The Acts of the Apostles 57

Subtitle: Following up with Jesus

Acts 14:21-28.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 1, 2023.

Today we will see Paul and Barnabas finish their first missionary trip, which went to the island of Cyprus and then central Asia Minor (current Turkey).

Luke doesn't give us a sense of how long they took on this whole journey, but the overall timeline of Acts would put it around the magnitude of around a year.

The whole emphasis of sharing the Gospel with Gentiles as well as Jews is something that blossomed in Syrian Antioch.  Yet, another persuasion was also blossoming in Judea.  This persuasion would eventually become the source of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15.  Paul and Barnabas did not teach Gentiles that they had to obey the Law of Moses in order to follow Jesus.  However, some groups from Judea believed that Gentiles had to be circumcised and taught to keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved.

That will be our topic next week.  For now, let's look at our passage.

The Gospel is preached in Derbe (v. 21)

Verse 20 ends with Paul and Barnabas leaving Lystra (where Paul had been stoned and left for dead) and going to a town called Derbe, which was approximately 65 miles east of Lystra.

In verse 21, we are told that they preached the Gospel to the city.  We are told very little about this, and can assume that they would have preached at a synagogue first, if there was one in the town.  Regardless, the reference to "the city" implies more than preaching in a synagogue.

It would be interesting to know when the Gospel first made it to each city or region in the world.  Many places that are extremely godless now have had great moves of revival in the past.  Derbe itself is now a region controlled by an Islamist State and dominated by Muslims.  You would not know that the apostles Paul and Barnabas had seen a great move of God there.

We are told that they made many disciples.  There is no mention of resistance, but it seems unlikely that everyone in town believed.  In light of the prior stoning in Lystra, we can say they only had normal resistance.  We should also note that there is no sense of Jews and people of the cities that they had visited following them.  More than likely, they believe Paul to be dead and will not find out until much later that he survived.

We should pause on the word disciple for a minute.  It is not enough to give intellectual assent to who Jesus is.  True belief will be seen in a person becoming a disciple, a student, of Jesus.  It is good to believe the report about Jesus, but this information is meant to transform your life.  You are now a student of Jesus.  You may be out of your studying years, and tell yourself that you don't read books.  However, when a person (even a non-reader) comes to believe on Jesus, they will want to know everything they can about him.  This means reading the Bible.  In the case of Derbe, there may have been only one copy of the Scriptures in town.  Thus, it would be important to gather together and read the Scriptures so that all could benefit from God's Word and learn about Jesus.  It is time to stop being a man-child who pursues his flesh and begin stepping into the maturity of seeking the truth about Jesus.

However, discipleship is more than knowledge.  It is essentially about relationship.  By the Spirit of God dwelling within us, we can develop a relationship with Jesus through prayer and the Word.  We also are in relationship with the Church of Jesus, and we benefit from those who have come in before us who are further along in their maturity and discipleship.

Discipleship is a life-long journey of growing in our knowledge and experience of becoming like Jesus, and learning to do his will.  There are ups and downs, bumps and smooth days, but all along, the character of Christ is being formed in us.  In fact, we should recognize that even the term "student" is somewhat misleading for a 21st-Century American Christian.  In the times of Christ, a disciple was someone who moved in with a master.  Each day the master would show you things, but it was always in response to what the day held.  The wisdom of the master would be both taught and caught.  It was never seen as a pure information download.

The Christian life is this process.  We will not become a "master" ourselves until we are resurrected; only then will we be perfectly like Jesus.  We are unable to physically sit at the feet of Jesus, but by the Holy Spirit, we are able to come to him through the word and through prayer.  I spiritually come before his feet in order to learn.  Each day we wrestle with the Lord Jesus about our life, what the word says, and what the Lord would have us do.  Other believers are intended to be a help to us in this process.  We can cut ourselves off from other Christians by telling ourselves that they are all hypocrites.  However, even properly dealing with a hypocrite will help you become more like Jesus than becoming a hypocrite yourself by abandoning the gathering of the saints.  When Christ says to a man to come and follow him, that man always finds others who responded around Jesus.  You cannot separate the two.

Verse 21 also tells us that they decide to return to the places where they had preached.  We are not told what the reasons are for returning back to Antioch.  They may have been running low on supplies, or winter may have been approaching.  For whatever reasons, they determine to go back to Antioch of Syria, and they determine to retrace their steps.

We should note that several of the towns had pushed them out rather abruptly.  It may be that they felt like the heat would have died down by now, and they had some more things they needed to do and say to the believers that were left in those towns.

Paul and Barnabas follow-up with the new believers (v. 22-28)

Surprisingly they go back to Lystra where Paul was stoned, then to Iconium, Pisidian Antioch and then down to the coast at Perga and Attalia.  They don't appear to focus on new evangelism, but rather on strengthening the believers who were there.  They help them to establish a strong foundation so that the church will continue.

When we share the Gospel with people, it is important to follow-up with those who have responded positively.  The Gospel is not only about relationship with Jesus.  It is also about relationship with God's people.  It is how we show that our love for Jesus is real.

By the way, we have the right and authority to share the Gospel with anyone on this planet because Jesus himself has given it to us.  However, that also begs the duty we have to determine exactly how God has gifted us to participate in spreading the Gospel.  So, telling others about Jesus is our duty to those who don't know.  Whereas, follow-up falls in this category of the duty that develops when a person has become a brother or sister in the Lord, a familial duty.

Verse 22 tells us that they strengthened the souls of the disciples.  Internal strength of heart and mind are continually assailed by our own flesh, by the world around us, and through the spiritual interference of the devil and his forces.

Jesus tells us to take possession of our souls by patience (Luke 21:19).  Of course, possession may immediately make us think of evil spirits, but the emphasis is more on a plundered inner life.  Through lusts of the flesh and the pride of life (in short, through sin), we can become a slave to many things without being actually possessed.  These strongholds in our thought-life and in our heart become a seething cauldron of all kinds of sin.  We become controlled by our flesh, and even by the culture that we have grown up in.  This puts the devil indirectly in control of us.  Jesus was purposely using the Promised Land image for our soul.  When we are being delivered by God, He will bring us to a place where we can take full possession of our soul and serve God without being in bondage to sin.  This takes trusting God to help us fight against, and tear down, strongholds of sin in our life.

Just like every one of those cities in Canaan had fortified walls and need to be torn down for Israel to take possession, so they would need to then fortify cities again against the attack of future enemies.  Christians need to learn how to guard their mind and heart against the deeds of the flesh, the corruption of culture, and the slick sales of the devil.  Through prayer, reading the word, fellowshipping with believers, and listening to the Holy Spirit, we are enabled not only to take possession of our soul, but to also fortify it against the attacks of the enemy.  Furthermore, we can help new Christians to take possession of their souls and fortify their life against the devil and his schemes.

This is why the Scripture speaks of the gifts of the Holy Spirit being distributed among God's people as He sees fit.  We need each other because this is how God has designed for us to be strengthened.  He is making us a new people of God without specific ethnic and geographical lines.  We are related by the blood of Jesus.  No matter how different the culture of their birth, a Christian can have fellowship with any believer in the world because the same Lord, Spirit, Word, etc. reigns in us both.

This is what Paul and Barnabas were doing.  They were sharing their gift of knowledge about God's plan through Jesus, the doctrine they should hold fast to, and the purpose of God in their life.

We are also told that they were "exhorting them to continue in the faith" (vs. 22).  In John 15, Jesus used the analogy of a vine to represent the relationship that a disciple needed to have with him.  We need to remain in him (a living connection) in order to stay alive spiritually and to bear fruit.  This is a living relationship and a new way of life.  This is not about a one time declaration, i.e., saying the "magic words," and moving on..  It is not about simply being on "Team Jesus."  I can say I am on the team, but only those who are drawing spiritual life from Him truly belong to Him.  We need to hold on to that.  We are going to be tested even more in the years ahead.

Essentially, Paul and Barnabas are saying to us to stay in the faith no matter what!  Don't let the enemy twist your thinking around and lose faith.  There will come days when your flesh says that it is very inconvenient for you to be so religious.  It may desire to compromise, or it may be offended and want to quit completely.  Regardless, don't walk away from Jesus.  Keep wrestling with him by faith and seeking his help to continue on.

Lastly, verse 22 tells us that they told them that they must enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations.  Like I have said up unto now, there is resistance in this life to staying in the faith.  In fact, even sinners have resistance in life.  You might as well fight for the right things and receive a blessing out of it, instead of kicking against the goads of the Holy Spirit and being destroyed by our own choices.

Some of the resistance you face will be the same kind of things that all other believers encounter.  Thus, others who have faced things you are facing can encourage you on how to continue in faith.  Yet, sometimes there are things that are very unique in our life.  These times of tribulation put the squeeze on us in ways that not everyone will understand.  I think of the image of a tube of toothpaste.  What oozes out of me when tribulation puts the squeeze on my inner faith?  Let us recognize that there will be a mixture of some sorts.  God is using tribulations to refine us.  It is our job to recognize the bad stuff that comes out of us, and by faith go to war against that sin with the Spirit's help.

Notice that they use the word "must."  It is a necessity that we have tribulations.  The world is full of difficult things, but there are even more when you refuse to run with the world in the same flood of delusion that they are.  Many will despise you for it.  Yet, part of staying in the faith is accepting that you will have to face tribulation.  In fact, if you haven't had anything difficult attack your faith yet, then you may want to start preparing your inner defenses because it will come multiples times over the course of your life.

It is also interesting that Paul places entering the Kingdom of God in the future.  We go through many tribulations in order to enter it.  Yes, we are already a part of the Kingdom of God spiritually, but Paul is specifically looking ahead to the time when Jesus Christ comes back to earth and sets up a Thousand Year reign.  The righteous will be resurrected an enabled to participate in this blessed time for the earth.  In those days, Jesus will have put down one of our big problems (our spiritual enemies) by putting Satan and his cohorts in the Bottomless Pit.  He will also deal with another one of our problems by raising up an administration of glorified saints.  No government on earth today is run by glorified saints.  Rather, they generally become halls of corruption fleecing the people under their power.

God does not remove every tribulation from the life of those whom He loves.  Think on Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, and especially Jesus.  Rather, He uses the tribulation to refine us and make us shine like the stars.  So, don't blame God when tribulations come.  Rather, see tribulations and trials for what they are.  Firstly, they are the things the devil is trying to use to keep you from entering God's Kingdom, and second, they are the very fires in which God fashions you into the image of the Son of His Love, Jesus.  Yes, this life has difficulties, but God has an age planned in which all the righteous of every age will be glorified and blessed together!  Hallelujah!

We are also told that they helped the churches to appoint elders.  The churches would need some structure in their group so that they will be able to navigate the days and trials ahead.

The word "elders" comes from a Greek word at the root of the terms Presbyterian, or Presbyter.  It does speak of age, but the implication is more on the wisdom and experience that one has.  We might better think of it as the spiritually mature.

The Church is like a family.  Most of these people had been Christians for the same number of days.  However, there was a range of their prior experience.  Some had been devoted Jews who had studied the word of God and were waiting for Messiah.  Others may have been worshipping Zeus last week, and had no clue about what the Scriptures said.  They both may be saved on the same day, but one will be further ahead than the other.  Of course, this is a simplistic example that should not be pressed to strongly.  Sometimes people have been a Christian for decades, but have very little spiritual maturity to show for it.

In fact, we have an example of an "elder" so-called showing a dearth of spiritual maturity in Third John.  There a man named Diotrephes who "loves to have the preeminence among them."  Elders are not called to be kings and rulers over believers.  Rather, we should see them as older brothers who can help us younger siblings along.  Our day will come.  Anyone who is an elder today was not an elder 30 or 50 years ago.  The key is familial relationship that is fueled by the a love for Christ.  This becomes a strength to a church when it is properly done.

God in His wisdom will always provide mature believers to a church.  When I became a Christian, there were people there to help me grow.  Yet, we can come under the judgment of God when we walk in our flesh and choose elders who are not truly spiritually mature.

It may sound like Paul and Barnabas "appointed" these men unilaterally.  However, the word translated as appointed has the sense of raising the hand as if in a vote.  More than likely, they talked to the people about what was required of elders and what type of person would best qualify.  Then, the group as a whole would determine who best fit that category.  We should not read into it a democratic system, but neither is it autocratic on behalf of the apostles.  They are there to help the church not make a foolish decision.

Finally, they make it back to the coast of Asia Minor, and instead of going back through Cyprus, they go directly to Syrian Antioch, where they started.  These are the people who had prayed for them before going and no doubt while they were gone.  It was good for them to hear the testimonies of what God did through Paul and Barnabas in the cities where they went.

Of course, we never know the full effect of our efforts in the Lord, but we do not want to diminish the importance of people hearing the Gospel.  Whether they believe or not, a door of faith has been put in front of them.  They will know about it from then on, and hope will be possible.  We shouldn't diminish people responding in faith.  This is always an amazing miracle of God in the heart of an individual.

I think about the many people who poured into my life as a young kid.  They had much reason to feel like their teaching and prayers were falling short.  But eventually, God would get ahold of my life, praise the Lord!  That would be good news to my grandma and my mom.  How many people come to death's door while they still have an adult child running from Jesus.  They have to cross that threshold asking God to help their child.  "Okay, God, they are in your hands!  I'm leaving here, but please put my child on someone's heart!"  Some of those prayers are still being answered today, even though those people are in heaven.  Yet, it thrills the heart of any mom to hear the story of a son getting right with Jesus.  It gives them hope while they live in this life. 

The problem with open doors is that they eventually shut.  Right now we have an open door for faith in our world, but that day can shut for us as individuals, nations, and as a world.  May God help us to be faithful to share the Gospel while there is still time to work!

Following up audio

Such Love-Part 2

Subtitle: He Paid the Price for Us

Psalm 49:6-8,15; Isaiah 49:5-7; Luke 23:39-43.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Resurrection Sunday, April 9, 2023.

We continue our series on the love of God.  We talked last week about God loving us so much that He took on the nature of a human.  He became one of us.  This is called the incarnation.

However, God did not use His humanity to rule over us with an iron fist.  Instead, He uses it to pay the price required to help us get back everything that we have lost due to sin.  This can be regarding some of the immediate consequences of sin, but ultimately embraces all that we have lost eternally.

Let's look at our first passage.

The true predicament of my soul  (Ps 49:6-8,15)

The psalmist brings up the issue of redeeming a person.  Verse 7 says that the wealthy of this world (who are so used to being able to buy what they want) will not be able to redeem their brother.  Anyone who may be perplexed at this statement quickly has it cleared up in the next verse.  The psalmist clarifies that they are talking about redeeming the soul.  Redeeming the soul is soul costly that it "shall cease forever," as the NKJV reads.  The phrase can also mean to not be completed. This is most likely the intended meaning.  No matter how long, i.e., forever, a wealthy person saves up, they will always fall short of the cost of redeeming the soul of their brother. 

This concept of redeeming a soul is important to note.

The psalmist then declares that God will redeem them from the power of the grave.  In order to really absorb what the psalmist is contemplating here, we need to take a few minutes to talk about the concept of redemption.

Redemption is the idea of paying the price required to release something back to the original owner, whether that is yourself, or another person.

There were several situations in ancient Israelite society that would call for redemption.  The firstborn of every Israelite family, including of their animals, belonged to the Lord.  A husband and wife were required to redeem their firstborn child by paying a set price to the tabernacle. 

This was not a blatant attempt to make money off of the families of Israel.  Rather, it harkened back to their time in Egypt.  They were slaves, and God was using Moses to deliver them from Pharaoh.  This involved 10 plagues in which God essentially forced Pharaoh to all but drive the Israelites out of his land.  The tenth plague was the death of the firstborn.  A destroying angel would go throughout Egypt and kill the firstborn of every family and every animal.  God instructed Israel to offer a lamb and put its blood upon the doorposts of their dwelling.  God Himself would protect those households that had obeyed and applied the blood of the lamb to their doorposts.  This continuing redemption was to be a reminder to Israel of God's deliverance of the firstborn in Egypt. 

Another situation that required the concept of redemption had to do with property.  If a person became poor, they may need to sell their property.  They could then use the money to set up some other way of making it.  If this fell through, they may even need to sell their labor and become an indentured servant.  Regardless, it could happen that an Israelite would be so destitute that they would never get their land back, until the Jubilee (if that was being observed every 50 years).  Even then, they may be financially unable to do anything with it.  This is where a close relative could step in, pay the value of the land, and give it back to their kin.  This would be a righteous act of grace for one of your extended family members.  The story of Ruth has this issue at the center of its plot.

This sets up a specific word that is used for redeeming that literally means "to do the work of a kinsman."  It is sometimes translated as a Kinsman Redeemer.  This always involves a situation where a poor person who is unable to do so is helped by a rich relative who is gracious.

The idea that a soul may need to be redeemed is a powerful concept that relies upon the imagery provided in such situations as I have described.  God had made sure that this concept would crop up in different ways throughout their society so that they could understand a deeper predicament of humanity, the need for spiritual redemption.

This begs the question.  What was sold, and why are we so "spiritually" poor that we are unable to get it back?  Genesis three and the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden represents part of the problem.  We chose the knowledge of good and evil (I think we have received a good dose of both) over the top of a good relationship with God.  God had warned them against eating from that tree.  This breaking of faith with God had the consequence of separating them from Him, as well as mortality.  They exchanged their eternal relationship of goodness with God for the idea that they could be something without Him.

Yet, it is more than this.  We had opened the door to the idea of rejecting God's purpose, or plan, and moved in the direction of living life in our own wisdom (or was their own?).  Humanity exchanged immortality for mortality, and the sure plan of God for the sketchy plan that we could come up with on our own, or with help from fallen spiritual beings.  This was an immoral response to the goodness of God.  Such sin not only separated us from God, but it also began to stack up as we continued to double down on sinful actions.  At a basic level, humanity as a whole is a prodigal son in bondage to the things of this world and far away from the place we were meant to have next to Father God.  We have no means of getting that good place next to God back, and continue to descend into a hell of our own making.  We need redemption!

God promises a redeemer  (Isaiah 49:5-7)

Isaiah speaks about the redemption over 24 times between chapters 40 and 66.  It is interesting that this section has 13 chapters (40-52) and then the amazing chapter 53 gives us a powerful picture of God's answer for man's redemption.  In fact, throughout that section, there are 4 glimpses of God's Redeemer who would come forth to redeem both Israel and the nations.  These glimpses are called the "Servant Songs" by theologians.  This section builds up to chapter 53, which is the shocking reveal that the Redeemer would come forward to be a sacrifice for the people.  We then have another 13 chapters to the end of the book as a sort of resolution of the tension. 

Isaiah 49 is the second "Servant Song," which pictures the Redeemer of Israel.

Another aspect of chapters 40-52 is that Israel was supposed to be the servant of God to help take back the nations for God.  However, God's servant Israel was a deaf and blind servant.  Just picture for a moment how helpful a deaf and blind servant would be to their master.  Israel had become deaf and blind because of their sins.  How would they ever get back the position that God had made for them next to Him in redeeming the nations?  It would only happen through God's a special and unique redeemer sent from God.  Israel could not do it for themselves; they were spiritually too poor, but God would help them.

This is something to understand.  With sin, no amount of money, or even good works, could pay for what we have done.  The penalty is to die as a slave and go into eternity out of relationship with God.

In Isaiah 49:6, it is said that it would be too small of thing for this coming Redeemer only to redeem Israel and cause their scattered exiles to be gathered back to God in the land.  This Redeemer would also become a light to the Gentiles, i.e., the nations, and He would be God's salvation to the ends of the earth.

This may help you to understand why it was so important for Mary and Joseph to name this special child that she carried, Yeshua.  It means "Yahweh's Salvation." 

The early Scriptures are a story of humanity's relationship with God continuing to fracture into a worse and worse predicament.  The Fall in the Garden causes humanity to be kicked out of the earthly paradise and close relationship with God.  Of course, there was interference from a spiritual interloper, the devil.  This happens again in Genesis 6, which causes mankind to become extremely evil.  After the flood, we see the Tower of Babel rebellion.  Their sin causes the judgment of God.  They are cast off to serve those false pretender gods that they were seeking, and God goes to Abram to make a new nation for Himself.  Yet, this nation of Israel essentially fails to be the servant that God wanted because...you guessed it!, because of sin.

God knew this would happen all along, but we needed to both live it out and see it for ourselves.  We are too easily manipulated by evil spiritual forces, and  too stuck in our sins to be free, and that includes the so-called "righteous" among us.  Thus, God's promise through Isaiah that He would raise up a special Redeemer who would do what humanity could not.

Redeemed by the life of our kinsman  (Luke 23:39-43)

Jesus was not just coming to give us the good example, though He truly is a perfect picture of what we should be.  He became human, and then lived a perfect life, a sinless life, so that he could perform the work of a near kinsman, that is, pay the price to help us get our inheritance back.

Jesus could pay the price of death that was owed by Israel, but also by all the nations of the earth.  None of us were worthy, and none of us are worthy today.  We still need the redemption of Jesus.

That is what Jesus was doing that day in which we nailed him to a cross between two thieves.  This is just how "righteous" we are.  When God gave us the perfect person, we killed him.  If God were to do it again, we would just kill that one too.  Thus, all the prophets who had a glimpse of God's coming Redeemer also saw that he would be despised and abhorred by many. 

We are all in the same predicament, no matter how good we are compared to others.  We have lost our inheritance to dwell eternally with God, and we are bereft of any spiritual value to get it back.  Yet, in this state, God knew that some would believe.  For those who will stop demanding that God accept their life as "righteous enough," and simply admit that they cannot do it themselves, Jesus comes to pay the price.

Jesus became your kin so that he could pay the price for your sin, and restore you to the eternal inheritance that God always intended for you.  This is particularly on display in the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus.

These thieves are real men, and this is what really happened.  However, they are more than just incidental, accidental, parts of the story.  They are symbolic of all of humanity.

All of humanity is destined to die as sinners.  Yes, we can point to another person and rightly say that we are better than them to some degree.  However, we are still spiritual beggars who are unable to pay the full price for our sins and live with God.  Our relative righteousness is like a person bragging that they have one million dollars in the bank and laughing a person who lives paycheck to paycheck.  Comparatively, they have it better.  But, if the analogy is to properly fit mankind, the person who has a million dollars in the bank, and the poor person, both owe a debt to God that is astronomical.  A debt that they cannot ever pay back.  They will be in the same boat on the day that they die and their debts come due.

These two thieves are both dying for their sins.  Yet, in that state, they have two very different hearts.  One thief is full of self-righteousness and challenges Jesus to save himself and them.  You can notice that he is only thinking of the natural problem.  Jesus is no good to him, unless he can help him get out of this predicament in a natural way.  There is no sense within this thief that he is guilty, but Jesus is innocent, none at all.

The other thief is a different story.  He recognizes that he deserves what he is getting.  These are the just desserts of a thief, even if it is the dirty, rotten, no-good Romans doing it.  Yet, he simultaneously recognizes that Jesus does not deserve the death that he is receiving.  Something comes alive in him in this moment.  He comes to believe that somehow this Jesus must really be the Messiah.  He doesn't know how, but in some way the God of Israel will do something powerful, and this man Jesus will be the king of a Messianic Kingdom.  Like Abraham offering up his child in faith, so the man gives a prayerful request to Jesus.  "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

We want God to come down and get us out of our mess, but instead, God came down and let himself be crucified among us.  What good does that do for us?  Yes, we all believe that the biggest problem in life is all those other evil things, people, nations, etc. out there.  God come stop the Russians, the Chinese, Washington D.C., etc.  God stop that race; God get those greedy bankers; God make the rich give us their money.  In our self-righteousness, we call for God to "solve" our problems.  However, those things are not our true problem.  Our true problem is the sin within us.  A willfulness to reject God and try to make our way without Him, and then rail against Him when there are bad consequences.  

The day they were caught and sentenced to execution was the greatest days of their lives because it would put them in a place to see God's great Redeemer.  In our pain and suffering, God is not only there, but He has been there long before we ever made it there.  When God created the heavens and the earth, He did so in tears.  He was the One going forth sowing in tears, knowing that He would doubtless come again rejoicing with a harvest.  Our sense of suffering is only the tip of the iceberg of the timeless assault of evil, pain and suffering upon the heart of God.

God used the wicked Romans that day to help one of those thieves come face to face with His sin, while also coming face to face with the righteousness of Jesus.  He believed that day, and Jesus told him that he would be with him in Paradise that very day!

This bothers some people.  This man had lived the life of a thief.  We can make it noble by saying he only stole from Romans, but we don't know that.  Sin always pulls us lower than we ever intended to go.  This man would die within hours.  He has nothing to offer God.  Why would God save Him knowing that He is not going to get any good works out of this man?

This begs the question.  What does God really want?  The answer is that He simply wants you, your heart, mind, and love.  On that day, that man quit rebelling against God, turned, and embraced the truth about whom Jesus was. 

God is looking for whosoever will let go of demanding that their righteousness be accepted as enough.  He wants whosoever will let go of their way of thinking, their plans, and whosoever will yield to His wisdom, purpose, and plan.

Yes, that man had nothing to offer God that day, but himself.  All of mankind is symbolized in these two guys.  We are all sinners who are going to die.  Some will die doubling down on their own righteousness and despising Christ, and yet, some will yield to Christ and ask for mercy, forgiveness.

God wants you to have the place that He intended for you all along, a place at His side in a loving, eternal relationship, where there is no sin, no evil, no pain, no suffering, and no consequences of our sin wrapped around us like chains.

Jesus came to redeem you from the bondage of your sins.  God doesn't want you to wait until you are dying nailed to a cross.  But, if you delay and one day find yourself nailed to a cross, know this.  It is the grace of God use our sins to nail us to a cross.  Can I even now let the Spirit of God and the Word of God nail me to a cross that I deserve, and in that moment, not only recognize my need for a redeemer, but recognize Jesus as the One who loved me so much that He paid the price for me?

O friend, yield to Jesus today.  Quit trusting your way, and the way of the world.  Submit and follow the only one who ever laid down his life, and then three days later rose up out of the grave, with over 500 witnesses to this fact.  Give yourself to Jesus today!

Such Love 2 audio

Your Personal End Times

Multiple Passages.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 26, 2018.

There is much talk from both the secular and the religious world about the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI).  In such discussions we have come to use words and phrases like: Armageddon, Extinction Event, Antichrist, One-World Government, Seed Banks, and… the list goes on.  As we look forward and contemplate the idea that the world as we know it could come to an end (whether we cause it to happen or it comes upon us), we should keep in mind that the majority of mankind will not experience these events.

This is not an attempt to minimize those foreseen or unforeseen forces that could alter the systems of the world and mankind’s destiny.  It is instead to make us think about the reality that for most of mankind the end times have to do with the end of our life on this earth.  It is our own personal world coming to a close as we leave our bodies in death.

My life will one day come to an end.  If I use the numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics, I could determine approximately how much life I have left, at least on average.  In 2017 it was listed in rounded numbers as 76 for men and 81 for women.  However, both of my grandfathers lived to be 86 and 97 respectively.  They were +10 and +21 above the average.  Though that may make me confident in what I have left, my father passed away at 61 years of age, -15.  I have a cousin who died in his 40’s a niece who died in her early teens.  Ultimately, none of us can really know how much time we have left, short of a doctor giving us the terminal news.  When you consider disease, tragic accidents, or purposeful attacks/wars, you recognize that our personal future is not as firm as we tend to think it is.  In fact, I cannot guarantee that I will have any advance warning.

Many, who either fear the future or are prudently prepping in various fashions for what may come, have given less time to prepare for the event that all of us will have to face, and that is death.  I am not talking about getting a will in place and having burial insurance.  Those things are to deal with the stuff that is left behind.  What about that part of you that is not physical, the soul or spirit?  I am not trying to make us afraid of the end of our life, but it is important to make sure that you are prepared for it.  Few of us are ready to die in the sense that we want it to happen right now.  But we can all be ready in the sense that if it were to happen today, I would be ready for what’s next.

I am going to physically die.

Let’s bring a couple of passages to mind.  Genesis 2:16-17 is the command that God gave to Adam in the Garden of Eden not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  If they did then, “you shall surely die.”  The phrase translated here does emphasize that the death will be sure.  However it also does so in a construction that allows for it to be a process- translated more literally it is “Dying you shall die.”  It is clear that at this time Adam was not a dying being.  But I will come back to that.

Of course we must think about Genesis 3:17-19.  After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God places a curse upon them.  As he speaks to Adam he mentions that “in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”  Though humanity was originally formed from the dry ground, our original state or condition was not one of a dying species.  It isn’t exactly clear from the Scriptures whether this was an inherent immortality or if it was dependent upon something else like remaining sinless or eating from the tree of life.  Regardless, it is clear from Scripture that something happened at the beginning of humanity, and this event set in motion our current state of existence.  We are born, grow old, and then die.  The statistics so far are impressive.  100 out of 100 people do not survive life on earth.  They all physically die.  This was not God’s plan in making humans.  However, He did allow it to happen and has worked it into His overall plan.

Another verse to keep in mind, from the perspective of God’s Word, is that of Hebrews 9:27.  Here we are told that God has appointed for men to die once, and after this the judgment.  Thus the idea that we keep coming back, reincarnate, until we “get it right,” is never supported by the Bible.

So when we die, we are told that the body decays, returns to the ground, but Scripture is clear that a part of us remains and is not destroyed.  We can call this the soul or the spirit depending on your theory of the metaphysical part of humans.  We are more than just brains, heart, and blood.  Otherwise we would have to recognize that all human “thinking” is a mere firing of synapses that none can take credit for.  They are just operating along the lines of physics much like a penny dropped on the ground can end up in any number of places, but physics will define them all.  No.  Humans are able to make true choice, though at times we surrender to the external stimuli around us.  There is more to us than just the physical processes that make us up.

Even if you are not a Christian who believes the Bible, you are facing the same issue.  Christians see a biblical answer to this predicament and prepare in a biblical way.  For others the answer is to use their wealth to create technology that will overcome the defects of our body and the limits of our life.  Whether mankind comes up with a technical solution to physical death or not, most of us will not be alive when it does.  So where are you putting your hope?  Brady Hartman reported in the Financial Times that Ray Kurzweil, the famous futurist who also works at Google, used to eat 250 pills a day, but now he is down to 100.  In an interview a few years back, Kurzweil told Caroline Daniel of the Financial Times that he spends a few thousand dollars per year on vitamins and supplements.  He also spends one day a week in a doctor’s office receiving intravenous longevity treatments in a bid to stay alive longer.  His hope is to be alive when the technology is perfected for downloading our brain to a new, designer, human body, whether cloned or not.  Of course even if one was to be able to transfer the data of the old brain and then successfully write it onto the new brain (a big if), the question would remain, would that really be me?  God’s Word makes it clear that there is a different way to prepare ourselves for our own death.  So let’s look at His plan.

As we have stated, God did not create humans initially to die.  However, Scripture tells us that He has a plan to bring mankind out of this dying state, or mortal state, which is our current status.  Let’s look at Daniel 12:2-3.  “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.  Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.”  Though the Old Testament is somewhat cryptic about the fate of the souls of men, here we have a passage that gives an astounding prophecy detailing some of what it will be.  1 Corinthians 15:51-52 gives us a similar idea from the New Testament.  “Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”  Thus the Bible speaks of an incredible event, in which wise and foolish, righteous and wicked, will be made to come back to life in what is called resurrection.  It may sound unbelievable to hear that God’s plan involves a time in which He will resurrect those who have died.  It is easy to scoff at the idea, but we cannot escape the reality that this is God’s plan according to His own word.

In fact, God’s plan has one aspect that is far better than a human technological solution.  Even if we can get to a point where we can essentially keep ourselves alive forever through genetic therapies, etc., we will still have the problem of the sin nature.  God’s plan leaves behind the mortal flesh and the sin that goes along with it and takes on an incorruptible body.  No matter what man designs as an answer, it will be tainted by our own sin nature.  We cannot heal ourselves.  Only the untainted Creator can heal us.

There is a special case that is spoken of in Scripture and it is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.  Here it says, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”  Paul makes it clear that the dead will rise first and then those who are still alive will be instantly changed.  1 Corinthians 15 says, “in the twinkling of an eye.”  Whether that is in a Planck second or not, it will be extremely fast.  So there will be a group of people who will still be alive when the resurrection of the righteous occurs.  However, that moment will catch them much like death catches us now.  They will need to have already made the necessary preparations for their body to be transformed (not unlike death as the mortal dissolves and immortal takes its place) and made immortal.

Thus for all the body of this world will come to an end at some time.  Then we will wait for the day of resurrection in a state in which we have no body.  For some that has been thousands of years.  For others it may only be 5.39 × 10 ⁻⁴⁴ s. 

Regardless, we are left with the question.  What will be my condition during that waiting period?  We can call it the intermediate state between physical death and immortal resurrection.  In the following weeks we will look at what the Bible says about this intermediate state.  However, today I ask you this.  Have you prepared for your physical death in the way that God’s Word tells us to do?  God is offering all mankind forgiveness of our sins and eternal life beyond this world.  How can I accept that offer?  We must simply confess that we are sinners and fallen in our nature.  We must then put our trust and faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior of our soul and the Lord of our life.  Lastly, we must publically stand with Him before the world.  If you have and are doing that, then you are prepared for your physical death.  But, if you have not, then I beg of you to rethink this question of what will happen when I die.  Don’t put it off.  Make the choice to trust the Creator today.

Personal End Time Audio

Faith in the Time of Discipline

Hebrews 12:3-11.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 13, 2017.

There is always friction between generations.  Though generations today may disagree on how to teach and train children, you will not find very many people who would say that it shouldn’t be done at all.  The question is not about teaching kids, but about how and what we teach them.  Thomas Sowell, the American social theorist and political philosopher has said, “Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”  He is not the first to recognize the importance of socialization.

Today it may seem like our culture is kicking back against this as they tell parents to teach their kids all religions so that they can choose for themselves, or even better, don’t teach them religion at all.  Similarly it is becoming vogue to avoid seeing the gender of your child as something that is biological.  The mark of a progressive parent is to help your child transition from a biological gender to the gender of your feelings.  Of course, the social discussions taking place around them and with them begs the question if these kids are being overly influenced in this area.  Regardless, my point is that these two examples are not really rejecting the idea of training kids.  The truth is that they object to training them in certain ways and with certain ideas.  Thus in the areas that they want to deconstruct they promote jettisoning it and in the areas they want to construct they promote very heavy training, if not outright propaganda.  In truth they indoctrinate children with their truth that gender is a state of mind, and that all religions are the same, if anything at all.

Our passage today focuses on one of the great difficulties of trusting God, and that is the fact that God treats us as His children.  Just as human parents teach and train their child, so He teaches and trains those who will trust Him in order for them to be like Him.  May we learn to embrace this fact with faith.

Consider Jesus and His example

In verse 2 we were told to turn our focus upon Jesus.  In verse 3 another word is used that takes this focus further into the mind and tells us to “consider” our Lord Jesus and what He went through.  Believers in God can not only look to Jesus to show us the way, but also we can make connections between what He went through and what we face in our life.

First, we are told that Jesus endured hostility from sinners.  Do you remember in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:11-12) where Jesus told His disciples, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.  Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  Now Jesus said that knowing that great persecution lay ahead of Him.  He was not merely taking His place in a list of those who have trusted God through the ages.  He is the Lord Himself, perfect and without fault.  He is the Son who is to inherit all things, and yet sinners brazenly persecute Him too.  It is easy for wicked people to tell themselves that the righteous are not as righteous as they pretend.  This becomes the justification for why they can mistreat them.  But this idea is completely undercut with Jesus.  This hostility between those who want to follow God and those who despise them for doing so is a fact of life.  But the key is that Jesus endured it.  The word means He persevered and stayed the course of faith even when to keep faithful was like a heavy burden on His back.  Too easily, we reach the end of our patience and throw off faith like a heavy weight.  “I won’t carry it anymore!  This is too much, I quit!”  When we look at Jesus and see that He didn’t quit, knowing full well what was ahead of Him, we are to take courage from it.  The godly have always suffered at different times in their lives because of the fallen world in which we all live.  But, Jesus tells us to rejoice because God will reward us along with all who have endured such evil.  Don’t look at Moses, Elijah, et alia and say that you aren’t as good as them.  Don’t look at Jesus and say that it must have been easy for Him.  Instead, trust God and take your place (whatever you are called to face) among God’s faithful followers.

In verse 4, when the writer mentions bloodshed, he is literally talking about death.  Jesus didn’t just endure hostility from sinners.  He was also executed and killed by them.  Jesus endured with faith to the point of death.  But notice that the struggle is not with the sinners themselves.  The real battle is with sin itself.  We are reminded that we haven’t resisted against sin to the point of death yet (if we had we would be in heaven and not reading Hebrews).  The sin we resist is not the sin of those sinners who are being hostile.  The sin we resist is our own temptation to jettison faith and give in for the sake of comfort and ease, to make the pain stop.  We are to recognize that Christ shows us to trust the Father even if it costs us our life.  Many Christians throughout history have resisted sin to the point of bloodshed.  But they did it by thinking about what Jesus endured, and keeping their eyes on the goal of being with Jesus and like Jesus.

Now I did skip over a very important phrase.  We are told to consider Jesus in order to avoid becoming “weary and discouraged in our souls.”  Both words give voice to the reality that our inner person struggles with trusting God.  When we face hostility and even death, we can grow tired of trusting God.  We can be discouraged in the fight against our flesh.  Such a soul is on the verge of giving in to unbelief and sin.  Where does one get the strength and desire to keep going on?  For a time we may have it from our own sheer will power, but this is not put forth as an answer for the believer.  Your strength will always come to an end.  The only way we can avoid spiritual weariness and discouragement is to keep our eyes on Jesus and draw strength from Him.  Your soul needs spiritual nourishment that it cannot get from the things of this world that your flesh craves.  When you feel discouraged, ask the Lord Jesus to strengthen you by His Spirit and also talk with other believers.  Sometimes they can encourage you with their stories of how God helped them.

Consider how the Lord disciplines His children

In verses 5-11 we are reminded of our calling and position in Christ.  We have become sons of God.  John 1:12-13 says, “But as many as received Him [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”  The truth is that every child must be taught the way to live in this world.  Now some versions use the word “chastise” in this passage.  The problem with this is that “chastise” has come to be used of corporal punishment only.  Originally it meant to make chaste or pure.  The Greek and Hebrew words that lie behind this translation refer to everything that is done in order to train up a child.  Thus it involves instruction, training, correction, rebuke, and sometimes punishment.  That is why I have used the word “discipline.”  God does all of the above in our lives.  We belong to the Lord and as such He is going to work in our lives in many different ways in order to help us grow up and become like Him.  Every time you go through a difficult stretch, you need to be careful of thinking that God is mad at you or doesn’t love you anymore.  He loves you very much because you are His child.

Verse 5 tells us that we can forget God’s Word to us.  It is important to recognize how forgetting God’s Word can lead to losing faith in God.  The writer quotes from Proverbs 3:11-12, which is written in the form of a parent addressing a child with wise instruction.  The key is that God’s Word tells us that not only are we made to be the sons of God, but that God will actually treat us as His children by being faithful to do all that a good parent would do in order to prepare their child for adulthood.  The enemy of our soul wants us to forget who we are and to create a rift between us and our Heavenly Father.  Your flesh even wants to lash out in anger at God when He allows difficult times in our lives.  But God’s Word tells us that He loves us and that nothing in this world can separate us from the love of God, except our own choice (Romans 8).

Now the proverb in verse 5 brings up the issue of despising God’s discipline.  It tells us not to despise God’s discipline because it is proof that we are His children.  Now the word “despise” typically carries the sense of a strong, visceral reaction- which we would do well to avoid.  But the word it translates here actually has the sense of not caring at all about it.  It is the picture of a person who could careless that God is “disciplining them because they are His child.”  Instead of being encouraged by it, they see it as worthless or something not worth holding on to, as they toss the relationship away.  How great and amazing it is that the God of the universe has made us His children.  You are special and He is bringing you to His greatness.  But you must trust Him.  Just as the One and Only Son of God, Jesus, was allowed to face difficulties even to the point of death in this life, so we too must face things in our life that our flesh will despise.  We must resist the temptation to throw away the priceless love that God offers you.  Don’t let the difficulties of life cause you to treat God’s love for you as a thing of little worth.  Like Esau we can sell our faith for a pot of beans, or for an immoral, sexual liaison, or for a drug induced high, or for the praise of the world, or for any other work of our flesh.  God’s work of discipline is proof that He accepts you as His child, rather than the opposite.  Why doesn’t He spoil you and me rotten?  He doesn’t do it because it would ruin us.  He cares about what we become because we are not illegitimate children.

In verses 9-10, we are reminded that God’s discipline is superior to human discipline.  Whether parents or teachers or professionals, we often look up to humans who train us in ways that our flesh doesn’t appreciate, but our minds recognize as valuable.  How much more ought we to embrace the discipline of God.  He is not subject to the jealousies and selfishness of humanity.  He trains us for our benefit.  Only God can bring us to that which is good and profitable for us, both in body and in soul.  It is more than profitable.  We also are able to obtain a portion of the Holiness of God.  He is not just teaching us to look a certain way.  He is changing us from the inside out.  We are separated from those who reject His discipline and fashioned into His image, to His glory and for our good.  This is the essence of holiness.  God is completely other than fleshly humanity.  But in His grace, He gives Himself to us and makes us like Him.

Lastly, in verse 11, we are told to see the result of God’s discipline over the occurrence of it.  When we are in the moment of discipline it is not joyful.  The occurrence can obscure our vision of that to which it is leading us.  We have to learn to see beyond the instruction that our flesh doesn’t like, and the rebukes that our heart is hurt by.  We have to learn to see beyond the hardships that He allows us to encounter and see the joy that is on the other side.  We will not be children forever.  He will finish His work and we will be adult sons of God at the resurrection.  God’s work in us will yield the amazing fruit of righteousness that is characterized by peace.  In a world where we are being stirred up to anger, division, and self-seeking, is a God who tells us that we were not created to be so.  You will never find peace by tossing aside your faith and confidence in the Lord.  But with Him there will be peace in the time of trouble.  There will be peace in the midst of the storm.  There will be peace, though the world be raging, in the shelter of God’s arms.

Faith in Discipline audio