In the News

I heard an interesting quote on ABC’s “In The News” program this morning:

“It’s true President Bush has left President-Elect Obama a lot of messes and bad situations to deal with, but the most important thing he’s left him to should way heavily on his shoulders, and that is the fact that there has been no terrorist attack on American soil since September 11, 2001.  That is the most important thing he has to work on, because Americans don’t want to lose that!”

I kind of agree.

Quotable Quotes: Tim Fary

“My job as a preacher of the gospel is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comforted.” -Army Chaplain Tim Fary

Rick Warren’s Inauguration Prayer

While reading the latest on CNN today I ran across this story about a group, known as People for the American Way (read it here).  It is a group, headed by Kathryn Kolbert, who rallies for the rights of every American and their freedom of speech and ideas, oh yeah except for Rick Warren’s.  They puts lots of time and effort into making sure those guilty of “hate crimes” are prosecuted to the highest extent of the law, but’s it’s ok that they hate Rick Warren and are very open about it and are asking Barack Obama to oust him from the Inauguration Ceremony for his “closed-minded” views.

In Mark 3:1-6 we read where Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, and saves a life.  The Pharisees begrudgingly look on ready to tear Jesus apart for breaking the Laws. 

Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent. And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him. (NKJV)

While Jesus was saving a life the Pharisees were plotting to kill him, all under the guise of “keeping the Law”.  Kind of sounds like the story above.  I guess there’s nothing new under the sun!

Quotable Quotes: Pastor Carter

“The greatest pleasures this world can offer can’t compare to the least pleasure heaven will hold”

- Pastor Carter, Westminster Presbyterian, Dayton Tn

Joseph…full of grace?

While pondering the Christmas story this year a section of a verse caught my attention. 

“Then Joseph, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.” -Matthew 1:19

This verse doesn’t really stand out until you compare it to a verse like, “And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery…and they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.  Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” -John 8:3ff

Joseph was a Jew and knew Moses’ law very well, so after finding out that his engaged wife to be was pregnant and the child wasn’t his, why didn’t he take her to have her stoned according to the law?  The scriptures tell us why.  The word used here to describe Joseph is “just”, but the NIV translates it “righteous”.  How could Joseph be righteous and not have Mary stoned?  For the same reason Jesus didn’t let them stone the woman in John 8, GRACE.  The good news of the gospel is that there is forgiveness with God.

Joseph was indeed a just man, and full of grace.  Like son like father?  Looks that way!

Experiencing Advent

Coming from a Fundamentalist Baptistic background, the season of Advent hasn’t meant a whole lot to me.  Now that our family has been Presbyterian for about 5 years now that’s seeming to change because of the change of emphaisis on how we view the story of God’s redemption.  For some reason the Holy Spirit has seen fit to open my eyes and heart to all of the beautiful aspects of what the Season of Advent means.   Allow me to explain.

Advent means “expectation”.  Was Jesus expected, or does it just make for a good story on the 25th of December?  The sad truth is that many Christians neglect their Old Testaments and just study the New.  This is sad because if that is what you are doing then you are missing the entire buildup of expectation until the glorious appearing of the Messiah.  You miss why Eve expected her firstborn son to be the one God promised, you miss the expectation Abraham felt when he said “God will provide for himself a sacrifice”, you miss the expectation of the King to sit on David’s throne, and on and on. 

But on top of all of the expectation we usually read about disappointment after disappointment, and you’re left wondering, “is anyone ever going to get it right?”  When will everything work out, or are we stuck in this cycle of failure forever?  Then we read the story of the arrival of the Messiah, the Christ child, and its almost as if your soul lets out a great big sigh of relief and says “Finally! He’s here and he’ll get it right where everybody else failed so badly!”  The word Israel in Hebrew means “God’s Prince” or “God’s Beloved”.  But we know from all of the stories of Israels failure that another prince would have to come to fulfill God’s Law and His expectations.

We hear the answer to that big gap in the OT when in Mathew 3:17 God thunder from Heaven “THIS is my beloved Son in whom I am WELL PLEASED!”  Finally, HE’s here!

May your heart experience great joy from this season of Advent.

Cool Christmas Lights

It’s that time of year again.  I think John Newton may have enjoyed this

Confession of Sin

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” -I John 1:9

Herein lies one of the verses in the Bible that deals with our greatest need as sinners…forgiveness! So how does confession relate to forgiveness?

We read about King David in II Samuel in the sad story where he forceably took Uriah’s wife, had sex with her, probably against her will, got her pregnant, and then arranged to have her husband “accidentally” killed. David probably suffered from the same poisonous symptom of unbelief that we do…covering up our sin. Maybe David told himself ”maybe I didn’t really commit adultery with Bathsheba, I’m the King and have rights to everything, right? After all I am a good kind, so why shouldn’t I have this one thing I want. And I didn’t actually kill Uriah with my hands, he just died in the heat of battle”. That’s the same thing we do sometimes. We tell ourselves lies to cover up our sin or make it not look so bad. This started in the garden with Satans “did God really say?”, and it still invades our spiritual lives today. But like David, when we tell ourselves these lies and try to keep our sins hidden, God denies our soul true rest.

He states in Psalms 32, “When I kept silent, my bones grew old. Through my groaning all the day long.”

So how does the Bible define confession of our sin? The Greek is homologeo and it simply means “to agree or acknowledge”. Instead of believing the lies we tell ourselves God simply wants us to agree with Him that it is sin against Him. It took Nathan confronting David with the truth and telling him he had hated God’s commandments and had coveted, committed adultery, and murdered Uriah, because this is how God saw it.
Then David confessed, “I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden.

I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
(Psalms 32:5)A wonderful thing happened to David, the Gospel. He confessed (agreed with God about what he had done) and he was forgiven!
Confessing our sin can be a scary thing, because we are agreeing that we have offended a perfect and holy God. But God offers us a way out in these verses.
The stories we tell ourselves to cover up our sin only do one thing, separate us from a God who is ready and willing to forgive us of all our unrighteousness!

A Jewish perpective on the Hebrews Warning Passages

The points listed below come from a website that is a ministry that shares the Gospel with Jewish people. I found this commentary interesting because it looks at the Hebrews 10:26 passage through covenant lenses and pulls the focus away from the individualistic interpretations that make thier way into a lot of commentaries now days. Hope you find it helpful:
Key Point 1: The sins in view here involves deliberately rejecting the New Covenant and calling the shed blood of Jesus “unholy”, that is to say, the death of Jesus is simply a “common” death with no value for forgiveness of sin. Notice it also involves “insulting the Spirit of grace”, a similar idea to the unpardonable sin spoken of in the Gospels. If one goes back to the Temple sacrifices after having been enlightened as to the truth of the greater and final sacrifice of Jesus, those sacrifices can no longer atone for sin.
Key Point 2: Notice the verb tense in 10:26. It says: “deliberately keep on sinning.” Henry Alford says, “Notice the present, not the aorist participle. ‘If we be found wilfully sinning’, not ‘if we have wilfully sinned,’ at that Day.” (Alford’s Greek Testament, Vol. IV, p. 199). This is not talking about a sin committed some time in the past, rather, it is talking about entering into a continuing state of rejection of the grace of God offered through the Messiah’s sacrifice as found in the New Covenant. It involves departure from the New Covenant community, giving up “meeting together.”
Key Point 3: Notice that the phrase “there is no longer any sacrifice for sin” (Hebrews 10:18) is echoed in the phrase “no sacrifice for sins is left” (Hebrews 10:26). The point is that if the final sacrifice for sin found in the New Covenant Atonement of Jesus us rejected, there is no other to be found.
Key Point 4: The clause in Hebrews 1:26, “If we deliberately keep on sinning,” is explained by verses 28 and 29, (as well as the other passages). It does not refer to one particular act of sin, but rather continuance in a state of rejecting the Covenant, having contempt for the Messiah and his atoning blood, and insulting the Spirit of Grace. It is a form of the one unpardonable sin, since all other sins can be forgiven.

More on Despair (The Christian in Complete Armour, William Gurnall)

“First we must distinguish between a soul’s being foiled through his own infirmity, and his enemy’s stability and power over-matching him, and another, who through a false heart doth voluntarily prostrate himself to the lust of Satan; though a general will show little pity to a soldier that should traitorously throw down his arms and run to the enemy, yet if another in fighting receives a wound and be worsted, it will be no dishonor for him to express his pity and love, no, though he should send him out of the field in his own coach, lay him in his own bed and appoint him his own surgeon. God doth not encourage wickedness in a saint, but pities weakness. Even when the saints fall into a sin in its nature presumptuous they do not commit it so presumptuously as others; there is a part true to God in their bosoms, though overvoted.”
“Verily, verily I say unto you, ALL sins and blasphemies will be forgiven men…” -Jesus