“The true test of discipleship is our witness to the world and not just the promises we make to God. Does our own discipleship pass this test? People make many promises when they are alone with God - promises about living a better life, spending more time in prayer, or giving more money to charity. But the real test of our discipleship is what we say and do when we are under pressure to take a stand for Christ. What do we say then?
Unless we speak up for what we believe, then we ourselves become the deniers of Christ. I deny Christ when I talk with my friends about being involved in church, but not about what it means to know Jesus. I deny Christ when there is so little that is distinctive about the way I live people at work or school do not even know that I’m a Christian. I deny Christ when I am so afraid about what people think that I shrink back from telling people the biblical truth about controversial issues like abortion, or homosexuality, or the unique claims of Jesus Christ as the world’s only Savior. I deny Christ when I say something a Christian shouldn’t say or do something a Christian shouldn’t do because I want to have fun or to be popular. But if I cannot speak up and say something for Jesus, then what kind of disciple am I anyway?”
- Philip Graham Ryken (From his reformed expositional commentary on Mark)
As a teacher of the Bible I often have people come up to me saying things like, “the Lord told me to tell you to…”. I know that there are great intentions behind this kind of speech but the horrible problem here is that this would be a direct violation of the third commandment and in its basic form false prophecy. The television and internet are full of so-called “teachers” of God’s word who claim to have special revelation and a new message from God. If anyone comes up to you telling you they have a new revelation from God my advice to you is to run!
What we so often neglect, especially among American evangelicalism today, is a proper understanding and elevation of God’s Word. God has spoken and everything He has to say to us is in His Holy Word. Christ Jesus, God incarnate, is the final High Prophet and God has spoken finally and fully in the incarnate Word. What glorious news. This important and basic biblical understanding should guide us away from the multitude of false teachers and so called modern day prophets.
I believe that this short excerpt from Phillip Graham-Ryken’s excellent book on the Ten Commandments sums up how easily (and how often) even believers take the Lord’s name in vain…
A more serious way to break the third commandment is by using God’s name to advance our own agenda. Some Christian’s say, “the Lord told me to do this.” Or worse, they say, “the Lord told me to tell you to do this.” That is false prophesy! God has already said whatever He needs to say to us in His Word. Of course, there is also an inward leading of the Holy Spirit. But that is only an inward leading, and it should not be misrepresented as an authoritative word from God.
May our eyes be opened to the seriousness and multi-faceted ways in which we so often break this and the other commandments. May the mirror of the Decalogue show us our constant need for Christ and the thanksgiving constantly due Him, the holy character of God and be a model for believers to live by to seek to please God out of sheer gratitude for what Christ has done for us!
And if you are outside of Christ may the Law show you how far you fall from God’s perfect and holy standard and see that there is nothing you can do to merit or earn your salvation and standing before God. May you see the Law as the letter that kills, damns and condemns and run to the only One who has met the Law perfectly and bore the wrath of God due to us in our place. Pray the Lord to grant you true faith and repentance to embrace Christ Jesus for “He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf so that we may have the righteousness of God in Him!” Now that is Good News!
Kevin Williams from Puritan Fellowship does an outstanding job of explaining Biblically the difference between someone who is truly saved and truly struggling against sin and one who believes he is saved and is not who thinks he is struggling against sin. I believe he makes an excellent point not only in repeating Pastor Tim Conway’s analogy of “how to trap a monkey” but also in helping us all see that we must come to Christ fully on His terms. Anyone who seeks to come to Christ on their own terms or even by trying to alter Christ’s terms ever so slightly cannot be saved. Enjoy this clip from Pastor William’s sermon…
Sexual immorality is rampant in today’s culture and sadly it is a tremendous sin within the church today with pornography statistics that are so saddening – even among church leaders. One cannot help but to be bombarded with sexual temptation given the amount of sex on television, movies, the internet and even on billboards. I’ve been reading an excellent book entitled The Good News We Almost Forgot by Kevin DeYoung. In this book he steps through the Heidelberg Catechism giving a wonderful exposition of this wonderful catechism of faith. In his discussion of the seventh commandment he nails it on the head concerning the correct way a Christian must handle sexual temptation. I wanted to share this excerpt from his book…
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8). This has been the most helpful verse for me in fighting lust and the temptation to sexual immorality. We need to fight desire with desire. Satan tempts us by holding out something that will be pleasurable to us. We aren’t tempted to gorge ourselves on liverwurst, because for most it doesn’t hold out the promise of great pleasure. But sex does. Pornography does. A second look does. The Bible gives us many weapons to fight temptaton. We need to fight the fleeting pleasure of sexual sin with the far greater, more abiding pleasure of knowing God. The fight for sexual purity is the fight of faith. It may sound like nothing but hard work and gritting your teeth, the very opposite of faith. But faith is at the heart of this struggle. Do we believe that a glimpse of God is better than a glimpse of skin? Do we believe that God’s steadfast love is better than life. (Psalm 63:3) We’d probably sin less if we spent less time thinking about our sins, sexual or otherwise, and more time meditating on the love and holiness of God.”
How true is this! May we see that sin truly is a “fleeting pleasure” that can never satisfy and will always destroy and more importantly is an offense and an affront to the Living Holy God. Let us be reminded of the truth that we are seated in the heavenly places with Christ and how shall we who have died to sin continue to live in it? (Rom. 6:2) May our minds and hearts be drawn upward to Christ to see that to desire Him above all is the true ever-flowing wellspring of peace, joy and eternal contentment.
“If we do not abide in prayer, we shall abide in cursed temptations. Let this, then, be another direction: abide in prayer, and that expressly to this purpose, that we “enter not into temptation.” Let this be one part of our daily contending with God-that he would preserve our souls, and keep our hearts and our ways, that we be not entangled; that his good and wise providence will order our ways and affairs, that no pressing temptation befall us; that he would give us diligence, carefulness, and watchfulness over our own ways. So shall we be delivered when others are held with the cords of their own folly.”
Contrary to the popular teachings of prosperity preachers rampant on tv, radio and the bookshelves of most “christian” bookstores, here is John MacDuff (1818 – 1895) writing on true, Biblical prosperity from his sermon The Rainbow in the Clouds. May the Lord open our eyes to the true teachings of Holy Scripture and may we be granted discernment in what we allow to enter our minds, eyes and ears in most of so called “christian” teaching today…
“The Lord has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.” Psalm 35:27
What is “prosperity?” Is it threads of life weaved into a bright outcome? a full cup? ample riches? worldly applause? an unbroken circle? No, these are often a snare; received without gratitude; dimming the soul to its nobler destinies. Often spiritually it rather means God taking us by the hand into the lowly Valleys of Humiliation; leading us as He did his servant Job of old; out of his sheep, oxen, camels, health, wealth, children; in order that we may be brought before Him in the dust, and say, “Blessed be His holy name!”
Yes! The very reverse of what is known in the world as Prosperity (generally) forms the background on which the Rainbow of Promise is seen. God smiles on us through these rainbows and teardrops of sorrows! He loves us too well. He has too great an interest in our spiritual welfare to permit us to live on in what is misnamed “Prosperity.” When He sees duties languidly performed, or coldly neglected; the heart deadened, and love to Himself congealed by the absorbing power of the present world, He puts a thorn in our nest to drive us to the wing, and prevent our being grovelers forever!
I may not be able now to understand the mystery of these dealings. I may be asking through the tears, “Why this unkind arrest on my earthly happiness? Why so premature a lopping of my boughs of promise? Such a speedy withering of my most cherished gourd?” The answer is plain. It is your soul’s prosperity He has in view. Believe it, your true Ebenezers will yet be raised close by your Zarephaths (the place of furnace).
His afflictions are no arbitrary appointments. There is righteous necessity in all He does. As He lays His chastening hand upon you, and leads you by ways you know not, and which you never would have chosen. He whispers the gentle accents in your ear, “Beloved I wish above all things that you would prosper, and be in health.”
Rest in the quiet consciousness that all is well. Murmur at nothing which brings you nearer His own loving Presence. Be thankful for your very cares, because you can confidently cast them all upon Him. He has your temporal and eternal “prosperity” too much at heart to appoint one superfluous pang, one needless stroke. Commit therefore, all that concerns you to His keeping, and leave it there.
“Be sure to get some Christian friend whom thou mayst trust about others to be thy faithful monitor. O that man hath a great help for maintaining the power of godliness, that has an open-hearted friend that dare speak his heart to him! A stander-by sees more sometimes, by a man, than the actor can do by himself, and is more fit to judge of his actions than he of his own. Sometimes self-love blinds us in our own cause, that we see not ourselves so bad as we are; and sometimes we are over-suspicious of the worst by ourselves, which makes us appear to ourselves worse than we are. Now that thou mayst not deprive thyself of so great help from thy friend, be sure to keep thy heart ready with meekness to receive, yea, with thankfulness, to embrace a reproof from his mouth. Those that cannot bear plain dealing hurt with themselves most; for by this they seldom hear the truth.”
- William Gurnall (The Christian in Complete Armour)
Instead of being set apart to God, many so-called Christians have become too comfortable in our society. They’re willing to serve the Lord in their own way, but not if it costs them too much time or energy or if it conflicts with a favorite television program. They prefer to indulge in worldly pleasures to please themselves rather than give of themselves to please the Lord. Saint Augustine wrote, “Two cities have been formed by two loves; the earthy by the love of self, even to the contempt of God, the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.” Many, sad to say, reside in the earthly city of self-love.
Instead of being set apart to God, many so-called Christians have become too comfortable in our society. They’re willing to serve the Lord in their own way, but not if it costs them too much time or energy or if it conflicts with a favorite television program. They prefer to indulge in worldly pleasures to please themselves rather than give of themselves to please the Lord. Saint Augustine wrote, “Two cities have been formed by two loves; the earthy by the love of self, even to the contempt of God, the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.” Many, sad to say, reside in the earthly city of self-love.
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