Category Archives: Our Spiritual Process

Learning to Love the Commands of God

12 Monday Mar 2012

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We tend to look at people physically and make judgments based upon appearance.  The Lord tells us specifically not to do this.  But most Christians do it anyway.  These quick little glances prove wrong most of the time.  We question:

  • What type of church do they attend?  
  • What version of the Bible do they own?   
  • Do they read it daily?  
  • Do they keep a modest appearance?   
  • What kind of sites and tv programs do they surf?   
  • Are they spirit filled?   
  • Have they had greater experiences than me?   
  • What is their gifting? 
  • Are they more gifted than me?   
  • The list goes on and it is endless.

Trying to discern a brother or sister in this fashion will not give you any relevant information.  It will only tell you how YOU RANK THEM SPIRITUALLY.

John says don’t engage in testing others, but test your own level of obedience and whether or not your spiritual walk is pleasing to God.

 

3 We know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know Him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in Him: 6 Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did.  (I John 2:3-6)

 

The way we can be sure we’ve come to know God is by obeying God’s commands. This word “obey” is a very interesting word, because its focus is on doing something over and over again.  One Bible teacher has called it, “daily, detailed, and disciplined obedience” to God.

The Lord is faithful to share what He commands us to perform.  He does this so that we might obey His word. He doesn’t want to keep explaining to us the same things over and over again.  So the Lord teaches us what is commanded, until we know, understand, and implement them.  Commands never change.

John tells us that if someone claims to have an intimate knowledge of God yet lives a lifestyle characterized by disobedience to God’s commands, that person is doing a snow job on themselves and others.

 

 

A lifestyle characterized by obedience to God’s commands demonstrates that God’s love has had its proper effect on us. This is what John means in v. 5 when he says, “If anyone obeys God’s word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.” The word translated “made complete” means to accomplish its purpose. Have the commands of the Lord accomplished their purpose in you?

You might say that an antibiotic is made complete in a person when that antibiotic kills off the infection it was given to treat. Have you ever stopped taking an antibiotic because you felt better?  You didn’t finish the prescription and the infection soon returned?  What happened?  The medicine did not fully accomplish its purpose.

In a similar way, the reason God gives us His love isn’t just to forgive our sins, make us feel good, or to heal our hurts, but it’s ultimately to lead us to obedient lives. When a person receives Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, the Bible says that God pours out His love into that person’s heart through the Holy Spirit.  Yet that love doesn’t achieve its purpose–it isn’t made complete–until that person is living a life of obedience to God’s commands.

Be encouraged today because the Lord has given you His commands to obey for the rest of your life.  Learn to love those commands and allow them to make you complete in Him in every way.  The Lord knows what is best!

 

Blessings,

Pastor

 

 

Confession Brings Cleansing

08 Thursday Mar 2012

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If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

 

“If We Confess” – The word “confess” means “to admit and acknowledge.”  It literally means to “say the same thing.”  This means we name and refer to them as God does, as sins.

Once we acknowledge our sin as God suggests, He promises to forgive us. The basis of this promise is God’s character. God is faithful in the sense that He is forever dependable to perform His promises. God isn’t going to change His mind about our forgiveness. He’s not going to look at you or me and say, “Oh that’s a terrible sin, there’s no way I can forgive that one.” God has promised to always forgive any sin that’s confessed.

God is also “just” or “righteous” to forgive us. Now we usually think of God’s forgiveness as an act of mercy, not as an expression of God’s justice. Yet John is telling us that it’s morally right for God to forgive our sins. Forgiveness is not a matter of God compromising His righteousness, but it’s an expression of His justice. This is only true because Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for all of our sins.

 

 

Let the Purifying Begin

When we confess our sins, God not only forgives, He also sets the process of purification in motion. The word “forgive” is a legal term which describes God breaking down the barrier between Him and His children because of sin. With the legalities completed, God continues the process.  The word “purify” describes a removal of the stain caused by sin.  This means God wants to thoroughly wash away the defilement caused by our rebellion.

God continuously calls us to get real with our sin through confession.  Then His forgiveness will remove all guilt/shame and the cleansing will purify our hearts completely.  This is how we get rid of the hangover cause by sin.  This is how we get rid of the deep stains of sin.

Yesterday we were reminded that all people struggle with sin.  We shouldn’t purpose to sin.  But when we do sin, God has a remedy to deal with all the effects of sin… confession.

In 1818 one out of six women who had children died of something called “childbirth fever.” A doctor’s daily routine back then started in the dissecting room, where he performed autopsies.   From the morgue, he made his rounds to examine expectant mothers. No one even thought to wash his hands…at least not until a doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis began to practice strict hand washing. He was the very first doctor to associate a lack of hand washing with the huge fatality rate. Dr. Semmelweis only lost one in fifty, yet his colleagues laughed at him. Once he said, “Childbirth fever is caused by decomposed material conveyed to a wound…I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proven all that I’ve said. But while we talk, talk, talk, women are dying.. I’m not asking for anything world shaking, only that you wash your hands.” Yet virtually no one believed him.

This verse is telling us to confess our sins, to regularly wash our souls before God,  It’s essential!  The failure to confess our sins will result in spiritual infections.  This will hinder future growth and the ability to continue our spiritual journey.

 

Blessings,

Pastor

We All Struggle With Sin

07 Wednesday Mar 2012

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I don’t know if this statement will help you or not, but all people struggle with sin.  I didn’t say all people “have struggled” with sin, but all people struggle with sin. Notice how the Apostle John says in this verse;

 

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)

 

If anyone has the audacity to say there is “no sin here” in my life, then they have lost their truth.  What an indictment.  When we claim that sin is no longer a problem, then we are basically divorcing ourselves from the war in which so many struggle.

We rarely witness a fellow believer testifying that their struggle with sin is finished.  No, it manifests in a different way.  Instead of sharing how difficult our struggle with sin is, we testify about how victorious we are right now.  Others get the impression all of our struggles with sin are in the past.

What develops in Christendom are believers possessing a covering of veneer.  This shell gives the appearance that all is well in our lives.  There is a suggestion that the struggle with sin is now ancient history.  In fact, many like to share about how difficult it used to be in their lives. The key is “used to be.”

Somewhere along the line the temptation arises to abandon our authenticity as believers. It becomes easy to give the impression that we no longer struggle with sin like we once did.  In an attempt to portray a victorious image, many Christians subtly claim the very thing John is condemning. It is one of the church’s greatest deceptions.

 

 

What is really a  greater encouragement to other believers?  Are you more encouraged to hear of someone’s struggles or victories?  The truth is most of us cannot even relate to only hearing about victories.

John tells us this type of claim of “no sin here” is the essence of self-deception. It’s not just a matter of ignorance, but it’s a refusal to face up to the facts.

Denial is not a river in Egypt.  Denial becomes a deliberate refusal to face reality.  Denial chooses to live in an alternative world where we personally want to look better before our peers. When we give the appearance of having no sin, the truth of God can’t live within us.

 

Getting Real With Ourselves Means Knowing Our Personal Struggle With Sin Will Never End

In this verse we can hear God call us to authenticity.  No matter how spiritually mature we become and no matter how far we travel in our spiritual journey, the battle with sin will never cease. This is God’s diagnosis of our hearts.  It’s true for every serious follower of Jesus Christ. The more we put on the image that our battle with sin has ceased, the less God’s truth will abide in us.

Every time a person speaks at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, he or she starts with the statement, “My name is so and so, and I’m a recovering alcoholic.” They don’t say that to wallow in the past, but to acknowledge the reality that they understand they will never be free from the temptation to drink. This is a realistic admission of the fact that no matter how long a person has been sober, they’re still just one choice away from bondage.

Maybe in the church we should force ourselves to say, “My name’s __________, and I’m a recovering sinner,” just to keep this reality before us.

C. S. Lewis once noted that it’s when we notice the moral filth in our lives that God is most present in our lives.

 

Blessings,

Pastor

Urban Myths about Sin –

05 Monday Mar 2012

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Urban Legends/Myths have always fascinated me.  You maybe familiar with some from your childhood.  These stories are passed around and repeated so often, it gives them legitimacy.

Urban myths can develop in our spiritual lives as well.  These myths get passed around among Christians until they are believed to be truth.  We quote them so often, we never doubt their accuracy.  Let me mention three urban myths about sin.

 

1.  “I’m not a bad person.”

 

Have you ever heard, thought, or quoted this phrase.  It sounds something like this, “There are a lot of bad people in the world, but generally,  I’m a pretty good person when compared to some of the other sleaze bags out in the world.”

This is called grading yourself against the curve.  Back in college, I didn’t mind the teacher grading on a curve when I knew for certain a lot of people made a bad grade.

When we compare ourselves to others, especially really, really bad individuals, we grade our sin on a curve. Then it becomes easy to round our goodness up to the next category.  Then we wrongly conclude we are one of the good guys and are acceptable to the Lord.

This is sinner logic.  There have always been evil and wicked people around.  Most people appear less evil when compared to them.

The truth is “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  (Jeremiah 17:9)  This means everyone’s heart is evil and wicked.

 

2. “All sin is the same.”

 

Why is this urban myth so commonly rehashed today? People recant this myth to justify their own sinfulness. This is once again, sinner logic.

Maybe you have heard someone say to you, “Hey Christian, who are you to judge me? You’re a sinner too, and my sin is no worse than your sin. All sin is the same.”

The truth is God’s word doesn’t say all sin is the same. We say “all sins are equally the same“, because we know that all sin breaks God’s heart.

Now all sin, regardless of the sin, brings us into judgment and leads to hell.  But, all sins are not the same.    Murder is not the same as lying.  A curse word is not the same a worshiping a false god.  Some sins bring greater punishment like some types obedience bring greater rewards.

 

 

3. “I’ve blown it, so I might as well continue sinning.”

 

What kind of logic is this?  Sinner Logic!  Always, the best course of action is to quit sinning, repent, and turn things around.

When we continue on in known sin, we only make matters worse for ourselves.  The longer we stay in sin, the web of deceit gets larger and more difficult to escape.

 

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. (II Peter 2:20)

 

The most miserable people in the world are not non-believers, but instead it is Christians living in known sin.  Sin is destructive because it is incredibly progressive in nature. It may begin seemingly inconsequential, but then it grows into a powerful force.

Unfortunately, people want to add Christ without subtracting sin. Real spiritual maturity is not just accumulating knowledge, but how obedient we are with the knowledge we are given. The problem for too many believers is we have been educated way beyond our level of obedience.

 

Be Blessed,

Pastor

 

The Futility of Trying to Capture God

01 Thursday Mar 2012

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The Philistines finally got what they wanted, but they did not want what they got. When they finally captured the Israeli God (the Ark of the Covenant), they were plagued with rats, tumors, and confusion. Then some ne’er-do-well looked inside the Ark and 50,000 were slain. Picture Raiders of the Lost Ark for a moment. Their only logical conclusion;

 

“Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, so that it will not kill us and our people.” For there was a deadly confusion throughout the city; the hand of God was very heavy there. 12 And the men who did not die were smitten with tumors and the cry of the city went up to heaven. (I Samuel 5:11-12)

 

God cannot be captured.

  • We cannot use someone else’s God or someone else’s spirituality.
  • We cannot use someone’s else’s prayer life to obtain victory.
  • We cannot use someone else’s Bible knowledge of God.
  • We cannot use someone else’s anointing of the Holy Spirit.
  • We cannot capture someone else’s power with God.
  • We cannot simply reproduce someone else’s revival.

 

We must make up our mind to pursue our own personal relationship with the Lord and adjust our lives to meet His righteous standards.

A pastor was talking about his denomination one day.  He said,

 “We are now in the fourth generation of our denomination.

  • The first generation generates.
  • The second generation motivates.
  • The third generation speculates.
  • The fourth generation dissipates.

Today, we must believe God to take us back to that first generation experience with God. This is the kind of revival we need.

 

In America we have people who believe they can possess a second-hand religion. We watch other people worship on television and hear others preach. Yet their message goes in our ears and out without reaching our hearts. We try to reproduce or manufacture what other churches are accomplishing.  Somehow we believe if we “copy” what others do, God automatically comes with the program.

These are all simple examples of people chasing after second-hand experiences.  If you try to capture somebody else’s God, you are asking for trouble. This is what the Philistines did and it proved fatal.

God doesn’t want us to chase the experience, the programs, or people.  The Lord wants you to seek Him and Him alone. We can’t capture God.  But if we seek Him with all our hearts, He will capture us.

 

Blessings,

Pastor

 

Be Good to Yourself – Build Integrity

02 Monday Jan 2012

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       A couple was speeding down the highway when a State Trooper pulled them over. He asked the man to step out of the car and show him his license. The trooper asked, “Did you realize you were going 85 miles an hour back there?”

       The man said, “Officer that would be impossible. I’m the most law-abiding driver you’ve ever seen. I never exceed the speed limit, no matter my circumstances.”

The policeman leaned into the window of the car and asked the wife “Is that true?”

       “No Officer, it’s not, he drives like a maniac, he speeds wherever he goes, his driving scares me to death.”

The policeman wrote out a ticket. Then he said, “I also noticed you didn’t have your seat belt on, which is against the law in this state.”

       “Officer,” the man said, “with all due respect, I value life too highly. Buckle up, that’s my motto.“

The policeman asked the wife, “Is that true? “

       “Are you kidding? I’ve never seen him wear the thing, you’d probably find cobwebs in his seat belt.”

The policeman began to write him another ticket. About that time, the man leaned in the window and screamed, “Woman, what are you trying to do to me? Keep your big fat nose out of my business!“

The officer said, “Ma’am, does he always talk to you like that?”

       She replied, “Only when he’s drunk.”

We laugh at stories like this.  Part of God’s will for you is to create authentic integrity.  Others walked this path and so will you, if you enter into His process.

   Did you know that several of the Bible’s greatest “heroes of the faith” were liars?

  • Abraham lied to the Egyptian Pharaoh saying that his wife Sarah was actually his sister….then did it again with another king.
  • Jacob lied to his father Isaac saying that he was actually his brother Esau, so he could receive the blessing meant for the eldest son.
  • Peter lied to the servants and soldiers surrounding the fire outside the trial room where Jesus-Peter’s friend, teacher and Lord-was being tried, convicted and sentenced to the cross, saying, “I tell you I never knew the man!”
  • Paul, after his own fashion, was so blinded by his own arrogance that he sought to suppress the Truth of Jesus Christ.

 

      However, the Holy Spirit can work miracles and change a liar into a person of integrity

  • Abraham came to a point and place in his life when he was able to trust God for everything, even the life of his beloved son Isaac.
  • Jacob, after a night of wrestling with God, was able to trust God with everything he had, and so he returned to face his brother Esau whom he had cheated and betrayed.
  • Peter was able to trust God before the same crowd that had called for Jesus’ crucifixion when he stood up at Pentecost to proclaim the same name he had denied a mere 50 days before.
  • Paul, who called himself “abnormally born” because he persecuted the Church, eventually wrote: “I preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

Allow the Lord to so move in your life in 2012 that integrity becomes the foundational cornerstone of your life!   What He has done for others, He will do for you. 

Blessings,

Pastor

Anointing or Anti-Anointing?

20 Tuesday Dec 2011

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         A few years back there was a vacuum salesman making his rounds in the back woods of Tennessee. He had his vacuum cleaner, all of the tools and attachments.  Hungry to make a sale, he approached a house where he knew someone was home.  After introducing himself to the lady of the house he said, “I’ve got the most exciting vacuum cleaner you have ever seen. It will clean your house from top to bottom……you only have to pay so much down for this machine to be yours.”

The lady said, “It sounds real good.”  The salesman quickly proceeded, “You see that big pile of dirt right there on the floor with all those fur balls and bugs and things?” He said, “My vacuum cleaner will pick up all those things…just like that and if they don’t, I’ll eat it.”

She said, “Well you might as well get your knife and fork, because we don’t have any electricity out here!”

Needless to say, you are not going to sell many vacuum cleaners without the power to operate them.  The same can be said of the believer.  We aren’t going to convince and communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ without power. 

 

       Jesus didn’t even attempt to do ministry without power.  His first order of business was to be baptized by John in the Jordan river.  His Father blessed His obedience “and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.””   (Luke 3:21-22)

“Christ” was not Jesus’ last name. The word Christ means “Anointed One” or “Messiah.”  There was a point in Jesus’ life when He wasn’t anointed and then the time came when He was anointed.  His title “Jesus Christ” points back to the experience He had at the river.

All believers need this same experience.  Yes, we do need to be baptized in water.  We also need to be anointed with power from on high.  The word anointing means “to smear.”  The Holy Spirit is the oil of God that was smeared all over Jesus at His water baptism.  The name “Jesus Christ” implies that Jesus is the One smeared with the Holy Spirit.

It was not sufficient that Jesus be sent from heaven to earth with a title. He had to receive the anointing in an experience to accomplish what the Father desired.

If the Son of God was this reliant upon the anointing, His behavior should clarify our need for the Holy Spirit’s presence upon us to do what the Father has assigned. It’s vital to understand that we must be clothed with the Holy Spirit in order to do any work of ministry.

 

BEWARE OF THE ANTI-ANOINTING

 

Because the power of God is such a threat to the forces of evil, the devil has sent another spirit out into the world to ambush the church and believers.   This power was identified by the apostle John when he said, “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.”  (1 John 2:18)

 

       The nature of the antichrist spirit is found in its name: “anti” meaning “against“; “Christ” meaning “Anointed One.”  Evil attacks by seeking to besmear the name of “Jesus” to the world.  But within the church, trashing the name of Jesus doesn’t do any good.  Inside Christendom, the devil seeks to destroy the “anointing.”  This is why John called him the “antichrist.”  These types of spirits are always against the anointing or power.

We must understand the spirits of hell are at war against the anointing, for without the anointing mankind is no threat to their dominion.  The demonic world is not really scared of our churches and believers absent of the anointing.  But when we stand like Jesus, full of the anointing, we destroy the works of the devil.  The presence of the Lord and the presence of evil cannot coexist. 

Billy Graham is credited with saying, “Ninety-five percent of today’s church activities would continue if the Holy Spirit were removed from us. In the early Church, ninety-five percent of all her activities would have stopped if the Holy Spirit were removed.”

I encourage you today to seek “to be filled and clothed with power from on high.”  The Lord never intended for His children to operate without His presence and power.

Blessings,

Pastor

Credibility Is Everything

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

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Unless I do the works of the Father, do not believe me.  John 10:37 (NKJV)

 

For hundreds of years the prophets spoke of the Messiah’s coming. They gave over 300 specific details describing the Messiah. Jesus fulfilled them all in detail!  The angels also gave witness to Jesus’ divinity when they came with a message for the shepherds: “For there is born to you this day … a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  (Luke 2:11)   Even nature itself testified to the arrival of the Messiah with the star that led the wise men. (Matthew 2:1)

 

Jesus put the credibility of the prophets, the angels, and nature on the line with one incredible statement.  “Unless I do the works of the Father, do not believe me,” (John 10:37) Wow!   Their ministries would have been in vain without one last ingredient to confirm who He really was. That ingredient was miracles.  Most try to stack the deck in their favor… Jesus did the polar opposite.  Jesus didn’t point to the past and say to His detractors, “Hey, remember those prophecies, angels and star.  They spoke about Me.  Believe in that miracle.”

Jesus gave people the right to disbelieve in Him if there was no current demonstration of power upon His ministry. He in essence was saying, “If you need more credible evidence of My authority, look for power manifestations of the Father in My ministry.”

What if the church made this same type of statement to the world?  “Hey, if we’re not doing the same types of miracles that Jesus did, you don’t have to believe us.”  What would happen?

 

 

Jesus’ ministry bore the authentic signature of His Father because He knew the Father’s heart.  Even as a twelve-year-old boy, Jesus knew God’s will for His life.  He called it “My Father’s Business.”   The first and only recorded words of Jesus in His youth were all about His purpose. Obeying the Father was His whole ambition. Later in adulthood He confessed that obeying the Father remained His priority. It actually brought Him nourishment—”My food is to do the will of Him who sent me.”  (John 4:34)

Jesus’ statements such as:

  • “I can of Myself do nothing,” (John 5:19)
  • “I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father,”  (John 5:30) and
  • “I always do those things that please Him.”  (John 8:29)

All these statements testify of His utter dependence on the Father, and His one passion to please Him alone.

These same lessons must be learned by all who follow after the Lord.   Jesus was a 12-year-old with priorities that were different from everyone else. If Jesus could have learned the importance of the “Father’s Business” at the age of twelve…SO CAN WE!   The following illustration shows how.

       The year was 1930, and it was the year of the Naval Conference in London. King George was to address the opening session. Radio was in its infancy, but through this media the king’s message was to be carried around the world. Just before the king was to go on the air, Walter Vivian, a young engineer of the Columbia Broadcasting Company, discovered a broken wire in the transmitter. This was tragic! There was no time for repairs, and the world was waiting to hear the message of the king. The young engineer discovered what to do: He took a piece of broken wire in one hand, and a piece of broken wire in the other hand, and for fifteen minutes Walter Vivian took two hundred and fifty volts of electricity through his body so that the king’s message might go through. Wonderful! The world is waiting to hear the message of the King, and the one way for that message to go through is as it is carried to a needy world through us who profess to be His disciples. Can the King’s message be transmitted through you?

I encourage you to seek the Face of the Lord today and value the Presence and Business of the Father above all else.

Blessings,

Pastor

Following the Lord Off the Map!

13 Tuesday Dec 2011

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Most of us are familiar with the story of Alexander the Great.  He conquered most of the known world and then wept because there was no more lands to conquer.  It makes for good copy.  There is more to the story.

After many conquests he and his army found themselves at the foot of the Himalayas.  He of course wanted to press further.  The problem …. this was new territory and no one knew what was on the other side. His senior officers were troubled by his new vision.

Why? They had gone to the edge of their map.  There was no map for the new territory that Alexander wanted to possess. These officers had a decision to make: would they be willing to follow their leader off the map, or would they be content to live within its boundaries? They chose to follow Alexander.

 

 

Bill Johnson reminds us that following the leading of the Holy Spirit can present us with the same dilemma.

       While the Holy Spirit never contradicts His Word, He is very comfortable contradicting our understanding of it. Those who feel safe because of their intellectual grasp of Scriptures enjoy a false sense of security. None of us has a full grasp of Scripture, but we all have the Holy Spirit.

He is our common denominator who will always lead us into truth. But to follow Him, we must be willing to follow off the map—to go beyond what we know. To do so successfully we must recognize His presence above all.

There is a great difference between the way Jesus did ministry and the way it typically is done today. He followed the Holy Spirit’s leading, even when it seemed unreasonable, which it often did.

The Church has all too often lived according to an intellectual approach to the Scriptures, void of the Holy Spirit’s influence. We have programs and institutions that in no way require the Spirit of God to survive.

In fact, much of what we call ministry has no safeguard in it to ensure that He is even present. When our focus is not the presence of God, we end up doing the best we can for God. Our intentions may be noble, but they are powerless in effect.

    I am reminded of the conversation that took place between Thomas Aquinas, a prominent Catholic theologian of the past, and Pope Innocent II. The Pope was counting a large sum of money from the Vatican treasury and as he did so, he turned to Aquinas and noted that the church no longer needed to say, “Silver and gold have I none.” To which Aquinas replied, “True, Holy Father, but neither can the church any longer say, “rise up and walk.” 

I encourage you today to allow the Holy Spirit to take you off the map today and live in the Presence of the Lord.

Blessings,

Pastor

The Others

17 Thursday Nov 2011

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“Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.  They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.”  Hebrews 11:35b -40

 

We like to tell the stories about the great men and women of faith who in the last-minute were delivered by God from their fiery ordeal.  It makes for good copy and good sermons.  But what shall we say about “the others.”  We don’t like to hear the rest of the story when it comes to the men and women who died before receiving their promise.  These others cause us to cringe and wonder if we could remain so faithful in the midst of the same hardships and difficulties.  The transition that we see here is important, not all men and women of faith experience miraculous deliverances. The scriptures are faithful to remind us of this point.

What distinguishes the people in the first half of Hebrews 11 from the people in the last half of the text? In some cases, nothing. In some cases, the same people are listed in both halves of the text. They saw wonderful victories and at other times they endured seeming defeat.  These “others” had faith, but God did not see fit to deal with them in the same way he dealt with those who had experienced victories.

      Let me make this point again…these unknown men and women of faith were not delivered from difficult circumstances, yet God honors their faith. In fact, it takes more faith to endure than it does to accept an escape.

 

      These believers are like the three Hebrew young men of Daniel 3 who, when threatened with death by fire, exclaimed in verses 16-18, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.  If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.  But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

Verse 37 reminds us that one of the hardships of faith is knowing some “were slain with the sword.” Although Elijah escaped the vengeance of Jezebel, other prophets of the same period were slain (1 Kings 19:10).  Jeremiah’s life was delivered from Jehoiakim the king, but his fellow prophet Uriah was slain by the sword and his body cast into a common grave (Jer. 26:33).

This truth is emphasized in the New Testament as well. In the time of the Apostles, Herod Agrippa killed James with the sword but Peter escaped (Acts 12:1-11).

        It is better for the believer to believe and prepare for both deliverance and hardship.  In fact, it is better to plan for hardship and receive deliverance than to plan for deliverance and receive hardship.  This seems to be the approach of the great men and women of faith. 

 

 

In spite of the fact that the world held these men and women of faith in low esteem,  this was not the estimation of God. God said of them, “of whom the world was not worthy” (v.38).

It is said they did not accept deliverance that “they might obtain a better resurrection.” (v.35).  How can the death of a martyr be a “better resurrection?” Better than what?

The resurrection that martyrs aspired to was a resurrection to eternal life. This “better resurrection” is the hope of all who die in Christ (1 Thess. 4:16).

John Piper says,

“The common feature of the faith that escapes suffering and the faith that endures suffering is this, both of them involve believing that God himself is better than what life can give you now, and is better than what death can take from you later. When you have it all, faith says that God is better, and when you lose it all, faith says that God is better.  What does faith believe in the moment of torture? That if God loved me, he would get out this? No. Faith believes that there is a kind of resurrection for believer’s which is better than the miracle of escape. It’s better than the kind of resurrection experienced by the widow’s son, who returned to life to die again later.”

A modern example of one who had this kind of faith was a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He left his prestigious position as a professor at the University of Berlin to join the ranks of those who stood against Hitler and the Nazis within the German church. The professor of systematic theology said that Bonhoeffer was foolish saying, “It is a great pity that our best hope in the faculty is being wasted on the church struggle.” God chose for Bonhoeffer the same route as that of the saints in the second half of Hebrews 11. He was arrested and imprisoned. He was eventually hung in the Flossenburg Concentration Camp. His body was tossed aside into a pile of corpses and burned. His death came only two days before the Americans liberated the Flossenburg Camp. As he faced the fury of the Third Reich, Bonhoeffer said, “The ultimate responsible question is not how can I heroically make the best of a bad situation, but rather how the coming generation can be enabled to live.”

When I review the great men and women of faith, I am reminded that service to God is a privilege and honor.  It is not that you “have to serve” the Lord, but you are “given the privilege and opportunity” to stand with the men and women of faith who faithfully serve the Lord in both good and bad circumstances.  The only question is will you choose to stand with “the others” and count it as a priviledge and honor to serve the Lord it all circumstances?

Blessings,

Pastor