Category: sound doctrine

Strength in Weakness

Saturday, November 2, 2013

“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 KJV).

When you realize God’s grace is all that you have, then you realize that God’s grace is all that you need!

Yesterday, I visited Brother “G.” for the first time since his wife of 55 years died Wednesday. He knows that she is present with the Lord, but understandably, he is lost without her. In his own words, “I know the verses, but they seem like ‘just words’ right now.” In his own strength, he cannot make it; but God’s grace is more than enough to get him through it.

Beloved, knowing the verses is easy, but applying them to life is hard. Our old sin nature rejects God’s Word, as the Apostle Paul delineated in Romans 7:22,23: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”

Paul, as a saved individual, took pleasure in God’s Word in his spirit (spiritual body). However, he still lived in a physical body—“the body of sin” (Romans 6:6)—that was genetically related to Adam (the origin of man’s anti-God nature). You are strongly encouraged to read Romans chapter 7 in its entirety, but suffice it to say that Paul labored in vain to live the Christian life in his own strength. Sin would defeat him every time, and he lamented in verse 24: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

The solution to this “flesh-walking” is Romans chapter 8: “walking after the Spirit.” We study the Bible rightly divided for ourselves, and no matter what circumstance in life, we, by faith, allow the indwelling Holy Spirit to then work in us using the verses that apply to those specific circumstances. We are weak; Jesus Christ is strong. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). In Christ, we are equipped to handle every situation, good or bad, and He will live His life in us if we let Him.

Arrayed in Hypocrisy

Thursday, October 31, 2013

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Matthew 23:27,28 KJV).

“Looks can be deceiving” is not only true during Halloweentime, but confirmed year-round within Christendom.

Today is Halloween, when children dress up and feign themselves to be creatures they are not. Likewise, many church leaders today wear “Christian” garbs, but their ministries do not bring the Lord Jesus Christ glory and honor. They promote their denomination, and seek to perpetuate it, rather than serve and exalt the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bible manifests these who appear to be good, as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

In today’s Scripture, Jesus Christ exposed Israel’s corrupt religious leaders who misled the nation in His day. In His Parable of the Tares, Matthew 13:24-30,37-43, Christ explained how just as He had sown good seed (wheat, believing Jews) in Israel, Satan had also sown tares/weeds (unbelieving Jews). Tares resemble wheat; unbelieving Jews resemble believing Jews. The unbelieving Pharisees and scribes, for instance, looked like God’s people (believing Israel). Judas Iscariot was another example of Satan’s tares—the apostles never realized who Judas really was until it was too late!

But Satan’s counterfeit believers are not confined to Israel’s program. Today, within local assemblies of the Body of Christ, there are people feigning themselves to be Christians: For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Beloved, beware of the church leaders who are arrayed in hypocrisy, “and avoid them” (Romans 16:17b). If their teaching does not agree with the rightly divided King James Bible, you have no business as a child of God to be listening to them.

*This is excerpted from a larger Bible study with the same name. The Bible study can be read here or watched here.

Impressionable Minds and Effectual Doctrine

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

“All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not” (1 Corinthians 10:23 KJV).

In light of Halloween tomorrow, we learn a simple lesson from Scripture today.

Innocent children arrayed in costumes going door-to-door and exclaiming, “Trick-or-treat!,” have never been taught that this “innocent looking” holiday is rooted in the spiritually toxic soils of Celtic paganism, devil worship, and superstition.

The “Harry Potter” franchise and Halloween downplay the gravity of devil worship. Our younger generations are receiving mixed messages from the Church the Body of Christ. Christians, rather than speaking against these atrocities, have become permissive regarding the activities that God hates. They remain silent, greatly reducing their impact on the world, and allowing the world to impact them! Ephesians 5:14-17 exclaims, “Wake up, O sleeping Christians, Wake up!”

God clearly forbade witchcraft in Israel (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:9-14; Micah 5:12). Witchcraft is sin, according to Galatians 5:20. God wanted Israel, His earthly people, to not participate in Satan’s policy of evil. They were not to mingle with the works of darkness. God wants the same for us, the Church the Body of Christ. Note how the Ephesians burned their spell books in Acts 19:19.

There is no law “Thou shalt not celebrate Halloween,” yet notice today’s Scripture. Although they are not explicitly forbidden, some activities harm others and ourselves. They are inconsistent with our identity in Jesus Christ. Thus, we avoid those activities. If an activity does not bring glory, praise, and honor to God Almighty (the Lord Jesus Christ), it is devil worship. Satan wants you to worship something other than the one true God.

We desperately need our young people to realize the weightiness of sound doctrine, especially regarding the occult, witchcraft, et cetera (and its most subtle forms like Halloween and Harry Potter). God Almighty instructs us to educate them with sound Bible teaching. We know that God’s Word will “effectually work also in [them] that believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). God’s Word will reach their minds, we just need to plant and water, sowing it into their minds, and let God take care of the rest.

*Excerpted from a larger Bible study with the same name, which can be read here.

Shallow #8

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

Many professing Christians often criticize lost people for living like lost people. Paradoxically, these very Christians are saved people usually living like lost people. Beloved, when the professing “Church” takes its Christian ambassadorship for granted, and lives like the world, we need not wonder why lost people exclaim, “The Bible is irrelevant, irrational, and outmoded!”

Beloved, if we Christians are not living in accordance with God’s Word, how can we expect lost people to do it? If our attitudes and actions do not reflect God’s grace and values, then how will the lost world ever see their need for Jesus Christ as personal Saviour? They will not! The lost world observes the hypocrisy, shallowness, and silliness of much of Christendom and they want nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ!

When Paul wrote today’s Scripture to Christians in the 1st century, he could have just as well been writing to Christians in the 21st century. Like the Corinthians, today’s average Christian is spiritually asleep, living contrary to the identity and life he or she has in Christ (2 Timothy 2:24-26). Why? The typical Christian church is not teaching sound Bible doctrine; rather, it too is totally oblivious to what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing today. Today’s Scripture admonishes, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not!”

After almost 2,000 years, the Body of Christ should have a firm understanding of its mission, doctrine, duty, walk, and destiny. Alas, even today, many Christians still “have not the knowledge of God” (today’s Scripture). The people who should know God’s Word and should let it work in and through them, are just as ignorant of God’s will as the lost world is. What a shame!!

Beloved, may we study and walk by faith in Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon, God’s Word to us, that our understanding of it be not shallow, and that we not reject it as many have done. 🙂

Shallow #7

Monday, October 28, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

The Scriptural record demonstrates that, by the opening years of the first century A.D., the LORD God has dealt with the most wretched, rebellious, unbelieving race of creatures in all of His creation. Some 4,000 years since creation, and God’s will in the earth (His earthly kingdom) is still not accomplished.

When He offers Israel her Messiah-King (Jesus), the Person who alone can redeem her from sin and Satan, and who alone can cleanse her of her sins, Israel demands His crucifixion (John 19:15)! Even into the early Acts period, Israel is still unrepentant. She continues to intentionally reject God’s Word to her, as the Prophet Stephen testified: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:51). Shortly after Stephen spoke these words, Israel stones and murders him; national Israel has now committed the “unpardonable sin” of Matthew 12:31,32, and thus (temporarily) falls before God.

In Acts chapter 9, God implements a plan that He has kept secret in Himself since the world began (Ephesians 3:1-11). He saves His chief enemy in the earth, Saul of Tarsus, commissions him as Paul the Apostle, and sends salvation to the Gentiles without Israel’s kingdom (Romans 11:11-13), thus beginning a new agency, the Church the Body of Christ, and His purpose and plan for the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:20-23).

And so, we (finally!) reach the context of today’s Scripture. Unfortunately, members of the Body of Christ are just as sinful and ignorant of God’s Word as the billions who lived during the previous 4,000 years (or 6,000 years if we include the present-day). Sin abounds in Corinth, in the lives of these Christians (read 1 Corinthians). Today’s Scripture, sadly, applies to many sincere Christians today. Religious tradition and the world’s “wisdom” have polluted their souls and corrupted their minds. Consequently, they too have rejected God’s Word to them… often, deliberately….

Shallow #2

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

The significant cultural changes occurring today are unmistakably identical to three turning points in human history. Each of these turning points can be studied in the Scriptural record, and we would do well if we looked at them, considered them, and learned from them.

Undoubtedly, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). The first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, whose body was taken from Adam’s body (Genesis 2:21-25), were not just physically alive, but spiritually alive, too! They lived in harmony with each other and with their Creator God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Like the three Persons of the Godhead, Adam and Eve loved each other, living for and seeking each other’s good. Selfishness, war, hate, and sickness and suffering were absent. Indeed, they had eternal life—they enjoyed God’s life!

Unfortunately, Satan successfully destroyed that perfect life Adam and Eve had. Eve, unable to adequately remember God’s Word to her (or perhaps Adam failed to properly communicate it to her), was confused and tricked, and in ignorance, she participated in Satan’s rebellion by eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:1-6). Verse 6 says, “and [Eve] gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Adam made no objection whatsoever! “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Timothy 2:14).

Satan tricked Eve (2 Corinthians 11:3), but the Apostle Paul made it very clear in 1 Timothy 2:14 that “Adam was not deceived.” Adam was completely aware of what he was doing in the Garden of Eden, but he actually preferred to join his wife in rebellion against God than lose her. Adam’s deliberate refusal to believe and apply God’s Word ushered in this fallen creation, one that knows nothing of that original eternal life….

Shallow #1

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

“Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV).

If the professing “Church” is to impact our culture as the Lord Jesus Christ intended, then it had better recognize today’s Scripture as applicable to it!

Society, even here in our beloved “Christian” America, is becoming increasingly secular humanistic. Secular humanism is an outlook/worldview that boasts, “We humans are good enough to solve our problems, without God and His Word.” Secular humanists emphasize man and ignore God. There is no regard whatsoever for the Creator’s will: the only issue is what does mankind think is right, acceptable, and good. How did mankind ever get to such a pitiful condition? What would ever cause such a frail, short-lived creature—made of mere dirt!—to exalt himself to such a deified position?

Let us be clear about three points:

  1. CREATION: Man’s original spiritual and moral decay could have been avoided had he not willfully rejected his knowledge of God (just like the Christians referenced in today’s Scripture). We can, and later will, appeal to the Scriptures to see man’s spiritual and moral decline… less than a week after his creation!
  2. CIVILIZATION: The significant cultural transformation—the willful rejection of the knowledge of God—that we are witnessing today is nothing new (recall the Christians referenced in today’s Scripture). What is happening today in the United States and all nations is something that God has seen many times over. He is not surprised, and neither should the Bible student. We can, and later will, appeal to the Scriptures to see Israel’s spiritual and moral decline.
  3. CHURCH: The professing “Church” has repeatedly—and in many cases, deliberately—rejected their knowledge of God (just like the Christians referenced in today’s Scripture). This is nothing new, either, as God has seen it many times over. He is not surprised, and neither should the Bible student. We can, and later will, appeal to the Scriptures to see the professing “Church’s” spiritual and moral decline.

The serious Bible student can recognize a pattern in the three above points, which we will now carefully dissect….

Solved and Sentenced!

Monday, October 21, 2013

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3 KJV).

From God’s perspective, there is no “cold” case.

“Cold cases” are decades-old crimes unsolved due to lack of witnesses and/or conclusive evidence. During the last 6,000 years, people have committed, and are still carrying out, very heinous deeds, causing their fellow man unimaginable suffering, and yet they go “unpunished” (for now). Oppressive politicians and ecclesiastical leaders who mercilessly torture, imprison, and execute anyone who opposes their “progress.” The clever “explanations” invented to cover-up the disappearances and deaths, and the downplaying of those crimes, make the bereaved cry out for justice.

Homicide victims unable to testify as to who murdered them, and elaborate schemes of corruption and cover-ups among authorities make justice seemingly impossible. Who will expose them and make things right? So many unanswered questions, doubts that never bring grieving family and friends any peace or sense of fairness. How will those deaths ever be avenged?

Saints, let us thank our God and Father that He sees every crime committed (today’s Scripture) and He is fair in meeting out punishment. As God’s judgment was about to fall on the pagan Neo-Assyrian capital Nineveh, the Prophet Nahum wrote: “The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked” (1:3). Like Nineveh of old, wicked (unbelieving) mankind has an appointment scheduled with the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will not be in a good mood (Revelation 20:11-15)!

God has been so longsuffering (patient) toward unbelieving and rebellious mankind especially these last 2,000 years, the Dispensation of Grace, but His justice will indeed be satisfied eventually (at the cross of Jesus Christ for believers’ sins, or in the everlasting lake of fire for everyone else’s sins). “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19; cf. Deuteronomy 32:35).

Dearly beloved, let us not be troubled regarding the injustices occurring all around the world, for we know that the only Witness whose testimony truly counts, is still a faithful Witness whose testimony will one day be heard and whose justice will one day be executed! 🙂

Saved, If Ye Keep in Memory? #5

Sunday, October 21, 2013

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1,2 KJV).

Although a stumbling block to many, today’s Scripture is not difficult to understand when we consider the context….

If we fail to keep foremost in our minds Jesus Christ’s literal, physical, visible resurrection (like the Corinthians in today’s Scripture), then we will not be saved from despair and misery (verses 12,14,17,19). If He did not resurrect, then we have no hope of seeing our deceased Christian loved ones (verse 18). All of our ministry work such as preaching and teaching would be for nothing and our believing would also be pointless (verses 14,17). In short, without the reality of bodily resurrection, our Christian service would be a waste of time!

“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (verse 19). However, by constantly reminding ourselves of the reality of Jesus Christ’s bodily resurrection, we are saved from all that misery listed above. We do not simply have “hope in Christ” now in this present life, but we have “hope in Christ” after death because we will be bodily resurrected just like Jesus Christ was (verses 20-23,35-58). This mentality saves us from the despair that results from denying bodily resurrection.

Verse 58, the concluding verse of the Apostle Paul’s exhaustive resurrection chapter, summarizes: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” Our Christian service—that is, Jesus Christ living His life in and through us—is not in vain, for we will be resurrected bodily to receive a reward, enabling us to function in the heavenly places forever for God’s glory (1 Corinthians 3:9-15; 2 Corinthians 5:9,10; Ephesians 2:6,7; Colossians 3:23-25).

May we always keep Jesus Christ’s bodily resurrection in mind, thereby remembering we too will be resurrected, so our Christian service is not in vain in the Lord! 🙂

Saved, If Ye Keep in Memory? #4

Saturday, October 19, 2013

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:1,2 KJV).

Although a stumbling block to many, today’s Scripture is not difficult to understand when we consider the context….

Verses 12, 14, and 17 explain that to “believe in vain” (today’s Scripture) is to believe to no purpose, to believe a gospel that is not true. It has nothing to do with not having “enough faith,” not having the “right kind of faith,” et cetera. These are theological gimmicks invented because people do not understand how to handle the passage. All the nonsense aside, Paul is saying in today’s Scripture that if Jesus Christ never resurrected, then it is pointless to believe that Gospel of the Grace of God that teaches that He did resurrect bodily.

Now, notice the “by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you” portion of today’s Scripture. The word “saved” is to be defined according to the context. Verse 19 is very clear: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” The salvation of today’s Scripture is salvation from misery and hopelessness! Today’s Scripture has nothing to do with salvation from sin, hell, et cetera.

Some of the Corinthians failed to remember what the Apostle Paul had preached to them regarding Jesus Christ’s bodily resurrection (verse 12). They erred in this regard, probably influenced by the pagan mythology (the culture of Corinth) that denied bodily resurrection. These Corinthians had not “kept in memory what [Paul] preached unto [them],” so they “believed in vain.” By abandoning the doctrine of bodily resurrection, the Corinthians were setting themselves up for disappointment. As we will see, if we fail to keep foremost in our minds Jesus Christ’s literal, physical, visible resurrection, then we will not be saved from despair and misery on a daily basis.

Let us now summarize and conclude this devotionals arc….