This is the third of a three-part answer to this question raised by the podcast Maverick: Why does the Muslim world experience so many more miracles than the Western world? Is it because the Muslim world “expects” more miracles, and if so, should Western believers increase their expectation for miracles?

With such a question there are different approaches to answering. One approach might be to question the premise—are the stories of miracles in the Muslim world true? That’s not the approach I’m taking. For the sake of this series, I’ve chosen to interact with the question as is.

The first part of my answer was a critique of the term “miracle.” I’m afraid that those asking a question like this tend to define “miracle” in a way that requires some sort of supernatural intervention, which ends up pitting miracles against providence. But if miracles are seen as a subset of providence, then the question is reduced—there is not real sense in which providence is more evident in one part of the world over another. What is different is how people respond to providence: do they worship, or do they ignore?

The second part of my answer critiqued the notion that miracles happen to those that expect them. “Expect the unexpected” may make for a neat quip, but it is a bad theological principle because it is logically self-defeating. If miracles came to those that expected them, there would be no miracles at all.

Today I want to get more to the heart of the question. For the sake of the argument, grant that “more miracles happen in the Muslim world than in the West.” Is that a good thing? Should people in the West want to experience more miracles?

In the Bible, generally speaking, miracles are grouped. There is a cluster of miracles around Exodus, then again around Elijah and Elisha, and then finally around the person and work of Jesus. Miracles are far from the norm in the Bible. That is precisely why they are miraculous.

The Bible also makes cultural distinctions around miracles. For example, miracles came to Israel, but when Israel responded with unbelief, miracles were withheld from them. In fact, Matthew 12:39 is a sharp rebuttal to those that say if only Americans asked for more miracles then they’d experience more miracles: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” With that, Jesus expressly condemns people who have the word of God, yet are also seeking miracles.

That doesn’t of course mean that all miracles are bad. But it does mean that their affect was to authenticate the messengers (Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, the disciples). As the word of God went forward, as people responded to the gospel, the purpose of miracles was eclipsed by faith. As an example, consider the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7. The Jews had seen the miracles, and wanted more of them, but by and large refused to put their faith in Christ. So, he withdrew to the Gentile lands and the Syrophoenician woman came to him to beg for the life of her demon-possessed daughter.

Surprisingly, Jesus told her that he didn’t come to perform miracles for Gentiles, but rather for Jews. She insightfully pointed out that, judging by Jesus’ presence in Sidon, the Jews didn’t seem that receptive. She compares her need to a dog begging for scraps rejected by children (Mark 7:28). With that, Jesus granted her request. The contrast was clear: a miracle would happen to her daughter and Jesus would be authenticated as the Savior of the world, not merely of Galilee. Meanwhile, back in Israel, Jesus declared, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah” (Luke 11:29).

Once the Word of God has been preached in a place and is rejected, the desire for miracles is a wicked desire.

I believe and teach the doctrine of cessationism—that the gift of miracles was sign gift, given to the Apostles, and that it had largely run its course by the time 2 Timothy and Hebrews were written (2 Timothy 4:20, Hebrews 2:4). Those reading this may not share my convictions on this, but note that cessationism does not—nor has it ever—implied that there are no miracles in the world. Saying that the gift of miracles has ceased is different than saying that miracles have ceased. The difference between those two statements (“the gift of miracles has ceased” and “miracles have ceased”) is important. The first is evident, and the second is foolish. Christians believe in miracles—including the miracle of regeneration.

But whether or not you are a cessationist, understand the logic of the pattern of miracles in the Bible. Miracles come at a time of great deliverance to authenticate the message. Once the message has been established and rejected, to continue to request miracles is an act of unbelief, not faith.

So today, it should not be surprising if miracles are being reported where the gospel is making inroads for the first time in centuries. That is a good and glorious thing, and points to the veracity of the message. But the second people begin to think that the miracles are the message, then I would imagine that the miracles (in as much as they are authentic) would cease. In Scripture, miracles point to the deliverance of God through the gospel, not to themselves.

Along those same lines, it should not be surprising that people in the West—where the gospel has in the past been part of our culture, but where it is currently rejected—would see less miracles (and recall, for this answer I’m granting the premise of the question). Those who reject the gospel get no sign, other than the sigh of Jonah.

If you have made it through all four parts of this series, here is what I hope you take away:

1. Miracles are not a challenge to cessationism. Christians believe in miracles.
2. God is doing incredible things in the Muslim world through missions right now, and the gospel is going forward in massive ways. This should be celebrated.
3. Miracles are never the message missionaries bring—the gospel goes forward through the sign of Jonah, with other signs (if they are there at all) far in the background.
4. The longing to experience miracles is often a sign of spiritual immaturity, and as a person grows in their faith, the more they should see God’s wonderful and providence all around them, in every area of life.
5. Don’t downplay the wonders of providence for the desire to “see more miracles.” Miracles DO NOT come to those that expect them, and to believe that is to set yourself up for disappointment and apostasy.
6. If someone is drawn to Christ “for the miracles,” do not be surprised if they apostatize when miracles are no longer sufficient to keep them. Miracles are powerless to wage war against the flesh. Only the Spirit can do that, through regeneration that leads to sanctification. The Bible refers to this as “Christ in you,” and that is the biggest miracle of all (Col 1:27).

As we enter the Advent season, it is a good time to be reminded that Jesus was a real person, who had a real family, and real ancestors. His ancestors were sovereignly appointed by God, who steered history all the way to the virgin birth.

Here is a list of Jesus’ ancestors by name, along with the meaning of each name. While this may be a hard concepts for Americans (we often choose names that have no meaning), Hebrews were generally very aware of the significance of a name. Obviously a person was given their name before they had their character revealed (although there are examples of people who had their name changed to reflect their current conduct–Israel, Naomi, etc.), but part of the Hebrews trust in God’s sovereignty was a recognition that God is sovereign over birth, and over names. Thus the connection between a name and conduct was much more direct and atemporal than Americans can imagine.

With that said, read through the meaning of the names of Jesus’ ancestors, and see how God was at work through history:

Names in the Genealogy of Jesus and What They Mean

Adam – Son of the earth

Seth – Appointed

Enosh – Man; Human Being

Kenan – Acquire

Mahalalel – The Shining one of God

Jared – Descent; Ruling; Rose

Enoch – Dedicated; Trained; Disciplined

Methuselah – Man of the Dart; One who was sent

Lamech – Poor; Made Low

Noah – Rest

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Shem – Name; Fame

Arphaxad – Healer; releaser

Cainan – Possessor; Purchaser

Shelah – Petition

Eber – One that passes; anger

Peleg – Division

Reu – Friend, Companion, Neighbor

Serug – Branch

Nahor – Hoarse, dry, hot

Terah – Wanderer

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Abraham – Father of many

Isaac – One Who Laughs

Jacob – Supplanter

Judah – Praise

Perez – Breach; Burst forth

Hezron – The Dart of Joy

Ram – Pleasing; Supreme

Arni – Eagle

Admin – A Red Flower

Aminnadab – My people are Noble

Nahshon – Foretells

Salmon – Peaceable; Perfect; He that Rewards

Boaz – Swiftness

Obed – Worshipper

Jesse – The Lord Is

David – Beloved

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Solomon – Man of peace

Rehoboam – Sets the people at liberty

Abijah – Yahweh is my father

Asaph – Gather

Jehoshaphat – Yahweh is judge

Joram- God is exalted

Uzziah – My strength is God

Jotham – Perfection of Jehovah

Ahaz – Has Held

Hezekiah – Yahweh is my strength

Manasseh – God has made me forget my troubles

Amos – To carry

Josiah – God Supports and Heals

Jeconiah – God Has Established

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Shealtiel – I asked God for this child

Zerubbabel – One sown in Babylon

Abiud – Father of praise

Eliakim – God will establish

Azor – A helper; a court

Zadok – Righteous; Justified

Achin – Brothers

Eliud – God is my praise

Eleazar – God has helped

Matthan – Gift

Jacob – Supplanter

  Joseph – God will add; Taken away

  Mary – Beloved; Wished for Child

Jesus – Deliverer; Rescuer

The Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting takes place this week in Denver. ETS is an opportunity for theology professors from around the world to present research and receive feedback from each other, as well as learn about books and resources set to be released.

The gathering is a highlight for me every year. It reminds me that there is  an infinite depth to theology, so theologians can spend their entire lives learning, and still constantly have an ocean of unexplored truth in front of them.

Here is a list of people from Master’s that will be presenting this year, as well as a few of our alumni:

Tuesday:

9:50-10:30 am, Jesse Johnson (The Master’s Seminary, Washington, DC): Psalm 89 and the Pactum? How “Theological Exegesis” Sheds New Light on the Oldest Covenant. Tower Building, 2^nd floor, Tower Court C.

3:40-4:20 pm, Todd Bolen (The Master’s University): Solomon’s Coronation and Coregency: Identifying Three Stages in the Succession. Plaza Building, Concourse Level, Governor’s Square 14.

4:30-5:10 pm, Mike Elliott (Compass Bible Institute), One Attribute to Rule Them All? Glory, Holiness, and the Search for an “Attribute of Attributes; Tower Building, Terrace Level – Capitol.

7:00 pm, a TMS alumni reception off site

Wednesday:

9:20-10:00 am, Paul Twiss (The Master’s Seminary): Apprehending God’s Redemptive Good: Reading Genesis 50:15-21 as a Last Delay. Plaza Building, Concourse Level – Plaza Court 7.

8:30-11:40 am, Michael Grisanti (The Master’s Seminary) will be moderating a session on Old Testament narrative literature, and specifically the intertextuality of earlier books with post-exilic books; Plaza Building, Concourse Level – Governor’s Square 15.

3:00-6:10 pm, Kevin Zuber (The Master’s Seminary) will be moderating a session on Systematic Theology. Tower Building, Terrace Level – Capitol.

Thursday:

2:20-3:00 pm, Clint Archer (Christ Fellowship Church), The Environment in the Eschaton: Does God Destroy the Earth, or does the Earth Destroy Us? Tower Building, Mezzanine level.

2:20-3:00 pm, Kyle Dunham (Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary), Viewing the Psalms through the Lens of Theology; Plaza Building, Concourse Level – Governor’s Square 14.

4:00-4:40 pm, Nelson S. Hsieh (Tyndale House, Cambridge), A Detailed Comparison of the Paratextual Features of the Tyndale House GNT and Nestle-Aland 28; Tower Building, Majestic Level – Majestic

4:00-4:40 pm, Daniel J. Stevens (The Museum of the Bible) Changes: Theological Reflections on Two Variant Readings in Hebrews 1:8; Tower Building, Terrace Level – Biltmore.

If I missed any TMS alumni, let me know in the comments please!

Our God reigns. That is a monumental and paramount truth. It is a reality that changes everything. When you wake up in the morning, you do not wake up to a world that is void of purpose. No, our God reigns. When you go throughout your day, there are no accidental conversations or interactions. Why? Our God reigns. When you go to bed at night after a day full of turmoil in seeing sin paraded in the country on the news, in hearing sin praised in your workspace, in knowing the sin that you’ve committed yourself, you do not go to bed to bed without hope… no, again, our God reigns.  

How that reality alters a Christian’s perspective on everything that takes place in this world: when there’s a tragedy and a famous individual, or a young child dies, when there is political upheaval that is taking place and confusion is in the water, when a virus runs the world over with lockdown policies in tow, when the stock market is a roller coaster, when there’s family difficulty taking place, when there’s disunity in the church, in the midst of it all… our God reigns. 

And if our God reigns, which He does, then what I desire to show you from God’s word is that reality is the bedrock of Christian conviction. All Christian convictions flow out from this truth and are connected to the reality that God reigns. 

In our day, Christian conviction is something we need more of. Because after all, we live in a world full of convictions do we not? The world is full of strong convictions. The world’s convictions range from men claiming to be women, and women claiming to be men. There’s a conviction that marriage can be between two men or two women; the conviction that our world is systematically racist, that a child in the womb is a choice and not a person… the list goes on. We live in a world where gaslighting occurs on major news networks, where morality is seen as subjective and malleable, and where truth is based on one’s perspective and not objective fact. We live in a world that has sought to remove God from schools, except for using His name as a curse word. 

The question that rises to the surface is this, does the world have more conviction over its sinful causes than we do for Jesus Christ and His word? Is the world more passionate about seeking to fabricate what gender is than we are about proclaiming the truth that God made them male and female? Is the world more passionate about proclaiming that marriage is a union between any group of people regardless of gender, than we are about proclaiming what marriage truly is, the union of one man and one woman under God? Is the world more concerned with murdering children than we are with saving them? Is the world more concerned with seeking to convince you you’re crazy than we are with establishing the facts? Is the world more excited about living for sin than we are about displaying righteousness? Is the world more concerned about promoting all sorts of false religions and means of salvation than we are with the gospel? If anything, our convictions should be infinitely stronger than that of the world because, once again, our God reigns. 

My prayer for you in reading this article is that you would feel––freed. I hope you’ll feel freed and liberated to live unashamedly for Jesus Christ in this world because our God reigns. To do this, we’ll consider from God’s word that He does reign from Ps 47:8 and additional texts, and then we will see the effect that reality should have upon a believing soul. 

Ps 47 is written by the sons of Korah as a call for Israel to worship in light of the comfort they have in knowing who their God is. Ps 47:8 reads in this way, “God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.” There are few things more comforting than that verse right there. 

The fact that God reigns is something that we don’t forget, but it is something we forget to live under. What does that look like? It looks like being anxious about the future. It looks like being in a place where you wonder if the world can truly be restored. 

The antidote to those situations is found in this verse. “God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.” God has not been defeated. God’s ways are not thwarted. God isn’t unable. God isn’t unworthy. No, God reigns on His throne, and as Ps 115:3 says, “He does whatever He pleases.”

This is a lesson that the Lord taught to Nebuchadnezzar after sovereignty had been removed from him by God and then restored. And Nebuchadnezzar said in Dan 4:35, “He does according to His will in the host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can strike against His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” What a moment of realization. God reigns over all and His will comes to pass, always. 

With this knowledge, Christians do not need to be anxious regardless of what is on the news or what takes place even in our own lives… this information, when rightly appropriated, should fill you to the brim with courage. Because God reigns you can be a man or woman of conviction. Because God reigns you should rest firmly upon the truths of God’s word and boldly declare them that all might fear the true God. 

This is the same truth that compelled David when looking upon Goliath who stood approximately four feet taller than him, not to run away from him… but as 1 Sam 17:48 says, “Then it happened when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.” How could David, the youngest and smallest of Jesse’s sons, run out to battle with a seasoned war vet like Goliath? It’s because he knew the Mosaic Covenant and the God who reigns over it. David rested not in the outward appearance of the battle, but rather in the fact that God reigns.

Later on chronologically, in Dan 3, the knowledge of God’s rule motivates the faithfulness of His people amid the threat of certain death. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon built a statue of himself and called everyone to bow down to it at the sound of music with the threat of certain death for those who didn’t (cf. Dan 3:6). But not everyone bowed down. The text says “There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon, namely Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. These men, O king, do not pay attention to you; they do not serve your gods and do not worship the golden image which you have set up.” Three men out of likely hundreds if not thousands will not bow down to this idol. 

At which point Nebuchadnezzar gives them one more chance, and asks the question in Dan 3:15, “… and what god is there who can save you out of my hands?” He effectively is asking, is there a God who reigns? Is there any God who can stop me? We know the answer, and he will too. “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to respond to you with an answer concerning this matter.’” Pause there for a moment. Do they sound scared? This man has life and death in his power. Do they seem frightened? No, they seem freed. They seem liberated to speak boldly. Either they are crazy or they are men of sound conviction. They go on, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to save us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will save us out of your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden image that you have set up.” What a wonderful response. That’s courage and goldy conviction right there.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego say in summary “our God… He can save us, that’s no big deal.” They know God is all-powerful. He rules over the nations. God wouldn’t break a sweat to save them. He can stump Nebuchadnezzar in a heartbeat and would momentarily. But they go on, and don’t miss the impact and weight of their words, “But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods.” Here’s a lesson, their faithfulness to the Lord wasn’t predicated upon whether they would live or die, no… it was based and founded upon who their God is. He is the God who reigns.

Nebuchadnezzar throws them into a furnace. Verses 24–26,

“Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded and hurriedly stood up; he answered and said to his high officials, ‘Was it not three men we cast tied up into the midst of the fire?’ They answered and said to the king, ‘Certainly, O king.’ He answered and said, ‘Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!’ Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the furnace of blazing fire; he answered and said, ‘Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, come out, you servants of the Most High God, and come here!’ Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came out of the midst of the fire.” 

Remember what Nebuchadnezzar just questioned? “What god is there who can save you out of my hands?” Answer, the Most High God who reigns. That’s Who can do it. At which point, Nebuchadnezzar orders that no one in Babylon should say anything against the Most High God, or else they will be destroyed. Today our world would scoff at a rule like that even as Nebuchadnezzar did back then. But the same God remains overall today that did back then. 

At this point, don’t be disillusioned. This conviction that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego have, isn’t only for “super-spiritual” Christians or something like that. This is the ordinary yet extraordinary work of grace in the heart of one that loves Jesus. This is what happens as your heart is saturated with the reminder of Ps 47:8, “God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego knew who was really in charge and that freed them in life to live without fear. They weren’t hyper-compulsive about what would happen, no they rested soundly in the hands of God’s providence. One of my favorite lines about the Prov 31 woman is found in verse 25, “Strength and majesty are her clothing, And she smiles at the future.” That’s what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego did. They smiled at the future because they knew Who holds the future in His hands. 

God reigns over Babylon. God reigns over Nebuchadnezzar. Neither are outside of His power or control. To bring things closer to home, God reigns over America. God reigns over Joe Biden. Neither are outside of His power or control. God reigns over your coworkers, neighbors, and the person that He puts in your path in the mall, out on the trail, or wherever it may be. He reigns over the person that is hostile toward you and your faith, and the one who is not. 

There is such freedom in this truth, “our God reigns.” So I ask you, how does your freedom taste, Christian? Because God reigns, you are truly freed up in this life to live unashamedly for Jesus Christ. What’s the worst thing that can happen to you in this world? Is it that you die? Then you go to heaven. Paul says in Phil 1:21, “​​For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Death is gain for the believer as we enjoy Christ for eternity. Is the worst thing that could happen to you losing your family as Job did? Jesus says in Matt 19:29, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive one hundred times as much, and will inherit eternal life.” Is the worst thing seen in losing your home? Jesus says in John 14:1–3, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” Is it the worst thing to have your name slandered? God says in Is 56:5, “To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial, And a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.” Is the worst thing possible you losing your job? Jesus teaches in Matt 6:25–33,

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single cubit to his life span? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” 

The answer must be no to all of the above.

The worst thing for a Christian in this life isn’t seen in the things that God has given to you that He might take away, to pull on the book of Job in Job 1:21, the worst thing for a Christian is to be unfaithful to the Lord who reigns. That’s why the martyrs were willing to lay down their lives. It is more important to die and be faithful to the Lord than to deny him and live a few more years in this life that is but a mist that then vanishes. 

Death leads to heaven. Persecution makes us like Jesus. Loss of property reminds us of our future inheritance. Loss of family reminds us of our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

You have been liberated. All is yours in Christ. This is not a call for a martyrs complex. This isn’t a call to be living haphazardly. Rather, this is a call to be a man or woman of conviction, standing firm in the truths of God’s word in a generation that scoffs at His name. 

To be clear, as a word of clarification, we are not to be rabble-rousers. We are to live tranquil and quiet lives according to 1 Tim 2:2, not warring against those in authority but that in no way negates standing firm where God stands firm in His word. 

By way of example, when Peter and John were arrested in Acts 4, they stood before the authorities. We see in verses 8–12,

“... Rulers and elders of the people, if we are being examined today for a good deed done to a sick man, as to how this man has been saved from his sickness, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead⁠—by this name this man stands here before you in good health. He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief corner stone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

These men are not rabble-rousers, but they preach the message of truth and correct the false understanding of the Jewish leaders in a direct manner.  

Afterward, they commanded them to not speak about Jesus. Were they more concerned with procuring their lives or reputations before men, or were they freed up because God reigns? Were they men of conviction, with sturdy backbones willing to speak the truth to a world of opposition? Luke records, “But Peter and John answered and said to them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.’” They were liberated and held captive by the word of God.

When we stand resolutely in God’s word, we do so amid this generation where it seems there is more and more persecution for those who do such. And there will likely be more in the future. But remember in those moments… our God reigns. What can man do to you? Jesus taught in Matt 10:28, “And do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Christians should have the most conviction of any group in the world. We are the only ones who are following the true God, who cannot lie. We have nothing to lose in this world that should ever keep us from being faithful to the Lord. We should be a people who are unashamed because our God reigns. We have seen that God does reign. He’s made all things. We have seen in the example of just a small sample of believers throughout history that they lived unashamedly because of who the King is. 

My encouragement to you is that when the world tries to silence God and you for speaking about Him, do not forget the God who you serve. He is the God who can preserve in the burning furnace, but even if He doesn’t, He’s worth being faithful to even to the end. He is the God who can shut the mouth of lions. He is the God who deserves the voice of His people, and we should be those that seek His approval, “well done” over pats on the back from the world. 

Where you have an opportunity to speak about the truth of God’s word, that lives might be preserved, unity might be achieved, and truth might be upheld… do it. This world desperately needs Christians who will herald and adorn the truth that they believe. After all, that’s what our Savior did when He was on the earth. 

Listen to the freedom that Paul speaks of in Rom 8:31–39 that we have as Christians to live unashamedly for Him. 

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who indeed did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously 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 affliction, or turmoil, 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 counted as sheep for the slaughter.’ 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 rulers, 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.”

Let those words refresh your soul. Be comforted in remembering that our God reigns from His throne and that we, as His people can live unashamedly for Him in the here and now as His representatives. 

In 1880, Charles Bradlaugh was elected as a member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the Northampton district. His constituents knew he was an atheist who liked to publicly challenge Christians but didn’t think it would affect his work in parliament. They were proven wrong on his first day as their MP. He objected to taking an oath of allegiance before God, on the grounds that God did not exist. He asked to be allowed to make a good old-fashioned ‘cross my heart’ promise and leave God out of it. This request was denied on the grounds that if there were no God then there would be no morality, no right and wrong, no truth or lie, and the oath would be meaningless. So, Bradlaugh forfeited his seat in Parliament, but … I kid you not … he kept sneaking in to vote. On three occasions he voted without anyone noticing that he had snuck in. On other occasions, he was caught and escorted out of the building by police. He thus proved the ruling against him right: that a man that does not believe in God doesn’t believe in any authority.

One of Bradlaugh’s publicity stunts backfired badly when he challenged a pastor, Hugh Price Hughes, to a public debate on the validity of belief in God. Hughes immediately accepted the challenge but added one of his own.

Hughes said, “I propose that we each bring some concrete evidence of the validity of our beliefs in the form of men and women who have been redeemed from their lives of sin and shame by the influence of our teaching. I will bring 100 such men and women, and I challenge you to do the same. If you cannot bring 100, Mr. Bradlaugh, to match my 100, I will be satisfied if you will bring 50 men and women who will stand and testify that they have been lifted up from lives of shame by the influence of your teachings. If you cannot bring 50, then bring 20 people who will say, as my 100 will, that they have a great joy in a life of self-respect as a result of your atheistic teachings. If you cannot bring 20, I will be satisfied if you bring 10. Nay, Mr. Bradlaugh, I challenge you to bring one, just one man or woman who will make such a testimony regarding the uplifting of your atheistic teachings.”

Charles Bradlaugh, after a few days, withdrew his challenge for the debate.

I can’t help but wonder what God thinks of Mr. Bradlaugh’s efforts. Psalm 53 might provide the answer.

4 ADAGES OF APT ADVICE ADDRESSED TO AVID ATHEISTS

1.      DESIGNATION OF THE GODLESS

Psalm 53: 1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

Sometimes by changing the name of something, we change the perception. Short people are ‘vertically challenged,’ unemployed people are ‘between jobs.’ Those who disbelieve God’s existence are no longer called the godless, they are given a respectable sounding sobriquet of ‘a-theist’— without theism.

But the Bible cuts through all that political correctness and goes for the jugular of truth, calling those who reject God… fools.

The designation fool is not exactly what you might have in mind, because in our vernacular it has come to include the connotation that the person is simple-minded. A fool in English could be a person who behaves in a way that is—shall we say—‘educationally challenged.’

But the Hebrew word nabal refers specifically to a moral, willful ignorance, and has nothing to do with intelligence. Atheists can be—and often are—very intelligent, educated, erudite people. But they are fools because they willfully deny reasonable evidence for the existence of God.

They may have multiple degrees in botany from the best universities, but if they can’t look at a flower and know God exists, they are willfully ignorant, they are people who “… by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” -Romans 1:18.

And the irony is that atheists think that we believers are fools for believing in a God we cannot see.

1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

2.      DEEDS OF THE GODLESS

Psalm 53: 1-4 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good. God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?

Atheists often say that they are good people, looking out for humanity, but the Bible says no one is good at heart. This passage is quoted in Romans 3 and is repeated in Psalm 14. This is an important part of theology called the doctrine of complete inability or, the older term: total depravity. People are not born innately good, they are born unable to find God, and are at their core … godless.

Verse 1b: They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.

So their deeds are evil. Evil people cannot do good deeds.

Verse 2:  God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

Humans are evil. This is tough to deny. Just read some history, watch some news, and observe a few elementary schoolers interact with a disabled child. People are cruel, they don’t come any other way.

Am I generalizing here? Well, David makes it more clear for us:

Verse 3: They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

This is not a generalization, it is an undeniable fact. Everyone is evil.

Verse 4: Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?

Ironically, it is unbelievers who deny that people are evil. Don’t they get news channels where they live?

3.    DESTINY OF THE GODLESS

Psalm 53: 5 There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror! For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you; you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.

There is hope in this world. It is twofold. Firstly, there will be punishment for evil.

The guilt of the godless is tormenting and makes them paranoid. Because they know the evil in their hearts, they are suspicious of the evil in others. People often project their guilt onto others. Even if the dangers aren’t really there, they are anxious and suspicious.

But the punishment of the godless is not just their own perceptions, it is a judgment from God.

Verse 5 …For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you; you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.

This is a fearful fate, but is there another way? Is there any hope for mankind?

4.    DESPAIR OF THE GODLESS

Psalm 53:6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores the fortunes of his people, Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

This verse has tremendous hope in it, but only for those who believe in God. For the godless, there is no such hope because, although there is one solution, there is one hope, it does not come from the human heart, it comes from outside of us. It comes from God.

David does not say if only people would get their act together! If only we could make ourselves good, then the world would be a better place. No, it is God who restores the fortunes of his people.

To say in your heart that there is no God is to discard any hope you could have had. I possess hope, but that hope is not in myself. It is not in you. It is not in mankind or any human system or philosophy. My only hope is in a person: the Savior, Jesus Christ.

I know the sin in my heart and yours. The solution is not coming from within me, any time soon. The solution, the healing, is coming from Zion, from God’s holy hill, when Jesus returns to Jerusalem in blazing glory and triumph to usher in the kingdom, make all things new, and rescue those who believed in him and called on his name!

CONCLUSION

What about you? Can you look at the world and say in your heart there is no God? Or will you give up your willful ignorance, turn from your dark ways, and will you trust in him for your salvation? Because it is only the fool who says in his heart, there is no God.

Have you ever wondered why people call themselves “Reformed”? The word “reformed” generally means “improved” or “having relinquished an immoral, criminal, or self-destructive lifestyle”—as in, desperate parents may send an incorrigible adolescent to a reformatory school to get them back in line; politicians promise economic reforms to undo the damage of their predecessors. In theological circles, the word is written with a capital R and acts as a self-designation for those who consider themselves to be direct doctrinal descendants of the Reformation progenitors, namely Martin Luther, Jean Calvin, William Farel, Theodore Beza, Ulrich Zwingli, John Knox, et al.

For example, plain vanilla Baptists get upgraded to “Reformed Baptists” if they embrace not only the tenets of Baptists but also the doctrines for which the Reformers risked life and limb.

Exactly 505 years ago, to the day (October 31, 1517), the Catholic priest, Martin Luther, nailed, to the door of the Wittenburg Castle Church, his list of 95 things the Catholic Church needed to reform/improve in order to be faithful to what the Bible teaches.

Reformed folk today come in various subspecies: some don’t hold to all five tenets of the Calvinist TULIP* scheme, others have shed the Reformers’ eschatology and ecclesiology, such as infant baptism. But all who brandish the prefix “Reformed” will share a profound commitment to the five slogans of the Reformation that functioned as the five-fold battle cry of essentials around which all Reformers united.

Ironically, these five mottos are commonly referred to by their Latin monikers. I say it’s ironic because the Reformers were committed to translating the Scriptures and theological writings out of the elitist Latin language and into any and every vernacular tongue imaginable. But the description of this commitment has come to us in Latin: Post tenebras lux,(after darkness light).

Any visitor to South Africa’s Kruger National Park wants to see the Big Five: lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and buffalo. Though there are countless species to keep career game wardens busy for a lifetime, nothing trumps the satisfaction of spotting the Big Five.

Here is a quick primer on the doctrinal biggies of the Reformation, the so-called “Five Solas.”

1. Scripture Alone (Sola Scriptura)

While the Catholic church taught that authority lies in two main sources: the Scriptures (Old & New Testaments) and the magisterium (the official dogma of the Pope and his councils), the reform Luther wanted was that the church should recognize only one source of revelation: Scripture alone.

See 2 Pet 1:21; 2 Tim 3:16; Mark 7:7; 1 Cor 4:6.

The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith articulates it this way:

Those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them.” (1689 BCOF, Ch 1, Par 7).

2. By Grace Alone (Sola Gratia)

Where the Catholic church taught that salvation came to an individual by means of Christ’s work on the cross and man’s work in response (including necessary sacraments such as baptism into the Catholic church and communion administered by an authorized Catholic), the Reformers insisted that salvation came by one means: God’s free, unmerited favor initiated by him, or simply put, by grace alone.

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

See also, Titus 3:5; Romans 3:24

3. Through Faith Alone (Sola Fide)

Similar to the previous one, this doctrine emphasizes that the instrument by which grace is administered is not faith in combination with the practice of certain sacraments, but faith alone. Good works follow salvation from sin, but those works are not accounted as the means of saving grace.

Faith thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.” (1689 BCOF ch 11, par 1,2)

4. Through Christ Alone (Solus Christus)

Integral to the Catholic system of salvation is the role of priests. These are men who mediate between sinners and the Savior. The Reformers emphasized that anyone can go directly to the Savior, and that he is the only needed mediator…

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

Although priests did have a mediatorial role in the Old Testament, once Christ came he fulfilled that role once for all and is the only needed mediator (Heb 7:23-25). Especially relevant today is that this doctrine is the opposite of the Catholic assertion that Mary occupies an office of “co-redemptrix” alongside Christ.

5. To God’s Glory Alone (Soli Deo Gloria)

Johan Sebastian Bach famously signed the written score of his compositions with this Latin dedication. The Reformers were ardent about reserving all glory for God (á la Jude 25) and not sharing it with deceased saints, Mary, the Pope, or anyone who occupied an elevated position in the Catholic system. See Isaiah 46:5-11.

Conclusion 

Please remember I called this post a primer. This is not meant to satiate your hunger for Reformation knowledge; it is meant to whet your appetite. But you do well for now if all you know about Reformed theology is that the Bible is the sole authority, grace is all that saves you, by nothing but faith, through Christ’s work alone, and exclusively for God’s glory.

Happy Reformation Day.

* Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.

Fanny Crosby was born on March 24, 1820, and by six weeks old she lost her eyesight. But through her life, the loss of her physical sight did not prevent her from fixing the gaze of the eyes of her heart upon the Lord Jesus. In 1873, of the 3,000 hymns she wrote, she penned her most famous one, “Blessed Assurance.” The hymn opens in this way,

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.

“Blessed Assurance”

She wrote out of the conviction and the solace she had found in the Lord, “blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!” There is no greater or more blessed reality than to know that Jesus is yours and that the Lord holds you in His hand (cf. John 10:27–29). What a comfort and relief it is to know with certainty that you abide in Christ and that He abides in you (cf. John 6:56; 15:4, 5). How glorious it is to have, as we read in Heb 6:11, “the full assurance of hope.” 

As I write this, I recognize that some of you who will read this, do not have a settled resolve that you do belong to the Lord. For some, it might be because you do not actually belong to Him, whereas for others, you do belong to Him, but you lack assurance of your salvation. In ministry one of the most common topics that is brought up to me concerns the assurance of one’s salvation.

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Scriptures are clear that the Lord desires for you to have assurance concerning your salvation. Put differently, if you belong to Him, He wants you to be confident in that reality. We know this from 1 John 5:13, where John says concerning what he wrote in his letter, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” John wants the church to be confident in the eternal life that they possess. If that’s John’s desire, which is God’s desire per 2 Pet 1:19–21, then how is his purpose statement accomplished? How can believers be confident in their eternal life? That’s what we’re going to speak about in this article. 

If God desires for you to have full assurance, but you do not always, then the question becomes… why? Why don’t you always have, from the moment of salvation, a complete resolve that you belong to the Lord? The direct reason for the lack of assurance is sin (which will be explained). That’s why in 1 John, John writes to promote and encourage faithfulness to the Lord, seen in following after Him. The direct answer to having assurance is obedience which flows out of the gospel that you have been marvelously saved by. 

Within the context of assurance, we are not speaking about someone truly losing or gaining salvation based on obedience. Both of those are distortions of the gospel. Jesus gives eternal life, not the potential of it, to all who believe in Him (cf. John 3:16–17, 36; 10:28). All who come to Jesus by faith, He will never cast out (cf. John 6:37). The reason someone is saved is that God has graciously caused a dead sinner to be born again, therefore, while our assurance most fundamentally is knit to the heart of the gospel––in God’s work, our assurance is then lived out in walking in good works (cf. Phil 2:12–13; Eph 2:10). The finished work of Christ is our hope and the guarantee of our assurance, but our faithfulness to Him, or lack thereof, can affect our confidence of belonging to Him. 

While the root of lack of assurance is due to sin (in disbelieving the promises of God to one degree or another), there are many reasons that a person might lack confidence that he or she belongs to the Lord. It could be that you see others who are more zealous for the Lord and thus feel convicted and question, “if they are doing x, y, and z… and I am not, how can I be a Christian?” It could be that a brother or sister came along and made a comment calling into question the legitimacy of your salvation. It could be that you look at the faithfulness of the saints in the Scriptures in your private devotion and you see how they love Jesus and hate sin and you begin to wonder about your standing before the Lord. It could be that you have misread God’s word leading to concern, or are living in a season Lord seems to be more distant relationally, and you are not trusting in His word. Another possibility is that there is a sin that you have just committed or a string of sins during a season of life which causes doubt in you.

Enter 1st John. John is writing to show what authentic Christianity looks like. We won’t look at the entire book, but there are key passages that shed light on how John sees believers having confidence in their eternal life. Keep in mind, John is writing to those who have been saved by the gospel (1 John 5:13a), who may have doubts due to incipient Gnosticism, as a shepherd who desires that they would have resolve in the promises of the Good Shepherd (1 John 5:13b). 

He begins after his introduction in 1 John 1:5–7 by saying,

“And this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not do the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 

I think it can be easy for us at times to sidestep verse 5 and look directly at verses 6–7. But John begins by directing our gaze upon the Lord. That’s vital. In a conversation about assurance, particularly for the one who’s lacking it, the solution begins by looking to the Lord. It begins by reminding ourselves of who God is. 

Paul says in 2 Cor 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” We are a people who are to be consumed with beholding the Lord with our mind’s eye. He says in 2 Cor 4:17–18, “For our momentary, light affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Twice in two chapters, there’s an expectation that we are looking upon the Lord. In Col 3:1–2, Paul writes, “Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” We are to have our minds set on Jesus. That’s confirmed in Heb 12:1–2 which says, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Christians are to be a people who have their gaze fixed upon Jesus. And who or what is more desirable to dwell on than Him? 

Oftentimes, the reason for lack of assurance comes because a person’s gaze isn’t fixed on Jesus, but on him or herself. To be clear here, I am not calling for a lack of watchfulness in the Christian life. We are to keep an eye on our life and teaching (cf. 1 Tim 4:16). But if you dwell on your sin, you are sure to commit more and become weary concerning your salvation. Robert Murray McCheyne once said, “For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.” That’s a great model. We should be aware of our sins, but they should drive us to Jesus. We are called to dwell on Him, not sin… over and over in the Bible. 

John begins his treatise on assurance by speaking about the Lord. God is Light. He is the radiance thereof, in His holiness. There’s no darkness or waywardness in Him. Then John says that there should not be a lifestyle of waywardness in God’s people. What John is teaching is that the people that the Lord has redeemed reflect Him. They image Him forth in this world. If God is light, then so too are His people (cf. Matt 5:14). We are to represent and display Him on the earth. But when we walk in sin, we are not doing that. When we walk in sin, we are going against God’s design for us. That can be a cause for questions about the topic of assurance.

In Rom 8:14–17, Paul writes,

“For as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry out, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, also heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

If you belong to the Lord, the Spirit testifies and bears witness within you that you belong to the Lord. That occurs in the moment of salvation and is designed to occur throughout the rest of your life. However, if you are walking in sin, you will oftentimes hear the sweet sting of conviction from the Spirit, even over the testimony of your sonship. The Spirit will not affirm us in our sin, He will spur us in the side, to deliver us from it. Praise the Lord for that! Then we once again hear His internal testimony. 

John also goes on to say in verse 8, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Christians are not perfect in this life. While the word “saint” means “holy one,” we are not perfectly holy until we see Jesus and are like Him (cf. 1 John 3:2). What that means is while we are positionally holy in salvation because of God’s justifying work, we are becoming more of the people who we’ve been declared to be, day by day in progressive sanctification (cf. Rom 8:29–30). Christians are not sinless and won’t be until glory, but over time we should become more like the sinless One that we follow. 

So far, we have seen that to have assurance of salvation, you must dwell on the Lord. You must think much about the One you have been saved by. We have also seen that you must live a life following Him. If you are seeking to live for the sins of the world and for Jesus, do not believe you will have assurance. In 1 John, we see that God doesn’t promise you that. What we do see is that we do not earn salvation, therefore we cannot do anything to lose salvation. That lies in the hands of the Sovereign who made you, which should be a comfort for believers.

The pattern continues as we read on. 1 John 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” We are called to not sin, to live in that which put Jesus on the cross. But, when we do sin, building upon 1 John 1:8, 10, then who do we dwell upon and run to? Jesus. Our loving Father and our dear Savior welcome us back. Sometimes in sin, there’s a temptation to believe that God’s love has changed toward you, as though His posture has changed so as to stiff-arm your return to Him, but nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus stands ready, at your aid and defense when you do sin. Call to mind the picture of the father of the prodigal son who, when his son returns after living in sin, runs out to him “and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him (cf. Luke 15:11–24).” The Lord welcomes His own with open arms. We are called to confess our sins and run to the Lord (cf. 1 John 1:9).

As John goes on he explains that those who know and love God, keep His commandments. That’s building upon Jesus’ words in John 13:15, “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.” What that looks like, as John goes on, is walking like Christ, loving your brother, avoiding the sins of this world out of a superior love for Jesus, and being taught of the Holy Spirit, which implies a study of God’s word. 

Then in 1 John 3:2–3, we read, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been manifested as yet what we will be. We know that when He is manifested, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” John continues to beat the same drum. God’s people are to dwell on Him. That’s what we were designed for. Apart from Him, we can do nothing (cf. John 15:4–5). We are to dwell on Jesus and turn away from sin. Jesus came to take away sins and destroy the works of the devil (cf. 1 John 3:6, 8). How can we live in that which Jesus came to set us free from (cf. Rom 6:1, 15)? Again, this is a call to live a lifestyle pattern of obedience. 

John goes on to explain how those that love God love others, they cry out to God in prayer, they are discerning, and they dwell on the gospel. He says in 1 John 4:9–10, “ By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” After which, John says in verses 16–18, which again pertain to assurance,

“And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love has been perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

If you have believed in the gospel, you are loved by God, and you need not fear judgment because of the work of the Son of God on your behalf. John says in 1 John 5:12, “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have that life.”

If you have truly believed in Jesus’ sinless life of obedience to the Father, His substitutionary death on the cross, and His resurrection to life… if you have trusted in Him for the salvation of your soul, for eternal life, and you have turned away from living for sin to follow Him, you are saved (cf. Rom 10:9–10). Maybe in reading this far, you realize that the reason for the lack of assurance is because there are no grounds for it to begin with, in that you’ve never believed in the good news of the gospel. If that’s you, believe in Jesus Christ for the salvation of your soul. You must. 

But I reckon, some of you may have been disturbed with doubts because you have been walking in sin. My encouragement to you is the same as John’s, dwell on the Lord, and forsake sin. You will once again hear the sweet song of the Spirit in your soul confirming you belong to the Lord. Cry out to the Lord in prayer for this confirmation.

God desires for you and has designed for you to have assurance. The Christian life is one of walking by faith and not by sight, trusting in the promise of God’s word, even at times, over our feelings. Feelings can be misleading, but God’s word will not mislead you. In Heb 11:1, we see a definition of faith, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is tied to assurance. If you have believed in the gospel, then seek to live a gospel-saturated life, resting and trusting in the finished work of Jesus for your salvation, and walking like Jesus as you live on this earth. 

I want to close with two final considerations. First, oftentimes when someone comes to me concerning the topic of assurance of salvation, there is a concern from the individual that he or she doesn’t belong to the Lord. In such a case, I will remind them of Paul’s words in Rom 3:11 in speaking of unbelievers, “There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God.” Unbelievers do not genuinely seek after the Lord because they love Him and don’t want to offend Him. It doesn’t happen. Dead sinners do not have spiritual life or desire for God, only for following Satan (cf. Eph 2:1–3). If you have a fear of offending the Lord, so as to be separated from Him, in some ways, that’s actually a good sign. Unbelievers do not care about offending the Lord or being separated from Him. They fear hell, sure, but not the displeasure of God. That’s a sign of God’s work in your life. 

Second, because God loves us, when we do sin against Him, He will often discipline us. Do not mistake God’s discipline as a reason to doubt that you are saved. Instead, it should stand as a validating marker that you are. In Heb 12:5–7 we read,

“'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He flogs every son whom He receives.' It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” 

God brings about discipline so that we will be more satisfied in Him, and less desirous of the sins of the world.

My hope is that after reading this either you have a more settled assurance in the Lord or that this is a resource that can be an aid to you as you seek to provide counsel to others concerning this topic. Our Lord desires that you would know that you have eternal life and that you would have the blessed assurance of knowing that Jesus is yours forevermore. 

Many years ago, when I was a referee for Major League Soccer, the league’s head referee had an expression he frequently used: “The key to being a good professional soccer referee is to ‘expect the unexpected.” The first time I heard him say that, I understood it—it just means ‘be ready for anything.’ A short corner kick, or quick restart? Ready. A muffed punt? Good thing I was ready.

But after hearing expect the unexpected regularly, especially when it is presented as a mandate more than a truism, the luster wore off. If you think about it with any degree of seriousness, and especially if you try to apply it rigorously, you realize it is self-defeating. After all, once you expect something, it is no longer unexpected. Better just to say “know the rules, study the teams, and prepare.” That has more significance than expect the unexpected.

Which brings me to today’s post.

There is an observation that God appears to be doing more miracles in the Muslim world right now than he is the West. Why is that? I’ve heard people say that the Muslim world experiences more miracles because they expect them. The inference is that in the developed world we don’t see miracles because we don’t expect them. If we expected more, God would do more.

I have three responses to this. First, which I wrote about last week, this sentiment wrongly distorts the relationship between miracles and providence. Second, which I’ll write about today, is that it is logically contradictory. Then next week, I’ll write about why it is I think that there are more apparent miracles in the Muslim world than in the US.

For today: the idea that God does more miracles in Central Africa (for example) than in the US because people there expect them more is logically contradictory. It is the missiological equivalent of “expect the unexpected” and saying that “God does more miracles in places where he does more miracles” is about as good of an illustration of begging the question as could be imagined.

First, it simply isn’t true that God does miracles where people expect them. This is a hackneyed distortion of the health-wealth message that is devastating communities—the idea that if you expect something great from God, he will do it. This has the benefit (for the miracle worker) of being non-falsifiable. If God doesn’t do a miracle, it must be because you weren’t expecting it enough. When people teach that God does miracles among people who expect them, then it sows the seeds for apostasy. If people follow God for the miracles instead of for the Word, then when the miracles don’t show up as expected, faith wanes and people feel misled.

The idea that God does miracles among those who expect them is not only dangerous, it is also untrue. In the last post we looked at the story in the podcast Maverick where a Christian was going to be executed, but miraculously the shot missed (or the gun misfired, or an angel stopped the bullet; either way it was miraculous). Now, say what you will about that event, at the very least it was obvious that the person who was being shot was not expecting to be saved. God acted miraculously in a situation where nobody would have expected him to. In fact, the miraculous nature of what took place there would be diluted if it hinged on the person expecting to be rescued.  

Or consider the miracles in the Bible. For just one example, consider 2 Kings 7: were the lepers expecting to find the enemy camp deserted? No way — in fact is that the crux of the story. Nobody expected deliverance for Samaria. In fact, their deliverance was miraculous because it was so unexpected.

Saying that more miracles happen among people who expect them reminds me of the CS Lewis quote from The Problem of Pain: “You may attribute miracles to [God], but not nonsense.” To say that miracles are by definition “unexpected” but then say that they happen among those who expect them is contradictory, and is in fact the very point that Lewis went on to make later in the same section: “… nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”

Next week I’ll give my positive response to why more miracles seem to happen in other cultures.

Halloween and pumpkin-spiced lattes are back again, like revenant zombies that just won’t go away. And again, the unholy holiday will do nothing more– and nothing less– for the cause of Christ than any other day of the year.

Some Christians may have reveled in their liberty to let their kids dress up as Anna, Elsa, and Olaf. Incidentally, the characters in Frozen would have been Lutheran, like their creator Hans Christian Andersen; apropos costumes for Reformation month!

Other Christians may have railed against the nefarious worldliness and ghoulishness inherent in the Catholic-turned-pagan carousing. Some probably contributed to the collective national insulin spike by dolling out assorted nutrition-free candies, while others likely distributed gospel tracts and toothbrushes to the dismay of their crestfallen trick-or-treaters.

So what? (Or in the ESV “What then?”)

It seems that every year this perennial discussion of liberty’s limits pops up like whack-a-mole, only to reoccur eight weeks later with the flavor of controversy having something to do with Christmas trees and mistletoe. I’ve contributed to this in the past and probably will again in December. But my 2c will be the same every time because the holly wreath withers, the polyester costume fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever. And Scripture is not silent on these issues.

Here are some passages we should store with our Fall and Christmas décor boxes in the basement, so we can dust them off and re-apply them as a seasonal reflex:

• Romans 12: ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
• Romans 14: ⁴ Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. ⁵ One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶ The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
• 1 Corinthians 10: ¹⁹ What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? ²⁰ No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. … ²³ “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. ²⁴ Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor… ²⁹ I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? ³⁰ If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? ³¹ So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
• 1 Corinthians 4: ⁴ For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵ Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. … that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.
• 1 Peter 2: ¹⁶ Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Every believer must apply these verses for themselves. By definition, Christian liberty can’t be regulated by arbitrary rules for or against the use of that liberty. But in each situation, each believer must exercise common sense, wisdom from the Spirit, in love for other believers, as a testimony to unbelievers. And we must refrain from judging other believers who make choices that make our skin crawl. If it’s sin, that’s a different story. But if God thought an activity was sinful, he’d say so in his word.

I leave you with Charles Spurgeon’s famous response to Dr. Pentecost’s comments from the pulpit against the “sin of cigar smoking.” It’s a bit extreme, but in his characteristically charming way, Spurgeon addresses liberty in Christ with humor and candor.

If anybody can show me in the Bible the command, ‘Thou shalt not smoke,’ I am ready to keep it; but I haven’t found it yet. I find ten commandments, and it’s as much as I can do to keep them; and I’ve no desire to make them into eleven or twelve. The fact is, I have been speaking to you about real sins, not about listening to mere quibbles and scruples. At the same time, I know that what a man believes to be sin becomes a sin to him, and he must give it up. …Why, a man may think it a sin to have his boots blacked. Well, then, let him give it up, and have them whitewashed. I wish to say that I’m not ashamed of anything whatever that I do, and I don’t feel that smoking makes me ashamed, and therefore I mean to smoke to the glory of God.”

I recently heard someone make the argument that more “miracles” happen in the Muslim world among Christians than in the Western world, because in the Muslim world, believers there “expect” more miracles. There is a strong implication that God would do more miracles among Americans, if only Americans expected more from God.

There are three reasons this logic fails: it makes an artificial distinction between providence and miracles, it is logically contradictory, and it fails to account for different cultural responses to the gospel.

I’ll blog about these over three days staring here: to say that God does more miracles in places they are expected makes an artificial distinction between providence and miracles. To demonstrate this I’ll use a specific example from the podcast Maverick—it tells the story of a convert to Christianity who is going to be executed with a handgun and pointblank range. But when the murderer pulls the trigger, the gun fires, but no bullet apparently comes out, and the Christian lives. He later says he felt air touch his head, almost like an angel’s hand blocked the bullet.

The narrator then lays out three ways to view stories like this:

1). To assume the story is not true

2). To assume the story is true, but there is a “natural” explanation

3). To assume the story is true, and an example of a modern day miracle

The problem with #1 is that the person who comes to faith is now entering into a life of persecution. He has nothing to gain by lying, and everything to lose. So other than the attention gained by being on the right end of a story like that, there doesn’t seem to be much incentive for lying. Thus, #1 seems unreasonable.

The problem with #2 according to the podcast, is that ostensibly there is no “natural” explanation that makes sense. How would the gun have misfired? Were there even any blank bullets around? If the bullet itself was corrupted, the shooter would have likely known and recognized it. Thus, there does not seem to be a natural explanation, and #2 can be ruled out.

By process of elimination the conclusion then is #3, it must have been a miracle. But I want to point out that there is a gaping problem with such a list. Namely, by pitting “natural” causes against “miracle” it diminishes providence.

Providence is the term often used by Christians to describe the intentional and meticulous way God directs all the affairs of this world for his general glory, his own specific purposes, and his own personal ends. In other words, the details of this world are under God’s overarching yet personal sovereignty. You ran into a friend from high school on a flight? Providence. You got the last parking spot at the restaurant? Providence. Also, you missed your flight by 90 seconds, and thus you missed a funeral you were attending? That too is providence.

The Westminster Confession uses the term providence to describe how God “doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least.” (WCF 5.1). He does this “according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”

The final two options above—natural causes or miracles—creates a false dichotomy between miracles and providence. Such a division is often used by those who reject the concepts of divide sovereignty and meticulous providence. Wayne Grudem has an excellent section in his Systematic Theology (Chapter 17a) where he wrestles through how miracles relate to providence—and while I may disagree with some of his conclusions as they relate to what he calls the “gift of miracles,” I completely agree with him that miracles are essentially a subset of providence and are impossible to distinguish. How would one even set about determining if an invisible angel blocked the bullet or if a nervous uncle misloaded the gun or closed his eyes and missed his target by a millimeter? How could we, hearing the story later? How could the person on the other end of the gun? Why would such a distinction matter?   

If you meditate on the concept of providence for very long, you will quickly realize that providence is in a sense more miraculous than a miracle. Hey, it is easy for God to send an angel to block a bullet. But imagine the level of meticulous sovereignty it would take for God to direct the affairs of human history such that a corrupted bullet gets mixed in a box with otherwise normal ammunition. Imagine the level of control God must have over creation to direct that someone to leave a bullet out in the rain, and it gets corroded, and the powder gets wet, and then it gets put into a box that in the dark, an uncle grabs and loads his gun to shoot his nephew—but despite all his military training, he’s never shot his nephew before, and in that moment he is not focused on the bullet he chooses, and misses that it is defective. How many moving parts are in that story? Does it undersell it to call it a “natural cause” and then contrast that with “a miracle”?

The good news is that we don’t have to make those distinctions. Sometimes God causes the sun to shine off the field in such a way people think it is filled with blood, and they flee (2 Kings 3:22). Sometimes God uses echoes to multiply sound and spread confusion in the camp (2 Kings 7:6). And sometimes God uses angels to just simply kill 185,000 people (Isaiah 37:36). Note that in all three, God is using means—light, sound, or angels. Is one of those a “natural explanation” and another a “miracle”? Is one providence? Two? Or all three? At some point the distinctions become not only arbitrary, but impossible for us to understand.

This is not a denial of the supernatural. Part of being a Christian is the belief in the supernatural. The new birth, for example, is a demonstration of God directly entering a human heart and causing his work of regeneration (John 3:8; 1 john 4:7). But of course God uses means to do even that miracle (Romans 10:14).

When all things are understood as coming from God’s will, then the details of this world are understood to fall under God’s overarching sovereignty, and only then can believers can give thanks to God in all things and through all things. Whether the gun misfires or not, God is the one who gets the glory for his work in the world. When you see the world this way, you will realize that saying “God does more miracles in one part of the world over another” really undersells the nature of God’s global and providential work.

Next week we’ll look at the other two objections I have to the idea that if the West expected more miracles, we’d experience more miracles: it is logically contradictory, and is ignores cultural responses to the gospel.

I became friends with (let’s call him) Bobby, in the second grade. We looked very much alike and we loved convincing people that we were twins. When we got to high school our interests diverged– I was involved in sports and became quite lean while he became … shall we say … chubby. The kids mocked him and he withdrew, and when he used to tell friends that people used to mistake us for twins, I would get embarrassed and think to myself, “Not anymore, buddy.” But then, in eleventh grade, he stealthily started undergoing a metamorphosis. He was watching his diet and hitting the gym daily until one day I noticed that …  Bobby isn’t fat anymore! In fact, he looked quite chiseled. The following year he won a modeling competition and was awarded a modeling contract. A couple of years later I was working at a bookstore and came across a magazine with a picture of a very muscular-looking Bobby on the cover. I excitedly told my colleagues: “Hey this is my friend Bobby, we’ve been friends since the second grade, and people always thought we looked like twins!” But I could tell what they were thinking: “Not anymore, buddy.”

Bobby’s body transformation was truly remarkable, but there is one that is even more amazing that awaits Christians— a physical and spiritual metamorphosis attributed to God’s powerful work of glorification.

We have seen some introductory thoughts on eschatology, differing views on the what and the when of the Kingdom, and looked at teaching on the Rapture. We have considered the Judgments or Reckonings – the Bēma Seat as well as the Sheep & Goats’ Judgment and the Great White Throne Judgment, the Millennium, and the eternal state in Heaven.

One piece of the puzzle is missing: what is it going to be like for us to live in the eternal state? We have seen that heaven is a physical place, with governments and plants and buildings, so what kind of bodies will we have? We know that at death our spirits are released but at the rapture, our bodies and souls will be reunited. So, what does that body look like?

THREE PERSPECTIVES ABOUT GLORIFICATION SO YOU WILL BE EXCITED ABOUT DYING

1.      The Necessity of Glorification

1 Corinthians 15:50–54 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Our bodies are not equipped to last forever. They age and decay.  Nor are our spirits suited for heaven naturally. This is why we need the doctrine of glorification.

Paul teaches that glorification is the culmination of a process that begins before we are born. We are foreknown by God, predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, i.e. sinless in all we are and all we do. From this passage, we see that those whom God calls, he ends up glorifying. This chain of events from being foreknown, and predestined, to being called, justified, sanctified, and glorified is an unbroken strand.

Romans 8:29–30 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Glorification is when we, as Christians, attain perfection forever.

Glorification is a state of sinlessness that cannot be lost. At justification, we are declared positionally righteous and sinless, but we still sin. The Christian life is becoming what we are—the process we call sanctification. While we mature, we become more like Christ as we learn to hate our sin more and trust God. But the problem is that even the best Christian is not going to be perfect in his or her practice, by the time of death.

So the solution is glorification.

God makes us instantly perfectly holy when we die or get raptured.

Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

There are no unfinished Christians because God completes every work that he begins.

2.      The Nature of Glorification

1 Corinthians 15:51-52 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

Unlike sanctification, which takes our whole life, glorification is instantaneous. At death or at rapture.

1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

When Jesus comes we will be sinless and glorious, like him. Both our inner and outer man will change and be fitted for heaven, like Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:1-5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

Our earthly bodies cause us to groan. Who doesn’t groan from time to time in this life? But we will put on a better body, a building from God with no groaning, no sickness, no pain.

And we also won’t be plagued by our own inner weakness – no more sin, no more selfishness, pride, envy, lust, or anxiety.

3.      The Nearness of Glorification

While our souls are glorified the moment we die and will never sin again, we only receive our glorified bodies at the resurrection. Old Testament saints and Christians who have died, will receive their glorified bodies at the rapture. All Christians alive at the time of the rapture will receive their glorified bodies at that time too: they will be changed in the “twinkling of an eye.”

1 John 3:2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

So what happens in the meantime? What happens to Christians who die now?

The Bible is very clear that when we die we are instantly with Jesus:

Paul in Philippians 1:23… My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better, and 2 Corinthians 5:8… we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Jesus to the thief on the cross: Luke 23:43…“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

But it seems that, until rapture, we remain souls, we are still conscious and can communicate (Revelation 6:9 and 20:4), but what we look like until the rapture – no one knows for sure.

CONCLUSION

This doctrine of glorification is only glorious for those who are God’s children. If you are not a Christian, you too will receive an eternal body with which you will suffer in hell for eternity. But the good news is that you have the opportunity right now to believe that Jesus took the punishment for your sin when he died on the cross, turn in repentance to God. You can be justified today, sanctified for the rest of your life, and eventually glorified.

If you visit one of our South African game reserves you may be exposed to the stark brutality of the food chain in action. I’ve seen zebra, wildebeest, and even a giraffe, harangued into fatigue, pulled to the ground and torn to shreds by lions.

“Nature, red in tooth and claw,” as Tennyson said. When you see a herd of impala grazing, you get a distinct feeling that they are just some predator’s meal waiting to happen.

Imagine a young buck learning the facts of life from his dad: “Son, we antelope are totally harmless, we munch on grass all day, we can’t crouch down or hide in any way, oh and we are made of meat. Lions are built for speed and strength, they have fangs, claws, and camouflage, and eat only meat. Any questions?”

“Yeah. How do we survive?”

There is only one hole: find safety in numbers. Lions, leopards, and other predators tend to catch and eat one antelope every few days. So if the prey huddle together in a herd and then scatter, they only have to be faster than the others in the herd to survive.

There is safety in numbers.

Some people treat their spiritual lives the same way. They think, “God is holy and just and he hates sin, will punish it forever in Hell, but I don’t need to be perfectly holy, just holier than most of the people I’m with. If I belong to a world religion consisting of millions of adherents, then God can’t possibly disregard that religion. There is safety in numbers.”

But Jesus disabuses us of that misconception…

3 False Assurances Many People Have That They Will Be Saved

1. Awareness Of The Gospel

Luke 13:23-24And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

This man wanted to know how many people go to heaven and Jesus doesn’t say “Don’t worry, most people get to heaven, so you only have to beat the axe-murderers and Satanists.”   No, he says,… “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”

Yikes. Only those who strive (or “agonize” from the Greek) get to heaven?

But then Jesus goes further. He says there are even people who want to get in who won’t!

Pretty shocking! Doesn’t the Bible teach whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life?

Notice that Jesus uses two different words to describe similar actions with two very different attitudes.

 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”

Both types of people desire to enter the narrow door to salvation, but the one wants to enter with an agonizing, blood-earnest striving, while the other wants to enter with a casual seeking.

It’s the difference between a browser who merely flips through books for sale and the determined shopper who knows exactly which hardcover he wants and won’t let the shop assistant rest until he has located it.

The spiritual realm is the same. Many browsers find great assurance from the fact that they want to go to heaven and are aware of the gospel. They mistake intellectual assent with saving faith which changes your life to striving.

How would you characterize your spiritual life? Agonizing or just browsing?

2. Affiliation With A Church

Luke 13:25-27 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’  But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’

Notice the assurance these people are clinging to. It’s not, “But Jesus we are your children, we know you and love you and obey you.” Their assurance is … ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’

I once had coffee with actor Kevin Spacey. Well, we weren’t at the same table, and he didn’t even know I was there, but I ate and drank in his presence.

This is what some churchgoers are like. “We were always around Christianity, we prayed at mealtime, we lived our lives within Christian circles, with Christian customs. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Living near Christianity does not a Christian make.

You are saved if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

3. Advantage Of Upbringing

Luke 13:28-30In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.  And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.  And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Many Jews believed that everyone in the nation was saved, except the very bad people, like murderers or tax collectors. But Jesus is saying that some Jews who think they are first in line for the kingdom will discover that they are Johnny-come-latelys, while some who are considered to be the least eligible for the kingdom will be reclining at the table already.

This would have shocked Jesus’ audience. And frankly, it shocks many today to find out that our Christian upbringing gives us no special treatment on judgment day.

There are people who were brought up Hindu, Muslim, atheist, on the wrong side of the spiritual tracks, who will get into heaven because they came to know and trust Jesus, while some who had Christian parents and who grew up in Sunday School will be turned away because their faith was never real.

There is no safety in numbers. You have to believe in Jesus for yourself, to be saved.

Conclusion:

What is a true assurance?

The Bible gives many assurances: hatred of sin, love of obedience, love of the saints, cheerful giving, desire to serve…but every true assurance of salvation is located in one place: the heart.

It is your desires, motives, and attitudes that drive your behavior, not merely external actions, that evidence a changed heart.

For more see this post by Eric Davis “Soul Diagnostic: How to know if you are a Christian.”

Driving through Central Africa—in as much as you can drive through that part of the world—is basically a non-stop string of villages, mosques, and language groups, yet no churches. That section of the world is largely unreached by the good news. Some countries in central Africa have religious freedom—but that doesn’t mean they have the gospel, and it definitely doesn’t mean they don’t have persecution. There, religious freedom just means that persecution comes from families and local authorities, to which the government is largely ambivalent.

 Yet the gospel is starting to make inroads there. I was in a central African country last year to preach at a conference for missionaries. I saw countless villages with no gospel presence; but I also saw a few villages where that is starting to change. I saw one village that recently received the first printed Bibles in their language…ever. I attended a Christian funeral there, something that is practically unheard of in the surrounding villages. I saw other groups that had just gotten portions of the Bible recorded, and audio clips of the New Testament were starting to make the rounds.

With the spread of the gospel comes conversions. But with conversions come severe persecution. This is a place where leaving Islam may not be criminal offense, but there is still the distinct possibility it would cost a person their life.

So what does it look like when foreign missionaries bring the Bible to place like that? What happens when one person gets saved, then another and another?

Pioneers Missions has released a new podcast called “Maverick” that does a phenomenal job of describing first-hand what happens to a previously unreached town when the gospel gains a foothold. The podcast is fast-paced, immersive, and addictive. There are 8 episodes (9 if you count the epilogue) and they are all around 18-20 minutes. The story is compelling, and if you start, you won’t be able to stop.

The producers wisely decided to capture what is happening in central Africa with a story. They don’t give you stats or sociological demographics. They give you Bishara—a young Muslim millennial who gets radically converted from reading the Bible. With his new life comes new troubles, assassination attempts, kidnappings, and imprisonments. But also with his new life comes new doors for the gospel to walk through.

The pace of “Maverick” reminds me of one of those missionary stories, where at the end of every chapter you think “It can’t possibly get crazier than this,” but it does. Yet this isn’t a 19^th century biography, but a podcast made this year. The stories are happening right now. The people are alive, and are engaged in gospel ministry, while you are listening to the podcast. It really is remarkable and convicting all at the same time.

“Maverick” opens with the sound of Christians singing, and the narrator asks a question: what does this new sound mean? For some it means freedom from sin and new life. For others it represents unwelcome change. Then the story takes off. We meet Bishara, and then just a few minutes later, we think we are going to lose him, and then the episode ends but the saga begins.

Like I said, I’ve been to far-flung parts of the country where “Maverick” place, and I’ve stayed with some of the Pioneers missionaries there. I met believers whose stories sound like what you meet in this podcast. “Maverick” is authentic and personal. I listened to it and thought I know those people.  

Which is important because Bible translators can have a stereo-type. They can be thought of as quiet, reclusive kind of people who spend their time on their computers chasing down diphthongs. But in their element—in the field—they are not like that at all. They are taking risks for the gospel, and evangelizing people who, if they come to faith, seriously run the risk of losing everything. If you support missionaries in this part of the world, listen to this podcast and it will give you a better understanding of what their lives are really like.

You can find it here on Spotify, or here on Itunes.

Now, a word about “Maverick” and miracles.

There is no denying that visions and miracles play an out-sized role in gospel growth in central Africa. This place is largely Islamic, and dreams, visions, and angels are prominent in Islamic culture. If you recall, Mohammed received the Koran through a series of angelic visions, and not a lot has changed in Islam since. In the Muslim world, it is common for people to say they had dreams or visions of angels, and then to make life choices based upon their understanding of those signs.

So it should not be surprising at all that dreams, visions, and miracles are used by the Lord to bring people to himself. In the Islamic world, in as much as these stories are real, they are demonic. How like God is it to take what the devil uses to deceive, and turn it on its head for good? Think of Micaiah (1 Kings 22) who was summoned to prophecy before Ahab’s prophets. This wasn’t a game God’s prophets were supposed to play—it was a circus of conmen and lies. Micaiah recognized that it was fueled by a lying spirit-aka: a demon. Yet God used that to confront them with the truth, deliver Jehoshaphat, and vindicate his word.

In Maverick, there are examples of people taking stands for Christ based upon dreams of heaven and visions of angels. But what makes these different than the Islamic version of visions and dreams (or the Pentecostal/charismatic versions, for that matter) is the presence and power of the word. That is one of the things I loved about this podcast—it brings those visions to the listener, but they are always subservient to the word of God. Bishara may give credit to the miracles for fueling the gospel growth, but the missionaries know the truth. The jet fuel on this revival was not the miracles, but the word.

That’s not to imply this podcast is perfect—I did have one concern with how it handled the miraculous.

But this post is so long, I’ll save that for another day, and link it here when it’s up. In the meantime,

Listen to the Podcast here

Give to Pioneers here

Or give to a missionary working on Bible Translation here.

In the historical drama about the American Revolutionary War, The Patriot, a slave named Occam is signed up for the militia in place of his enslaver, who is too cowardly to fight himself. Occam goes to war because he has been forced to. He is thrust into duty. But the sub-plot thickens.

Occam later discovers that General George Washington has issued a declaration that promises freedom to any man who fights in the militia for one year. As soon as he discovers this, his attitude changes to one of determination and hope for freedom. His racist comrades assume that as a reluctant conscript Occam will quit fighting for the cause as soon as he gains his freedom. However, after fighting for a full year, the warrior is granted his freedom, and for the first time, he has the choice to do as he pleases. His shows his mettle when he chooses to remain in his fighting unit, of his own volition, fighting for the cause as a compatriot, not as a slave.

In a similar way, Christians choose to submit to governing authorities, but not because we are forced to. Our volition is driven by a deeper motive. What gets complicated, is when government acts as if the authority God invested in them, can be wielded with no regard to his intentions for that authority.

Jesse Johnson’s new book, City of Man, Kingdom of God deals in some depth with that conundrum, referencing 1 Peter 2. Here are my thoughts on the passage…

3 PRINCIPLES SO THAT YOU CAN ENJOY FREEDOM TO GOD’S GLORY

1.    PRACTICE OF FREEDOM

1 Peter 2:13–17 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, … For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

In the context this verse is saying that we are to subject ourselves to every human institution as free people. “Live as people who are free” is talking about how to be a good witness to unbelievers by the way in which we submit to the human institutions God has placed over us.

Christians do not obey because we are forced to obey, we obey from a position of freedom. Christians are free people. Free from sin, Satan, and self. Christians are free because they are free to stop sinning.

Unbelievers are not free. They are like puppets dangling from Satan’s strings. They are bound to their sin. Sin makes us foolish. We do foolish things with our money, our relationships, our life, and it brings terrible consequences, and we can’t escape that grip.

Unless we are set free by Jesus.

John 8: 31 …”If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” … 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. … 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Jesus came to earth for the ultimate prison break. He came to bust you out of the jail of your sinful nature. He shattered the fetters which bound you to evil and he infused you with the strength to run from evil. He ripped the leash out of Satan’s hands and broke the yoke of the law off your neck.

Jesus bought your freedom with his blood.

Now you obey him, not only because you must, but because, for the first time, you can.

That’s why Peter says to live as people who are free…

2.    PITFALLS OF FREEDOM

1 Peter 2:16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

The pitfall of freedom is that freedom can, like any other good gift of God, be abused by Christians who wave the liberty banner, in order to hide their sin.

The word “cover-up” is the word for a cloak, a cloth cover.

My garage is pretty tidy. But there is a corner that has a big sheet covering it. So the place looks tidy, but if you lift the sheet, there are paint cans and garden tools and bags of charcoal and a host of spiders. I use the cover to hide the reality from sight.

That is the word used here. The sheet is the freedom we use to cover-up wickedness in our heart.

A person might go into debt to drive an expensive car and says “where in the Bible does it say I can’t drive a nice car?” And Christians are free to drive nice cars – but we are not free to be irresponsible with our money, to go into unnecessary debt, not to give generously to church, and to give in to pride, rivalry and materialism.

One might revel in the Christian’s freedom to attend a venue or drink a beverage that is not prohibited in Scripture when this is really just an opportunity to indulge in desires and motives that people can’t see, but that Scripture does prohibit.

In the Bible, freedom in Christ is always tempered with the warning against abuse.

Paul’s epistle to the Galatians is an inspired treatise on the wonders of freedom. But then he warns…

Gal 5: 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

God knows our hearts. The solution isn’t for the church to make rules and take away freedom, but to exhort you to live like free people but not use it for a cover for evil.

3.    PURPOSE OF FREEDOM

1 Peter 2:16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

The real purpose of freedom is to serve God. How? because when you obey out of freedom, instead of compulsion it glorifies God.

It’s like one husband buying an anniversary present for his wife so that she doesn’t complain, versus another husband buying his wife a present because he gets joy out of planning, choosing, and surprising her with something that makes her happy. Same gift, same activity, different attitude – which makes all the difference in the world.

Christianity is not about rules and regulations, it’s about our loving, obedient relationship with our King, Jesus. You cannot reduce it to rules.

Being a servant of God means we have a relationship with God, through Jesus, that transcends laws. We have a higher authority than human institutions. But that is no reason to be unsubmissive to them.

Do the right thing, not because you must, but because you can. Not because the man-made rules force you to, but because your relationship with God as his servant leads you to. You might feel strongly that no one should have the power to tell you when and where to wear a mask; you might not believe the mask has any effect. But you can submit joyfully, giving up your precious freedom, in order to do what is best for your witness of the gospel. Not because you must, but because you can.

How much more inspiring is Occam’s dedication to the cause when he becomes free to abandon it, but chooses not to?

How much more worshipful is your dedication to keeping the law when you feel free to break it, but you choose not to?

According to a 2020 study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 21% of American adults suffer from a mental illness. Johns Hopkins says it’s 26%. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) says that in the US, 7 million people have a bipolar disorder, 21 million people have a major depressive episode each year, and 19.1 million people suffer from an anxiety disorder. As a result, NAMI records, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-24, which has increased by 35% since 1999.

Although Americans have on the whole become more educated, more technologically sophisticated, and our hospitals more medically advanced than ever before, according to these statistics we are also more depressed, more anxious, and more attention deficit than ever before. In short, we are living under the sovereignty of psychology. Ours is a culture ruled by mental health diagnoses.

For those who desire to live by the Bible, the ubiquity of psychology presents a problem. When the answers to all of life’s struggles come in the form of a medical diagnosis, a psychoactive prescription, and a lifetime of secular therapy, then the Bible is inevitably irrelevant. You don’t need God, it seems, if you’ve got Freud.

That’s why, over the last half a century, both in and outside of the church, the Bible has been replaced by another bible: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The latest version, released earlier this year, is the DSM-5-TR. Produced by the American Psychiatric Association, this thick tome is universally accepted by the American medical community – physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists – as the authoritative standard for defining and diagnosing every mental disorder. The DSM-5-TR has increasingly found a home in the hands of Christians counseling other Christians. And inevitably, when the DSM goes up, the Bible goes down.

The Church must recognize that a worldview which sees medical disorders as the root cause of human ailments is hostile to Scripture. Modern secular psychology, as summarized in the DSM-5-TR, oozes with an evolutionary, materialistic, and humanistic worldview. Psychoanalysis does not offer another, compatible, auxiliary resource for Christians to face life’s challenges; rather, it assumes an anti-Christian stance with solutions that contradict the Bible. Therefore, Christians must decide between one and the other. Is the Bible sufficient “that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:17), or do we need the world’s vain wisdom poured out through the pages of the DSM-5-TR? The Church must stand on the sufficiency of the Bible, and therefore reject any partnership with psychology and its bible.

To make the case, consider three reasons why the Bible is incompatible with the DSM-5-TR:

The DSM-5-TR assumes an unbiblical worldview

The irony of modern secular psychology is that the word “psychology” literally means “the study of the soul,” but psychology today rejects the existence of the soul at all. This rejection of a biblical anthropology (body and soul) began over a century ago.

Philippe Pinel, a 19th-century French physician often referred to as the “Father of Psychiatry,” believed that internal, human issues could be entirely explained by physiology and environment without any reference to a human soul. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, further developed Pinel’s ideas and created the discipline of psychoanalysis. According to Freud, religion is a “universal obsessional neurosis” and of no value in treating mental disorders.

Later psychologists and psychoanalytical researchers, influenced by Pinel, Freud, and Darwin, would likewise assert a materialistic, humanistic worldview, denying the existence of any immaterial component in man, any higher power interacting with man, and any ability of man to operate free from his genetic makeup and received environment. The DSM-5-TR follows suit, allowing for no explanation of human behavior outside of physical or material causes.

Modern secular psychology, then, is atheistic, materialistic, and deterministic. It rejects the God of the Bible and the Bible’s explanation of man. To modern secular psychology, the Bible is utterly irrelevant. That’s why biblical counselor David Powlison said, “Secular disciplines have made a systematic commitment to being wrong.” If you don’t start with the God of the Bible and with a biblical anthropology, you can only be right accidentally, like a broken clock. Richard Gantz, a former psychoanalyst who writes about the bankruptcy of the psychological worldview, said, “Clinical psychology comes to no consensus in its view of human beings – with one critical exception. It is unified in its belief that people are free from God.”

The updated sections of the DSM-V-TR only further distance psychology from a biblical worldview. New to the psychological bible this year is a section entitled “Impact of Racism and Discrimination on Psychiatric Diagnosis” that legitimizes concepts like systemic racism, microaggressions, and unconscious bias as tools for psychiatric diagnosis. As you might expect, the DSM-5-TR also includes an updated diagnosis for “Gender Dysphoria” which asserts that adolescents with “a strong desire to be of the other gender” for six months should be clinically diagnosed as gender dysphoric and in need of “gender-affirming treatment.” It estimates that for those suffering from gender dysphoria the suicide rates range “from 30% to 80%”.

Christians cannot reconcile the unbiblical worldview of the DSM-5-TR with God’s explanation of mankind because the two irreconcilably conflict.

The DSM-5-TR makes unbiblical diagnoses

The DSM-5-TR reasons from wrong premises, but how does it use that worldview? How does psychological diagnosis work? The answer: It labels groups of experiences and presents that label as if it were an explanation.

In each section of the DSM-5-TR, under the headings of various disorders, the manual lists a bunch of behaviors and experiences, then says if you check off enough of those behaviors or experiences for long enough, then you should be diagnosed as possessing one of the 836 mental disorders or disordered conditions described in the book. To give a couple of simplified examples:

• Do you squirm in your chair, like to talk, and seem to be always “on the go”? Then you’ve got Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
• Do you think you should be a girl when you’re a guy? You’ve got Gender Dysphoria.
• Do you get blackout drunk every weekend? You’ve got Alcohol Use Disorder.
• Do you eat too much and then feel bad about it? You’ve got Binge-Eating Disorder.
• Do you dislike authority? Oppositional Defiance Disorder.
• Do you get angry not always but sometimes? Intermittent Explosive Disorder.
• Do you like to burn stuff? Pyromania.
• Do you like to steal stuff? Kleptomania.
• Do you like yourself a lot? Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

To illustrate this, test yourself against the following criteria. How many of these have you experienced over the last 6 months:

• Excessive Worry
• Restlessness
• Being easily fatigued
• Difficulty concentrating
• Irritability
• Muscle tension
• Sleep disturbance

If you were to tell your primary care physician or a therapist that you have had the first experience (worry) and three others, then you would be diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and you would likely be prescribed an SSRI medication like Zoloft.

The problem with this system of diagnosis, however, is that it parades itself as an explanation for the cause of our struggles when in fact it’s just a naming system for different kinds of struggles. And the DSM-5-TR itself admits that it can’t actually solve any of these alleged disorders, it can only categorize them. “A diagnosis does not carry any necessary implications regarding the etiology or causes of the individual’s mental disorder or the individual’s degree of control over behaviors that may be associated with the disorder” (p. 29).

Frances Allen, the Chair of the DSM-IV Task Force, writes in his book Saving Normal, “All of our diagnoses are now based on subjective judgments that are inherently fallible and prey to capricious change. Billions of research dollars have failed to produce convincing evidence that any mental disorder is a discreet disease entity with a unitary cause. Our classification of mental disorders is no more than a collection of fallible and limited constructs that seeks but never finds the truth.”

Now, there are some obvious problems with an overblown, subjective, capricious categorization system for human experiences. One issue is that it teaches people to think incorrectly about their lives, that their feelings and behaviors are only the product of physical maladies classified by secular experts. But in many of the cases, the problem is that the DSM-5-TR redefines sin (like drunkenness, lying, and sinful anger) as an illness. It turns guilty sinners into innocent victims. Redefining sin as illness moves the solution for spiritual problems from the Bible to the field of medicine, and medicine cannot change the heart. It removes the call to repentance, the comfort of the gospel, and the goal of living for God’s glory altogether. It replaces these with more pills, more therapy sessions, more techniques, and no real heart change.

In summary, psychology can’t tell you why this is happening or if you can do anything about it, but they can slap a label on you and call you sick. Richard Topping writes, “Remember, we live in a time when six of the seven deadly sins are medical conditions, and pride is a virtue.”

The DSM-5-TR promotes unbiblical solutions

Because the DSM-5-TR’s psychological diagnoses are considered gospel truth today, they are used as the justification for the multi-billion-dollar psycho-active pharmaceutical industry, pumping pills into people based on brief conversations without even knowing what those medications do. Unfortunately, that’s not hyperbole.

Psychology Today recently published an article saying that while “85-90% of the public believes low serotonin levels or a chemical imbalance causes depression,” there is “no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations.” The serotonin narrative is completely false. And the psychological community has known this for years, even while continuing to diagnose SSRI medications as if they work.

Daniel Carlat, editor of The Carlat Psychiatry Report, said in an interview with NPR, “We don’t know how the medications actually work in the brain…. I’ll often say something like the way Zoloft works, is, it increases the level of serotonin in your brain (or synapses, neurons) and, presumably, the reason you’re depressed or anxious is that you have some sort of a deficiency. And I say that [chuckles] not because I really believe it, because I know the evidence really isn’t there for us to understand the mechanism—I think I say that because patients want to know something. And they want to know that we as physicians have some basic understanding of what we’re doing when we’re prescribing medications. They certainly don’t want to know that a psychiatrist essentially has no idea how these medications work.”

So, not only are psychiatric solutions factually baseless, but psychiatrists using those baseless arguments to experiment with people’s brain chemistry en masse. That kind of unethical, deceptive movement can have no partnership with Scripture.

In an article entitled What Is Biblical Counseling? Wayne Mack wrote, “Because the Bible asserts its own sufficiency for counseling-related issues, secular psychology has nothing to offer for understanding or providing solutions to the non-physical problems of people.” In contrast, hear what the Bible says about its own ability to offer solutions to life’s deepest spiritual pains:

“Yahweh’s law is perfect, reviving the soul; Yahweh’s testimony is sure, making wise the simple; Yahweh’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart; Yahweh’s commandment is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever; Yahweh’s rules are true, and righteous altogether.”

Psalm 19:7-9

God’s Word is altogether sufficient to save and sanctify his people. Therefore, modern secular psychology has nothing to offer God’s people. Christians must choose between the DSM-5-TR and the eternal Word of God. We can only serve one master, and there can only be one Bible.

At age 17 he became the Emperor of Rome and was dubbed Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.  Nero ruled from 54-68AD, and his rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance. He is known for a number of brutal executions, including those of his mother and adopted brother. It was during his reign, in 64AD, that the great fire of Rome destroyed four of the 14 districts of Rome.

It was widely rumored that while the fire was blazing, Nero played his lyre and sang the song, ‘Sack of Ilium’ earning him the sobriquet as the emperor who “fiddled while Rome burned.”

Many speculated that it was Nero himself who started the fire. Naturally, he took a hit in the opinion polls, and since he craved approval he searched for a scapegoat. Tacitus said:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians. … Accordingly, an immense multitude was convicted…Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs… or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames…to serve as a nightly illumination.’

The epistle of 1 Peter was written between 62 and 67AD, which means that Peter’s reference to government applied to Christians who were under the authority of Nero.

With that in mind…we turn to 1 Peter 2:13-15.

3 LINKS IN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND

1.      SOURCE OF THE COMMAND

1 Peter 2:13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,

The term “be subject”, is a military command to arrange yourself under a commanding officer. When a centurion barked that order, his 100 soldiers dropped what they were doing and arranged themselves speedily in formation.

Peter uses the term to teach Christians that every link in the chain of command leads ultimately to the Lord’s hand.

The thread of God’s delegated authority runs through every fibre of society.

Marriage. Ephesians 5: 22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

Family. Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

Church. Hebrews 13: 17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.

Heaven. Ephesians 3:10 [angels are]…rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

All authority is delegated from God. Submission to delegated authority is the way God keeps order in the world, and the channel through which he guides and protects his children.

2.    EXTENT OF THE COMMAND

1 Peter 2:13–14 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

So this submission is not just to the government, but to every human institution, every time you find yourself under authority, you must submit to it as ordained by God.

And “every human institution” includes those who are evil.

John MacArthur points out:

Although Peter and Paul both lived in the openly sinful, decadent Roman Empire—a society infamous for evil (homosexuality, infanticide, government corruption, abuse of women, immorality, violence), neither apostle offered any exemption by which believers were free to defy civil authority…’

Does this include submission to Nero? Yes, God put him there and God will judge him for his evil.

So, if the school tells you to cut your hair, you cut your hair willingly; if the flight attendant tells you to turn off your phone, you turn your phone off joyfully; if the government tells you to wear a mask in public, you comply enthusiastically; if (when) your husband makes a foolish decision, talk to him about it, but submit whole-heartedly. And you do this for the Lord’s sake.

It is all about the heart, and every opportunity you are given should be seized to learn submission as Christ did. Peter tells us a few verses later: When he (Jesus) was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:23)

To have a submissive attitude is to reflect the nature of Christ in your life.

3.    RESULT OF THE COMMAND

1 Peter 2:13–15 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

What will be the result of Christians being the one group of people who obey every road sign they see, who submit to every request made by anyone in authority?

People who don’t know Jesus will be perplexed. ‘Your behaviour doesn’t make sense. Everyone rebels, cuts corners, and grumbles about authority. Why don’t you? It’s almost as if you believe that God is in control.’

Submitting to authority for the sake of God tells others that you trust him and his sovereignty.

QUESTION:

What if rulers behave as if their authority is not from God, and not beholden to God’s purposes?

It’s complicated. Which is why you need to get Jesse’s book, City of Man Kingdom of God.

Jesus begins the beatitudes with “blessed are the poor in spirit,” and follows with “blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:3-4). Any decent study of his teaching reveals he is not talking about earthly poverty or worldly mourning, but rather about a spiritual poverty and a mourning that produces repentance (2 Corinthians 7:9-11). In fact, the word Jesus uses for “poor” in the beatitudes is an extreme word for poverty, and implies a person who is not only destitute, but ashamed of their destitute condition. Blessed is the person, Jesus says, who is aware of his spiritual bankruptcy.

The rest of Scripture bears this out. James commands people to “be wretched, mourn, and weep” over their sin (James 4:9). Isaiah calls for people’s awareness of their sin to lead to sackcloth (e.g. Isaiah 20:2, 22:12, 32:11; cf. Isaiah 37:1-2). Now, obviously repentance doesn’t terminate with mourning and sackcloth (see Isaiah 58:5). Conversion leads to rejoicing and celebration. God gives beauty in place of ashes.

But before skipping to the end, the beatitudes (as well as Isaiah and James) make clear that the path to joy in salvation goes through a mourning over spiritual bankruptcy. The sinner has to be broken over their sin before they can be built up by Christ. Incidentally, that is why the third beatitude is “meek”—the word for meek works for the English idiom broken; broken like a horse, or broken like a person whose spirit has been crushed. In order to have comfort in Christ, first the sinner has to be crushed by their own spiritual bankruptcy.

If that is true—and it is true, by the way—then in what sense are sinners made in the image of God?

Or, to ask it differently, if sinners are indeed spiritually bankrupt, then why would God love them?

To answer that question, it is critical to not minimize poverty, or dilute depravity. The Bible clearly describes the doctrine of total depravity: every inclination of man’s heart is only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). This doesn’t mean that sinners never do things that may seem righteous, but rather that in even our most supposedly righteous actions, our motives are mixed. Everything we do has traces of sin, mixed motives, and complicated ambitions. That’s the nature of sin.  

Some people may try to fend off bankruptcy by finding pockets of goodness in their own lives—such as I care for my children in a pure way, or I am not a murderer or an evil doer to the extent that my neighbors are—but in both to those cases it is critical to ask why? Why are you confident that in your care for your children you have discovered an inclination in your heart that is “pure”? Are your children not in your image? Is there not at least some part of your motives in caring for your children that is tainted by sin? Perhaps you idolize success, or comfort, or family, or even self? And as for the person who is not a murderer, why not? What keeps them from acting in that way? Is it a righteousness or spiritual virtue inside of them, or is it the fear of external consequences? More often then we want to realize, the restraint on immoral actions is external, and not internal. That’s why after the beatitudes Jesus notes that the seeds of murder are in the heart that gets angry at his brother (Matt 5:21-22).

Thus in seeking to understand our hearts, it is so important not to inflate our own perceived righteousness. For if there is any inherent righteousness in us, then that erodes total depravity and deadens our need for a savior. If we have some righteousness on our own, a righteousness that is properly ours, connected to our own personal nature, then the salvation that we have from Christ is in line with our own inclinations. If we have spiritual goodness internal to ourselves, then we were pointed in the right direction, but just stuck in the mud of sin. Salvation then would be Jesus towing us out of the mud, and getting us going in the direction we were headed anyway.

But that is not spiritual poverty. The Bible speaks of salvation as a U-turn, not as a tow.

So back to the question. If we do not have a righteousness that is properly ours, in what sense are we made in the image of God?

The best way to answer that question is with the word capacity. Being made in the image of God instill people with a certain value, dignity, and honor that is proper to humans, not because of their righteousness, but because of the capacity inherent in their design. God made people with the capacity to glorify him, for human fellowship, love, and society. He made us with the unique capacity to pass along the image of God to our offspring. He made us with the capacity to worship and to pursue righteousness. He made us with the capacity to magnify God in our affections and actions. He made us in his image, and then he doubled down on that by the Son of God being born in the likeness of Adam.

That does not mean that every (or any) human has inherent righteousness that is properly of themselves, but it does mean that people have the capacity for righteousness. And that capacity is why God made us, and why he loves us, and why he sets his affections on us in election and predestination. It is why, through the covenant of redemption, the Son of God purposes to take on a human nature, and not the nature of an aardvark or angel.

This is a critical point to understand. God, when he saves us, gives us an alien righteousness—a righteousness that is not our own. It is from outside of us. So those that are aware of their spiritual bankruptcy have the capacity to inherit the kingdom of heaven. Those who mourn their sin will be comforted. Or, more to the point, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. They long for a righteousness that they do not have, and God fills them with a righteousness that is not theirs intrinsically, but rather is a righteousness that belongs to Christ, and he shares it freely with those that are his.

Does spiritual bankruptcy mean that we are not in the image of God? No. In fact, being in the image of God is what makes spiritual bankruptcy all the more heart breaking. We were made for more than then what we have. And through faith in Christ, we will receive a righteousness that is not our own, but becomes ours as a gift.

If being in the image of God meant that a person has to have their own righteousness, then that would mean that only righteous people would be in God’s image. That is very dangerous and unbiblical view of mankind.

Finally, there is a huge practical implication to this. If we think that the image of God must mean that a person has inherent righteousness or goodness in themselves, then what of abortion? Do babies in the womb have inherent righteousness? Have they loved their children, or have they acted in a purely selfless way? Of course not. Yet they are still in the image of God, meaning they have a human nature, with the capacity for worship, love, fellowship, and even the capacity to be declared righteous through faith in God. They have the kind of body that Jesus took to himself, and that is not based on any good deed in us, but rather on the kindness and mercy of God.

When I was in university I had two conflicting tendencies. I possessed an insatiable curiosity about everything, I wanted to know as much as I could about as much as I could. But my other tendency was, shall we say, chronic inertia, a lack of momentum, or my mother’s diagnosis: I was bone idle.

I was doomed to be perpetually curious about the world around me, but too lazy to slog through a dense book and research the topic, like the sluggard in Proverbs who buries his hand in a bowl but is too lazy to bring the spoon to his mouth. But then it happened.

Wiley Publishing Company came to the rescue of curious sluggards the world over by creating a prolific series of instructional books intended to condense complex issues into non-intimidating bite-sized servings. The format includes cartoons, friendly fonts, and likable talking heads covering a variety of subjects. They called the series For Dummies, a simplified guide to help anyone learn anything they want to know with minimum effort. When they first appeared I was working at a bookshop and each time I took a coffee break I’d devour a muffin and a For Dummies book in one sitting.

I worked systematically from A to Z.  This led to some interesting combinations. One night I read Vampires for Dummies and Vegetarianism for Dummies in the same night, on another occasion I learned the benefits of both Homeschooling my own children and Home brewing my own beer.

The series is a great way to cram the basics into your head without fully grasping the material, so it should be used as a supplement, not a substitute for wide reading and in-depth research.

Submission to government is a topic that seemed simple to many of us who live in free countries… until widespread lockdowns became the norm and churches were expected to close their doors.

It would have been helpful to have a book called Being a Good Witness for Dummies. Now there is…

I wish I had access to Jesse Johnson’s brilliant new book, City of Man, Kingdom of God, which is a succinct, engaging, and insightful guide on how to live in God’s world, while it is being governed by sinners, who were placed there by God.

One of the many texts Jesse deals with is 1 Peter 2:17.

This post contains my thoughts on the text, but if you want a full treatment of these concepts, you need to get the book.

I just finished listening to the audio version, read by the author, and it is excellent.

1 Peter 2: 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

4 PITHY POINTS TO PUT POLICY INTO PRACTICE

1.    HONOR EVERYONE

Like a fisherman’s net, Peter throws this catch-all command over all our relationships.

“Honor” refers to respect in your attitude and actions. “Everyone” means pretty much that. Peter is saying that believers owe every single person basic respect and courtesy, even unbelievers.

Some Christians exude a subtle attitude of superiority toward unbelievers. “We’re children of God, you don’t even believe in God, so there is something wrong with you.” You’d never say it, but your attitude lets it slip. As if your salvation had anything to do with you anyway. So, Peter boils it down For Dummies: Honor everyone. Yes, even unbelievers.

There are 3 reasons to show respect to people: 1) God sets an example to us by blessing them, 2) Everyone is made in God’s image, and 3) God wants to use your witness to save them.

2.    LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD

One may misunderstand Peter’s command to honor everyone. He doesn’t mean that you have to treat everyone exactly the same.

You must respect everyone, but believers are to be treated differently. You have a bond of love with believers that in itself is a great witness to unbelievers. So honor everyone and love the brotherhood – the universal church – all Christians.

You need to have a concern for the body of Christ worldwide. Do you pray for the church in Austria or Zimbabwe? Do you rejoice when a local congregation in your community has success in an outreach event? We are not in competition with other churches. And we don’t just respect them, we love them.

Sometimes we need to correct wrong teaching, or we need to take a different stand on theology, but outsiders always need to be able to discern that we love each other.

John 13: 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another

The word is agape, not just brotherly love. This is a serving, sacrificing, affectionate emotion.

As a witness to unbelievers the love we have for each other is a powerful testimony.

3.    FEAR GOD

Fear is an emotional response to the threat of real or perceived danger. To fear God is to consider God in light of the reality that he exists, and that he is infinitely superior to you in every way, and is aware of your every thought and deed, and has proven himself willing and able to punish those who reject his Son.

Heb 10: 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Like an experienced surfer who loves the ocean but has a healthy fear of its power, a Christian loves God, but has a healthy fear of his holiness.

Prov 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Fear and knowledge are in parallel. The only time you have no fear, no reverence, no awe of God, is when you don’t know him very well.

People who know God well, don’t treat him like a peer. They know him as a potentate.

When Isaiah saw the vision of God, he said Is 6:5 “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

God has become far too domesticated in our world today. He is like a pocket-sized genie, who is very adept at finding us parking spots, and alleviating our consciences with free grace that is dispensed on demand like a well-stocked vending machine. But that is a delusion.

Peter reminds us simply: Fear God!

4.    HONOR THE EMPEROR

It seems that Peter is repeating this command from verse 13– so this has got to be important for our witness. Remember who the emperor was – Nero – the least likely to win the people’s choice award for most respected monarch. We learned about his antics in Chain of Command: Submission to Government.

So, does our president need to be an honorable person, for us to obey him? No.

Does he need to have some semblance of dignity, or at least competence? No.

So why do we submit to his leadership?

Because the office is appointed by God.

But if our rulers make laws as if their authority is independent of God’s purposes for their authority, that makes things way trickier. Which is why you need Jesse’s book, City of Man, Kingdom of God.

My book City of Man, Kingdom of God: Why Christians Respect, Obey, and Resist Government, officially releases today. Last week I described who this book is for, and here I want to give an overview of its content.

City of Man, Kingdom of God is a primer on government. First, it argues that God designed government. Government did not simply fall from the sky, nor has it always existed. For example, there were no governments between Adam and Noah. Rather, government was instituted by God after the flood.

Why does that matter? Because when God instituted government, he gave it four specific tasks, detailed in Genesis 8-9. Government was to facilitate worship, protect the food sources, guard the family, and protect human life. As designed by God, those are government’s basic functions.

My book spends the first chapter defending those four areas where government should have oversight. But I’m not naïve. I know that governments often fail to regulate those areas. Some governments fail by attacking religion, family, and life. Other governments fail by going too far, and attempting much more than those basic tasks. The result is an almost ubiquitous sense of injustice in the world, so in chapter 3, I address how Christians should operate when confronted by injustice in the world.

Chapter 2 is probably the most unique part of the book. Here, I argue that the oft repeated adage “obey government at all times, unless it commands sin,” is woefully inadequate for navigating the kind of moral dilemmas with which Christians are often confronted. Many turn to Romans 13 and argue that there Paul tells Christians to obey government because God established it—so unless the law actually mandates sin, you should follow it. But this understanding of Romans 13 is simply not supported by much of church history. While certainly it was the view held by Rome, as well as Lutherans and many American theologians, it is not the view held by the Puritans and non-conformists. Instead, they typically argued that Romans 13 should be read in light of the purposes for which God established government—and when government goes beyond God’s purposes, it has stopped being God’s servant for good.

But the heart of City of Man, Kingdom of God is chapter 4. The book concludes looking at the showdown with the Herodians in Jesus’s last week of ministry before the cross. I argue from what is called the “two-kingdom” perspective, meaning that I see Jesus as teaching that every Christian is a citizen of their earthly kingdom as well as heaven. In a rich economy of words, Jesus forcefully argues that our taxes belong to the earthly kingdom. Left unsaid—but strongly implied—is that our worship belongs to the realm of heaven. Therefore, I argue, that governments err when they seek to regulate the worship of God’s people, and when the do so, they are not owed obedience and Christians are right to resist.

If any of those topics interest you, please check out my book at this link here.  It is available in hardcover, Audible, and Kindle.

By the way, if you are in the Washington DC area, it will be for sale at a 50% discount at the G3—Just Thinking About the Bible conference this week. More info on that conference is here.

In an episode of Larry King Live that aired in 2005, Larry King asked his guests: “What happens after we die?” Here are the responses…

FATHER MICHAEL MANNING, A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST said: I think we’re going to encounter God. I find God the one that I’m longing for. I’m longing for truth. I’m longing for honesty. I’m longing for peace. I’m longing for love. And it’s very incomplete in this world. And I believe that moving into heaven into the experience of God will be the fullness of that.

KING: You will meet him in what form?

MANNING: I don’t know. I’m going to be a spiritual form. I’m not going to have a body. It’s — we talk of spirits when we speak of angels and so there’s a reality of something there. We say that I’ll see God and I’m not going to have eyes like I had, but there will be a knowledge. There will be a completeness of all of these longings that I’ve had to be able to be now satisfied in the presence of God.

KING: Rabbi Hier, what will happen when you die?

MARVIN HIER, FOUNDER, SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER: When you die, God created Adam, escorted him into the Garden of Eden. When he sinned, he took him out of the Garden of Eden. But God never destroyed the Garden of Eden and held up the hope that people who live righteously, with righteous conduct, go to the eternal world, the world of the soul.

And admission to that world is based on righteous conduct and not based on any specific religion. A righteous person of any religion and a righteous person who may, in the fact, be irreligious…

KING: You mean atheist?

HIER: … would be granted because it is determined by deeds.

KING: And what is heaven like?

HIER: Well, to tell you the truth, no one has been there, and it would be all speculation. You know, it’s the world of the soul. And the best expression of that is, you know, Maimonides says that when a person, a young man — a person is born blind, he’s prepared to take an oath that there is no color in the world. But there is color.

But my Maimonides says he can’t see it because he’s not in that world and we can’t see the world of the spirit.

KING: .. what do Muslims believe happens when you die?

DR. MAHER HATHOUT, MUSLIM SCHOLAR: We really do believe that when we die, the spirit would be liberated from the limitations of the body.

KING: And?

HATHOUT: And then it will go through eternity after a process of accountability and judgment. And people will go to heaven in eternity or to face consequences of punishment.

KING: Like hell?

HATHOUT: Like hell. And this depends on the good deeds, on the belief in God, and on the belief on accountability, that every person is responsible and is accountable for what he or she will do during this earthly life.

KING: And this going will be in the spiritual sense?

HATHOUT: It has to be because the body is decaying, as we heard. And then the spirit, which is energy, will be uninhibited, uncontained and will be completely liberated.

KING: Mary Ann, what do you think happens?

MARY ANN WILLIAMSON, AUTHOR/LECTURER ON SPIRITUALITY: I agree with what Father Manning said, that all of the love that we’ve longed for all of our lives, we find it. We’re there. I think that only love is real. And we can see it once we’ve died.

I think that this earth is like a veil of illusion. The mortal mind obfuscates the spiritual truth, which is the love of God. And I think that when we die, the veil falls down, the filter is gone, and we’re in that state of pure love which is God.

…

KING: Not a physical state.

WILLIAMSON: … … not the physical state. But all concepts like where do we go, space, and time don’t exist in God’s eternity. So it’s a state of awareness and knowledge and experience of pure love, which is God, which is true life. I think at death we find that. And I think that we long for that all our lives and at death we find it. It’s a reward. It’s not a punishment.

Every religion, every belief system, has some theory on what will happen when we die.

We have seen some introductory thoughts on eschatology, differing views on the what and the when of the Kingdom, and discussed some thoughts on the Rapture. In terms of the timeline, we are currently in what we call the Church Age. The next event on the calendar will be the Rapture, followed by the Great Tribulation. We have also looked at the Judgments or Reckonings – the Bēma Seat as well as the Sheep & Goats’ Judgment and the Great White Throne Judgment and the Millennium. At the end of the Millennium, after the Great White Throne judgment, we will enter into the eternal state – so let’s see what the Bible really teaches us about heaven.

5 FAQs ABOUT HEAVEN

1.    WHAT IS HEAVEN?

HEAVEN IS A PLACE

Revelation 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,

Some people think heaven is a bunch of puffy clouds with naked chubby cherubim playing harps. Or it is some sort of “state of being” or “level of consciousness.”  But heaven is a literal place. It is not whatever is best for you, or whatever you would like it to be. It is not different for everyone. It is not a customized conglomeration of all the things your heart desires. It is as literal as earth is.

John 14:2 Christ tells the disciples that “I go to prepare a place for you.”

The Bible uses the word “heaven” to describe wherever God lives. God currently lives in Paradise, which is where we will go if we die before the Rapture – and we can call this heaven – because God is there. But at the end – when we reach the eternal state – the earth and Paradise will all be destroyed and there will be a New Heaven and New Earth – where God will dwell with us. This New Heaven is what we are looking at today.

2.    WHERE IS HEAVEN?

HEAVEN IS UP

Revelation 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,

According to this verse, the city came “down out of heaven”. So right now, heaven is “up.”

Acts 1:9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. Jesus went on a cloud up into heaven.

3.    WHAT IS HEAVEN LIKE?

HEAVEN IS BETTER

We know for sure that heaven is better than earth. Satan has spent a lot of time trying to persuade people that heaven is boring … think floating on fluffy white clouds all day – but nothing could be further from the truth. The moment you think that there is something on earth you would rather do than be in heaven – you are thinking heaven wrong! Heaven is better than anything else you can ever imagine.

Paul says in Philippians 1:21–23 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Whatever you are imagining – heaven is better. 2 Corinthians 4:17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

The New Earth and the New Heaven are an upgrade on what we have now, everything is simply better. We know it will have

– geography and landscape: Revelation 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God

– with cardinal points: Revelation 21:13 on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates.

– society and nations and government: Revelation 21: 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it,

– exploration: Revelation 21: 26 They (kings) will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. The kings will go exploring into the infinite universe and bring what they discover back into the city – and probably display it for God’s glory.

– seasons and months and plants: Revelation 22:1-2 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month

From other parts of Scripture, we know there will be feasting and so there will be agriculture and industry.

HEAVEN IS GLORIOUS

Revelation 21:11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

Heaven is saturated with the manifestations of God’s attributes. His goodness, beauty, power, majesty, are all radiating from him and are clearly visible in all aspects of heaven’s design and construction.

The earth and heavens that we know today will pass away (2 Peter 3:1—12) and will be replaced by the eternal heaven. There will be a new heaven and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13). One that will last for eternity.

Remember Jesus’ words to his disciples in John 14:1–2 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”

HEAVEN IS HUGE

The New Jerusalem is the capital city of heaven.

Revelation 21:15-16 And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare; its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. [2200km/1380 miles] Its length and width and height are equal.

The New Jerusalem is nearly 2 million miles or 5 million kilometers squared in size – just over half the size of the land area of the USA. And that’s just the surface area. Remember this is a cube. On just one level you could fit 100 million people.  Now imagine many stories. If every floor was as much as a mile high, it could house every single person who has ever lived on earth so far.

Jesus said in my Father’s house there are many rooms – many indeed!

And this is just the capital city – there is still the new earth and the new heaven – and we have no idea of their size.

HEAVEN IS BEAUTIFUL

Revelation 21:18 And the material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass.

The walls are made of a precious stone – jasper, and the rest of the city (including the streets) is constructed out of gold, so refined it becomes clear. The foundation stones are made of precious stones (Revelation 21:19) and each one of the 12 gates is a single pearl! (Revelation 21:21)

And the light – well that comes from the glory of God and of Jesus (Revelation 21:22-23).

4.    WHO GETS TO HEAVEN?

ONLY THE CHOSEN GO TO HEAVEN

Revelation 21:27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Everyone is unrighteous. No one will inherit the kingdom of God. The only way to get land in heaven is to become a citizen of heaven. You must be born again. That means you must renounce your sinful ways, by faith trust Jesus’ death on your behalf and ask God to make you a new heart, one that loves him and hates sin.

Or you will not go to heaven.

But do we long for heaven because of its majesty and beauty?

5.    WHAT IS THE BEST PART ABOUT HEAVEN?

JESUS IS THE BEST PART ABOUT HEAVEN

Revelation 22:3-4 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

This is the best part of heaven: We will see the face of the Lamb of God. We will see Jesus. And he will know us. And we will not be his enemy, and we will not need to be ashamed of our sin. We will stand in his righteousness reflecting his glory.

CONCLUSION

If you do not know Jesus as your Saviour and Lord now, you will see him only for a moment, and what a terrible moment that will be. You will meet him as your judge, as he condemns you to an eternal sentence of separation from him with the words “Depart from me I never knew you.”

Sitting in church will not save you, being a good person will not save you, getting baptized and going to confession will not save you. Only believing in the Lamb of God for the forgiveness of your sins will save you.

Reject his mercy and you will spend eternity regretting that decision. But turn to Jesus now from your sins and you will be saved unto eternal life in heaven.