Notes of Faith October 7, 2020

(Sent original email from Lamb & Lion Ministries to CGBC Flock)

For years, some Christians have held out hope that America would experience another wave of spiritual regeneration. But midway through 2020, anarchists and agitators, culture-drivers and even some politicians, are openly advocating for Socialism, racial division, and the wholesale rejection of Judeo-Christian values.

So which is it? Are we poised for revival or revolution? This was our discussion on this week's episode of "Christ in Prophecy".

It is very unlikely that America will experience another national revival. That is not to minimize the power of the Holy Spirit, but merely to state the obvious. Much, if not most, of the Church is preoccupied with the Social Gospel and has long abandoned a zeal for the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the age of "woke" relativism, evangelism is passé.

Prophecy Fulfilled

This reality could be disheartening, but it is exactly what Bible prophecy says will happen in the end-times. Jesus told us that as the end draws near, lawlessness will increase and the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). Paul outlined the steady decline of any society that rejects God; He gives them over to increasing debauchery and inevitable destruction (Romans 1:18-32). Paul also foretold the rise of apostasy in the latter times, as some fall away from the faith handed down to the saints (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 and 1 Timothy 4:1).

Perhaps even more disheartening to American patriots — including Christians — is our society's trend toward revolution. In just the last 20 years, we've seen a dramatic rise in lawlessness and increased polarization — politically, racially, ethnically, economically and socially.

In recent months, chaos has engulfed many American cities. Even now, polls claim that an increasing number of Americans are ready to reject Capitalism in favor of Socialism. At the core of movements like Progressivism and Black Lives Matter is a rejection of Judeo-Christian morality, worldview and societal norms.

But in that regard, we've been in the midst of a revolution since the mid-1960s. The sexual revolution that cast off "fetters" of restraint has already resulted in rampant adultery and fornication, an explosion of pornography and divorce and an embrace of every abomination of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle. In every arena, we witness the rise of the satanic religion of Humanism with its idolization of individual autonomy.

So what hope remains if revival is unrealistic and revolution is underway?

Reliance on God's Word

For the individual believer, the same Word of God that revealed these inevitable end-time realities must ground our faith. Like David, we can boldly proclaim (Psalm 56:9-11):

This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise, in God I have put my trust. I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?

The Bible offers us many examples of people who determined to put their trust in God — even in the midst of catastrophe. Jeremiah offered a testimony of hope in spite of national disaster (Lamentations 3:19-24). Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego proclaimed their reliance on God in the face of a fiery furnace (Daniel 3:16-17). And Habakkuk, who calmed his own heart with a prayer requesting mercy in the midst of wrath (Habakkuk 3:1-2).

Christians can demonstrate that kind of tough faith because we have the revelation of God. He has told us what to expect as the Day of the Lord draws near. And, He has promised never to leave us or forsake us.

Guidelines for End-Time Living

God reveals Himself and His overarching plan for Mankind throughout the entire Word of God. Here are some practical ways Christians can overcome the fear and the apostasy of the present age:

·         Study the Word of God (hide it in your heart, glean its promises, become "well-versed").

·         Pray (without ceasing).

·         Determine not to quench or grieve the Holy Spirit.

·         Keep your eyes on Jesus, not only to receive a blessing, but also to:

o    Motivate urgent evangelism.

o    Ensure holy living.

o    Inspire a vibrant expectancy of His soon return (which guarantees a blessing in and of itself).

Our Only Hope

Our hope is not in national revival. It is not in dodging revolution and national self-destruction through one more election cycle — even as we must stay engaged as salt and light in the gathering darkness. Our blessed hope is in the Person and the promises of Jesus Christ. As believers, we cling to the truth God shared with Habakkuk after revealing ominous news: "the righteous shall live by faith" (Habakkuk 2:4).

If you are not yet a Christian, please understand that national revival is unrealistically optimistic and revolution offers only hopelessness. Christians are not mere optimists or realists — we are people of Hope.

By placing your trust in Jesus Christ — our Blessed Hope — you can overcome the chaos that is leading the world toward inevitable destruction. When you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, the Holy Spirit will mold you and "guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13).

Revival still happens — one person at a time. And the transformation that every believer in Jesus Christ undergoes is truly revolutionary (Romans 8:29-30).

Have faith!  No matter what happens in the next month, year, or our lifetime… nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 6, 2020

As Christians, we are not interested in merely reading our Bibles. We want to be moved, inspired, changed by what we read. We do not wake up early simply to pass our eyes over the pages of Scripture. We come to meet God (1 Samuel 3:21). We come to taste honey and gather gold (Psalm 19:10). We come to “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). That means days of ordinary devotions, as we’ve all experienced, can be all the more disappointing.

As any faithful Bible reader knows, many devotional times come and go without fireworks. We may get alone, ask for God’s help, read attentively, and then rise up feeling — normal. Our time in the living, active, inspired word of God has felt spectacularly ordinary.

Sometimes, the ordinariness comes as a result of our lingering blindness to glory. I, for one, feel a kinship with those disciples on the Emmaus road, to whom Jesus said, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25). God save us from foolish minds and slow hearts, which so often close our eyes to the light of his revelation.

“The grace of God sometimes lands on us like lighting, and sometimes falls like dew.”

Yet the cause does not always lie in us. If we are reading our Bibles rightly, in fact, we should expect many mornings of ordinary devotions: devotions that do not sparkle with insight or direct-to-life application, but that nevertheless do us good. Just as most meals are ordinary, but still nourish, and just as most conversations with friends are ordinary, but still deepen affection, so most devotions are ordinary, but still grow us in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Saturated with Scripture

As a new Christian in college, I carried in my pocket a packet of Scripture-memory cards from the Navigators. On one of the first cards, I found 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” I believed Paul’s words readily, having felt firsthand the profit of books like John and Romans, Philippians and James. Scarcely did I realize then, however, that Paul would have thought first of passages quite different from these — passages from which I struggled then (and still do now) to find the same kind of encouragement.

Consider, for example, some of the God-breathed, profitable Scripture Paul had in mind as he wrote 2 Timothy:

Solomon’s discussion of wisdom in Proverbs 2:6 (2 Timothy 2:7)

Isaiah’s prophecy of the cornerstone in Isaiah 28:16 (2 Timothy 2:19)

The story of Korah’s rebellion in Numbers 16 (2 Timothy 2:19)

The account of the Egyptian magicians in Exodus 7–9 (2 Timothy 3:8)

Few of us would dip into these passages for immediate edification. Few of us would offer them as our first illustrations of God-breathed, profitable Scriptures. Many of us, after stumbling through such pages of God’s word, emerge on the other side feeling unchanged, uninspired — ordinary.

We can strive to avoid such experiences, of course, by staying safely in those parts of Scripture where we have felt God’s breath most powerfully. And yet, if we want a soul not merely sprinkled but saturated with God’s words, our only option is to carry on a long, patient acquaintance with passages that seem obscure. With passages that, upon first, second, or even fifth reading, leave us feeling quite ordinary afterward, but that slowly reveal the scope of God’s glory and make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15).

Devotions Without a Devotional

Perhaps our impatience with days of ordinary devotions comes from the expectation that daily devotions should be like devotionals. A devotional gathers perhaps a month’s or a year’s worth of daily readings, each designed to give a boost toward Godward thinking and living. And the best of them do so quite well.

Daily devotionals have a place in the Christian life. (I would have to ditch Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening if I thought otherwise.) Yet we do well to remember that, in giving us Scripture, God did not intend to give us a typical daily devotional. If he had, the chronicler might have spared us his genealogies, Ezekiel might have skipped his extended temple vision, and the author of Hebrews might have left out Melchizedek.

If a daily devotional is like a photo album, with each page offering a self-contained snapshot of glory, Scripture itself is like a mural, with each day’s reading comprising only a centimeter of the whole. Some days, we happen upon a centimeter bright with glory, perhaps Psalm 23 or Romans 8. Other days, a dark image appears before us, as when we read prophecies or stories of judgment. Still other days, we find a section that simply mystifies us, the kind that we would never find in a daily devotional.

Over time, though, we begin to grasp a glory in this mural that a snapshot could never give: a swirl of brightness and darkness, clarity and obscurity that coalesces into a masterpiece. And on those days, we will not wish that we had stayed safely within the snapshots of glory.

Grace Like Dew

We can rarely judge the value of our daily devotions, then, by considering any day in itself. In fact, initial impressions can deceive. High-octane devotions do not always lead to spiritual growth, and ordinary devotions often yield more fruit than we expect. J.C. Ryle once preached,

Do not think you are getting no good from the Bible, merely because you do not see that good day by day. The greatest effects are by no means those which make the most noise, and are the most easily observed. The greatest effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being produced. Think of the influence of the moon upon the earth, and of the air upon the human lungs. Remember how silently the dew falls, and how imperceptibly the grass grows. There may be far more doing than you think in your soul by your Bible-reading.

“Ordinary devotions are not the enemy. Like the manna in the wilderness, they too are from God.”

The grace of God sometimes lands on us like lighting, and sometimes falls like dew. During some devotions, God places us in the cleft of the rock and lets us catch the trailing edge of his glory as he passes by (Exodus 33:18–23). During others, he shrouds us in darkness so that we cannot see (Isaiah 50:10). Yet if we read patiently and faithfully, not trusting in our wisdom but crying out for God’s, then the grace of God, though perhaps hidden in the moment, will in due time reveal its silent working.

Sometimes, then, we do well to ask of our morning devotions not “What were my feelings?” but “What, over time, are the effects?” Regardless of what I feel on any given morning, am I coming to treasure more of Christ’s multifaceted glories? Is God’s word making me a more holy husband, wife, brother, sister, friend? Am I growing in my readiness for every good work (2 Timothy 3:17)?

Manna and Milk

Ordinary devotions, of course, are not the ideal. We do not hope to come to our Bibles and walk away unmoved — or, worse, confused. We hope rather to “behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18) and walk away full of praise. And when this hope is deferred, it too can make the heart sick.

Yet neither are ordinary devotions the enemy. Like the manna in the wilderness, they too are from God. They too nourish and sustain us, even if imperceptibly. If we will patiently, faithfully eat the food God provides, ordinary days will give way to the milk and honey we long to taste again.

And in the meantime, how good it is for us to be thrown back on God, knowing more deeply than ever that if we are to see at all, he must give us sight. How good to sing with the psalmist, “As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us” (Psalm 123:2). In God’s good time, if we do not give up, the unfolding of his words will give light (Psalm 119:130).

Scott Hubbard is a graduate of Bethlehem College & Seminary and an editor for desiringGod.org.

The discipline of daily devotions is not easy and even more so when we do not seem to hear some great challenge or encouragement from the Lord.  But He is using His Word to day by day make us more like Christ!  Rest assured that God is fulfilling His promises to you!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 4, 2020

Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. (Revelation 5:9)

Jesus Christ is a king unlike any other king. Mere human monarchs have their strengths and weaknesses, their fortes and flaws, the particular glories for which they are remembered and the inevitable inadequacies they wish to be forgotten. Yet the man Christ Jesus — not only truly human but also truly God — eclipses and far surpasses every one.

Jesus is worthy of more than a singular crown. As King of kings, and Lord of lords, and Glory of glories, he is worthy of many.

Lord of Love

For one, King Jesus has demonstrated in history — objectively, in time and space — his allegiance and affection for his people in the sacrificial action of dying for them.

When Christ’s subjects consider his love, we are not left to speculate about the subjective. Rather, we look to the concrete demonstration of his love for us, and his Father’s love for us in him, at the cross: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Behold his hands and side!

“The depths of our need, and the length to which he went to rescue us, show us the heights of Christ’s love.”TweetShare on Facebook

In his glorified body, the risen Christ carries, visibly, the marks of crucifixion in the scars of his hands and side that forever exude his love for his people. One day we will see his “rich wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.” No act of love is greater than the Son of God himself not only becoming man but a servant, and humbling himself all the way to death, even death on a cross, to reconcile to himself not the good and righteous but us sinners. The depths of our need, and the length to which he went to rescue us, show us the heights of his love.

Lord of Life

But demonstrating his love, by giving himself to death for sinners, would have been tragic were he not Lord of life able to triumph over the grave. We would have no eternal life were he not alive for us to be joined to him. But he is not dead; he is alive.

As Creator, “In him was life” (John 1:4), and now as the resurrected one who has conquered death, we have new life in him, the very life of his resurrection, life that will not die. As Jesus said to Martha when she was grieving the death of her brother — and Jesus was about to raise him — “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26).

Earthly rulers will come and go; they have life for a while, as long as King Jesus sees fits to grant it, but they are not its lord. But Jesus is the Lord of all life, from the beginning to the end, from before the foundation of the world to eternity future, from the new birth until the new heavens and new earth.

Lord of Heaven

In his resurrection life, Jesus is not only Lord over all earthly lords. He now reigns as Lord of heaven. Not only has he, as human, been admitted to heaven following his ascension, but he has come forth to the very center to sit with his Father on the throne of the universe. In the greatest enthronement ceremony in all history, surrounded by the angelic hosts, the crown of heaven has been placed on his head, and his Father has given King Jesus the scepter to rule the nations.

“Time is his. The years are his. In his perfect timing, Christ will bring this fallen age to an end.”TweetShare on Facebook

And as Lord of heaven, he does not stand but sits. It is a mark of his glory that he now sits. He is seated on heaven’s throne. In the old-covenant arrangement, “every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet” (Hebrews 10:11–13). As Lord of heaven, he sits with his Father on “the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1, 3).

Lord of Years

Finally, among endless other glories, Jesus is Lord of time. “He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2), and “he is before all things” (Colossians 1:17). And with his coming to earth, he split history in half. Without him, there would have been no time and history. Heaven’s worship declares him to be the one “worthy . . . to take the scroll [of God’s purposes in history] and to open its seals” (Revelation 5:9).

The apostle Peter tells us of King Jesus’s sovereign reign over time: “Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). He is not slow, as we’re prone to reckon slowness and grow impatient, but he is patient, not eager for any to perish but to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

But soon enough he will come again, and all in a moment, like a thief (2 Peter 3:10). Time is his. The years are his. He is attentive to every year and hour, every month and minute, and in his perfect timing, he will destroy the ungodly (2 Peter 3:7) and bring this fallen age to an end, and usher his people into the new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).

Thy Matchless King

Jesus is indeed a matchless king, and by faith and the power of his Spirit, he is our King. We not only look on his glories from a distance but we admire him as a brother, as a friend, as those who are known by him, and know ourselves loved by him.

There is no king like Jesus. He is worthy of many crowns.

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Church in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Our loving, sacrificial, holy, and righteous King is coming again soon to judge the world, rule and reign on the earth, having all things put under His feet, and put an end to death which had its beginning with Satan deceiving mankind about truth and the heart of God.  Times are hard, but we must persevere and look up … for our redemption draweth nigh!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 3, 2020

“Pastor John, what can I say to my friend that refuses to study the Bible for himself because he thinks he can get all the answers from teachers like you and others online? He thinks that hours spent listening to good and faithful expositions of Scripture is time better spent than reading the Bible for himself. He thinks sermons are less confusing and more efficient in his pursuit to comprehend the message of the Bible. How would you make the case otherwise?”

Well, when I saw this question, I was really eager to say something about it because, just this morning when I read the question, I was on a Zoom call with two precious friends, exulting together over Psalm 119:97–100, which addresses this very issue directly, and ties into my own personal experience, and fills me with a longing to help this young brother wake up both to the preciousness of what he’s missing and the danger that he’s in if he keeps thinking that mere human teachers can replace the very word of God as the focus of his meditation.

So, let me start with that passage of Scripture, and show how relevant it is to his question and what it has meant to me in my personal experience, and then give two other reasons for why I think he should give himself primarily to serious, prayerful, personal meditation directly on God’s word, rather than assuming that he will be better off receiving God’s word always through the filter of human teachers.

Here is what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 119:97–100:

Oh how I love your law!

     It is my meditation all the day.

Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,

     for it is ever with me.

I have more understanding than all my teachers,

     for your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged,

     for I keep your precepts.

Simple Made Wise

When I was in graduate school in Germany, 45 years ago or so, I was in my twenties. I was surrounded by world-class, high-powered scholarship in people who did not believe the Scriptures as God’s word or share my love for the gospel. I knew that, given my limits, I could never read as much as they read or remember as much as they remember or have in my head as many historical facts as they did.

But I took tremendous heart from Psalm 119:99. It had a powerful effect on my perseverance and confidence that God would make himself known to me, that he would keep me from doctrinal error, and that he would use me — even as much or more than those folks — to make an impact on the world for his name.

“If you are using human teachers as the sole means of understanding God’s word, by what will you judge the teachers?”

And here’s what the verse says: “I have more understanding than all my teachers.” Really? How can you say that? Because “your testimonies are my meditation.” Now, when the psalmist said that, it’s very likely he was talking about esteemed teachers who were looking at the same record of God’s word that he was looking at. And the difference is that the psalmist believed that a direct, sustained, personal, love-filled meditation on the word of God itself would produce, in his mind and in his heart, a kind of discernment and a kind of insight that would protect him from errors in his teachers, and indeed, would give him an authentic, personal, true understanding of God and his ways that would go beyond what he got from his teachers, or what they got from their way of study.

Now that was enormously important and encouraging and protecting to me. It meant that I didn’t feel like I was at the mercy of scholarship. I had access to something so powerful and so precious that by personal, prayerful, sustained, thoughtful, rigorous, love-soaked meditation, I would see things and comprehend things and taste things that these teachers didn’t see, didn’t comprehend, didn’t taste. And frankly, looking back fifty years now, I believe it’s true. I believe God granted me to see beautiful things that many of my more sophisticated, even more intelligent, teachers did not see.

Not a Second-Hander

But the text is even more amazing than that. And this is what I saw this morning as we were pondering these verses together. It says, “Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me” (Psalm 119:98). And then in the middle it says what I was just talking about: “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99). And then it says again, “I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts” (Psalm 119:100). So, there are three steps:

Your word is ever with me.

It is my constant meditation.

I obey it.

And when I do that, I exceed three groups of people in three ways:

I exceed my enemies, presumably in their subtleties, so that they can’t trip me up and bring me to ruin.

I exceed my teachers in their doctrinal grasp of things, so they can’t mislead me in false doctrine.

I exceed the aged, so that all their life experience can’t intimidate me if it should point me away from God’s way.

So, my first response to our friend in Hong Kong is this: Do you believe these words? Do you believe the Scripture? Do you believe that having the word of God with you, meditating on it day and night, and obeying it will bear better fruit of insight and wisdom in your life than always depending on other human teachers? That’s the question facing you: Do you believe it? Are you content to be a second-hander for the rest of your life in view of Psalm 119:99 and what it promises?

Test Everything

Here’s my second response: the Bible makes clear that when we are taught something by somebody, or when somebody makes some prophetic pronouncement to us, we are to “test everything” and “hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). We are to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1).

“Why do you want to avoid the immediate, authentic experience of savoring your love letter?”

And Paul gave us the criterion for the test in 1 Corinthians 14:37–38: “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.” In other words, Paul’s word, the apostolic word — not the word of any human teacher, John Piper included — is the criterion by which we judge the truth and authenticity of teachers.

So, I would simply ask our young friend there in Hong Kong: If you are using teachers, human teachers, as the sole means of understanding God’s word, by what will you judge the teachers with any confidence?

Defective Delight

And finally, a third thing I would say is this: I think there’s a love problem — I mean, a problem with the way God and his precious word are being loved by this brother. Something’s wrong with the taste palate of the tongue of your soul if you need to have the food of God’s word always spiced with the words of a fallible human being. Something is wrong. Do you ever say with the psalmist, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97)?

Or to put it starkly: something is amiss in a love relationship if, every time a lover gets a letter from his beloved, instead of reading it slowly — I can’t help but think back on being a water-safety instructor in 1967, madly in love with Noël, who was 700 miles away. And I’ll tell you, when one of those lavender envelopes came in the mail, I just went out in the woods and smelled it. If every time a lover gets a letter from his beloved, instead of reading it — smelling it slowly as if to savor every word, revealing the heart and the mind of the beloved — he goes searching for somebody else to read the letter to him and then talk to him about the letter, that’s a defective relationship. I mean, this is serious.

Perhaps at the bottom of the problem is that our friend has so completely intellectualized his faith that the only category in which he thinks, the only category that’s going to profit him, he thinks, is the category of verbal explanation. There are a lot of people who think about sermons that way. They just think, “I need to know; I need some more information, some more explanation,” rather than also the heartfelt exultation that a lover has in reading the very words of his beloved.

So, those are my three questions:

Do you believe Psalm 119:99?

How will you test the reliability of your teachers by the word of God?

Why do you want to avoid the immediate, authentic experience of savoring your love letter by asking someone else to read it for you?

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

For your own spiritual maturity and blessing, PLEASE, get into the Word of God yourselves on a daily basis!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith October 2, 2020

Created Male and Female

One of the biggest challenges to Christians who would argue for a notion like “biblical manhood and womanhood” is that the very idea sounds strange to modern audiences. It often sounds like Christians are trying to impose a sort of playacting or subjective role-playing on others.

“Biblical sexuality is normal because it’s just how God made the world. Biblical sexuality is natural.”TweetShare on Facebook

Yet being a man or a woman shouldn’t be a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, hidden inside an enigma. No, if “biblical manhood and womanhood” is going to genuinely persuade people today, Christians have to show that it’s normal. Not normal judged by the changing standards of society, of course, but normal in the sense that it makes sense of the way the world actually is. Biblical sexuality is normal because it’s just how God made the world. Biblical sexuality is natural.

But how do we demonstrate this? Stereotypes and anecdotes won’t work. We need something more. And this is where natural revelation is our friend.

Nature and Natural Revelation

The term nature may bring to mind National Geographic or The Nature Channel. This isn’t wrong, but it’s only one subset of what Christians mean by natural revelation. Yes, natural revelation includes creatures like the horse (Proverbs 26:3) and the ant (Proverbs 6:6), and it includes aspects of creation like the stars and the heavens themselves (Psalm 19:1). We can even learn about God’s “invisible attributes . . . in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20).

But natural revelation also includes human nature — the basic knowledge of God, reality, even morality that is imprinted on every human heart (Romans 1:18, 32; 2:14–15). The apostle Paul can even appeal to nature when teaching men and women how to dress and interact with the opposite sex in a public social setting (1 Corinthians 11:14).

When Christians argue for “natural revelation,” what they mean is that God has created the world, including humans and human nature, in a way that is intelligible, durable, and consistent. After the fall, nature is certainly marred, and sinners abuse it, but the message of redemption is not a salvation from nature or a rejection of it, but rather a restoration of the original goodness of nature and the proper ordering of it to its original good end — the worship of and communion with the triune God. And biblically speaking, most people can still recognize nature and what it teaches. It can’t lead them to salvation, but it does keep them accountable.

“Nature teaches us that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are real categories and not social constructs.”

So, for our conversation about manhood and womanhood, nature teaches us that “man” and “woman” are real categories and not social constructs. Manhood and womanhood are real created constitutions. While there is a long and layered conversation about this topic in the history of philosophy, I would like to argue for this claim by highlighting some of the recent findings in the sciences. You might be surprised to know what’s out there. Even though we live in an age of secularism, reality is a stubborn thing.

Down to Every Cell

Recent breakthroughs in human genetics have made it clear that humanity is fundamentally dimorphic, which is to say, human nature is irreducibly male and female. Writing in 2001 for the Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Understanding the Biology of Sex and Gender Differences, Theresa Wiseman and Mary-Lou Perdue concluded, “Males and females have partially different genomes.” This led them to call for “research on sex at the cellular level.” That call was taken up by Paula Johnson in 2013, who said, “Every cell has a sex — and what that means is that men and women are different down to the cellular and molecular level. It means that we’re different across all of our organs, from our brains to our hearts, our lungs, our joints” (quoted in Nancy Pearcey’s Love Thy Body, 196). So, at the bare minimum, nature teaches us that God created humans male and female.

This physiological difference between men and women is most obvious in the world of professional sports. As the transgender ideology has gained more social acceptance, athletes who are biologically and genetically male have begun competing in women’s sporting leagues, with predictable results. In at least one instance, the natural disparity was too much for even otherwise sympathetic onlookers.

Ultra-popular podcaster and mixed-martial-arts color commentator Joe Rogan protested that people with male bodies should not compete against people with female bodies. He argued that male bodies have denser bones, larger hands, and greater muscle mass. This set off a small controversy, but Rogan was supported by the science. Dr. Ramona Krutzik explained that Rogan’s comments were accurate. More than this, Dr. Krutzik pointed out that genetic and hormonal “imprinting” accounts for males having a significantly higher level of aggression than females. In addition to distinct anatomical features, men even have a different chemical makeup.

Wired to Lead

This point about male aggression has been noticed by social scientists as well. In 1973, Steven Goldberg published The Inevitability of Patriarchy, in which he argued that biological differences between men and women explained the preponderance of male leadership across social and political institutions. Importantly, Goldberg conducted a global study of diverse societies across the world. He was not limiting himself to “Western” patterns. He updated his argument in 1993 in Why Men Rule, emphasizing statistics from contemporary workplaces, but reasserting his main thesis. In a 1991 essay, he explains it this way:

It is precisely the male’s greater tendency to respond with dominance and attainment behavior to the cues of hierarchy and status that is rooted in neuroendocrinological differences between males and females. Loosely speaking, we can conceptualize this as a neuroendocrinologically rooted greater male competitiveness that is elicited by hierarchy or status when there is hierarchy or status differentiation. (When Wish Replaces Thought, 75)

For Goldberg, this means that there is scientific evidence to suggest that men are more attracted to conflict and competition, whereas women are more attracted to nurture and relationship-building. Men are more likely to skip the personal details and get down to the business at hand, whereas women want to get to know their conversation partner on a more intimate level. And Goldberg believes that this then explains why men tend to attain leadership and even dominance across society. It should be noted that Goldberg makes no ethical evaluation of this, and many of his observations could also be used to explain bad behavior. But what’s important is his identification and explanation of a steady general truth about men and women.

What Boys and Girls Need

Such sentiments are surely striking, perhaps even offensive, and yet they keep showing up. Jordan Peterson, the popular psychologist and author, has made similar points. In his book 12 Rules for Life, Peterson says,

[Boys] are less agreeable (agreeableness being a personality trait associated with compassion, empathy, and avoidance of conflict) and less susceptible to anxiety and depression, at least after both sexes hit puberty. Boys’ interests tilt towards things; girls’ interests tilt towards people. Strikingly, these differences, strongly influenced by biological factors, are most pronounced in the Scandinavian societies where gender-equality has been pushed hardest: this is the opposite of what would be expected by those who insist, ever more loudly, that gender is a social construct. It isn’t. This isn’t a debate. The data are in. (293)

Instead of dominance, Peterson emphasizes agreeableness and disagreeableness. Boys have more tolerance for disagreeableness. Often, disagreeability is an expectation and a requirement for male social interaction. Peterson believes that this has profound implications for educating and mentoring boys and girls. They require different approaches, and they often need leadership and affection from different people.

“Apart from grace, nature will become cruel. Yet grace does not abolish nature, but rather restores it.”

Adolescent boys, especially, need affection from other males and older males, particularly their fathers, and they need to be challenged by competition and conflict, but in constructive rather than destructive ways. They don’t need to fight, but they do need to wrestle. Girls, on the other hand, need to be taught how to manage personal relationships and feelings like empathy in ways that are moderate and not all-consuming. They need to be taught how to give themselves to a relationship without being overtaken by it.

These two areas of emphasis are not mutually exclusive, as there are common moral truths in both, but the depth of their impact and the complexity of their social manifestation does indeed differ between the sexes. Peterson attaches a lengthy list of sources to back up his claims (on pages 377–378 in his book).

It is, of course, possible for various individual claims and studies to be challenged. Students of nature are not infallible. And exceptional cases are also possible. There are certainly some males and females who conform less to the norms explained above. But when the observer moves back from the trees to perceive the forest as a whole, a consistent picture emerges.

And for the Christian, this makes perfect sense. The various social expressions of masculinity and femininity demonstrate not only a neurological or chemical reality, but a creational reality. This is how God has made man and woman. Man is the head; woman is the body (1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:23). This has physical, moral, and sociopolitical implications.

Truly Human in Christ

So, what does nature teach? It teaches us that men and women are real, and that men and women are different. It also teaches us that men and women have certain distinct anatomical, physiological, and psychological characteristics. For Christians, this means that they have different abilities. It also means that they have different spiritual opportunities and challenges.

If men are created by God for leadership and the assumption of sacrificial responsibility for the good of those under them, then we should expect that sin will twist these goals toward domination and conquest. Young men are easily led by their bellies instead of their chests. But the right way to correct such sinful inclinations is not to try to eradicate the drive for competition or even conflict. We should not try to emasculate men. Instead, the right way to correct a disorder is to reorder it, to point to the proper way for men to be men. And the same is true for women. Sin turns their virtues into their vices. Redemption, on the other hand, makes the crooked places straight. Pastors and Christian leaders should work with the grain of nature, disciplining and directing our anthropological attributes toward noble ends.

Christian pastors and teachers should not be afraid to talk about these specific aspects of reality. Natural revelation, properly understood, will actually expand our understanding of special revelation and bring us to a fuller, more nuanced, accurate, and effective teaching about men and women.

This has just been an introduction to a study that could consume a lifetime. What we see is that natural revelation is real. To quote Jordan Peterson, “The data are in.” And the data support the biblical teaching. The Bible teaches us more, of course. It teaches us that sinners will misuse nature in the selfish pursuit of gain and conquest. Apart from grace, nature will become cruel. Yet grace does not abolish nature, but rather restores it. God restores our original image most fully in his Son. Indeed, it is in and through Christian graces like self-sacrificial and spiritual communion that men and women can be the right kind of natural, truly human in Christ.

Steven Wedgeworth (@wedgetweets) is associate pastor of Faith Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Vancouver, British Columbia.

In His image God created mankind male and female, as He did all other species that reproduce in like fashion.  Mankind’s sin corrupted God’s original design and has brought many misconstrued constructs of reality.  When His kingdom comes the reality of male and female created He them, will be clear, obvious, pure, and righteous.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 30, 2020

Among the papers in the archive of John Stott is a single, rather scrappy sheet with these words written in pencil: “The church’s first priority . . . remains the millions and millions . . . who (as Christ and his apostles tell us again and again) without Christ are perishing” (Christian Mission in the Modern World, 19).

These were Stott’s handwritten notes for an impromptu contribution he gave at the 1968 Uppsala Assembly of the World Council of Churches. Stott was present only as an advisor, but he felt compelled to speak at the plenary session on world mission. The assembly had been taken up almost entirely with matters of social justice. It was, after all, 1968 — the year of radical protests across the world. Stott himself felt the needs of the poor deeply. But there was a glaring omission in the proceedings — the needs of the unevangelized. And Stott could not allow them to be forgotten.

“True freedom is freedom to be our true selves, as God made us and meant us to be.”

On his return, he wrote, “I do not regret this emphasis [on social justice] at all, except that there appeared to be no comparable compassion for the spiritual hunger of the unevangelized millions, no comparable call to go to them with the Bread of Life. . . . How can we seriously maintain that political and economic liberation is just as important as eternal salvation?” (John Stott: The Making of a Leader, 2:125).

Throughout his ministry, Stott championed the importance of social involvement among evangelicals, but never as a replacement for evangelism.

Freedom from Wrath

In The Cross of Christ, the book many regard as his magnum opus, Stott explains the only way we will satisfy the hunger of the unevangelized millions — the only way we will be set free to serve them, and the only way they will be set free from sin. He provides a sustained defense of the doctrine of penal substitution, the belief that Christ died in our place, bearing the penalty of our sin, so that we can be free from the guilt of our sin. At the cross in holy love, God himself through Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience. He bore the judgment we deserve in order to bring us the forgiveness we do not deserve. On the cross, divine mercy and justice were together expressed and eternally reconciled (89).

This account of the cross only makes sense if we take seriously the wrath of God. Only when we see the propitiation of divine wrath at the heart of what was taking place at the cross does the glory of God’s love in Christ shine in its true colors. Only in this way does the cross bring the profound reassurance that God intends for those who entrust themselves to Christ. The cross is not simply a gesture or an example of love. It is an act of liberation, setting us free from the judgment we deserve. The gospel is the good news of freedom from wrath.

But the gospel is not simply the avoidance of the negative consequences of our sin; it is also an invitation to find joy and satisfaction in God. In Stott’s terms, we are not only set free from wrath, self, and fear; we are also set free for love. Christianity, says Stott in The Contemporary Christian, “is freedom from the dark prison of our own self-centeredness into a new life of self-fulfillment through self-forgetful service” (310). Elsewhere, Stott defines salvation as freedom from judgment for sonship, from self for service, and from decay for glory (Christian Mission in the Modern World, 100–107). The precise formula may change, but the common theme was freedom for God.

Freedom for God

“True freedom is freedom to be our true selves, as God made us and meant us to be,” says Stott (Contemporary Christian, 53). He starts with God. For God, freedom does not mean having many possible choices. God is not free to choose sin, yet God is the freest being. For God, freedom means the ability to be who he is. Nothing can prevent the great I AM from being the I AM.

“In order to be myself, I have to deny myself and give myself.”

In a similar way, true freedom for human beings is not being able to do whatever we want. This is how freedom has come to be defined in our culture. Freedom is seen as freedom from every restraint and constraint. Freedom is the ability to adopt any lifestyle, to choose any sexual partner, to escape any obligation. The more choices we have, the freer we are assumed to be.

But this is not how the Bible teaches freedom. This is not freedom in the image of God. True freedom is the ability to be who we are made to be — people made to love God and to love others. A fish is made for water and experiences its freedom in the context of water. So, freedom for a fish is not having the choice to leave the river. For a fish, that is death. Instead, freedom is water. What about human beings? What are we made for? What enables us to be truly free and flourishing? Stott answers: love. That is because we are made in the image of God, and God is love in his essential being (1 John 4:8, 16). So, for human beings, freedom is love.

The gospel frees us to be true to our true selves, and defines what our true self is, and that is defined by the life and achievements of Christ. Stott was profoundly christocentric, and his understanding of humanity is no exception. Christ is the true human being, human as we were meant to be before sin marred our humanity. The result is a view of freedom that is both countercultural and counterintuitive (at least to sinful people). We are free when we live under the lordship of Christ, and we are free when we see ourselves as servants of others. We find fulfilment through sacrifice; we receive when we give of ourselves.

Give Yourself to Be Yourself

“Whoever would save his life will lose it,” says Jesus in Mark 8:35, “but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Stott points out that the word translated life in this verse is not the word normally used in the New Testament to describe life in the sense of existence. Instead, it is a word that means soul or self (that’s how it is translated in the phrase “forfeit his soul” in the next verse). So, Stott paraphrases the verse, “If you insist on holding on to yourself, and on living for yourself, and refuse to let yourself go, you will lose yourself. But if you are willing to give yourself away in love, then, at the moment of complete abandonment, when you imagine that everything is lost, the miracle takes place, and you find yourself and your freedom.” Then he comments,

True love places constraints on the lover, for love is essentially self-giving. And this brings us to a startling Christian paradox. True freedom is freedom to be my true self, as God made me and meant me to be. And God made me for loving. But loving is giving, self-giving. Therefore, in order to be myself, I have to deny myself and give myself. In order to be free, I have to serve. In order to live, I have to die to my own self-centeredness. In order to find myself, I have to lose myself in loving. . . . It is only sacrificial service, the giving of the self in love to God and others, which is perfect freedom. (The Gospel: A Life-Changing Message, 32–33)

The gospel is the good news that, through faith in Christ, we can be set free from wrath. And it is the good news of freedom for God — for true satisfaction in knowing God and serving others. And because John Stott had received this gospel and tasted this freedom, he could not forget or neglect the unevangelized around the world.

Tim Chester is the pastor of Grace Church Boroughbridge in England and a faculty member of Crosslands Training. His most recent book is Stott on the Christian Life: Between Two Worlds.

Finding and reading the thoughts and writings of godly men is always a great adventure.  It challenges the mind, heart and soul to live a life of truth for God. May we all consider our earthly walk and strive to be obedient to the Word of God.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 29, 2020

Yom Kippur
The Second of the Fall Feasts

The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) follows closely after Rosh Hashanah. We read in Leviticus 23:26-28:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord. You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God.’

And Exodus 30:10 says:

And Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year; he shall make atonement on it with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.

The Jews consider the Day of Atonement the holiest day in all, for it is on this day that Israel would be forgiven of their sins or would face judgment. Devout Jews tell me that this day understandably brings plenty of anxiety into their hearts. Isn’t it wonderful that we believers in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ have the peace and assurance that our sins are forgiven eternally, because of what He has done on the cross! Yom Kippur literally means “Day of Covering.”

The word Kippur also means “ransom.” It is to show God’s willingness to cover the sins of the previous year. While the animal that was sacrificed had to be one year old in order to provide atonement for the previous sins for one year, Christ, being eternal, provided atonement for an eternity!

Leviticus 16:29 gives further instructions on how the Jews were to observe Yom Kippur:

On the tenth day of the seventh month you shall humble your souls and not do any work

In explaining what must characterize the act of humbling oneself, the rabbis say one must avoid eating and drinking, bathing or washing, marital relations, putting on perfumes or lotions, and wearing leather shoes. Now “refraining from the wearing of leather shoes” threw me. I asked about it and was informed that wearing leather shoes signified luxury.

They wear comfort socks instead!

According to Leviticus 16:31–33, the high priest was to put on his linen garments and was to make atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent or temple, the altar, himself (high priest), the priests (Levites), and the people (Israelites) — all in that order. Leviticus 16:3–4 states:

Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash, and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments). Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on.

This is not the colorful robe the high priest usually wore. This was a plain white linen garment. This observance was to be performed once a year according to Leviticus 16:34:

Now you shall have this as a permanent statute, to make atonement for the sons of Israel, for all their sins once every year.

The procedure had four parts as spelled out in Leviticus 16:13–14: take fire from the altar of incense, offer sacrifices and place the blood of these sacrifices in a bowl, sprinkle the blood in the Holy Place and upon the mercy seat of the Ark seven times. The ingredients of the incense are found in Exodus 30:34:

Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take for yourself spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, spices with pure frankincense; there shall be an equal part of each.’

The Scapegoat

One of the most important aspects of the observance of the Day of Atonement was the scapegoat. We read in Leviticus 16:7–8:

He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat.

Then verses 9–10 add:

Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell, and make it a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat.

Laying both hands on the head of the goat, the high priest then confessed the sins of the people. After that he sent the goat away to the wilderness by an appointed person. This fulfills the requirement explained in Leviticus 16:22:

The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.

This also ties into Isaiah 53:6, which says:

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

The Talmud, Tractate Shabbat Folio 86a, states: “How do we know that a crimson-colored strap is tied to the head of the goat that is sent [to ‘Azaz’el]? Because it is said, ‘If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18).’ By a miracle this crimson-colored strap turned white, thus showing the people that they were forgiven of their sins.” It then explains: “Rabbi Ishmael says, ‘Now did they not have another sign? There was a crimson thread tied to the door of the sanctuary. When the goat had reached the wilderness, the thread would turn white, as it says, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”’” That is fascinating, but this becomes totally amazing when another section of the Talmud (Yoma 39b) says: “Our Rabbis taught: ‘During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple the lot [‘For the Lord’] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white… and the doors of the Hekal (the temple) would open by themselves.’”

After Christ was crucified, the crimson strap on the scapegoat and the crimson thread on the temple door never turned white again! Apparently, God was reminding the Jews that Jesus is the true scapegoat once and for all.

Jesus fulfilled the promise of both goats. He paid the penalty for our sins and removed our sins as well! Since the lot that was drawn for the goat for sacrifice to the Lord never came up in the right hand, this, too, was a sign that God did not accept their offering again. Hebrews 9:11–12 says:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

As already noted earlier, the Talmud says that the temple doors were found open by themselves each evening. In his writings, The Wars of the Jews (Josephus Complete Works), Josephus said, “At the same festival (Passover)…

the Eastern gate of the inner court of the Temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a base armored with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night.”

This is similar to the tearing of the veil, which is a sign that there is now total access to God because of the redemptive work of Christ.

Excerpted from Unlocking the Secrets of the Feasts by Michael Norten, copyright Thomas Nelson.

Aren’t you glad we are forgiven of our sins through the blood of Jesus Christ? As you learn about the history of Yom Kippur what light does it shed on what Jesus did for you?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 28, 2020

Let’s talk about your calendar. How is it looking these days? If yours looks like mine, then you see color-coded calendars within calendars. Light blue for personal events, dark blue for exercise, yellow for administrative responsibilities, orange for work activities, purple for birthdays, and green for today’s events. One glance at my calendar app will treat your eyes to a multicolored time-management piece of art.

Whether you keep a rigid calendar or not, we live in busy times. This makes the calendar of the German Reformer Martin Luther so well-timed for us in our cultural moment. He wrote simply, “I have two days on my calendar: this day and that Day.”

This Day

One reason we might endeavor to keep a well-organized calendar is that we intuitively feel the significance of today. A wasted life consists of wasted days, so we desire not to let unproductive days pile up. And what can add to the pressure is the reality that today is the only day we ever occupy. Yesterday is gone. The future, to us, is unknown and unlivable. This day is all we have at our disposal.

Uncle Screwtape, a fictional demon from C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, concurs with “the Enemy’s” (God’s) priority of the present. He writes to his nephew Wormwood,

The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. (75)

Knowing this, the senior demon advises his young nephew to tempt humans with the past and the future as a way to keep them from the present — this day.

Two Threats to the Present

The struggle with attending to the present is often that the past and the unknown future dull the importance of today.

It is easier to live in the past. We often get caught up in the riptide of past regrets, missed opportunities, could haves, would haves, and should haves that pull us deeper into the ocean of the past. The nostalgic good ol’ days mentally box out the mundane, same-old present moment — dishes again, cutting the grass again, making the bed again. Likewise, the future calls us, as if commissioned on the Starship Enterprise, to explore strange new worlds of possibilities, dreams, and aspirations. This does not mean we shouldn’t reflect on the past and plan for the future. Living in the past and yearning for the future, however, challenges the importance of being fully present this day.

While tempting someone to live in the past has some benefits, Screwtape explains, the goal is to keep human eyes locked on the future. Screwtape elaborates,

Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it, we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time — for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. (76)

Scripture Addresses Us Today

We ought to accept Luther’s calendar invite and be mindful that “this day,” the important present, is the only day of activity that we have. The present — and there alone — Screwtape says, “all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell” (78–79). The Scriptures call us to many things we can do only today:

“Look carefully then how you walk [today], not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15–16).

“Walk [today] in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time” (Colossians 4:5).

“Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear [today], slow to speak [today], slow to anger [today]” (James 1:19).

We pray this day for today’s bread (Matthew 6:11) and keep tomorrow’s anxiousness at bay (Matthew 6:34). This day is when we obey the many one-another commandments. The commandment to love God and love neighbor can happen this day. Likewise, we may dream of doing great gospel exploits in the future, and yet the present moment is when all gospel exploits happen. The race, looking to Jesus, is run this day.

“Yesterday is gone. The future, to us, is unknown and unlivable. This day is all we have at our disposal.”

We may grieve that we have not obeyed these commands well in the past. We may hope to do it better in the future. This present moment though, this day, we have marvelous opportunities to practice. Eugene Peterson captures this well: “The only place you have to be human is where you are right now. The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at this moment” (Run with the Horses, 148).

That Day

Yet this day was not the only day on Luther’s calendar.

Celebratory days, such as holidays or our own birthdays, occupy many places on the calendar. In reality, however, only one person has a day that is specifically called his own. “As the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day” (Luke 17:24).

Scripture describes this return in various ways: his coming (1 Thessalonians 2:19), his revealing (1 Corinthians 1:7), his appearance (2 Thessalonians 2:8). Luther’s quote points us to an additional description of the promised return of our Lord Jesus: “that day” (2 Timothy 1:12, 18).

That day will be a day of judgment and salvation (Revelation 6:17; 2 Thessalonians 1:7), retribution and reward (2 Thessalonians 1:5–9; 2 Timothy 4:8), calamity and blessing (1 Thessalonians 4:15–17; 5:3). Wrath for the enemies of Christ; salvation and endless blessing for his people.

History is marching toward the day of the Lord — not as an “if,” but a “when.” More is certain than death and taxes. The two men in white robes ensure us, “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). While the future is unknown and tomorrow is not guaranteed, “that Day” is engraved upon every calendar. The resurrection of Christ guaranteed its coming arrival (Acts 17:30–31). Jesus says, “Surely I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:20).

Two Days

How do these two days relate?

“History is marching toward the day of the Lord — not as an ‘if,’ but a ‘when.’”

How does Jesus’s return influence our today? Does Jesus’s pending arrival shape how we change diapers, how spouses engage in conversation, how the not-yet married pursue singleness and dating? Does “that Day” reshape how we seek justice, work to resolve cultural issues, react to Supreme Court decisions, and manage money? Does his appearing cause us to patiently persevere through suffering, pursue racial reconciliation, and sacrificially love our enemies?

Paul reminded the Thessalonian church that while the day of the Lord is going to surprise some like a thief showing up in the night, others will not be caught off guard. “You are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness” (1 Thessalonians 5:4–5). Paul spelled out the implications of this reality: “Since we belong to the day, let us be sober [today], having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8). We are to encourage and build one another up continually in light of the day of the Lord.

First Thessalonians 5:1–11 is one example among many of how the future pours into the present. This is not a foreign concept to us because future days often influence our present days. The future paycheck encourages you to get up and to go to work today. The future result of a fit body inspires you to go to the gym today, even if you don’t feel like it. Your future graduation ceremony motivates you today to get your homework done. To save yourself future car trouble, you get an oil change done now. In reality, the future is stamped on today more often than we might realize.

How much more should the future day of judgment and salvation drive our today? We live, today, as those who are waiting for Jesus’s return. Martin Luther rightly had two days on his calendar: this day and that Day.

Lewis Guest IV (@satisphid) is an associate pastor at Jubilee Community Church. He is a graduate and instructor of Bible and theology at Bethlehem College & Seminary.

Phil 3:13-15
one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 27, 2020

Some time ago, I was talking with my wife and kids at the dinner table. I don’t recall what we were talking about, but I mentioned in passing how our Chinese American heritage shapes some of our perspectives. As I kept talking, one of my children interrupted, “I’m Chinese?” It hadn’t dawned on him that we had an ethnicity. It hadn’t dawned on us that we should inform him of this. What seemed so normal to us was a surprise to him. From his vantage point, people are just people.

For some of us, our ethnicity is a daily part of our lives. It’s something we encounter regularly and are reminded of by others. It’s the feeling of being perpetually different. For others, we hardly ever think of our ethnicity. Wherever you might be on that spectrum, few of us have spent much time pondering our ethnicity as a precious and integral part of God’s design and purpose. How should we think about this unique aspect of our humanity?

All from One Man

The Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that God made all mankind in his image (Genesis 1:27). From the tribal peoples of Papua New Guinea, to the urbanites of London, to the nomads of Mongolia, all mankind shares the same image and the same human story. Despite differences in language, height, skin color, hair color, facial features, and culture, we all reflect and display God’s creative design.

When one looks at the painting Starry Night, discerning art lovers don’t critique Van Gogh’s apparently indiscriminate use of paint and his stylized moon in hues of yellows, whites, and blues. Instead, they allow this mix of colors and strokes to transport them to the calm and peace of that brilliant night sky. Similarly, our world’s diversity, and in particular mankind’s diversity, takes us into a world that reflects the brilliance, genius, and imagination of the Creator.

Imagine a world with only a dozen species of animals. No porcupines, peacocks, or pangolins. What a dull and lifeless land. It would be like living in a world painted in gray. With just a short drive to the local zoo, we can behold dozens of species of animals that display the multifaceted magnificence of the Great Designer. In the world God made, we get to enjoy a multiplicity of flora, fauna, and especially our fellow image-bearers across the globe.

Feature, Not Flaw

Our differences — both real and imagined — have been the subject of many wars, hostilities, animosities, and even genocides. The horror of ethnic cleansing is almost too much to imagine. Sin distorts differences to divide, so that we deal heartlessly with one another. Scan the pages of history and see war after war, conflict after conflict, built upon fear and hatred of the other.

But when the Bible speaks of the diversity of peoples, it describes our differences not as a curse, but as a blessing. Abraham is promised great blessing so that through him all the families of the earth would likewise experience blessing (Genesis 12:2–3). In Psalm 67, the author calls on God to be gracious to Israel, to shine his face upon them, and to bless them. For what reason? So that all the nations of the earth would know, fear, and praise God (Psalm 67:1–2).

“Jesus creates a blood-bought unity that is greater than any biological bloodline.”

The diversity of mankind is a feature of God’s creation, not a flaw. Though our differences have been and continue to be the occasion of division, discord, and the devaluing of life, God did not design the world this way. God created differences to reflect and highlight his brilliance and glory. Receiving global accolades beats out being a local celebrity. When all the nations of the world unite together in praise of God, it says something profound about his character, goodness, and love.

Multiethnic Heavenly People

The Bible teaches us to see ethnic diversity as a gift to enjoy — and not only now, but forever. The book of Revelation displays ethnic diversity as one primary feature of the flawless new heavens and earth. We read that on the final day, when God gathers people together, they will be from among “every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). They will comprise a singular new kingdom, and serve as priests to God who will reign forever. Myriads and myriads and thousands of thousands will cry out together, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12). The ethnic diversity of Christ’s bride will intensify our praise of Jesus and display God’s infinite wisdom and power.

I imagine that many of us know these truths, and even love these truths, but don’t yet embody these truths in our lives and congregations. It’s one thing to know that we can pray, and to love the truth that we can pray, but it’s entirely different when we actually commune with God in prayer. So too with ethnic diversity, believers get to celebrate this truth, love this truth, and increasingly embody this truth in our friendships and congregations as a foretaste of future glory.

Three Steps Toward Revelation

With our differences seeming more acute than ever, how do we navigate our multifaceted diversity? How do we live out this Revelation vision here and now? Here are three modest suggestions for growing in our appreciation of God’s infinite wisdom as Chief Designer of mankind.

1. Labor to enjoy our deep and profound unity.

Jesus creates a blood-bought unity by his death and resurrection that is greater than any biological bloodline. In John 17, Jesus prays “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21). Jesus is praying for an earthly unity — fused together by the Spirit — that resembles the unity and love shared between the Father and Son. This unlikely unity testifies to the unifying and saving power of Jesus Christ (see also John 13:35).

“We cannot allow our ethnicity to be a source of division. Christ’s blood is too precious and his work too great.”

Therefore, we can now labor to enjoy the deep and profound unity we have with fellow blood-bought believers. Learn from others. Hear others’ stories of faith. Enjoy others’ hospitality. Be curious about different backgrounds and experiences. Marvel at God’s glory in salvation. Appreciate the multifaceted kingdom Christ is building. The gospel of Jesus Christ is massively bigger than just you, your family, your church, or your ethnicity. It is a global movement bigger than anything the world has seen or will ever see. We get to be a part of God’s temple — built up together with believers across all times and places — to reflect his glory and honor for all eternity (Ephesians 2:19–22).

2. Celebrate the multitude of peoples who will praise the Lamb.

Christ rescues people out of animism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, atheism, Hinduism, and hopeless lives devoid of meaning and purpose. When I gather at church, I get to see young and old, various ethnicities, able-bodied and disabled, former drug addicts, former adulterers, former Pharisees, all worshiping together because Jesus is better. This diverse compilation of people who have been transformed by Christ intensifies my worship and magnifies Christ’s infinite worth.

Just as the best meals use various textures, ingredients, techniques, and flavors to create a single unified dish that is exponentially better than the individual parts, so it is with God’s kingdom. The kingdom of God is a unified community comprised of different peoples, facing different obstacles, undergoing different sufferings, sharing different perspectives, possessing different experiences, and having different insights. Yet in all of these differences, we are gloriously united by one gospel, one God and Father, one Lord and Savior, one Spirit, one church, one kingdom, one people, and one faith (Ephesians 4:4–6). This unified people is exponentially more beautiful than the individual parts.

3. Make disciples of all nations, and dismantle dividing walls.

In light of the unity we have in diversity, God calls every Christian to work toward accomplishing the Great Commission. Jesus’s power and presence go before us to undertake this greatest of tasks. Souls hang in the balance, and believers have been equipped and called to advance Christ’s kingdom. So, we become goers or senders. We pray for open doors for the gospel, and walk through them with winsomeness and boldness. And we tear down dividing walls of hostility that lie about the worth of fellow image-bearers.

We cannot allow our ethnicity to be a source of division. Christ’s blood is too precious and his work too great. Our ethnicity is not a source of shame, scorn, or pride, but neither does it disappear into a nondescript sea of beige-gray when used by the Chief Artist. No, it stands out with all of its God-given distinctiveness and beauty. But this beauty testifies not to our greatness, our uniqueness, or our importance, but to the greatness, glory, and praise of the Lamb who was slain.

Steven Lee (@5tevenLee) is the Pastor of Preaching & Vision of the North Campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis.

May we have a love for every tribe, tongue, people and nation, today as we will with God’s children in eternity!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith September 26, 2020

He didn’t look omniscient. He looked intelligent, with his horn-rimmed glasses, gray-flannelled suit, and stack of documents. He was smart, prepared, and every bit the statistician his profession demanded he be. Otherworldly and prophetic? Divine? Clairvoyant? I saw no halo. No attending angels. There was a glow to his face, but I chalked that up to the afternoon sun that fell through his office window.

“Let’s see,” he said, flipping through a binder of graphs and reports. “The two of you will live until…” He looked up long enough to say, “If you want to see for yourself, I’m on page seven.” He paused while we caught up. My palms were beginning to moisten. Denalyn’s eyes had widened. We’d been given dates before: due dates for our daughters, graduation dates from college, save-the-day dates for weddings. But a death date? Gave new meaning to the word deadline. Did we want to know his findings?

His full-time job was life insurance. Over the phone he’d told me, “I want to make certain you have what you need.”

To do this, he needed two pieces of data: the amount of premium we were willing to pay and the number of our years remaining on earth. I could supply the first. He said he could supply the second. And now he was about to give it to us. “What if his date is this week?” I asked Denalyn. “Should I arrange for a guest speaker for the church?” She didn’t smile. Neither did he.

He spoke with the casual tone of a hotel attendant reviewing reservation dates. “Mrs. Lucado, I’ve got you here with us until 2044. Mr. Lucado, your date of departure appears to be 2038.”

Well, there it was. At least now we knew. I can’t tell you much of anything else he said. I was transfixed on finally having my gravestone data. I knew the first number: 1955. I knew the next mark: a one-inch-long dash. (I measured it on a headstone once just out of curiosity.) Now I knew the second number: 2038.

This conversation occurred in 2018. I was down to, gulp, twenty years. I was three quarters of my way to crossing the Jordan. Armed with this new piece of data, I couldn’t resist calculating my remaining resources:

• 168,192,000 breaths (Sounds like a lot. However, I used more than 2,000 writing the first draft of this chapter introduction.)

• 108,000 strokes of golf (or in my case the equivalent of ten games)

• 7,300 nights in bed with a sleeping beauty named Denalyn (a number that seems more than I deserve yet far less than I desire)

My list also included remaining presidential elections, Super Bowls, summer sunsets, and blooming-bluebonnet seasons.

The exercise reminded me of an oft-ignored truth: we are running out. Running out of days, dates, and dances. The hourglass was irreversibly flipped the day we were born, and we’ve been depleting our resources ever since. We don’t have what we had yesterday. Our spending is outpacing our deposits — a fact, I think, that explains the reasoning behind miracle number one in the ministry of Jesus. He was at a wedding. Mary, His mother, was present as well. She came to Christ with a problem.

They have no more wine. — John 2:3 NIV

Had I been the angel on call that day, I would have intervened. I would have placed a wing between Mary and Jesus and reminded her about the mission of her Son. “He was not sent to the earth to handle such mundane, day-to-day tasks. We are saving His miraculous powers for cadaver calling, leper touching, and demon casting. No wine? Don’t whine to Jesus.”

But I was not the angel on call. And Mary enlisted the help of her Son to deal with the problem: empty wine ladles. Folks in first-century Palestine knew how to throw a party. None of this wedding and reception in one evening, no sir. Weddings lasted as long as seven days. Food and wine were expected to last just as long. So Mary was concerned when she saw the servants scraping the bottom of the wine barrel.

Fault poor planning by the wedding planner. Fault guests for guzzling more than their share. Fault Jesus for showing up with a troop of thirsty disciples. We are not told the reason for the shortage. But we are told how it was replenished.

Mary presented the problem. Christ was reluctant. Mary deferred. Jesus reconsidered. He commanded. The servants obeyed and offered the sommelier what they could have sworn was water. He sipped, licked his lips, held the glass up to the light, and said something about their squirreling away the best wine for the farewell toasts. The servants escorted him across the room to see the six vats filled to the brim with fruit of the vine. The wineless wedding was suddenly wine flush. Mary smiled at her Son. Jesus raised a glass to His mother, and we are left with this message:

our diminishing supplies, no matter how insignificant, matter to Heaven.

I have a curious testimony to this truth. During one of my many less-than-sane seasons of life, I competed in Half Ironman Triathlons. The event consists of a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run. Why was a fifty-year-old preacher participating in such endeavors? That’s what my wife kept asking me. (Don’t worry. I didn’t wear a Speedo.)

During one of these races I prayed the oddest prayer of my life. Four of us traveled to Florida for the race. One of my friends had invited a competitor from Indiana to join us. All told, I knew these three participants. There were at least two hundred people whom I did not know, a fact that proved crucial to my story.

I finished the swim, if not dead last, at least nearly dead and almost last. I mounted my bike and began the three-hour trek. About a third of the way into the cycling portion, I reached into the pocket of my shirt to grab some GU. GU is a packet of easily eaten essential nutrients. Well, guess who forgot his GU? I was GU-less with a good thirty miles to go. One doesn’t find any GU-selling convenience stores on the triathlon road.

Like you I’ve offered innumerable prayers in my life. I’ve prayed for the enfeebled as they died and for babies as they were born. I’ve prayed for broken hearts, homes, and bones. But I had never prayed for GU. Yet what was I to do? No GU means no go for an old guy like Max.

So I prayed. Between puffs and pedal strokes, I said, Lord, this very well might be the only time in eternity you’ve heard this request. But here is my situation…

Did GU fall from Heaven? Well, sort of. The fellow from Indiana, the friend of my friend, one of the three people I knew out of the entire field, just “happened” to pedal up from behind me.

“Hey, Max, how’s it going?” he asked.

“Well, I have a problem.”

When he heard of my GU-lessness, he reached into the pocket of his biking shirt, pulled out three packs, and said, “I’ve got plenty!” He handed them to me and off he went.

You may very well be thinking, Lucado, that is a lame example of answered prayer. I’m dealing with disease, debt, the threat of layoffs and letdowns, and you’re talking about something as lightweight as GU in a race?

That’s precisely my point.

Indeed, I think that is Jesus’ point. Of what import is a wine-less wedding? Of all the needs of people on the planet, why would bone-dry wine vats matter? Simple. It mattered to Jesus because it mattered to Mary. If Jesus was willing to use divine clout to solve a social faux pas, how much more willing would He be to intervene on the weightier matters of life?

He wants you to know that you can take your needs — all your needs — to Him.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. — Philippians 4:6, emphasis mine

In everything — not just the big things — let your requests be made known.

Mary modeled this. She presented the need to Christ. “They have no more wine.” No fanfare. No drama mama. She knew the problem. She knew the provider. She connected the first with the second.

My kids did this. They had a way of telling me exactly what they needed when they needed it. I never received a phone call from one of them saying, “Please be a good father to me today, Dad.” Or “I declare in the name of good parenting that you must respond to my deepest desires.”

What I heard was “Can you pick me up?” “Can I get some money?” “May I spend the night with my friend?” “Will you help me with my homework?” “How did you become such a brilliant, wise, and handsome father?”

Okay, that last question might be a stretch. The point is, my daughters made specific requests. Did I recoil at the specificity? Was I insulted that they dared to tell me exactly what they needed? Of course not. I was their dad. It was their way of saying, “I depend on you.” It falls to the father to heed the need and respond to the request of the child.

So I ask, Have you asked? Have you turned your deficit into a prayer? Jesus will tailor a response to your precise need. He is not a fast-food cook. He is an accomplished chef who prepares unique blessings for unique situations. When crowds of people came to Christ for healing,

One by one He placed His hands on them and healed them. — Luke 4:40 The Message, emphasis mine

Had Jesus chosen to do so, He could have proclaimed a cloud of healing blessings to fall upon the crowd. But He is not a one-size-fits-all Savior. He placed His hands on each one, individually, personally. Perceiving unique needs, He issued unique blessings.

A precise prayer gives Christ the opportunity to remove all doubt about His love and interest. Your problem becomes His pathway. The challenge you face becomes a canvas upon which Christ can demonstrate His finest work. So offer a simple prayer and entrust the problem to Christ.

It simply falls to us to believe — to believe that Jesus is King of each and every situation. So make your specific request, and trust Him to do, not what you want, but what is best. Before you know it, you’ll be raising a toast in honor of the One who hears your requests.

By the way, if you happen to be around in 2038, we’ll let you know if our friend the lifespan forecaster knew what he was doing.

Excerpted from You Are Never Alone by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

Are you talking to Jesus about everything? Big and small, important and trivial, all day, every day? He wants to hear about it all from you! 

Heavenly Father, help us to leave every moment realizing that You are by our side, allowing us no experience when You are not with us.  May we daily grow in this understanding and speak to our provider and protector all day, every day!

Pastor Dale