FEBRUARY 20, 2024

 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (II Corinthians 5:21)

As Ambassadors for Christ, we are to go forth in Christ’s stead seeking and praying that sinners be reconciled to God. (Vs. 20) Such reconciliation can only be accomplished by the Gospel of reconciliation. The heart and soul of the Gospel of reconciliation is revealed in our text verse. This is the Gospel in a nutshell. As Mr. Spurgeon said: “The heart of the Gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. They who preach this truth preach the Gospel,…but they who preach not the Atonement, whatever else they declare, have missed the soul and substance of the divine message.” Amen! And therefore, there is no such thing as souls being reconciled to God by any other means or message.

Much of this article I have borrowed from a sermon delivered by the great Charles Spurgeon at his Metropolitan Tabernacle in London in 1886. In reading this sermon I found that his burden was the same as ours is today a hundred and thirty-eight years later here in America. He saw many professed Christians who were Christians in name only, products of false gospels. He said, “I feel bound, in these days to go over and over again the elementary truths of the Gospel. In peaceful times,” he said, “we may feel free to make excursions into interesting districts of truth which lie far afield; but now we must stay at home and guard the hearths and homes of the Church by defending the first principles of the faith.”

The “troublers in Israel” that plagued the Church in nineteenth-century England may not be exactly the same as those we are facing today, but their undermining of the faith produced the same result – nominal Christians, who have experienced no sanctifying work of grace. In addition to strange philosophies and novel interpretations, we are plagued with a type of evangelism that has been dubbed “easy believism.” This method, while using select statements of Scripture, manages to set forth a false gospel. It replaces the necessity of repentance with making a simple apology. Instead of confessing Christ with the mouth and believing in the heart that essential truth of the resurrection, folks are instructed to repeat a carefully worded prayer. They are then assured that “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Of course, that is true, but the calling on the Lord of which that verse (Rom. 10:13) speaks is not “once and for all,” but rather, it is a lifelong calling. This verb is one of continuing action. The true believer enters upon a new way of life; it is a life of trusting in Christ. It is needful for those of us who know what we believe to put our foot down and defend the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the days of Nero, there was a great shortage of food in the city of Rome. A certain man who owned a ship went down to the seacoast and there saw many hungry people watching for vessels that were to come from Egypt with corn. The people wrung their hands as the ships came to the shore one by one loaded with sand which the tyrant emperor compelled them to bring for use in the Arena. What infamous cruelty! People were dying of hunger while ships were coming from Alexandria, where corn was plentiful, carrying nothing but sand for gladiatorial shows. The merchant said to his shipmaster, “Take good heed that you go, and bring nothing back from Alexandria but corn; bring you not so much sand as would be upon a penny. Bring nothing but wheat, for these people are dying, and we must keep our vessel for this one purpose of bringing food for them to eat.”

As we see people dying for want of the spiritual bread, and vessel after vessel loaded with nothing but the sand of false gospels, let us vow that our vessels will be delivering nothing but the truth of God, the bread of life so greatly needed by people who are starving for want of the Bread of Life.

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FEBRUARY 15, 2024

 “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.” (Ecclesiastes 7:1)

The opening verses of this chapter contain a series of truths which some have called paradoxes. For example, in our text, the wise man declares that the day of death is better than the day of one’s birth. In the next verse, he states that the house of mourning is better than the house of feasting. Then again in verse 3, he says that sorrow is better than laughter. These truths may seem paradoxical, for they do sound quite incredible when considered without proper context. Matthew Henry, I believe has a better take. “In these verses,” he says, “Solomon lays down some great truths which seem paradoxes to the unthinking part, that is, the far larger part of mankind.” In other words, there are certain people to whom these true statements do not seem incredible, at all.

The opening statement of the chapter describes the persons who understand what the Holy Spirit is here saying and are in full agreement. These all have “a good name,” (which) “is better than precious ointment.” Good name speaks of good character. This is the “good name” that all believers have; the good character that God gives in regeneration when He gives a new heart. They are no longer of theunthinking majority that Mr. Henry was referring to, but rather, they are of a renewed mind, and are no longer in conformity with the thinking of the unrenewed majority of mankind.

Certainly, we acknowledge that a good name is something that all men should strive for and cherish. We know many “good people” who are honest, morally upright, trustworthy, good neighbors, and generally well thought of. We consider such people to be men and women of character. The rich young ruler, as he is commonly referred to, was apparently such a one. However, he was not one of a good name as Solomon here has in mind. Jesus said to him after hearing about his outward goodness, “One thing thou lackest.” Without that one thing, he was not of a good name in God’s eyes. He lacked the “renewing of the Holy Ghost” that would have made him one of a good name.

The good name that Solomon is here talking about is far more than a good reputation in the eyes of men. It is the pure and upright heart that God sees in His children. Our reputation is what others think we are, but our character is what we really are. This “good name,” (good character) is therefore “better than precious ointment.” It is of infinitely greater value than even the most expensive perfume on the market. (Some costing over a million dollars per 4 oz. bottle) But it seems to me that the text is speaking of something other than the infinitely greater value of a good name over precious ointment. It is saying that good character must be preferred to a merely good reputation. Costly perfume might make you smell good, it cannot make you good; it cannot change a corrupt nature. The Pharisees were big on perfume, as it were, but they were short on character.

To those of a good name, the day of their death is better than the day of their birth. This can only be true of those who are born again, of those who have received a new heart and nature. Of none other can it be said that death is better than birth. Of many it might be, as Jesus said of Judas, “better had he never been born,” and that, for the same reason, the day of their death cannot be better than the day of their birth. For all who refuse God’s salvation, your birth introduced you to a life that knows many heartaches and sorrows, for “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.” But the sorrows of this life are nothing compared to the endless sorrows that death brings to those who leave this world without Christ. All who know the Lord may rejoice in the truth that the day of our death will end all troubles and sorrows, and usher in an eternity of glorious happiness and bliss.

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FEBRUARY 13, 2024

 “Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.” (Job 1:20-22)

The book of Job opens with the Holy Spirit’s description of the man Job, describing him as “…perfect and upright…” (Vs. 1). This is like Noah’s description, where he is identified as “…a just man and perfect in his generations…” (Gen. 6:9). All this is to say that Job was a man of impeccable character, much like Noah; one who feared God and turned away from evil. He was a well-off man with his big family who lived a good life.

After introducing the man, the author of this book shows us a conversation between Satan and the Lord. God points to Job as pleasing to Him, and Satan responds by implying that this attitude from Job only comes from the things he has. In turn, God calls his bluff, permitting Satan to take away all that Job has, except for his life, because he’s confident that Job won’t forsake Him.

Following this conversation, Satan gets to work in turning Job’s world upside down. He first has his oxen taken by Sabean raiders who stole his livestock and killed the attending servants (except for the one who gave the report). While this servant told Job all this, another said that a fire had consumed his sheep and all the other servants with them. Again, while he was still talking, a third man came to tell Job that a group of Chaldeans attacked, killing his men and stealing his camels. And the worst news of all was delivered when another servant told Job that his sons and daughters were killed when they were at their eldest brother’s house and the roof collapsed on them.

Everything Job had in this world was ripped away in just one afternoon. He learned that his servants, his sources of income, and even his family were all suddenly gone. Many in a similar situation would immediately fall to their knees and curse the Lord. Think back on your life; how quickly do you hate God when encountering even smaller trials?

Instead, Job tore his clothes and shaved his head, standard modes of expressing great sorrow in the Bible. Those with long hair sometimes regarded it as ornamental and cut it off in mourning. At the same time, others who commonly wore short hair let it grow out. Job was filled with excessive grief, and he expressed that grief in a manner that was common in his day.

So, Job fell to the ground in a time of great calamity and worshipped God, resigning himself to His divine will. Job expresses a most submissive piety. It is not the language of complaint but rather an expression of trust in the Lord. He had nothing when he came into the world, and all that he had obtained had been by the providence of God. And as He gave it, He had a right to remove it. Thus far, Satan had been foiled in his plot, and Job had sustained the shock of losing it all and showed that he did not serve God on account of the benefits that he had received.

All of Job’s statements, on this occasion, are expressions of submission to the Divine will. He sinned not, nor did he blame God. Satan was disappointed because his accusations proved false. Job did not charge God foolishly, and he did not curse Him to His face. When afflicted, we should not vent our wrath against God because He has a right to remove our comforts. He gave them, not to be our permanent inheritance, but to be withdrawn when He pleases. It is proof of His goodness that we have been permitted to tread His earth so long. A temporary gift may be removed at the pleasure of the giver, and we hold all our comforts at the good pleasure of God alone.

The trustworthy source of comfort in trials differs from the belief that things are regulated by chance. We may understand the laws by which all this is done, but this affords no consolation. Only when we perceive that an intelligent Being presiding over these events and see that they result from plan and intention on His part can we find comfort in trial. We have the assurance that it is the result of intelligent design and that this design is connected with a benevolent end.

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

 “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” (Eph. 2:19)

The Ephesian believers were, before, strangers and foreigners but are now fellow citizens with the saints. They were even then, while yet living and maintaining earthly citizenship in Ephesus of the Lesser Asia, becoming citizens of a better country and of a heavenly city which the Apostle here calls “the household of God.” (The Church)

The Ephesians to whom this Epistle was written were of the most foolish and corrupt idolaters among the heathen world. There was no limit to the debauchery that was part and parcel with their temple worship. So infatuated were they with their goddess Dianna that they wearied themselves crying out, “Great is Dianna of the Ephesians!” This gives us some idea as to the drastic change that God’s amazing grace had wrought in them and the wonderful change of which Paul was mindful when he said to the saints at Ephesus, “Ye are no more strangers and foreigners.”

Such, then, were they before the quickening grace of the Holy Spirit brought them out of that miserable condition. It will be good for us to examine the meaning of these two expressions. First, what is it to be a stranger? When someone comes to our town or neighborhood and we can see that everything is new to him, we perceive that he is a stranger. He knows no one; no one knows him. His manner reveals to us what he himself knows and feels; that he is a stranger.

This is very true in a natural sense, but clearly, our text has reference to spiritual strangers. In the spiritual sense, a stranger is one who knows not God. A stranger, in this sense, is one who is not acquainted with the ways and means of grace, nor does he understand the people of grace. This one knows nothing of true prayer, or of the throne of grace. He has no knowledge of his need or mercy. He, therefore, doesn’t understand his lost, ruined condition, and knows nothing of the way of salvation. He is therefore a stranger to Jesus Christ as the new and living way. He knows nothing of the blood of Christ that cleanses from sin and brings us nigh unto God. Obviously, such a one is a stranger to the family of God. Are you a stranger or a citizen? Paul says, “Ye were strangers.” Clearly, these Ephesian believers were no longer in that state but were now beloved brethren in the Church of Jesus Christ.

But there is a second expression that Paul uses to describe what these, who are now Christians, were prior to their conversion. He speaks of them as being no more foreigners. A foreigner seems, if I may so speak, more desperately lost than a stranger. However, what we are to understand is just how dreadful is the condition of every lost soul, for before one comes to know Christ, he is both a stranger and a foreigner.

A stranger comes into town and is marked as a stranger because he is unfamiliar with the place and people. But at least he speaks the language. He can ask questions, receive directions, etc. He can obtain for himself the necessities of life, such as food and lodging. The foreigner, however, in most cases cannot speak the language, is ignorant of the laws, habits, manners, and customs. This one is an alien in blood, lineage, allegiance, and language.

So, in the spiritual sense, a foreigner is one who is “alienated from the life of God.” He is, as a child of the bondwoman, an alien in blood, lineage, and the language of Canaan. His allegiance is to the prince of this world. But the citizen of the household of God, that is, Jerusalem, which is above, the church, knows the language. When God speaks to him in the Word, he understands it. He also knows how to speak with God.

Are you a stranger and a foreigner, or are you by grace through faith in Jesus Christ a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem? Paul said, “Our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”