The Weaker Brother

Another great sermon by Dr. R.C. Sproul, again very nearly word-for-word.  On “doubtful things.”  Enjoy.

The progress of our Christian life following our justification is sanctification, by which we are called to grow to maturity and into conformity to the image of Christ.   In defense of the gospel of justification by faith alone, Martin Luther said, “Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.  A true faith that is saving faith will immediately, necessarily, and inevitably begin to show forth the fruit of that faith in the progress of sanctification.”  Also remember the apostle who told us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” And in Philippians 2:13:  “For God is at work within us both to will and to do His good purpose.” This means that we are not to be at ease, to “let go and let God.”

There are various pitfalls that undermine that progress along the way.  And perhaps the two most dangerous pitfalls are the distortions that we call antinomianism and legalism.  Antinomianism means “anti-law-ism.”  It asserts that once I am saved by grace, I no longer have to be concerned about living a life of obedience, or give any particular significance, to the Law of God.  One of the critical concerns of 16^th century Romanism, with the advent of the Reformation, was a belief that this doctrine of “faith alone” would lead to a spirit of antinomianism, because once the Law had fulfilled its purpose of driving us to Christ and the Gospel, it would have no more impact among us.  And there were those who literally moved in that direction. But we believe that though the ceremonial laws have been fulfilled in Christ and therefore abrogated, nevertheless the laws that are rooted in the very character of God, and are revealed in His moral law, still have relevance to the Christian.  Not as a means by which we achieve salvation, but rather as a means by which we proceed in sanctification—to do that which is pleasing to God. 

But we live in a time, within the evangelical church, where antinomianism is epidemic.  One denomination, in their doctrine, says the Old Testament Law has no further import to the life of the Christian.  And in that antinomian spirit, we have seen, I think, one of the most destructive doctrines that has been embraced widely in the evangelical community—namely the concept of the “carnal Christian.”  It is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.  True, we have a fleshly spirit that is not completely eradicated until we enter Glory, but that’s not the problem when we encounter the doctrine of the “carnal Christian.”  Their idea is that a person can be truly saved, and receive Christ as Savior—but NOT as Lord.  And they may never produce any fruit of a sanctified life; but may remain carnal (fleshly) until death.  Christ is supposedly in this person’s life, but not reigning on the throne of their life.  “Self” remains established in the governing center and the core of the person.

But on the other side of the equation is the threat that’s always there of legalism.  What is legalism?  There is not one single monolithic form of legalism.  There are varieties, different types of meaning.  The worst meaning has reference to the idea that by your works, you can satisfy the demands of God’s Law, and can gain salvation through your own works.  That is the view that is so widely held by people who have never heard the Bible say that “by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”  In fact the vast majority of people out there really believe in a legalistic manner and means of being redeemed.  Which is false not only with respect to the way of salvation set forth in Scripture; but it is a way of salvation that if it were indeed the Biblical way of salvation, would cause these people who believe it nothing but everlasting Doom.  Because none of us do the works of the Law that are required to satisfy the legal demands of God.

Other forms of legalism were those perfected by the Pharisees, which drew the rebuke, and at times, the wrath, of our Lord Himself. The Pharisees were fond of majoring in minors.  That’s a form of legalism where you give great zeal and great attention to minor matters of the Law, at the expense of, and ignoring, the weightier matters of the Law.  They paid attention to the tithe, but ignored justice and mercy.  You know people like that; they’re scrupulous in their church attendance, they wouldn’t think of shorting God in the collection plate--but as far as the rest of the fruit of the spirit is concerned, they could care less!  They have majored in minors.

The other thing the Pharisees were experts at were a kind of “ethical loop-holism.”  If they could obey the letter of the Law, never mind the spirit of the Law, they spent time looking for a way around it to suit their needs.  If they wanted to go on a trip that was more than a Sabbath day’s journey, they would simply, during the week, have a courier leave a toothbrush under a rock at various intervals, because, legally, the presence of one’s toothbrush established temporary legal residence.  And so even though they made a trip of 15 miles in one day (thus breaking their law of travel on the Sabbath), they only went so far between these rocks containing their toothbrushes—so thus they never went more than a “Sabbath day’s journey.”  These were Philadelphia lawyers before there was a Philadelphia. 

But one of the most destructive form of legalism then and now, the one that was most seriously practiced by the Pharisees, was to add to the Law of God. To bind men’s consciences where God had left them free.  Substituting the human tradition for the Law of God.  We wag our fingers at the Pharisees for doing that, but that problem has plagues the church in every generation.  The problem that we have between antinomianism on the one hand, and legalism on the other—you might ask yourself where you tend to fall off which side of the horse, and what kind of an atmosphere you have at your church.  To these poles of legalism and antinomianism are the questions of “indifferent matters” and Christian liberty.  Matters that are indifferent refers to those areas where God has not commanded to do or to abstain from.  We have Christian liberty in that particular zone.  Remember, though, Christian liberty never gives anybody the liberty to disobey God.  That’s another form of antinomianism, where Christian liberty becomes the disguise, or the license, for licentiousness, where people are saying, “I’m free, I’m liberated, by the Spirit (and so I can disobey God).”

So the big issue is:  How we as Christians can co-exist, when we don’t always have the same understanding of what it is that fits into the category of God’s “indifference” and where our Christian liberty begins, and where it ends.  That was a problem in the Corinthian church, it was a problem in the Roman church, and it has been a problem ever since. Let’s look at Romans 14:1-2:

Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. ² For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.  Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. 

Paul is saying, in the body of Christ you have weaker brothers who have this particular scruple about that which God has not legislated.  How are you to respond to the weaker brother?  We might insist on educating him on the spot, that our way is “correct.”  No; we both belong to Christ; how dare we judge one who is Christ’s servant?  If we are to judge, we are to judge according to the explicit standards set forth in sacred Scripture, not by dithering about on uncertain scruples.  I don’t think it is as bad today as it was 50 years ago.  Then, evangelicanism was plagued by a kind of spirit of legalism that said that if you’re a Christian, you don’t drink, you don’t smoke, you don’t dance, you don’t play cards, and you don’t go to movies. Now, those virtues still prevail in certain places; but this became such a matter that one’s entire spirituality, and even Christian profession, was to be judged by conformity to these specific taboos within the Christian community.  And you go through your Bible, and you can’t find anything explicit about them in Scripture.  So how can you judge?  But these became so important that they became the tests of one’s Christianity.  A lady who tells the waitress at a restaurant, “Oh, no, we don’t drink, we’re Christians,” leaves the waitress with the impression that that’s what Christianity is all about.  But is that what the Gospel is?  That’s not the apostle Paul is saying here in this Romans text.  But many people have been taught that it is a sin to do things that God does not declare to be sinful.

So, if I believe it is a sin to do these taboos, if I do it, is it a sin?  Yes!  Not because the thing itself is sinful; but what is sinful is doing something you believe to be sinful—that’s sin to do it.  That’s why we all have to be exceedingly sensitive and careful what we do around these folk.  Go back to the Corinthian problem (I Corinthians 8ff).  Meat was offered to idols in a pagan worship service, and then was sold in the marketplace—as meat.  Some Christians, not wanting a hint of scandal, or association with paganism, said, “I’m not going to buy that stuff.  It’s been tainted.”  What’s Paul’s view?  Hey, it’s meat.  It’s the difference of what we call primary and secondary separation.  Primary separation is where you separate yourself from offering meat to idols, which itself is a sin.  But if I decide I have to separate myself from anybody else who has ever offered meat to idols, or from the meat itself, that’s what we call “secondary separation.”  Actually, to be consistent in the application of secondary separation, you’re going to have to leave the planet!—because no matter where you are, or what you do, or from whom you buy, you’re going to be dealing, at some level, with people who are in sin. 

So how does the stronger brother deal with a brother who has this scruple? You can make fun of him, badger him with criticisms—or you can respect his conscience.  You should say, “I know you have this scruple, and I don’t want to make you stumble by trying to entice you to indulge in something that you are convinced is a violation of the Law of God.”  Paul says, and I don’t think he is just using hyperbole, “I will give up meat altogether for the sake of my weaker brother.”  That is his attitude.  If a person has a scruple that I don’t share, and that’s unto the Lord, and because their conscience is held captive by their understanding of the things of God, I am to bend over backwards to be caring, loving, sensitive to that person.  And not flaunt my liberty in their face.  You might do it in private so as not to scandalize the weaker brother. Thus, our liberty is not an autonomy whereby we’re allowed to do anything we feel like doing.  But it is a freedom that must always be accompanied by a charitable sensitivity to those who have scruples that are different from ours.

But now here’s where it gets complicated.  What happens when the weaker brother wants to elevate the scruple he or she has to the level of a moral standard for Christianity, or a standard that must be obeyed to be a member in good standing; or a standard that it becomes necessary to be obeyed in order to be an officer in the church?  Now, the weaker brother becomes the legislating brother; and now he begins to take the scruple he has and uses it to bind the consciences of the people, and destroy Christian liberty—what do you do now? 

That’s one question.  Another question that is close on its heels is the question, “who really is the weaker brother?”   How do you discern it?  You can try to extend God’s morality, but extend it too far.  We have to be very sure that the standards we impose upon people in the church are Biblical standards, and not our own traditional scruples.  I’ve known ministers who have required of their elders that they must sign a pledge not to have any alcoholic beverage including wine—ever—in order to be qualified to be an officer in the church.  Thus they make a standard in the church that would preclude the membership of the apostle Paul, and, yes, of Jesus Himself!  That same pastor will tell you that the wine used in the Bible was not fermented.  Well, it’s not so clear.  Jesus was not called a wine-bibber because He drank Welch’s grape juice.  Nobody worried about exploding old wineskins by putting grape juice in them.  It’s not grape juice that “maketh the heart glad,” and it’s not grape juice that you take for your stomach’s sake.  The attempts to take a cultural thing in America and force it upon the Mideast cannot be done.  You go to Palestine and say that the vineyards were used to make raisins and grape juice; they will laugh you to scorn. No doubt a strong, vehement prohibition against drunkenness is needed, but we find it too easy to add to the standards of God. 

So here’s my problem.  When the pastor imposes that standard that I’ve just used as an example, or any other such extra-Biblical standard on the elders, will that minister admit to being a weaker brother?  Unlikely.  Ministers should not be weaker brothers; they should be able to handle Scripture in a way as to not be caught up in issues of whether to eat meat or vegetables—they should know better than that.  For the solution of this conundrum, let’s look at Galatians 2:11:

  Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face…  

Why? The next words: …because he was to be blamed.   Here we have a controversy between two titans of the apostolic community, Peter and Paul; and it’s not sensitively done in private, but to his face; and, under the impetus of the Holy Spirit, Paul incorporates it in sacred Scripture. 

Why are we breaking the rules about sensitivity, which will include not embarrassing him, and what about not reprimanding, that we outlined above? 

Peter, from his Cornelius event, knew it was right to eat with the Gentiles when the Christians gathered.  But when the Judaizers came, Peter avoided the Gentiles. Paul felt that Peter was caving in (as Scripture puts it, “played the hypocrite with them”) to the heretical doctrine of the Judaizers—who preached that Christians must also obey Jewish law when saved.  They had an army of scruples on matters where God had no doctrine to avoid or affirm.  Salvation did not include the old law and its man-made burdens.  We are to live by love, and by the Holy Spirit. 

Now, this is no longer the simple matter of eating vegetables or eating meat.  This had escalated into the Judaizer heresy, where they had reinstituted the requirements of the dietary and ceremonial laws upon Christian believers.  This was serious, and the Judaizers were the weaker brothers.  These people couldn’t live with the liberty that Christ had given them from these Old Testament practices.  Jesus gave that liberty, not simply out of kindness, but there were profound theological concerns there.  Paul said, if you enforce circumcision again, since the significance of circumcision has been fulfilled once and for all in the death of Jesus Christ—who was circumcised, or cursed by God. —then you are now placing yourselves, symbolically, again, under all of the terms of the Old Covenant , that have already been fulfilled by Jesus—and you’re crucifying Christ afresh.  So it’s not just a matter of scruples; it’s the matter of the Gospel.  As Galatians 5:11-14 says:

And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. ¹² I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off!  For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Note that Paul really wishes people with serious heresy would be cut off from the church—and, as it really says, cut off from God! Paul insists that liberty is there, but warns against antinomianism. On the other side of the coin, God instructs sensitivity to those with scruples.  But the Judaizers were insisting that he circumcise Titus, to use another example.  And what did Paul do about that?  As soon as the weaker brother tried to enforce his weakness to become the law of the church, the real Gospel was threatened; and Paul fought tooth and nail against the tyranny of the weaker brother.  Anyone that tries to make it a rule of the church, they must be resisted. They must not be allowed to establish laws where God has left us free.  Applying these principles takes the wisdom of Solomon.  We apply the Word of God and the love of Christ that is shed abroad in our hearts.  We cannot simply tenaciously hold on to our own liberty, but to protect the Gospel while being patient with those who are young in the faith—but try not to allow people to tell waitresses—and promote distortions about what being Christian is

The Other Side of God

I would like to give you, pretty much word for word, a great sermon by Dr. R.C. Sproul, preached just before he entered the hospital for respiratory treatment that eventually killed him.

We live in a culture, and, sadly, in a church, that, if they believe in the existence of God, do not consider God to be holy.  But if, peradventure, some may acknowledge that He is holy, they don’t add to that holiness any idea of divine Justice.  And if, with the lamp of Diogenes, we are able to find a handful of people who believe God is both holy and just, it is next to impossible to find someone who will add to these elements the idea that God is a God of wrath.  Because the assumption in the world and the church today is that the love of God, the mercy of God, and the grace of God either swallows up the justice and wrath of God, or certainly trumps it. Even on national occasions, where noted people are buried out of the National Cathedral in Washington, it is commonplace to hear choirs sing or bagpipers play “Amazing Grace”--but nobody believes that His grace is amazing. It’s something we assume.  Because again the assumption is, God is not holy, God is not just, and God is not a God of wrath. 

Reading I Chronicles 13:1-6, David called all spiritual leaders in the land to form a grand procession and celebration to bring the ark of the covenant from storage back to his capital city.  Let’s pick it up from verse 7:

So they carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab, and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart. ⁸ Then David and all Israel played music before God with all their might, with singing, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on cymbals, and with trumpets. ⁹ And when they came to Chidon’s threshing floor, Uzza put out his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled. ¹⁰ Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzza, and He struck him because he put his hand to the ark; and he died there before God. ¹¹ And David became angry because of the Lord’s outbreak against Uzza…

David was afraid of God that day.  When I was in seminary, I was taught that the Biblical passages that refer to the sudden explosion and paroxysm of rage that God manifested in the Old Testament, showed that the Old Testament is not the inspired Word of God, but is simply an example of a popular religion of a tribal deity from a semi-nomadic group of people who were pre-scientific and unsophisticated.  And they would say that these episodes recorded in the Old Testament were totally incompatible with the New Testament portrait of the love of God revealed in Jesus.  So what I experienced in seminary was a revival of the Marcionite heresy (Ed. Note:  around 144 A.D.); with an attempt to expurgate from the Bible all references to this Old Testament angry deity.  But I thought that this episode, and others like it, since they were recorded in the pages of sacred Scriptures, would at least deserve the philosophy of a second glance.  So, David is going to bring the most sacred vessel of their religion to the holy place; he is going to restore the Glory to Israel to a brand new place.  So he has a new cart made; and in the middle of a jubilant procession, the ox stumbles, and tilts the cart, and the sacred ark is in immediate danger of falling into the dirt, or mud, where it would be surely desecrated.  Instinctively, out of a sense of respect for this sacred object, lest it become marred in the dirt, Uzzah stretches forth his hand.  As soon as he did, the heavens opened, and a deep voice shouted to him from heaven, “Thank you, Uzzah!”  Well…not how it happened.  As soon as he touched the ark, instantly, he was stricken.  God executed him. 

Oh! The gymnastics my Old Testament professors went through in seminary, saying, “Well, that’s the way it seemed to these unsophisticated Hebrews who were watching this. Surely the man dropped dead of a heart attack, generated by his terror that he would venture to touch that sacred object.”  Or they would say, “This is evidence of whatever portrayal we have of the wrath of God in the Old Testament; it portrays God’s as being arbitrary, whimsical, capricious…” One professor even called this “the dark side of Yahweh…the demonic element within the nature of God Himself.”

Evidently these people never read Numbers 4.  That’s when God gave the responsibility of the priesthood and the teaching to the tribe of Levi; within which the sole responsibility of the clan of the Kohathites was to look after the sacred vessels for the tabernacle.  But the ark was designed by God Himself to have rings on the sides; then they used long poles, or staves, inserted them through the rings, and carried the ark, on foot, balancing the staves on their shoulders on either side of the ark. The idea was that they, as human beings, would never come in contact with the throne of God. Keep in mind that the ark was designed to manifest God’s holiness. Numbers 4:15 explicitly says:

…the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them; but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die.

Jonathan Edwards has a sermon about this; he says “the sin of Uzzah was the sin of arrogance.”  It looked to me like a heroic act of humility.  But herein was the arrogance; Uzzah assumed that contact with the mud would be a greater sacrilege than contact with the hand of a human being.  What is mud?  Earth and water.  There is nothing innately sinful about dirt. If the ark touches the ground, it’s not going to do any damage.  What desecrates the throne of God is not the touch of earth; it’s the touch of man.  There is sin in the hand of Uzzah.  So he was executed for profaning the most holy object in Israel. 

Now please turn to Leviticus 10:1-2:

Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. ² So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.  

 Whatever made it profane, it did not please God. These young priests were simply involved in experimental worship.  Maybe to try to change the liturgy that God had ordained, in such a way that it would be more appealing to the congregation. They missed the fundamental principle of worship: worship is to be determined not by what is pleasing to us, but what is pleasing to God.  (Ed. Note:  There was applause for Dr. Sproule here; if they’re thinking like me, they’re thinking about contemporary music, always a sore spot lately). 

God never counts noses in the Old Testament, to decide what was the “best” form of worship; convenience to the crowd is not necessary. 

The most successful worship service ever recorded, which drew more people in attendance, with singing with so much gusto that when their voices were heard miles away, on a mountain, one of the men who heard the noise of this thought a war had broken out.  He thought the noise that he heard was the tumult that accompanies battle. But when they took time to investigate it, it was not a war, it was a worship service--for the golden calf!

Nothing attracts greater crowds than the practices of idolatry.

But these young fellows were just trying to improve on the worship of Israel; they offered a new way of sacrifice. And as soon as they did it, a fire came out and consumed them to a crisp. 

I want to ask you this question: What do you suppose Aaron’s response to this was?  I mean, he’s a father; “God, what are You doing? These are my sons.  All they did was tinker a little bit.”  And he speaks to Moses.  Moses said to him, as it were: “Do you remember what the Lord said at your consecration?” We can find it in Lev. 10:3:

By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy, and before all the people, I must be glorified.

But instead of regarding God as holy, Nadab and Abihu came in profanity. Do you realize how the Lord God Omnipotent considers our profane worship?  When we dare to come into His presence without considering Him as holy?  And without seeing our primary responsibility in our celebration of worship is displaying before the whole congregation, the glory of God.

What does it say that Aaron did when Moses gave him this reminder?  In typical masterful Biblical understatement; the verse says, “So Aaron held his peace.”  There was nothing else for Aaron to do, no room for debate. “I am the Lord, there is none other; and I will be regarded as holy by anyone who comes near to Me.”    The story goes on and Moses calls others to:

…come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.

This seems that God is being gracious now, and we assume they will get a proper burial.  No, uh-uh.  Verses 5-7:

So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said.  ⁶ And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, “Do not uncover your heads nor rend your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the people. But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord has kindled. ⁷ You shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.” And they did according to the word of Moses.

You see what He is saying through Moses?  “I don’t even want their bodies in the camp.  And I don’t want anybody rending their garments and lamenting in dust and ashes.  I don’t want a wake for these guys. They’re polluting My sanctuary. I want their bodies, and anything associated with them, carried outside the camp—because they have profaned Me with their false worship.”

You know, the most famous sermon ever preached in America, was preached in the 18^th century in Connecticut by Jonathan Edwards.  You all know the name of that sermon:  Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  I had to read that for the first time in college, where it was required reading as an example of “sadistic preaching.”  And I thought, even then, if Jonathan Edwards were sadistic, which he wasn’t, and if he believed in hell, which he did, a sadistic preacher would do everything in his power, gleefully, to tell his congregation that there was no such place.  And secretly enjoy the inevitability of their being plunged into it.  Edwards was no sadist; he loved God, and he loved His people—and he cared about their ultimate destination. Almost everybody in America has heard the title of the sermon; almost no one is aware of the text for that sermon—from Deuteronomy 32:35:

….their foot shall slip in due time

Edwards’ sermon has also been used in classrooms because of its graphic imagery of the wrath of God.  God is poised as a dam building up water until it is ready to break, to pour forth upon mankind; as a man with a bow drawn, aimed and ready to let go and pierce the heart of a sinner, all in discomforting detail.  But the only thing that keeps you from falling into hell is the hand of God.  So the sermon is on the wrath of God, but also on His grace of His stayed hand. 

That sermon wouldn’t scare anybody in our culture or in our churches, because nobody believes in hell anymore.  And the greatest lie, the most monstrous lie, the most brazen lie of all, is the lie that people tell themselves, “I have nothing to worry about from the wrath of God.  My god is a god of love.”  Well, your god is an idol—and no God at all.

Edwards challenged his congregation, and said, “Can you give me any reason, since you got out bed this morning, why you haven’t fallen into hell?”  Apart from the Gospel, dear friends, I couldn’t answer that question.  I couldn’t give any reason why I’m alive this afternoon, and not in hell—apart from Christ. 

My favorite illustration of how calloused we typically become, goes back to the second year of my teaching career, when I was given the assignment of teaching 250 college freshmen a course in the introduction to the Old Testament.  They were given three short term papers, due September 30, October 30, and November 30.  On September 30, 25 of them fearfully admitted to not having their paper.  They timidly added their excuse.  I graciously gave them 3 extra days, and they were most appreciative.  On October 30, 50 of them did not have their papers.  They explained calmly that it was mid-term, homecoming games, etc.  I graciously again gave them 3 extra days.  They started to sing, spontaneously, 250 voices, “We love you Prof Sproul, oh yes we do…” And I was the most popular professor on that campus—until November 30. This time, 150 students came in without their papers.  And I watched them walk in as cool and as casual as they could be, and I saw one of them, a Marine veteran, and I said, “Johnson—where’s your paper?”  He said, “Hey, HEY.” (Happy Days TV.) “Don’t worry about it, prof, I’ll have it for you in a couple days.”  I picked up the most dreadful object in a freshman’s memory, a little black book, opened it up, and said, “Johnson, you don’t have your term paper?”  He said, “No.”  I said “F.” “Nicholson, where’s your term paper?”  “Don’t have it.”  “F.”  And then, out of the midst of this crowd, somebody shouted what you know they would shout, “THAT’S NOT FAIR.”  I turned around, “Fitzgerald, was that you who said that?”  He said, “Yeah. Not fair.  Right.”  “Weren’t you late last month with your paper?”  He said “yeah.”  I said “Fitzgerald, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. If it’s justice you want, it’s justice you will get.”  And I went back, and changed his grade from October to an F. There was this gasp in the room.  And I said, “Who else wants justice?” I didn’t get any takers. It reminded me of a song similar to My Fair Lady: “I’ve grown accustomed to his grace.” What had happened was, the first time they were late, they were amazed by grace.  The second time, they were no longer surprised, they assumed it.  By the third time, they Demanded it.  They believed grace was an inalienable right, an entitlement to which they all deserved.

I took that occasion to explain to my class, “You know what you have done when you said “that’s not fair?”  You have confused justice and grace. The minute you think that anybody owes you grace, a bell should go off in your head to remind you that you’re no longer thinking about grace—because grace, by definition, is something you don’t deserve, it’s something you can’t possibly deserve. 

You, my friends, have no merit before God—except demerit. And if God should ever, ever, treat you justly, outside of Christ, you will perish. And your foot will slip in due time. 

Any time there is a group this large, assembled, I don’t care for what reason, even a church service, I know that there are people in this room, right now, who are that far from hell (holding his fingers close together). And they’re assuming they’re not going to go there. But if there is a God, and there is, and if He is holy, and He is, and if He is just, and He is, He could not possibly be without wrath. And if you have not been reconciled through the blood of His Son, the only thing you have to look forward to—is His wrath.  Which is a divine wrath. Which is a furious wrath. And it is an eternal wrath. Because God must be regarded as holy by anyone who comes near Him. 

So, my beloved, if you would come into the presence of God, consider the nature of the God you are approaching—that you may come covered by the righteousness of Christ.

Satan's Attempts to Destroy Christ's Lineage and Then Christ Himself

What say we look at certain world events from another dimension, namely a spiritual dimension?  I’m not Frank Peretti, but I guarantee, it will add meaning to what’s happening in the world, and will go far to explaining what we’re on earth for.  So here we go:  In Genesis 3:15, God, in effect, threw down the gauntlet at Satan when He said to him:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”

To explain, Satan and Eve’s descendants would be enemies,   God did not desire to make enemies, but Satan had already declared such in his desire to be equal with God (Isaiah 14:12-17). Further, “your (Satan’s) seed” refers to those who refuse to obey God and refuse to believe in His Son, Jesus the Christ.  In “her Seed,” the capital letter means Jesus, a descendant of Eve.  And, I might add, you could include all those who are followers of Jesus and have made Him Lord of their lives.  So, in short, Satan is the enemy of the Jews, who carried the Messianic lineage (as you will see below) and the enemy of true Christians, and he wants nothing more than to destroy us, our lives and reputation, and everything spiritual in us. 

God tells Satan that His Son will “bruise (Satan’s) head,” a mortal wound.  Satan will only “bruise (Jesus’) heel, a non-vital wound.   

So God has thrown down the gauntlet.  Who will win, God or Satan?

Satan, before killing Christ by the hand of his own followers (who were, by the way, both Jew and Gentile), tried numerous times in history to destroy His ascendants. If he could do that, Christ would never have been born.  That seems “smart.”  So let’s tell the story about his various efforts to kill.

Attempt #1:  Eve hoped that her first child would be God’s Seed and the Deliverer from her sin.  That child was Cain.  But Cain ignored God’s instructions on how to do the atonement offering, and became a murderer of Abel, Eve’s second son.  Now she hoped her third child would accomplish her desire for a Deliverer—Seth.  Well, Seth stayed righteous and Christ was indeed descended from him. So Satan failed on Attempt #1, since the lineage continued despite the small family that he brought evil into. 

Attempt #2:  Many of Satan’s followers, also known as fallen angels, came to earth and married earth women, bearing babies that grew up to be “mighty men” and “men of renown.”  Grown up, they were called Nephilim (Gen.6:1-4).  They were also wicked; and from other appearances in Scripture, they were super-tall and, obviously, very strong.  Why not?  They were half mortal, and half immortal (fallen angels, their fathers, retained their immortality).  (I have a couple blogs on this; refer to those with DNA in the title). The Nephilim dominated, and completely corrupted the people of Noah’s day, both morally and physically (by deviant DNA mixing).  Anyway, Satan figured, if he could corrupt the earth like this, then no one would be righteous or physically pure to bear a pure Seed. 

But he was defeated because Noah and his immediate family kept clean, and he made an ark as God had directed, and everyone else was destroyed, leaving Noah, his wife, and immediate family to start all over.  Satan failed on Attempt #2. 

Attempt #3:  God picked the Hebrew people to be His people, beginning with Abraham.  Their job was to carry His Scripture, and to worship Him as the only God---in the midst of a totally corrupt world that didn’t know Him.  (The Jews didn’t do a bang-up job on God’s instructions, in the long run).  To avert death by a record 7-year famine, the Hebrews moved to Egypt to farm the best land there.  They were allowed to do this because Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph was in good with the Pharaoh (by revealing to him a vision about the upcoming famine so he could prepare for it).  So God made sure that His Jewish family was accepted in Egypt, which had saved grain, so they didn’t starve in the great famine.  So Satan’s attempt at starving them out failed in Attempt #3. 

Attempt #4: Later Pharaohs made the Jews slaves for 400 years.  One evil Pharaoh got up one morning and said, “These Jewish slaves are becoming more populous than we Egyptians, and that’s a danger; let’s kill every baby boy at birth and stop their population growth.”  He gave the order—unfortunately, he stupidly did it to the midwives, but they were mostly Hebrews!  (I presume he assumed that their fear of him would even make them commit infanticide).  However, even at risk of their own lives, they refused to kill the newborn Hebrew boys.  That not only saved the Hebrew population, but it saved little Moses, who later became a great deliverer himself.  Attempt #4 failed.  You would think that Satan would have gotten the message by now.  When God decides to do something, it gets done—even through sinful men.  You gotta give credit to the Hebrew midwives.  We need some of them today, in our abortion clinics.

Attempt #5: Moses, through God, performed miracles of destruction on the country of Egypt.  But Pharaoh was so stubborn that he held on through each disaster; it finally took the death of his firstborn to release the Jews.  Early in their exodus, the Pharaoh and his army went after them again, only to be wiped out by the closing Red Sea—another miracle by God.  So the Jews were not only saved from destruction by Pharaoh’s army, but they were Free.  Attempt #5 failed.    

Attempt #6: Let’s back up in time a bit. Please note two verses God had told Abraham. First, Genesis 12:1-3:

Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. ² I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Secondly, God told Abraham, in Genesis 15:13-14:

Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. ¹⁴ And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 

Satan, we can assume, listened in to these conversations—and thus knew, upon watching Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s travels, that God had chosen the land of Canaan as His land for His people.  (Important side note:  Satan does not have God’s powers.  He can only be in one place at a time, and cannot read minds.  But he has lots of demon-followers in lots of places who help him that way, and he can guess thoughts by our facial emotions, and what we say.  And, I would imagine, he has various ways of putting sinful thoughts in our head—like he did with Pharaoh on infanticide).  Putting these two verses together, Satan figured that the Hebrews won’t be in Canaan, God’s choice for their living space, for at least 400 years; they would be elsewhere (in Egypt) instead.  He also hoped that Israel (since they were a nation now) would have to conquer the various tribes of Canaan to secure the land.  Thus, Satan comes up with Attempt #6:  stop the Israelis from entering God’s chosen land, Canaan.  If he could do that, they would wander to different places and their nation would be assimilated and fizzle out.  So he concocted up another sexual use for his fallen angels.  You, the reader, may roll your eyes and say, “come on, how do I keep coming up with these wild stories?”  Well, again, read my blogs.  And, again, I have Biblical proof. Let’s read Genesis 6:4, this time in the NIV version:

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

 

As we saw before, the Nephilim were the deviant DNA children of the fallen angel fathers, who was immortal, and the mortal earth mother.  But note the underlined phrase “and also afterward.”  Every phrase in Scripture has a reason to exist in God’s Word, and this one says that we would get more Nephilim even after they were drowned in the Flood in Noah’s day.  In other words, the fallen angels came down again, proved sexually attractive to the females again, and we got more Nephilim.  But this time, men did not live 800 or 900 years like in Noah’s day.  Their lives were short, like ours. So the deviant DNA can’t be spread as fast.  So Satan concentrated his efforts on spawning to a limited area—namely, of course, Canaan. These giants hopefully would scare the Israelis away, and they couldn’t stay in “God’s chosen land.” So he picked several tribes in Canaan, sent his fallen angels there, and they became populated by the evil Nephilim.  Scripture backs this idea up; it indicates giants existed in:  the Philistines, the Anakim, the  Rephaim, the Zamzumim, the Emim, and the Amorites. All in Canaan, of course.  (Check them out in Numbers 13:32; Deut 2:10,11,20,21; Deut 3:11,13).  Deuteronomy provides more detail on Og, king of Bashon, whose bed was 15 feet long and 6-1/2 feet wide.   And of course we have Goliath, killed by David, several hundred years later, who probably was 9 feet tall.

Satan almost got what he wanted; the nation of Israel, freed from Pharaoh after 400 years, went north, and approached the land of Canaan.  Moses sent out spies to see the lay of the land.  They brought back wonderful food, but their knees were shaking.  As they reported in Numbers 13:32-33:

The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.

A bit of hyperbole, there, about the size comparison—but you get the picture; these were giants—again. So the Israelis voted to NOT go in.  God was so disappointed in how they wouldn’t depend on Him for deliverance that He made them wander through the desert area for another 38 years, until everyone who voted dropped dead.  Now all that were left were the kids in the earlier days, now grown up.  But these “kids” were not dummies; they realized  that they had miracles (their shoes never wore out, they always found water, they had free food dropped on them 6 days a week), and they realized that their non-believing parents paid the ultimate price for disobedience; and finally, walking the desert every day made them hardened, so they could be soldiers with endurance. Plus, I would imagine, they would do anything to stop wandering drudgingly through the desert.  So, with Joshua in command (Moses died), this time they voted to go in and fight.  God built up Joshua’s courage by appearing to him as well.  This time they cleared out most of these corrupt and sometimes giant people (details on the Canaanite idolatries are too disgusting to explain here).  The key is the phrase “most of.”  Goliath is an example of how there were some still around that Joshua couldn’t get to.  In any event, Satan’s effort to stop Israel from moving to the land of God’s calling failed.  Attempt #6:  FAIL. Satan is now 0-6.

Attempt #7:  This attempt was Satan’s efforts to kill David and his descendants.  This was because Satan figured out that the Messiah would be in David’s line.  How did he deduce that?  Satan saw how King Saul disappointed God by not following His instructions; and after David’s bravery and boasting about God’s power preceding his defeat of Goliath, Satan figured that David was next on the throne, and thus he wanted to kill David. (Scripture did not express the honor of David’s lineage until later, but Satan figured it out before then).  So Satan fills Saul’s mind with envy and hatred of David to an obsessive decree.  Saul personally went hunting to kill David day and night.  And there are many verses that proves that Saul was moved by demonic forces.  Earlier, while David tried to play music to soothe Saul’s violent temper tantrums, Saul with no reason threw a spear at David.  Another example was Saul sought out a medium, expressly forbidden by God. 

But David continued to prove his faith in God.  He was egged on by his military to kill Saul when he had many lucky opportunities, but he remained righteous.  If he had murdered Saul, he would have possibly been an unfit candidate for the Messiah’s line, which would have served Satan well.  (Of course, after he became king, he was a conspirator to murder, but sincerely repented—which is tenderly recorded in Psalm 51. God’s wonderful grace then forgave him.) 

When David died, Satan also did everything he could to tempt David’s descendants into evil, hoping to break the lineage to the Messiah that way.  Solomon was David’s son.  Solomon’s many wives seduced him into idolatry.  Solomon spent government money lavishly to build palaces and a glorious temple, burnished with alarming amounts of gold and precious stones.  Thus he taxed his people heavily.  When Solomon died, his own son was callous about the need of the common people to reduce the tax, and the kingdom was split into the north, still called Israel, and south, called Judah. This was a real threat to their continued existence, since a divided nation is weaker and will be attacked by enemies. The following generations proved to be a continuing downdraft of morals and corruptions, of idolatry and religious sexual fornication.  They abandoned God and followed the pagan religions around them. 

Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat (and son-in-law of Ahab and Jezebel), 130 years after David, killed all of his six brothers.  This left a tenuous line in the lineage of David to the Christ, the Messiah, since it now all resided on Jehoram.   In fact, the Philistines and Arabians attacked him and killed all of his family except one son, Jehoahaz, also named Ahaziah.  Again, almost a snuffing out of the Messianic lineage.  Yet another wild story of carnage awaits.  Athaliah, wife of Jehoram and daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, was the queen mother for Jehoahaz/Ahaziah. But when Jehoahaz visited Israel, he was killed by Jehu.  Jehu killed all of Ahab and Jezebel’s family in Israel (the northern kingdom), and Athaliah ascended the throne in Judah (the southern kingdom). Then she kills any who had even the slightest chance of claiming the throne (including what remained of her own family), but she missed one person—Jehoash, her grandson, who was one year old.  Thus the Messianic line was held by one thin solitary thread. When she heard of her surviving grandson, she attempted to move on him, but she was executed.  Jehoash began his reign at age 8, and reigned righteously for 40 years.  Whew.  Unfortunately, the bloodshed still went on, but none of it later was as great a threat to the Messianic line.  God let Satan get close, but close is not enough.  It wasn’t long after this that the country of Judah fell to the Babylonians, and were carried away to captivity. The northern tribes had already fallen at the hands of the Assyrians.  But the Jewish people didn’t become assimilated.  Jewish scribes kept the faith, and continued to record genealogical records.  Thus Luke and Matthew show the Messianic line for Mary and Joseph, right through the “silent years,” the 400 years between the end of the kingdom of Judah until the birth of Jesus.  This should have proven to everyone that Jesus had the proper line in claiming to be the Messiah, but that didn’t stop some of them from calling Him a bastard and wanting to kill Him.

Attempt #8 Perhaps the most entertaining event in the Bible is the book of Esther.  It is short, and it is wonderful reading. It’s around 500 BC.  Romance (well, as far as they knew, romance) wins, pride loses.  I only have enough space to give you an incomplete Cliff notes.  After Persia defeated Babylonia, King Ahasuerus had a beauty contest and picked a new wife, Esther.  Unbeknownst to him, she was Jewish.  But one of the king’s servants, Haman, hated her cousin Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow to acknowledge his greatness in possessing his high office.  Haman was infuriated at this slight; he resolved to not only kill Mordecai, but all Jews in Persia, which was most of the known world at the time. This would again be another attempt to snuff out the Messianic lineage.  Satan may have given him the idea that it wasn’t enough just to kill Mordecai, but all Jews. (It would not be unusual, since he was from the Amalekite race, enemies of Jews). Through false witness to his king, he got the king’s signet ring to carry out his genocide.  He picked a day—soon.  He was willing to pay a lot of money to those who would do the killing—of every Jewish man, woman, and every child.  A grisly business.  An additional motivation toward getting the help of the Persians in the killing was the fact that whoever killed a Jew would get his land.  Haman was efficient in giving notice to every province in the vast kingdom.  But Esther heard of the plot through her maids, and Mordecai notified her that she would have to act fast to somehow persuade the king to change his mind.  They all knew that Haman was behind it.  There was one unfortunate detail of Persian law—once the king makes a law, it cannot be revoked.   Satan had made a cunning move, and it looked like the Jewish people would all be dead soon. 

But God knew this ahead of time, and made His own chess moves.  God is always one step ahead.  Why not?  He is the master of the dimension of time.  He knows the entire history of everyone on earth ahead of time.  I can imagine all the future videoclips He could see at the same time.    

Esther, I suspect with God’s help, made a brilliant plan.  And in the end, she, with great tears explained it all to Ahasuerus and appealed to the king’s mercy (we all know how women are). Haman made some wrong moves and was hung, Mordecai got the king’s signet ring, and while the king couldn’t change the law, he provided another law that allowed Jews to kill their enemies first!  The Jews were not only honored, but many people changed their religion to worshiping Jehovah.  This happened in the Persian kingdom, which is Iran today.  Can you imagine today’s Iranians giving Jews the right to kill their enemies in Iran and its allies?  For sure, this whole thing was a rarity for the Jews.  God wins, Satan loses. 

Attempt #9 and following show Satan’s all-out attempt to kill Jesus, whom he knew was the Messiah from prophecies about His birthplace (Micah 5:2), and by a visit by wise men underneath a supernatural star. 

We won’t count as an Attempt how Joseph, when he heard of Mary’s pregnancy, was on the verge of divorcing her as betrothed.  Without such an important element of a man standing up to be a father, the scandal of irresponsible fornication and baby-production would have been much greater.  That would have meant that Jesus would probably have been banned from speaking at any synagogue in the land. His message would never have gone out. In any event, an angel told Joseph in a dream that Mary was still a virgin, and bore a child through the Holy Spirit.  Joseph evidently believed it—so he was definitely the right man for the job of stepfather. 

Neither are we going to start with Caesar, who had the brilliant idea that everyone had to be registered in their original home province.  So Joseph and a very pregnant Mary had to travel over bumpy roads on horseback.  This endangered her; a too-early, or even, stillbirth could have resulted.  No, let’s start Attempt #9 with Herod, who was in a lather about the wise men appearing out of the East and asking for the location of the newborn King of the Jews.  Two more dreams were necessary from God, but the wise men never told Herod they had found the Messiah, and Joseph was warned to escape.  So Herod’s cruel effort to kill every child age 2 and under in the Bethlehem area did not produce the desired effect. Satan’s Attempt #9:  FAIL.

Attempt #10 was at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  John the Baptist had given Jesus approval, there was a miracle of wine at Cana, and Jesus was brilliant in initial appearances speaking at synagogues.  But that was it to that point, so He had barely got going.  But Jesus made the “mistake” of informing the synagogue public that ancient prophets spent some time being kinder to Gentiles rather than Jews (Luke 4).  The xenophobic Jews got a demonic gang urge, and almost threw Him off a cliff.  God suddenly engineered a miracle, because it simply says, without explanation, that “passing through the midst of them, He went His way.”  It was also a fact  that Scripture records other instances of men’s desire to kill Him before the mock trial that finally did it.  But Jesus was smart enough to have lots of loving followers around Him during the day, and slip away into remote locations at night. The only way they got to Him was the betrayal of Judas.

Attempt #11 This was Satan’s attempt to drown the Messiah in a huge sea storm on the sea of Galilee, which was notorious for that kind of activity.  But this storm was unusually dangerous and could have been lethal.  Why do I think that Satan was behind this?  Because in Luke 8:24, and Mark 4:39, Jesus “rebuked” the wind and raging water.  The word “rebuke” is used in Scripture for deliverance from demons (Matthew 17:18, for instance).  Yes, Satan can figure out how to have his demons make a storm.  But, Jesus can figure out the source, and deliver us from the weather. 

Attempt #12 Satan figured he had Jesus’ number at the Crucifixion.  Even though the witnesses against Him were false, even though Pilate and his wife did everything they could to release Jesus, the Jewish crowd were in a demonic paroxysm to see Jesus dead.  They even preferred to see a murderer released instead of Jesus.  They even cursed themselves, saying (Matthew 27:25) “his blood be on us, and on our children.”  God, in total disgust, rejected these people, formerly the “apple of His eye.” Jesus warned them several times about this. God’s judgment came down 40 years later.  Under a vicious general Titus, over a million of the Jews were slaughtered in a raid on Jerusalem.  The temple was completely torn down, as Jesus had prophesied.  But Satan was looking only at Jesus; he actually figured that the Crucifixion would do the job; Jesus would stay dead.  But in the greatest triumph of history, Jesus was resurrected.  Now His Gospel of freedom from sin and resurrection for His followers still abides in a minority everywhere in the world. 

Attempt #13 is probably future.  God prophesied, through an allegory in Revelation 12, Satan’s attempt to devour Christ (the Child in Revelation 12;  Satan is the dragon).  In Revelation 12:13, Satan is attacking “the woman,” probably Israel.  In other Scripture we find that he is attempting a giant war against Christ and His followers at Har Megiddo, also called Armageddon (Revelation 16:13-16), which failed.  But no one can be certain about the future, so I am deliberately sketchy about details.  All I know is that Satan is given one last chance, in some probable future date, as implied in Revelation 12:12, to do his destructive work.  It may come during our lifetimes, it may not.  But it will be a rousing success of deception, since the earth comes under one world ruler and one religion, and most people will actually worship an antichrist under Satan’s control!  Many nominal Christians will be fooled, as Matthew 24:24 says about that future day:

 ….false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.          

Jesus even began His Olivet Discourse on future events by warning His followers about deception (Matthew 24:4).  He also warned His followers to stay alert and looking for Him, not to be caught up in the ways of the world, which could destroy us. Yes, it is true that Satan looks like a Cleveland Brown, going 0-13, as we showed above, but he is wily and is successful on getting the majority of people to be captured and hell-bound.  Jesus confirms that in Matthew 7:13-14:

 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. ¹⁴ Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it

My final word of warning is from II Corinthians 11:13-15:

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. ¹⁵ Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

Christians, beware!  Do not fall for great deception.

Acknowledgement:  Chuck Missler, a great man of God, who is sorely missed by his passing.