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The RTM Blog is Moving

2010-10-02T08:24:00.003-05:00

It's official! The RTM blog is moving to our website. We will no longer post new blog entries here. All past blog entries have been copied over, and all new blog entries will be posted at the Real Truth Matters Blog.

http://realtruthmatters.com/blog/index.php

The Problem of Modern Evangelism Part 2

2010-09-29T11:32:00.002-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

The following blog post is second in a series. (The first is here.)

Several key passages of Scripture give us special insight into the evangelistic methods of the apostles. One text of Scripture often cited is 1 Corinthians 9:19-22. It is a key passage stating Paul’s missionary intentions.

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

The famed apostle tells us that there is a pre-evangelistic work to be done. He would not argue against lowering as many barriers as possible to the hearing of the gospel. There is some truth to being relevant to audience. Whoever heard of someone trying to sell his products speaking a language the consumer did not understand? Surely, there needs to be some point of identification. Even Jesus became a man in order to win men. Thus, Paul’s cultural behavior took on the customs of the people group he was trying to reach. If he was preaching to Jews, he said, “I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews.” This in itself is a remarkable statement considering Paul was a Jew. What does he mean, “I became a Jew”?

The answer lies in the fact that after Christ saved him Paul did not consider himself a Jew, but a member of a new race of humanity. He tells the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Paul no longer saw himself under the law with its ceremonies, rituals and traditions. But when ministering to a Jewish audience he complied with their customs so they would not be offended. Paul knew the Jewish regulations no longer had meaning. He was clear in his teaching that observance to these laws and traditions had no saving benefit. Christ was the fulfillment of all the laws of Moses. However, he would not use his Christian liberty to close the door to the Jews. If he insisted on his liberties in Christ, he knew the Jews would not grant him audience.

The same was true when ministering to “those who are without law”; that is, Gentiles. However, Paul was quick to tell his audience that he did not in any way sin against God or violate his conscience. He added that he was not without law but was under the law of Christ. Why say this? So no one would misunderstand him to think he believed the end justified the means. You cannot disregard the will of God in order to fulfill it. Paul was strenuously opposed to trying to reach a sinner by being ungodly. In other words, Paul would identify as much as he could without compromising his new humanity, his identity with Christ. Paul wanted his readers—including us—to know that he was not lawless but obedient to the moral teachings of Christ. And not just outwardly, but also he kept the spirit of the commands of the New Covenant. He would not be involved in anything that opposed Christ’s spirit of holiness. Not even a soul is worth that price tag.

What is holiness? Short hair cuts, ties and long sleeved shirts? No, not at all! Holiness is to be other-worldly. It is not a difference in appearance, but in heart and mind. A holy man is a man who lives by the standard of anther world—heaven, not earth. He separates himself from anything that would spoil or stain his love for Christ. He will be more concerned that you see the glory of the Savior rather than some reflection of yourself. Therefore, the Apostle Paul lived as close to the Gentile customs as he could without being in conflict with the holy gospel he proclaimed.

Paul did not participate in worldliness or anything that would have given the appearance of evil. He tells the Thessalonians to “Abstain from every form of evil.” To the Corinthians he warns, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? . . . Therefore ‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.’”

Yet, Paul is often used to defend compromising with the world. This text is the main barricade many hide behind to defend their personal infidelity with the world. And yet, Paul is very specific within this very text that he was not lawless. He carefully followed the footsteps of his Master and lived out Christ to the maximum.

Paul’s method of relevancy was not based upon how much he could be like his audience without sin, but what barriers could he remove so that his audience could hear what he had to say. It is not, as many have said, that Paul is advocating that you have to be like someone in order to reach that person. If you are to reach a biker, do you need to go buy some leather and a Harley Davidson? He is not saying that only bikers can reach bikers. But in order to reach a biker, any barrier that would keep a biker from hearing your words (other than his own hardness of heart) must, if possible, be removed.

Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Ministries (now known as OMF International) followed this same principle of accommodation. Born in England in 1832, Taylor became one of the most influential foreign missionary pioneers in modern history. A trained physician, Taylor went to China with a burden to reach the interior of China for Christ. The Chinese government made inland China off limits to foreigners. Much of the Christian work in that vast country was very small and located in a few costal cities. All European missionaries lived separately from the Chinese and maintained their western European culture. The message the Chinese received from missionaries was to become a Christian you had to become like the Europeans, which were considered foreign devils.

Hudson Taylor refused this logic. He realized that the missionaries had erected barriers between them and the Chinese. He chose to dress like the Chinese, eat like the Chinese and live among the Chinese. Greatly criticized, his principle began to work. Chinese men and women began to listen to him with a different perspective. Taylor himself put it this way:

In (Chinese dress) the foreigner though recognized as such, escapes the mobbing and crowding to which, in many places, his own costume would subject him; and in preaching, while his dress attracts less notice, his words attract more.

The issue to Taylor was removing the distractions so the unsaved could hear the message. This makes sense and does not require a man participating in questionable activities or immoral issues in order to prove his sincerity. This is all Paul was saying in the text we are examining. To make the apostle say anymore than this is to misrepresent him. It is the very

As also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16).

In conclusion, if my oxford shirt, khaki slacks, and penny loafers is a distraction for my biker audience, then by all means, I shall put them aside and get me some leather. But my leather does not have to have demonic symbols or worldly advertisements on it. Nor do I need to compromise the Spirit of holiness and grieve Him by speech or actions not in keeping with Christ.

Surely, the apostle Paul did not mean that we have to be like sinners in order to reach sinners. If that were true, then what alternative are we offering the world? The greatest attraction a Christian has to the world is his difference from the world. Otherwise, why preach to the world “be like us” when we are so desperately trying to be like it?

However, as important as this text is, it is not the end of the matter. It is one principle concerning evangelism and not the sum. There is one principle that trumps it. And it was the heart of Paul’s missionary proclamation. It was so important that it influenced this principle of accommodation that we have examined in this article. In our next article we uncover this consuming motive.

The Problem of Modern Evangelism

2010-09-23T14:56:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

A great deal of verbiage has fallen upon our usually very quiet—too quiet blog. I am amazed at how anyone could feel very threatened by the likes of RTM. We have been recently informed that we are “ill-informed,” “cowards,” “untrustworthy,” “noncredible,” “false witnesses,” “nonchristian,” “misinterpreters of the Word of God,” “journalistically dubious,” “pharisaical,” and many things that I cannot write for public consumption. In other words, we’re not much. While I disagree with the above adjectives, I would agree that we are not much. Frankly, that is why we are so surprised by the attention we have received. I am sure that those whom we cited as proof of our concern have a much wider audience than we do. So, if we are all the things listed above and many other things we could not repeat, why the concern? If these people are doing the will of God why are they so bothered by our challenge? Should any of us be surprised if we are in the service of the Lord and men revile us? Why then not just brush us off and pay us no mind? I believe the answer is in the heart.

What do I mean? I am sure that many bands, musicians, and ministers want to reach people for Christ. They truly believe that what they are doing is effective and is God-honoring. We have not impugned this motive of the heart in anyone who has taken exception with our positions. Therefore, anyone who takes seriously the desire to reach others for Christ can be wounded when someone else who is just as serious about evangelism critically analyzes them.

For this reason, let us lay aside all personal feelings and examine this Scripturally. For the problem, as I see it, is much larger than music, bands and concerts. It’s actually a problem that has infiltrated local churches. It has everything to do with preaching, ministry, and how we evangelize.

The postmodern man seems to be no different than his modern father and his premodern grandfather. All three desire to do things their own way. The modernist believes his way was superior to the premodernist, while the post-modernist thinks he trumps them all. But all three believe they know better than their Creator. This they have in common, for it is common to man. We truly think that we can improve upon what we read in the Bible.

For example, we hail the apostles. We quote them regularly. We venerate them as the greatest examples of Christianity. But we refuse to live like them! The western church-world rejects the method of these extraordinary men, who in one generation took the gospel to the then known world. This generation cannot say we have taken the gospel to the entire known world. Granted, the world we know today is much larger than in the apostles’ day. However, we are more in number and resources than they. At the same time we have lost ground in Western Europe and North America. What did the apostles do that we rejected as useless and replaced with a sophistication that has failed? What is missing in our modern evangelistic method that with all its technological advances gets meager results? And why are we unwilling to listen to Jesus’ first disciples who without technology accomplished far more than North American Christians with all their advanced resources?

I believe the answer is one thing—let me step aside and allow the Apostle Paul to tell us—“But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:4). Their evangelism did not lack compassion for the lost. There is no want of compassion in Paul saying, “for I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren.” But the ultimate motive for their labor in the gospel was to please God: “not as pleasing men, but God.” This is what is missing in today’s preaching and singing.

We at RTM do not in the least suggest that motives are not genuine from the church house to the concert hall. But if I am only motivated to see lost people saved, I must say my motive is too low. I must be moved by something more than this, greater than this, and holier than this. What can be more, greater and holier than wanting to see people redeemed? One thing—to please the Redeemer who saves sinners.

A proclaimer of the gospel must first remember that he has been purchased. Our allegiance is not to the sinner, but to the Savior. As Paul, we are debtors to the lost; we are obligated to give the living dead (that is what I call sinners) the only hope they have for a resurrected life. This obligation is a moral and ethical obligation. It is the same obligation a man has who has the cure for a terminal disease. He has an ethical responsibility to share it with the dying. But our obligation to God is more than moral or ethical. It is the obligation of worship. The first and great commandment still applies, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). It is the obligation of love, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The Lord God has not treated as His enemies, but through Christ has loved us and purchased us as His own special possession.

It is not just a moral obligation to please Him. The pleasing of God is more than duty. It is my highest desire and pleasure. Why? Because I love Him. If we love God supremely, then pleasing Him must also be supreme. It is the same obligation that a husband owes his wife—his absolute love and devotion. For him to pursue another woman is wickedness. For us to pursue the salvation of the lost for the sake of the lost is adultery against God. To seek to please men in order to reach them is the first step on a slippery slope of spiritual adultery. And this is true not just for Christian artists. It is true with those of us who stand before a crowd of people and proclaim the unsearchable riches of the gospel of Christ.

Ministry has an inherent danger. It can become the means and the end. Success in ministry can become our goal and not Christ. Seeing people converted can easily become the ultimate goal. However, when it becomes the end, then we cease to be worshippers and become professional ministers. This is why I say worship and adoration trumps all other motives and must rule supreme. If I do not serve Him with this kind of heart, then my service can be nothing more than a terrible source of displeasure.

It is this motive that is missing today in most Christian heralds. We may have a myriad of good intentions, but we are missing the only intention that truly counts. We refuse to do what He has called us to do the way He has called us to do it. The modern missionary believes He has learned a better way. Better way? How can anything be better if God is not pleased? What if we reached the whole world but did not please the God who has commanded us to obey? What kind of success would that be? It is to succeed at failure.

Let us be agreed that evangelism done any other way, for any other motive, but to please God is wrong. It is not the way of the apostles whom we love to quote. It is not their modus operandi. It is not their method of obedience. In our next blog we unfold their ways and methods. Please, if possible, refrain from commenting until I have finished this brief series of articles. When I have finished and you do not agree, then by all means say so.

The Deep Depths of Relevancy: A Response

2010-09-19T15:45:00.004-05:00

We have been recently deluged with comments regarding a post on our blog from the end of July. It was about the Cornerstone Music Festival and the way the festival and bands are trying to attract people to the event. I cannot answer each one personally as most were posted anonymously. It seems better to start with a new post to answer questions as opposed to creating a long comments thread.

First, I stated that Texas Chainsaw Massacre was shown at the festival and was accused of lying. I got my information from a person who attended the festival. It is an eyewitness account. I assume that the movie was part of an evening as described by the Cornerstone website where they showed movies that were “not kid friendly.” They describe them as “movies your mother warned you about and that you watched anyway.” So that is where I got my info.

Next, most of the comments were negative against my assessment of the band Grave Robber. They are a band who dress in costumes that make them look like they are decomposing corpses. In the comments, many claim that the band is reaching a horror-punk subculture in a way that no one else can.

The question is, does the end justify the means? Do we really need to become more and more like the world in order to reach the world? Isn’t the very nature of a Christian one who has been saved from the world and is no longer a slave to the world and to sin and to the flesh? Grave Robber is trying to be like the world. They promote the fact that some of their influences include Alice Cooper, Type O Negative, GWAR, and Black Sabbath. So, in essence, they are saying “We are like those sinful things that your sinful flesh desires.” They are taking the worst of the world and trying to Christianize it. At the same time, they are giving credence to the very bands they mentioned. They do not speak against them but try to emulate them. And on a personal note, I know these bands well. I was a big fan of Type O Negative at one point, and they are not anything to try and emulate. Why do we need a poor, Christianized version of something evil?

Trying to use the world and its ways to attract people is against scripture itself. Here are a few: ". . . do not be conformed to this world. . ." -Romans 12:2. "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." -Colossians 2:8. "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." -1 John 2:15. "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." -1 Corinthians 3:19.

We just produced a video on this subject that may be helpful to you. http://vimeo.com/15035465. Please watch it and remember that it is not based on what we think but what scripture says.

Next, some of the comments defended the sincerity and genuineness of the guys in Grave Robber. I am not saying anything against their sincerity or personal devotion. I do not know any of them. But as the old saying goes you can be sincere, yet sincerely wrong. Plus, even if someone was converted to Christ, the end does not justify the means. I rejoice over a conversion, but pragmatism is not the rule of thumb. Scripture is our only source of truth.

Some have questioned why I am against their celebration of death since death is natural and all around us. We do not rejoice in nor glorify death. Horror movies and zombies are unacceptable because they are not only glorifying death but glorifying death by entertainment. They also glorify the sin of murder. At this moment I can hear the argument of “Well, don’t we glory in the death of Jesus?”. Yes, but any such questions shall be ignored and not posted. There is great difference between the atoning sacrifice of our savior and the morbid fascination with murder and the death of sinners. Death is the result of sin. It should be preached but not gloried in.

Lastly, we will not allow comments that only call names or are rude or offensive. We don’t mind being disagreed with, but when someone resorts to name calling, we will keep it off our blog. I will respond to one comment, however, that resorted to such tactics. I was called a tie-wearing door-knocking do-gooder who would not have the guts to share Christ in a dark bar room at midnight on a Friday.” You apparently do not know me. First, I hate wearing ties. Secondly you envision me as a suit wearing fundamentalist. Funny. I am covered in tattoos as a result of the sinful lifestyle I had before Christ saved me. I know where this culture is. I was in it. As I said earlier, I loved bands such as Type O Negative. If you know anything about them, you know where I was. I was saved on my way to jail one afternoon. The sin I once loved I now hate. And as far as going to bars is concerned, I’ve been there too. I have been to bars in the middle of the night in order to share the gospel. I have labored with a fellow brother to bring the gospel to those folks because we were once one of them.

I urge the people who run Cornerstone and bands like Grave Robber to repent of trying to be worldly in order to reach the world. Don’t depend on gimmicks. Depend on the Sprit of God. Use scripture as your guide. Study the Word for yourself and seek wisdom from God.

God So Loved

2010-09-17T13:10:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

Note the distinctive adverb used: “God so loved.” He did not just love, but He “so loved.” There is an eternity in the word so. Jesus could have said to Nicodemus, “For God loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . .” and we would have accepted it. But Jesus adds the word so to make a statement. The Father’s love is much more than we can fathom. He did not just love us; He so loved us.

The degree of His love is seen in what He gave—He gave us His only begotten Son. He did not summon heaven’s angels and chose one of them to die. He did not look upon the celestial crowd and say to Himself, “Which of these do I love the least that I can sacrifice for men? Which of these can I spare and give up for the elect?” No, this He did not do. Rather, He looked to His right hand and upon His most beloved. He looked to Him who is more valuable than all the angels of heaven.

The Puritan John Flavel, quoting an unnamed author, tells of a famine in Germany and a poor family who wrestled with the decision to sell one of their children into slavery in order to buy food. Here is Flavel telling the story.

A poor family being ready to perish with famine, the husband made a motion to the wife, to sell one of the children for bread, to relieve themselves and the rest: The wife at last consents it should be so; but then they began to think which of the four should be sold; and when the eldest was named, they both refused to part with that, being their first born, and the beginning of their strength. Well, then they came to the second, but could not yield that he should be sold, being the very picture and lively image of his father. The third was named, but that also was a child that best resembled the mother. And when the youngest was thought on, that was the Benjamin, the child of their old age; and so were content rather to perish altogether in the famine, than to part with a child for relief.

How do you part with one child to save the remaining children? Which one do you choose? The one you love the least? But you do not love one the least. You love them all and each for their distinctive reasons. You could not so choose. Yet, God the Father willingly yielded His Son to the tormentors that He might save His enemies. The Father joined Jesus’ persecutors and rejected Him and tormented Him with the torment of the damned. Not only does it not compute; it is contrary to our own hearts as parents. “For God so loved.”

If you are a cold, calculated mathematician or accountant, you could say that you let the math answer the question—one for the many. Give up the one and get many in return. It’s the law of investment. If you are a politician you could reason the sacrifice of one political ally to gain many more allies. If you are a Caiaphas you can think, “it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50).

But we are not talking about accountants or mercenary politicians. We are talking about God Almighty who loved His Son Jesus more than all of His creation and yet is willing to sacrifice Him because He so loved us. How do I get this?

Well, that is my dilemma. I cannot fathom God loving us to this degree. It baffles the mind but blesses the heart. My mind cannot understand it but my heart can believe it. And believe we must.

History of the Modern Gospel: Session Three

2010-09-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

The next video in the History of the Modern Gospel series is up. It is titled "Welcome to the Circus". It is our personal favorite, so far. Please watch, and let us know what you think!

How to Give According to Grace Part 4

2010-09-07T15:39:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

We have one more principle to discuss that governs how New Testament believers are to give. According to the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 9:6, we are to give sacrificially: “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”

Most giving is based upon the principal of affordability. If we think we can afford to give, we do. Paul illustrates this with an agricultural metaphor. To sow sparingly is to sow what you think you can afford to lose. Think about it. Why would a farmer sow sparingly? Surely, he knows the more seed he sows the greater chance of a larger harvest. But in the first century, farming was more primitive than today. There were no farm stores to buy seed for present year’s growing season. A farmer would take seed from his harvest and use it for next year’s planting. Therefore, a farmer might decide to sow sparingly, concerned that his seed may not produce a good crop and hoping to ensure he’ll have seed the next year. He feared loss more than he desired gain.

This is the motive behind giving what you think you can afford. You give with an eye on possible loss. You think of things you could do with your money rather than invest in God’s kingdom. Whatever, is left over is what you think you can afford to give away. But, if we wait until we think we can afford to give we will give sparingly, if at all.

Sacrificial giving is motivated by a law of sowing and reaping. The more sown the more reaped. Therefore, the amount kept is more important than the amount given. This was true of the Macedonians. It was true of the poor widow who gave her last two mites. Most people look at the amount they give and congratulate themselves. But was it truly sacrificial? Look at how much you have after you gave and you have your answer. Sacrificial giving means that a poor person can give more than a rich person, even though the actual amount the rich give far exceeds the poor. Why? Because of the amount left over after giving. A. W. Tozer said,

Before the judgment seat of Christ, my service will be judged not by how much I have done, but by how much I could have done. In God's sight, my giving is measured not by how much I have given, but by how much I could have given and how much I had left after I had made my gift.

This is the attitude behind sacrificial giving. You think, “How can I sacrifice more so that I may reap more in the kingdom of God?” It is not motivated by a fear of loss but of gain. When you give, you never truly give it away. In reality, you are investing, and one glorious day you will reap your reward. Sow, and then sow some more!

How to Give According to Grace Part 3

2010-08-31T11:35:00.003-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

Grace giving is giving that is motivated and empowered by God’s grace. So far we have demonstrated that this New Covenant giving is commanded of every believer. We have also seen that it is to be practiced regularly and proportionately. Today, let us observe that grace giving is a giving that is generous. Paul commands Christians to give liberally.

Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go to you ahead of time, and prepare your generous gift beforehand, which [you had] previously promised, that it may be ready as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging obligation. (2 Corinthians 9:5)

Never think what is the least you can give. Think what is the most you can give away. This is the heart of Christian giving. But generosity is not determined by the amount given, but by other biblical criteria. Paul gives four conditions. First, give voluntarily. In 2 Corinthians 9:7 the apostle dictates, “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” “As he purposes in his heart” means you give what you want to give. This is not some mystical formula where God tells you the exact amount you are to give. I do not say He doesn’t do that at times. But the Lord wants us to give because we want to give, not because it is our duty. The heart is to be engaged. Therefore, He lets you determine the amount most of the time.

Second condition, give without sadness. Again 2 Corinthians 9:7, “So let each one give . . . not grudgingly.” The words “not grudgingly” in the original language of the text means “not of grief." In other words, you should not give and then grieve as if you have lost something. You do not regret your giving. Your giving should never bring sadness.

Third, give unselfishly. Paul continues, “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not . . . of necessity.” In other words, necessity or duty giving is not grace enabled giving. Giving out of necessity is selfish giving. You are giving to benefit self. For example, you may give because you fear God will chasten you if you don’t give. Or, if you don’t give, you fear someone will find out and think you’re unspiritual. Another example of giving out of necessity is giving because you want to be blessed with more abundance.

This is why high pressure and gimmicks to get people to give are forbidden. It isn’t just TV evangelists who are guilty of using such tactics to raise more money. Many pastors do so every time they preach on tithing. They lay law upon their congregants to either bring guilt or reward to increase giving. Have you not heard it said that if you sow your ten percent you’ll reap a hundredfold? That is selfish and it is sinful.

Lastly, Paul says, give joyfully, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Our word hilarious comes from the Greek word translated cheerful. Giving is worship and worship is to be a joyful expression of God and His grace to us. Next week we will give the last command concerning how to give according to grace.

Could Christians Really Face Severe Persecution in the U.S.?

2010-08-27T13:37:00.001-05:00

A group of Muslims was recently denied a permit that would create a mosque in the middle of a small town not far from here. With the news being posted on various websites came tons of comments from readers. What I was amazed to see is that most of the comments are not only in favor of the Muslisms, but many in this "Bible Belt" area slammed Christians. Even when no one on a message thread had made any comment regarding Christianity as a defense for denying the permit, the "oppression of muslims" was seen as a Christian offense. This once again revived my belief that persecution is not far away for those of us in the United States. Here is a blog that we ran in 2008 during the presidential election campaigns. I think it is worth running again:

We’ve heard it for years now. Persecution of Christians is coming to the United States! And while the evidences of hostility toward Christians have certainly grown in our recent history, it always evaded my mind how hostility from a “minority of people” could turn into full blown persecution. Plus, aren’t we guaranteed freedom of religion in a nation founded on religious principles? No matter the hatred toward Christians, we could not be outright persecuted, could we?   It did seem ludicrous to me in years past, but I am now coming to understand how it is possible and how it could actually play out in our nation. This is not prophecy in the sense of telling of future events, but the reality of persecution is now more real to me than ever.  So how can we go from a majority Christian nation to outright persecution?

Perhaps the story about Christians backing Barack Obama on One News Now will help illustrate. The story states that in a recent Barna survey, Obama and McCain are tied when it comes to how born-again believers intend to vote. Barna defines born-again as those “who say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus and believe they will go to heaven because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.” How can that be? How can half of “born-again” Christians support a candidate who openly supports abortion (and even voted against a bill that would require babies born alive in botched abortions to receive medical treatment) and openly supports homosexual rights? Hard lines are being drawn, and in those lines are the future of persecuted believers.  I believe the chink in our previously impervious amour is the seeming divisions in the Christian world such as what we see above. There seems to be two or more Christian worlds within American Christianity. And the poles continue to drift further apart. Those who adhere to Biblical values, such as those of us who know abortion and homosexuality are wrong, are vilified as the most radical element of our faith. We have people like Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, and Rob Bell in the Christian community who never raise anyone’s ire, yet there are those like James Dobson, John MacArthur, and Al Mohler who never seem to stop catching the flack of open, verbal persecution. So what is the difference? Aren’t we all Christians?

This is why I used the term “seeming divisions” when referring to the Christian world. There are no divisions in true Christianity. The real division is between those who are converted and those who are not. The lines are being drawn between those who are His and those who claim to be His but are not.   And those who are truly saved are deemed as radical and dangerous. Now we can see how a nation can persecute Christians while still allowing ‘Christianity.’ Those who are truly born-again must draw the dividing line between themselves and those who are false converts. It is essential not for the sake of causing division, but for the sake of the Gospel. Yet the world will love those who claim to be the Church but in reality are not. The world will hold them up as true models of Christians and persecute those who really are. The false church is already in bed with the world and pleases it immensely. Therefore the true Church will be persecuted by a people who feel that this radical group is a danger to the state and to the state’s wellbeing. After all, the mantra for abortionists and homosexuals is one of civil rights, correct? Can you already see it coming? Bible publishers are being sued for printing scripture that decries homosexuality. Hate crime laws ban speech that agrees with scripture and Biblical teaching. The false church will flourish, and Christianity will still be accepted. . . as long as it agrees with the world and the state. This is the case currently in China.   And we will be the enemy. We will be those who oppose societal advancement. We will be persecuted.

But the bright spot is that we have Christ. And He is worth it. Our treasure is not in comfort or ease. . . our treasure is in Him. And there is no difference to gain Him through ease or adversity. And persecution holds to scripture, so we should not be surprised. In fact, we can be comforted that He has told us these things before hand, and therefore His word is true.  –John 16:33 “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” - John 15:8 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” -John 16:2 “the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.” 2 Timothy 3:1-9 “1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.”   Read about our brothers and sisters who are already facing violent persecution at persecution.com

- J.T.

How to Give According to Grace Part 2

2010-08-24T11:19:00.002-05:00

by S. Michael Durham

In our last article we shared two guidelines that God gave us through the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. First, giving is required of all believers; and second, our giving is to be done regularly. In this article we want to explore an additional guideline: giving proportionately.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:2, “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.” All believers, rich and poor, are to give in proportion to their income. The difference now from the Old Covenant is that law does not determine what the percentage is for everyone. The Holy Spirit determines it for each person.

You cannot give what you do not have. Paul acknowledges this in 2 Corinthians 8:12: “For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have.” Many of the poor looked upon what the rich could give and were tempted to think that their giving was meaningless. They could not give the amounts the wealthy could. Therefore, Paul says we are to give “according to what one has.” And that giving should be proportionate. In other words, a poor man can give as much as a wealthy man considering the percentage he gives in relation to what he keeps. In other words, the proportion is not a comparison of what you give to what someone else gives; it is a comparison of what you give to what you keep. The more the Lord prospers you, the more you can give. So your giving is based upon the degree of God’s giving to you.

The more good we receive the more good we can do. This is the proportionate giving Paul is teaching. The wonderful Bible commentator Matthew Henry shares as much in his commentary on verse two of 1 Corinthians 16.

They were to lay by as God had blessed them, in that proportion. The more they had, through God’s blessing, gained by their business or labour, their traffic or work, the more they were to lay by. Note, God expects that our beneficence to others should hold some proportion to his bounty to us. All we have is from God; the more he gives (circumstances being considered), the more he enables us to give, and the more he expects we should give, that we should give more than others who are less able, that we should give more than ourselves when we were less able. And, on the other hand, from him to whom God gives less he expects less.

Make it your resolve to give in proportion to what God gives you. The more He gives, the more you ought to give. You will discover God’s giving will increase as you give.

RTM Ministry Update

2010-08-20T09:01:00.001-05:00

Ecclesiastes 3:13 says, “. . . every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor—it is the gift of God.” It is a blessing to labor for the sake of the gospel. Our toil is so much easier knowing that is for the Savior who died. His words echo through the ages and we have heard them, “My yoke is easy.”

We, at RTM, consider the completion of our improved website the gift of God. We rejoice to announce that it is finished and you can look it over at realtruthmatters.com.

The improvements include:

· A better index for resources
· A new video page
· Easier readability
· RTM ministries page
· HD video
· Blog within website
· Additional products

Finally, we are also producing a new video series: The History of the Modern Gospel. This video series explores the roots of modern, false gospels such as easy believism, revivalism, and the social gospel. These heresies are often hard to detect because of their long histories and associations with the church. Yet, when their young roots are uncovered, and they are matched against the true gospel, their damning flaws are evident. The introduction is posted, and a new installment will be released each week. We pray that this series will help open the eyes of false converts and those to whom God is now revealing truth. We also pray that they will become a tool for you as we fight the fight of faith and shine forth the true gospel, Jesus Christ.

Please pray for us as the Lord gives you ability. Our needs are small compared to His great resource. Also, drop us a line and let us know what you think of both website and new video.

Desperately Depending on Grace,

The staff of RTM

How to Give According to Grace

2010-08-20T08:51:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

People don't give what they ought to give. The reasons vary from indebtedness, hearts enslaved to things, fear of losing financial security, a spirit of hoarding; but all of these reasons can be reduced to one—they don’t really love Christ and His kingdom as they should. It is not a financial problem but a spiritual problem.

But there is another reason: many don’t know why they should give or what they are to give. If the New Covenant has eliminated tithing, how does God mandate giving for the follower of Jesus Christ? This is the first of several blog posts that will answer the question.

First, we must remember that giving is commanded of every believer. 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul directs his readers, “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come” (emphasis added). There are no exemptions. The size of your paycheck or even the lack of one does not exempt you from giving. If you have no money, then what do you possess that could serve the kingdom rather than indulge your flesh? You may ask, “What about grace? Aren’t we under grace rather than law? Isn’t the command to give a law?” The answer is simple: grace does not exempt giving because giving is a grace. And all are commanded to use the grace of God given in order to give.

Secondly, Paul commands giving consistently. Again, 1 Corinthians 16:2: “On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.” Paul commands systematic giving. Convenient giving is a luxury not often afforded in Christianity. It was not convenient for Abraham to offer up Isaac. It was not convenient for Moses to return to Egypt. It was not convenient for Jesus to die to Himself and to the cross. So, we should not give only when it’s easy.

Giving regularly reminds us from where our provision comes. And the more we are reminded of God’s provision for us, the more we will want to give to the provision of others.

Also, giving regularly is an antidote to materialism. By giving consistently, we constantly have opportunity to fight against selfishness, worldliness and greed. This is especially true when it isn’t convenient or easy to give, like when finances are tight—or when you want to squander money on something you may not need. Self-denial may not be vogue in most circles, but it’s still cool in Christ’s kingdom. This form of grace releases our hold on things. Better said, this form of grace releases the hold things have on us.

The Source of Grace-Giving

2010-08-11T09:32:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

We are stewards. This is the theme of this series. And this can only mean we have given ourselves to our God and relinquished control. Now all you possess is not yours. It never was. Therefore, giving is not really giving, is it? If it’s not yours then you can’t give it away. But if you disperse and invest it as the Lord instructs you, well then, you are merely administrating or managing His possessions. Will He not keep and provide for you if you manage His affairs as He directs? Of course He will. What kind of employer do you think Him to be? He is an excellent Master who will not let one of His stewards lack what he or she truly needs.

Perhaps you have forgotten His kindness to you. Remember the terrible debt you were in? You owed holy justice a terrible amount, and you had nothing wherewith to pay. Hell, the eternal debtor’s prison where the inmates suffer the agony of their debt to God, was your due. Do you remember the guilt you experienced? The law’s stinger had deeply penetrated your soul and nothing could remove it. All of your religious activities did not lessen your agony. All of your good deeds and promises were band-aids that did not heal. No preacher could ease your pain. No church could medicate your wound.

But then came the Great Physician. He came to you. With hands that had been pierced by the law’s demands, He extracted law’s stinger with lovingkindness. Do you remember? The immediate relief was so great and inexpressibly joyful. Instead of the torrential pain there was a river of gladness. Your burden had been removed. The fever of hell’s torments had left your brow. Now a crown of rejoicing was in its place. Gladly, that day you swore allegiance to this Great Healer and promised Him your life in undying gratitude.

But has gratitude lost its power? Then return to Calvary and see this Great Physician work His medicine. This is what grace does. It lifts your gaze off of you, and fixes it upon the wounded, yet victorious, King. Watch Him suffer your hell, your pain, and your debt. He gave Himself, His wealth, His glory, His home and was reduced to the poverty of a world in rebellion, a world convulsing in its painful delirium of rejecting the only One who could truly love it. He was despised and rejected by His Father so that the same could love you. He was crowned with thorns so that you can be crowned with glory. This is Jesus, and this is our Master.

I ask you, if Jesus would do this to gain us, now that you’re His, why would He not treat you equally well? Let earthly treasure go, it cannot compete with this kind of love. It is not yours anyhow. You have been given heaven’s treasure. Let this life go and you will still live because you have been given life eternal .

This is the foundation of New Covenant giving. This is the soil from which germinates the Christian’s giving—the love of Christ. This is grace-giving.

The Truth About New Covenant Giving Part 3

2010-08-04T10:14:00.002-05:00

S. Michael Durham

In our last article we examined how the grace of giving works in the believer. We stated it works irrespective of economic class. From the wealthiest to the poorest the grace of giving can work. Second, we saw this grace work beyond human ability. It can empower you to give beyond what you think.

Let’s continue with a third way the grace of giving works in Christians: it works in the heart first, then the pocketbook. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the grace of giving in the Macedonian church and said, “And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God” (2 Corinthians 8:5). They did not just give money; they gave themselves. God doesn’t need nor want money; He wants you. Giving money without giving yourself does not work. I think this is the reason God gave mankind the concept of money.

Let me explain. There are two things that reveal a man’s heart: relationships and money. Usually money is deemed the most important since many relationships end over money. It has been stated the average American spends six hours shopping a week but only 40 minutes playing with his or her child. Money can consume the heart so quickly and do it in a way that seems harmless. The Bible warns of this again and again. Richard Halverson said, “All through Scripture there is an intimate correlation between the development of a man’s character and how he handles money.” Therefore, I believe God gave the concept of money to man to tell a man’s heart. It always reveals what a man loves most. Did not Jesus say, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21)?

Not only did the Lord give money to tell a man’s heart but also to test it. Your use of money tells how much authority God has over your heart. If money has any grip on your heart, it will be there you will find the end of God’s authority over your heart.

Lastly, God also gave money to train a man’s heart. It is a constant challenge for most believers to keep selfishness at bay. Money and possessions is a constant tool the Lord uses to teach us to be like Him. We are never more like Christ than when we are giving. He will repeatedly come to us and ask us to give something away, perhaps things we consider dear, in order to develop Christ-likeness.

So, in the end, God’s grace works in you to give yourself. Once He has you, He will have your wallet.

Just As I Am, OR Wait Just a Minute

2010-08-03T11:16:00.004-05:00

Do you ever think you can’t bring yourself before God because of your sin, weaknesses, or shortcomings? You say, “No I can’t come to God like this. I have to come to Him with everything together.” Honestly, if you could really come to God only when you had things together, could you ever come to Him?

Come just as you are. Broken, bruised, or even shattered—bring that to God. He is full of grace and mercy. He wants you to come before Him with everything, just the way you are.

If you have a child who came to you all nasty, scraped up, and bruised, would you turn him away saying, “You know I can’t have you coming to me like this. Go clean yourself up and then come back.” The thought is totally absurd, yet we view God in this way. In Matthew 7:11 it says, “If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

Our Father would never turn us away. He actually ushers us into His presence and hears our requests, our heartaches, and our joys. So what do you have to bring before the Father today—your pains, joys, heartaches, or circumstances? Whatever they may be, bring them before your Father who can take these things and work them for good.

Joseph

RTM Update

2010-08-02T11:58:00.006-05:00

This is the email update we sent out to our website subscribers last week. If you are not subscribed, please go to http://realtruthmatters.com/contactus.html . We'd love to be able to communicate with you!

God is very good to us! As we work to promote New Testament Christianity by promoting Jesus Christ as the Gospel, it is easy to look to our end goals such as completed websites, finished videos, new blog entries, and book chapters and become frustrated when it takes longer than we’d like to accomplish our goals. But God gently reminds us that

there is more to the ministry of RTM than the products of our labors. Not to sound selfish, but God is using this work and this ministry to do something in us at RTM as well.

Yes, He has called us to proclaim the Gospel. Yes, we want that

ministry to be fruitful and see souls converted. But God is making us at RTM more like His son through the process. It is our call, first and foremost, to walk in the Spirit, enjoying relationship with the Father. God uses various means and tools to bring this about. One of the tools He uses in our lives

is the work of RTM. He also uses relationships, our families, and other circumstances. In your life, He uses your employment, your relationships, and your circumstances to draw you to Himself.

There are those who consider their employment, for example, and think, “If I could only get a job in a Christian workplace or at a ministry, then my walk with God would be better everyday.” I think I can say that is not the case. God may very well be using your circumstances where you are to draw yourself to Him and enjoy Him in ways you could not otherwise.

I can say that I came into RTM with a two-fold purpose. First, I do want to reach people with the Gospel of Christ and see an end result that is fruitful. But before I even reached the point of knowing that God was leading me to RTM, I wanted to know Him more, experience Him more, and walk in sweet fellowship with Him. I surrendered to His agenda, not mine. I did not know at the time that it meant coming to RTM. I was up for whatever God had as long He used the process to grow me up into a man who walks in the Spirit, enjoying Him everyday.

I have to say that he has used my time at RTM to do that, but in ways I didn’t dream of. Some of those have been very painful as He has exposed some of the remaining sin that is so deeply entrenched in my heart. But I can say that it has been good. More amazing than that, it has not come about through the subject matter of our work. It has come about through means that are actually commonplace at most places of employment.

Don’t become discouraged when you look around you and don’t see yourself making it to the ends you have imagined. That “something better” is not out there somewhere. Things hardly ever turn out how we think they will anyway. Look to Him and see how He is using where you are right now to do something in you today. God is doing something; don’t miss it.

J.T.

The Deep Depths of Relevancy

2010-07-29T15:52:00.008-05:00

I thought I had reached the point where there wasn’t much done in the name of Christianity that would shock me. America has taken just about every worldly device imaginable and tried to Christianize it. Yet there seem to be some last holdouts that are really just too bad to try to pass off as Christian. Or so I thought. It may sound very crude, and I don’t say this for the shock factor, but could you imagine someone trying to pass off pornography as Christian? After what we discovered this week, it doesn’t seem so far off.

The Cornerstone Music & Arts festival is an annual, four-day event held on a 500-acre plot in central Illinois. The main attraction is the music. Multiple stages showcase many different artists and bands who are supposedly Christian. You will probably recognize some of the bigger names: Toby Mac, Skillet, The David Crowder Band, Switchfoot, and the like. While these in and of themselves may present their own problems that would require another blog entry, the Cornerstone Festival has shown itself to have an evil underbelly that is not just a masked attack upon Truth but is bold and blatantly demonic.

The Apprising Ministries blog recently posted an article written by an attendee of the festival who experienced and saw things that are not only shocking but being passed off as Christian. Typifying the worst of the musical acts was a band called Grave Robber whose influences include bands and singers such as Alice Cooper, Type O Negative, GWAR, and Black Sabbath, just to name a few. If you aren’t familiar with these ‘artists’, consider yourself blessed. They are among some of the most evil and, yes, even bloody and gory acts that have been popular in the past 30 years. Grave Robber, decked out in masks and costumes that make them appear like, well, they were just dug up yesterday, even sometimes share the stage with members of the aforementioned bands. They refer to Jesus as the re-animator, and themselves as zombie slaves.

The audience really gets into their performances, too. Comprised of mostly teen-agers and young adults, they are often painted like zombies with make-up blood splatters on their clothes and dripping down their faces. And speaking of zombies, the increasingly popular zombie culture has now been adopted by “christians.” Cornerstone offered a zombie walk that was attended by more than 300 participants who dressed like the living dead. The march ended in a dance that would be considered in the secular world a rave.

Cornerstone also held a movie night that was billed as “not kid friendly,” even though people were encouraged to attend the festival with their entire families. The movies included The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The House of the Devil. First of all, if it is not good for the kids, then why is it good for the adults? Secondly, these movies are a celebration of some of the sickest and most reviled acts of sin imaginable. How is it even remotely possible that these things are edifying to a Christian?

So, you may say, why even point these things out? They are obviously a very extreme segment of a false Christian culture. Yet this is not the case. This is a major event attended by thousands of people that has been held for the past 27 years. There are many who are drawn by mainstream bands such as David Crowder, who, if they are not regenerated, will see their favorite Christian ‘stars’ associated with some of the most degrading and vilest forms of entertainment and fully accept them because that is what their flesh desires. And here, the organizers of Cornerstone, have given thousands of people a blank check for their consciences to pursue the lusts of the flesh because they label these things as Christian.

The organizers of the Cornerstone Festival are wrong with a capital W. They are purveyors of filth. If one cannot see this is wrong and know that the light of Christianity cannot mix with the darkness of Satan, they are in spiritual bondage beyond anything that we have ever seen before. This is the ultimate end of relevance. The overarching thought that one has to be like the culture and in the culture and part of the culture in order to reach the world is the root of this problem. And here we see it reach its logical conclusion. All this does is allow filthy, stinking, sinful people to follow the lust of the flesh and soothe their God-given consciences because they smack the label of Christian on it.

What this has done for us is give us a renewed soberness in the fight to which we are called. It also allows us to praise our Father for the fact that He has rescued us from these things. We are no better than the people who put on this festival. But God has dealt graciously with us to show us light that they have yet to see. If it were not for the grace of God, we would be doing such things, perhaps even worse things.

Continue to remain vigilant with us. Put on the full armor of God, girding your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance . . .

Stand with us and fight the good fight!

Ephesians 5:8-14 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says:

“ Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”

The Truth About New Covenant Giving Part 2

2010-07-28T09:06:00.002-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

New Covenant giving is based upon God’s grace given to the believer. In this article, let’s look at how this grace of giving works.

First, it works irrespective of economic class. It works in the poor as well as the rich. Paul tells the Corinthians that although the Macedonians were “in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality” (2 Corinthians 8:2). The word deep means “down to the bottom.” It’s to be as low as you can go. The Greek word Paul uses translated poverty is a word to describe a beggar. So, to be financially challenged is no excuse for not giving. The Macedonians were so impoverished that Paul at first refused their giving. Yet, in this extremely poor group of believers the grace of giving worked amazingly.

Second, the grace of giving works beyond human ability. Again the Apostle writes concerning the Macedonians, “For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing” (2 Corinthians 8:3). God’s power grants the believer to do things that are not either natural or based upon circumstances. Grace can empower us to give beyond what seems to be our ability to give.

I know many people today are concerned about the economy. I was talking with a deacon from another church and he mentioned to me how their giving had decreased because of the recession. But in light of this text, if Christians are giving by grace should recessions always decrease giving? It seems to me giving that is based upon the economy is not based upon grace.

Grace may work beyond a person’s ability but never beyond his will. God’s grace does not force us to give, but asks us to give willingly. Paul says, “they were freely willing.” Grace works in and through the will. We desire to give and even enjoy our giving. This too is amazing grace.

The Truth About New Covenant Giving Part 1

2010-07-20T16:46:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

If tithing is not God’s method for our giving today, what is? Last week we saw different tithes proscribed in the Law of Moses for Israel only. Practically, all giving in the Old Covenant was directed by laws regulating what and how much was to be given. But the law of tithe met its end in the cross of Jesus. In the New Covenant our Lord’s grace directs all giving and is regulated by the precious Holy Spirit. What then does our heavenly Father expect from us, His children?

To answer that question, let’s see how grace works to enable you to give as you ought. This will eliminate legal giving (giving only because it is required and only as much as required), guilt giving (giving because you feel guilty for not doing so), fear giving (giving because you fear God’s reprisals), or selfish giving (giving for gain or recognition or self-satisfaction).

The way the Apostle Paul teaches giving in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is by pointing the Corinthians away from themselves and to the grace of God. He then gives them two illustrations of grace-giving and then, finally, gives some commandments about it. I want to follow his outline.

Paul begins by showing us that giving is a gift to us. He says, “Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia” (2 Corinthians 8:1). God had given the Christians at Macedonia a grace that enabled them to give in an awesome way. This should not surprise us. Any ministry we perform, God has gone before us and graced us to do so.

But the Corinthians could have said, “Well, that is how the Lord led the Macedonians to give. That is how the grace of God moved them. But He has not so moved us.” Perhaps Paul expected this, and so in verses 6-7, the Corinthians were commanded to seek this grace as well. “So we urged Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also complete this grace in you as well. But as you abound in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us—see that you abound in this grace also.”

According to the apostle, we are all responsible to seek God for grace in order to obey. Grace does not remove effort, and every Christian is to give by grace. Not only are we to have this grace working in us, but Paul says we are to abound in this grace: “see that you abound in this grace also.”

Evidently, the Corinthians did not excel in this grace. Therefore Paul directs them not to themselves to try harder, but to the grace of God so that when they do give they will do so in the strength of God.

Why? Because as anything else in the Christian life, the child of God is to live out the life of Christ. Perhaps a better way to say it is this: Jesus is to live out His life through us. If it is merely the fulfilling of our “Christian duty,” then who should gain glory and praise? We should, since we fulfilled our obligation. However, God designed the Christian life to go beyond law and duty, which no fallen man could keep. He implemented the New Covenant, with the life of His dear Son, to operate on the basis of spirit and love. The only person who can live up to a standard higher than law and duty is one who is being influenced by the Spirit and motivated by love. In this way God is the one glorified and praised.

I'm Ready for My Close Up, Mr. Me

2010-07-17T09:55:00.003-05:00

So is this what we've come to? For sale: a specialized piece of equipment that allows you to photograph your favorite subject - yourself! Well, maybe that is not the only application for the handheld monopod, but it does highlight a universal, human problem: the love of self.

With social media dominating the internet landscape, the love of self is more visible than ever. Facebook takes it to new heights. Where else can you see a series of 20 photos, all taken one right after another of one person? They are friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances, and the daughter of your sister's boss's secretary. The poses are pretty standard. Camera held aloft, keep your chin down, and point your eyes up to the camera. Or, for those going steady, it is a photo of one kissing his/her sweetie. It's known as the "I've gotta boyfriend/girlfriend photo." Or, maybe its the group photo with friends, otherwise known as the I'm-not-a-social-reject photo. Or it's the funny photo, showing your sense of humor or creative ability. Or, perhaps it's just a photo of your closest friend - your Chihuahua. How sad.

No matter what photo you go with, Facebook exemplifies for our generation the love of self and the need to spread that love to others. While it may be used to stay in contact with others and keep up with friends and family, when it comes to what you put out to your public, it is often calculated, whether consciously or not, with the question of how will this promote self. Think about it. Why would a person sit in front of their computer either alone or with a friend, take a series of photos of themselves making various facial poses and post it for all their friends to see? The only reason is so show everyone themselves.

Why does anyone want to publicize the fact that they are Disneyworld right now, or they just sat down to eat at Olive Garden, or they just taught their dog to roll over? Or how about the friend who just changed her relationship status to happily-married-to-the-most-wonderful-guy-ever and posts that she just ran a marathon, baked her grandma chocolate chip cookies, rescued a cat from a tree, and spent time with her perfect children.

When people share information, they have a motive. They want to communicate something and elicit some sort of response from those with whom they communicate. When you look at the vast number of posts, status updates, and photos, you ask, "What is this person trying to communicate to me?" If we look at posts and honestly ask ourselves that question, you can more often than not come to one answer -"I want you to know that I am important, that I am doing something interesting, and I matter!" The collective masses are jumping up and down yelling "look at me, look at me!"

A recent study on Facebook use identified two major reasons why humans find it to be so amazing. First, they are entertained. This is not surprising. We are an entertain-me society and have been for a while. But the second reason why Facebook is so alluring delves into realms that movies and television can not reach. Users are socially compensated. They gain recognition and are allowed to build and maintain a social status. This is major draw, especially for such a narcissistic, self-love oriented society.

The study says, "individuals gain gratification when they are recognized; supported, or their
relationships with others are being admitted and maintained." They go on to state that is part of a person's "mood maintenance." It's a form of online group-therapy where we go around the room (or screen in this case), stand and say, "Hi, my name is . . . and here is what I did today and what I plan to do tomorrow and what I think about this and that." The user feels satisfied, recognized, and more important than before.

The new status symbols are a great number of comments and likes, and a friend who doesn't like your latest quip or photo must be shunning you. That's life in Facebook. It allows us to promote self and soothe the ego.

The problem? You are not the center of the universe. You are not part of the center of the universe. You are nowhere near the center of the universe. What we are doing is continuning to sheild ourselves from reality. We are the masters of our domain, our image, and our worlds. Yet it is all grasping at the wind. If there is a definitive point to this blog entry, I suppose it is this: don't waste your life on yourself! God created you to glorify Him! And you know what the amazing thing is? He is most glorified when you get your greatest satisfaction in Him; and more specificially in Him through Jesus Christ. God made the two to go hand in hand. His glory and your satisfaction.

Does that mean you need to get off Facebook? Maybe for some. But maybe how you use Facebook would change if your greatest satisfaction came from Him and not from the acceptance you get through self promotion.

This is really only the tip of the iceburg for this subject, but my 21st Century attention span has passed. I must now wrap this up and post it on Facebook~!

The Truth About Tithing

2010-07-15T09:28:00.006-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

The word tithe means nothing more than ten. A tithe is ten percent of something. To tithe one’s income is to give ten percent of his or her income to the local church. I would say most of us have been taught that tithing is God’s commandment for us today and His method of supporting the work of His kingdom. But that is not true. Tithing is not a part of the New Covenant. It was a part of the Old Covenant, which was for Israel prior to Jesus’ death.

Before I give you God’s method and command for New Covenant giving, I must debunk the lie about tithing. The truth is that tithing was not an offering but a tax, and the tax was not one but several. The Law of Moses required three different tithes for the Jewish farmer and one for the Levite. The average Jewish family did not pay ten percent of their yearly agricultural increase; they paid twenty-three and a third percent in tithes. If you added the other taxes that were imposed they paid around twenty-five percent. You can read about these three tithes in Numbers 18:21, Deuteronomy 14:22-26, 28-29, and Leviticus 27:30. Therefore, if you believe tithing is binding upon the New Testament Christian, then you are in serious trouble if you have only given ten percent. You’ve violated the very law you’re wishing to uphold.

Interestingly, the tithes were only binding upon the farmer. Anyone who did not grow a garden, tend a farm or raise livestock was not required to pay tithes. The reason is tithes were produce grown from the land. The tithes were to be paid in food. Also, the poor were exempt from paying the imposed food tax.

Often, those who defend the tithe do so by arguing that the tithe predated the Law of Moses. But that’s not true. Abraham did pay tithes to Melchizedek, but the tithes were not from his own possessions but the returned booty of Sodom and Gomorrah. Jacob’s promise to tithe was nothing more than legalistic bargaining with God. God has already promised to bless Jacob and return him to his homeland. But Jacob would not have grace and vowed in unbelief trying to earn the blessing that God freely promised.

Another argument for tithing is that Jesus commanded it. But here again, that is not exactly the truth. The only two times Jesus mentioned the tithe was to rebuke the sinful pride of the Pharisees who in their minute law-keeping violated the spirit of the law.

If tithing is obligatory under the New Covenant, it is incredible the Apostles never addressed it one time. If tithing was commanded of the Christian believer, why didn’t the Apostles mention it when they were discussing what laws of Moses the Gentiles were expected to observe? In Acts 15:28-29 the only laws the Gentiles were ordered to keep was to abstain from meat offered to idols, eating blood or anything strangled, and sexual immorality. Tithing was not required and that is why there is no mention of it.

If tithing is not obligatory of today’s Christian, how then is God’s redemptive enterprise financed? In another blog, next week, we will share God’s system for giving in the New Covenant.

Jesus, RTM and Logos

2010-07-13T13:56:00.003-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

We are greatly excited about our new logo for RTM. After weeks of our patient graphic designer, Jesse Grisham, submitting one idea after another only to have us say no, he finally created the look we were after. First, we wanted a look that was not dated. A very modern design is appropriate for RTM since it is to the present generation we are called. We do not want to try to revive a Puritan or Victorian age and appeal to a culture that has long ceased to exist.

Second, we wanted a logo that would be very simple. A complex logo may be clever, but often derails the objective of the ministry or company it represents. We desired a clean and simple look that can be easily recognized and reproduced in different venues. Also, while the cross is the most recognizable symbol of Christianity, almost every ministry uses it as their symbol. RTM wanted something different that would cause us to stand out in the maze of Christian logos.

The truth of the matter is that logos do not determine the value or worth of the ministry it represents. It is the ministry that will define the logo. Logos do not give meaning to ministries, but hopefully in time, the ministry of RTM will give meaning to our logo.

Lastly, and most importantly, our logo does say something about who we are. The RTM logo resides in what first looks like a hexagon. But if you look a little deeper, it has a 3-D effect and you can see a cube. It is subtle, but real. What a perfect way to convey our message. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is our cornerstone upon which all believers are built. He is the real truth that our lives are to rest upon.

In the days of Christ and past, the cornerstone was the most important stone in the construction process. It was a perfectly hewn square that would determine a right angle for the walls. All other stones would be set in reference to the cornerstone. It determined the position for the entire building.

The apostles were very aware of the symbolism of the cornerstone in relationship to Jesus. Paul writes, “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20). Peter reminds us that it was Isaiah who first called the Messiah the cornerstone, “Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect, precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame’” (1 Peter 2:6).

The ministry of Real Truth Matters is, we pray, built upon the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our gospel and the foundation upon Whom we stand.

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand,

All other ground is sinking sand.

Can Rewards Be A Proper Motivation?

2010-07-07T08:59:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

The question is a good question to ask in light of the Bible’s insistent and oft repeated command that we are to be motivated by a love for God. The answer is found in the pages of the Bible.

Jesus Used Rewards as a Motivation

Matthew 5:11-12 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you

The Apostles Used Rewards as a Motivation

2 John 1:8 Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.

Not only are rewards the design of God, but rewards are divine in nature. It is in God’s nature to reward. God loves to reward His servants. The rewards are an evidence of His giving and gracious nature.

It is also man’s nature to be rewarded. It is in our nature to be motivated by rewards. The Lord made us to need incentives in order to perform well. He created us to desire pleasure. This is quite obvious in that He made man and put him in a paradise of pleasure. Heaven is a place of pleasure. The ultimate pleasure is God Himself, “. . . In Your presence [is] fullness of joy; At Your right hand [are] pleasures forevermore” (Psalms 16:11).

Another intrinsic incentive is the desire for gain. We are made to want. The desire to gain is not evil. The problem is what we desire and to what intensity we desire. God is to be desired so that we can say as the Apostle Paul said, “that I may gain Christ.”

The fear of loss is also a strong motivation. Psychologists believe that the fear of loss is a stronger motivation than the desire for gain. Finally, the desire for power is innate in God’s creation of humanity. We have this built-in desire for power, otherwise the desire to rule with Christ would be meaningless.

All of these internal motives found in the heart of men were created by God. Temptation is aimed at using these motives of human nature in a perverted way. The sin is not having the motives, but how we use them. Jesus did not have a sin nature and yet Satan appealed to these motives in temptation. Why did Satan use these desires if they did not exist in our Lord? If these are evil motives and Christ did not have them, then the temptation of Christ was useless? These motivations were present in Christ because they are natural to our humanity given to us by the Lord.

So, the motivation for rewards is a proper motivation—it is in fact a godly motivation. The Bible does not say that one motive, the love of God, is the only motive, but is the highest motive. If you should refuse to serve the Lord unless He rewarded you, then sin would be involved. Love is not out of the equation, nor does love remove other proper motivations.

A Suffering God

2010-07-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

“In all their affliction He was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9).

What great comfort to be had from this brief word! It is incredible, to say the least, that the Lord God should be so in tune with me that every moment of pain, every instance of suffering, and every case of anguish I endure, He endures. We have more than a sympathetic deity; we have an empathetic God who truly feels our pain.

In the case of this brief text from Isaiah, the affliction of Israel was God-induced. It was the Lord’s just response to the nation’s rebellion. Yet, the affliction He inflicted upon them was also the affliction He suffered. Jeremiah said as much when he wrote, “For He does not afflict willingly, Nor grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:33). In other words, He takes no pleasure in bringing suffering into our lives. Although it is necessary God must do so, He takes no joy in it. His own soul is afflicted and grieved.

Remember what the Lord Jesus said to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road? “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4). Every lash of Saul’s whip, each shackle placed upon a Christian’s wrists and ankles, and each stone crushing Stephen’s body was a lash, shackle and stone upon the heart of Christ. He felt it all; He experienced it. And, my friend, He experiences your every disappointment and heartache brought upon you by both external and internal forces. Not one pain you endure He escapes. Unbelievable as it may sound, every affliction including sin’s consequences finds way to the heart of God.

Can you hurt and God not suffer? Not at all. Can you be in a rainstorm and not feel wet? Only if you are dead. The Lord is neither dead nor separated from you that He cannot go through your affliction. You never need to ask Him if He realizes what you have to endure. You should hold your tongue when tempted to rail upon Him as if He is unfeeling. In all of your affliction He is afflicted.

Wasting Heavenly Resources

2010-06-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

If we squander God’s resources on frivolous things or we use them to do what pleases us, isn’t it a case of stealing what does not belong to us?

Our lives are not our own. Our possessions are not really ours. They have been entrusted to us, but we must wisely use them to invest in the future—Heaven’s future. We are often guilty of taking both life and possessions and wasting them on the temporal pleasures of this world.

Let me ask you four questions to see if you are innocent or guilty of wasting your Master’s goods.

1. Do you make plans without consulting the Lord?

If we make major life plans without prayer and a careful study of the word of God, then most likely we are flying solo. We are never independent of the Lord. We are co-laborers with Him. Jesus said of Himself, “I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner” (John 5:19). If this was the modus operandi of our Lord, how much more should we practice the same?

2. Do you spend money for your own pleasure without first gaining His permission?

Gaining permission ought not be too subjective. I’m not saying you must hear a voice of approval or have some internal impression. And the Bible does not forbid a Christian to purchase something that brings personal delight. However, how much do we possess that if we had truly been guided by biblical principles we would not own? Did you really pray and have peace of heart that God was also delighted in your purchase? If not, you wasted the Lord’s goods.

3. Do you live as if today is more important than heaven’s glory?

If today and your immediate gratification is more important than investing in the kingdom of God, then be certain you are wasting what belongs to God. Jesus said, “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). He went on to say don’t worry about today. The glory of the King and His kingdom is the motivation of a faithful steward.

4. Do you consider how you may minister to your brother or fellow man?

God has blessed us, not just so we can enjoy His blessings, but that we might bless others as well. If we are not in the habit of thinking about how we may be a blessing to others, then we are wasting the Lord’s goods.

Time will for stewardship will run out. It must run out and it will run out for you. I do not speak of just the end of life, but time for stewardship can run out or be severally reduced many ways. Your present ability to invest may end by debilitating health, economic ability decreased, or relationships may end leaving you no further opportunity to invest. Let us seize this moment and waste not another.

The Question of Ownership

2010-06-22T13:22:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

The greatest hindrance to good stewardship is to question God’s ownership of what you possess, including your life. It is so easy to see what God has given us as merely gifts and not investments in us. It is too easy for me to see my money as belonging to me and not the Lord God. Should the Lord press my heart to give away what I have saved for something I really wanted, it’s very difficult to turn loose of it. Why? Because I view it as mine.

This is where faith struggles and we must fight for the faith to believe that what seems to belong to us doesn’t. If the Lord Jesus says that it’s not mine but His, then faith must say, “No matter how much this money and these things feel like mine, Jesus has said they are His, and therefore they are.”

Job 41:11 ESV Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

Psalms 24:1 The earth [is] the LORD’S, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.

John Wesley had four questions that he would always ask himself before making any expenditure or purchase.

1. In spending this money, am I acting like I owned it, or am I acting like the Lord’s trustee?

2. What Scripture requires me to spend this money in this way?

3. Can I offer up this purchase as a sacrifice to the Lord?

4. Will God reward me for this expenditure at the resurrection of the just?

Part of the wicked steward’s problem in Matthew 25, was not so much that he questioned the talent really belonged to the Master, but he treated the talent of silver as it was his own. He treated it with contempt. It had no value to him. Truly, if it had been his, he would have spent it and squandered it. He didn’t care if it increased in worth, or not, so long as he had a good time. The lazy, unfaithful steward didn’t have a heart for His Master or His business. He probably congratulated himself that he didn’t take the money and spend it. He thought to himself that if the Master knew what was really in his heart, He would have thanked him that he buried it.

If we are to be faithful stewards we must renew the mind and stop seeing the possessions entrusted to us as our own. They belong to another. And so do we.

The Definition of Stewardship

2010-06-15T13:34:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

The definition of stewardship is the Christian is a custodian or manager of the provision of God’s resources entrusted to him or her for the purpose of increasing those resources. Success is not dependent upon the steward’s preserving the Lord’s resources but increasing them. The faithful steward or manager increases the holdings of his Master.

The two faithful stewards in Jesus’ parable found in Matthew 25 were honored and rewarded because they did not just protect the Owner’s assets but increased them. The parable’s unfaithful steward was rebuked and punished because he only protected and did not increase the Owner’s asset.

But how do we increase the things God has entrusted to us? Not just by evangelism or by giving money to the church. This parable is not about winning the lost or financing the building fund. It is about being faithful and productive with what God has invested in you. For example, all believers have been forgiven. God has invested the grace of forgiveness. How then can I take the grace of forgiveness and increase it? By forgiving those who offend me. Now two people have experienced forgiveness.

Another example, the Lord has given me a mind to think and learn. In my study of the Bible, the Holy Spirit invests knowledge about God that helps me to grow. I take that information and by the power of the same Holy Spirit share it with someone else. Now two people have heard from God and not just one.

Yet another example, God in His kindness gives you money to purchase something to eat today. You take the money and not only buy you something to eat but someone else. This way two people are feed by the goodness of God and not just one person. God’s goodness is multiplied in your productivity of investing in someone besides you.

The key to effective stewardship is to remain conscious that we are not the possessors of anything within in our grasp. It all belongs to another—our Heavenly Father. The wonderful grace of God employs us in working with the Great Owner of All to not protect against loss, but to increase what is given to our care. Loss is not even possible, except if we hoard what He has committed to us.

What is in your custodial care that you have not increased yet? Do you still have the same amount you had when God first trusted you? Then you and the kingdom are suffering loss. You are losing the potential earnings that could be if you would learn to believe that all things given to you are for your sharing with others to the glory of God.

The Important Relationship Between Money and Salvation

2010-06-08T10:18:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

Jesus was not afraid to say things that He knew would not be understood or be misinterpreted. Nor was He afraid to link things that most religious people would not link. Here in the text He links money with being saved.

Matthew 6:24 "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.

The importance of money is highlighted in the Bible in two people. One is Zacchaeus and the other is the young rich ruler. Both were wealthy men. Their attitude toward their wealth played a significant role in their eternities. For Zacchaeus he was joyfully willing to not just make restitution to all the people he had cheated, but he wanted to give them four times the amount he had swindled. Jesus’ response was, “Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:9).

The young rich ruler had the very opposite attitude about his wealth. Jesus said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (Luke 18:22). But in this case it does not end as well as Zacchaeus’. The Bible says the young man walked away sorrowfully because he had great wealth.

Jesus summarized the sorrow of the young man saying, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:24-25).

Jesus’ point was not being rich keeps you from knowing God and out of heaven. Zacchaeus was wealthy and he was converted. The issue is your satisfaction in money. If money satisfies you more than Christ, then it becomes a salvation issue. That’s the problem with materialism. Materialism is the philosophy of valuing the material over the spiritual. Seeking the material is not forbidden in the Bible. Seeking the material over the spiritual is.

What is your true attitude about the material? The Bible tells us that we have a natural inclination to love money, possessions and things. Being converted changes my heart and its desires, but it does not change my flesh. The root of the love of money still lies within in me. On top of this, is the chameleon-like tendency of the love of money or things. It can convince you that you don’t really love money more than Jesus. Therefore, it’s hard to detect sinful attitudes. Wrong actions can’t be ignored, wrong attitudes can. For your eternities sake you must learn to detect the spirit of materialism.

Going to Extremes

2010-06-07T11:39:00.005-05:00

Error is something we all want to avoid. Yet in efforts to escape error, we often have a tendency to overcorrect, throwing us into a ditch on the other side of the road. In the latest RTM video, we explore this topic and learn how to stay Biblical while avoiding dangerous heresies.

An Abuse of the Sovereignty of God

2010-06-04T11:07:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

Could it be that you rely upon the sovereignty of God in a way that God did not intend? Let’s take prayer for example. Do you pray thinking, “Why am I doing this? God’s will will be done.” Have you prayed and asked yourself the question, “What if this is not God’s will?” and then cease to pray? We all have done so.

Or have you felt uncomfortable when you realized you were not fulfilling your responsibility to share your faith, but then felt relieved because you believed that no sinner’s conversion was dependent upon your fulfilling your responsibility? Your hope was that in the end God’s sovereignty would ensure the elect’s salvation.

These are two examples of a misuse of the beautiful truth that God is sovereign. Jonathan Edwards said, “The sovereignty of God is His absolute, independent right of disposing of all creatures according to His own pleasure.” God’s sovereignty means He has authority to rule over all of His creation and the power to do so; thus, He controls all things according to His wisdom. If this is not true, then nothing is true or sure. Unless the Lord God sovereignly rules then all is helter-skelter. Romans 8:28 couldn’t be true and none of us could be sure that we have been delivered from sin by the blood of the Savior. It is necessary that one be in control who can do all things as He sees best. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can pillow his head at night and not believe that God is sovereign.

But such confidence in God does not give license to disobey God. It seems throughout the centuries that there have been men who perverted this aspect of God to cover for their laziness or slothfulness. To say that men will be saved regardless of our efforts is absolutely absurd! It is overtly unbiblical. To use this blessed truth to excuse prayerlessness cannot be considered anything other than sinful.

God has ordained that men will only be saved through the preaching of His gospel and through the prayers of His redeemed (Romans 10:14-15). This is the absolute rule of the sovereignty of God. And any man who would use sovereignty to cancel out this divine rule is completely illogical. It is the law of the Divine Ruler of all creation.

Whatever God has decreed to come to pass, He has also decreed the means by which it is to come to pass. Isn’t it an amazing thing that we who are called “God’s fellow-workers” would think there is nothing for us to do in the economy of God, and that without us, the work would still be done? Does it not cross your mind that He may have sovereignly chosen you to ask for certain things according to His will? Have you considered that God has decreed you to bear forth His Son’s glory and that if you do not, you have violated the sovereign purpose of God?

One may argue that our failure to obey was decreed. Decreed because it was God’s desire for you to disobey? Nothing could be more absurd! Simply because God in His infinite wisdom allows sin does not in any way make our Holy God desire sin. What good are His commands to be holy, if He desires something contrary? Is He guilty of double talk? Again, preposterous! Leave to God how He works out the intricacies of these difficulties. And let us do what we are commanded to do, refusing to hide behind our good God’s sovereignty in order to shirk our duty.

Philosophy of Giving

2010-06-03T13:54:00.006-05:00

Psalm 50:10 says, "For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills." God does not need anything we have. It is already His! Yet in His plans, He uses His people to provide the resources for His work through giving. So how should we approach giving? We take our cues from the Word of God through the Apostle Paul.

For an in depth look at why God using giving as a means to support His work, look under the Stewardship section on the topical page of RTM at http://realtruthmatters.com/topical.html .

For This Purpose

2010-06-01T12:58:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

I was asked an interesting question today. If I never preached again, what would be the sum of my life and ministry? I answered without hesitation the purpose statement of RTM: “The recovery of New Testament Christianity by promoting the pursuit of Jesus Christ as the gospel.” I believe that God ordained that I live at this particular time in human history and as far as I can perceive, this is the need of my generation.

So much that is done in the name of Christ is derogatory to His holy name. A great deal of what is called Christianity is not. The gospel has become a cure-all for anything, mainly an avenue to fun and happiness. “Accept Jesus into your heart and your life will be so much better. You’ll have it made.” In other words, the gospel is the fast-track to the good life.

Frankly, that cheapens the person of Christ. He did not suffer the humiliation of becoming one of us, the degradation of His human existence, and the death of crucifixion in order that we live in comfort and ease on this earth. Money can purchase these things. He did what money cannot do. His life and death bought much more than temporal pleasure. Jesus brought us into proper relationship with God. The greatest challenge a person faces is not beating the Joneses or achieving the “good life.” It is how can I face holy God and death with my sin. Christ is the answer to that challenge. Through faith in Him I can sacrifice these few short years on earth and inherit forever with more wealth than Forbes’ richest will ever have. And because of the beauty and love of Jesus, my sacrifice in this world seems small if not a privilege.

I want to give my life to promote this good news, who is Jesus, to my generation. I want to live for a purpose that is more lasting, more important, and much larger than me. Therefore, my life and ministry requires that I expose the imitation in order to introduce the genuine. Easy, comfortable and painless? No, but then neither was what our Savior endured to give us this wonderful privilege of knowing Him who is eternal life.

Philosophy of Ministry

2010-05-27T10:32:00.002-05:00

Moral Preaching vs. Gospel Preaching

2010-05-26T16:00:00.005-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

What place do moral issues have in Christian ministry? Should we speak out loudly and often against those things that offend? Or do we remain silent believing that giving no offense is the better approach? I believe the answer is neither. Somewhere in the middle seems to be the method of Jesus and the apostles. And they should be our model.

In the Old Testament, the prophets were commanded to cry against the moral sins of their generation. John Baptist’s head was lifted from his body because he spoke out against the king’s sin of adultery. But neither Jesus nor the authors of New Testament epistles deal much about any one particular moral issue of that day. If there was any polemic aspect to their ministries it was against the religious establishment of their generation. Jesus’ harshest words were against the Pharisees (who were the ones who preached against the immoral issues of their day) and not the publicly immoral. The apostles warned Christians about sin—all kinds of sins—but in the few sermons we have in the book of Acts we don’t see any one issue, even idolatry, being condemned. The apostle Paul said that it was not his task or ministry to judge those who were outside the Church:

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner--not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person” (1 Corinthians 5:9-13).

I take from this a couple of things. One, sinners sin. What else are you to expect out of the unbelieving world? Second, God will put an end to the sinner, but until that day I am to preach the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ to him. I am by no means suggesting that we should never preach against sin, or that when we do preach against it we do so in a general way. Not at all! We must warn against sin. But warning against sin, and its ultimate consequence, is very different than making sinners feel as if we have already judged them.

The difference we see in the ministry of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus and New Covenant preaching is the remedy. In the Old Covenant period the Law was proclaimed. It was basically a message of morality. Keep the law and live. Break the law and die. However, the Apostle Paul says all law can do is arouse our sinful passions. It can never save. It may expose the sin, it may condemn the sin, but it also stimulates sinful desires. Morality preaching, in the end, leads to more sin. The apostle tells the Romans, “Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound” (Romans 5:20).

In this New Covenant era, the gospel is the only remedy for immorally bound people. It is the gospel, through the power of the Holy Spirit, which sets men free from sin and its issues. Should I never mention the great sins of our day such as abortion, homosexuality, etc.? Again, no not at all! But I should do so in the spirit of the New Covenant. Not in a condemning way, but hopefully. I should preach not only to expose the sin, but answer the sin with the gospel. I wonder if we have not become better at exposing sin, than expositing the gospel.

Today, some ministries operate just to see certain sins erased from our nation, as if those sins were eliminated, our nation would somehow be better. I too, pray these sins would be gone, never to be committed again. But even if that were so, men would still be lost in sin. If we would see men’s hearts changed, the law must only be used as Christ and the apostles used it. Not as a means of judging the sinner but exposing. There is a difference. The tax collectors and prostitutes knew that Jesus did not approve of their sin. There was no question where He stood on their immorality. But He loved them in such a way that they wanted to hear His answer to their sin. May the Spirit of Jesus be upon us and not the spirit of the Pharisee.

Is God’s Mercy Really Infinite?

2010-05-25T16:30:00.002-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

Does infinite mercy mean no judgment? Is God’s mercy the guarantee of reprieve? If I say God’s mercy has run out for America have I contradicted infinite mercy; have I stated that His mercy has limits? What do we mean when we say God’s mercy is infinite?

First, we do not mean that divine mercy precludes judgment. The Bible says definitively that there is judgment now and a great day of judgment is coming. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). Paul goes on to say in the second chapter of Romans, “But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who ‘will render to each one according to his deeds’” (Romans 2:5, 6). Somehow mercy and judgment can both exist and both remain infinite.

Second, on a positive note, judgment can be the exercise of mercy. If the word mercy means kindness, then it is kindness for God to exercise His judgment for the sake of His glory, His people and the cause of righteousness. Therefore, infinite mercy is not contradicted in the dispensing of infinite wrath. Isaiah didn’t see any contradiction when he prophesied of the Messiah’s reign, “In mercy the throne will be established; And One will sit on it in truth, in the tabernacle of David, Judging and seeking justice and hastening righteousness” (Isaiah 16:5). The throne of Christ will be established by mercy so that He may execute the triumph of righteousness. David rehearses the same thought about Israel and Pharaoh’s army. What was mercy to one was judgment to another: “To Him who divided the Red Sea in two, for His mercy endures forever; and made Israel pass through the midst of it, for His mercy endures forever; but overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, for His mercy endures forever” (Psalms 136:13-15).

Therefore, if God should put an end to us as a society and a nation, we should not say that His mercy has ended. It is because of mercy that He does not allow evil to continue or allow us to sin in a more vile way (if it can be imagined that our sinning could become more vile).

But this is not just true for a nation; it is also true for the individual. God’s mercy to the sinner cannot be underestimated nor presumed upon. He is unbelievably good to the most wicked of sinners. He allows them to prosper or grants them many opportunities to hear the gospel. Can you call such mercy by any other name? His lovingkindness is infinite in measure. Yet, there comes a day when His mercy is not inexhaustible toward the sinner, but for the sake of all that is named good the sinner is cut down and brought under the infinite judgment of God. Although the sinner does not experience God’s mercy, we can be sure that mercy did not end. In mercy judgment was executed. Infinite mercy demands infinite judgment.

Thoughts on Plodding On as an Unknown Christian

2010-05-21T06:16:00.001-05:00

By Mack Tomlinson

(This blog was written by a dear friend of mine, Mack Tomlinson. Mack serves as co-pastor of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas. He also maintains a ministry as an evangelist and conference speaker. Michael Durham)

In our church prayer meeting just last night, we were praying about the fact that it is not in the great exciting moments of conferences or big events in which the Christian faith is truly lived out, but rather in the daily grind, the mundane, the regular routine of getting up in the morning, saying, "In the name of Jesus, left leg, get out of bed! Right leg, you too!", then doing every day the simple, unexciting things you have been given to do-- dressing and going to work, seeing the same people every day in the same location within the same walls, and doing it over and over again. It's in changing diapers for the pleasure and honor of Christ. Or taking care of your home, your family, your health, your normal and routine life-- doing the little things faithfully and well. Living with regular and real faithfulness in your local church, loving the brethren and walking with them. It's not in attending conferences or doing something exciting, but in living out a normal life where you have been put, and doing that with joy and contentment--that is what glorifies Jesus Christ the most. God's glory will be seen the most through me when I get past thinking I might be a John Piper one day and just be me to the fullest extent. My impact will not be in my changing a nation single-handedly, but in living as a real Christian in front of my wife and children.

Is there exciting emotion in rising at 4:00 or 5:00 am and driving in the dark morning hours to a factory or on a freeway to a building to do menial tasks that no one seems to appreciate or notice? The fact is, most all of us will never be known for anything other than this-- what kind of person were we? what kind of life did we truly live day in and day out? were we faithful, kind, genuine, trustworthy, committed, dependable, real, and humble? Is fame or faithfulness more attractive to me?

I thought about a certain famous actor and how many people would probably choose to spend a day with that person if they could choose only one. Simply because they are famous. Then I thought about that same actor and remembered that the primary thing about his private life is that he is totally commited to a religious cult that deceives millions of people. So why would anyone in their right mind choose such a person as their number one pick? Simply because they're famous, no other reason.

The problem is this-- we still have in our minds a wrong view of true greatness. It is not the Brad Pitts, Tom Cruises, Oprahs, Joel Osteens, and Katie Courics of this world that have true greatness.

It's the mother no one knows about who really cares for her children month after month and gives the strength of her years to raising them.

It's the father who goes to work every day in a place no one has heard of and earns a living to provide.

It's a teacher who prepares lesson plans regularly to teach and impact 20 kids, helping them to go to college, and living like the Saviour before their watching eyes.

It's the faithful deacon who does the many unseen things every week to serve the saints month after month and year after year, and in doing so, he is serving the Saviour and storing up riches in a heavenly kingdom.

It's the loving and committed pastor who prepares and preaches to ten or twenty people and sees it just as important as preaching to two thousand, because he does it for the eternal welfare of their souls and he does it unto Christ. He will never be on tv and doesn't want to be. He's not building a big kingdom and doesn't want to.

These are the real heroes, the really great ones.

Kevin DeYoung has hit the nail on the head when he says:

Until we are content with being one of the million nameless, faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t ready to be a part of the church. In the grand scheme of things, most of us are going to be more of an Ampliatus (Rom. 16:8 or Phlegon (v. 14) than an apostle Paul. And maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church. We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd. We haven’t learned to be ordinary. Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. We drive to the same places, go through the same routines with the kids, buy the same groceries at the store, and share a bed with the same person every night. Church is often the same too — same doctrines, same basic order of worship, same preacher, same people. But in all the smallness and sameness, God works — like the smallest seed in the garden growing to unbelievable heights, like beloved Tychicus, that faithful minister, delivering the mail and apostolic greetings (Eph. 6:21). Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.

It’s possible the church needs to change. Certainly in some areas it does. But it’s also possible we’ve changed — and not for the better. It’s possible we no longer find joy in so great a salvation. It’s possible that our boredom has less to do with the church, its doctrines, or its poor leadership and more to do with our unwillingness to tolerate imperfection in others and our own coldness to the same old message about Christ’s death and resurrection. It’s possible we talk a lot about authentic community, but we aren’t willing to live in it.

I am thinking now of two men who I respect as much as any people I have ever known. One is a retired teacher who has lived the Christian life in a deep, consistent, and rich way while teaching school daily for probably forty years. He has never really traveled that much, is not known outside the sphere of his own small circle, has never written a book or been interviewed, and has never been on the conference circuit as a speaker.

Yet his life has been a powerful force in the lives of many people widely, just because of the way he has lived his life while simply plodding on, truly living for Jesus daily in a full way. His life has shown that the kingdom of God is not in words, but in power and in living it out quietly and irresistibly.

The other man was a simple, faith-filled preacher who usually preached in churches of 100 or less, often in churches that had less than 30 people in them. He was never known outside his own little circle of churches and friendships. He never wrote a book and did not even read many books outside the Bible. But he read the Bible through probably over 100 times in his life and prayed hours daily. He loved others and lived a simple, yet amazing life of faith, and saw the power of God come many times to the conversion of many people. He saw God do amazing things that few ever see. The famous preachers today would never have heard his name, yet he out-shined them and out-lived them all. He just plodded on, not desiring to be somebody, but desired to know Someone and truly live for Him.

It's those guys I want to be like. There really is something to be said for plodding on in an unseen, unknown way to the glory of God. The glory is not in being known or in doing something "great" for which you will be remembered. The glory is in living for Jesus daily, consistently, to just keep plodding on, even if no one ever knows who you are.

“The Holy Spirit Who?”

2010-05-20T07:04:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

As we approach Pentecost Sunday, I find myself wondering why so many resist discussion of the Holy Spirit. It seems that many non-pentecostal/non-charismatic Christians are very reluctant to even mention the Spirit unless they are reciting some benediction or creed. Is it any wonder we are so impotent?

Lest anyone label me a charismatic by my willingness—and lack of embarrassment—to say “Holy Spirit,” let me say I am not one who speaks in tongues nor do I encourage such manifestations. The Apostle Paul makes it very clear that we should not seek this gift. He commands the tongue-crazed Corinthians to stop seeking to speak with tongues and seek better gifts.

“But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31).

“Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:1).

“Even so you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that you seek to excel” (1 Corinthians 14:12).

Therefore, do not assume I am a card-carrying charismatic simply because I believe in the active influence and ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is easy to dismiss someone by sticking a label on them whether it is true or not. We all have done it, and we need to repent from such tactics. Now that I’ve dealt with that, let me move on to my point.

When Jesus returned to heaven, He pressed the disciples one more time on their need of the Holy Spirit. He had told them before the cross that the Spirit would be to them as He, Jesus, had been. The Holy Spirit would be their leader, counselor, guide and teacher. When any one of the disciples had a need or question they would go to Christ and make their request. After Christ’s ascension, the Holy Spirit would be the One they could turn to. Jesus actually calls the Spirit “another Advocate” (John 14:16). The word another means another of the same kind. And in 1 John 2:1, Jesus is called by the same title: “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

Clearly, the Holy Spirit is not to be ignored or relegated to some inferior position in the Trinity. But this is what churches do. We oil our church machines and operate on gimmick, raw emotion, and manipulation. We build buildings, construct choirs, and learn drama; why, we even borrow Hollywood’s theatrics in order to do the ministry. We think we don’t need what the early church did, the power of the Holy Spirit. We don’t need prayer meetings waiting for the power of heaven; we’ve got power-packed worship services with first-rate musicians and polished preachers. We’ve surrendered to the idea of ministry by marketing. We rig mood lighting to substitute the presence of God. We don’t want prophets; we want pulpiteers with tear-jerking stories or side-splitting humor.

I’m here to tell you that you may think all of this is awesome Christianity—but it is a sham. It is a museum of wax. Things look real, life-like, but it isn’t. And if the power of the Spirit were to fall on it, it would melt faster than wax. Most professing Christians would not know true Christianity if it confronted them. In fact, it would terrify them. They would reject it out of hand as something unusual, uncouth and unsophisticated.

But a true Spirit-filled church is needed. The world needs to see a people who are not influenced by money, power or fame. They need to see a church sold out to this one proposition: that God—the Holy Spirit—can do more in one minute than all the programs of men can do in a lifetime. It is past time that churches honor the Spirit of our Lord and bow before Him in humble submission. If we would do so, then we would see the kinds of things we read about. We would experience what the Whitefields, the Spurgeons and Lloyd-Joneses experienced. Charles Spurgeon was no charismatic, but he believed in the personal operation of the Holy Spirit in his life and the life of his church. He said,

If we would have the Spirit, beloved, we must each of us try to honour him. There are some chapels into which if you were to enter, you would never know there was a Holy Spirit. Mary Magdalene said of old, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” And the Christian might often say so, for there is nothing said about the Lord until they come to the end, and then there is just the benediction, or else you would not know that there were three persons in one God at all. Until our churches honour the Holy Spirit, we shall never see [Him] abundantly manifested in our midst. Let the preacher always confess before he preaches that he relies upon the Holy Spirit. Let him burn his manuscript and depend upon the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit does not come to help him, let him be still and let the people go home and pray that the Spirit will help him next Sunday.

And do you also, in the use of all your agencies, always honour the Spirit? We often begin our religious meetings without prayer; it is all wrong. We must honour the Spirit; unless we put him first, he will never make crowns for us to wear. He will get victories, but he will have the honour of them, and if we do not give to him the honour, he will never give to us the privilege and success. And best of all, if you would have the Holy Spirit, let us meet together earnestly to pray for him. Remember, the Holy Spirit will not come to us as a church, unless we seek him.

Let us seek the precious Holy Spirit. He is our greatest gift; therefore let us cherish Him as such and be quick to claim Him, to name Him, and to honor Him.

Watching God Work

2010-05-14T09:00:00.002-05:00

As we are just days away from RTM becoming a full time ministry, my mind has been creating a blog to sort of commemorate this event. So far, I have described my journey to this point in general terms, but I would like to share some things that are a bit more personal so that you will hopefully see how God is directing us and how I am approaching ministry.

For today, however, I want to share with you some encouraging news. Yesterday was our every-other-month pastors' fellowship. It is an outreach of Real Truth Matters where pastors come, enjoy a wonderful meal, are served lovingly and graciously, and are ministered to through the word and prayer. Our desire is to see these meetings become places where they can take off their masks (pastors are perhaps the worst about putting on masks and hiding their hurts and struggles) and become real with one another. Through this transparency, the grace of God flows and true ministry takes place toward those who are usually expected to do the ministering.

We have seen this take place on several occasions. Yesterday was no exception. Brother Mike Morrow shared with the men the idols that can creep into a pastor's life and cause that man to lay aside the most important aspect of his own life; his walk and experience with Christ.

I was certainly blessed to see the pastors take it to heart and open up to one another. At the end, we spend time in prayer . . . real prayer . . . for one another. Several of the pastors enthusiastically and repeatedly said, "Don't stop having these meetings. I need this!" A couple of them, once the meeting was over, asked, "What do I do til the next meeting? I need this more often!"
Ministry to pastors is, I believe, a vital role that God has for RTM. Pastors are expected to give, give, give to others, but who ministers to them? Praise God I have seen them ministered to over the past year or so.

Then, I got a phone call from Brother Michael last night. He told me that he had received an email from a pastor in Alabama who had watched our promo video on Vimeo. The video features four testimonies from false converts whom God graciously saved. The pastor also looked at some of the videos from our 2009 conference.

He is going to order the 2009 conference DVD set, and he, along with others in the church, are going to study them this summer! A couple of weeks ago, when we sat down to decide what our first tasks should be when RTM goes full time, we decided to explore taking the conference messages, breaking them down into smaller chunks, creating a study guide, and offering this to the public and churches to do exactly what this pastor is going to do with them! How amazing is our God?

Well, these are the things that the Lord has placed in our path, and, as a follower and supporter of RTM, I wanted you to be aware of the work that is already taking place. Pray for RTM and those whom RTM will minister to. Pray about supporting the work of RTM. There were just a few people ministering directly to those pastors yesterday, but those few could not have ministered if countless others had not been obedient to God before that day.

The Amazing Faithfulness of God

2010-05-06T20:25:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

In my blog last week I shared that RTM is going to launch as a full-time ministry with full-time staff on May 17. I have expressed before that I wasn’t terribly excited when first considering this step of faith. My faith was, and I think still is, so small that I thought the finances would be a constant struggle. The responsibility of making payroll and other new responsibilities did not appeal to me. After two months of prayer and the counsel of trusted confidants I knew this was the will of the Lord. However, such knowledge has not helped my faith a great deal. I have still anticipated paydays with no money.

And so in last week’s blog I did the only thing I knew to do when faith is small—go to the Word of the Lord. I cited Psalm 119:116, “Uphold me according to Your word, that I may live; And do not let me be ashamed of my hope.” This was my prayer.

Since that blog, I am blessed to be able to share that Real Truth Matters has received nearly $24,000 in donations. This is one third of this year’s budget. Amazing! All I can do is bless the Lord.

But there is yet a shame that I have experienced. It is the shame that I did not believe that a divine response would be so quick in coming. To some extent, I feel like disciples did after waking Jesus out of very sound sleep saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Jesus stood in a storm-tossed boat and commanded both wind and wave to cease, and they obeyed. No sooner had the boat ceased to rock and roll, then the disciples “were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, ‘Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!’”

They had asked Him to do something and He did. Why were they so surprised? Why was I so surprised when He answered so quickly for our need of funds? In each instance, the answer is the same—the answer is in Jesus’ question to the stunned apostles—“Where is your faith?” In their case and in mine, it is a matter of not using the faith we have been given. Jesus’ question to the disciples does not imply they had no faith. Rather it states the opposite: where is it?

All believers have faith, but often we do not exercise it. If we had no faith, why then pray? We ask the Lord, as did the disciples, knowing that He is able. That is faith. But to that point and no further do we seem to use our faith. Thus, when in His mercy He grants our requests, we are surprised.

All I can say is that our Heavenly Father is amazingly faithful to His children who possess very small faith. I pray that your faith is being exercised as you read this testimony of God’s faithfulness so that you and I will not be so surprised the next time He answers a prayer.

Would You Uphold Us, Lord?

2010-04-28T15:43:00.003-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

In less than three weeks Real Truth Matters will go full time as J.T. Crawford and Joseph Durham become its first two full-time staff members. This is a considerable step of faith for us. And we have not rushed into it. The process began last November and now, almost six months later, it’s about to happen.

We are depending on the Lord to uphold us and sustain us. We believe He has led us to this point, and our confidence is that He will protect us from final failure. No matter what God is directing you to do, you should believe that He will uphold you. Every call of God must have God’s equipment. David counted on being upheld by the strong hand of God. In Psalms you read several times of his faith in the Lord to uphold him.

“Uphold my steps in Your paths, That my footsteps may not slip.” (Psalms 17:5)

David prays that God would keep him from devices of the wicked that would divert him from the ways of God. We too can believe that He will do the same for us. Pray for RTM that the Lord will uphold our steps and keep us in His path. Ask Him that we will not slip from His ways.

“As for me, You uphold me in my integrity, And set me before Your face forever.” (Psalms 41:12)

In this verse David asks that his integrity be preserved, meaning that he would not be proven to be unrighteous. In the end, he did not want what he had done for God to be revealed to be his efforts to do what he thought best, but that all would know God had actually led him. This is RTM’s prayer as well. We have no desire to do what we deem as right. We are not making this major change to appear as a great ministry of faith. The truth is we prefer to have our financial needs already provided before launching full time. But this ministry believes that what we are embarking to do is God’s will. Thus, we too pray, “Uphold us in our integrity.”

“. . . uphold me by Your generous Spirit.” (Psalms 51:12)

David experienced his weakness to resist temptation. Mindful of his failures, he prays that a stronger power support him. All of us at RTM should be mindful of our failures and I believe we are. We must have a strength greater than own uphold us; otherwise, we will fail. Please pray that we will be empowered by the Holy Spirit as we work to fulfill His call.

“Behold, God is my helper; The Lord is with those who uphold my life.” (Psalms 54:4)

What a splendid and hopeful verse! God was David’s helper and was numbered among David’s valiant men. Of course the Lord was the champion of all champions, greater than David himself. But what comfort to know that God helps us as a friend and confidant. He upholds us even through the efforts of friends who support us. He helps those who lift us up. May the Lord uphold you who support RTM in your prayers and gifts.

The last verse that David pens that speaks of God upholding him is:

“Uphold me according to Your word, that I may live; And do not let me be ashamed of my hope.” (Psalms 119:116)

Without God bearing David up, he knew life could not be lived. Without God upholding David, he knew that his hope would fail, and he would be ashamed.

RTM will die, and rightly so, if the Lord does not uphold us according to His word. If God does not bear us up, then in the end we will be ashamed. If God does not meet our needs, then we will be proven to have been presumptuous and foolhardy. And so in 19 days we launch out into the deep waters of God’s faithfulness. Would you join us as we pray to be upheld by divine omnipotence? “Uphold us according to Your word, that we may live; and do not let us be ashamed of our hope. You, O God, are our hope.”

RTM goes full time in less than three weeks!

2010-04-28T11:36:00.002-05:00

As you have probably already heard, there are some exciting changes coming at Real Truth Matters. The ministry will officially be going full time on May 17, less than three weeks away. Details on how we reached this critical decision were outlined in our blog and a video now featured on our home page.

As the date rapidly approaches, we are excited about the work to come. Real Truth Matters exists to promote a return to New Testament Christianity by promoting the pursuit of Jesus Christ as the Gospel. So much of what we hear today is a man-centered theology based on what God can do for us. We believe that God is radically Christ-centered, and He points us to be as well. Yet in His amazing plan, when we are radically Christ-centered, we attain our greatest joy. This is what we pray Real Truth Matters will do: cause men and women to become so fascinated with all God is in Christ that they then live outside of themselves thus magnifying the worth of Christ by being completely satisfied in Him.

Some of our first tasks include producing a video series and teaching tools based on the core messages that came from our 2008 & 2009 conferences.

We are also continuing to improve and utilize the RTM website where we produce weekly teaching that cuts across many topics but always points listeners and viewers back to the pursuit of Christ.

We are also improving the magazine The Expositor while looking toward newer and broader venues in the world of magazine publishing.

In the ever growing area of online, social applications, we will be producing short films which can be easily shared that will drive home correct teaching in ways that will impact the viewer. We do this by utilizing sites such as Youtube and Facebook.

RTM also ministers directly to pastors and church leaders by providing them with networking and support, training, and ongoing encouragement and refreshing. In the future, we look forward to training men for new works in a more comprehensive, educational setting.

We will also work to support churches and other ministries in their endeavors to preach the gospel by assisting in audio/visual equipment set up/consultation/training, print design and layout for tracts and other printed materials, and website design.

Much of this work has already been taking place, but it has only trickled out due to our volunteer staff working only when time allows. With a full time staff, we will now have the time to dedicate to our full attention to our mission.

To accomplish this, we are relying on the same God who called us to this work to supply our needs. It takes money to support a staff, purchase and maintain equipment, and do the day to day work of RTM. We do not mention money and support of RTM ashamedly or with fear. Money is used by God to teach us many things as we see in the series Living Priorities – Living in Light of Eternity found under the Stewardship header on our topical index.

Both you and Real Truth Matters learn more about God and eternal values, and are brought closer to Him by learning what it truly means to be a steward. We do not take that lightly. God uses you and us together to accomplish this work. We do need your support as the Lord so leads.
We also want to hear from you! Let us know how RTM can serve you in your ministry. As believers, we are all ministers of Christ, and we want to serve you in the work in which He has called you.

Poem for Good Friday

2010-04-02T10:12:00.002-05:00

A Poem for Good Friday -

Good Friday. The words etched in small black typeface on my calendar … Friday, April 2, 2010.

Good Friday. What makes Good Friday so good?

The single day of the year to have the distinction of being good. How can it be good? The commemoration of a man who claimed to be the Son of God, executed … capital punishment.

A man, brutally beaten, flesh nailed to wood, lifted up for a crowd to see. Good Friday? How can that be good? A people divided, occupied territory, a dissenter to rock the status quo.

What’s so good about Good Friday?

His followers would claim that He was God in the flesh, yet a humble servant to all, even stooping to wash their feet the night before His death. They claim that His death was the ultimate act of love … one who is taking upon himself the full wrath of God against all unrighteousness in our place. One who suffers under infinite justice as if he was the one looking at porn on a laptop … as if he was the one who was selling crack on a dark street corner … as if he was the one who constantly lied to maintain an image … as if he was the one who stole supplies from his boss when no one was looking … as if He was the one who lived a life of disregard for God. They claimed He became all of that and more to satisfy a debt we could never pay.

Perhaps He is what is good about Good Friday.

Sin and the False Convert

2010-04-01T09:39:00.000-05:00

by S. Michael Durham

If it is true that many who call themselves Christians are merely professors and not possessors of eternal life, then one of the major causes must be a misunderstanding of sin. The enemy’s oldest trick is to minimize sin. He tries to reduce our sense of the severity of disobedience. He plays down the harm of rebellion by calling it anything but rebellion; he hides the reality of sin’s consequences and judgment.

Sadly, but interestingly, many modern preachers do the same. When preachers avoid the subject of sin altogether, as many do today, the result is a good many false Christians. In modern preaching, the word sin is taboo or redefined, and the act of sin is tolerated by both pulpit and pew. The wicked are soothed and made to feel no alarm. The moment someone is troubled about his soul’s jeopardy, he is consoled and told how wonderful he is and how much God loves him. Grief over sin is as unwanted as the plague in most church buildings.

The one thing that must precede true salvation is a biblical understanding of sin. We must see sin the way God sees it. It must reek with the foul odor it truly has and not be fumigated by a lying preacher’s lips. Until the sinner sees and feels the ownership of his sin he will not see the need for his conversion. Until the terribleness of sin grips his heart, any conversion he seeks will be the assurance of his eternal safety without deliverance from sin. The word salvation will only mean escape from judgment. It will never be equated with the saving from sin itself.

But when a sinner is made to realize his absolute unworthiness and reprehensibility, when he is made to know his utter wickedness, then he will see Jesus in an entirely different way. Christ will become more than attractive; He will become a necessary Savior without whom the sinner will perish, and perish deservedly. When sin becomes real to a man he finally understands his good works are a sham. To see sin as it really is motivates the convinced heart that there is no hope and smashes all places of refuge where the sinner might hide himself in self-righteousness.

Charles Spurgeon affirmed this principle when he said,

In the beginning, the preacher’s business is not to convert men, but the very reverse. It is idle to attempt to heal those who are not wounded, to attempt to clothe those who have never been stripped, and to make those rich who have never realized their poverty. As long as the world stands, we shall need the Holy Ghost, not only as the Comforter, but also as the Convincer, who will ‘reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.’

This goal is not accomplished by treating people like filth and nitpicking their faults, constantly telling them how wrong they are. But the subject of sin cannot be bypassed; for the sake of the sinner we must address it. Rather than trying to appease the non-believer let us hold before him the truth about the perfect righteousness of God. Let men see the infinite holiness of Christ and His sinless nature. Clearly declare the Lord’s royal robes of righteousness in order to expose their filthy and threadbare rags. Compare men to Him who knew no sin but became sin for us. Make men to know His beauty and purity, and surely they will know their ugliness and sin. And when they know and own their sin, they will make their way to the Savior and desire to know and own Him as their own righteousness.

The knowledge of the divine reveals the truth about sin and the sinner. If Satan’s work is the downplaying of sin, then surely it is the work of the preacher to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin by magnifying the exceeding greatness of God. This is the kind of preaching God owns. If we fail in this, then all we can expect are more false converts.

John Piper invites Rick Warren to speak at conference

2010-04-01T09:24:00.002-05:00

John Piper has invited Purpose Driven pastor Rick Warren to speak at a 2010 Desirng God conference. Piper, a long time champion among "reformed" folks, is now disappointing many by inviting what seems to be a pastor who heralds the opposite of what Piper has preached throughout his ministry.

Piper explained himself yesterday through a video on his website. You can see the video here:

I admittedly don't know a great deal about Rick Warren. Upon first hearng his name I was told by some discerning brothers that it wasn't in my best interest to listen to what he had to say. I would like to have more time to flush out this blog entry, but at least for today, what I write here will have to do. I hope it starts some discussion, which would be my preferred method of exploring what is going on here.

For now, I really want to just focus on the video above and how John Piper went about "checking out" Rick Warren and seeing if he is ok or not.

First, Piper comes up with a list of beliefs, presents them to Warren, and because Warren agrees with all of them, he is deemed as OK. Here is a place where many in reformed camps are doing exactly what they preach against. Christianity becomes a list of beliefs, and as long as you agree with the list, you are OK. Is that not tantamount to easy-believism? I am not putting down correct doctrine and theology. It is very important. But when it just becomes a checklist that you give mental ascent to, and it does not affect your life and your relationship with God, it is nothting but empty words. Rick Warren may agree to what Piper read off to him over the phone in word, but is it affecting his life and relationship with God?

And how many people have seemingly correct doctrines that never see the light of day? Have you ever checked out a heretical ministry or church website and looked at their belief statements? You can often be shocked to find correct theological statements and then wonder why those things do not come out in the ministry or church. For you, it was relevant to look those things up. For that ministry or church, it is an irrelevant list that has no bearing on what they actually do.

This leads me to one final bit of information I have regarding the Piper/Warren debate. A radio show host contacted the Desiring God conference offices about this issue and was told by Jonathan Parnell that "Rick Warren is 'more doctrinal' than he appears." Back to the previous paragraph, how good is your doctrine if it never sees the light of day, and in practice, your doctrine is different?

Finally, Piper ends his video talking about agreeing to disagree on who we hang out with. I am not convinced that inviting a person to a conference and giving a person a national platform would be classified as "hanging out."

Not that Piper would ever read this, but I would challenge him to go past a list of theological statements to agree with and look at what Warren practices. I have seen many pastors who would agree to a list of theological rules, but when it comes to what they practice, they are a million miles away from their "list." There is a disconnect in the minds of many between what one puts on paper as guiding beliefs and what one actually does.

Stop Judging !?!?!?

2010-03-15T16:22:00.003-05:00

There is a statement that we at Real Truth Matters are becoming familiar with, and it goes like this: You can’t judge! In our ministry of promoting New Testament Christianity by promoting a pursuit of Jesus Christ, distinctions arise between what we proclaim as the gospel and what is being proclaimed in much of American Christianity. In that, it is assumed we are passing judgment upon others, and according to our critics that is something Christians are not to do. They often use Matthew 7:1, where Jesus says, “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

First, let us address what it means to judge something or someone. In this passage, Jesus is literally speaking of passing hypocritical, self exalting condemnation. In the context of scripture Jesus talks about a person who looks down on others and seeks to pronounce sentence upon someone without first considering his own standing before God. But Jesus does say that once a person’s own heart and conscience are clear before God, then he is now at the point where he can help another.
So yes, we cannot judge in the sense that we cannot pass sentence upon someone else. That is only for God to do.

But what about judging when it means not passing sentence but distinguishing, discerning, examining, evaluating? Just a few verses down from Matthew 7:1, Jesus says, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine.” How are we to follow that command if we do not make judgments, or discernments, about what it means to be a dog or a swine?

Later on in the same sermon, Jesus tells us about false followers of God who look like harmless sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are ravenous wolves. He then says, “You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

Now wait a second. Is Jesus telling us not to judge and then giving us criteria on how to judge? No! He warns against trying to pass hypocritical condemnation against others, but to still distinguish and discern between what it means to be a follower of Christ and what it means to be a false convert.

And he does this for your good and for my good! Scripture gives clear evidences of what will be in a person’s life if he or she is in a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ. He does this to expose hearts and bring about the salvation of those who do not truly follow him. He also does this so that those who follow him are not lead astray by false followers and false teachers. Just as you know what kind of fruit tree you are looking at based upon what is growing on it, Jesus tells us you can know whether or not a person is a Christian by what is coming out of their lives. And it is for your benefit!

There is so much stuff in America that parades around as Christianity that clearly is not based upon what God has told us in His word. And to warn people against the dangers of heading toward eternal damnation when they think they are headed toward heaven is the most loving thing we can do.

And we don’t think we have some sort of monopoly on the truth. We don’t think we are the only ones who have it right. We are only passing to you what God’s word says. If you think we are hypocritically judging others or you, then search God’s word for yourself. Search it out, prayerfully and humbly and let God’s word be the plumb line and judge of your heart.

And nothing we are communicating is unique to us. Our message is not only supported in scripture, it is the message of God’s church throughout history. And all throughout that history, the church has communicated the same message which stands in stark contrast to the false work of Satan that has been pervasive throughout time, from the Garden of Eden until now. This is not a new struggle. This is not a new war.

We are not here to pass condemnation on anyone. That is not our place. But when we make distinctions about what it means to be a true follower of Christ and what it means to be a false convert, those are not from us, they are from God through his word. Search it yourself. Don’t take our word for it. Let God and the Holy Spirit be your guide.

Early Work from RTM

2010-03-13T09:16:00.001-06:00

Exciting News from RTM!

2010-03-12T07:38:00.001-06:00

You've seen the blog about RTM going full time. Now, watch the movie!

Spurgeon on the hardening effects of sin

2010-03-11T07:33:00.002-06:00

"Sin . . . exceeding sinful."—Romans 7:13.

BEWARE of light thoughts of sin. At the time of conversion, the conscience is so tender, that we are afraid of the slightest sin. Young converts have a holy timidity, a godly fear lest they should offend against God. But alas! very soon the fine bloom upon these first ripe fruits is removed by the rough handling of the surrounding world: the sensitive plant of young piety turns into a willow in after life, too pliant, too easily yielding. It is sadly true, that even a Christian may grow by degrees so callous, that the sin which once startled him does not alarm him in the least. By degrees men get familiar with sin. The ear in which the cannon has been booming will not notice slight sounds. At first a little sin startles us; but soon we say, "Is it not a little one?" Then there comes another, larger, and then another, until by degrees we begin to regard sin as but a little ill; and then follows an unholy presumption: "We have not fallen into open sin. True, we tripped a little, but we stood upright in the main. We may have uttered one unholy word, but as for the most of our conversation, it has been consistent." So we palliate sin; we throw a cloak over it; we call it by dainty names. Christian, beware how thou thinkest lightly of sin. Take heed lest thou fall by little and little. Sin, a little thing? Is it not a poison? Who knows its deadliness? Sin, a little thing? Do not the little foxes spoil the grapes? Doth not the tiny coral insect build a rock which wrecks a navy? Do not little strokes fell lofty oaks? Will not continual droppings wear away stones? Sin, a little thing? It girded the Redeemer's head with thorns, and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Saviour, and you will see it to be "exceeding sinful."

Itching Ears?

2010-03-09T07:03:00.002-06:00

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

2010-03-04T09:59:00.002-06:00

Jesus said in John 15:18 "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you."
It is no wonder that Tony "The Lawman" Miano is often heckled when he open air preaches. Tony, a retiree from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, now works with Way of the Master through their parent organization, Living Waters.

In the clip below, you will hear how hate is often spewed out upon him. The hate, we know, is really directed toward Christ. You can hear the full clip here.

Yet in it all, God is sovereign and uses even this for His purposes. I heard one of the most amazing sermons on that by John Piper. You can find it here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2009/4438_It_Is_the_Spirit_That_Gives_Life/

RTM Goes Full Time

2010-03-01T08:26:00.003-06:00

By Michael Durham

Every believer is a minister and every minister has a ministry. We use words and phrases that weaken our views of ministry such as, “bi-vocational,” “part-time,” and “volunteer staff.” Our ministries should be no more than an overflow of our intimate relationship with Christ. And that should be full-time, all the time.

What I mean by Real Truth Matters going full-time is that we have added and are going to add full-time paid staff. Up to this point all that RTM has done has been through the labors of several people volunteering their time and talents. These dear people have been outstanding in their devotion and labor for this ministry. Were it not for them, there would be no Real Truth Matters. I am not exaggerating. RTM is not the product of my mind or heart, but theirs. The truth is I have been quite comfortable being a pastor that also does itinerant ministry. But God disturbed my comfort and raised up young men and women who have seen His glory in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They wanted this ministry. They believed that what I had taught them needed to be communicated beyond these walls. And so RTM began.

Don’t misunderstand; I’m not a reluctant participant. Far from it! But I often feel more like a spectator as I watch the Lord orchestrate things that for years I tried to do but failed. Years ago our church had a media ministry called Living Priorities. Many of the things I see happening now are what I had hoped for that ministry. But at the end of 2004 the Lord put an end to that work. For nine years I struggled trying to get people to help in that ministry. For nine years I tried to encourage people to come alongside of me and help in ways that now I don’t have to encourage. They now come to me. There were some who helped during the years of Living Priorities but it was nothing like it is now.

For example, almost four months ago Joseph Durham, who serves as my administrative assistant, shared with me that he was convinced that God had called him to work full-time with RTM. I responded with great faith and said, “You surely know we don’t have the money to pay you a full-time salary?” He answered with tears pouring out of his eyes, “That doesn’t matter to me. My Heavenly Father told me I was His son and He would take care of me.”

Almost a month later, J. T. Crawford, who has been an instrumental part of RTM from the beginning, also came to me saying that he believed God was calling him to give himself full-time to RTM. He went on to share how in the past few months God had led him and his wife, Kerie, to quit her teaching position at the community college and be a full-time mom, homeschooling their daughters. Here I am faced with a man who, starting in May, will have no visible means of support.

If that wasn’t enough to blow me away, last month Justin and Missy Reed shared with me that they have a burden to give themselves to the work of RTM. Justin’s expertise is in development and audio engineering, while Missy has a degree in journalism and has worked as an editor. In Justin’s case he currently has the means of self-support so that he can give more time and energy to the ministry.

We have not rushed into this. The volunteer staff of RTM meet and covenanted to pray for 60 days as to whether or not this was God or just wonderful, but human, plans. After those 60 days we were unanimous that we believed it was God leading us.

It is also amazing to see the convergence of skills coming together at the same time. Joseph is university trained in web design and desktop publishing. J.T. is a professional photographer and videographer, while Justin is an experienced sound engineer who’s worked with Christian music producers. It would appear that in less than a year the Lord brought all of these abilities to us. For such a time as this? Perhaps.

Therefore, I am announcing that Real Truth Matters is now a ministry with full-time employees who have given themselves to God to live by faith and by the gospel they help broadcast. One of my heroes from whom I have learned much about faith, George Müller, never asked nor made known specific needs concerning his ministry. By prayer and faith he saw God answer the needs of a very extensive ministry. Yet, the Apostle Paul did not seem to be bothered to let people know ministry needs and instruct how they were to give to support those needs. What then should RTM’s policy be? I think somewhere in between.

First, we will never beg or harass people for financial support. RTM will simply express that we are a donation supported ministry. While full-time staff of RTM are members of Oak Grove, a policy that will continue, we are not looking to the church to be our only means of support. RTM is going to be incorporated and will apply for membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability for the means of financial transparency.

Second, we will not become in any way merchandisers of the gospel. In other words, we will, with God’s aid, never make money the issue. The issue is the gospel and its free access to those who need and want to hear it. While we do ask certain donations for resources, these are requests to meet expenses only, and not to build income. Our store policy is as follows:

Real Truth Matters has no desire to make a profit on the truth. We have freely received and we in turn want to freely give. That is why every spoken and most written resources in the store are offered free by means of downloading an MP3, text, or PDF file. We are aware that you may want to have a hard copy. If so we simply ask that you would be willing to help offset our costs. It is our intention to keep our costs as low as possible.

If the suggested donation is beyond your means, then by all means contact us and we will accept what you can afford. If you cannot afford to give anything, then we will accept nothing! Contact us and let us know what you are interested in. All free orders must be under $25.00.

Lastly, we will live by faith that demonstrates the gospel that we love to proclaim. While we will make needs known, that is all we will do. The rest we will leave to our Provider.

In a future blog I will elaborate more on what RTM actual work will look like and ministry burdens. If you want to support Real Truth Matters after prayerfully considering then follow the link below. We will never be able to tell you how appreciative we are. Please pray for us that our faith, when tried as with fire, will not fail.

There's No Power in This Blood

2010-02-27T19:41:00.002-06:00

by Jan Markell

Christianity Today online says that vampires are hot stuff right now even for Christians. Visit a Christian bookstore or publishing house Web site and you might be surprised how many vampire-themed books you will see. What's wrong with the picture? Legions of people will tell you that nothing is wrong. They are, in fact, trying to sanctify vampirism.

Stephanie Meyer's popular Twilight series is cashing in to be sure. Her four books which have sold over 17 million copies, and two movies thus far, are setting new records. To those of us who object, they will tell you that the theme of vampirism is just folklore. They aren't in the Bible. Relax.

But Web sites indicate some are obsessed, particularly with Twilight. Meyer, who is a Mormon, has connected with pre-teens and teens and is many steps beyond Harry Potter. And defenders of Potter had their mantra too: Come on, it's only fiction and it's getting kids to read. What parents and others won't admit is that these occult-laced child-sagas are also snaring some into dark practices.

So the recent Christianity Today review of this phenomenon titles their article, "There's Power in the Blood." As much as I dislike this magazine's Left-leaning views on many things, they have hit on a key here. The enemy is moving in on the most sacred issue to a true Christian -- the saving shed blood of Jesus Christ.

In the article, University of Richmond English professor Elisabeth Rose Gruner notes that both Christianity and vampirism equate blood with life. She states, "Humans instinctively understand that blood is life-giving. But the blood-drinking aspect of vampirism is a 'ghastly parody of Christianity.' While the Christian believer attains eternal life by accepting the blood freely shed on his or her behalf, the vampire achieves immortality by sucking the life out of another."
So, in spite of what should be obvious, one Christian publishing house after another is turning away solid manuscripts for corrupted ones on this demented topic. What an example of Isaiah 5:20 with evil being called good here. This vampire fascination with blood is trying to rob the pure, atoning nature of Christ's blood.

Christianity Today talks to Allen Arnold of Thomas Nelson Publishers. He states,
"Since the story of Christianity is one of redemption, Christian fiction should depict that redemption regardless of the subject matter. Rather than flee from a genre (like vampirism), we prefer to dive in and try to redeem it through a wholly original take."
Translate that: Let's follow the money trail. [Note from Berit: God tells us to abhor evil! No person can "redeem" evil! The above quote illustrates today's utter corruption of Biblical words such as "redemption."]

Friend and ministry colleague Eric Barger sums it up well in his article/brochure, "Bringing 'Twilight' Out Into the Son". "The storyline of Twilight is generally two-faceted. It is first 'boy vampire meets a mortal girl' and secondarily, 'good vampires' fight 'bad vampires.' "
Barger notes that many of the characters in the movie and book series possess supernatural abilities: Mind reading, levitation, lycanthropy, pre-cognitive knowledge of future events (mediumship), super strength, hearing, and speed. They also don't need to eat, sleep or breathe. We're entering the world of divination again. Read Deuteronomy 18.

If you think Christians would automatically reject this, I will share just one of dozens of e-mails I have gotten from "addicted" Christians. Melanie writes,

"I just listened to your radio program on 'Twilight.' I am a huge 'Twilight' fan. I have been obsessed since March of 2009. I have promoted it inside and outside of my church thinking it was just a good love story and an escape from reality. I am a pastoral assistant at my Baptist church and I serve on many committees. I am a born again Christian.

"I thought I would listen to your radio show and dismiss anything that you said. Instead, I am sitting here second-guessing myself. How did I fall in love with these books when I deemed Harry Potter demonic? It bothered me when Bella would discuss her soul, but I pushed that to the side and moved ahead. Now I understand that it was God showing me that these books and movies are not what a Christian should be participating in. Thank you so much for opening my eyes."

Shannon Marchese, senior editor for fiction at WaterBrook, says that while the goal of Christian publishing isn't to emulate worldly trends, it's important to critically engage what consumers are already reading. She says, "Christian vampire fiction allows readers to experience the mythology in a new way." I think she means if something is selling really well, let's offer folks more and more of it and further cash in on the craze.

So, can we find God in all of this? That is, in the books, movies, reviews, discussion questions for church youth groups (yes, you read that right). Harry Potter fans will point to god-like images and comparisons all throughout the book series, so why not see God in Twilight, too? Beth Felker Jones writes in her book, Touched by a Vampire: Discovering the Hidden Messages in the Twilight Saga (Multnomah 2009), that what is the most worrisome issue is that the books and movies are full of spiritual themes.

Twilight deals with the longing human beings have to be transformed, to be set free from our limits and weaknesses. She says, "All of this could open up quite a conversation about the gift of salvation." Oh, really? I guess I'm not connecting the dots but admittedly I don't want to! Come on now, do you want to equate salvation with vampirism? Just the opposite is true in the books and movies. Bella is willing to sell her soul (and thus her salvation) for Edward.

Barger says, "No matter how dreamy Hollywood may present Edward Cullen (the chief vampire) to be or how obsessed some junior higher may become with him, Twilight is nothing short of Satan's cloak of evil appearing to be good."

He concludes, "Until the final battle has been fought and the Lord has come with His everlasting and perfect peace, Satan will attempt to prevail through manipulating those whom he may. Stephenie Meyer is just one in a long line of those to whom, without their understanding it, the Evil One has paid big money for their services. Twilight is more than mere entertainment. To some it has become every bit as important and as captivating as a religion."

Never in my lifetime have we had to contend for the faith 24/7. What was once blatantly evil is suddenly ok. Spiritual applications can be made from worldly scenarios. Up is down, down is up, right is wrong, wrong is right, and we're all drinking tea with the Mad Hatter!
This sounds like what might happen in the last days. Are you listening for the sound of the trumpet?

Sacred or Secular

2010-02-18T09:12:00.005-06:00

Ok, I've been inspired by the folks over at Defending.Contending. to create my own Sacred or Secular quiz.

Your job here is to peruse the lyrics below and decide whether or not the song is by a secular artist or a 'Christian' artist. You'll find the answers below.

1) Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.

2) I once was lost
But now I'm found
I got my feet on solid ground
Thank you Lord
If you believe within your soul
Just hold on tight
And don't let go
You can make it
Make it happen

3) And now I am standing here
My heart’s so full, I can’t explain
Seeking faith and speaking words
I never thought I’d say
There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It’s hard to kill

4) I've found out a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you

5) Hold Me
Like The River Jordan
And I Will Then Say To Thee
You Are My Friend
Carry Me
Like You Are My Brother
Love Me Like A Mother

6) Man we 'bout to light the night with that flare
Job from the gun in the hand of the spare
With the kick so hard that you gotta be strong
It's so hottah
You can barely hold on
So rock me drop me
But you will never stop me
From takin' this show to a full room of monopoly
So turn off the lights
Pass me the mic
Bring on the lights,
You been waitin all night

7) It's not a joke
I've felt as messed up as you do
I've felt the feelings you've been feeling
Been through the same things
You've been through
And I know how hard it is
To feel like you're all alone
We've all been given a second chance
But the chance is all our own

Well, did you get them all? Let's see:

1. Secular(Ripple by the Grateful Dead) 2. Secular(Make it Happen, Mariah Carey) 3. Secular(If You Believe, Mariah Carey) 4. Secular(The Reason, Hoobastank) 5. Secular(Will You Be There, Michael Jackson) 6. 'Christian'(ShowStopper, TobyMac) 7. 'Christian'(Scream, Thousand Foot Krutch)

Enemies, Part Three

2010-02-18T08:46:00.002-06:00

Distraction is one of our greatest enemies.

Ralph Winter once wrote that “America today is a save-yourself society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice. Laborsaving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family . . .

We are distracted from experiencing Christ, moment by moment, day by day.

So, what do we do with all these enemies?

Romans 8:37 says that Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

Let me close by reading to you what Piper says about this verse.

What does “more than conquerors” mean? How can you be more than a conqueror
when you risk for the cause of God and get hurt for it?

If you venture some act of obedience that magnifies the supreme value of Jesus Christ and get attacked by one of the enemies mentioned in verse 35, say, famine or sword, what must happen for you to be called simply “a conqueror”? Answer: You must not be separated from the love of Jesus Christ. The aim of the attacker is to destroy you, and cut you off from Christ, and bring you to final ruin without God. You are a conqueror if you defeat this aim and remain in the love of Christ. God has promised
that this will happen.

Trusting this, we risk.

But what must happen in this conflict with famine and sword if you are to be called more than a conqueror? One biblical answer is that a conqueror defeats his enemy, but one who is more than a conqueror subjugates his enemy. A conqueror nullifies the purpose of his enemy; one who is more than a conqueror makes the enemy serve his own purposes. A conqueror strikes down his foe; one who is more than a conqueror makes his foe his slave.

Practically what does this mean? Let’s use Paul’s own words in 2 Corinthians 4:17: “This slight momentary affliction is preparing [effecting, or working, or bringing about] for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” Here we could say that “affliction” is one of the attacking enemies. What has happened in Paul’s conflict with it? It has certainly not separated him from the love of Christ. But even more, it has been taken captive, so to speak. It has been enslaved and made to serve Paul’s everlasting joy. “Affliction,” the former enemy, is now working for Paul. It is preparing for Paul “an eternal weight of glory.” His enemy is now his slave. He has not only conquered his enemy. He has more than conquered him.

Affliction raised his sword to cut off the head of Paul’s faith. But instead the hand of faith snatched the arm of affliction and forced it to cut off part of Paul’s worldliness. Affliction is made the servant of godliness and humility and love. Satan meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. The enemy became Paul’s slave and worked for him an even greater weight of glory than he would have ever had without the fight. In that way Paul—and every follower of Christ—is more than a conqueror.

THE ONLY ROAD THAT LEADS TO LASTING JOY
This is the promise that empowers us to take risks for the sake of Christ. It is not the impulse of heroism, or the lust for adventure, or the courage of self-reliance, or the need to earn God’s favor. It is simple trust in Christ—that in him God will do everything necessary so that we can enjoy making much of him forever. Every good poised to bless us, and every evil arrayed against us, will in the end help us boast only in the cross, magnify Christ, and glorify our Creator. Faith in these promises frees us to risk and to find in our own experience that it is better to lose our life than to waste it.

Therefore, it is right to risk for the cause of Christ. It is right to engage the enemy and say, “May the Lord do what seems good to him.” It is right to serve the people of God, and say, “If I perish, I perish!” It is right to stand before the fiery furnace of affliction and refuse to bow down to the gods of this world. This is the road that leads to fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.
At the end of every other road—secure and risk-free—we will put our face in our hands and say, “I’ve wasted it!”

Enemies, Part Two

2010-02-17T07:35:00.001-06:00

In light of viewing enemies as those things set to separate us from the love of Christ, let me suggest another enemy in addition to satan and temptation and sin. Blessings. And I use the word blessings here very loosely so as to not trample the true blessings God has given us. We are overflowed in our culture with great wealth, comfort, and prosperity. Now you think, “Well, I’m not prosperous.” You’re not prosperous compared to who? Go back to James 1 and to verse 17:

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” We hear this so much to refer to material things . . . food, cars, homes, possessions, money, etc. And we do have to be careful here, because it is a blessing of God to have our needs met. But because we like what is coming our way, and we don’t see it pointed out as inherently wrong, we automatically call it a blessing from God.

Let’s go back to Luke 12:16-21

16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. 17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ 21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

What did abundance do to this man? It made him forget in reality in who God is, who the blessings really belong to, and who he was before God. Here is a major danger for us. We have an enemy that presents the world’s pleasures and riches before us, and they become our goal and aim instead of Christ, thus separating us from experiencing him. And I am not talking about what we would term as extravagant, but what many would just consider middle of the road. But it becomes what we do and what we are toiling for, rather than a relationship with Christ, and then we turn and say all those things are a blessing from God. And in their right and proper place, they are.

Go to Luke 4.

3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Something as simple and needed for physical life such as bread becomes a temptation for Christ. It is a temptation that would separate Him from the Father. Look at verses 5-6. 5 Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him[d] all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.” Later Christ would say that “foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Bread and the things in and of themselves were not evil, but the Father’s plan for the Son included no such comfort. And to partake would be a distrust of God.
In our culture, our desires, our activities, our ease, our comfort, our pursuits cans separate us from the love of Christ. The sad thing is that we often justify them as good things and call them blessings. Cannot we also be tested with much? Can testing come trough much leisure and comfort?

Andrew Peterson wrote a song some time back that I just love the lyrics to. He had been to South America where he saw poverty, sickness, disease, and a people who were utterly joyful and delighting in experiencing Christ.

Here’s how it goes:

The Land of the Free
Little Elba how’s the sun in South America?
does it shine upon the faces of the poor?
do they see in it the brilliance of the place that’s been prepared
and dwell upon the hope of what’s in store?

or are they just like me? do they only see
an opportunity to complain about the heat?

Little Elba, how’s the rain in South America?
does it fall upon the rooftops of the sick?
do they thank the Lord for coming up with such a great idea
and dream about a place beyond all this?

or are they just like us? do they gripe and fuss
about the rain and mud when they’ve had too much?

(Chorus):
‘cause I’m just a little jealous of the nothing that you have
You’re unfettered by the wealth of a world that we pretend is gonna last

well, I’m weary of the spoils of my ambition
and I’m shackled by the comfort of my couch
I wish I had the courage to deny these of myself
and start to store my treasure in the clouds

‘cause this is not my home, I do not belong
where the antelope and the buffalo roam

they say God blessed us with plenty, I say you’re blessed with poverty
‘cause you never stop to wonder whether earth is just a little better than
the Land of the Free

so I hope you’re safe and dry in South America
‘cause I’m feeling pretty good in Tennessee
may you never be so happy you forget about your home...
your home in the Land of the Free

In tomorrow’s final post, we will see how all our enemies, satan, sin, temptation, and the testing of having much, all work in the same way to separate us from the love of Christ. We will also see what it truly means to be more than conquerors.

Enemies, Part One

2010-02-16T08:49:00.002-06:00

-J.T.

When you think of an enemy, especially from the point of view of a Christian, what do you think of?

We think of enemies usually first as satan and his demons. When anything bad happens such as difficulty, sickness, pain, hardships, they are usually attributed first and foremost to satan. And satan and his demons are enemies that do seek to do us harm. We see it first in the Garden of Eden. In fact, there he is the prime component to introducing sin to the human race. He is the open, declared enemy of God and thus the enemy of whoever God sets his affections on. He is described as accusing the saints before God and one who walks around like a lion seeking whom he may devour. And he does set his sights on the followers of Christ. Christ told Peter that satan desired to sift him like wheat. And we are told to resist the devil. So he is a very real, very dangerous, very persistent enemy of the Christian.

What about other specific enemies? Look at Romans 8:35-39

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Notice the quote in verse 36 from Psalm 44 where the psalm writer knew no answer for the nation’s position before God and their persecution than the sovereignty of God. But Paul applies it here as a prophetic statement that describes the church. And these things are accomplished through the enemies of tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and the sword, or violence. We also get a clue as to the goal of these enemies in verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Paul answers in verse 39. Nothing, he is persuaded, can separate us from the love of Christ. But, can we be separated from experiencing the love of Christ? Can tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword prevent us from experiencing his love?

Let me give you an example of an enemy that sought to sever me from experiencing my Savior. I had a task to do. It was one that seemed simple enough, but something that took a great deal of carefulness and attention to detail in order to complete. I accomplished it, and soon discovered that something wasn’t right. There was an unnoticed mistake somewhere that I could not identify. I may have failed at my task making a situation that was already bad even worse. The problem could have been very costly and would inconvenience many people, possibly making someone angry with me. What immediately followed the realization of these facts was the average human response. You get that sinking feeling in your gut when anxiousness sets in. There is distress. And in the anxiousness and distress and worry, I become separated from experiencing the love of Christ. Did he still love me? Of course! But that experience wasn’t there, and it was something I had to fight for. I had to fight for my joy in him.
So verse 35 has helped me tremendously with dealing with enemies by seeing that any enemies’ goal is to separate me from the love of Christ. They cannot do that positionally, but can disrupt my experience of it.

So if we look an enemy as anyone or anything that wants to separate us from the experience of Christ, we can also see that temptation and sin are our enemies. And certainly satan and his demons can be very active in this, but we know that in a war against them that they have an ally on inside of the camp, and succumbing to temptation is an inside job.

James 1:14-15 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

If you have a MacArthur study bible, look at the note on verse 14 under the words “his desires.” The strong desire of the human soul to enjoy or acquire something to satisfy the flesh. Mans’ fallen nature has the propensity to strongly desire whatever sin will satisfy. On down it says that the Greek grammar also indicates that these desires are the direct agent or cause of one’s sinning.

So innate, internal, fleshly desires are defaulting toward sin, wanting to fulfill their passions, thus cutting us off from experiencing the love of Christ. And we often think of these things such as sexual lusts, anger, selfishness, greed . . . things we know are bad.
Tomorrow, we shall look at an enemy that may not seem so vindictive at first glance.

The Devolving of "Christian" Music

2010-02-12T08:09:00.002-06:00

The theory of evolultion claims that living beings adapt and change in order to survive and thrive in their environments. This means that new information would have to be added to the genetic structure of such living beings for new improvements to occur. We actually observe the opposite. Genetic information is being lost and corrupted over time, not added to or improved. The same seems to hold true for so-called "Christian" music. The highness of praising God has been lost by catchy pop hooks and phrases. Remove the music, and the lyrics oftentimes seem bizarre. Toby Mac just released his new album Tonight. Going by the few songs that I have heard, there is little here that lifts high the name of Christ. I will post here the lyrics to the song Funky Jesus Music. How much of this is magnifying the great worth of Christ? And once you finish with that, head over to DefCon's blog and take their "Sacred or Secular" quiz.

Rock, rock
Give me that rock
That hip, that rock
Give me that funky

Yo stick it in red
We got the cred
No need to say what’s already been said
Don’t need to please
When we got the proof
We be on our knees
When we raise the roof
‘Cause we got the
Wow pow mix of flavor
We got the funky Jesus blazer
No equal
Diverse people
Come get it now
Won’t be a sequel

None of that mumbo jumbo
Give me that hip hop funk soul
Give me that funky Jesus music
Give me that soulful gumbo

Give me that funky
Funky Jesus Music
Give me that hip, that rock, that funky soul
Give me that juicy flow
Give me that funky
Funky Jesus Music
Give me that hip, that rock, that funky soul
And watch this party grow
Let’s go

Look at them freaks, they fashion loud
Makin’ that hotness, movin’ that crowd
Bumpin’ that jump with a life injection
Sweet to the ears like the candy section
Hits to the eyes
Feels so fly
Fashion that just won’t subside
We got this winner’s ball
So check it out
Gonna’ watch ‘em fall
We’re goin’ back
We’re goin’ way back

From coast to coast
This is the most
We got beats and rhymes
And aftershows
We got funky people on the highs and lows
MC’s like Wiggy they call us pros
So, sure shot, I could take stock of this
I’ll play the post in the b-boy bliss
See, we bum rush with no discussion
A red hot show with freak production

Baraboo Man Accused of Using Stun Gun on 'Sinner'

2010-02-11T21:14:00.002-06:00

While I agree with the man's overall premise, perhaps crossing the line into premeditated assault is not the best way to get the point across-

MADISON, Wis. – A Baraboo man was accused of repeatedly shocking a male dance instructor with a stun gun, claiming the instructor was a "sinner" who "defiles married women." A Dane County prosecutor said the suspect, 59, hastily arranged a dance lesson at the instructor's Madison home and showed up with a stun gun and sledgehammer last Friday. The criminal complaint said the man told a detective that his church does not condone touching while dancing and that he was going to scare the instructor "and tell him to leave the women alone."
The Wisconsin State Journal said the instructor told police that the suspect phoned for private dance lessons, and when he opened the door to his home, he began to shock him repeatedly in the neck with the stun gun.

Original story here

Don't Make the Awesome Love of God Cutesy-Wootsy

2010-02-11T21:06:00.002-06:00

I saw this while I was out working today and had to take a photo. Really? I mean, c'mon, really?

Yahoo news shares scripture

2010-02-04T10:19:00.002-06:00

As of this moment, the third most emailed story on Yahoo! news is full of Scripture. Tim Tebow, the former Florida Gators quarterback and Heisman trophy winner, is well known for including scripture references on his eye black, a grease applied under the eyes to reduce glare from sunlight or stadium lighting.

The article lists the top five scriptures from Tebow's college career (the top five based on the games he played in, not the scriptures themselves). It not only gives the reference, but lists the passages in their entirety.

How awesome to see scripture openly shared in an increasingly hostile, public arena.

The Repugnancy of Sin

2010-02-02T06:58:00.004-06:00

Exodus 29:38 "Now this is what you shall offer on the altar: two lambs of the first year, day by day continually."

Are you disgusted by sin? Its ill effects are enough to make one nauseous when the weight of the curse sets in to one's mind. Nations are leveled by earthquakes, floods, and famines. Families set against one another in violence. Misunderstandings lead to bitterness and lifelong anger. Disease, pain, cancer, lame limbs, heart disease, diabetes, depression, suicide, Alzheimer's, and death are the atmosphere of a people cursed by the effects of sin. Contentions, wars, suicide bombers, soldiers in wheelchairs, artificial legs and arms come because of the authorship of sin by mankind.

As foul as these effects of sin may be, God gave us a picture of sin's consequences as compared to His holiness through the people of Israel. As God laid out the plans for the tabernacle, which foreshadowed the Jerusalem temple, a grisly scene unfolded before the people whom He led from Egypt. Day after day, animal sacrifices took place before the nation as a constant reminder of sin's curse. And what a vivid reminder it is. In the tabernacle and eventually in the temple, we see daily a bloodbath of animal slaughter. Lambs and bulls whose throats were cut, the blood drained, the carcass and meat and entrails separated and burned. This relentless and never ending spectacle of blood and death stood as a testimony and reminder of sin. Can you imagine the scene? Animal after animal led to be butchered on behalf of man's offenses. Can you hear the sounds of lambs calling out in longing to return to their owners as they are led to the priest where their flesh was opened and their white wool stained with the scarlet flow of their own blood? Can you imagine the stench of a place where animals are massacred under the priest's knife every single day because of the uncleanness of the people?

Oh that this would cause the children of Israel to hide their faces in their hands and lament that the sacrifice is never complete. The macabre marches on, day after day, to remind them that the atonement is never complete. But yet, it did not have that effect on Israel. Soon, they became calloused to sin, and such sacrificing became mere routine. And one day, when a sacrifice came that would put an end to all other sacrifices; when the One came whose blood would finally and completely atone in what the blood of bulls and sheep failed to do; they by and large disregarded Him and the effects of sin.

God's Holiness and man's sin cannot coexist. Yet it appeared for thousands of years that God was allowing that to happen. The world plunged deeper and deeper into sin as His own people even failed to keep the Law that He had given them. Animals were slain day after day as atonements for sin, but none fully paid the penalty that His Holiness called out for. These were mere shadows of what was to come. Jesus Christ became the lamb that was slain upon the Holy altar of God's sacrifice in order to atone for sin. He entered the vile, filthiness of sin, and became sin on our behalf. The weight and vileness of sin cannot be realized by those of us who now live and walk this earth. We see and experience much of its ill effects, yet we do not comprehend the full load of mankind's sin against a Holy God. But Christ does. The one whose body was broken and whose blood was spilled like the lambs who were slaughtered day in and day out at the altar in the tabernacle and temple. And it is in His sacrifice that we can escape the curse of sin and enjoy Him freely. Where the blood of animals failed to atone for our sin and continually reminded us of our state before His Holiness, we now have one we can look to and say, "It is finished! There is atonement, there is sacrifice, there is peace with God!"

-J.T.

Response to EE-Taow! & Thoughts on U.S. Missions

2010-01-26T06:12:00.004-06:00

-J.T.

Preaching the Gospel in the United States can be frustrating. We want to see revival among God’s people, and our desire for an awakening to spread like great tidal waves over the vast number of lost people in our nation feels like a heavy burden locked firmly within our bosom. Oftentimes, reality seems to mock our attempts, and efforts to foster revival and awakening seem to be feather strokes against a people and culture who are barreling far too quick in the opposite direction to ever be slowed down let alone stopped and turned around.

Frustration with our own people seems to swell even more after seeing a documentary such as EE-Taow! where we see the Mouk tribe of Papua New Guinea hunger and thirst for what God has to say to them month after month as they go to great lengths to hear a preacher present God’s word. And once the groundwork for Christ had been laid and Christ is preached, the tribe repents individually and corporately as their mourning over sin finally bursts into glorious praise over their new-found savior, Jesus Christ.

It makes one want to pack up his bags and go to a foreign land where there are those who are hungry and thirsty for the Gospel of Christ in order to see Him work in ways that many in the United States are shunning. We have a glut of religious information here, and access to the Truth is now as easy as turning on a computer. Yet the eagerness and desire to know God and do His will is oftentimes a rarity. As I thought about this and the future of Real Truth Matters, God settled my heart to know that in spite of the opposition, our mission to take the Gospel to our own people here in the United States is where He wants us right now, and the similarities between reaching those here and those in New Guinea are not that far removed from one another.

First, the Mouk tribe, like many here in the United States, did have a spiritual belief system before they were confronted with the Truth. The Mouk tribe was steeped in demonic activities designed to communicate with the dead and keep the tribes people in bondage. Here in the U.S., there is a diversity of belief systems, yet all are like that of the Mouks in key ways. They all drive and govern how people act, make decisions, and live, and they keep their followers in bondage to sin and satan. To evangelize the Mouks was to rescue them from that bondage. To evangelize in the U.S. is to rescue people from the same bondage. Here, we see people enslaved to false religions, forms of Christianity that are nothing more than false religion, and those who say they adhere to no particular beliefs at all, who, in the end, have formed a belief system based on no beliefs. The mission field in the United States is no different in this regard than a mission field found in Africa, South America, or any other remote corner of the world. False doctrines by any other name need to be confronted with the truth of what God says.

Secondly, the missionaries going to New Guinea had no idea how the people would react to the true revelation of God. It is easy to see in hindsight that they were a people God was preparing to hear the Gospel. They were hungry and thirsty for what God had for them, but at the onset, there was no way of knowing whether or not the message of Christ would be received. The Mouk could have flatly rejected the message of God and turned on God’s messenger as we have seen many times in overseas missions. Fear of rejection and so-called failure can hinder us if not paralyze us all together when it comes to reaching those within our own nation. We are to be obedient to God and leave the consequences in His hands.

And lastly, we think of people in the United States as being saturated in the teachings of the Bible and Christianity so why not go overseas to those who have no access to even a page of the Bible. Since the access is so great here and people openly reject it, why not leave them to themselves and help those who haven’t even been exposed yet? Even though the information may be freely available to all in this nation, without a heart that is being moved by God, no one will seek it out. And how does God choose to move on the heart of a sinner? Through His church taking the word to the lost. “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” –Romans 10:14. We must go. There may be access, but without a heart to seek it out, they might as well be thousands of miles away.

As Real Truth Matters moves forward in 2010, it is my firm belief that God has called us to primarily reach out to the unreached people groups in the United States. Yes, there are many wonderful churches and ministries available here, and many are doing a wonderful job at getting the information of the true Gospel out. But as our country continues to decline and slide deeper into paganism and post-modern thought, we see the need to also join where God has called us, and that is to be missionaries to people in our own nation. I pray that our hearts are moved by those in our country, our own cities, our own neighborhoods who, like the Mouk tribe, are enslaved to a false religion, and are ignorant of who God is and who He is in Christ. They have yet to have someone come and tell them the good news.

EE-TOAW!

2010-01-25T06:14:00.003-06:00

I heard of the short documentary EE-TAOW! referenced in a sermon by John Piper I downloaded last spring. It was a brief reference, but it piqued my interest to want to see it. I watched it for the first time last week, and I only wish that I had seen it sooner. To see the Gospel move in such a way is a blessing to those of us to live in a world of cynicism, unbelief, and outright hostility toward the things of God. There are several valuable lessons in what is presented, and if the Lord wills, I hope to discuss those this week. For now, please watch EE-TAOW!

(If you have problems with the video below, please watch it here on Google Video. This link will actually allow you to watch it without ads unlike the video below).

Watch EE-Taow in Faith & Lifestyle | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Paris Reidhead - Ten Shekels and a Shirt

2010-01-21T21:37:00.003-06:00

For the last post of the week, we are sharing a Real Truth Matters produced video that closed out the 2008 RTM conference. It features clips of Paris Reidhead from his sermon Ten Shekels and a Shirt. The sermon is also prominently featured in the Revival Hymn video.

Avatar-induced Depression

2010-01-21T09:40:00.003-06:00

J.T. Crawford

With the mass popularity of the movie Avatar ($505M box office revenue in just one month’s time) and the constant barrage of Avatar related news, it seems completely behind the times for a blog to just now mention this king of blockbusters. And I know it won’t be long before some church will start a series on Avatar and all the spiritual lessons that can be imagined, I mean extrapolated from the movie.

This is not a movie I have seen. I was intrigued by the technical innovations touted by director James Cameron, and the media hype surrounding the film’s groundbreaking visuals and effects were enough to pique my interest and cause me to want to check it out. But after reading the initial review of the movie and discovering the foul language that peppered the dialogue (including God’s name being misused many times), I decided it wasn’t worth seeing. But that is a topic for another blog.

I recently saw an article, however, about many who have seen the movie and are now experiencing what is being called Avatar-induced depression. The movie is set in the not-so-distant future where the fate of humankind is in question because the Earth is no longer capable of sustaining the needs of a burgeoning population. Humans are now traveling to a distant moon planet called Pandora in order to research and harvest the things the Earth needs in order to survive. Plot-wise, this is nothing new to sci-fi fans. Pandora, however, is depicted as a veritable garden of Eden where the humanoid race the Na’vi live. Because of the modern advances in movie technologies, Cameron is able to convey the sense of what a near perfect world may look and feel like, leaving the audience with a sense of wonder and amazement over all that Pandora has to offer.

This is where Avatar-induced depression comes in. On an Avatar fan forum site, a thread entitled "Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible” appeared. Some viewers, after seeing the beauty Pandora, are now disillusioned over the seeming futility of life here on Earth and long for a place like Pandora to call their own. This is not surprising. God created mankind to experience the pleasures of Him and to enjoy Him forever. This far exceeds anything that can dreamed of on a movie screen, yet even in the imagination of men we see a longing for something to satisfy our desires for what we were created to experience.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that He has put eternity in our hearts. John MacArthur comments on this scripture by saying, “God made men for His eternal purpose, and nothing in post-fall time can bring them complete satisfaction.” Nothing, that is, except God Himself as revealed in Jesus Christ. That’s what our lives are about. We strive day after day to amass and maintain a satisfaction in whatever we can find as a substitute for what God created us for. Nothing will do, however, as a replacement for the longing we have for what we lost in the fall of mankind.

Movies like Avatar, where the imagination of men can temporarily reach out into the longing for the eternal satisfaction of God, only magnify what we are missing, albeit in a way much below the imagination of God.

The hymn Satisfied is appropriate for the closing of this blog entry. If you have not heard it, look it up, listen to it, and made it a melody of your heart.

Satisfied

All my life I had a longing,
For a drink from some clear spring,
That I hoped would quench the burning,
Of the thirst I felt within.

Feeding on the husks around me,
Till my strength was almost gone,
Longed my soul for something better,
Only still to hunger on.

Poor I was, and sought for riches,
Something that would satisfy,
But the dust I gathered round me,
Only mocked my souls sad cry.

Well of water, ever springing,
Bread of life so rich and free,
Untold wealth that never faileth,
My redeemer is to me.

Hallelujah! I have found Him,
whom my soul so long has craved!
Jesus satisfies my longings,
Thro His blood I now am saved.

Maintaining Spiritual Zeal - Pt. 2

2010-01-20T06:49:00.002-06:00

16. We all feel better if our minds are being exercised. Read more than the daily paper and novels. Do more than watch the TV. Think. Read non-fiction. The more you use your mind the better.

17. Get organized so that you use your time to maximal efficiency. It is amazing what you can do if you plan well.

18. Listen to CD’s while driving. That can redeem the time.

19. Write down thoughts and inspirations that have come to you or you’ll forget them.

20. Every day, find time to be alone. Once again, every day, find time to be alone.

21. When you are bowed down, then talk to God on the spot. Try to nip small problems in the bud. Don’t wait until later.

22. Make friends with as many godly people as you can.

23. Keep some little cards; inscribe new Scriptures on them; commit them to memory.

24. Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is to say, 'The Lord Omnipotent is King.'

25. Keep smiling when you are tricked and criticised.

26. Take your work and studies seriously, but not yourself at all.

27. Develop a forgiving attitude (most Christians are doing the best they can).

28. Do everything for double usefulness. Bake two cakes or two quiches and take one to someone who is housebound. Write two letters to missionaries when you are in the rare writing mood.

29. Men and women, 'we must hurry.' That was the great word of William Chalmers Burns in Scotland as he thought of the shortness of the time. Buy up the opportunities of the week that lies ahead. It will never return.

30. Never resist an inclination to pray.

Paul the Apostle urges us to ensure that the energy of the Spirit is at work in us constantly with no hindrances preventing it. Resist the hindrances, remove the obstacles, and maintain the glow. You cannot work up the fire but you can remove the ashes and be stirring up the gift of God within you. We must not quench the Spirit. We must resist the drift to becoming lukewarm. That is not an option. The Lord will spew us out of his mouth if we do not become fervent in spirit. We must recapture every day our first love.

-- Geoff Thomas

Maintaining Spiritual Zeal - Pt. 1

2010-01-19T07:54:00.004-06:00

-by Geoff Thomas

There is not one way to true spiritual fervour. There is no master key that opens every life to being fervent in Spirit. Let me give you many directives that are truly important, and some not so important (you must decide which is which for we are all different members of the body). How may this grace of true zeal be yours in greater abundance than it is at present? Thirty guidelines:

1. Don’t neglect asking God to make you more fervent in spirit every single day.

2. Go to bed on time and get up on time each morning so that you start unrushed.

3. Sit under the best ministry you can get each Sunday. If you can get better preaching elsewhere why stay here? Life is too short.

4. Hitch your wagon to a star. Our lives are creaking ol d wagons; our congregation is a groaning wagon, but there are stars to which we can be hitched. I am talking of Martin Luther, John Bunyan, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, J. Gresham Machen, Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Read what they say; if they have recordings then listen to them. Learn of their lives and their battles. Makes them your role models – a number of men not one. Let their example and teaching help draw you through life. Hitch your wagon to them.

5. Unclutter your life. Our lives are all a pruning away what is inessential and a search for the simple things of the gospel.

6. Allow extra time to do things and to get to people and places.

7. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over a period; don't lump the hard things all together.

8. Take one day at a time.

9. Separate your worries from your concerns. If a situation is a concern, think about it, and ask God what he would have you do and let go of the anxiety, and put your trust in him. Why worry about situations concerning which you can do nothing? Commit it to the Lord and get on with life.

10. Live within your budget; don’t use credit cards for ordinary purchases.

11. Have backups; an extra car key in a friend’s house, an extra house key buried in the garden. A rickety old laptop . . . even a typewriter for emergencies.

12. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut). This can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.

13. Carry a Bible with you to read while waiting in line.

14. When we are ill, we are never quite as ill as we imagine we are. We always add on a proportion. Remember you are never as bad as you think you are.

15. Get enough rest, and eat sensible enjoyable food. One morning you don’t feel like reading the Scriptures. You don’t feel like working or praying. So you tend to say to yourself, 'Well I’m not feeli ng well today and I can’t do this.' No. You mustn’t say that, you must rouse yourself. Shake off dull sloth and joyful rise.

An Impossible Salvation

2010-01-11T07:19:00.002-06:00

Have you ever thought of salvation as impossible? Most of the time, we don’t. In fact, it seems very possible to us. A few years ago a t-shirt company produced a design that parodied the famous Staples’ easy-button advertising campaign. The easy button was replaced by a Jesus button, and the slogan was “It’s just that easy.”

But what does that mean in the modern, Christian culture? It usually means that one must do something in order for God to respond and save one from hell, or, in the case of the t-shirt, solve life’s problem. And what does that “something” look like? For many, it means to say a certain prayer, ask for forgiveness, “accept” Jesus, believe facts about Jesus, and so on. So we have made it easy! I do A and God will do B.

It is doubtful, however, that the Apostles would have seen it this way. One key encounter with Jesus probably cemented it in their hearts and minds forever. In Matthew 19, a young, upright man with great wealth came to Christ and asked, “What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” Here was a man who was morally upright and a leading figure in the minds of the Apostles. If anyone seemed poised to be right with God, it was this guy. Christ exposed his true heart, however, when he asks the man to give up all to follow Him. The man went away sad because he could not forsake what he had to follow Christ. Jesus showed the young man that his true treasure was not in what God deemed important, namely His Son.

After the encounter, Jesus says to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Thinking that the young man was the prime candidate for one who may enter the Kingdom of God, the Apostles reeled in amazement. Verse 25 says, “When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, ‘Who then can be saved?’” In other words, Jesus, if it is impossible for this guy to be saved, then how is it possible for anybody? What was Jesus’ reply? “With men this is impossible.”

With men, this is impossible! Go back to the young man’s question. “What good thing SHALL I DO. . .?” Shall I say a prayer; shall I just believe a list of facts, etc.? The answer is that in your current state and with your current abilities, it is impossible! Muster up what you can. Cross your t’s & dot your i’s. With you, it is impossible.

This prospect left the disciples right where Jesus wanted them. They obviously understood what Christ was saying in their astonished response. Can you just imagine the trepidation in their voices? Can you feel the panic that may have arisen in their chests as they saw any hope they had dash into million pieces on a single word – impossible?

It reduces us to hopelessness. Our situation is pretty grim. We are dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). There really isn’t much a dead person can do to revive himself. What prayer can a dead person say or what faculties does a dead person have in order to accomplish anything that will bring him to life? There is none. Visit any local funeral home or cemetery and see for yourself. If this is true in the physical realm, the same is true in the spiritual realm. Paul says we are dead, spiritually. What can your dead spirit do to invoke a change? Death is death.

Secondly, we are beyond putrid when compared to the blazing righteousness of God. In Romans 3, Paul describes all humans when he says, “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have all together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open tomb; with their tongues they have practiced deceit; The poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.’” But you may say, “Wait a second, I seek after God.” Surely the rich, young ruler thought the same. Until found the true God. Then he was incapable of seeking after Him.

Thirdly, our dead and putrid spiritual state leaves us in a huge quandary. We do not have the ability to do anything in order to be acceptable to God, and the scriptures says that “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 17:15). We need to be justified, but the Word clearly says that anyone who justifies the wicked are an abomination to the Lord. The problem is that we need to be justified and God is the only one who can accomplish this. Can God be an abomination to Himself? How can He justify himself and still be true to His own nature?

All of these problems should lead us to something that has been all but forgotten in modern America: hopelessness. Our spiritual deadness and inability to do anything profitable, our state before God as depraved before His righteousness, and His inability to simply look over your sins and count you as justified without demanding a reckoning for your sin should lead you the same place the Apostles found themselves in. Then who can be saved? We are truly sunk. Eternal life is impossible! It should leave us sinking in a sea of black despair where we can only cry out to one, Jesus, and in that desperation and hopelessness call upon Him to save us.

How can we if we are spiritually dead? He makes us alive. Ezekiel 36:27,28 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” Colossians 2:13, 14 “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” God does what we cannot do for ourselves. He makes us alive! The work of regeneration is upon Him.

What about our mountains of sin that God must require a reckoning for? Romans 3:21-26 “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” A reckoning has been made! God’s eternal wrath against our sin was paid for in Christ! And for those whose hearts have been changed by God, therein is created faith, trust, and commitment to the one who can rescue us from our despair!

Could the rich young ruler have been saved? Yes! If God had granted him a new heart that beat for Christ and rested in faith in Him. The scripture says he went away sad, but not in holy sorrow. He did not have a new heart to feel the despair and hopelessness of his situation and therefore call out and trust the one who could save him.

This is what we are missing today. The hopelessness, the despair, and the true weight of the word impossible. Christ did not leave the Apostles with no hope. He said to them, “. . .with God all things are possible.” This is where we need to be. There is an impossibility to salvation that should frighten us as men to the core of our being and cause us to shake and tremble before God. Then, if God so wills, He will open our hearts to know that with Him, and only with Him, it is possible, and we will humbly call to him as a drowning man would call out for rescue in the midst of a black sea. Then we will truly know that salvation is of the Lord!

Psalm 68:20 Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.

What to Do When God Doesn’t Play By the Rules

2010-01-05T16:03:00.007-06:00

By S. Michael Durham

There are times in the journey of faith that God does not fit any mold, rhyme or reason. Whatever you have learned about faith is challenged. The lessons learned are torpedoed, not by the devil, but by the Lord Himself. He acts outside of the box. Why is that? Well, might it be, He’s outside of the box?

Faith cannot be a formula. Reduce faith to an equation and you will have no faith. Just because I have outlined lessons I have learned about faith over the years in this series on faith does not mean that faith can be mechanized. Faith in God is nothing more than relationship with God. To make a formula out a relationship is to effectively kill the relationship. Faith is to be in the person of Jesus, not some rules or principles.

I think we forget the Lord God is a Person. And like a person, He wants to be loved and trusted for who He is and not only for what He can do. His acts are an outflow of who He is, but do I love Him mainly and mostly because of what He does for me, or do I love Him mainly and mostly for who He is? If I loved my wife primarily because she prepared my meals, washed my clothes and satisfied desires for intimacy, then my love looks more like selfishness. Exploiting someone cannot be called love and it cannot have anything to do with faith. We are to love the Lord God and therefore trust Him for His character and nature. This is the way good relationships work.

Therefore, sometimes the Lord does not confine Himself to our contrived rules about faith. He throws us a curve, if you please, and watches how we will respond. If my faith is in my formula I will respond with unbelief and despair, perhaps even anger because He didn’t perform to my standard. But if my confidence is in Him and His inability to be anything but good, I will maintain faith in Him. Should Christ give me health I will trust Him, and should He give me sickness I will trust Him. If He answers my prayer I will thank Him and if He does not answer I will thank Him. Yes, I will thank Him because I am persuaded that He is too good to be unkind to me.

I know that doesn’t make a good formula for faith, but to me there can be no other way faith works. Either you trust God or you don’t. You either believe in Him as a person or you don’t. If you put your faith in His person, then the more you know Him the more your faith will increase.

The Manhattan Declaration— Saving Morality at the Expense of the Gospel

2009-12-10T11:21:00.001-06:00

By S. Michael Durham

I’m compelled to write this, even though I know better brains and more eloquent pens have already written on the Manhattan Declaration. But there may be some of you who read this infrequent blog who have not heard anything about it. Therefore, to you I offer sundry comments.

The Manhattan Declaration is a 4,700-word manifesto produced by evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox leaders to state support for the pro-life movement, traditional marriage, and one’s right to freedom of religion. The document plainly states that if the government continues on its secular agenda that Christians will have no other choice but to condone and practice civil disobedience against laws contradicting their understandings of life and marriage.

For years I’ve stated that true believers will suffer persecution in this country. Laws will be passed that will allow no wiggle room for the Christian. He or she will have to decide to either compromise or suffer. And should we say as Luther, “Here I stand; I can do no other,” then we will suffer. The law of the land will have been violated. If Caesar will not be surrendered to, then Caesar will have his vengeance.

It is the purpose of the original 150 drafters and signers of this document to put on notice civil leaders that Christians will not comply with laws that violate the Bible. I could not agree more. But . . .

I could not sign this declaration for the same reason—it violates the Bible. It contradicts the very essence and nature of the gospel. It does so by joining Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy with the historical evangelical gospel of salvation by faith alone. If the statement had simply stated that the three groups have differing views of what the gospel is and what a Christian is, but we would stand together opposed to the immoral laws forcing us to accept abortion and same-sex marriage, I could have agreed to it and gladly added my name. But this they did not do. Here is one of the problematic portions of the declaration.

We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image.

It reads as if those who subscribe to the tenets of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic institutions are Christians. Certainly, there are true Christians from each group, but they are most likely the exception rather than the rule. The official dogmas of both religions deny the doctrine of justification by faith and the imputed righteousness of Christ, without which there is no salvation. And if there is no salvation there is no good news—the gospel.

The Manhattan Declaration also states,

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season.

The gospel should be proclaimed, but which gospel? The gospel of the pope or the Apostle Paul? They are not the same. Sadly, some very sound evangelical leaders lent the credibility of their names to this document. I fear that in the name of morality they have struck a blow against the hope of society returning to morality. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only hope of societal integrity. But with these good, but misguided, men’s signatures they have joined with Rome. They have stated that Rome’s gospel and ours is the same.

I fear that these well-meaning brothers have let the moral issues of the day outweigh the greater issue—the Great Commission. In their hopes of saying to the government that we will not compromise the truth, they compromised the truth of the gospel.

The morality of men will never be legislated from the bench of law. It can only be legislated from the heart. All the law can do is get behavioral compliance. Morality is deeper than compliance. It is the loving embrace of the beauty of virtue and that virtue is Christ. True morality flows from loving God supremely and the love of neighbor secondarily. Other than this you have an immorality that disguises itself in the garb of righteousness. It may appear to be very good, but inside is corruption. Only the grace of the gospel can change the immorality of a man and make him moral. The gospel cannot be compromised. It cannot be altered, not even for life or marriage.

Meditation, Charles Suprgeon

2009-11-27T11:43:00.002-06:00

Zechariah 3:1-5 "1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. 2 And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel. 4 Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, “Take away the filthy garments from him.” And to him He said, “See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.” 5 And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the LORD stood by."

- IN Joshua the high priest we see a picture of each and every child of God, who has been made nigh by the blood of Christ, and has been taught to minister in holy things, and enter into that which is within the veil. Jesus has made us priests and kings unto God, and even here upon earth we exercise the priesthood of consecrated living and hallowed service. But this high priest is said to be "standing before the angel of the Lord," that is, standing to minister. This should be the perpetual position of every true believer. Every place is now God's temple, and His people can as truly serve Him in their daily employments as in His house. They are to be always "ministering," offering the spiritual sacrifice of prayer and praise, and presenting themselves a "living sacrifice." But notice where it is that Joshua stands to minister, it is before the angel of Jehovah. It is only through a mediator that we poor defiled ones can ever become priests unto God. I present what I have before the messenger, the angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus; and through Him my prayers find acceptance wrapped up in His prayers; my praises become sweet as they are bound up with bundles of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia from Christ's own garden. If I can bring Him nothing but my tears, He will put them with His own tears in His own bottle for He once wept; if I can bring Him nothing but my groans and sighs, He will accept these as an acceptable sacrifice, for He once was broken in heart, and sighed heavily in spirit. I myself, standing in Him, am accepted in the Beloved; and all my polluted works, though in themselves only objects of divine abhorrence, are so received, that God smelleth a sweet savour. He is content and I am blessed. See, then, the position of the Christian—"a priest—standing—before the angel of the Lord."

How to Have the Faith of God

2009-11-18T15:52:00.005-06:00

(Thirteenth installment on faith)

By S. Michael Durham

It has been established that faith is the result of God personally speaking to us. Whether by reading the Bible, listening to a sermon, or through the words of a friend, the Lord does speak to us. But the Lord must quicken the word we have heard for it to have life. And when He does faith is born. This is how it works for the faith to be saved and it’s how it works for the saved to have faith in God for whatever they may ask. “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

This is evident throughout the Bible. How did Noah have faith to go against his culture and do what no one else had done, build a massive ship? The writer to the Hebrews answers, “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7, emphasis mine). Noah had faith because God spoke to him. He spoke an “effectual” word.

What do I mean “effectual”? Simply, that this word from God produces faith. It affects the heart of the person receiving it. God intends to quicken the person to be able to respond in faith. This is why some who hear the gospel are converted by believing while others leave unchanged. The Holy Spirit spoke directly and personally to their hearts and faith was engendered. Oh, for ears to hear! This is the dire need of every child of God, that they have sensitive hearing. It is not that God is not speaking, but so often we are too dull of hearing.

Abraham is another example of God’s effectual voice. “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). What makes a man leave all he has ever known, the comfort and security of life, and not know where he was going? Something supernatural is the answer. God spoke, faith was birthed, and Abraham obeyed.

On a spring day somewhere between Bethany and Jerusalem, twelve men followed an unconventional rabbi, who when hungry thought He would satisfy His appetite with some figs. Although the tree indicated it should have had plenty of fruit, it had none. So Jesus cursed it. The next day passing by the same fig tree the apostles noted that the tree was completely withered. In shock, the never shy Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.” Jesus responded with great insight to how faith works and its origin. He said, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22).

Nothing out of the ordinary about the answer; it’s the normal response, isn’t it? If you want your prayers answered you must have faith in God. But the answer was anything but ordinary. For some reason most English translations do not give the true sense of our Lord’s words. How unfortunate, because they unlock a great deal of mystery about faith. The literal words of Jesus that day were, “Have faith of God.” In other words, “Have God’s faith.”

It is not enough to have human faith; we must have God’s faith. This is the thrust of Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” In an earlier blog titled “What is Faith?” I defined faith as the God-given ability to see reality as God sees it. When God speaks concerning a situation He puts the very substance of the thing in your soul, He gives the proof of the things yet unseen. As I said in that blog, “Faith is not the mental gymnastics we often perform to overcome doubtful resistance, convincing ourselves something is true.” It is to know it’s true because God has said it. Again, we are right back to Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Jesus told the disciples if they are going to see God at work in their prayers they must have God’s kind of faith which is only produced by He speaking to you revealing His will. Jesus continues:

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. (Mark 11:23-24)

How can you or I believe a mountain to be cast into the sea if it was not God’s will for the mountain to be in the sea? And how can we know if it is God’s will for the mountain to be in the sea unless He tells us? We can’t. It is impossible.

This is exactly where the faith healers and those in the Word of Faith movement make their fundamental mistake. They assume that if one has enough faith, then God is obligated to do whatever we dictate. This is contradictory to the words of Jesus, as well as to I John 5:14-15: “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” Faith only operates within the realm of God’s will. Without the understanding of what God’s will is there is no possibility of faith except in His goodness and integrity. We do not know how to pray or what to pray for. What is needed is God’s word to our heart. The effectual word is the missing link. Again I say, this is our greatest need, to hear from God. May He heal our dull ears to hear.

Does God Speak Personally to Us?

2009-09-29T16:05:00.004-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Twelfth installment on faith)

While God primarily speaks via the written word of Scripture, He also can speak directly to our spirit via the Holy Spirit. We must not rule out this blessed grace. Many of my theological allies believe that we must rule out this option, but biblical support for this position is lacking. There is a direct work of the Spirit upon the spirit of a Christian and it is this work that is the source of our faith.

In Romans 10:17 the Apostle Paul says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Those who believe that God does not speak subjectively want to interpret this to mean that faith comes by listening to the Bible. Those who share my opposing view like to point out that the word “word” is not translated from the more objective Greek word, logos, but from a more subjective term, rhema. In other words, logos is used to speak of the corporate body of Scriptures, while rhema is a personal word from someone, including the Lord. But I think that is the weakest argument to support this position since sometimes the word rhema is used in the New Testament to speak of the written word of God and logos is used for a personal statement.

The best way to understand Romans 10:17 is the very context. If, with an open mind, you examine the entire context you will note that Paul is not talking about the corpus of God’s word called the Scriptures but a direct work of the Spirit upon the human spirit that makes truth real and personal.

The Apostle Paul is showing the gospel is for anyone who will believe both Jews and Gentiles. But before someone can believe he must hear the gospel, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14). Someone must take the gospel to those who have not heard. But Paul interrupts this explanation of missions and evangelism and says the Jews have heard but they did not believe, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’” (Romans 10:16). He quotes Isaiah to show that for centuries the truth of the Messiah had been proclaimed to Israel, but they refused to believe. They had heard the truth. Jesus had come and by far the majority of Israel rejected Him. After verse 17 Paul continues to show that although the Jews had heard they still did not believe, “But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: ‘Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’” (Romans 10:18).

So if “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” why did most who heard not believe? Another way to ask this question is why did a comparative few believe? Both heard the same “word”? Or did they?

It is Paul’s point to show that by hearing the Gospel you will be saved, but not all hearing is equal. Something besides just hearing with human ears is needed to believe unto salvation. Paul is proving God sovereignly saves whom He has chosen to do so. And He does so subjectively and personally.

In addition to hearing the word proclaimed a supernatural work must also occur. God must make the word heard have a spiritual reality to it. The Lord not only must grant life to the spirit, but He also must communicate personally to the quickened spirit. Jesus said that there is a communication that goes on between the Father and those who come to Him for rest. “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me” (John 6:45). The objective truth must be made subjective.

For the life of faith to occur the brooding Spirit of God must hover over our hearts and whisper His small, still voice and bring life to the written words of Scripture. Otherwise one may understand the written word and even accept it as truth, but their approach to God will be academic, intellectual at best. Their dead spirit will lie in the tomb bound with the grave clothes of spiritual death.

One of the worst problems facing Christendom today is that many of our members have merely accepted facts. Oh yes, the facts are from the Bible, but they are cold, hard facts. They may be a part of their value system; they may very well be the foundation of their worldview, but facts by themselves bring no life. And it’s life that we need.

I love what A. W. Tozer said of the problem of our theological mindset today. It is contributive to a lack of faith.

I believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to a wrong conception of and a wrong feeling for the Scriptures of Truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as the record of what God said when He was for a brief time in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads how can we believe? The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words.

If we are to have faith, we must hear the voice of God. It is His very voice that echoes in the chambers of the heart the truth of the gospel, the truth of Scripture and quickens our faith. It is His voice alone that engenders faith. Speak Lord; Thy servant listens.

Thank You and A Prayer Request

2009-09-15T11:09:00.000-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

The conference has come and gone. I want to thank all of you who attended. I pray the time invested has and will reap rich dividends for you. Most of all I want to thank the RTM staff and the many volunteers who tirelessly worked to make the conference possible. As the speaker I realize I take on the face of Real Truth Matters. But I also realize that without men and women, like Justin Reed, J. T. Crawford, Bobby and Tina Scott, Joseph Durham, and Jeff Guill I would have not the ability to speak to as many of you as I do. Thank you guys for a job well done! You are the greatest blessing of RTM to me.

Truthfully, we were disappointed that half of those registered for the conference did not make it to the conference. But the “Concert for Truth” for the youth made up for our disappointment. Over a 110 young people were there thanks to the encouragement of their youth pastors. It was amazing to watch the power of God mesmerize the students so that they were not only extremely attentive but moved as they heard the word of God. Even adults confessed to having been convicted and challenged.

Please pray for this ministry. Now that the conference is over, it time for us to seek the face of God and hear what His will is for us. We will be praying for leadership from the Spirit as to what we are to do in the next few months, if anything. We refuse to do what we deem best. We truly desire to obey the commands of the Master. A slave’s only task is to listen and obey. It is the responsibility of the Master to direct. Join us as we pray to hear and do all that the Master, the Real Truth that matters, the Lord Jesus Christ commands.

The Word of God and Faith

2009-09-08T10:36:00.007-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Eleventh installment on faith)

If faith is a God-given ability to see reality as He see it, then how does He confer that ability? How does the Lord make me to see reality about a given situation the way He sees it? Does He give me a vision or something like it?

The Lord is capable of giving a vision, but that is not His main way in this age of the Spirit. Visions, dreams, angelic messengers and human messengers (called prophets) are no longer the primary ways God speaks to His people. I know there are a great many people telling us that they are apostles or prophets and that they have revelations that rival Scripture, or at least add to it. But one word can dismiss such claims: false. These are false apostles and false prophets. The Scriptures need no revision or addition. The Bible is a complete testimony of God’s redemptive love, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me be quick to say that does not mean that there are not men today who have apostolic-like ministries. In many ways missionaries who have gone to regions of the world were there has been no gospel have had an apostle-like ministries. But that’s a long way from saying they fulfilled the same capacity as did Peter, John or Paul. Similarly, there are men who have had the ministries of the ancient prophets, warning of judgment and crying for repentance. But that does not mean they had any inspiration to write Scripture.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews shows that the final revelation of God has come and it, by far, is the best. There is no need for improvement. The final revelation of God is Christ Jesus.

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:1-3).

The Apostle Paul tells us that the foundation of the church has already been laid. He says, “the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:19-20). The church’s foundation is the ministries of our Lord and His apostles and prophets. When building a house you always start with the foundation. Once the foundation is laid, then you can build the house on it. To claim to have the same inspiration as the apostles is laughable as well as grievous. It’s saying that God built a foundation, then built His house, but stopped along the way and built another foundation on top of the house. You can’t have multiple foundations and you can’t build this way. You complete the foundation before you build the house. There are no new prophets inspired to write Scripture. And any new word proclaimed is no word from God. The foundation was finished with John and his Revelation.

Having said that, the primary means the Lord speaks to us today is the Bible. And it is by the word of Scripture that God predominately grants glimpses of reality as He sees it. The Bible says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).

Repeating my mantra of previous posts, you and I are not faith factories. We cannot manufacture faith. It comes to us as a gift from our gracious Lord. And He gives it to us by speaking to us. His word creates the reality of the “things hoped for.” His word released in your heart generates “the evidence of things not seen.” The power of God’s word birthed in the spirit confers the faith needed, for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

If you are to have faith ever increasing, your understanding of God’s word must also increase. Faith needs fuel. The fuel of faith is the word of its Author and Finisher. That is why Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7).

The Bible’s Description of Faith

2009-09-03T13:50:00.004-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Tenth installment on faith)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

In the last post I defined faith as a God-given ability to see reality as God sees it. This is a loose paraphrase of Hebrews 11:1. The writer says that “faith is the substance of things hoped for.” The word substance is quite revealing. Unfortunately, some modern translations have declined to use the word substance and use assurance instead. It can be translated that way, but it can also mean more than assurance. The same word is used in Hebrews 1:3. There it is translated person, “who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” The idea is Jesus is the visible reality of God’s person.

In fact, that is the origin of this Greek word we translate substance. The word had a historical meaning of “reality.” It usually referred to the reality behind appearances. Therefore, the word substance much more accurately suggests what the writer has in mind than does the word assurance. Substance indicates the essence or reality of something or someone.

Thus, faith is the substance, or the essence, or the reality of the thing you’re hoping for. It takes on the very quality of whatever you’re longing for. For example, I am sitting at my desk typing this blog on my keyboard. The desk is made of wood. Consequently, we can say the desk’s substance or essence is wood. According to our text, faith is the reality of the thing for which you are hopeful implanted into your spirit. God puts the spiritual reality of the thing you are expecting in your heart.

The author continues, “faith is . . . the evidence of things not seen.” Faith isn’t only the substance of the very reality that you’re hoping for, it’s also the evidence of that reality implanted in the believer. “Evidence” means “conviction.” This form of the word is used only twice in the New Testament. It comes from a root word that means to reprove or correct. The image of a prosecuting attorney is an excellent help here. If I am a prosecuting attorney and you are a juror, it is my responsibility to present irrefutable evidence that he who stands trial is guilty. My evidence should be so “convicting” that it should prove to you the defendant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt. That’s the idea behind this word “evidence.”

The writer of Hebrews is teaching that faith is the very evidence of things that we cannot see, and that they’re just as real as the things we can see. It’s the very argumentation, proof or conviction persuading you of the thing you trust God for. This proof or conviction is given to believers and is implanted in the heart. Because you have faith, you have the proof you will receive. This is what Jesus meant when He said in Mark 11:24, “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”

Someone said that faith is a blind leap into the dark. But not according to the author of Hebrews. There is nothing blind or dark about it. God grants the believer the ability to see reality as He sees it by instilling that reality in his or her heart. He does not ask us to walk in presumption hoping that there is something solid to walk on. We may not always understand why He leads us the way He does, nor will we always know where He is leading. But faith lets us see the promise as God sees it. Faith is the reality and conviction of God’s promise in us. As Manley Beasly used to say, “Faith is not a leap into the dark; it’s a leap into the light.”

What Is Faith?

2009-09-01T13:27:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Ninth installment on faith)

I remember spending hours, days, and weeks trying to define love. I studied and thought, trying to put a handle on it. Finally I came to the conclusion that it is a little like trying to “pin down” God, which we know we can’t do. The Apostle John tells us, “God is love.” We can know God, and we can know love, but defining them perfectly will always elude us.

Faith is almost (but not quite) as hard to define as love is. The dictionaries define faith as, “a confidence or trust in a person or thing.” Certainly, it is that, but how much more do we really know about faith with such a definition? It is enlightening to discover that the Bible does not attempt a textbook or clinical definition of faith. Yet, it has a lot to say about it. It commands it, tells stories about it, and encourages it without telling us what the word means. Why? Because you don’t learn faith in books; you learn faith in life. The Bible doesn’t define faith, it demonstrates it. Faith is understood when seen in action.

Therefore, the Bible does not give us a definition of faith; rather, it gives a description of it. It declares what faith does and from that you learn what it is. The greatest description the Bible gives of faith, and the closest it comes to a definition, is Hebrews 11:1—

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

In this verse faith is more than a general belief in God and His goodness. The writer of Hebrews is demonstrating what faith does in real life situations. As he unpacks this first verse in the remainder of the chapter, he does so naming real people in real circumstances.

As you examine this statement in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews you see that faith is active. There is no passivity in faith. It is not some presumption that God is going to save your day. It is actively confident because faith sees the outcome. That is why I define faith as a God-given ability to see reality as God sees it about a situation. It is to have the eyes of God and see more of something than you did.

Reality is comprised of two realms, the physical and the spiritual. In other words, reality is made up of the things you can see and things you can’t see. The truth is, only God can see reality. We see partial reality. The unseen is invisible to us but not to the Lord. He knows what is going to happen tomorrow, and not only does He know the affairs of men, but He knows what He will do. He sees and knows all. Therefore, the only true realist is God.

When God grants to you faith to trust Him concerning a situation, the faith that He gives is like insight into a part of reality you have not seen. He gives you the ability to know what shall transpire and therefore you believe. Faith is not the labor of struggle to believe something will transpire, but it is to see that it will occur. Faith is not the mental gymnastics we often perform to overcome doubtful resistance, convincing ourselves something is true. No, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” You possess it, you see it, and it is yours. So if faith is the ability to see reality as God sees it, then one can be as certain as God about what is believed.

Faith is not omniscience. Only God knows all things. But faith gives you insight about a particular thing or event or outcome. It is how God can call “those things which do not exist as though they did” (Romans 4:17). And so can you if you have the eyes of faith.

The Promise Sacrificed

2009-08-28T09:43:00.005-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Eighth installment on faith)

Do you know that flushed feeling of panic when you first hear or see something that is threatening to your joy? Abraham was well acquainted with it. His blood pressure spiked; the chill that leaves you warm instead of cold rushed through his body the night he heard God say, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

Frankly, there is an air of holy mystery in this story that leaves me with questions. I don’t understand it all. But its message I do get, at least somewhat. What becomes the preoccupation of your life, the passion of your life, and the love of your life must be sacrificed to God. To you theologians who want to tell me the story is all about a glimpse into the future when the Heavenly Father will lay His Only Son on an altar and plunge the knife of divine justice through His body and soul let me say, I understand that. Surely redemptive light-beams shoot out of Genesis 22 and spotlight the Lamb hanging on Calvary’s cross. But there is a personal story here as well.

An old man was given a promise. Twenty-five long years he waited for its fulfillment. The day came when his promise came to pass and he held it in his hands—a baby boy. As the years went by and the promise began to grow, take his first step, speak his first word, Abraham was right there. He taught Isaac his knowledge of husbandry and leadership and, most importantly, his God. Abraham’s life was now fulfilled. The culmination of his life was the son. Here was the holy seed. Here was the linage of the Messiah. He had lived his entire life for this purpose.

But in one moment, the stillness of a fulfilled life was jolted by a night visit from heaven. The words drove terror deep into Abraham’s heart, “Take now your son . . . and offer him . . . as a burnt offering.” What Abraham didn’t know the Lord did; Abraham’s heart was wrapped up in the promise much more than with the One who had made the promise. Abraham, like any of us who get in that position, couldn’t see it. The more he loved Isaac, he assumed the more he loved God. The boy was the promise of God, given to him by the performance of God’s power. To love the gift was to love the Giver, was it not?

Not exactly. Not when the promise is exalted above the Giver. When the gift no longer motivates you to praise the Giver and it becomes the object of ultimate adoration, then you have crossed the line. Abraham had crossed the line.

We are not privy to the prayers of Abraham after the command came. We do not know if his prayers sounded strangely similar to night prayers that would be prayed almost two millennia later in a garden: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.” All we know is the text reads, “So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.”

The soul’s dilemma was ended by morning. The promise-turned-idol had been relinquished from the patriarch’s heart. He may have laid Isaac on the altar days later, but that night sometime before sunrise the sacrifice had already been committed. In vain are the arguments that suggest Abraham didn’t have to sacrifice Isaac. The idol had to be purged. And it was. Perhaps that is why Abraham did not have to finish the act.

The writer to the Hebrews gives an interesting insight to this story. Hebrews 11:17, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.” In other words, Abraham offered up one of God’s promises.

He continues in verse 19, “concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.” This is very important. If you are to have faith in God you must understand this truth. Because God promised Isaac and because the promise of Isaac was the seed of the covenant God made with him, Abraham knew the seed could not die. In other words, the promise of faith was the reason Abraham could die to the promise. He knew if he obeyed God and sacrificed Isaac, God would raise him from the dead. This is absolutely astounding since Abraham had no precedent to believe this. No one had been raised from the dead between Adam and Abraham. Yet Abraham believed God would restore Isaac to him because of the promise.

Two things are involved here. One, Abraham was tested: where was his ultimate loyalty and love? Was it with Isaac or Jehovah? The test made him choose, which brought him out of his idolatry. Two, Abraham relinquished control of his idol. He surrendered control of his son and placed him in the hands of the Lord. In essence, he trusted God with the promise.

That is our task also. When given a promise by the Lord we must not take control of it and become possessed with it. Rather, we must surrender it back to the Lord in complete confidence that He will keep His word and do what is right. You must rest in Him without worry, free of consternation and concern, knowing the One who promised is faithful. He will do it. Even if He has to raise your promise up from the death of your sacrifice.

Separate Church & State, It Won't Change the Truth

2009-08-27T14:22:00.005-05:00

No one wants our government to tell us what our religious views should be. Our constitution provides that the government will not establish a religious order, while at the same time protecting our freedom to hold and speak out on any religious views we may hold. While it does protect us from religious tyranny and allows for the freedom to exercise nearly any variety of religious practices in the United States, it does not change the truth of the one true religion, that of Jesus Christ.

In a recent Courier Journal article, it was reported that a judge in Kentucky struck down language in a 2006 state law that created the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security. That law acknowledged “the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth.” An amendment to the law required that a plaque be placed at the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort, which states "the safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God." Ten residents of the state along with the American Atheists Inc. filed suit against the state to have the verbiage removed from the law. A circuit judge ruled that reference violates the U.S. and Kentucky constitutions, which prohibit the government from establishing an official religion. The plaintiffs’ attorney was happy, saying that: “Maybe people will think twice now before trying to impose their religious beliefs in Kentucky.” In the end, these people do not want to acknowledge God as being a vital part in the protection of a people.

Regardless of whether or not they want to rely on God in times of state emergency, they unknowingly rely on the common grace of God for everything. Even know, as they breathe, as their hearts pump blood through their bodies, and as their stomachs are well full with food, they exert great dependence upon the one who created them. Even their ability to file a lawsuit in a Kentucky court was only accomplished by God’s allowance. Psalm 10 states that “the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire; he blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord. The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God. God is in none of his thoughts. His ways are prospering. Your judgments are far above, out of his sight; as for all his enemies, he sneers at them. He has said in his heart, ‘I shall not be moved. I shall never be in adversity.’ His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity . . . He has said in his heart, ‘God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see.’” Psalm 10:3-11

Oh how so this is! The wicked have no regard for God, and they appear to prosper. Yet they, in their darkness, will come undone when the light of dawn breaks and the Word of the Lord is fulfilled. For now the night grows long, and shadows may seem to hide God’s face, but the light of his son will burst forth as glorious day, and they shall acknowledge Him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The Psalmist cries in verse 12, “Arise, O LORD! O God, lift up Your hand!” His cry is our cry. Legislation and judges have no impact on reality, on the truth. Perhaps state Representative Tom Riner of Louisville sums it up best: "They make the argument ... that it has to do with a religion," Riner said, "and promoting a religion. God is not a religion. God is God."

Death to the Promise

2009-08-26T11:30:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Seventh installment on faith)

You would think we would know better. We expect more from ourselves, something less gullible. Yet, I have done it. Have you? Haven’t you focused more on the promise than the Promiser? Should the eyes of faith cast their look anywhere but on the “Faithful and True,” the vision will become dim at best.

As explained in the previous blog, the enemy of our faith will not just assault our faith by attacking God’s integrity. That is not his only strategy. He will also try to steer our faith away from its source, Jesus. And if he cannot do so with worldly idols, he will distract our souls with the very thing the Lord has promised. Should you or I begin to focus our attention on the thing we are trusting God for, then we cannot behold the Giver. Faith has eyes only for God, therefore if I am looking, gazing, concentrating on something other than the Lord Jesus, even if it something He has promised to give me, my faith will wilt. Faith must have God as its focus as we need air to breathe.

Preoccupation with the promises of God is nothing more than idolatry. It is fascination with the gift more than the Giver. This is a major enemy to faith. How then do we fight this tendency? How do we keep our eyes on Him who has promised and not the promise? By way of the cross. It is by death. You must die to the very promise that God has given you.

Dying to the promise doesn’t mean we cease to trust God for the promise’s fulfillment. It means that I refuse to let the promise be the source of my delight rather than the Promiser. If the Lord has promised something you really desire and the thing desired has your heart, you will know it by the fact that you are not able to wait patiently for it. You will become impatient and even frustrated with the Lord for His delay in keeping His promise. Or you will begin to lose hope that it will ever come to pass. You will begin to think you did not hear God accurately or at all.

The antidote is death. Your desires, longings and hopes must cease being your source of pleasure. The excitement you feel as you think about the promise must be transferred back to God Himself. It is indeed permissible to be excited about a promise you have received from your Father, but it is not acceptable that the excitement outweigh your enthusiasm in God.

To the cross you must go and lay the promise there. Upon the cruel and rough beams of the cross you must sacrifice your promise. In other words, you must be willing that the promise never be fulfilled so long as it has your heart. Death to the promise is to want God’s pleasure and sweet presence much more than the promise fulfilled. Possessing communion with the Heavenly Father means a great deal more to you than possessing the promise. This is dying to the promise.

You must pray at the altar of sacrifice that the Lord would give you grace to restore your heart for Him, to see Him again with the eyes of faith. Once you have died to the promise, then the promise can be fulfilled. If we have relinquished the worship of the thing promised, then we can once again truly trust God with the promise and its fulfillment. We can again wait on the Lord in peace because our mind is stayed on Him. The Lord Jesus can give us what He has promised. It is no longer an idol; it is an expression of His love to us. And if an expression of His love, then surely He is the object of our worship and thankfulness.

The Eyes of Faith

2009-08-25T16:21:00.002-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Sixth installment on faith)

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12: 2).

Faith has eyes only for Jesus; that is God-like faith. Faith cannot survive gazing on any other. That is why the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says, “Looking unto Jesus,” which in a recent blog we said means, “looking away to Jesus.” In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews the attention was on the faith of men. But now he wants us to look no more at men, as inspirational as that may be, and now focus our eyes of faith on Jesus.

Faith cannot survive long without seeing Jesus. He is its only object. As long as it beholds His glory, it thrives. Like a rose loves sunshine and develops in the sun’s rays, so does faith develop in the rays of Jesus’ excellence.

If you would have your faith strong keep Christ your focus. If you would be a person of faith do not take your gaze off of the Author and Finisher of faith. If you would excel in faith, then do nothing that would distract attention from the object of faith—Jesus. Learn to have eyes only for Him.

This is so important that you must resist the greatest temptation of all, the temptation to focus on the promises of God. Quite often it is so casually said that we must keep faith’s eye on the promises of God. But casualness is not godly rest; far from it! Casualness it is the devil’s nest. It is to lie in the enemy’s lair. Vigilance is faith’s friend and we must not get casual with the things of God, especially faith.

There is a good deal of truth that the promises of God are the food of faith. God’s promises fuel our faith. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). But the promises of God encourage faith only because they are that, the promises of God. It is the character of God that makes His promises certain. What makes one man’s promises better than another man’s? The integrity of one and the lack thereof in the other. It would be better to say the impeccable character of God is the fuel of faith. Faith loves to behold the infinite God and lovingly trust the treasure of God’s person.

Someone may ask, “How do you separate God’s promise from God? Aren’t they one and the same?” Yes, a man’s word is an expression of his heart. This is no less true of our Father. But it is not the promises themselves to which faith looks, but the One who makes the promises believable.

It is right here that the devil’s trickery enters. He will work to turn your gaze away from the Promiser to the promise, or better yet, to what is being promised. If your focus is on what has been promised to you, faith will begin to waver. It will waver for one of two reasons.

First, as you keep your eye upon the thing promised, the promise will soon seem a difficult thing. You will begin to think the promise can’t come to pass unless you maintain your faith that it will. And when that happens your faith is looking to you. As long as you believe you have faith you will be encouraged, but the moment you stop feeling your faith you will fall into fear, frustration and faithlessness.

The second reason faith will waver when the eyes of faith is diverted to the thing promised is that you will begin to idolize it. It will become more important to you than the Lord. Your joy will be found in the anticipation of the fulfillment more than in He who has promised. This is one of the most subtle forms of idolatry. Unless, the Lord of mercy shows you your sin, you will maintain this idolatry and you will do so calling it faith in God.

When the soul has been forced to cease its adoring attention of Christ, faith cannot be maintained. It will vacillate and eventually wane. Do you see this, my friend? Has the thing you believe God has promised become all-consuming? If so, have you not yet noticed the difficulty to keep faith strong?

What is the answer? You must die to the very thing that God promised. More about this in our next posting.

Trusting Christ for Faith to Trust

2009-08-21T13:40:00.005-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Fifth installment on faith)

The Lord Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith. This means He is the creator of our faith. It is He, and not us, who creates faith, initiates faith and stimulates our faith. That does not mean we have no responsibility in the exercise of faith or that we can excuse ourselves for not believing God. It only means we cannot create our faith in God. It is a grace given to us from the very One who calls us to trust Him.

I am learning this and have been over the course of my life as a believer. I am obviously a very slow learner. But actually, the problem hasn’t been my intellect. I learned the principle of where my faith comes from a long time ago, within three years after my conversion. But my stubborn pride has prevented me from believing it. You can know something is true in the realm of the intellect but not understand experientially in your spirit. There is something in me that resists absolute trust in God; a need to impress my heavenly Father exists that is as real as was my need to impress my earthly father as a child. For years I have wrestled with a deep-seated conviction that pleasing God meant showing Him I am capable and worthy of His attention.

This is so deceiving because you know the gospel proclaims otherwise, but your knowledge blinds you to flesh’s impulse to do. You are convinced that you are walking by the Spirit only because you know you are to do so. But knowing something to be true and doing it are not the same. Intellectually, we get it. But internally the two, knowing and doing, somehow get garbled up as being one and the same. In my case, I know I can’t have faith in God without God’s granting of faith and helping me to exercise it but instead of looking to Christ, the Author and Completer of my faith, I look within to strengthen my faith and cause it to grow. The result is stress, frustration and exhaustion.

A couple of years ago the Lord again enrolled me into the class of faith by putting me on a path of frustrating failures. I sensed that my help would come by reading chapters 13-17 of John’s gospel. And so on my knees I began reading slowly, prayerfully Jesus’ discourse to His disciples on the eve of His crucifixion. When I got to chapter 15 and read the parable of the Vine something clicked. I knew that within these verses was the answer I was seeking. Day after day I would read the words of this simple illustration, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser . . . Abide in Me, and I in you . . . I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” The words washed over my starving soul like rain water removing the dust and filth of a long, dry barren season. The Lord began to open my eyes and see with spiritual understanding what my brain could recite and even preach with ease. But this time it was mine—it was my truth; it was affecting my heart and not just my mind.

The truth was I couldn’t even have faith in Christ without Him. There was nothing I could do without Him, including abiding. We are completely helpless in the realm of the spirit, and if it were not for Jesus we would be hopeless.

After this I remembered long ago reading Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. I recalled that I did not understand what in the world the man was talking about. In theory it sounded right, but I couldn’t make it happen for me. And then I would read well-intentioned brothers attack Taylor’s position on abiding in Christ as an unbiblical passivity.

But now I get it, and it’s not passivity. It is no more passive than a branch is passive in the producing of fruit. But the agenda, ability and energy to produce fruit comes from the vine and not the branch. Here is what Taylor said.

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote, (I quote from memory): “But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.” As I read I saw it all! “If we believe not, he abideth faithful.” I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, “I will never leave you.” “Ah, there is rest!” I thought. “I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me - never to leave me, never to fail me?” And, dearie, He never will!

The title of this blog posting may sound redundant, if not confusing: Trusting Christ for Faith to Trust. But really it is quite simple. Instead of trying to trust, I rest in Christ to grant me the ability to trust. In other words, I ask Him to give me the faith that I need for whatever His will is for me. I am assured of this. I know this is more certain than the sun rising tomorrow. And He never fails. Oh, I still fail at this and therefore fail Him, but “He remains faithful.” Truly, He is the Author and Completer of our faith. Without Him, we can do nothing, not even trust Him.

What Does it Mean to Seek the Lord?

2009-08-20T07:39:00.003-05:00

What Does It Mean to Seek the Lord?
Meditation on Psalm 105:4

By John Piper August 19, 2009

Seeking the Lord means seeking his presence. “Presence” is a common translation of the Hebrew word “face.” Literally, we are to seek his “face.” But this is the Hebraic way of having access to God. To be before his face is to be in his presence.

But aren't his children always in his presence? Yes and no. Yes in two senses: First, in the sense that God is omnipresent and therefore always near everything and everyone. He holds everything in being. His power is ever-present in sustaining and governing all things.

And second, yes, he is always present with his children in the sense of his covenant commitment to always stand by us and work for us and turn everything for our good. “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

But there is a sense in which God’s presence is not with us always. For this reason, the Bible repeatedly calls us to “seek the Lord...seek his presence continually.” God’s manifest, conscious, trusted presence is not our constant experience. There are seasons when we become neglectful of the Lord and give him no thought and do not put trust in him and we find him “unmanifested”—that is, unperceived as great and beautiful and valuable by the eyes of our hearts.

His face—the brightness of his personal character—is hidden behind the curtain of our carnal desires. This condition is always ready to overtake us. That is why we are told to “seek his presence continually.” God calls us to enjoy continual consciousness of his supreme greatness and beauty and worth.

This happens through “seeking.” Continual seeking. But what does that mean practically? Both the Old and New Testaments say it is a “setting of the mind and heart” on God. It is the conscious fixing or focusing of our mind’s attention and our heart’s affection on God.
“Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God.” (1 Chronicles 22:19)
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:1-2)

This setting of the mind is the opposite of mental coasting. It is a conscious choice to direct the heart toward God. This is what Paul prays for the church: “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5). It is a conscious effort on our part. But that effort to seek God is a gift from God.

We do not make this mental and emotional effort to seek God because he is lost. That’s why we would seek a coin or a sheep. But God is not lost. Nevertheless, there is always something through which or around which we must go to meet him consciously. This going through or around is what seeking is. He is often hidden. Veiled. We must go through mediators and around obstacles.

The heavens are telling the glory of God. So we can seek him through that. He reveals himself in his word. So we can seek him through that. He shows himself to us in the evidences of grace in other people. So we can seek him through that. The seeking is the conscious effort to get through the natural means to God himself—to constantly set our minds toward God in all our experiences, to direct our minds and hearts toward him through the means of his revelation. This is what seeking God means.

And there are endless obstacles that we must get around in order to see him clearly, and so that we can be in the light of his presence. We must flee every spiritually dulling activity. We must run from it and get around it. It is blocking our way.

We know what makes us vitally sensitive to God’s appearances in the world and in the word. And we know what dulls us and blinds us and makes us not even want to seek him. These things we must move away from and go around if we would see God. That is what seeking God involves.
And as we direct our minds and hearts Godward in all our experiences, we cry out to him. This too is what seeking him means.

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)

“If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy...” (Job 8:5)

Seeking involves calling and pleading. O Lord, open my eyes. O Lord, pull back the curtain of my own blindness. Lord, have mercy and reveal yourself. I long to see your face.

The great obstacle to seeking the Lord is pride. “In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him” (Psalm 10:4). Therefore, humility is essential to seeking the Lord.

The great promise to those who seek the Lord is that he will be found. “If you seek him, he will be found by you” (1 Chronicles 28:9). And when he is found, there is great reward. “Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). God himself is our greatest reward. And when we have him, we have everything. Therefore, “Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!”

Seeking with you,
Pastor John

Looking Away to Faith’s Completer

2009-08-18T14:57:00.003-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Fourth installment on faith)

Turning our attention to Hebrews 11, we see faith described and portrayed in men and women. Many of the names are very familiar to us; they make up a list of the heroes of our faith. In addition to the famous names, Hebrews 11 mentions the unnamed heroes who demonstrated remarkable faith in the face of fierce persecution. Only God knows their names. In a future blog I will return to chapter 11 of Hebrews, but today I want us to look beyond the eleventh chapter and set our eyes upon the first two verses of chapter 12.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1).

The writer of Hebrews turns his attention to you and me. What about you? What should you do in light of these champions of faith? Well, whatever I do I sure don’t want to be compared to these “witnesses.” That’s what the author calls the heroes of chapter 11, a “great a cloud of witnesses.” My immediate reaction is that I don’t belong in this assembly. I do not have enough faith to be associated with such a prestigious listing of men and women of faith. But I am. I am associated with this group by virtue of having faith in Christ. And so are you. We are a part of this club of faith even though we feel unworthy to be granted membership. The writer of Hebrews makes it definitive that we are a part later in chapter 12,

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn [who are] registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect (Hebrews 12:22-23.

How can I have this kind of faith that is demonstrated in Hebrews 11? The answer follows. But let me remind you, you are not a faith factory. You cannot produce faith. All of your attempts to manufacture faith fail. Understanding this, the author of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us our responsibility. First he says we should gain inspiration from the heroes he has cited, “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight.”

Some have thought that the author is suggesting that the saints in heaven are able to see us as they look over “the balconies of heaven.” Not for sure where that concept came from, but I know one place it didn’t—the Bible. This is not the author’s meaning. Rather, he is saying, in light of what these others have done who have gone before us, let us emulate them and do all we can to persevere in faith. Let us, as they did, throw overboard everything that would slow us down, especially that one sin that hinders and ensnares us all: unbelief. The author of Hebrews is clear; whatever this sin is, it affects us all. And what is the one sin that he has singled out throughout the entire book of Hebrews that has kept others from finishing? The sin of unbelief.

The stories of the men and women who demonstrated faith in God should motivate us to do the same. These people are, in the final analysis, no different from us. They are frail and fallible people who needed a Savior like I do. So, their testimonies should say to me, I too can trust God.

But inspiration will only go so far. I’ve been inspired reading a great biography and resolve to be like that person only to lose my motivation in short while. Surely, you have heard a rousing sermon and vowed to do better with honest intentions. What happened? The same as me—your steam ran out. It will always run out. Why? Because faith, the opposite of unbelief, cannot be humanly sustained. Yes, the author commands believers to sustain their faith and increase it, but he knows that is impossible to you and me. Therefore, he bids our gaze to quickly leave the coronated saints and look upon the “Author and Finisher of our faith.”

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of [our] faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).

It is Jesus who is the origin of our faith. He is the One who gave you your faith and He is the only One who can complete it, or in other words, increase it to its full measure. The word finisher means “one who perfects.” Jesus is the One who perfects our faith. Therefore, the greatest attention I can give to my faith is to give all of my attention to Christ. I run the race of faith by a simple of act of looking to Christ to sustain my faith in Him. If the Lord should will, I will elaborate on this in my next posting.

Are You a Faith Factory?

2009-08-13T14:01:00.005-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Third installment on faith)

We have seen thus far that I have a faith problem stemming from my fallen nature. I was born with a heart that says, “I do not want to trust God in the least. I want to trust me.” The temptation in the Garden of Eden came down to whom Adam and Eve were going to trust—God or themselves. Of course, we know how they opted. And as a result we have opted right along with our first parents. We inherited their rebellious nature, and all a man can do is act out of his nature. We were born with a sinful nature that does not have faith in God.

The new birth counteracts our first birth. The new birth is a birth of a new nature. To be born of the Spirit is to be given a spiritual nature that is from above, given to us from our Spiritual Father. In no way does that make us divine, but as the Apostle Peter says in his second epistle, we partake or share or participate in the divine nature. This new nature or new man, as the Apostle Paul called it, has holy affections and desires. It, by grace, can exercise faith in God. To trust in God is standard equipment for the new heart.

In conjunction with the giving of spiritual life is the fact that our old man, that is who we were before conversion, is gone. The Bible says he has been crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6). To put it another way, the old man was my fallen human nature ruled and dominated by sin. When God regenerates the sinner and the sinner puts his trust in Christ, there is a literal conversion or change. A transformation occurs. The principle of sin enslaving and controlling the sinner is broken. The new believer is free to break with sin and no longer do sin’s bidding. He can now obey God from a heart of faith because sin’s power to enslave is gone.

But as wonderful as the gift of salvation is, it is not perfection. That is not yet. The new believer confidently hopes in a day when he or she will be absolutely and completely rid of the corruption of sin. Even the ability to sin will be vanquished. However, until that day we still have a mind and a body polluted. The mind and the body are not sinful, but within them are appetites and desires contrary to the Spirit that still remain. This is the remnant of the fallen human nature, with which we were born. The Bible calls it the flesh.

The Bible describes in Galatians 5:17 that a contention, to put it mildly, resides between the flesh and the Spirit within the Christian. The flesh promotes self and the Spirit promotes Christ. Flesh trusts only one person, self, whereas the Spirit trusts only Christ. So how are we to put our faith in God if we feel this tension between ourselves and God?

Thankfully, the answer is to walk in the Spirit and we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). We consciously reject faith in ourselves and look to the Savior. This is all Jesus meant when He described the conditions of being a Christian, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). Self-denial means I deny myself the right to trust in myself. I refuse to live my life by my own wisdom or strength. This is the key to faith.

One of the most difficult things for the Christian to learn is that he cannot trust God without God’s help. If I trust me to trust God, then it is no more than my flesh trying to meet God’s requirement of faith. The sad fact is that even though I have a new nature and the Spirit of God resides with me, I still am insufficient to trust and obey the Lord. I must look away from myself totally and look to the One who gives faith. Only He can maintain my faith, increase my faith and preserve my faith. Only He can strengthen the faith that He has already given. Faith is still a gift from God. It is a spiritual gift, having spiritual substance. Otherwise faith becomes me straining with my brain to believe God. Sadly, this is what so many Christians think faith is—mere mental assent. If they can hurdle their own minds’ objections and feel like they believe, then they consider themselves to have faith in God.

If you are to have a strong faith, you must have a weak faith in you. Faith that is strong in God is based upon a strong belief in human helplessness. You must be absolutely convinced that without Jesus you cannot even hope to have faith in God. You believe with intention that Jesus meant what He said, “for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Your will must be exercised to renounce any self-sufficiency so that you may receive God’s sufficiency.

Is not this the lesson of nine frustrated disciples who could not cast out a demon from an afflicted child? Did they not pray to the Lord, “Why could we not cast it out?” Note the “we.” They tried to cast out the demon. Contrast that to the prayer that got results. The father of the demonized prayed, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” He somehow knew Christ could help him to believe. You and I are not faith factories. We do not nor cannot produce faith in God. All we can do is exercise the faith that He gives. Maybe that is why the disciples eventually, after this event, prayed more accurately, “Increase our faith.”

The Origin of Our Faith

2009-08-11T14:04:00.006-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(Second installment on faith)

The basic problem we have in the realm of faith in God is our human nature. Our fallenness works against trusting someone else completely. We don’t mind trusting someone as long as we maintain some control, but our Heavenly Father requires absolute trust, which translates as no control on our part. You and I must relinquish command of the situation in order to exercise faith in God. The Lord requires a dependency that relies completely on Him. This way, trust means trust. You really do trust God so that you are able to take your hands off and rest in Him.

But this is not natural to our humanity. And although we are redeemed with new natures we still have fallen human nature, i.e., flesh, which is opposed to the spirit of faith in God. Therefore, our problem is part of us wants to trust God and part of us wants to trust ourselves. How then can we have faith in God?

The answer to this all-important question is found in how we were able to exercise faith in Christ when we were converted. How could a sinner, dead in trespasses and sin, diametrically opposed to God to the degree that he hated God, ever wind up putting his confidence in Him? The answer is grace. God grants to the sinner faith. It is a gift given to all who will believe, otherwise none would believe. In Philippians 1:29 the Apostle Paul says, “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” What does he mean, “it has been granted on behalf of Christ . . . to believe in Him”? Would it help to know that the word granted is translated from a Greek word that means to give graciously? In other words, it is a gift of grace. To believe in Christ is a gift of grace given to us by God.

Does not the Bible say that to every Christian God has given a “measure of faith”? Are we not told “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8)? There is no other explanation for how a God-hating, sin-loving, self-centered, Christ-rejecting sinner can suddenly trust the One he has never trusted. It is a gift of God’s amazing grace. It is part and parcel of what it means to be born again. The new birth is the beginning of a new life. Whereas the old life was full of self-trust and empty of God-trust, the new life created by God is the opposite. It is full of faith in Christ and empty of faith in self.

We can say that faith is a gift given to a person as much as we can say forgiveness is a gift. You did not manufacture your faith in God. You did not just, all by yourself, decide one day to cease your unbelief in God’s promises. Nor did you, apart from God’s grace, decide you could now trust the Lord. It is a part of the miracle we call the new birth.

Someone may ask, “Why then do I still find it, at times, hard to have faith in the Lord if God has given me faith?” Well, the answer may ring a bit with simplicity, but it is, nonetheless, true. The answer is that although God grants faith, you and I must exercise it. God will not do our trusting for us. We are involved in the very act of faith. That’s why Jesus often scolded the disciples for their lack of faith. If He didn’t expect them to exercise their faith but God to do it for them, then Jesus would not have rebuked them. And if that was the way faith worked and Jesus would have censured them, the disciples could have replied that the fault was not theirs but the Father’s since He had not moved them to believe.

God gives us faith but it is ours to use it or not. The measure of faith in Romans 12:3 that Paul says every believer has received, is an ability to trust God and not the very act of faith. It must not be confused with the “gift of faith” listed in 1 Corinthians 12. I must will to act on this ability to trust. It is exactly here that the battle to believe is waged. The flesh will be opposed until we learn how to bring the flesh into submission to the Spirit. How this battle is to be engaged and won will be the subject of our next entry. Until then may the Lord help you to trust in you less and Him more.

I Have a Faith Problem

2009-08-07T10:06:00.001-05:00

By S. Michael Durham

(This is the first of a series of blogs on the subject of faith.)

I feel like I am taking a refresher course. Or maybe it’s more like I have multiple times failed the class and must take it again. The lesson is faith, how to trust God in everything. You would think to believe God should be a relatively easy lesson to learn since God has a track record of never playing someone false. He does not lie, He cannot lie. He is completely trustworthy. So what’s the problem? Obviously it isn’t God; it’s me. I’m the problem. There is something wrong with me that I can’t trust the most honest Person in the universe.

Maybe my problem is that I’m an untrustworthy person and I’m judging the Lord based upon my performance. We do that; we often judge other people’s motives by our own motives. I know I can’t always be trusted. I sometimes have ulterior motives and so why couldn’t God have a few? May be He is up to something other than my good because often “my good” hurts. I can’t handle too much of that kind of good. Yet, that seems to be the kind of good the Lord is often dishing out.

Maybe my faith problem is an intellectual problem, meaning I just can’t figure God out. I mean He sometimes asks me to believe Him for things that don’t make sense to me. He requires strange things that appear unreasonable. He tells a 100 year old man he’s going to have a son with his 90 year old wife whose womb never worked when she was younger. And then once the miracle boy arrives a few years later God tells the same dad to take his son and offer him as a human sacrifice on an altar. I’m sorry but it doesn’t compute.

Perhaps my faith issues have stemmed from a problem I have with control. I do like to have my hands on the helm of my ship, if you know what I mean. I’m not so kosher with the idea of someone else doing the driving, especially if I don’t know where we are going. I want to sit down and plan my course. I want to Google map my trip and think of possible contingencies before I head off in any direction. But it seems the Lord has this thing about taking me to places I’ve never been without consulting me or at least letting me see the map.

Or could my faith problem be an odd mixture of all the above? And if so, wouldn’t that be indicative that my real problem is a nature problem? I mean it could very well be that my human nature is fallen and doesn’t like to trust anyone more than me. But don’t take my word for it. Remember, I’ve already confessed I’m not so honest. How about you? Why do you struggle with trusting God?

This Present Evil Age: Worldliness Part Four

2009-08-06T21:25:00.001-05:00

by Michael Durham (listen to all four parts of this blog entry by downloading it in MP3 format)

It motivates you to please yourself.

This is the one area, I fear, that has the strongest grip on us. To some degree, all of us are trying to be free from the power of the world. This desire for pleasure is not evil – it is not wrong to want to be happy or experience pleasure. Pleasure is a gift from heaven. But the present evil age perverts the true pleasure with lesser pleasures: Internet, computer, TV, cars, wealth, good friends and families, good homes, good health, hobbies – on and on the list goes; the lesser pleasures are offered to you.

If you are not careful, when you taste the pleasures the world offers, like a drug addict you will want more. You wish to regain the euphoria you felt when you first experienced the pleasures of the world. But the problem is, the pleasures of the world are not long lasting! You must drag an intravenous bottle with you! You must have a constant stream, because the heart becomes addicted to the entertainment of the surrounding culture. So we do what everyone else does: we go into debt for things that will cause us to experience pleasure. That’s the strategy of worldly pleasure: to get you seeking it rather than Jesus Christ.

Our Deliverance
Our text offers our help, “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age.” Would you note with me the measure to which Jesus went to offer you help? Not only did He die for your sins, but He also gave Himself up for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil age.

Some of the things I talked about this morning may have seemed harmless or natural to you. But they must be of great offense to God and so dangerous to your soul that Jesus Christ would go to the cross to die so that He might deliver you from them. His life has been given that He might set you free from these things. Your self-providing spirit cannot handle these things. You sit there thinking, “I believe, now that you have warned me, I can handle these things.” And once again, the present evil age has deceived you. That is simply more self-provision and self-protection.

The only way you can be delivered is to call upon Jesus Christ for His saving mercy to rescue you from the spirit of this present evil age that has your body and soul. Only He can save you! I am talking to the saved as well as the unsaved. He is the only one who has overcome the world. Why would I listen to the spirit of this world in order to find out how to overcome it? That is like listening to the thief tell you how he will not steal you blind!

I want to go to the One who has overcome the world. He was in this world, confronted with things far more difficult than you have been confronted with. Pain? Think about the pain Jesus had to endure as He walked in this world of nothing but woe and problems. How did He withstand? It is an amazing thing. Look at how the world treated Him—with every argument lined up against Him and every weapon they could form aimed at Him. And yet He says, “I have overcome the world.” Finally, the world gets its final wish with Him: they take Him to a place called Golgotha, and there they stretch Him out on splintery, rough-hewn timbers, and there they nail Him and kill Him. And even as the world kills Him, the world does not overcome Him or defeat Him. He alone survives in victory. He defeats it!

If you are a believer today, “greater is He that is in you that He that is in the world!” The very One who has said, “I have overcome,” said to you, “Be of good cheer!” Be hopeful, Christian! You don’t have to continually be deceived by the spirit of this present evil age! There is victory in Christ Jesus!

Dear friend who has yet to know Christ (I would like to believe that you will be saved; please forgive me if I presume upon you that you will one day be a Christian, but I have great hope in God), if the Spirit of God has spoken to you so forcefully you could not help but know it was God, you must say, “I am bound by the spirit of this present evil age. I am preoccupied with myself. I care only for me – even my own family members, I love them, but I love them only in proportion to what they do for me! I promote me or I hide from the world so I can protect me! You have described me – what is my hope?”

Your hope is my hope. Your deliverance is my Deliverer. So I extend to you now the hope of Christ Jesus. Believe in Him, trust in Him, and be saved from this present evil age. Amen.