It's God People, not You...

 

Rom 4:17 ESV - as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"--in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

This is one of the most misquoted, misapplied, misappropriated, and just flat out missed Scriptures in the whole Bible over the last few decades.  For the life of me, I don’t know why though.  It reads VERY simply.  Read it closely.  Now let me ask you…WHO calls things into existence?

Let’s see…

  • In the presence of…well….GOD!
  • In whom he believed…that would be Abraham's believing in (and us too)…GOD!
  • Who gives life to the dead…who does that?  GOD!
  • Therefore who calls things into existence…the things that do not exist...in context?  GOD!

WE don’t. HE does.

True biblical faith asks, believes, and trusts in the Sovereignty of God.  It never presumes to command God, but rather trusts in His will and grace.  Asking in Jesus’ Name is not a magic formula.  The inclusion of His Name means “according to His will.” (1 John 5:14)  How a Christian can possibly believe that God is somehow locked out of the earth (that He created and rules!) and can do nothing (He is omnipotent!) unless we (fallible, sinful, prone to ask amiss humans) "authorize it" is beyond me.

I had hoped the recession would strike a critical blow to the imbalances of word/faith heresies in our area.  I guess not, as people are still being taught to “speak” whatever they want into existence.  And many seem to love it…..sigh.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 ESV - For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, (4) and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
 

Second Commandment Devotional this Morning

 

This is the devotional we read at family worship this morning.  My wife and I were blessed by it...so thought I'd share.  It's based on the question:

"What does the Second Commandment Require?" 

Answer: "The Second Commandment requires us to receive, respectfully perform, and preserve completly and purely all the regulations for religion and worship that God has established in His Word."

God has established in His Word regulations (or rules) for religion and worship.  He wants us to worship Him and He wants us to do certain things when we worship Him.  God requires His people to gather regularly to worship.  When they do that, He requires them to read His Word together and to listen as His Word is preached.  He wants them to sing His praises.  He wants them to pray together.  God also requires His people to remember the Lord's death for them through the Lord's Supper and to be baptized into the church.  Those who truly belong to the Lord will receive these requirements of His.  They will gladly participate in these things.  Those who belong to God will want to be with the Lord's people on the Lord's Day.  They will want to sing His praise and  hear His Word taught, even if they do not always understand everything.  If you always find going to church on Sundays unpleasant, you need to ask yourself if you are truly one of God's people.

Psa 122:1 ESV - I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!"

From Training Hearts, Teaching Minds by Starr Meade

A Question from a Good Friend

 

Recently, a good friend asked me the following question:

"How should the Church relate to Civil Government and what is her role in Justice, Governance, and Care of Citizens?"

My written answer to this great man is below:

Friend,

In its current imperfect state, my worldview sees four roles for the Church’s jurisdiction.  Interestingly, they are the same roles as the head of a household:

1. Priest (Grace)
2. Prophet (Truth)
3. Provider (Care)
4. Protector (Justice)

In other words, the church ministers from a Kingdom perspective in every area.  Everything we do is done through the lens of the Law and Gospel and with a sense of our role jurisdictionally.

For example…

1. The church has a priestly role: preaching the grace of God in Christ and providing comfort and care to individuals, homes, and the Nation.
2. The church has a prophetic role: declaring truth to the same as above. This is an area of extreme failure IMHO.
3. The church has a stewardship responsibility to save/gather/raise resources to be used to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and provide relief during times of casualty and catastrophe as best it can.
4. The church has a calling to fight for justice according to biblical principles (God's moral Law)…for everyone.  If an area of civil government is wrong, the church must stand against it and call it out.  But if she doesn’t understand the other jurisdictions, some of her “call outs” will be wrong.

I don’t believe the church carries the sword for punishment (civil responsibility), runs a man’s house (family government), or is to be in charge of civil government. So…how should poor people be cared for biblically?  (Which is normally the question asked by of us by the culture.)

An argument can be made that Government has a responsibility to respond to natural disasters (Joseph), and it certainly does for military threats, etc…but none (biblically) to provide an ongoing supply of resources to its citizens.  This area is the role of family and the church…the role of loving charity by individuals and ministries.  The church in the NT had literal “roles” of widows it provided for as an example.  This is why, biblically, taxes are low (10-13%)...so more can be given and used for an inheritance for the family.  The government has taken over the role assigned to the church and the family.

One of the main problems in America is this “jurisdictional crisis” where the government educates and provides (home and church responsibility), the home abdicates (fatherhood, discipleship, worldview), and the church equivocates (loss of truth and prophetic voice, fights for stuff from government that government shouldn’t be doing in the first place).

The biblical flow of government should look like this…biggest area of influence on society to smallest:

Individual--->Home--->Church--->Civil Government

We’ve got it precisely backwards.
 

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