The Bible (Part 1)

Posted on August 25, 2018 by chfordenterprises

The blogs in this category are the notes I used when teaching this series.

The Basic Doctrines of the Christian Faith

Lesson 1

In this series, we will learn about the doctrines that make Christianity, Christianity. If a person does not believe that any of these doctrines is true, that person is not a Christian.

We will learn what these doctrines are and how they are supported by the Bible. We Christians do not accept a doctrine as true unless it can be supported by the Bible, so the first doctrine we will discuss is what we believe about the Bible.

  1. The Bible

We believe the Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God.

a. We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

“Is given by inspiration of God” is one Greek word, theopneustos, which literally means God-breathed.

It is true that men wrote the books of the Bible, but God inspired them, that is, he made sure they wrote what he wanted written.

We believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible, that is, we believe that every word of the Bible is inspired. If only part of the Bible is the inspired Word of God, then how are we to know which part is true and which is not? The Bible does not contain the Word of God. It is the Word of God.

The Bible is also profitable for doctrine.

The Bible is the standard by which we judge doctrines. If the Bible does not support a doctrine, we consider that doctrine to be false.

b. We believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.

That is, we believe that the Bible contains no errors and that it is telling us the truth.

“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover by them Your servant is warned,
And in keeping them there is great reward (Ps. 19:7-11)

Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness,
And Your law is truth (Ps. 119:142).

You are near, O Lord,
And all Your commandments are truth (Ps. 119:151).

The entirety of Your word is truth,
And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever (Ps. 119:160).

c. Objections

Some nonbelievers object to this belief about the Bible. They say, “You are merely arguing in a circle. You are using the Bible to prove the Bible.”

That would be true if the Bible were only one book written by one author.

The Bible is a collection of books written by 40 different human authors at different times and places.

The Scriptures we read above are simply the testimony of these authors concerning the other books of the Bible.

2 Tim. 3:16 is Paul’s testimony that the Old Testament was inspired. And Peter gives testimony that Paul’s writings are Scriptural (2 Pet. 3:15-16).

These men were simply confirming what God himself had already said about the Scriptures.

Since God inspired the writing of the Bible, he is the ultimate author of it. We know that the Bible is true because we know the author!

God knows everything (Heb. 4:13); therefore, he knows what is true and what is not.

God does not lie (Titus 1:2); therefore, if he says something is true, we can trust that it is true.

We trust that the Bible is telling us the truth because we trust that God is telling us the truth.

A second objection is, “You cannot view the Bible as authoritative because men chose which books should be in the Bible.”

From the outside, it certainly looks like men chose which books to put into the Bible. The New Testament did not achieve its final form until the fourth century. Several Church leaders offered different lists of which books were considered inspired. Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, was the first to list the 27 books we now have in the New Testament. He wrote that list in 367 AD.

However, these men were not deciding which books should be in the New Testament. God decided which books were inspired and which were not. The Church leaders were merely recognizing and confirming which books were inspired and therefore should be included in the New Testament.

So, how do we know which books should be in the Bible? We know because God said so. Men down through the ages have merely confirmed what God has already said.

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Bless Those Who Persecute You

Posted on August 23, 2018 by chfordenterprises

Garry Trudeau is the liberal cartoonist who draws the Doonesbury comic strip, so I was surprised to find that even he saw, many, many years ago, how ridiculous the politically correct movement would eventually become. In a Sunday strip released during a time that many colleges were holding their commencement exercises, a commencement speaker says (I wish I had kept the strip; I am recalling this from memory), “Hello. I want you to know that I passed my speech by the Politically Correct Committee to ensure that it did not offend anyone. Congratulations. Have a good day.”

It is bad enough that our culture has fallen to this disease. But the infection has spread to the Church. The letter written by the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University is proof of that (see my blog at https://claytonhowardford.com/this-is-not-a-day-care-its-a-university/). That we now have seeker-friendly churches is proof of that. I have seen Christians offended because someone looked at him or her “wrong” or did not look at him or her at all or spoke to him or her “too harshly” or did not say “hello” at the last service.

Such people would not have survived in the first century church. Because of the divisions within the Corinthian church, Paul told them that they were not “spiritual people,” but were “carnal” and still “babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1). When the Galatians turned from the true gospel to follow another gospel, Paul called them fools (Gal. 3:1). When Peter fell into error, Paul rebuked him—in front of the whole church (Gal. 2:11-14)! Paul also told Timothy to do the same to any other elder who sinned (1 Tim. 5:20).

Nor would these people have survived as the disciples of Christ. Jesus told his disciples that they would have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Many of them found this to be offensive, so they walked away. Jesus turned to the twelve and asked if they, too, wanted to leave. Peter gave him the perfect answer: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Our culture says that Jesus should have responded with positive words that would have boosted Peter’s self-esteem, words such as, “Very good, Peter! You gave me the perfect answer! I love you so very much!” Instead, Jesus said, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” Jesus knew even then that Judas was the devil to whom he referred, but he did not tell them that. His response not only deflated Peter’s ego and enthusiasm, it left the twelve wondering which one of them was the devil (John 6:53-71).

Once, when they were crossing the lake, Jesus told them to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod (Mark 8:13-21). When they did not understand what he meant, he said, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?” Jesus rebuked and spoke harshly to his disciples many times. Rarely did he give them words of encouragement. And rarely does he give us words of encouragement. In fact, most of us may never hear a word of encouragement from him until we get to heaven and hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

And those who are easily offended will not do well in the coming persecution. They think they are being persecuted already. They mentioned the name of Jesus and someone gave them a dirty look and someone else laughed and someone else ridiculed them. They find these responses so offensive that they think they have accomplished something great and wonderful, equal to the accomplishments of the great martyrs of the past. Others find these responses so offensive that they are afraid to mention the name of Jesus ever again. What will these people do when the real persecution comes?

The Christians in the first century knew what real persecution is. The epistle to the Hebrews was written because some Jewish believers were being so persecuted that they were seriously considering returning to the Jewish religion to escape the persecution. The writer reminds them that when the authorities took all of their earthly possessions, they joyfully—joyfully!—accepted the plundering of their goods (Heb. 10:34). But he also tells them that they were spiritually immature (Heb. 5:12-14). I find his assessment of these believers to be amazing. And then I take a look at us, the modern Western Church. We have yet to reach the stage of persecution where they take all of our earthly possessions. We are only at the stage where they, at most, ridicule us. If we are offended at that instead of joyfully accepting that, just how mature are we really?

If we are so easily offended by how someone looks at us or by what someone says to us or by someone’s tone of voice or by ridicule, what are we going to do when they curse us? What are we going to do when they take all of our earthly possessions away? What are we going to do when they take our spouses and children away and we will not be able to see them again until we get to heaven? What are we going to do when they falsely accuse us and imprison us and torture us? What are we going to do when they take knives and skin us alive, layer by layer? What are we going to do when they cover us with tar and then set us on fire?

Jesus said this is what we are supposed to do: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11-12). And Paul said this is what we are supposed to do: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom. 12:14).

But how are we going to bless those who persecute us in the future if we are not blessing those who offend us now? How can we become mature spiritual adults who bless our persecutors if we remain immature little brats who are easily offended by harsh statements like this one? It is time for us to stop being offended by others and start being a blessing to others. It is time for us to grow up.

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Looking Past the Surface: Judging Others (Part 2)

Posted on August 18, 2018 by chfordenterprises

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck from your eye”; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matt. 7:1-5).

It is amazing how we humans, including we Christians, go from one extreme to the other. Some of us go to the extreme found in verse 3: “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” We are quick to spot the small sins in others, but ignore or downplay the glaring sins in ourselves. Paul has some pointed questions for us:

You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? (Rom. 2:21-23).

If we keep spotting sins in others, especially the same sin, perhaps that is so because that sin is in us. In other words, I think that everyone is a liar because I am a liar. I think that no one can be trusted because I cannot be trusted. I think that no one really loves because I do not really love. If I keep spotting the same sin in others, perhaps it is time to look past the surface of my heart and see if that sin is lurking inside me.

Others of us go to the extreme found in verse 1: “Judge not, that you be not judged.” In this day and age when everyone is concerned about self-esteem and worried about offending others, we think that the most loving thing to do is to ignore people’s sins. We think that if we tell our brother that he is sinning, then we are judging him and since Jesus told us not to judge, we should not tell our brother that he is sinning. If that reasoning is true, then every preacher (except the seeker-sensitive preachers) should resign his position immediately.

The Scriptures tell us to do the exact opposite. They tell us that if we see a brother sinning, we should confront him.

“Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him” (Luke 17:3).

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother” (Matt. 18:15).

Not only should we rebuke him, we should also pray for him: “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death” (1 John 5:16).

And we should do this precisely because we love him and do not want his life to get worse:

Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed (Prov. 27:5).

Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins (James 5:19-20).

And we should do this, knowing that we are not superior to him, but knowing that we are just as weak as he is, knowing that we could fall into the very same sin:

Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted (Gal. 6:1).

So, the balance between the two extremes is what Jesus says in Matt. 7:5: “Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” The way to deal with sin is not to condemn one another. Nor is it to ignore it in yourself or in your brother. The way to deal with it is to remove it. First remove it from yourself, then you can help your brother to remove it from himself.

Heb. 11, the Hall of Faith, is an amazing chapter, but it ends with an even more amazing statement: “And all these, having obtained a good testimony, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (Heb. 11:39-40). As amazing as these people were, as full of faith as these people were, they still will not be made perfect apart from us. This also means that we will not be made perfect apart from each other. No one of us will be made perfect without the rest of us. Either all of us will be made perfect together or none of us will be made perfect.

It is time for us to stop being hypocrites. It is time for us to acknowledge and remove the planks in our own eyes so that we can lovingly help our brothers remove the specks in their eyes. It is time for us to help perfect each other the way God intended for us to do.

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This is Not a Day Care. It’s a University

Posted on August 14, 2018 by chfordenterprises

Today I ran across a letter written by Dr. Everett Piper, the President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, which I believe is worth passing on to others. The letter was distributed to the entire student body. There is no date on the letter, but the link to it suggests it was written in November 2015. Here is the link so you can check out the original source: https://www.okwu.edu/blog/2015/11/this-is-not-a-day-care-its-a-university/. (If the University takes down the page, then, of course, the link will no longer work).

Dr. Everett Piper, President

Oklahoma Wesleyan University

This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt “victimized” by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love. In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable.

I’m not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic. Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims. Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them “feel bad” about themselves, is a “hater,” a “bigot,” an “oppressor,” and a “victimizer.”

I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen. That feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon is called a conscience. An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad. It is supposed to make you feel guilty. The goal of many a good sermon is to get you to confess your sins—not coddle you in your selfishness. The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization.

So here’s my advice:

If you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.

If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t one of them.

At OKWU, we teach you to be selfless rather than self-centered. We are more interested in you practicing personal forgiveness than political revenge. We want you to model interpersonal reconciliation rather than foment personal conflict. We believe the content of your character is more important than the color of your skin. We don’t believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty and we don’t issue “trigger warnings” before altar calls.

Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt; that the way to address it is to repent of everything that’s wrong with you rather than blame others for everything that’s wrong with them. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up.

This is not a day care. This is a university.

Posted in Repentance | 1 Comment

Looking Past the Surface: Judging Others

Posted on August 13, 2018 by chfordenterprises

I remember the first time I learned not to judge others until I had all of the facts. I was thirteen or fourteen at the time and not a Christian yet, which proves that God can teach anybody. I was watching an episode of a private investigator show called Cannon. The investigator got into his car and drove downhill on a busy city street. Even though he pressed on the brake, the car kept speeding up and refused to stop. He eventually had to swerve several times to avoid hitting pedestrians and other cars.

I do not remember how he finally stopped, but I do remember the lesson. Anyone looking at only the surface information, anyone who did not have all of the information or who did not know the investigator, anyone who was drawing a conclusion based only on the facts which they could immediately glean from the surface, would have judged that he was speeding or that he was drunk. But anyone who would have taken the time to look past the surface and gather all of the facts would have known that he was not speeding and that he was not drunk: someone had cut his brake line in an attempt to kill him.

The Scriptures contain several stories in which people judge others based on the facts which they can see on the surface. One of those stories is in 1 Samuel chapter 1. Elkanah had two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Every year Elkanah would take his family to the tabernacle to worship the Lord. Peninnah had children but Hannah did not, facts which Peninnah made sure Hannah knew full well every time they went to the tabernacle. One year Peninnah’s teasing was so bad that Hannah ran to the tabernacle to pray. It was the custom in those days to pray out loud. The high priest, Eli, saw Hannah praying, but he did not hear her voice: “Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore, Eli thought she was drunk” (v. 13). He was so certain of his conclusion that he rebuked her for it: “How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!” (v. 14). However, once Hannah gave him the rest of the facts, he changed his tune: “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition which you have asked of Him” (v. 17).

How often do we draw conclusions about our brothers and sisters in the Lord and even condemn them based on facts which we can see on the surface? And how often do we not look past the surface and wait for the rest of the facts? Paul says that love “does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6). Does that not mean that love does not immediately condemn based on surface facts but waits until the truth comes out? He also says that love “thinks no evil” (v. 5) and “believes all things” and “hopes all things” (v. 7). Does that not mean that love assumes the best instead of assuming the worst? If we see a brother or sister doing something that can be interpreted as something sinful, would it not be better to humbly ask him or her for the rest of the facts?

Jesus did not say that the world would know that we are his disciples because we claim to be Christians or because we go to church or because we live holier lives than the world does. He said they would know that we are his disciples by our love for one another (John 13:35). That means that we Christians should be loving our own better than the world loves its own. Are we?

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Looking Past the Surface: Counseling Others

Posted on August 11, 2018 by chfordenterprises

The story of Job is well known. After suffering staggering losses, three of his friends come to comfort him. One of the first things his friend, Eliphaz, says to him is, “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty” (Job 5:17).

What Eliphaz says is completely Biblical. Compare his statement to what Solomon says in Proverbs: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction; for whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights” (Prov. 3:11-12).

The problem, of course, is that Eliphaz’ counsel does not apply to Job. Job is not being corrected or chastened by God because Job has not sinned. But Eliphaz has bought into the idea that only sinners suffer and he sees Job suffering. Therefore, Job must have sinned. Eliphaz is only looking at the surface and not past the surface to Job’s heart. Hence his counsel, while Biblically correct, completely misses the mark.

I have seen this happen many times: well-intentioned people give counsel that is Biblically correct but completely misses the mark because the counselors cannot look past the surface and see the heart of the person they are counseling or see what the real issue is.

In one Bible study I attended, a man of Mexican descent shared that his sister, who, of course, was also of Mexican descent, was considering leaving the Protestant church she was attending and joining the Catholic Church and he needed some advice on what to say to her to dissuade her from this course of action. Some of the men immediately said that he needed to tell her that many of the doctrines of the Catholic Church were wrong and that many of the traditions of the Catholic Church were unbiblical. But these men were only looking at the surface. Growing up in the Mexican culture, the sister and her brother were already familiar with the beliefs and traditions of the Church and had long ago decided to leave it and become Christians and join Protestant churches. No, the sister had not suddenly decided that the Church was correct after all. The sister’s decision to change churches was only a surface issue that was motivated by something deep inside her. Something had happened at the Protestant church that had made her want to leave that church. That is what her brother needed to find out. Then he would know how to help her.

I have also seen instances in which counselors, in their eagerness to help, give advice before the persons they are counseling have given all of the facts. It is always best to wait for the person to tell the whole story before giving any advice.

And sometimes, when you let the person tell you the whole story, you may not have to give him or her any advice at all. I have noticed that many times the person already knows the answer to the problem but is not quite ready to submit to it. However, if you let him or her talk long enough, he or she will finally convince himself or herself that the answer is the correct one and accept it.

Then there are the times when the person is actually trying to convince himself or herself that he or she is really not part of the problem. Years ago I had a friend who was having some marital problems. After another fight with his wife, he came to my house and paced back and forth, telling me how she did this wrong and how she did that wrong. I sat silently, listening to this for half an hour. I finally said, “Did you come here to vent or to get an answer?” For the first time in half an hour, he stopped talking and got his eyes off of her and took a look at himself. My question forced him to look past the surface of the fights and the accusations and take a good hard look at his own heart. When he finally sat down and said that he wanted an answer, I was able to show him the changes that he needed to make to improve his marriage.

Counseling people is not easy and there is no “one size fits all” answer on how to do it. This is illustrated by a passage in Proverbs that at first sight seems to contradict itself:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest you also be like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
Lest he be wise in his own eyes (Prov. 26:4-5).

The point is there are times when you do not answer a fool because you will only end up just like him, but there are times when you do answer a fool to save him from falling into an even worse condition, because there is more hope for a fool than for a man who is wise in his own eyes (Prov. 26:12).

But how do you know when you are supposed to answer a fool and when you are not? And how do you know when to give someone advice and when to just let that person talk? And how do you look past the surface and see a person’s heart when that is normally beyond our human ability? You pray. You ask God for discernment. Whenever someone asks you for advice, you begin to pray (usually silently while that person is talking to you) and ask God for discernment and wisdom. After all, God looks past the surface all the time.

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The Gospel of Repentance vs. The Gospel of Love

Posted on August 5, 2018 by chfordenterprises

There is an important statement which, of course, has been in the Scriptures all along but which I did not see until Billy Glenn, Jr., pointed it out in a Facebook post a few days ago. In Mark 6:7-11, Jesus sends the disciples out to preach. Then verse 12 says, “So they went out and preached that people should repent.” As Billy pointed out, Jesus did not send them out to preach love. He sent them out to preach repentance.

After Christ’s resurrection, he gives the disciples a Bible lesson. Then he says to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47). Notice that the disciples’ mission was to preach the gospel of repentance, not the gospel of love.

I hear so often nowadays that we should stop preaching the gospel of repentance because telling people that they are sinners only turns people away. Instead, we should be preaching the gospel of love. We should be telling them that we are here to help them with their problems. We should be offering them food and shelter and clothing. We should be telling them that they are basically good people who just need a helping hand. We should be telling them that Jesus loves them just the way they are. And if we love them enough, then they will change.

However, when Jesus sent his disciples out to preach, he did not send them with food to distribute to the hungry and he did not send them with clothing to distribute to the naked. In fact, they did not have enough provisions for themselves. They depended on others to feed and shelter them. Does that mean that Christians should not build soup kitchens to feed the hungry or shelters to house the homeless? Of course not. But those came later. Those came when there were enough Christians to man them. And those Christians became Christians because of the gospel of repentance. And those Christians should be preaching the gospel of repentance to those they serve, not the gospel of love.

Preaching the gospel of love is like telling doctors that they should stop telling their cancer patients that they have cancer. Instead, they should be telling their patients about how healthy the rest of their bodies are and they should be telling them how much their families love them and they should be reminding them how talented they are, etc., as if that will cure the cancer. Most problems do not go away by simply ignoring them. It is true that you cannot help an alcoholic until he acknowledges that he has a problem, but that does not mean that you ignore the problem until he acknowledges it. Sometimes you have to rub his nose in it until he finally admits to it.

However, I can see where the people who push the gospel of love are coming from. We have been commanded to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15), but many times those of us who preach the gospel of repentance hate the sinners to whom we are preaching. And many times, especially when we are speaking to homosexuals, we treat them as if they are the worst sinners on earth. While it is true that here on earth some sins carry more serious consequences than others, in God’s eyes a sin is a sin is a sin is a sin. And while it is true that homosexuals cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-10), it is also true that those who love and practice a lie are kept outside of the New Jerusalem as well (Rev. 22:15). The fact is all sinners, whether they are homosexuals, liars, thieves, adulterers, gossips, murderers, atheists, or those who have kept the commandments all their lives but cannot give their riches away to the poor and follow Jesus, must repent. Our message should be, “You need to repent of your sins, all of your sins, because if you do not, first of all you will spend eternity in the worst place imaginable and second of all you will miss out on spending eternity in the best place imaginable with the person who loves you the most: your Heavenly Father.”

The fact is, those who preach the gospel of love are only telling people half the truth. They are telling people that Jesus loves them just the way they are, which is true, but that does not mean that he is going to let them get into heaven just the way they are. The complete message is, Jesus loves you just the way you are and because he loves you, he is not going to leave you “just the way you are” because “just the way you are” is killing you and “just the way you are” is sending you to hell and “just the way you are” is keeping you from entering heaven and “just the way you are” is keeping you from spending eternity with Jesus.

Jesus himself told the parable of the king who held a wedding feast for his son (Matt. 22:1-14). The king sent his servants to bring the people he had already invited, but some refused to come and others beat and even killed some of the servants. In his wrath, the king sent his army out to destroy those murderers and their villages. He then sent his servants out again to invite whoever they could find. Once the feast began, the king went in to greet the guests, only to find one who was not wearing a wedding garment. When he asked the man why he was not wearing a wedding garment to a wedding feast, the man was speechless. So the king had the man thrown out and tortured.

The point is everyone was invited but no one could come in “just as they are.” When the servants found these people, they were at home or they were working in their business or they were working in the field. They could not go to the wedding feast in their street clothes or their casual clothes or their work clothes. They had to put off those clothes and put on a wedding garment.

But what if they did not have a wedding garment? What if they were too poor to buy a wedding garment? Or what if they were too poor to get the materials to make a wedding garment? That is probably the problem the man in the parable had: he came to the feast without a garment because he simply did not have one. He was thrown out and tortured because he was speechless. What he could have said was, “My Lord, I know that I should not have come to the feast without a wedding garment, but I do not have one and I did not want to offend my Lord who extended me such a gracious invitation. So, in your mercy, my Lord, may you grant me a garment that I may borrow for just this occasion?” And the king would have gladly not only let the man borrow a garment but would have given him one to keep. In other words, if the man had acknowledged his need, the king would have fulfilled his need and the man would have had the opportunity to see that his king cared for him after all.

Yes, Jesus loves us “just the way we are,” and because he loves us, he has invited us to his wedding feast. But as much as he loves us, he will not let us into the feast without a wedding garment, and if we do enter the feast without a wedding garment, even though he loves us, he will still throw us out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The problem we have is that none of us can create a wedding garment good enough to get us into the feast. Nor can any of us afford to buy a garment good enough to get us into the feast. That is the beauty of the gospel. When Jesus died on the cross for us, he bought a new wedding garment for each and every one of us. But he is not going to simply distribute one to everybody. He is going to give one only to those who really desire to be at the feast and who acknowledge that their everyday clothes are not good enough to get them into the feast and that they cannot make or get a wedding garment that is good enough to get them into the feast and that only the garment that Jesus provides is good enough to get them in. In short, the only ones who get the garments are the ones who acknowledge that Jesus not only loves them enough to invite them to the feast but also loves them enough to have provided the only way into the feast at great cost to himself.

The gospel of love actually cheapens the love of Jesus. It implies that what Jesus did for us was not a choice; he couldn’t help himself because he just naturally loves everybody. And it implies that he so badly wants people in heaven that he is willing to blink at sin. But if Jesus is willing to blink at sin, why did he die on the cross? And if he is willing to blink at sin, why do the vast majority of people end up in the lake of fire (Matt. 7:13-14)?

The gospel of repentance, on the other hand, actually emphasizes the true value of the love of Jesus. The gospel of repentance tells us that we are sinners, meaning that we have rebelled in one form or another against our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ all of our lives. Our rebellion has made us enemies of God. We deserve the punishment that the murderers in the parable received. We deserve to be destroyed by God’s wrath and spend eternity in the lake of fire. We don’t deserve to be loved. But our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ chose to love us anyway. And they proved it by saving us from the wrath we deserve:

For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation (Rom. 5:6-11).

We are saved from this wrath by putting our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. This faith makes us one with Christ, which means that his righteousness now becomes our righteousness. Repentance means that we agree in our minds and in our hearts to leave behind the sinfulness that we had been living and start living the righteousness that Christ has now given us, to leave behind that lifestyle of rebellion and start living a lifestyle of obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ, to put off our old sinful rags and put on the new wedding garment that Jesus bought for us. More than that, because we are not only Christ’s guests at the wedding feast, but we are also Christ’s bride, repentance means that we show up at our wedding no longer wearing that dirty, sinful handmaidens’ dress we used to wear every day but wearing “fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Rev. 19:8).

As we learn how to live as the bride of Christ, as we learn how to be one with Christ, as we learn how live in our new garments of righteousness, we learn how to live righteously as Christ lives righteously and we learn how to love as Christ loves. That is why the gospel of repentance is so much better than the gospel of love.

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What Repentance Is and What It Is Not

Posted on July 31, 2018 by chfordenterprises

I have attended churches which had altar calls every Sunday and almost every Sunday you would see the same people down at the altar crying and telling God that they are sorry for committing the same sins yet again and that they would try better this week, knowing in their hearts that they were never intending on actually fighting those sins; they were hoping that those sins would just go away.

Then there are people on the other extreme who know that repentance is not an emotional show but must come from the heart. They believe that if a person truly repents of a particular sin, then that person will never commit that sin again. If that person does commit that sin again, then that person’s so-called repentance was just a farce.

As is usually the case, when people are deceived about a subject, they have not taken into account everything the Scriptures have to say about it. The first group has not taken into account Prov. 28:13, which says, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” They think they are repenting of their sins when all they are really doing is confessing them. True repentance is the second part: forsaking them. As we saw in my previous blog, repentance simply means “to change your mind.” When a sinner repents, he decides to forsake his sinful lifestyle and begin to live a righteous lifestyle. Sins simply do not “just go away.” The sinner must make a decision to make them go away. That decision may involve emotion, but it does not have to do so. But it does require a change in one’s mind and one’s heart.

That does not mean, however, that a person who has truly repented will never commit that sin again. Jesus did say, “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4). Notice that Jesus never doubted the brother’s repentance, even though he repented seven times in a day. Jesus recognizes that just because we have decided to never commit a sin again does not automatically mean that we will never commit it again. He recognizes that our decision to stop sinning means that we have just signed on to join a war.

Paul reminds us in Galatians that “the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Gal. 5:17). Within your body there is a fight going on between the Spirit and your flesh, and it is a fight to the death. You may have repented. You may have decided that you are no longer going to commit a particular sin. But your flesh is going to fight you every step of the way. That is why repentance is not an emotion. That is why repentance is a commitment. It is a commitment to fight that sin until it is completely gone.

Some people treat repentance like some people treat marriage. They stay married as long as the good emotions are there. But as soon as the bad emotions come in, they think the love is gone and this just isn’t going to work anymore and they give up. They do not realize that good marriages work because the couples are committed to making it work. Sure, the good emotions are nice to have and make it easier to work, but the couples make the marriage work even when the good emotions are gone or when the bad emotions come around and tell them to quit. So, too, with repentance. Repentance is a commitment that says, “I am committed to my relationship with my Lord Jesus Christ no matter what, which means I am also committed to eliminating this sin from this relationship no matter what.” The emotions that make you feel like you are winning are nice to have and make the fighting easier, but your commitment makes you press on even when those emotions are not there or the bad emotions come around and tell you to quit.

Your flesh will rise up and tempt you to commit that sin. You will fight it but in your weak moments you will give in. You will then go before the Lord and confess your sin and ask for forgiveness. The Lord, of course, will forgive you. Then, when you least expect it, your flesh will tempt you again. This cycle may play itself out over and over again until you are sick of it. But stick to your commitment. Your flesh wants to keep sinning because it gets pleasure from it (Heb. 11:24-25). And even though you confess your sin, the Lord will chastise you for sinning because your flesh must learn that not only does sin produce pleasure, it also produces an inordinate amount of displeasure (Heb. 12:11). When your flesh finally says, “The consequences are not worth doing this sin anymore,” it will die, and that is the day when you will have finally won.

Before I became a Christian, I became addicted to a particular sin. I fought this sin for more years after I became a Christian than I did before I became a Christian. After fighting this for a few years, I became very frustrated and said to the Lord, “Wouldn’t I be a better witness for you if you would just deliver me from this right now?”

The Lord spoke very clearly to me about this.

He said, “Who is the Lord here? You or me?”

I said, “You are.”

“Am I the Lord over only certain parts of your life or over every part of your life?”

“Over every part of my life.”

“Then I am the Lord of your sanctification, which means I decide in which order I will sanctify your sins and how I will sanctify your sins.”

That conversation took a load off of me. Until then, I had not realized that I had been frantically trying to perfect myself so that I could be a better witness to the world. The Lord knew that the Glory of his Name was at stake. But he also knew that he could clean me up better than I could. Yes, repentance is a commitment to put the old sinful lifestyle behind me and live the new righteous lifestyle, but it is more than that. It is the commitment to obey the Lord of my sanctification who will determine which sins we will fight and how we will fight it. If that meant fighting that particular sin for the rest of my life here on earth, then so be it.

Many years later, I woke up one morning and realized that I had not been tempted to commit that sin for at least two weeks. To this day, I do not know when that particular sin left me. I just know that the Lord one day quietly delivered me of it and it took me at least two weeks to realize it. Does my flesh sometimes tell me that it wants to do it again? Of course. But it no longer controls me. I now control it. The battle has been won.

That conversation with the Lord was also a reminder that I am not alone in this fight against sin. My flesh is fighting against me. But the Spirit also fights against my flesh. And he who is in the world also is fighting against me. But “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). And some day, if I keep fighting the good fight with the help of my Lord, I will stand before him with a new body that is completely free of sin, a body that my Lord bought for me when he died on the cross. From that day forward, I will never have to fight sin again. I am so looking forward to that day.

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The Gospel of Repentance

Posted on July 25, 2018 by chfordenterprises

On the Day of Pentecost, the 120 were gathered in a house, presumably in the same upper room in which the apostles had shared their last supper with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit suddenly descended on them like a rushing mighty wind and they could all speak in different languages. The noise attracted a crowd of curious people who wondered how these 120 could speak in their native tongues. Peter then stood up and delivered his first great sermon. When he was done, the people said to him and the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37).

The answer modern Protestant preachers most likely would give is, “Believe in the Lord Jesus,” or, “Ask Jesus into your heart,” or, “Confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior.” But Peter’s answer was, “Repent.”

Mark tells us that as soon as Jesus returned from being tempted in the wilderness, he began “preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.” And what was that gospel? “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15). The gospel Jesus preached was not just believe. It was repent and believe.

Perhaps Peter’s answer and Jesus’ gospel surprise us because this is not the gospel we are used to hearing today. We are used to hearing the gospel of belief. We are used to hearing that faith and not works saves us. We are used to hearing emphasis being placed on verses like Romans 10:9-10 (“if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”) and Ephesians 2:8-9 (“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”). But we rarely hear the next verse: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” And we are troubled by James when he says, “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?… Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:14-18). In fact, we are so troubled by him that Martin Luther wanted his book thrown out of the Scriptures because James seems to be saying that we are saved by works after all.

But Jesus, Peter, Paul, and James are saying something that we seem to have forgotten a long time ago. The faith that saves us is not a free ticket into heaven. The faith that saves us does not merely save us from hell. The faith that saves us saves us from the one thing that was sending us to hell in the first place: sin.

True faith delivers us from the old man who was sinful and brings us to the new man who is righteous. True faith delivers us from the sinful lifestyle and brings us to the righteous lifestyle. True faith delivers us from doing sinful works and brings us to doing righteous works. In other words, true faith makes us want to repent.

The Greek word for “repent” is metanoeō, which literally means “think afterward” or “think again,” hence, “to change your mind.” To repent means to look back over your life and decide that it is time to make a change. It starts with a decision but it is a decision that results in action. A sinner repents when he looks back over his sinful life and decides that continuing that lifestyle is just not worth it and that it is time to make a change. That change comes when he puts his faith in Jesus Christ and lets Jesus transform him so that he can now begin to live a righteous lifestyle.

The Old Testament word for “repent” is return. The Hebrews saw the sinful lifestyle as walking down a path that led you away from God. Repentance was simply turning around and walking back to God. Again, repentance involved a decision (continuing this way was just not worth it) that resulted in an action (turning around and heading in the other direction).

What the Gospel says is that you cannot make that change yourself. You cannot by yourself transform yourself from that old man who lived that sinful lifestyle to that new man who lives that righteous lifestyle. Only Jesus Christ can do that. That is why you must place your faith in him. That is why only his grace through faith can save you. But your repentance means that you have decided that you really want him to make that change in you. And when people see that change in you, when they see that you have gone from doing the sinful works to doing the righteous works, then they can see that you really have placed your faith in Jesus Christ.

But so many churches are trying to get so many more people into their pews, thinking that they are getting so many more people saved, that they have lopped off the repentance part of the gospel message and are preaching only the faith part. They say that Jesus is our Lord and our Savior, but they have watered down sin so much (if they talk about it at all) that Jesus is really neither to them. If a person is caught in a rushing river that is pulling him or her towards a waterfall and certain death, we save that person by pulling him or her out of the river and placing that person on solid ground. What is the point of saying that we have saved that person if that person is still in the river? So too, what is the point of saying that we have saved a person if that person is still living a sinful lifestyle and is on his or her way to spending eternity in the lake of fire?

If James were to walk into some of our churches today, he would take one look around and say, “Nope, you aren’t saved.” Then the people would rise up and say, “Who are you to be so judgmental? You don’t know what’s in their hearts!” And he would say, “I am not being judgmental. And I don’t have to see what’s in their hearts. I’m just looking at their works. And their works are no different than before they supposedly got ‘saved.’”

And what’s going to happen to these people on Judgment Day? They are going to stand before our Lord who is going to say to them, “Why should I let you in?” And they are going to say, “Because we said the sinners’ prayer!” And he is going to say to them, “Depart from me! I never knew you.” Then they are going to turn to us and say, “What? We trusted you! You said that all we had to do was say the sinners’ prayer and we were in. Now we have to spend eternity in the lake of fire! YOU LIED TO US!” Then Jesus will turn to us and instead of saying, “Well done, good and faithful servants,” he will say to us, “Their blood is on your hands.” Do we really want to hear that?

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What the Scriptures Say about Suicide

Posted on July 18, 2018 by chfordenterprises

Surprisingly, nowhere in Scriptures do we find a statement that specifically says, “Suicide is a sin,” unless it is included in the command, “You shall not murder,” meaning “You shall not murder others” and “You shall not murder yourself.” There are instances in Scriptures in which people commit suicide, such as Samson (Judg. 16:29, 30), Ahithophel (2 Sam. 17:23), and, of course, Judas (Matt. 27:5), and the Scriptures do not say that these people committed a sin. But then the Scriptures do the same thing in other stories in which people commit obvious sins such as rape, adultery, and murder.

I grew up in a Catholic home and attended Catholic schools. I heard several times that if you committed suicide, you would rot in the worst part of hell forever, as if committing suicide was the unforgivable sin. But again, the Scriptures do not blatantly say that suicide is a sin, let alone say that it is the unforgivable sin.

After I became a Christian, I heard stories of Christians committing suicide. Some became bound by sin and felt so helpless in fighting it that they became convinced that it would be better to end their lives rather than go on disgracing themselves, their families, and the name of their Lord Jesus Christ. Others became so discouraged in their ministry that they thought they would never bear fruit again, so what was the point of staying here? It was better to just go home. Did these people fail to endure to the end? Did they lose their salvation? Did they end up in hell after all?

Again, the Scriptures do not say that suicide is the unforgivable sin. And we do not gain our salvation by works, so we do not lose our salvation by works. We gain our salvation by entering into an intimate relationship with Christ and we lose that salvation when we say that we no longer want that relationship. From what I know about these people, they may have failed to endure in walking righteously and they may have failed to endure in their ministry, but they did not fail to endure in their relationship with Christ. It sounds like they got to the point where they said, “I still love you, Jesus, but I have failed horribly and I do not see how I can go on.” I know that feeling; I’ve been there.

But you can be certain that these people have lost out on the rewards that they could have had if they had remained and you can be certain that when they got home, they and the Lord had a very long talk. For the Scriptures do tell us that when Jesus died on the cross, he bought us: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Our lives, including our spirits and our bodies, no longer belong to us. They belong to God. So we do not get to have the final say of what happens to us or even the final say of when our lives end: he does. Each of us have been appointed to die once (Heb. 9:27), but that appointment was set by God, not us. God has placed each of us in the Body of Christ because each of us has something to contribute (Eph. 4:16). If we choose to change God’s appointment for us by taking our own lives, thereby robbing the Body of Christ of our contribution, then, yes, we have sinned.

Have we failed to endure to the end? Have we lost our salvation? Like anything else in Christianity, that would depend on why we did it. But you can be sure we would have a lot to answer for to our Lord and King.

What took out those Christians is that they started walking by sight and not by faith. The ones bound by sin saw the mess they had made but could not believe that Jesus was big enough to redeem them from that sin and able to clean up the mess. And the ministers could not believe that Jesus had a reason for them to keep laboring in the fields even though they could not see the fruit. Satan’s favorite trick is to get us to walk by sight because it discourages us and makes us want to quit, sometimes to the point where we want to quit living. When our sight tells us that there is no reason to go on, we need to hold on to one important truth: Jesus has us here for a reason. We may not know what that reason is. But we have to trust him and trust that he knows what he is doing. He will take us home when he decides to take us home. Until then we stay here and serve him faithfully, even if we do not understand why we are still here. That’s called walking by faith and not by sight.

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