Category: Blog

Our 2015 Spring Bible Conference will focus on God’s purpose in our pain. Our guest preacher, Rocky Wyatt, has chosen as his theme, “Don’t Waste Your Pain.”

On the surface, I see at least two general observations we can draw from this theme. First, in this fallen world, some degree of pain is inevitable; you will have pain. And second, your pain has value that may be lost to you or squandered if not properly used.

It’s not too surprising that the first time pain is mentioned in the Bible is immediately after the fall in Genesis 3. It was God’s prediction of future pain in childbirth. In addressing the woman, God told Eve that as a result of her sin…

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.”

There can be no doubt that all pain is traced back to the fact that sin has entered the world. Pain touches all of us. We will experience pain whether as a direct result of personal sins committed or as an indirect result of being fallen creatures in a fallen world.

From the curse in Genesis 3:16, we find there is an element of pain built-in to bringing every new life into the world for women. And once that new person enters the outside world, pain becomes a recurring factor to the end.

Like most other people in the world, we Christians do our best to avoid pain. We also pray that God will deliver all kinds of hurting people from its excessive presence every week.

It’s considered unnatural and unhealthy to seek pain or to enjoy inflicting it upon others. Yet in this life, there’s no need to seek it; pain will always find you – in varying degrees, and times, and places.

We typically teach our children to avoid various kinds of destructive pain often by employing a strategic form of constructive pain. Physical discipline is necessary for this training. Pain in this life is a great educator if we are wise enough to learn its lessons.

Yet whether we learn a lesson about God and His world from the consequences of our own sinful choices, or from the unsought effects of living in a fallen world, either way pain becomes a great instructor for every wise human being.

There are both wise and foolish people in pain’s classroom every day. The wise are always learning and growing throughout their time in that place; but the foolish spend their time cursing the instructor and missing the valuable lessons being taught.

This is not in any way to suggest that the lessons of pain are pleasant or easily learned. I have often been that fool raging against my own pain and I’m slowly learning even now.

I don’t want any of us to miss the lessons God is teaching us here. My hope and prayer is that we will all pay closer attention to what God is showing us and teaching us in our pain.

Let’s ask our Lord to use this conference and our speaker to do just that.

Until every tear is wiped away,
Pastor Kevin

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April 12, 13 & 14 at Providence Baptist Church

April 12 – Sunday Morning (10:45 a.m.):
“Pain and Faith – A Critical Revelation”   (1 Peter 1:6-9)

April 12 – Sunday Evening – Dinner: 5:30 – Service: 7 p.m.
“The Believer’s Pain and the Unbeliever’s Benefit”   (1 Peter 3:13-17)

April 13 – Monday Evening (7 p.m.):
“Comfort in the Life of the Church”   (2 Cor 1:1-11)

April 14 – Tuesday Evening (7 p.m.):
“Personal Suffering – A Path to Sin or Sanctification?”  (1 Peter 4:1-6)

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The great light of God’s mercies are most clearly seen against the dark backdrop of suffering and affliction. This past year was a season of great trial and spiritual growth for our church. It was a year of both heights and depths.

Our church family not only studied the entire book of Romans (one of the heights) while continuing our verse-by-verse exposition of the Gospel of Mark (another height), we also experienced many illnesses, hard diagnoses, and losses. All the while, God has been good and gracious to us in these trials and afflictions.

I wanted to take a moment to review where we’ve been as we move further into 2015.

One year ago, in February 2014, I woke up mostly blind across the middle of my left eye. A blood vessel apparently died from a lack of oxygen and circulation. Ophthalmologists said my left optic nerve was “swollen off the charts.” It has since returned to normal size, but with no improvement of vision.

In all of this, I have lost 70% of my overall vision in that eye. I haven’t had any changes of vision — good or bad — since that loss, but I am making adjustments.

This blindness had nothing to do with my overall health. I’m told there was nothing I could have done to prevent this from happening. In other words, it was simply God’s will for this to happen for His glory. It’s all part of His good purpose for me, my family, and our church. Some of God’s purposes are already becoming more evident; but others will only be correctly evaluated in the eternal realm of God’s glorious purpose.

One of the Puritans put it like this: “Many of God’s providences are like Hebrew letters – they can only be correctly read in reverse.” Yet we cannot wait until we have full understanding of everything to give glory to God. So we must trust Him and praise Him now.

At present, there’s nothing doctors can do to improve or restore my vision; but we continue to pray for God’s healing, if it is His good pleasure to do so.

In the meantime, I’ve been learning new ways of accomplishing mundane daily tasks as well as new ways of getting my pastoral work done in preparation for preaching and other related tasks. I’m no longer able to drive at night – my wife (or other friends) must now do that for me.

I can’t read printed books for long spans without extreme vision fatigue and headaches. Most of my reading must now be done on a backlit screen (computer or iPad), for which I’m very grateful. So I’ve had some adjustments to make.

However, I wasn’t the only one who experienced difficulty and loss in 2014.

Shortly after this blindness occurred in my life, other members of our church family began to receive difficult medical diagnoses — cancers, respiratory infection, a heart-attack, and other waves of general illness and loss throughout our church.

For a while, it seemed like wave after wave of physical assaults were striking us. Shakespeare wrote, “When trials come, they come not single-spy but in battalions.”

Yet in all of these trials and afflictions, God has been our Rock. He has sustained us.

We are not forsaken. He has even made our fellowship stronger, our witness purer, and our members more loving as we pray for each other in these difficult times. There has also been a greater awareness of our human frailty and the brevity of this life.

This past year was a time of tears and of weeping with those who weep in our church. Several in our church are still battling life-threatening illnesses day by day.

But in this fallen world of sin and decay, we know that bad things are going to happen… we just don’t know what they will be, or when, or where. And that ignorance is a blessing.

So our trust in this life cannot be in our circumstances, or in our health, or in our job security, or even in our friends who surround us in these perilous times.

Rather, as the Apostle Paul wrote at the end of Romans 8, “…In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.^ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ^ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

For that reason, our hope is now and always in the Lord.

Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Pastor Kevin

 

 

In the first installment of this blog series on our spiritual appetites we considered what the Apostle Peter is saying in 1 Peter 2:1-3 that when we feed the appetite for the flesh, we destroy our appetite for the things of God.

That covers verse 1. Then in verses 2-3, we learn that when we desire the things of God, we grow in the ways of God.

The text says,

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, — (and he adds a conditional clause) if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

This verse tells us about a Christian’s attitude, appetite, and aim. “Like newborn infants,” describes the Christian’s attitude toward the word of God.

Peter is taking us all down to the nursery window and he’s pointing to a little baby at feeding time. He says, “Now watch that little baby for a minute.” Watch how his mouth desires life-giving milk from his mother. That’s a picture of a believer’s spiritual hunger and desire for God’s Word.

Peter then looks at us and says, “That’s the attitude you should have toward God’s word… drawn to it, reaching for it.” “Long for the pure spiritual milk”, this is the appetite we should have toward God’s word.

This phrase “long for” means to “desire” with the implication of recognizing a hunger or absence while yearning to fulfill it. You have a deep need that can only be satisfied by God Himself. The spiritual food you seek as a believer is the Word of God.

We are told to long for the pure spiritual milk, which refers to God’s Word, the Bible.

“Pure” milk meant that it hadn’t been mixed with anything else; this word for pure was used in business documents for sales of unadulterated foods. A person who knows Christ will have a hunger—a desire for the undiluted Word of God.

When a baby doesn’t have an appetite after several hours, there’s something dangerously wrong. Likewise, when a Christian doesn’t have an appetite for the things of God, there’s something dangerously wrong.

Peter alludes to what might be wrong in verse 3. Remember the conditional clause? “…if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” It’s almost like Peter is saying, “If you’ve ever come to Christ, then you know what I’m saying here is true. You know. You’ve tasted.”

At this point I know someone must be thinking about what it means to desire the word of God. After all, many times even Christians do not feel an all-consuming desire to study the word of God. I feel that way in my own life from time to time.

Is Peter saying that if I don’t desire God’s word with 100% allegiance all the time, then I’m not a Christian? Well, if that’s the case then none of us are safe.

In my own life I’ve noticed there are seasons of desire when I feel great hunger for God’s word. During these times my prayers seem like a fluent dialogue with the Father.

But then there are also desert times when desire ebbs low. There have been times when I’ve felt so spiritually ineffective that I’ve said, “Lord, I need Your help right now. If You don’t minister to me, there’s no way I can minister to others.”

I believe there are various seasons of desire. There is a winter of desire that corresponds to the summer of desire.

The question then is not “Do you have a 100% desire for the things of God all the time”, but rather do you have any desire for the things of God at any time? Or even, are you at least willing to be made willing as you hear God’s Word?

The good news in these low ebb times of our spiritual journey is that if you have any desire or inclination toward the things of God—that desire was put there by your Father in heaven. Only God can initiate that true desire for His Word.

We must cultivate it, but only God can initiate it. And that’s the good news during those low ebb times when our desire seems to wane.

Peter is telling us that not only can we be satisfied in God… he’s telling us that we must be satisfied in God. This is now our priority above all else in this life. He’s telling us that if anyone has truly tasted of the bounties of our Lord, there’s no way they’ll want to turn back to the scraps of worldliness and sin as a regular pattern of living.

It doesn’t mean we won’t continue to struggle with the deeds of the flesh. That battle continues for the rest of this life. The real question is: have you ever tasted?

If a person hasn’t tasted that the Lord is good and gracious, it’s no mystery that there’s no appetite for the things of God in their life. This lack of appetite speaks of the person who feels no desire for the things of God at any time.

In the physical realm, birth predicates the desire to feed.

Likewise, in the spiritual realm new birth (or regeneration) predicates the desire to know Christ as He is revealed in Scripture. The appetite for spiritual food naturally follows spiritual birth.

To have spiritual life is to desire spiritual nourishment. Your appetites in life tell people about your spiritual life. Our appetites send a silent message that speaks louder than words to family, friends, and those around us.

The old saying goes, “Your talk talks and your walk talks. But your walk talks louder than your talk talks.”

My prayer for you is that your appetites and desires will show your value for Jesus Christ and His written Word, the Bible.

With joy in Christ,
Pastor Kevin
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In the previous blog, we began considering Peter’s warning to believers about our appetites for true spiritual nourishment – namely the pure milk of the Word.

There are many new behaviors to embrace that we may grow into Christian maturity. But before we can add virtuous habits, we must first remove various sinful vices.

The first vice we must remove is malice, which we considered in the previous blog. After malice, he mentions deceit.

Both the ESV and the NIV translate this word as “deceit,” while the NASB and KJV use the word “guile.” “Deceit” or “guile” hides the unworthy motive it seeks to promote. It refers to cunning and treachery.

When you make someone think something is false when it’s true or true when it’s false, you are practicing deceit. Peter warns believers to put deceit away from you.

Then he mentions hypocrisy. Hypocrisy pretends to be righteous when it’s not. It’s been said, “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

With its origin in Greek theater, a hypocrite is a two-faced individual; someone who changes masks depending on the audience and the message he desires to convey.

Peter says, put hypocrisy away.

Then there is envy. Envy creates sorrow that others have what we have not. “Envy” is the infection produced by the wound of comparison; it resents the good that comes to others and slowly destroys the one who harbors it.

Finally, the word “slander” or the phrase “evil-speakings” (KJV) means to hurt another to promote or advance one’s self. Evil speech is the literal meaning behind this word, related the evil of the tongue.

These are selfish sins which God hates; each of us must deal with these vices in ourselves… and put them away.

Peter is writing to believers in Christ about the lifelong process of laying aside lesser things that we may desire better things.

The word of God and the deeds of the flesh work against each other. The more we desire one the less we’ll be influenced by the other and the less we’ll desire the other, as a general rule.

What Peter is saying is—the process never ends until we’re in glory. That is, there will never be a time in this life on earth that we won’t need to lay aside the deeds of the flesh in order to foster a hunger for the things of God.

Peter’s words are addressed to all Christians at every level of maturity. Even though Peter says in verse 2 “Like newborn infants…” he’s not talking about new Christians who are “infants” in Christ… though it can certainly apply to new believers; he’s talking about the attitude that ought to characterize every Christian at every age.

It’s the attitude of desire for the Word of God… an appetite that masters the believers’ choices and priorities in life.

For example, is there ever a time in the Christian walk when we shouldn’t lay aside the deeds of the flesh? Does God ever say, “Well, you’ve been so faithful for so long, I guess it’s okay for you to sin away your last few years on earth.” No! Heaven forbid! Why forfeit the race when you’re so close to the finish line?

Likewise, is there ever a time when God doesn’t expect Christians to earnestly desire the pure milk of the word? Certainly not. These words are for all Christians.

One of the most gripping examples of the importance of daily time in God’s Word came from a friend of mine in the pastorate.

He told me of a Bible teacher who had a powerful influence on him in his early Christian life. This man had memorized several books of the Bible, taught Sunday school classes, and led city-wide Bible studies for men and women for decades.

However my friend also remembered hearing this great Bible teacher brag in public that he had memorized so much of the Bible that he no longer needed to read it every day. And perhaps without this man’s awareness, he began to slowly and subtly drift from the shoreline of absolute truth, even though so many verses were stored in his head.

Eventually, this man walked away from his wife of 45 years and shipwrecked his ministry and ruined his reputation.

There is no substitute for daily communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep short accounts with God. We must pursue Christ with all of our heart as if our spiritual life depends on it… because it does.

In my own observation of these truths, I have to admit, these words seem especially relevant to Christians who have a testimony that has lasted for decades.

If you’ve been faithful to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for many years, don’t think the enemy of your soul doesn’t know it.

What a timely warning for mature Christians this is! Having run the good race for the glory of God for so long, wouldn’t the enemy love to make you stumble on the last leg of the race?

We’ll consider how to avoid this and other pitfalls in our next installment.

Until then, stand firm,
Pastor Kevin

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Have you ever gone out to eat at a restaurant and arrived so hungry that you began filling your stomach with the toasted bread they put on the table as an appetizer?

When that warm basket of fresh bread is sitting there on the table and your stomach is empty, it takes real discipline to restrain yourself. So often, one bite leads to another.

Each time I fill up on appetizer bread, I later regret that I didn’t restrain myself and save room for the main course.

Now, filling up on appetizer bread is one thing, but in our spiritual and mental life, the problem becomes far more serious. All of us have appetites and desires that drive us to make the choices we make. Our hearts and minds hunger. However, as we’ve seen, that which is most readily available to us is rarely the best thing for us.

When it comes to our spiritual appetite, the world, the flesh, and the devil strive constantly to satisfy and deaden our spiritual appetites with carnal substitutes.

John Piper calls these substitutes the “white bread of secularism.” We grab for these rather than cultivate a desire for the rich and exquisite bounties of God contained in His Word.

The apostle Peter knew this danger. He was concerned that some Christians might fill up on the scraps of sin which are as convenient as free bread at a restaurant. That’s why he wrote these words in 1 Peter 2:1-3.

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. ² Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— ³ if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. [ESV]

Peter is writing about two different choices to satisfy two different appetites.

On one hand, there’s the convenient table filled with the appetizers of sin right there in verse one. But if we lay these aside, we can then choose to be satisfied on the bounties that God provides through His word and we’ll grow and that’s verse two.

Look at verse one. “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander…” Each of the words in this list are related to a toxic form of self-love. It’s a picture of self-love that is ingrown and infected.

The first word on Peter’s list is “malice.” Malice is wickedness manifested by hateful feelings with the intent to hurt another person through harmful words or deeds.

Webster’s dictionary defines malice as a “desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another person.” The Greek word is kakia which refers not so much to the act as it refers to the depraved nature behind the act.

Every evil on this vice-list is resident within our fallen nature. Even believers in Christ sometimes yield to the sins of our old nature.

That’s why Peter, writing to believers exhorts us to “put away” these sins. If they weren’t within us, there would be no reason for this exhortation. So malice is the first sin with which he deals.

We’ll consider more from this passage in an upcoming blog.

For His Glory,
Pastor Kevin

 

This past month has found many among our members in sickness, brokenness, and with extended hospital stays. The physical needs in our small church have been especially great in these current days.

Every week, various forms of affliction and suffering make it onto our weekly prayer list and we are all eager to have our health needs lifted before the throne of grace by others in the church. It is good and right to do this.

Yet it’s also true that suffering comes in many different forms. Only a small portion of our suffering is physical and we may share those needs with greater liberty as they arise.

But other forms of suffering are not as easy to share. These include the realms of spiritual, emotional, and relational suffering. We need to address this common form of suffering lest any of us feel alone when just the opposite is true.

Many Christians are reluctant to openly share these deeper forms of suffering with the church. Yet they are perhaps the most common and the most debilitating forms of suffering we may experience from day to day.

Whether we feel free to share these needs with others or not, God is fully aware of every form of suffering that broods within our hearts. None of our suffering or grief is ever wasted by our wise heavenly Father. He knows it all and He sees it all.

Philippians 1:29 says, “It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake.”

Suffering “for His sake” is about suffering because we belong to Jesus and are actively living faithfully for Him in this sinful world. This is suffering for the gospel itself.

Suffering is actually a form of grace that brings us into greater conformity to the image of our Savior. And we rejoice in Christ that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18)

Near to the very heart of the gospel message is the promise that all who follow Christ Jesus will experience suffering of various kinds in this life.

No suffering is desirable. But in my experience, it has been much easier to deal with the ongoing daily struggles of a chronic illness – and even partial blindness in one eye – than to deal with the more private, emotional struggles that weigh on my heart from day to day that are not as easy to admit or share with others. But the reality of it is undeniable.

It’s easy to categorize our struggles and think that there are “respectable” forms of suffering and “un-respectable” forms of suffering. But I’m not sure that’s a biblical distinction to make. Every kind of suffering that enters our lives is a part of our human experience in this fallen world, even as faithful followers of Christ. It’s just that some suffering is more internal and therefore closer to our heart.

It may be that a deep inner sadness or a grief that is undefinable and unexplainable seems to suggest a spiritual deficit or some kind of personal inadequacy, thus leading to greater discouragement and a growing sense of privacy.

Our own relational experience may have led us to believe that such physical afflictions as blindness or cancer are “acceptable” to share, but that internal struggles like depression or discouragement are not.

One key distinction here is that the physical forms of suffering affect only the body; while the emotional, mental, and spiritual forms of suffering touch our soul.

Soul suffering is not visible or obvious. It’s also not as easy to address. And yet the Word of God is able to go where no medical doctor can go… and its cure is genuine.

“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.” [Hebrews 4:12]

We are very grateful for the common grace of medicine. Yet medicine has its limits. The various prescription drugs that people can take for depression only deal with the symptoms, but they can’t deal with the underlying causes. The causes and sources of this inner kind of suffering are many and various. But God knows exactly what’s going on here and for what purpose. So often, His Word exposes those areas in our hearts.

If the darkness will not lift, our God remains faithful. If we cannot trace His hand, He remains present with us. If we cannot understand the cause or purpose behind it, we entrust ourselves to the One who does and we seek rest in Him until the darkness lifts.

If this has been your experience, you are not alone.

United with Christ in suffering,
Pastor Kevin

 

 

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“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”  Mark 9:42, ESV

In Mark 9:42 what our Lord is calling for is an extreme form of purity in our relationships with other people, but especially with other believers.

Jesus warns in this very severe statement that before you would lead another believer (represented by a little child) to sin, you would be better off dying an awful death by being drowned in the depths of the sea.

Such a death was considered by the Jews an offensive manner of death invented by the pagan Gentiles. So it was also offensive to these disciples who first heard this teaching, and yet it graphically illustrates the point Jesus is making.

Our Lord is talking about a radical fight against sin. The sin covered in verse 42 is to lead into impurity or temptation any believer in Jesus Christ… those who believe in Jesus.

To lead a Christian into sin is a heinous violation of God’s revealed will.

This warning reveals the protective love that God has for His people. He doesn’t want anything to bring harm or scandal to His people. All sin is deadly and destructive.

The word used here for “sin” is skandalizomi, “to be caught in sin, or to be trapped in sin; entrapped, “Whoever causes one… not a group, just one, and the one is emphatic…

It would be better (a comparative descriptor), it would be better for him if a great millstone (a mulos onikos) were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”

Mulos is a mule, and onikos is a stone. They used to grind grain using a mule.

There would be a massive stone and on top of that a round stone like a wheel that would roll around and crush the grain and be pulled by a mule. The stone would weigh tons.

So it would be better for you to have one of those stones tied around your neck and you be drowned in the depths of the sea than to lead another Christian into scandal or sin.

And this “causing a believer to sin” could happen in any number of different ways… both actively or passively. Therefore we must take active steps to help believers avoid sin.

It’s a horrifying comparison our Lord is using here about purity in our relationships.

In the parallel account of this teaching in Matthew 18, judgment is declared on the world for its stumbling blocks that led people into sin. This world is already under judgment.

And that same judgment is extended to anyone else, even to professing believers, who would lead another believer into sin. This warning is the strongest threat that Jesus ever made to those who are following Him or those who are called by His name.

So this is about radical purity in our relationships with other people, but especially with other believers. The consequences of leading another believer into sin are horrifying.

• Are you maintaining purity in your relationships with other people, especially other Christians?

• What actions can you take to promote greater delight among Christ’s people and greater freedom from impurity and temptations to sin?

The consequences of doing nothing are severe. The temptations around us are radical; so our fight against those temptations must also be radical.

For the supremacy of Christ,
Pastor Kevin

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Recently I met a fellow Christian dad at a Chick-fil-A  restaurant where our children were playing together in the enclosed area for toddlers.

After some small talk, he told me that he had been reading the devotional book, Jesus Calling: 365 Devotions for Kids to his little girls in the mornings.

Sounds harmless enough on the surface.

In fact, to most people, this sounds like a major step in the right direction as many Christian fathers say they’re “too busy” for such interactive devotional times with their growing children.

So kudos to this dad for striving to teach his children about God and for having a daily devotional time with them in the morning. May his tribe increase!

Yet there was also something here that troubled me.

It wasn’t the activity that concerned me; rather it was the chosen resources that many Christian parents are using and endorsing without much discernment or caution.

I’m reminded of the scene in Narnia where Edmund enjoys the Turkish delight candies offered by the White Witch. It tasted delicious… and he was seduced.

In true satanic fashion, the candy itself wasn’t harmful; but it was inescapably linked to something deadly to his soul when he continued to crave it.

The first appearance of evil and error is usually the most attractive and beguiling.

It seems that evangelical Christianity in America is growing sicker and weaker by the day. This is due to its imbibing and devouring a thousand delightful heresies.

Biblical discernment is like the spiritual immune system that recognizes error and avoids it. With little or no discernment, the American church has the equivalent of spiritual AIDS; no immunity against error.

I believe this lack of health and discernment in the church is directly related to a widespread lack of biblical exposition in most churches. They always go together.

Most preachers are apparently not explaining the Bible to people. And someone might ask, “Then what in the world are they doing with their open Bibles?”

Well, too often they are telling jokes, citing a verse here and there, then showing video clips from movies and sporting events to make their sermons seem more “relevant” and “cutting edge” (even though some of these video techniques have been used in sermons since the 1990s).

The point is that when Scripture isn’t properly explained, people aren’t hearing God’s voice from His Word and they begin to hunger for something to fill that emptiness.

The Christian publishing world is loaded with various resources designed to make money even when truth and accuracy are increasingly absent from the content.

So there’s a good reason why pastors like me are typically cautious whenever a new trendy book becomes wildly popular among the broadest range of religious readers.

It’s because almost without exception, these books either teach error directly which is in contradiction to Scripture, or as in the case with Sarah Young’s book, its premise is rooted in error from the outset, so it indirectly conveys error.

In Jesus Calling, this premise was clearly defined in the original preface to the book, written by Young herself. This original introduction has since been edited with entire paragraphs removed by Thomas Nelson Publishers.

The reason–it contained too many “red flags” for the discerning reader, so they removed or nuanced those parts and softened the language considerably.

Originally, Young wrote: “I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more.”

So she yearned for more than the Bible as a way of hearing from God. This is the premise that introduces the contents of everything that follows in Jesus Calling.

The enemy loves to fill that longing with something other than truth.

In the original introduction, Young gave high praise to the 1932 devotional book, God Calling which was the inspiration for her similarly titled book, Jesus Calling.

The 1932 God Calling book was edited by a British author (A. J. Russell) from the writings of two unnamed women who received their messages by an automatic writing process, an occultic practice associated with demonic activity.

This book comes across as a simple devotional book, but it’s filled with spiritual errors. The Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs says God Calling is “replete with denials of biblical teaching.” But Sarah Young began her writing journey with this book in mind.

Young’s original introduction said that God Calling “became a treasure to me,” and that it “dove-tailed remarkably well with my longing to live in Jesus’ Presence.”

The year after reading it, she writes, “I began to wonder if I, too, could receive messages during my times of communing with God.” Thus began her mystical quest for “more.”

Once we start looking for messages from God outside the Bible, we open ourselves to every satanic deception and they are filled with appeals to Scripture as messages of light.

Even the cultic Book of Mormon contains numerous direct quotes from the King James Bible that were copied verbatim by the original author and used by Joseph Smith. The book of Second Nephi alone contains 18 entire chapters from Isaiah!

Satan is all about using Scripture in order to market his deceptions. (See Matthew 4:6.)

The underlying premise of Jesus Calling is that “Scripture is good, but it’s not enough. It’s helpful, but insufficient. We need something fresher; something more.”

Apparently, thousands of misinformed and spiritually naïve readers have agreed. Others have bought into the book without inquiring about its origins or premise.

And all the while, Satan is calling with the alluring whisper that “Scripture isn’t sufficient; we need something more. You can have a vibrant devotional life outside of Scripture. You need to listen to the voice within.”

Meanwhile, Sarah Young’s 2004 book, Jesus Calling has become a runaway bestseller. In fact, this single book has now sold more than 10 million copies to date.

And that doesn’t include all of the spin-off versions for teens, women, and children. It has also been translated into 26 different languages. Thomas Nelson (the publisher) loves it!

So we’re talking about a very influential book here.

It is this phenomenal degree of influence and popularity that merits a higher level of concern and exposure for me as a pastor commanded by Christ to keep watch over His sheep and to shepherd His flock (1 Peter 5:2-3).

Anything I would write in a blog, I would freely say from the pulpit too.

However, the pulpit is best reserved for the preaching and teaching of God’s truth. After all, that’s the primary way God’s people are protected from these errors in the first place.

This is where I spend the great majority of my time. Yet sometimes, teaching God’s truth requires exposing popular errors in the Christian family because there are consequences.

I get concerned when I see any of Christ’s sheep eating the devil’s candy, even in small doses and even when they’re grazing in another under-shepherd’s pasture.

While most pastors might be reluctant to be as forthright as I am to call Sarah Young’s book harmful or dangerous, I’m once again compelled into an unpopular position by my convictions as a student of God’s Word.  It’s her premise that is dangerous!

Much of the content reads like a paraphrase of Scripture put into the first person as if the author were writing in the voice of Jesus Himself. But it’s a dangerous thing when one presumes to speak for Christ after concluding that His Word isn’t enough. One pastor says Young’s book “comes dangerously close to blasphemy.”

My pastoral heart breaks over the errors I see being embraced by so many professing Christians. But given the state of the church, I’m not at all surprised by its popularity.

As in Narnia, people in the church are craving for more and more of the White Witch’s tasty candy… and they are being seduced by the devil’s errors.

I’m further grieved by those within the church who criticize pastors who are obeying God’s command to “expose the unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:11).

Pastors who speak out regarding dangers to the church are going to be increasingly scorned by a naïve and error-loving population in the church… a population that has grown dull of hearing the Word and reluctant to think critically about anything.

I have nothing to gain and plenty to lose by warning Christians of this and similar devotional books, movies, trends, false teachers, etc. It’s certainly not the “in-thing” to warn people… but then, it never has been.

However, my desire for a healthier, more discerning church at large compels me.

For a return to Scripture,
Pastor Kevin

 

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   The New York Times bestseller, “Heaven is for Real” is now a popular movie. And many Christians are no doubt thrilled to see this movie in theaters.

But I’m not one of them… and I don’t recommend this movie to anyone who wants an accurate understanding of what heaven is really like. They won’t find it in this movie.

“Heaven is for Real” is about a four year old boy who reportedly slipped out of consciousness during an emergency surgery and saw glimpses of heaven full of graphic details.

The little boy’s dad is a pastor in Nebraska, so the book and movie have a number of biblical references and seem to go along with many basic evangelical truths.

Both this book and movie (like the Noah movie) have become very popular inside and outside of Christian circles. But are such accounts and depictions correct?

Is this movie a legitimate report of heaven? And the biblical answer is, no.

I can’t give a point-by-point treatment of each assertion or even a general review but, allow me to address the whole subject of personal experience books about heaven with some observations from Scripture.

With the exception of the resurrection of Jesus and the dead saints who came back to life after the resurrection mentioned in Matthew 27:52-53, there are only six people mentioned in the New Testament who died and then returned to the earth.

They are (1) the daughter of Jairus; (2) the son of the widow at Nain; (3) Lazarus; (4) Tabitha (a.k.a “Dorcas”); (5) Eutychus; and (6) the Apostle Paul.

These six are the only people mentioned in the New Testament who went to heaven and then came back, other than Jesus and the saints mentioned in Matthew 27.

The profound point to notice in this observation is that with the exception of the Apostle Paul and Christ Himself, not one of these people is ever quoted in the New Testament.

Now Paul is quoted and he even tells us that he went to the third heaven, but he never talks about anything he saw there (2 Cor. 12:2).

In fact, Paul specifically says in 2 Corinthians 12:4 that “he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.”

This is the apostolic teaching about reporting on things in heaven. Think about this!

The others who were raised from the dead are not even quoted once in the entire New Testament!

That’s especially noteworthy in the case of Lazarus, who was a close friend of Jesus. His sisters, Mary and Martha are both quoted, but Lazarus himself is never quoted. He isn’t quoted after he was raised from the dead… nor was he ever quoted BEFORE he died.

The same is true of each of the other four resurrected persons mentioned in the New Testament. They are never quoted. And there’s a reason for this emphasis.

As far as the New Testament is concerned, the only One who has ever gone to heaven and then returned to earth who has authority to speak about heaven is Jesus Himself.

No other Person is authorized by God to speak about life after death, or about heaven, or things to come, regardless of how sympathetic its author may be to Christian theology.

As a pastor, I know that many people are hurting from the loss of loved ones who have died. These individuals want to absorb every detail they can find about life after death and about heaven in particular.

Others are just curious and desire to know any details that aren’t given to us in Scripture. People are hungry for extra-biblical revelation about heaven and the afterlife.

Yet there’s also a particular danger for some who read these popular books who forget they’re reading extra-biblical experiences and may begin to hold the author’s presentation as if it had the weight of Scripture, when it doesn’t.

These subjective books may even become a replacement for what the Bible actually teaches about heaven.

Many times it seems the enemy will use the credibility of the Bible to market his lies and deceptions about life after death to our gullible culture. But don’t be deceived.

For these reasons, I won’t be reading the latest personal experience “I-died-and-went-to-heaven” books. Nor will I be recommending the movies based on such books.

These authors, regardless of their intent, are not authorized to speak on heaven. So their personal experiences are just that.

But the greater danger is that their reports of heaven are actually leading many people away from the truth about heaven revealed only in Scripture.

Therefore, let the reader (and moviegoer) beware!

Yours in the Truth,
Pastor Kevin

 

 

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“Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.” [Luke 11:34, ESV]

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about eyesight and the contrast between light and darkness these days.

Back in mid-February, I preached a sermon from the Gospel of Mark which included some teaching about suffering and looking to God’s sovereign purpose in it.

Later that same week, I woke up with partial blindness in my left eye. For the next several weeks, waves of panic began to come in the night.

Suddenly, I felt like I had gone from the mental portion of the lesson and straight into the field test. Yet God remains both sovereign and good in every way.

The fact is, nothing will ever enter our lives as believers that hasn’t been lovingly handed down to us by a nail-pierced hand. All that comes into our lives as believers is the outworking and application of Christ’s exceedingly good purpose for us.

Some of those purposes must include temporal pain and temporal losses.

For many years, we’ve sung the hymn “Amazing Grace” by John Newton. As you know, it has that wonderful line, “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”

And we understand Newton’s spiritual metaphor as Christ opening our eyes through regeneration. He makes us “see” in a spiritual sense. We were once blind to His grace and blind to His gospel, but now we “see” in that saving sense.

I love this spiritual sight! For over 35 years, I have enjoyed both physical sight as well as spiritual sight. Both forms of sight impact every part of my life from day to day.

Yet spiritual sight is far more valuable than physical sight alone.

In fact, those who are totally blind in a physical sense but have faith in Christ will behold His glory in His presence forever. They will see His glory with eternal vision. There are many beloved Christians who have borne witness to this fact through their physical blindness with joyful confidence in Jesus Christ.

However, those who say they can see and yet reject Christ and never gain spiritual sight, those people will suffer in outer darkness forever (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30).

But as wonderful as spiritual sight is, I’ve been learning through this recent suffering another lesson about God’s grace. It is this: there is a form of seeing and vision that is actually enhanced through physical blindness or any other form of suffering in this life.

Or to say it another way, all of our infirmities and physical pains have the potential to make us more diligent partakers of God’s grace in the common hours of daily life. And in that sense, all of these infirmities and trials become a rich form of God’s grace to us.

In my case, it has been this “blinding grace” that potentially enhances my spiritual sight.

Since the onset of my partial blindness, I’m now starting to “see” things that I never saw with two working eyes.

For example, I’ve seen more of the love that Christ’s people have for one another. I’ve seen the uplifting influence of praying people who tell me of their petitions on my behalf.

I’ve seen distant friends reach out and make contact again. And I’ve even seen a deepening of relational love and communication in my marriage.

It may very well be that my one blind eye is the best eye I have in ministry.

Don’t misunderstand, I still want God to heal my blindness and I continue to pray that He will. But I don’t want to forget the lessons He’s been teaching me through this affliction.

The scary truth is that God cares much more about the growth of our character than the preservation of our personal comfort. In fact, He will destroy the latter to enhance the former.

In that sovereign sense, God isn’t what we would call “safe.” In referring to Aslan, C.S. Lewis writes about Lucy’s question as to the great lion’s safeness.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Sometimes it is the trials that come our way that draw us closer to God and remind us that He is good… and sovereign. He’s the King, I tell you.

Some of us are dealing with great trials. Some are dealing with smaller trials that are difficult nonetheless. And others may not feel there are any trials at all right now.

In the grand spectrum of earthly woes, my partial blindness appears relatively small.

Yet wherever we fall on the spectrum, we can trust that though we might never understand it, God is actively working all these things out for our good (Romans 8:28).

What doesn’t seem good to me now may make sense later. Yet some things may never make sense in this life. This is why we need doctrine from God’s Word.

Doctrine (the teaching of Scripture) gives us assurance when the lights go out in life and when the affliction isn’t healed. Feelings can’t do that.

When I’m totally honest, I do want my vision back. And even when I’m not totally honest, I still want my vision back. And at the same time I want God to have glory.

The good news is that they’re not mutually exclusive. But even if they were, I’d ultimately choose a greater encounter with God’s glory over any temporal gain… even my sight.

For greater visions of His glory,
Pastor Kevin

“In every pang that rends the heart,
The Man of Sorrows had a part,
He sympathizes with our grief,
And to the sufferer sends relief.

With boldness, therefore, at the throne,
Let us make all our sorrows known;
And ask the aids of heavenly power
To help us in the evil hour.”

– Michael Bruce, circa 1764

 

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