The Wrong Kind of Love

Posted by David on February 21, 1999 under Sermons

Learning how to study is a cumulative, continuing process that develops progressively. Study produces growth, and growth advances study. Growing in the ability to study scripture involves much more than learning the meaning of words. The goal is to understand scripture’s message in the clearest, deepest terms possible.

It is easy to think that studying scriptures involves no more than putting together verses or sentences that use similar words or similar thoughts. If that is all we do, we learn words and thoughts without learning the message.

1. When we read the first two chapters of 1 John, we need to immediately ask, “What is happening? What is going on?”
   1. Obviously there were:
      1. Christians who were self deceived about having fellowship with God.
      2. Christians who thought they could live an evil lifestyle and still practice the truth.
      3. Christians who were so confident that they did not sin that they claimed to have no sin.
      4. Christians who thought that they could hate some Christians without that hate affecting their faith or faithfulness.
      5. Christians who thought that they could live in God’s light even if they caused another Christian to stumble and fall away from Christ.
   2. It seems that John anticipated that some would ask why he wrote this letter.
      1. In 2:12-14, John addressed three groups twice: the young Christians, the mature Christians, and the maturing Christians.
      2. “I am writing you, young Christians, because your sins are forgiven, and you know the Father.”
      3. “I am writing you, mature Christians, because you have known God for a long time.”
      4. “I am writing you, maturing Christians, because you have overcome Satan, you are strong, and the word lives in you.”
      5. All of them (young Christians, mature Christians, and maturing Christians) needed a clear understanding: you must love Christians; you must not love that which opposes God.
2. You must love Christians; you must not love the world.
   1. What did John mean by not loving the world?
      1. John was not referring to the earth, to created matter, to nature, to this physical creation.
         1. God is the origin of the physical creation, and when God brought it into being it was good (Genesis 1:31).
         2. When you read the Psalms, the creation is declared to be the hand print of God; to David the physical world was a powerful evidence of God’s wondrous existence (Psalms 8 and 19, for example).
         3. John was not saying the spiritual is good and the physical is evil.
      2. John already had stated that Christians who hate Christians are blindly walking in the darkness and do not know where they are going (2:11).
   2. The world is that which rejects God and opposes God.
      1. It is that which refuses to be in subjection to God.
      2. It is that which opposes God’s influence and purposes in people.
      3. Regardless of how they present themselves, the world is all the spiritual forces that oppose God and produce evil in people.
3. Look carefully at what John said.
   1. Christians must love Christians.
      1. Why? Because we are all alike? No!
         1. Christ saves people living in every human diversity that exists.
         2. He saves from among the earthly wise and the earthly ignorant.
         3. He saves from every race and every culture.
         4. He saves from the educated and the uneducated.
         5. He saves in every social and governmental environment.
      2. What do all these people have in common? Only one thing: Jesus Christ.
         1. They all receive the mercy and grace of God.
         2. They all are forgiven.
         3. They all are sons and daughters to God.
         4. God clothes all He saves with Christ by placing each of them in Christ.
      3. Christians love anyone who belongs to God, who is in subjection to God, and who is committed to God purposes; that means Christians love Christians.
      4. Christians do not love the things or the forces that oppose God, reject God, or work against God’s purposes; that means Christians do not love the world.
   2. It is impossible to love God and to love the world at the same time.
      1. God and the world are mutually exclusive.
         1. Love for God rejects and opposes love for the world.
         2. Love for the world rejects and opposes love for God.
         3. Each of them works for dominance in the life of the person.
         4. The dominance of one seeks to destroy the other.
      2. See the very distinct contrast:
         1. We know that we have come to know God if we keep His commands (2:3).
         2. Keep the old commandment and the new commandment (2:7,8).
         3. What old and new commandment? Love Christians (2:10,11).
         4. Do not love the world, nor the things in the world (2:15).
   3. John gave three examples of ways that we must not love the world.
      1. These are not the only three ways to love the world.
      2. However, they are three basic ways that people should easily identify in every age.
      3. The first is the lust of the flesh.
         1. The word “lust” is used here to mean the desire for something forbidden.
         2. The lust of the flesh appeals to the things that work against God by stimulating the Christian’s desire for physical pleasure.
         3. The list of sensual, physical pleasures that oppose God in our lives is very long.
         4. Examples include any physical desire that opposes God’s influence in our lives and God’s purposes in us: the abuse of sexual desires; greed; recreation that glorifies pleasure as the supreme human concern; escapism through addiction; anything that focuses us on physical gratification in opposition to God.
      4. The second is the lust of the eyes.
         1. Again, these desires rivet our attention on the forbidden.
         2. Our eyes are the doors to mental and emotional desires.
         3. We get mental or emotional pleasure by looking at or fantasizing about situations that oppose God’s influence in our lives.
         4. This lust includes things like pornography, the power and greed produced by money or possessions or social position (the “look who I am” mentality), jealously, or the “I want what is yours” mentality.
         5. Anything that moves us in the direction of ungodly pride usually involves the lust of the eyes.
      5. The third is the pride or vain glory of life.
         1. John is talking about arrogance, the arrogance that comes when I pridefully measure myself by me and my accomplishments, not by my relationship with God.
         2. The list of this kind of arrogance is long: educational arrogance; the arrogance of personal achievements and accomplishments; the arrogance of power; the arrogance of position; the arrogance of self perceived significance and importance.
4. May I focus your attention on three spiritual facts.
   1. Fact one: all of these oppose God in my life.
      1. When I focus my attention on physical gratification, I will oppose God in my life.
      2. When I focus my attention on myself mentally or emotionally, I will oppose God in my life.
      3. When I allow arrogance to capture me, I will oppose God in my life.
   2. Fact two: all of these deceive me into believing that all that matters is right now; the only true measure of life is the physical.
      1. Through these I am convinced that the world is permanent.
      2. Because of these I refuse to think about not being physically alive.
      3. Moment by moment I am deceived into believing that the physical, the material existence is not temporary; to the contrary it is the real existence.
   3. Fact three: these forces convince me not to love Christians.
      1. Because physical desire controls me, I use Christians; I do not love them.
      2. Because of mental and emotional desires, I am selfish; when I am selfish, I do not love Christians.
      3. Because arrogance controls me, my eyes are so full of looking at me that I cannot see God; when I cannot see God I surely cannot love Christians.

The situation is simple. The Christian who loves the world and is controlled by ungodly desires will fade away, cease to exist when that which opposes God is eternally destroyed. The Christian who lives his or her life doing the will of God will continue to exist eternally. And it is the will of God that I love those who belong to God.

What Are Your Predictions?

Posted by David on under Sermons

In the late 1980s, a national research institute gathered information on Americans and American evangelical Christian groups (religious people who actively try to convert people to Jesus Christ). Based on that research, a book was published that predicted what would occur in our society by the year 2000. Consider some of the predicted trends.

• We would be more self-centered, materialistic, and driven to play (p. 25).

• We would be too selfish to make hard commitments and sacrifices to preserve relationships (p. 25).

• Loyalty to institutions would go into serious decline. We would not presume any institution was credible. Every institution would have to reprove itself constantly (p. 25).

• Commitment would be out because commitment was not regarded to be in our personal best interest (p. 33, emphasis mine).

• We would be a deeply skeptical people (p. 36).

• Instead of accepting limitations on our lifestyles, we would rewrite the rules (p. 37).

• A decline in interaction among people would make it more difficult to make friends (p. 75).

• The religious attentiveness of adults would decline (p. 112).

• The momentum would be against integrating spiritual belief with daily behavior (p. 111).

• While 4 in 5 Americans described themselves as Christians, only 1 in 5 would say that being a Christian means having a personal relationship with Christ (p. 113).

• The primary goal of life is to be happy (p. 156), but most Americans doubt that they will find enduring happiness (p. 158).

The research was gathered by the Barna Research Group and published in a book with the title, Frog in the Kettle: What Christians Need to Know About Life in the Year 2000. The book was published in 1990. As we stand about 10 months from the year 2000, do any of those things characterize our society?

1. I challenge you to consider where we are in 1999. Five widely accepted “facts of life” are accepted by the majority of Americans as “truth.”
   1. Accepted “truth” # 1: Absolute truth does not exist.
      1. Nothing is always right in every situation and in every circumstance.
      2. Nothing is always wrong in every situation and in every circumstance.
      3. Because absolute truth does not exist, something may be right for me and wrong for you.
      4. And, something that may be wrong for me may be right for you.
      5. Therefore, you and I can do totally opposite things and both be right; I did what is right for me and you did what is right for you.
   2. Accepted “truth” # 2: unless my behavior hurts or destroys someone else, I should not be condemned for anything.
      1. If I believe it is right for me, it is right.
      2. Every person has the right to decide what is right for him or her.
      3. No one is to be condemned for making that personal decision.
      4. Every person has the right to live his or her life as that person chooses.
      5. As long as two persons act with consent, what they do is right.
      6. Anyone who condemns your behavior is wrong; what you do is your business and no one else’s.
   3. Accepted “truth” # 3: a person is to be judged only on the basis of performance.
      1. If you do your job well, produce good results, and earn your salary, that is all that matters; that is the only legitimate concern of your employer.
      2. Your lifestyle is not a part of your work performance.
      3. An employer has no right to be concerned about anything but job performance.
      4. What you choose to do with your private life, or how you choose to use your private life is no one else’s business.
   4. Accepted “truth” # 4: The concept of repentance is an invalid concept.
      1. The basic concept of repentance is a redirection of life that results in a complete change of life.
      2. That concept is false.
         1. You are what you are.
         2. Your responsibility is to accept what you are, not to change what you are.
         3. You did not choose the genes that determined who you are.
         4. You did not decide the family in which you were born.
         5. You did not choose your mother and father’s relationship.
         6. You did not choose to be neglected or rejected by your parents.
         7. It was not your choice for your parents to fight, or to divorce, or to remarry, or to be single parents.
         8. All of those things are powerful, determining factors in who you became.
      3. No one has the responsibility to repent; everyone has the responsibility to be himself or herself.
   5. Accepted “truth” # 5: The greatest single wrong is to refuse to protect a friend.
      1. A friend is someone who accepts you for who you are without judging or condemning what you have done or are doing.
         1. All that matters to a friend is right now.
         2. A friend honors your right to be or do anything you want to be or do.
      2. In an age of no absolute truth there is one absolute responsibility a friend never betrays a friend, never!
      3. Whatever my friend decides, I must honor his or her decision.
      4. Whatever my friend does, I must hide his or her secret.
      5. There is no worse evil than a friend betraying a friend.
2. May I make some “right now” predictions about the 650 or more of us who are here this morning?
   1. About 35% of you think I have lost my mind.
      1. You think all five of these accepted “truths” as too preposterous to be given seriously consideration.
      2. You are certain that virtually no one thinks that way.
      3. You think I am wasting precious pulpit time to even mention them.
      4. Have you talked to your family recently? More importantly, have you listened to your family lately?
   2. At least 35% of you know exactly what I am talking about because that is what you believe, that is what your friends believe, and that is how you determine your decisions.
      1. Anyone who does not believe those five “truths” is living in the dark ages.
      2. Those “truths” deal with reality and the real world.
      3. You are amazed that only 35 or 40% of those present believe those “truths.”
   3. Up to 30% of you realize enough to know too many people may believe these “truths,” but that makes you very uncomfortable, so you prefer not to think about it unless you just have too.
      1. You really don’t want to know how many people think that way.
      2. You just pray that no one in your family thinks that way.
      3. But you do not plan to ask because you really just don’t want to know.
3. The first captives of Judah were marched as prisoners of war hundreds of miles to the land of Babylon.
   1. The adults knew that they would die in this strange land.
      1. There was no chance for the situation to change and let them go home.
      2. They could not worship God in the way that He clearly commanded.
      3. Without the temple, the priests could not function.
      4. Everything was hopeless; they were a dead nation.
   2. Ezekiel was a prophet in that same exile, and God him gave a message.
      1. Most of his message declared things would get worse.
         1. The wicked of Judah were worse than Sodom and Gomorrah; they would not be spared.
         2. Their beloved city of Jerusalem would be destroyed with a great slaughter.
         3. Babylon was doing to Judah what God wanted done to Judah.
   3. Then Ezekiel declared that this horrible situation was not hopeless.
      1. In the future God would restore and bless the Nation.
      2. Ezekiel 37 was a vision of hope given because their God was gracious.
      3. God placed Ezekiel in the middle of a valley filled with the dry bones of human skeletons–a huge valley that was a huge human bone pile.
         1. God asked, “Ezekiel, can these bones live?”
         2. Ezekiel said, “God, you know.”
         3. Then God put the bones together, formed bodies upon the bones, put life in the bodies, and they became a huge army.

      Ezekiel 37:11-14 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,” declares the Lord.’ “ (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)

4. Listen to everything you hear all around you.
   1. The economy is great, prosperity is great, material contentment is great, things are better than they have ever been.
      1. There is no connection between the spiritual, the moral, and the good life.
      2. Let’s stop obsessing with meaningless moral questions and get on with addressing the real needs of the nation.
   2. And everywhere I look, I see bones; not corpses; bones.
      1. I look at teenagers and see the bones of those who believe the lie and sell their souls before they know what their soul is.
      2. I see the piles of bones hidden behind cardboard marriages.
      3. I see bones of children, men, and women devastated by failed marriages.
      4. I see the bones of people who flushed life by chasing pleasure.
      5. I see the bones of Christians who have divorced faith from every day life.
   3. And I hear God ask us, “Will these bones live again?”
      1. And I hear God say, “They can if they allow me to give them life.”
      2. “And when I restore your life, finally you will understand that I am God, and life begins and ends in Me.”

[Prayer]

What we worry about in the church amazes me. We worry about baptism. And as I look at the baptized, I see too many bone piles. We worry about the existence of the church. But as I look within the church, I see too many bone piles.

We can be as deceived as was Judah. They thought as long as they had the temple and the priests, everything was A-OK. We think as long as people are baptized and do church, everything is A-OK. Just as Judah became a valley of dry bones, the church is becoming a valley of dry bones.

I earnestly want you to be baptized into Christ because you place faith in the God of life, because you surrender to the Savior of life, because you are converted to Christ and freely give God your life to use for Christ.

Because we are converted, because we live for God, I want us to be the church Jesus died to create.

If your life has become a pile of dry bones, God can make you live again. God can resurrect your life in Jesus Christ right now.

If We Don’t Eat and Drink, We Die

Posted by David on under Bulletin Articles

How long can we survive on one third glass of liquid a day? What if our eating and drinking together provide our bodies never more than four ounces of liquid a day? Anyone would dehydrate and, in time, die. The physical body cannot function for long on so little liquid.

How long can we live on one small meal a week? Two? Three? Even four? Such starvation quickly becomes the gate to anorexia. Anorexia is the path to death. The physical body cannot function indefinitely on so little food.

We recognize physical dehydration and anorexia when we see them. Without being told, we know the seriousness of both. Can you identify spiritual dehydration in yourself or your family? Can you recognize spiritual anorexia when it occurs in your life or your family?

Paul told the Christians at Corinth, “I spoke to you like babies in Christ, not as spiritual adults. I fed you milk. You could not digest anything you needed to chew. Unfortunately, you still cannot” (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). They had multiple, devastating, spiritual problems. Paul knew how to help them. But they knew so little that Paul could not teach them what they desperately needed to understand.

The author of Hebrews addressed Christians considering renouncing Jesus Christ. Their current problem? They repeatedly laid their spiritual foundation over and over again. They never matured (Hebrews 6:1-8).

Jesus promised that people who hungered and thirsted for righteousness would be satisfied (Matthew 5:6). He promised that he would be the bread of life who could eliminate spiritual hunger (John 6:35). He told a woman that he could give her living water that would eternally destroy thirst (John 4:7-14).

We can listen to exceptional sermons twice a week and be anorexic. We can even add a couple of classes and still starve. We can spiritually dehydrate by exclusively fixing our focus on the church and not depending on the Savior.

Because regularly “listening to good preaching” is bad? No. Because attending Bible classes is bad? No. Because thinking about the church is bad? No. Because all of that is not enough to prevent you or your family from spiritually starving or dehydrating.

Will your appetite allow Jesus to fill you with righteousness? Will your thirst allow Jesus to fill you with living water?

Divine Forgiveness and Human Commitment: The Perfect Marriage

Posted by David on February 14, 1999 under Sermons

When we seek forgiveness from a person, is it because we want an opportunity to change our lives and put our mistakes behind us? Or, is it because we want to exploit someone else’s love by using his or her forgiveness to create a selfish opportunity to do as we please?

Do we want and seek God’s forgiveness? Why? Do we sincerely want an opportunity to redirect our lives? Or, do we want to exploit God’s love by using forgiveness to continue to live as we please?

1. Last Sunday evening John declared in 1 John 1 that a Christian cannot exploit God’s goodness expressed in His forgiveness.
   1. For the Christian who makes a serious commitment to live in God’s light, to honestly live for God, God’s goodness expressed in forgiveness is given without measure.
      1. It cannot be exhausted.
      2. Because this Christian is serious about living for God, because he or she nurtures fellowship with Christians, because he or she accepts responsibility for mistakes and wrong doing, because he or she acknowledges mistakes and wrong doing to God, God uses Jesus’ blood to continually cleanse his or her life.
         1. He or she is continually forgiven of all sin.
         2. He or she is continually cleansed of all unrighteousness.
   2. But the Christian who claims to be in fellowship with God while, by decision and choice, living an ungodly lifestyle, God does not extend His goodness to him or her.
      1. This Christian is so self-deceived that he or she does not even realize a need for forgiveness.
      2. This person lies, does not practice the truth, does not have the truth in him or her, makes God a liar, and does not have the word of Christ in him or her.
   3. The point of chapter 1:5-10 is this: the Christian who tries to exploit God’s goodness will not benefit from God’s goodness.

   Transition: it is extremely important for you to remember that we added the chapter divisions. We must see the continuity, the flow of John’s thoughts from 1 John chapter 1 into chapter 2. The emphasis in chapter 1 and chapter 2 are directly connected, not disjointed and unrelated.

2. John said understanding that God’s goodness in His forgiveness is unlimited is the encouragement not to sin.
   1. If a Christian is serious in his or her commitment to live for God, if he or she accepts responsibility for his or her mistakes and wrongdoing, God’s forgiveness is total and continuous.
      1. Understanding this does not encourage the serious Christian to sin.
      2. It powerfully encourages him or her not to sin.
   2. John urged the serious Christian to understand just how perfect and complete God’s forgiveness is.
      1. When the committed Christian who seeks to live for God does something wrong, he or she is represented by an Advocate in God’s personal presence.
      2. This Advocate does two things:
         1. The Advocate represents the Christian seeking God’s mercy.
         2. The Advocate asks God to accept his pure sacrifice, his pure blood to satisfy divine judgment, divine anger, and divine wrath.
   3. In none of this does God expect a committed Christian to be perfect.
      1. As John said in 1:9, sin cannot destroy a Christian’s relationship with God if he or she accepts responsibility for his or her mistakes and wrong doing.
      2. God’s use of forgiveness to destroy a Christian’s sin and unrighteousness is complete and perfect.
         1. It can and does forgive the committed Christian from all sin.
         2. It can and does cleanse the committed Christian from all unrighteousness.
      3. God’s method of dealing with the committed Christian’s mistakes and wrong doing is also perfect.
         1. The resurrected Jesus constantly serves as our Advocate before God.
            1. He is the perfect Advocate because he is the sinless one, the righteous.
            2. He is the only being who has had the experience of being divine and of being human.
         2. Our Advocate is also our propitiation.
            1. Each time we need forgiveness, he is our substitute.
            2. His sacrifice of himself pays for our mistakes.
            3. His sacrifice satisfies divine justice, divine anger, and divine wrath.
3. Please pay close attention to verse 1:6 and verse 2:3.
   1. Each verse compliments the point of the other.
      1. 1:6–To claim to know God while choosing to live an evil lifestyle is to lie.
      2. 2:3–The one who knows God commits himself or herself to practicing God’s instructions.
         1. The Christian who claims to know God but refuses to practice God’s instructions is a liar and the truth is not in him.
         2. But, God brings His love to full maturity in the Christian who practices God’s instructions
      3. This is the certain, undeniable evidence that we are in God: we live our daily lives just as Jesus lived his daily life.
         1. The way Jesus lived determines the way we live.
         2. The values and principles that determined Jesus’ actions, choices, and decisions are the same values and principles that determine our actions, choices, and decisions.
   2. What commandments? What instructions are we to practice? If we live like Jesus lived, what will be obvious in our Christian life?
      1. It is an old commandment; it is certainly not a new principle or concept.
      2. But it is also a new commandment; living in Christ moves this principle, this understanding to a higher level and gives it a new significance.
      3. This old and new commandment is for Christians to love Christians.
         1. The Christian who says that he is living in God’s light while at the same time he hates another Christian has never left evil’s darkness.
         2. It is the Christian who loves his or her fellow Christian that exists each day in the light.
         3. The Christian who loves will not cause another Christian to stumble in his or her faith or in his or her relationship with God.
         4. But the Christian who hates a Christian exists in evil’s darkness, lives in evil’s darkness, and is so blind that he cannot see where he is going.
      4. When I see that the first commandment, the first instruction that John stressed as being essential for life in God’s light is the love of Christians for Christians, I am overwhelmed and sobered at the importance and significance of love.
4. Please let me give you something to take home with you and think about seriously.
   1. In my years as a Christian, the number one responsibility, the number one value, and the number one emphasis that we have stressed in the church was truth.
      1. Truth is the supreme measurement, the absolute essential, the one criteria by which everything stands or falls.
         1. Satan can defeat truth–he started defeating truth in the garden of Eden.
         2. He can defeat truth with deception, with ignorance, with distortion, with misplaced emphasis, with manipulation of the facts, and with half correct perceptions.
         3. Satan can defeat truth in me, in you, in any person–and does!
         4. No one understands the whole truth; no one possesses the whole truth; and that is clearly evident every time a person makes that claim.
      2. Satan cannot defeat love for God that surrenders to God and loves people.
         1. Love will always defeat evil.
         2. Why? Because love does what is good even to those who are evil.
         3. Paul said plainly in Romans 12:21 that the way that a Christian overcomes evil is by doing good.
         4. Love defeats evil because love practices good.
      3. Love for God and people will not allow you to oppose truth.
      4. Devotion only to truth will allow you to be unloving, and to justify horrible, ungodly attitudes, acts, and words that destroy love in the name of truth.

When God’s forgiveness is coupled to our commitment to God, and both are bound together with the love that lives in us because we belong to Christ, we experience the ideal spiritual relationship. Our commitment will not exploit the forgiveness of God. The forgiveness extended by God’s goodness will never be exhausted. In that is security. It is our faith in and commitment to the God of forgiveness that allows us to be preserved and protected by His power (1 Peter 1:3-5).

Remembering Christ

Posted by David on under Sermons

[Entire service is outlined here.]

If I am to walk with God in this life, if I am going to allow Jesus Christ to be my Lord in this life, I must be honest with myself about me.

I am a sinner. Evil ruled my life before I became a Christian. I can stand before God and belong to God only because I am a forgiven sinner.

God earned the right to forgive me. He paid the full price to have the right to extend to me forgiveness. He paid for that right by sacrificing the life of His own son.

I am saved because of what Jesus did for me. Every moment of my life, every day of my life, every week of my life I am saved because of what Jesus did for me. I am never saved because of me. Jesus is always the source of my salvation. I am never the source of my salvation.

It is because he died to save me that I willingly, of my own choice and free will, commit my life and myself to his purposes.

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)

I can never generate the power from within myself to make me good.

I can never find the strength within myself to eliminate all evil from my life.

Human ability, human will power, and human choice can never make me as good as I wish to be.

The more earnestly I try to destroy sin in my life, the more I prove this to be true. When I am left to myself with nothing but my own power and my own choices, I am evil’s slave. When I fight Satan with nothing but me, I am never capable of defeating Satan in my life.

The more that I, alone, try to destroy evil in my life, the more depressed and defeated I become. I am not the answer. Christ in me is the answer.

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)

God defeats evil in my life with His own goodness. In His goodness, He sent Jesus. In His goodness, He allowed Jesus to die for my sins instead of my eternally dying for my sins. In His goodness, He forgives me of my sins and cleanses me of the eternal consequences of evil. God’s goodness takes the innocent blood of Jesus and gives me mercy. In that mercy, God’s goodness gives me new life. In His goodness God loves me. In His goodness God rescues me from my mistakes. In His goodness God protects me through His power.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)

The most serious, costly thing God has done in the history of humanity is to sacrifice the life and blood of His own son for the evil things we think, plan, say, and do. The greatest and most expensive sacrifice God has ever made was giving His son for us. We must not accept that sacrifice thoughtlessly or frivolously. To accept God’s sacrifice with less seriousness than God made it is to insult God.

I can never be sinless. I can never destroy all evil in my life. But I can be serious in my commitment. I can be faithful to my commitment. I can serve God from my heart with my life in my commitment.

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)

What Is and Is Not Eternal

Posted by David on under Bulletin Articles

Our concepts and realities rarely are the same. Commonly, when we discuss concepts, we discuss “abstract thoughts.” When we discuss reality, we discuss “facts.”

The concept and reality regarding “good marriage” are quite different. The focus of the concept is ideal husband and wife behavior, behavior that rarely exists. The focus of reality is on “keeping it together” to avoid divorce, the “real” concern of the majority.

The concept and reality of a “good job” are quite different. The concept focuses on a job with excellent pay, reasonable responsibilities, wonderful benefits, generous time off, and no life controlling demands. The focus of reality is on earning enough to support our lifestyle regardless of hours worked or responsibilities assumed.

Nowhere is the gulf between concept and reality as wide as in our view of eternity. Physical life is real. Right now is real. Physical circumstances are real. Physical needs are real. Caring for our physical future is real. Discussing the physical (life, now, needs, or the future) is discussing the “factual.”

The eternal is conceptual. Death is not “real.” Life after death is not “real.” Death will become reality in the distant future–if that ever comes.

In an instant, death occurs, our life “turns upside down,” and our awareness of reality totally changes. Instantly death is permanent and physical life is temporary. Death is real and “now” is meaningless. Death is definite and physical needs are insignificant. Death terminates physical futures forever. The person is gone; only the body remains– temporarily.

Years ago a good friend and I lost a mutual friend to death. The friend who died had been a part of our lives for many years. To us, the world had changed. The next morning my friend drove slowly through town. He called me and said, “Nothing changed. Today is like every other day.” He profoundly realized his own insignificance. We all think, “The world can’t continue without me,” but it does.

Everything “real” while I am physical is not eternal. Eternity begins the moment I cease to be physical. Satan deceives us about the “important” in life. Death is brutally honest about the eternal.

Grace: Everything Or Nothing

Posted by David on February 7, 1999 under Sermons

But there are some unnecessary mysteries that we place on the word and the concept of grace. The basic concept of grace is God’s goodness. In past ages and generations Bible students tended to be more preoccupied with God’s wrath than God’s goodness. It was commonly believed to be more beneficial for people to be afraid of God than for people to trust God’s goodness.

The simple concept of God’s goodness exceeds our human understanding. How good is the God of absolute goodness? When Bible students do consider God’s goodness, they can easily become preoccupied with determining the limits of God’s goodness. We are easily consumed with determining when God does and does not use His goodness. We easily focused on two things: (1) determining the boundaries of God’s goodness and (2) declaring when God will not extend His goodness.

Too often we do not focus on God’s message in Christ. In that message it is clear that God extends His goodness to every person. That is God’s desire and choice. The issue of grace is not to be focused on how good is God. It is to be focused on our willingness to respond to God’s goodness.

God has revealed His goodness in many ways at many times. But the greatest revelation of God’s goodness is Jesus. Nothing can teach us as much about the goodness of God than can the life and ministry of Jesus. The greatest revelation of God’s sacrifices to make His goodness available to people is seen in the crucifixion. Jesus’ life and ministry is the clear revelation that God’s goodness defies human prediction or human limitations. We make a grave mistake when we impose limits on God’s goodness.

1. 1 John 1:1-4 states John’s reason for writing this message.
   1. John was writing to Christians who probably lived in the area of Asia Minor, a long way from Palestine.
      1. He likely was writing decades after Jesus was crucified in that tiny, far off country long time after the actual event.
      2. If this approximate time of writing is correct, the Jews had been in intense conflict with the Romans, the temple was probably destroyed, and Palestine is not even a shadow of what it was when Jesus lived.
      3. So, was Christianity just one more religion active in the Roman empire?
         1. When it started it was a local spiritual movement based on historical occurrences that could be verified by countless witnesses.
         2. Now it was an empire wide spiritual movement far removed from the historical events in that far off, small country, and many of the witnesses were dead.
         3. There is a lot of transition from “it happened here two years ago” to “it happened forty years ago in a country that no longer exists.”
      4. Were the foundations of Christianity history or myth?
         1. Were the responsibilities of the Christian life shrouded in mystery and ritual like so many of the other religions?
         2. Or could its responsibilities and objectives be understood by the common person?
   2. John opened this writing by declaring that Jesus Christ was a historical person who actually lived; Jesus was not a myth.
      1. John and the apostles were witnesses who heard, saw, and touched Jesus.
      2. Jesus personally was the revelation of eternal life–and that is exactly what he is since he lived before creation, through a human life, and after physical death.
      3. John said, “I am sharing with you what we saw and heard.”
      4. Why? For what purpose, John? What is your objective in sharing this information?
         1. “To enable you to have fellowship with us.”
         2. “Since we have fellowship with the Father and Jesus Christ, His son, it is through fellowship with us that you will establish fellowship with them.”
         3. “Only when you have fellowship with us, God, and Christ will our joy be complete.”
2. An appropriate way to state what John shared in 1:5-10 is this: “For some, the goodness of God gives them everything; for some, the goodness of God gives them nothing.”
   1. To me, there is a striking contrast drawn by John in verses 5-10.
      1. First, I want you to see that contrast.
      2. Second, I want you to consider the contrast in the awareness that John is talking to Christians.
         1. These people had declared faith in Jesus Christ.
         2. They had been baptized.
         3. In our common terminology today, these people were “members of the church.”
      3. This contrast declares to whom God’s grace will give everything, and to whom God’s grace will give nothing among Christians.
         1. As John began this writing, this was his first emphasis.
         2. There are some Christians who because of God’s goodness receive everything.
         3. There also are some Christians who receive nothing from God’s goodness.
   2. John began by affirming that God is absolute goodness.
      1. Using John’s common analogy, God is pure light that is in no way dimmed or contaminated with darkness.
      2. There is no evil in God; there is only the purity of goodness in God.
   3. The contrast is seen in what John said in verses 6, 8, and 10 and what John said in verses 7 and 9.
      1. Look closely at what John said in verses 6, 8, and 10.
         1. Verse 6: to claim that you have fellowship with God while, by choice, living an evil lifestyle is to lie and fail to practice the truth.
            1. Claiming that we a live life that is in association with the light while we choose to live our lives in the darkness is to lie.
            2. There is no darkness in God; God does not fellowship those who choose to live in darkness.
            3. John did not say this person did not know the truth; he said this person did not practice the truth.
         2. Verse 8: to claim that we have no sin is a self-deception that reveals we are void of truth–the truth is not in us.
            1. Truth will never lead us to conclude that, of ourselves, we are sinless.
            2. To claim to be sinless is proof that the truth does not exist in us.
         3. Verse 10: to claim that we have not sinned is to make God a liar.
            1. God says that we have sinned; everyone of us.
            2. A conviction that I do not sin is proof that God’s word is not in me.
      2. Contrast those statements with verses 7 and 9.
         1. Verse 7: If our choice is to live our daily lives in God’s light, two things will happen.
            1. We will have fellowship with each other.
               1. Maintaining fellowship with those who give self and life to Christ is a critical evidence that we live in God’s light.
               2. A natural result of finding life in Jesus is the growing desire to associate with those who live in Jesus.
            2. Jesus’ blood cleanses (a present, continuing process) us from ALL sin.
               1. For this person, the forgiveness that begins at baptism never stops.
               2. Not one of us ever knows all our sins.
               3. When we live in the light, forgiveness is a continuing process every day.
               4. Why? Because God is good.
         2. Verse 9: If we confess the sins that we realize we commit, God will do two things.
            1. He will forgive the sins that we confess.
            2. He will cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness–everything wrong, realized or not, will be cleansed continually.
            3. Confession: penitent hearts move us to be honest about realized mistakes and to accept responsibility for what we have done.
            4. Why will God do that? Because God is good.
3. Do you see the distinct contrast between these two types of Christians?
   1. One Christian refuses to acknowledge the problem of evil in his or her life or to deal with that continuing problem.
      1. “I have nothing to deal with–my life does not have any problem with evil.”
      2. “I did what God said to do to become a Christian–I was baptized.”
      3. “I do the religious things that I am supposed to do: I come to church at least once a week; I take communion; I give; I even get involved sometimes.”
      4. “My life is okay; I have no war with evil in my life; I rarely need to repent of anything or confess anything to God.”
   2. The second Christian may actually struggle with evil, but he knows the evil is there; he resists it; he repents of the evil; he is constantly learning how to be more godly.
      1. Sustaining fellowship with Christians is an important part of his or her life.
      2. He or she takes the time to be aware of evil within, to recognize evil within, to confesses mistakes and indulgence.
      3. He or she never excuses, never condones, never hides, never denies; no attempt is made to evade responsibility.
   3. I want you to advance and mature your understanding of how a Christian lives in God’s goodness.
      1. My doctrinal beliefs are important, but there is something more important, more basic than my doctrinal beliefs.
      2. My theology, my beliefs that are centered in God, are important, but there is something more important, more basic than my beliefs about God.
      3. What could possibly be more important, more basic than my doctrinal and theological beliefs?
         1. The way that I deal with the continual problem of evil in my life is more important than my doctrinal and theological beliefs.
         2. If I deny the fact that I have evil in my life, I do not live in God’s goodness.
         3. If I deal with evil in my life by living in God’s light and confessing my sins, I live in God’s goodness.
         4. Denial of my evil means that I am self-deceived, do not practice the truth, do not have the truth in me, and do not have God’s word in me.
         5. Denial also means that I make God a liar.
         6. Acknowledgment of my sins by confessing those sins to God keeps me cleansed from all sin and all unrighteousness.
         7. Though far from sinless, I live every day in God’s forgiveness.
   4. As a Christian, in God’s eyes, I am:
      1. Pure because I am forgiven.
      2. Holy because I am forgiven.
      3. Righteous because I am forgiven.
      4. I am not pure, holy, and righteous because no evil exists in my life.

We commonly think there are three basic categories of Christians. Category one: “In my love for God, I want to live a godly life and I am committed to being a godly person.” Category two: “I do not want to go to hell, but I do not want to be godly. I will do what I must do religiously, but I will live my life as I please.” Category three: “For reasons that have nothing to do with conversion, I ‘became a Christian.’ I have no interest in being godly and will make no attempt to live a godly life.”

Two observations based on the information in 1 John 1. Category two, “I do not want to go to hell but I do not want to be godly,” is of zero value spiritually. Only category one receives God’s forgiveness and lives in God’s goodness.

You cannot be perfect, but you can be faithful to God. You cannot be perfect, but you can be honest with God.

“Satan, How May I Assist You?”

Posted by David on under Sermons

Would you knowingly assist Satan by creating opportunities for him? Would you create advantages for Satan by opening a door of opportunity for him? For example, would you help Satan create an opportunity for your son to vandalize? Would you help Satan create the opportunity for someone to sexually assault your daughter? Would you help Satan create the opportunity to have your husband robbed at gun point? Would you help Satan create the opportunity to have your wife held as a hostage? Would you help Satan create the opportunity the beat and hurt your best friend?

“David, you have asked some ridiculous questions before. But those are the most ridiculous questions that you ever asked! It is absolutely ridiculous to think that I would help Satan create an opportunity to hurt anyone I love!”

When we hear about violent acts against those who believe in Christ in far off places, we see Satan’s work. We quickly recognize violent assaults on people who believe in Christ as the work of Satan. Does Satan only use violence to assault people who believe in Christ? Does Satan assault us? Does he assault our children? our husbands and wives? our friends? Do we help Satan assault our family and friends?

1. It is very simple to create opportunities for Satan, and Satan quickly accepts every opportunity that we provide him.
   1. Paul wanted the Christians at Ephesus to be fully aware of the fact that we can give Satan opportunity.
      1. In Ephesians 4 Paul told these Christians that they should not act and behave like the people who do not believe in the living God.
      2. Their acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and their confidence in the living God must change their behavior.
         1. Their new behavior will stand in total contrast to the behavior of those who do not accept Christ and believe in God.
         2. This difference in behavior will be obvious and distinctive.
      3. Paul said in Ephesians 4:25-32 that in their new behavior:
         1. They will not deceive.
         2. They will not harbor anger.
         3. They will not steal, but they will help people in need.
         4. They will not use ungodly, spiritually unhealthy language.
         5. They will not cause the Holy Spirit grief in their lives.
         6. They will not permit ungodly attitudes and emotions to control their thinking, their feelings, or their actions.
         7. Instead they will be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving.
      4. After urging them not to deceive and not to let anger infect their hearts, Paul said: “Do not give the devil an opportunity.”
         1. In context, Paul urged them to make certain that anger had a short life.
         2. Some translations state that you give Satan a foothold in your life when you nurse your anger.
   2. A classic example of this is found in Genesis 4.
      1. Two brothers, Cain and Abel, offered a sacrifice to God.
         1. Abel’s sacrifice honored God, and God accepted it.
         2. Cain’s sacrifice failed to honor God, and God rejected it.
      2. Cain regarded God’s rejection of his sacrifice as a personal insult, and he was angry and depressed.
      3. Genesis 4:6,7 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation, 1996.)
         1. God did not condemn Cain for his sacrifice.
         2. Cain’s sacrifice did not anger God.
         3. God simply did not accept the sacrifice.
      4. In fact, God asked Cain to explain why he was angry.
         1. Cain had no reason to be angry.
         2. If Cain did well, God would accept his sacrifice.
         3. Sin had not consumed Cain, but it was at the door ready to pounce on him.
         4. “Cain, don’t open the door to sin.”
      5. But Cain nursed his anger, and he gave Satan opportunity.
         1. At first, he was mad at God for not accepting the sacrifice.
         2. Then he was angry at Abel; he blamed Abel for God rejecting his sacrifice.
         3. And he nursed his anger until he killed his brother.
      6. He gave Satan opportunity.
         1. Satan gladly took the opportunity.
         2. And Satan used it to motivate Cain to murder.
2. One of the greatest pains Satan inflicts on us is inflicted by successfully controlling or destroying someone we love.
   1. To watch Satan use evil to destroy someone we love creates a pain that we cannot explain with mere words.
      1. For a husband or a wife to watch evil destroy a loved spouse is agonizing.
      2. For a parent to watch evil destroy a child is cruelty beyond description.
      3. For a friend to watch evil destroy a dear friend is deep grief.
   2. Christians who love God and trust Jesus do not consciously help Satan assault the people they love.
      1. But do we allow Satan to deceive us into doing precisely that?
      2. Do we allow Satan to manipulate us into providing him opportunities by calling those opportunities recreation, or personal development, or success, or progressive living, or influence, or coping with life and stress?
   3. Allow me to use just one example.
      1. In the last twelve months, how much violence have you witnessed? How many physical assaults have you seem? How many murders? How many rapes? How many sexual seductions? How much drunkenness?
      2. In the last twelve months, how much violence have your children witnessed? How many physical assaults have they watched? How many murders? How many rapes? How many sexual seductions? How much drunkenness?
      3. “Zero, for me or my kids. We have not witnessed any violence, physical assaults, murder, rape, or sexual seduction. We may have seen a few intoxicated people at some public event.”
      4. How many have you seen on television? in the movies? How many have your children seen?
         1. “Oh, that’s not real! I know that is not real. The kids know that is not real. That is just recreation.”
         2. Thought number one: when you see an assault, a murder, a rape, or a sexual seduction on television or in the movie, what you see is more graphic, more explicit, more detailed than witnessing an actual event.
         3. Thought number two: what convinces our children that “everyone is doing it?” Why do we adults so readily believe that “everyone is doing it?”
         4. If we think about helping Satan assault the minds and emotions of our families, it gets scary quickly.
3. Were you to decide this moment, “I will not help Satan find opportunity to assault anyone,” how would you accomplish that?
   1. That is not a simple decision, and it is a very complicated commitment.
      1. That commitment directly involves every human relationship in your life.
      2. Because we all are imperfect, because we all struggle with evil in our lives, there is no simple way to stop creating opportunities for Satan.
   2. Again, let me discuss just one situation; I fully acknowledge that creating opportunities for Satan is a problem in every relationship that we have.
      1. Think with me just a moment about being a parent.
      2. “I do not assist Satan as he looks for opportunity in my child’s life!”
      3. Just how do you manage to do that?
   3. Possible approaches:
      1. There is the approach of the master controller: “I will have such complete control over my children that Satan cannot find any opportunities.”
         1. Either the attempt to totally control or unjust control commonly creates an enormous determination in a teen to escape.
         2. With great determination, he or she looks for a way to escape the control.
         3. There are three common avenues for escape: running away, going to college to rebel against everything that angered you, or getting married.
         4. The absolute control approach does some terrible things.
            1. Control makes love conditional, so the child feels unloved.
            2. Control convinces the child that he or she cannot “measure up” to the expectations of controlling parent, so control attacks self worth.
            3. Control often creates a sense of rejection, and rejection creates anger, and the anger may be nursed for lifetime.
         5. Thus the control that tries to destroy Satan’s opportunities often creates Satan’s opportunities.
      2. There is the approach of the easygoing “good guy:” “We are good people; my children would never do anything really bad; they might occasionally act out, but it is always harmless.”
         1. This approach goes to the other extreme: “I do not need any control; I rarely need to disciple. My kids would never do anything that I would not approve of.”
         2. Ironically children often interpret this kind of trust as not caring.
         3. Evil offers our children pleasure.
            1. If we argue sin does not give pleasure, we destroy our credibility.
            2. To deny that pleasure exists in evil is worse than foolish.
            3. However, the consequences and pain that follow the pleasure must be seen.
         4. If we play the role of the “easygoing good guy” as parents, our children face the enticements of evil on their own.
         5. What greater assistance can we give Satan than allowing our children to face the enticements of the pleasures of evil alone?
      3. There is the approach of the parent who is “scared to death:” “I am afraid to do anything because I am afraid that I might do the wrong thing.”
         1. This person silently hopes and does nothing.
         2. This is an invitation to disaster.
         3. The child feels alone as he or she faces peers, pleasure, and evil.
      4. There is the approach of “showing, sharing, and guiding:” “I will be an example; I will explain my choices; and I will actively help my child.”
         1. “I will show my children how to live.”
         2. “I will explain my ‘whys.'”
         3. “I will learn how to help them.”

Will you do something in the courage of your faith? Will you examine every relationship in your life? Will you honestly ask God for an open mind and heart? Then, will you honestly answer this question? Do I help Satan create opportunities to assault the people in my life? After asking that question, will you pray for the strength and guidance to constructively work with every situation you need to address?

[Prayer]

Is God “for real” in your life? Are you honestly concerned about living for God? Or, are you just concerned about having an acceptable religion? The answers to those questions reveal if it is God who makes use of your life or Satan who makes use of your life.

The Lion Will Roar!

Posted by David on under Bulletin Articles

Countless encouraging things are happening at West-Ark! Members speak of the encouraging spirit and attitude in the congregation. Visitors and newcomers talk about the friendliness. A recent visitor attending a Church of Christ for the first time said, “This is the first time I remember attending a church and feeling better when I left.”

Sunday morning Bible study attendance is increasing. More young families are placing membership. The Discovery Dinners coupled with sponsoring families is producing the results of love and personal interest. Our first annual teachers’ appreciation banquet was excellent. Jackie Chestnut shared valuable, encouraging insights. The bonds for the Family Life Center are sold. Construction has begun in earnest. CURE delivered a large truck load of cleaning supplies to the Beebe congregation to help in tornado relief/recovery.

Be prepared for the lion to roar! It is time! Satan has one primary goal. Everything he does targets the destruction of Christ’s earthly objectives. God threw him out of heaven and confined his activities to earth. He lost the heavenly war, and he is furious!

Satan despises God. The depth of his hatred is seen in the crucifixion and all the events surrounding it. On earth, he opposes God in every possible way. He challenges Christ in every conceivable situation and context.

Because he despises God, he despises any person who loves God. Only people who love God and trust Jesus Christ are an earthly threat to Satan. Satan must threaten, intimidate, abuse, and resist these people with every resource at his disposal. AND HE WILL! He who is responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion will not smile harmlessly at those who live for Jesus.

The “tests” will come. The trials will come. Expect challenges to the congregation, to your family, and to yourself. Satan never surrenders a part of his kingdom or work without a fight. With all his being, Satan opposes anyone who dares challenge evil.

In love for God and faith in Christ, we dare challenge evil. The power of that challenge is not found in us. It is found in the God who gives forgiveness and life. Have no doubt! Satan is responding to our challenge! But do not be afraid. Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).

coming soon

Posted by David on January 31, 1999 under Sermons

COMING SOON