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6 Sept:  

Why Do We Have the Bible?

If somebody asked you what is the Bible supposed to do, I would say that it shows God trying to have a relationship with His creation – more specifically, His children.

You see that first in the story of the Garden where God would walk in the cool of the day and meet with Adam and Eve (Gen 3:8). Then later (Gen 6) when the earth was corrupt and filled with violence God decides to remove it from existence, but finding favor with Noah (Gen 6:8) He guides him to build an ark and save Noah’s family with a remnant of the creation to start fresh. He also makes a covenant with Noah, and essentially with all of mankind, not to destroy the world again with water.

With the water receded and the ark emptied Noah’s children began to complete Adam and Eve’s purpose to be fruitful and multiply. From Noah’s descendants we next see God connecting with Abraham and promising to make from his descendants a great nation and to eventually bless all the families of the earth (Gen 12:2,3).

As Abraham’s descendants unfold the Scriptures tell of God’s relationship with Joseph, a great descendant of Abraham, and how He was with Joseph in all that he did. This leads to Joseph saving his family from a world famine and moving his family to Egypt where they become slaves there for 400 years. This slavery comes to an end when God comes into the presence of Moses in a burning bush and leads Moses in freeing Israel, Abraham’s descendants, from Egypt and brings them to the land of Canaan. This was the land promised to Abraham for all his descendants to possess. When Moses dies God transfers His allegiance from Moses to Joshua who then leads Israel into the possession Canaan.

In the course of the next few hundred years God guides Israel through its existence working through prophets, priests and kings working to fulfill His promise to Abraham: Gen 17:& “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.” 

This promise is then repeated for Israel through Moses: Ex 6:7 “Then I will take you for My people and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”     God again  speaks to Israel through Ezekiel 36:24,26,28 “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers so that you will be My people, and I will be your God.”   

Eventually God speaks through Malachi 4:5,6 “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”  

This ends the story of God working and guiding Israel in a personal fashion. The next ‘God’ event is prophesied by Isaiah -  Isaiah 40:3 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God’”. This prophesy is fulfilled 700 years later in the life of John the Baptist:             John 1:23, saying: “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord’”

This message: "one crying in the wilderness" is a powerful biblical metaphor for a prophetic voice calling people to prepare for God’s coming which is supremely fulfilled in the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.

The question we must ask ourselves is – what are we going to do with this book which we hold in our hands???  John 20:30,31  tells us: “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”   Paul tells us 1 Cor 10:11 “Now these things happened to them for an example, and they were written for our instruction”.     Paul then assures us that reading, following and implementing this book’s teachings into our lives is the right and only thing to do:  2 Tim 3:16 “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness – so that the man of God my be adequate, equipped for every good work.  

With this information we must remember what the Lord told His disciples and what we have been told. In the 14^th chapter of John we are repeatedly told what is summarized in  John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” The Apostle John affirms this:  1 John 2:3,5,6   tells us, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”  “Whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this (keeping His word) we know that we are in Him; and the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

And how is it that Jesus walked; how did He live His life???  Jesus answers this question Himself when He offers the prayer found in  John 17:  “ (1^st) Jesus spoke these things; (why do you think Jesus spoke these things OUTLOUD? – in connection to our previous passages – it is spoken in order that it might be recorded for our benefit. In other words, we are hearing what we need to learn and understand.”  “and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You”.    “(4^th) I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given me to do.”  (Remember last week’s lesson? We do our good deeds in order that God may be glorified. We see here Jesus stating that He has done the same thing.  ) “(18^th) As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” “(20^th) I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word”.  (We have all been sent out and given the responsibility to be ambassadors in the world  – to be God’s righteousness in this world. Just like the Good Samaritan responded to someone in need by the Love of God so we respond to those who are naked, hungry, thirsty and even in jail.)   Eph 2:10 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We have all been told to love our neighbor and we have been given the example of the Good Samaritan to follow.

Verse 20 in John 17 continues the Lord’s prayer: “that they may may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (This is why we have been given the Hebrew 10:24  message to encourage one another to love and good deeds and we have been given the example in Acts 4 where the church is selling their goods in order to help those of the church who are in need.)

So why do we have the Bible???

We have the Bible so that we can know God’s will; the Bible shows us that it is God’s will to love us (John 3:16); the Bible shows us how we can respond in a way that is pleasing to our heavenly Father.   John 8:31,32 “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The Bible shows us that if we are His disciples then we will have His protection (Armor of God – Eph 6); the Bible shows us that if Christ is in us then we will have an abundant life (John 10:10) the Bible shows us that if we are faithful then we will receive our crown of life when this life is over. (James 1:12).    THESE are the reasons we have been given the Bible!!!

 

 

30 Aug: The Certainty and Nature of Judgement Day:

“….For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God.

For it is written,   ‘as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to Me,

and every tongue shall give praise to God.’

So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God. ”

Rom 14:10,11,12

 

This verse along with 2 Cor 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” indicates that everyone will be judged. The tone of these verses is rather sobering if not frightening. But that does not have to be. For Christians, the last judgement will be nothing less than the final step before we step into the heavenly place that has been prepared of us as Jesus told us in John 14:3.

The question then that is first and foremost is by what shall we be judged????

The passage in Rom 2:5-11 gives us a good answer to that:  “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, ⁶ who will repay each person according to his deeds: ⁷ to those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life; ⁸ but to those who are self-serving and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, He will give wrath and indignation. ⁹ There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of mankind who does evil, for the Jew first and also for the Greek, ¹⁰ but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who does what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹¹ For there is no partiality with God.”

You can see in this passage that there are two recipients of God’s judgement: one is those who have rejected God’s instruction and lived a self-indulgent lifestyle and will therefore receive condemnation and destruction. 2 Thess 1:8 “dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”   Mtt 3:41-43 “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

“Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

And here you can see the second group at Judgement Day shining like the sun. This second group are those who were found to be ‘righteous”.

So now a second question arises and asks what makes one righteous???

James 2:17 tells us that faith without works is dead.  Eph 2:10 tells us that we are Christ’s workmanship, created in Him for good works.  Paul indicates to women in    1 Tim 2:10 that their claim to godliness will be seen by their good works. Later in 5:10  Paul stresses the need for recognized widows to be seen as one who serves and provides good work in support of others. Later, 6:17,18,19  Paul instructs the rich to be “rich in good works”.

The importance of doing these good works is because they are signs of the Holy Spirit working within us. Rom 8:11 “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” James speaks to this ‘LIFE’ as living faith; our spiritual life brings forth works as James stipulates, James 2:18. Paul tells Titus “Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful” (3:14). And is that not the crux of the matter between the goats who are condemned and the sheep who are rewarded: faithful works rewarded and dead faith condemned.

So the first question was how are we going to be judged???  The answer is according to our righteousness. The second question asks what makes a man righteous and the indications so far is that a life of good works is something that is necessary. So are our good works making us righteous???

Consider these verses:      1 Peter 2:12 “Conduct yourselves with such honor among the Gentiles that, though they slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.”     1 Thess 1:11,12  “To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you and you in Him”.    1 Cor 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”   Col 3:23 “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”    Mtt 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

So the indication here is that our good works are for the purpose of bringing glory to our heavenly Father. What does 2 Cor 5:20,21 tells us – that we are His ambassadors so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  Through us the lost can see and come to know God and thus find salvation.

Here is the problem: Rom 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Rom 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death…”.  That is unequivocal.

So, God’s response to our sins is found in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   Eph 2:8,9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”   Rom 8:10 “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.”   Rom 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”    Rom 5:18,19 “…. even so through the one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s life disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”    Rom 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

So what is the purpose of our good works – it reflects our state of being saved. Jesus told us that if we love Him we will keep His commandments. 1 John 2:3 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” If we are faithful followers of Christ then we will bring glory to God and salvation to the lost.

We in turn, being faithful followers, will have the Holy Spirit living within us and will receive that crown of life (James 1:12) when this life is over.  We will also receive an imperishable body with which to wear that crown:  1 Cor 15:42-44 “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”      Phil 3:20,21 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory”.     Rom 6:5 “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”    So not only will our image be conformed like Christ’s but our place at the right hand of God will also be accomplished.     Rev 3:21 – “To him that over-cometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne.” And this is later confirmed: Rev 7:9 “After these things I looked and behold, a great multitude was standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands.”       

That will be us, gathered together with all of Christ’s faithful believers.