TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY

from R.C. Sproul

Soli Deo gloria is the motto that grew out of the Protestant Reformation and was used on every composition by Johann Sebastian Bach. He affixed the initials SDG at the bottom of each manuscript to communicate the idea that it is God and God alone who is to receive the glory for the wonders of His work of creation and of redemption. At the heart of the sixteenth-century controversy over salvation was the issue of grace.
It was not a question of man’s need for grace. It was a question as to the extent of that need. The church had already condemned Pelagius, who had taught that grace facilitates salvation but is not absolutely necessary for it. Semi-Pelagianism since that time has always taught that without grace there is no salvation. But the grace that is considered in all semi-Pelagian and Arminian theories of salvation is not an efficacious grace. It is a grace that makes salvation possible, but not a grace that makes salvation certain.
In the parable of the sower we see that regarding salvation, God is the one who takes the initiative to bring salvation to pass. He is the sower. The seed that is sown is His seed, corresponding to His Word, and the harvest that results is His harvest. He harvests what He purposed to harvest when He initiated the whole process. God doesn’t leave the harvest up to the vagaries of thorns and stones in the pathway. It is God and God alone who makes certain that a portion of His Word falls upon good ground. A critical error in interpreting this parable would be to assume that the good ground is the good disposition of fallen sinners, those sinners who make the right choice, responding positively to God’s prevenient grace. The classical Reformed understanding of the good ground is that if the ground is receptive to the seed that is sown by God, it is God alone who prepares the ground for the germination of the seed.
The biggest question any semi-Pelagian or Arminian has to face at the practical level is this: Why did I choose to believe the gospel and commit my life to Christ when my neighbor, who heard the same gospel, chose to reject it? That question has been answered in many ways. We might speculate that the reason why one person chooses to respond positively to the gospel and to Christ, while another one doesn’t, is because the person who responded positively was more intelligent than the other one. If that were the case, then God would still be the ultimate provider of salvation because the intelligence is His gift, and it could be explained that God did not give the same intelligence to the neighbor who rejected the gospel. But that explanation is obviously absurd.
The other possibility that one must consider is this: that the reason one person responds positively to the gospel and his neighbor does not is because the one who responded was a better person. That is, that person who made the right choice and the good choice did it because he was more righteous than his neighbor. In this case, the flesh not only availed something, it availed everything. This is the view that is held by the majority of evangelical Christians, namely, the reason why they are saved and others are not is that they made the right response to God’s grace while the others made the wrong response.
We can talk here about not only the correct response as opposed to an erroneous response, but we can speak in terms of a good response rather than a bad response. If I am in the kingdom of God because I made the good response rather than the bad response, I have something of which to boast, namely the goodness by which I responded to the grace of God. I have never met an Arminian who would answer the question that I’ve just posed by saying, “Oh, the reason I’m a believer is because I’m better than my neighbor.” They would be loath to say that. However, though they reject this implication, the logic of semi-Pelagianism requires this conclusion. If indeed in the final analysis the reason I’m a Christian and someone else is not is that I made the proper response to God’s offer of salvation while somebody else rejected it, then by resistless logic I have indeed made the good response, and my neighbor has made the bad response.
What Reformed theology teaches is that it is true the believer makes the right response and the non-believer makes the wrong response. But the reason the believer makes the good response is because God in His sovereign election changes the disposition of the heart of the elect to effect a good response. I can take no credit for the response that I made for Christ. God not only initiated my salvation, He not only sowed the seed, but He made sure that that seed germinated in my heart by regenerating me by the power of the Holy Ghost. That regeneration is a necessary condition for the seed to take root and to flourish. That’s why at the heart of Reformed theology the axiom resounds, namely, that regeneration precedes faith. It’s that formula, that order of salvation that all semi-Pelagians reject. They hold to the idea that in their fallen condition of spiritual death, they exercise faith, and then are born again. In their view, they respond to the gospel before the Spirit has changed the disposition of their soul to bring them to faith. When that happens, the glory of God is shared. No semi-Pelagian can ever say with authenticity: “To God alone be the glory.” For the semi-Pelagian, God may be gracious, but in addition to God’s grace, my work of response is absolutely essential. Here grace is not effectual, and such grace, in the final analysis, is not really saving grace. In fact, salvation is of the Lord from beginning to end. Yes, I must believe. Yes, I must respond. Yes, I must receive Christ. But for me to say “yes” to any of those things, my heart must first be changed by the sovereign, effectual power of God the Holy Spirit. Soli Deo gloria.

SATAN OPPOSSES GOD'S WORD

 "Take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17).

In Matthew 13 Jesus tells the parable of the sower and the seed: "Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. And others fell upon the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up. . . . But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil, and yielded a crop" (vv. 3-8).
Jesus went on to explain that the seed is the truth of God's Word. Satan and his demonic forces can snatch it away from those who hear it yet don't understand what it means. They can bring affliction and persecution against those who have an emotional commitment only, thereby causing them to lose heart and fall away. In some cases they choke out the Word with worry and the deceitfulness of riches (vv. 19-22).
But truly repentant sinners receive and nurture the gospel truth, just as prepared soil receives and nurtures seed. They hear it, understand it, receive it, and produce spiritual fruit (v. 23).
Proclaiming the gospel is an important aspect of taking the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17). As you do, others are saved and join God's army. But be warned: Satan never gives up territory without a fight. Some of the people you witness to will forget what you tell them. Others will refuse to turn from worldly influences. Still others may respond emotionally, but without a genuine commitment to serving Christ and forsaking sin.
Those spiritual battles should compel you to bathe your evangelism in prayer and undergird it with a clear gospel presentation. If people understand precisely what it means to receive Christ, and if their hearts are prepared by the Holy Spirit, they'll not be so easily victimized by satanic opposition.

Suggestions for Prayer:
Ask the Lord to give you an opportunity to share Christ with someone today, or to encourage a struggling believer.

For Further Study:
Read 1 Thessalonians 3:1-8.

• What was Paul's concern for the Thessalonian believers?
• What did he do to eliminate his concern?

From Drawing Near by John MacArthur Copyright © 1993. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.
Additional Resources

• Free Sermon Downloads
• Drawing Near
• NAS MacArthur Study Bible (Hardcover)

ESCHATOLOGY 101 DIFFICULTIES

by Jesse Johnson

 

Why is eschatology a difficult topic? Consider: there are three views on the return of Christ as it relates to the millennial kingdom. Either Jesus will return before the kingdom or after the kingdom, or that there is no millennial kingdom. That pretty much covers all of the bases right there. Moreover, when you look through church history, you see all three of those views advanced by major theologians. Why isn’t this easier?
The same tension is true inside of premillennialism. You have those who think the rapture is before the tribulation, those who see it as occurring during the tribulation, and those that see it at the end. Why can’t MacArthur and Piper simply meet at Starbucks and sort this out for the rest of us?
I think there are a two main reasons studying eschatology is difficult:  1. The complexity of church history. As I noted, there are famous pastors and theologians all over the eschatological map. Thus, people on all sides often appeal to authority, as in “Jonathan Edwards was the greatest theologian ever, and he was post-mil, so there.” I call this the “Confessions Can’t be Possibly be Wrong” syndrome.
The problem with it of course is that all of the views have their adherents. It is easy to forget that people—even our heroes in church history—are products of their time and their own education. Every era has its own theological blind spots, and some of those remain even to this day.

2. The difficulty of telescoping prophecy. Prophecy tells of future events, but it often does not distinguish between future events that may be separated by thousands of years. The most obvious example of this is Isaiah 61, which describes the advent of the Messiah. Isaiah tells us that he will come to preach the good news to the afflicted and proclaim liberty to the captives. Jesus said that he fulfilled that prophecy. But then Isaiah 61:2 says that the Messiah would also proclaim the day of Vengeance from God. When Jesus read the scroll of Isaiah 61 in Luke 4:18, he stopped in the middle of the verse, declaring that some of it was fulfilled at his first coming, and implying that the rest would be fulfilled at his second coming.
This effect is often compared to the similar illusion you have of mountain peaks. From a distant valley two peaks appear to be next to each other, but once you begin hiking, you realize that they might in fact be several miles apart. From a distance they looked parallel, but on top of them you see a huge valley between.
This same effect is in prophecy. Daniel tells of 70 weeks for example, and the first 7 and the second 62 are end-on-end. But it is that 70^th one that lies on the other side of over 2,000 years. Isaiah describes the kingdom and the eternal state, two events that I think are separated by 1,000 years, but he often flows from one to the other seamlessly.
This effect makes the study of prophecy anything but an exact science. Scripture is clear as to the future events, and we know that they will be fulfilled down to the exact detail (as was prophecy at the Messiah’s first coming), but it becomes difficult to sort out the precise order of all future events.
Yetwith that said, I hasten to add that scripture is perspicuous, and while the exact order of all future events is prophetic and thus slightly veiled, there is enough revelation to discern a general framework.
Which is why I am comfortable calling myself premillennial and pretribulational. The teaching of the Bible is such that I have never really been able to understand how someone could reject the reality of the millennial kingdom, and the weight of a few passages compels me to see the return of Christ before that kingdom. That’s not to say that I know all the details of the kingdom, but I am more than comfortable saying that I thinks Scripture is clear on the issue.
As for the rapture, because of the difficulty of prophetic passages, I understand why all three major rapture views (pre-trib, pre-wrath, and post-trib) have problem passages. They involve the timing of future events, and those events are often described in contexts where prophecy is telescoped, and it remains unclear precisely how all the details will line up.  However, I am still confident with saying that the best understanding of the verses that speak of a rapture points to one that is pretribulational.
Next week I’ll lay out my positive argument for that view.

Related Posts

• 4 Honest Questions About the Millennial Kingdom
• Eschatology 101--definitions

DOES GOD ANSWER THE PRAYERS OF UNBELIEVERS

By John MacArthur.


God is sovereign and can choose to answer any prayer He sees fit. But Scripture clearly indicates that God does not listen to or answer every prayer. In fact, Scripture gives at least fifteen reasons for unanswered prayer. God does not answer the prayer of those:
1) Who have personal and selfish motives.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures (James 4:3).

2) Who regard iniquity in their hearts.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear (Psalm 66:18).

3) Who remain in sin.

But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear (Isaiah 59:2). Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him (John 9:31).

4) Who offer unworthy service to God.

"You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, 'How have we defiled You?' In that you say, 'The table of the LORD is to be despised.' But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil? Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased with you? Or would he receive you kindly?" says the LORD of hosts. "But now will you not entreat God's favor, that He may be gracious to us? With such an offering on your part, will He receive any of you kindly?" says the LORD of hosts.

5) Who forsake God.

Thus says the Lord to this people: "Thus they have loved to wander; They have not restrained their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept them; He will remember their iniquity now, And punish their sins." Then the Lord said to me, "Do not pray for this people, for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence (Jeremiah 14:10-12).

6) Who reject God's call.

Because I [Wisdom] have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, Because you disdained all my counsel, And would have none of my rebuke.... Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me (Proverbs 1:24-25, 28).

7) Who will not heed God's law.

One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination (Proverbs 28:9). "But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear. Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen," says the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 7:11-13).

8) Who turn a deaf ear to the cry of the poor.

Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, Will also cry himself and not be heard. (Proverbs 21:13).

9) Who are violent.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood (Isaiah 1:15; see also 59:2-3).

10) Who worship idols.

Therefore thus says the Lord: "Behold, I will surely bring calamity on them which they will not be able to escape; and though they cry out to Me, I will not listen to them. Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they offer incense, but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble. For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal. So do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry out to Me because of their trouble." (Jeremiah 11:11-14; see also Ezekiel 8:15-18).

11) Who have no faith.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord (James 1:6-7).

12) Who are living in hypocrisy.

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (Luke 12:1).

13) Who are proud of heart.

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).

14) Who are self-righteous.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men-extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess." And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:11-14).

15) Who mistreat God's people.

You have also given me the necks of my enemies, So that I destroyed those who hated me. They cried out, but there was none to save; Even to the Lord, but He did not answer them (Psalm 18:40-41).You who hate good and love evil; Who strip the skin from My people, And the flesh from their bones; Who also eat the flesh of My people, Flay their skin from them, Break their bones, And chop them in pieces, Like meat for the pot, Like flesh in the caldron. Then they will cry to the Lord, But He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, Because they have been evil in their deeds (Micah 3:2-4).

So, does God answer the prayers of unbelievers? A strict yes or no answer is difficult without qualifying the answer in various ways. However, it is noteworthy that the above mentioned principles represent some of the key characteristics of an unbeliever. Thus we can safely say that, in general, God does not answer the prayers of an unbeliever.

---

Related Resources (free):

• Israel's Future, Part 2
• Praying Without Hypocrisy
• Receiving the Sinner/Refusing the Righteous, Part 2

Related Products (for purchase):

• Alone with God (Softcover)
• Don't Be Afraid to Ask
• Lord, Teach Me to Pray (Hardcover)
• Praying for the Right Things

TOUCH NOT THE LORD'S ANNOINTED!!!!!!

Adapted from here

Part the First

When they were few in number,
    of little account, and sojourners in it,
wandering from nation to nation,
    from one kingdom to another people,
he allowed no one to oppress them;
    he rebuked kings on their account,
saying, “Touch not my anointed ones,
    do my prophets no harm!”
          Psalm 105:12-15

Let’s Hear it for the Bus Driver

So there it is, the infamous passage.  “Touch not my anointed ones.”  It’s a favorite passage of authoritarian abusers throughout the church, a sort of “Get Out of Criticism Free” card for preachers.  Because, you know, obviously what the Psalmist has in mind when he talks about sojourners of little account wandering from nation to nation is wealthy American preachers who don’t want anyone looking too closely into their doctrine, their family lives, or their tax returns.
Or did he mean something else?  Psalm 105 is one of the great historical Psalms which celebrates the story of God’s Old Covenant people.  This particular segment speaks of the experience of the Patriarchs.  During their day Israel was not a nation so much as a rather large extended household.  They drifted about among various kingdoms, owning no land and having little military strength.  How did they survive?
The answer is of course the sovereignty of their God.  He did not so much make a law as He prevented the nations from hurting them.  God’s “words” here are symbolic.  They do not so much represent something He said as something He did.  He protected nascent Israel when it could not protect itself.
At this point it seems rather silly to turn this passage into a protection for modern day clerical kings against the spiritual peasantry who support them, doesn’t it?  When we speak this way we sound like nothing quite so much as a bully appealing to the teacher for protection against a weakling.  It’s all backwards.
But there is something more to the passage.  We must ask in what sense the Patriarchs were “the anointed” of God. The Psalm clarifies this in the very next phrase; in their day they were the Lord’s prophets.  God appeared to Abraham, to Jacob, and to Joseph.  Quite possibly he appeared to Isaac as well.  It was in this sense that they were “anointed” – the Spirit was poured out on them so that God might be revealed in the earth.  This is part of the reason why God afforded them special protection.  Is there hope in this detail for the monarchs of ecclesiastical empires?
Let’s flesh that out a bit.  This is one of the few passages which ties the practice of anointing with the prophetic office.  Elijah was commanded to anoint Elisha as prophet in his place, but there is greater precedent for anointing others.  Priests were to be consecrated by anointing with oil.  Eventually Samuel, the prophet raised as a priest, would anoint two men as king over Israel.  So, the “anointed” of God could refer to His prophets, His priests, and His kings.  That triad ought to ring in your ear; we’ll come back to it in a moment.
With the anointing of the kings we come to the age of the Psalms, and of Psalm 105 in particular.  It is a Psalm of David, repeated in I Chronicles 16 as the song David sang when the Ark of the Covenant was first brought to Jerusalem.  Now we know that to David the concept of anointing had special significance.  In his days as an outlaw in the desert he understood that his only protection was from the Lord.  Because he had been anointed as king, God would protect him.  This took on moral significance for David; it would be rebellion against God to attack the anointed.  He perceived that the same protection extended to the madman Saul, who also had been anointed as king.  He refused to hurt Saul even when he had just cause, and he put to death the Amalekite who claimed to have killed the king.

We Three Kings

Now that begins to look hopeful for the aspiring pastoral sociopath, doesn’t it!  If even Saul was under God’s protection by his anointing, certainly the wildest pastors share something of the same protection.  Apparently we can’t ever discipline or even criticize a pastor, even if he tries to murder his own kid with a spear.
Of course this completely ignores the manner in which Samuel, himself a prophet, spoke to Saul.  It is also an argument lacking in proper complexity, for David’s theology of “the Anointed” is certainly complex.  He protected Saul as the anointed of God, and He saw himself as the anointed – the primary focus of the advancement of God’s kingdom in his own day.  But in his Psalms “the Anointed” takes on a deeper meaning.
The word first enters the book in Psalm 2:2.  The kings and rulers of the earth make rebellion not only against the Lord, but also against His Anointed.  At first glance, we might imagine David is speaking of himself.  God responds that He has set His king on Zion, and urges men to submit.  The language of adoption, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you,” could well be a reference to God’s adoption of David’s offspring.  Is the Psalm speaking of the Davidic kings?
Of course you know the answer; the true fulfillment is in the last Davidic king, the Lord Jesus, who will dash the rebellious nations in pieces like so much brittle pottery.  The Psalm ends with blessing on those who take refuge in Him – certainly not in David, but in David’s greater Son.
You see, “the Anointed” in the original Hebrew is the mashiyach, a word you know as “Messiah.”  In the Greek translation of the Psalms, we are warned not to touch His christon, His Christ.  In fact, it is in the Psalms that we learn that the practice anointing in the Old Testament was typical of (a foreshadowing of) the Christ.
The deeper reason for God’s protection of the Patriarchs was that they bore the promised Seed who would destroy Satan and his works.  The anointed offices – prophet, priest, and king – were only hazy pictures of the great mediatorial office of the Christ.

We’re prophets, ‘cuz that’s how prophecy works, right? Consensus?

So, who is the Anointed of God?  Well, for starters, it certainly is not I!  We have no prophets today precisely because Jesus is the Great Prophet – the One like Moses, to whom we must listen.  We have no priests except our Great High Priest who intercedes for us in Heaven.  We have no kings in the church because the Lord Jesus rules from His seat in the Heavenly Zion.  To put it bluntly, we already have a Christ, and we need no other.

Are there protections for the pastors in God’s church?  Yes, but oddly, they are no more than the protections afforded to every person under the Mosaic law – two witnesses are required for a conviction.  Pastors are to be heard, but questioned.  They are to be followed, but only so long as they lead us to Christ.  They are not held to the abysmally low standard set by King Saul, but to the rather lofty standard of Saul of Tarsus, who repeatedly urged the churches to remember how he suffered for the ministry.
Which leaves Psalm 105:15 where, exactly?  Simply here: “Touch not the Lord’s Christ.”  As the second Psalm makes so abundantly clear, rebellion against the true Anointed is rebellion against God Himself.  The Christ is to be loved, obeyed and worshiped – at the peril of our souls.  “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way.”
Part the Second, being an Improvement upon the First

“Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
         Acts 2:36

And just how have we done with that warning?  The Lord’s Anointed “was in the world, and the world was made by Him, but the world did not know Him.  He came unto His own, and His own did not receive Him.”  If the world wasn’t lost and hopeless before, it certainly is now, right?  God spent centuries warning mankind that His Anointed was coming, and even that His Anointed was His Son.  Watch for Him, we were told.  Listen to Him.  Trust in Him.  Obey Him.  So when He got here, we promptly killed Him.
Can you imagine the absolute horror that fell on the Jews in Jerusalem when the truth of Peter’s sermon hit home?  The entire Scriptures were intended to prepare them for Messiah, and when He came with “mighty wonders and signs” they “crucified and killed [Him] by the hands of lawless men.”  Peter’s sermon is the most damning prosecutorial summation in history.  “Kiss the Son,” we were told, and the only one to kiss Him was Judas.
Now Peter, preaching to Jews, emphasized the guilt of the Jews, but even He hinted at the equal guilt of the Gentiles – the “lawless” ones who carried out the ultimate act of regicide.  Later, just as God had sent Peter to the Jews He sent Paul to the Gentiles, and Paul wasted no time making clear that every person is equally culpable under the Law: “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.  They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:14-16)
So make no mistake, it is the World, and not only Israel, that is answerable for the murder of the Anointed.  Nor do we escape judgment simply because we live centuries after the fact.  In every act of rebellion against God and His Christ we are like Saul holding the coats at Stephen’s stoning.  We, like him, “approved the execution” of the Son of God.  The warning has been ignored, and as the Psalmist warned, “His wrath is quickly kindled.”
Except for this: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:8-10)
The Anointed of God, to whom we were supposed to submit but whom we murdered instead, “died for us.”  In the very middle of our rebellion against Heaven, when we were still the enemies of the Lord and of His Christ, reconciliation came through the mercy of the Anointed.  This is the epitome of grace: that the One who had every right to come in splendor and terror, wielding a rod of iron for our destruction, instead came first in humble poverty, bearing a cross for our salvation.
At that thought every Christian – including every pastor, every self-made pope, and every tin-pot ecclesiastical dictator – should go and prostrate himself before the Lord in thanksgiving and praise.  How, we should ask ourselves, does this gospel leave any room for human pride?

Who Every Pompous Mega-Pastor Reminds Me Of

The gospel of grace is entirely incompatible with a preening, self-promoting ministry.  Paul knew his sin – he was “the chief of sinners.”  He also knew the grace by which he had been saved.  That is why he conducted himself in so lowly a fashion.  He believed in pastoral authority – that much is clear – but he chose to work without the wages he deserved, to live without the wife he might have taken, to be insulted, beaten, chained, and ultimately killed.  He believed in pastoral authority, but he sought to exercise that authority with something of the grace and mercy which the Anointed of God had shown to him.
What a foul disservice we do to the Word of God, then, if we go back to the Old Covenant and grab a verse about the Anointed of God and use it to set ourselves up with the very pomp which Christ and His Apostles rejected!  The one thing which Psalm 105:15 most clearly does not mean is that pastors get to act like arrogant fools without any fear of rebuke!
Touch not the Lord’s Anointed?  Well, we have; we killed Him.  Yet He showed us grace, and through that grace we live.  Can we find it in ourselves to live graciously?

WHAT IF MODERN MISSIONAL CELEBRITY PASTORS HAD EXISTED IN THE EARLY CHURCH?

A satire

Written by Andy Webb | Monday, September 9, 2013

I‘ve often wondered what it would have sounded like if they’d had the modern “missional” celebrity pastors in the early church, and how they would have handled issues like Roman pressure to compromise on the Lordship of Christ or the exclusivity of Christianity. I sense it might have gone something like this:

Archaeologists working in Turkey have recently uncovered what they believe to be a 2nd Century fragment from an ancient interview with popular Lycus Valley Presbyter, Elder Lew Dicean, which occurred shortly after the Martyrdom of Polycarp. The fragment is part of a larger scroll, with the Latin Title “TEMPUS” and dated February, 157. Here is what they have translated so far:

“T: So what do are your thoughts?
L: What, the Polycarp thing?
T: Yes
L: Well it’s hard to criticize such a well known guy who’d been in ministry for so long, but I can’t get away from thinking, ‘Come on guys, its just a pinch of incense!’ I mean, think about it, we Christians already support the Roman state in so many ways every day. We pay the taxes that go to build those temples, buy the incense, and make the busts of Caesar! And we even use money that has his image on it already. And hey, who doesn’t worship that just a little, right?
I’m looking forward to a juicy steak tonight that my wife cooks so well – mind you I’m not ‘THAT’ guy, I cook too, it’s just not my night – and I know that steak came from a bull sacrificed in the name of Caesar. So aren’t I kind of a hypocrite if I declare Caesar is Lord in the secular realm in all those ways, but refuse to burn a little incense and say three words?
T: But don’t Christians view that as a compromise?
L: Look, all of us, Christian, Pagan, Jew, Zorastrian, whatever, have to compromise our religious faith a little to be good citizens of the empire. It’s the price of citizenship. And let’s face it, NOT burning incense doesn’t get you into heaven. I think in the future, you’re going to see more Christians seeing this as a political and not a religious issue, and attitudes about whether mixing politics and religion has been healthy are definitely changing.
T: So where do you draw the line?
L: Well, not where Polycarp did. I know he had his reasons, but I think there’s this unhealthy fascination with martyrdom amongst some Christians who see Christianity in this very aggressive, confrontational light that just turns modern people off. We need to engage not enrage the culture. One of our guys, Paul, once wrote in one of his letters – and I have this beautiful framed copy at home – “become all things to all men.” To me, that says I must first become a good Roman before I earn the privilege of being able to tell them about Jesus. So for me, the incense is just part of “becoming a Roman” so that I can win Romans. I think in the future you’re to see less of that martyr in your face Christianity that makes enemies and more of the “Compromissional approach” that I favor…

Andy Webb is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church America and serves as Pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, NC. This article first appeared on his blog and is used with permission.

QUESTION: "WHAT IS ATHEISM?"

Answer: Atheism is the view that God does not exist. Atheism is not a new development. Psalm 14:1, written by David around 1000 B.C., mentions atheism: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Recent statistics show an increasing number of people claiming to be atheists, up to 10 percent of people worldwide. So why are more and more people becoming atheists? Is atheism truly the logical position atheists claim it to be?

Why does atheism even exist? Why doesn’t God simply reveal Himself to people, proving that He exists? Surely if God would just appear, the thinking goes, everyone would believe in Him! The problem here is that it is not God’s desire to just convince people that He exists. It is God’s desire for people to believe in Him by faith (2 Peter 3:9) and accept by faith His gift of salvation (John 3:16). God clearly demonstrated His existence many times in the Old Testament (Genesis 6-9; Exodus 14:21-22; 1 Kings 18:19-31). Did the people believe that God exists? Yes. Did they turn from their evil ways and obey God? No. If a person is not willing to accept God’s existence by faith, then he/she is definitely not ready to accept Jesus Christ as Savior by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). God’s desire is for people to become Christians, not just theists (those who believe God exists).

The Bible tells us that God’s existence must be accepted by faith. Hebrews 11:6 declares, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” The Bible reminds us that we are blessed when we believe and trust in God by faith: “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’” (John 20:29).

The existence of God must be accepted by faith, but this does not mean belief in God is illogical. There are many good arguments for the existence of God. The Bible teaches that God’s existence is clearly seen in the universe (Psalm 19:1-4), in nature (Romans 1:18-22), and in our own hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). With all that said, the existence of God cannot be proven; it must be accepted by faith.

At the same time, it takes just as much faith to believe in atheism. To make the absolute statement “God does not exist” is to make a claim of knowing absolutely everything there is to know about everything and of having been everywhere in the universe and having witnessed everything there is to be seen. Of course, no atheist would make these claims. However, that is essentially what they are claiming when they state that God absolutely does not exist. Atheists cannot prove that God does not, for example, live in the center of the sun, or beneath the clouds of Jupiter, or in some distant nebula. Since those places are beyond our capacity to observe, it cannot be proven that God does not exist. It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist.

Atheism cannot be proven, and God’s existence must be accepted by faith. Obviously, Christians believe strongly that God exists, and admit that God’s existence is a matter of faith. At the same time, we reject the idea that belief in God is illogical. We believe that God’s existence can be clearly seen, keenly sensed, and proven to be philosophically and scientifically necessary. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4).

Recommended Resource: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek and The Real Face of Atheism by Ravi Zacharias.

While he is not the author of every article on GotQuestions.org, for citation purposes, you may reference our CEO, S. Michael Houdmann.

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/questweek.html#ixzz2fBQlVyvW

QUESTION: "DOES WAR WITH SYRIA HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE END TIMES?"

Answer: As civil war rages in Syria and other nations ponder potential involvement, some Bible teachers believe we can see biblical end-times prophecy unfolding right before our eyes. The Middle East is a religious-political powder keg and has been for years, but the Syrian Crisis seems to be making the situation that much more explosive. Because of Syria’s proximity to Israel, Egypt’s troubles, Iran’s threats, and the United States’ ultimatums, there is talk of the end times, Armageddon, and World War III.

It is true that, with every passing day, we draw closer to the Second Coming of Christ (James 5:8). And the prophecy of Isaiah 17:1 has yet to be fulfilled: “A prophecy against Damascus: ‘See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.’” Damascus, the capital of Syria, has a longstanding reputation for being the oldest continuously occupied city in the world. It has never been without citizens or totally destroyed. But Isaiah’s prophecy still stands; there is coming a day when Damascus will be nothing but a “heap of ruins.” The current war in Syria could indeed be one of the events leading up to the capital’s destruction.

There are other verses in the Bible tethered to Isaiah 17:1, but the idea of a ruinous heap suggests that not one building is left standing in Damascus. The city will no longer be a city. Some students of prophecy believe a nuclear bomb could be the means of fulfilling this prophecy; others suggest the possibility of an earthquake. Regardless of exactly how or when it happens, two things we know for sure: God is sovereign and His Word will stand (Isaiah 40:8).

There is much unrest in the Middle East, and the war in Syria is capturing the attention of the whole world. However, this particular conflict, even if it expands to other nations, cannot be associated with Armageddon. That battle occurs near the end of the Tribulation, during the bowl judgments, as the nations of the earth gather to fight against the Lord (Revelation 16:12–16). The war in Syria, if it is indeed part of end-times prophecy, is more likely part of the “birth pains” described in Mark 13:7–8.

In 700 BC, Isaiah wrote of the demise of Damascus. Today, 2,700 years later, many believe that we are close to seeing that long-standing prophecy fulfilled. However chaotic the events on the world stage appear, we know that all things are working toward the fulfillment of God’s Word.

“The Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17)—are you ready for His coming?

Recommended Resource: Understanding End Times Prophecy by Paul Benware.

WAS JESUS ALWAYS "NICE" ?

Adapted from

by John MacArthur

I never could believe in the Jesus Christ of some people, for the Christ in whom they believe is simply full of affectionateness and gentleness, whereas I believe there never was a more splendid specimen of manhood, even its sternness, than the Savior; and the very lips which declared that He would not break a bruised reed uttered the most terrible anathemas upon the Pharisees. –Charles Spurgeon

Modern writers, agnostic academics, and liberal theologians always stress the kindness and gentleness of Christ. Their Jesus—not the One found in Scripture, but the one concocted from their own imaginations and preferences—is effectively an ideological and theological pacifist. He preached only love and self-sacrifice, never judged or discriminated, and wasn’t dogmatic about the truth. In effect, the Jesus they’ve manufactured pleads “Can’t we all just get along?” with people of all faiths.
That perspective betrays a deep and dangerous ignorance of the truth about Christ, the exclusivity of the gospel He preached, and how He confronted religious error. Even the kindest, gentlest shepherd sometimes needs to throw rocks at the wolves who come in sheep’s clothing.
The Great Shepherd Himself was never far from open controversy with the most conspicuously religious inhabitants in all of Israel. Almost every chapter of the gospels makes some reference to His running battle with the chief hypocrites of His day, and He made no effort whatsoever to be winsome in His encounters with them. He did not invite them to dialogue or engage in a friendly exchange of ideas.
In fact, Jesus’ public ministry was barely underway when He invaded what they thought was their turf—the temple grounds in Jerusalem—and went on a righteous rampage against their mercenary control of Israel’s worship. He did the same thing again during the final week before His crucifixion, immediately after His triumphal entry into the city.
One of His last major public discourses was the solemn pronunciation of seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees. These were formal curses against them. That sermon was the furthest thing from a friendly dialogue. Matthew’s record of it fills an entire chapter (Matthew 23), and it is entirely devoid of any positive or encouraging word for the Pharisees and their followers.
Luke distills and summarizes the entire message in three short verses:

And while all the people were listening, He said to the disciples, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love respectful greetings in the market places, and chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets, who devour widows’ houses, and for appearance’s sake offer long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation.” (Luke 20:45-47)

That is a perfect summary of Jesus’ dealings with the Pharisees. It is a blistering denunciation—a candid diatribe about the seriousness of their error. There is no conversation, no collegiality, no dialogue, and no cooperation. Only confrontation, condemnation, and (as Matthew records) curses against them.
Jesus’ compassion is certainly evident in two facts that bracket this denunciation. First, Luke says that as He drew near the city and observed its full panorama for this final time, He paused and wept over it (Luke 19:41-44). And second, Matthew records a similar lament at the end of the seven woes (Matthew 23:37). So we can be absolutely certain that as Jesus delivered this diatribe, His heart was full of compassion.
Yet that compassion is directed at the victims of the false teaching, not the false teachers themselves. There is no hint of sympathy, no proposal of clemency, no trace of kindness, no effort on Jesus’ part to be “nice” toward the Pharisees. Indeed, with those words Jesus formally and resoundingly pronounced their doom and then held them up publicly as a warning to others.
This is the polar opposite of any invitation to dialogue. He doesn’t say: “They’re basically good guys. They have pious intentions. They have some valid spiritual insights. Let’s have a conversation with them.” Instead, He says: “Keep your distance. Be on guard against their lifestyle and their influence. Follow them, and you are headed for the same condemnation they are.”
Jesus’ approach would surely earn Him a resounding outpouring of disapproval from today’s postmodern culture. Exclusive truth, discriminating instruction, and confrontational teaching simply don’t fit the “good teacher” narrative the world promotes. In fact, by today’s standards, Jesus’ words about the Pharisees and His treatment of them are horrifyingly inappropriate.
Christ wasn’t an ideological pacifist. He knew which fights to fight, and He stood up for the truth with clarity and—when necessary—severity. But that kind of commitment to and love for the truth is totally foreign to modern society, so they either dismiss or ignore it.
More and more these days, people are talking about Jesus, but what they’re saying has no biblical basis. We need to do what we can to shatter the phony caricatures the world has developed, and bring people face to face with the Christ revealed in the pages of Scripture.

(Adapted from The Jesus You Can’t Ignore.)

HEAVEN'S PERSPECTIVE ON THE CROSS

by John MacArthur

One of the most frequently perverted and abused aspects of the life of Christ is His death. The world can tolerate Him as a human martyr, but that view undermines and ignores the real significance of His death.
Even in the church, we often tend to think of the cross only in terms of what it accomplished for us. We begin to see ourselves as the focus of Jesus’ death, assuming He died for our salvation and our eternal glory—to rescue us from judgment and hell.
And while all of that is accomplished by the death of Christ, it’s only a by-product. It’s all secondary to the fact that in the end, Christ died for God. And to understand the full meaning and purpose of Christ’s death, we need to look at His cross from heaven’s perspective.
To begin with, Christ’s death was a sacrifice.
A look at the Old Testament reveals the specific system of sacrifices the Lord put in place to deal with the sins of His people. In those sacrifices, God provided a way through which the sinner could come before Him and temporarily have his sin dealt with. The guilty party would bring an animal to the priest at the tabernacle, and later, the temple. The sinner would lay his hands on the animal as a symbol of transferring his sin and guilt onto the animal. The animal would then be killed and its blood poured out over the altar.
The purpose of the sacrificial system was to emphasize that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and that God’s wrath can be satisfied through a sacrifice (Hebrew 9:22). But animal sacrifices only provided temporary covering for sin (Hebrews 10:4), so they had to be repeated again and again. Instead of providing permanent forgiveness, the sacrificial system pointed forward to God’s final sacrifice: His Son.
Christ was the only completely acceptable sacrifice to God, the only truly spotless Lamb who could be offered for the cleansing of sins. The author of Hebrews points out that Christ served as both sacrifice and priest in His death.

For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. (Hebrews 7:26-27)

And unlike all the ineffective and incomplete sacrifices that preceded Him, Christ was able to fully satisfy the wrath of God.

Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. (Hebrews 9:26-28)

And to whom was Christ offered? Hebrews 9:14 tells us the answer. It says Christ “offered Himself without blemish to God” (emphasis added).
It’s true that we reap the eternal benefits of Jesus’ sacrifice, but it was ultimately a sacrifice to God. We can’t mistake the death of Christ for something less.

For more, click here