STRUCTURING WORSHIP TO ACCOMODATE UNBELIEVERS IS MISGUIDED!!!!

 
R.C. Sproul,

Many have found the life of the church to be irrelevant and boring, and so an effort to meet the needs of these people has driven some radical changes in how we worship God.

Perhaps the most evident model developed over the last half century is that model defined as the “seeker-sensitive model.” Seekers are defined as those people who are unbelievers and are outside of the church but who are searching for meaning and significance to their lives. The good intention of reaching such people with evangelistic techniques that include the reshaping of Sunday morning worship fails to understand some significant truths set forth in Scripture.

In Romans 3, Paul makes abundantly clear that unconverted people do not seek after God….so structuring worship to accommodate unbelievers is misguided because these unbelievers are not seeking after God. Seeking after God begins at conversion, and if we are to structure our worship with a view to seekers, then we must structure it for believers, since only believers are seekers.

When we look at the early church, we see that the Christians of the first century gathered on the Lord’s day, devoting themselves to the study of the apostles’ doctrine, to fellowship, to prayer, and to the breaking of bread (Acts 2:42). This was not an assembly of unbelievers. It was an assembling together of believers. Of course, as our Lord warned, there are always present among believers people who have made false professions of faith. There are always the tares that grow alongside of the wheat (Matt. 13:36–43). But one does not structure the church to meet the felt needs and desires of the tares. The purpose of corporate assembly, which has its roots in the Old Testament, is for the people of God to come together corporately to offer their sacrifices of praise and worship to God. So the first rule of worship is that it be designed for believers to worship God in a way that pleases God. . .

. . .Another erroneous assumption made in the attempt to restructure the nature of worship is that the modern generation has been so changed by cultural and contextual influences — such as the impact of the electronic age upon their lives — that they are no longer susceptible to traditional attempts of being reached by expository preaching. Early in the twentieth century, the liberal preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick pointed out that people were no longer interested in coming to church to hear what some apostle or prophet wrote a couple thousand years ago. Such words and messages were completely irrelevant according to Fosdick, and so the focus of preaching has moved in many cases away from an exposition of the Word of God. We assume this alteration is necessary if we’re to reach the people who have been trapped within the changes of our current culture. The erroneous assumption is that in the last fifty years, the constituent nature of humanity has changed, as if the heart can no longer be reached via the mind. It also assumes that the power of the Word of God has lost its potency, so that we must look elsewhere if we are to find powerful and moving experiences of worship in our church. Though the intentions may be marvelous, the results, I believe, are and will continue to be catastrophic.


taken from: Good Intentions Gone Bad, Tabletalk, October 1st, 2007.

THREE HARD WORDS THAT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE ~ LUKE 15:21 ~

 “You can’t help a liar.”

That was the man’s conclusion based on years of experience with college students. Occasionally he is faced with difficult disciplinary decisions when the young people break the rules of the group. “I’ve dealt with everything you can imagine,” he said. “Every sort of sexual sin. Cheating. Breaking the law. You name it, I’ve seen it.” There is an established set of procedures in place to deal with those who get in trouble. Very often they are able to help the young people make amends and set their lives on a new path.

During our discussion the man made two comments that stayed with me. First, he has learned that lying has almost become a non-issue today. Everyone lies, and they lie all the time. It’s almost as if it’s not a sin to lie anymore. Perhaps it is a sign of postmodern relativism that we have come to accept that lying isn’t wrong. Or perhaps it is just a fulfillment of Romans 3:13, “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” After discussing how people routinely lie to cover up their sin, he offered this conclusion:

You can’t help a liar. You can help anyone struggling with any sort of sin as long as they tell the truth. But you can’t help a liar because you can’t trust anything he says.

The situation is compounded by the fact that when most of us get caught, we confess as little as possible. That’s not a student problem; that’s a human problem. And that leads to the second key point. One sign of true repentance is when “they tell you something you didn’t already know.” If you knew A + B + C, but the person then adds D + E + F, you know their repentance is deeper than just, “I’m sorry I got caught.” True repentance always involves coming clean, and coming clean means owning up to the whole pattern of wrongdoing, not just to the thing you happened to get caught doing. God desires “truth in the inward parts”(Psalm 51:6) or as Eugene Peterson puts it, “truth from the inside out." It is very hard for us to come to this place of total honesty with God and with others. For most of us, it is a continual battle to be transparent in all our dealings, especially when we have sinned because it’s so easy to cover up.

 Lying has almost become a non-issue today

I can’t get one statement out of my mind because it contains so much truth: “You can’t help a liar." As long as a liar is telling lies, you cannot trust anything he says. It’s like the old riddle, “If a liar says he’s telling the truth, can you believe him?" It’s tremendously difficult for any of us to take personal responsibility. We live a culture of victimization, a culture that rewards us for blaming others. You may remember the shooting that took place at Virginia Tech a few years ago. The gunman left a note behind that said, “You made me do this.” That’s an easy way out, isn’t it?

It’s easy when we’ve done wrong to say, “Everyone does it."

Everyone cheats on their spouse.
Everyone yells at their children.
Everyone breaks a promise now and then.
Everyone lies a little bit.
Everyone uses bad language.
Everyone covers up their sin.

Although we live in a society that encourages us to make excuses, most of us don’t need any encouragement. We are born knowing how to pass the buck.

Back to Eden

It all goes back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. The serpent came to Eve and tricked her into eating the fruit. She offered some to Adam and he ate, knowing full well the consequences of his action. Suddenly the world became a very unfriendly place. Fear entered the human heart for the very first time. When Adam and Eve heard God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid. Sin had changed everything. Where once they talked with God freely, now they hid in the forest lest their sin be discovered.

We are born knowing how to pass the buck.

At length God called out to Adam, “Where are you?” Adam answered and said, “I hid because I was naked.” God said, “Who told you that you were naked?” Then the dreaded question: “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

Adam is cornered, caught red-handed, stripped of all his excuses. God knows! Adam does what men usually do. He passes the buck. His answer is a classic form of evasion: “The woman you put here with me-she gave me some fruit from the true, and I ate it” (Genesis  3:12).

Did you get that? “The woman you put here with me." Adam passes the buck twice. First it was the woman. Then it was the womanyou put here. “Lord, it was her fault. She gave me the fruit and so I ate it. What was I supposed to do? Say no and watch her pout all night? And anyway, who put her in the garden? You did! She wasn’t my idea. I’m not complaining, Lord, because she’s beautiful and cute and all that, but I didn’t have this problem when it was just me and the animals.”

Adam passes the buck twice 

And so it goes. The first man, the father of the human race, is also the first one to pass the buck. Make no mistake. The Bible is telling us something significant. It is in our nature to deny our own guilt and to try to shift the blame to others. That’s what Genesis 3:7-12 is all about. It’s no coincidence that the first sin led to the first cover-up. The first disobedience led to the first denial. The first trespassing led to the first buck-passing. 

In the thousands of years since then, nothing has really changed. Human nature is the same. Passing the buck is in our spiritual bloodstream. We do it now because Adam did it back then. He established the pattern:

                        Disobedience which leads to

                                    Guilt which leads to

                                                Shame which leads to

                                                            Fear which leads to

                                                                        Hiding which leads to

                                                                                    Blaming others.

Solomon Says

Let me come to my thesis: It is a fundamental mark of spiritual health to be able to say, I was wrong." Blessed is the man who can say those words because that man is on his way to spiritual health. If you want a verse to go with my thesis, jot down Proverbs 28:13, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

When we sin, we have two options. Option 1 is to conceal it. That means to cover it up, to make excuses, to rationalize, to pass the buck. When that happens, we do not prosper. We go through the internal hell of living with a guilty conscience. In the words of Psalm 32:3, our bones waste away and our strength is sapped. We suffer physically and mentally because we conceal our sins. Nothing works right. 

We must confess and renounce our sins 

Or we can confess our sins and renounce them. Both those words are important. To confess means to own up to what you did. When you confess your sins, you are saying, “Yes, I did it and I know it was wrong.” To renounce your sin means taking steps to break the destructive patterns in your own life. When you renounce your sins, you are saying, “I’ve been walking in the wrong path and now, with God’s help, I’m not going to walk in that path anymore. I’m going to change the direction of my life."

“I Was Wr-r-r-r-r-r-”

Not long ago I spoke for a week of Bible conference at Word of Life Florida. On Wednesday morning I gave this message. Before the service I told the young man overseeing that sound system that I would be speaking on three words: “I was wrong.” He wrote it down and then said, “Those are hard words.”

He’s right.

It is not easy to say “I was wrong.” Most of us would rather do anything than to admit we were wrong. Do you remember how much trouble Fonzie had with this issue on the TV series Happy Days? Fonzie was too cool to ever admit he was wrong. Richie Cunningham would say to him, “Go ahead, admit it, you were wrong.” So Fonzie would go, “I was wr-r-r-r-r-r-r-.” He couldn’t get the word out. So he would end up saying, “I was wr-r-r-r-r-Not right!”

But “not right” is not the same thing as “wrong.” If you’re wrong, you’re wrong. But if you are “not right,” nobody really knows what you are. 

“Not right” is not the same thing as “wrong" 

Sometimes we make our excuses so subtly that we don’t realize what we’re doing. In one of his books, Bruce Larson uses the following example. Let’s say that you are describing an argument you had with your wife. You say, “All I said was, ‘Is your mother coming again?’” Now you don’t have to be an Einstein to figure out that you’re in trouble the moment those words come out of your mouth. 

Whenever we preface something with the four words, “All I said was,” we’ve made a big mistake. Those are four of the most destructive words in the English language. They imply that you are sane, logical and loving and the other person is a nut. When you use those four words, you’re really saying, “It’s not my fault. I don’t have a problem. Somebody else has a problem.”

As long as you continue to say that, you cannot be forgiven.
As long as you say that, your relationships will remain broken.
As long as you say that, you will struggle with bitterness and resentment.

As long as you say that, you will remain locked out of the abundant life Jesus came to provide.

As long as you blame others, your life will remain broken and fragmented. You’ll never know holiness or wholeness or mental and spiritual health.

“I Have Sinned”

In Luke 15:11-32 Jesus told a story about a young man who felt an urge to leave his father’s house. It’s a familiar story, one that has happened in almost every family. This young man asked for his portion of the family estate and left for a distant land. There he squandered his money on wild living. Days passed, then weeks, then months. At last the day came when the young man had spent all his money. Now broke and destitute, he found himself in a desperate place, far from family and friends. Although he was ashamed, he hired on with a farmer who put him to work slopping the hogs. He was so hungry that he found himself ready to eat with the pigs. 

At that precise moment the light turned on in his brain. In a blinding flash, he saw himself and he saw what he had become. Most of all, he saw that it was his own stupidity that had gotten him in such a mess. No longer would he blame his father or criticize his older brother. No longer would he pretend to be something he wasn’t. In that moment of self-revelation, he saw what he had become. He knew that there was only one way back. 

He saw what he had become 

The strange irony of his situation hit him like a ton of bricks. His father’s servants were eating their fill back at home, while he, the master’s son, was living with the pigs. Then he thought to himself, “I’m going to get up and go back home. When I get there, I’m going to say, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired hands.’”

With that, the young man got up, brushed himself off, gathered his things and began making the long journey back home. He was still a long way off when his father spotted him trudging up the dusty road. Before the young man knew what was happening, his father ran to him, threw his arms around him, kissed him and said, “Welcome home, son.”

The son said what he had memorized in the pig pen. “Father, I have sinned against you and against heaven. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

His father ran to meet him 

But the father cut him off. He would hear no more of it. The cry went out, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Find the fattened calf and kill it. Call the neighbors and spread the good news. Tell everyone you see. This son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.”

No More Sleeping With The Pigs

I make one observation and one only. This young man, whom we call the Prodigal Son, turned his whole life around by saying three simple words: “I have sinned.”

He said it while he was still living with the pigs.
He said it while he was still far away from home.
He said it while he was still broke and hungry. 

But those three words turned his life around. 

It is a parable of your life and of mine. When we have sinned, we are so ashamed to find ourselves in the pig pen that we dare not tell anyone where we are. So we try to clean ourselves up, we try to be presentable, we brush our teeth and comb our hair, but we still have pig slop under our fingernails.

Everybody knows we’ve been with the pigs. 

Everyone knows we’ve been with the pigs 

This story is for everyone who is tired of eating with the pigs. If you are ready to go home, I’ve got good news for you. The Father is standing in the road waiting for you. His arms are open wide. He knows where you’ve been, and he is still waiting for you. The only thing that matters is for you to come home. 

That’s what the grace of God is all about. You can come home. You can start over. You can be forgiven. The slate can be wiped clean.You don’t have to live the rest of your life in hiding. You don’t have to live in fear that someone will find you out. You don’t have to eat with the pigs forever. 

It is possible, and it depends on one thing. You have to do what the Prodigal Son did. You have to come to your senses and say, “Father, I have sinned.” When you do, you will find the mercy that Proverbs 28:13 talks about. When you do, you will discover 1 John 1:9 is true. He is faithful. He is just. He will forgive your sin and will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

The Citadel Of Self-Justification

That brings me back to the basic problem. Ever since Adam, we tend to do things when we sin. 

1.We hide.
2.We blame someone else.

Most of us are pretty good at it. We know all the good hiding places and we’ve memorized a thousand excuses. 

Until you come clean, you cannot be forgiven 

Listen carefully. As long as you live that way, you can never be forgiven. Never. Your refusal to own up to your sin means you will live with the burden of your past hanging like a millstone around your neck. 

Through Jesus Christ it is possible to be forgiven. That’s the good news. Now here’s the bad news. As long as you refuse to admit you’ve done anything wrong, you can never be forgiven. Therefore, you will stay like you are right now: unforgiven, unhealthy, fragmented, broken, confused, divided, locked inside the citadel of your own self-justification.

But if you own up to your mistakes, then you can be forgiven. 

Here are three hard words that could change your life: “I was wrong.”

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Let me ask the basic question this way: Are you ready to say, “I was wrong?" I hope the answer is yes. This is where your spiritual journey must begin.

Would you like to be forgiven?
Would you like to see the power of the Holy Spirit released in your life?
Would you like to see God do something miraculous in the relationships that matter most to you?

Are you willing to say the hard words that lead to freedom? If so, the healing can begin right now. 

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that we don’t have to be perfect to come to you. If we had to be perfect, who among us would qualify? They called you the Friend of Sinners. Thank God it is true. You are the friend and we are the sinners. Thank you for taking us in.

I pray now for those who are truly frightened by my words. May they have the courage to say, “I was wrong.” Help those who feel uneasy to yield to the gentle wooing of the Spirit. Speak to each of us and show us the truth so that we might be set free. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

THE UNDIVIDED HEART: ~ PSALM 86:11 ~

“Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name” (Psalm 86:11).

The translators are divided on how to translate this phrase. For instance, the NASB says, "Unite my heart to fear your name." The CEB gives a more general sense, "Make my heart focused only on honoring your name.” Then we have this paraphrase from the ERV, “Help me make worshiping your name the most important thing in my life." Eugene Peterson (MSG) gives us this colorful rendering:

“Put me together, one heart and mind;
    then, undivided, I’ll worship in joyful fear.”

I like that because it sounds like the way I often pray: “Put me together, Lord, because right now my life is scattered in a thousand directions.” Most days my heart doesn’t seem “undivided,” and it certainly feels like it needs some kind of “uniting."So I like this phrase both ways:

“Unite my heart to fear your name.”
"Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.”

The first speaks of my need.
The second speaks of my desire.

Because my heart is so often divided, I need the Lord to unite it somehow so that I might worship him with nothing held back. That is the situation many of us face right now. Our hearts are fragmented because we are pulled in so many directions at once.

Sometimes we treat trinkets as if they were treasure. 

The world around us is no help. Last Sunday our pastor preached on “Trash, Trinkets and Treasures,” in which he commented that sometimes we are enticed by things that turn out to be trash, and sometimes we are distracted by things that are not bad in themselves, but when pursued as the goal of life end up being trinkets, little gaudy baubles that amount to nothing much when you look at them closely.

How hard it is to focus on the treasures of life!
How easy to mistake the trinkets for treasures!

In order to get some practical help in this area, let’s start with a very basic question. What are the marks of a divided heart?

1. Perpetual Ambivalence

It has been said that a narcissist is a person who is unable to commit to anything outside of himself. He flits from one relationship to another, from one job to another, from one friendship to another, from one church to another, from one promise to another, never staying in one place long enough to make anything stick. He’s here today and gone tomorrow. He promises and then makes excuses. He says, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” and then forgets and apologizes later. Or maybe he never remembers at all. He dates one girl after another, never able to pop the question because he’s so easily distracted and because he deeply fears making a commitment that will require him to stay married for the rest of his life.

He’s here today and gone tomorrow.  

As I pondered this situation, a verse came to mind from 1 Chronicles 12, which lists the soldiers who came to David’s aid when he was in Ziklag and later in Hebron. These soldiers from various tribes in Israel realized that even though David was not king over Israel yet, God’s hand was upon him and he was bound to replace Saul sooner or later.

So you have the list of men from Benjamin, Gad, Manasseh, and so on. Perhaps the most famous are the men of Issachar (1 Chronicles 12:32) who “understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Many fine sermons have been preached in praise of these men from one of the lesser-known tribes. Then in the very next verse we find this note about the warriors from the tribe of Zebulon. They are described as

Experienced soldiers prepared for battle with every type of weapon, to help David with undivided loyalty-50,000 (v. 33).

Here you have a great host of trained soldiers who came to David ready to fight. They showed up in full battle gear, shield and spears and bows, ready to go to battle at a moment’s notice. But that is not their finest quality. There is something even better to be said about them. They were men of “undivided loyalty.” The original Hebrew text emphasizes this in an unusual way when it uses the word for “not” and the word “heart” repeated twice.

Not heart and heart.
Not “double-hearted.”

Not partly for Saul and partly for David.
But having made their choice, it was one heart all the time, nothing held back.

Are you “double-hearted"? 

These men said, “David, we are all in. Where you lead, we will follow. Say the word and we will go into battle. We serve at your command-and only at your command.”

Three thousand years after the men of Zebulon came to David, we remember them not for their military prowess (which must have been great) but for their hearts.

They were not “heart and heart.”
They were not “double-hearted.”
They were in all the way.

People with a divided heart can’t talk that way.
They are in and out at the same time.

There is a second characteristic of a divided heart . . .

2. Divided Priorities

In Matthew 13 Jesus told a parable about a man who went out to sow seed. Some fell on the path, some on the stony ground, some among the thorns, and some on the good ground. When Jesus explained the parable, he said that the four soils represented four responses to the message of the kingdom. Let’s focus on the seed sown among the thorns. Here is that part of the parable:

“Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants” (Matthew 13:7).

And this is the explanation:

“The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22)

If you have ever planted a garden, you understand what Jesus is saying. No matter how good the soil may appear from above, weeds lurk just below the surface. If you do not pull them up, they will choke out the seed you have planted.  

Weeds lurk just below the surface. 

Jesus said that some people are like that. They are fence-straddlers. They say “Yes but . . .” when they hear the Word. Maybe they mean business, but they never pull the weeds out of their life. In this parable Jesus mentions two particular kinds of weeds. First, the worries of this life. This refers to any consuming concern in your life that catches all your attention. It could be something that in itself is not bad–such as a genuine concern for your job or your health or your personal financial situation. It could be a relationship that takes up all your waking moments. It could be a family  issue that keeps you tossing and turning at night.

Second, there is the deceitfulness of wealth. Again, we all understand this. Money is addictive. The more you have, the more you want. You’ve probably heard the story of the rich man who when asked when he would stop working so hard, replied, “When I have enough money.” How much is enough? “Just one more dollar.” That is the deceitfulness of riches. And it’s not just a temptation to the rich man. The love of money comes to all of us, seduces us, whispers to us over and over again: “If only you  had a little bit more , you would be happy.”

Money is addictive. 

It’s important to remember that Jesus is not describing “unusual” or “strange” temptations. We all have things that worry us. Several months ago I happened to see the Wednesday night prayer list that our church publishes. It was printed on a legal-size piece of paper. The list of the sick took up one side of the sheet, printed in extremely small type, so small I could hardly read it. So many names, so many needs.

We all face sickness, family crisis, medical issues, financial troubles, marital problems, struggles with our children, disappointments, setbacks, career issues, and periods of doubt and anger and spiritual struggle.

We live in a very fallen world.

No one is exempt from the troubles of life. 

No one is exempt from the troubles of life.
We get sick, our loved ones get sick.
Financial pressures weigh on all of us.
Death knocks on our door sooner or later.

How quickly the “thorns of life” arise to divide our heart and divert our attention. These problems, trials and difficulties can choke out God’s work and leave us spiritually anemic.

There is a third sign of a divided heart . . .

3. Unclear Identity

This follows logically.
When the heart is divided, you won’t know who you really are.

When the heart is divided, you won’t know who you really are. 

You can’t decide what team you’re on.

You don’t know what uniform to put on.
You act single even though you are married.
You have two sets of friends that you keep separate.
You have two vocabularies depending on where you are.
You know how to fit in wherever you happen to be.
You are like the proverbial chameleon, changing your colors so you will always blend in.

Living with a divided heart messes up the mind eventually. When you join the devil’s team, you won’t feel comfortable going back to the Lord’s locker room at halftime. The strange, sad case of the Apostle Peter provides a prime example. On the night before the crucifixion, when Jesus met with his chosen men in the Upper Room, Peter took a look around and wasn’t very impressed with what he saw:

“Lord, I don’t know about these other guys. They look a little weak to me. I wouldn’t count on them if I were you. But don’t worry. You’ve got me. I’m your man. No matter what the rest of them do, I will never betray you. You have my word on it. I’ll never let you down.”

Or more simply put,

“Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you” (Matthew 26:33 NLT).

I’m sure Peter meant it. If you had asked him, I’m sure he would have said, “I know I’m a little rough around the edges, and sometimes I put my foot in my mouth. It’s true I’m a fisherman and not some Torah scholar, but I know my own heart, and I will never desert you, Lord."

When you join the devil’s team, you won’t feel comfortable going back to the Lord’s locker room at halftime.  

But that’s the problem. Peter didn’t know his own heart.
Less than five hours after proclaiming his loyalty, the bold apostle turned to butter.
All it took was a servant girl to bring him down.

When the sordid triple betrayal was over, Peter wept bitterly and went away to be by himself, awash in shame and regret.

Then came Easter morning when the women went to the tomb, little knowing that Jesus had risen from the dead. When they arrived at the tomb early on Sunday morning, an angel announced the good news and instructed them to “go, tell his disciples and Peter”(Mark 16:7). What does that mean-"his disciples and Peter?" Peter’s denial has separated him from the other disciples. No doubt he wondered to himself many times, “What am I now? Am I a traitor or am I a disciple?”

How quickly he fell.
No wonder he is confused.
His divided heart has tripped him up.

That happens when we decide to play for Jesus’ team and for the Devil’s team at the same time.

At some point you’ve got to make up your mind.
Choose a team and stick with it!
Follow Jesus-or don’t!

But stop messing around with most basic commitments of life.

 When You Know Who You Are . . .  

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of teaching the book of Daniel to 120 eager students at Word of Life Bible Institute in Hudson, Florida. Whenever I teach Daniel, I start out in the first session talking a lot about Daniel’s decision not to defile himself with the king’s food.

But I don’t start with Daniel.
I start with a quote from Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard:

“And now with God’s help, I will become myself.”

That leads to a question that is hard to answer:
“Do you know who you are?”
Until you do, you’ll never really know where you fit in.
Once you know who you are, you can fit in anywhere.

Do you know who you are? 

That was the secret to Daniel’s greatness. He knew who he was, even in Babylon, hundreds of miles from Jerusalem, ripped away from his homeland, forcibly marched across the desert to the pagan city of Babylon.

There he was enrolled in a school he did not choose.
Leaning a language that was not his own,
Absorbing a culture both foreign and utterly pagan,
Being trained to serve in the Babylonian court.

Then he was given a pagan name. The name Daniel means “God is my judge,” which tells us that he was raised in a godly home. The Babylonians called him Belteshazzar, which means something like “Bel, protect his life.” It was a prayer to a pagan deity.

To all of these changes he either gave his assent or at least he did not actively protest. In the case of the deportation to Babylon, he had no choice. He and his friends were captured and taken by the Babylonians against their will. When they arrived in Babylon, he and his friends were put in a three-year, all-expenses-paid training program. Without doubt, it was a great honor to be chosen to serve the Babylonian king.

The King always eats well.  

Part of that training involved eating at the king’s table. It would like eating at Buckingham Palace. The king always eats well. They give him the best of the best. So to eat at the king’s table meant the best food, expertly prepared, served with the best wines.

It meant eating well every day.
It was the best the world had to offer.

And Daniel said no.

“But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank” (Daniel 1:8).

The King James version says he “purposed in his heart.”
You can only “purpose in your heart” when you have an undivided heart.

Daniel purposed in his heart.  

You know the rest of the story. Daniel and friends ate water and cereal for ten days. They ended up looking healthier and stronger than those who ate at the king’s table. As a result, they were recognized and rewarded by the king himself (Daniel 1:17-21).

Good story. Happy ending.

One question hangs in the air. Where did Daniel find the strength to say no to the food from the king’s table? My answer is simple. Daniel knew who he was so he knew where to draw the line.

Daniel never forgot who he was and he never forgot where he came from. It was as if he was saying, “I may look Babylonian on the outside, but I’m 100% Jewish on the inside."

Daniel never forgot who he was. 

This teaches us that you can’t corrupt a man from the outside. You can change a culture but not a character. You can change his name but not his nature. Daniel may have looked like a pagan, but on the inside he was a servant of the living God. Even the mighty Nebuchadnezzar could do nothing about that.

We live in a world where biblical values are constantly under attack. We won’t change the world’s way of thinking any time soon.

But will the world change our way of thinking?
That’s the question that hangs in the balance.

When I taught all this to the students, I told them it finally comes down to one great principle:

When you know who you are, you can serve Christ anywhere.

And the reverse is also true: When you are unclear about who you really are, you will struggle to serve Christ anywhere.

A man with a divided heart cannot grasp his true identity.
He will be pulled this way and that.
Under pressure he almost certainly will cave in.

But the man with an undivided heart knows who he is.
Because he knows who he is, he doesn’t have to constantly make decisions.
Once you make up your mind, life becomes simpler (though not always easier).

Years ago I used to watch a preacher on TV who had one signature line that he repeated over and over again:

If you’re going to be a Christian, be one!

That strikes me as excellent advice.
It starts by having an undivided heart.

If you’re going to be a Christian, be one! 

And that brings us back to the beginning, back to Psalm 86:11, “Unite my heart to fear your name” and“Put me together, Lord.” As Spurgeon contemplated this verse, he offered this succinct summary:

A man of divided heart is weak, the man of one object is the man.

The italics are in the original. Sometimes in our conversation, we will say of so-and-so, “He is the man.” We mean he is a man of one purpose, the man we admire and want to follow.

Such a man is the man.

After I shared some of these thoughts at our Men’s Bible study, the Lord seemed to grant us a kind of holy introspection. One man later told his wife, “I’ve got some business to do with the Lord.” Another man said, “I think we all have a divided heart."

That’s why David prayed this prayer.
He looked within and saw his heart pulled in a hundred directions.

So he prayed, “Unite my heart, O Lord.”

We marinate in hate. 

There is no prayer more appropriate and more needed in our day. Every honest man or woman must at times say, “My life is far from what I want it to be."

We run low on love.
We find ourselves distracted, worried and easily confused.
We fall prey to little temptations that lead to bigger ones.
We marinate in hate.
We dawdle in our duties.
We make excuses for every failure.
We find ourselves both disagreeing and disagreeable.
We love the world more than we love God.
We  live in unbelief instead of walking in faith.
We refuse to submit because our pride is at stake.

And so it goes, this struggle of the soul to find rest and peace.
No wonder we are frustrated.

When the heart is not united, nothing works right. Without God, we will be fragmented and torn and pulled and distracted.

A Prayer for a United Heart 

We must do as David did. We must pray, “O Lord, take the scattered fragments of my heart and unite them so that I may praise you.” Only God can do this, but God can do it if we will come to him in humility and sincerity.

The hardest part is coming. Until you admit you need God’s help, you will be stuck exactly where you are.

We must do as David did. 

So here is a prayer that may help us all:

Lord Jesus,
I need to hear these ancient words once again:
Unite my heart to fear your name.

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I am so scattered, Lord.
Pulled in so many directions.
So easily distracted.
How quickly I forget who you are.
How quickly I forget your goodness to me.
Unite my heart, Lord.
Put it back together again.
Refocus my thoughts.
Clarify my purpose.
Grant that I should want you more than anything else.
Thank you for your many gifts, freely given.
Forgive me for loving your gifts more than I love you.
In confessing this I ask for forgiveness in Jesus’ name.
Here is my heart, Lord.
Come in and rearrange things.
Make me new from the inside out.
Thank you for loving me even when I seem to lose my way.

SCRIPTURES REFERENCED

Psalms 86

• God Is So Good!

Matthew 13

• Lessons for Modern-Day Sowers of the Word
• TIME FOR A CHECKUP(article)
• Why I Believe in a Last-Days Worldwide Awakening

1 Chronicles 12

• Calling All Servants
• Ziklag Is Burning!

Daniel 1

• The Four Freshmen: How the World Tries to Seduce the Church
• Dare to be a Daniel
• God Has a Bigger Plan

I love you, Lord. Do your work in me.
Unite my heart to fear your name.
Amen.

You might want to say that prayer aloud. Perhaps you should print it and post it somewhere so you can use it again when you need it.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. 

These lines from Come, Thou Fount speak to our deepest need:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

If the first two lines describe our need, then the last two lines describe our prayer.  May God take our scattered hearts and unite them, seal them by his grace, that we might serve him with joy on earth as one day we will serve him in heaven.

Do it, Lord. Unite our hearts to fear your name. Amen.

AFFIRMING SOLA SCRIPTURA

The authority of God's Word has been under attack since the beginning of time (Gen. 3:1). While it is devastating to see the world, in its hatred and distaste for Christ and His Word, denigrate the Scriptures, it is perhaps more infuriating when such attacks come from those who profess some sort of faith in Christ.

Such attacks may come from seeker-driven pastors who elevate themselves and cultural relevance above God's truth, from liberal pastors who insist that the Bible does not actually mean what it says, or from a massive institution such as the Roman Catholic Church teaching that the words and traditions of men must also hold authority on par with or above that of Scripture. Whatever the assault, God's Word, which contains all truth necessary for spiritual life and matters, must be defended and upheld by those who claim the name of Christ. 

The Bible Speaks to Its Own Authority and Sufficiency

The Bible contains all that one must know about salvation, repentance, forgiveness of sins, God's grace and mercy and His wrath and righteous judgment. It offers all that one needs to know in order to live a life of godliness and obedience to Him. It speaks of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and proclaims Him to be Lord over all things (Eph. 1:21–22). Nothing is greater in authority than the Word of God, and thus all things must be judged and tested for truthfulness in light of the Scripture (Acts 17:11).

Christians believe the Bible because of its own claims. What does Scripture say about its own origin, authority and completeness? 

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. (Ps. 19:7–11)

Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven. (Ps. 119:89)

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Ps. 119:105)

Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine. I have more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have observed Your precepts. (Ps. 119:97–100)

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Pet. 1:19–21)

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:14–17)

Considering especially this last passage, which states beyond doubt that all Scripture literally is God-breathed (θεόπνευστος), and knowing that this Word is sufficient and complete for all spiritual matters, how must one approach the prospect of altering or adding to this Word in any way?

And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. (Deut. 4:1–2)

Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar. (Prov. 30:5–6)

I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. (Rev. 22:18–19)

Trusted Men of Faith Affirm sola Scriptura

The historical, orthodox Christian faith has always affirmed the authority of Scripture alone. One of the battle cries of the Reformation was, of course, sola Scriptura. God's Word is the Christian's sole treasury for all things that pertain to life and godliness. And what a treasure it is! To know that the living, active Word of God may be held, read and proclaimed by those who are His own is indeed a great gift.

How many Christians across the globe cling to just a few pages of this precious Word, while others may have several copies simply gathering dust on the bookshelf? Yet God has given this Word to His children so that it may teach them all that they must know about Him. He has graciously given to His own this great weapon, sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12), that may be wielded as the greatest weapon in this spiritual Truth War which has been ongoing for all ages.

What do some faithful soldiers of the past and present say about this Word and about sola Scriptura?

Charles Spurgeon:

I had sooner have the Word of God at my back than all the armies and navies of all the great powers, aye, than all the forces of nature; for the Word of the Lord is the source of all the power in the universe, and within it there is an infinite supply in reserve. 

(Charles Spurgeon, 'God's Word')

 The Westminster Confession of Faith:

Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men unexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which makes the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.

The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. 

(Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter I,  Section I, IV–VI)

Martin Luther:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience…. May God help me. Amen. 

(Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, 1521)

Dr. John MacArthur:

Scripture is therefore the perfect and only standard of spiritual truth, revealing infallibly all that we must believe in order to be saved, and all that we must do in order to glorify God. That — no more, no less — is what sola Scriptura means.

Is the sum of Scriptural truth a sufficient rule of faith for the Christian? We have the Bible's own assurance that it is. Scripture alone is sufficient to lead us to salvation and fully equip us for life and eternity (2 Tim. 3:15–17). Therefore we may know with certainty that every essential aspect of the apostolic message is included in Scripture.

So the written words of Scripture are binding. Apostolic preaching was equally binding for those who heard it from the apostles' own mouths. Beyond that, Scripture lays no burden on anyone's shoulders. But, thank God, His own Word assures us that Scripture is fully sufficient to bring us to salvation and to equip us spiritually for all that God demands of us. 

No man, no church, no religious authority has any warrant from God to augment the inspired Word of Scripture with additional traditions, or to alter the plain sense of it by subjecting it to the rigors of a "traditional" meaning not found in the Word itself. To do so is clearly to invalidate the Word of God — and we know what our Lord thinks of that (Matt. 15:6–9).

(John MacArthur, The Sufficiency of Scripture)

The Teachings of Rome Seek to Undermine Scripture's Authority

Yet, in spite of Scripture's clear and plain teaching about itself, there are those who seek to undermine its authority in various ways. There is perhaps no deception greater in scope than that perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church as it pertains to the authority of Scripture in the life of the believer. Roman Catholicism unashamedly denigrates the authority of the Word by elevating the erroneous doctrines of men to be equal to the precious and holy Word of God. 

Below are just a few examples of Rome's teaching on the doctrine of Scripture, as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).

Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal. Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own "always, to the close of the age." 

As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."

(CCC, Part One, Section One, Chapter Two, Article 2, II, Paragraph 80, 82) 

It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls. (CCC, Part One, Section One, Chapter Two, Article 2, III, Paragraph 95)

The Roman Catholic Church would have one to believe that Scripture can share its authority with the traditions of men. Yet, what should be done when those traditions stand in direct contradiction with Scripture, as do the teachings of Rome? God's Word demonstrates His attitude toward such an elevation of dangerous and false tradition:

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! (Mark 7:5–9)

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. (Col. 2:8)

Thus, the Christian must turn to the Bible to judge tradition. When such action is taken against the teachings of Rome, those teachings must necessarily be rejected.

In affirming the doctrine of sola Scriptura, the Christian must spurn and even denounce any teaching to the contrary. If God's Word does not possess the sole and final authority in matters of spiritual life, then it cannot be trusted in any capacity. May it never be! May those who love and profess Christ cling to His Word, feast on it daily, and proclaim it without shame.

*Many of the thoughts expressed in this article were gleaned from the following sermon by Pastor Don Green of Truth Community Fellowship: 


Further Reading Doctrine Matters To Those Who Would Undermine the Headship of Christ: Fall on Your Faces Reformation Must Begin in the Pulpit