Lord, not Valentine.

February 14, 2013 Leave a comment

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So I had a little Facebook outburst earlier on today. These have become quite rare of late but I saw something on my timeline using the letters of the word Valentine as some sort of acrostic with a bible verse. I hope that if the person in question reads this they do not take it as a personal attack. It is merely something symptomatic of a general trend I’ve witnessed year after year.

As I posted earlier today I see it as extremely imbalanced, borderline blasphemous and not a little weird! This sort of equation with Jesus as a boyfriend/man (really it feels wrong to even write this) is seriously misplaced and again…weird [often this is just the language used and generic posture taken and nothing distasteful is meant - but the point still stands]. I readily concede it comes out of an honest heart and a Christianity who is surrounded by a general culture where feelings are king, laced in a postmodern individualistic self determinatory soup. On top of this if you are a young single girl in certain parts or Christendom you are often told to make Jesus your centre before going after a man – naturally I agree with this, but what does not help are the loaded unsaid connotations which seem to imply that as opposed to being your Lord and Saviour, to whom you owe ultimate submission and allegiance in general; he is somehow a replacement to your ‘man’ also!
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Let me explain, lest I appear to be contradicting myself. As Christians our worldview is defined by the recognition that the the Lord is God. That He and He alone is sovereign over all whether it be matter or man (and woman). But the single Christian life is not one in which Jesus plays your man until your man comes along. The single Christian life is one in which you have joined the covenant community of the faithful and when your man comes along – if he comes along – he does not replace, but you then join as two people together in a very similar way to how you were as one; doing the same thing: submitting together to Christ as Lord, resting in His finished work and enjoying Him as Redeemer/Saviour and making much of Him as King.
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Let’s once and for all stop seeing the high and holy King as a ‘man-gap-filler’ and rather as He is, our Lord and great compassionate Saviour, come to die in the place of sinners taking upon Himself the due penalty for sin and making the way in Himself whereby all who come to Him as Saviour may gain entrance back into the presence of God for which we were long ago created!
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It’s Christmas! Part 1

December 6, 2012 2 Comments

In years to come this Christmas, I do believe will provide somewhat of a watershed. I long since lost my childlike longing for trees & gifts (Disclaimer: I do hope to gain some Amazon vouchers for the supplementing of my library. My address can be provided upon request). The joy garnered simply from tinsel and idyllic snow are long since gone and that final bastion of mere seasonal affinity, yes the grand family meal(s) have now lost their great appeal – not that I do not enjoy the smattering of curried goat, fish, chicken, turkey, ham, ackee & saltfish et. al, nor do I particularly hate my family, I rather quite like them as it happens. I say all this to say simply this, these things in and of themselves do not invigorate me for this season as much as its true raison d’être.

Indeed, talk of the ‘Christmas Spirit’ is beginning to nauseate me, the notion of Christmas being that time of the year where we do good has long irked me since the realisation that it was probably good to do good all the year round! And as a consequence the other cultural trappings we often get faced with have all come to culminate in a sort of crescendo moment for my rejection of all things done. Now more than ever – for this is more evolution than sudden wave – where the real meaning of Christmas (yes I can still employ the sentimental garb with which we illustrate the season) is ever upon my mind. Now, enough existential droning, let me muse over forthcoming posts on that great joy with which this season effuses.

So what do I love about this time of year? What caused me on December 1st to reach such a state of boyish anticipation? What was it that caused me to download that Christmas album(1)? What is it that makes me want to utterly spam – beyond the usual – my Facebook wall with lyrics of Charles Wesley’s timeless, Hark! The herald angels sing? The answer to all of these questions and more can be found in one word: Incarnation!

Yes that 3 dollar word that is the geat sunum bonum of this so great a season, this season of Christmas. I am well aware of the fact that Jesus Christ was not born on 25th December, perhaps more 25th September and yes I am fully congnicant of centuries worth of amalgamation with secular and pagan festivities and this great Christian of celebrations. However none of these serve to militate against this great story, that some 2020 years ago, the divine Son of God himself, in the great humiliation described for us by the Apostle Paul, ‘empited himself, being born in the likeness of men’ (2). Yes it is that most Christian of words, the incarnation, by which we mean: the coming into this world of sin, sorrow and strife the divine second Person of the Godhead (Trinity), God the Son: Jesus, clothing himself in humanity, shrouding immortality with morality. He who came to save His people from their sins (3), it is this great celebration of the coming of Jesus Christ as a babe to grow into a man to head to that old rugged cross, it is this which invigorates such passion for this most holy of time.

If one were to follow the wind of the day where the mere mention of the Lord Jesus in connection with this season meant to commemorate His coming would be such a foreign notion (4), it is therefore natural that we in a country, allbeit a little far behind in the road of rampant secularisation, would suffer some sort of disconnect with the tying of Christmas to Christ. Those kings, indeed wise, who came to see the infant Jesus were on the money, ‘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’ (5). Oh yes, those men of the east knew the real meaning of the season, they had come to worship! Indeed this is Christmas. It is, to borrow the words of the Westminster Catechism, that most opportune time for us to rekindle enjoyment of him (6).

This is Christmas, it is to come to the manger; it is to come to the temple as did that aged holy man Simeon, who had been waiting many years for the promised Messiah, and having taken the holy child ‘up in his arms’ could finally say ‘Lord , now you are letting your servant depart in peace’ (7). Yes, it is time for us to come to the manger, to come to the temple. It is the time to come to the River Jordan where we listen keenly to the awestruck John the Baptist, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’ (8).

With John may we behold the holy One, may we gaze upon the face of Jesus as Simeon and may we say, ‘O come, O Come Emmanuel’!

(1) The album in question being ‘God of God’ by Enfield. A compilation of remixed Carols, a warning that this is probably not for the purists, http://enfieldband.com/music/gog/index.html

(2) Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 2:7

(3) The Gospel of Matthew 1:21

(4) I refer here to the recent absurdities in Sweden where school children are to be taken to Advent services with the proviso that no references to faith, prayers and dedications are made.

(5) The Gospel of Matthew 2:2

(6) Westminster Confession of faith, Answer 1, http://www.ccel.org/creeds/westminster-shorter-cat.html

(7) The Gospel of Luke 2:29

(8) The Gospel of John 1:29

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We all have faith

October 7, 2012 Leave a comment

We all have faith.

Faith is to be assured of a thing without having full cognitive and exhaustive awareness of all that that thing entails. The writer to the Hebrews says it is the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Though we have awareness and a partial knowledge of a thing it is this with which we base all further assurances of that thing; in that we have functional knowledge, that being the sufficient amount with which to advance without great measure of fear.

All of us have faith, faith is merely the balance of probabilities in ascertaining the certainty of a thing. We are certain, nay, we have faith about the structure of the atom because based on probability it really is the way it is.

We have faith that God really is God and that He has really revealed Himself through ideas and words, (1) In the written form and (2) in the living form of his Son Jesus Christ.

We have this faith not as a wishful projection of wishing to be, that which we would most like. We base our faith, indeed we evidence our faith in that which we do know: through His revelation in nature and then in Scripture and following this our experience of Him in life.

To be continued and greatly expanded upon at some unspecified time in the not too distant future

P

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Jesus had a wife! Sloppy media.

September 20, 2012 Leave a comment

The effects of sloppy, popcorn servings of the media’s take on historical theology & textual criticism.

Karen King – eminent incumbent of the Hollis Chair of Divinity at one of America’s finest institutions, Harvard, has earlier this week presented a Coptic (ancient Egyptian successor to the hieroglyphics) 4th century (perhaps) manuscript which hysterical media would have us believe unveils a picture just short of a 2.4 child-rearing, 2 up-2 down living, Jesus of Nazareth!

My reaction to the whole affair has been akin to the sentiment of a friend who said earlier today: “And every sensible Christian laughed loudly, shrugged their shoulders and made a cup of tea. The End”

I want to add at this juncture that this is in no way an attack on Karen King or the New York Times, simply a word of caution! Professor King herself has said in an excerpt from the New York Times article revealing the find:

The notion that Jesus had a wife was the central conceit of the best seller and movie “The Da Vinci Code.” But Dr. King said she wants nothing to do with the code or its author: “At least, don’t say this proves Dan Brown was right.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/historian-says-piece-of-papyrus-refers-to-jesus-wife.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

My concern is not for the stability of my faith, surely not! My concern is simply for the irresponsible way this sort of thing is dished out and the implications such servings carry with them for the non discerning eye.

So for a rational look at the whole affair for those interested and also to dissuade silly Da Vinci Code esque comments, do take a look at a selection of a variety of types of articles which have been passed across my eyes on the net over the past 48 hours:

Al Mohler, President – Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kentucky

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife? When Sensationalism Masquerades as Scholarship

http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/09/20/the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-when-sensationalism-masquerades-as-scholarship/?utm_source=Albert+Mohler&utm_campaign=b205bc6532-Albert_Mohler_Email_August_6_20128_6_2012&utm_medium=email

Dave Mackie, Friend

Dave: Did Jesus have a wife

http://twomackies.tumblr.com/post/31879252442/dave-did-jesus-have-a-wife

Peter Warden, Warden – Tyndale House Cambridge

Did Jesus Have a Wife

http://www.biblicaltraining.org/forum/did-jesus-have-wife

James White, Arizona based Apologist

A Note to the Secular World: Do Your History

[http://aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=5240]

 

Sidebar: One of the quirks of this debate is that it shows up some major dividing lines between Roman Catholic & Protestant church polity.

Roman Catholics believe that the clergy ought to remain unmarried to model Jesus who they believe was celibate, although Protestants, on the whole, usually dismiss this requirement noting that the question of Jesus’ celibacy has no bearing on the marital pursuits of His clergy. Moreover it would appear that in the early church the married status of the clergy was a given c.f. 1 Timothy 3 where Paul seems to be re-emphasizing the importance that a bishop/paster/elder ought to be a faithful spouse to his wife if he was married; the original Greek in this case literally translating as ‘a one woman/wife man‘ !

“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”

P

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Deeds not Creeds? An Encouragement for Both.

April 27, 2012 Leave a comment

There is a common mantra circulating within the confines of modern evangelical Christendom which teaches: ‘deeds not creeds’. Intentionally respectable but utterly naive is its basis – in my humble opinion! It seeks to downplay the vigour of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ and His saving power at the altar of civic & communal duty. Moreover, much worse is that when Christians do expound views on morality and the more didactic aspects of their faith, they are commonly charged with an opposition along the lines of, “Why are you so worried about [.....] why do you not concern yourself with mass starvation and worldwide injustice” - sadly general society & Christians themselves often buy into this myth and believe the church is generally fledgling in her duty to her fellow-man.



The following is taken from the blog ‘God and Politics in the UK’ http://godandpoliticsuk.org/2012/04/26/uk-public-is-increasingly-apathetic-towards-politics-but-christians-buck-the-trend/ accessed 27 April 2012.

‘Also whilst nationally community involvement and volunteering is dropping, the Church of England tells us that:

  • More people do unpaid work for church organisations than any other organisation.
  • A quarter of regular churchgoers (among both Anglicans and other Christians separately) are involved in voluntary community service outside the church. Churchgoers overall contribute 23.2 million hours voluntary service each month in their local communities outside the church.
  • The Church of England provides activities outside church worship in the local community for 407,000 children and young people (aged under 16 years) and 32,900 young people (aged 16 to 25 years). More than 116,000 volunteers and an additional 4900 employed adults run children/young people activity groups sponsored by the Church of England outside church worship.

So why do Christians do this?  Why do we care?  It’s because God tells us to care for our world, our society and those around us.  It’s part of our spiritual DNA.  Take these two passages for example:

Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good,  to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone. (Titus 3:1,2)’

As with many things in our day, a dichotomy is made between the two (deeds & creeds) where there need not be. We who are evangelical and broadly, we who call ourselves Christian who adhere to the faith ‘once for all delivered to the saints‘ [Jude 3] must recognise that the same Saviour who told us to ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ also gave the command to ‘go therefore and make disciples of all nations‘.

It is time to abandon the self-flagellation with which certain corners of our community of faith is oft guilty of and recognise that while we must be actively engaged in the temporal good of our fellow-man, we are not at the self-same time obliged by Lord or conscience to neglect his eternal peace. Furthermore, we can [it must be noted with no sense of pride - since whatever we have comes from God and all thanks for any good he deposits in us is due only to Him] be confident in the face of opposition that we are actually performing our mandated ‘civic and communal duty‘ [the church at large] and so with assurance of that fact move forward in deed and creed.

P

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Well That’s Just Your Interpretation!

March 13, 2012 Leave a comment

That's just your interpretation!

* Disclaimer I am neither a medical doctor, novelist or Greek scholar in textual criticism – I invite those with such skills to correct anything at their leisure. All other comments and further discussion are truly most welcome!

Thomas (T): Good morning Doctor Khan

Doctor Khan (DK): Good Morning Thomas. How can I help you?

T: Doctor Khan, I am having some sleeping difficulties.

DK: That’s unfortunate. Tell me more.

T: Well I come in from a hard day at work and am obviously tired, but it is very difficult to sleep, some nights I don’t get to sleep till 5 a.m – an hour before I have to get up for work!

DK: That’s no fun is it! How long has this been going on for?

T: About two months now doc!

DK: I see, any dizziness, head aches during the day?

T: None at all, I’m just knackard all the time! It’s getting really bad, I’m sure you can imagine the wife is not impressed…likes her beauty sleep you see!

DK: Well I wouldn’t want to help you on the road to divorce so for now I’ll write out a prescription. If it continues after two weeks of this tablet I’ll put you on, I’ll get you in for a blood test. Now the best one out there is “SleepFast”.

(Doctor Khan writes out prescription)

Take this to the receptionist and he’ll sort you out! Is there anything else I can do for you?

T: Well funnily enough there is; you see I went to see Doctor Jones, who has a practice on my street last week and he told me that the best thing for me to take was “SleepEasy”. You see the thing is doc, I wanted to get a second opinion and so I came to you, so now I’m rather confused!

DK: Well I can assure you the best thing to take is SleepFast – Doctor Jones is an eminent physician but I would have to disagree with him on this one! All of my patients swear by SleepFast.

T: Oh I see! Well doc I suppose it’s down to your interpretation of medicine isn’t it and all that. Perhaps I’ll toss a coin? Maybe just stick it out for a while?

DK: (unnerved) Well, erm…yes, indeed it is, but interpretation isn’t going to solve your problem Tom; only the true medicine will do that!

———————————————————————-———————————————————————

What would you say to Thomas’ assessment of the situation?

Let’s up the ante. Thomas has a fatal illness, if left untreated.

Does he really flippantly throw his hands in the air and say – well it’s down to your interpretation doc this time? Unfortunately when two pastors/theologians/average Joes disagree on the meaning of a biblical text, people play the ‘interpretation’ card and walk off none the wiser.

Somehow we think it’s more tolerant, perhaps more amicable, maybe we even think that it is a mark of humility!

Well I think it’s foolish – you are free to disagree of course!

Now the Bible is distanced to us by language and age. Do you speak Koine Greek, or perhaps you’re a dab-hand when it comes to reading ancient Hebrew? I thought not. 

While you can be on your way to starting many a theological enquiry  by reading your standard (good) English translation (ESV, NASB etc.) and perhaps getting to grips with a trained teacher of the Word, some times things are a little harder to discern.

Take for example the Greek word ‘porneia’ – this could mean adultery, fornication or some other words relating to the area of sexual immorality (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?strongs=G4202). Usually we know how to translate a word based on immediate context and other things, but sometimes the problem is more nuanced and you get two different readings of a text. 

[I feel compelled to insert that no major doctrine of Scripture is in jeopardy here - they are major doctrines simply because they are frequent themes running throughout and so most of the time problems regarding meaning in a place or two are - pardon the pun - meaningless, since we can ascertain the theme with other methods and the problems are easily solved.]

But sometimes you get a sentence, or a verse or part of a verse which could mean two slightly different things and you get two doctors (theologians) with two takes!

What do you do?

Consider the above scenario:

You would, perhaps, check out who had been practising medicine for a long time, Doctor Jones or Doctor Khan – maybe both have been. 

You would check out what field of medicine they were both specialists in.

You may find some other trusted doctors and see what they say.

You may do a host of other things – the point is – that you would get to the bottom of it! Now yes I will be the first to admit that this will not happen in all cases – you may find a genuine 50-50 split down the middle and with the resources and people available to you at that point may be left none the wiser, but I hope you can see that the point I am trying to elucidate is that you wouldn’t simply throw in the interpretation card and go home!

And such must be our attitude – indeed, more than the aforementioned, with the very words of God. There will be those odd verses that we may not be able to say personally one way or the other…and that’s OK! But most of the time, the interpretation card simply will not stand up once we’ve actually done some work and got to the bottom of the text!

I hope that I have shown that knowing the meaning of a text is vitally important, and we must seek it out, if we are truly seeking God out!

We are dealing with the very words of God, and if we truly accept that proposition, then we simply cannot afford to be so lazy! 

* I recommend a little book called “Knowing Scripture” by renowned Scholar, Philosopher and Theologian RC Sproul – who’s website is here with a brief article which would far better sum up some of the things I have sought to address: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/knowing-scripture/

* The book is available on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Scripture-R-C-Sproul/dp/083083723X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331682959&sr=8-1

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Armed and Dangerous – The Sovereignty of God. A sermon.

February 17, 2012 1 Comment

This is an adapted version of a sermon I delivered July 2010 at my home church. The first of three blog posts where I will be publishing three sermons I have delivered ‘recently’

Click here to listen to the audio Armed & Dangerous – Audio

Armed and Dangerous – The Sovereignty of God

“Praise the name of Jesus
Praise the name of Jesus
He’s my rock, He’s my fortress
He’s my deliverer
In Him will I trust”

And so to today’s theme – ‘armed and dangerous’. I will seek to explore this what it means and how it is to be worked out and understood by the Christian.

Everything I seek to address will be related to the following backdrop and it is this, that the Christian belongs no where outside of the presence of God, for it is there that their safety is found, it is there where home truly is, it is in the arms, in the very presence of Almighty God. As Peter states, we are pilgrims, travellers, sojourners, this world is not my home a famous song says, neither this world nor the things of this world, we truly are passing through.

If you truly belong to him, if you truly have been regenerated by the Spirit of God, then this is where home is, now a caveat for those who are indeed saved and feel like me at times, depressed with yourself because you have allowed a week to go past, with no real time spent in communication with the Lord, while in this body of flesh we will slip up we may fall short at times, but what is the story of your life when looked at overall, is it a case where you never pray or is it a case where you slip, but you find that you cant help but run back, you must run back, you NEED to run back?

Now in setting out this sermon today I will address a number of points regarding our theme of being ‘armed and dangerous’ and the sovereignty of God.

I will set out what we face, and what we do about it.

For we are all born in Sin, turn to Romans 3:9-18

‘For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.”“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”’

We see that every human being when born is born in sin, in other words every human being is born with a death sentence written over them, we are all born to die. Sin is the very thing which corrupts, we are born depraved, we are born totally outside of the will of God, as Paul said, none is righteous, no one understands, no one seeks for God. And Scripture will tell us that since there is a justice and a righteousness and a truth in God, that he will serve justice, and the slightest of sin he will punish, and in truth he deals this just punishment to all mankind through the penalty of death.

But we praise God for Jesus! We praise God for sending his one and only Son to be as John says in 1 John the propitiation for our sins. What is John saying? He is saying that the eternal Word of God, Jesus Christ the Son of God was sent to bear the wrath of the Father for the sin of mankind, and through him, through him alone as he makes clear in his gospel account, can humanity now be reconciled back to God, can men and women now enjoy fellowship, can now enjoy God himself!

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to my self, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”  John 14:3-7

One way – one way.

[Ephesians 2] What an amazing discourse, an amazing summary of what we were and what we now are, not perfect, being sanctified and fully made over unto God, but new regenerate people, set apart and engrafted into the fellowship of God, being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Now concerning this brethren. By being saved and placed into the side of God, onto God’s team as it were, we are then placed in a certain situation. If I become an American citizen I am by virtue of my nationality at war with the Taliban, I may not be directly and I may not necessarily have any feelings toward the Taliban, or the “insurgents” in Iraq but what I am trying to get across is, that when you pledge allegiance to the Queen you are in effect pledging enmity towards those who are against the Queen, and it is the same in the Kingdom of God with respect to the kingdom of darkness. The fact is that the Great Almighty Supreme Omnipotent God to whom we belong is in diametric opposition to sin, sin is the very opposite of all that God is! What did Jesus say:

‘if you love me you will keep my commandments’ John 14:15

Indeed those who are in Christ follow after Christ and what does 1 John say:

‘Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.’ 1 John 3:4

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.’ 1 John 2:3-5

Sin is epitomised in the person of Satan, the devil. The same scripture in Ephesians calls him the prince of the power of the air, working in the sons of disobedience i.e. those who are yet unconverted, and us before we were converted by God. Therefore we set ourselves against the devil when we seek to name the name of Christ, when we become Christian.

    Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
(1 Peter 5:8-10)

The Greek word used there for ‘adversary’ was used in Greek culture in New Testament times with regard to an opponent in a law suit. Your prosecutor. And this fits with what we know from the Word of God to be the character of Satan. Revelation 12:10 tells us

    And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

   

In Job 1 we see that Satan came to accuse Job of only serving God because God blessed him with sons, daughters, animals and a nice house. I have a friend at university who once said ‘when you are in a fight and you are by yourself you get a bit scared. But if you have your big brother or your dad behind you, it gives you a crazy energy boost. And that is what it’s like with God on our side’

    What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
    (Romans 8:31-34)

We have one who sits on the throne who angelic beings who ten times our power, ten times our intellect and ten times our beauty fly around with 2 wings, covering their body and 2 covering their eyes, crying ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” That’s who we have on our side!

So we see we have an adversary, an accuser.

What I noticed is that any time we see Jesus encountering a demon possessed person, the demon shows signs of fear. Examples include:

    And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”
(Mark 1:23-24)

‘the Holy One of God’ – the demon recognised him. The devil is not afraid of sheep but he is afraid of the shepherd.

And again in Mark 5 the demons begged Jesus not to allow them to be sent ‘our of the country’

And finally Mark 9 20-27

    And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
    (Mark 9:20-27)


He is not afraid of sheep, but he is most certainly afraid of the shepherd!

My point is that while we have a sense of need of defending and arming ourselves against the devil, our only real defence is God himself. It is not how good we are at praying, or how good we are at methodically reading the Bible every day, or coming to church at set times or every bible study…I am not saying they are unimportant…but our defence is in God and God alone. All through the scriptures we see this. For example, Exodus 7-12 – the ten plagues of Egypt. Not one of them was effected through Moses’ power, or Aaron’s ability, it was God who sent the gnats, it was God who sent the frogs, God who turned the Nile into blood and God who killed every firstborn in the land, it was God.



Our strength is in Christ, he tells us that none shall perish or be taken out of the Fathers’ hand. And this is why Peters says as we saw above ‘And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.’ Satan is not afraid of you, he is afraid of the shepherd.


We see in Ephesians 6 we are instructed to stand and put on the armour of God and be strong in the power of his might. Yes we are told about weapons we are supposed to don ourselves with, but against the backdrop of his might. It is the armour of God. Our strength is not found in what we conjure up, it is in the armour of God. He is not afraid of sheep, but the shepherd and the shepherd’s armour.


Verse 16 tells us about the ‘shield of faith’. Roman shields covered the entire body. Sometimes when you watch reconstructions on TV programmes of ancient battles, we see a shield which only covers the breast area, but he Roman shield covered the whole body. It is the shield of faith, our faith we are told in 1 John ‘has overcome the world’, our faith in Christ and his finished work, this is with which we are able to extinguish fiery darts.


Again we see Exodus 4:12 ‘Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.’ Moses has been complaining to God in the preceding verses that he is not able to do anything, he cannot go before the Egyptian King and demand that he set the Israelite slaves free. But it is not about what we know, but whose we are. The message is, Moses just go. That is why they could sing the victory song in Exodus 15 after they had been freed from Egypt:



  Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD, saying,
    “I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;
        the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
    The LORD is my strength and my song,
        and he has become my salvation;
    this is my God, and I will praise him,
        my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
    The LORD is a man of war;
        the LORD is his name.

    “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea,
        and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.
    The floods covered them;
        they went down into the depths like a stone.
    Your right hand, O LORD, glorious in power,
        your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy.

    In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries;
        you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble.
    At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up;
        the floods stood up in a heap;
        the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.
(Exodus 15:1-8)

Because God said, just go Moses – I’ve got you!



And a final picture we see in the opening chapter of the book of Joshua.

    Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”
(Joshua 1:9)


The people responded ‘Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the LORD your God be with you, as he was with Moses!’ (Joshua 1:17) They were saying, you see Joshua we are not too fussed about you, you’re a nice guy, but the only reason we follow you is that Lord your God is with you. This was not a joke for these people they were going into the desert to go to an unknown land and there was no Egypt to run back to. This was everything for them, their families, their lives, but they put it to the side and said ‘Only may the LORD your God be with you, as he was with Moses!’; no matter what Joshua, we will follow you on that condition.

I end with a quote from a book I recently purchased entitled Spiritual Warfare

‘The locus for spiritual warfare is union with Christ, all this reinforces the notion that the battle is the Lord’s. In spiritual warfare our victory is in Christ, our refuge, our strength is in Christ, our confidence, our hope is in Christ, the better we learn to abide in Christ, the more capable and vigorous we will be for battle as we live in and live out this victory. After describing the blinding work of Satan as the god of this age, in 2 Corinthians, Paul drives home the point, ‘but we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us’. Spiritual warfare whether in the work of evangelism or our walk in sanctification can be expressed as standing firm in the gospel of the redemptive kingdom of God against the effects of our primary enemy to divorce us from Christ. Satan’s primary efforts aim to disengage us from Christ in the gospel and pit self against Christ. Most of spiritual warfare simply involves living out the gospel of the kingdom against the effects of our enemy the devil; with the goal of growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. The battle lines of spiritual warfare can be drawn in terms of abiding with Christ in the gospel of grace. ‘Through many dangers, toils and snare we have already come, t’was Grace that brought us safe thus far and Grace will lead us home’

God says to the prophet Zechariah in Zechariah 2, about Israel and I believe this can be applied to us as Christians:

   ‘he who touches you touches the apple of his eye‘
    (Zechariah 2:8)

Next week Friday: A message from last year entitled ‘Putting God first’. Get reminded of its release by subscribing by putting your email address in the box to the right.

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The Apologist – God’s barrister?

February 3, 2012 Leave a comment

The Apologist – God’s barrister?.

Filed under Some Musings

Eternal life – Our greatest treasure

January 1, 2012 Leave a comment

The greatest gift that God could give a person – is quite simply, Himself.


Make sense? Probably not. Since it is simply not the natural way to think in our dually self-centred & gospel ignorant age – that one could give someone else not simply gifts, but their entire person, much less that person be the Lord of all creation. But this is what the Triune God has indeed done for sinful men and women like ourselves.

Come with me and ask yourself the following question whether you are a believer or not:

What is the greatest gift that God could give to somebody?

Is our conclusion based on size, value, eternality etc.? Yes! Of course it is based on all of these things and more! But here is the thing which I want us to glare into though it be as in a mirror, darkly. 


What, moreover who, is more valuable than God Himself?

What is of more virtue?

Who is worthy of more praise simply for inherent magnitude?

What love is loftier than that which the eternal Father contained within Himself to be parted from His own Son?

What love is loftier than that which the eternal Son contained within Himself than to be derided by the dust which he had once created that such dust might be eternally and irrevocably redeemed?

What love is loftier than that which the eternal Spirit contained within Himself that He should seek to enter into the heart of vile personalities who have committed non other than rank high treason against the Almighty One – seeking ever to lovingly mould a new heart in them that is of eternal value?


You see to answer the question, ‘What is the greatest gift that God could give to somebody?’ with anything other than God Himself is to limit your response to something that is not as big, that is not as valuable and that is not as eternal as God in his self-existent self manifestly is.

This is why the greatest gift that God could give to any person is His very person! It is not prosperity as some of the TV preachers either implicitly or explicitly convey. It is not even life itself, for when life is not there, God is there and whatever is, including life, is, as a result of that which Aquinas labelled his first cause – God Almighty Himself.

This is the reason why the Lord Jesus said in John chapter 17, verse 3 (ESV):

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”


There is none higher, none greater, none more deserving and none more worth chasing down than God Himself who upholds all things! To know God truly is eternal life.

P

    Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
(Philippians 3:8 ESV)

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And can it be that I should gain….

October 29, 2011 3 Comments

‘And Can it be’ ~ Charles Wesley.

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood! Died he for me? who caused his pain! For me? who him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?


‘Tis mystery all: th’ Immortal dies! Who can explore his strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine. ‘Tis mercy all! Let earth adore; let angel minds inquire no more. ‘Tis mercy all! Let earth adore; let angel minds inquire no more.


He left his Father’s throne above (so free, so infinite his grace!), emptied himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race. ‘Tis mercy all, immense and free, for O my God, it found out me! ‘Tis mercy all, immense and free, for O my God, it found out me!


Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night; thine eye diffused a quickening ray; I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; my chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee. My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee.


No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in him, is mine; alive in him, my living Head, and clothed in righteousness divine, bold I approach th’ eternal throne, and claim the crown, through Christ my own. Bold I approach th’ eternal throne, and claim the crown, through Christ my own.

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