Category: Blog

In the aftermath of violent storms and tornadoes, residents of Oklahoma have been in the national spotlight recently.

It’s touching to see so many people unite to help their devastated neighbors. 

In times like these, people often struggle to make sense of the sovereign work of God in the outworking of such storms and devastation. Yet God assures us, He is in control of this. 

God’s providences are mysterious from earth’s perspective – and often, like Hebrew sentences, they must be read in reverse.

And even in distant hindsight, we can still only correctly interpret their fullest meaning from heaven’s perspective. 

Even though we can acknowledge the value of human warnings and emergency shelters, the fact remains that God determines exactly what’s going to happen when any storm comes and He determines exactly who will be affected and to what extent. 

When a great wind storm struck the children of Job and killed them instantly (Job 1:18-19), he didn’t sin with his mouth; he didn’t charge God with wrong. He said,  “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The principle to note here is that God has not done anything wrong or violated anyone’s rights when people die in any way. Because of sin, death is prevalent. 

God does not need to be forgiven by anyone because God hasn’t done anything wrong when someone dies. We are all going to die in some way or another, and some of us will die sooner than others. In a fallen world, death is prevalent.

But God is so gracious to His fallen creation. The wondrous thing is that there isn’t more death around us every day due to sin and natural disasters. We are surrounded by daily mercies that are innumerable and totally undeserved. 

This is an expression of God’s common grace. 

However, we can become so accustomed to God’s grace and mercy that when anything interrupts that flow of blessing, we may feel and act as if we’ve been violated. 

Life and death are in His hands. To quote from Job 14:5, it says, “Our time on earth is brief; the number of our days is already decided by You.” [CEV]

And in Psalm 139, verse 16, “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” [ESV]

The day of my death and yours is already known.

Our death has already been determined by God. If you know and trust God, that’s a comforting thought for you; if you don’t, then it isn’t. But it means that not one adult or little baby ever dies prematurely according to God’s plan or purpose.

Sudden death appears very different from our limited, human perspective. But our comfort comes from remembering God’s perspective as revealed to us in Scripture. 

God knows the day and cause of our death from the beginning.

In James 4:14-15, it says “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.^ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 

The principle is, our lives are all very brief and transient compared to eternity. Life is very short; eternity is very long.

Before we are conceived, God knows the exact number of hours we will live; He knows the exact allotment of heartbeats in our chest and nothing – absolutely nothing – can alter that destiny.

God already knows how and when each of us will die. We can trust Him with our death and we must do so. None of us can add one cubit to the length of our days.

Should we worry or be anxious about death and its many causes? Jesus said in Matthew 6:27, “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

When people die, it’s usually not because they are more deserving of death than any of the rest of fallen humanity. None of us deserves to live any longer than anyone else.

God doesn’t owe us anything. None of us are entitled to a long or pain-free life. Such expectations are sure to disappoint.

But Jesus reminded everyone in Luke 13 that since death is a fact for all humanity, those who are still living must repent before death comes, lest we perish after we die.

All men die, but not all must perish after death.

Since any of us could be killed in a sudden calamity at any time, we should all repent and be reconciled to God before death. Now is the only time we have to repent. 

As Christians, our response when devastation and calamity happen to us is given in 1 Peter 4. It’s in verse 19 at the very end of the 4^th chapter, where Peter writes,

“Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.”

God is saying through Peter, that we should keep doing good while we still have life. Help the survivors, mourn with those who are grieving, and give to those who have any needs. 

Since things like this happen all the time, whether there are tornadoes or earthquakes or tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions we will see this kind of thing again and again in this life. 

The primary difference between believers and unbelievers during these situations is how we view God in the midst of suffering and devastation.

Natural disasters like this expose what people really think about God. 

Storms and calamities in this life have a way of correcting our presuppositions and expectations. This can be a very painful and jarring experience for some of us.

But all such corrections are manifestations of God’s grace to us. 

So as we mourn with those who are mourning, let us also think biblically about God and life and death and the storms that come to us. And let us repent while we still have life.

With love in the Truth,
Pastor Kevin

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   Because May is the month when Mother’s Day is celebrated, I wanted to share some encouraging thoughts about a mom who prays in this month’s blog. 

For starters, I was personally blessed by God to have a mom who prayed for me and with me from the earliest days of my childhood. She began storing God’s Word in my heart by sitting at my bedside and reading me the Bible as I prepared to go to sleep each night. 

And now I am doubly blessed to be married to a woman who, as a mom, now prays with her own children and reads the Bible to them every day. I’m married to a woman of prayer and great faith in a faithful God. 

There is no way to calculate the eternal value of these investments of time and patience. 

My paternal grandfather was a minister and his own mother was also a woman of great faith and prayer for her children. I was recently reminded of this by the pastor who officiated at my grandfather’s funeral. 

In a Mother’s Day devotional, he wrote about his recollections from my grandfather’s funeral which took place on January 15, 1995.

The thoughts he shares were spoken by my grandfather’s younger brother, Edwin Grant, about their mom and how prayer sustained her faith and shaped her home…

She lost her first two children.  One of them lived just a few days and the other for just two years.  Then she had three sons who lived to adulthood. 

In childbirth she suffered circulation problems in her legs.  For the rest of her life her legs were swollen and painful. 

Mrs. Grant loved Jesus and the church. 

In Mt. Vernon, Illinois, it was sort of a joke that no matter how deep the snow was on Sunday, you better hold church because Mrs. Grant and her three boys would be there.

Her husband was addicted to alcohol which caused him to lose the two grocery stores he owned.  Mr. Grant died prematurely mainly because of alcoholism. 

Mrs. Grant was left with the task of raising her three sons in near poverty. 

The boys recall coming in at night and trying to get to bed without turning on any lights; they often tripped over their mother’s feet as she knelt in prayer.

All three of those sons became pastors. 

The oldest, Lawrence, was a missionary to China.  The second was Charles, the founding pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis.  The third was Edwin, who pastored in Arizona.

Countless thousands of people have been influenced for Christ through the three Grant pastors, and the three of them were introduced to Jesus by a devout, praying mother.

It’s both humbling and encouraging for me to see how God has preserved my family through faithful moms who prayed for their children and taught them God’s Word. 

That baton has now been passed to a new generation. We must run our spiritual race with endurance and not lose hope! Keep making those little, daily investments. 

May the Lord bless more and more of our homes in this way!

With gratitude for faithful moms and a faithful Savior,
Pastor Kevin

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In Mark 5, verses 10-12 we have that scene where Jesus commands a legion of demons to leave a man and they enter a herd of about 2,000 pigs. Verses 10-12 say…

“And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. ^11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, ^12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.”

In verse 10, the demon speaking on behalf of the others begs Jesus not to send them out of the country. And in verse 12 the other demons are begging to enter the pigs.

This reference to a herd of pigs reminds us that this takes place in Gentile territory. Jews don’t raise pigs. They are considered unclean animals in a ceremonial sense. And the unclean spirits want to enter these unclean animals if they must leave.

Verses 10 and 12 are the first of three begging requests made of Jesus in this passage. It’s really the same request made in two different ways: “Don’t send us out of the country; but do send us into the pigs.” A negative request then a positive request.

We don’t know why these demons wanted to enter a herd of pigs. It clearly shows that Satan and the demons have to get permission from Jesus to do whatever they do.

Though fallen and evil, they are still under God’s authority… and they know it. We see this demonstrated in the book of Job as well. Demons are not autonomous.

But why a herd of pigs? Scripture doesn’t tell us the answer to this question.

A possible reason is that demons want to inflict as much damage and harm as possible, and a herd of frenzied pigs might allow that. So demons can possess animals for evil purposes, even though animals don’t have spirits; they can function in that way.

But as we’ll see in the next verse, it didn’t last for long. It was a short-lived relocation. Verse 13 says,

“So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.” 

This is such a graphic and dramatic scene! As I said, I have no idea why the demons begged Jesus to enter the pigs.

I know they want to be in physical bodies to do damage and to destroy and to kill. But when it comes to why Jesus gave them permission, I think the answer is a bit more obvious in Mark’s telling of this narrative.

Why would Jesus allow this?

Because as soon as Jesus cast the demons out of the man, it became obvious that the demons had in fact entered the herd of pigs. They became a visible manifestation that Jesus had delivered this Gentile man and that the demons had entered the pigs.

According to verse 13, as soon as the demons entered the pigs they rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. 

The question has been asked, “Where did the demons go when they left the pigs?” 

As the question implies, the demons had to go somewhere else after the pigs died by drowning in the sea at the bottom of that cliff in Garasa. But where did they go? 

Jesus gives us the only insight we have on this subject in Matthew 12:43-45 and in Luke 11:24-26. It’s the same analogy in both passages. The Luke passage puts it this way…

24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.” [ESV]

The context here is that Jesus is exposing the empty efforts of the phony exorcists in His day in Israel. There have always been false claimants to the power of exorcism, even today. 

Yet Jesus only gave this power for a limited time to two groups in the New Testament: the apostles and the 70 whom He sent out to minister in His name. 

No one has this authority today. However, God still delivers people through faith in Christ.

It is the gospel which is the power of God to expel Satan and demons when a person hears the gospel, believes it unto salvation, and is delivered. 

The false exorcists attempt to cast demons out of people, and the demons may leave for a brief time, but they come back later. This is what Jesus was describing in this passage. 

For the person Jesus is describing in this passage, there was no true deliverance through saving faith in Christ. Instead, they only had external moral reform. So their life was cleaned up, but they were still unregenerate.

Therefore, the unsaved person who has a demon cast out of them without being saved through faith in Christ, that individual ends up in a worse state than they had at the first. 

But the point I wanted to make from this passage about where the demons went after being cast out is in verse 43. Jesus describes it as “waterless places seeking rest.” 

This describes a place of discomfort, desolation, barrenness, and great frustration. 

From this and other references in Scripture, it seems clear that demons prefer to inhabit bodily creatures, especially unsaved human beings. The desires of demons is to do harm and damage through human vessels. 

So after the legion of demons left the pigs in Mark 5, they likewise went through “waterless places seeking rest.” They sought to inhabit another living creature somewhere else. 

One application from both passages is that permanent deliverance comes through faith in Christ alone for salvation. Mere exorcism without regeneration will be short-lived at best. And “the last state of that person [will be] worse than the first.”

With love in the truth,
Pastor Kevin

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Where did the true Sabbath begin and what was its original purpose?

In the beginning, Genesis 1:1 tells us that God created the heavens and the earth. He created everything that exists in six days and that He ceased creating on the seventh day. This establishes the seven day week; six days of work, one day of rest.

Genesis 2:2 says “God rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.” The word translated “rested” in verse 2 is the Hebrew word Shabbat which is also called the Sabbath. It comes from this same word used in Genesis 2:2.

The Hebrew word Shabbat literally means “to stop” or “to cease” or to rest.”  

In Genesis 2:1-3, the first time a seventh day is ever observed, God applied the seventh day of ceasing work only to Himself and only with regard to the activity of creating.

But His rest wasn’t what we think of as rest. It doesn’t mean He was tired.

There was certainly no depletion of His energy in the act of creating the heavens and the earth. He spoke everything into being by divine fiat. He needed no physical rest.

His rest was in the form of ceasing from the activity of creating.  

It simply means He stopped creating on the seventh day. So in this sense, the Sabbath stopped a six-day pattern of labor and activity at the time of creation.

That is all it meant in that original use of the word Shabbat in Genesis 2:1-3.

Of course, it was only a short time later, in Genesis 3:21 after Adam and Eve sinned that the Lord God went back to work.

God made for them garments of skin to clothe them with a covering of grace.

It was a covering that God Himself designated through the shedding of the blood of an animal to make the garments of skin. It was a replacement for the hand-sewn fig leaves that Adam and Eve fashioned in a futile attempt to cover their own nakedness.

From the dawn of creation until Exodus 16 during the time of Moses, there is no indication that any human being ever kept or observed a Sabbath.

There’s no indication that Adam or Eve ever observed a Sabbath day of rest, either before the fall or after the fall.

There is no record in Scripture of any of the patriarchs ever keeping a Sabbath. It doesn’t appear that Abraham ever kept a Sabbath, or Isaac, or Jacob, or any of his sons. Altars are built and rituals are observed, but no Sabbaths are ever mentioned.

Even Job, a blameless and upright non-Jew from the land of Uz, in all the chronicles of his righteous activities, keeping a Sabbath is never mentioned, as far as the sacred record is concerned.

Whenever the Bible is silent on an ordinance during one era and then very explicit and detailed in another era on that same subject, it’s noteworthy and instructive. There is teaching in this silence for the observant reader of Scripture.

There’s no reason to infer from Genesis 2:3 that any human being ever observed a Sabbath until the time of Moses. In fact, the evidence points to the contrary.

It was hundreds of years later, after the exodus from Egypt, that God had to tell the Israelites through Moses to gather no manna on Saturday in Exodus 16.

This tells us it was a brand new concept to them. They had always gathered food on Saturday just like Friday and Sunday. But in Exodus 16, a new precept is introduced.

The pattern of seventh day rest was introduced by God at creation in Genesis 2, but it wasn’t applied to any person until the time of Moses in Exodus 16.

So it would be incorrect to call the Sabbath day of rest an “ordinance of creation” based on Genesis 2:1-3… since it only applied to God in the first instance; and it only applied to the activity of creating. In the beginning, there was as yet, no ordinance.

As noted, the ordinance didn’t come until the time of Moses.

And even after the ordinance was prescribed in the fourth commandment on Mount Sinai, it was only binding as a ceremonial law upon the people of Israel. Just Israel.

No other nation was ever faulted for breaking the Sabbath or any ceremonial aspects of God’s law as they were for violating the moral precepts of God’s law.

So the Sabbath ordinance began during the time of Moses and its purpose was for man’s rest and blessing. It was a holy time of worshiping God without labor. 

For Christians, the Sabbath (Saturday) is the day when we honor the Lord as the God of creation. We celebrate the fact that He created everything that exists in six literal days and that He rested on the seventh day. So we enjoy His creation on this day. 

We also acknowledge God as our law Giver, who gave us precepts for living. The Sabbath principle of rest is only truly fulfilled through saving faith in Christ; not by observing one day among seven in any ceremonial sense. 

In the OT the ceremonial day of rest was a shadow, but now the Substance has come to us in Christ. We cling to the Substance and the shadows vanish in the light of His presence. 

With love in the Truth,
Pastor Kevin

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Back in 2011 Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins made the subject of hell a very popular topic (I almost used the phrase “a hot topic” but the pun was too much for me).

People were debating the subject of hell not only in churches, but in the media. The book made the relatively unknown Bell suddenly famous in a way that he hadn’t been up to that point.

Among those who take the Bible as God’s literal Word, it has made Bell infamous. He misinterpreted what the Bible says and came up with his own view in place of Christ’s.

In the book, Love Wins, he redefined hell in his own understanding. In fact, he redefined it out of existence by making it consummated in things that happen in this life.

However, Bell’s aberrant theological views in this book are not the first time he has departed from Christian orthodoxy.

He had been gradually morphing toward liberal heterodoxy for some time.

The book brought new attention to the doctrine of hell. For this attention, I suppose we should be thankful. Perhaps it will cause the true church to more clearly proclaim the biblical truth regarding this basic tenet of biblical Christianity.

In a promo video for Love Wins, Bell exposes his misunderstanding of the gospel:

There is the question behind the questions, the real question: What is God like? Because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message—the center of the Gospel of Jesus—is that God is going to send you to hell, unless you believe in Jesus.

And so, what gets, subtly, sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that; that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good; how could that God ever be trusted? And how could that ever be good news.”

Bell’s view of Christianity is seriously distorted to say the least. Jesus does in fact rescue believing sinners from the wrath of God which we deserve for our sin. And this most certainly is good news for those who believe.

Yet the foundational premise of Bell’s misunderstanding of the gospel is that the center of the gospel message is that God is going to send you to hell, unless you believe in Jesus.

In other words, Bell asserts that hell is the punishment for not believing in Jesus, rather than hell being the justice that our sin deserves since we are born in trespasses and sins.

Unfortunately, many Christians don’t seem to understand the gospel any better than Bell does. He’s simply amplifying what the average church-goer already thinks.

The predominant thought in the church today is the premise that from birth man is basically innocent and headed toward heaven until he willfully chooses to reject Christ as his Savior. At that point, his destiny shifts from heaven-bound to hell-bound.

But this premise completely misses the point of the gospel and our falleness from conception. There’s a subtle twist in the way Satan and his messengers distort God’s truth to make God look unrighteous.

People don’t go to hell simply because they reject faith in Christ, although, that’s certainly the reason that they don’t go to heaven.

The fundamental reason any person goes to hell is because of their own unforgiven sin. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).

Because of our birth in Adam’s fallenness, we were already headed to hell, already dead in trespasses and sins, already separated from God and without hope.

The reason Christians don’t go to hell is because God in His infinite mercy and grace rescues us from our natural orientation.

However, apart from the gift of faith in Christ’s gospel, we all would have gone to hell for our own sins, whether we had openly rejected the gospel or never heard it in the first place.

Justice is where unrighteous people get exactly what they deserve in hell.

Grace is where unrighteous people get precisely what they do not deserve in heaven: cleansing, forgiveness, mercy, imputed righteousness from Christ, and all the inheritance of Christ. This is amazing grace!

Keep in mind, Bell has frequently taught an unbiblical view of hell—one in which hell is not a literal place where sinners are justly punished, but more of a self-induced state of mind pertaining mainly to this life. In an interview in 2007, he said:

“I don’t know why as a Christian you would have to make such declarative statements. [Why would you] want there to be a literal hell? I am a bit skeptical of somebody who argues that passionately for a literal hell, why would you be on that side?

Like if you are going to pick causes, if you’re literally going to say these are the lines in the sand, I’ve got to know that people are going to burn forever, this is one of the things that you drive your stake in the ground on. I don’t understand that.” [Rob Bell, Ooze Interview (July 2007)].

For the Christian, beliefs begin with the truth that God has revealed in the Bible; beliefs don’t begin with what I may want to be true or not. We don’t get a vote on the moral laws (or physical laws!) that govern the universe.

I believe in a literal place of eternal conscious torment for unforgiven sinners because this is revealed by God in Scripture. My desires or personal wishes have no bearing on the truthfulness of any doctrine.

As a Christian who believes what God has revealed in Scripture, I believe all kinds of doctrines that are out of sorts with public opinion.

Almost everything I affirm as a Christian will put me at odds with one group or another and be deemed unpopular in the marketplace of ideas.

We can’t base our beliefs on how it will “play in the press.” The content of our preaching cannot be based on, “What do people want to hear?” Christians are under orders to proclaim God’s message to His people in the church and broadly to the world at large.

Rob Bell approaches Christian doctrines as one might go through a cafeteria line, picking those he finds appealing or tolerable and rejecting others for which he has no taste or desire.

We should pray for the church to have discernment regarding the subject of hell. People need to believe what God has revealed in Scripture and be changed to see God’s truth as both objective and knowable through His written Word, the Bible.

Love in the Truth,
Pastor Kevin

With many Americans thinking of Valentines Day this month, I thought it would be profitable for us to turn our minds toward the master love that sustains all other loves.

Years ago I received a letter that contained this arresting sentence: “We order our lives by what we love.” What a thought! The letter went on, but I never forgot that sentence.

That sentence has a diagnostic effect on us. It makes us think of the greatest love of all.

I’m referring to Christ’s love for His own and our love in response to Him.  To see this, we need to get the connection between love for Jesus and obedience to His Word.

The connection between love for Jesus and obedience to His Word is all over the Bible. It’s especially in John chapter 14. In John14:15, Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him.”

In John 14:23 “Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word…”

John 14:24 “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”

Now the church at Ephesus was very obedient, and yet they still had a serious problem.

It was to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:4 that Jesus said, “…I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” [ESV]

That’s a surprising statement. This was a doctrinally sound church. They were tireless in their labors and patient in their trials. They even had effective outreaches to their community.

Even though the Ephesian church had so much in its favor, the misdirected love issue was a total deal-breaker!

Jesus said: “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first…” The sentence in Greek is even more emphatic: “Your first love you have left.”

Isn’t that an amazing indictment in light of all their service and work? They were a strong church. They were active in ministry. They guarded the faith with discernment.

The verb for “left” implies a complete cessation. Apparently, the Ephesians had substituted external activities in place of genuine love for Jesus. That’s so easy for us to do.

This warning should be a wake-up call to any person who thinks that as long as I’m involved in church activities (I go to Sunday school; I attend the worship services on Sunday morning and evening, and all the Bible studies), I’m all paid up with Jesus… Wrong.

Those things, by themselves, don’t please Him.

Even if you couldn’t do any of those things due to health or disability, You could still bring Him great honor and glory simply by loving Him first and preeminently.

Everything we do for Him must flow from this preeminent love for Him.

What does preeminent love mean?

It means love for Jesus that trumps all the other loves in your life. You’ll still have other loves in your life – and that’s not wrong; but preeminent love for Christ esteems Him above those other loves.

What exactly does Jesus mean by saying “you have abandoned the love you had at first”? Various scholars have offered (at least) three major interpretations of this phrase, but only one of them seems valid to me.

The first view takes it to mean “first in time.”

They say: “You need to go back to the love you had at the very beginning of your Christian walk. That was the time when you had such warm feelings for Jesus and everything was so fresh and new. You need to go back to that.” That’s one view.

The second view is another variation of the “first in time” position, “…The kind of love you had for Jesus and each other at your organization as a church 35 years earlier.” That’s the second interpretation.

But the most straightforward and natural interpretation of this verse won’t allow for either of those positions. The word for “first” here is not first in time, it’s first in priority. This is a supremacy word for first… protos. Hence the word preeminent.

Therefore, the third view – which I believe is the best view – takes it to mean, “Your love for Jesus must be supreme – first in priority before all things.” Without that kind of love, everything else you do for Jesus is only misdirected love.

Instead of honoring Jesus with your labor and service, without this first-place love for Him, your religious activities actually become a great offense to Jesus.

The command He gives to the Ephesians is: repent. That means “stop” what you’re doing and turn in the other direction. The consequences of not repenting are disastrous.

One of my friends in the pastorate asked his congregation: “How long will the benefits last when you say ‘no’ to God? And how long will the benefits last when you say ‘yes’ to God?

Another question you might ask yourself which will help you find the right answer to those questions is this: “How long do you plan to be dead?”

The consequences of not repenting are eternally disastrous. But the joys and benefits of returning to Jesus as first above all others is rewarding for all eternity.

J.C. Ryle made another comment that really hit me hard.

Ryle said, “Of all the things that will surprise us in the resurrection morning, this, I believe, will surprise us most: that we didn’t love Jesus more before we died.”

Doesn’t that statement move you?

It all goes back to that one arresting sentence in the letter I read: “We order our lives by what we love.” So based on your own diagnosis, who or what is your first love?

Yours in the Truth,
Pastor Kevin

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“And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those whom He desired, and they came to Him.” – Mark 3:13

I just love the sovereignty of our Lord’s selection of these men. It’s a microcosm of the way He chooses all of His people.

Like them, all in Christ are chosen before the foundation of the world – that’s before creation took place.

Then all of His sheep are called to follow Him at some point in this life and by God’s irresistible power and enablement, they do it. They hear the gospel and believe it.

As for our Lord’s reasoning, verse 13 says He called to Him those whom He desired. It’s referring to the choosing of the twelve apostles. Our Lord’s desire is the only basis given for His choice. He simply desired to call these men.

Of this sovereign selection, Herbert Lockyer writes,

“Those called were not consulted beforehand, nor did He seek anyone’s advice upon the qualifications of those He was to call. The choice was His own sovereign will and purpose. Their appointment was carefully foreordained, deliberate, and momentous with far-reaching results. ”

In verse 13, the reason Jesus was up on a mountain was to pray. According to Luke 6:12, He had been praying all night before He called the twelve.

When Jesus called the ones He desired, the result was… “they came to Him.” The effectual call of Christ always includes the requisite desire to come on the part of the called. God not only calls us to Himself, but He also gives us the desire to come.

Little is taught today about the role our desires play in discerning God’s will in our lives. Many Christians have wrongly assumed that if they desire to do a certain thing, then it must not be God’s will for us. But that isn’t necessarily the case.

There are sinful desires to be avoided, but there are also sanctified desires to be embraced.

If we are informing our thoughts and actions with Scripture, and if we are prayerfully seeking God’s will, then God’s Spirit is giving us His leading. In a believer’s life, our desires are an indispensable aspect of how God leads us along.

Sometimes we may desire to take one job more than another job for a multitude of reasons and neither choice is sinful. Other times we may desire to live in one part of the country instead of another area, and that isn’t wrong or sinful. And a single person may desire to get married… and all of these desires have their place in God’s will for our lives.

I think it was Augustine who famously said, “Love God and do what you please.” This is true for the committed believer. It’s true because when a person really loves God, their desires are always being shaped by that love.

Even the call of a missionary is borne of this God-given desire.

It may begin as a simple curiosity for a certain place or people group. It then grows into a genuine interest. Then it becomes a preoccupation. And finally that desire becomes a restless love to reach those people with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.

God-given desires advance us forward throughout our Christian pilgrimage.

Along with our desires, God primarily informs us through our understanding of Scripture, then through the wise counsel of Christian friends and family members, and by opening and closing certain doors of opportunity.

Understanding our sanctified desires is helpful in discerning God’s will at various junctures of life. This understanding is also effective in our witnessing to the lost.

We can freely say to the lost… “If you’re not following Christ and you have a desire to follow Him, that’s as good as an engraved invitation to come! Engage that God-given desire and follow Him!”

There are thousands and thousands of lost people in false religions who are going to hear the gospel and believe unto salvation because God chose them before the foundation of the world to be saved. Some of them are in our city right now.

When the magnet of the gospel is held out to the world, the true metal is inexorably drawn upward and like our Lord’s original twelve apostles, the chosen sheep of Christ respond and follow Him.

So love God, inform your heart with Scripture, seek godly counsel, look for opportunities and after prayerfully surrendering your will to God, do what you most desire to do.

With love in the truth,
Pastor Kevin

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“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.^ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.^ I and the Father are one.” [John 10:27-30, ESV]

Those remarkable words from Jesus in John 10 were spoken to a group of unbelieving Jews who wanted Jesus to say that He was the Messiah, the predicted Christ of prophecy.

The reason they wanted Jesus to declare Himself in this way was to have a charge against Him. Then they could accuse Him of blasphemy, which they already were doing and would later do.

But they needed more than a Jewish religious offense to bring it to Rome’s attention. They needed a political charge. So to declare Himself to be the Christ (Messiah) was to declare that He was the true King of Israel. This way they could charge Jesus with sedition against Rome.

Our Lord’s answer is that He already told them what they needed to know in order to know who He is. The problem is that they were not His sheep. That’s why they didn’t believe even though they physically saw the second person of the Godhead in human form.

They didn’t know God and yet they all professed to know God. Their version of God was false and their murderous hatred of God incarnate proves that they didn’t know God at all.

Then Jesus made this defining statement, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” The sheep of Jesus hear His voice; they are known by Him; and they follow Him.

But what about those who say they know and follow Jesus while rejecting many of the teachings clearly declared in His Word? And what about those who call themselves Christians while they listen approvingly to the voices of false teachers and false shepherds?

Here’s the question of the hour: Do the true sheep of Christ have the Spirit-given ability to recognize when they’re not hearing the voice of the one true Shepherd?

It’s not an easy question to answer because it is possible for undiscerning, untaught, or new believers to be swayed by religious rhetoric from false teachers. False teachers pose as messengers of light. They say what the lowest common denominator wants to believe.

Most false teachers on television, like Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer, are very slick in their presentations. It’s no wonder that they’re so popular and have such a wide following. They say positive things like “God wants everybody to have the best in this life.” But they define “best” in only temporal terms.

Satan’s deception often runs along these two lines.

He either tries to convince people that God is bad and doesn’t want them to have all the good there is to be had (in other words, God is holding out on you). This tactic was first employed by Satan in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3).

Or he takes the opposite approach and convinces people that God wants everybody to have all their dreams and desires fulfilled right now in this life. Then he offers a counterfeit “best” in place of God’s genuine best for us in Jesus Christ. The latter is happening now.

To someone without any knowledge of Scripture or without discernment, it sounds very attractive. But the voice of the one True Shepherd is not in the messages of these false teachers. The underlying premise of the positive confession theology and prosperity preachers in general is nothing but religious paganism. It’s all a charade.

Prosperity Theology is based on pagan principles. For example, they teach that your spoken word has the power to bring your desires into existence. They teach that you control your own destiny through your words of positive confession into the universe.

You profess it and then you possess it, they say. So you are in control of providence, not God. You are the author of your own story, not God. That’s their message.

They may use the name of Jesus (which they do) and even quote Bible verses (which they do), but they always do so out of context.

This gives them the appearance of credibility and actually makes them more dangerous than a secular motivational speaker.

In fact, if they didn’t claim to be Christian preachers who are  teaching God’s principles, I wouldn’t even bother to warn people about them. But it’s much worse than that and far more dangerous because it poses as Christian teaching and people are actually believing it.

That’s because many people in the visible church will accept anything from someone who says the name of Jesus and quotes a verse or two of Scripture.

Even the cults do this. The cults all give lip-service to their own version of “Jesus” and cults always appeal to the Bible as one of their sources, but it’s never Scripture alone or with God’s intended meaning.

Joel Osteen has become skilled in the art of ambiguity. He tries to be as vague and non-committal as possible on biblical doctrine. But he is in fact a pantheist who teaches that God can be found in every religion. He’s also a legalist who teaches that we earn God’s favor through living and thinking the right way.

He teaches that Mormons are his “brothers in Christ” because they claim to believe in Jesus and their claim is no different from his, Osteen says.

When asked about Bible doctrines or the exclusivity of Christ, he says “I don’t know about any of that. I don’t study those things.”

But all of Osteen’s claims are identical to what Satan wants the masses to believe: that all religions have God in them; that all roads lead to heaven; that people don’t need to believe the gospel to be saved; and that if you live a “good life” you have God’s favor and eternal heaven. This is false according to the teaching of Scripture.

Osteen and others like him are slick con-artists in the employment of Satan. They are deceiving and beguiling the masses. They are not followers of Christ. They follow Satan, teach his lies, and cunningly do his will.

This is not the voice of the Shepherd; it is in fact the unmistakable voice of Satan who disguises himself as an angel of light just as the servants of Satan disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds (2 Cor. 11:14-15).

When a follower of Christ knows the Bible and has been well-taught in doctrine, they see through the ploys and tricks of Satan. Immature Christians may not see it as readily… and those who aren’t His sheep have no way of discerning truth from spiritual error.

Therefore, all followers of Christ need to be aware of the deception taking place in the spiritual arena in our day. Religious television (like TBN) is rife with false teaching by religious con-artists.

“Faith-healer” Benny Hinn even claims to have raised dead people back to life. An incredible claim! Did Benny Hinn actually raise dead people? Of course not. And he knows he can’t raise dead people. It’s a false claim with the same credibility as an “urban legend.”

He’s lying to make desperate and hurting people send him their money. Hinn and other false teachers get wealthy at the expense of poor people who are desperate and hurting. True healing from God won’t be connected with the financial aggrandizement of some phony healer. God’s healing is without an exchange of money.

If Benny Hinn could really heal the sick and raise dead people he should go to the hospitals; go to the children’s hospitals, go to the morgues, go to the next funeral of someone known to be dead. That would make the news and silence the critics.

He can’t heal any deformity or raise the dead. He’s a liar who deceives people in order to get earthly riches at the price of his own eternal perdition. These false teachers are certainly not followers of Christ in spite of their lying claims.

Tens of thousands of gullible people are now intoxicated with the poisoned Kool-Aid of these false teachers, false healers, prosperity teachers, and word-faith teachers… and it is spiritually (and sometimes physically) deadly.

Therefore, Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” God is our true Healer. He can heal anyone of anything, but only according to His good purposes.

It isn’t always God’s will for us to have physical healing in this life. God has a purpose in our brokenness and infirmities. Many godly people have physical infirmities in this life, including the Apostle Paul himself, who suffered physically throughout his ministry.

The only way to know and follow Jesus is through saving faith in Christ and then by knowing and believing Scripture. Go deep into God’s Word. Learn the doctrines of Christianity. Get to know the True Savior.

Become familiar with the Good Shepherd’s voice. Stop watching toxic religious television. Stop buying their books. Hear the Shepherd’s voice and come away from Satan’s camp.

Then you will understand the prayer of David in Psalm 17 where he asked the Lord to deliver him “from men of the world whose portion is in this life” (Ps. 17:14).

For the joy of His sheep and the glory of the Shepherd,
Pastor Kevin

 

The Bible refers to Jesus Christ as the Second Adam. He came to accomplish what the first Adam failed to accomplish.

The first Adam was created, but not born.

The Second Adam (our Lord) was born, but He wasn’t created.

When you were born, you had no choice in the matter. You didn’t choose your parents. You didn’t control the time or circumstances surrounding your birth. But Jesus did.

Jesus was the only baby who chose His own mother. In fact, He knitted His mother together in her mother’s womb! For He created all things.

Colossians 1:16 tells us,

“For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created by Him and for Him.”

So when we come to study the incarnation of Jesus in Matthew 1, we’re studying a birth like none other. Matthew 1:18 conveys the simplicity of the account… the virgin birth is simply stated as a fact with no arguments or embellishments.

This observation is one of the strongest arguments for the divine revelation of these verses.

If sinful men wanted to invent or concoct a story of God becoming a man through a virgin conception, it would end up being a long, well-padded, even defensive account of how it happened.

But that’s not what we have. There’s no long account; no arguments; no embellishments. Just a simple statement of the facts.

Matthew opens with 17 verses to disclose the human genealogy of Jesus, but only one verse to reveal His divine ancestry: “Before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit” (1:18).

It was the Holy Spirit who placed the divine seed into the body of Mary.

This is a unique place where theology overshadows biology.

That’s what makes this a miracle. The virgin conception can’t be explained by natural means. The Holy Spirit is named as the supernatural means. She is pregnant… while still a virgin.

“Before they came together” means they had no sexual union.

Over the years, I’ve actually heard some people say, “What difference does it make if Mary was a virgin? Who cares if Joseph was His father or even another man…?”

They say, “Isn’t His life and teaching what counts most?” The answer is no; because the life and teaching of Jesus are inextricably bound to His person and His origin.

If Jesus had been the offspring of a human father, He could not have been our Savior. He would not have been divine.

He could not have lived a sinless life or died a substitutionary death. He would merely be another child of the first Adam, and like the rest of us, dead in trespasses and sins.

Furthermore, it would mean Jesus was a fraud who lied about His eternality, who lied about His oneness with the Father and His sinless nature. We would have no Savior and we would still be lost in our sins with no hope for heaven after death.

But the Bible proves that it matters a great deal who Jesus really is and how He came into this world. It actually happened as Scripture records. Jesus was born of a virgin.

We worship a God who has invaded time and space with the reality of who He is!

So as we prepare to begin 2013, I encourage you to pause and let the wonder of these incarnation realities change your perspectives on life and God’s purpose for you in the coming year.

With joy in Christ,
Pastor Kevin