A New Covenant Home Church Provoking Love and Good Works
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Matthew 4:17 |
Walkersville
Christian
Fellowship Matthew
4:17
A New
Covenant Home Church Provoking Love and Good Works
Subverting the
Truth
There were three things, spirit, word or letter that came in and caused trouble, shaking the mind. “We beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him that ye be not soon shaken in mind nor troubled, neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter..." .......When God troubles me He is troubling me to teach me how to hope in Him. My troubles are always so singularly personal as it relates to me that it causes me to be stretched in my hope. And God is after me.
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I believe, because of the nature of truth and because of the nature of authority, that if you are not properly supporting truth at any moment of counsel or teaching or instruction or correction, if you are not properly supporting truth at that juncture, you are subverting it. You are subverting truth if you’re not supporting it. There is no grey area.-Pastor Cox
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SUBVERTING THE TRUTH Watch and Pray Series #6 Walkersville Christian Fellowship Gary L. Cox -9/20/98 |
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If you’ll open your Bibles, we’re going to tie in with 2 Thessalonians and move to this discussion being that it comes right out of the very study that we’re in. We finished 1 Thessalonians last week and I felt it valuable to go to 2 Thessalonians for a brief time so that we might get some perspective on the Lord’s return that is connected to 1 Thessalonians by some afterwarning. And for the sake of content, focus and time, I would like to say that in chapter one Paul has a fairly long introduction based upon the personal encouragment that the Lord’s return gives to God’s people. And he associates some similarities between what’s taking place to the believers when the Lord returns and what’s going to be taking place to the lost at that time. Then the heart of his appeal begins in chapter 2 verse 1 and at this juncture all I’m going to read is verse one. And the Scripture says, “We beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto,” excuse me I don’t mean verse just verse 1, I’m going to read the first three verses, “And by our gathering together unto Him that ye be not soon shaken in mind nor troubled, neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come except that there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” It is my anticipation that next Sunday we will get back into the content of chapter two as it relates to some specific information and exhortation regarding the Lord’s return. But today as a little bit of background to that, I guess you could say it’s introduction for next Sunday, I have to dip a little bit into this concept. So verse 2 says, “That you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled that the day of Christ is at hand.” What I want to draw attention to this morning, I’m going to use a term found in Scripture, that’s the term subvert and subversion. Subverting the Gospel. What does it mean to subvert the Gospel? I have a practical question and this question should be of the utmost concern and importance especially to us who have any form of leadership or authority in our lives. So we fathers and mothers should be specifically concerned and we husbands and fathers should be doubly concerned because there’s something about subversion here that we’re going to learn that is very crucial to our opportunity, to our role as leaders under God, leaders in Christ. By way of getting the light initially focused, I want to point out that in 1 Thessalonians we heard this discussion and description of the Lord’s return whereby He was going to gather to Himself His people. That was the instruction of 1 Thessalonians. Well here in chapter 2 there appears to be some follow up needed because a troubling kind of information of some sort, he doesn’t label it particularly, but some troubling kind of information reached the believer in Thessalonica and it caused them to be concerned that these things they were anticipating and expecting concerning the Lord’s return and concerning our gathering together to Him, that those things had somehow already taken place and they had been left behind. Or at least there’s some sense of that kind of anticipation. And so what we find is a shaken mind, a troubled believer. I want to point out that in the content of verse 2 there he says that “you be not shaken or troubled neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us.” And it’s interesting how he identifies three means of troubling our souls as it relates to things pertaining to the promises and the purposes of God. He outlines three particular means. And I want to point out because he outlines these three particular means, this subject this morning is very very crucial for you and I to understand as it relates to who we are as people and how we respond as people to truth. And there is a dynamic about truth that is associated with the very fact that we’re human beings and that human beings have interactive responses and there’s a real person on the other end of that information that it affects. And truth has an affect. And what we see here is these three sources, a spirit. Obviously any spirit that would be bringing troubling news would not be the spirit of God would it? But it would rather be the spirit of anti-Christ, it would be the spirit of he who opposes Christ in all things. So there is a possibility brethren that the spirit, the evil spirit, the spirit of anti-Christ, that that spirit would want to shake your faith, shake your mind and trouble you. There’s that possibility, pay attention to that. Number two, word. What this probably best reflects upon is how believers talk among themselves when they hear something and they’re not completely certain of the authority of what they’ve heard but they’ve heard it and it sounds pretty impressive and they pass it on but the believer who passes it on is not necessarily one who is promoting it or proposing it as if it originates it from him but he’s passing it along perhaps more like a gossip just sharing information and it’s that kind of “did you hear?” “I’ve heard it said that,” and there’s that troubling that comes through the conversation and gossip or the transfer of information, not an authoritative teaching or instruction persay but some kind of light interactive gossip. But that kind of thing troubles the saints, that can trouble God’s people. Then there’s the third picture here of troubling and that is rather official in a sense, “a letter as from us.” Someone writing a letter and posing as an apostle or posing as if it’s coming from the apostles and giving some kind of information with respects to the Lord’s return that ends up troubling the believer. Now in terms of the discussion of Thessalonians, we are going to hold that particular discussion until next week as it relates to the Lord’s return because I feel it’s necessary for us to discuss in detail this morning the concept of subversion, or of subverting truth and what that actually means and perhaps we can get a little bit of a handle on that as it relates to who we are. And there’s two parts that I’m concerned about. I’m concerned number one that we protect ourselves from those who would subvert truth, that we can recognize those who would subvert truth. They’re called false teachers but those who would subvert truth, we need to protect ourselves from them and have a sensitivity and alertness. The second thing and maybe more so of significance to who we actually are day in and day out, we are people in some form of authority or another and we have power to subvert truth. And I want to say at the outset here that I believe because of the nature of truth and because of the nature of authority that if you are not properly supporting truth at any moment of counsel or teaching or instruction or correction, if you are not properly supporting truth at that juncture, you are subverting it. You are subverting truth if you’re not supporting it. There is no grey area and if you’re not properly supporting truth then there is a subversion to it. Definitions help and I would like to define subvert in its simplest understandable form. The word “subvert” means to overthrow the foundations. That’s the absolute simple meaning. It means to overthrow the foundations. That’s its basic English meaning. It comes from the Latin “sub” which means below or beneath and “vitro” which means to turn around or to turn over or to get something going in a different direction, to get something off course. And so there’s a little subtle understanding about subvert that we need to recognize this morning and that is in it’s simplest understanding, if I overthrow a foundation of somebody’s thought process, I’ve subverted them. If I overthrow a thought process, if I overthrow a sense of confidence that a person has with respects to what they understand I am subverting them, I’m overthrowing a foundational frame of reference. I want to start out saying that that’s not entirely bad. Why? Do you remember when the apostles were sweeping through, Paul and Barnabus and they were preaching at every city and they were accused of subverting all the people. And the accusation was a valid accusation because they were bringing in truth about the lies and practices and teachings that the people held to and they were correcting or changing or overthrowing those lies and putting underneath them the truth. Here’s something just to chew on a little bit for a sense of perspective in understanding the word “subvert.” If I take someone who is in err and I overthrow that err and replace that err with truth, I have subverted them from the error and I have supported them in the truth. Whenever you’re talking about subversion, whenever you’re talking about subverting something, you’re talking about getting some foundational issues that uphold a person’s frame of reference and give them a sense of direction. And so the Gospel can be that which subverts the lie and error or false teaching can be that which subverts the Gospel. I want to particularly or more precisely deal with the danger and the err of you and I subverting the Gospel. In other words, going in and overthrowing the foundations of what the Gospel is by the means which we teach, counsel or rule in any circumstance that we’re given opportunity by the Lord. And I want to say not to sound like I’m just generally condemning everyone, but I want to say in a gracious but blanket kind of statement, I think we as people tend to subvert the Gospel frequently even though the last desire that we would ever have on earth would be to subvert the Gospel. I think that we do often carelessly find ourselves in compromising situations where the foundational truths of the Gospel get overthrown by the instruction and counsel and manner in which we rule. And I think there’ where I want to bring a sharp focus this morning and get us to examine some hard core evidence of what it means to be subverting the truth and what it means to be supporting the truth. If you don’t know anything about Latin prefixes and some of the rules for Latin, you won’t know as I did not know that the word “support” is an identical root word. The word “support” has the same Latin word “sub.” But there’s a little phonetic rule that says when sub is used next to an “m” or a “p” or an “f,” you drop the “b” and you add a secondary letter. So you put two “p”s. So the word “support” means to undergird, to hold up the truth. And in it’s simple grammatical sense they’re very stark words. One is to overthrow truth, to tear down a foundation, and the other one is to undergird and hold up a foundation and those are the two key words that I want us to consider as we go through some understanding from Scripture. I want to make it practical for us so I’m going to start with an illustration of something that occurred to me this week. I received a call from a pastor and the pastor asked me this question, he said, “I have a family in the church that have been in the church for a long time and the parents have always really saw as best as they’ve known how to raise up a godly offspring but they have a 27 year old daughter who in the last several years has just begun to drift away from really following after God in any way shape or form and she’s sort of been a grief and we’re not certain if it’s an evidence that she is not saved or if it’s just a stage of rebellion. But however, this grievous relationship has developed and now the daughter comes and says I want to marry a certain man and this man is not a believer. And basically she’s going to go ahead and get married to the man, but she wants her parents to give their blessing, especially giving their blessing meaning attend the wedding and give the daughter away etc. So as the pastor was talking to me about the details of this case he was asking me for my opinion and he gave a subtle insight to the struggle that we have when we’re in authority and responsible for supporting the truth and being careful of not subverting it. And he said, “I’m having trouble because I can imagine both extremes being appropriate.” For example he said, “I can imagine that the consideration that this daughter and this man that she marries if there’s a harsh treatment of them at this point that there may be a wound that goes so deep that they never recover from it and they never come back to the Lord and that there’s an unneccessary wound that adds to the burden of this present tense rebellion.” And then he said, “On the other hand I can see that it’s necessary as God’s people that we support and uphold the truth at all times and honor God where God needs to be honored,” and that could very well mean that he needs to abstain from coming to the wedding. And then he went on to describe what was his underlying real problem and that is there’s a man in the church who’s quite vocal, confident, who is espousing and proposing that obviously you make your statement you don’t support this, you’re not in agreement to this, but you show your human empathy to the people that you love in Christ and you attend the wedding to please them. So he unraveled this little story and it gave me a really significant illustration to the struggle that we have because all the sudden we’re moving out of a doctrinal area where we’re just trying to establish perhaps on paper what’s accurate, what’s true and how things should fit. But we’re actually dealing with truth as it gets brought to bear upon relationships between people and that truth has a great amount of force on those relationships. I want to suggest that it is very possible to subvert the truth having the right stand on the truth. Let me say that again. It’s possible to subvert the truth even if you have the right stand on the truth. In other words, that fear that the pastor had of this harshness, being so pronounced, being so substantial that the sense of condemnation and judgement and disowning, this human personal vendetta, this wrath of man really is what it amounts to, this explodes up and stains the whole situation so that I’m using human wrath to promote God’s way. And the Scripture says of course that the wrath of man cannot perform the righteousness of God. It’s not compatible to it, it cannot accomplish it. So, as I think about this I realize that we as parents do face frequently troubling scenarios with our children where we need to support the truth and we also need to give our children the largest experience of gracious love in the process of us supporting the truth. And the practical question is how can we do this in a way that really does promote life and doesn’t tend always towards harshness and cutting off and hurt feelings that are hurt because human emotions have been used to undergird or try to support the truth. I have a couple passages that I would like us to turn to. To start with let’s turn to Acts chapter 15 and we get a picture in Acts 15 about this process of subversion and it really is the first case of it and it’s the primary case of all of the New Testament. Acts chapter 15 and we’re going to begin just for the sake of time at verse 5, in verse 5 it says, “There arose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.” I guess I should have read a few more verses. Who’s them? “Them” is Gentile believers that have come into faith due to the ministry of the apostle Paul and Barnabus. So this group of Pharisees who believed said they must be circumcised and to command them to keep the law of Moses. “And the apostles and elders came together for to consider this matter. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said to them, ‘Men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago, God made a choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the Gospel and believe’.” I’m going to stop right here because I don’t want you to lose your way in the passage in terms of content. So far what’s happened is we have this joyful experience where God is working in Antioch and there’s this substantial blessing taking place in the church as the Gentiles are being added. Now there’s a group of Pharisees who are believers. Now we’re not talking about unbelievers, we’re talking about those in the church, believers in the church and these Pharisees said, “This is great but we must circumcise the Gentiles and command them to keep the law of Moses.” That is the substance of it. I want you to understand that the actual substance of the communication was they need to be circumcised and they need to keep the law of Moses. God’s people do that, that’s the way God’s people are going to function. So that’s what they said and the disputation rises up from that and as we go on Peter begins to speak and he draws attention at the end of verse 7 here to a particular point that by, “a while ago, God made a choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the Gospel and believe.” He’s articulating issues when he says, “Hear the word and believe,” and he moves on in verse 8 and says, “And God which knows the hearts bear them witness giving them the Holy Ghost even as He did unto us.” So his next point of evidence is that not only did they hear the word and believe which was the means of salvation for the Jews, but also God Himself bore witness and the very Holy Spirit that the Jews had received, God gave to the Gentiles without the possibility of the Jews even recognizing or considering that that was possible. God went ahead and sort of overruled and accomplished that which was His purpose. So he’s establishing these facts and then he says in verse 9 this point of reference, “And he put no difference between us and them purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we are able to bear?” Now he gets into a case where he’s recognizing that they are representing God in these lives, in this circumstance and he’s challenging the concern of leaders representing God inappropriately and labeling such as those who are tempting God. In other words someone who’s using God’s authority to go against God’s purpose, to go against that which God has ordained and is accomplishing. So he’s raising that significant question and he illustrates the fact that the law was not able to be kept by the Jews and how could they bear to put it upon the Gentiles. And then verse 11 he says, “But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they.” So the basis of salvation is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ through faith. We the same as they. So he’s establishing the simple and the significant strut of the foundation. And so he’s identifying the cornerstone of the foundation I guess you could say as he’s developing answer to a question and then he says in verse 12, “All the multitude kept silence and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them and after they held their peace James answered saying, ‘Men and brethren harken unto me, seeing we have declared how God at first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name and to this agree the words of the prophets as it is written, “After this I will return and build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down and I will build again the ruins thereof and I will set it up and that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon who My name is called saith the Lord who doeth all these things known unto God all these works from the beginning of the world”.’” We see the next point of reference being taking that experience that was there in their day and then discovering a connection to experience back into the authoritative Word by which harmony could be shown to be proper and parallel in the experience that they had come to understand. I want to submit to you that you and I do not have the capacity to recognize the substantial strain on the early church as it related to establishing the grace of God apart from the works of the law. I don’t think that you and I will ever understand the tremendous strain that those new believers, those Jews, had. Because the experiential historical ramifications was beyond natural mind of all the Jews and it was a great offense. The teaching of the Gospel constantly ran into a great uproar by the Jews because of the accusation that they were throwing off Moses and they were denying and denegrating the things of God. But we need to understand here that the shakiest possible experience was pulling away from that common and well familiar territory and establishing a pattern of truth based upon that which God had ordained, God had accomplished and that which the Word of God had clearly established. What I’m hoping to point out here in the process for yours and my benefit is this, these apostles meeting in this occasion, they were exceptionally careful for supporting the foundations of the Gospel. They were completely senstive to that which would in any way could subvert the Gospel. And I want to remind you that the comment that was made by the Pharisees, the believing Pharisees, the comment that was made was, “Well now that these guys are saved, they ought to be circumcised and they ought to keep the law because that represents all that we’ve known in God.” In terms of human experience I want us to recognize how small of a statement that was and yet how substantial of a rebuke it received. It is necessary for us to recognize that it was met with the most clarifying substantial questioning of root theology and getting back to an establishment of root theology. And what these men here are accomplishing is searching for the core and the root and understanding where God is by His revelation in the new sense of the revelation of Christ and it’s clear connection to that which was promised in the Word that authority that cannot be denied. And it’s important for us to understand that these men making these judgements are by no means engaged in a small enterprise nor of a simple experience in terms of human process getting through this information. Now let’s get back to the text and go through a few more verses. Verse 19, James makes a judgement, he passes sentence. And here’s a picture of one in authority supporting the foundational truths of the Gospel. This is significant so let’s get a good snapshot of it. Here’s James and this is what he says, “Wherefore my sentence is that we trouble them not which from among the Gentiles are turned to God,” “that we trouble them not which among the Gentiles are turned to God.” Now I want to state theologically that it is of significance to nurturing those in Christ that we do not trouble their faith with confusion of teaching and confusion of understanding. And I want to remind you, we started in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 2 and what was the problem? Their minds were shaken and they were troubled. Do you see that picture? Here is the effect of subverting the Gospel. Troubling of the heart in an area where the foundation of the Gospel should leave it at rest. So the substance of the issue has to partake partly from an observation of what is the effect of my words on the ears that I’m speaking to? And I say in general reference those who subvert the Gospel always are looking to trouble the confidence of those who are walking simply after Jesus and they always want to trouble that and add something different and add something else. To me in my human observation it’s a small thing to question whether or not the Gentiles should be circumcised, it’s been done through all the years of God’s people and the question seems fitting and it doesn’t seem naturally offensive. But to those who were charged with supporting and protecting the Gospel, it became a significant point of contest and here’s why: because what looks like a simple statement on the outward appearance was actually an overthrow of the simple Gospel. It was an exchange. Now you and I recently went through the book of Hebrews which is the greatese treatise on establishing the simplicity of the Gospel and overthrowing the Old Covenant because it has been overthrown, because it has been what? It has been complete. It has been finished and the New Covenant has replaced it and the Old one has waxed away. Mark - (Just to make sure I’m not confused here, maybe somebody else has the same confusion but are you saying that the Pharisees were attempting to clarify the truth and were innocent in what they were doing or were they trying to subvert truth? You mentioned right before that that we at times by trying to [?] the Gospel that we subvert it.) What the text says is that certain of the Pharisees which believed. Now if you have read all of the Gospels and if you have read Acts up to this point, you know who the Pharisees are. They’re a notable group of people. Paul himself was a Pharisee. And what is true about the Pharisees is that they presented a substantial presence of practice from their heritage and from the old and the long way of life. And so I am not trying to say that they deliberatley had ill motives or that they had absolutely innocent motives. If you force me into a corner to choose one or the other I would say I think their motives were innocent. But that really isn’t the question. Whether our motives are purposely inappropriate or blindly inappropriate, being inappropriate has devestating consequences and it needs to be corrected. And I think the important thing to recognize is that because they were Pharisees, they represented a link back to popular opinion for example to general approval. When we looked at Hebrews we discovered that there was a part of the shame of the Gospel that was minimized if you took the Pharicitical approach. In other words, instead of exchanging belief in Christ for Judaism, the Pharisees wanted to add salvation to Phariseeism and make it finished in that sense of the word. And if that was true then those who were already wrapped up in Phariseeism were not much threatened by this Gospel thing because it’s just one other little thing. So the starkness of the contrast was not, “Yes and this too,” but it was absolutely now this is passed and this has replaced it altogether.” So that’s a stark contrast and it brings a great deal of persecution and a great deal of shame from those who hold dearly the acclaim that they have as Pharisees, being approved of men. I do think that in just my reading, my intake as I read was yes the Pharisees have that struggle of being approved of the Pharisees, being approved of men, that’s their struggle and here it is influencing them and their struggling with it. Maybe they’re struggling in innocence, maybe they’re struggling in arrogance, I don’t know. But it says they believed so I took some note of that. There were also Pharisees who didn’t believe who persecuted the church distinctly. Does that answer your question sufficiently? (Yes.) So going on, applying that back to you and I in practice though that you might be believing and you might be sincerely wanting to help your children grow in Christ, but nevertheless your sincerity and your salvation, if you subvert the Gospel you are doing a negative work, you are harming your children and you are harming your offspring and that’s a dangerous and a devestating thing. And we have to ask the question and I feel compelled this morning to ask at least part of it, what does it mean to subvert the Gospel? And as we’re looking at Acts let’s keep going. There’s a couple more snapshots that I don’t want to miss as we go along. And so he passes this sense not to trouble the Gentiles in verse 19 and he picks it up in verse 20 and this is what he says, “But that we write unto them.” Now do you catch that little picture? The apostles frequently wrote to the disciples in different cities to pass information and instruction. Of course the epistles eventually that the Lord preserved for us were that which He intended for them to write that became recognized also as Scripture. But there’s a writing of these Gentiles in Antioch that they abstain from pollutions of idols, from fornication, and from things strangled and from blood and then he give a frame of reference for those constraints, and he says, “For Moses from old time hath in every city of them that preach him being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day.” That reference there is I believe to the final reference of things strangled and from blood because Moses had followers in every city and there was a concern that the believers be not so offensive to the Jews that they behave themselves as it relates to things strangled and blood, things from eating blood, that they abstain from that so that there’s not an unnecessary offense against the Gospel to the Jews. And I find a very interesting picture here because the constraint that James brings to bear upon them is the constraint of considering what the impact is of my behavior on another person, how my perhaps liberty might possibly negatively affect, negatively shine or shed light on the Gospel. So that’s basically what he declares to write and this is what happens, “It pleased the apostles and elders of the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas and sir name Barsabas and Silas chief also among the brethren. And they wrote letters,” verse 23, “by them after this manner, the apostles and elders,” and here’s the letter so pay attention, “the apostles and brethren send greeting to the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Silicia. For as much as we have heard that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words,” listen to the next statement, “subverting your souls saying ye must be circumcised and keep the law to whom we gave no such commandment. It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul.” And he goes on down in verse 28, “For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things that ye abstain from meat offered to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication and which if you keep yourselves you shall do well. Fare thee well. And when they were dismissed they came to Antioch and they read the epistle.” Verse 31, pay attention to verse 31, “Which when they had read, they rejoiced for the consolation and Judas and Silas being prophets, exhorted the brethren with many words and confirmed them and then they went back.” Now that ends the little discussion from the book of Acts but I want us to understand that there was a great deal of rejoicing and consolation that occurred in the heart of one who had been troubled, who had been troubled by a misrepresentation of the truth. And it was the letter from the apostles that labeled that activity subversive, “subverting your souls.” That’s a substantial statement. Those who said be circumcised, keep the law, were immediately guilty of subverting the souls of the Gentiles because it brought trouble upon them and it caused them to be confused and that’s what subverting is all about. Subverting muddles the simple clarity of the Gospel. And brothers and sisters I just want to say in a general sort of manner that you may subvert the Gospel in all kinds of miniscule fashions if you are not supporting the Gospel by your teaching, by your actions, by your exhortations, if you are not supporting the Gospel, you are subverting it. There is no grey matter, there is no middle ground. You are either subverting it or you are supporting it. What were the key things about the Gospel that needed to be preserved from subversion? What were the key things that if they were not clarified, the Gospel would have been overthrown? Pay close attention to what the disciples, to what the apostles focused in on, they recognized that by faith upon hearing the Word of God, the Gentiles believed and received the Holy Spirit. They were saved by faith. They were saved by faith. I want to ask you a question. Did these Pharisees who also believed, they were also believers, did these Pharisees say in the words that they used, did they say that in order to be saved you had to be circumcised and keep the commandments, keep the law? Did they say that? There’s no evidence that they said that at all. What it amounted to was a teaching. Go back to verse 1 in chapter 15, and listen to the larger context. “Certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, ‘Except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved’.” And then they had this no small dissension about it and they brought up this question to go to the elders. What I want you to understand is the connection. Down in verse 5 when this word was transferred to the apostles, no where did they accuse that the statement was that you cannot be saved after the man Moses. What they were pointing to is that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses..(tape turned here)...I’m saying the interpretation of what occurred in Antioch was translated to the apostles to this committee and it was translated by the word “needful” instead of this word “except you be circumcised you cannot be saved.” And what I wanted to focus on was the word “needful.” And here’s the reason why I want to draw out the subtlety of it: today there are many of us who say you really need to do something. And we put a sense of ought upon something bringing a sense of needfulness through our instruction and we think of ourselves as not telling someone that they need to be saved through this needful thing but they just think of it as an adjunct to it. And the question is identifying and articulating what is needful. That’s the substantial issue. So what I’m trying to say, let me just try to re-cap, it appears that the Pharisees when they said “needful” were meaning that the completion of salvation lay in this. That’s what it says in verse one. But in terms of discussing it they didn’t get into that fine tune exchange, what they said was this question of needful to keep the law, what do we needfully lay upon the brethren. And that’s an important point of reference if we’re going to understand what it means to subvert the Gospel or to support the Gospel. Daniel did you have a question? (I was just going to say down in verse 10 and 11.. puts in perspective those who were trying to command circumcision..what is needful by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and not by a yoke upon the neck[?]) I think the yoke on the neck is a picture of putting on someone the sense of needful, it’s needful that you do this. And I think in terms of, what I’m trying to do is practically capture you and me in the sense of our own thinking and our own understanding and our own ministry whether it be to our own children in our own families or beyond that a place the Lord gives us. But I do want to say this, there are among us since the day I was saved, 26 years plus ago, there have been believers, those who have believed on Jesus, there have been believers in the midst of whatever midst I was amidst, there have been believers who have readily like the Pharisees brought forth a sense of needfulness, “Well you need to do this and this sense of laying on a needfulness of this or that matter in some issue or other, that has been a common reoccurrance in the course of my experience as a believer, bringing upon the oppression of needfulness upon the believer and thereby subverting the Gospel. If you’ll help me for a moment try to get passed this without taking forever and ever and ever, let’s go to Galatians real quickly and in Galatians there is a picture of, by the way this was the substantial foundational argument that all of the New Testament and all of the book of Acts reckoned with in terms of perverting the Gospel. This is the only issue that ever has centered around perverting the Gospel. But he says in verse 1 of chapter 3, “O foolish Galatians who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you. This only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain if it yet be in vain? He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit and works miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, know ye therefore that they which are of faith the same are the children of Abraham and the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen by faith,” the heathen are the Gentiles, “preached before the Gospel unto Abraham saying, ‘In thee shall all the nations be blessed’.” Verse 9, “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” Now listen very carefully, verse 10, “For as many as are under the works of the law, are under the curse, for it is written cursed is every one that continues not in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by faith and the law is not of faith but the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written, ‘Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree’ that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren I speak after the manner of men. Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed no man disanulleth it nor addeth to it. Now to Abraham and to his seed were the promises made and he said not to his seeds as many but as to one, ‘and to thy seed which is Christ,’ and this I say that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 400 years after cannot disanull that it should make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance be of the law it is of no more promise but God gave it to Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law, it was added because of transgressions until the seed should come to whom the promise was made. And it was ordained by angels in the hands of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one but God is one. Is the law then against the promise of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been given by the law, but the Scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise of faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believed but before faith came we were kept under the law shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith but after that faith is come. We are no longer under a schoolmaster for ye are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, ye have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s then you’re Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” I want to skip and find, I’m going to stop there, otherwise I’m going to read the whole book of Galatians. I’m going to stop for a moment and take counsel of what we’ve heard. The law is attempting proposition for it contains the righteousness of God reflected in it purely and holy and altogether good. But the law is not an instrument. The law is not a means by which we can in any way gain favor or spiritual growth. No exceptions, absolutely no exceptions. And what happens is Satan wants to keep us from the spiritual inheritance that is ours as the children of God and so therefore he attempts to subvert our souls by throwing off the foundational truths of the Gospel. And see when you have someone saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit baptizing him into the body of Christ and when you have that condition met, there is no other beneficial condition by which men may prosper and grown in the grace of God. There is none. You have the fulness. You have everything that could possibly be given to you. You are now fully invested with life in Christ. And there is absolutely nothing that you could add to that by any means of external practice or promotion that will add to what you have by promise in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And it’s necessary for us to understand, it’s necessary for us to recognize that it is the nature of Satan to subvert. That’s what Paul said in 2 Thessalonians verse 2 chapter 2. Demons subvert the Gospels. It’s possible for our careless conversation to subvert the Gospel. In another place in Galatians which I had thought I was going to stumble across but I think it must have been in a previous chapter, Paul says that if you are going to attempt any spiritual progress by keeping the law, you have fallen from grace, no exception. There’s a falling away from grace when I lay a hold of another instrument of bringing in me growth and nurture and development. And that is the necessary truth that we must undergird, that we must support, that we must establish, that we must be on guard to because it is constantly the nature of Satan to subvert that truth, to encourage us to look for some other means by which I might gain into my life spiritual blessings, spiritual heritage. I want to point out something practically speaking, when you and I are saved we are not finished. And when he says here, “Are you so foolish having begun in the Spirit are you now made perfect in the flesh?” he’s reflecting upon the process of sanctification that occurs in the believers life after he has believed, after the Holy Spirit has come into his life. And that process of sanctification is pursued exactly parallel with the means of salvation and that is by faith in the person and the work of Jesus Christ and by sharing in that relationship with Christ, bar none, except none. It’s there, it’s there alone. And the problem that you and I have is that we are tempted quickly to look for some other means of sanctification. We want to grow in grace through some other little means that we want to add to our lives and so we do it, we extrapilate. And I want to point out that back in Acts 15, what happened? The expectation was these believing Gentiles needed to add to their belief for sanctification purposes the walk of the law. In other words that completion of their salvation lay in keeping of the law, as some beneficial means. But it’s necessary for you and I to understand that that has been rejected by the very apostles who Jesus Christ trained on the earth. And that is a foundational heresy to the church against the church. It is a foundational subversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And what I want to say to us is this, you cannot promote spiritual living in your children by supplying them with means of grace outside of faith in Christ. It cannot be done. But I submit to you that we do it, we attempt to do it all the time. We are always tempted to hold up something as a means of “Here you do this and then you’ll get this.” That’s works, sorry. It’s a very exact opposite of the Gospel. I’ll guarantee you that you can’t do anything and get anything because it’s a promise. And what is the work of God in us? He has drawn us very close to His bosom. We are very dear to Him. We are the people of His pasture. We’re very special in the eyes of God and God is calling us to Himself by the very person and the very work of His own love. And that is what the Gospel is all about and that is what Christian growth is all about, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul said that he’s perfected by faith in the Son of God, by faith. I want to tell you this, take an incident of trouble in your home this week. Any incident of trouble, doesn’t matter, take an incident, pull it out of the mess of other things, isolate it and look at it real good and you’ll notice at the root of every form of trouble is a process of sabatoge against the Gospel because every form of trouble is a strain against faith, it’s a strain for some other means, for some other method. And when I am in trouble, my trouble comes my way so that my faith is enlarged and trouble comes to personnally get me depending on God. That’s the purpose of trouble. And God has a direct means into my life. Because He is my Father the Scripture says He is not going to sit around waiting for me to wake up to the fact that I need to grow up in Christ. He’s not going to wait around. He’s going to do it because He loves me as a son and as a son He’s going to perfect me because He’s promised that. That’s part of the promise. But what God does is He works in trouble and I want to tell you this: in every instant of trouble the victory is found in faith. In every incident. And when I apply faith in the incidental circumstance that is straining and pulling at me, at that moment I touch the very heart of God and I unlock for myself the very reserve of God’s grace and He dumps it down upon me bountifully and He rescues me. Let’s turn to Lamentations. I knew I’d better leave that last or I’d never get to it. Lamentations chapter 3. This is the third verse that teaches on trouble and Lamentations 3, I don’t have all the time that I would like to have and so if you’ll forgive me I’m going to make some quick points of reference. We studied this passage a few weeks ago from another angle and I want to get back to it from kind of like a continuity basis. And just by way of reference, what’s happening? Jerusalem is being sacked and all her people are being crushed under the wheel. Devestation, terror of every kind imaginable is falling upon the city of God and Jeremiah is troubled by it. I want you to see though there’s a progress of Jeremiah’s interpretation of trouble. There’s a progress and the initial prospect of trouble that Jeremiah recognizes is the human experience of loss of my human security. And he goes through that in the first description and that’s what I discussed the last time we spoke about it. But that the human experience of my loss of those things that I have humanly put security in, that is a devastating blow to a man. It’s a devestating blow. It’s a devestating blow to the point that it nearly disheartens us. So it was in that context that we found Jeremiah saying, in verse 18, “I said my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” “I said that my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” Now that’s stage one. Stage one is when the trouble hits you whenever the trouble hits you you are experiencing the initiation of God’s spiritual curriculum in your life, the trouble hits you. I’ll tell you this about trouble when it hits you, it always hits you unprepared and unaware. And the kind of trouble that hits you is different than the kind of trouble that hits someone else. I know that I brace myself for trouble saying like Peter, “Lord I’ll die with you.” And then a little flea gets in my ear and I can’t handle a flea. I’m ready to go to the death. The Lord knows us and God is dealing with you and I in a personal manner. He personnally loves you and He wants you to know His help. Did you know that’s what it’s all about? God wants you personnally to know His help in your time of need? That’s what the Gospel is all about. We can come boldly before the throne of grace to find grace to help in time of need. That’s the way it is so God troubles us and the trouble comes and the first response to trouble of natural man is the feeling that my hope is gone, my hope perished from the Lord. And we just have this blackness and this sense of confusion. What happens when that first stage hits, Jeremiah illustrates verse 18, “remembering mine affliction, my misery, the wormwood and the gall,” his focus, he’s got his nose in his navel and he’s focused on all his own misery and then he recognizes verse 21, “This I call to mind and therefore I have hope, it is because the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.” And what happens here is there is an exercise that takes place. At the moment of my trouble I do a mental review of the person of God that I have been taught, that I have grown to know as a real person. And I remember except for the Lord’s mercies, we’d be consumed. I’m not consumed. I’m in trouble, I’m in stress but I’m not consumed. The Lord is merciful and there’s this small instruction about the known person of God that gets my focus. Now from that point on he builds up as David said, he strengthened himself in his God. THere’s a point at which trouble hits us that we take that which we know of God and we strengthen ourselves with it. And so the first part of strengthening has to do with the person of God and he goes on and he says, “This I recall to mind and therefore I have hope.” See that? It’s a mental process. I recall something to mind about who God is and my hope is replenished. And he goes on, “The Lord is good, the Lord is my portion,” and he gets the person of God clearly in focus and then he moves back to his trouble. Now with the understanding of who God is he goes back to his trouble and this is what he does, he said, verse 25, “The Lord is good to them that wait on Him, to the soul that seeks after Him,” so God is good to those kind of people. Who is a believer? Who has laid a hold of Jesus Christ by faith? Well that’s who we are. We have waited on the Lord. We’ve sought after God on His terms. We’ve come to Christ on His basis. I’m the kind of person that God’s interested in. That’s the Gospel’s all about me. And so I begin to reflect now with a very personal sense of God is on my side. And now I look at my trouble knowing that God’s on my side and I go on and this is what he says, “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” And there is the principle of spiritual growth. In my trouble today I find redemption today, I find salvation. Now do you understand why you can’t subvert the Gospel without destroying the whole thing? God wants me personnally to be experiencing salvation in small little increments in every day life. And I can only be accurately said to be growing in the Lord if I am experiencing the salvation of God in daily troubles and in daily trials that come my way. I have got to experience redemption. The Lord is good to them that wait for Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait. Now that’s the hard part, quietly wait for the salvation of God. There’s where faith is developed. Remember this, faith is not faith and hope is not hope once deliverance has arrived. Because if you have what you hope for you’re no longer hoping. It’s there. You’ve got it. Romans 8. So there’s the strain and there’s the test and there’s the lesson. And brothers and sisters in Christ, I must say this, this is what our children need to learn about God. This is what you and I need practice in our daily routine. This is experiential salvation. This is my sanctification. It is not that I am ever going to be capable of going out here and taking some structure of the law and bringing it back here and pinning it on myself to help me get better. It’s an impossibility. That which we so desire is being given to us purely by promise. It has been promised to us in Christ period. And those who lay a hold of it can only lay a hold of it by faith and I lay a hold of that which is the most dear to me at this very moment and I transfer that into the safekeeping hands of God, Psalm 31. But the key is this, it is God who has brought up today’s lesson. And God knows you personnally, God knows you individually, God knows you distinctively. He knows you and He is going to “mess” with you on the basis of who you are and what your need for spiritual growth is. Did you ever wonder when you look over your shoulder and you see this other believer and you kind of wonder and you say, “Something’s wrong with this picture.” This guy is just weird. But everytime you get near him there’s an emanation of hope in God and hope in Christ and you just kind of see well you need a lot of hope, but there’s this fixation with this person on God. And there is where your and my alertness to the Gospel needs to take place. You can never lay a yoke of any type on anyone and get them to grow in grace. It will never happen. You can never lay any kind of a yoke. What is a yoke? Any kind of an expectation is a yoke. “If you do this you’re going to be blessed,” that’s a yoke right there, you’ve got you just hit it on the head. You put something needful on somebody and you’re saying, “By that means you’re going to gain.” And you know what? That’s not true. It absolutely is not true. There are so called disciplines of the Spirit, but I want to tell you this, any discipline of the Spirit that you put on yourself is a yoke because you’re putting it on by your wisdom and your understanding and your sense of product. You want to get something out of it and so you’re going to do it. But God won’t meet you and God won’t give it to you and you won’t have that growth of faith. Because the disciplines of the Spirit are just this: the trouble of God and my response in hope waiting on the Lord and God delivering me in my trouble. I have to go on because subversion is in this passage. That’s why I’m in there, I’m getting to my topic. Let’s go on, the next couple verses. Verse 27, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” I’m going to stop there for a moment. I don’t like that. I thought youth was for a good time to have fun because later you’re going to have a lot of burdens. I’ve heard this philosophy, I’ve heard parents tell me this. “Well I don’t want my children to have to work so much or have hardship because they’re going to get older soon enough and they’re going to have lots of troubles soon enough but right now in their childhood I want them to have a little bit of enjoyment of life.” God forbid that we would be so foolish to raise our children in pleasure. God wants to raise us as His very own sons and He says the best time for the yoke is when you’re young. You know why it’s the best time for the yoke when you’re young? Because you have the greatest amount of strength and resilience. I want to talk to you from a biological viewpoint. Are you aware that just in looking at the bone structure of the human being from the time they’re born until the time they reach their eighties and nineties whatever, just the very bone structure pictures this progress of when is a good time to bear the yoke. There’s a resilience in the bone structure of very young children and that resilience slowly over age is lost until you get to the older age where it’s just brittle. And one of the most common causes of death in old people is falling and breaking a hip. And then all kinds of troubles and disease emerge and they end up passing away. It’s good to bear your yoke in your youth. Now parents, here’s the neat thing about it: you don’t have to be the ugly. In other words, we’re not the ones assigned to creating the trouble. God’s going to send the trouble and He’s going to send crafted trouble right to the heart of it. Do you know what you need to be? You need to be the one in the trench with them showing them how to respond to trouble when it hits, “Here’s how you respond.” I don’t know about you guys but as a parent that was a little bit of a hard lesson for me to learn. The first couple times I failed on that one because when I saw trouble coming my way at my children, I got out of the fox hole and took my machine gun and blew away the enemy. The thing was only a five year old. Something wasn’t right about that picture. Our responsibility is to train our children in their youth to learn how to bear the yoke when they’re young. Now let’s go back to the Word. “Sits alone and keeps silent because he has borne it upon him.” And yet there’s a solitary process of spiritual growth. It’s a solitary process to spiritual growth. In the end if you exercise faith, you’ve exercised it alone by yourself. Did you know that? If you have exercised faith in the end you have exercised it all alone. Nobody can do it for you and you can’t do it for anybody else. You have to cross over that great divide by yourself and it’s you the Lord’s after. And that trouble that God places on you stirs up you singularly. Now have you ever thought this, “God, how come others don’t have the troubles I have?” When you say that, stop and give glory to God and say, “Thank you God that You know me so well that You know just how to trouble me to get to me, to get to the root issues of my heart so that I might learn to trust you, so that I might learn to wait patiently for Your salvation. And God thank You that I don’t have everybody else’s troubles too.” Because He just troubles you in the areas that He knows that He can touch Your heart with to get you to get your attention. Isn’t that neat? That is something to just praise God about. He’s so merciful, He knows who we are and He sends the troubles that are unique to us. Our troubles though usually do make us stand alone. It’s probably true that in a group this size if we all were able to articulate accurately what our troubles are, they would be different from one another, we’d be kind of surprised, “Wow so many different kinds of struggles.” And then there’s the hardness of heart, sometimes I hear your troubles and I say, “Man grow up that’s nothing; let me tell you my troubles.” Picking up verse 29, “He puts his mouth in the dust if so be that there may be hope.” Now that’s God. This again, the pronouns here get a little hard so let’s follow. “He,” God “puts his mouth,” the man, “in the dust if so be that there may be hope.” Do you see the practical? He puts our mouth in the dust if so be that there may be hope. Pay close attention. That has totally to do with the person of God. When God troubles me He is troubling me to teach me how to hope in Him. My troubles are always so singularly personal as it relates to me that it causes me to be stretched in my hope. And God is after me. And you need to understand this in terms of the person of God, God never troubles us for no reason, He never troubles us for no cause. So when troubles come don’t say, “Why,” say “Lord, what? What is it Lord? Where am I to find the focused of Your concern and what am I to deliver up in obedience and in faith to You?” Going on here. Verse 30, “He gives his cheek to him that smites him and he is filled full of reproach, for the Lord will not cast off forever but though He cause grief yet He will have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. Though He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men to crush under His feet all the prisoners of the earth, to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, tyo subvert a man in his cause the Lord approves not.” Now let me wrap it up here. That basically was my proof text of the message, “to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approves not.” You know what? Every one of your children, every one of us, we have a cause and you know where our cause stands? Our cause stands before the throne of God. God is doing something, God wants to do something singularly in our lives, every one of us. There’s not an exception in the room. And I’m thankful that God is capable of embracing all of us so full of His love and so merciful, so tender in His mercies. And I’m thankful that that’s His person, that’s who He is, but here we are and God is after a fruit. He is not after nothing. And here’s this final definition of subversion: to overthrow the nature of a man in his cause before God, God doesn’t approve. Now in verse 35 he says, “Turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High.” What is the right of a man before the face of the Most High? The right of a man before the face of the Most High is his need for salvation, his need for redemption, his need to access the person and the wealth and the grace of God to bring it down into his own life and to be rescued from all of his troubles. That’s the right of a man before God. And to subvert a man in his cause is to take away his right, to take away his right for redemption. Now I want to say this, how calloused we are when we put some secondary sugar coated appearance of Christianity on the plate of our children and we put upon them some yoke of external activity and we say, “Well if you do this you’re going to be blessed. If you do this you’re going to receive God’s happiness.” And it’s not going to happen, I don’t care what it is. It can be Bible memory, Bible reading, it can be family prayers, private prayers, memorizing, you name it I don’t care what it is, if you’re laying it on someone as a means of grace, as a means of blessing, you are out of line because you cannot and you will not access God that way. But that is subversion. You are overthrowing the cause of a man before his God. Men need to experience redemption personnally. That is the call in Christ. And we are to be those who make clear the path so that the Savior is the one object and when our children fall into trouble we’re to be there in the trench with them teaching them showing them how to yield up their fears, their worries, their rights, their concerns, how to yield them up and to trust them into the hand of the Lord, you put them right there in the hand of God and then you wait and you wait on God and you wait for His redemption. And brothers and sisters when you do that you’re raising a godly offspring, you’re raising someone whose inheritance is the same inheritance that Christ came to give on the earth. And I want to tell you, it’s enough. Dadayenu, It’s enough. We don’t need anything else. We don’t have to add something to it, it’s sufficient. And God will bring in that which is lacking in my spiritual needs because He has chosen to make me His son. He’s going to be my Father and He’s going to keep up the heat. He’s going to keep the pressure off. But I want to say something. How many times do we speak, how many times do we carry out expectations upon one another that trouble their minds and cause them to be subverted in their soul, to lose their way, to lose their track, to say, “Well maybe it’s not enough, maybe it isn’t good enough to just wait patiently on the Lord to trust my lot to Him to surrender.” I am frustrated because I’ve done the very best that I can and I feel like I’ve hardly started to say anything. I did want to wrap things up and bring a little conclusion as we finish. If you’ve never read the book Mimosa you need to get it because that’s a good story about a child finding the Lord through simple obedience. To wrap it up, remember the warning that began in Thessalonians? There were three things, spirit, word or letter that came in and caused trouble, shaking the mind. Then when we went to Acts, do you remember the process that they used? There was this present tense clear understanding that God was at work among them and there was joy from that. And then there was the question brought in, “What do we do? Is there something we do to make this better, to complete this work more fully?” And then there was the evaluation of that question in the content of exactly what is the Gospel. And I want to tell you this, you can prevent subversion of the Gospel in your own ministry, in your own life if you will go through that process of remembering at the point that you want to give counsel, remembering at the point that you want to give instruction or help, remembering what is the Gospel and how do I embrace for someone that means of accessing God properly through the Gospel. What did Jesus say? He said, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.” There’s this process of discipleship. And so I need to be careful that I don’t carelessly insinuate in any way shape or form that there is some kind of mechanism, there is some kind of means that I can hand over here, “I’ll give you twelve steps to victory and you do these twelve things and you’ll be victorious,” that somehow I can go through that wooden process of spiritual sancification. Paul said it plainly in Galatians 3, “If there was a law that could of brought righteousness it would have been given but there is none adequate and sufficient.” So it’s apart from law, it’s been set aside. We’re no longer under the schoolmaster, now we’re under Christ. And there’s this process of learning to excercise our faith and the growth of the believer is the excercising of his faith, from faith to faith, from faith to faith. And when you’re giving counsel to your children, when you’re trying to explain or correct or whatever you do, you need to bring forth that manifestation of what is the Gospel in that moment of question and make certain that the access to God is by faith through Christ where my case is transferred and my trust is handled so that I’m waiting on God and God is the one who delivers me. That’s the simple process, it’s a personal access of God, that’s what the Gospel is all about. You come boldly to the throne of grace to find grace to help in time of need. It’s a personal thing, it’s a personal dynamic. And I think the question that we bring to bear, there’s a question, “Can you represent God in a proper way?” I had something else I wanted to share, maybe I’ll share it another time but it was from 2 Samuel 23, there’s a picture of who we can be. There’s an exhilirating representation that we can stand in a place and when people look at us and they see us honor God they see that our whole dynamic, our whole ambition is to honor the Lord and honor that which He’s provided in terms of salvation, that creates life for others, it gives hope, it sheds light on their path. And it draws out in their own life, growth. And that’s the manner in which we respond so that we’re not just a rigid formalist executing every little detail of goodness in our home with a regimen but rather we’re tempered by a genuine response. Whatever is not of faith is sin. Do you ever think about that? Whatever is not of faith is sin. Let each man be fully persuaded in his own heart. What kind of theology, what kind of wishy washy slip sloppy theology is that? Let each man determine in his own heart. It’s not going to get us in serious trouble? No because God is the same God, there’s one God and He’s not going to do a different work. He’s going to do His work and it’s going to be done in righteousness. Let’s pray. Father we so many times have so little idea about how we affect those under us. Lord, even in our own lives how we try to affect our own spiritual growth by forgetting the simplicity of the Gospel and the personal relationship by which we are excercised in our faith from faith to faith. ...(tape ends here)
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