Means of Grace - Lesson 2

2a. The Sacraments - Baptism

Since we are Baptists we are pretty big on baptism. Jesus told us to baptize (Matthew 28:19) so it is logical to assume that we’d be blessed in the process of baptism.

At some point after our salvation it is natural to obediently follow Jesus’ instruction and be baptized. It can happen fast (like the Ethiopian Eunuch) or it can not happen at all (like the thief on the Cross).

Baptism is something that we participate in with clear Scriptural meaning.

Romans 6:3-4
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Colossians 2:12
having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

God gives us a way to participate in a physical way in a sacrament that mirrors what happened in a spiritual way. There is nothing magical about the water in the baptismal and yet God uses the process to minister Grace.

Acts 8:39
And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

Acts 16:30-34
Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

If we over react to the idea that Grace is automatically imparted apart from faith (a la Roman Catholic teaching) then we’ll start teaching that nothing special happens in baptism and that would be a shame and we would not really be in submission to Scripture. We don’t need to under value tradition in order to submit to Scripture. Since we are part of the larger Body of Christ we value tradition highly but we recognize that it must be measured against God’s revelation in Scripture (like the noble Bereans). In fact, tradition has a large role in our interpretation of Scripture.

Alister McGrath, writing in The Science of God, develops 2 important aspects of tradition in the Church. They are:

1) Considered as a process of transmission, the notion of tradition embraces far more than the mere oral transfer of ideas from one individual to another. The process of inter-generational transmission of the faith has been institutionalized.

2) Considered as transmitted reality, tradition includes institutions, practices, systems of symbols, values and beliefs. It is unacceptable to limit the notion of tradition merely to ideas; what is passed on from one generation to another are ways of thinking, existing, seeing, living, belonging, and behaving."

We need to focus back on the rest of Christ’s Body as we formulate our statement of what we believe is true about our expression of baptism as Baptists. We must acknowledge that God has been directing the Church through the centuries. This is, in part, what gives tradition value in our lives as Christians. The knowledge that most of the Church throughout most of the Church’s existence has practiced paedobaptism means that Baptists should approach believer’s baptism with great humility rather than hubris. It also means that I must have a view of baptism that is consistent with the rest of the Church. If I formulate a view of baptism that places me in the position of arguing that the baptisms of most of the Church throughout most of history are invalid then I would be arguing that God left the Church in an unacceptable position with regard to baptism for centuries. To insinuate that those individuals whom God has used to build up the Church, establish sound doctrine, and encourage fidelity to Scripture were not saved because of the method of their salvation is absurd. In fact, it strains credulity to think that we denominationally new kids on the block, by the Grace of God, have been given a more appropriate means of baptism; however, that is what I believe based on my reading of Scripture.

So, as a supporter of believer’s baptism, I can’t argue that paedobaptism is invalid. I can argue that I think Scripture supports believer’s baptism and therefore I think believer’s baptism is an application of the sacrament that is more consistent with the truth provided by revelation in Scripture. If a person were to desire to join our fellowship who was baptized as an infant would we then “require” or “recommend” baptism as an adult believer? We as a congregation of believers require baptism for membership but we don’t mean to infer that we think that believers who follow a different tradition are not saved.


2b. The Sacraments - Lord’s Supper.

Like baptism, the Lord’s Supper is given to us as a Means of Grace but the believer’s faith is a necessary part of the sacrament. So we reject the idea that the sacrament works apart from faith but we don’t want to fall into the other error of thinking of the sacrament purely as a ritual we just participate in.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

There is a real spiritual fellowship with Christ in His divine nature during communion and it is therefore dangerous to take communion without following the biblical directions for spiritual purity.

1 Corinthians 11:27-32
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

We expect God to minister to us in Communion if we are thinking rightly. So we should be expectant as we partake Communion. It is not just a ritual. Notice that really even those who are weak and ill and those who were called home were the recipients of Grace since God did this to discipline the Church so that the Church would not be condemned with the world.

This topic also begs a brief discussion of the historic discussion on the nature of Christ’s presence in communion. I’ll try to cover the range of interpretations this morning. The Roman Catholics had drifted gradually by tradition into a belief called transubstantiation. The belief has some roots in Aristotle’s philosophy. Aristotle thought that each “thing” had and essence or substance that was the real thing and then it had an accidens or the perceivable qualities of a “thing” and normally the substance and accidens are in agreement. Aristotle would say my beagle has probably has both the substance and accidens of a beagle but we can’t tell for sure and of course there is the perfect essence of a beagle and she is a particular representation of a particular beagle but of course she has some odd quirks. So why would I be talking about this on Sunday morning? Well I like beagles but Aristotle’s idea after a thousand years influenced the church in a bad way and brothers of ours were killed over some of these ideas. The Roman Catholic Church teaches what is called transubstantiation with regard to communion. In the Roman Catholic view, during communion, the substance or essence of the wine and wafer become the physical body of Christ but the accidens remains wine and wafer. So they teach a double miracle, the wine and wafer are miraculously transformed into the body and blood of Christ but miraculously the accidens (perceivable qualities) remain the same. So when they lift up the elements they worship the elements. So I’d be uncomfortable as an reformed or old school Baptist taking communion in a Roman Catholic Church since they worship the elements and actually teach that a new real sacrifice of Christ to God is made.

Luther struggled with this as he waded among alligators and tried to come up with a better understanding of what Scripture taught apart from Aristotle. Unfortunately Luther never really got to think it through in detail and settled on what has been called consubstantiation although Luther didn’t use the term and Lutherans don’t like it. Luther rejected the Aristotelian formulation in the communion that Roman Catholic doctrine but he still taught that there was a true corporeal (or physical) presence but that we don’t perceive it. So he made a baby step away from a confused doctrine but only a baby step.

The real problem with Luther’s idea was that he taught that Christ was present physically in more than one place at a time. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD clarified the Biblical teaching that Christ has 2 complete natures, fully God and fully Man, without mixture or confusion. Well to be physically present in two places would require a mixture of Christ’s physical and spiritual natures.

I think the Biblical context would have eventually have corrected Luther if he had more time to think about it. When Jesus re-signified the Passover Supper into Communion it seems obvious to me that Christ’s presence in the elements is spiritual rather than physical. He is sitting there in front of the disciples and says that the bread is His body and that the wine is His blood but obviously it isn’t physically His body or blood because He is the one passing it out and he hasn’t lost any blood or body parts.

Calvin stressed the problems that Luther’s ideas resulted in and taught that Christ was present spiritually in communion. This, for me is why Communion is such a vital Means of Grace. It is a real thing for me.

Now I need to mention that some Baptists have followed the teaching of Ulrich Zwingli. He taught that Communion is a memorial meal but is only a memorial and that Christ is not really present in the elements. I think Zwingli goes to far at least in the way his ideas are typically presented today. Jesus didn’t say that Elements were to remind us or testify of His blood and body. Jesus said the Elements were His body and blood. In addition, to partake unworthily of the Elements is a dangerous thing that can result in illness and death. Now that could be God’s judgment independent of a spiritual content of the Elements but then you would expect similar warnings and Scriptural evidence in baptism and yet we don’t really see the same type of warnings.

In communion we are told that “anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” So you ask God what that means and make sure that you’re in agreement with Scripture when you take communion.

Means of Grace - Lesson 1

What are the Means of Grace?

The Means of Grace are those things in our lives that God uses to give additional blessing. We are expected to participate in our sanctification and God calls us to make our lives holy and pleasing to Him. Consequently any means of facilitating the process would seem to be naturally attractive to us. However, our sin nature and the enemy of our souls may provide effective obstacles to what would be a natural pursuit for an otherwise rational being.

For example, if you were in a war you would naturally want to know what weapons were available to you and what practices would keep you safe and make you stronger. Only someone whose pride made them think they were fully equipped or who was distracted and maybe forgot they were in a war would neglect the pursuit of being “fully equipped” for every battle.

Everything we have as a blessing in our life is fundamentally undeserved. Grace means an undeserved blessing or gift from God. We are saved by Grace and perfected by Grace and yet God gives us some means or methods that will put us in a place to get more of what we don’t deserve. So while it isn’t rational to neglect these things we often do.



How many Means of Grace are there?

The Holy Spirit certainly uses many different things in our life to bless us and each time it is not because we deserve it. But in the context of making lists it is typical to list the Means of Grace with special reference to Fellowship in the Body of Christ. In short, most people relate them to the church.

Some people have limited their list to preaching, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Charles Hodge adds prayer to that list. However, Grudem has a longer list and I’ve combined some of his topics that seemed similar to me to make a different list. I think sometimes it depends on how short of a list you like and I’m sure that a person’s biases creep in. However, if we realize that all we are doing is forming a framework for thinking about these things then I think we won’t worry so much about having the right list as we will about finding those things God uses and ordering our lives to cooperate with God’s Grace.

I’ll also try to discuss both things found in fellowship with the Body of Christ and those things that are of private use. Of course things that are of private use such as prayer and bible study also have use in fellowship with other believers.

So my list has five topics and is as follows:
1) Teaching of the Word (including Evangelism and Bible Study)
2) Sacraments (Baptism and The Lord’s Supper)
3) Prayer and Worship (including Giving)
4) Church discipline
5) Fellowship (Including Spiritual gifts and Ministry to Individuals)

The Holy Spirit works within each of these activities to pour out Grace in our lives.

As an aside … technically Roman Catholics view the Means of Grace as means of salvation. So in the Roman Catholic view the means make a person more fit to receive justification. Remember that Scripture teaches that we are justified by Christ’s Blood once for all when we are first saved and so the Roman Catholic teaching is a tradition that developed as a departure from Scripture. In addition, the Roman Catholic view would restrict the Means to the Sacraments and limit them to the clergy. Another teaching that I find particularly odd is that technically the Roman Catholic doctrine is that the sacraments impart grace whether or not there is faith on the part of the minister or the recipient. We do not follow that teaching and teach that the person receiving Grace by these Means of Grace has their “lights on” and “somebody is at home”.


1. Teaching of the Word (including evangelism and Bible study). In the Scriptures that follow listen to what the Word says about the Word.

Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

1 Corinthians 1:22-24
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

James 1:18
Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

1 Peter 1:23
since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;

2 Timothy 3:14-17
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Acts 20:32
And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Matthew 4:3-4
And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” (Quoted from Deuteronomy 8:3).

Deuteronomy 32:47
For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”

Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

2 Peter 1:19-21
And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 19:7-8
The law of the Lord is perfect,reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;

Isaiah 55:10
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Jeremiah 23:29
Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
Scripture calls the Word a sword (Ephesians 6:17) and says

Hebrews 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

The word is so important to the life of the Church that Scripture often refers to the growth of the Church as the growth of the Word (Acts 6:7; 12:24; 13:49). The importance of the Word can’t be overstated in keeping us from standing on the traditions of men and keeping us standing on the Rock.

Remember that these effects are not just effects from “official” preaching and teaching. These effects range across all the ways God’s word exists in the world today.

Evangelism is also associated with moves of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4 with vv. 14–36; 4:8, 31; 9:17 with v. 20; 13:9, 52). So evangelism is a means of grace for both those who minister and those who the Holy Spirit makes alive in salvation.

God's Sovereignty and Providence

D.S. Fisher (July 1, 2007 at Gateway Christian Fellowship, Raleigh, NC)

Introduction
Scripture tells us that God is in complete control of all things and that would include things that are hidden and things that I don’t like. The way in which God integrates His will with a world in rebellion to maintain sovereign control and providentially care for me is complicated. You might reasonably ask why we should think about these things. What profit is there when we know that ultimately it is beyond our understanding? Well one reason that should be sufficient is that God tells us these things. So we should respond by paying attention to what scripture tells us about God. He has good reasons for telling us these things and I couldn’t sleep at night or have peace in my life without knowing all things are subject to God.

How has the world attacked this doctrine?
We really don’t have time to take an exhaustive look at the way in which the world has attacked the doctrine of God’s sovereign control of all things be we should mention some of the main responses.

First of all the world may be viewed as a machine. At one time this was a popular world view among scientists. The world was viewed simply as a machine and the way things are on an atomic scale was viewed as determining the way things would be on an atomic scale and then, as an inevitable result, on a macro scale. This results in the “God is Dead” argument because if the world were this way then the concept of God would be dead because we’d just be living in a clockwork universe ticking along without meaning and deterministically. Of course the thing I found shocking about this idea was not that God might be dead because He is big enough to take care of Himself. I found it shocking because it meant that I was dead or at least my concept of myself. If I was a machine then meaning in love and right and wrong were just illusions. However, I know I am because I think and this world view didn’t ever really make much sense to me. Those who embrace this philosophy embrace a deterministic view that results in no meaning and no hope of changing anything since they are just cogs in a machine.

Particularly with the advent of quantum theory the deterministic world view has become somewhat less popular as a fundamentally random universe has been embraced. When this is an atheistic approach it leaves a person without any real meaning in their life. This might be attractive to some folks who tend toward existentialism but meaning is lost and a firm foundation for morals is lacking except from a purely utilitarian point of view. This isn’t really satisfactory but it does give someone with this world view a way to think that they have a real “will” since those with a deterministic world view don’t really have room for a “will” and must consider it an illusion.

How have Religious people stumbled over this?
Religious people have also stumbled over the doctrine of God’s sovereign control and providence in our lives. Deism has been around for a long time and teaches that God created the world and then left it running. This error accepts God as our creator but teaches that God doesn’t have any continuing interaction with creation. Of course this is in direct conflict with God’s revelation in Scripture.

Another popular error is pantheism. In this false teaching, God is viewed as being, in part or in whole, within creation. Consequently, creation would not be able to pass away without diminishing God. This mistake actually makes creation at least partly God and vice versa. However, this is an error and while the heavens declare the glory of God they are not essential to God.

An error that has recently been proposed is that of the “Open God” heresy. Otherwise Bible believing people have stumbled on the idea that God is sovereign and begun to teach that God has a plan but that He doesn’t know for sure what is going to happen. These folks stress certain Scriptures and ignore many others in order to keep the future “open” rather than fixed. In a subtle error they became confused and decided that if God knows the future then it must mean that they don’t really have a will to exercise.

A Key to Remember
I have noticed a problem in presenting Scriptural truth about God’s sovereignty that seems to confuse a large number of individuals. It seems that one key that needs to be kept clearly in mind is that God is both transcendent and immanent. We need to think about these words and the meaning these words have in a theological sense.

Notice that I used the word immanent and not eminent. Eminent would be a person of great stature. Like an eminent philosopher who was a leader and great thinker. But that isn’t what I’m saying. I’m saying immanent. Think of immanent with the name for God as Emanuel. Emanuel means “God with us”. God is immanent. He is with us in the moment. When we suffer a loss God doesn’t just pretend to suffer with us. On the contrary, He is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. He is God cooking fish on the side of the Sea of Galilee and making breakfast for His disciples. He lives with us in time throughout our lives as the People of God. We are pretty comfortable with this aspect of God because we live in time and relate to God in a moment by moment way.

God’s transcendence gives us more trouble. In fact, it is so hard to imagine that some folks just stop confessing that God is transcendent. To link this aspect of God to one of His names think of “I am”. When He took the name “I am” he was stressing His being. He is apart from anything thing else. We are dependent for existence on Him. I only exist because God continues my existence. In contrast God exists and is not dependent on anything or anyone for His existence. For example, in the error of pantheism God exists in the universe but God is above and beyond the universe and it could pass away and God would not be diminished. God in His transcendence is not even subject to time. Remember that He created time and is not bound to it. He sees the end from the beginning. He doesn’t “predict” the end from the beginning. He sees the end from the beginning. So when we think of prophecy as a prediction we are simply being anthropomorphic. It is a way for us to relate to God’s foreknowledge but we must remember that God’s Word is sure because He sees it done not because He is predicting the future or we may head off into the “open God” heresy.

Jesus is revealed in Scripture as being fully God and fully man. He has two complete natures without mixture or confusion. So what if I wanted to play chess with Jesus. If I played chess with Jesus in His human nature it would be a fair game. I’d probably make it to about the 10th move and lose interest as is my habit and start to day dream but He would make moves and I would make moves and we would have a game.

However, if Jesus didn’t promise to play in His human nature then I might have a problem. If He was in His transcendent nature he would see the end from the beginning and every move I would make. Although each of my moves would be made freely God would still see them all as if they were done and He would make me lose. At the 10th move, He could even draw me up into His transcendence and show me all my moves beginning to end all freely made and all ineffective against a God who knows all contingencies but knows nothing contingently. That is to say that God knows everything that could happen but He also knows for sure what will happen because He sees it.

Our primary concern should be to make sure that we affirm those things that Scripture affirms. If we find ourselves believing something that is not taught by Scripture or not believing something that is taught by Scripture then we have a problem. One of our most fundamental privileges is to be corrected by God through Scripture and grow in fidelity to His word.

I’ll cover three things that are affirmed by Scripture

1) Preservation – All things continue to exist with God given properties

Christ is causing all things to continue to exist in time (Hebrews 1:3; Nehemiah 9:6; Colossians 1:17) and Scripture uses a word that means to carry or bear along. The word is used for those who brought the paralyzed man to Jesus and of those who brought wine that Jesus had made at the wedding in Cana. In is important to remember that this word is not just a passive permitting to exist but requires an activity on the part of the “carrier”. So God is actively keeping us and all our stuff in existence. In addition he keeps water being water, and people being people, and beagles being beagles. God is so faithful in this that we don’t generally even thank Him for this aspect of his sovereignty. Science is based on this character of God since we assume that the pattern and consistency we see in the Universe is so fixed that we can study it and use the results to predict behavior of parts of creation in the future.

One of my favorite Bible guys is Elihu. He speaks in the book of Job just before God speaks. He gives a “right” answer and, as an aside, his comments to Job are worth studying. He was not one of Job’s comforters that God threatened to judge. Elihu pointed out that about God that, “If he should take back his spirit to himself, and gather to himself his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust” (Job 34:14–15). We take existence a little too much for granted and don’t realize who dependent we are for each moment.


2) God cooperates with all created things in every action (Concurrence)

Not only does God sustain all things but He also must permit or concur with all things. This is a subtle difference but we need to affirm that all things are in God’s control. Scripture tells us that God “accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will (Ephesians 1:11).” We don’t see this in a natural way since we simply see natural processes clunking along all around us but Scripture tells us this. Consequently it is by faith in the revelation of Scripture that we understand this.

We can begin to understand the extent of God’s providence by thinking about it in various arenas.

1. Inanimate Creation.

God tells us that He causes things we think of as “natural” to occur. For example, fire, hail, snow, frost, lightning, and storm winds are said to fulfill His command (Psalm 148:8; Job 37:6–13). God directs the stars in the heavens (Job 38:32) and even says that He directs the coming of the morning (Job 38:12; Matt. 5:45). God tells us these things for our comfort. Things happen that are hard to understand and things happen that we don’t want to happen but God assures us that nothing is outside His controls. We can walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death because His rod (weapon) and staff (correction) comfort us.

2. Animals and Plants

God also says that He controls and causes plants to grow (Psalm 104:14) and that in spite of the natural processes in play God is still in control. God also says that He feeds and is aware of the details of wildlife (Psalm 104:27–29; Job 38:39–41; Matt. 6:26; Matt. 10:29). What we see in Scripture is that, even though there are natural processes at work that we can measure and use to explain cause and effect, God still reveals that He is providentially in control.

3. Seemingly “Random” or “Chance” Events.

Mankind has developed statistical procedures to measure and understand “random” and “chance” events and yet God claims control of these events as well (Proverbs 16:33). I still remember taking a statistics class that was taught by a believer who paused one day and said, “You don’t have to believe that the world is random for these things to be useful constructs for understanding the world.” I was shocked because usually we didn’t discuss philosophy as we worked toward a doctorate of philosophy (PhD). Again we see that although we find useful ways of understanding the way things work we still much acknowledge that God is in control. Just because we can think of a natural cause or demonstrate a statistical distribution does not mean that God did not cause it.

6. All Aspects of Our Lives and the Affairs of Nations

It would be hard to overstate the level of dependence that Scripture teaches for us. We are told to ask each day for God to feed us (Matthew 6:11). This is really difficult for us since we work for our food and think of ourselves as feeding ourselves using what we have learned about the world. Only as a result of the Holy Spirit working within us would it make sense to say “my God will supply every need” (Philippians 4:19). God says He was aware of every detail of our lives before our birth (Ps. 139:16).

It naturally isn’t just the individual that is under God’s sovereign control but Scripture also teaches that God controls all the details of human societies Job 12:23; Psalm 22:28; Acts 17:26).


What About Evil?

If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and transcendent and He affirms it by stating that He does cause everything then what is His relationship to evil? Scripture affirms that God can use or cause evil to work for His purposes. God will use an evil man according to his evil nature to accomplish His purposes. However, exactly how God does this is never easy for us to understand and eventually we can only affirm what Scripture affirms. The evil that God uses indirectly is acted out by those who freely oppose God’s commands and God Himself. Many Christians avoid thinking about how God uses evil. Joseph confessed to his brothers that what they meant for evil was used by God for good (Genesis 45:5 and 50:20). His brothers sinned and were subject to God’s judgment and yet they were used by God.

Pharoah is another example of a man who set himself against our transcendent God and was simply used to glorify God. God says that He will harden Pharoah’s heart even before Moses makes it back to Egypt (Exodus 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; 10:20; 10:27; 11:10; 14:4; 14:8). It is true that Pharaoh participated in the process (Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34) but God really hammers away at our proud expectation that we have a will that is able to oppose God in some effective manner.

God will use men to accomplish His purposes. Jonah (who needed lessons from me in procrastination and made a mistake I would never make by running and giving God a moving target) is an illustration of a man who was chucked off a boat by men (Jonah 1:15) but he acknowledged it was God (Jonah 2:3). Both things are true. The men needed to pray that God would not judge them for throwing Jonah overboard. However, Jonah knew what was happening through the willing choices of men.

Even, or especially, the horror of crucifixion of Christ was not outside the sovereign control of God. All the details were ordained by God. We each are responsible for the Christ’s presence on the Cross. Love kept him there. On the Cross Christ prayed for those crucifying Him (Luke 23:34) and the impact of His prayers are seen in the demeanor of His crucifiers as they left Golgotha (Luke 23:48). The church at Jerusalem recognized that all that happened was ordained by God (Acts 4:27).

So to maintain a high fidelity to Scripture we need to affirm that;
1) God uses all things to fulfill His purposes and even uses evil for His glory and for our good (Romans 8:28),
2) God never does evil and is not to be blamed for evil (Luke 22:22; Matthew 26:24; Mark 14:21; Matthew 18:7; James 1:13-14). Calvin (in his less than concise manner) heads a chapter, “God So Uses the Works of the Ungodly, and So Bends Their Minds to Carry Out His Judgments, That He Remains Pure From Every Stain.”
3) God is right to blame us and judge us as moral creatures for the evil that we do (Isaiah 66:3-4; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Romans 9:19-20)
4) Evil is real and not an illusion so we must never do evil since it will harm us and others (Matthew 6:13; James 5:19-20; 1 Peter 2:11; Romans 3:8),
5) We can’t use evil for as Augustine says, “There is a great difference between what is fitting for man to will and what is fitting for God....For through the bad wills of evil men God fulfills what he righteously wills.”
6) It is OK that we can’t fully understand how God can ordain that men carry out evil deeds and yet hold men accountable for them and not be blamed Himself (in part this is because of God’s transcendent nature).

Do We Have “Free Will”?

We are not making decisions under compulsion while God in His transcendence, omniscience, and omnipotence maintains providential control over all events. The answer to the question revolves around how you define “free” will. We always choose according to our strongest inclination at the time but perhaps we should avoid the use of free will as Calvin did in most cases. The problem is that our will apart from the Holy Spirit will not enable us to good works. Good must be in accord with the will and timing of God with no other thought than for His glory. That is a high standard and we don’t clear that hurdle apart from Grace. Calvin says, “Man will then be spoken of as having this sort of free decision, not because he has free choice equally of good and evil, but because he acts wickedly by will, not by compulsion. Well put, indeed, but what purpose is served by labeling with a proud name such a slight thing?”


3) Causes all things to fulfill His purposes (Government)

In addition to God preserving or causing to continue to exist and His concurrence in agreeing that each cause may exist, Scripture also teaches that God’s providence has a purpose in all He does. He rules over all (Psalm 103:19; Daniel 4:35; Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 15:27; Ephesians 1:11). We can affirm that God causes all things to work together for good (Romans 8:28) because we see God’s providence extends to a purpose and plan. God’s will is not divided but we do see God’s revealed moral will in Scripture (such as the 10 Commandments) but disobedience to His moral will does not defeat His providential will in the world. Only a small part of His will is revealed to us.

The Importance of Our Human Actions
While affirming the providential government of God and His use of human actions we must not depart from Scriptural teaching on the importance of our actions. We are still responsible for our actions and our actions have real results and we can change the way things otherwise would be. For example, prayer has results and changes the course of events (James 4:2; John 16:24). We must act in obedience to Christ. To become a determinist is to depart from sound doctrine and to disobey scripture. We know God’s power to save and to neglect our participation in that process through prayer and preaching is to fail in God’s command to us (2 Timothy 2:10).


At some point as we meditate on these things we’ll find them hard to understand how God’s providence fits will other Scripture. Listen to what Calvin said about this:
Let those for whom this seems harsh consider for a little while how bearable their squeamishness is in refusing a thing attested by clear Scriptural proofs because it exceeds their mental capacity, and find fault that things are put forth publicly, which if God had not judged useful for men to know, he would never have bidden his prophets and apostles to teach. For our wisdom ought to be nothing else than to embrace with humble teachableness, and at least without finding fault, whatever is taught in sacred Scripture.

Calvin makes some vital points here. First, our flesh is fast to refuse things we find hard in Scripture. Second, God wants us to know these things so they must be good for us if understood rightly. Third, we must bow our knees to Scripture.


Summary

We must do away with fear and trust God. We should be thankful for all good things whether large or small. We must confess that there is no such thing ultimately as luck or chance but we don’t let this move us to superstition but instead trust God and obey Him fully.

In the end we still will find our minds staring in awe and without real understanding at our transcendent God. He created a universe with creatures living in time that make real decisions and interact with Him by His Grace without giving up His sovereignty.

Exodus and Salvation - Lesson 5

Exodus 14:13-14
And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”

The Israelites were standing between a mighty enemy that wanted to slaughter them and place the survivors back in bondage and an impassable sea at their back. You too were pinned between the enemy of your soul and a sea of sin that separated you from God. As scripture says, you were without hope. There was no way for you to deal with your sins except the justice and wrath of God, which would have resulted in your death. The enemy of your soul was far stronger than you and you cooperated with him in your bondage. You were justly and truly by nature a child of wrath.

Ephesians 2:4-5
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

His blood did it. It crushed the enemy of our soul who sought to keep us in bondage and parted the ocean of our sins so that we could pass through and be forgiven.

Ephesians 1:7
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace

So the bondage was broken but the people still had hearts of stone. They worshipped idols before Moses could get back down Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments.

Numbers 14:20-23
Then the Lord said: “I have pardoned, according to your word; but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord— because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.

Right after this decision by God the Israelites attempted to enter the Promised Land their own way and were defeated. The people had hearts of stone and they needed to be born again and they were; the Israelites were literally born again in the wilderness. The older generation died and another was born. You were born again too.

John 3:3
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

1 Peter 1:22-25
Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

Is the Gospel alive in you? I think we have heard the quote from Isaiah pretty often. “All flesh is grass” is a good scripture especially if you work with pastures, however, notice the context here. Peter is saying that once you are born again it is permanent. Your body may grow old and die but the Word endures forever. A believer must necessarily live forever because the Work of God lives forever and He can’t be unfaithful to Himself. It is alive in you and your flesh is as grass but that word lives and abides forever.

There is yet another problem for the Israelites and an additional portion of your salvation too. They have been forgiven for their sins, they have been literally born again in the wilderness but they have no merit or righteousness for entering the Promised Land. Once again God acts to complete His promise and fulfill His covenant. And He does it in a way that patterns your salvation. The Israelites follow a man called Joshua (Yeshua or Jesus).

Joshua 3:14-16
So it was, when the people set out from their camp to cross over the Jordan, with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest), 16 that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap very far away

It is mentioned in verse 15 that the river was at flood stage. God wanted to make it clear that the river didn’t just happen to dry up. Once again there was no way to move forward. They didn’t deserve to enter into the Promised Land. They were simply a bunch who were born in the wilderness, didn’t know who to cook anything except manna which they picked up off the
ground every morning, and they didn’t know how to make shoes or clothes. They would have been a pretty useless bunch. But Yeshua was leading and he knew that God would fight for them and make a way where there was no way as they followed along behind the Arc of the Covenant.

Joshua 5:8-9
So it was, when they had finished circumcising all the people, that they stayed in their places in the camp till they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” Therefore the name of the place is called Gilgal to this day.

Well this was not a strategic military move that would make sense apart from simply obeying
the command of God. Here they were, they finally entered the Promised Land and the inhabitants knew they were there and would fight for the land so they incapacitated themselves for a while. In their history they would have known that this was what Simeon and Levi used to avenge Dinah their sister by killing the Shechemites. But the Israelites were obeying God and he protected them.

Joshua 5:10-12
Now the children of Israel camped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho. And they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain, on the very same day. Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year.

The manna stopped because they were now in the land that God had promised them and they could eat the produce there because He gave it to them. It was all an act of Grace from Egypt to the Promised Land.

To briefly cover this sequence again:

1) Israel came out of Egypt after the death of the first-born and Death passed over each Israelite because of the Blood of the Lamb.

2) They were without hope with the Enemy in front of them and the Sea at their backs but God made a way where there was no way and their bondage was broken.

3) Israel was reborn in the wilderness (literally) since all who came out of Egypt died and a new generation was born.

4) Israel, after being reborn, willingly followed Joshua, Yeshua, or Jesus in the Promised
Land.

5) They had no way of entering into the Promised Land. They were helpless to get there and yet God made a way when there was no way. His Arc of the Covenant went before them. We enter in by the New Covenant of Jesus’ Blood and there is no way apart from that way.

6) After entering into the Promised Land they participated in two sacraments. The first is circumcision, which is the Old Testament mirror of our New Testament Baptism. The second is Passover, which is mirrored in the New Testament by the Lord’s Supper.

7) And even the 12 disciples like the 12 stones became a testimony to the faithfulness and ability of God to all the following generations.

Just like you, the selection of Israel for the Promised Land was based on grace and not of works.

Now one big difference is that, today, a person’s deliverance from bondage, new birth, and
citizenship as one eligible to claim the promises of God can happen in a few moments.

As we continue the parallel into our sanctification we can see God’s work in Israel as a picture of God’s work of sanctification in your life.

After salvation you may experience a rapid change in lifestyle. Often some real victories are won early in a Christians walk with God. In fact, in John’s epistles he makes it clear that a change in
lifestyle necessarily accompanies salvation. However, during the lifelong process of sanctification you may find yourself working with God, and under his direction, on sinful traits that you thought were already dealt with. For me that can be a disappointing because it really makes it apparent that I still have some problem that I thought I had dealt with.

How would you like for God to tell you that you are old? That is what happened to Joshua.

Joshua 13:1
Now Joshua was old, advanced in years. And the Lord said to him: “You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed.

Not a great thing for God to tell you but you might hear the same thing with regard to your sanctification. You’ve been saved for a while but there is lots of territory in your heart yet
to be possessed by God.

Attitude can make a tremendous difference. Caleb was a man who remembered Egypt and all the heartbreak and waiting of the wilderness. He was 85 and he had obeyed the Lord. He should have been given the prime real estate along with Joshua. Anything he wanted was his. He got what he asked for. Did he ask for retirement? No he asked for the land of the giants that kept the children of Israel in the wilderness for all those years. The Anakites were the ones who were so fearful that the rest of the spies went back and said no way can we take these guys. He believed in God.

Yet scripture makes it plain that all the Israelites were not completely effective at taking
the land.

Joshua 15:63
Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah.

Joshua 16:10
They did not dislodge the Canaanites living in Gezer; to this day the Canaanites live among the people of Ephraim but are required to do forced labor.

Joshua 17:12
Yet the Manassites were not able to occupy these towns, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that region. 13 However, when the Israelites grew
stronger, they subjected the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely.

Joshua 17:15-18
“If you are so numerous,” Joshua answered, “and if the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go up into the forest and clear land for yourselves there in the land of the Perizzites and Rephaites.” The people of Joseph replied, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the plain have iron chariots, both those in Beth Shan and its settlements and those in the Valley of Jezreel.” But Joshua said to the house of Joseph—to Ephraim and Manasseh—“You are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only one allotment but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have iron chariots and though they are strong, you can drive them out.”

Because of a blend of fear and half hearted obedience the Israelites never really finished driving out the original inhabitants of the land.

Joshua 21:43-45
So the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.

God did His part and then it was up to the Israelites to do their part. Just as the Israelites didn’t contribute to the move from bondage to the Promised Land (God did it all – Monergistic) you
brought nothing to salvation it was completely of Grace. Just as the Israelites found themselves in a battle in the Promised Land you find yourself in a battle and in need of armor to sanctify your life (synergism).

God told the Israelites to be ruthless and thorough in driving out the inhabitants of the Promised Land. They all need to be gone. However, the Israelites figured that out of sight out of mind was all they needed. Then as they soon found out the enemy didn’t know they were supposed to stay hidden from the rest of the world.

Matthew 5:29-30
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

The context of this scripture is lust and adultery and Jesus is saying in a very strong way to not only avoid the sin but also avoid the situation that leads you to it. What sets up the cycle
of temptation and sin? Figure it out, and you probably know it, and avoid it. What was your ritual of sin? Be ruthless in eliminating things that cause you to stubble.

Matthew 18:7-9
“Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! If your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

The context here is sin in general. Think of how desperately we hold on to things that lead to sin. We look at addicts who claim they can handle their addiction and they look really stupid to us but we cling to things in our lives that set up patterns of sin. I’m not talking about the sin itself. I’m talking about live style choices that put you in a position to sin. Even things that would be fine for many people to partake of might position you for sin and need to be eliminated from your life. Before salvation, if you listened to country music while you got drunk you may need to eliminate the music too. Before salvation, if you listened to rock music while you did drugs you may need to eliminate rock music from your life. Before salvation, if you sinned with pornography then you
might now need to throw parts of the newspaper advertisements out before you read the paper. You might have to stop TV altogether or severely limit your viewing. Oh yeah you can handle it you aren’t doing the sin yet your just dancing on the edge and you are a strong enough Christian and anyway lots of Christians do it.

What pagan strongholds exist in your heart? Do you have a sin that repeatedly gives you problems? Maybe you need to claim territory for God in a ruthless way. Ask God what areas of your life still need to be dealt with and how to do it.

2 Peter 1:3-4
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

God is on your side just as he was on the side of the Israelites. He’ll help you claim you
inheritance. He fights with you:

Ephesians 6:13-18
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

You’re in a battle so act like it and work with God to claim every part of your heart for Him

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

We can’t just grab our spiritual swords and see sanctification in our lives. It isn’t even a profitable pursuit. You’ll just come up with a bunch of rules and regulations.

Colossians 2:23
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

You must seek holiness on your knees seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit or you’ll be
moving backwards away from God into legalism. Especially as you find the areas in your life that lead you to sin and seek to eliminate them you can’t assume that they produce righteousness in your life. Jesus is your only righteousness plain and simple. We are trying to live lives pleasing to God and to avoid grieving the Holy Spirit as God commands us. This warfare is for obedience’s sake and not for righteousness sake. You already have the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to you by grace. Righteousness is already my breastplate freely given to me by God to equip me for the fight. Why would I start fighting naked and try to earn my armor as I go.

Exodus and Salvation - Lesson 4

Last week we looked at the first 9 plagues which only hardened Pharaoh’s. This week the fight is nearly completed to free the Israelites. The entire episode with Pharaoh shows how pointless it is to oppose God and gives a case study in how God will use a wicked man according to his wicked nature to accomplish His purposes. God is in control and He’ll make that obvious when He needs to.

God even decrees that the slaves be paid and so affects the Egyptian’s hearts that they give their wealth to them as parting gifts (Exodus 11:3) in fulfillment of God’s promise in (Exodus 3:21). God will from time to time cause people who don’t serve Him to bless us. Remember when it happens to thank God (and remember to thank God when the Body of Christ blesses you too)

Every creature was subject to God (Exodus 11:7) and even as the Israelites started to move out the dogs didn’t bark or chase them.

Death of a firstborn (12:29) – final break from Egypt
Finally the death of the firstborn breaks the bondage. The angel of death passed over the Israelites because of the blood of the sacrifice. Pharaoh and Egyptians begged Israel to leave Egypt at that point.

In our lives God often works prior to our salvation experience to build our testimony, begin to make us aware of His power, and begin to convict us of our sin. One of the key take home lessons as God rocks a person’s world in working out their early salvation is that it may get worse before it gets better. If you pray for someone in bondage to sin, then you may see big problems before you’ll see God’s solution in their life.

Israel’s spiritual condition was pretty grim. We find out how bad things were from other portions of Scripture (Leviticus 17:7; Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:6-9) that they were worshiping idols representing demons and various false gods and they refused to stop as they were brought out of bondage by God. They were wretched and blind spiritually when God took them out of Egypt and they had lots of garbage to get out of their lives.

The plague didn’t pass over the Israelites because they were the children of Israel. Israel merited the judgment of God just like the Egyptians did. It passed over them in fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to Abraham. They heard the promise of God and offered the sacrifice He commanded. Sin was judged in the death of the firstborn and only Grace kept the Angel of Death out of the door of the Israelites who offered the lamb. What happens in Exodus is a foreshadowing of the work of Christ in the New Testament. Every time an orthodox Jew celebrates Passover they have before them a testimony of Christ. The unbroken bone of the lamb, three cups for each person, the empty setting and having the youngest person go to the door and look for the return of Elijah. Even the roast beef now because they can no longer offer a lamb because the temple is gone testifies to someone who has eyes and ears opened by God’s Grace.

Romans 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The plague passes over you because of the blood of Jesus and the chains of bondage are broken (Exodus 12:12,13). God passed over because He saw the blood and not because of the house or what He saw inside the house. Christ is our Passover. We would do well to eat bitter herbs reminding us of our sorrow for our sins on Easter and remember the bondage we were freed from.

Jesus’ blood is that payment for your sin so that God is just and our justifier. So Jesus blood brings forgiveness in that it meets the just demands of a holy God for our sins and justifies us. So the sacrifice brings forgiveness from God and brings thanksgiving and praise in our hearts as we take our place in the Body of Christ by faith.

Jesus is the Lamb of God and God placed many links into Scripture to drive this point home to us. In Exodus 12 the Israelites were told to change their calendar in response to Passover. Of course our calendar changed as well. Those saved by the blood killed the lamb. The lamb was selected 4 days before Passover and Jesus ministry started with John proclaiming Him the Lamb of God and Jesus ministry lasted between 3 and 4 years. The lamb was without blemish and Jesus lived a perfect life and in eating the lamb we see a foreshadowing of communion. It was eaten on the night of the sacrifice so that communion never is separated from the sacrifice. There are folks going to churches claiming to be Christian who claim Jesus as a spiritual leader but don’t believe in the atonement. They take communion but they’ve forgotten the sacrifice.

The application of the blood to the left and right picture Christ’s hands pierced for us; the threshold, where the blood was poured out, illustrate His feet and the base of the cross; and the lintel His head where the crown of thorns was placed.

The hyssop used to apply the blood may also illustrate the scourging that Christ was subjected to.

The leaven is a picture of sin and was put away not to save the individual but because the person was saved. It gives a picture of our sanctification after God has saved us.

You can imagine that today it is very inconvenient to eliminate all leaven from a house. It is also not very economical. One trick that is sometimes used is to put all the leaven in one of your closets and then rent the closet to a gentile friend. That way the leaven in not in your “house” since you’ve rented the closet to someone else. That is very much like the way we handle sins in our lives. We try to contain them in a closet that we think God won’t notice. However, God sees our thoughts and the intent of our heart. We should be thankful that we can’t fool Him and that He will lead us gently as a shepherd but with a holy thoroughness that will result in our sanctification.

Exodus and Salvation - Lesson 3

Aaron was sent into the wilderness ahead of Moses to meet him at the mountain of God. After sharing together they were ready to enter Egypt and begin the salvation of a people that were slaves, idolaters, unlovable complainers, and didn’t deserve salvation in the least. Yes, that’s right they were just like you.

The redemption of the Israelites was a result of the Covenant that God had established earlier with Abraham. You’re also saved in response to the promises of Grace first given to Abraham. You’re a gift to His dear son.

Ephesians 2:1
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

You were by nature a child of wrath. You were just as stubborn as Israel and you are each just as great a testimony to the Grace and Mercy of God. It doesn’t matter if God saved you when you were 8 years old or 80 years old.

When we see a heart that is tender towards God it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and it testifies to God’s glory. We are no different from the Children of Israel and we run just as quickly to attribute God’s work to an idol of our own making. When you were saved, did the Gospel seem wonderful, reasonable, so clear and precious? Did the Gospel seem like water in a dry and thirsty land? Did it seem like something you had searched for all your life? Do you really think that glorious responses like those to the truth of God were birthed in hearts of stone?

Moses and Aaron saw the Holy Spirit work in Exodus 4:29-31. God gave encouragement and this was in part response to desperation and I’m sure a “let’s give it a whirl ‘cause what have we got to lose” response too. But Scripture says that they believed and we can have confidence that the Holy Spirit was at work and that Moses and Aaron were encouraged. Moses and Aaron would have greater challenges later but God blessed them with a good start.

God was going to take the Israelites by force. Moses and Aaron told Pharaoh that God says “Let My people go ..” in Exodus 5:1. Although God had told Moses that the Israelites would worship on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 3:12) and that they would see the promised land so why did this relatively small request come out of Moses’ mouth (or probably Aaron)? This small reasonable request showed the anger and arrogance of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Pharaoh blows them off and refuses and then even says they must make bricks without straw. Then the people blame Moses (Exodus 5:21) and then Moses blames God (Exodus 5:22-23). Not a pretty picture. This reminds me of what it looks like in a person’s life when God starts a work. It can be ugly. A person who was at least civil to you may become rude and hateful. When the Holy Spirit starts to convict an individual and the Holy Spirit begins to work in their life things don’t necessarily turn out all roses and violins. Thorns and yelling can be more representative of the Holy Spirit beginning a work in a life. The Bible says that our natural inclination is opposed to God not in agreement with Him. Remember that poem in which the author compared Gods work in his life to the “Hounds of Heaven”? He didn’t feel all warm and fuzzy at first. At first he felt like dogs were chasing him.

When Moses complains to God, He says, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh” (Exodus 6:1). God says that Pharaoh will drive them out of Egypt. The Israelites were still defeated (Exodus 6:9) and didn’t believe Moses and Moses wasn’t so sure he believed Moses. God continued in mercy and Grace to direct them and sent them before Pharaoh to give the first of the signs (Exodus 7:8-13). Remember that authority and power that the staff represented and so when the Egyptians copied the trick Aaron’s staff swallowed theirs. This act by God served as a warning that God’ authority was superior to the authority of Egypt. However, “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. Exodus 7:13.

Ten plagues were sent against the chains that held the Israelites. Pharaoh cycled between being hardened, negotiating, and lying until the 10th plague against the firstborn after Pharaoh had struck at the children to start the process.

God had many purposes in the plagues that he sent against Egypt. Even the Egyptians in their sin could see some of the points.

First, the plagues manifested his power and His authority. The Bible tells us that “then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God (Exodus 8:19). It tells us that Jethro said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh and has delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people.” (Ex 18:10-11). It even served as a demonstration of His power and authority to other nations. Rahab of Jericho knew what God had done and helped the Israelites (Joshua 2:8-9) and the Philistines also had heard and were afraid (1 Samuel 4:8)

Second, the plagues were punishment for the treatment of the Israelites “Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you (Exodus 10:16).

Third, God judged satanic rulers. “For the Egyptians buried all their firstborn which the Lord had smitten among them; upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments (Numbers 33:4).
Finally, these plagues were part of testing and developing a testimony and relationship for Israel with God. For example, in Deuteronomy 4:33-34 Moses asked Israel, “Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?”

The plagues are not a random collection of events. The plagues were chosen to express God’s purposes. There are a number of striking things to note about the 10 plagues. For example

In Plague 1 the Nile turns to blood as a symbol of death; in Plague 10 the first born in all the households of Egypt die. In Plague 2, frogs (nocturnal) symbolize darkness; in Plague 9 the actual darkness is the plague. In Plague 3, the Egyptian magicians confess that it is the hand of God in judgment; In Plague 8, Pharaoh confesses that it is God judging Egypt; In Plague 4, God exempted the Land of Goshen; in Plague 7, God exempted the Land of Goshen. While in Plague 5 and Plague 6 the cattle of the Egyptians were attacked. God really likes symmetry.

The plagues are progressive in that they get progressively more severe and they make progressions in groups of three with the Plague 10 on the first born being a final and separate plague. The first three attacked comfort. The second three attacked possessions. The next three brought desolation and death.

The plagues also represent attacks on the gods of the Egyptians. We’ve already discussed the importance and worship that the Nile received in the lives of the Egyptians. So turning it to blood and bringing frogs up out of it were attacks in the face of their god. Also the gnats were viewed as unclean and prevented the Egyptian priests from ministering at their pagan altar. The plague of flies was directed against Beelzebub (the Fly god) and God then went on to attack their systems of animal offerings.

Nile to Blood (7:20) – had a warning from God
Where Moses turned a small amount of Nile water to blood as a sign of warning, God turned the entire river to blood.

Frogs (8:6) – had a warning from God
After an interval of 7 days, so that Pharaoh had time to repent, and it seems the first 2 plagues came on Sabbath days since the Egyptians were not giving the Israelites the option to honor the Sabbath.

Lice (8:17) – had no warning from God
This was a direct attack on the pride of the Egyptians and their belief in their cleanliness.

Flies (8:24) – had a warning from God
The Israelites were exempt from this plague. The swarms were apparently of a mixed group of flies and they were biting flies.

Livestock diseases (9:6) – had a warning from God
Judgment against possessions and wealth of Egyptians.

Boils (9:10) – had no warning from God
It seems reasonable that Moses took ashes from a furnace used as an altar for a pagan god of the Egyptians and sent another plague.

Hail (9:23) – had a warning from God
For a people who always looked down to the river for their needs and water this judgment from the heavens must have rocked their world.

Locusts (10:13) – had a warning from God
Eliminated food for animals and for man as well.

Darkness (10:22) – had no warning from God
They worshiped the sun god Ra so this was God’s way of showing that Ra was no true God.

10. Death of a firstborn (12:29) – final break from Egypt
Finally the death of the firstborn breaks the bondage. The angel of death passed over the Israelites because of the blood of the sacrifice. Pharaoh and Egyptians begged Israel to leave Egypt at that point.

God who loves symmetry, used 3 groups of 3 with a warning before the first two in each group of three and no warning for the third. The tenth plague stands alone because the relationship to passover.

In our lives God often works prior to our salvation experience to build our testimony, begin to make us aware of His power, and begin to convict us of our sin. One of the key take home lessons as God rocks a person’s world in working out their early salvation is that it may get worse before it gets better. If you pray for someone in bondage to sin, then you may see big problems before you’ll see God’s solution in their life.

Exodus and Salvation - Lesson 2

Moses eventually renounces his position as the son of Pharaoh. He gave up power and authority. This is analogous to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness when the enemy of your soul offered Him everything if He would bow down and worship him. Moses chooses to suffer with the people of God rather than enjoy sin for a little while. He valued God’s salvation over the riches of Egypt. All of this response was faith driven as Scripture tells us. God did remarkable things in the heart of Moses and there are many parallels with Christ.

God’s preparation of Moses teaches us things about our preparation for service to God as well. Moses spent years herding sheep so leading a group that is smelly and dumb was already on his resume and maybe because of that he wasn’t as eager to lead as he was when he was younger. Protesting isn’t a good thing but at least in Moses’ case it expressed a humility that had prepared him. Those who make wild claims about what they’ll do for God and forget that without God’s power they will not do good for God are bound for correction. That corner of the desert was good for Moses.

When Moses is before the burning bush, he asks God what he should say His name is when the Children of Israel ask (Exodus 4:13). This is when we learn one of the most wonderful but simple names of God. God tells him to say that “I am” sent him. The name has a weight of meaning that conveys I was, I am, and I always will be. It is such a comfort to know our God does not change and it faithful through all ages. Notice also that God began to act on behalf of the Israelites before they had a clue. They weren’t calling out in his name and Moses knew they would want to know who he was working for. The other great contrast here is that our God “is” while all other gods do not exist. He is eternally self existent. And when Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am” He was making a clear statement that He was God. The Jews didn’t miss it and picked up stones to kill Him.

Notice that God told Moses what was going to happen. God calls His shot in Exodus 3:16-22 but Moses doesn’t believe it. God says that “they will listen to your voice (3:18)” and Moses says “they will not believe me or listen to my voice”. We shouldn’t argue with God. I know I’ve done it and God is merciful to me; but even I probably wouldn’t directly contradict Him. I’d at least rephrase it. However, when you find yourself disagreeing with God (as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in Scripture) then please do the smart thing and admit you’re wrong. However, here is an encouragement to serving God. Moses wasn’t smart enough to avoid directly contradicting God and yet God used him and didn’t toast him where he was standing. God will use you as He pleases and you don’t have to be perfect before it will happen. Just repent when you make mistakes. If God ever decides to only use people who didn’t make mistakes then we could all just quit and go home now.

The Rod that Turns into a Snake
God gave Moses signs to show to the Israelites. First He gave Moses the sign of his rod that became a stake. Moses was taught a practical lesson. His rod or staff was his support. It helped him walk. When he was tired he leaned on it. So it was a picture of God’s Grace that when cast away reveals the danger we’re in from the enemy of our souls. So Moses was taught that the staff, as a picture of God’s Grace was something to lean on constantly.

The other aspect is the picture of rule and authority. The Lord has said that the day will come when He will rule the nations with a rod of iron. So in the casting down we see delegation of rule and authority and the picture in particular of the corruption and evil in Egypt oppressing the Israelites. Moses, as God’s representative, had no problem taking it up again. The rod never slips from God’s hand and God never has trouble taking it up again. We can trust completely in God’s sovereignty over this world.

The Leprous Hand
The second sign was found when Moses put his hand inside his shirt and pulled it out and found it leprous. Secondly, he did it again and found it healed (Exodus 4:6-8). Leprosy was seen as a symbol of sin and is used in that way here. It was obviously a demonstration of God’s power to send and cure a disease that would then mean that He could save the Israelites from Egypt. Our hands are not fit to serve God apart from His Grace. We are sinners by nature and corrupt our work for God with sin. So if God says show me your hands then I know that in my flesh, there is sin and I’m not fit to serve Him. But the second time that Moses pulled his hand out and it was clean shows that God will use us by His Grace. He cleanses us and purifies our work and receives it by His Grace. We corrupt our work for God. We can acknowledge in our head that a good work is a work done at God’s direction, when He directs it, in the way He directs it, and with no thought but for His glory. However, in practice, we are veteran high fivers who think we need God to pin a gold star on every time we get lucky and do something halfway right. Oh well, it is humbling to see how easy our hearts depart from serving God in holiness but don’t forget the second picture of the hand that was healed and looked perfect. God will purify our works. Just repent when you sin and seek God with your whole heart by His Grace.

Nile Water to Blood
The Nile was life to Egypt. It was in a real way worshipped by the Egyptians. So for Moses to take water from the thing that brings them life and wealth and turn it into blood on dry land turns a blessing into a curse. Instead of life you get death.

So this is a solemn warning. If you reject God’s rule and authority, if you refuse healing from sin, then God warns that good things will become bad things in your life. Even the blessing of life isn’t a blessing anymore if you die without Christ.

So Moses was the first man ever formally called by God to service. God prepared him without any formal training but he had 40 years as a Prince of Egypt and 40 years as a shepherd in the desert. However, God’s Grace was the real preparation for service. God dealt personally with Moses. God still deals personally with us and uses Scripture to teach us His will. God enabled Moses by giving him what he needed for the task he was called to do. Moses’ response, which is often like our response, is that we aren’t suitable for the job. We actually raise an irrelevant objection and display more trust in just about anything than God’s ability to do His will.

Moses finally decides to obey God. But when he goes to do the decent thing and let his father-in-law know what he needed to do he just says he needs to go see his brothers.

God shows His foreknowledge in Exodus 4:21-23. God will use a wicked man according to his wicked nature and there is nothing he can do to effectively stop the plans of God. How would you surprise God? He knows for certain how Pharaoh will act but Pharaoh is making real decisions and God is not just predicting the future behavior of Pharaoh. God stands outside time and sees the end from the beginning. His knowledge is perfect and He knows not just all that will be (because He sees it) but also all that could be. We’ll talk more about God’s sovereignty as we work through Romans in a few weeks.

A few verses indicate the gravity of our roles as men in families in Exodus 4:24-26. Moses had not circumcised his son by Zipporah. There is some room for questioning if the one in danger of death was Moses or his son but since Zipporah is the one who finally circumcises her son it looks like the judgment fell on Moses. Zipporah wasn’t happy about but then Moses and his household was ready to move on into Egypt. It is not reasonable to think that this came as a surprise to either Moses or Zipporah. From the response of Zipporah it looks like it was a longstanding problem the just couldn’t last in the kind of work that the family was moving into. It is a real challenge to men to live godly lives and represent biblical principles in their family. The child involved was probably his firstborn named “Gershom” and Moses had obviously neglected his responsibilities. We have biblical responsibilities too and God expects us to be aware of those and to fulfill them. We no long have circumcision as a sign of our covenant relationship but scripture teaches us how to lead our children into a covenant relationship with God and just like Moses we shouldn’t neglect our family even for a ministry.

Exodus and Salvation - Lesson 1

As we begin our study of Exodus over the next few weeks I want us to be reminded of why we study the Old Testament. God has promised us that;

2 Tim 3:16-17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

So since God has said it that should be the end of it but I find that most people spend much more time in the New Testament than in the Old Testament and I’m included in that. It is really short sighted because the Old Testament books give us context for the Gospel revealed in the New Testament. Genesis has a bunch to say about the doctrine of election. Exodus is primarily focused on the doctrines associated with election and redemption. These books are primarily history books but God teaches doctrine and foreshadows the details of the Gospel.

As second book in the Bible it takes the number for division and opposition. So we find lots of divisions and separations described in the book. The primary doctrine in Exodus is redemption and the division that occurs there. The doctrine isn’t explained explicitly but God uses an illustration to teach us and you need to remember that God is teaching us spiritual things and not just historical things in these historical books.

I’ll be referring from time to time to a bible teacher named Arthur W. Pink. I was teaching on this topic a few years ago and Francis McClendon (now Francis Rice) asked afterwards if I had been reading from Pink. Well I hadn’t but I did after she asked that. He has tremendous depth and clarity and Francis was being very kind to insinuate that my lesson sounded like Pink had contributed. You can still get his works and I’d recommend him as a resource for Bible study.

Although we will go into more detail, Pink has the following short list of symbols to be found in Exodus:

1) Israel in Egypt illustrates the place we were in before Divine grace saved us.

2) Egypt symbolizes the world, according to the course of which we all walked in time past.

3) Pharaoh, who knew not the Lord, who defied Him, who was the inveterate enemy of God's people, but who at the end was overthrown by God, shadows forth the great adversary, the Devil.

4) The cruel bondage of the enslaved Hebrews pictures the tyrannical dominion of sin over its captives.

5) The groaning of the Israelites under their burdens speaks of the painful exercises of conscience and heart when convicted of our lost condition.

6) The deliverer raised up by God in the person of Moses, points to the greater Deliverer, even our Lord Jesus Christ.

7) The passover-night tells of the security of the believer beneath the sheltering blood of God's Lamb.

8) The exodus from Egypt announces our deliverance from the yoke of bondage and our judicial separation from the world.

9) The crossing of the Red Sea depicts our union with Christ in His death and resurrection.

10) The journey through the wilderness—its trials and testings, with God's provision to meet every need—represent the experiences of our pilgrim course.

11) The giving of the law to Israel teaches us the obedient submission which we owe to our new Master.

12) The tabernacle with its beautiful fittings and furnishings, shows us the varied excellencies and glories of Christ.

We will use the big picture of the people of Israel to look at our salvation and to praise God again for what He has done in every believer’s life and especially today for each of us to thank Him for His work in our lives. Think about Isaiah 61:3 for a minute:

Isaiah 61:3
To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

Salvation is God’s work and we become the trees of righteousness planted by God in which He and He alone is glorified. Beauty, joy, and praise are to be your characteristics. You are clothed in the righteousness of His Son so you are beautiful before God, your sins against God are forgiven in this beauty and so you have joy, and the natural response of a heart in this condition is praise.

Today we start to follow the Children of Israel from Egypt into the Promised Land. Today I want you to consider the Children of Israel corporately as a picture of you before and after your salvation as God moves them from Egypt to the Promised Land.

Exodus 1:13-14
So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage— in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

Bondage was the character of their service in Egypt and it was enforced with rigor so that they had bitter lives. It is a tradition to eat bitter herbs at Passover as a reminder of how things were.
Remember that as Genesis ends Jacob and his family settled in Egypt. After about 30 years they seem to have become enslaved. The Egyptians didn’t like shepherds and it may have grown from there. Maybe the Egyptians were threatened by the way God cared for the Israelites. So they entered into bondage for 400 years. It is natural to wonder about why God would wait 400 years to take them out of Egypt. Pink offers a few possibilities. First, they grew into a nation that was big enough to face the task of the Promised Land. Second, the Amorite’s sin grew and was fully ready for judgment. Thirdly, the sins of Joseph’s brothers was judged by God to the fourth generation.

Fourthly, this built Egypt as a picture of our bondage in sin before our redemption by God. Egypt is a different kind of place. The Nile and the desert make it what it is and at that time it was a tremendous civilization. The nation is shaped by a river that periodically overflowed and renewed the fertility of their soils along with desert on either side. So you lived in a civilized place, in bondage, with desert on both sides. The Scriptural name for Egypt is Mizraim meaning “double straitness” because of the two strips on each side of the river. They don’t look up for their living. They look down and at the river. They don’t depend on it raining from heaven on their fields. Imagine telling them that “God sends His rain on the just and the unjust” and the blank stares from the people of those days. They depend on rain in Ethiopia. They are, in a sense, disconnected from “the heavens” for their living. When the children of Israel go to Canaan they will learn to look up and be dependent on what falls from heaven rather than independent. This is what we learn after our salvation. You’ve got to stop looking down and start looking up. You move from independence to dependence. It isn’t always pretty but that is what God will do in your life.

Arguably the greatest literary monument from Egypt is titled “The Book of the Dead”. Beautiful art, great science, a true civilization but dead. Vanity or uselessness is what we have apart from a life lived before the face of God. You can embalm death and dress it up with gold but a remarkably well preserved corpse is still a corpse.

It seems likely that the new Pharoah may have been Assyrian rather than Egyptian who began the particular persecution designed to kill all the male children born to the Israelites. He patterns the enemy of our soul (Gen 3:15) as he demonstrates the “enmity” against the woman and her Seed.

It was such a severe bondage that the rulers could demand that every male child will be killed at birth and no rebellion took place. If you can just imagine what kind of bondage it would be place on a people that they wouldn’t rebel at a ruling like that. They saw no way out of bondage.

John 8:33-36
They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

You were in bondage just as severe and most of you, just like the Pharisees, would have argued about it too.

Ephesians 2:12 that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

You had no hope. If you were saved as a child you may have little or no recollection of this. Maybe you never really recognized your state as either a child or an adult. However, that doesn’t change the truth. You were a slave to sin without any hope of freedom or any real knowledge of the depth of your bondage.

Exodus 2: 23-25 Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.

God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He didn’t remember the merit of the Israelites or their qualities that would make them valuable and useful if He saved them. They had no quality He needed to accomplish His plans. He remembered what He said He would do. And He was faithful to His word.

In preparing Moses for the task of taking the Israelites out of Egypt, God developed the most unique individual between Adam and Jesus. Here is a brief list of some of the contrasts in the life of Moses.

1) He was the child of a slave, and the son of a queen.
2) He was born in a hut, and lived in a palace.
3) He inherited poverty, and enjoyed unlimited wealth.
4) He was the leader of armies, and the keeper of flocks.
5) He was the mightiest of warriors, and the meekest of men.
6) He was educated in the court, and dwelt in the desert.
7) He had the wisdom of Egypt, and the faith of a child.
8) He was fitted for the city, and wandered in the wilderness.
9) He was tempted with the pleasures of sin, and endured the hardships of virtue.
10) He was backward in speech, and talked with God.
11) He had the rod of a shepherd, and the power of the Infinite.
12) He was a fugitive from Pharaoh, and an ambassador from heaven.
13) He was the giver of the Law, and the forerunner of grace.
14) He died alone on Mount Moab, and appeared with Christ in Judea.
15) No man assisted at his funeral, yet God buried him.”

Moses’ mother acted in faith and did not act in fear in placing Moses in the basket. We learn that in Hebrews. It is reasonable to assume that God instructed Moses’ parents. Most of the time I think we see this placing of Moses in the basket as an act of desperation but Scripture tells us that it was not.

This passing through the water can be seen as a sort of baptism. In any natural way it would be assumed to be putting the child to death but instead the child comes up royalty. This “death and resurrection” picture works as Moses is a picture of Christ’s death and resurrection. We’ll see additional pictures of this in Moses’ life.

MiM - Lesson 12

Chapter 22
Leading a Secret Thought Life

I think each of us will be continually challenged in our thought life. Men in particular immersed in a culture of lust will be challenged. Anyone exhibiting self control in our current culture is viewed with suspicion. If you were to live a celibate life without marriage you would be viewed with suspicion in this world. In most cases the world at large would assume that you were lying.

Jesus made it clear that we must live lives that are consistent in thought and action. Sins of the heart are sins. Jesus said that to look at a woman in order to lust after her (to think about her sexually) was sin. He raised the bar of obedience to include purity of heart. Actually, He didn’t change anything but it was news to the Pharisees because the pharisaical heart is concerned only with outward behavior.

We must call our hearts into question at this point or we’ll be doing the same thing. You’ll be challenged repeatedly to enter into a sinful thought life. We have to realize that sinful thoughts are to be repented of. Your thought life is not your private domain. When you sin then you repent. God sees it all and you hide nothing from him. If you don’t repent from a sinful thought life then you may as well line up with the Pharisees as a white washed sepulcher. Eventually what is on the inside will find the way to the outside.

Matthew 5:27-30
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Jesus commands a ruthless attack on your thought life. You take a knife and cut out anything that causes sin. It would be easier if it was our eye or hand that was the root cause. You are supposed to put your sinful nature to death. You need to do it with enthusiasm and not as if you were losing your favorite pet.

I truly is, as Morley and Scripture says, a battle for your mind.

Romans 7:21-25
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

The Bible teaches us that our struggle is to walk in the Spirit and not to walk in the flesh. It is not to escape condemnation. The Cross has moved us from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light. For the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death. We are in a struggle but we know that God has not left us alone.

We need to draw the distinction between the temptation to sin (not sin) and the sin that can occur when we allow temptation to become full grown. When an observation becomes an abnormal preoccupation then it has crossed the line into sin. We have some control over out thoughts. We can entertain or we can rebuke and think on other things too.

Morley quotes Dwight L. Moody as saying, “When Christians find themselves exposed to temptation they should pray to God to uphold them, and when they are tempted they should not be discouraged. It is not a sin to be tempted; the sin is to fall into temptation.”

When we fall into temptation we entertain the temptation and allow it to grow. We do not cut out the problem. In contrast we allow the problem to be nurtured and we give up the struggle. This is a heart problem and it isn’t even necessarily noticeable to others.

This can result in a variation in visibility of our sins as well as a variation in our awareness of them.

We are unaware of some visible sins. The way we treat those that we are closest too is often something we don’t examine so we are not aware of our behavior and yet others see it clearly.

We are aware of some visible sins. For example, something may make us curse and that is visible to others as well as something we are aware of generally just after we do it.

Some sins are low visibility and also things that we are unaware of. An example would be pride which we discussed only a few weeks ago.

We may also sin in ways that are not visible but we are aware of. This is the arena in which lust and the secret thought life live and with which we struggle.

Our thought life is simply not outside the Lordship of Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

The context is Church discipline along with apostolic authority but don’t breath a sigh of relief … you are the Church and you are steward of your heart.