Christians and Climate Change

by Bruce Mills

Over the past couple of weeks, many people in our world have focused on Copenhagen, Denmark where representatives from 183 countries met to try to come to agreement on how to best reduce mankind’s “carbon footprint” on our world.  By now I’m sure you are aware that the summit was largely a failure, as developing countries became greedy in their demands for money from developed countries (primarily the United States and western Europe) to help them meet the standards that would be imposed under the proposed accord.  In addition, they demanded greater reductions from the United States than our nation was willing to do, and China played the old “bait-and-switch” game with their numbers on how much they would reduce their carbon output.

As I listened to the various news stories about the events in Copenhagen, I noted that the world’s perspective on global warming and climate change is based on an entirely humanistic, evolutionary, God-denying approach which sees no place for divine revelation and preservation in the climate change equation.  In their minds, biblical truth about creation (Gen. 1:1-31) and God sustaining the world (Gen. 8:22) until the day He sovereignly chooses to destroy it by fire in order to create a new earth (2 Peter 3:7-13; Rev. 21:1) are mere myths and fables which have no place in the climate change debate.

Many evangelicals have become caught up in the whole global warming environmental discussion, often adopting the same perspective as the secular world, sometimes even reinterpreting biblical texts to give them a “green” interpretation rather than what God intended those passages to say and mean.  For example, some bible teachers have tried to say that Isa. 24:4-6, which talks about the distress of the earth and then states, “The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants,” is referring to air and water pollution rather than moral pollution which is clearly the meaning when the overall context of the passage is considered. 

All such an approach does is change the focus of scripture from one which deals with man’s sin against a holy, righteous God, and how that sin can be forgiven and man’s relationship to his Creator restored, to one which deals with peripheral, temporal issues which have no eternal consequence for man’s soul.  This is borne out by the approach of such influential men as Rick Warren, pastor of California’s Saddleback Church, and Duane Litfin, president of Wheaton College, who have endorsed the “Evangelical Climate Initiative,” a movement which focuses on stopping global warming in order to demonstrate our appreciation of God’s creation and our love for our fellow man.  Instead of focusing on evangelizing the lost souls of countless millions who will spend eternity in hell if they do not hear the good news of Jesus Christ’s substitutionary death for sinners and forgiveness through faith in Him, they focus on a social agenda which includes everything but moral sin.  In fact, this has become a pattern with Warren, to the point that before he interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain when they were running for President of the United States, he was described in Time magazine as shifting the focus away from sin issues such as abortion and gay marriage to the issues which he felt united people, including “poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights” (Time, 8/7/08).

So what should believers think about the issue of global warming, climate change, and environmental protection?  Any answer to that question must be grounded in biblical truth.  Thus, we should appreciate the creation and glorify the God who made it, but we must also be careful not to adopt the secular, naturalistic, evolutionary mind-set that characterizes the world.  We turn nature into an idol when conserving it is given a higher priority than obeying the clear commands of scripture, starting with the greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:29-30).

According to Scripture, the world was created for man, and not vice versa.  God told man that he should be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28).  He went on to tell man to cultivate the earth (Gen. 2:15) and to use both plants and animals for food (Gen. 1:29; 9:1-3).  Therefore, any environmental position which imposes population growth restrictions, unduly limits the cultivation of the earth for food, or attempts to prohibit the eating of meat should be rejected.  If we claim to believe the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant, sufficient Word of God, then we must not allow ourselves to be distracted from obedience to its commands by the world’s humanistic perspectives.  As Christians, we are not called to focus our resources on preserving this planet.  Rather, the responsibility upon which we are to focus our time and resources was articulated by Jesus in what we call the Great Commission:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:19-20).

So, instead of being distracted by attempts to save our broken planet, we should focus on the primary mission God has given to the church.

We must keep in mind that God has revealed in His Word that one day He will bring devastation to this planet like no man has ever seen.  During the Great Tribulation which is spoken of in the book of Revelation, there will be world-wide plagues and destruction of such extent that millions of people will die.  There will be famine and disease; there will be cosmic cataclysms which cause vast destruction; a large celestial body will strike earth and one-third of all fresh water will become poisonous, causing many deaths (Rev. 8:8-11); and there will be droughts and devastation at a level which no one can comprehend.  And ultimately, after His millennial reign and mankind’s final Satan-led rebellion against Him, God will destroy the world with fire before He creates a new heaven and earth (2 Peter 3:10-13).  So this world is a temporary planet, but one which will last and which God will sustain just as it is now (Gen. 8:22) until He finally comes and brings about ultimate climate change as He moves forth in His wrath to accomplish His purposes.

So we are called to be good citizens and submit to our government (Rom. 13:1-7), to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:39, Rom. 13:8), and to wisely use those resources which God has entrusted to us (Luke 16:10-13), but we must not become distracted or preoccupied with political agendas or concerns which distract us from our primary mission in this world, which is to win lost souls to Jesus Christ.  To do anything else is to deny the truth of His Word and to bring dishonor to His name.

Looking Forward to Being a Contributor

by Joe Trofemuk

I have read and enjoyed many of the posts on Inverted Planet posted by my good friends and fellow elders Bruce and Robert (to be clear, I have enjoyed all that I have read…I simply have not read them all). Quite some time ago Bruce extended to me an invitation to turn an evening message I had preached into a post for the blog. For a variety of reasons (all mine) it did not occur.

However I now hope to begin to contribute to Inverted Planet on a semi-regular basis. I have nothing new or uniquely insightful in mind (after 2000 years of Christianity, I have no illusions that any of my thoughts are original). Yet through my current study and teaching of the book of Hebrews in the adult fellowship group I lead, I am struck over and over by how much our current American muddled state of evangelical Christianity is detached more and more from the exclusive truth claims of Scripture.

My hope by contributing to this blog is to continue to build on the work done by Bruce and Robert. If by God’s grace people are challenged or helped then God will receive the glory. If no one ever reads a single entry God will still be worthy of glory, and my own thinking will be stimulated and challenged as I seek to clearly articulate truths to add to this ongoing discussion.

Announcing a New Team Member

by Bruce Mills

I am happy to announce the addition of another member to the Inverted Planet blog team.  Joe Trofemuk is the Administrative Pastor at Lakeside Community Chapel in Clearwater, Florida.  As administrative pastor, Joe has oversight over the various ministries of the church.  He also teaches and shepherds the FaithBuilders adult Sunday School class.

Joe grew up in Perry, Florida and attended Florida State University, earning an Associate of Arts Degree.  Thereafter, he earned Bachelor of Science in Laws and Juris Doctor degrees from Western State University College of Law in San Diego, CA.  After graduation, Joe was a practicing attorney in California for over 14 years.  As he became involved in ministry in a lay capacity in the local churches with which he was affiliated during that time, he felt the call of God on his heart to prepare for full-time vocational ministry.  Joe began studies at The Master’s Seminary in Sun Valley, CA in 2000, graduating in 2004 with a Masters of Divinity degree.

During his seminary years and for a few years after graduation, he led Bible studies in the college ministry and an adult fellowship group at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California where Dr. John MacArthur is the senior pastor.  In 2007, Joe assumed his current position at Lakeside Community Chapel.  God has gifted Joe with the gifts of teaching and leadership, which he uses to serve the church.  He truly has a servant's heart.  I was greatly privileged to speak at his ordination service earlier this year.

Joe will be posting articles on the blog periodically.  Take time to read them.  They come from the heart of a man who loves the Lord and faithfully serves Him.

Liars and Lying

by Bruce Mills

I was reminded this week of how intrinsic lying is to the fallen human nature.  First, there was the story of the global warming scientists who manipulated and destroyed climate and temperature data in order to support their position that global warming is getting more and more severe and will eventually destroy the planet if drastic steps are not taken to curb human activities that allegedly cause the increased temperatures.  Their emails, which were leaked to the media, revealed that they systematically did all they could to prevent viewpoints which contradicted theirs from ever being presented or published, and deliberately manipulated the data to make it appear that their position was the correct one.  Of course, there were billions of dollars in research grants at stake from which they would benefit if they were successful in convincing the world's governments that they were right.

Then there was Tiger Woods, undoubtedly the finest golfer who has ever picked up a golf club.  He is a man who seemed to have it all--over a billion dollars in earnings and endorsements, a trophy wife, and the finest life that wealth can buy.  He is a man who outwardly seemed to be in complete control of his life and his golf game.  But he was living a lie.  He was cheating on his wife and when discovered, he lied to cover his sin until he was faced with incontrovertible evidence that revealed to the world that he was lying.  Only then did he admit the truth.

Lying has been a part of a corrupt nature since the Garden of Eden.  Satan lied to Eve, telling her that she and Adam would not die if she ate of the fruit (Gen. 3:4), even though God had clearly said that they would (Gen. 2:17).  Shortly thereafter Cain lied to God about murdering his brother (Gen. 4:9), and the same pattern of lying and deception continues to be seen throughout the book of Genesis.  Abraham encouraged Sarah to lie about being his wife in order to save his own skin (Gen. 12:10-20), Jacob and Rebekah lied in order that Jacob would receive Isaac's blessing rather than Esau (Gen. 27:19), and Joseph's brothers told their father that he had been killed by wild animal rather than admit that they had sold him into slavery (Gen. 37:31-34).  In fact, in addition to these examples, there are no less than five more incidents of lying recorded in the book of Genesis alone (Gen. 18:5, 20:2, 26:7, 29:18-24, 39:17).  You can easily find many more examples throughout the rest of the Scriptures.  Jesus bluntly said that lying originates from Satan and those who are characterized by it are his children (John 8:44).

At the same time, the Bible is clear about God's requirement that men and women be honest and truthful under all circumstances.  In the list of the seven deadly sins found in Prov. 6:16-19, lying is specifically mentioned in two of them.  Prov. 12:19 says, "Truthful lips will be established forever, but a lying tongue is only for a moment."  Prov. 19:5 proclaims that "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who tells lies will not escape."  A few verses later in Prov. 19:9, Solomon reiterates the same idea with these words: "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who tells lies will perish."

For the believer, lying is never sanctioned.  Eph. 4:25 tells us, "Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another."  Col. 3:9 says, "Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices."  In other words, since we are a part of the same family and are new creatures with a new nature which does not practice sin, we are to stop lying and tell the truth. 

I think a lot of Christians today have adopted the world's perspective that lying isn't really a big deal.  But God doesn't see it that way.  In His infinite mind, it is a very big deal.  It is so important because He Himself never lies and is incapable of doing so (Titus 1:2, Heb. 6:18).  Since we are called to be imitators of God (Eph. 5:1), lying is not to be found in a believer's character.  Jesus said that we are to "let [our] statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil" (Matt. 5:37).  In other words, we shouldn't have to take an oath in order to confirm the validity of what we are saying.  We should be so characterized by truth-telling that those around us will know that they can implicitly trust what we are saying.

Think about this issue in your life.  Do others know that everything you say can be trusted to be the truth?  Or are you characterized by fudging the truth; stretching it to fit the circumstances you are in so that you look good, avoid getting into trouble, or profit from the outcome?  Psalm 15 describes the righteous man who will dwell with God, and one of the things which characterizes him is that "He swears to his own hurt and does not change" (Ps. 15:4).  In other words, he tells the truth, even if telling the truth will mean difficulty for himself.

I recognize that this is a high standard.  But I'm not the one who set the bar this high; God did.  Everyone of us has failed in this area; sometimes very badly.  But those of us who claim the name of Jesus Christ must turn from this sin and live godly lives which are characterized by truthfulness.  Not so that we will be considered to better than others, but so that when others are amazed at our honesty (and believe me, they will be), we will be able "to give an account for the hope that is in [us]" (1 Peter 3:15).

The Manhattan Declaration

by Robert Fraire

The following is a link to a document called the Manhattan Declaration. It is a document written and signed by Protestants, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Catholics. The document is found at this link:
http://demossnews.com/manhattandeclaration/press_kit/manhattan_declaration_signers

In the document the writers and signers pledge to stand united on three areas under attack in the United States today. Those areas under attack are: the sanctity of life, the definition of marriage, and freedom of religious expression.

The document says many things that I agree completely with and I do think that the Christian church in America will face governmental persecutions in each of these areas in the near future.

Some godly men like Al Mohler have signed this document. Dr. Mohler gives his reasons at this site: web site

One small quote from his article says this: "I signed The Manhattan Declaration because it is a limited statement of Christian conviction on these three crucial issues, and not a wide-ranging theological document that subverts confessional integrity. I cannot and do not sign documents such as Evangelicals and Catholics Together that attempt to establish common ground on vast theological terrain."

I respect Dr. Mohler making that statement clear, and his actions and teaching clearly back that statement up.


That being said, I don't believe Protestants should sign this agreement. My reasoning can be summarized in 2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

You see while we share many common moral stands with Catholics of all types, the fact is unmistakable that the teaching of the Catholic Church is a false gospel. We can not stand in spiritual unity with them on these issues because those that rely on the false gospel taught by the Catholic church for their salvation are unbelievers.


In a practical sense how could this play out? Well take for instance the area of same-sex marriage. The only way we can be successful in defending God's definition of marriage is to proclaim the truth of scripture and call on the people of this nation to repent. And it is at the point of repentance that the gulf between us and Catholics becomes apparent. If people want to repent; to which gospel do we lead them? In order to stand united must we say that it isn't important whether you choose salvation by grace through faith alone (Protestant gospel), or salvation by grace and maintained by godly works and the sacrements (the Roman Catholic gospel)? It is clear to me that we must call me to repentance and the true gospel message of grace by faith alone.

Because of that we must stay independent of all false religion even if they support our moral stance important issues such as life, marriage and religious freedom.

The Birth of God Incarnate

^{Luke 2:1-20 (NASB)}

¹Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. ²This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. ⁴Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, ⁵in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. ⁶While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. ⁷And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

⁸In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; ¹¹for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹²“This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” ¹³And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ¹⁴“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

¹⁵When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. ¹⁷When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. ¹⁸And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

by Bruce Mills

In my last post, I said that I would explain how a person avoids God’s wrath and eternal condemnation. What follows comes from a recent funeral service I conducted for the mother of a close friend. He specifically requested that I present the gospel to those who attended, and this is the gospel message I gave. I have only edited it to remove specific, personal references to the deceased.

That lady was just like every other person on the face of the earth—she was a sinner. She wasn’t perfect—she struggled and suffered the natural outcome of sin’s impact in her life. Every one of us does. Death itself is the ultimate and most obvious consequence of sin, as we are told in the Bible in Romans 5:12 where it says that “just as through one man—Adam—sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

So, every one of us is a sinner and some day, if Christ doesn’t return first, we are all going to die. And that means that we have a problem. In fact, it is the most serious problem that anyone will ever face. Our problem is that God is absolutely holy and righteous. He cannot allow sin into His presence. In fact, His required standard for anyone to enter heaven is absolute perfection. In Matt. 5:48, Jesus put it very bluntly when He said, “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And since none of us is perfect, that means we are all unrighteous, and that means we all justly deserve God’s eternal condemnation in hell.

In fact, the Bible tells us that over and over again. In 1 Cor. 6:9 it says, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” And in Eph. 5:5 it says, “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” So then, none of us is perfect. So the question is, how can we be certain that we will go to heaven. Well, the answer has nothing to do with Jeanne. It has everything to do with Jesus Christ.

You see, Jesus Christ was not merely a man—He was God in human flesh. That’s who He claimed to be. He said, “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30). He said, “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father” (John 14:9). As C. S. Lewis put it, you cannot call Him a good teacher or a great prophet or a good man, but deny that He is God. You must decide whether or not He was telling the truth when He claimed to be God. If you conclude that He was not God, then you are saying that He was either a liar or a lunatic. If He was a liar, then He wasn’t a good man. If He was a lunatic, then He cannot be considered to be a great teacher. But if He is who He claimed to be; that is, God in flesh, then we owe Him our every allegiance and all obedience.

And so God sent His Son, Jesus, to the earth and He took upon Himself the sins of every person who would ever believe and He died to pay the penalty for those sins. Those sins deserved eternal judgment, and so only someone who was absolutely perfect could pay that penalty. And Jesus was the perfectly righteous God-man who paid the price for sin. And then He rose again, defeating death and sin. And now He offers forgiveness from sin and eternal life to everyone who repents of their sin and trusts in Him as the only mediator between God and man.

Once again, Jesus left us with no other options. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). That is a very exclusive claim. But again, if we believe He was who He claimed to be, then He has every right to make such a statement.

And in Acts 4:12, we are told that “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Jesus Christ is the only way to God. That’s not something I came up with; that’s what God Himself says.

And those who come to Jesus through faith alone in Him find that God forgives all their sin, and credits the righteousness of His perfect Son to their account, so that when He looks at them, He sees the perfection of Jesus and no longer sees their sin. And that makes them eternally acceptable to enter and live in heaven forever and ever.

It was that gospel which my friend’s mother came to understand and believe. And because she placed her faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone for her eternal salvation, she is at this very moment, in the presence of her Lord and Savior.

And I am convinced that if she could be here with us today, she would tell you, “Believe in Christ. Turn your back on your sin, and turn to Jesus Christ and trust Him and Him alone for your eternal salvation. That is the most important decision you will ever make.”

She would want everyone to recognize their sin for what it is—an offense against a holy and righteous God. It is the corruption that separates man from God, and which destroys everything that is good. And as long as a man or woman remains in their sin, they are dead spiritually.

And she would tell you that the only way to receive forgiveness for your sin is to come to Jesus Christ, repenting of that sin, and place your complete trust and faith in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. And she would tell you that when you do that, Jesus will cleanse you and forgive you, remove the penalty of eternal death, and give you the free gift of eternal life in heaven with Him.

And then, when that day comes—as it does for all of us—that you pass through death’s door, you will find Jesus there, along with every person who has placed his or her faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation from sin and death.

Now, someone might say, “But I’m too old for that stuff. I’ve wasted my life. It’s too late for me.” Let me just urge you to consider the claims of Jesus Christ, regardless of how old you are or how you have lived your life. Age or the trials and struggles and sinfulness of your life should never be an excuse. In fact, those who come to faith late in their lives are simply demonstrations of the greatness of God’s grace and His willingness to forgive sin and bring peace and hope into one’s life.

I hope anyone who reads this who does not know Jesus Christ will repent of their sin and turn to Him in saving faith. That is the only way that anyone will avoid God’s wrath and eternal condemnation, and enjoy eternal life in heaven.

Dead Men Walking

by Bruce Mills

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). In those nine words, there is perhaps no clearer statement in Scripture on the sinfulness of man apart from Christ. In the original Greek text, it literally says “And you, being dead in your trespasses and sins.” In other words, man does not become spiritually dead because he sins; he is spiritually dead because by nature he is sinful. Except for Jesus Christ, that is the condition of every human being since the Fall, including every believer before he is saved. It is the past condition of believers and the present condition of everyone else.

Now contrary to most modern thinking, including such esteemed theologians as Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Phil, man’s basic trouble is not being out of harmony with his heritage or his environment, but being out of harmony with his Creator. His principal problem is not that he cannot make meaningful relationships with other human beings, but that he has no right relationship to God, from whom he is alienated by sin.

His condition has nothing to do with the way he lives; it has to do with the fact that he is dead even while he is alive. He is spiritually dead while being physically alive. Because he is dead to God, he is dead to spiritual life, truth, righteousness, inner peace and happiness, and ultimately to every other good thing.

One of the first indications of physical death is the body’s inability to respond to stimulus, no matter what it might be. The simple fact is that a dead person cannot react. He no longer responds to light, sound, smell, taste, pain, or anything else. He is totally insensitive because there is no life in him.

That is the way of spiritual death as well. A person who is spiritually dead has no life by which he can respond to spiritual things, much less live a spiritual life. No amount of love, care, and words of affection from God can draw a response. A spiritually dead person is alienated from God and therefore alienated from life. He has no capacity to respond. Apart from God, men as spiritual zombies, the walking dead who do not know they are dead. They go through the motions of life, but they do not possess it.

This is the primary reason why I am convinced that Calvinism is correct and Arminianism is wrong. According to what this passage says, men and women are “dead in…trespasses and sins”—they cannot possibly respond on their own to the Gospel apart from the work of God to raise them to spiritual life.

But Arminianism teaches that the fall of man was not total, maintaining that there was enough good left in man for him to will to accept Jesus Christ unto salvation.

Arminians believe that election is based on the foreknowledge of God as to who would believe. Man’s “act of faith” is seen as the “condition” or his being elected to eternal life, since God foresaw him exercising his “free will” in response to Jesus Christ.

The founder of Arminianism, Joseph Arminius, held that redemption was based on the fact that God loves everybody, that Christ died for everyone, and that the Father is not willing that any should perish. The death of Christ provided the grounds for God to save all men, but each must exercise his own “free will” in order to be saved.

He also believed that since God wanted all men to be saved, He sent the Holy Spirit to “woo” all men to Christ, but since man has absolute “free will,” he is able to resist God’s will for his life. He believed that God’s will to save all men can be frustrated by the finite will of man. He also taught that man exercises his own will first, and then is born again.

He even said that a man cannot be saved by God unless it is man’s will to be saved, and a man cannot continue in salvation unless he continues to will to be saved. In other words, he can lose his salvation.

In other words, man’s salvation depends on his own ability and will to stay saved. I find such teachings to be absolutely incompatible with this passage. Before we were saved, we were like every other person who is apart from God—“dead in…trespasses and sins.”

The Greek case indicates the sphere or realm in which something or someone exists. It tells us where we were before our salvation. We were in the sphere of being dead in trespasses and sins. We were not dead because we committed sins, but because we were in sin.

A person does not become a liar when he tells a lie; he tells a lie because he already is a liar. He does not become a thief when he steals; he steals because he already is a thief. And so also with murder, adultery, covetousness, and every other sin.

Committing sinful acts does not make us sinners; we commit sinful acts because we are sinners. Jesus confirmed this when He said, “The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders” (Matt. 15:18-19).

Now, someone might ask, "Do you mean that because all men are equally dead in sin that they are all equally corrupt and wicked?" No; twenty corpses on a battlefield might be in many different stages of decay, but they are uniformly dead. The manifestation of death occurs in many different forms and degrees, but death itself has no degrees. Sin manifests itself in many different forms and degrees, but the state of sin itself has no degrees. Not all men are as evil as they could be, but all fail to measure up to God’s perfect standard.

As a state of being, a sphere of existence, sin has more to do with what is not done than with what is done. God’s standard is for men to be perfect just as He Himself is perfect (Matt. 5:48). God has never given any standard for man but perfect holiness.

It is because of that perfect standard of holiness that men apart from God cannot be anything but sinful. Because he is separated from God, he cannot do anything but fall short of God’s standard. No matter how much good he does or attempts to do, the standard of never doing or never having done evil at all is unattainable.

Because I live on the Gulf of Mexico, let me give you an illustration I have used many times. Let’s suppose that all of us decided we would go down to the beach, and we all lined up and took turns trying to jump across the Gulf of Mexico. Some of us might jump only a couple of feet, but others might jump 8 or 10 feet out before we landed in the water. Even if we brought in a professional broad jumper, he might be able to jump 25 or 26 feet. But no one would be able to jump to the other side of the Gulf. Our degrees of success would vary only in relation to one another, but in relation to achieving the goal, we would all be equal failures.

That is the same way it is with attempting to achieve God’s holiness. Every unbeliever is an equal failure. That’s why the morally good, helpful, kind, considerate, self-giving, generous person needs salvation as much as the serial killer on death row.

The person who is a good parent, a loving spouse, an honest worker, and a civic humanitarian needs Jesus Christ to save him or her from the eternal condemnation of hell just as much as the drug-addicted prostitute or the heartless terrorist. They do not lead equally sinful lives, but they are equally in the state of sin, equally separated from God, and equally estranged from spiritual life.

Jesus once said, “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same” (Luke 6:33). On another occasion He said, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Luke 11:13). What He was saying is that a person apart from God can do humanly good things.

But as the Lord points out in both of those statements, the person is still a sinner, still evil by nature, and still operating on a motive less than that of glorifying God. A sinner’s doing good is good, but it cannot change his nature or his basic sphere of existence, and it cannot reconcile him to God.

There is one more passage which states this principle, which I personally think is the most frightening passage of Scripture in the Bible. It’s found in Matt. 7:22-23. Jesus is concluding the Sermon on the Mount, and he tells the listening crowd what it will be like at the Great White Throne Judgment, and He says, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

In other words, there will be many people who will stand before the Lord and try to justify themselves on the basis of their wonderful works of power, and their wonderful teaching done in His name, and He will send them to hell because they never had a personal relationship to Him.

Being good and kind to other people pleases God. You might even say it is a step in the right direction. The only problem is that 100,000 such steps cannot bring a person any closer to God because it is a sinner’s condition of sinfulness and not his particular sins that separate him from God, his particular acts of goodness cannot reconcile him to God.

So, man is in an impossible situation. He is spiritually dead and entirely unable to extricate himself from that situation. How then, is he supposed to have a relationship with God? How will he ever be able to avoid God's wrath and just condemnation to an eternal hell? We'll examine the answer in our next post.

The Sin of Loving the World

by Bruce Mills

I have been reading a great little book titled Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World which was written by C. J. Mahaney and other pastors from the staff of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The first chapter is titled "Is This Verse in Your Bible?" and it is based on the premise that like Thomas Jefferson who physically cut out the verses and passages of the Bible that he didn't agree with, we believers do the same thing with 1 John 2:15, which states, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world." While we would not physically cut it out of our Bibles like Thomas Jefferson did, we practically live as though we have cut it out.

As I thought about this matter of our attachment to the world rather than to Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, I asked myself, What exactly does John mean when he says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world”? The word for "world" which John uses here has a wide range of meaning, but its most common use in Scripture and the most significant use in John's writings is to refer to "the world system." So it is not specifically referring to the physical world and the physical things that make up our environment. Rather, John is referring to the world of men in rebellion against God. And the things in the world system that we are to refuse to love are its values, pleasures, and goals. Our attitudes toward those things is to be radically different than the world. So while John didn't mean the physical world specifically, he does mean that we are not to be attached to the things which the physical world values. And that does include many physical things.

The world says, “Gain all the wealth and things that you can.” Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…you cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt. 6:19-20, 24).

The world says, “You better look out for yourself—number one—because no one else will.” The Scriptures say, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4).

John says, “You better not love those things.” And then he goes on in 1 John 2:16 to specify what things he means. The first one he lists is “the lust of the flesh.” While word that is used here for “lust” includes sexual lust, it means more than just that. It refers to an evil craving for satisfaction that finds its fill in the things that please the flesh. It is any kind of craving to gain anything which the flesh desires. You could say that it refers to moral corruption, because the things which are sought corrupt one morally.

I don’t normally recommend William Barclay as a commentator, except for historical background, at which he is superb, but on this point, he really nails it. He writes these words to describe what John is talking about:

It is to live a life which is dominated by the senses. It is to be gluttonous in food; effeminate in luxury; slavish in pleasure; lustful and lax in morals; selfish in the use of possessions; regardless of all the spiritual values; extravagant in the gratification of worldly, earthly, and material desires. The flesh’s desire is forgetful of, blind to, or regardless of the commandments of God.

John says that those things appeal to our flesh and we can easily crave them, but we are to avoid them.

The second thing he lists is “the lust of the eyes.” What does that refer to? Again, I think we can easily mistake this phrase as referring to sexual lust. But it goes far beyond that. The basic idea behind this phrase is covetousness. It refers to the desire to possess things, to have all the toys that our society throws at us, to achieve status and fame. It is the appeal of Madison Avenue with its advertising which is designed to make us dissatisfied with what we have. It can include sexual lust of looking on a woman and desiring to have her for oneself, but it goes far beyond that kind of temptation.

What John is saying when he says we are not to lust with our eyes is that we are to be content with going without those things that reflect success and achievement. In other words, being willing to be overlooked for a promotion because to do so might diminish the time we have to serve the Lord; to do without the external symbols of success in order to be able to give more to the Lord’s work; to be thought of as unsophisticated or unglamorous if need be in order to accomplish the Lord’s purposes for which he has appointed for us.

Now, I’m not saying that we have to go around looking like we are wearing clothes from the 1950’s and living in a shack that we never spruce up. But we are not to allow the desire for things to control us.

This idea has particular significance for us as we will be entering the Christmas shopping season in just a matter of days, and we will be bombarded with advertisements shouting at us what we absolutely must have if we are going to be cool and up-to-date. Resist the temptation to have your desires controlled by the unregenerate minds of advertising executives who are only consumed with getting you to spend your money on their stuff.

Finally, John says we are to avoid “the boastful pride of life.” This is the attitude which says, “Look at what I have achieved. Pay attention to me. Look at how great I am.” That attitude can be based on the gaining of possessions, education, power, fame, or status. It may even be based on intellect, which is something the person didn’t do anything to gain more of than anyone else. Yet, within the world system, those who have more of something than others have, will flaunt their position and display their pride and arrogance, demanding that others defer to them.

John is saying, “True believers avoid that kind of attitude. They don’t boast about what they have achieved because the true believer considers himself to be lowly and unworthy, because he recognizes that he was destined for eternal hell apart from God sovereignly reaching down and drawing him to Christ.”

If you look back at these three phrases, you can summarize them in this way. “Lust of the flesh”“Lust of the eyes” refers to corruption of the next higher part of man’s nature; his desires for that which is otherwise good and pleasant and nice to have. But “the boastful pride of life” refers to the highest corruption of a man’s heart, because it is the exaltation of man himself. By sensuality man sinks to the level of animals; by covetousness, he competes on the level of men; by pride, he tries to reach to the heights of God. refers to corruption of the lowest, basest parts of a man’s nature.

The world accepts and prizes these values, but they are opposed to true Christianity. To love God is to move away from such values. To love the world is to increasingly drift away from love for God and thereby also lose love for others.

John wraps up this great passage in 1 John 2:17 by giving us another reason why Christians are not to love the world. It is that all that is in the world is transitory and headed for destruction. Everything that is a part of the world system is going to be destroyed.

So, does anything remain? John says, “Yes, 'the one who does the Father’s will abides forever.'” Because the good works a believer does are an aspect of his love for the Lord and find their source in God, the believer will abide forever because he is a possessor of eternal life and an heir to all of God’s riches in Jesus Christ.

When we are called to love God, we must turn from all lesser loves and loyalties. To fail to do this does not mean that we lose our relationship to God, but it does mean that we are unfaithful to Him and disgrace our calling.

It is like a marriage. Adultery does not change the legal status of the marriage, but it destroys the fellowship and is dishonorable. As Christians, we are married to Christ. Therefore, we must not dishonor that relationship by adultery with, or even by flirting with, the world.

The Future of Israel

by Bruce Mills

I recently finished listening to a six-part sermon series by John MacArthur titled Why Every Calvinist Should Be A Premillennialist. I highly recommend it to all my Calvinist friends who are amillennial. All the sermons are available as free downloads at http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons.

I followed that up by reading an article titled "The Future of National Israel" by Dr. H. Wayne House in the October-December 2009 edition of Bibliotheca Sacra, the theological journal published by Dallas Theological Seminary, my alma mater. I also recommend that article as an excellent summary of the various theological positions regarding ethnic Israel.

The reason I focused so much attention on this subject is because I am currently teaching through Romans 9-11 in my Sunday School class. Most reformed commentators are amillennial in their eschatology and hold to either a covenant theological position or a replacement theological position regarding Israel. Neither position sees a future for national Israel. The covenant position sees the only Israel that will ever be saved and experience the kingdom as those believing Jews who are a part of the "one people of God" who make up the church. The replacement position says that because of Israel's rejection of Jesus as its Messiah, it has been replaced by the church, which then becomes the beneficiaries of all of God's promises and blessings to that nation. Consequently, because the covenant and replacement theologians do not believe in a future for national, ethnic Israel, they take some strange approaches to the clear teaching of Romans 9-11 regarding God's eternal relationship to that nation.

Because I hold to a historical, literal, grammatical approach to the interpretation of Scripture in which biblical language is to be understood in its normal sense, I must conclude that the numerous promises which God made to Israel in the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 12:1-3), the Davidic covenant (2 Sam. 7:12-16), and the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-37) clearly teach that God promises a future day of salvation and a physical kingdom for ethnic Israel. Based on the language which God used in giving those covenants, they were unconditional, unilateral, and irrevocable.

Therefore, when Paul says in Romans 11:1-2, "I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be!...God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew," and in verse 11, "I say then, they (Israel) did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be!" and in verse 26 which says "all Israel will be saved," I must conclude that the clear meaning of the language is that national Israel has not been eternally rejected or replaced, and that there will be a future day when salvation will come to the nation as ethnic Israel bows the knee to Jesus as its Messiah.

Finally, let me pass along one final recommendation for those who wish to study this issue in great depth. Perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of this subject is Future Israel by Barry Horner. It is 400 pages long, which may sound intimidating, but John MacArthur calls it “the best treatment of Israel’s future" he has seen. He further states, "Future Israel should be required reading for every pastor, seminarian, and student of Bible prophecy.” I personally hope to get my own copy soon as a resource for my future studies.

In conclusion, I urge all Bible students to be consistent when interpreting the Scriptures. If you are going to use the historical, literal, grammatical approach to the interpretation of Scripture when it comes to the doctrines of sovereign grace and salvation, then be consistent and maintain that same approach when studying eschatalogical passages relating to the nation of Israel and the millennial kingdom.

The Revelation of God in Creation

by Bruce Mills

I have returned from vacation in the mountains of north Georgia. I stood on the top of Brasstown Bald, the tallest mountain in Georgia, and looked out over four states. The leaves were changing into brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges. The skies were deep blue, the breezes were cool, and the temperatures were hovering in the 70s. The sunsets on some evenings were gorgeous.

As I took in all of this glorious beauty, I was reminded that all of this beauty came into existence by the Word of God (John 1:3, 2 Peter 3:5), that it continues to existence by His power (Heb. 1:3), and that it exists for Him (Col. 1:16). But what strikes me as being most important about enjoying the beauty of God’s creation is recognizing that it’s purpose is to reveal God’s eternal power and divine nature (Rom. 1:2). Creation’s beauty should tell us how infinitely beautiful He is. Creation’s glory tells us how infinitely glorious He is. Creation’s intricacy and detail should tell us how infinitely powerful He is. And when we see all of that glory, majesty, and power revealed in what has been made, we should conclude that it could only happen by the actions of an infinitely mighty and glorious God.

Most of our society imagines that all this created glory came into existence on its own through a long evolutionary process which took place entirely by accident. Why do they draw such a conclusion? Because, according to Rom. 1:18-25, mankind suppresses the innate knowledge of God which has been revealed in creation, choosing instead to worship the creation rather than the Creator. They consider themselves to be wise, but in reality, they are fools. Rejecting the revelation of God’s glory that comes through creation, they develop futile speculations, and descend into darkness. Their actions bear out the truth that is stated in John 3:19—“men loved darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

Now I understand that the only reason I am able to fully appreciate God’s revelation of Himself is because the Spirit of God has called me to be one of His children, and for that I am eternally grateful. But all mankind is capable of observing nature and recognizing God’s eternal power and divine nature in what has been created. That is what theologians refer to as “general revelation,” and all people are capable of understanding that aspect of God’s revelation of Himself. But the fact that most people willfully reject that revelation simply reveals the depths of their depravity. Oh, how I wish all people would look at the glory of God revealed in creation and seek to know the Creator who is our glorious Lord and Savior! Because when man looks at the “general revelation” of creation with an eye to genuinely know the One who created it, God provides that person the opportunity to receive knowledge of His “special revelation,” who is Jesus Christ.

So be amazed at creation. Marvel at its intricacy, its beauty, its glory. All of it exists to reveal the glory of the God who created it. And the more you desire to know Him, the more of Himself that He will reveal to you. And knowing Christ and marveling at His beauty is the greatest treasure of all.

Why God Allowed Sin to Enter His Creation

by Bruce Mills

Yesterday I taught on Romans 9:14-24, a passage which clearly deals with God’s sovereignty in election. In verse 22, Paul states, “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?” Now, I have dealt with that verse in a previous post on the doctrine of reprobation (2/18/08) so I will not rehash that issue.

However, one issue which we discussed yesterday dealt with God’s sovereignty in relationship to sin. This is a very serious issue in theology, because after all, if we have no answer for the horrendous things which take place around us, we might conclude either that God is impotent and incapable of dealing with such matters, or that He is a mean and vindictive tyrant who enjoys inflicting pain on His subjects.

So why does God permit evil in His creation? Why does He allow such events as a deranged gunman killing 32 students and faculty members on a college campus in Virginia in April 2007? What about mass genocide as has taken place in Bosnia and Rwanda within the past few years? What about radical Islamic terrorists flying commandeered airplanes into towers, killing thousands?

And why didn’t God simply wipe out Lucifer (Satan) at the very beginning when he rebelled? After all, He has the right and power to do that. In fact, Revelation 20:10 says he is will do just that someday. So why didn’t God cast him into the Lake of Fire the day after he rebelled? Why let him rampage through humanity for centuries?

What possible answer does Christianity have for such questions? Using material that I gleaned from both John Piper and John MacArthur, let me see if I can answer that.

The ultimate answer is that “all things have been created through [Christ] and for [Christ]” (Col. 1:16). Clearly God knew all that Satan would do if He created him and permitted him to rebel. So in choosing to create him, God was choosing to fold all of that evil into His purpose for creation. His purpose for creation was the glory of his Son. All things, including Satan and all his followers, were created with this in view. God created them knowing what they would do, and that knowledge was taken into account in God’s decision to create them. Therefore, the evil that Satan and his demonic forces do is simply one aspect of how God’s greatest and perfect purpose will be accomplished.

And in Romans 9:22, we learn that the entrance of sin into the world was necessary so that God could display His wrath, judgment, holy anger, vengeance, and justice. That’s why it says God was “willing to demonstrate His wrath.” His wrath is just as much an attribute of God’s nature as any other of His attributes. And so God allowed sin to enter into His perfect creation in order that He could display His holy wrath, because if there was no sin, He would have had no reason to display His wrath, and without His wrath, the fullness of the glory of God would not have been revealed.

Satan’s fall and ongoing existence are for the glory of Christ. Ultimately, Jesus Christ will be more highly honored, more deeply appreciated, and more deeply loved because He defeats Satan—not the moment Satan fell, but through millennia of enduring him and those who follow him “with much patience”--and decisively through His own death. A single, sudden, and infinitely holy display of power to destroy Satan immediately after his fall would have been a glorious display of power and righteousness. But it would not have been the fullest possible display of the full glory of the Son and the Father. God chose an infinitely wise way of displaying the full magnificence of divine glory by letting Satan fall and do his work for thousands of years.

The glory of Christ reaches its highest point in Christ’s obedient sacrifice on the cross where Jesus triumphed over the devil (Col. 2:15). Jesus said in that final hour of his own sacrifice, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him” (John 13:31). Paul said that the crucifixion of Christ is the point where we see his wisdom and power most gloriously displayed: “But we preach Christ crucified…the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24).

Satan, with all the evil and misery he brings to this planet, serves to magnify the power and wisdom and love and grace and mercy and patience and wrath of Jesus Christ. We would not know Christ in the fullness of His glory if He had not defeated Satan in the way He did.

Now, I understand that that’s not an easy answer to accept for many. But that’s the answer God gives us in Romans 9:22. Had there been no Satan and no sin, God couldn’t have displayed His wrath against sin and we wouldn’t have known that aspect of His nature. And because that aspect of His nature wouldn’t have been put on display, the full revelation of God’s glory would have been lost. So God created Satan and allowed and endured sin for the purpose of revealing His holy wrath in its judgment and its punishment. And it had to be so in order for God’s character to be fully revealed.

The text also says, “and to make His power known.” Here is another reason why God created Satan and permitted sin to enter His creation. First of all, He did it so that He could show His wrath. Secondly, He did it so that He could show His power.

How does God show His power in relationship to sin? First of all, in His judgment of sin. The closing chapters of the book of Revelation reveal the power of God in judging sin. If you read them, you will see the devastating plagues that He will one day send on the earth. You will see the great fiery judgments that He will bring upon men. And you will see Jesus Christ return as the conquering Lord, riding on a white horse, carrying a sword, wearing blood splattered garments as He comes to defeat Satan, his demonic forces, and the armies of the world and take the earth for His own possession so He can establish the millennial Kingdom. And after the final rebellion, you will see all of unredeemed humanity collected before the Great White Throne because God has the power to bring them out of the graves so that He can bring them before His judgment bar and then send them into the Lake of Fire forever. That is truly a demonstration of His unlimited power to judge sin.

And so, Satan and sin exist in order that God may fully glorify Himself and His Son, and demonstrate that part of His nature which is holy and reacts in violent wrath against sin and evil. And God created Satan and allowed sin in order that He could demonstrate His tremendous power as well as His vengeance, and His power is seen in its ability to conquer all that attempts to conquer Him.

Evangelism

by Robert Fraire

When a believer thinks about his responsibilities as a Christian, one that comes to the top of the priority list should be the need to evangelize the lost.

In this post I am going to look at what the Bible tells us is occurring as someone hears the gospel and responds. I am going to do this from two perspectives. First I will talk about how it looks to the people involved, then I'm going to look at what the Bible tells us is happening theologically during this event.

First we see that the Christian loves his friend and wants him to know the Lord Jesus Christ. His heart is heavy with concern over the prospect of his friend living his whole life and then dying where he will face judgement.

In Biblical terms the Christian's concern is well founded as scripture tells us that all men have sinned and therefore will face the wrath of God if they die in that condition. The Christian knows that this is true because he believes that the Bible is the written Word of God and he wants to please his Lord and savior by being obedient to him. But it isn't a forced obedience, because as a Christian he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And God constantly is transforming him to think and have the passions that Jesus did. This is the process of sanctification, the beautiful Lord Jesus is irresistible to him and he must tell his friend of this treasure. This passion also demonstrates that this man is truly redeemed.

So the Christian begins to tell the man how God changed his life. That the Bible states clearly that everyone including his friend is a sinner. And that God is just and righteous and so He must punish sinners.

What is the spiritual state of the unbeliever? Ephesians 2:1 tells us that men before salvation are spiritually dead in their sins. "Dead" means that men apart from God are NOT ABLE to please God in a spiritual realm. In fact men would be without any hope of pleasing God if not for a substitutionary work of Jesus Christ. It is essential that the person to whom we are proclaiming the gospel, be told this truth. As the Bible says, only the sick need a doctor: only the hopeless understand their need for a savior.

Now the friend begins to ask the Christian about these strange things he is saying and the Christian responds with the truth of scripture.

Romans 1:16 tells us that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. That God's will is that people will be saved through the hearing of the gospel. Another important point to consider is: how does this spiritually dead man understand the spiritual truth of the gospel? The Bible tells us that this occurs through God's action of regeneration. (John 3:5) And without God's action the friend will despise the gospel message and reject it.

The Christian tells his friend of the work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection. He then tells him that he must repent of his sin, desire to turn away from his sin and toward obedience to God. To trust that God is able and is willing to save him.

Luke 9:23-24: Jesus says that we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. This is what the Bible means by calling on the name of the Lord, or as John 3:16 says: "Believe in him" Salvation is of God, and God decreed that he would bring His chosen people to himself through faith in Jesus Christ. If this friend is chosen of God and it is the time God has chosen to draw him, then God will regenerate the man, and the man will understand the gospel and love the gospel message and the mercy of God.

The friend hears the truth and believes that it is true. He asks his friend: "how can I be saved?" And the Christan sets his focus on Christ and His finished work.

Saving faith is required by God. There are types of faith that do not save. The emotion based faith with die out, the fear based faith will cool. But when God draws the man, he will possess true faith.

The man prays asking God to save him. He then asks his friend how can he know that he is saved? The Christian opens the Bible to show him 1 John and tells him that those who love God will obey him, love fellow Christians, and repent of their sins.

Scripture never points men to rely on a "remembering the day you prayed to receive Christ"
The man who possesses true faith will live out that faith in obedience to Christ. James 2:17 tells us that true faith will have good works. It is a life characterized by walking in obedience to God that gives us assurance of salvation.


The evangelist operates in the human realm. We cannot see whether God has chosen the man to which we are preaching. But it doesn't matter because God knows who are His. We cannot see with our eyes whether the Holy Spirit has given the hearer new life to understand the gospel, but it doesn't matter because we are commanded to proclaim the truth, God will bring His people to himself.

Sometimes we want to have a fool proof way of knowing who is called. And we want a fool proof way of knowing if a person's profession of faith is real, but God, in His wisdom has said that we will not be able to know, therefore we trust God and worship Him as the sovereign Lord of Salvation.

The Cost of Faithfulness

by Bruce Mills

I was recently reading some of the stories of suffering Christians around the world that are listed on the Voice of the Martyrs web site (www.persecution.com). Those accounts of the things which faithful saints are experiencing for the name of Christ should cause each of us to pray for them and to realize that it is only by God's grace that we who live in the west have not had to undergo the serious forms of persecution that many of our fellow believers in the east experience on a regular basis.

But there are two things of which we can be certain because Jesus told us it would be this way: (1) Persecution is the normal response to any forthright Christian witness or public stand, and (2) We will experience persecution to the extent that we confront the world with Christ’s claims. The message of Christ is very narrow and exclusive, and our world’s desire for an all-inclusive religion of tolerance doesn’t fit well with the gospel. Those Christians who are willing to stand up and tell people that they are lost and on their way to an eternal hell unless they repent and turn to Christ in saving faith are going to suffer persecution for saying such.

It may be as subtle as being shunned and avoided by your neighbors and co-workers. It may be more direct, such as being told that you are not permitted to keep your Bible on your desk at work or to speak of Christ to fellow employees, even during free time such as lunch breaks. It may be that you are called derisive terms to your face such as “Jesus freak” or “Bible thumper.” But in many other parts of our world, it may mean imprisonment or even a death sentence if you speak of Christ or give someone else a Bible.

Persecution is never pleasant, but in John 16:33, Jesus said, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” And in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:10-12, He said, “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” So there is a promise of God’s blessing for those who endure persecution for His name. Persecution may separate you from a more lucrative worldly future or a more attractive image before the world, but persecution will never separate you from Christ’s love.

In Hebrews 11:36-38, the writer tells us what types of persecution the Old Testament saints endured for God’s name. He writes, "and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground."

The cost of faithfulness to God has always been high. In fact, in Matt. 10:37-39, Jesus raised the cost to a level to which many people are unwilling to pay. He declared, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”

What was He saying? He was saying that Jesus Christ must be more important to you than even your family. You must be willing to reject your parent’s religion and turn your back on their desires for you if they conflict with submitting to Jesus Christ. You must be willing to turn your back on your children if it means choosing between them and Jesus Christ. You must be willing to die for Him or your profession of love for Him isn’t genuine. That’s what He means by that statement.

If a professing Christian turns his back on the things of God or lives a habitual, persistent lifestyle of sin, that is proof that he never belonged to Christ in the first place. Such people have not lost their salvation because they never genuinely possessed it. I was recently asked about the verse which says, “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Guess where that verse is found? It’s found in Matthew 10:33, right there in the same passage in Matthew where I quoted Jesus' statement about the cost of following Him. Those who deny Him here, He will deny before the Father because He never really knew them. They were never genuine believers.

Here’s what the apostle John said in 1 John 2:19 about those kind of people who come into the church and claim to be Christians for a while, but then walk away and abandon their claim to believe in Christ: “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”

If the things of the world continually keep a person from the things of God, that person proves he is not a child of God. During Jesus’ earthly ministry, many thousands of people walked great distances to hear Him preach and to receive physical healing for themselves and their loved ones. At His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the crowd acclaimed Him as their Messiah and wanted to make Him king, but a few days later, the fickle crowd was calling for His crucifixion, and after His death when the cost of true discipleship became evident, most of those who had once hailed Jesus were nowhere to be found. In fact, according to Acts 1:15, there were only 120 followers left after His ascension.

In Luke 9 Jesus encountered three different men who claimed they were willing to follow Him. Luke 9:57—As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” That sounds like a wonderful statement. This guy was probably the first guy to ever sing the hymn, “Wherever He Leads, I’ll Go.” But Jesus knew his heart, and so He said to him—verse 58—“The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” In Matthew’s account of this same event, he identifies this guy as one of the scribes, so he would have placed great value on comfort and respect, and he probably saw Jesus as his ticket to gain more of those things in the future. So Jesus tells him that He’ll have to give all that up to follow Him.

Then in verse 59, the Lord calls another man—And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” That man didn’t mean that his father had just died, but rather that he wanted to postpone commitment to Christ until after his father eventually died, at which time he would receive his portion of the family inheritance. Look at what Jesus told him in verse 60—But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” In other words, “Let those who are spiritually dead take care of their own fleshly interests; you focus on eternal matters.” As Warren Wiersbe puts it: “He was worried about somebody else’s funeral when he should have been planning his own!” You have to be willing to die for Christ.

Finally, there was a third man in verse 61—Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” Look at the Lord’s reply to him: “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Someone might say, “Oh my, Jesus’ answer sounds so heartless. Why would He forbid someone to say goodbye to their family?” The problem with this guy was that his heart was looking backwards with devotion to his family rather than forward with devotion to the Lord.

There is nothing wrong with a loving farewell to one’s family. Elijah allowed Elisha to do that in 1 Kings 19. Elisha was plowing his field when Elijah called him into the Lord’s service, and Elisha asked if he could return home and kiss his parents goodbye. Elijah gave him permission, but reminded him that the call of God was upon him. So, in order to show that his heart was looking forward with total commitment to serve God and Elijah, Elisha went home, slaughtered the oxen he plowed with and sacrificed them. And he used the yoke and plow as the wood for the fire. That demonstrated his total commitment to not turn back. He served the meat to his family, then left and joined Elijah (1 Kings 19:20-21).

But in this man’s case, Jesus saw that his heart was not wholly with Him, and that he would be plowing and continually looking back, making his family more important than Christ. If you look backwards when you’re plowing, you will inevitably demonstrate that you aren’t a true plowman. In the same way, those who look backwards and make their family more important than Jesus, demonstrate that they aren’t true disciples.

In his commentary on these verses in Luke, the great Anglican bishop of the 1800s, J. C. Ryle, writes,

“…it is impossible to serve Christ with a divided heart. If we are looking back to anything in this world, we are not fit to be disciples. Those who look back, like Lot’s wife, want to go back. Jesus will not share His throne with anyone—no, not with our dearest relatives. He must have all our heart, or none.

So, only the true believer perseveres, not because he is strong in himself, but because he has the power of God’s indwelling Spirit. His perseverance does not keep his salvation safe, but proves that his salvation is genuine. Those who fail to persevere not only demonstrate their lack of courage, but much more importantly, their lack of genuine faith. God will keep and protect even the most fearful person who truly belongs to Him. On the other hand, the bravest of those who are merely professing Christians will invariably fall away when the cost of being identified with Christ becomes too great.

I challenge you to ask yourself, am I willing to sacrifice everything in this world, including my family and my own life, for the sake of Jesus Christ? Only those who are genuine believers can honestly answer that question in the affirmative.

God's Sovereign Control Over Our Circumstances

by Bruce Mills

"For not from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert comes exaltation; but God is the Judge; He puts down one and exalts another" (Psalm 75:6-7)

As I was reading the Scriptures this morning, I came across this familiar passage and was reminded that all of the political and economic turmoil which surrounds us is entirely within the sovereign control of our heavenly Father. All the debate over healthcare reform, the war in Afghanistan, whether or not the economy is recovering, and the overall direction toward which our nation is headed is entirely under God's providential direction. Nothing takes place without His designing and directing it to achieve His glory and His eternal purposes. He raises up those whom He desires to lead us, and He removes those whom He desires to remove.

What peace that should bring to our heart! The doctrine of the sovereignty of God is the most comforting of all doctrines because it reminds us that every event is entirely under His control. Nothing takes Him by surprise. Not even Satan has power to act apart from God allowing and even authorizing him to do so (cf. Job 1:8-12). As difficult as that is to comprehend (and it certainly isn't fully understandable to our finite minds), knowing that no one and no thing operates outside of the authority of God Almighty is a tremendously comforting thought. Regardless of what happens to our family, our finances, our health, our nation, and even our freedom, we are never outside of the providential hand of our sovereign Lord who is working all things together for the good of His children (Rom. 8:28). What a tremendous encouragement that should be to our fearful hearts!

God's Sovereign Choice (Part 3)

by Bruce Mills

As I promised at the end of Part 2 in this series, this post will deal with the next word used in Romans 8:29-30, which is "predestined." According to these verses, God starts by foreknowing his children, and then it says that the people whom He foreordained to a relationship of loving intimacy, He predestined. It comes from the Greek word proorizw, which means “to mark out beforehand.” He marked them out ahead of time; He wrote down their names; He designated who would be the recipients of His grace and love. Those whom He predetermined to love, He “predestined…to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will” (Eph. 1:5). He started out with a predetermination to love certain ones and on that basis, He marked them out.

Predestination is not synonymous with foreknowledge. Foreknowledge focuses on the distinguishing love of God whereby people are elected. Predestination points to the decision God made regarding what He intended to do with those whom He foreknew. Predestination is that act in eternity past in which God ordained or decreed that those on whom He had set His saving love would inherit eternal life. They are eternally chosen to be the beneficiaries of God's love and grace in salvation, and because God's plans are unchangeable and irrevocable, there can be no other result.

One of the major problems with Arminian theology, and much of contemporary evangelism today, is that it teaches that salvation is predicated on a person’s decision for Christ. But we are not Christians first of all because of what we decided about Christ, but because of what God decided about us before the foundations of the world. Why God would choose certain people to eternal salvation and to eternally set His affections on them and not on others whom He also created is beyond the human mind’s ability to comprehend. When people say that man’s salvation is based on his own choice to believe or not to believe, they are making man the sovereign in salvation, and grace becomes nothing more than the just and fair wages of man’s decision.

So to reject the doctrine of sovereign foreknowledge, predestination, and election is to leave man in charge of his eternal salvation and to make God a lesser god; a diminished deity who sits in heaven wringing his hands, hoping that the people He created will exercise their will to choose Christ, incapable of guaranteeing their salvation apart from their own sovereign choice over the matter. I ask you: Is that the God of the Bible? Absolutely not.

I’m not saying that there aren’t questions such as, “Why did God create unbelievers if He knew in advance that He was not going to choose them and thus, they would always reject Him and never choose to follow Him?” There most certainly are such questions, and it’s okay to ask them, so long as when we ask them, we are not questioning God’s wisdom and justice in these matters. Many people ask those questions because they don’t think it is right for God to act as He has chosen to do.

Paul deals with those issues much more in Romans 9:18-23. Paul is talking about why God chooses some but not others, and here’s what he says. Remember now, this is God speaking to us about how we are to think about these matters.

So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.

What’s God’s answer? It’s basically, “Shut up. Who are you to question the infinite wisdom of the sovereign Almighty God? I did it in order to reveal My wrath and power and glory to mankind, and that’s all you need to know.”

So be very careful about your attitude and motive in asking such questions about God’s righteousness and justice in His foreknowledge, predestination, and election of individuals to salvation. Just accept what He says in His Word as true and then praise His name that He chose to foreknow, predestine, and call some to Himself rather than justly condemning all of mankind to eternal hell for their rebellion against Him.

Human Free Will - Fact or Fiction?

by Robert Fraire

Free Will is one of those phrases that most Christians take to be a central truth of their Christian faith. For most of us the idea of "free will" was preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in Sunday School and assumed whenever Christians gathered. But I'm here to say that no one really believes that men have free will. And the Bible teaches in fact that man's will is not free.

So if you are still reading this post, let us examine the words Free Will. In order for a will to be free their must necessarily be No limitations on it. If the Will is Free, it must be able to accomplish whatever it sets out to do. But we all understand that to be false just from our own experience. To start with an extreme example: If a man wills to fly can he accomplish it? No, not unless he is in an airplane. So then can a man marry any woman he wills to marry? At 5' 6" and 42 years old can I dunk a basketball if I will to do so? (No I can't)

Ok, so we would all agree that man's will is limited in many ways. One of those ways is that our bodies can only accomplish things that are phyically possible. Are there other ways that the human will is limited? Yes, man's will is limited by his desires. A man will make choices that he thinks are best. He may choose to forgo pleasure for a time in order to reap greater benefits later. But men won't do what doesn't make sense for them to do. Unless of course they are insane.

So what is it in man that forms his desire? Here is where I will turn to scripture. The Bible tells us that man was created from the dust of the ground. Therefore part of man is his Flesh. The Bible then tells us that God breathed into the man and he became a living being. Or as the King James says, a living soul(Gen 2:7). So here we see that man has an eternal part to his being, his soul, or his spirit. So man has a spirit and a flesh. Those inform his will as to what is the right thing to do. So when a man is faced with a decision he does not make a choice in a vaccum. Whatever his spirit and his flesh tell him he then chooses.

So now what does the Bible tell us is the state of man's flesh and his spirit? In Genesis 3 we see the sin of Adam and Eve and that their punishment was death. That death was not only their eventual physical death, but also their spirit died as well. And by die, I mean that it ceased to be able to do what God commanded it to do. Romans 5:12 tells us that through Adam sin entered the world, and through his sin, all his descendants faced the same consequence that he did. We inherited a spirit that was dead in terms of being able to obey God. Our spirit was tuned to sin, and our flesh was tuned to sin. Jesus termed this truth in this fashion: in John 8:34, "everyone who sins is a slave to sin." And Paul echos this truth concerning our flesh. In Romans 7:14 Paul says "...but I am flesh, sold into bondage to sin. So if the spirit is a slave to sin, and the flesh is in bondage to sin then what will be the choice that man makes on his own? He will always choose to reject God's gospel. He is a slave to sin, nothing in him desires God. He is an enemy of God and the gospel message and his messangers are the stench of death to him (2 Cor 2:14-16)

In Romans 3: 10 - 18

as it is written,
"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."

So does a man who hears the gospel choose to accept it or reject it? Yes he does. And everytime he exercises his will, he chooses to reject! His will is NOT free, it is a slave to sin because his spirit and his flesh that inform his will are slaves to sin. Without the supernaturual work of regeneration by God himself all men would be lost, always rejecting God's invitation of the gospel.

So then where do people get the idea of "free will"? One place is a verse like John 3:16 In that verse, scripture says: "that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
The logic that follows is that since God gives a choice (whoever believes) then man must have the ability to believe. But this verse does not state that everyone is able to make the positive choice for faith in Jesus. It only states that whoever does believe will be saved. If I said, whoever runs a mile in less than 4 minutes will make the Olympic team. That, in no way states that you have the ability to run a sub 4 minute mile.

So then who does make the positive choice for faith in the Gospel? Earlier in John 3 Jesus says that it is those that are Born Again who will see the kingdom of heaven. So what occurs in the act of being born again? The Holy Spirit removes the man's dead spirit, and puts in a spirit that is free from sin. Thatman with a new spirit hears the gospel and then is able to exercise his will and always chooses to believe in Jesus Christ.

What a great God He is. In His mercy and through His grace, His Spirit brings new life to men, who then call out in faith and are redeemed. If you are a Christian today you are so because of God's work in your life. Not because you had something extra in your "free will" that decided to choose God. In fact, He chose you.

God's Sovereign Choice (Part 2)

by Bruce Mills

In my last post, we were examining Romans 8:29 and saw that God's foreknowledge refers to His predetermined plan regarding certain individuals. But what did He plan to do in regard to them? If we don't understand that, it is easy to define foreknowledge improperly. So exactly what did God plan to do with those people whom He foreknew? This is a very important aspect, and here it is: The concept of foreknowledge embraces the idea of a predetermination, not just to take a course of action, but to take a course of action which is motivated by love.

You see, to foreknow, in its biblical sense, is to predetermine an expression of love. In foreknowing Christ, God was predetermining an expression of love toward Christ which would bring His Son great glory forever through redemption. It is a predetermined, foreordained, foreseen love relationship borne in the eternal purpose of God.

Please understand that throughout Scripture, the concept of knowing refers to much more than simply grasping information. In Amos 3:2, speaking to Israel, God says, “You only have I known among all the families of the earth.” Now does that mean that of all the families, all the tribes, all the peoples, all the nations of the earth, Israel is the only one He knows about? No, it’s not information, it’s predetermination. In fact, the New American Standard Bible translates the word “known” here as “chosen.” So there is that foreordaining aspect. But behind that idea of knowing, there is also a very intimate truth.

If you go back in the book of Genesis, you find in 4:1 that Adam “knew his wife Eve.” That means more than simply that he knew who she was, or where she was, or what she was like because it follows it by saying “and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.” The verb “to know” is often used in Scripture as a euphemism for sexual intercourse, so that means it is used to express the most intimate expression of love. And in the New Testament, Joseph was shocked when he learned Mary was pregnant, and then the angel revealed to him in a dream that she was to give birth to the Messiah. Matt. 1:24-25 tells us that he “took Mary as his wife, but [lit., was not knowing her] until she gave birth to a Son, and he called His name Jesus.” The concept of “knowing,” then, embodies the idea of beautiful, intimate love that brings two together. It has the idea of caring for someone.

1 Cor. 8:3 tells us, “but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.” From the standpoint of cognition and awareness, people don’t have to love God for Him to know about them in His infinite mind, because He knows everyone on the face of the earth. But this is talking about knowing in an intimate sense; that is, “if anyone loves God, he is known by Him” in the sense of an intimate love relationship.

In Matt. 7:22-23, Jesus was explaining what will happen on the Day of Judgment, and He said, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” Did He mean, "I don’t know who you are," or "I never heard of you"? No, He meant “I don’t have an intimate relationship with you; I don’t have a love relationship with you; I don’t belong to you and you don’t belong to Me.”

In John 10:14, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me.” And a few verses later in verse 27, He says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them.” 2 Tim. 2:19 says, “The Lord knows those who are His.”

So, when you come to Romans 8:29 and see the word “foreknew,” there is a predetermined love included in it. When God foreordains, He predetermines to love a certain person. It is a predetermined, foreordained, foreseen love relationship born in the eternal purpose of God.

So what you have is this: God has a purpose and that purpose is to express His love to sinners. He predetermines, on the basis of His desire to express His love to sinners, exactly which sinners He foreordained unto salvation, and they are the people who will be the recipients of His eternal intimacy and love.

When He foreknew them, they did not yet exist; in fact, nothing existed, because according to Scripture, it occurred before creation (cf. Eph. 1:4). None of those whom He foreknew were worthy of His love and grace; in fact, they would all be born as His sworn enemies (cf. Rom. 3:10-18, 5:10, 8:7). So His foreknowledge of them was solely and only an act of His sovereign, infinite love and grace. There is no other reason than that.

In our next post, we will deal with the next word in Romans 8:29 which has also caused great consternation throughout church history, and that is the word "predestined."