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Christian Chronicles, August 2006 - Volume 7, Issue 126

The Editor's Pen

As we watch the Church Age drawing to a close, we are mindful of the fact that every Christian ought to be redoubling his efforts to serve the Lord in some way. It is not too late to lay up treasure in heaven (Mt 6:19-20), but the time does indeed appear to be short. We all ought to desire to be found doing the things that we are charged with doing when our Groom comes for His bride. This, not only because we want to have something in which to glory at the judgment seat of Christ, but more, because our Lord has blessed us in this life, and our hearts should yearn to please Him, especially since all that is required of us is so little.

In this issue of Christian Chronicles, we will take a closer look at ways in which Christians can serve the Lord. So many Christians have not the slightest concept of Christian service beyond going to church on Sunday, giving to support the work of the ministry, singing in the choir or teaching Sunday School or helping to maintain the physical plant of the local church. There is so very much more involved in Christian service than those things, though those things need to be attended to with due diligence. Far too many Christians do not understand that they are charged with a personal ministry as much as the pastor or elders or deacons are.

As the Middle East unfolds its bloody tableau, Christians should observe it soberly, realizing that the times and seasons are upon us. Never in the history of the world have current events been more important than today, except in the years in which God Almighty walked upon the earth, to be crucified. When next He appears, it will not be to suffering, but to His eternal glory. Seeing that we are a part of that glory, it behooves us now to consider our own lives in relation to our service to God.

Perspectives

“No one can serve two masters;
for either he will hate the one and love the other,
or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.”
(Mt 6:24 NKVJ)

We say it, but we rarely think about what it means. When we say it, we even more rarely consider its context—what came before, and what follows. Some translations use the word money in place of mammon. The NASB uses the word wealth. There is a sense in which the word money may be used, but mammon is of Chaldean root, and speaks more of the personification of money or wealth. It speaks of a heart and soul that is filled with avarice; an intense, selfish desire for wealth or possessions. Greed would be a more appropriate word than money. Understanding what mammon is makes the context even more important. Essentially, mammon encompasses everything worldly, everything temporal, that distracts or diverts us from service to God.

Matthew 6:19-34 presents a world view that transposes the reader from the temporal to the eternal. Mt 6:9-13 tells us how we ought to pray, in the model prayer by which Jesus instructed his disciples to pray. Mt 6:14-18 cautions against ostentation in prayer and fasting. Together, vv. 9-18 carry us from the realm of self into the kingdom of God. Then, in 19-23, Jesus tells us how we may go about the shifting of our priorities from the temporal to the eternal. He said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt 6:19-21). In the model prayer, we are shown that our first request should be to seek the kingdom of God. Our hearts should be such that we eagerly look for that Day when we are ushered from mortality to immortality; for that day is the beginning of the Day of the Lord on earth, when He will ultimately wrest earth from the clutches of the devil, and when He shall establish His own kingdom on earth. He begins the so-called Lord’s prayer with seeking the kingdom, and He ends it on that same note: “For Yours is the kingdom…” (6:9-13). One who fervently desires the kingdom of God will not be so vain as to be ostentatious in prayer or fasting, for his hope and pride are not in himself, but in his God.

Only here are we told what allows us to move from things temporal to things eternal. A negative command tells us not to store up earthly treasures, and a positive command tells us to store up heavenly treasures. By way of explanation, Jesus concludes those two commands by saying, “...for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (6:21). We have discussed the issue of rewards in many ways over the years, mostly from the Pauline perspective. But here Jesus gives us the root of the whole thing. We are by nature greedy and avaricious. We seek to acquire, to enlarge our holdings. The old saying, the one who dies with the most toys still dies, comes into play. It is God’s fervent desire that each and every one of us would be greedy for eternal treasures, and not for earthly acquisitions. As we lay up treasure in heaven, our thoughts and hopes and ambitions and priorities turn from earthly things to heavenly things. We do not begin our Christian career with a great deposit of heavenly treasure, for our eternal treasures, like our temporal treasures, must be earned. We can serve God and acquire heavenly treasure that will turn our hearts and minds Godward, or we can serve our temporal avarice and collect all manner of earthly goods that we must leave behind either at the rapture or our death.

When we are engaged upon a quest for temporal riches, we cannot be also engaged in the laying up of heavenly treasures. Thus, our hearts will be on our earthly acquisitions, to the exclusion of things Godly. Conversely, when our focus is upon the storing up of heavenly treasure, our hearts and minds and bodies are occupied in service to God, to the exclusion of temporal luxuries. Things temporal are seen in the heart as temporary and meaningless. While we must earn enough money to live, our hearts ought to be in service to God, even in our temporal employment. As we lay up heavenly treasures, our appreciation of them grows and is magnified day by day, so that, no matter the state of our temporal circumstances, we are content, knowing that eternal riches are ours in spite of either riches or poverty in this life. If we have no heavenly treasure, our hearts will be on earthly things, but as our investment in heavenly riches grows, then are we able to apply 6:22-34 to our lives in a meaningful way; in a way that makes us comfortable and content whether we wear either a Rolex or a Timex, whether we drive a Rolls or an Olds. We are content to let God determine our temporal state, as we attend to the matters that affect our eternal estate.

Middle East Update

As of this writing, August 9, the war is still raging between Israel and Hezbollah. The world seems to be growing edgy, fearing that the bloodshed may broaden and deepen and lead to a great conflagration that could draw the whole world into yet another terrible blood-letting. Let it be said here first: The world is already engaged in the greatest conflict of its existence, the battle that rages between good and evil.

The issue at risk is not local sin or social morality. Those two are diversions of the devil himself. No, Christians, the issue in question in the present engagement is deeper and broader than that. The devil would divert us by spurring us to protest this sin or that social evil, but the greater struggle is for the near fate of the earth itself.

It does not seem like any kind of cataclysmic war, this little spat between a tiny nation and a band of terrorists. No? The devil knows the Word of God, and would prevent its fulfillment however he might. He tried when he tempted Cain to kill Abel. He tried when Pharaoh had the Hebrew babies killed. He tried when Herod had the male Israeli children killed. Satan was trying to prevent the birth of that Seed of the woman. He failed, as he knew he must, but he had to try or seal his own fate by his own lack of effort. He tried in the crucifixion; thought he had won, but his head was bruised in the resurrection of our great God and Savior from the dead! Then Satan tried again in WWII, when his puppet, Hitler, attempted to wipe out God’s chosen people.

Let us not presume the devil to be a mischievous imp. He is Satan, and he is immensely powerful and magnificently intelligent. And he is as desperate as he is powerful and as subtle as he is intelligent. Of all God’s creatures of all time, none is more subtle than Satan. He must—absolutely must— prevent the Second Advent of the Messiah. At this point, he must destroy Israel. For, if he can destroy Israel, the Jewish Messiah will have no homeland to return to (or so the devil must see it), and Satan can thereby avoid the terrible fate that awaits him after the return of the Lord. The hand of the Lord is mighty, and He will prevail.

The spiritual fight is engaged, and our God will stand, in accordance with the counsel of His own will. Satan does not win. But he knows it too, and he will fight to the bitter end! If he cannot prevent the return of the Lord, then he must act out his part in the tribulation, lead a great rebellion at the end of the Millennium, and be finally cast into the lake of fire, where his henchmen, the beast and the false prophet, will have been for a thousand years when he gets there. It is unconditionally vital that he prevent the Lord’s return, and he will not stop at Hezbollah to prevent it. But that is where he is now.

It is against the law for a 501(c)(3) corporation to make political statements in the United States. We are a tax-exempt corporation, and are bound by the laws governing institutions such as ours. And so we have willingly and assiduously refrained from commenting on politics. Our views in this space sometimes discuss things that are political, but only as they are involved in matters that are theological. And do not let the news media fool you; this is not a political battle being waged in the Middle East. Not at all. This is a spiritual battle being carried out in the spirits of human beings, one side driven by the Master of Evil, and the other driven by a nation of spiritually dead Jews. It almost seems as if the devil must be fighting against himself.

But he is not. God’s word tells us plainly that Israel will yet be restored, accepting their rejected Messiah at last, and sealing Satan’s fate. His only hope, as slim as it is, is to destroy Israel before the return of the Lord. And he will almost succeed. But not quite. He will fail in this battle that is being waged now, but will cause sufficient bloodshed to frighten the world, and Israel with it, into a false sense of security, a peace treaty that will cause the world to breathe a collective sigh of relief, thinking that it has narrowly averted a cataclysmic disaster.

What we are seeing unfold before our eyes in the Middle East today may well prove to be that awful effusion of blood that Christian Chronicles has long taught must occur if the combatants are to be so shocked that they will agree to almost anything in order to avoid mutual destruction. It may well widen in scope and run much deeper in blood before all agree that a diplomatic solution must be found.

Let us be clear in this also: This may not be that effusion of blood. That might yet be decades farther into the future. But it does not appear to be so. Rather, we seem to be staring down the barrel of the tribulation. Before it begins, there must come a treaty, a covenant between many, guaranteeing Israel’s security, and seemingly avoiding that world war that all the earth may very soon be desperate to avoid.

As of today, the U.N. is doggedly trying to find a way to end the fighting, but is able only to apply cosmetic changes to a draft resolution that both Israel and Hezbollah have rejected already. It may be that some stop-gap measure will be found that will temporarily halt military operations, but until Hezbollah is neutralized, so that it cannot fire missiles into Israeli cities, any such ceasefire is bound to fail in the end. More than ninety percent of Israeli citizens approve of Israel’s response, and want Hezbollah wiped out. However, one should remember that Hezbollah is not a sovereign government. Instead, it is a terrorist group that is sheltered primarily in three Mideast nations: Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Until the root is killed, a weed will continue to come back and grow and flourish, no matter the topical application of herbicides. The same is true of this terrorist group. Hezbollah is Satan’s instrument for the destruction of Israel in these pre-tribulation period days. The whole world will be his instrument during the second half of the tribulation period, but as of now, it is Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, all three terrorist groups, and all three funded by Iran, Syria and more than a few of the Arab states, even some which call themselves “moderate.” The governments and media of the world are complicit as well.

There is something else that must occur prior to the start of the tribulation. The tribulation starts when a comprehensive treaty is brokered between Israel and “many” of her neighbors. But before that treaty is ratified in the Israeli Knesset, the Church, all saved persons from Pentecost until that day, will be either resurrected from the dead, or if still living, translated from mortal to immortal and removed from the earth. With the battle fully engaged as of this writing, it is not terribly difficult to understand that these may very well be the times and the seasons of our departure. With all the world seeking a diplomatic solution, with diplomats flying into New York from all over the world, and flying back and forth between nations, all seeking a way out of this impending disaster, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that great spiritual warfare is already being waged, and we are merely the actors waiting in the wings for our Groom to take the cloudy stage and lead us home before His terrible judgments fall upon a dark, sinful and rebellious world.

It is now 8/15, and a fragile ceasefire is in place. The outcome can only encourage Israel’s enemies to persecute her more virulently in coming months. Do not be lulled into believing that this is over. It is merely one shot in a long struggle to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. It will fail. Our God is mighty, and His Word is a beacon of hope that assures both us and Israel that He will prevail, and she will yet achieve her greatest glory in His Kingdom. Do not take this to indicate that the rapture is not as near as we believe. Things change exceedingly rapidly in the Middle East, and we do not know what tomorrow will bring. Those of us at CC strongly believe that the final stage of the process is beginning and, whether it takes a week or ten years, we are seeing the things in the world that provide hope of an early departure.

Fruit of the Vine

Jesus said, “You did not choose Me; but I chose you, and ordained you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain…” (Jn 15:16a). That is why we are here, and it ought to be our very first priority, to be fruitful. We have been appointed to that work.

Whether it is through evangelism or giving or teaching, or in administration or in intercessory prayer, or in whatever else that a person supports the work of the Gospel, he is being fruitful. Unless you are led by the Holy Spirit to do other than what you are doing, continue with renewed fervor and zeal, knowing that our Lord is at the door, and is Himself the Door through which we enter heaven. And if the Holy Spirit leads you to do something other than what you have been doing, whether in addition or instead, do it with a rejoicing heart, knowing that your Master will arrive soon with your reward. Be discerning. Do not give your support to unfruitful ministries, for there is no reward in that, and God is not pleased by it. It matters not whether your support is money, time or prayer, direct it toward those ministries which bear fruit.

This is a time when the entire body of Christ ought to be rising up, not to fight political battles, but to take on the work of the Gospel and the word of reconciliation. If God has not been making you fruitful, show Him your willingness, and ask Him to glorify Himself in you, for you cannot glorify yourself in Him. He will come to you and glorify Himself in you.

Here Am I: Send Me

Isaiah spoke these words (6:8) when the Lord had announced six woes to come upon the nation of Israel, and needed someone to go forth as his prophet. Isaiah had first declared himself unworthy, but one of the seraphim touched his lips with a live coal, telling him that his sins had been purged, and he was fit to speak as God’s messenger. As ever he was, Isaiah was willing to go to God’s people. Throughout the book of his prophecy, he brought alternating messages of judgment and restoration. We learn from this book the full extent of Israel’s apostasy. It had begun with the worship of the golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and continued for as long as Israel was in the land, alternating sometimes with periods of reverence, right worship, and service. Even today, having been out of the land for almost two thousand years, Israel is still recalcitrant. She still will not acknowledge the grievous error— nay, sin—that she committed against her own God when she had our Lord crucified. Throughout her life in the land, she was alternately faithful and spiritually adulterous, serving and worshiping other gods. Sometimes she was faithful, but the sin of Israel was far more characteristic of her than her moments of obedience.

Israel is the macrocosm of which the individual Christian is the microcosm. The long history of the nation of Israel might in some ways be likened to the brief temporal life of a Christian. Throughout the Old Testament, we find Israel turning her back on God and serving herself (or as she saw it anyway—we do not truly serve ourselves by not serving our God). Israel made her decisions many times without reference to God, but in accordance with human reasoning. It was in this manner that she came to worship idols and false gods. A little compromise to keep the peace between Israel and her neighbors, a strategic intermarriage here or there, an alliance with Egypt (Isa 20:1-6; 30:1-14) to protect herself from the Assyrians—these are the ways of the world, and they became the ways of Israel. Even today, faced with grave danger from a hostile world, she is seeking her safety in the shadow of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Her dependence upon the world is shouted in the headlines of every nation on the earth. But it will not always be so.

Paul told Timothy that we are to receive reproof, correction and instruction from the whole of God’s Word. As Christians, we stay mainly in the new Testament, but if we spent some time in the Old Testament, we could certainly take some lessons from God’s relationship with Israel—positive lessons, and many hard lessons as well. Israel, as fickle as she has been throughout her history, has never been as stubborn and hard-hearted toward her own God as she is today. Even after almost two thousand years in the bowels of the Gentile beast, and even after God has finally begun to bring her out of the lands of foreigners and back into the Promised Land, she still refuses to mend her ways and accept and acknowledge her own sinfulness. She still looks to the world for her safety and protection and well-being. She looks to the world for food and weapons and money and fuel and commerce. But there is a Day coming in which Israel will serve God perfectly and sinlessly forever, and God sees that Day with gladness, even knowing what chastening she will be forced to undergo before she gets there. God surely bemoans the necessity of the chastening, but He is made gladly blessed by the certainty of her restoration.

We Christians are very much like that ourselves. We too will serve God with sinless perfection on our great Day and forever after. In the meantime, we go through our daily lives, spending our precious time in pursuit of earthly necessities; and many of them are the same things for which Israel makes her connections with the world—food, shelter, clothing, recreation, income and such luxuries as each individual can afford. Even full-time ministers of the Gospel spend more time dealing with earthly concerns than with heavenly service. And laymen do not, as a rule, spend more than a few minutes each day in prayer and reading, if even that much. Therefore, when someone starts harping at them about spiritual service, they feel guilty. They don’t want to hear it.

The tapestry of Israel’s service and disobedience was woven over millennia, and is being woven even today. But the individual Christian’s tapestry is much more brief, being woven over some seventy or so years. We might wonder how there could possibly be any connection between the two. But what happens over a period of three or four hundred years in the life of Israel might happen in the space of a day or two in the life of a Christian. How can this be? If one were to condense everything that Israel did or experienced into something on the order of seventy-five years, her wars would be very brief, her periods of rebellion might occupy a surprising number of years if they were all lumped together. But they would not be lumped together. They would be sprinkled throughout the whole seventy-five years, with the last period of rebellion lasting maybe twenty years. Her periods of service to God would also be sprinkled over the whole period of time, but they would be much briefer than her periods of rebellion and sin.

Then, if you took those seventy-five years, and condensed them farther, into a single day, you might have something roughly comparable to a day in the life of a Christian. Abraham’s chosen descendants started out well enough under Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and every newly reborn Christian starts out with a great zeal and hunger for the Word. He goes through his life alternating between periods when he is spiritual and periods when he is more concerned with earthly issues and desires and goals. (Please understand that we are speaking in generalities, so that this probably applies to most of us.) More of his time will be earthly than heavenly, even for full time ministers. Add up the moments during the day when we are actually engaged in service to God, and add up all the intervening hours, and we see that we really may devote five or six hours out of twenty-four in service to God. For many, it is much less than that. This writer, though he spends hours every day in front of the computer, answering theological questions, counseling stricken souls, working on articles and other writings, also faces many interruptions. The telephone will ring and a buddy will want to discuss last night’s ball game, one or another family member will require some sort of assistance that cannot wait, errands must be run during business hours, meals must be prepared and the kitchen cleaned, laundry must be taken to the cleaners or picked up, deposits have to be made at the bank, supplies have to be purchased, correspondence outside the realm of spirituality must also be addressed. There are hundreds of moments every day in which service to God is interrupted by temporal tasks. This very article has been interrupted countless times already by the ding-dong of junk email. And the author must switch back to the mail program each time, because there may be some struggling saint who needs an immediate word of comfort or counsel or explanation. The devil diverts us as often as we will be diverted, and he takes great pleasure in doing so. Then, toward evening, weariness begins, and there is difficulty concentrating at the level required to attend to spiritual matters, so the computer is turned off, the office is shut down, and the television is turned, on or a book is opened—some sort of light reading usually—to take the place of the heavier books that must be read while the mind is still sharp. At the end of a day, he has spent a few hours counseling an afflicted soul, or a few articles might be written, or a handful of spiritual phone calls may have been made, but much more time has been spent in personal affairs than in service to God. And then in the evening, except on days when God keeps him busy, spiritual matters are laid aside in favor of the news on television or in the newspaper, or he may simply unwind by watching a baseball game. If this is true of a full time minister, how much more so for the average workaday Christian who must be out in the dark and sinful world all day every day, separated even from fellowship with other Christians? The devil has many more diversions than we have means of resistance. Yet, our God strengthens us for the tasks He has for us, and His work gets done.

Every year of our lives might be filled with days that are remarkably similar in nature to a proportionate period of time in Israel’s long history, so that we truly may draw instruction from the pages of the Old Testament. Israel was chastened often, and occasionally severely. And so are we. She was often blessed, and occasionally for extended periods. And so are we. You see, God has not changed. The same temptations that drew Israel away from her service to God also draw Christians away. But Israel did not have the fast-paced technological world that we enjoy today. She did not have the countless idols to divert her that now divert us. The same blessings that came upon Israel when she ordered her life with Scriptural priorities also are showered upon us when we turn from the world, regardless of the strength of the pull from it, and turn our hearts momentarily to service to God.

It all seems so very futile, does it not? And yet, it is not. God understands that we are temporal creatures living in a temporal world, and that we must uphold our secular realities and responsibilities as much as necessary. He expects us to, and He expects us to be good stewards of the resources He has placed at our disposal. But He also knows that we are spiritual creatures, born again of His own Seed (1 Jn 3:9), and desires that we should look to Him for our strength to cope and our only real hope. Like Israel, because that old man still walks in this flesh, we have periods when we are in rebellion against God. As He dealt with Israel, so He deals with us, but it is all proportionate. He cannot keep us “out of the land for two thousand years” because we won’t live that long. Thus does God chasten us proportionately more briefly. Where Israel might persist in some sin for a hundred years or more, we might persist in that same sin for only a couple of weeks more or less. But if God chastened Israel for it, so will He chasten us, not for punitive reasons, but as a means of correction.

In spite of it all, there were always a few, Christian friends, who were, like Isaiah, willing to stand up and turn their backs on the world and say, “Here am I; send me!” God does not expect you to rid yourself of all your earthly goods and sit on the mountaintop waiting for Him to find some way to use you. When Paul said to present your bodies a living sacrifice, he did not mean that you could not have a temporal life. In fact, you cannot avoid having a temporal life. But we are to be ready, at any cost, to come when we are called, serve however God leads us, look to Him daily for sustenance and providence. We must be ever ready to stand and say, “Here am I; send me,” even when it is not convenient, or even when it sometimes makes no sense to do what you feel led to do.

Habakkuk did not understand why God would use a heathen nation like Babylon to chasten His own chosen people, and he questioned God about it. God’s answer (Hab 2:4) was one that is found in three other places in the Scriptures (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38). He said, “...the just shall live by his faith.” Living by faith has a couple of meanings in the Scriptures. In one sense, that in Romans and Galatians, it refers to his eternal estate, as in being saved by grace through faith. But in Habakkuk and Hebrews, it means going through one’s temporal life acting by faith in that which we do not understand. More often than not, what God would have us do will not make sense when analyzed logically. If it did, there would be no need for faith. Rather, it would be the logical path to take, and we would take it without reference to God. Many Christians, not only today, but in every era of the Church Age, are afraid to step out on faith, and their failure to do so will lead to all manner of heartache and suffering when, if one trusted God when he was led to do something that made no sense at all, he would find blessing at the end of the trial. Gideon was to go into battle against insuperable odds, and he tested God, twice—once to see if a fleece that he put out at night could be made to be wet with heavy dew when nothing else had any dew upon it, and then to see if it would be dry when dew was heavy elsewhere (Judg 6:37-40). It is never a good idea to test God, but God was patient with Gideon, and answered his tests and still gave him victory in battle. That is the exception rather than the rule. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit that Gideon did not have, and today our walk of faith requires more than it did in Gideon’s day. This, “because him to whom much is given, of him shall much also be required, and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more” (Lk 12:48).

Paul said that we should present our bodies as living sacrifices to God (Rom 12:1), but he did not mean that we should hang those bodies on a cross as a testimony to the cross of our Lord. He did mean, however, that we should not consider that we ourselves have ownership of the bodies we possess, and that we should stand ready at any moment to do that which we are called upon to do. We do not operate, even in our temporal lives, according to the principles of the world. They do not apply to us, and we should not be conformed to them. In fact, when he tells us that it is reasonable for us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, he continues by saying, “And do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (12:2).

Transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now what in the world does that mean? It means nothing in the world, my brothers and sisters. It means something in heaven. “Transformed.” “Formed across.” How? By the renewing of your mind. What does that mean? It means that we no longer view our lives from temporal perspectives. When we are born again, we have a new mind, one whose seat is not earthly, but heavenly; not temporal, but eternal. Where our old man was earthly, and concerned with earthly things, our new man, our new mind, if you will, does not look up from earth to see heaven, but it looks down from heaven to see earth. And when we are born again, our minds, our very consciousnesses ought to be moved across that vast gulf between time and eternity, so that, more and more, as we grow in spiritual maturity, we view our earthly lives, our existences in time, as opportunities for service to God. We are to commune with God, and seek ways in which to serve Him in our every circumstance. If He blesses us with temporal riches, our first responsibility is to attend to heavenly purposes, and then to our own needs and desires. If He blesses us with great talents, those talents are, first of all, for his use in the furtherance of His Kingdom, and then for our personal pleasure. We have neither riches nor talents that are not first of all for God’s purposes, even if we use them also to support us in our temporal lives.

Yes, transformed by the renewing of our minds. To take a child and make of him a great athlete requires many hours of toil and practice. It requires great labor and purpose of mind and will. To be a fruitful saint of God does also. When we are born again and adopted into the very household of our great God, we are not brought in as infants, though we are infants in the understanding of our faith. Nevertheless, the adoption that God speaks of is not the bringing of a child who is not your own into your house and becoming responsible for him legally. The adoption that God gives us is to take what has been forever his own and grant to us the responsibility of adult children, charged with the continuance of His business here on earth. We may know little doctrine, but God can and does use brand new baby Christians to lead lost souls to His grace. And as those baby Christians feed upon the Bread of Life, the Word of God, they become strong and they grow in understanding, and their service becomes more fruitful. There is no Christian too young, nor any Christian who is too old to serve God fruitfully, but it takes a commitment that many are not willing to make.

How very sad, then, that so many Christians—genuine born again saints —never grow beyond infancy, and never offer anything of themselves to God in service. There are no excuses. You do not work too hard. You are not too tired. You are indeed smart enough. When your mind is renewed, when you have been formed across from earth to heaven, no priority supersedes your need and desire to serve God first. It is first in your mind upon arising, and lulls you to sweet sleep at night. It is on your mind during the day, and is your abiding hope throughout your life.

There will still be the countless interruptions. Traffic will be as heavy. Mosquitoes will still bite. Illnesses will still befall. Loved ones will die, or otherwise leave you. Friends will betray you. And yes, dear Christians, you will still be as ugly a sinner as you have ever been in this life. But God will make you stand, and you will not be so harsh a judge of others, nor will interruptions aggravate you nearly so much. This life will change little, but you and your priorities will be transformed altogether. Where today, when God calls us to some strange service, we make excuses (as if God were not God!), and find ways to avoid it, a renewed mind will serve God’s purpose with or without understanding, and will be enlarged and enriched, if not now, then in heaven, and our lives on earth will take on a grand glow of hope in the knowledge and certainty that the Day is soon coming when we shall see our Savior’s face, and rejoice in the greatness of His glory as our Groom becomes our Husband. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. For that is the only way indeed in which you may begin to truly present your body a living sacrifice. You can only understand it by doing it; and in the doing of it, be blessed.

9 to 5 Mission Field OMM

“Surely, as a woman treacherously departs from her lover, So you have dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel," declares the LORD” (Jer 3:20). Jeremiah 3 (and the similar theme of Ezekiel 16) describes God’s emotions and desperation in His dealings with His adulterous wife, Israel. Now these things are written not only to declare to Israel God’s faithfulness. These also let the Church know Christ is faithful to forgive and restore His adulterous bride as well (Rev 2-3, Rom 11).

God says, “If a husband divorces his wife and she goes from him and belongs to another man, will he still return to her? Will not that land be completely polluted? But you are a harlot with many lovers; yet you turn to Me” (Jer 3:1). Jeremiah declares the dismay (3:4-6) and actual bewilderment (3:7) God felt over Israel’s unfaithfulness. He describes her as a wife committing adultery. He describes the divorce that subsequently takes place and the woman defiles herself further by marrying her lover. Then the ultimate disregard for the covenant relationship, she desires to leave her lover and return to the husband for remarriage. God calls this an abomination (Deu 24:4). In Lev 18:27-28 it is stated that the pollution the Land would experience over this. The Lord asks Jeremiah twice (Ch. 6 & 8) if Israel was ashamed over this abomination. The answer is negative, “They couldn’t even blush!”

The Lord expresses his wrath in these passages as in Ezekiel. But Jeremiah 3 also describes the deep hurt the Lord experienced. In verse 1 the Lord is exasperated. Will they return and pretend it will all be the way it used to be? In verse 4 is the shock over Israel calling Him tenderly by affectionate names. Were they so blind not to see how they grieved Him? (Isa 63:10).In verse 6, the Lord appeals to the king as a witness in His own astonishment. In verse 7 the Lord declares His secret hope in thinking they would return and be ashamed and sorrowful. But, God was disappointed. He waited in vain for her return. Then the people (Judah) pretended to return, but it was a deception (verse 10).

So shall the Lord be the angry husband forever? Should He be the father disowning his worthless son? He sends the prophet to speak the message: “Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, 'Return, faithless Israel,' declares the LORD; ‘I will not look upon you in anger. For I am gracious,’ declares the LORD; ‘I will not be angry forever.’” (Jer 3:12) The sorrowful, angry, disappointed Lord can do one thing: beckon His whoring wife to return. He declares how safe and genuine this offer is. He will not be angry forever.

The reason why the Lord can forgive any who return to Him is this: I am gracious. Israel would be restored, but not by their works; not even by their repentance, but by His grace (Zech. 12:10). This is how He has saved people through all generations. This is how the church stands today (Eph 2:8-9). God’s grace is greater than His wrath! The anger that will consume the world in judgment is superseded when a sinner receives His grace. The Lord is free to forgive.

Ultimately, Jeremiah would be the representative to declare God’s plan to erase the abominations. The Lord would make His people clean. He would forgive them completely. He would be better than a husband. He would know them intimately and put His wisdom in their hearts and minds (Jer 31:31). Then they could never leave Him again. (3:13-19)

To reassure any who doubt, He gave a promise. To refute any evil teachers who dare say, ‘God is through with Israel’ the Lord gave His promise: “You would have to knock out the sun, moon, stars and the fabric of space before God’s earthly chosen people would pass away” (Jer 31:36-7).

The prophet Hosea married a prostitute and then took her back after further unfaithfulness. And so, the Lord with Israel. The gracious, loving God would get over His hurts and forget her sins toward Him. He would take her again to Himself and their marriage would continue in faithfulness. Only then would they truly know the Lord. (Hos 2:19-20) The love of God would be known when the saving power of God acts. This is the grace of God.

The Lord would bear all this grief so the people would come to learn how desirous He is to heal those who depart from Him (Jer 3:22). Then they would willingly return. He is a gracious, loving, forgiving God, One who is safe to love. This they would learn only after having been forgiven what was unforgivable. Then they would return in repentance and sorrow (Jer 3:25)

And so the Church is to take note (1 Co 10:11). The Church is warned to take heed of this example and be faithful in heart toward the Lord. Has not Christendom followed in Israel’s steps? The Lord describes the Church this way in His letters. The message for the adulterous is to repent and know the grace and love of the Lord. The pain He feels reaching out to Israel (Rom 10:21) is expressed today for the Church who has rejected Him (Rev 3:19-20).

He calls the disobedient, whom he loves and disciplines. To all that still go astray in their hearts, the message of old is uttered, “Be zealous and repent!” As with Israel, it is not the Church corporately that is adulterous, but it is individuals who submit to the worldly harlot, who constitute the true Church, and it is a shameful thing indeed! Let us turn our affections Godward!

Serving in the Last Days

As the situation in the Middle East unfolds, and the Church more and more rapidly every day sees the events that are to follow the rapture draw near, we know that the times and the seasons are upon us. Whether it is ten minutes or twenty millennia, we ought always to be watchful. The world stage is set, so that we do not expect it to be very long at all before we hear the trumpet and the shout. As of the time of this writing (8/11), the fighting continues and the world body is ever more desperate to find some way to satisfy everybody with some sort of comprehensive plan for peace. Whether the fighting going on at this time will prove to be the spur to Daniel’s peace plan (9:27) remains to be seen. If it is, then the time is extremely short indeed.

So what’s a fellow to do? Assuming that each of our readers is both a born again believer and active in his or her own personal ministry already, the answer is to do what you have been doing. Just because the end of the Age is upon us, our ministries have not changed. If you pastor a church, make your congregations aware of the possibilities, and urge them to step up to the plate consistently in their own ministries. If you are a church member, and do nothing more than go to church on Sunday, and maybe even Wednesday, perhaps it is time to reevaluate how you might be of service to God. “But He never does anything in my life,” some say. It may be that you have crowded so much world into your life that God has no place in it except in name only. It may be that you have not asked Him sincerely to make you fruitful. James tells us (4:2) that we receive not because we ask not. Ask God to use you, to bring you into contact with someone to whom you can minister in some way and become fruitful. It is always in God’s interests to use any of His saints who are willing to be used, and whatever fruit you bear does not come from your wisdom, but from the wisdom of God in you.

Saints of God, these are the last days, whether the rapture should happen in the next heartbeat or twenty more years down the road. When it does happen, the first event is going to be the judgment seat of Christ, where the works of ministry that we have done will be judged. Sin will not be the issue, so that no Christian can look back over his life and say, “Well, I’ve been ‘better’ than most.” The issue in that judgment is of the works of those already saved. What have you done to further the Gospel will be the question whose answer will be judged.

If you have been slack in your ministry, and many have been, then do not panic. If God hasn’t been using you, it may be because you haven’t asked Him to use you. So ask Him to use you and make you fruitful. You cannot make yourself fruitful, but God both can and will. Those who have been serving consistently might examine the nature and fruitfulness of their service and tweak it as may be required, but wholesale changes are probably not needed. Those who serve in full time ministry, tighten up and reenergize.

It is clear that many more troubles have arisen in recent years that pastors must deal with, and they grow weary, especially as the volume of needs increases with the number of souls being moved toward a more active personal ministry. For every rededication of one’s life, the devil has countless diversions, and all the more so now that the time is near. Pastors and elders and deacons alike ought to be making their flocks aware that they are going to be judged, not on the basis of their sins, but on the fruitfulness of their own individual ministries. If preachers are to effectively move their congregations to action, then it behooves every full time minister to reexamine his own ministry. He ought to redouble his effort to lead his flock down productive and fruitful paths. Ministers and laypersons alike ought now to pay somewhat closer attention to their individual ministries, pray to be made fruitful and wise.

The nearer we come to the end of this age, the more fiercely does the devil resist our efforts. It is folly to go out without being fully armored and armed with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. Do you keep a Bible in your car or purse? If not, start doing so. How shall you show anyone the Word of God if you do not have it with you. Going out unarmed shouts to the entire spiritual realm that you do not expect to be used by God. Expectation is the product of faith.

One way to read your “ministry meter” is to take a look at whether or how severely the world is persecuting you. If you are diligently serving God, the devil will always attack you with great zeal, and he will frequently use the world to do so. If you are heavily beset by problems from without, you are either doing very well indeed, or you are being thumped on the head. It may be that God is trying to get your attention.