Like A Fire Alarm - Isaiah 58:1

“Cry aloud, spare not;
Lift up your voice like a trumpet;
Tell My people their transgression,
And the house of Jacob their sins.”
 - Isaiah 58:1

    Most of us (those with children) have known the disappointment of having a child fail to make the proper choices in life. Even from the earliest days, when we taught them how to share or simply “get along” with their siblings and playmates, there was a real sense of let-down when they exhibited stinginess or difficult behavior. How often did we think, “They have been taught better.” How much more were we, and are we, disappointed with the mistakes they make in adulthood. If it certainly infuriates our Heavenly Father when He sees the unsaved behave in their petulant disbelief,  imagine His disappointment when He looks down upon His church and sees our transgressions.
    While we may sternly correct or admonish a stranger who violates civility today, we would be even more so vocal when it comes to our own loved ones. And our voices may indeed rise (along with our concerns) depending upon the nature of the consequences of such violations. John Calvin put it this way - “if the prophets merely spoke of the Law of the Lord, and showed what is the rule of a good and holy life, and recommended the worship of God, and likewise reproved vices, but without employing any vehemence of language, what impression would they produce on hypocrites, whose conscience is lulled in such a manner that they cannot be aroused but by applying spurs?” 
    The Puritan, John Trapp, had this to add - “If a man’s house be on fire, we must not speak softly, as loath to awaken him: Sir, your house is on fire.” It should be our intention to get their attention by employing whatever vocal manner we find effective. Remember the words of Isaiah 40:3 - “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” Truly, we live in the wilderness. It seems there are times we don’t even hear our own inner voices warning us of our missteps.
    Ours is not a calm request to our brothers and sisters in Christ! It is an urgent cry to awaken their sleeping faith; the very faith they need to save them from eternal condemnation.
“Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back,  let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” - James 5:19-20.
    As in Trapp’s commentary, would we be so demure in our warning of a house fire that we would hesitate to raise the alarm? Could we in good conscience and out of love merely whisper of the danger awaiting the occupants? Could we merely tap on the glass rather than break it?  The 19th Century American theologian, Albert Barnes, commented - “Speak loud and distinct, so that the language of reproof may be heard. The sense is, the people are insensible and stupid. They need something to rouse them to a sense of their guilt. Go and proclaim it so that all may hear. Speak not in whispers; speak not to a part, but speak so earnestly that their attention will be arrested, and so that all shall hear.”
     Is it not then our duty as Christians to reprove and correct one who is in error and for us to accept the same should we be the one stumbles in our walk? “‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”’ - Revelation 2:7. Can there possibly be a greater motivation for raising the alarm? May we always seek to edify one another to the glory of God.

Rendering Unto Caesar - Mark 12:17

  
And Jesus answered and said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at Him. - Mark 12:17

    What exactly belonged to Caesar? It was a question designed by the Pharisees to trap Jesus in a legalistic conundrum. And as on all other occasions, their trap failed miserably.  
Francis Schaeffer, one of the 20th Century’s greatest theologians once stated that the Romans didn’t persecute Christians because they worshiped Jesus Christ; they persecuted them for their insistence upon worshiping ONLY Christ and applying their Christian morals and standards to all phases of life. To understand Schaeffer’s position we must begin by understanding the Roman world-view. According to this view one could worship whom he or she chose to worship as long as they obey the Roman law and worship Caesar as well. The Jewish religious culture of Christ’s time was a prime example of Roman tolerance for religions other than their own. That was one of the primary reasons the Pharisees tried to trap Christ with their question about the legality of paying tribute to Caesar.
    2000 years have passed since the days our Galilean Savior walked the Roman province of Judea. Yet little of the ancient world view has changed. No. Secularism is nothing new. Even the Romans were secularists, though they manifested their primitive form of secularism in the guise of their gods. Oh, technology has advanced along with the sciences which gave birth to our modern world but the prevailing world view is much the same. We may still worship whom we choose to worship as long as we obey the Roman law and refuse to interject our Christian ethics and morality upon the Roman culture. Is this beginning to sound a bit farfetched? Then let us look at the prevailing culture after the Resurrection of Christ as compared with our own. “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” - 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
    Initially, Christians found it difficult to take part in civic life or public events due to the generalized practice of associating such activities with Caesar-worship. Today, the idea that Caesar was divine has been replaced by the concept that relativism is now divine. Ergo we witness daily how the media and entertainment are inundated with debased morality. Add to this the fact that Christians were seen as intolerant of other religions and “points of view.” Relativism declares that all lifestyles, regardless of how perverse, are equally valid as preached in the social gospel of today. 21st Century secularists no longer invoke the gods. They have replaced the supernatural with the absurd. They prefer to explain the world in terms common to all men, thus the egalitarian positions they so rigorously defend!  “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,  nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” - 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.
     By 64 A.D., under the reign of Nero, the exclusivity of the Gospel led to the outright persecution of Christians. While execution was a very real part of this persecution there were other equally insidious methods of conspiring against believers. Social banishment (your “friends” or family may stop socializing with you), economic disenfranchisement (your business may become subject to protests and boycotts), loss of employment (mind what you say at work if you want to keep your job), and loss of property (civil lawsuit) via Roman mandate were common sources of persecution. The civil lawsuit or the Roman mandate - it doesn’t matter what you call it; the results are the same. Ask the bakers who were fined for their refusal to bake a cake for a homosexual couple. “You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles . . . Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.” - Matthew 10:18, 21-22.
    Again, what exactly belongs to Caesar? By Christ’s own implication - whatever does not glorify God! The government will get my taxes but never my heart, mind, or soul! I will never pray at the altar of political correctness. Render unto Caesar? Only that most insignificant portion which is meaningless to our salvation. We must never compromise the integrity of our faith in Christ; not for any Caesar nor for any government nor for any un-Godly cause. Render unto God what is God’s.

No Greater Godly Blessing - Proverbs 31:27-29

She watches over the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many daughters have done well,
But you excel them all.” - Proverbs 31:27-29 

  I believe I can make the argument that God’s greatest earthly blessing to man is . . . his wife! God’s providence delivers us with a seemingly unending myriad of earthly blessings. From rain for our crops to cooler summer evenings to the majesty of the seashore to the children he fathers to a long and fruitful life, man is most assuredly blessed. But no blessing is greater than the woman God created to be a “helper comparable to him.” In fact, man needed this “helper” so badly that God found her absence to be the first thing in all His creation that was “not good.”
“And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.’” - Genesis 2:18.
    How do we men see our helpers? Do we see them as the very gift of God? If not, why not? Have we blinded ourselves to the value that God placed on His gift to us? Have we let our egos run over the best things that have ever happened to us?
    A man may know many women in his lifetime. From his mother to his sisters to his daughters to the girls and women he has called his friends, but he will never know another woman like his wife. He knows her heart . . . and she knows his. He knows her pain; she knows his. He knows her needs; she knows his. In fact, all he knows of her, she knows of him, and more. That is what a helper does. Surely, they know our desires but more important, they know our needs. Often times our wives know us better than we know ourselves.
    A wife will watch over us, our homes, and our children like a lioness in the veldt. True, her children will call her a blessing and true her husband need praise her often and enthusiastically! There is no greater Godly blessing than a loving wife.
    Our children will grow and move on into their own lives. And what are we left with? If we men do not count our wives as blessings then what on earth do we count them as? They should be esteemed as our very lives are. They should be as important to us as our own heartbeats - “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” - Genesis 2:24.
    Speak to her and of her and treat her with respect. Defend her with your very life. Man has been called to be a good steward of all God has given him; that includes our wives. Cherish her and love her the way God intended for us to do so.
    May we always be most grateful for God’s greatest earthly blessing to us: our wives. Have a blessed and happy Mother’s Day!

Even Satan Shall Bow His Knee - Philippians 2:10-11

 . . . that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:10-11

    Those in heaven, those on the earth and those under the earth - all of creation! This verse represents one of the single greatest realities available to us in spiritual warfare. And make no mistake: war with Satanic spirits is all around us. We only need to watch the nightly news, read the newspaper or magazine, listen to today’s music, go to a movie theater, or watch cable TV to see what we are at odds with. The devil has never had greater access to the human spirit than he does in the 21st Century. Satan has seized us at a time when offensiveness rules the public forum. We see it, especially among the people “of the world.” “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.” - Matthew 24:9-10. And every knee should bow.
    The proliferation of sin we are witnessing rivals that of even Sodom and Gomorrah. From God-haters and deniers to sexual idolaters we see them all. Certainly the very people who represent such sin like to scoff at Christians who would dare compare them to the twin cities of infamy. “ . . .  knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” - 2 Peter 3: 3-4. The last days? We are near, so very near. And every knee should bow.
    We ourselves are not innocent in all this tribulation. For we know that we are still not free of sin - “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.”-  Ecclesiastes 7:20. The sins we see today are in reality ‘generational sins’. In that I mean this generation is merely reaping the sinful plantings of the past that our generation has handed down to them. But here’s the saddest part: sin grows exponentially. It starts out with a simple rebellious thought then quickly escalates to a sinful action and each sinful action grows tentacles that intertwine with other’s sins making sin plague-like in its effect. We seldom sin alone. And sin, like most other things, gains strength in numbers. That is why prayer is of such utter importance in this day and age. Our greatest weapons against the satanic risings are prayer and God’s word. We don’t need elaborate man-made rituals, rites, crucifixes, incantations, spells, rosaries, or vials of “holy water” to combat the Evil One and his army of darkness; we need the power of the Holy Spirit within our hearts and the word of God on our lips. Our victory lies in Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus alone! And every knee should bow.
    Every knee! Ours, in reverent awe. Theirs in fear of God’s judgment. Even Satan shall bow his knee in submission and resignation on his way to the lake of fire!
    Yes, we are at war. Of that, there is no doubt. But we have the weapons we need to win. In Jesus Christ, we  have a King worth both fighting for and dying for: our Lord and Savior who dismissed the devil from His presence - “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” - Matthew 4:10. Lord, we pray that with Your word and Spirit and the power of Christ Jesus that we can persevere to victory over the spirits of this world, and that at His name every knee should bow.   

Separating Iniquity From The Sacred - Isaiah 1:13

Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. - Isaiah 1:13

    God speaks to us in Isaiah in terms we simply cannot mistake, yet we so often do. Speaking on the wickedness and apostasy of Judah, God declared that He could not bear the association of the profane with the sacred via the rituals and ostentatious liturgies of His chosen people. Their sins went before them like heralds of iniquity, much the same as ours do today. Yet they tried to mask their sin in lavish, albeit improper worship. Their sacrifices were as worthless as Cain’s. Their  incense, rather than raising the sweet smell of herbs and spices produced a stench that God could not bear. Despite observing the acknowledged days of adoration, given to them by the law of Moses, their worship was rejected by God for their failure to come forward cleansed of their sins. It is in this setting that God declares that He cannot, He will not endure the meeting of sin and the sacred.
    “And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.” - Genesis 1:4. We too must be able to discern and divide light from darkness in our lives. Just as surely as God will not tolerate spiritual darkness within the light neither should we, neither can we. We certainly cannot bring our sacrifices to God tainted with our willfully unrestrained and sinful lifestyles. Talk of futility! We must separate iniquity from the sacred before we dare bring the sacred to God. We can only do this within the context of repentance. “Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel. in the gospel.” - Mark 1:14-15.
    This is the proper manner for us to come into the presence of and worship our most holy God: in a humble and contrite spirit of repentance. We owe Him more that we could ever pay. We dare not provoke Him with any less.

The Promise Of Eternal Life - John 6:37

All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. - John 6:37

    Christ, speaking to His disciples often used parables. He sometimes used analogies. He spoke in simile and metaphor. But sometimes His words were simple, succinct, and to the point. “ . . .the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” Is this not a bold invitation by our gracious Lord to flee the world and accept His loving and forgiving mercy; to accept His substitutionary sacrifice; to accept Him as Lord and Savior through the blood He shed for us?
    No one will be cast out! No one. Not your philandering neighbor, not your wayward brother or sister, not the brutish stranger, not even you or I. But we must first come to Him. We must come to Him with our sinful baggage and drop it off at the foot of the Cross. We must leave it there and return to it no more. “She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’” - John 8:11.
    But there is more here than first meets the eye. Why? Why won’t Christ cast us out?
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” - John 6:38. Jesus came here to do God’s will. But what is God’s will? “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” - John 6:40. This, in effect, is the summation of why Christ will not cast anyone out. Everyone who believes in Christ (everyone who believes Christ) will be raised up into eternal glory on that last day. This is the conditional promise of God! This is the gospel within the Gospel. In his commentary on John, Dr. R.C. Sproul explains it this way - “It is God’s will that those whom He has given to the Son - whom the Bible over and over again describes as the elect, or those who are called and chosen by God - should not be lost but have everlasting life.” or those who are called and chosen by God - should not be lost but have everlasting life.”  This is the promise of eternal life that only Christ can make. “ . . . I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” - John 14:6. May we praise God in all His glory for the promise that only Jesus can keep.

Non Sit In Nobis Infideles (Let There Be No Unbelievers Among Us) - 2 Corinthians 6:14-15

 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?
- 2 Corinthians 6:14-15

    Perhaps one of the most difficult hurdles for a Christian today is that of amicable association or that of choosing our friends. Ideally, we would have an abundance of friends and colleagues who are like-minded Christians. Unfortunately, that is not very often the case. We have childhood friends who chose different paths in their lives. We have associations and acquaintances through school or work who come from different backgrounds. In effect, not everyone we associate or socialize with share our Christian beliefs. It becomes even more tenuous when we include among that number members of our own families; people who we do not get to choose. So what are we supposed to do?
    One of the first things we can do is to understand what the Apostle means in the title verse. In essence, he echoes  Deuteronomy 22:9. “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.”  The reason for this bit of Old Testament logic is manifold; the primary point being that each animal’s strength and gait is different or unmatched. Christians and unbelievers are different, unmatched. And so they should be. It is difficult to walk in the way of the Lord when we are bound with another who is constantly tugging and pulling us into the mire of sin.
    I am of the school of thought that the great commentators have it right. Calvin, for one, says to be yoked with unbelievers means nothing less than to have fellowship with them. While we can seldom refrain from such fellowship completely we are in danger of appearing to “stand with them,” rather than “opposed to them.” Spurgeon takes it a step further when he suggests that we should not socialize with them by choice, nor seek pleasure with them. Kretzmann strikes home with the point that we should not associate with them in such a way as to “erase the essential difference between Christian and heathen.”
    There is yet a more profound reason for Paul’s admonition to the Corinthian Christians - “Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” - Proverbs 6:27. In our experience with unbelievers how much of their personal philosophies are rubbing off on us? Are we going to places that they choose to go? Are we doing the things they choose to do? Are we thinking thoughts that they put in our heads?  The answers to these questions are exactly why Paul cautioned the Corinthians. And is the inverse ever true? Can we see the effect our Christian walk is having on them? Is our Christian example altering their behavior in a positive way? Have they expressed a desire to believe? To pick up their cross and follow Jesus?
    So you see we do we have a duty to be the light-bearers of the faith. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” - Matthew 5:16. But we must remain vigilant even among our own family members. We must never allow the Gospel of Jesus Christ to become compromised by our words, deeds, or our associations, no matter who they are.
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” - Ephesians 5:11. May our words and deeds always glorify the Lord and let our light remain visible to all around us.