
“There gathered thousands in 1842 to hold the first jubilee of modern missions, when commemorative medals were struck. There in 1892 the centenary witnessed a still vaster assemblage.” (Source)
“The little parlor which witnessed the birth of this society was the most honored room in the British Islands, or in any part of Christendom; in it was formed the first society of modern times for spreading the gospel among the heathen, the parent of all the great Protestant missionary societies in existence.” (Source)
The Carey House
engraving of Carey House scanned from ‘The Sunday at Home A Family Magazine for Sabbath Reading” dated 1862
There is a plaque in front. It reads:
“In this house on Octr. 2nd 1792, a meeting was held to form a society for propagating the Gospel among the heathen and £13.2s.6d was contributed for that purpose. Andrew Fuller was elected Secretary and Reynold Hogg Treasurer. William Carey to whose sermon at Nottingham in May of the same year, the movement was due, embarked for India on June 13th 1793. This meeting marks the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society and the inauguration of modern foreign missions.“
Yet millions of single women, (Gladys Aylward), widows (Anna, Martha Wallis), married couples (Prisca and Aquila, Katy and Martin Luther, Susie and Charles Spurgeon), and mothers (Mary, Monica) have helped shape Christianity on this side of the veil and have honored the Lord on the other side. We don’t serve in order to receive a plaque and to be remembered, but the LORD allows honor due those with whom He is pleased in His Son’s name. Mrs Wallis is one of those, her ‘simple’ service celebrated and respected to this day.
No service for the Lord is simple. No service is hidden. No service is lowly. Spiritual strumpets like Beth Moore, Jen Wilkin, Aimee Byrd and others prance around the pulpit stage, demanding to be installed in places where God has not intended, rejecting as useless and lowly the honorable biblical service God set before them. These women forget that on his knees, Jesus washed feet.
Paul wrote 4 epistles while he was in jail, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. Paul was in chains but he exulted that the Gospel was not chained.
Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, (Philippians 1:12).
God is not hindered by the circumstance of Paul’s imprisonment. In fact, God causes or allows everything to occur on the earth, so Paul being in chains was part of His plan. Paul knew the Gospel well enough to know this, and he exulted in Jesus and His Gospel and was humbly confident in the Lord he could be used. Paul’s confidence spread to others,
and that most of the brothers and sisters, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. (Philippians 1:14).
The Gospel goes out to whomever the Lord determines it to go out to, whether an individual or a group, tribe, or nation.
God is not hindered by distances. Paul’s letters reached their destinations whether close by or far afield. (Romans 16:1). So did John’s Revelation even though he was exiled on an island rock.
God is not hindered by poverty. Paul commended the severely impoverished Macedonian church for giving liberally out of their extreme poverty. 2 Corinthians 8:1-4.
God is not hindered by lack of education. Acts 4:13
No matter where you are, who you are, how rich or poor, educated or uneducated, God can and will use you. Pray to Him and ask to be used. It doesn’t matter if it is a great way like Moses and Paul, or a small way invisible or unknown- God knows. His glory is our chief end, and to enjoy Him. What a privilege to be used by God for His glory! Us! Meager and pitiful humans, stumbling along, yet used to further His plan and purpose!
Paul’s amazement and joy over this fairly leaps off the pages of the Bible. Asking to be used, and being used, glorifies God.
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man? A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever. 1 Cor. 10:31; Rom. 11:36; Ps. 73:25-28.
Norman Maclean, in his autobiographical work, A River Runs Through It, shared a memory of his childhood as it pertained to this question. “In between on Sunday afternoons we had to study The Westminster Shorter Catechism for an hour and then recite before we could walk the hills with my father while he unwound between services. But he never asked us more than the first question in the catechism, “What is the chief end of man?” And we answered together so one of us could carry on if the other forgot, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” This always seemed to satisfy him, as indeed such a beautiful answer should have.”
Indeed, it is a beautiful statement. It reminds us of what we were created to do, and that there is true enjoyment in doing it. God, the author and creator of life, created us to worship him, to glorify him in all things! But there is more here. By glorifying God, we find that we actually enjoy him. We find fellowship and communion with our heavenly Father that is eternal in scope. This is our true contentment! Being created to glorify God doesn’t just benefit God (not that God could be enriched or benefit from us!). No, rather, we find that we, the created finite beings, are the ones who benefit infinitely.
IN SONG AND IN PRAISE LET US PROCLAIM TO ALL NATIONS THE MERCY AND THE LOVE OF GOD
Verse:
But when the kindness of God our Saviour and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly– through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7 NASB1995
Song: The love of God is greater far: Written by Frederick Martin Lehman
The love of God is greater far Than tongue or pen can ever tell; It goes beyond the highest star, And reaches to the lowest hell; The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, And pardoned from his sin.
Refrain: Oh, love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure- The saints’ and angels’ song.
When hoary time shall pass away, And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall, When men who here refuse to pray, On rocks and hills and mountains call, God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong; Redeeming grace to Adam’s race- The saints’ and angels’ song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.
Songwriters: Robby Shaffer/Jim Bryson/ Mike Scheuchzer/Nathan Cochran/Bart Millard/Pete Kipley image: pixabay.com/en/tatras-mountains-sky-clouds-haze-2470928/ expression by kaycude 03/23/21 AD
I received this question in my comment section. Here is the question and my answer. I thought it was a good one. See what you think:
Q. I was convicted by the article about gossip, but wondered if you could explain how warning about a person (ie. Beth Moore) is different than gossip. Thank you.
A. Good question. Today’s climate has become so sensitive that anything that is said negatively about another person is screamed to be GOSSIP! (or slander). If warning something negative about a false teacher like Beth Moore is gossip, then Paul gossiped when publicly called out in his letters Alexander, Philetus, Hymenaeus, Demas, Phygelus, and Hermogenes; or John against the Nicolaitans. The instructions in Matthew 18 for church discipline where two go to confront a person in their sin, or if they have to confront the person in front of the church as we are instructed in some cases, would also be gossip.
We are told in Ephesians 5:12-12 Do not participate in the useless deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.
Warning the sisters or sharing with your pastor is one way to expose them.
Let’s understand the terms, first. I found this definition online: “casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.”
Meanwhile, discernment is a conscious effort to consider the right and wrong of a situation based on biblical doctrinal or behavioral standards.
Gossip: “I heard that Susie is having an affair and her husband is considering a divorce!” (unsubstantiated negative news and unnecessary to repeat).
Gossip: “Susie told me she flunked the Bar Exam again!” (substantiated because it came from the primary source, but unnecessary to repeat)
Not Gossip: “Pastor, Elder John confirmed to me he is having an affair and divorcing Susie, and he refused to repent when I and Jim confronted him about it”. (Substantiated and necessary to repeat to proper authority as per 1 Timothy 3:2, Matthew 18).
Not Gossip: “Pastor I need to let you know that John, who has recently come to our church and applied for membership and to serve in Kids Club, has a record of child sexual molestation in another state according to that state’s online sex registry, and he is hiding this fact from you.” Obvious why this substantiated information needs to be repeated to proper authority.
While many people warn others about the dangers of a particular false teacher’s teaching, sermons, Bible studies etc, when we begin warning because of their lifestyle, the claim that someone is gossiping becomes more heated.
Yet we are to watch both life and doctrine. Most of the qualifications for teachers of the faith are behavioral. 1 Timothy 3:1-7 has it as well as Titus 1:5-9. Behavioral standards for youths, women, and slaves are contained in Titus 2, among other places (Proverbs, etc).
Joel Osteen is known for his false teachings of the prosperity gospel, (doctrine) but Mark Driscoll was disqualified mainly due to his unbiblical behavior (behavior).
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2:3-5).
While all gossip is bad, the verse here emphasizes “malicious gossip”. The meaning in Greek is a “false accuser; unjustly criticizing to hurt (malign) and condemn to sever a relationship.” The intention is to hurt another person or to harm a relationship.
Jesus said to test the fruit of the teachers’ lives (Matthew 7:15–20) and this includes behavior- good fruit or bad fruit. Paul urged the Thessalonians to test his fruit in 1 Thessalonians 1:5, saying just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sakes and then in verse 6 Paul urged the congregation to imitate him. His behavioral witness was part of his qualification.
While it is harder to know what kind of men (or women) they prove to be if they are a celebrity Bible teacher and you know them only by online works, it is still possible to make an assessment and to substantiate it (test the fruit). Except, be careful not to spread secondhand news, OR to spread news of a behavior that has happened only once or twice. Be patient, look for a pattern, like the police look for a MO (modus operandi, which means “mode of operating”.)
Mainly, we can test if it’s gossip vs. a warning if the information is true, if the information be substantiated, and if it is necessary to repeat. Warning someone about a false teacher, if that has been substantiated, is necessary. It’s actually commanded. It would be like if the Sheriff came to your neighborhood homes to warn about an escaped convict in the area and gave you the details of his behavior and what he looks like, and you told him that this is gossip and you won’t listen. The sheriff came to you for your protection. It’s the same with discernment, warning about an evildoer outlaw is for your spiritual protection.
Keep the questions coming, I appreciate them. Finally, I thought this was a good link explaining the difference:
Article by Matt Mitchell: The Scriptures do not provide a definition of gossip in one location. Instead, they describe gossip in action and intimately tie it to the character of the people participating in this tantalizing sin. The Bible often uses the word gossip to describe a kind of person more than just a pattern of communication. FMI- What is Gossip? Exposing a Common and Dangerous Sin
Building and curating a home library does not have to cost a fortune. I have a small and limited income but I haunt library book sales, swaps, deals, have a Wish List, and over 15 years I’ve amassed a home library of 1200 books. If you are a homeschooling family or just a reading family, I know the struggle. See this post on Facebook of Charlotte Mason Poetry-
Monopoly, the eternally long board game we all know and love, or hate. Who invented it? What iterations has it undergone since 1903? Here are some Facts about the Monopoly board game
Growing up, I lived next to a large, historic cemetery. I’ve always had a penchant for quietude, and the cemetery was relaxing and quiet. I used to ride my bike up and down the orderly rows, read Nancy Drew under a tree, and occasionally wander among the tombstones and read them. My young mind didn’t really make a connection between death of these people under the ground and my own death someday.
My family owned a string of funeral homes, but of course I was never allowed in the embalming room and I never saw a dead body. I did used to play in the casket room. Those ‘boxes’ were lined with pretty satin and had cute satin pillows in them. But still, those shiny satin lined mahogany boxes and death were not a connection point to me.
EPrata photo
It wasn’t till Pompeii came to Boston that I stared death in the face…and knew death would come for me one day.
In the early 1970s some high schools still offered a classical education. In my Junior and Senior years I took electives such as Shakespeare’s Tragedies and Latin. By my second year of Latin I was in my senior year of high school. It was then that the huge discovery at Pompeii was revealed to the world in the form of the traveling exhibition “Pompeii A.D. 79”.
Boston was only an hour from my school so field trips to that city were common. In 4th grade our class went to Plymouth to see the Mayflower. Boston afforded us Rhode Island students lots of cultural opportunities.
The exhibition “Pompeii A.D. 79” spent a year first in Boston in 1978, then Chicago and Dallas. The traveling exhibit included include wall paintings, mosaics, marble sculptures, pottery, glass, gold and silver jewelry, and something else, something that captured my imagination and brought home death to me like no other. The plaster casts of people and animals contorted in death by the sudden flood of gas and cinders that erupted from Vesuvius on Aug. 24, A.D. 79, as described by the NY Times.
“Pompeii, A.D. 79” at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts reinforces a belief common to nearly all of us: that one day Nature will cry “Enough!” and gobble us up. A sinister fascination attaches therefore to the Roman city of Pompeii, which was swallowed up entirely and without warning on a fine day in August nearly 2,000 years ago. Pompeii on the morning of that day was a combination of Scarsdale and Acapulco: a place where people lived very well in surroundings of sensational natural beauty. By nightfall on that same day it was dead and gone, buried beneath layer upon layer of ash, pumice and volcanic mud: and not until the 1730’s did people try to find out what was underneath.
Rome, Not Pompeii. EPrata photo
I have to say, the New York Times back in the day sure could write well.
As an impressionable and naïve teenager, I looked at those plaster casts of the people who died in contorted positions, in agony, hugging one another or simply dead in the street alone…death stared me in the face. Slapped me silly and laughed in maniacal glee. Whispers of “you, too, someday!” echoed in my spirit.
This was the first time I really started to think about death as a personal thing. Not an abstract thing, not a dad’s business thing. Personal. Like, I may die. At the Pompeii exhibit I was looking at people where death had gobbled them up in an instant! Whoa! Woe!
This notion haunted me for another 25 years, but after a while as the shock of Pompeii wore off I suppressed it (in unrighteousness). It reared its head when a teaching colleague retired but then died quickly of cancer. I pondered the meaning of life. As an adult, other than that one colleague who had died, death was remote to me, so it was easy to suppress the concept.
EPrata photo
It was also easy to suppress the logical next questions- what happens after we die? Where do we go? Why does every culture have a concept of the afterlife, if the afterlife is not real? Is there a God in charge of the afterlife? How does that work? Who does he let in and who gets left out? On what basis?
These I assure you are the questions roaming around in corners of my brain, springing into consciousness once in a while to startle and perplex and honestly, plague me. So it is with every unsaved person. Romans 1:18-19 says it, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
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If a culture does agree there is a god, they make them up. The NYTimes article further explains, in a way that is to this now saved person painful and sad:
They [Pompeiians] also had a great sense of home. Home for them was half in and half out of doors, and it was presided over by household gods of a frisky and convivial kind. Many of those gods are indeed personified in the Boston show as fun people: rakish little figures cast in bronze, they seem to be egging the householder on to enjoy himself while he still can. Even Jupiter at Pompeii was not so much a figure of awe as a convivial chairperson who made the evening seem all too short.
If you have to agree there is a god, make him foolish, make him human-like, above all, make him non-threatening! The Romans 1 verse clearly says the wrath of God abides on all of us who have not come to saving faith. Intuitively, we know this but we suppress it. To salve our conscience, we make gods we can live with.
In His mercy and grace, God delivered to me the faith that saves, knowledge of my sins and the wrath to come. The fact that “God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).
Death WILL gobble me up someday. Not “Nature” with a capital letter, lol. Not “The Universe”. God himself who determines the number of our days, saved and unsaved, will call us to our final place. I am grateful the eternal question about death is finally resolved for me. I will go to Jesus and dwell with Him forever in joy. You can too, if you have repented of your sin and acknowledge Jesus as the Lord.
Haggai 2:10-14 – “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Ask now the priests for a ruling: ‘If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?'” And the priests answered, “No.” Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered, “It will become unclean.” Then Haggai said, ” ‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.”
the-end-time.org 