Pastor John R. Wiuff
First Church of God,
Medford, Oregon
www.fcog.us
1 John 4:7-12
Do you have any bills hanging over your head? Do you know the shock of getting a large unexpected bill? Debt can carry such strain and anxiety that many find it difficult to sleep at night.
Then there are those nasty business people who want their money. They call and call making veiled, and then not so veiled threats until they are paid. Sometimes it is nasty letters that come in the mail or even creditors knocking on our doors.
All this is very upsetting for us when we owe the debt. Money and how we will live has become the number one issue in people lives as they face uncertain futures. The issue with money and debt is that we don’t really understand how it works. That is why some less the credible people take advantage of us in what has been called “predatory lending.”
The government is even talking about getting tougher on such loans while they are abusive in their own policies.
Today we are going to try to understand some of the basics about debt and what it really means in terms of our relationships, self esteem and freedom. We must be more savvy about debt if we are going to understand our relationship with God and what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.
Then maybe our attitude about debt, money and loaners will change as well. When we understand what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross, then we will understand what He can do in the rest our life, including our finances.
First we must understand that we are in debt. There is bad debt and good debt and when it comes to God we are in bad debt. We owe Him what we have no means to repay. Worst yet we are bad debtors, for many do not consider the debt we owe to be of any concern.
We had a great friend in a man called John the Baptist. He came just before Jesus Christ to remind us of our debt and to warn us that there was one and only one chance to get free of this obligation and to be saved from ruin, poverty and death.
He called out to those who would listen and to us today to “repent” of our sins. He warned people that they were so far in debt that the religious acts they were doing would not be enough to catch up on the dept. Our debt began with breaking a command of God not to eat of a tree. Since then God has warned us to not do a lot of things and do other good things. But we have kept on sinning believing that we could always do something later to make things right with God. John told them they were wrong and so are we if we think that way. We all need to admit that we are so far in debt to God, so far down the road of rebellion to Him that there is no way we can repay Him for what we have done.
If we are going to stop going into more debt we must recognize it us who are creating the debt. More cash will not save us from more debt. We can’t just keep printing more money and think we will get by. We can’t just pray a prayer, give some money, or attend a church service and think we have caught up enough. We are so far down in a hole of rebellion we don’t really want to go back to God, live in His house, by His rules.
Yet, if we can stop, just stop and admit we are going down a road that is leading to ruin, then maybe we can be ready to hear what God has to offer. God has away to not only pay our full debt but to bring our rebellious hearts home to where we belong.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 1:29
The offer God makes to us is to pay of our debts, if we are willing to stop a debt creating life. If we will reform, turn around, and start making deposits in our relationship with Him, then God will EXPIATE our debt of sin. That is a fancy word theologians use to say that through His Son Jesus he will end the dept of our sin.
For so God so loves you that He gave His only Son to die upon a cross to pay the full debt or your sin. But what good is it if we just start running up more debt? If we will repent, turn, and admit we have been living a wild prodigal life then the Father will take us back to live in His home and by His rules. This is how we know what love really is.
7. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
1 John 4:7-12
Here is the thing we don’t understand. We can’t know what love is until we know what it means to forgive a great debt. You see we think that when we run up a debt that we are hurting no one but ourselves. “What does it matter to anyone else what I do with my life. If I am hurting my self then what business is it of anyone else?” That’s the problem with debt, because it is borrowing something from other people we have no intention to repay, respect, or return. People who create bad debt just take what they can and consider anyone foolish enough to lend them foolish enough to rob.
Our debts hurt people who trust us with what is there’s. When we fail to give back what we owe we hurt other people. When we fail give back dignity, respect and especially love to those who have lent us there’s, then we hurt them by a theft of the soul.
God can love us but if we take that love for granted and don’t repay it, then we don’t really know the value of His love. If we borrow money and don’t repay it with interest, we don’t really know the value of money or of the trust given to us by another. That is why God’s word tells us “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Love is not a free pass to do what you want.
Love is not getting what you want or need without obligation.
Love is not seeking your own good and happiness.
Some have called this love, but it is not love. That is a mirrored image of love which reflects back the reverse of what love really is by making us look into ourselves and to our own interest.
What love really is, what God shows us about love, is more like a open window from which we can see a bigger world, and something more important than our own interest. Love is a call to be free of our own interest and invest heavily in a cause much greater.
When we spend our time, our energy and resources on ourselves we are going into debt because there will be no return on what we spend. If we spend our time, our energy and our resources on God through Jesus Christ His son, then we will have invested because a great return will be given on what we give into the Kingdom.
Self love is a debtor’s obsession. The Love of God is an investors dream.
1. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4. so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:1-4
So what does it mean to Love like God?
10. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12
Have you ever gone to buy something and someone told you that your money is no good and they wouldn’t accept it, or maybe your credit card? Have your checks ever been turned down? That can be an embarrassing moment, right?
There are many people who are going to heaven with bad currency thinking they have what they need to get into heaven. We know we have a debt with God and when we get there we hope to pay it off with the currency of affection, good works and sincerity. But when we arrive at those gates we will find that our currency is no good, and we will be turned down while our debt will be called in and collected. In the process many will experience a spiritual death and an eternity in hell. (Matthew 25:31-46)
Our definition of love is worthless in heaven. What we think is good enough for acceptance into heaven is no where near the standard of heaven itself. If we had our way heaven will be filled with adulterers, liars, murders, gossips, slanders, and many others that will ruin the place in no time at all. What we can do, save, and scrape together on our own will never be enough to pay the dept we owe God.
What we need, and we need it today, is not more of our so called ‘love’ but the pure and precious gold of God’s Love in our hearts. Now here is the amazing thing. He is willing to deposit that into your heart today. He is willing to pay off all that we owe Him because of what His son did for us on the cross. He paid our debt with blood that was priceless.
That is what atoning means. That is what it costs God when we create a debt through sin. We hurting not only ourselves, but we have do great harm to the God who loves us and chooses to be hurt rather than protect Himself from out rebellion.
Now here is the amazing truth. If we will accept his gift of forgiveness, after we have recognized the terrible nature of our rebellion and accumulated debt, then He will place a Love in us unknown by natural means. We will receive heaven in our hearts. If it is really the Love of God, it will overflow in Love for others, even the worst among us.
Paul knew what it meant to be one of the worst and yet be loved in this amazing way. He wrote:
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another…”
Romans 13:8
Now do you understand what a debt is and just how far in the hole we have all fallen. No amount of good works or religious actions will pay down the debt. We can’t go on sinning and paying down as we go justifying our actions on balanced ledger.
We are so indebted to God that there is only one who has the means to pay that debt off and that is Jesus Christ. He is willing, but if we take Him up on His offer we no longer belong to ourselves. We have become His possession.
19. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20. you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
When Christ comes and set us free from debt and the debtor’s obsession, He then claims our lives, our bodies, and our future. We receive the wealth of God’s Love which better than gold in heaven. Our balanced ledgers of good works versus sins are burned and only the ledgers of heaven will show that Christ has paid it all and we are his possessions.
11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Rev. 20:11-15
My friends are you ready to face the balance sheets of heaven? Our record keeping does not show our real debt. We have been ‘cooking the books’ in our favor. We are in a desperate place and not far from when we will stand before the great white throne of God before the courts of heaven. When they open the books, will the find a note by your debt saying: “See Jesus Christ for collection.”
If you not sure let me show you how to be ready. Come, now is the time. If we fail to come now we are saying no to God’s gracious gift. We must choose and what we do know will affect us for eternity. To respond to God’s gracious offer in Jesus Christ is to say yes. To postpone, to think about it more, to wait for a better time is a rejection of God’s love. If we neglect so great a Love of God, what hope can we have on the great Day of Judgment?
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31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 25:31-46
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Biblical Faith: “Jesus our Advocate and Only Mediator”
1 Timothy 2:1-7
I’ve shaken my fist in anger and cursed furniture, cars and even some people. If I’m not mad enough there is always someone on the radio of TV eager to make me mad again. I’ve been mad at just about anything you can imagine.
Except unicorns. I’ve never been angry at unicorns.
It’s unlikely you’ve ever been angry at unicorns either. We can become incensed by objects and creatures both animate and inanimate. We can even, in a limited sense, be bothered by the fanciful characters in books and dreams. But creatures like unicorns that don’t exist—that we truly believe not to exist—tend not to raise our ire. We certainly don’t blame the one-horned creatures for our problems.
When Atheists Are Angry at God
Jan 12, 2011
Joe Carter
A new set of studies (in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers.
A survey in America revealed that 62 percent of people were sometimes angry at God, but that figure is most likely higher today.
Angry feelings tended to match up with a patient's general level of mental distress. More distress was linked to more anger at God, Exline found. It isn't clear whether the anger caused the distress, the distress caused the anger, or some other factor caused both. What does seem clear is that a passing anger at God is nothing to be alarmed about, regardless of how theologically troubling some people find such emotions.
"We get mad at people every day," Exline said. "Usually it passes, and then it's probably not going to affect your mood or your mental health all that much. But when it turns into a grudge ... that's where anger tends to become more of a problem for people. It's the same sort of thing with anger toward God."
At God We Rage: Anger at the Almighty Found to Be Common
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 04 January 2011 12:18 pm ET
It seems if we are angry enough at God to develop a grudge with Him, then that anger can push us to a disbelief in God. I suspect that a great deal of atheism and agnostics are simply angry with God and use reason to defend their position.
If that is the case, then often a disbelief or lack of faith in God is more of a snub or giving the divine the silent treatment out of a emotional dilemma. Something terrible may have happened to you in the past that makes you angry at God for being so unfair and cruel. Or you may conclude as some do that God is angry with you and fear Him wondering what to do.
As is common amongst people today we think we are unique in the world, but anger towards God and what we perceive as anger from God is an ancient as humanity. The question is what can we do when there is anger between us and heaven?
The Bible has a great many things to say about this, but here a few key points to lowering the distress that such anger brings into our lives.
Go to Jesus when you are angry with God:
"God is not a mortal like me, so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial. If only there were a mediator between us, someone who could put one hand on God's shoulder and the other on mine. The mediator could make God stop beating me, and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment."
Job 9:32-34
In the above lament, Job asks for a Son of Man who is also equal with God. He wants someone like God but someone also like himself. He wants that one person that can stand between two angry people and love them both. Placing a hand on each shoulder he keeps them for attacking and from leaving. He keeps the connected, talking and understanding what has passed between them.
Jesus Christ is the one Job wanted so He could be reconciled to the God because his relationship was one of anger on both sides. At least that is what he thought. Have you ever been so angry at someone you can’t even talk to them? Have you so rehearsed what they will say in your own mind that you have already shot down every possible reply without ever uttering an actual word?
There are many who have that kind of relationship with God. Job was not an atheist or an agnostic. He knew that there was a God and that He could be good and harsh. Although he was angry with God he didn’t hide from God but demanded an answer for his misfortune and distress.
Consider how Jesus Christ is the only one who can put a hand on your shoulder and one on God.
1. Jesus did not come into this world to condemn you but to save you. (John 3:17)
2. Jesus loves us despite our sin and paid the price of sin upon the cross.
3. Jesus is loved by the Father and is pleased with Him.
4. Jesus only wants what the Father wants.
5. Jesus wants us to find life abundantly, to conquer sin and be free.
In the entire world there is only one who can stand between us and God keeping us together but not attacking and that is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He is truly a friend to all atheists, agnostics and believers who are under the distress of anger with God. Go to Jesus when you angry with God.
Go to Jesus when you want to reconcile with God:
1. I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2. for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4. who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6. who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
The trouble with trouble is that it spreads. The anger we hold in our hearts was meant to be perishable, like cheese or milk. Anger moves us to act, engage and demand something better when it is fresh. But if we keep it longer than a day it will spoil into remorse, bitterness and a foul grudge. Anger if allowed to spoil will move from a demand for justice to something beyond all reason.
We may be able to tolerate such a foul smell in our lives for a time but a grudge spreads into all relationships until we find that we are not fit for any relationship for the unreasonable demands we make on God we will make on everyone else. When we suspect God the author of all things good, we will suspect all others. We can not live at peace others; cease our shouting and cruel words; and do good for others when we let our grudge with God spoil all things.
Along with the growing grudge our distress grows. We blame the distress of an unfair life for our anger, but it is our spoiled anger towards God that gives us the greatest distress. I know what most of the grudge bearing people of the world would rarely admit. I know they want to be relieved of this burden but believe reconciliation to God is a bitter pill to swallow.
Yet the Bible tells us that God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (v.4). You see the only real way to reconcile with God is to come to know the truth about our grudge. Jesus Christ must hold us by the shoulder and God so that we can hear what we have failed to acknowledge.
When we hold a grudge we rehearse in our minds our grievance. The words are unspoken but often rehearsed in our minds. We can even imagine the reply of the one we are angry with and then develop rebuttals we think that will demolish their objections. Almost every true atheist or agnostic I have met have this kind of understanding about how flawed God is and so elevate themselves above the divine declaring it a myth.
This is not a knowledge of truth, but a rehearsed deception. We must come to know the truth about our anger. When we go to Jesus we will discover it was angry and grudged filled people like us that nailed Him to the cross where he bore the full force of our accusations. They yelled crucify Him because He is no Son of God. In the same way when we are angry with God we say to ourselves that God is a myth and His justice a joke. We don’t try to kill him, but we act as if He does not exist.
Here is the truth that our anger drives us to stop talking to God, and to stop listening to God. What declare that God is dead to us and we will not bother with Him hoping He will be hurt by our actions and not bother with us. Yet the Bible tells us that is not an agreement that God can make or one that Jesus Christ will honor.
The great truth that those who are angry with God find hard to believe is this: God stills wants you to be saved from the fowl grudge that has gripped your heart and to be reconciled through the knowledge of truth and the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. He bore the full brunt of anger and asked for forgiveness. He holds our shoulders still while He holds Gods. All He asks is that we throw out our spoiled anger and accept the truth about our corrupted life.
Those who have accepted this offer have seen their lives change, cleaned, and transformed with a fresh flow of God’s peace, love and acceptance.
Some of us may think it’s too late to be reconciled to God.
Go to Jesus when you blow it:
1. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 2:1-2
Jesus Christ stands between us and God holding our shoulders and asking us to come and reason with Him. If we will repent in the knowledge of the truth then God will forgive and receive us as His child. We can be angry and not sin if we don’t let our distress spoil into a soul rotting grudge.
This has been made possible so that we would persist in our rebellion with God. All rebellion needs an excuse and nothing justifies it more in our hearts than spoiled anger. All sin is rebellion towards God and now the Lord Jesus has made it possible so that we would not continue to sin by restoring our relationship with God.
Although Father God will not leave nor forsake us there are times when we will fall into hold habits or come into an ordeal where we begin to doubt God as we once did. In a situation like this, what do we do?
Jesus is the advocate and mediator that first reconciled us to God and He is the one we go to when we have fallen back into old ways. We may try to turn from Father God’s face but Christ holds us by the shoulder and will not let go. He remains constant turning our face to God and away from sin. As long as you have a sense of guilt, knowing that you are turning away from God, then Christ still has a hand on your shoulder to turn you back to God.
Even now, as you hear this message, He is with us placing a hand on your shoulder and one on God. He is letting you know that now is the time to turn and face Father God and know the truth about ourselves rather than the lies we have believed. We need to know the truth about Father God rather than the whisperings of an angry heart.
This is our chance to be reconciled to God and leave the distressed pain of a angry heart behind.
If the hand of Christ is on your shoulder today, you have a chance now to be reconciled to Father God. Take it. Take it now.
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When Atheists Are Angry at God
Jan 12, 2011
Joe Carter
A new set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Julie Exline, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University and the lead author of this recent study, has examined other data on this subject with identical results. Exline explains that her interest was first piqued when an early study of anger toward God revealed a counterintuitive finding: Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers.
At first glance, this finding seemed to reflect an error. How could people be angry with God if they did not believe in God? Reanalyses of a second dataset revealed similar patterns: Those who endorsed their religious beliefs as “atheist/agnostic” or “none/unsure” reported more anger toward God than those who reported a religious affiliation.
Exline notes that the findings raised questions of whether anger might actually affect belief in God’s existence, an idea consistent with social science’s previous clinical findings on “emotional atheism.”
Studies in traumatic events suggest a possible link between suffering, anger toward God, and doubts about God’s existence. According to Cook and Wimberly (1983), 33% of parents who suffered the death of a child reported doubts about God in the first year of bereavement. In another study, 90% of mothers who had given birth to a profoundly retarded child voiced doubts about the existence of God (Childs, 1985). Our survey research with undergraduates has focused directly on the association between anger at God and self-reported drops in belief (Exline et al., 2004). In the wake of a negative life event, anger toward God predicted decreased belief in God’s existence.
The most striking finding was that when Exline looked only at subjects who reported a drop in religious belief, their faith was least likely to recover if anger toward God was the cause of their loss of belief. In other words, anger toward God may not only lead people to atheism but give them a reason to cling to their disbelief.
I've argued elsewhere that, according to the Christian tradition, atheism is a form of self-imposed intellectual dysfunction, a lack of epistemic virtue, or—to borrow a term from my Catholic friends—a case of vincible ignorance.
Vincible ignorance is intentional suppression of knowledge that is within an individual’s control and for which he is responsible before God. In Romans, St. Paul is clear that atheism is a case of vincible ignorance: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Acknowledging the existence of God is just the beginning—we must also recognize several of his divine attributes. Atheists who deny this reality are, as St. Paul said, without excuse. They are vincibly ignorant.
Recognizing this fact, however, does not mean that the cause of this self-imposed dysfunction has been understood. While I firmly believe all forms of atheism are instances of both vincible ignorance and an obstinacy of will, I've sometimes mistakenly assumed it to be a purely intellectual failing—a matter of the head, not the heart. Only recently have I begun to appreciate how much the emotional response to pain and suffering can push a person to an atheistic worldview.
Most pastors and priests would find my epiphany to be both obvious and overdue. But I suspect I’m not the only amateur apologist who has been blinded to this truth. As a general rule, those of us engaged in Christian apologists tend to prefer the philosophical to the pastoral, the crisp structure of logical argument to the messiness of human emotion. We often favor the quick-witted response that dismisses the problem of evil rather than patient empathy, which consoles atheists that we too are perplexed by suffering.
Many atheists do, of course, proceed to their denial of God based solely on rational justifications. That is why evidentialist and philosophical approaches to apologetics will always be necessary. But I'm beginning to suspect that emotional atheism is far more common than many realize. We need a new apologetic approach that takes into account that the ordinary pain and sufferings of life leads more people away from God than a library full of anti-theist books. Focusing solely on the irate sputterings of the imperfectly intellectual New Atheists may blind us to the anger and suffering that is adding new nonbelievers to their ranks.
Joe Carter is the web editor of First Things. His previous articles for "On the Square" can be found here.
RESOURCES
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Anger at God common, even among atheists
Julie Juola Exline and Alyce Martin, "Anger Toward God: New Frontier in Forgiveness Research
Joe Carter, Do Tummy Aches Disprove God?
I’ve shaken my fist in anger and cursed furniture, cars and even some people. If I’m not mad enough there is always someone on the radio of TV eager to make me mad again. I’ve been mad at just about anything you can imagine.
Except unicorns. I’ve never been angry at unicorns.
It’s unlikely you’ve ever been angry at unicorns either. We can become incensed by objects and creatures both animate and inanimate. We can even, in a limited sense, be bothered by the fanciful characters in books and dreams. But creatures like unicorns that don’t exist—that we truly believe not to exist—tend not to raise our ire. We certainly don’t blame the one-horned creatures for our problems.
When Atheists Are Angry at God
Jan 12, 2011
Joe Carter
A new set of studies (in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers.
A survey in America revealed that 62 percent of people were sometimes angry at God, but that figure is most likely higher today.
Angry feelings tended to match up with a patient's general level of mental distress. More distress was linked to more anger at God, Exline found. It isn't clear whether the anger caused the distress, the distress caused the anger, or some other factor caused both. What does seem clear is that a passing anger at God is nothing to be alarmed about, regardless of how theologically troubling some people find such emotions.
"We get mad at people every day," Exline said. "Usually it passes, and then it's probably not going to affect your mood or your mental health all that much. But when it turns into a grudge ... that's where anger tends to become more of a problem for people. It's the same sort of thing with anger toward God."
At God We Rage: Anger at the Almighty Found to Be Common
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 04 January 2011 12:18 pm ET
It seems if we are angry enough at God to develop a grudge with Him, then that anger can push us to a disbelief in God. I suspect that a great deal of atheism and agnostics are simply angry with God and use reason to defend their position.
If that is the case, then often a disbelief or lack of faith in God is more of a snub or giving the divine the silent treatment out of a emotional dilemma. Something terrible may have happened to you in the past that makes you angry at God for being so unfair and cruel. Or you may conclude as some do that God is angry with you and fear Him wondering what to do.
As is common amongst people today we think we are unique in the world, but anger towards God and what we perceive as anger from God is an ancient as humanity. The question is what can we do when there is anger between us and heaven?
The Bible has a great many things to say about this, but here a few key points to lowering the distress that such anger brings into our lives.
Go to Jesus when you are angry with God:
"God is not a mortal like me, so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial. If only there were a mediator between us, someone who could put one hand on God's shoulder and the other on mine. The mediator could make God stop beating me, and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment."
Job 9:32-34
In the above lament, Job asks for a Son of Man who is also equal with God. He wants someone like God but someone also like himself. He wants that one person that can stand between two angry people and love them both. Placing a hand on each shoulder he keeps them for attacking and from leaving. He keeps the connected, talking and understanding what has passed between them.
Jesus Christ is the one Job wanted so He could be reconciled to the God because his relationship was one of anger on both sides. At least that is what he thought. Have you ever been so angry at someone you can’t even talk to them? Have you so rehearsed what they will say in your own mind that you have already shot down every possible reply without ever uttering an actual word?
There are many who have that kind of relationship with God. Job was not an atheist or an agnostic. He knew that there was a God and that He could be good and harsh. Although he was angry with God he didn’t hide from God but demanded an answer for his misfortune and distress.
Consider how Jesus Christ is the only one who can put a hand on your shoulder and one on God.
1. Jesus did not come into this world to condemn you but to save you. (John 3:17)
2. Jesus loves us despite our sin and paid the price of sin upon the cross.
3. Jesus is loved by the Father and is pleased with Him.
4. Jesus only wants what the Father wants.
5. Jesus wants us to find life abundantly, to conquer sin and be free.
In the entire world there is only one who can stand between us and God keeping us together but not attacking and that is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
He is truly a friend to all atheists, agnostics and believers who are under the distress of anger with God. Go to Jesus when you angry with God.
Go to Jesus when you want to reconcile with God:
1. I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2. for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4. who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6. who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
The trouble with trouble is that it spreads. The anger we hold in our hearts was meant to be perishable, like cheese or milk. Anger moves us to act, engage and demand something better when it is fresh. But if we keep it longer than a day it will spoil into remorse, bitterness and a foul grudge. Anger if allowed to spoil will move from a demand for justice to something beyond all reason.
We may be able to tolerate such a foul smell in our lives for a time but a grudge spreads into all relationships until we find that we are not fit for any relationship for the unreasonable demands we make on God we will make on everyone else. When we suspect God the author of all things good, we will suspect all others. We can not live at peace others; cease our shouting and cruel words; and do good for others when we let our grudge with God spoil all things.
Along with the growing grudge our distress grows. We blame the distress of an unfair life for our anger, but it is our spoiled anger towards God that gives us the greatest distress. I know what most of the grudge bearing people of the world would rarely admit. I know they want to be relieved of this burden but believe reconciliation to God is a bitter pill to swallow.
Yet the Bible tells us that God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (v.4). You see the only real way to reconcile with God is to come to know the truth about our grudge. Jesus Christ must hold us by the shoulder and God so that we can hear what we have failed to acknowledge.
When we hold a grudge we rehearse in our minds our grievance. The words are unspoken but often rehearsed in our minds. We can even imagine the reply of the one we are angry with and then develop rebuttals we think that will demolish their objections. Almost every true atheist or agnostic I have met have this kind of understanding about how flawed God is and so elevate themselves above the divine declaring it a myth.
This is not a knowledge of truth, but a rehearsed deception. We must come to know the truth about our anger. When we go to Jesus we will discover it was angry and grudged filled people like us that nailed Him to the cross where he bore the full force of our accusations. They yelled crucify Him because He is no Son of God. In the same way when we are angry with God we say to ourselves that God is a myth and His justice a joke. We don’t try to kill him, but we act as if He does not exist.
Here is the truth that our anger drives us to stop talking to God, and to stop listening to God. What declare that God is dead to us and we will not bother with Him hoping He will be hurt by our actions and not bother with us. Yet the Bible tells us that is not an agreement that God can make or one that Jesus Christ will honor.
The great truth that those who are angry with God find hard to believe is this: God stills wants you to be saved from the fowl grudge that has gripped your heart and to be reconciled through the knowledge of truth and the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. He bore the full brunt of anger and asked for forgiveness. He holds our shoulders still while He holds Gods. All He asks is that we throw out our spoiled anger and accept the truth about our corrupted life.
Those who have accepted this offer have seen their lives change, cleaned, and transformed with a fresh flow of God’s peace, love and acceptance.
Some of us may think it’s too late to be reconciled to God.
Go to Jesus when you blow it:
1. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 2:1-2
Jesus Christ stands between us and God holding our shoulders and asking us to come and reason with Him. If we will repent in the knowledge of the truth then God will forgive and receive us as His child. We can be angry and not sin if we don’t let our distress spoil into a soul rotting grudge.
This has been made possible so that we would persist in our rebellion with God. All rebellion needs an excuse and nothing justifies it more in our hearts than spoiled anger. All sin is rebellion towards God and now the Lord Jesus has made it possible so that we would not continue to sin by restoring our relationship with God.
Although Father God will not leave nor forsake us there are times when we will fall into hold habits or come into an ordeal where we begin to doubt God as we once did. In a situation like this, what do we do?
Jesus is the advocate and mediator that first reconciled us to God and He is the one we go to when we have fallen back into old ways. We may try to turn from Father God’s face but Christ holds us by the shoulder and will not let go. He remains constant turning our face to God and away from sin. As long as you have a sense of guilt, knowing that you are turning away from God, then Christ still has a hand on your shoulder to turn you back to God.
Even now, as you hear this message, He is with us placing a hand on your shoulder and one on God. He is letting you know that now is the time to turn and face Father God and know the truth about ourselves rather than the lies we have believed. We need to know the truth about Father God rather than the whisperings of an angry heart.
This is our chance to be reconciled to God and leave the distressed pain of a angry heart behind.
If the hand of Christ is on your shoulder today, you have a chance now to be reconciled to Father God. Take it. Take it now.
------------------------------------------
When Atheists Are Angry at God
Jan 12, 2011
Joe Carter
A new set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Julie Exline, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University and the lead author of this recent study, has examined other data on this subject with identical results. Exline explains that her interest was first piqued when an early study of anger toward God revealed a counterintuitive finding: Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers.
At first glance, this finding seemed to reflect an error. How could people be angry with God if they did not believe in God? Reanalyses of a second dataset revealed similar patterns: Those who endorsed their religious beliefs as “atheist/agnostic” or “none/unsure” reported more anger toward God than those who reported a religious affiliation.
Exline notes that the findings raised questions of whether anger might actually affect belief in God’s existence, an idea consistent with social science’s previous clinical findings on “emotional atheism.”
Studies in traumatic events suggest a possible link between suffering, anger toward God, and doubts about God’s existence. According to Cook and Wimberly (1983), 33% of parents who suffered the death of a child reported doubts about God in the first year of bereavement. In another study, 90% of mothers who had given birth to a profoundly retarded child voiced doubts about the existence of God (Childs, 1985). Our survey research with undergraduates has focused directly on the association between anger at God and self-reported drops in belief (Exline et al., 2004). In the wake of a negative life event, anger toward God predicted decreased belief in God’s existence.
The most striking finding was that when Exline looked only at subjects who reported a drop in religious belief, their faith was least likely to recover if anger toward God was the cause of their loss of belief. In other words, anger toward God may not only lead people to atheism but give them a reason to cling to their disbelief.
I've argued elsewhere that, according to the Christian tradition, atheism is a form of self-imposed intellectual dysfunction, a lack of epistemic virtue, or—to borrow a term from my Catholic friends—a case of vincible ignorance.
Vincible ignorance is intentional suppression of knowledge that is within an individual’s control and for which he is responsible before God. In Romans, St. Paul is clear that atheism is a case of vincible ignorance: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Acknowledging the existence of God is just the beginning—we must also recognize several of his divine attributes. Atheists who deny this reality are, as St. Paul said, without excuse. They are vincibly ignorant.
Recognizing this fact, however, does not mean that the cause of this self-imposed dysfunction has been understood. While I firmly believe all forms of atheism are instances of both vincible ignorance and an obstinacy of will, I've sometimes mistakenly assumed it to be a purely intellectual failing—a matter of the head, not the heart. Only recently have I begun to appreciate how much the emotional response to pain and suffering can push a person to an atheistic worldview.
Most pastors and priests would find my epiphany to be both obvious and overdue. But I suspect I’m not the only amateur apologist who has been blinded to this truth. As a general rule, those of us engaged in Christian apologists tend to prefer the philosophical to the pastoral, the crisp structure of logical argument to the messiness of human emotion. We often favor the quick-witted response that dismisses the problem of evil rather than patient empathy, which consoles atheists that we too are perplexed by suffering.
Many atheists do, of course, proceed to their denial of God based solely on rational justifications. That is why evidentialist and philosophical approaches to apologetics will always be necessary. But I'm beginning to suspect that emotional atheism is far more common than many realize. We need a new apologetic approach that takes into account that the ordinary pain and sufferings of life leads more people away from God than a library full of anti-theist books. Focusing solely on the irate sputterings of the imperfectly intellectual New Atheists may blind us to the anger and suffering that is adding new nonbelievers to their ranks.
Joe Carter is the web editor of First Things. His previous articles for "On the Square" can be found here.
RESOURCES
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Anger at God common, even among atheists
Julie Juola Exline and Alyce Martin, "Anger Toward God: New Frontier in Forgiveness Research
Joe Carter, Do Tummy Aches Disprove God?
Saturday, March 5, 2011
A Biblical Faith: “Jesus the Sinless Redeemer”
Pastor John R. Wiuff
God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God's approval through him.
2Co 5:21
If you search the world for opinions about Jesus being sinless you will quickly discover that most people won’t argue about the high moral standing of Jesus Christ. We may argue over his divinity, his resurrection and even his existence but most leave his purity from sin alone.
That doesn’t tell us what we think about Jesus being without sin, it’s just a topic we avoid and make many assumptions. To talk about whether Jesus sinned begs the question whether sin even exists. If you are inclined to believe that there is a right and wrong set by God you are not likely to accuse His one and only son of breaking those rules.
Yet secretly, in our hearts we find it hard to believe that Jesus Christ could take on the form of a human being, live among sinful men and all this world’s temptations and not sin in some small way. For the incarnate Christ to be sinless would seem unnatural and inhuman.
Would it surprise you to know 42% of adults believe that Jesus committed sins while on earth? Even among people who are identified as being “born again” about a third believed that Christ did sin while on earth, the same percentage as the population as a whole. (“Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians over the Past 13 Years” March 6, 2009, www.barna.org).
This Biblical teaching that Christ without sin is absolutely critical to the Christian faith. Jesus could not die for our sins if He died as a consequence of His own. If Jesus sinned then we are all lost in our sins and can not escape the judgment of Hell.
If you belong to more liberal congregations you are more likely to believe that Jesus was a sinner, but a nice guy who had some great ideas. Here are a few groups in 2001 and the percentage of members who believed in a sinless Christ:
Presbyterian: 45%
Catholics: 33%
Lutheran: 33%
Methodist: 33%
Episcopal: 28%
When we compare these results with people who don’t attend any church we find a more Biblical response. In 2004, a Barna Research survey of the "unchurched" and found that 49% believe that Jesus was sinless while on earth which is higher than five of the liberal denominations listed above.
This series is our time to check the foundations of our faith to make sure they are solidly on a Biblical understanding. What frightens me as a pastor is that in some congregations you are better off not attending if you want a Biblical faith in Jesus Christ.
So let’s check again with God’s word and make sure we are on solid footing when it comes to Christ’s sinless nature, and His ability to pay for our forgiveness on the cross.
11. But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
15. For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9:11-28
If you scratch your head when reading this section of the Bible, I don’t blame you because Paul is talking about Jewish rituals to Jewish people who understand the customs. Most of us are foreigners to this world and we can easily get lost in all this talk about sacrifice, high priest, and tabernacles.
There are a few key truths that God is revealing to us in this passage about who we are in relationship to the perfect sinless Christ.
You already know that everyone has a sense of right and wrong. We call that our conscience. That’s the inner part of our being that warns us when we are making morally wrong choices and urges us to act when it is the right thing to do. The trouble with our conscience is that we are told from early on in our life not to listen to it, but to set it aside as outdated notions of previous generations.
Yet no matter what we do the conscience remains and convicts us that we are guilty of disobeying God and His will for our lives. A troubling conscience has bothered humanity since Adam and Eve hid the bushes from God and yet God found them anyways and asked what they were feeling so guilty about.
We are still hiding from God. So many people tell me that they want to hear from God and actually make contact but that is really hard to do when we are hiding in the bushed with Adam and Eve. What we hope will happen if God were to show up is that He will say we are very special and everything is going to work out.
The reality is that God has been seeking each one of us and beating the bushes trying to get us to stop hiding from Him. What that means is that there is only one way to make first contact with God and that is by being honest with our conscience. We must face what God is saying to us about and admit that we are guilty of rebelling against Him and His will for our life. Until we are ready to do this we will not really meet God. We will only call out from the bushes and ask if He could come back later when we have a better set of clothes.
The better clothes, for the people prior to Christ were the sacrifice of animals. In other words we looked for “scapegoats” for someone else or something else to take the blame for what we have done.
Since then we have looked for other creative ways to dress up for God and hide our sins from Him. We have tried rationalization, denial and religion of all kinds but no matter what we do we know it won’t work. We may feel alright for awhile but the feeling of guilt always comes back. We can never have a totally clean conscience by trying to ignore it or cover it up.
That is why Christ came to pay the price for our sins. His death does not just cover our sins, but actually cleans our conscience of all guilty when it is applied. Having your conscience washed clean by Christ through the Holy Spirit can not be duplicated or matched by any other guilt hiding method.
It is time for us to come out of the bushes, feel the weight of our sin and let Christ wash away the guilt of our sin. That is how we are going to finally connect with God, the only way.
16. In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17. because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” 21. In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:11-28
When God heard the confession of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He knew that anything they made to cover up would not really hide their guilt before Him. He warned them that death was the consequence of their sin and to prevent justice from taking their physical lives that judgment was forced on the scapegoat. He killed an animal and clothed them in the skins of that animal. This was a temporary fix and foreshadowing of what was to come.
You see their sin and our sin meant that God would have to decide between us dying physically and spiritually, or He would somehow have to pay that price for us without giving up His holy nature and justice. To embrace and love us after we sin meant that He would pay a terrible price. The amazing character of God is that He did not hesitate in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of Gethsemane. He does not hesitate today and is willing to pay the price to restore us back into His arms again.
We have jumped from conscience to the principle of inheritance. Verse 16 tells us that the price Jesus paid on the cross was not just to wash our conscience clean but to make it possible for us to inherit a kingdom that we do not deserve.
The blood of Christ then accomplished to very important acts in our lives, it takes away our guilt and makes us blood brothers of Christ, inheritors of the Kingdom of God as children of God. That is why this verse reminds us that everything in our lives must be under the blood of Christ. He sacrificed everything for us so we could surrender everything to Him. Jesus freely gave up all that was precious to Him so we would freely give up all that is precious to us in exchange for His forgiveness and love.
Now here is the thing. In our day we think of blood as a contamination. If there is a blood spill at a Red Cross clinic it’s a big deal and everything has to be sanitized. If you are a medical person, or emergency response personnel you are taught to protect yourself from being contaminated by the blood of other people.
When people address our sin it is often with gloves and masks to protect themselves from cross contamination. We know that sin can spread and infect us all just like a biological pathogen. So when we hear that God uses the blood of Christ to wash us clean and make us blood brothers with Christ we might be disgusted with that image.
True enough, if the blood of Christ was contaminated. But this is the good news. The blood of Christ is pure and without sin or virus. He does not infect us like everyone else, but washes us clean. His blood in us is like an infusion of anti-bodies and powerful white blood cells that attack and clean us from the inside out. He detoxifies us and every part of our lives when we exposed it to His blood.
Not only is the guilt gone, but the very nature of sin can be scrubbed from our veins but only when we inject the blood of Christ into every part of our lives.
Now understand this, that “blood” is a powerful symbol that represents the life, the soul, and the spirit of a living being. The blood of Jesus Christ is literally the Holy Spirit in our life. This gift of the Holy Spirit is what marks us inheritors of eternal life. Ephesians chapter one tells us that when we hear the gospel and believe upon it that we receive forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit on that day and hour. The word tells us that this Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our eternal inheritance.
There you have it: blood, spirit and inheritance all tied together as one important event in our lives if we will come out of the bush and confess our sins to God who is calling us.
Now think about this. If Christ had sinned then His blood would have been contaminated like ours. We wouldn’t want to be exposed to it and contract and even deadlier disease from Him. But because the blood or spirit of Christ was without sin we can take it into our own soul and watch it begin to fight back the infection in our own lives.
Only the pure and healthy blood of Christ, the pure and powerful Holy Spirit of Christ could accomplish this in anyone’s life. All other religious figures were flawed and infectious.
23. It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28. so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:11-28
This passage may have you scratching your head again because we have gone from guilty conscience, to inheritance, and now we are talking about heaven and what waits for us there. We‘ve found out that Christ being without sin makes it possible for us to have our conscience washed clean and to be declared a child of God right now.
But this is not the final chapter or the end. Although we are guaranteed to inherit the Kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit we are not home yet. Look around you the next time you watch the news and see how things are falling apart. This broken down world is not your inheritance. You are not going to receive a “fixer upper.” When we come out of the bush and come clean with Christ we become fellow heir’s with Him of the Kingdom of God that is yet to come. We don’t get Eden, a garden away from God, we get to move in with God and live there as part of the family of God. We have been living in the bushes of his back yard and He wants to invite us to get cleaned up and move into the Mansion with Him.
This is a very special privilege but not just anyone will be allowed in side the Mansion of God. You can’t just run to heaven at the last moment from the bushes where you are hiding. You must come when He calls you, and He is calling you today.
You see, what you see around you are copies of the real thing. In fact this place, this church or sanctuary is a building that is copy of heaven. This place is just a shadow of what is to come. In heaven there will be a door where those who have been washed clean can come through and enter the Kingdom and those who have not been washed clean will be turned away. We have steel and glass doors, but the Bible tells us that the Door is Christ Himself.
We also have a place to worship God and a raised stage on which we can lift up God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. But in the courts of heaven Father God will be raised up above us all and Jesus Christ His Son will stand on His right hand.
We sing songs and offer our prayers to God here in this place of worship but this is but a shadow to the songs that will be raised in heaven and the shouts of praise to the visible glory of God.
Now hear me on this next point. Even though this is but a copy of heaven and a shadow of things to come there are things we can know, do and experience right now that you will not be able to do in the glory to come. Here is the shadows of glory we have the chance to experience the conviction of sins and the sting of guilt. Here in but a copy of heaven we can repent of our sins and ask Jesus Christ to apply the blood he spilt on the cross to our conscience and every part of our life. In this place, in the midst of a fallen world, we can receive the Holy Spirit and become heirs with Jesus Christ for the Kingdom to come.
We can do none of that in that glory to come; we must do it now or miss the glory to come. We must do this before we die. “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,…” (v.27). Jesus is worthy of being our Redeemer because He is a sinless Redeemer. Let Him be yours today and for eternity or miss out forever. In the shadows of Glory, in this place is your only opportunity.
God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God's approval through him.
2Co 5:21
If you search the world for opinions about Jesus being sinless you will quickly discover that most people won’t argue about the high moral standing of Jesus Christ. We may argue over his divinity, his resurrection and even his existence but most leave his purity from sin alone.
That doesn’t tell us what we think about Jesus being without sin, it’s just a topic we avoid and make many assumptions. To talk about whether Jesus sinned begs the question whether sin even exists. If you are inclined to believe that there is a right and wrong set by God you are not likely to accuse His one and only son of breaking those rules.
Yet secretly, in our hearts we find it hard to believe that Jesus Christ could take on the form of a human being, live among sinful men and all this world’s temptations and not sin in some small way. For the incarnate Christ to be sinless would seem unnatural and inhuman.
Would it surprise you to know 42% of adults believe that Jesus committed sins while on earth? Even among people who are identified as being “born again” about a third believed that Christ did sin while on earth, the same percentage as the population as a whole. (“Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians over the Past 13 Years” March 6, 2009, www.barna.org).
This Biblical teaching that Christ without sin is absolutely critical to the Christian faith. Jesus could not die for our sins if He died as a consequence of His own. If Jesus sinned then we are all lost in our sins and can not escape the judgment of Hell.
If you belong to more liberal congregations you are more likely to believe that Jesus was a sinner, but a nice guy who had some great ideas. Here are a few groups in 2001 and the percentage of members who believed in a sinless Christ:
Presbyterian: 45%
Catholics: 33%
Lutheran: 33%
Methodist: 33%
Episcopal: 28%
When we compare these results with people who don’t attend any church we find a more Biblical response. In 2004, a Barna Research survey of the "unchurched" and found that 49% believe that Jesus was sinless while on earth which is higher than five of the liberal denominations listed above.
This series is our time to check the foundations of our faith to make sure they are solidly on a Biblical understanding. What frightens me as a pastor is that in some congregations you are better off not attending if you want a Biblical faith in Jesus Christ.
So let’s check again with God’s word and make sure we are on solid footing when it comes to Christ’s sinless nature, and His ability to pay for our forgiveness on the cross.
11. But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
15. For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9:11-28
If you scratch your head when reading this section of the Bible, I don’t blame you because Paul is talking about Jewish rituals to Jewish people who understand the customs. Most of us are foreigners to this world and we can easily get lost in all this talk about sacrifice, high priest, and tabernacles.
There are a few key truths that God is revealing to us in this passage about who we are in relationship to the perfect sinless Christ.
You already know that everyone has a sense of right and wrong. We call that our conscience. That’s the inner part of our being that warns us when we are making morally wrong choices and urges us to act when it is the right thing to do. The trouble with our conscience is that we are told from early on in our life not to listen to it, but to set it aside as outdated notions of previous generations.
Yet no matter what we do the conscience remains and convicts us that we are guilty of disobeying God and His will for our lives. A troubling conscience has bothered humanity since Adam and Eve hid the bushes from God and yet God found them anyways and asked what they were feeling so guilty about.
We are still hiding from God. So many people tell me that they want to hear from God and actually make contact but that is really hard to do when we are hiding in the bushed with Adam and Eve. What we hope will happen if God were to show up is that He will say we are very special and everything is going to work out.
The reality is that God has been seeking each one of us and beating the bushes trying to get us to stop hiding from Him. What that means is that there is only one way to make first contact with God and that is by being honest with our conscience. We must face what God is saying to us about and admit that we are guilty of rebelling against Him and His will for our life. Until we are ready to do this we will not really meet God. We will only call out from the bushes and ask if He could come back later when we have a better set of clothes.
The better clothes, for the people prior to Christ were the sacrifice of animals. In other words we looked for “scapegoats” for someone else or something else to take the blame for what we have done.
Since then we have looked for other creative ways to dress up for God and hide our sins from Him. We have tried rationalization, denial and religion of all kinds but no matter what we do we know it won’t work. We may feel alright for awhile but the feeling of guilt always comes back. We can never have a totally clean conscience by trying to ignore it or cover it up.
That is why Christ came to pay the price for our sins. His death does not just cover our sins, but actually cleans our conscience of all guilty when it is applied. Having your conscience washed clean by Christ through the Holy Spirit can not be duplicated or matched by any other guilt hiding method.
It is time for us to come out of the bushes, feel the weight of our sin and let Christ wash away the guilt of our sin. That is how we are going to finally connect with God, the only way.
16. In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17. because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” 21. In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 9:11-28
When God heard the confession of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He knew that anything they made to cover up would not really hide their guilt before Him. He warned them that death was the consequence of their sin and to prevent justice from taking their physical lives that judgment was forced on the scapegoat. He killed an animal and clothed them in the skins of that animal. This was a temporary fix and foreshadowing of what was to come.
You see their sin and our sin meant that God would have to decide between us dying physically and spiritually, or He would somehow have to pay that price for us without giving up His holy nature and justice. To embrace and love us after we sin meant that He would pay a terrible price. The amazing character of God is that He did not hesitate in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of Gethsemane. He does not hesitate today and is willing to pay the price to restore us back into His arms again.
We have jumped from conscience to the principle of inheritance. Verse 16 tells us that the price Jesus paid on the cross was not just to wash our conscience clean but to make it possible for us to inherit a kingdom that we do not deserve.
The blood of Christ then accomplished to very important acts in our lives, it takes away our guilt and makes us blood brothers of Christ, inheritors of the Kingdom of God as children of God. That is why this verse reminds us that everything in our lives must be under the blood of Christ. He sacrificed everything for us so we could surrender everything to Him. Jesus freely gave up all that was precious to Him so we would freely give up all that is precious to us in exchange for His forgiveness and love.
Now here is the thing. In our day we think of blood as a contamination. If there is a blood spill at a Red Cross clinic it’s a big deal and everything has to be sanitized. If you are a medical person, or emergency response personnel you are taught to protect yourself from being contaminated by the blood of other people.
When people address our sin it is often with gloves and masks to protect themselves from cross contamination. We know that sin can spread and infect us all just like a biological pathogen. So when we hear that God uses the blood of Christ to wash us clean and make us blood brothers with Christ we might be disgusted with that image.
True enough, if the blood of Christ was contaminated. But this is the good news. The blood of Christ is pure and without sin or virus. He does not infect us like everyone else, but washes us clean. His blood in us is like an infusion of anti-bodies and powerful white blood cells that attack and clean us from the inside out. He detoxifies us and every part of our lives when we exposed it to His blood.
Not only is the guilt gone, but the very nature of sin can be scrubbed from our veins but only when we inject the blood of Christ into every part of our lives.
Now understand this, that “blood” is a powerful symbol that represents the life, the soul, and the spirit of a living being. The blood of Jesus Christ is literally the Holy Spirit in our life. This gift of the Holy Spirit is what marks us inheritors of eternal life. Ephesians chapter one tells us that when we hear the gospel and believe upon it that we receive forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit on that day and hour. The word tells us that this Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our eternal inheritance.
There you have it: blood, spirit and inheritance all tied together as one important event in our lives if we will come out of the bush and confess our sins to God who is calling us.
Now think about this. If Christ had sinned then His blood would have been contaminated like ours. We wouldn’t want to be exposed to it and contract and even deadlier disease from Him. But because the blood or spirit of Christ was without sin we can take it into our own soul and watch it begin to fight back the infection in our own lives.
Only the pure and healthy blood of Christ, the pure and powerful Holy Spirit of Christ could accomplish this in anyone’s life. All other religious figures were flawed and infectious.
23. It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28. so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:11-28
This passage may have you scratching your head again because we have gone from guilty conscience, to inheritance, and now we are talking about heaven and what waits for us there. We‘ve found out that Christ being without sin makes it possible for us to have our conscience washed clean and to be declared a child of God right now.
But this is not the final chapter or the end. Although we are guaranteed to inherit the Kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit we are not home yet. Look around you the next time you watch the news and see how things are falling apart. This broken down world is not your inheritance. You are not going to receive a “fixer upper.” When we come out of the bush and come clean with Christ we become fellow heir’s with Him of the Kingdom of God that is yet to come. We don’t get Eden, a garden away from God, we get to move in with God and live there as part of the family of God. We have been living in the bushes of his back yard and He wants to invite us to get cleaned up and move into the Mansion with Him.
This is a very special privilege but not just anyone will be allowed in side the Mansion of God. You can’t just run to heaven at the last moment from the bushes where you are hiding. You must come when He calls you, and He is calling you today.
You see, what you see around you are copies of the real thing. In fact this place, this church or sanctuary is a building that is copy of heaven. This place is just a shadow of what is to come. In heaven there will be a door where those who have been washed clean can come through and enter the Kingdom and those who have not been washed clean will be turned away. We have steel and glass doors, but the Bible tells us that the Door is Christ Himself.
We also have a place to worship God and a raised stage on which we can lift up God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. But in the courts of heaven Father God will be raised up above us all and Jesus Christ His Son will stand on His right hand.
We sing songs and offer our prayers to God here in this place of worship but this is but a shadow to the songs that will be raised in heaven and the shouts of praise to the visible glory of God.
Now hear me on this next point. Even though this is but a copy of heaven and a shadow of things to come there are things we can know, do and experience right now that you will not be able to do in the glory to come. Here is the shadows of glory we have the chance to experience the conviction of sins and the sting of guilt. Here in but a copy of heaven we can repent of our sins and ask Jesus Christ to apply the blood he spilt on the cross to our conscience and every part of our life. In this place, in the midst of a fallen world, we can receive the Holy Spirit and become heirs with Jesus Christ for the Kingdom to come.
We can do none of that in that glory to come; we must do it now or miss the glory to come. We must do this before we die. “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,…” (v.27). Jesus is worthy of being our Redeemer because He is a sinless Redeemer. Let Him be yours today and for eternity or miss out forever. In the shadows of Glory, in this place is your only opportunity.
Friday, March 4, 2011
A Biblical Faith:“Jesus the Savior”
Pastor John R. Wiuff
Today we are starting a new series on what it means to have a Biblical Faith and to belong to a Biblical Church. Just because you own and maybe read a Bible does not mean you think or believe Biblically. Many new voices are being raised today and the next few years to come that will challenge the millennium old teachings of the Bible. These voices are expressing an intolerance for what the Bible tells us about God and a demand that we contemporaries our faith to something reasonable and logical. The Church and Christians are being evangelized to fit in with the rest of the world and stop believing what makes us unique and others excluded from the Christian faith.
We are going to use the Bible to test the foundations of our faith to make sure they are solid and not rotting out from beneath us. We are also going to quote popular objections in the world so you can hear the challenge that is being made. Through side by side comparison we hope to inspire a confidence and boldness of faith to stand for the ageless message of the gospel of Christ.
The first foundation we need to test is the teaching that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior of man kind. This is a fundamental pillar of our faith and if it should fall there is no reason for the existence of a Christian church. Yet if it stands and persuades others, it could yet save millions from an eternity in hell.
You may think it odd that anyone would challenge the notion that Jesus is our one and only Savior. If you do you have probably been raised in the church and only relate to church people. Out side the church a rising objection has been made against this Biblical teaching and amazingly enough there are many leaders within the Church that are now advocating that Jesus did not die on the cross for our sins.
Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Alban's, popularized a sort of blood libel against God as an unintended consequence of a BBC radio talk before Easter of 2007, when he attacked views that made God seem like "a monster". Here is what he said:
"What sort of God was this," he asked, "getting so angry with the world and the people he created and then, to calm himself down, demanding the blood of his own son?
"And anyway, why should God forgive us through punishing someone else? It was worse than illogical, it was insane. It made God sound like a psychopath."
How did the death of Jesus save us?
By Christopher Howse
The Telegraph
14 Apr 2007
The controversy is not new. The Rev Steve Chalke, a well-known Evangelical, wrote in 2003 against the belief that the "God of love suddenly decides to vent his anger and wrath on his own Son" in a piece of "cosmic child abuse".
When the reporter Christopher Howse attempt to offer a Biblical teaching about Jesus as Savior this is one of the reactions he received:
So basically, God couldn't bear to forgive us, but due to the strange nature of God, he realized if he just slaughtered his son, then the blood would alter his own brain chemistry so he COULD forgive us. Jesus paid a blood sacrifice to God, so God would be able to change his mind about barring us from heaven, and then realize he could let us in after all. Please...give your newspaper some credibility - don't pretend religion is news.
Telling people that Jesus saves or to believe that yourself is not enough because the message is not getting through. We need to have a Biblical foundation for our faith in Christ.
Let’s see what the Bible says about Jesus and salvation. Look to Titus chapter two with me.
11. For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13. while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14. who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. 15. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.
Titus 2:11-14
Just knowing what the Bible says is not enough for a Biblical faith but we must start with knowing before we can go to understanding and then believing. In verse 11 God tells us that He offers us salvation to everyone and that this is an act of grace on His part. He doesn’t have to do this. With a great deal less effort on His part, He could pass judgment on all of us and end our existence. His Holy nature and justice would seem to demand such action. For God then to offer us salvation is a act of grace requiring a great effort on His part.
The next thing that God reveals is that His “Yes” means that we must adopt a “No” if we are going to accept His offer. A life principle to remember is that for every yes there is a corresponding no. God says “Yes” I will provide away for you to be forgiven, but we need to say “No” to sin to receive that forgiveness.
Now think about this. Does it make sense to say “Yes” I want to be forgiven and then make plans to do more sin that will need more forgiving? That is the logic of an addict. They want money to buy drugs. They will say whatever they need to say to get the money they want to buy the drug they think they need. I know a good mother who has learned to say “NO” to her addicted daughter so she can learn to say “no” to the drug and yes to salvation in Christ.
If we are going to be saved from sin, we are required to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God’s will in our lives.
God goes on to tell us that Jesus Christ is the one who saves us from sin. This is not matter of brain chemistry that Jesus needed to die upon the cross for our salvation or some strange nature of God…although; God’s nature does seem foreign to our fallen nature. You see God, if He is any God worthy of worship or our loyalty, is a Holy God. He is clean, pure and without fault. He always does the right thing for the right reason. He sets the standard for what is right and what is wrong. If he was any less than perfectly good, He would not be worthy of our worship.
So when God forgives he must do something other than hold His nose when He is around us. He must remove sin and the effect of sin from us if He is going to forgive us. He can’t simply over look sin; He must remove it from us.
Christ died to pay the price for our sin which is death. Adam and Even were warned that if they sinned, rebelled against God, they would die. They rebelled and they died even though they were originally intended to live forever. We all know that when people die to day it seems like a wrong has happened. We were not meant to come to an end. This is the affect of sin. That price we are paying had to be paid by another if we are going to live. Jesus Christ willing paid that price for us. He was the only one who could because He had no sin. He did this out of love willingly because God asked Him to. No one made Him do it. He was given all kinds of reasons and ways out of dying for us, but Jesus died for you and me because God asked Him to pay the price so we could be forgiven.
Why would God ask His only Son to go through such a terrible ordeal? Because of a principal of forgiveness we have forgotten. A sin can only be forgiven by the person wronged if that person is willing to pay the price for the wrong done to them. God bore the price of our sin through His son so He could be in a position to forgive. This is the only way His Holiness and justice could be preserved while providing for away of deliverance for us as sinners.
This is what we need to understand if we are going to have a believing faith in Jesus Christ. But there is one major block that will keep us from understanding and believing the clear teachings of the Bible.
We think we aren’t so bad.
3. At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5. he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6. whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7. so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
Titus 3:1-8
If there were one problem, one block to our understanding, one objection to the logic of God’s offer of salvation…it would be the belief that we are not really all that bad, deserving death for our sins. We must face this fact that we are rebellious sinners, defiant in the way we live towards God’s holiness. Of all creation we have the strange dilemma of knowing that we are doing the wrong thing while we continue to justify our behavior. We know we should feel something while avoiding any responsibility or guilt for our actions.
When a person had a medical condition in which they can no longer feel pain when they cause harm to their bodies we suspect that they are suffering from a deadly disease called Leprosy. This condition is caused by the organism that is difficult to transmit and has a long time before symptoms appear which makes it difficult to determine where or when the disease was contracted. The disease eventually cause nerve damage in the arms and legs, which causes sensory loss in the skin and muscle weakness. People with long-term leprosy may lose the use of their hands or feet due to repeated injury resulting from lack of sensation.
When we believe that we have no sin, or that we are not has bad as deserving death, we can only do so by ignoring the facts of our lives. We must turn off the sensitive nerves of our soul that painfully warns us when we are going wrong. We kill these moral nerves by saying it’s not that bad; once isn’t going to hurt; or any number of other excuses.
Listen to what God is telling us in this passage. He tells us that we are foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. This has always been true about every person since the fall of Adam of Eve. I am sure that if Cain and Able could text each other they might have avoided the first murder in human kind, but it would have taken the murderous intent from Cain’s heart. We have adopted technologies and philosophies that have sheltered us from the full weight of sins awful affect on our lives but these have been nothing more than taking more drugs to kill the pain that tells us something is terribly wrong.
If we are going to know, understand, and believe God’s word today about Jesus Christ we must say “NO” to the drugs that keep us from feeling the pain of our sin.
We must say “no” to calling sin mistakes or psychological trauma.
We must say “no” to the god of naturalism that claims if it exists it’s good or loose all sense of danger in a dangerous world.
We must say “no” rationalizations and comparisons with other sick and dying people. We must stop assuming that sin is natural and that we have no other choice but to make peace with our sinful souls.
If we can say “no” to these morally numbing drugs then we can say feel the pain of sin in our soul. We can grieve our loss and want something better. One last principle of life comes into sharp focus: You can’t be free of something you don’t hate. We must learn to hate sin and desire righteousness as God defines it in our lives.
This is what God calls coming into our right minds, thinking straight about reality of our moral condition. If you can drop the pretending and face who you really are then God can give you want you really need, salvation from sin in Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t come to save us from poverty, sickness, war, prison or even death. He came to save us from sin that causes all these things in our lives. Each one of these terrible things in our lives and many more are the moral nerve endings of our conscience. They tell us something is horribly wrong in this world and we need to find a lasting solution in Jesus Christ.
If we could allow ourselves to feel the pain of our sin then maybe we could be open to know why we need a Savior in the first place.
We have been quick to blame God for our pain, rather admit it is us who are harming our selves and inflicting pain on our conscience. Can we find the courage to accept responsibility for our own actions rather than blame a God who gave us the gift of a conscience knowing right from wrong?
That is the choice. This is what keeps us from God, from knowing, from understanding and from believing in Jesus Christ as Savior.
68. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel! He has taken care of his people and has set them free. 69. He has raised up a mighty Savior for us from the family of his servant David, 70. just as he promised long ago through the mouth of his holy prophets
Luke 1:68-70
30. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus to life after you hung him on a tree and killed him. 31. God has exalted to his right hand this very man as our Leader and Savior in order to give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.
Acts 5:30-31
3. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4. who wants all people to be saved and to come to a full knowledge of the truth. 5. There is one God. There is also one mediator between God and human beings-a human, Christ Jesus.6. He gave himself as a ransom for all, a fact that was acknowledged at the right time.
1 Timothy 2:3-6
9. He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own works but according to his own purpose and the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. 10. Now, however, it has been revealed through the coming of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and through the gospel has brought life and release from death into full view.
2 Timothy 1:9-10
14. We have seen for ourselves and can testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
1 John 4:14
Today we are starting a new series on what it means to have a Biblical Faith and to belong to a Biblical Church. Just because you own and maybe read a Bible does not mean you think or believe Biblically. Many new voices are being raised today and the next few years to come that will challenge the millennium old teachings of the Bible. These voices are expressing an intolerance for what the Bible tells us about God and a demand that we contemporaries our faith to something reasonable and logical. The Church and Christians are being evangelized to fit in with the rest of the world and stop believing what makes us unique and others excluded from the Christian faith.
We are going to use the Bible to test the foundations of our faith to make sure they are solid and not rotting out from beneath us. We are also going to quote popular objections in the world so you can hear the challenge that is being made. Through side by side comparison we hope to inspire a confidence and boldness of faith to stand for the ageless message of the gospel of Christ.
The first foundation we need to test is the teaching that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior of man kind. This is a fundamental pillar of our faith and if it should fall there is no reason for the existence of a Christian church. Yet if it stands and persuades others, it could yet save millions from an eternity in hell.
You may think it odd that anyone would challenge the notion that Jesus is our one and only Savior. If you do you have probably been raised in the church and only relate to church people. Out side the church a rising objection has been made against this Biblical teaching and amazingly enough there are many leaders within the Church that are now advocating that Jesus did not die on the cross for our sins.
Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Alban's, popularized a sort of blood libel against God as an unintended consequence of a BBC radio talk before Easter of 2007, when he attacked views that made God seem like "a monster". Here is what he said:
"What sort of God was this," he asked, "getting so angry with the world and the people he created and then, to calm himself down, demanding the blood of his own son?
"And anyway, why should God forgive us through punishing someone else? It was worse than illogical, it was insane. It made God sound like a psychopath."
How did the death of Jesus save us?
By Christopher Howse
The Telegraph
14 Apr 2007
The controversy is not new. The Rev Steve Chalke, a well-known Evangelical, wrote in 2003 against the belief that the "God of love suddenly decides to vent his anger and wrath on his own Son" in a piece of "cosmic child abuse".
When the reporter Christopher Howse attempt to offer a Biblical teaching about Jesus as Savior this is one of the reactions he received:
So basically, God couldn't bear to forgive us, but due to the strange nature of God, he realized if he just slaughtered his son, then the blood would alter his own brain chemistry so he COULD forgive us. Jesus paid a blood sacrifice to God, so God would be able to change his mind about barring us from heaven, and then realize he could let us in after all. Please...give your newspaper some credibility - don't pretend religion is news.
Telling people that Jesus saves or to believe that yourself is not enough because the message is not getting through. We need to have a Biblical foundation for our faith in Christ.
Let’s see what the Bible says about Jesus and salvation. Look to Titus chapter two with me.
11. For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13. while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14. who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. 15. These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.
Titus 2:11-14
Just knowing what the Bible says is not enough for a Biblical faith but we must start with knowing before we can go to understanding and then believing. In verse 11 God tells us that He offers us salvation to everyone and that this is an act of grace on His part. He doesn’t have to do this. With a great deal less effort on His part, He could pass judgment on all of us and end our existence. His Holy nature and justice would seem to demand such action. For God then to offer us salvation is a act of grace requiring a great effort on His part.
The next thing that God reveals is that His “Yes” means that we must adopt a “No” if we are going to accept His offer. A life principle to remember is that for every yes there is a corresponding no. God says “Yes” I will provide away for you to be forgiven, but we need to say “No” to sin to receive that forgiveness.
Now think about this. Does it make sense to say “Yes” I want to be forgiven and then make plans to do more sin that will need more forgiving? That is the logic of an addict. They want money to buy drugs. They will say whatever they need to say to get the money they want to buy the drug they think they need. I know a good mother who has learned to say “NO” to her addicted daughter so she can learn to say “no” to the drug and yes to salvation in Christ.
If we are going to be saved from sin, we are required to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God’s will in our lives.
God goes on to tell us that Jesus Christ is the one who saves us from sin. This is not matter of brain chemistry that Jesus needed to die upon the cross for our salvation or some strange nature of God…although; God’s nature does seem foreign to our fallen nature. You see God, if He is any God worthy of worship or our loyalty, is a Holy God. He is clean, pure and without fault. He always does the right thing for the right reason. He sets the standard for what is right and what is wrong. If he was any less than perfectly good, He would not be worthy of our worship.
So when God forgives he must do something other than hold His nose when He is around us. He must remove sin and the effect of sin from us if He is going to forgive us. He can’t simply over look sin; He must remove it from us.
Christ died to pay the price for our sin which is death. Adam and Even were warned that if they sinned, rebelled against God, they would die. They rebelled and they died even though they were originally intended to live forever. We all know that when people die to day it seems like a wrong has happened. We were not meant to come to an end. This is the affect of sin. That price we are paying had to be paid by another if we are going to live. Jesus Christ willing paid that price for us. He was the only one who could because He had no sin. He did this out of love willingly because God asked Him to. No one made Him do it. He was given all kinds of reasons and ways out of dying for us, but Jesus died for you and me because God asked Him to pay the price so we could be forgiven.
Why would God ask His only Son to go through such a terrible ordeal? Because of a principal of forgiveness we have forgotten. A sin can only be forgiven by the person wronged if that person is willing to pay the price for the wrong done to them. God bore the price of our sin through His son so He could be in a position to forgive. This is the only way His Holiness and justice could be preserved while providing for away of deliverance for us as sinners.
This is what we need to understand if we are going to have a believing faith in Jesus Christ. But there is one major block that will keep us from understanding and believing the clear teachings of the Bible.
We think we aren’t so bad.
3. At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5. he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6. whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7. so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8. This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
Titus 3:1-8
If there were one problem, one block to our understanding, one objection to the logic of God’s offer of salvation…it would be the belief that we are not really all that bad, deserving death for our sins. We must face this fact that we are rebellious sinners, defiant in the way we live towards God’s holiness. Of all creation we have the strange dilemma of knowing that we are doing the wrong thing while we continue to justify our behavior. We know we should feel something while avoiding any responsibility or guilt for our actions.
When a person had a medical condition in which they can no longer feel pain when they cause harm to their bodies we suspect that they are suffering from a deadly disease called Leprosy. This condition is caused by the organism that is difficult to transmit and has a long time before symptoms appear which makes it difficult to determine where or when the disease was contracted. The disease eventually cause nerve damage in the arms and legs, which causes sensory loss in the skin and muscle weakness. People with long-term leprosy may lose the use of their hands or feet due to repeated injury resulting from lack of sensation.
When we believe that we have no sin, or that we are not has bad as deserving death, we can only do so by ignoring the facts of our lives. We must turn off the sensitive nerves of our soul that painfully warns us when we are going wrong. We kill these moral nerves by saying it’s not that bad; once isn’t going to hurt; or any number of other excuses.
Listen to what God is telling us in this passage. He tells us that we are foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. This has always been true about every person since the fall of Adam of Eve. I am sure that if Cain and Able could text each other they might have avoided the first murder in human kind, but it would have taken the murderous intent from Cain’s heart. We have adopted technologies and philosophies that have sheltered us from the full weight of sins awful affect on our lives but these have been nothing more than taking more drugs to kill the pain that tells us something is terribly wrong.
If we are going to know, understand, and believe God’s word today about Jesus Christ we must say “NO” to the drugs that keep us from feeling the pain of our sin.
We must say “no” to calling sin mistakes or psychological trauma.
We must say “no” to the god of naturalism that claims if it exists it’s good or loose all sense of danger in a dangerous world.
We must say “no” rationalizations and comparisons with other sick and dying people. We must stop assuming that sin is natural and that we have no other choice but to make peace with our sinful souls.
If we can say “no” to these morally numbing drugs then we can say feel the pain of sin in our soul. We can grieve our loss and want something better. One last principle of life comes into sharp focus: You can’t be free of something you don’t hate. We must learn to hate sin and desire righteousness as God defines it in our lives.
This is what God calls coming into our right minds, thinking straight about reality of our moral condition. If you can drop the pretending and face who you really are then God can give you want you really need, salvation from sin in Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t come to save us from poverty, sickness, war, prison or even death. He came to save us from sin that causes all these things in our lives. Each one of these terrible things in our lives and many more are the moral nerve endings of our conscience. They tell us something is horribly wrong in this world and we need to find a lasting solution in Jesus Christ.
If we could allow ourselves to feel the pain of our sin then maybe we could be open to know why we need a Savior in the first place.
We have been quick to blame God for our pain, rather admit it is us who are harming our selves and inflicting pain on our conscience. Can we find the courage to accept responsibility for our own actions rather than blame a God who gave us the gift of a conscience knowing right from wrong?
That is the choice. This is what keeps us from God, from knowing, from understanding and from believing in Jesus Christ as Savior.
68. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel! He has taken care of his people and has set them free. 69. He has raised up a mighty Savior for us from the family of his servant David, 70. just as he promised long ago through the mouth of his holy prophets
Luke 1:68-70
30. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus to life after you hung him on a tree and killed him. 31. God has exalted to his right hand this very man as our Leader and Savior in order to give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.
Acts 5:30-31
3. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4. who wants all people to be saved and to come to a full knowledge of the truth. 5. There is one God. There is also one mediator between God and human beings-a human, Christ Jesus.6. He gave himself as a ransom for all, a fact that was acknowledged at the right time.
1 Timothy 2:3-6
9. He saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own works but according to his own purpose and the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. 10. Now, however, it has been revealed through the coming of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and through the gospel has brought life and release from death into full view.
2 Timothy 1:9-10
14. We have seen for ourselves and can testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
1 John 4:14
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