Church Discipline and Personal Privacy

By Bruce Mills

I have been following the situation with Grace Community Church of Jacksonville with great interest. For the reader who is completely oblivious to the secular media's reporting of this matter, let me give you a basic summary of what has been taking place.

A member of the church by the name of Rebecca Hancock became involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with her boyfriend. Ms. Hancock is a divorced mother of two adult children, ages 18 and 20. When the church's elders became aware of the situation, they confronted Ms. Hancock about her sin of being involved in a sexual relationship outside of marriage, a clear violation of Scriptural mandates. Following the pattern established by Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17, they first confronted her privately, then with two or three witnesses. When Ms. Hancock refused to repent of her sin and stop her immoral relationship, the elders then wrote her a letter explaining to her that unless she did so, they had no choice but to follow the next step of the process and tell the church about her sin so that the church members could then call her to repentance.

But Ms. Hancock decided that she would "out" herself and go public with her sins before the church had an opportunity to follow through with its plan to inform the congregation. So she contacted a Jacksonville television station and informed them of what was taking place. Needless to say, once the story broke, it became a major news event. It was picked up by countless newspapers and even national news broadcasts. I saw a story about it on one of the local television stations here in the Tampa Bay area.

Despite her alleged desire to avoid the church shaming her by informing its congregation of a couple of hundred people, Ms. Hancock informed the nation of her sin. She even posed for a newspaper photograph standing in front of the church. And every story carried the explanation that she wanted to avoid having her two children, who are still actively involved in the church, be embarrassed to have to sit in church while the pastor informed the congregation about their mother's sin. Interestingly, she doesn't appear to be at all concerned about their embarrassment at seeing their mother's sin publicly confessed and discussed on television and in the newspaper.

Ms. Hancock also admits she is still involved in the sexual relationship with her boyfriend, but claims to be a Christian who loves Jesus. However, she doesn't seem to make the connection that genuine love for the Lord results in the desire to obey His commands, and that includes His commands against adultery and fornication.

In past years, such a story would never make the eighth page inside column of a newspaper, much less the front page with a color photo. But our society has become so consumed with personal religion and personal rights, that for anyone to come along and call what anyone else is doing "sin" is simply considered to be outrageous. I went to the web site of the Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville's biggest newspaper, and read the readers' comments which they posted in regard to the story about Grace Community Church's treatment of Ms. Hancock. The readers were overwhelmingly slanderous of the church and outraged that any church group would dare to discipline one of its members. There were threats to attend the church and disrupt the services, slanderous comments about the sexual activities of the church leadership, and lots and lots of comments regarding how Jesus said "Judge not lest you be judged" (Matthew 7:1). Of course, not a single person who posted a comment realized that it was also Jesus who laid out the process of church discipline in Matthew 18.

However, the interesting twist in this story is that Ms. Hancock states that she has left the church, no longer considers herself a member of the church, and intends to send the church a letter stating such. I'm sure there is an attorney somewhere who is coaching her to do so in order to set up a basis to sue the church for "slandering" her character publicly after she has removed herself from submission to the church leadership's authority. Hopefully, Grace Community Church's constitution provides that a member who is in the process of being disciplined by the church cannot resign his or her membership to avoid that process.

Regardless, this story merely presents an opportunity to observe the difference between light and darkness and the requirements of Scripture versus man's self-deterministic bent. I predict that we will see more and more efforts made within the court system in coming years to declare such actions of church discipline illegal because of its alleged infringement on personal privacy. Pastors and churches may pay a price for obedience to the Word of God in this area.

We need to pray for Grace Community Church and its leaders to stand firm in the faith and to obey the Word of God regardless of the cost. This is a difficult situation for them, but God is using it to accomplish His sovereign purposes. Jesus said, "I will build My church,and the gates of of Hades will not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18). So as difficult as it may be, our Lord will be honored, His church will be purified, and Satan will not achieve the ultimate victory.

To the Praise of His Glory

by Bruce Mills

I taught Romans 5:12 in my Sunday School class yesterday. The text reads, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." Let me just say at the beginning that attempting to explain the complete interpretation of that verse would take far more space that would be reasonable for this blog.

But there was a rather significant question which arose from one of the ladies in the class. Although these were not her exact words, her question generally centered around the following concepts: "Why did God create man and allow him to sin? After all, God could have created man so that he would not or could not sin, so why would He foreordain to allow sin to come into the world?"

That is one of the most significant theological questions anyone can ask, because it focuses on the issue of the origin of sin and evil and why God allowed it to occur. God could have just wiped out Adam and Eve after they fell and started over. So why didn't He? Let me give you the only explanation which makes sense to my feeble, finite mind. These thoughts are not original with me, but they make this very difficult concept as understandable as is possible to the human mind.

We have to begin by considering God’s creation of the angels. Why did God create the angels? To give Him glory. But angels are incapable of fully understanding the character and nature of God. They were created in perfect holiness, so they understand God's attributes of holiness, righteousness, and majesty. But there are certain characteristics of God's nature that they don’t understand, including His grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. And yet those attributes are a part of the nature and character of God.

Why don’t they understand those attributes? Because they were created in holiness which means they have no need for God's forgiveness, grace, mercy, or compassion. Those characteristics only have meaning where there is the guilt feeling of sin, and a holy angel has no such feeling. Perhaps it is for that reason that the holy angels long to look into the gospel of salvation (1 Peter 1:12).

So holy angels were created to praise, glorify, and give honor to God, but they can only do so from a limited perspective because they were holy beings from the beginning. So there was a whole aspect of God’s nature which needed to be glorified, praised, and exalted that holy angels couldn’t understand.

But then the angels sinned and fell. Revelation 12:4 says a third of the angels followed Lucifer in his rebellion against God. And when they did that, they were damned to hell forever and were instantly unredeemable. No fallen angel was ever redeemed. No fallen angel was ever saved. No fallen angel was ever forgiven for that fall. Because angels were not created as procreative beings, but were individually created, they fell individually. And so they were damned forever. There is no possibility of redemption for fallen angels.

So there was a whole dimension of God's character that would never be praised and never be fully glorified unless God created some people who would have the capacity to fall, and then having fallen, could be redeemed. Then flowing out of their redemption would come an understanding of God’s grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

We Christians understand those concepts because we know how guilty we were and how greatly our sin had offended God, and how great God's grace was in forgiving us of that sin. Where we have trouble in comprehending God's character is with the things the angels understand—God’s holiness, justice, righteousness, and perfection. Because we were born in sin and have never been absolutely holy, righteous, or perfect, we have trouble understanding those attributes. But we understand God's mercy and love. We are amazed by it, but we understand it.

And I think that’s the reason, as best as my feeble mind can understand it, why when Adam sinned God did not say, "That's it; it's over. I'm going to wipe man out and start over." Rather, He said, “Now I will pour out My love and grace and mercy on him by sending My Son to redeem fallen sinners. I want the glory of which I am worthy.”

And if we should ever think God is out of line for wanting that glory, then that shows how little we understand about His worthiness. He deserved the praise from those who would understand His grace.

And that’s why, when having redeemed us, Ephesians 3:10 says He uses the church to teach the angels about His manifold wisdom. Because by observing His actions toward us, they learn things about God’s character which, without us, they would never understand. And if the purpose of creation and heaven and eternity is the eternal praise of God, then it’s fitting that He would allow sin to continue to exist, so that His Son's victory over sin and death might result in glory that would otherwise have never been possible.

Maybe this helps you understand this whole issue a little bit more. So, “through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” We all sinned in Adam. But nevertheless, He allowed us to be born in order to call us to redemption so that we could be to the praise of His glory forever.

Who is Jesus?

By Bruce Mills

It is the Christmas season, so I would like to consider the message of Christmas—that God the Son became incarnate as the man Jesus, lived among us as God in flesh, and even died for us, atoning for our sins. Most of thhis material is not original with me. I found it several years ago, but I don’t recall where. So with that disclaimer, let me begin.

Of all the doctrines that we study and talk about in Christianity, the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is the one absolute foundational doctrine that a person must agree with or else that person cannot be called a Christian, even if in name only. This is the doctrine that Jesus, that baby in the manger, was God in human flesh. Unless a person considers Christ to be God, he cannot call himself a Christian.

So how did the early church establish the doctrine of the divinity of Christ? Let’s take a look. After the emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity in AD 312, he issued an edict that granted tolerance to the Christian religion and, in essence, proclaimed Christianity the religion of the empire.

He inherited a church that was seething with discussion regarding the person of Christ. To most modern American Christians, the study of theology is limited to a seminary or Bible college classroom, but in those days, everyone was caught up in the debate.

Constantine was confused by these theological debates, so he was persuaded to convene a general council at Nicaea to resolve the bitter disputes. He hoped a consensus could be reached and reconciliation brought about. If not, the church could not unite the empire. In those days, religious unity was the foundation for political unity.

There were two main views that were debated in various parts of the empire. The first view was that Jesus was a created being who was subordinate to the Father.

Back in the previous century (about AD 250), Origen, a theologian from Alexandria in Egypt, asserted that the Son was subordinate to the Father. He sometimes even referred to the Son as the Θέος Δεῦτερος—the second God. Yet strangely, he also claimed to believe in the deity of Christ. Exactly what he meant by the subordination of the Son to the Father is unclear.

Arius, a pastor in Alexandria, took Origen’s view a step further. He said if the Son has a different essence from the Father, it is logical to suppose that He is a created being. Arius said, “If the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence, and from this it was evident, that there was a time when the Son was not.”

Arius taught that the Son was created out of nothing, but that he was the first and the greatest of the beings brought forth by God. Through the Son the world was created. The Son was worthy of worship because He was adopted by God.

Arius’ views became quite popular within the culture of the day. He was very influential because he was skilled in communication. He put his ideas into jingles, which soon became popular with the common people in the marketplace or children at school.

Many cults today find their champion in Arius. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, believe that Christ is a god but not fully God. One of their founders, Charles Russell, said, “Being God’s first creation, he was with the Father in heaven from the beginning of all creation, Jehovah God used him in the creating of all other things that have been created.”

The opposite view was defended by the great theologian and apologist Athanasius (ca. 296–373). A champion of orthodoxy, he insisted that Jesus Christ was fully God and had the same essence as the Father. Specifically, he argued for the doctrine of the Trinity, that God was a tri-unity.

He affirmed that the following propositions could be held without contradiction: (1) Christ and the Holy Spirit are both fully God; (2) both are, in some sense, distinct from one another and from the Father; and (3) God is one.

Athanasius believed the three persons of the Godhead were not separate, which would lead to polytheism, but shared oneness of substance or essence. He realized that “only if Christ is God without qualification, has God entered humanity, and only then have fellowship, the forgiveness of sins, the truth of God, and immortality been certainly brought to men.”

So the stage was set for one of the most important church councils in history. The consideration of this matter should be of special concern to us at this time of year when we celebrate the incarnation of Christ. Who exactly was it that was born in Bethlehem on that starry night? Was it a created sub-god or God Himself in human flesh?

Now, Constantine realized that these differences were about to tear his Empire apart. He had chosen to move the capital of the empire from Rome to Byzantium (later the city would be named Constantinople in his honor; the modern name is Istanbul). So he asked the delegates to come to Nicaea, just 25 miles from the new capital. Thus in AD 325, 318 bishops met to wrestle with the question of the diety of Christ and the Trinity.

Consider the circumstances. Here were men who had been persecuted for their faith just a few years before. Many of them could show scars of their days of torture. Yet now, because of the conversion of Constantine, they went openly to the council, all expenses paid by the emperor!

Arius was invited to state his views, that Christ was a created being, that he was the first and the greatest of the created beings, but created nonetheless. He forcefully proclaimed, “The Son had a beginning, but God is without beginning.” He argued his position at great length while the assembly of bishops listened in total silence.

One of the bishops listening that day became more and more upset as Arius presented his views. This bishop had been thrown into prison and suffered terribly for his faith under the reign of the last Roman emperor Diocletian, and he was outraged at what he was hearing.

Suddenly he got up, crossed the room, and slapped Arius across the face. That bishop was none other than Nicholas of Myra, the man we know today as St. Nicholas, whose name was pronounced Sinter Klaus by the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (New York City).

Because of his uncontrolled outburst of anger, Nicholas was briefly stripped of his authority as a bishop and imprisoned overnight, but shortly after the council concluded, he was restored as the Bishop of Myra.

But the important thing to remember about St. Nicholas, the man about whom the secular legend of Santa Claus later developed, is that he was a man who stood for the truth of the full divinity of Jesus Christ against the prevailing heresy of the day.

The rest of the council of bishops considered Arius’ arguments, and shortly thereafter agreed with Nicholas, denouncing it as heresy and blasphemy. That much was settled.

Athanasius then stood to present his position. At the time that Athanasius gave this great argument and helped establish for all time the fundamental truths of Christian orthodoxy about the divinity of Christ, he was only 29 years old! He was a young man! He had begun to study for the ministry at the age of 16 and by the age of 22, had distinguished himself for his theological essays he wrote which served as apologetics against various heresies and in favor of orthodox doctrine.

In fact, at the time of the Council of Nicaea, he wasn’t yet a bishop. He was a leader in the Alexandrian church, but he only accompanied his bishop to the council to present his theological position. It wasn’t until three years later when his bishop died that he was appointed bishop of Alexandria.

Athanasius stood before the council and argued that Christ was “true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father.” He was so forceful that after several days of debate, there was a consensus developing toward his view. So at that point, Constantine stepped in and sided with Athanasius. And thus the Nicene Creed emerged, which states, in part:

“I believe in one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father…”

All but two of the bishops signed the creed. Those two, along with Arius, were sent into exile. But unfortunately, the debate was far from settled. Arianism continued to spread through many of the churches and subsequent emperors sided with whatever party had the majority at the time.

Athanasius continued to oppose Arianism with such tenacity that when told that everyone was opposing him, he said, “Athanasius against the world!” He was driven into exile five times, but he never wavered in his commitment to the full deity of Christ.

Later the Arians began to disagree among themselves and their influence waned. The council of Rome (341) and the council of Constantinople (381) ratified the Nicene Creed, which is the basis of orthodoxy to this day.

So why is this important? There are many today who say that debating and being dogmatic about doctrine is theological hairsplitting. But the theologians of past centuries understood that all other social and moral issues cannot compare with the significance of the doctrine of the deity of Christ. Because the real question to which the answer is crucial is this: Is Jesus Christ capable of being the Savior of mankind?

Even if Christ were the highest and most noble creature of God’s creation, God would then only be indirectly involved in the salvation of fallen man. Salvation would have cost God little. One of His creatures would have suffered for mankind; God would have simply delegated the “dirty work.”

But could salvation have been brought about if God had delegated the suffering to one of his creatures? No. Only God Himself can reconcile man to Himself. As the great Anglican bishop of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, H. C. G. Moule, put it: “A Savior not quite God would be like a bridge broken at the farthest end.” Only God can satisfy His own requirements. A savior less than God would be disqualified; God must do it Himself.

The deity of Christ must also be affirmed to keep us from idolatry. Christ here on earth accepted the worship and prayers of people without a hint of embarrassment. He also forgave sin. The Jews of His day understood the implications with clarity and asked, “Who can forgive sins but God only?”

If Christ is not God, then God has not saved us, and the worship that Christ accepted and his ability to forgive sins would have been blasphemous.

But this brings us to the question, why is it that thousands of people who believe in Christ will be lost? The answer is, they have believed in a Christ who is not qualified to save them. They believe in a mystical Christ, or a human Christ, or a created Christ. Or they believe in the cosmic power of the New Age movement that they call “the Christ.”

But the most sincere faith one can possibly have, if placed in a Christ who is unable to save, will not get us to heaven. The question comes back to, which Christ saves? And to answer that question, we must return to the Nicene Creed. Only an incarnate Christ who is fully God qualifies to be a Savior.

The deity of Christ, then, is the foundation of Christian doctrine. It is not enough to believe in Christ, but to believe in a Christ who is able to save. The amount of faith is not as important as the object of faith.

I recall being in New York at the Word of Life Conference Center one winter and looking out at Schroon Lake, all frozen over. The people there told me that every year they hold an ice fishing tournament on the lake and the ice freezes so thick that the fishermen drive their trucks out on the lake. But they also said that every year, there are fishermen who will go out a little too early in the winter, thinking the ice will hold them, but it isn’t quite thick enough yet, and their trucks end up going through the ice into the lake.

You see, their faith that the ice will support them isn’t nearly as important as the thickness of the ice itself. Faith alone does not save; only faith in a person qualified to save brings salvation to the human heart. Not all who say “Lord, Lord,” will enter into the kingdom of heaven. The Christ of the cults is unable to pay the penalty for sin. To believe in a Christ who is less than God is to have faith that is misplaced.

The Council of Nicaea divided Christendom forever. On the one side are those who speak well of Christ but affirm that He is less than God; on the other are those who believe He is “God of very God.” These two streams of thought flow in different directions never to meet.

We should be grateful that those men like Athanasius and Nicholas who have preceded us in the history of the church insisted that we believe in the Christ who is God. In His own person He unites God and man; in His death He reconciles man to God. Salvation or damnation; heaven or hell. That is what Nicaea was all about.

The Shack: A House Built on the Sand

by Bruce Mills

A friend recently sent me an email asking me if I was familiar with William Paul Young’s book, The Shack. I was familiar only to the degree that I had heard one of the DJ’s on our local contemporary Christian music radio station talking about it in glowing terms. When I heard that, I immediately became suspicious because this is the same person who has promoted other books which were superficially Christian, in that they only talk about faith and God in vague generalities rather than with theological precision. The same individual has also promoted books by "Emergent Church" authors, so when I heard the promotion for The Shack, warning bells went off in my mind. But I didn’t take time to familiarize myself with the book.

Anyway, when my friend asked me about it, I began to learn what I could about the book. I found out that the author never originally intended to publish this book. It was written as a story for his children as a way of explaining certain theological issues to them. After finishing the manuscript, he bound it and gave it to his children as a Christmas gift. He later showed a copy of the manuscript to a former pastor who had started a small publishing company. The company published the book and initially, it was promoted only by word-of-mouth. It has gone through multiple printings and, to date, it has sold over a million copies.

Obviously when a book which promotes itself as an explanation of the heart and nature of God sells that many copies, Christians ought to know enough about it to make a decision about whether or not to take the time to read it. So I went to a couple of websites written by men whose theological perspectives are sharp and trustworthy to see what they had to say about the book.

Apparently, the primary focus of the book is on the most difficult of all theological dilemmas: the goodness of God and its relationship to the problem of evil. Where is God in the midst of pain and suffering? How can a good God allow evil to exist? How can He allow mankind to suffer the effects of horrible crimes and dreadful calamities? Why doesn’t He do something to stop it? Why does God seem so unconcerned about suffering and injustice?

These issues are discussed in the context of a story regarding a man whose daughter was kidnapped and murdered years before. He spends the subsequent years in great sorrow until God invites him to meet with Him in the shack where it is believed that his daughter was murdered by a serial pedophile. After spending two days with God in the shack, he emerges as a changed man who has learned about the power of forgiveness.

However, in reading the various reviews by men of such theological fortitude as Dr. Glenn Kreider, professor of theological studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, and the world’s most famous Christian blogger, Tim Challies, it didn’t take long to realize that The Shack isn’t worth reading because, as Al Mohler has stated, “this book includes undiluted heresy.” The problems are that it promotes heretical views of the Trinity, the humanity and deity of Christ, God’s punishment of sin, and the exclusivity of salvation through faith in Christ alone.

As the protagonist of the story, Mackenzie Philips, meets with God in the shack, each of the members of the Trinity appears to him as separate, distinct individuals. God the Father appears in two forms; primarily, that of a large, matronly African-American woman, but also as a pony-tailed, grey-haired man. Jesus appears as a Jewish man, while the Holy Spirit is an Asian woman. Philips also meets Sophia who is a female personification of God’s wisdom. It is in this faulty presentation of the Trinity, as well as the conversations between Philips and the members of this strange Godhead, that the false theology which permeates this story comes through.

Young claims that the story which is told in The Shack is fictional, but he also claims that the conversations with God which take place in this book are all real and represent actual conversations he had with God, friends, and family members over a period of several years. In other words, he is claiming to have received “special revelation” from God other than that found in the Bible, which is God’s completed revelation to man. And much of the theology found in the book contradicts that found in God’s Word, revealing Young’s low view of the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.

So, with all these problems, I have no desire to waste my time reading The Shack, nor will I recommend it to anyone. As Chuck Colson has stated: "stay out of The Shack." But if you want more information about this book, I recommend you download and read Tim Challie's extensive review of The Shack, or listen online to Dr. Al Mohler's review.

The Testing of Abraham Part 3

by Robert Fraire



In this third and final installment on the testing of Abraham we will actually look at the passage in Genesis 22 that begins:

1Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."
2He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."

Here is Abraham the faithful friend of God who, after many years, finally had seen God give him the son through whom God would bring about his covenant with Abraham. He was an old man about 112 years old. And it would have seemed that Abraham would have quietly lived out his life seeing his son grow and marry. But God had a big test for Abraham.

We really can't put ourselves in the shoes of Abraham in that we don't have a covenant with God that His blessing would come through one of our children and God doesn't come directly to us and tell us to do things like sacrifice our children. So our ability to relate directly to Abraham is limited. But we can understand that this young son whom he loves and whom God has placed many promises simply can't die. From an earthly perspective it seemingly would have made God a liar (because God said it was through Isaac that Abraham's descendants would be named) and it would have broken Abraham's heart to lose Isaac. So what is this Godly man to do?

Scripture tells us what he did: 3So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey

A lesson we should learn here is that Abraham had true faith in God and took him at His word. Since God said go and sacrifice Isaac, then Abraham would do exactly that. He understood that he had no other choice, and he knew that God's wisdom far surpassed his own so that whatever God called for was ALWAYS the best option.

So with a heart that I am sure was racing and unsure of the future, this friend of God put the whole weight of his trust on God and took his son exactly as instructed. But Abraham was not a robot. He didn't shut off his mind and just move. He thought about God's promises concerning Isaac, he Believed that they would come to pass. But he also believed that God had the right to demand the life of his son, so his son would be dead! So how could these things be reconciled? The New Testament book of Hebrews does tell us Abraham's thoughts. It says in Hebrews 11:19

19 considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead...

So Abraham continued his journey to the hill that God would show him with Isaac and servants until God showed him.

4On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.
5Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you."
6Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

At this point the moment of sacrifice is fast approaching so as they walk up the hill Isaac asks a reasonable question. He had undoubtedly watched many animal sacrifices, so he knew they needed the actual sacrifice. Abraham's answer is deep and important for us to examine.

7Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
8Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.

Abraham's response is translated for us "God will provide for Himself the lamb..." in other translation is is rendered "God will himself provide the lamb..." Abraham's statement is prophetic. For God did provide the lamb that would take away the sins of his chosen people. In fact God provided Himself AS THE LAMB (in Jesus, who is the Son of God and is God). Abraham trusted that this situation would be resolved by God providing the solution whether through rescue of his son or through the resurrection of his son. He knew that his part in this drama was to believe God and to act on that belief!

9Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.
10Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
11But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."
12He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."

At exactly the last moment God had His angel stop Abraham. The test was complete, Abraham had done exactly what God had told him to do, and God preserved Isaac through the faith of Abraham. This is a great story of Abraham's faith lived out. But there is one final question that I will cover in brief.

What does the last line of verse 12 say. "...for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me" What does that mean. The most straight forward reading would seem to mean that God didn't know prior to Abraham's actions whether his faith in God (fear of God) was genuine. Did God learn something that he didn't know before? Again many people might think that way, if they don't take into account the character of God. God knows all things and is sovereign over all things. He reads the hearts of men before they do anything. So God did know exactly what Abraham would do. So why then the test? If it wasn't for God's benefit, what was the purpose?

Fortunately for us, this is not a hard question to answer in this case. This historical fact of Abraham's exercised faith is cited in James 2:

21Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
22You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;
23and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS," and he was called the friend of God.

In this passage we learn that it is us who benefit from God's test and Abraham's obedience. You see in Genesis 15:6 it tells us that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. So Abraham already had saving faith. But just as the book of James instructs us, we gain evidence of that true faith by acting in accordance with what we believe.

So would you pass this test? The answer lies in whether you have true, saving faith or not. If you quickly answered this question "No" then it is a fruitful exercise for you to examine whether you truly have faith that God is just, loving, and authoritative over your life. In our lives today, are you willing to suffer physical beatings in order to proclaim the gospel to the lost? Are you willing to lose your job and wealth for the sake of God? These are tests that may come into your life. The true believer's faith will be tested and found true. If you shrink back from the thought then it is time for you to "count the cost".

What do your really hold most dear? God or anything else?

It's Finally Over--Now What?

By Bruce Mills

The presidential election of 2008 is finally over. I doubt there are any of us who woke up today and thought, "Aw shucks, I sure am gonna miss all those campaign commercials on TV." No, we are all happy the election is finished, if for no other reason than that. But I want to take a little time in my post today to let my mind sort of ramble regarding some observations about where we go from here.

Whether or not the outcome met your desires or expectations is not really the issue. The issue is how do we as Christians respond to the election. I have listened as many evangelical Christians have lamented about the potential result of this election, as though the election of a man could in some way destroy or change God's sovereign purposes for this nation and for the believers in it.

Let me say this as plainly as I can: God's purposes for this nation, its people, and the Christians who live in it were established before the foundation of the world, and nothing any elected official ever does will fall outside of God's decreed and permissive wills for this nation. Even the evil of man achieves the glory of God, as mind-boggling as that thought is to our finite minds.

So for us to fret and worry that an election will somehow change God's purposes for this nation or for the personal safety and freedoms of Christians is to deny the sovereignty of God and diminish Him to the level of some kind of demi-god who sits, wringing his hands, wondering if everything will turn out the way he wanted it to. That is a slap in the face of our infinite, almighty Lord.

Think about what the worst possible outcomes might be over the next several years. We may see our nation's economy decline further or our country's standing in the world diminish as we adopt a non-interventionalist approach to genocide and other crimes against humanity. Socialism may replace capitalism as the basis of our economic system. Our liberties may be taken away with expansion of hate crime laws and the reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine. Supreme Court justices may be seated who expand the government's power to limit free speech, who further solidify Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, or who overturn laws forbidding gay marriage and remove the right of churches to refuse to hire applicants for employment who are homosexuals. We could even see the government remove the tax exempt status of churches and of charitable contributions to them. Euthanasia of the infirmed elderly and disabled may become standard practice, as it is today in the Netherlands and was in pre-World War II Germany. It may be that, within my lifetime, it may become illegal to hold certain biblically correct theological positions, and thus those Christians who are true and faithful to God's word may suffer imprisonment.

And if all of those things take place (and I believe that over the next 20-25 years they will), they will all take place in accordance with God's will. In Romans 1, Paul describes the wicked, depraved sinfulness of man, and three times (vv. 24, 26, 28), he says "God gave them over." In the original Greek that phrase referred to the turning over of someone to imprisonment and punishment. God turned ungodly man over to receive within himself the awful results of his rebellion against God's truth.

God does the same thing with nations. This is graphically portrayed throughout the Old Testament with the nation of Israel, as well as God's pronouncements of judgment against other nations for their ungodliness and depravity. The United States is no different. Our nation is merely reaping the results of its depravity and rejection of God's moral law. God has turned this nation over to receive the just punishment for its sin, and unfortunately, the more any nation forsakes God, the more the Christians within that nation also suffer. So we can expect that unless this nation turns from its sinful pursuits, the terrible things I listed will take place in this nation. It may already be too late. Pastor John MacArthur has a sermon titled "When God Abandons a Nation" which explains these things much better than I can.

So how do we respond? We find our answer in Scripture. When Jesus and his disciples were walking the earth, Rome was the government which ruled the majority of the known world. The Roman Empire was the most powerful, well-structured government that had ever been up until that time. But there were a lot of awful, sinful, ungodly practices taking place.

Abortion was practiced to limit the number of children in a family, and when a child was born that was not the sex the father desired, infanticide or abandonment was common practice. This was particularly common if the baby was a girl.

Slavery was the dominant social structure, with 20-40% of the population being owned by someone else. Slaves had no legal rights and were considered to be nothing more than a living tool. They could be beaten, tortured, or even killed by their master without any reason.

Homosexuality and bisexuality were common practices in the society, even among the Caesars, the official rulers of the empire. Nero, the Caesar in power at the time of the apostle Paul, commonly practiced homosexuality. Wild orgies were also common among the wealthy aristocratic rulers of the empire.

Rome contracted out its tax gathering to individuals telling them how much they were required to collect for Rome, and that they could keep anything they collected above that amount. Consequently, they would extort large sums of money from the citizens with the threat of imprisonment if they didn't pay what was demanded.

So it was a very bad situation for those who desired to follow and obey Christ. Yet at no time throughout all the New Testament, do we ever find either Jesus or the apostles ever spending their time championing causes such as stopping abortion, infanticide, or slavery. Scripture spoke against the sin of homosexuality, but the Christians were not campaigning against its practice. And when the Jewish leaders tried to trap Jesus into speaking against Rome's taxes, He responded that they were to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). In other words, pay your taxes. And we are told in Scripture to respect, obey, and submit to our government (Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-17).

So instead of championing causes, Jesus and the early Christians focused on evangelizing people with the gospel. That was the central message; in fact, it was the only message--that Christ came into the world to save sinners and people needed to repent of their sin and turn to Him. It was only after people became believers that they then began serving the Lord by gathering abandoned children and caring for them, freeing their own slaves, turning away from ungodly sexual practices, and helping the poor. And when others asked them why, they just continued to share the gospel. Never once in all the New Testament do we ever find Christians adopting a cause other than the evangelization of the hearts of lost men and women. They let the power of the gospel which changes the heart of man be the means by which those evils of society were diminished.

Initially, the result wasn't what they would have desired. Christians were ostracized, accused of unbelievable crimes, imprisoned, tortured, and then used as public entertainment as they were fed to lions and burned at the stake in the Roman Coliseum. This continued for about 250 years. All the while the gospel continued to spread throughout the empire, and finally in 313 AD, Constantine became emperor and outlawed the persecution of Christians.

Our response, then, to the election of our president and leaders is to show respect to them (regardless of how we might feel about them personally or their policy positions), obediently submit to their authority, and pray for them--both for wisdom in the decisions they make and for their personal salvation. We are to avoid turning our Christianity into a campaign against the evils of society and instead, make it a campaign to share the saving gospel of Jesus Christ so that the evil of men's hearts will be removed by God's cleansing power. And even if in future days, the liberties Christians have experienced in this land for the past 200 years are slowly removed and we begin to suffer for faithfulness to our Lord, the apostle Paul tells us, "do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord...but join with me [Paul] in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God" (2 Timothy 1:8). That is our calling; let us be faithful to obey.

How to Minister in an Election Year

by Bruce Mills

My friend Phil Johnson, the Executive Director of Grace to You, conducted a seminar at one of the conferences he recently spoke at titled Politically Incorrect? The text of his message has been turned into an article and posted on the Grace to You website. It is an outstanding article addressed to pastors on how to shepherd their congregations in an election year. However, I believe it will benefit every believer to read this material. It is lengthy, but worth your time, because it presents an excellent summary of what Christians should focus on rather than spending time and energy on political activism.

The link to get to the article is: http://www.gty.org/Resources/Articles/10207

Is Barak Obama the Antichrist?

By Bruce Mills

I have been asked that question several times in the past month. In fact, just yesterday as I was walking across the parking lot at work, a Christian coworker flagged me down to pose that question. Last Friday, I was at a meeting of a Christian organization for which I serve on the board of directors, and another one of the men there told me that he also has been asked several times whether or not he believes Barak Obama is the Antichrist.

It isn’t hard to figure out why people are wondering such things. After all, the media has fawned over Senator Obama as if he is some sort of messiah who will save the nation, if not the entire world, from the economic and political woes which face it. Many Americans seem to think that, if elected, he will eliminate all of America’s troubles in short order. Late night comedians even joke about how the media speaks of him as if he is a god.

So then, is Barak Obama the Antichrist? In a word, no. From the prophecies of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, we learn that the Antichrist will arise out of a revived Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was primarily composed of modern day western Europe, the Balkan States, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt. So, while I cannot be absolutely dogmatic, I believe the revived Roman Empire of the future will arise out of the European Union, and it is from that revived Roman Empire that the Antichrist will arise (Daniel 7:24). He will provide protection for Israel against her enemies for the first three-and-a-half years of the Tribulation, but will then turn against Israel and attempt to destroy her.

Barak Obama does not fit the biblical requirements for the Antichrist. Like all politicians in these last days, he has (and will) promise great things, but in the end, his solutions will not solve man’s problems. If anything, they will do only what the policies of all the world's politicians are doing, and that is to serve to help further “set up” the world to accept the reign of the real Antichrist, who will achieve worldwide domination, including a unified global economic system.

If you want to read further on these matters, I recommend several books, including John MacArthur’s book, Because the Time is Near, Dwight Pentecost’s book, Things to Come, and John Walvoord’s commentaries Daniel: The Key to Prophetic Revelation and The Revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Testing of Abraham Part 2

by Robert Fraire


In this post I will continue to set the stage for God's testing of Abraham that we find in Genesis chapter 22. In the first post on this topic we looked at God's covenant that he made with Abraham. In that post I stressed that God unilaterally put himself in a position of having to keep his promises to Abraham. Abraham didn't earn or deserve the promises, but God for his own purposes made them to Abraham. He had already promised that Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the dust of the earth:

Genesis 13:16"I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered."

So Abraham has this promise, but from his human perspective his reality isn't matching God's promises. He is already nearly 80 and has no children. When God speaks in promise to him again in chapter 15 the Bible records the following:

Genesis 15:2-4
Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?"
3And Abram said, "Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir."

4Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir."

I have bolded God's response to Abraham as this is the main point of this post. Abraham knows that he is getting older and without heirs, which would seemingly call into question God's promise. And here God tells Abraham that the son of promise will be his physical son. So what happens next? Incredibly many more years go by without an heir for Abraham. He is now 85 years old and Sarah is 75. It seems that her time to bear children is past, so she designates her maid Hagar as her surrogate, and pleads with Abraham to bear children through Hagar.

Genesis 16:2
So Sarai said to Abram, "Now behold, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

As a side point I want to say that God's truth on marriage has always been one man and one woman for life. As seen when God made Eve for Adam and said that the two would become one flesh, marriage would always be defined that way. Therefore Abraham sinned in having relations with Hagar, and the earthly consequences of this sin were many.

But in God's providence a son was born and named Ishmael. So Abraham now had a physical son to be his descendant. It had taken a sinful act, but now it seemed that God's promises could be fulfilled through Ishmael. But this was not to be!

Thirteen long years pass, Abraham is 99 years old, Sarah 89 and Ishmael is 13. At this time God speaks to Abraham again and gives him the covenant of circumcision, then God says an amazing thing concerning Sarah:

Genesis 17:16
"I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."

This seemed absolutely absurd to Abraham. His response to God called for God to use Ishmael, since it seemed impossible for Sarah to have a child.

17Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, "Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?"

18And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before You!"

These responses by Abraham were reasonable. I will paraphrase Abraham's words like this: Since it is impossible for Sarah and I to conceive children, I believe you can bring about your promises through Ishmael. And even though reasonable, Abraham's words didn't take into account a miracle working God!

19But God said, "No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

God declared that the humanly impossible would be his will for them. And just as God had declared; Isaac was born when Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90. All the conniving and rationalization that Abraham and Sarah had undertaken was for not. God made laughter of all their concerns. The name Isaac means laughter, and it is a timely reminder for us not to put the miraculous past God. Since he brought a child to parents after they were physically too old, what will God bring about in your life?

So now Abraham, the friend of God, has the son through his beloved wife Sarah as a testimony of God's faithfulness. He sees that son Isaac grow stronger and get older, and Abraham may have thought that God was done working in his life and that he would live out his years just watching his children and grandchildren grow.

But God had a big test set for Abraham. And in my next post we will look at this test of Abraham's faith.

The Wretched Character of Sin

By Bruce Mills

How wretched of a sinner are you? I am convinced that if you asked that question to most people, they would immediately say, “Well, actually, I’m not that bad. I try to treat others nicely; I don’t lie, cheat, or steal. I’m not that bad of a sinner.” I am convinced that is the answer people will give because I have asked numerous people that question (or one similar to it), and the answer I get is virtually always the same. People simply don’t feel that badly about their sin.

I was once presenting the gospel to a lady and commented that we are all sinners and that we all sin multiple times per day. She looked at me with an indignant expression and said, “Not me! I haven’t sinned today. All I’ve done today is mow the lawn and wash the dog. So I haven’t sinned today.” She obviously viewed sin as a matter of external deeds rather than internal attitudes. I responded, “Jesus said the greatest commandment is ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:30). Since that is the greatest commandment, if we don’t do that, it is sin. Can you say that you have done that perfectly today?” She looked at me with even greater indignation and said, “Well, if that’s going to be your definition, then I guess I have sinned today.”

The problem is that her perspective on sin, as well as that of all of unregenerate humanity, is that it is in direct and gross contradiction to what God’s Word says about sin. According to the Bible, man is corrupt and depraved to the very core of his being; a creature who goes about continually lying and deceiving, who hates God and rebels against everything He stands for; and who follows after his own desires and plea-sures rather than that which pleases God. In Romans 3: 10-18, the apostle Paul describes man’s condition in these words:

“There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

But I expect those who are not Christians to see their sin that way. It is not until they are confronted by the Law of God and His standards that they are even willing to admit that they are unrighteous sinners. What bothers me are those Christians who don’t seem to view their sinfulness as being all that bad. When they talk about their sin, it is often in the forensic sense in which sin becomes some kind of abstract concept which they know infects us, but which they feel capable of controlling most of the time—at least externally when they are around people other than their family. They fail to appreciate the fact that apart from the saving grace of God and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, they would be just as enslaved to sin as their unregenerate family, friends, and neighbors.

Sin is not something which any human is capable of controlling within himself. Sin is the master, not the human will. Sin enslaves, controls, and destroys. No person, in and of himself, has any ability whatsoever to subdue the sin that runs rampant through their fallen flesh and wages war against their mind (cf. Romans 7:23). That includes believers. Yes, Christians are new creations in Christ, but their newly created soul is trapped in a fallen fleshly body which continues to be enslaved to sin. So the Christian walk is a continual war against the desires of the flesh.

If you ever get to the point that you think you have achieved mastery over the sin in your life, just look at your response when someone breaks a promise they made to you, or someone challenges your integrity. You will find that immediately a war breaks out within you. You will begin to seethe with anger and bitterness; perhaps it will even burst forth in verbal outrage.

You may try to justify your anger by calling it “righteous anger” over the sin which that other individual committed against you, but the reality is that in your heart, you have determined that you are so important that no one should dare to violate your trust or to challenge your honesty. You have allowed pride to swell, and the respect and honor of others to become an idol of your heart. And when you set up an idol in your heart, you forget that it is a subversion of the eternal God’s righteous reign over your life. Instead you become more concerned with another person’s offense against you than the gravity of their sin against God.

But sin doesn’t only involve and affect other people and your relationship to them. David committed the sin of adultery with Bathsheba, then covered it up by murdering her husband Uriah. Yet when he came to God, pleading for forgiveness, he recognized that ultimately his sin was against God. He cried out, “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:4). He wasn’t denying the offense against Bathsheba and Uriah; he was simply acknowledging how great and awful sin really is. It isn’t merely an offense against other people; it is an offense against an infinitely holy God who is absolutely just in inflicting upon us an infinitely eternal punishment.

Don’t ever minimize the gravity of your sin. You and I are wretched, depraved sinners. Every area of our life is tainted by the poison of sin: our thought processes, our attitudes, our motives, our actions, and our inactions. Without Christ, the human heart pursues sin like a starving lion pursues a wounded deer. With Christ, you can for the first time in your life, overcome sin, even though you will find it to be a continual, lifelong battle, fraught with both victories and defeats.

So if you are a believer, acknowledge and grieve over the depths of your sin, confess it, turn from it, and by the power of the Holy Spirit who is at work in your life, pursue righteousness. If you are not a believer, recognize that so long as you cling to your sin, you will never see God except on judgment day, and then it will be too late. Admit you are a sinner, turn to Christ who paid the death penalty for the sins of unworthy sinners, and receive His forgiveness. Only He can give you the ability to defeat the sin which presently controls your life.

A Biblical Response to the Stock Market Crash

by Bruce Mills

I just returned from a much needed vacation in the mountains of north Georgia.  My wife and I got to spend a week with some good friends at their beautiful mountain lodge home.  We went hiking, sightseeing, and strolled around the Georgia Mountain Fall Festival at the fairgrounds in Hiawassee. The leaves were changing and the mountainsides were filled with gorgeous red, yellow, and orange leaves. It was wonderful.  But my vacation is not what I want to write about.

While we were there, the world's stock markets and financial systems crashed.  We watched as our government's best effort to bailout the financial institutions of our nation in order to prevent their failure proved itself to be a failure.  People saw their retirement savings take a beating which may take years to recover.

My friend with whom we were staying offers financial counsel to his friends and family as to how to best invest in the market in order to save sufficiently for retirement.  His phone began to ring off the hook, as person after person called him looking for advice on what they should do.  He spent many hours of his own time, staying up late into the night and then getting up early in the morning, working on their portfolios in an attempt to reduce the damage to each person's savings.

What was particularly distressing is to hear Christians calling in a panicked state of mind.  I would expect such from unbelievers.  After all, they have no promise from God that He will provide for their needs, but Christians have the unbreakable promise of Scripture that their eternal Father will supply all their needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).  The psalmist David observed, "I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread" (Psalm 37:25).  And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave extensive instruction on how Christians are to deal with financial issues and the daily concerns about the necessities of life (cf. Matthew 6:19-34). 

Yet despite these, and many more Scriptural assurances of God's care and provision for His children in difficult circumstances, my friend's phone kept ringing, and his email inbox filled up with messages from Christians who were afraid that they were about to lose everything they have invested. Admittedly, many of them were being prudent and seeking wise counsel as to how to approach these perplexing and difficult financial times.  But others were absolutely hysterical and panicked.

Such a response is a worldly and ungodly response.  There has been no other opportunity in our lifetime in which believers have had as great an opportunity to verbally and visibly demonstrate their reliance and trust on their God to take care of them.  While the world around them panics, Christians need to be resting in the promises of God and trusting Him to carry them through these dark times.  After all, even if these difficulties last the rest of our lives, that is incomparable to the eternal glory that awaits those who trust in Christ.  Scripture instructs us, "Be anxious for nothing (that includes job losses, stock market crashes, and the loss of all your retirement savings), but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).

So stop trusting in accumulated wealth. You cannot serve both money and God, so choose to trust in God and serve Him (cf. Matthew 6:24).  Be a testimony to your friends and family by visibly demonstrating your reliance on your heavenly Father to provide your present and future needs.  Our Lord is in control, and He is sovereignly bringing about His eternal purposes in our current circumstances.  So rest in His perfect plans.

Our First Anniversary

By Bruce Mills

A milestone has been achieved! The Inverted Planet blog is now one year old. It was on September 19, 2007 that I threw out my first posting, followed by several more in rapid succession so there would be something to read for those who found their way to it. Since then, 62 postings (including this one) have found their way into the cyber world through this website. Along the way, I picked up another contributor, Robert Fraire, another of the elders at my church, and I hope to someday get one or two more regular contributors to join us.

We aren't nearly as big, wise, important, or as well read as blogs such as Pyromaniacs, Triablogue, or Challies.com, but in one year, without any significant promotion, advertising, or effort to get our name beyond some of the folks at our church and our own circle of friends, we have had over 3,100 hits on our blog. Admittedly, some of those are our own, as we go to the site to check and see what (if any) comments have been made. We certainly have a long way to go before we get to the 2.1 million hits that the Pyromaniacs have had in less than three years. It would probably help if I invested in PhotoShop and learned how to use it. It would really spark up the appearance. But I simply don't have the time or money to do that. So for the time being, we will have to get by with our rather plain looking site, and hope that the articles we post there are interesting and stimulating for our readers. I am encouraged that there are those who are reading the articles and occasionally interacting. I wish more of the people who have told me that they enjoy reading the blog would get a free Google account and post a few comments occasionally.

So to our readers: thank you. If you enjoy this blog, tell others about it. Write us a comment or two once in a while. I know that I've certainly enjoyed getting the comments that we have received so far, because they have caused me to explain some of my doctrinal positions more carefully and completely. And please take advantage of the links we have included on the blog. There are some great sermons, articles, and books that you can use for your spiritual enrichment. Of course, you can also track the current college football standings (Go USF!), as well as our weather here in the Tampa Bay area.

The Failure of Trusting in Man

By Bruce Mills

I've been listening the past few days to the continual discussion regarding the collapse of some of Wall Street's biggest financial institutions. I've heard news anchors and reporters repeatedly say, "This is scary," as government officials madly scramble to find some means of stopping the failure from spreading throughout the entire financial structure of our nation. Even global markets have been affected by this situation.

Now, I'm no different than any other person. I don't want to see the collapse of our nation's financial structure. Millions upon millions of Americans depend on their pensions, investments, and savings as their means of surviving their retirement years. I myself am included among those who have saved for my future retirement years and have seen a signficant portion of what I have saved "disappear" over the past few months as the stock market has slumped, at one point to a three year low. The subprime mortgage crisis, skyrocketing fuel and food prices, and the overall economic recession have all taken their toll on every American's personal and family budgets.

So how are we believers to respond to these circumstances? If we wish to be light to a dark and confused world, what is to be our response? First of all, we must realize in whom we must place our confidence. Scripture is replete with exhortations to trust in God rather than in man's ability. Psalm 118:8 tells us, "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man." The prophet Jeremiah who was reviled and hated throughout his ministry because of his integrity tells us in 17:7 of his book, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord." And then there is the prophet Habakkuk, who cried out to God for Him to restore righteousness to the nation of Israel and judge them for their sins. But when God replied, "I'm going to send the Chaldeans to do just that very thing," Habakkuk was shocked and questioned God's actions, because he realized just how completely devastating and destructive God's judgment was going to be. But in the end, he recognized God's sovereign purposes and accepted whatever would come, and so he said, "Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation" (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

He was describing the complete devastation of his agrarian society, and he said that even if he lost everything he had, he would still praise God. In todays terms, it would be like saying: "Though all the shelves in the grocery store are bare and there is no more food to refill them, even if the stock market completely collapses and I lose my job and every penny I own, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation because He is the One who has always sustained me and He will always continue to sustain me."

The unbelievers with whom we work and live need to see us living with that kind of confidence in God. Instead of being worried about what we might lose, or what might happen to our nation that would disturb our "comfort zone," we need to rest in God's sovereign control over every circumstance, even those such as currently face our nation. Unbelievers should see in us a sense of faith, trust, and dependence on our Lord which they do not have, and which might cause them to ask us why we can be so calm in the midst of such worrisome circumstances. We can then provide answers for the hope that is within us.

Second, we need to realize that God is judging our nation. He has turned this nation over to the consequences of its own sin, and we are now reaping the results. He has brought devastating storms that have swept away the livelihoods and possessions of entire communities. He has allowed terrorist attacks on our homeland to shake our confidence in our own abilities to protect ourselves. And now He has allowed the consequences of man's greed to bring this nation to its financial knees. And unfortunately, instead of seeking God's face and repenting of our sins, as a nation we have merely wrung our hands in desperation, stood up and sang "God bless America," and tried to concoct another human answer to our problems. And we who are Christians in this nation have been afraid to stand up like Jeremiah did and speak the truth about God's judgment and the need for repentance because we know that the people will respond to us like they did to Jeremiah, and we don't want that. We want to continue to live comfortable lives without persecution, despite the fact that Jesus said, "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me" (Matthew 5:11). and despite the apostle Paul's instruction that "All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Timothy 3:12).

Until, we--myself included--decide that we will fear God more than we fear man, we will continue to be ineffective in presenting God's truth. We do not need to be offensive or nasty in calling people to repent, but we must be faithful to God's truth. The gospel itself is offensive to sinners and so when we present it, we will suffer persecution. But there will be those whom God has called to Himself who will respond.

In conclusion, we have to realize that we are to be light to a dark world. We only do that when we bring the light of God's word to bear on sin and then explain God's answer to man's sin problem, which is Jesus Christ's substitutionary death for sinners. People need to see the truth of the gospel demonstrated in our lives as we live in the hope of eternity rather than in hope of our earthly future. That is the message our nation needs to hear instead of the human wisdom of politicians and pundits.