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The Legalities of Lust… In the Sermon on the Mount

January 26, 2012

In Matthew 5:27-30…

Does this passage primarily function as an indictment against legalism (the Pharisees), or is it addressed toward everyone?

It does both. It condemns legalism and the “cover” that legalism affords.  Legalists maintain a sinful lifestyle but offset their sin by acts of righteousness in order to take shelter under those acts and feel forgiven.  To those who would draw the line and attempt to box God in and say, “well I’m not really being adulterous, I haven’t slept with that woman, I’ve just looked at her and thought about it…” Jesus says “ah but I am concerned with the desire of your heart.  If you claim to know me, and claim to want the blessing of my Father then listen to what I have said, mourn over your sin and you will be comforted; hunger for my righteousness and you will be satisfied; be pure in your heart and you will see Me for who I really am,  And that vision of me will outshine any earthly temptation you face.”

The message of Jesus is that the key to sexual purity is to seek “a circumcised heart (Duet 10:16), a heart on which God’s Holy Law is writtenJer 31:31-34), a new heart (Ezek 36:24-27), a heart that is pure (Matt 5:8).  Only God may grant such a heart in fulfillment of his new convenant promise, the promise that forms the theological foundation for the radical demands of the sermon on the mount.”[1]

 What does it mean to look at a woman to lust for her?  Is there to be no admiration for a woman’s body?

“The man whom Jesus here condemns (in Mt 5:27, 28) is the man who deliberately uses his eyes to stimulate his desires; the man who finds a strange delight in things which waken the desire for the forbidden thing.”  The verb here is a present participle, which is to say that it has the sense of on-going action.  To look and keep on looking, the lustful look “locks eyes on another person and uses him or her to fuel one’s sexual imagination.”[2]

“The “look” that Jesus mentioned was not a casual glance, but a constant stare with the purpose of lusting. It is possible for a man to glance at a beautiful woman and know that she is beautiful, but not lust (Job 31:1) after her. The man Jesus described looked at the woman for the purpose of feeding his inner sensual appetites as a substitute for the act (James 1:14, 15). It was not accidental; it was planned.[3]

The “lust” in view here is the word epiqumhsai or (epi-thu-meysai)  which means literally to fix the desire upon (object could be good Mt 13:17, Lk 22:15 used of Jesus; or bad 1Co 10:6). It means to have a strong desire to do or secure something. To desire greatly.

Mankind, both male and female were created in the image of God.  In the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. (Gen 2:27)  This includes their physical person as well as their spiritual nature and soul.  Whether one lusts and sins when one looks at the human body is not reliant on the ‘body’ viewed but in the heart of the viewer.  “To the pure all things are pure. But the man whose heart is defiled can look at any scene and find something in it titillate and excite the wrong desire.”[4]

To appreciate a human body properly, within the context of God’s good creation, one must see beyond the physical and see that this is someone created in God’s own image made to know Him and glorify Him.  The problem with today’s pornography culture is that individuals are not seen as the image of God but rather as a means to excite the eyes for sexual gratification.  They are a means to an end.  Anytime we look at the opposite sex as a means to some end we are not glorifying God but denigrating his creation, and ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Quarles, 124.

[2] Ibid. 117.

[3] Wiersbe, W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor)

[4] Barclay, W: The Daily Study Bible Series. The Westminster Press.

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The Costly Consequences of Sin… Christ’s Solution

January 25, 2012

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

-Matthew 5:29-30

Is there any Old Testament precedent for Jesus’ teaching on removing stumbling blocks for oneself (in this passage the right eye and the right hand).

There is no specific example of this (mutilation) being done; but its absence is key in and of itself.  Would that Israel had that mindset; that the Jews would have chosen to flee sin and idolatry instead of indulging it.  “Several Old Testament prophets used adultery as a metaphor to describe unfaithfulness to God. Idolatry (Ezekiel 23:27) and other pagan religious practices (Jeremiah 3:6-10) were viewed as adulterous unfaithfulness to the exclusive covenant that God established with His people. To engage in such was to play the harlot (Hosea 4:11-14).”[1]  Jesus is reminding and re-emphasizing the seriousness of adultery; whether physical adultery, mental adultery or spiritual adultery.  Israel, as a people, had been unfaithful to God, and as a result many had found judgment and condemnation.  Better to incur loss and stay in God’s blessing than remain whole and stand outside his presence.

The point of this hyperbole is to communicate the willingness of the individual to flee sin even at great personal and perhaps even physical cost.  There are two examples in Scripture that bear witness to this in principle; a positive example and a negative one.

The positive example is that of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Gen 39:10-20).  Joseph, though single, viewed sexual relations with the wife of another man as a heinous act.  He fled and did so at a great cost to himself and his well being.  In this case it was not his hand that was causing him to sin, nor his eye but his proximity to Potiphar’s wife.  So he fled and eliminated that proximity.  As a result he lost his position, his job, and was cast into prison, but maintained his character and was ultimately restored.

The negative example would be that of David.  He gazed out over the rooftops of Jerusalem and saw Bathsheba. (2 Sam 11)  Instead of fleeing, he indulged the look, lusted and finally acted.  As a result of his sin; she became pregnant, David killed her husband, their child died at birth and David’s kingdom was greatly troubled.  If David had known the consequences that would come and could have chosen, one might assume that he would have been willing to loose an eye or a hand to prevent such evil from occurring.

What did Jesus mean when he said ‘tear out the right eye and cut off the right hand’?

Most scholars today take this statement is hyperbole, or extreme speech that was not intended to be taken literally.  Jesus mentions the ‘right’ hand and the ‘right’ eye, the right hand “typically had greater strength, dexterity, and purity.  The right hand was used to greet others, bestow blessings, and establish legal agreements.”[2]  Thus the right hand was seen as more valuable and useful, its loss would be greater than the left.  The point being that the Christian should be willing, not only to make sacrifices, but genuine even costly sacrifices to avoid sin.  For a life that does not avoid sin is a life lived in sin, a life bent for judgment.

“Avoiding spiritual downfall is worthy of any sacrifice, no matter how great!”

So if we think about this in modern terms; if your job is causing you to sin i.e. coworkers tempting you to steal or cheat etc. better to quit your job and maintain your integrity than to stay and engage in sin.  If your friends are tempting you to sin i.e. drink, have sex, do drugs, look at pornography etc.  better to remove those friendships and follow Christ than place those friendships above your relationship with Jesus.  If you are tempted by pornography or internet gambling etc. to the point that you can not sit at a computer without engaging in it, better to get rid of your computer and enter heaven; than to keep your computer and continue to live a life of sin.  Either way your actions reflect the orientation of your heart.  A pure heart endeavors to be pure in action; an impure heart is careless and inspires sinful action.

[1]  Butler, Trent C. Editor.. “Entry for ‘ADULTERY’”. “Holman Bible Dictionary”.
<http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T140>. 1991.

[2] The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), dexioV 2:37-40.

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Back to the Future…Adultery in the First Century

January 25, 2012

 

So when Jesus uses the word “adultery,” what would this word bring to mind for his Jewish audience?  Certainly he is pointing back to Exodus 20, but what would constitute adultery in 1st century Judaism?

By the first century, society still viewed adultery as serious.  Jews had entire sections of their law, devoted to the explanation of adultery down to the finest point.  But we should never underestimate mankind’s ability to take a law or precept from God and begin to twist it and conform it to make excuses for the very sin it was meant to warn against.  Such was the case with the Jews.

Many in Jesus’ era “assumed that unconditional fidelity was demanded only of the woman in a marriage.”  There is some biblical example for this assumption. “The incident with Tamar and Judah in Genesis 38:24-26 vividly illustrates this attitude.  Judah considered himself above reproach when he dallied with someone he thought to be a prostitute (Tamar in disguise) at his shepherds convention, but he was ready to stone Tamar when she turned up pregnant.  This chauvinistic attitude was prevalent in the Roman world.”[1]   Laws concerning adultery were very much lopsided and favored men far more than women. This was not God’s design by any means, as the Seventh Commandment reflects.  But man had twisted God’s law and bent it to excuse bad behavior.  The man is exhorted in proverbs to be faithful to his wife (Pr 5:15-19) but according to Jewish law his infidelity is only punished if he violates the rights of another man by taking a married woman as his partner.[2]  Jews would have viewed adultery “as sexual intercourse with the wife or betrothed of another Jew,”[3] and sought to punish the woman first, before the man.  Consider the story of woman brought to Jesus “caught in the act of adultery” (John 8:1-11).  The woman is present for punishment but the man is absent.

Moreover, the Rabbis made a distinction between the thoughts of a man and those thoughts acted out.  They held that a man’s good intentions were reckoned to him as good deeds, while his evil intentions are counted ONLY if he succumbs to them.  In other words, you were not guilt per se if you had lustful thoughts; but only if those thoughts were turned into action.[4]

[1] Dockery, David and David E Garland Seeking the Kingdom: the Sermon on the Mount made Practical for today. Wheaton: Harold Shaw Pub. 1992. 53.

[2] de Vaux, Roland. Ancient Israel: social institutions. Vol. 1 New York: McGraw Hill. 1965. 37.

[3] Johnson, Sherman The Gospel According to St. Matthew. The Interpreters Bible Vol. 7 Nashville: Abingdon. 1951. 297.

[4] Ibid. 297.

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The Definition of Mistrust: Adultery in Matthew 5

January 24, 2012

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”   -Matthew 5:27-3

 What does the sin of adultery include? (as the word is used in the passage) In other words, define “adultery” as used here.

The Word Jesus uses here in this passage for adultery is the Greek word “moiceuw” or (moi-keu-oh) which is used some 18 times in the New Testament for Adultery.  Those who were familiar with the Old Testament knew the Seventh Commandment “do not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14; Duet 5:18).  According to Scripture adultery was when a married man or woman had a “sexual relationship with someone other than his or her spouse.”[1]  It was a sin punishable by death under OT Law. (Duet 22:22; Lev 20:10)

Old Testament Israel’s covenant law prohibited adultery (Exodus 20:14) and thereby made faithfulness to the marriage relationship central in the divine will for human relationships. Many Old Testament regulations deal with adultery as the adulterous man’s offense against the husband of the adulterous wife. The severity of the punishment indicates the serious consequences adultery has for the divine-human relationship (Psalms 51:4) as well as for marriage, family, and community relationships.[2]

Adultery does not merely involved the married.  Deuteronomy 22:22 never defines the marital status of the adulterer.  So adultery here should be seen as extra-marital sex in any form. Whether husband with some other woman or man; a wife with some other man or woman; un-married individuals engaging in sex; the act of adultery begins in the heart with lust and is not restricted to any segment, group or individual.  Jesus explodes the traditional understanding of adultery, confronting those who had taken shelter in tradition.  Those who would have tried to explain away lust, even acts of adultery as understandable or “not my fault;” “she (or he) made me do it.” etc.  Jesus is removing the excuses for sin and exposing the heart.  For as we have seen, when that when an individual’s heart is pure, he/she shall see God and be blessed. (Matt 5:8)

[1] Quarles, Charles. Sermon on the Mount: Restoring Christ’s message to the modern church. Nashville: B&H Academic. 116.

[2] Holman Bible Dictionary, Butler, Trent C. Editor.. “Entry for ‘ADULTERY’”. “Holman Bible Dictionary”.
<http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T140>. 1991.

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The Twin Terrors of our Fallen Nation…

January 24, 2012

Our nation, and indeed the world, is beset with an abundance of adultery and divorce.  Often the two go hand-in-hand wrecking lives and destabilizing society.  Neither are a recent plague, so we find that it was no accident that our Lord addressed both in His Sermon on the Mount.  At the heart of both sins is the idolatry of the self.  Putting the needs and wants of the self above the rightly ordered plan of God.  Adultery takes the gift of sex, intended to unite husband and wife, and turns it into a weapon of division and discord.  Divorce often follows in the destructive wake of adultery leaving behind scarred lives and broken families.  But there is Hope.

God sees us in our sinful state and provides mercy, grace, renewal and redemption to all who repent, turn from their sin, and seek shelter under the sufficient sacrifice of Christ.  In the next several posts, I am going to try and dissect these sticky verses in Matthew 5:27-32.

First, we will look at the root of adultery: lust; the sin, Christ’s solution, and His message regarding our hearts.

Second, we will look at divorce: its history, its pain, and hope for the divorced among us.

Ultimately, and this can not be stressed enough, both are grievous sins with horrific consequences which shatter lives, leaving the participants hurt and broken.  Likewise, though, we must stress that Jesus tackled these issues head on, and His grace is great enough to overcome the sin, mend the broken, and soothe the hurt.

And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them,“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”  
                                                                                                                        -John 8:7-12

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What we Believe: The Rooted, Responding, Real Grace of Christ

November 7, 2011

Sermon on the Mount Part Six

From the very Beginning of the Sermon Jesus is outlining the marks of the Kingdom that He Himself is ushering in.  The Beatitudes spell out how we become members of the Kingdom, a surely Blessed state.  All who exhibit these signs of blessing are inheritors of the kingdom.

The beatitudes are about becoming; becoming poor in spirit, meek, merciful, forgiving, righteous, peaceful children of God.  Those who display these traits are blessed or Happy.  Then we move to verses 12-16, in this section Jesus spells out who we are.  So we have become blessed in the beatitudes, then we move on to understand who we are in Christ:  we are Salt and light, impacting the world, seasoning it, enlightening the darkness with the power of the Gospel.  A light that shines in the darkness, a light that the darkness can not overcome.  This is who we are, mixing with the society, engaging the culture, in it, but not of it.

What makes us different?  We are different because of what we believe and who we believe in.

This leads us to the next section; we have become blessed, we know who we are, now Jesus instructs us in what we believe. (verses 17-20)  We believe the Word.  A Word which Jesus has come to both preach and fulfill.  The temptation among those who have heard Jesus up until this point is to believe that this radical new preacher has come to do away with the law and Scriptures they have always been taught.  Until now the people on that mount, listening to Jesus had only every heard of righteousness as taught by the Pharisees and religious leaders.  These leaders, over the centuries, had added to the law copious amounts of rules and regulations, stressing outward conformity, regardless of the inner condition.  Jesus shines the light of truth into the darkness of their hearts, while their lips honor God, the hearts of the Pharisees are far from God.  Jesus will rebuke these teachers, calling them a den of vipers, and whitewashed tombs, clean on the outside but dead on the inside.  But in case anyone hearing this sermon was to doubt that Jesus was not orthodox, He uses this section to push those doubts aside.

Rather than slavery to law, Jesus gives us grace.  Grace rooted in the Word of God, (5:17-18).  Jesus’ ministry was to affirm the very Bible  that testified about His coming.  Grace responding to the law, (5:19).  Grace does not do away with the law, it responds to the law.   The law was meant to reveal the character of God, and set His people apart from the world.  The law reveals sin, (Romans 7:7-14) and Grace responds by covering our sin through Christ’s sacrifice. And finally Jesus preaches grace made Real in Himself, in Christ (5:20).  Righteousness is still required, but it is only through grace that we become more righteous than the Pharisees.

We are often tempted, when confronted with the grace of the gospel to change the subject and shift the focus to the law and rules that we all feel we need to uphold.  Think of the woman at the well in John chapter 4.  Jesus greets her and announces that the messiah has come, but all she wanted to do was to talk about how she worships and how her family has worshiped.  Beyond where the law prescribed that she should worship, Jesus wanted to address sin in her life and the heart of her worship.

The message of Jesus is one of grace, God’s grace has come upon us, and now we must deal with our sin, we cannot hide behind the law and behind rules.  Jesus sees into our heart and comes to proclaim the gospel recorded in the law and the prophets that one greater than Moses will come and has indeed come, and unless we are found righteous we will not enter the kingdom of Heaven.  The hope Christ provides is that through His grace we are found righteous in Him, when we become blessed, recognize whose we are, and believe in God’s grace.  Grace Rooted in His Word; Grace Responding to the Law;Grace made Real in Christ.

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The Triune Nature of Peace; The World’s Focus and the Christian’s Fruit…

October 21, 2011

 ”Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” -Matthew 5:9

If there is one unfortunate mark of God’s fallen creation under the reign of sin it is the absence of peace.   The absence of peace in our world, due to greed.  The absence of peace in our lives due to envy.  The absence of peace in our families, due to selfishness. The absence of peace in our hearts, due to sin.  In all of these areas peace is sought but remains elusive.    Creation burst forth from the mind of God, uttered into a perfect state of peaceful balance.  There was morning and evening, seas for fish, sky for birds, earth for creatures to crawl about and man to bear His image.  The harmony of God with His creation was denoted by the presence of peace in that creation.  With the emergence of sin came the eradication of this balance.  Think of it, within the first moments of the first sin, strife entered the marriage of the first couple, and separation emerged between man and the one whose image he bore.  God cursed man and creation, and prophesied that peace would be absent between the serpent and the fruit of the woman.  The effects of this proclamation were immediate.  Animals began to prey and brothers began fight, and long before rain fell, blood watered the ground of God’s garden.  God barred the entrance to that peaceful paradise and for thousands of generations we have sought to return. 

As the human family grew so too did the amount of strife.  Fighting families grew into fighting nations, warring against each other and against God.  Among these families, amidst these nations God chose the smallest and least significant to be His vehicle to restore peace.  This nation would bring peace to the world, peace in the present, peace in the future; they would be the children of God.  But as so often happens, the allure of sin proved a great obstacle, competing for the affections of God’s children.   Nevertheless, God’s mission would advance, the Messiah would come, and He would prescribe the pathway to peace.

Discernable in Christ’s teaching and example is a three pronged approach to finding and making peace.  Peace with others, peace with ourselves and peace with God.  Each of these has both a secular focus which often falls short and a spiritual fruit that defines true peace.  Let’s examine each.

External peace- This is peace with others.  Inter-relational peace.  Peace with those outside yourself, whether they are family members, competing companies, or ally nations.  This particular peace is the focus of the world.  The world community has never longed for something more than for there to be peace among the nations and never have they been more unsuccessful.  The League of Nations, the United Nations, the OAS, the G-6, G-8, even the IMF, World Bank and other economic organizations all exist to promote stability and the financial benefits of peace.  For the Christian, inter-relational fellowship, external peace with others, is not the product of mere cooperation, but rather the fruit of Godly fellowship.  We see the importance of external peace in Jesus’ life and ministry.  Peace begins with those closest to us and radiates out.  We reconcile ourselves with our brothers in Christ, through our fellowship with Him we work to maintain peace; and pursue confrontation only and always with repentance and renewal in view. (Matt 5:24, 7:1-5, 18:15-20)

Internal peace- This is peace with yourself.  Personal peace, the quiet calm of your soul amidst the storm of life. This particular peace is the focus of our generation.  In an age bereft of calm and full of strife, our generation searches in vain for any source of internal peace.  The acceptance of others, the acclaim of the community, fame and its fifteen minutes, and when these prove shallow this generation seeks to find peace in the numb nerves of drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, medications, therapy and sleep.  Each dark dead-end hallway leads on and on, deeper and deeper, never reaching the root of the problem.  For our generation internal peace remains elusive.  For the Christian, internal peace, peace with one’s self is the fruit of Spirit.  Internal peace comes only through the presence of the Spirit in the life of the believer.  Christian’s who “are Christ’s and have crucified the flesh with its passions” (Gal 5:24), walk with and in the Spirit which produces; love, joy and peace.  So close is this relationship, that when sin is committed and the Spirit is grieved, internal peace becomes the first casualty; and can only be reclaimed through confession, repentance and renewal.    

Eternal peace- The final and arguably most important peace is peace with God.  This is eternal peace, peace that reconciles you to God and stays His wrath against your sin.  This particular peace is the focus of the religious in our society.  Theists of all stripes detect the presence of enmity between the creator and the creature.  This leads to innumerable paths and strategies to appease and live up to divine demands.  Fasting, praying, pilgrimage, indulgences, meditations, sacrifices, mantras and karma; all attempting to fill the void of separation between God’s holiness and our sin.  The combined weight of these efforts, on their own, is unable to tip the balance of divine judgment.  And peace again, remains elusive.  For the Christian eternal peace with God is the fruit of the cross.  Christ’s birth was the advent of eternal peace on earth. (Luke 2:14)  His work at Calvary satisfied the price of our sin.  And when we believe in that work and in the lordship of the one who performed it, we gain the immeasurable presence of peace with God.  The weight of Christ’s work crushes the scales of God’s judgment, and beneath the banner of His name, we enter with confidence into eternal peace with the Father.

Jesus proclaimed that the sons of God would make peace.  This proclamation is both a  challenge and a reflection on reality.  Do you wish to be among the children of God? Then make peace.  Peace with God through Christ; peace with yourself through the Spirit; and peace with others through Godly fellowship.  Our culture is searching for the source of a peaceful life. As Christians, are we displaying the fruits of those who have found the source?

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The Offensive Defense: Peter, Malchus, the Preacher, and Christ…

September 30, 2011
“Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.)  So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”’ -John 18:10-11

We are called to preach in an era of irrational relativism and religious apathy.  The enemies of the church, be  they secularists, muslims, atheists or liberals, are increasingly hostile to the gospel and its followers.  Whether we like it or not, as Christians, we are constantly confronted with the cohorts of culture that seek to take captive our freedoms and hinder our mission.  The world is ambivalent to God, hostile toward His Son, and antagonistic to His message.  In light of these facts what is to be the Christian response?

John 18 is a prime picture of the fallen creation.  Man, once created in a garden, bathed in light, walking in harmony with God; now lies in darkness, beset by weakness, hostility, and evil.  Gone is the cool of the day in which God walked among His good creation; in Gethsemane, day is exchanged for night and the Maker of the Garden is persecuted rather than pursued.

Peter is ready for the darkness.  He is armed and wakeful and when the enemies of God arrive, his desire is to not be counted among them.  Ignorant of who he really serves, he draws his weapon and strikes the ear of his opponent, blood is shed and likely Peter felt courageous defending Christ in the flesh.  One man between the forces of evil and the Messiah. Yet, we know according to Luke’s testimony that at this point Jesus interrupts the fray, “But Jesus said, “No more of this!” And he touched his ear and healed him.” (Luke 47:51)  Jesus healed whereas His follower hurt.

Much can and has been said about this episode in Jesus’ life, most likely nothing new can be added.  However, it presents a unique challenge to the modern Christian.  As preachers, we are called to engage the world.  A world shrouded in darkness, in hostile pursuit of our Lord, and we are armed with the sword of the Word.  But what is our mission?  What is our role in God’s battle plan?  These might seem like simple questions, even superfluous ones, but often we lose sight of our place and strike the wrong target.

Jesus was always focused on His mission.  Throughout the gospels He is sovereign over time and the course that His life must take.  Even with His first miracle, when prompted by His mother to provide for a wedding, His response was, “My time has not yet come.”  He silenced demons, because “His time had not yet come.”  he removed Himself from murderous mobs because, “His time had not yet come.”  But here in this scene, in the garden, His time had come.  He was committed to the mission given to Him by the Father.  He saw passed the torches, the guards, and the opportunity for a quick remedy.  Jesus was focused on the heart:  His heart, that had to be pierced and their hearts that had to be healed.  Beyond the situation, lay the reality of what must be done.

The Word is power.  By God’s Word the universe came into being; men were created from dust and de-created with flood; seas parted, rivers stood on end, walls fell, nations rose and were scattered; it is sharper than the two-edged sword wielded by Peter that night in the garden.  For those who acquire some familiarity with it, and have been impacted by its life-altering message, it can become easy to misuse the text for personal purposes.  We march to God’s defense with the tools we’ve been given, blissfully unaware of our own agenda, drunk with the derivative authority of the Word of God.  Frequently when faced with the enemies of God we mis-judge our mission, we draw our weapon and aim for the ears rather than the heart.

We are often blinded by the situation.  When faced with unbelievers and those hostile to our cause we stumble at a response.  Should we rise to His defense and draw blood? Or should we sit idly by why they carry our Lord away?

When we face the enemies of God we would be best served to remember that Jesus commanded that we take up the cross rather than the sword, that we are to serve others if we are to follow Him.  When the world attacks Christ and His church, we must not respond in kind, Jesus did not call us to be His defenders, he called us to be His disciples.  To serve rather than to save.

Our time is coming, indeed it has come, and we must see passed the torches, passed the rhetoric and see the frightened soldiers, scared and confused, who unwittingly serve the darkness that Christ has overcome.  Brothers and Sisters let us pick our battles and use our weapons wisely, for the sword may sever quickly but  Word has the power to save.

Col 4:5-6 “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”

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Satisfied vs. Gratified: the Superiority of Divine Satisfaction…

September 21, 2011

“Blessed are those who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness, for they will be Satisfied.” -Matthew 5:6

We live in a world of instant gratification.  We all hunger, thirst and desire, we live to serve these appetites.  Our lives are organized around the next meal, the promising relationship, and the next fix.  Some of these are necessary for survival, others are necessary for “the good life.”  Throughout the years we have become more and more adept at servicing these needs with efficiency and expediency.  We have Aspirin for headaches, McDonalds for meals, Staples for supplies, and Snickers for snacks.  It is a “fast relief when you need it, that was easy, Hungry? Why wait?” world.  That we hunger and thirst is not the problem, the problem lies in the object of our desires and the methods we use to fulfill them.  C.S. Lewis wrote:

We are half hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased.

Jesus confronted a world absent of so many of the quick fixes we take for granted.  Food was rare, water was scarce and those in pain often lived lives racked with discomfort.  But the people in first century Palestine were cut from the same fallen cloth as you and I; they wanted their needs met in the now, and their hope realized in the present.  Jesus punctuated His ministry with parallel announcements: that the kingdom had arrived; and that we should still live for the promise of the Kingdom to come.  He offers a present satisfaction with the realization of who He is, and a future satisfaction in who we will become.

The world lies in the grips of one who is both evil and easy.  Satan confronts Christ in His temptations with the easy path: “hungry, turn these stones to bread;’ ‘want to rule, worship me.’”  Satan offers the same illicit solutions to us and too often we break under the appetite of the now.  So we settle for lifeless stones rather than the life-giving Word, and worship the creature rather than the Creator.  This basic sin is fundamental to how our world is structured, needs must be met now or not at all.

But Jesus seeks us, and His glory that comes from our satisfaction in Him.  So he lays out the appetites of a citizen of the kingdom.  If we hunger and thirst for bread, we can find gratification, but in a short while hunger will return.  If we take the bread of life, we will never hunger again.

The concept of divine satisfaction is rooted in the idea that only one thing can fill the need we all possess:  The need to revisit the days when we walked with our Maker in the cool of the day.  Entrance into that paradise can only be found when we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.  And by His righteousness we enter in, secure in the satisfying presence of the source of our satisfaction.

Don’t settle for cheap imitations and instant gratification; the reward of righteousness is worth the wait.

Posted in Bible Study, New Testament, Observations | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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A.W. Tozer on Meekness…

September 14, 2011

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Matt.5:5a

A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished one unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong side out and saying, `Here is your human race.’ For the exact opposite of the virtues in the Beatitudes are the very qualities which distinguish human life and conduct.

In the world of men we find nothing approaching the virtues of which Jesus spoke in the opening words of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Instead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride; instead of mourners we find pleasure seekers; instead of meekness, arrogance; instead of hunger after righteousness we hear men saying, `I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing’; instead of mercy we find cruelty; instead of purity of heart, corrupt imaginings; instead of peacemakers we find men quarrelsome and resentful; instead of rejoicing in mistreatment we find them fighting back with every weapon at their command. Of this kind of moral stuff civilized society is composed.

Into a world like this the sound of Jesus’ words comes wonderful and strange, a visitation from above. He is not offering an opinion; Jesus never uttered opinions. He never guessed; He knew, and He knows. His words are not as Solomon’s were, the sum of sound wisdom or the results of keen observation. He spoke out of the fullness of His Godhead, and His words are very Truth itself. He is the only one who could say `blessed’ with complete authority, for He is the Blessed One come from the world above to confer blessedness upon mankind. And His words were supported by deeds mightier than any performed on this earth by any other man. It is wisdom for us to listen.

The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The word Jesus used means a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion. Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not something we do, it is what comes to us when we cease to do. His own meekness, that is the rest.

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father. He is willing to wait for that day.

The heart of the world is breaking under this load of pride and pretense. There is no release from our burden apart from the meekness of Christ. Good keen reasoning may help slightly, but so strong is this vice that if we push it down one place it will come up somewhere else. To men and women everywhere Jesus says, `Come unto me, and I will give you rest.’ The rest He offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend

Posted in Bible Study, Meditations, New Testament | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

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