If I had a nickel for every time I heard Matthew 7:1 abused or misquoted I’d surely be able to end poverty in at least one third world country.

What is the deal with this passage?  Why all the confusion?  Some verses in the bible tell us not to judge while other verses tell us that we should.

I am often criticized and judged (how ironic) for things that I say or write.  My accusers say I’m being too judgmental, and that I’m in violation of Matthew 7:1.  But am I?  Is it wrong for me to rebuke false teachings, gospels, and doctrines?  Is it wrong for me to point out non-Biblical teachers, pastors, books, or practices?  Should I stop alerting my dear friends to the dangers of the emerging church, liberalism, or following after counterfeit gospel messages?

What did Jesus and the apostles say about the believer’s call to judge?

Have you ever used Matthew 7:1 in some form or fashion to accuse someone of being too judgmental (or perhaps to get people to stop judging you)?  Take the following suggestion from Alittleleaven.com:

What we really need is a good solid resource that tackles the ‘judging’ passages in the Bible and what they really teach. We think we’ve found that in the teaching ministry of Pastor Bob DeWaay. Therefore, we are providing you with a link to two radio programs by DeWaay on the subject of judging.

We agree with DeWaay’s exposition of the scriptures on this matter. So, if you’re one of those people who are wondering what the Bible really teaches on this subject then we cannot encourage you strongly enough to listen to these programs.

A Little Leaven FAQ’s

You can listen to those programs (only 1 hour total) here or read the article here.

I hope you take some time to carefully examine what the scriptures say on this subject, and I invite your comments below.  Thank you for your time!

Visit my blog, truthomas.wordpress.com

believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works; Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today. In the research, anyone who held all of those beliefs was said to have a biblical worldview.

Barna also defines “Born-Again Christians” as:

people who said they had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that was still important in their life today and who also indicated they believed that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “born again.”

What does this say about our country, and about our future?  EVERYTHING!  There has been a rapid decline in morality in our nation (which is following in the footsteps of Europe in this regard).  I would argue that the decline is directly proportional and related to the rejection and elimination of a Christian worldview in our nation.  Scripture warns us that this will happen, so it is not a shock to anyone who is familiar with the teaching of God’s word.  In fact, to those who anxiously await the return of Christ, this is only one more sign that it is coming sooner than we may anticipate.

Why has this all happened? Well, there are plenty of venues to which we can cast blame, but ultimately, we are each accountable for our own sins of committal and omission.  We have done what we shouldn’t, and haven’t done what we should.  The church has fallen away from it’s biblical foundation, and lost site of discernment.  This has led to softer streams of “pseudo-Christianity” that are no Christianity at all.  People have substituted other gospel messages for the real one (health-wealth-prosperity, the social justice gospel, the works gospel, the universalism gospel, and so on).  Then, you have atheists that are on the attack (Hitchens and Dawkins) who are convincing people that man’s intellect is better than listening to God’s own word.  You have the hoax of evolution which leads to a devaluing of life itself (after all, we are just advanced animals in that case, every man for himself), which is why we see murder, abortion, and other similar things skyrocketing.  You have the liberal agenda, which, well, I just won’t even go there.

Like I said, there are many things we can blame but we are all responsible.  I myself confess that I have not loved the Lord with my whole heart all the time.  I have have delved into sin that I should not have.  I have not preached the gospel as fervently as I should have.  I have not demonstrated love and compassion as I should have.

My point here.  Every man will give an account before God when they die, Christian or not.  There WILL be a judgment.  Are you ready?  We are all in desperate need of the atoning work of Christ on our behalf.  Without HIS work, we will all fall and be condemned by a Holy and Just God.  Jesus’ work on the cross justifies and makes us right in God’s eyes, but only if we accept and trust in His work, and not our own.  Only if you are born again can you inherit eternal life and be in relationship with God.

Before I diverge anymore, my point is this: A biblical worldview shapes how you think and operate.  If you have none, you will live carnally, blindly diving happily into sin and selfishness ignorant to the truth and grace of the Lord and subject to God’s wrath when you die.  The problems you may face in this life are nothing in comparison to the problem you have with your relationship with God.  Make it your priority TODAY to get right with God.  Humble yourself, confess your sins to God, and put your trust fully in Jesus Christ alone to save you, by faith, and make you a new creation in Him.  Don’t waste another minute.

If you want to read about the survey I mentioned above visit:

http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/21-transformation/252-barna-survey-examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years

http://christianpost.com/Society/Polls_reports/2009/03/survey-less-than-1-percent-of-young-adults-hold-biblical-worldview-10/index.html

I invite you to visit my blog, if you are not already there: http://truthomas.wordpress.com

Grace to you today,

Thomas

March 23, 2009

Am I Carnally Minded?

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Where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal . . . ? —1 Corinthians 3:3

The natural man, or unbeliever, knows nothing about carnality. The desires of the flesh warring against the Spirit, and the Spirit warring against the flesh, which began at rebirth, are what produce carnality and the awareness of it. But Paul said, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” ( Galatians 5:16 ). In other words, carnality will disappear.

Are you quarrelsome and easily upset over small things? Do you think that no one who is a Christian is ever like that? Paul said they are, and he connected these attitudes with carnality. Is there a truth in the Bible that instantly awakens a spirit of malice or resentment in you? If so, that is proof that you are still carnal. If the process of sanctification is continuing in your life, there will be no trace of that kind of spirit remaining.

If the Spirit of God detects anything in you that is wrong, He doesn’t ask you to make it right; He only asks you to accept the light of truth, and then He will make it right. A child of the light will confess sin instantly and stand completely open before God. But a child of the darkness will say, “Oh, I can explain that.” When the light shines and the Spirit brings conviction of sin, be a child of the light. Confess your wrongdoing, and God will deal with it. If, however, you try to vindicate yourself, you prove yourself to be a child of the darkness.

What is the proof that carnality has gone? Never deceive yourself; when carnality is gone you will know it-it is the most real thing you can imagine. And God will see to it that you have a number of opportunities to prove to yourself the miracle of His grace. The proof is in a very practical test. You will find yourself saying, “If this had happened before, I would have had the spirit of resentment!” And you will never cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done for you on the inside.

The Bible teaches us to expect mental jolts when we think about God. It teaches us that our familiar ways of seeing things may be replaced. For example, it says, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33). Or again, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).

One of the reasons (not the only one) that some people reject the biblical teaching of unconditional election is that it seems and feels to them out of sync with other teachings in the Bible – like the compassion of God for people or the moral accountability of people before God. It seems to many that God can’t choose unconditionally to save some and not others and then also feel compassion for those he does not choose and hold them accountable for their sin.

The problem here is that our instinct or intuition for what is right or possible for God does not fit Scripture. And the danger is that we shape Scripture to fit our feelings.

The Scriptures teach that God chooses who will be saved before we are born or have done anything good or evil (Romans 9:10-12). “It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:16). The Scriptures also teach that we are responsible for the obedience of faith and will be judged if we are disobedient. “But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8). We are chosen (or not chosen) unconditionally for salvation. And we are accountable for our faith (or unbelief).

As I said in my sermon on 12-8-02, I do not fully understand how God renders certain the belief of the elect and the unbelief of the non-elect. If you want to go deeper into this, I recommend Jonathan Edwards’ book The Freedom of the Will. It is slow reading, but you will grow more from the effort than you can imagine.

To help you accustom yourself to living with such felt tensions (unconditional election and human accountability) consider two similar ones from the example of Christ.

First, we see Jesus weeping over Jerusalem because the things of the kingdom were “hidden from [their] eyes.” But on the other hand we also hear Jesus say that God has “hidden these things.”

Luke 19:41-42. And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Luke 10:21. In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

Second, we see Jesus feeling compassion for those who were sick – irrespective, it seems of their faith. On the other hand, we know from illustrations and teachings elsewhere in the Bible that God is finally and decisively in control of sickness. So we have Jesus feeling sorry for people who have sicknesses that God’s wisdom has ordained (at least for a time).

Matthew 14:14. When [Jesus] went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Exodus 4:11. Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?”

1 Samuel 2:6. The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up.

Implications: 1) Don’t cancel one truth in the Bible because it feels out of sync with another. 2) Don’t draw emotional or behavioral implications from God’s sovereignty that contradict faith, compassion, accountability, prayer, evangelism, or hard work. On the contrary, consider Colossians 3:12 and let your unspeakably happy condition as “chosen, holy and loved” produce “compassion, kindness, humility and meekness.”

Visit http://truthomas.wordpress.com

To dig a little deeper, take the love test!

http://truthomas.wordpress.com

http://www.crosswalk.com/spirituallife/11597521/

The Relevance of Being Irrelevant
Tullian Tchividjian
Pastor, Author

Many church leaders have been telling us for a long time that the church’s cultural significance ultimately depends on its ability to keep up either with changing structures and environments (innovative technology, for instance) or with the latest intellectual fad (such as postmodernism).

Recently I was flipping through a couple of well-known Christian magazines. I counted six full-page advertisements for upcoming conferences designed to help churches adapt in order to meet modern needs-”new ways for new days.” Some emphasized improved techniques, programs, methods, and advertising strategies. Others stressed our need to “emerge” from preoccupation with traditional truth claims and theology and to focus instead on what’s most important-relationships, caring for the poor, and social justice issues-forgetting that robust theological confession (belief) and Christlike practical compassion (behavior) are always meant to go hand in hand. To believe otherwise is like arguing that the wing on the right side of an airplane is more important than the wing on the left. Without both working together, the plane isn’t going anywhere.

But here’s what struck me: all this comes at precisely the time when our culture is growing weary of slick production and whatever’s new and is growing hungry for authentic presence and historical rootedness. Younger generations don’t want trendy engagement from the church; in fact, they’re suspicious of it. Instead they want truthful engagement with historical and theological solidity that enables meaningful interaction with transcendent reality. They want desperately to invest their life in something worth dying for, not some here-today-gone-tomorrow fad.

It’s both sad and ironic that this shift is now putting the church in the wrong place at the right time. Just when our culture is yearning for something different, many churches are developing creative ways to be the same. Just as many in our culture are beginning to search back in time, many churches are pronouncing the irrelevance of the past. Just as people are starting to seek after truth, many churches are turning away from it. As a result, these churches are losing their distinct identity as a people set apart to reach the world.

I have good news for all of us who are becoming weary of this pressure from church leaders to fit in with the world: we don’t have to. The relevance of the church doesn’t depend on its ability to identify the latest cultural trends and imitate them. “The ultimate factor in the church’s engagement with society,” Os Guinness says, “is the church’s engagement with God,” not the church’s engagement with the latest intellectual or corporate fashion. Contrary to what we’ve been hearing, our greatest need as twenty-first-century churches is not structural but spiritual. We need to remember that God has established his church as an alternative society, not to compete with or copy this world, but to offer a refreshing alternative to it.

When we forget this, we inadvertently communicate to our culture that we have nothing unique to offer, nothing deeply spiritual or profoundly transforming. Tragically, this leaves many in our world looking elsewhere for the difference they crave.

Ironically, the more we Christians pursue worldly relevance, the more we’ll render ourselves irrelevant to the world around us. There’s an irrelevance to pursuing relevance, just as there’s a relevance to practicing irrelevance. To be truly relevant, you have to say things that are unfashionably eternal, not trendy. It’s the timeless things that are most relevant to most people, and we dare not forget this fact in our pursuit of relevance.

In an article about younger generations returning to tradition, Lauren Winner notes that young people today “are not so much wary of institutions as they are wary of institutions that don’t do what they’re supposed to do.” What Christians are “supposed to do” is remind our culture that the things of this world aren’t all there is and that human beings aren’t left to the resources of this world to satisfy our otherworldly longings. Christians alone can provide our culture with that longed-for transcendent difference, because only the Christian gospel offers a true spirituality, an otherworldliness grounded in reality and history. Only the Christian story fuses past, present, and future with meaning from above and beyond. That’s what we have to offer and proclaim.

We Christians have been entrusted with an eternal, transcendent truth that can transform our weary culture and open others’ eyes to a world beyond their own: the story of a simple Jew who made a difference because he was different.

President Obama revealed his stance on pro-life issues at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast.

During his first prayer breakfast in Washington, President Obama discussed the peaceful coexistence of different religions. He denounced death-dealing terrorism and then made this statement: “There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being.” (See earlier article)

Joe Scheidler, founder of the Pro-Life Action League, recalls that Obama is the most pro-abortion president in America’s history.

“There’s several times he’s said things to that effect, that you cannot kill an innocent person, an innocent human being,” he notes. “He just doesn’t make the connection, obviously, that the unborn child is an innocent human being and that he supports that kind of killing.”

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=410738

Mr. Obama, please be courageous…

Oh, and the peaceful coexistence of different religions?  Obama must have this bumper sticker on his State Car:

Well Mr. Obama, you must not have read your bible lately, because there will ALWAYS be conflict between different worldviews, until the glorious day when our Lord returns.   Then EVERY knee will bow and confess that Jesus is Lord, and justice will be served.  So, yes, let us be kind, loving and civilized to other worldviews Mr. Obama, but as long as you are a claiming to be a Christian, [as a person, not a President] you should be eager to see these other religions rebuke their false god’s and worship the one true God, Jesus Christ as Lord.  Unless of course you don’t care to see people come to the savior which you yourself claim and profess.

Letter from an Unsaved Friend

My friend, I stand in judgment now, and feel that you’re to blame somehow. On earth I walked with you by day, and never did you show the way.

You knew the Savior in truth and glory, But never did you tell the story. My knowledge then was very dim. You could have led me safe to Him.

Though we lived together, here on earth, you never told me of the second birth. And now I stand before eternal hell, because of heaven’s glory you did not tell!

Do you have friends around you that are unsaved?  Maybe you have family members, co-workers, classmates, or roommates that aren’t Christians.  Do you even spend time around non-Christians, or do you only surround yourself with believers?

As a Christian, what is your approach to evangelism?  Is it the “friendship” evangelism approach?  If so, how long before you actually share the gospel with them, if ever?  If you knew they were going to die in an hour, would that change your approach?  How important is it to you that you see your friends find salvation in your precious Lord?  Perhaps you are one of those who doesn’t like evangelism, and instead is going to just “let your little light shine.”  Is that biblical?  Or maybe your approach is to not use words, like St. Francis of Assissi, and “preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”  How does that approach line up with the very bold evangelistic approach taught by Jesus, Paul, and Peter? Or maybe you don’t care if your friends are saved.  Consider these words from Charles Spurgeon:

Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that.

Do you remember the story of the watchman in Ezekiel?

The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head. Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.

Ezekiel 33:1-9

So, my fellow Christians, I challenge you (and myself).  Make haste! Man your post!  Sound your trumpet!  Oh what an incredible burden, privilege, and joy we have as followers of Christ to carry out his commission.  Get out of your bubble of a church building and go warn others of the wrath to come if they die without a savior.  Then, show them that savior!  Don’t sugar coat or water down your message, for it will lose it’s potency if you do.  If you love them, don’t withhold the truth from them.  Preach the whole counsel of God, preach the Gospel in season and out!  Souls are at stake!  Don’t neglect your duty!

Do you really Love those around you?  Take the Love test.

Do you want to know the biggest problem with the modern gospel?  Do you want to know why so many of the supposed converts in the church fall away?  Listen to Hell’s Best Kept Secret and True and False Conversion.

Let us press on together, seeking to save the lost like Jesus did, being fishers of men, until the nets are full and the job is done.

Thank you,

Thomas

http://www.truthomas.wordpress.com

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Does this caption spark your interest?  On this issue of Doctrinal Wednesdays I’m posting an article about the greatest social need that our world faces.   Understanding this will help you to develop an accurate and biblical doctrine of the gospel and evangelism.  Until a man realizes that he is a sinner, totally depraved, guilty of breaking God’s moral law and falling short of the glory of God, and that the only way to be reconciled and made right in God’s eyes is through repentance and trusting Christ’s work on the Cross to justify him and set him free from death, until all that happens, we have not fulfilled that man’s greatest need.  In fact, if that does not happen, we have done that man a dis-service.

Read the article here:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/january/20.18.html?start=1

http://truthomas.wordpress.com