Pastor Wade's Blog https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com Pastor Wade's weekly blog Tue, 19 Mar 2024 03:21:11 -0400 http://churchplantmedia.com/ I'm Kind of Homesick https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/im-kind-of-homesick https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/im-kind-of-homesick#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/im-kind-of-homesick Hebrews 11:10, “For he (Abraham) was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”

Hebrews 11:16, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” 

Hebrew 12:22, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,”

Hebrews 13:13-14, “Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.  For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

Considering the encroaching events and increasing pressure and persecution from apostate Judaism, the Christ-professing Hebrews to whom this letter was written are admonished to make a clean break with Judaism. Once for all they should “go outside the camp”, decisively turning their backs on the Temple with all its symbolic rituals and sacrifices and on the city of Jerusalem itself. Why? Because the reality these earthly things foreshadowed had been fulfilled in Jesus the Christ or Messiah.

Jerusalem was dear to the hearts of those who served at the temple. It was the geographic center of their “camp.” But these Hebrew believers didn’t have to consider it as a loss when they turned their back on the earthly Jerusalem and the whole religion that was performed there. It had all come to an end because of the rejection of the Messiah – King Jesus. Every desire for it was wrong. Jerusalem was not a lasting city. The city would soon be destroyed (Luke 21:20 ). That was also the case with the temple (Matthew 24:12 ).

The New Testament believer has no “Holy City or Holy Land” on this “old” earth. Our hearts are to be set on the “new” earth and the “new” forever, heavenly city - the New Jerusalem - that will ultimately come down from God out of Heaven (Revelation 21:1-4).

Abraham and Sarah had seen by faith a “better country, that is, a heavenly one, and the city that he “has prepared for them.”  

Squire Parsons’ popular song Beulah Land begins: “I'm kind of homesick for a country to which I've never been before.”

Having already lived past the 73.5 years of life expectancy for men in America (I’m 76 years old), I am finding myself getting more and more homesick for the “city that has foundation” and for the “better country” of the “new heavens and the new earth.”

No, I don’t have any premonitions about the immediacy of my death, but if I dropped dead today, it would still be almost four years longer life than the average. In addition, I am more aware than ever that I have far, far, more time behind me than I have in front of me.

But even if my health was almost perfect (and it’s not) and my loving family still around me (and they are), they are not ultimate - God is. Marriage, friendships, ministry – none of these are ultimate and permanent.

In Mark 12:18–27 and Matthew 22:23–33, the Sadducees want to know which husband a woman would have in heaven, when she was widowed and remarried numerous times. They thought they had him tricked - polygamy in heaven. And Jesus said, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

John Piper, in commenting on these verses said, “This means your marriage is temporary and it’s over. That’s very sobering. God is supreme and ultimate and eternal. Marriage is for a season.

Piper goes on to give and illustration: “My mother died when I was 28. I did my father’s second marriage a year later. I was thrilled to do it. Twenty-five years later, his second wife died. He’s not married again. He’s 86 years old (He’s dead now). Now he has two wives. And they’re both in heaven. I don’t doubt it. Very soon my dad will be there. Will he be a bigamist, a polygamist? He will not. Because there is no marriage in the age to come - no marriage in heaven. It will be better. Nothing gets worse in heaven. That’s good news. At least if you enjoy sex, it’s good news - and all other good things in marriage. It only gets better in heaven.”

This is what thrills me as the time of my departure approaches – Nothing Gets Worse in Heaven!

The desire and the “kinda of homesickness” for the better country and for the city that has foundations, increase because I know that death will not deprive me of anything. And entering the country that is “fairer than day, and by faith, I have seen it afar”, will mean the experience of the people of God in the forever presence of God. And, in the words of the old former salve trader, John Newton, “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun!”

In writing of the better country and the city that has foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God, John Piper’s words increase the level of my homesickness for the City. He writes, “In this future and forever “City” of God there will be no pollution, no graffiti, no trash, no peeling paint or rotting garages, no dead grass or broken bottles, no harsh street talk, no in-your-face confrontations, no domestic strife or violence, no dangers in the night, no arson or lying or stealing or killing, no vandalism and no ugliness. The city of God will be perfect because God will be in it. He will walk in it and talk in it and manifest himself in every part of it. All that is good and beautiful and holy and peaceful and true and happy will be there, because God will be there. Perfect justice will be there and recompense a thousandfold for every pain suffered in obedience to Christ. And it will never deteriorate. In fact, it will shine brighter and brighter as eternity stretches out into unending ages of increasing joy.”

The heavenly country is better than any upon earth; it is better situated, better stored with everything that is good, better secured from everything that is evil; the employments, the enjoyments, the society, and everything in it, are better than the best in this world.

The continuing city we desire, the city of God, the country we’re homesick for, doesn’t cause us to cry for immediate evacuation by way of death or the Rapture, but for global, gospel declaration that will ultimately make possible the coming down of the Bride of Christ to dwell forever with God in a “New Heaven and a New Earth.

Although not a whole lot is told us about the new heavens and the new earth, all that is revealed could be summarized in the words of C.S. Lewis as “the beginning of Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

For the believer, the end of life on earth marks the beginning of the Great Story that no one down here has ever read and that has no ending!

For the believer, Chapter One of the Great Story begins with a transformation that is completed and needs not to be repeated! (Philippians 3:20-21, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”)

For the believer, Chapter One of the Great Story begins with a satisfaction that fulfills our deepest needs and desires!

For the believer, Chapter One of the Great Story unfolds in successive chapters of an unending love relationship in a unrestricted working partnership in a New Heaven and on a New Earth!

Michael Wilcock sums up this desire for a better city and country well when he says, “All that is truly good and beautiful in this world will reappear there [in the age to come], purified and enhanced in the perfect setting its Maker intended for it; nothing of real value is lost.” Hallelujah!

The consideration that the best is yet ahead for the child of God should inflame the affections, enlarge the desires, and excite the diligent endeavors, of the people of God after this city that he has prepared for them.

I'm kind of homesick for a country
To which I've never been before.
No sad goodbyes will there be spoken
For time won't matter anymore.

Beulah Land, I'm longing for you
And some day on thee I'll stand
There my home shall be eternal
Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land!

 

]]>
Hebrews 11:10, “For he (Abraham) was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”

Hebrews 11:16, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” 

Hebrew 12:22, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,”

Hebrews 13:13-14, “Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.  For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

Considering the encroaching events and increasing pressure and persecution from apostate Judaism, the Christ-professing Hebrews to whom this letter was written are admonished to make a clean break with Judaism. Once for all they should “go outside the camp”, decisively turning their backs on the Temple with all its symbolic rituals and sacrifices and on the city of Jerusalem itself. Why? Because the reality these earthly things foreshadowed had been fulfilled in Jesus the Christ or Messiah.

Jerusalem was dear to the hearts of those who served at the temple. It was the geographic center of their “camp.” But these Hebrew believers didn’t have to consider it as a loss when they turned their back on the earthly Jerusalem and the whole religion that was performed there. It had all come to an end because of the rejection of the Messiah – King Jesus. Every desire for it was wrong. Jerusalem was not a lasting city. The city would soon be destroyed (Luke 21:20 ). That was also the case with the temple (Matthew 24:12 ).

The New Testament believer has no “Holy City or Holy Land” on this “old” earth. Our hearts are to be set on the “new” earth and the “new” forever, heavenly city - the New Jerusalem - that will ultimately come down from God out of Heaven (Revelation 21:1-4).

Abraham and Sarah had seen by faith a “better country, that is, a heavenly one, and the city that he “has prepared for them.”  

Squire Parsons’ popular song Beulah Land begins: “I'm kind of homesick for a country to which I've never been before.”

Having already lived past the 73.5 years of life expectancy for men in America (I’m 76 years old), I am finding myself getting more and more homesick for the “city that has foundation” and for the “better country” of the “new heavens and the new earth.”

No, I don’t have any premonitions about the immediacy of my death, but if I dropped dead today, it would still be almost four years longer life than the average. In addition, I am more aware than ever that I have far, far, more time behind me than I have in front of me.

But even if my health was almost perfect (and it’s not) and my loving family still around me (and they are), they are not ultimate - God is. Marriage, friendships, ministry – none of these are ultimate and permanent.

In Mark 12:18–27 and Matthew 22:23–33, the Sadducees want to know which husband a woman would have in heaven, when she was widowed and remarried numerous times. They thought they had him tricked - polygamy in heaven. And Jesus said, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

John Piper, in commenting on these verses said, “This means your marriage is temporary and it’s over. That’s very sobering. God is supreme and ultimate and eternal. Marriage is for a season.

Piper goes on to give and illustration: “My mother died when I was 28. I did my father’s second marriage a year later. I was thrilled to do it. Twenty-five years later, his second wife died. He’s not married again. He’s 86 years old (He’s dead now). Now he has two wives. And they’re both in heaven. I don’t doubt it. Very soon my dad will be there. Will he be a bigamist, a polygamist? He will not. Because there is no marriage in the age to come - no marriage in heaven. It will be better. Nothing gets worse in heaven. That’s good news. At least if you enjoy sex, it’s good news - and all other good things in marriage. It only gets better in heaven.”

This is what thrills me as the time of my departure approaches – Nothing Gets Worse in Heaven!

The desire and the “kinda of homesickness” for the better country and for the city that has foundations, increase because I know that death will not deprive me of anything. And entering the country that is “fairer than day, and by faith, I have seen it afar”, will mean the experience of the people of God in the forever presence of God. And, in the words of the old former salve trader, John Newton, “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun!”

In writing of the better country and the city that has foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God, John Piper’s words increase the level of my homesickness for the City. He writes, “In this future and forever “City” of God there will be no pollution, no graffiti, no trash, no peeling paint or rotting garages, no dead grass or broken bottles, no harsh street talk, no in-your-face confrontations, no domestic strife or violence, no dangers in the night, no arson or lying or stealing or killing, no vandalism and no ugliness. The city of God will be perfect because God will be in it. He will walk in it and talk in it and manifest himself in every part of it. All that is good and beautiful and holy and peaceful and true and happy will be there, because God will be there. Perfect justice will be there and recompense a thousandfold for every pain suffered in obedience to Christ. And it will never deteriorate. In fact, it will shine brighter and brighter as eternity stretches out into unending ages of increasing joy.”

The heavenly country is better than any upon earth; it is better situated, better stored with everything that is good, better secured from everything that is evil; the employments, the enjoyments, the society, and everything in it, are better than the best in this world.

The continuing city we desire, the city of God, the country we’re homesick for, doesn’t cause us to cry for immediate evacuation by way of death or the Rapture, but for global, gospel declaration that will ultimately make possible the coming down of the Bride of Christ to dwell forever with God in a “New Heaven and a New Earth.

Although not a whole lot is told us about the new heavens and the new earth, all that is revealed could be summarized in the words of C.S. Lewis as “the beginning of Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

For the believer, the end of life on earth marks the beginning of the Great Story that no one down here has ever read and that has no ending!

For the believer, Chapter One of the Great Story begins with a transformation that is completed and needs not to be repeated! (Philippians 3:20-21, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”)

For the believer, Chapter One of the Great Story begins with a satisfaction that fulfills our deepest needs and desires!

For the believer, Chapter One of the Great Story unfolds in successive chapters of an unending love relationship in a unrestricted working partnership in a New Heaven and on a New Earth!

Michael Wilcock sums up this desire for a better city and country well when he says, “All that is truly good and beautiful in this world will reappear there [in the age to come], purified and enhanced in the perfect setting its Maker intended for it; nothing of real value is lost.” Hallelujah!

The consideration that the best is yet ahead for the child of God should inflame the affections, enlarge the desires, and excite the diligent endeavors, of the people of God after this city that he has prepared for them.

I'm kind of homesick for a country
To which I've never been before.
No sad goodbyes will there be spoken
For time won't matter anymore.

Beulah Land, I'm longing for you
And some day on thee I'll stand
There my home shall be eternal
Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land!

 

]]>
Falling Short of the Glory of God https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/falling-short-of-the-glory-of-god https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/falling-short-of-the-glory-of-god#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/falling-short-of-the-glory-of-god Romans 3:23,for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”

What does it mean to "fall short of the glory of God"? It means that none of us has trusted and obeyed God the way we should. Instead we have trusted ourselves. We have turned from his commandments. We thought we knew a better way. In Romans 1:22–23 it says, "Although they knew God they did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him . . . but exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images . . . "

This is what it means to fall short of the glory of God - to exchange it for something else. God offers us the glory of his beauty and strength and generosity and wisdom for our enjoyment, and we refuse it and fall in love with the things he has made. He offers us himself as our infinite treasure and we trade him in for a secondhand pleasure.

The Scriptures declare that God made us for His glory. "Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, whom I created for my glory." (Isaiah 43:6-7)

Since God made us for his glory, it is our duty, therefore, as his creatures, to live for his glory by prizing, praising, and proclaiming Him, as the most valuable and worthy of all beings. Because of His immeasurable worth, we should worship Him exclusively, affectionately, pervasively, gratefully, and obediently.

But instead of glorifying God by loving him, we have dishonored him through neglect or disdain, and by loving other things more.

Instead of glorifying God by trusting him, we have dishonored him by trying to find security and hope in ourselves and our money and our technology and our weapons, but not in God.

Instead of glorifying God by being thankful to him for life and breath and everything, we have dishonored him by ignoring his generosity and by treating life as a right and happiness as something we deserve.

Instead of glorifying God by obeying him, we have dishonored him by disregarding or rejecting his counsel for our sexuality, and our finances, and our job, and our attitudes, and our politics, and almost everything else in our life.

The issue between us and God is not whether we have pleased men, but whether we have utterly disdained the infinite worth of the glory of our Maker. And we have. All of us have.

The Presbyterian catechism declares that the chief end or reason for our existence is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

With such weight and meaning attached to the “glory of the Lord”, what is the meaning of this load-bearing word of Scripture?

Glory is primarily translated from two words: (1) the Hebrew “kabod” which means heavy, weighty, profoundly important or impressive; (2) the Greek “doxa” which means brightness, splendor, magnificence, fame, or excellent reputation. Taken together, the word “glory” embraces the following three ideas:

Weightiness or Heaviness. Glory communicates a gravity, immensity, and depth that arises from the aura and sheer magnificence of God’s presence. It speaks of a reality of infinite greatness and unspeakable worth. The old hippies’ saying, “Heavy!” comes close to communicating this aspect of glory.

Beauty and Splendor. Glory communicates brightness, radiance, and majesty. It speaks of God’s dazzling beauty and resplendence. The glory of God is the visible manifestation of the excellence of God’s character. It shines with unequalled splendor from the infinite greatness of God. God’s glory communicates God’s beauty – God’s loveliness, attractiveness, and alluring splendor.

Honor. God’s glory demonstrates God’s unique and incomparable worthiness. It calls for the response of respect, esteem, and worship – a humble, grateful acknowledgement of God’s worthiness. This is the meaning of worship. The old English translated worship as “worth-ship”, emphasizing the worth or value of God. God uniquely possesses this inner glory and has the divine right to be acknowledged as supreme. No other being possesses this right because no other being possesses this glory. All creaturely glory is derived. God’s glory is intrinsic and original. The glory of creatures – no matter how great – is merely a reflection of the glory of God. Our sin is that we see glory in everything else beside God! We love the reflection more than the source. This is the essence of sin: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

God’s glory is not an attribute as much as it is the sum total of all God’s attributes. In viewing God’s glory, we are not directly viewing God, but the impress and effects of His majestic greatness.

The glory of God is the source, means, and end of existence. It is the purpose and goal of all things. God will not rest until “all the earth is filled with the glory of the Lord” (Num 14:20) – until all creation is hallowed, glorified, beautified by God. For this reason, the Western church has spoken of the beatific vision – a holy and glorious vision of God that leads to the eternal enjoyment of God’s infinite and inexhaustible glory. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).

Join me in this prayer of praise that I pray on a regular basis, focusing on the “glory of the Lord”:

O Lord the heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and I want to join them in giving unto you the glory due Your name. I pray that You will let your glory be above all the earth O, Lord, and that the whole earth be filled with Your glory.

We rejoice in knowing that the glory of the Lord shall endure forever. Thank you, Father, that in our Lord Jesus the glory of the Lord is risen, and for that we say, "Glory to God in the highest!  And unto you O Lord, be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world without end.

Like Moses of old, we plead, "Lord, please show me Your glory. Let Your Presence so fill the Meeting House until the believer‑priest cannot continue ministering because the glory of the LORD has filled the house of the LORD.

Grant us boldness Lord, to declare Your glory among the nations, Your wonders among all peoples. We call for all families of the peoples to give to the LORD glory and strength.  Give to the LORD the glory due His name.

O LORD, You are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head. 

We cry with angels and saints alike, “Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle.”

Let the saints be joyful in glory; Let them sing aloud on their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two‑edged sword in their hand.  You are the LORD, that is Your name; And your glory You will not give to another.  So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, And His glory from the rising of the sun;

O Lord, answer the prayer of Your Son as he prayed, "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

Truly thine O Lord is the glory. For You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power.  For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Praise the Lord!

 

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Romans 3:23,for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”

What does it mean to "fall short of the glory of God"? It means that none of us has trusted and obeyed God the way we should. Instead we have trusted ourselves. We have turned from his commandments. We thought we knew a better way. In Romans 1:22–23 it says, "Although they knew God they did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him . . . but exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images . . . "

This is what it means to fall short of the glory of God - to exchange it for something else. God offers us the glory of his beauty and strength and generosity and wisdom for our enjoyment, and we refuse it and fall in love with the things he has made. He offers us himself as our infinite treasure and we trade him in for a secondhand pleasure.

The Scriptures declare that God made us for His glory. "Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, whom I created for my glory." (Isaiah 43:6-7)

Since God made us for his glory, it is our duty, therefore, as his creatures, to live for his glory by prizing, praising, and proclaiming Him, as the most valuable and worthy of all beings. Because of His immeasurable worth, we should worship Him exclusively, affectionately, pervasively, gratefully, and obediently.

But instead of glorifying God by loving him, we have dishonored him through neglect or disdain, and by loving other things more.

Instead of glorifying God by trusting him, we have dishonored him by trying to find security and hope in ourselves and our money and our technology and our weapons, but not in God.

Instead of glorifying God by being thankful to him for life and breath and everything, we have dishonored him by ignoring his generosity and by treating life as a right and happiness as something we deserve.

Instead of glorifying God by obeying him, we have dishonored him by disregarding or rejecting his counsel for our sexuality, and our finances, and our job, and our attitudes, and our politics, and almost everything else in our life.

The issue between us and God is not whether we have pleased men, but whether we have utterly disdained the infinite worth of the glory of our Maker. And we have. All of us have.

The Presbyterian catechism declares that the chief end or reason for our existence is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

With such weight and meaning attached to the “glory of the Lord”, what is the meaning of this load-bearing word of Scripture?

Glory is primarily translated from two words: (1) the Hebrew “kabod” which means heavy, weighty, profoundly important or impressive; (2) the Greek “doxa” which means brightness, splendor, magnificence, fame, or excellent reputation. Taken together, the word “glory” embraces the following three ideas:

Weightiness or Heaviness. Glory communicates a gravity, immensity, and depth that arises from the aura and sheer magnificence of God’s presence. It speaks of a reality of infinite greatness and unspeakable worth. The old hippies’ saying, “Heavy!” comes close to communicating this aspect of glory.

Beauty and Splendor. Glory communicates brightness, radiance, and majesty. It speaks of God’s dazzling beauty and resplendence. The glory of God is the visible manifestation of the excellence of God’s character. It shines with unequalled splendor from the infinite greatness of God. God’s glory communicates God’s beauty – God’s loveliness, attractiveness, and alluring splendor.

Honor. God’s glory demonstrates God’s unique and incomparable worthiness. It calls for the response of respect, esteem, and worship – a humble, grateful acknowledgement of God’s worthiness. This is the meaning of worship. The old English translated worship as “worth-ship”, emphasizing the worth or value of God. God uniquely possesses this inner glory and has the divine right to be acknowledged as supreme. No other being possesses this right because no other being possesses this glory. All creaturely glory is derived. God’s glory is intrinsic and original. The glory of creatures – no matter how great – is merely a reflection of the glory of God. Our sin is that we see glory in everything else beside God! We love the reflection more than the source. This is the essence of sin: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

God’s glory is not an attribute as much as it is the sum total of all God’s attributes. In viewing God’s glory, we are not directly viewing God, but the impress and effects of His majestic greatness.

The glory of God is the source, means, and end of existence. It is the purpose and goal of all things. God will not rest until “all the earth is filled with the glory of the Lord” (Num 14:20) – until all creation is hallowed, glorified, beautified by God. For this reason, the Western church has spoken of the beatific vision – a holy and glorious vision of God that leads to the eternal enjoyment of God’s infinite and inexhaustible glory. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).

Join me in this prayer of praise that I pray on a regular basis, focusing on the “glory of the Lord”:

O Lord the heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and I want to join them in giving unto you the glory due Your name. I pray that You will let your glory be above all the earth O, Lord, and that the whole earth be filled with Your glory.

We rejoice in knowing that the glory of the Lord shall endure forever. Thank you, Father, that in our Lord Jesus the glory of the Lord is risen, and for that we say, "Glory to God in the highest!  And unto you O Lord, be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world without end.

Like Moses of old, we plead, "Lord, please show me Your glory. Let Your Presence so fill the Meeting House until the believer‑priest cannot continue ministering because the glory of the LORD has filled the house of the LORD.

Grant us boldness Lord, to declare Your glory among the nations, Your wonders among all peoples. We call for all families of the peoples to give to the LORD glory and strength.  Give to the LORD the glory due His name.

O LORD, You are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head. 

We cry with angels and saints alike, “Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle.”

Let the saints be joyful in glory; Let them sing aloud on their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two‑edged sword in their hand.  You are the LORD, that is Your name; And your glory You will not give to another.  So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, And His glory from the rising of the sun;

O Lord, answer the prayer of Your Son as he prayed, "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

Truly thine O Lord is the glory. For You are worthy to receive glory and honor and power.  For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Praise the Lord!

 

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Inappropriate Joy! https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/inappropriate-joy https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/inappropriate-joy#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/inappropriate-joy One pastor shares the testimony that he heard from a Chistian lady concerning a fellow believer that had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. While undergoing the painful treatment, he radiated an inexplicable joy that was astounding and puzzling to the medical professionals at the treatment center. The nurse overseeing the treatment wrote in the margin of the medical report, “Inappropriate joy”. She had concluded that his response to such painful treatments was not natural or normal, and that it must be just a false front he was projecting rather than face the grim reality that his death was likely imminent.

But the Christian lady who saw the nurse’s handwritten remarks begin to pray daily, “Lord, give me that kind of “inappropriate joy!”

I saw that in the final days of my wife’s first husband who died at the age of thirty-three of leukemia. During his final 6 weeks stay in the hospital, suffering intensely under the radical chemotherapy treatments, he exuded such joy that it impacted everyone who came into his presence. In fact, on one occasion, one of the oncologists treating him came into his room, knelt by his bed, and exclaimed, “Man, what is wrong with you? How can you seem so joyous? Don’t you know you’re dying?” The doctor could have written on Ralph’s report, “Patient shows “inappropriate joy.”

The brilliant English author, C. S. Lewis, said, "Joy is the serious business of Heaven." Robert Lewis Stevenson said, "To miss the joy is to miss everything!" 

Many fail to realize that the Bible in general and the New Testament in particular offers the key that opens into a life of “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). The New Testament is the most joyful book in the world.  It opens with joy over the birth of Jesus, and it ends with the superb picture of a great multitude singing Heavenly Hallelujah Choruses.  No matter where you open it, amid fortunate or discouraging circumstances, you always hear the note of joy.  There is enough tragedy in the New Testament to make it the saddest book in the world, but instead, it is the most joyful.

Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, former pastor and honorable chaplain of the United States Senate accurately diagnosed modern day Christianity’s greatest problem: “Joy is the missing ingredient in contemporary Christianity. The problem is our powerless piousness and grim religiosity.”

The enemy of our souls has deceived far too many Christians into believing that they should spend their days sorrowing and weeping either over their own sins, the sins of the Church, or the whole world. Hendrik Kraemer, the Dutch Christian leader whom the Nazis tortured in a concentration camp, exposed such deception with a passionate "NO!" Speaking in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1951, he cried, "We Christians must get the joy of Christ back into our religion. We are denying Christ by losing it!"

 

In light of the pressing, oppressing, and depressing world events, Christians are not meant to be flippantly unconcerned about a lost, suffering, and dying world, and what appears to be coming upon that world, but are to live in the light of what has been done by Christ and is and will continue to be done to roll back and remedy a fallen race and reverse the curse sin brought upon all creation – and in this light there is joy unspeakable!

 

Elton Trueblood wrote, "The Christian is joyful, not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of the divine sovereignty, are never ultimate. The Christian can be sad, and often is perplexed, but he is never really worried, because he knows that the purpose of God is to bring all things in Heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ."

After being in the faith for fifty-six years, being ordained into vocational ministry for 52 years, pastoring churches for 35 of those years, and traveling all over the world, it is obvious to me that for the most part, God’s people have lost the key to the door of joy and have been looking for it in all the wrong places.

 

Where did we lose it?  In my humble opinion, we lost it as the gospel got distorted and truncated.

 

William Tyndale described the Christian gospel as "good, merry, glad, and joyful tidings that makes a man's heart glad, and makes him sing, dance, and leap for joy."

 

If this is the biblical meaning of gospel, then why do so many professing Christians live as “Bad News”, rather than “Good News” Believers? Why do they live gloom-filled lives instead of gospel-filled? Why do they live so uncertain of their acceptance before God, unconvinced of the victory of Christ, undecided about the power of the Good News to make believers eternally joyous in Jesus, beginning right now, and uncommitted in regard to sparing no expense or effort so that everyone can hear the good news?

 

The main reason for such a joyless life is that far too many believers have a truncated view of the gospel, tending to see it only as a door that they walk through to become a Christian. Consequently, they see the gospel as being only for unbelievers. Once you become a follower of King Jesus, you don’t need it anymore except to share with people who are still outside the door. What you need to hear instead are the challenges and how-to’s of discipleship for Christian growth and remember that it will be good in the sweet by and by. To embrace this view is to forget that Christian growth isn’t steeping out from the gospel, but rather stepping out with, in, and by the gospel. We need to recover the whole gospel that reveals what God’s salvation provisions in the gospel include.

Pastor Philip Ryken, in his commentary on Galatians 5:22, gives a great definition of joy: “Joy is the ability to take good cheer from the gospel.”

Wow! If this definition is valid, then when I as a believer get discouraged and downcast, it’s because I have displaced the gospel and lost the joy of His salvation. In my self-curled sinfulness, I have re-calibrated my gaze to the low horizon of my own little world rather than the broad horizons that encircled the gospel of God. Grover Gunn notes that when we do this, “Self and circumstances have become objects within my trajectory. I become the measure and circumstance becomes the sovereign determiner of fate, and it doesn’t take long before both create a black hole from which escape becomes increasingly difficult.”

The key to living in gospel joy is “being daily filled with the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). John Piper defined the imperative mood of command in 5:18 that is incumbent upon every follower of Christ to obey as one of experiencing what the world would call “inappropriate joy”. He writes, “…being filled with the Spirit means, basically, having great joy in God. And since the Bible teaches that “the joy of the Lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), it also means there will be power in this joy for overcoming besetting sins and for boldness in witness. But, basically, it means radiant joy, because the Spirit who fills us is the Spirit of joy that flows between God the Father and God the Son because of the delight they have in each other. Therefore, to be filled with the Spirit means to be caught into the joy that flows among the Holy Trinity and to love God the Father and God the Son with the very love with which they love each other.”

Lord, restore unto Your people the JOY of Your so “great salvation” that we may live with such joy in Jesus that the world thinks our experiences and expression of joy seem inappropriate and begin to inquire as to what’s wrong with us! Come Holy Spirit and daily fill us with Your presence and “fructify” us to bear the fruit of joy in the face of everything happening to us or around us. Give us what seems to be “inappropriate joy”!

]]>
One pastor shares the testimony that he heard from a Chistian lady concerning a fellow believer that had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. While undergoing the painful treatment, he radiated an inexplicable joy that was astounding and puzzling to the medical professionals at the treatment center. The nurse overseeing the treatment wrote in the margin of the medical report, “Inappropriate joy”. She had concluded that his response to such painful treatments was not natural or normal, and that it must be just a false front he was projecting rather than face the grim reality that his death was likely imminent.

But the Christian lady who saw the nurse’s handwritten remarks begin to pray daily, “Lord, give me that kind of “inappropriate joy!”

I saw that in the final days of my wife’s first husband who died at the age of thirty-three of leukemia. During his final 6 weeks stay in the hospital, suffering intensely under the radical chemotherapy treatments, he exuded such joy that it impacted everyone who came into his presence. In fact, on one occasion, one of the oncologists treating him came into his room, knelt by his bed, and exclaimed, “Man, what is wrong with you? How can you seem so joyous? Don’t you know you’re dying?” The doctor could have written on Ralph’s report, “Patient shows “inappropriate joy.”

The brilliant English author, C. S. Lewis, said, "Joy is the serious business of Heaven." Robert Lewis Stevenson said, "To miss the joy is to miss everything!" 

Many fail to realize that the Bible in general and the New Testament in particular offers the key that opens into a life of “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). The New Testament is the most joyful book in the world.  It opens with joy over the birth of Jesus, and it ends with the superb picture of a great multitude singing Heavenly Hallelujah Choruses.  No matter where you open it, amid fortunate or discouraging circumstances, you always hear the note of joy.  There is enough tragedy in the New Testament to make it the saddest book in the world, but instead, it is the most joyful.

Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, former pastor and honorable chaplain of the United States Senate accurately diagnosed modern day Christianity’s greatest problem: “Joy is the missing ingredient in contemporary Christianity. The problem is our powerless piousness and grim religiosity.”

The enemy of our souls has deceived far too many Christians into believing that they should spend their days sorrowing and weeping either over their own sins, the sins of the Church, or the whole world. Hendrik Kraemer, the Dutch Christian leader whom the Nazis tortured in a concentration camp, exposed such deception with a passionate "NO!" Speaking in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1951, he cried, "We Christians must get the joy of Christ back into our religion. We are denying Christ by losing it!"

 

In light of the pressing, oppressing, and depressing world events, Christians are not meant to be flippantly unconcerned about a lost, suffering, and dying world, and what appears to be coming upon that world, but are to live in the light of what has been done by Christ and is and will continue to be done to roll back and remedy a fallen race and reverse the curse sin brought upon all creation – and in this light there is joy unspeakable!

 

Elton Trueblood wrote, "The Christian is joyful, not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of the divine sovereignty, are never ultimate. The Christian can be sad, and often is perplexed, but he is never really worried, because he knows that the purpose of God is to bring all things in Heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ."

After being in the faith for fifty-six years, being ordained into vocational ministry for 52 years, pastoring churches for 35 of those years, and traveling all over the world, it is obvious to me that for the most part, God’s people have lost the key to the door of joy and have been looking for it in all the wrong places.

 

Where did we lose it?  In my humble opinion, we lost it as the gospel got distorted and truncated.

 

William Tyndale described the Christian gospel as "good, merry, glad, and joyful tidings that makes a man's heart glad, and makes him sing, dance, and leap for joy."

 

If this is the biblical meaning of gospel, then why do so many professing Christians live as “Bad News”, rather than “Good News” Believers? Why do they live gloom-filled lives instead of gospel-filled? Why do they live so uncertain of their acceptance before God, unconvinced of the victory of Christ, undecided about the power of the Good News to make believers eternally joyous in Jesus, beginning right now, and uncommitted in regard to sparing no expense or effort so that everyone can hear the good news?

 

The main reason for such a joyless life is that far too many believers have a truncated view of the gospel, tending to see it only as a door that they walk through to become a Christian. Consequently, they see the gospel as being only for unbelievers. Once you become a follower of King Jesus, you don’t need it anymore except to share with people who are still outside the door. What you need to hear instead are the challenges and how-to’s of discipleship for Christian growth and remember that it will be good in the sweet by and by. To embrace this view is to forget that Christian growth isn’t steeping out from the gospel, but rather stepping out with, in, and by the gospel. We need to recover the whole gospel that reveals what God’s salvation provisions in the gospel include.

Pastor Philip Ryken, in his commentary on Galatians 5:22, gives a great definition of joy: “Joy is the ability to take good cheer from the gospel.”

Wow! If this definition is valid, then when I as a believer get discouraged and downcast, it’s because I have displaced the gospel and lost the joy of His salvation. In my self-curled sinfulness, I have re-calibrated my gaze to the low horizon of my own little world rather than the broad horizons that encircled the gospel of God. Grover Gunn notes that when we do this, “Self and circumstances have become objects within my trajectory. I become the measure and circumstance becomes the sovereign determiner of fate, and it doesn’t take long before both create a black hole from which escape becomes increasingly difficult.”

The key to living in gospel joy is “being daily filled with the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). John Piper defined the imperative mood of command in 5:18 that is incumbent upon every follower of Christ to obey as one of experiencing what the world would call “inappropriate joy”. He writes, “…being filled with the Spirit means, basically, having great joy in God. And since the Bible teaches that “the joy of the Lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), it also means there will be power in this joy for overcoming besetting sins and for boldness in witness. But, basically, it means radiant joy, because the Spirit who fills us is the Spirit of joy that flows between God the Father and God the Son because of the delight they have in each other. Therefore, to be filled with the Spirit means to be caught into the joy that flows among the Holy Trinity and to love God the Father and God the Son with the very love with which they love each other.”

Lord, restore unto Your people the JOY of Your so “great salvation” that we may live with such joy in Jesus that the world thinks our experiences and expression of joy seem inappropriate and begin to inquire as to what’s wrong with us! Come Holy Spirit and daily fill us with Your presence and “fructify” us to bear the fruit of joy in the face of everything happening to us or around us. Give us what seems to be “inappropriate joy”!

]]>
The People Who Miss Christmas! https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/the-people-who-miss-christmas https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/the-people-who-miss-christmas#comments Wed, 13 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/the-people-who-miss-christmas An old pioneer traveled westward across the Great Plains of America until he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He gawked at the sight before him: a vast chasm one mile down, eighteen miles across, and more than a hundred miles long! He gasped, “Something must have happened here!

What if we brought someone from the rain forest of South America to our community in mid-December. As they viewed the lights, decorations, parades, parties, malls filled with people shopping and churches with special services, no doubt they would say, “Something must have happened here.”

What is the “something that must have happened here”? Could you explain to the foreigner what happened here? Have you stopped to consider the full extent of the cause of our celebration?

Did you know that most people miss Christmas every year? Almost everyone in America celebrates Christmas, but most people don’t know why they celebrate. They rush here and there; they buy presents they can’t afford, to give to people they don't particularly like; they go to parties till they are sick of going. They sing songs they don’t understand; they watch old movies about Christmas and endless holiday TV specials. Many go to church out of tradition, others in search of some sense of meaning, some because of the warm feelings of the Christmas season, etc. Then when December 26th rolls around, it is "I owe, I owe, so back to work I go!" Then in less than a week, it's time to get ready for the New Year's festivities.

One thing hasn't changed since the time of Joseph and Mary - nearly everyone missed that first Christmas, too. Those who missed Christ and Christmas all have their counterpart in modern society.

Some of the Common Causes for Missing Christmas

The Demands of Material Prosperity - the Innkeeper - Lk. 2:7,And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 

The town was crowded, the innkeeper’s business was good, and after all a man has got to make a living. He wasn't hostile or even unsympathetic, just busy taking care of business. His problem was self-imposed ignorance and preoccupation with material things.

Someone said that there is always room if you belong to the right company. Well, Mary and Joseph did not have any right connections. There was no room. The innkeeper was unaware that these were very special people and that the most earthshaking event in history was to take place on his property. And so Mary gave birth to her son Jesus in the stable of the inn.

Beware of the barrenness of busyness!

A Detestation of Absolute Authority - Herod - Matthew 2:2-3, “… behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 

Herod, the king, couldn't bear the thought that there was another king of the Jews to whom he would have to bow in subjection. Herod's problem wasn't ignorance it was independence. It was the idea that there was an absolute, unchanging authority whose laws were unchangeable and whose person was not subject to the will of the people or the whims of earthly rulers.

Thomas Nagel was a professor of philosophy at New York University who had a deep-seated hatred toward religion: "In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely unreasonable hostility toward certain established religions. I'm talking about something much deeper - namely the fear of religion itself.... I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and most well-informed people I know are believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that!" 

King Herod represents anyone or anything that tries to stand in the way of King Jesus, purposing to destroy or usurp the rightful reign of the Divine Seed to preserve the throne claims of self, society, and Satan! Their cry is that of all those Jesus spoke about in a parable in Luke 19:14, "But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, 'We will not have this man to reign over us.'"

A Disposition of False Spirituality - Priests and Scribes - Matthew 2:4-6, and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” 

This is astounding! These religious leaders and scholars knew exactly where the Messiah would be born, yet they had no interest in going 6 miles, or in sending someone else to go and report back to them concerning the news that Persian wise men were inquiring about and had traveled so far to find the newborn King.

The birth of Jesus was the occasion of God laying in Zion that which became a Stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to the majority of the most devotedly religious people in Israel. Why? Because they had a disposition of false spirituality. Why bother to go looking for something you feel that you already have?

They were offended in the face of the unexplainable.  Their problem was much like ours. They had reduced God's Word and ways to the size and shape of a box of their on making. This box would contain, explain, and make plain the way God would appear, and the way He would act when he appeared. Moreover, when God revealed Himself in another size and shape of box, they were at his birth indifferent, in his boyhood perplexed, in his public ministry highly offended, tripped up, insulted, and outraged.

Question? Will you miss Christmas because you think you know how and where and what Jesus will look and act like when he shows up? When Jesus shows up in my life or at the church in a manner that's different than I had expected, will I be blessed in the face of what I can't explain, or will I be offended?

In the birth of Jesus, God set a pattern for all to see that no one would ever find their way to Jesus, would ever properly prize and praise Jesus, without direct, supernatural revelation. Being a good Bible student, being smart, having political clout and social influence is totally inadequate.

A Demeanor of Religious Activity and Apathy - People of Jerusalem – Matthew 2:3, “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  

Why did the people of Jerusalem miss Christmas? Religious activity and apathy. They had the Temple, the rituals, ceremonies, the rules, the priests. They were too busy worshipping the right God in the wrong way to even bother to consider the reality behind the rituals. Like their religious leaders, they were too apathetic to walk five miles and check out the big news for themselves. Then when the Messiah came to town riding on a lowly donkey their expectations turned to disappointments.

The Deadening Effects of Contemptuous Familiarity - People of Nazareth – (Read Luke 4:16, 22, 28-29)

The people of Jesus' hometown allowed familiarity to cause them to "reassess what they had seen, in the light of what they knew!” Human reasoning replaces divine revelation. Faith's wings are clipped by reason's scissors.  Familiarity breeds a lack of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God.  It keeps God as small, safe, and distant.

Familiarity redefines what we have and causes us to devalue it so that it becomes common, nothing of real value, nothing to really treasure. The people of Jesus’ hometown couldn't believe what their eyes had seen because of the presuppositions about Jesus. They presupposed that because he was a carpenter's son, and the apparently illegitimate child of Mary, living in humble surroundings with very ordinary brothers and sisters, that there could be nothing of value, of worth, of honor, in such a common man. In their case familiarity bred contempt!

Familiarity always exchanges an exclamation point for a question mark.

Don't miss the reason for the season - Christ, who was historically born and now wants to be spiritually reborn in you.

Perhaps you've been missing Christmas for many seasons. You get and give gifts, decorate a tree, do the family thing on Christmas Eve and Day, but you know in your heart that you’re no different than those who missed the first Christmas.

Why not pray with the hymnwriter: “O come to my heart Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for Thee. Cast out the sin and enter in, be born in me today!”

]]>
An old pioneer traveled westward across the Great Plains of America until he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He gawked at the sight before him: a vast chasm one mile down, eighteen miles across, and more than a hundred miles long! He gasped, “Something must have happened here!

What if we brought someone from the rain forest of South America to our community in mid-December. As they viewed the lights, decorations, parades, parties, malls filled with people shopping and churches with special services, no doubt they would say, “Something must have happened here.”

What is the “something that must have happened here”? Could you explain to the foreigner what happened here? Have you stopped to consider the full extent of the cause of our celebration?

Did you know that most people miss Christmas every year? Almost everyone in America celebrates Christmas, but most people don’t know why they celebrate. They rush here and there; they buy presents they can’t afford, to give to people they don't particularly like; they go to parties till they are sick of going. They sing songs they don’t understand; they watch old movies about Christmas and endless holiday TV specials. Many go to church out of tradition, others in search of some sense of meaning, some because of the warm feelings of the Christmas season, etc. Then when December 26th rolls around, it is "I owe, I owe, so back to work I go!" Then in less than a week, it's time to get ready for the New Year's festivities.

One thing hasn't changed since the time of Joseph and Mary - nearly everyone missed that first Christmas, too. Those who missed Christ and Christmas all have their counterpart in modern society.

Some of the Common Causes for Missing Christmas

The Demands of Material Prosperity - the Innkeeper - Lk. 2:7,And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 

The town was crowded, the innkeeper’s business was good, and after all a man has got to make a living. He wasn't hostile or even unsympathetic, just busy taking care of business. His problem was self-imposed ignorance and preoccupation with material things.

Someone said that there is always room if you belong to the right company. Well, Mary and Joseph did not have any right connections. There was no room. The innkeeper was unaware that these were very special people and that the most earthshaking event in history was to take place on his property. And so Mary gave birth to her son Jesus in the stable of the inn.

Beware of the barrenness of busyness!

A Detestation of Absolute Authority - Herod - Matthew 2:2-3, “… behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 

Herod, the king, couldn't bear the thought that there was another king of the Jews to whom he would have to bow in subjection. Herod's problem wasn't ignorance it was independence. It was the idea that there was an absolute, unchanging authority whose laws were unchangeable and whose person was not subject to the will of the people or the whims of earthly rulers.

Thomas Nagel was a professor of philosophy at New York University who had a deep-seated hatred toward religion: "In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely unreasonable hostility toward certain established religions. I'm talking about something much deeper - namely the fear of religion itself.... I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and most well-informed people I know are believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that!" 

King Herod represents anyone or anything that tries to stand in the way of King Jesus, purposing to destroy or usurp the rightful reign of the Divine Seed to preserve the throne claims of self, society, and Satan! Their cry is that of all those Jesus spoke about in a parable in Luke 19:14, "But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, 'We will not have this man to reign over us.'"

A Disposition of False Spirituality - Priests and Scribes - Matthew 2:4-6, and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” 

This is astounding! These religious leaders and scholars knew exactly where the Messiah would be born, yet they had no interest in going 6 miles, or in sending someone else to go and report back to them concerning the news that Persian wise men were inquiring about and had traveled so far to find the newborn King.

The birth of Jesus was the occasion of God laying in Zion that which became a Stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to the majority of the most devotedly religious people in Israel. Why? Because they had a disposition of false spirituality. Why bother to go looking for something you feel that you already have?

They were offended in the face of the unexplainable.  Their problem was much like ours. They had reduced God's Word and ways to the size and shape of a box of their on making. This box would contain, explain, and make plain the way God would appear, and the way He would act when he appeared. Moreover, when God revealed Himself in another size and shape of box, they were at his birth indifferent, in his boyhood perplexed, in his public ministry highly offended, tripped up, insulted, and outraged.

Question? Will you miss Christmas because you think you know how and where and what Jesus will look and act like when he shows up? When Jesus shows up in my life or at the church in a manner that's different than I had expected, will I be blessed in the face of what I can't explain, or will I be offended?

In the birth of Jesus, God set a pattern for all to see that no one would ever find their way to Jesus, would ever properly prize and praise Jesus, without direct, supernatural revelation. Being a good Bible student, being smart, having political clout and social influence is totally inadequate.

A Demeanor of Religious Activity and Apathy - People of Jerusalem – Matthew 2:3, “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  

Why did the people of Jerusalem miss Christmas? Religious activity and apathy. They had the Temple, the rituals, ceremonies, the rules, the priests. They were too busy worshipping the right God in the wrong way to even bother to consider the reality behind the rituals. Like their religious leaders, they were too apathetic to walk five miles and check out the big news for themselves. Then when the Messiah came to town riding on a lowly donkey their expectations turned to disappointments.

The Deadening Effects of Contemptuous Familiarity - People of Nazareth – (Read Luke 4:16, 22, 28-29)

The people of Jesus' hometown allowed familiarity to cause them to "reassess what they had seen, in the light of what they knew!” Human reasoning replaces divine revelation. Faith's wings are clipped by reason's scissors.  Familiarity breeds a lack of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God.  It keeps God as small, safe, and distant.

Familiarity redefines what we have and causes us to devalue it so that it becomes common, nothing of real value, nothing to really treasure. The people of Jesus’ hometown couldn't believe what their eyes had seen because of the presuppositions about Jesus. They presupposed that because he was a carpenter's son, and the apparently illegitimate child of Mary, living in humble surroundings with very ordinary brothers and sisters, that there could be nothing of value, of worth, of honor, in such a common man. In their case familiarity bred contempt!

Familiarity always exchanges an exclamation point for a question mark.

Don't miss the reason for the season - Christ, who was historically born and now wants to be spiritually reborn in you.

Perhaps you've been missing Christmas for many seasons. You get and give gifts, decorate a tree, do the family thing on Christmas Eve and Day, but you know in your heart that you’re no different than those who missed the first Christmas.

Why not pray with the hymnwriter: “O come to my heart Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for Thee. Cast out the sin and enter in, be born in me today!”

]]>
Christmas - Heaven's Rescue Mission! https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/chris https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/chris#comments Mon, 11 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/chris Christmas is about an incredible mission effort from Heaven to bring liberation to a sinning people and suffering planet. Christmas was the occasion of God the Father sending God the Son to the Middle East on a deadly rescue mission.

Jesus said in Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;”

In John 4:34, we read, “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.’”

Again, we read in John 6:38: “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

In Galatians 4:4, Paul writes: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law.”

Finally, in 1 John 4:14, we read: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.”

Rescue missions in the Middle East usually fail. One such case in point was the Iranian hostage crisis (November 4, 1979 – January 20, 1981). This was a tense diplomatic standoff between the governments of the United States and Iran in which Iranian militants held 52 American citizens hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for 444 days. President Carter, exasperated by the failed negotiations, authorized a military rescue mission. This attempted rescue involved the US Navy. However, the mission failed and caused the death of eight service members. The need for stealth meant that the helicopters were unable to communicate with weather services or each other, and in losing this ability, they were unable to foresee the local sandstorms that were blowing through Iran. Due to the inclement weather, two aircraft collided and killed eight soldiers, and many more helicopters had to be abandoned.

In June of 1980 there was another dramatic, three-day, televised rescue attempt, this time in Italy that captured the attention of the world. Six-year-old Alfredo Rampi - a frail lad suffering from a congenital heart defect, had fallen into a well. He was wedged into a narrow crevice 113 feet down in the 260 foot deep well. As the rescue attempt got under way, the President of Italy put aside all governmental duties and came to the well site to stand by Alfredo’s mother. Those attempting to rescue him drilled a tunnel to the boy’s level and began drilling toward him. They had almost reached the boy when Alfredo, too weak to keep his grip on the muddy ledge he was clinging to slipped another 100 feet. When this happened, the entire nation was moved to tears.

A series of brave but desperate bids to lower first a very small man and then several cave explorers down the narrow well from the rescue shaft followed.

Shortly after midnight, one experienced cave explorer managed seven times in the space of one hour to reach the boy and grab his hands. But each time the muddy slime made him lose his grip.

The dramatic effort to save the boy brought thousands of calls from around the world offering advice on how to save the tiny lad.

The final effort to rescue the boy was performed by the best cave explorer in the nation. Lowered into the shaft headfirst, with ropes and pulleys attached to his ankles, Caruso managed twice to put a handcuff on Alfredo’s wrist. Both times it slipped off.

Thousands of Italians at their TV sets saw Alfredo’s mother crumple in tears as Caruso came back up, muddy, exhausted and ALONE!

A microphone lowered into the well brought Alfredo’s last words to the nation. Like a ghostly wail, the lad cried “Mamma, Mamma, until his voiced turned to an unintelligible whimper and trailed away into the silence of death. Write over this rescue mission effort - Failure.

May I suggest to you, dear reader, that these two true life stories are but a parable of the ultimate in human tragedy. For you see all mankind had fallen into the horrible, slimy pit of sin. Self-attempts at rescue were hopeless. For several thousand years many rescue attempts had been mounted but all to no avail. Was there no way out of this well of sorrow and woe; of bondage and suffering; of death and damnation?

Then on a cold winter night in a little village in Bethlehem, God answered that question with a resounding YES! On that star-filled night God sent His Son out from heaven on a designated, deadly rescue, ransom, and release mission. This rescue mission required King Jesus to lay aside the outward appearance of His God-head, the taking of the nature of man, the form of a servant, and the likeness of a sinful people.

Paul said in 1 Timothy 3:16"great is the mystery of godliness: God was revealed in the flesh!"

The Word became flesh! God became human while never ceasing to be God! He was just as much God as if He were not man and just as much man as if He were not God! He who breathed the breath of life into the first man is now himself a man breathing his first breath. The invisible God became visible! The untouchable became touchable! God most high became God most nigh! The unlimited became limited! The infinite became finite! The omnipresent spirit, whose being fills the galaxies, confined to the womb of a peasant girl. Spirit became matter! Eternity entered time! The independent became dependent! The almighty became weak! Glory was subjected to shame! Fame turned into obscurity! The Word became flesh! Amazing, astounding, and unbelievable - except by Divine revelation and illumination!

This Divine Rescue Mission required that the sent One – Jesus the Messiah - be born of a woman, be born under the law, live a sinless life in obedience to the law’s precepts and then die a vicarious death in upholding the sentence of the law of God. He must endure the displeasure of God against sin. He must become obedient even to the point of the death on a cruel cross. He must become accursed. He must die the death of a guilty felon - deserted by His friends, derided by His enemies, forsaken of His God. He must meet and defeat legally the devil, death, sin and the grave. He must be able to bear up under the waves and billows of God’s wrath, sin’s weight, and hell’s wickedness. King Jesus must meet and defeat that ultimate victor - DEATH. The question was, could He? Would His mission be successful?

For 33 ½ years His Kingly mission met and defeated every enemy encountered. But the final phase of the rescue mission was the ultimate test. Having born in His bosom the sword of infinite justice, having experienced the full fury of God’s wrath against sin, He dismissed His spirit and entered into the dark cavernous jaws of death. The enemy that had kept all its prisoners of war. Could He come back from the prison house of skulls and skeletons? Could He overpower that evil monster that had the authority of death - the devil? Could He wrest the keys of death and hell from his hands, throw that evil jailor aside, swing back the gates of the grave, re-enter the sepulcher, see His body lying there, re-enter that body, reanimate it, resurrect it, glorify it so that death would never touch it again. Could He after three days in the tomb come out victorious, never to die again, ascend above all spiritual powers to the place of absolute preeminence at the place of absolute authority in glory? If He could do that, then He was none other than the Lord of glory that he claimed to be! Hallelujah, the truth of the Gospel is that this is exactly what He did!

When the Light of the world invaded planet earth on that first Christmas Day, through the womb of the Virgin Mary, it took 33 ½ years for the light of his glory to break through the tomb of sin and death on the first day of the first Easter week, demonstrating that liberation had come to the entire cosmos and the reversal of the curse and the release of sin and Satan’s captives was fully and victoriously under way!

And I bring you good news of great joy that God’s Sent One was successful in His rescue efforts. God’s wrath has been satisfied and His law magnified. Sin has been nullified, Heaven glorified, the devil horrified and all who put their faith in Jesus are justified, and the number of the justified are being multiplied by the millions!

So, write over King Jesus’ assignment - Mission Accomplished!

Now, we rescued sinners can now truly and joyfully sing: "Hail the Heaven born Prince of Peace, hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all He brings, risen with healing in His wings. Mild He lays His glory by; born that man no more may die; born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King."

We can join the chorus of the “voices of ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands saying, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory, and power, and riches and wisdom and strength, and honor and glory and blessing!"

Truly, He is King of Kings, Forever and ever, and Lord of Lords, and He shall reign forever and ever! Hallelujah!

"O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!”

]]>
Christmas is about an incredible mission effort from Heaven to bring liberation to a sinning people and suffering planet. Christmas was the occasion of God the Father sending God the Son to the Middle East on a deadly rescue mission.

Jesus said in Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;”

In John 4:34, we read, “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.’”

Again, we read in John 6:38: “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

In Galatians 4:4, Paul writes: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law.”

Finally, in 1 John 4:14, we read: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.”

Rescue missions in the Middle East usually fail. One such case in point was the Iranian hostage crisis (November 4, 1979 – January 20, 1981). This was a tense diplomatic standoff between the governments of the United States and Iran in which Iranian militants held 52 American citizens hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for 444 days. President Carter, exasperated by the failed negotiations, authorized a military rescue mission. This attempted rescue involved the US Navy. However, the mission failed and caused the death of eight service members. The need for stealth meant that the helicopters were unable to communicate with weather services or each other, and in losing this ability, they were unable to foresee the local sandstorms that were blowing through Iran. Due to the inclement weather, two aircraft collided and killed eight soldiers, and many more helicopters had to be abandoned.

In June of 1980 there was another dramatic, three-day, televised rescue attempt, this time in Italy that captured the attention of the world. Six-year-old Alfredo Rampi - a frail lad suffering from a congenital heart defect, had fallen into a well. He was wedged into a narrow crevice 113 feet down in the 260 foot deep well. As the rescue attempt got under way, the President of Italy put aside all governmental duties and came to the well site to stand by Alfredo’s mother. Those attempting to rescue him drilled a tunnel to the boy’s level and began drilling toward him. They had almost reached the boy when Alfredo, too weak to keep his grip on the muddy ledge he was clinging to slipped another 100 feet. When this happened, the entire nation was moved to tears.

A series of brave but desperate bids to lower first a very small man and then several cave explorers down the narrow well from the rescue shaft followed.

Shortly after midnight, one experienced cave explorer managed seven times in the space of one hour to reach the boy and grab his hands. But each time the muddy slime made him lose his grip.

The dramatic effort to save the boy brought thousands of calls from around the world offering advice on how to save the tiny lad.

The final effort to rescue the boy was performed by the best cave explorer in the nation. Lowered into the shaft headfirst, with ropes and pulleys attached to his ankles, Caruso managed twice to put a handcuff on Alfredo’s wrist. Both times it slipped off.

Thousands of Italians at their TV sets saw Alfredo’s mother crumple in tears as Caruso came back up, muddy, exhausted and ALONE!

A microphone lowered into the well brought Alfredo’s last words to the nation. Like a ghostly wail, the lad cried “Mamma, Mamma, until his voiced turned to an unintelligible whimper and trailed away into the silence of death. Write over this rescue mission effort - Failure.

May I suggest to you, dear reader, that these two true life stories are but a parable of the ultimate in human tragedy. For you see all mankind had fallen into the horrible, slimy pit of sin. Self-attempts at rescue were hopeless. For several thousand years many rescue attempts had been mounted but all to no avail. Was there no way out of this well of sorrow and woe; of bondage and suffering; of death and damnation?

Then on a cold winter night in a little village in Bethlehem, God answered that question with a resounding YES! On that star-filled night God sent His Son out from heaven on a designated, deadly rescue, ransom, and release mission. This rescue mission required King Jesus to lay aside the outward appearance of His God-head, the taking of the nature of man, the form of a servant, and the likeness of a sinful people.

Paul said in 1 Timothy 3:16"great is the mystery of godliness: God was revealed in the flesh!"

The Word became flesh! God became human while never ceasing to be God! He was just as much God as if He were not man and just as much man as if He were not God! He who breathed the breath of life into the first man is now himself a man breathing his first breath. The invisible God became visible! The untouchable became touchable! God most high became God most nigh! The unlimited became limited! The infinite became finite! The omnipresent spirit, whose being fills the galaxies, confined to the womb of a peasant girl. Spirit became matter! Eternity entered time! The independent became dependent! The almighty became weak! Glory was subjected to shame! Fame turned into obscurity! The Word became flesh! Amazing, astounding, and unbelievable - except by Divine revelation and illumination!

This Divine Rescue Mission required that the sent One – Jesus the Messiah - be born of a woman, be born under the law, live a sinless life in obedience to the law’s precepts and then die a vicarious death in upholding the sentence of the law of God. He must endure the displeasure of God against sin. He must become obedient even to the point of the death on a cruel cross. He must become accursed. He must die the death of a guilty felon - deserted by His friends, derided by His enemies, forsaken of His God. He must meet and defeat legally the devil, death, sin and the grave. He must be able to bear up under the waves and billows of God’s wrath, sin’s weight, and hell’s wickedness. King Jesus must meet and defeat that ultimate victor - DEATH. The question was, could He? Would His mission be successful?

For 33 ½ years His Kingly mission met and defeated every enemy encountered. But the final phase of the rescue mission was the ultimate test. Having born in His bosom the sword of infinite justice, having experienced the full fury of God’s wrath against sin, He dismissed His spirit and entered into the dark cavernous jaws of death. The enemy that had kept all its prisoners of war. Could He come back from the prison house of skulls and skeletons? Could He overpower that evil monster that had the authority of death - the devil? Could He wrest the keys of death and hell from his hands, throw that evil jailor aside, swing back the gates of the grave, re-enter the sepulcher, see His body lying there, re-enter that body, reanimate it, resurrect it, glorify it so that death would never touch it again. Could He after three days in the tomb come out victorious, never to die again, ascend above all spiritual powers to the place of absolute preeminence at the place of absolute authority in glory? If He could do that, then He was none other than the Lord of glory that he claimed to be! Hallelujah, the truth of the Gospel is that this is exactly what He did!

When the Light of the world invaded planet earth on that first Christmas Day, through the womb of the Virgin Mary, it took 33 ½ years for the light of his glory to break through the tomb of sin and death on the first day of the first Easter week, demonstrating that liberation had come to the entire cosmos and the reversal of the curse and the release of sin and Satan’s captives was fully and victoriously under way!

And I bring you good news of great joy that God’s Sent One was successful in His rescue efforts. God’s wrath has been satisfied and His law magnified. Sin has been nullified, Heaven glorified, the devil horrified and all who put their faith in Jesus are justified, and the number of the justified are being multiplied by the millions!

So, write over King Jesus’ assignment - Mission Accomplished!

Now, we rescued sinners can now truly and joyfully sing: "Hail the Heaven born Prince of Peace, hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all He brings, risen with healing in His wings. Mild He lays His glory by; born that man no more may die; born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King."

We can join the chorus of the “voices of ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands saying, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory, and power, and riches and wisdom and strength, and honor and glory and blessing!"

Truly, He is King of Kings, Forever and ever, and Lord of Lords, and He shall reign forever and ever! Hallelujah!

"O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!”

]]>
Thy Kingdom Come! https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/thy-kingdom-come https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/thy-kingdom-come#comments Mon, 13 Nov 2023 10:00:00 -0500 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/thy-kingdom-come Matthew 6:9-10, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 

Commentator Adam Clarke said concerning the second petition in the Model Prayer: “The ancient Jews did not hesitate to say: “He prays not at all, in whose prayers there is no mention of the kingdom of God. Hence, they were accustomed to say, ‘Let him cause his kingdom to reign, and his redemption to flourish: and let the Messiah speedily come and deliver his people.’”

Jesus held the same convictions concerning the gospel of the kingdom of God or of Heaven. In fact, the first time the word gospel is mentioned in the New Testament it has a qualifying term accompanying it: “…the gospel of the kingdom…” (Mt. 4:23). Then he taught his disciples to pray, in what is commonly referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer”, “thy kingdom come”. This is in the imperative mood in the Greek and could be translated – Kingdom of God, Come! Will of God – Be Done!

The importance of the Kingdom message for Jesus can scarcely be overestimated. In his preaching, he proclaimed the Kingdom; in his parables, he illustrated the Kingdom; and in his healings and deliverances Jesus demonstrated the present, powerful and in-breaking Kingdom of Heaven. In short, Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom, he prioritized it, and he personified it.

The term "gospel" as used by evangelical Christians today has been so decimated that it is normally used to describe how one can get a free pass, that is good upon their death, for admission into heaven.

In contrast, the apostolic "kerygma" was a proclamation of the death, burial, resurrection, and exaltation of King Jesus that asserted that in His person, God has become king at last, but He is the king who died to reconcile his enemies - which included not just the pagans, but the covenant people of Israel themselves. He is the suffering, saving, and sovereign king. The result is a reconstituted people of God - a new covenant family in Jesus the Messiah, the King.

The “gospel of the kingdom of God” is the announcement that the kingdom is coming, that the kingdom of God has come near, and that the reign of God is breaking into the world to transform it. The good news of the kingdom is that heaven has, and is, and will fully and finally come to earth, so that the will of God is done on earth the way it is done in heaven.

When the kingdom comes, people are reconciled to God, the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, the marginalized are included, the oppressed are liberated, and sins are forgiven. When miraculous experiences like these happen in the midst of God’s people, we commonly refer to it is as “revival” or spiritual awakening.” Christians from all walks of life repeatedly declare that what the Church really needs is a “revival.”

Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, was the sole preaching pastor for almost 30 years at Westminster Chapel in London. Weekly in his church’s prayer meetings and regularly in his sermons, he would call his congregation and the church at large to seek the Lord and seek revival. He regularly said things like, “If I have any understanding of the times, if I have any understanding of the biblical teaching concerning the nature of the church, and the work of the Holy Spirit, I do not hesitate to assert that the only hope for the church at the present time lies in revival.” But by his own admission, revival never came. Why? After years of praying for global revival myself, I found myself asking repeatedly, why does God seem so reluctant to “send revival? And even when he does, why is it so short lived and why does the church and community go back to business as usual so quickly?

Perhaps one of the reasons as to why revival praying goes unanswered is because it’s an Old Testament concept. Ancient Israel would be living in a period of prosperity and success, then forget God and go a “whoring” after other gods, i.e., idols. God would then discipline them, and after suffering under the cruel hands of their enemies, they would cry out to God. He would forgive them and restore them to his favor. Prosperity would follow and they would find themselves back on the same old treadmill – success, sinning, suffering, supplicating God, spiritual renewal. This went on for centuries.

This is not the standard of the New Testament. King Jesus would never sanction such a lifestyle.

In light of this, I have stopped praying for revival and have started to pray the way Jesus taught us to pray - Thy Kingdom come!

The late Jim Hylton, and the church he pastored, experienced a mighty move of God that he called “revival.” But in later years he said, “I saw the kingdom coming and called it something else (revival – W.T.).” He concluded that we need to change our praying from, “Lord, send a great revival or spiritual awakening”, to “Lord, let your kingdom come more fully, more powerfully, more demonstratively.” Let the “as it is in Heaven” confront and change the situations on earth, so Your will is done, and Your name is hallowed.”

I think if we start praying this way, God will hear and answer our praying. When we pray this way, we will see change, not in one massive move of God, but in the way the kingdom comes. While is true that at the end of history, King Jesus will come and His kingdom will be dramatically, radically, and publicly established, in the present it has come and is coming in the manner as Jesus taught in Matthew 13. He said that the kingdom and its coming and growth would be like the mustard seed, like the yeast inserted in the dough, like salt and light, etc. And as we look at church history, this is the way the gospel of the kingdom of God has advanced, supernaturally, slowly, silently, but successfully. So successful in fact, that 2 billion people on the earth now profess to be followers of the King. I can anticipate the response of many being that masses of these are only nominal Christians. This is true. But if only a small number of these can recover the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom of God, they can do what a handful of nobodies did in the first 350 years of church history. That is to go from 12 men to 20 million people! How? By making kingdom disciples who took the assignment to make disciples of all nations as being possible because with God as their King nothing is impossible.

What is the kingdom of heaven or of God? The phrase kingdom of Heaven reveals where it's from and kingdom of God reveals who runs it. The simplest definition of the kingdom is “King Jesus in action by the Holy Spirit in and through His people.” Another definition is the will of God being done on earth as it is already being done in heaven.

The recovery of the King Jesus gospel of the kingdom produces a people who live in righteousness, joy, and peace, because this is what life in the kingdom is (Romans 14:17). Nor is it just a lot of loud speech for the kingdom of God comes “not in word, but in power” (1 Cors. 4:20).

Praying, “Thy kingdom come”, will correct the misunderstanding of our assignment and halt us from continuing to lead people to make decisions for Christ so they can go to heaven in the sweet by and by, and start equipping them to make disciples of Christ who will bring the kingdom of heaven to bear in the nasty now and now. Discipleship flows from the gospel message. Until we teach this larger Kingdom message, we will never make Jesus standard disciples.

We often wonder why someone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus comes to church and reads his Bible but is also looking at porn and not serving the poor, not evangelizing his neighbor, and divorcing his spouse, and not studying theology. We often wonder why someone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus can so easily separate their "spiritual" life from their "secular" life.

The basic cause is that we have preached a gospel that deals merely with personal salvation so once someone is "saved" there is not much else to think about. They "prayed the prayer" and now it is "mission accomplished." However, in contrast, the gospel of the kingdom is not just about our "spiritual" lives but about Christ redeeming everything that has gone wrong in the universe. It breaks down this sacred/secular divide and declares God has become King in Jesus and all authority is His in heaven and on earth.

Jesus isn't just the "Lord of your heart." He is the Lord of the universe. He is the Lord over your finances. He is the Lord over your sex. life. He is the Lord over your marriage. He is the Lord over your hobbies. He is the Lord over your kids. He is the Lord over everything that exists!

King Jesus is running the affairs of the world for the benefit of His church, and bestowing gifts and ministries upon His people. If the people of faith can ever recover this sense of having the King among us at all times, we will once more begin to expect great things of God and attempt great things for Him.

It’s time to begin to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever!

 

]]>
Matthew 6:9-10, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 

Commentator Adam Clarke said concerning the second petition in the Model Prayer: “The ancient Jews did not hesitate to say: “He prays not at all, in whose prayers there is no mention of the kingdom of God. Hence, they were accustomed to say, ‘Let him cause his kingdom to reign, and his redemption to flourish: and let the Messiah speedily come and deliver his people.’”

Jesus held the same convictions concerning the gospel of the kingdom of God or of Heaven. In fact, the first time the word gospel is mentioned in the New Testament it has a qualifying term accompanying it: “…the gospel of the kingdom…” (Mt. 4:23). Then he taught his disciples to pray, in what is commonly referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer”, “thy kingdom come”. This is in the imperative mood in the Greek and could be translated – Kingdom of God, Come! Will of God – Be Done!

The importance of the Kingdom message for Jesus can scarcely be overestimated. In his preaching, he proclaimed the Kingdom; in his parables, he illustrated the Kingdom; and in his healings and deliverances Jesus demonstrated the present, powerful and in-breaking Kingdom of Heaven. In short, Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom, he prioritized it, and he personified it.

The term "gospel" as used by evangelical Christians today has been so decimated that it is normally used to describe how one can get a free pass, that is good upon their death, for admission into heaven.

In contrast, the apostolic "kerygma" was a proclamation of the death, burial, resurrection, and exaltation of King Jesus that asserted that in His person, God has become king at last, but He is the king who died to reconcile his enemies - which included not just the pagans, but the covenant people of Israel themselves. He is the suffering, saving, and sovereign king. The result is a reconstituted people of God - a new covenant family in Jesus the Messiah, the King.

The “gospel of the kingdom of God” is the announcement that the kingdom is coming, that the kingdom of God has come near, and that the reign of God is breaking into the world to transform it. The good news of the kingdom is that heaven has, and is, and will fully and finally come to earth, so that the will of God is done on earth the way it is done in heaven.

When the kingdom comes, people are reconciled to God, the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, the marginalized are included, the oppressed are liberated, and sins are forgiven. When miraculous experiences like these happen in the midst of God’s people, we commonly refer to it is as “revival” or spiritual awakening.” Christians from all walks of life repeatedly declare that what the Church really needs is a “revival.”

Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, was the sole preaching pastor for almost 30 years at Westminster Chapel in London. Weekly in his church’s prayer meetings and regularly in his sermons, he would call his congregation and the church at large to seek the Lord and seek revival. He regularly said things like, “If I have any understanding of the times, if I have any understanding of the biblical teaching concerning the nature of the church, and the work of the Holy Spirit, I do not hesitate to assert that the only hope for the church at the present time lies in revival.” But by his own admission, revival never came. Why? After years of praying for global revival myself, I found myself asking repeatedly, why does God seem so reluctant to “send revival? And even when he does, why is it so short lived and why does the church and community go back to business as usual so quickly?

Perhaps one of the reasons as to why revival praying goes unanswered is because it’s an Old Testament concept. Ancient Israel would be living in a period of prosperity and success, then forget God and go a “whoring” after other gods, i.e., idols. God would then discipline them, and after suffering under the cruel hands of their enemies, they would cry out to God. He would forgive them and restore them to his favor. Prosperity would follow and they would find themselves back on the same old treadmill – success, sinning, suffering, supplicating God, spiritual renewal. This went on for centuries.

This is not the standard of the New Testament. King Jesus would never sanction such a lifestyle.

In light of this, I have stopped praying for revival and have started to pray the way Jesus taught us to pray - Thy Kingdom come!

The late Jim Hylton, and the church he pastored, experienced a mighty move of God that he called “revival.” But in later years he said, “I saw the kingdom coming and called it something else (revival – W.T.).” He concluded that we need to change our praying from, “Lord, send a great revival or spiritual awakening”, to “Lord, let your kingdom come more fully, more powerfully, more demonstratively.” Let the “as it is in Heaven” confront and change the situations on earth, so Your will is done, and Your name is hallowed.”

I think if we start praying this way, God will hear and answer our praying. When we pray this way, we will see change, not in one massive move of God, but in the way the kingdom comes. While is true that at the end of history, King Jesus will come and His kingdom will be dramatically, radically, and publicly established, in the present it has come and is coming in the manner as Jesus taught in Matthew 13. He said that the kingdom and its coming and growth would be like the mustard seed, like the yeast inserted in the dough, like salt and light, etc. And as we look at church history, this is the way the gospel of the kingdom of God has advanced, supernaturally, slowly, silently, but successfully. So successful in fact, that 2 billion people on the earth now profess to be followers of the King. I can anticipate the response of many being that masses of these are only nominal Christians. This is true. But if only a small number of these can recover the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom of God, they can do what a handful of nobodies did in the first 350 years of church history. That is to go from 12 men to 20 million people! How? By making kingdom disciples who took the assignment to make disciples of all nations as being possible because with God as their King nothing is impossible.

What is the kingdom of heaven or of God? The phrase kingdom of Heaven reveals where it's from and kingdom of God reveals who runs it. The simplest definition of the kingdom is “King Jesus in action by the Holy Spirit in and through His people.” Another definition is the will of God being done on earth as it is already being done in heaven.

The recovery of the King Jesus gospel of the kingdom produces a people who live in righteousness, joy, and peace, because this is what life in the kingdom is (Romans 14:17). Nor is it just a lot of loud speech for the kingdom of God comes “not in word, but in power” (1 Cors. 4:20).

Praying, “Thy kingdom come”, will correct the misunderstanding of our assignment and halt us from continuing to lead people to make decisions for Christ so they can go to heaven in the sweet by and by, and start equipping them to make disciples of Christ who will bring the kingdom of heaven to bear in the nasty now and now. Discipleship flows from the gospel message. Until we teach this larger Kingdom message, we will never make Jesus standard disciples.

We often wonder why someone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus comes to church and reads his Bible but is also looking at porn and not serving the poor, not evangelizing his neighbor, and divorcing his spouse, and not studying theology. We often wonder why someone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus can so easily separate their "spiritual" life from their "secular" life.

The basic cause is that we have preached a gospel that deals merely with personal salvation so once someone is "saved" there is not much else to think about. They "prayed the prayer" and now it is "mission accomplished." However, in contrast, the gospel of the kingdom is not just about our "spiritual" lives but about Christ redeeming everything that has gone wrong in the universe. It breaks down this sacred/secular divide and declares God has become King in Jesus and all authority is His in heaven and on earth.

Jesus isn't just the "Lord of your heart." He is the Lord of the universe. He is the Lord over your finances. He is the Lord over your sex. life. He is the Lord over your marriage. He is the Lord over your hobbies. He is the Lord over your kids. He is the Lord over everything that exists!

King Jesus is running the affairs of the world for the benefit of His church, and bestowing gifts and ministries upon His people. If the people of faith can ever recover this sense of having the King among us at all times, we will once more begin to expect great things of God and attempt great things for Him.

It’s time to begin to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever!

 

]]>
Reflecting on the Five Greatest Truths of the Reformation! https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/reflecting-on-the-five-greatest-truths-of-the-reformation https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/reflecting-on-the-five-greatest-truths-of-the-reformation#comments Mon, 30 Oct 2023 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/reflecting-on-the-five-greatest-truths-of-the-reformation As we approach the 506th year since a Catholic monk named Martin Luther initiated what has come to be known as “The Protestant Reformation”, on October 31, 1517, we should be prompted to review five truths that not only reformed the church, but literally transformed the world.

Among the multiplicities of errors promulgated by the Roman Church, none angered Luther more than the sale of indulgences. As a protest against the abuses of the sale of indulgences, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg. This was an open challenge to anyone who read the statement to debate him. Several years passed before anyone dared take up the cause.

Martin Luther's actions in 1517 set in motion the events that would transform the church, the history of Europe, lay the foundation for Western civilization, and become the cradle for the American republic.

The Reformation that followed in the wake of his bold actions was a back-to-the-Bible movement that recovered five great New Testament truths:

  1. No Priest but Christ

This truth refuted the erroneous teaching of the Church of Rome that there were but a handful of individuals denominated priests who were go-betweens or mediators between God and man and all other believers were dependent upon them for access to and acceptance before God.

Never for a moment must we allow the Blessed Virgin, departed Saints, Popes, Cardinals, or Bishops, Priests, Masses, Images, Traditions, Indulgences, Sacraments, Confessionals, Monasteries, Nunneries, Pilgrimages, or Purgatory to stand between our souls and God. The prodigal can come straight to the Father, and the sinner to the Savior. It is because we believe this, experience this, and preach this, that we are not Protestants, but believer priest serving the one and only High Priest –Jesus – in the True Temple built up of all those in Christ.

  1. No Sacrifice but Calvary

The Roman Church’s erroneous teaching of transubstantiation had resulted in Christ's once-and-for-all sacrifice of Himself for sin being buried beneath the Mass.

The Roman Catholic priest, John O'Brien, wrote a book called, "The Faith of Millions, The Credentials of the Catholic Religion." Concerning the Mass, he writes, "When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration...this is the Mass ... he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man. It is a power exercised by the priest greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim. Indeed, it is a power greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal victim."

The work of redemption is a finished work. The sins of those who believe savingly in Christ are atoned for; their sin-debt has been paid in full. No works of supererogation are possible or needed. Supererogation means that certain saints accrued spiritual dividends that they didn't need and now they are stored up in some sort of heavenly bank that can be procured on the basis of indulgences, merits or by the prayers of someone else. There is no such teaching in the Word of God.

There is no sacrifice but Calvary. There is no division of sins into venial and mortal. All sins are mortal. The soul that sins, it shall die. There is no salvation on credit, nor is there an annulment plan that will rid us of the penalty our sins have earned.

  1. No Authority but the Scriptures

The error refuted by this truth was that tradition, the Church of Rome, and papal authority were on the same level with the inspiration and infallibility of the Word of God. The church of Martin Luther’s day taught that it was the Church that gave birth to the Bible. Therefore, this places the church in the position of being the supreme interpreter and authority over the Word of God. The reformers understood that no man, not even the Pope, when he acts ex cathedra (out of his official chair), is infallible.

The Bible is the sole authority for doctrine and duty and every believer having the Holy Spirit dwelling within them is capable of understanding the Word of God. By the enablement of the Holy Spirit every person born again by the Spirit of God has the necessary tools to interpret the Word of God and does not have to rely upon professionally trained clergyman or the official interpretation of the Church.

For his stand on the authority of scripture alone, Martin Luther was summoned before the theological tribunal known as the Diet of Worms for a second time. He was asked whether he would recant or not. Luther preached to the tribunal and after hearing him the Emperor said, "I didn't ask for a sermon, I want a simple answer yes or no. Will you recant or will you not?" Here are Martin Luther's famous words: "If the Emperor desires a plain answer, I will give it him. It is impossible for me to recant unless I am proved wrong by the testimony of scripture. My conscience is bound to the Word of God. Here I stand. God help me, I cannot do otherwise."

  1. No Confession but at the Throne of Grace

The error that the Reformation refuted by the above truth was known as auricular confession, or confession in the ear of a priest. In Luther’s day the concept of confession being made by the individual believer at the throne of grace in Heaven without the mediatorial work of the local priest was non-existent. The Church of Rome taught that the only confession available and effectual as far as the professing Christian was concerned required going to the confessional booth and confessing your sins into the ear of the parish priest. It was suggested that this be done at least once a year. The only way you could be sure that your sins were in the process of being forgiven was to go to confession and articulate your sins in the ear of a priest and he would give you an assignment mandating some type of penance for the forgiveness of your sins.

The truth that transforms is stated in Hebrews 4:1416, "Seeing then that we have a Great High Priest Who has passed through the Heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Let us, therefore, come boldly with confidence to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Where then is confession to be made? Not to some individual in a confessional booth, but only to the High Priest, Jesus. Now, it's true that if you have sinned against another believer, it may require you to go to that person and ask them to forgive you. It may require that you divulge what you have done to another person in certain circumstances, or even before the local church of which you are a member. But God be praised that we have a High Priest whose ear is open toward our confessions and petitions. His openness to our confession is not based upon our merits, but upon God’s grace and His grace alone. When I confess my sins to the Lord in private it is confidential. He forgives me and I can live forgiven, knowing that He is not a blabbermouth and knowing that nobody else is going to know.

  1. No Justification but by Faith

The erroneous teaching of the Church of Rome as stated and as currently stands is summed up by the Council of Trent: Canon 9 of the Council of Trent, "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining [of] the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."

Human merit, good works, martyrdom for Christ, etc. can never contribute to the sinners justification. The scriptures declare that we are justified freely by His grace. Grace is God's favor in the face of and despite our demerits. The ground of our justification is the representative, righteous, redemptive, propitiatory, substitutionary, blood shedding of the Lord Jesus Christ on the behalf of sinners.

Justification by faith alone was Martin Luther's great spiritual and theological breakthrough. It did not come easily. He had tried everything from sleeping on hard floors and fasting to climbing a staircase in Rome while kneeling in prayer. Monasteries, disciplines, confessions, masses, absolutions, good works-all proved fruitless. Peace with God eluded him. The thought of the righteousness of God pursued him. He hated the very word "righteousness," which he believed provided a divine mandate to condemn him.

Light finally dawned for Luther as he meditated on Romans 1:17, "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith." He saw for the first time that the righteousness Paul had in mind was not a punitive justice which condemns sinners but a perfect righteousness which God freely grants to sinners on the basis of Christ's merits, and which sinners receive by faith. Luther saw that the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone was the heart of the gospel and became for him "an open door into paradise.... a gate to heaven."

If the Church is to make disciples of all nations; if America is to regain her lost liberties, the people of God must declare in the power of the Holy Spirit, the five emancipating truths that alone can transform individuals, churches, and nations:

No Priest but Christ
No Sacrifice but Calvary
No Authority but the Scriptures
No Confession but at the Throne of Grace
No Justification but by Faith!

God help us to recover and realign our lives and labors with these transforming biblical truths!

]]>
As we approach the 506th year since a Catholic monk named Martin Luther initiated what has come to be known as “The Protestant Reformation”, on October 31, 1517, we should be prompted to review five truths that not only reformed the church, but literally transformed the world.

Among the multiplicities of errors promulgated by the Roman Church, none angered Luther more than the sale of indulgences. As a protest against the abuses of the sale of indulgences, on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg. This was an open challenge to anyone who read the statement to debate him. Several years passed before anyone dared take up the cause.

Martin Luther's actions in 1517 set in motion the events that would transform the church, the history of Europe, lay the foundation for Western civilization, and become the cradle for the American republic.

The Reformation that followed in the wake of his bold actions was a back-to-the-Bible movement that recovered five great New Testament truths:

  1. No Priest but Christ

This truth refuted the erroneous teaching of the Church of Rome that there were but a handful of individuals denominated priests who were go-betweens or mediators between God and man and all other believers were dependent upon them for access to and acceptance before God.

Never for a moment must we allow the Blessed Virgin, departed Saints, Popes, Cardinals, or Bishops, Priests, Masses, Images, Traditions, Indulgences, Sacraments, Confessionals, Monasteries, Nunneries, Pilgrimages, or Purgatory to stand between our souls and God. The prodigal can come straight to the Father, and the sinner to the Savior. It is because we believe this, experience this, and preach this, that we are not Protestants, but believer priest serving the one and only High Priest –Jesus – in the True Temple built up of all those in Christ.

  1. No Sacrifice but Calvary

The Roman Church’s erroneous teaching of transubstantiation had resulted in Christ's once-and-for-all sacrifice of Himself for sin being buried beneath the Mass.

The Roman Catholic priest, John O'Brien, wrote a book called, "The Faith of Millions, The Credentials of the Catholic Religion." Concerning the Mass, he writes, "When the priest announces the tremendous words of consecration...this is the Mass ... he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the victim for the sins of man. It is a power exercised by the priest greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of seraphim and cherubim. Indeed, it is a power greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal victim."

The work of redemption is a finished work. The sins of those who believe savingly in Christ are atoned for; their sin-debt has been paid in full. No works of supererogation are possible or needed. Supererogation means that certain saints accrued spiritual dividends that they didn't need and now they are stored up in some sort of heavenly bank that can be procured on the basis of indulgences, merits or by the prayers of someone else. There is no such teaching in the Word of God.

There is no sacrifice but Calvary. There is no division of sins into venial and mortal. All sins are mortal. The soul that sins, it shall die. There is no salvation on credit, nor is there an annulment plan that will rid us of the penalty our sins have earned.

  1. No Authority but the Scriptures

The error refuted by this truth was that tradition, the Church of Rome, and papal authority were on the same level with the inspiration and infallibility of the Word of God. The church of Martin Luther’s day taught that it was the Church that gave birth to the Bible. Therefore, this places the church in the position of being the supreme interpreter and authority over the Word of God. The reformers understood that no man, not even the Pope, when he acts ex cathedra (out of his official chair), is infallible.

The Bible is the sole authority for doctrine and duty and every believer having the Holy Spirit dwelling within them is capable of understanding the Word of God. By the enablement of the Holy Spirit every person born again by the Spirit of God has the necessary tools to interpret the Word of God and does not have to rely upon professionally trained clergyman or the official interpretation of the Church.

For his stand on the authority of scripture alone, Martin Luther was summoned before the theological tribunal known as the Diet of Worms for a second time. He was asked whether he would recant or not. Luther preached to the tribunal and after hearing him the Emperor said, "I didn't ask for a sermon, I want a simple answer yes or no. Will you recant or will you not?" Here are Martin Luther's famous words: "If the Emperor desires a plain answer, I will give it him. It is impossible for me to recant unless I am proved wrong by the testimony of scripture. My conscience is bound to the Word of God. Here I stand. God help me, I cannot do otherwise."

  1. No Confession but at the Throne of Grace

The error that the Reformation refuted by the above truth was known as auricular confession, or confession in the ear of a priest. In Luther’s day the concept of confession being made by the individual believer at the throne of grace in Heaven without the mediatorial work of the local priest was non-existent. The Church of Rome taught that the only confession available and effectual as far as the professing Christian was concerned required going to the confessional booth and confessing your sins into the ear of the parish priest. It was suggested that this be done at least once a year. The only way you could be sure that your sins were in the process of being forgiven was to go to confession and articulate your sins in the ear of a priest and he would give you an assignment mandating some type of penance for the forgiveness of your sins.

The truth that transforms is stated in Hebrews 4:1416, "Seeing then that we have a Great High Priest Who has passed through the Heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Let us, therefore, come boldly with confidence to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Where then is confession to be made? Not to some individual in a confessional booth, but only to the High Priest, Jesus. Now, it's true that if you have sinned against another believer, it may require you to go to that person and ask them to forgive you. It may require that you divulge what you have done to another person in certain circumstances, or even before the local church of which you are a member. But God be praised that we have a High Priest whose ear is open toward our confessions and petitions. His openness to our confession is not based upon our merits, but upon God’s grace and His grace alone. When I confess my sins to the Lord in private it is confidential. He forgives me and I can live forgiven, knowing that He is not a blabbermouth and knowing that nobody else is going to know.

  1. No Justification but by Faith

The erroneous teaching of the Church of Rome as stated and as currently stands is summed up by the Council of Trent: Canon 9 of the Council of Trent, "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining [of] the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."

Human merit, good works, martyrdom for Christ, etc. can never contribute to the sinners justification. The scriptures declare that we are justified freely by His grace. Grace is God's favor in the face of and despite our demerits. The ground of our justification is the representative, righteous, redemptive, propitiatory, substitutionary, blood shedding of the Lord Jesus Christ on the behalf of sinners.

Justification by faith alone was Martin Luther's great spiritual and theological breakthrough. It did not come easily. He had tried everything from sleeping on hard floors and fasting to climbing a staircase in Rome while kneeling in prayer. Monasteries, disciplines, confessions, masses, absolutions, good works-all proved fruitless. Peace with God eluded him. The thought of the righteousness of God pursued him. He hated the very word "righteousness," which he believed provided a divine mandate to condemn him.

Light finally dawned for Luther as he meditated on Romans 1:17, "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith." He saw for the first time that the righteousness Paul had in mind was not a punitive justice which condemns sinners but a perfect righteousness which God freely grants to sinners on the basis of Christ's merits, and which sinners receive by faith. Luther saw that the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone was the heart of the gospel and became for him "an open door into paradise.... a gate to heaven."

If the Church is to make disciples of all nations; if America is to regain her lost liberties, the people of God must declare in the power of the Holy Spirit, the five emancipating truths that alone can transform individuals, churches, and nations:

No Priest but Christ
No Sacrifice but Calvary
No Authority but the Scriptures
No Confession but at the Throne of Grace
No Justification but by Faith!

God help us to recover and realign our lives and labors with these transforming biblical truths!

]]>
Rapture Fever Has Exploded- Again! https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/rapture-fever-has-exploded--again https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/rapture-fever-has-exploded--again#comments Mon, 23 Oct 2023 10:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/rapture-fever-has-exploded--again Rapture fever has been around for around 180 years, originating in Plymouth, England around 1830. The virus was carried in a container that has been labeled “Dispensationalism”. It remained at a relatively low-level fever until 1970. Then it surged to “raging” levels with the publication of Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, which sold 35 million copies. The main theme of Lindsey’s book could be summed up in his own words, “We (Christians) need to live like a people who don’t plan to be around for long!”

Since the 1970’s millions of evangelical Christians have lived with this highly contagious fever, which tends to spike when something happens in the Mideast.

The tragic Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the resultant Israeli response, has caused “rapture fever” to rise to delirious levels once again. One blogger asked the internet about “Israel Hamas Bible prophecy” and got over 5 million hits. These included YouTube videos wondering if the war between Israel and Hamas is a sign of the end times.

One very popular pastor and author said, “You and I are privileged to stand on the cresting waves of prophecy. We see the signs of the times. We know the world is reaching a climactic point of unparalleled crisis. Nuclear weapons are now sophisticated enough and small enough to be carried by hand; such weapons even have a nickname: “tactical nukes.” The global economy is hanging by a spider’s thread. Political fragmentation seems to be occurring simultaneously on every continent. And the -isms—secularism, radical Islamism, communism, totalitarianism, and terrorism—are spreading over the nations like a runaway case of poison ivy.

“These realities frighten us and are heartrending, but to me they’re also exhilarating, for they portend the return of Christ. I’ve been exhilarated by the thought of seeing Christ for many years, and, like you, I’ve been privileged to live at a time when we can trace the prophecies of God’s Word being fulfilled before our very eyes.”

The late Gary North wrote a book titled, Rapture Fever. Up front he asks, “What exactly is this illness?” Then he answers by saying, “Rapture fever is a deliberately induced psychological condition. The number of its victims has escalated rapidly since 1970. Millions of readers repeatedly inject themselves with what can best be described as a psychologically addicting drug: the expectation of the imminent return of Jesus Christ, which will remove them from their troubles by removing them from history. The results of this addiction are predictable: an initial "high," followed by a debilitating letdown, followed by painful withdrawal symptoms (mentally re-entering the hum-drum world), followed by another injection. Again and again, millions of emotionally vulnerable Christians return to their "pushers" for another "fix."

In my opinion, one of the primary reasons America is in the state it’s in is due to Christians who are stricken with rapture fever because one of the most common treatments of the condition is to quarantine the carrier’s in a church building or a small group.

Quoting from North’s book, “Rapture fever destroys the will to extend God's principles of justice and restoration beyond the narrow confines of a religious ghetto. Its public manifestation is a series of increasingly frantic appeals for everyone to believe that "history belongs to the savages, and there is not much history remaining." Its philosophy of history is simple to summarize: "All efforts of Christians to build a world that will increasingly reflect Christ's glory and righteousness are doomed in our dispensation."

Gary then asks, “If your physician told you that you probably have only a year to live, would you apply to graduate school? Silly question, isn't it? Of course you wouldn't. With a year to live, it would be foolish to begin a long-term educational program that will cost you a lot of money and use up the precious time you have remaining.

“If you have read in a prophecy book that Jesus will probably return before the year 2000 (how about 2023?), would you apply to graduate school? Not if you believed the book. Time is too short. The gains would be too far away in time. Question: Should you believe the book?

“For over 180 years, pastors and authors have been telling Bible-believing Christians that Jesus is coming soon to "rapture" His Church to heaven. This means that nothing a person can do to build a legacy on earth will survive the 3.5-year Great Tribulation period that will begin 3.5 years after the "secret" Rapture. This means that an investment in graduate school or any other long-term capital project is a very high-risk investment.

“Here is a major reason why modem fundamentalism has not built universities, medical schools, law schools, and all the other institutions that produce wealth and leadership in the modem world. This is why fundamentalist Christians have been sitting in the back of humanism's bus for over a hundred years. They believe that the Church's time on earth has just about run out. They are willing to make sacrifices only for projects that will pay off in the short term. They have been paralyzed by Rapture Fever.

 

 

 

“If the Rapture is just around the corner, then the Beast and the Antichrist are in our midst already, preparing to take advantage of every opportunity to deceive, persecute, and tyrannize the world generally and Christians in particular. This would mean that all attempts by Christians to improve this world through the preaching of the gospel and obedience to God's Word are doomed. There would be insufficient time to reclaim anything from the jaws of inevitable eschatological defeat. This is precisely what dispensationalists believe.

“Furthermore, dispensationalists insist, the Beast is coming, and so is the Antichrist. That horror is just around the corner. The Great Tribulation is imminent. Nothing can stop it. Nothing will resist its onslaught. Nothing we leave behind as Christians will be able to change things for the next generation. It is all hopeless. All we can legitimately hope for, we are told, is our escape into the heavens at the Rapture.”

Are the current events happening in the Mideast prophesied about in the Scriptures? Do they point to the likelihood that the Rapture is likely to happen shortly? NO!

What is the cure for “rapture fever”? It’s to focus on the greatness of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations through the preaching of the gospel and not focus on the late “Great Tribulation” that occurred in AD70.

My dear friend Dudley Hall summed up in a succinct paragraph the cure for rapture fever: “The apostle Peter states that our “living hope” is all about resurrection, not rapture. We have hope for living, not for escaping. The resurrection of Jesus made possible our receiving resurrection life, and that brings hope. We have hope that we can not only face, but also conquer any obstacle this world can present. We have “other-world” power. We offer hope to the sinner for forgiveness. We offer to the addict the hope of deliverance and freedom. To the sexually confused, we offer the hope of wholeness. To the lonely we offer the hope of a family who cares. To the oppressed we offer the hope of justice and to the guilty we offer the hope of mercy. In fact there is no human dilemma too great for the power that raised Jesus from the dead, and that power is in us who believe Jesus is the resurrection and the life.” YES!

 

]]>
Rapture fever has been around for around 180 years, originating in Plymouth, England around 1830. The virus was carried in a container that has been labeled “Dispensationalism”. It remained at a relatively low-level fever until 1970. Then it surged to “raging” levels with the publication of Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, which sold 35 million copies. The main theme of Lindsey’s book could be summed up in his own words, “We (Christians) need to live like a people who don’t plan to be around for long!”

Since the 1970’s millions of evangelical Christians have lived with this highly contagious fever, which tends to spike when something happens in the Mideast.

The tragic Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the resultant Israeli response, has caused “rapture fever” to rise to delirious levels once again. One blogger asked the internet about “Israel Hamas Bible prophecy” and got over 5 million hits. These included YouTube videos wondering if the war between Israel and Hamas is a sign of the end times.

One very popular pastor and author said, “You and I are privileged to stand on the cresting waves of prophecy. We see the signs of the times. We know the world is reaching a climactic point of unparalleled crisis. Nuclear weapons are now sophisticated enough and small enough to be carried by hand; such weapons even have a nickname: “tactical nukes.” The global economy is hanging by a spider’s thread. Political fragmentation seems to be occurring simultaneously on every continent. And the -isms—secularism, radical Islamism, communism, totalitarianism, and terrorism—are spreading over the nations like a runaway case of poison ivy.

“These realities frighten us and are heartrending, but to me they’re also exhilarating, for they portend the return of Christ. I’ve been exhilarated by the thought of seeing Christ for many years, and, like you, I’ve been privileged to live at a time when we can trace the prophecies of God’s Word being fulfilled before our very eyes.”

The late Gary North wrote a book titled, Rapture Fever. Up front he asks, “What exactly is this illness?” Then he answers by saying, “Rapture fever is a deliberately induced psychological condition. The number of its victims has escalated rapidly since 1970. Millions of readers repeatedly inject themselves with what can best be described as a psychologically addicting drug: the expectation of the imminent return of Jesus Christ, which will remove them from their troubles by removing them from history. The results of this addiction are predictable: an initial "high," followed by a debilitating letdown, followed by painful withdrawal symptoms (mentally re-entering the hum-drum world), followed by another injection. Again and again, millions of emotionally vulnerable Christians return to their "pushers" for another "fix."

In my opinion, one of the primary reasons America is in the state it’s in is due to Christians who are stricken with rapture fever because one of the most common treatments of the condition is to quarantine the carrier’s in a church building or a small group.

Quoting from North’s book, “Rapture fever destroys the will to extend God's principles of justice and restoration beyond the narrow confines of a religious ghetto. Its public manifestation is a series of increasingly frantic appeals for everyone to believe that "history belongs to the savages, and there is not much history remaining." Its philosophy of history is simple to summarize: "All efforts of Christians to build a world that will increasingly reflect Christ's glory and righteousness are doomed in our dispensation."

Gary then asks, “If your physician told you that you probably have only a year to live, would you apply to graduate school? Silly question, isn't it? Of course you wouldn't. With a year to live, it would be foolish to begin a long-term educational program that will cost you a lot of money and use up the precious time you have remaining.

“If you have read in a prophecy book that Jesus will probably return before the year 2000 (how about 2023?), would you apply to graduate school? Not if you believed the book. Time is too short. The gains would be too far away in time. Question: Should you believe the book?

“For over 180 years, pastors and authors have been telling Bible-believing Christians that Jesus is coming soon to "rapture" His Church to heaven. This means that nothing a person can do to build a legacy on earth will survive the 3.5-year Great Tribulation period that will begin 3.5 years after the "secret" Rapture. This means that an investment in graduate school or any other long-term capital project is a very high-risk investment.

“Here is a major reason why modem fundamentalism has not built universities, medical schools, law schools, and all the other institutions that produce wealth and leadership in the modem world. This is why fundamentalist Christians have been sitting in the back of humanism's bus for over a hundred years. They believe that the Church's time on earth has just about run out. They are willing to make sacrifices only for projects that will pay off in the short term. They have been paralyzed by Rapture Fever.

 

 

 

“If the Rapture is just around the corner, then the Beast and the Antichrist are in our midst already, preparing to take advantage of every opportunity to deceive, persecute, and tyrannize the world generally and Christians in particular. This would mean that all attempts by Christians to improve this world through the preaching of the gospel and obedience to God's Word are doomed. There would be insufficient time to reclaim anything from the jaws of inevitable eschatological defeat. This is precisely what dispensationalists believe.

“Furthermore, dispensationalists insist, the Beast is coming, and so is the Antichrist. That horror is just around the corner. The Great Tribulation is imminent. Nothing can stop it. Nothing will resist its onslaught. Nothing we leave behind as Christians will be able to change things for the next generation. It is all hopeless. All we can legitimately hope for, we are told, is our escape into the heavens at the Rapture.”

Are the current events happening in the Mideast prophesied about in the Scriptures? Do they point to the likelihood that the Rapture is likely to happen shortly? NO!

What is the cure for “rapture fever”? It’s to focus on the greatness of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations through the preaching of the gospel and not focus on the late “Great Tribulation” that occurred in AD70.

My dear friend Dudley Hall summed up in a succinct paragraph the cure for rapture fever: “The apostle Peter states that our “living hope” is all about resurrection, not rapture. We have hope for living, not for escaping. The resurrection of Jesus made possible our receiving resurrection life, and that brings hope. We have hope that we can not only face, but also conquer any obstacle this world can present. We have “other-world” power. We offer hope to the sinner for forgiveness. We offer to the addict the hope of deliverance and freedom. To the sexually confused, we offer the hope of wholeness. To the lonely we offer the hope of a family who cares. To the oppressed we offer the hope of justice and to the guilty we offer the hope of mercy. In fact there is no human dilemma too great for the power that raised Jesus from the dead, and that power is in us who believe Jesus is the resurrection and the life.” YES!

 

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Jesus Met Me on the Morning of My Funeral! https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/jesus-met-me-on-the-morning-of-my-funeral https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/jesus-met-me-on-the-morning-of-my-funeral#comments Wed, 27 Sep 2023 11:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/jesus-met-me-on-the-morning-of-my-funeral Jesus Met Me on the Morning of My Funeral

CEDRIC KANANA WITH BENJAMIN FISCHER|AUGUST 14, 2023

(This article was taken from Christianity Today magazine.)

Rwandan, Cedric Kanana was dressed for burial when Jesus gave him a mission to proclaim his name.

“Your blood cleanses me. I praise you, Savior.” I heard them singing these words as I approached the church. When she saw me, the girl beating the drum dropped her sticks and ran off screaming, as if she had seen a ghost.

Wearing nothing but a burial cloth, I walked into the service, a Muslim imam proclaiming Jesus. Twelve hours earlier, my heart had stopped beating.

My father, a Hutu, was one of the first Muslim sheikhs in western Rwanda, but my mother, a Tutsi, was a witch and priestess of a native African god. My family practiced folk Islam, which merges Islam with traditional animism. Folk Muslims will vigorously defend the Quran and Muhammad and then resort to witchcraft when feeling threatened or seeking an advantage.

After having two daughters and making every known sacrifice and appeal to Allah and the African spirits for a son, my father was ready to divorce my mother when I came along. I was named Swidiq Kanana, and from birth I was dedicated to Allah with a blessing to be a leader of the Muslim community of Rwanda.

These plans were disrupted when the country descended into civil war, followed by genocide. The ethnic hatred that tore the country apart tore our family apart as well. My father divorced my mother and married another witch, while my mother and her children were left to seek charity. Needing food, I took to living on the streets at age nine.

As a teenager, I learned how to bury my pain through drug use, but also how to profit through it. After entering school, I could identify people who were looking to escape problems and pain. And I capitalized on it. I took monthly trips to Congo and returned with drugs to sell, first marijuana and eventually cocaine. By getting other students addicted, I could require them to convert to Islam if they wanted to keep getting their drugs. I longed for my father’s approval and sought to remind him of his hopes for me to become a Muslim leader.

My recruiting success was soon noticed by the Muslim community. Because I had memorized the Quran, I was appointed as the imam of the Muslim school. Even as a teenager, I gained renown as a Muslim apologist through muhadhara, or open-air preaching and debate. Few of Rwanda’s Christians understood how the Old and New Testaments fit together, and it was easy to cast Muhammad as fulfilling Old Testament prophecies about a prophet like Moses or a king who would conquer the nations. I was finally fulfilling the blessing of my birth.

All that changed one day in my final year of school. While I was warming up for a basketball game, something in my brain seemed to burst, and I was overwhelmed by sounds and swirling images. I stumbled around, trying to escape the roar. Everything and everyone was terrifying. I had lost my mind. Diagnoses would range from drug-related psychosis to spiritual oppression.

The priest of a local god told my mother, “When he was born, he was given to you because of your sacrifices - not from this Muslim Allah. He belongs to the gods, but he has broken the bonds. This madness is their punishment.” Ceremonies and sacrifices were performed, but nothing changed. My mother then took me to a Western psychiatric hospital in the capital, where I received a strong sedative and stayed for several months.

The Muslim leaders blamed evil spirits. Attempting an exorcism, they placed a Quran on my head and began to recite the Surah Al-Baqarah, the longest section of the Quran. Suddenly I leapt up and began beating them until policemen arrived and subdued me.

After I’d spent nearly a year on antipsychotic medications, a Christian friend of my mother asked, “Why can’t you try Jesus? Bring Swidiq to see our pastor.” They went to the Anglican church on the nearby hill. The pastor opened his Bible and showed my mother the story of the man who pleaded with Jesus to heal his son, saying, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

The pastor and four church members fasted and prayed for seven days, singing songs of peace and laying hands on me each night. On the seventh night, I felt as though I were coming up through water. I heard the name Jesus said over and over until I began to know myself again. Walking home that night, I believed Jesus had restored me, that he was stronger than evil spirits, stronger than Western medicine, and stronger than the Quran. But I didn’t know Jesus.

What followed was a situation faced by many Muslims today. I could not deny the power of Jesus’ name. But telling the truth risked bringing shame on my family and being killed. During salaat, or daily prayers, I found myself praying not to Allah but to Jesus.

This dilemma endured for seven months as I again tried to finish my final year of school. One day, while working on an assignment, something in my gut went wrong. I thought my organs were being pulled apart, and every breath felt like a knife cut. The teacher rushed to get help as I fell to the floor, foaming at the mouth.

My father took me to a famous Western doctor who had been in Rwanda for decades. He was puzzled. “Things are bad,” he said, “but there’s nothing I can point to. There’s no obvious medical cause.” Within a week, doctors at the best hospital in Rwanda began palliative care. With my first dose of pain medication, a prickling sensation crept from my spine to my extremities. I was completely paralyzed, with no way to communicate.

Around 9 p.m., I became terribly alert. Seeing a change in me, people rushed into the room. I felt as if my heart were being tugged until it was dragged out through my mouth. It was a strange sensation, more spiritual than physical. At the same time something like a strong wind swept me up, and my heart stopped.

The next morning, 12 hours later, with my grave dug and my body being washed and clothed for burial according to Muslim tradition, I coughed, tossed aside my sheet, and stood up. People ran away screaming!

Confused, I looked around, realizing someone must have died. Turning to a huddled group staring at me, I saw a familiar face. It was Jesus. He raised his hand and gave me a knowing smile.

In an instant, what had passed during the last 12 hours came rushing back. I recalled seeing in my mind’s eye four man-shaped figures wrapped in blood-soaked black robes. Each one held a weapon in gnarled, taloned hands. They bound me and began torturing me, mocking my powerlessness to resist. I believe they were demons. One had set his axe on my chest and lifted it high when someone else entered. I knew immediately it was Jesus. In his presence, the others fell back, dismayed, and seemed to evaporate.

I have no idea how long he stood looking at me, but I felt perfect contentment. When he finally spoke, he lifted his hands, revealing holes in each one, and said, “You are among those I died for, so do not deny it anymore. You must tell others. Reveal it.”

I obeyed the Lord Jesus. That day, I went directly to a church, still wearing my burial cloth. And for the last 18 years I have been telling others about him. Although my father and the Muslim community first tried to kill me, both he and my mother, along with my siblings and many from that Muslim community, have found Jesus. Today, I am an Anglican pastor who preaches across Africa, calling Muslims and native animists to Christ and calling Christians to walk in the light.

The Lord has delivered me from several attempts on my life, and close calls have left my body scarred. But I know the meaning of my suffering, and I know I carry the blessing of Jesus’ name.

Cedric Kanana is the author of I Once Was Dead: How God Rescued Me from Islam, Drugs, Witchcraft, and Even Death. The coauthor, Benjamin Fischer, is rector of Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church in Idaho.

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Jesus Met Me on the Morning of My Funeral

CEDRIC KANANA WITH BENJAMIN FISCHER|AUGUST 14, 2023

(This article was taken from Christianity Today magazine.)

Rwandan, Cedric Kanana was dressed for burial when Jesus gave him a mission to proclaim his name.

“Your blood cleanses me. I praise you, Savior.” I heard them singing these words as I approached the church. When she saw me, the girl beating the drum dropped her sticks and ran off screaming, as if she had seen a ghost.

Wearing nothing but a burial cloth, I walked into the service, a Muslim imam proclaiming Jesus. Twelve hours earlier, my heart had stopped beating.

My father, a Hutu, was one of the first Muslim sheikhs in western Rwanda, but my mother, a Tutsi, was a witch and priestess of a native African god. My family practiced folk Islam, which merges Islam with traditional animism. Folk Muslims will vigorously defend the Quran and Muhammad and then resort to witchcraft when feeling threatened or seeking an advantage.

After having two daughters and making every known sacrifice and appeal to Allah and the African spirits for a son, my father was ready to divorce my mother when I came along. I was named Swidiq Kanana, and from birth I was dedicated to Allah with a blessing to be a leader of the Muslim community of Rwanda.

These plans were disrupted when the country descended into civil war, followed by genocide. The ethnic hatred that tore the country apart tore our family apart as well. My father divorced my mother and married another witch, while my mother and her children were left to seek charity. Needing food, I took to living on the streets at age nine.

As a teenager, I learned how to bury my pain through drug use, but also how to profit through it. After entering school, I could identify people who were looking to escape problems and pain. And I capitalized on it. I took monthly trips to Congo and returned with drugs to sell, first marijuana and eventually cocaine. By getting other students addicted, I could require them to convert to Islam if they wanted to keep getting their drugs. I longed for my father’s approval and sought to remind him of his hopes for me to become a Muslim leader.

My recruiting success was soon noticed by the Muslim community. Because I had memorized the Quran, I was appointed as the imam of the Muslim school. Even as a teenager, I gained renown as a Muslim apologist through muhadhara, or open-air preaching and debate. Few of Rwanda’s Christians understood how the Old and New Testaments fit together, and it was easy to cast Muhammad as fulfilling Old Testament prophecies about a prophet like Moses or a king who would conquer the nations. I was finally fulfilling the blessing of my birth.

All that changed one day in my final year of school. While I was warming up for a basketball game, something in my brain seemed to burst, and I was overwhelmed by sounds and swirling images. I stumbled around, trying to escape the roar. Everything and everyone was terrifying. I had lost my mind. Diagnoses would range from drug-related psychosis to spiritual oppression.

The priest of a local god told my mother, “When he was born, he was given to you because of your sacrifices - not from this Muslim Allah. He belongs to the gods, but he has broken the bonds. This madness is their punishment.” Ceremonies and sacrifices were performed, but nothing changed. My mother then took me to a Western psychiatric hospital in the capital, where I received a strong sedative and stayed for several months.

The Muslim leaders blamed evil spirits. Attempting an exorcism, they placed a Quran on my head and began to recite the Surah Al-Baqarah, the longest section of the Quran. Suddenly I leapt up and began beating them until policemen arrived and subdued me.

After I’d spent nearly a year on antipsychotic medications, a Christian friend of my mother asked, “Why can’t you try Jesus? Bring Swidiq to see our pastor.” They went to the Anglican church on the nearby hill. The pastor opened his Bible and showed my mother the story of the man who pleaded with Jesus to heal his son, saying, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

The pastor and four church members fasted and prayed for seven days, singing songs of peace and laying hands on me each night. On the seventh night, I felt as though I were coming up through water. I heard the name Jesus said over and over until I began to know myself again. Walking home that night, I believed Jesus had restored me, that he was stronger than evil spirits, stronger than Western medicine, and stronger than the Quran. But I didn’t know Jesus.

What followed was a situation faced by many Muslims today. I could not deny the power of Jesus’ name. But telling the truth risked bringing shame on my family and being killed. During salaat, or daily prayers, I found myself praying not to Allah but to Jesus.

This dilemma endured for seven months as I again tried to finish my final year of school. One day, while working on an assignment, something in my gut went wrong. I thought my organs were being pulled apart, and every breath felt like a knife cut. The teacher rushed to get help as I fell to the floor, foaming at the mouth.

My father took me to a famous Western doctor who had been in Rwanda for decades. He was puzzled. “Things are bad,” he said, “but there’s nothing I can point to. There’s no obvious medical cause.” Within a week, doctors at the best hospital in Rwanda began palliative care. With my first dose of pain medication, a prickling sensation crept from my spine to my extremities. I was completely paralyzed, with no way to communicate.

Around 9 p.m., I became terribly alert. Seeing a change in me, people rushed into the room. I felt as if my heart were being tugged until it was dragged out through my mouth. It was a strange sensation, more spiritual than physical. At the same time something like a strong wind swept me up, and my heart stopped.

The next morning, 12 hours later, with my grave dug and my body being washed and clothed for burial according to Muslim tradition, I coughed, tossed aside my sheet, and stood up. People ran away screaming!

Confused, I looked around, realizing someone must have died. Turning to a huddled group staring at me, I saw a familiar face. It was Jesus. He raised his hand and gave me a knowing smile.

In an instant, what had passed during the last 12 hours came rushing back. I recalled seeing in my mind’s eye four man-shaped figures wrapped in blood-soaked black robes. Each one held a weapon in gnarled, taloned hands. They bound me and began torturing me, mocking my powerlessness to resist. I believe they were demons. One had set his axe on my chest and lifted it high when someone else entered. I knew immediately it was Jesus. In his presence, the others fell back, dismayed, and seemed to evaporate.

I have no idea how long he stood looking at me, but I felt perfect contentment. When he finally spoke, he lifted his hands, revealing holes in each one, and said, “You are among those I died for, so do not deny it anymore. You must tell others. Reveal it.”

I obeyed the Lord Jesus. That day, I went directly to a church, still wearing my burial cloth. And for the last 18 years I have been telling others about him. Although my father and the Muslim community first tried to kill me, both he and my mother, along with my siblings and many from that Muslim community, have found Jesus. Today, I am an Anglican pastor who preaches across Africa, calling Muslims and native animists to Christ and calling Christians to walk in the light.

The Lord has delivered me from several attempts on my life, and close calls have left my body scarred. But I know the meaning of my suffering, and I know I carry the blessing of Jesus’ name.

Cedric Kanana is the author of I Once Was Dead: How God Rescued Me from Islam, Drugs, Witchcraft, and Even Death. The coauthor, Benjamin Fischer, is rector of Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church in Idaho.

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What Does It Mean to Make Disciples of All Nations? https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/what-does-it-mean-to-make-disciples-of-all-nations https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/what-does-it-mean-to-make-disciples-of-all-nations#comments Mon, 07 Aug 2023 10:00:00 -0400 https://www.gracefellowshipofaugusta.com/pastor-wades-blog/post/what-does-it-mean-to-make-disciples-of-all-nations Matthew 28:19a, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,…”

That Matthew 28:18-20 is correctly referenced as “The Great Commission” is seldom if ever questioned by evangelical believers, but what that means is a different story.

So, what is the Great Commission? Who is to be the object of the mission that we’re to co-partner with Jesus in accomplishing? Are we to concentrate on saving individual souls for heaven, or does it include seeing souls saved so that the kingdom of God is continuously coming more fully, and Father’s will is being done more and more freely “on earth as it is in heaven”?

Personally, I have become recently convinced that what I have been teaching about every available believer’s assignment to make disciples of all nations is deficient and diminishes the full extent what Jesus intended to convey. Because I accepted the etymology of the “of all nations” (“panta ta ethne” in the original language) to mean “all ethnicities” or “people groups”instead of nations, the cultural impact of the gospel is restricted to primarily rescuing as many souls for heaven as possible because the world is a “sinking Titanic” headed for destruction and there’s nothing we can do about it.

The Indian philosopher and theologian, Vishal Mangalwadi, has some strong words concerning this, as he remarks: “Thisfoolishness (of substituting “people groups” for “nations”) was developed by American missiology at Fuller Seminary. This error is one of the top ten reasons why Christianity has lost the USA. According to this foolishness, the USA is not a nation that the Church ought to be discipling. Etymology is only one ingredient in developing a "theology" of a complex concept such as "nation." However, etymology is not theology. Since Lausanne '74, American seminaries and missions have corrupted global Christianity by spreading the mistaken idea of discipling some individuals out of all people groups or ethnicities.”

One missions textbook written during this period of redefining what it means to “make disciples of all nations” gives a clear picture of why we are in the mess we are in as a nation:

“Christ is the wisest of all philosophers. He is the wisdom of God yet founded no philosophical school. Christ is the greatest of all scholars and educators, yet He instituted no educational system. Christ is the greatest benefactor and philanthropist, yet He founded no social welfare societies, institutions of philanthropic foundations. Christ was 'Christian presence" with deepest concerns for freedom, social uplift, equality, moral reformation and economic justice. Yet Christ founded no organization or institutions to initiate, propagate or implement the ideals which He incarnated … Christ did not become involved in processions against Roman overlords, slavery, social and economic injustices, or marches for civil rights, higher wages, or better education. That book continues elsewhere:

“We are sent not to preach sociology but salvation; not economics but evangelism; not reform but redemption; not culture but conversion; not a new social order but a new birth; not revolution but regeneration; not renovation but revival; not resuscitation but resurrection; not a new organization but a new creation; not democracy but the gospel; not civilization but Christ; we are ambassadors not diplomats” (George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), p. 211.).

In contrast to our “get-off-the-earth-as-quickly-as-possible mentality, what happens when the great commission is taken to mean disciple the nations and embraces whole nations rather than indicating individuals from among them?

One amazing example comes from the nation of Norway. Hans Nielsen Hauge (last name sounds like toga – Ho-ga) (1771-1824), is one of Norway’s heroes who created Kingdom culture when it was the poorest country in Europe such that people would eat tree bark to survive! While many were just surviving under the gospel of salvation, one man had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed both he and is nation. In 1796, Hauge experienced a spiritual awakening which he termed “spirit baptism.) While the 25-year-old, peasant farmer’s son was ploughing a field, he suddenly felt an overwhelming experience of the presence of God. He burned with love for Jesus and for mankind.

According to Hauge, church membership alone did not make a person a Christian. At the time, exceedingly few people attended State churches. In the capital city of Christiania, which had a population of about 10,000, evidence shows that only about 20 people attended regular services in the State church.

Compelled by the Spirit of God, he first shared the good news at home, then set off as an itinerant evangelist. He developed a pattern of walking great distances every day, holding three or four meetings in villages and reaching large numbers of ordinary people. In the 8 years he was free to do this, it is estimated he covered 15,000 km (9,320 miles). He often knitted as he walked; the gloves and socks were then given away to the poor who needed them. Many people came to saving faith in Jesus as a result and then they themselves went out to preach the gospel. A grass-roots evangelical revival began to spread among the rural communities.

Hauge was a humble and practical man, full of initiative. He saw the need to educate and equip the common people as well as save their souls. He had an amazing capacity for work, which, combined with his pioneering spirit, made him an entrepreneur to rank with the best.

For Hauge, running a business and preaching went hand in hand. He started a company in Bergen in 1801 to secure a sound economic base for his gospel activities. Thereafter, there was no stopping him! Over the next eight years, he founded fishing industries, brickyards, spinning mills, shipping yards, salt and mineral mines, paper mills and printing works. These created jobs for people who needed work and taught them how to make a living for themselves. He delegated the daily management to those he thought were the most capable, but he was the strategist who planned and motivated the whole enterprise. The profits were always used to invest in new activities.

Hauge became an inspiration to all who wanted to take Norway out of the ‘middle ages’ and into a new day. New agricultural and industrial methods were developed, and literacy rates rose. A new confidence led to greater economic freedom as Christians were challenged to rebuild society. Norway began to change.

Now that his worldview changed, Father God opened his eyes to see solutions in every sphere of society where he only saw problems before. Hans Nielsen Hauge believed that every Norwegian is valuable, which means you treat them with high value, and it changes them. He even wrote books that influenced the way people were thinking; books about morals, the judicial system, and responding in love. The country was influenced by his actions after he died. A constitution was written, a business school was constructed, and people lived with a new worldview that assured them that they mattered and could live in abundance.

Alongside this, Hauge encouraged representatives of the rural population into politics, launching what has been described as the first Norwegian democratic movement. This was enough to gain him enemies. Norway had strict laws regarding sectarian preaching and ‘vagrancy’; both of these were now used against him.

In 1799, notices were read in churches warning against unauthorized preachers. Some of his disciples were chased out of churches, beaten and imprisoned. Altogether, Hauge himself was arrested ten times. He once spent nine years in prison before his case was even heard! The sheriff of Hallingdal thought it would be fun to send a prostitute to Hauge’s cell; he looked her in the eyes with compassion and she began to sob and confess her sins!

His final imprisonment lasted 10 years, 3 of them in total isolation, first in an underground cell reserved for drunks, and finally in a small cell that has now been reconstructed at Norway’s Open Air Museum outside Oslo. He wrote to his friends: If I had 100 lives, they would all be willing for chains. Prison does not last for ever. I wish you well on the road of salvation. It is my prayer, my longing, my burden of care and my joy to find you in life eternal.

However, he was by now a national figure on account of his entrepreneurial business enterprises on behalf of the poor. His long imprisonment was becoming a scandal. What’s more, the authorities still needed his business and industrial expertise. On one occasion, they released him from prison for a time because they needed his advice on a marine desalination project! Finally, his sentence was commuted to a fine, which his friends paid. Hauge was free, broken in health but filled with God’s vision. He was ready for the final stage of the adventure.

Hauge spent his last years on a farm near Christiania (modern Oslo), bought for him by his friends. Years of imprisonment had weakened his body but not his spirit. His home became a center for Christian life, visited by many. Spiritual and secular leaders alike came to him for advice.

At the end, Hauge was bedridden – but still preached. His last exhortation was: “Follow Jesus!” He died, his face radiant with joy, exclaiming, “Oh, You eternal, loving God!”

That was by no means the end of the story! Some of his followers held important positions. Three of them took part in the first Norwegian Parliament in 1814, when Norway became independent from Denmark after 400 years. The whole country felt the effects of Hauge’s influence – spiritually, politically, and financially. It can truly be said that he fathered the new nation.

Hauge’s pioneering work in economic justice and ethical business continues to inspire today.

We must begin to see Jesus’ Great Commission as more than just saving individual souls for heaven. Certainly, we must desire that souls be saved for heaven when they die. But souls are in bodies and while in our bodies we must disciple nations so that the kingdom of God is continuously coming more fully, and Father’s will is being done more and more freely “on earth as it is in heaven”!

This is not “social gospel” or the “simple gospel”, but the “WHOLE GOSPEL”! Lord, help us to recover it!

 

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Matthew 28:19a, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,…”

That Matthew 28:18-20 is correctly referenced as “The Great Commission” is seldom if ever questioned by evangelical believers, but what that means is a different story.

So, what is the Great Commission? Who is to be the object of the mission that we’re to co-partner with Jesus in accomplishing? Are we to concentrate on saving individual souls for heaven, or does it include seeing souls saved so that the kingdom of God is continuously coming more fully, and Father’s will is being done more and more freely “on earth as it is in heaven”?

Personally, I have become recently convinced that what I have been teaching about every available believer’s assignment to make disciples of all nations is deficient and diminishes the full extent what Jesus intended to convey. Because I accepted the etymology of the “of all nations” (“panta ta ethne” in the original language) to mean “all ethnicities” or “people groups”instead of nations, the cultural impact of the gospel is restricted to primarily rescuing as many souls for heaven as possible because the world is a “sinking Titanic” headed for destruction and there’s nothing we can do about it.

The Indian philosopher and theologian, Vishal Mangalwadi, has some strong words concerning this, as he remarks: “Thisfoolishness (of substituting “people groups” for “nations”) was developed by American missiology at Fuller Seminary. This error is one of the top ten reasons why Christianity has lost the USA. According to this foolishness, the USA is not a nation that the Church ought to be discipling. Etymology is only one ingredient in developing a "theology" of a complex concept such as "nation." However, etymology is not theology. Since Lausanne '74, American seminaries and missions have corrupted global Christianity by spreading the mistaken idea of discipling some individuals out of all people groups or ethnicities.”

One missions textbook written during this period of redefining what it means to “make disciples of all nations” gives a clear picture of why we are in the mess we are in as a nation:

“Christ is the wisest of all philosophers. He is the wisdom of God yet founded no philosophical school. Christ is the greatest of all scholars and educators, yet He instituted no educational system. Christ is the greatest benefactor and philanthropist, yet He founded no social welfare societies, institutions of philanthropic foundations. Christ was 'Christian presence" with deepest concerns for freedom, social uplift, equality, moral reformation and economic justice. Yet Christ founded no organization or institutions to initiate, propagate or implement the ideals which He incarnated … Christ did not become involved in processions against Roman overlords, slavery, social and economic injustices, or marches for civil rights, higher wages, or better education. That book continues elsewhere:

“We are sent not to preach sociology but salvation; not economics but evangelism; not reform but redemption; not culture but conversion; not a new social order but a new birth; not revolution but regeneration; not renovation but revival; not resuscitation but resurrection; not a new organization but a new creation; not democracy but the gospel; not civilization but Christ; we are ambassadors not diplomats” (George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), p. 211.).

In contrast to our “get-off-the-earth-as-quickly-as-possible mentality, what happens when the great commission is taken to mean disciple the nations and embraces whole nations rather than indicating individuals from among them?

One amazing example comes from the nation of Norway. Hans Nielsen Hauge (last name sounds like toga – Ho-ga) (1771-1824), is one of Norway’s heroes who created Kingdom culture when it was the poorest country in Europe such that people would eat tree bark to survive! While many were just surviving under the gospel of salvation, one man had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed both he and is nation. In 1796, Hauge experienced a spiritual awakening which he termed “spirit baptism.) While the 25-year-old, peasant farmer’s son was ploughing a field, he suddenly felt an overwhelming experience of the presence of God. He burned with love for Jesus and for mankind.

According to Hauge, church membership alone did not make a person a Christian. At the time, exceedingly few people attended State churches. In the capital city of Christiania, which had a population of about 10,000, evidence shows that only about 20 people attended regular services in the State church.

Compelled by the Spirit of God, he first shared the good news at home, then set off as an itinerant evangelist. He developed a pattern of walking great distances every day, holding three or four meetings in villages and reaching large numbers of ordinary people. In the 8 years he was free to do this, it is estimated he covered 15,000 km (9,320 miles). He often knitted as he walked; the gloves and socks were then given away to the poor who needed them. Many people came to saving faith in Jesus as a result and then they themselves went out to preach the gospel. A grass-roots evangelical revival began to spread among the rural communities.

Hauge was a humble and practical man, full of initiative. He saw the need to educate and equip the common people as well as save their souls. He had an amazing capacity for work, which, combined with his pioneering spirit, made him an entrepreneur to rank with the best.

For Hauge, running a business and preaching went hand in hand. He started a company in Bergen in 1801 to secure a sound economic base for his gospel activities. Thereafter, there was no stopping him! Over the next eight years, he founded fishing industries, brickyards, spinning mills, shipping yards, salt and mineral mines, paper mills and printing works. These created jobs for people who needed work and taught them how to make a living for themselves. He delegated the daily management to those he thought were the most capable, but he was the strategist who planned and motivated the whole enterprise. The profits were always used to invest in new activities.

Hauge became an inspiration to all who wanted to take Norway out of the ‘middle ages’ and into a new day. New agricultural and industrial methods were developed, and literacy rates rose. A new confidence led to greater economic freedom as Christians were challenged to rebuild society. Norway began to change.

Now that his worldview changed, Father God opened his eyes to see solutions in every sphere of society where he only saw problems before. Hans Nielsen Hauge believed that every Norwegian is valuable, which means you treat them with high value, and it changes them. He even wrote books that influenced the way people were thinking; books about morals, the judicial system, and responding in love. The country was influenced by his actions after he died. A constitution was written, a business school was constructed, and people lived with a new worldview that assured them that they mattered and could live in abundance.

Alongside this, Hauge encouraged representatives of the rural population into politics, launching what has been described as the first Norwegian democratic movement. This was enough to gain him enemies. Norway had strict laws regarding sectarian preaching and ‘vagrancy’; both of these were now used against him.

In 1799, notices were read in churches warning against unauthorized preachers. Some of his disciples were chased out of churches, beaten and imprisoned. Altogether, Hauge himself was arrested ten times. He once spent nine years in prison before his case was even heard! The sheriff of Hallingdal thought it would be fun to send a prostitute to Hauge’s cell; he looked her in the eyes with compassion and she began to sob and confess her sins!

His final imprisonment lasted 10 years, 3 of them in total isolation, first in an underground cell reserved for drunks, and finally in a small cell that has now been reconstructed at Norway’s Open Air Museum outside Oslo. He wrote to his friends: If I had 100 lives, they would all be willing for chains. Prison does not last for ever. I wish you well on the road of salvation. It is my prayer, my longing, my burden of care and my joy to find you in life eternal.

However, he was by now a national figure on account of his entrepreneurial business enterprises on behalf of the poor. His long imprisonment was becoming a scandal. What’s more, the authorities still needed his business and industrial expertise. On one occasion, they released him from prison for a time because they needed his advice on a marine desalination project! Finally, his sentence was commuted to a fine, which his friends paid. Hauge was free, broken in health but filled with God’s vision. He was ready for the final stage of the adventure.

Hauge spent his last years on a farm near Christiania (modern Oslo), bought for him by his friends. Years of imprisonment had weakened his body but not his spirit. His home became a center for Christian life, visited by many. Spiritual and secular leaders alike came to him for advice.

At the end, Hauge was bedridden – but still preached. His last exhortation was: “Follow Jesus!” He died, his face radiant with joy, exclaiming, “Oh, You eternal, loving God!”

That was by no means the end of the story! Some of his followers held important positions. Three of them took part in the first Norwegian Parliament in 1814, when Norway became independent from Denmark after 400 years. The whole country felt the effects of Hauge’s influence – spiritually, politically, and financially. It can truly be said that he fathered the new nation.

Hauge’s pioneering work in economic justice and ethical business continues to inspire today.

We must begin to see Jesus’ Great Commission as more than just saving individual souls for heaven. Certainly, we must desire that souls be saved for heaven when they die. But souls are in bodies and while in our bodies we must disciple nations so that the kingdom of God is continuously coming more fully, and Father’s will is being done more and more freely “on earth as it is in heaven”!

This is not “social gospel” or the “simple gospel”, but the “WHOLE GOSPEL”! Lord, help us to recover it!

 

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