Modern Evangelism Is Missing a Vital Link

 A well-known evangelist, Ray Comfort, estimates that 80-90%, conservatively, of decisions for Christ in modern evangelism will thereafter lose their witness and not even attend church consistently.  He cites a detailed study of the 294,000 who “got saved” in a one-year crusade effort by a major denomination, Harvest, in 1991. They had 11,500 churches keeping close records.  (PS: Evangelism sweeps don't usually do this).  Only 14,000 of the 294,000 still attended church, only a couple years later. That’s a 95% loss rate.

He also studied the works of famous evangelists of the past—such as Wesley, Whitfield, Moody, Spurgeon, and Finney. Along with New Testament evangelists, Paul, Peter, Steven, and Timothy.  Their writings and sermon notes suggested a much higher number of people hanging on to their conversion.  Why has this loss rate gone stratospheric, he wondered?  One of the things he noticed was that in those days, the preaching by these great men would begin with how people have broken God’s Laws.  Then, after that was covered thoroughly in the sermon, the Good News was taught. This principle of sermon order (bad news, then good news) has faded away, particularly starting in the early 1900s.  Nowadays, preachers--and seminary professors-- consider that the “You Have Broken the Law" sermon starter is just too negative, and have shied away from it.  Modern evangelistic theory (taught in Christian colleges) assumes that most people feel they are not worthy to be with God, so we have to emphasize God’s grace and love right from the start, to make them feel wanted, then explaining what Christ did on our behalf. The Prodigal Son (Luke 15) was the classic example of a good sermon, as they teach how the father accepted his son, though he wasted the inheritance, and still smelled of pigs.

Mr. Comfort came to his conclusion:  the old ways were better.  What's more important, Scriptures seem to provide proof of his idea.  Psalm 19:7 says, in part:

The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul

Well, converting the soul is what we want in evangelism, right?  The Word lays it out plainly.  You present the Law.

Mr. Comfort gives us a parable.  Suppose you’re walking around, and someone pops up and says, “I’ve got good news for you!  Someone paid a $2500 fine on your behalf!”  Your reaction might be “What are you talking about?  That doesn’t make sense; I can’t think of what I did wrong for the fine, nor has anybody told me this.”  They are confused, not exactly in a grateful mood, right?  The person would be offended, actually--before they got around to thanking them, still confused.  BUT what if the following metaphor happened:  This person was clocked doing 55 mph in an area set aside for a blind children’s school nearby.  There were 10 clear warning signs stating that the speed limit was 15 mph.  What he did was extremely dangerous, negligent, and reckless, whether he knew about it or not, and a $2500 fine was appropriate and it was the law.  So this person was caught, and in court his ignorance of the law was brushed aside (that would never bring back the life of a child killed--besides, he had clear warning signs; he just never slowed down to read them).  He was told all the details of his illegality, and then told to pay the fine, and with agony he wondered whether he would have the money, how stupid he was to do that, how much his family would sacrifice their lifestyle—or even how he would tell them—when suddenly someone he didn’t even know stepped forward and paid it for him.  Now his reaction would be a definition of gratitude, right?  He might even want to make friends with this stranger, to see what motivated him to give so much so graciously.

As you can clearly see by the two parables, the second example--explaining the bad news, the Law he broke.  And then, with proper acceptance of that news,  giving him the Good News of One who has paid his debt, generates a much more positive response.  Well, that’s the principle they formerly used in preaching.  On the other hand, the other approach is what we have a great deal more of now.  Most people, hearing this more-recent approach, are offended—they don’t think they are bad sinners. (Which means they haven’t been taught about God, how He is perfect, and hates sin.) If I talk "grace-only" with a prospect, I pretty much can’t get away from insinuating that they need a do-over to gain assurance about their relationship with God, when they have usually deceived themselves into thinking they don’t think they need one—and they resent our suggestion—and our indirectness. Or, they consider the idea that they need salvation foolish.  As Scripture says in I Corinthians 1:18:

…the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing

Anyone “saved” by this method is more by emotionalism, since there is confusion about why they need to be saved and what the Good News really saves us from—but in the cold light of the days following, this emotionalism cools off to rejection more often than not.  Which is where the 80-90% falling away comes in.

Thus I need, in my preaching evangelism, to take the time to speak insightfully of the Ten Commandments and how Jesus took the concept of sin a step further (read the Sermon on the Mount)--sin is a violation in thought as well as deed.  Thinking about a woman lustfully, is as bad as having sex with her; or hating someone makes you guilty, not only murdering them--and then to also cover Jesus’ commandments in the Gospels—i.e., to show the prospect that he has truly offended a just God—then he hopefully becomes, as James says in 2:9: Convicted of the law, as a transgressor; then the Good News of Christ’s paying our debt will not be offensive or foolish…it will be the power of God unto salvation.

Let’s look at each function of presenting God’s Law. We’ll start with Romans 3:19:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 

Thus, one function of it is (1) to stop the mouth, presumably from excusing or rationalizing.  (She enjoyed sex as much as I did, and nobody was hurt.  Therefore it's not sin.  Wrong.  It disobeys God's law, therefore it IS sin).  We don’t need to hear much of the prospect’s wisdom, justifying himself and saying, “there are plenty of people who use everybody worse than me.” (He’s either deceived or just putting you off, really). We are the ones bearing the wonderful gift of good news, and need an opportunity to speak.
Secondly, Romans 3:20 says this:

...by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The prospect needs to learn about sin, since self-defense and self-deception are rampant today.  We cannot assume that his sin is in the forefront (or even in the back) of his memory.  I John 3:4 says:   sin is the transgression of the law.  It would seem obvious that a person needs to know the law intimately in order to know if he has transgressed it, or has sinned.  Romans 7:7 declares this more forcefully:  I would not have known sin except through the law. If you decide that the best course of action is to be ignorant of the law, that won't help.  You still transgressed it, and will pay the price if unsaved.

Thirdly, in Galatians 3:24, the Law is not only to build our knowledge of sin, but, very importantly….the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. 
What this means, is, the Law doesn’t really help us in reconciliation with God…it shows us that we are helpless.  It doesn’t justify us, it just leaves us guilty at the judgment seat. But with the Law, when we see our sin, as God sees it, we see how we have offended God, and if hell is even brought up (which it almost never is nowadays), we are, deservedly, destined for hell.  Then we seek Him for some method of  deliverance from such an end. How can I seek reconciliation with a righteous God? Christ is that key, as a good evangelist will point the way.

Modern evangelism abandoned the "old" principle of discussing the Law and how Christ saves us from wrath.  So a new method was sought:  it needed another reason to attract us to Christ. So they invented the term “life enhancement.”  Following Christ will benefit us.  We will have peace, love, joy, fulfillment, and lasting happiness. At this point, Mr. Comfort provides another useful allegory:
Two men are sitting in a plane.  The first is given a parachute, (the only one receiving the offer), and told that it will “improve his flight.”  He is skeptical and even thinking the flight attendant is wacko, as he knows that airlines only talk about "good times are ahead," but he puts it on—just as a trial.  But it weighs his shoulders, and gives him difficulty in sitting upright.  But he perseveres.  After a while, though, he notices that other passengers are laughing at him due to his unusual clothing accessory.  Feeling humiliated, he can’t stand it anymore, and he throws the parachute to the floor.  Disillusionment and bitterness fill his heart, because as far as he was concerned, he was told an outright lie.

The second man was given a parachute, BUT he was told a different reason, in alarming detail:  at any moment, without warning, a faulty flight could mean he would be jumping 25,000 feet off the plane. He takes it to heart: He doesn’t notice the discomfort of the parachute, because his mind is consumed with the thought of what would happen to him if he had to jump without it.  He develops a deep-rooted peace in his heart knowing that he shall escape a sure death no matter what happens.  He can deal with other passengers’ mockery—he knows that they need to do what he did.  He might even engage them in intense conversation about their need for this safety device.
You can see what we’re saying.  Under modern evangelism, this man-centered “improvement” approach is a guaranteed failure.  People will take on Christ as an experiment to see whether their life does improve.  But they eventually get what the Scripture promises to the saved--temptation, tribulation, and persecution.  They are humiliated by others, disillusioned about not seeing a rosy path develop for them. They take off the Lord Jesus, and are rightly embittered. They are now inoculated against evangelism in the future, and their latter end is worse than the first. Modern evangelism has promised them what God has not promised.  The opposite of their expectation occurs.  After all, God has every right to test us to see if we can really endure.  Modern evangelism does not ask a crucial question:  Are we able to drink of the cup that Jesus drank of?
We should take the second parachute approach, boldly telling every man, as Hebrews 9:27 says:

it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment

He must understand the horrific consequences of the judgment--hell. He must be educated on what breaking the Law means. He must be told to escape the wrath which is to come, when God judges the earth in righteousness. The issue is not one of happiness, but of righteousness.  Then he will flee to Christ, and experience true peace and joy—the fruits of salvation.  But don’t speak of peace and joy as a “draw card” for salvation, or sinners will respond with impure motives, lacking repentance.  The man correctly taught will have much more motivation to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  When bad times come, he doesn’t throw off Christ—because his reason for taking on Christ is not for rosy paths, but to save him from future wrath.  He has been re-taught to ignore man’s reasoning.  If anything, trials will drive the true believer closer to the Savior—life will be that much better in heaven, and he will be looking more for heaven when life on earth gets miserable.

Mr. Comfort then told of an evangelistic crusade he preached in Australia.  He preached of the Law, Hell, and wrath.  He told of how few people came forward, and how the atmosphere felt tense. He felt the usual disappointment in people’s deafness.  Perhaps he thought of Noah, “a just man, perfect in his generations...who walked with God” (Gen. 6:9), who despite being “a preacher of righteousness” (II Peter 2:5), never was able to save a single soul outside his family.  The Spirit lifted Mr. Comfort up, told him to simply carry on. Mr. Comfort confessed that this lack of results, over time in a cynical world, wears him down, and had pulled him, at one time period, unwittingly to preaching a man-centered Gospel—to get happier results. For that time he got lots of results—that was nice.  The original numbers of people “saved” are higher that way, and there is less tension.  People are happy to have Jesus take a turn at getting them out of the mess they’ve made of their lives. But--they are not clean from the wrath to come because we don’t tell them of the wrath to come.  That was a glaring omission in his message. In the end, people should be asking what David, what the Prodigal Son, and Joseph asked:  How could they sin against God? After all, He is also a God of wrath, and we can’t just ignore that—it’s one of His personality traits.  Real repentance is understanding that the great offense here is against God, not just “horizontal” repentance against your fellow man. Mr. Comfort calls this “horizontal only” approach “superficial and experimental.”  The prospect should be seeking something called “godly sorrow” to obtain true repentance, an important element in salvation.  As II Corinthians 7:10 says: …godly sorrow produces repentance.  In evangelism nowadays, we are missing discussing sin against God.

We have preached the cure without telling them of the disease.
AB Earle, who had 150,000 converts to his ministry in the mid-1800s, made the following quote:
I have found by long experience that the severest threatenings of the Law of God have a prominent place in leading men to Christ.  They must see themselves lost before they will cry for mercy; they will not escape danger until they see it.

Mr. Comfort has noticed that there are many people who have been “saved” several times, yet their lives don’t show change. They’re still fornicating, still blaspheming, and so on. What they’re likely doing is:  Using the grace of God for an occasion of the flesh. They sin, they might ask God to forgive them, they move on same as before. They don’t esteem the sacrifice and don’t understand how great the sin.  It means nothing to them to trample the blood of Christ underfoot. The problem is: They’ve never been convinced of the disease that they might appropriate the cure.

When you study the Word, you find that Biblical evangelism is always interpreted as restrictive, to people that are proud and grace to the humble.  Never do you see Jesus giving the gospel to proud, arrogant, self-righteous people.  With the Law, He breaks the heart and with the Gospel, He heals the broken heart.  God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. The proud and highly esteemed are an abomination to God (Luke 16:15).  Note who gets the good tidings in Isaiah 61:1.  The poor, the brokenhearted and the captives are those who are there spiritually:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound

Only the sick can appropriate a cure. In Luke 10:25-37, after being plainly asked "what shall I do to inherit eternal life?", Jesus gave the lawyer Law.  Why?  Because he was proud.  Note v. 29 for that in part of the story below:

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” ²⁷ So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” ²⁸ And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” ²⁹ But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  ³⁰ Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves…(the rest of the story is of the Good Samaritan, who helps a person in trouble when no one else would).

Jesus knew this Jewish lawyer didn’t like Samaritans.  Then the Master Debater came to the climaxing point:

³⁶ So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” ³⁷ And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

The lawyer had no response—he could see his own lack of love, compared to this generous Samaritan.  He could see that he was a Commandment-breaker.  The Law has done its job again—stopped his mouth, maybe convinced him of sin.

Note that a similar event happens when the rich young ruler visits Jesus.  We read of it in Luke 18:18-23, where Jesus shies away from an easy response:

Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁹ So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.²⁰ You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ ” ²¹ And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” ²² So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”²³ But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.

Again, Jesus did not begin with the Gospel to this person. (Today, as soon as he asks, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” we would engage him in a salvation prayer).  But Jesus sees a proud person underneath (Note v. 21), who was not ready for the Gospel.  So in verse 20 the young ruler gets the Law—the “horizontal” part-- and is still convinced that he has never sinned (an advantage that only Jesus can claim, really).  Then Jesus slyly points out his lack of the first commandment (Thou shall have no other gods before me) by showing him that his real god is his money.  Once again, no argument. His mouth was stopped.

In contrast, we see Nicodemus, in John 3.  While a leader of the Jews, he was humble of heart, acknowledging the deity of Jesus (verse 2).  He receives the Gospel, and perhaps the greatest verse in His Word, John 3:16.

Consider also Nathanael, in John 1:47-51.  In him was no deceit.  Since that trait is a tool of the proud, he does not have that negative quality.  Plus, he acknowledged the deity of Christ (v. 49).  Jesus gives him the honor of prophesying about Himself and His future coming.  Part of His glorious good news. This kinder approach goes for the Jews who gathered on the day of Pentecost, in Acts 2.  These were devout (a word which denotes humility) men, v. 5.  What did Peter preach to them?  Not the Law, but the Gospel.  (But he doesn’t hesitate to lay blame on them for His crucifixion, v. 36).

Think of two verses to the great hymn, “At Calvary:” Years I spent in vanity and pride, Caring not my Lord was crucified, Knowing not it was for me He died  On Calvary.
By God’s Word at last my sin I learned; then I trembled at the law I’d spurned Till my guilty soul imploring turned  To Calvary. May God bless you as you search for His ways of presenting His precious Words to the lost in your environment.  In the light of our first few paragraphs, remember the saying:  “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” There is a lot of insanity in evangelism these days. Acknowledgement:  Ray Comfort, “Hell’s Best Kept Secret,"   audio and book from Livingwaters.com.

Scripture Guru

 

I don’t normally do this, but this one is so good I could not resist. It comes under #sadguru; after seeing and hearing him, I believe that title. To the question, “When Jesus comes, will He come to the United States, too?  His answer:

In the United States of America, there is a segment of people who believe that next time when Jesus comes, He will come in the United States.  Last time He came in Jerusalem, and He said “Come, follow Me.”  But only 12 people (did).  Today, you’re celebrating Him as a great Being.  But only 12 people followed Him. Even in that, one of them freaked on Him.  But if He comes to the United States today, if He says “Come follow Me,” you have a bank loan, student loan, car loan, house loan, holiday home loan; you’re mortgaged for 45 years!  If Jesus says “Come follow Me,” nobody will be there, because everybody has to go to the bank.  So you have entangled yourself in such a way, even if the most significant things happen, you can’t change the direction of your life. If the greatest things came your way, you cannot change the direction of your life.  This is a slave’s life, isn’t it? A spider weaves a web, for other things to be caught.  But if you’re that kind of a spider, you build a web in which you’re caught.  You’re a stupid spider, isn’t it? And most human beings are in that condition.

Despite the odd orthodoxies, I believe this says a lot about our current lives.  We cannot build a relationship with Christ, or truly love Him, because our minds are consumed with wrestling with problems in our lives.  It’s possible that we may miss heaven because of this.  In the parable of the Sower, the sower plants seed in four different places.  Only one of them bears fruit and produces a crop (which is a requirement for salvation, see below).  One of the unsuccessful seeds lands on thorny ground.  We read it first in Matthew 13:7-8. The results are best expressed in Mark 4:18-19:

⁷ And some (seed) fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. ⁸ But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop… ⁹ He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”….¹⁸ Now the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, ¹⁹ and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. ²⁰ But these are the ones sown on good ground: those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

Salvation from hell is not a “one-time-you’re done” proposition. After initial salvation, you must abide in Christ, forming a day-to-day relationship and learning to better love Him, what makes Him happy, what makes Him disappointed, even angry. We’re not talking about just reading Daily Bread or reading a portion of Bible, and you’re off to work.  We meditate on His commands, confess our sins when we fall short of them, and actually apply them into our lives, wanting dearly to obey Him because He loved us enough to die for our wickedness and reconcile us to His Father so He will allow us to be with Him, a holy God. 

Lastly, read carefully John 15:1-6.  Jesus does not lie.  What He says, He will do. 

15 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³ You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

⁵ “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

 

 

 

Manhood and Womanhood

 

I’d like to summarize most of a great sermon by Dr. Voddie Baucham on “Manhood and Womanhood.”  It is a frequent sermon topic for him, and I have done another blog on this subject from another sermon.  But the Scriptural proof and the approach this sermon takes on this vital topic are well worth reading; he is uncovering false doctrine. If you truly believe in following God’s heart on this subject and doing His commands, this sermon and blog will give it to you straight.  The Church has erred on this subject badly, and it has cost us. Few pastors will preach on this.

He starts with Ephesians 5:22:

 Wives, submit to your own husbands

He stops reading.  Right there, Scripture and true Christians are already at war with Western culture.  Feminism is at war with the Gospel—and with traditional marriage. In the modern neo-Marxist culture, everything involving relations is seen through the lens of power—they see everything from an “oppressor-oppressed” paradigm. They see marriage that obeys Scripture, as the oppression of women.

Through this same short Scripture, we are also at war with same-sex marriage.  It says marriage is made up of husband and wife; a wife has a husband, not another wife.  Yet, this simple fact amounts to fighting words today. Also, the verse strongly suggests that there is something unique about manhood, and something unique about womanhood.  God made them male and female in His image, in the very first chapter of Genesis. His instruction to them is God’s earliest establishment of relationship, so it must be important. As Genesis 1:26 says:

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

That’s yet another battleground, as certain people attempt to mess with male and female by transgendering them.   But God does not make mistakes when He creates them male or female.  Playing God like this is corruption.

As you read on in Ephesians 5, it brings up another battleground between Scripture and culture:

 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. ²⁴ Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything… ²⁶ that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷ that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 

It is an offense to most folks when you bring up any idea that people should be made holy. Sinfulness? A need for salvation, or rescue from hell? A need for sanctification?  They are offended that you suggest that they need them.  It’s a third rail in regular conversation. They see the evening news, and the lowlifes.  “We’re better than that.” They are clueless about what Jesus was trying to say in Luke 18:9-14, blessing the repentant tax collector, not the self-righteous Pharisee.

To continue in Ephesians 5:

²⁸ So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself…. ³¹ “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother (wow, there are those binary terms again)….and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Another reason why this manhood/womanhood matters:  It refers to Christ and the Church, to the redemption that we find in God’s Gospel.  So we cannot abandon this ground.

Now he studies details.  Looking at the beginning of verse 22, “Wives, submit,” the Bible teaches us that there is order within the context of marriage.  Headship and submission. This is patriarchy.  That concept puts us at war with the culture that hates the patriarchy.  A definition here: Oxford defines it as a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line. But neo-Marxism, and even evangelical feminists, find subterfuge in this:  it is evil, they say.  Men having this power are oppressors. Patriarchy also unfortunately puts us at war with ourselves as a Church (PS:  We’re talking about Christ’s Body on earth, not just the Catholics).  Because the Church is divided.  Many in the Church hate to seem different, or disliked by the culture. So when they see the culture is moving opposite of literal Scripture, they become fearful, and back off Scripture, or twist Scripture, saying, “No, that conclusion you accuse us of is a misreading of Scripture. We are willing to change orthodoxy and be adaptable when it is needed. Only fundamentalists try to stick with the old ways; only they agree with patriarchy.”

Yes, they do twist Scripture.  One twist is based on Genesis 3:14ff, where God curses all the parties to the Fall.  He curses both Adam and Eve, and through them the entire race of humans.  Here is God’s curse on women, through Eve:

To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.

Woke “Christians” say that women allowing the male to rule, his headship, is a product of the Fall.  With her sin, she was ashamed and gave up any leadership to him. But, they say, when we find ourselves in Christ, women no longer need headship. Christ reverses the curse of Genesis 3:16—so they say.

Dr. Baucham’s response to ”the curse is reversed” position that twists Scripture so as to deliver women from the clutches of patriarchy, is, first, take another look at Genesis 3:16 (see above):  The first part of the curse is pain in childbearing, then it gets to patriarchy. Thinking of maternity wards everywhere, he asks, “Why do I feel like it still hurts, ladies?” With the cries of pain still ringing in our ears, it seems clear that the curse has not been reversed for the ladies, even with the first coming of Christ.

 Secondly, Adam had headship BEFORE the Fall, not as a result of the Fall, as they insist.  Plenty of Scriptural proof in Genesis 1 and 2: (a) the man was made before the woman; (b) the woman was made for the man; (c) the woman was brought to the man; (d) the woman was named by the man.

Another related twisting was actually done by the Council on Biblical Equality (CBE), supposedly a Christian theologian get-together. They begin their summary by saying, “Scripture is our authoritative guide for faith or practice.” Yay. But then they say, “Patriarchy is male dominance.”  (Note the bias in the word “dominance,” vs the Oxford definition above. Baucham disagrees, saying patriarchy is male leadership, headship—as Oxford says.)  The CBE continues, “patriarchy is not a Biblical ideal, but the result of sin.” They are speaking of Eve’s sin.  But that gave him power, which he almost always abuses. What results is, to quote the CBE, “men taking from females what God has given them.” The CBE assumes that Christian men cannot restrain their abuse, and will essentially always take from females.  Hard to believe that Christian theologians, as this CBE statement shows, can conclude the Holy Spirit is incapable of sanctifying men—they have a total lack of appreciation of God’s power of sanctification.

And, oh yes, their feeling that this was Eve’s sin causing God to react is disputed by Romans 5:12:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—

If you thought of the unbiased question, “Why was all the blame laid on him?  She sinned first.”  The answer is, as anyone in a hierarchy knows, those in headship bear the responsibility for anything that happens under their watch.  Thus, the sin is blamed on Adam; he was the head of the family, and the sin occurred under his watch—so it was his responsibility.  Baucham, having put holes in these twists of Scripture, now asks us, “Please don’t shy away from the word patriarchy; embrace it…if for no other reason, it just messes with them so much.”

Another twist-of-Scripture argument evangelical feminists use is based on the fact that the verb “submit” in Ephesians 5:22 is not there—it is done as a shorthand, and repeated elsewhere in Scripture.  But the opposition makes an assumption:  presumably, they argue, it was borrowed from v. 21.  So tying them together, they think, it goes like this:

²¹ submitting to one another in the fear of God. ²² Wives,…to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 

So, based on that v.21, their argument is, what you have is mutual submission in the missing space in v.22, not headship of one.  He submits to her, and, at other times, she submits to him.  Baucham’s response?  1) the verb in v. 21 is a military term.  But in the military, submission works in only one direction—so we’re still talking wives submitting to husbands only. (2) Verse 21 is the end of a paragraph; v. 22 is a new paragraph.  You cannot explain something in v. 22 looking backwards to a previous paragraph, since that could be a totally different context, for an explanation of what to assume about “submit.” In fact, starting with v. 22 as the lead in the new paragraph, we have the same theme of headship of the husband.  Look at v. 23:

²³ Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church

So we can properly assume the missing word in v22, in this paragraph, is “submit,” as in submit to the husband, not “mutually submit.” To prove that further, Dr. Baucham says that in the earlier paragraph that ends in vv 19-21, it is speaking about another topic; the evidences of a Spirit-filled life. Particularly operating in a church atmosphere. 

…be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ submitting to one another in the fear of God.

This paragraph has one theme: evidences of a Spirit-filled life, in opposition to how culture acts.  It includes: (1) singing and speaking psalms, hymns, creating spiritual songs—because you have “melody in your heart to the Lord;” (2) continuously thanking God for all things, especially Jesus; and (3) we are willing to submit to authorities in the church (elder reproaches, words of knowledge or prophecy, all discussed further elsewhere in Scripture)—this is in contrast to the world’s hierarchy in groups, which are  full of disloyalties, betrayal, directed gossip, and stepping on people trying to get to the top. 

Rev. Baucham summarizes that the reason for Scripture-twisting is, the culture hates male headship because they hate God’s headship overall. They are also in rebellion against Christ, who is also God.  So their desire is to blaspheme God—and, since the Family is structured to copy His image of Christ and the Church, they want to blaspheme that too. Scripture points out that Christ is head over us, His bride, the Church.  We submit to Him, knowing He loves us enough to even die for us.  God designed that the family copies that same image.  The husband is head over the wife, and the wife is willing to submit, knowing that the husband is to love her and will, if necessary, give his life to protect her.

 In reality, Ephesians 5 could not be clearer—we just do not want to accept God’s plan, because we would rather believe lies. (Exactly what Eve did in her sin.) 

Now He stresses that submission does not depreciate the wife’s value.  This is about order, which a family must have.  Trying to have both husband and wife giving orders is trouble:  anything with two heads is a monster. It leads to fights between them, and confusion among the kids.  Dr. Baucham uses a military illustration to explain value vs order:  Say a unit has a sergeant who has been on several tours of the area where the regiment will be working in.  And it has an officer, a lieutenant, wet behind the ears.  Who is more valuable?  The sergeant, since he has experience; let’s hope the lieutenant seeks his advice in critical times.  But according to order, who is the head?  The lieutenant.  The sergeant leaves the final decision to him, and when the order comes down, even if it’s wrong, he salutes and executes.  If he doesn’t obey, everything breaks down. The enemy has won already.  Like the sergeant, women are not less valuable than men. Dr. Baucham has traveled much, and insists that cultures impacted to obedience by the Gospel are the places with the freest, safest, most protected and cherished women on earth. 

But what is the usual story of women who truly free themselves (i.e., divorce) from their husbands and raise the kids without his headship?  Here’s the sobering fact: 

…median family income of married-couple families with children was about $101,560 in 2021, whereas single-mother counterparts (i.e., with children) had just $32,586 (U.S. Census Bureau 2021).

Then Dr. Baugham deals with another touchy subject.  Look at Ephesians 5:22 again:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

She is to submit, not because he is smarter, or even deserves it (think of our sergeant again); or even that the louse almost always  acts in his best interest (another Scripture for her on that; another blog).  She is to trust God to work on straightening, or punishing, him out.  God will honor her submission by giving her the break she needs; that’s what God does for obedience.  Nor can she use the statement that sounds spiritual, “The Lord told me I am to do this, and not what you want.”  The Lord will never tell her that; He cannot direct her to violate His Scriptural commands.

We are seeing in our culture the results of ignoring God, who wants the women to be protected as the weaker vessel (I Peter 3:7). Such as, the foolishness of a trans athlete who goes from middle of the pack as a man, then declares himself a woman, and “earns” a women’s national championship.  He actually stole the crown away from a woman.  Or a trans-MMA fighter who got into the ring with a woman and fractured her skull.  Or, a big one:  Women who actually go into combat as soldiers. Or, here’s one that we are likely unaware of:  consider that men have a distinctly shorter life, on average, than women, and suffer much more of mortal ailments that have been related to anxiety.  Quite possibly from the pressures at work? Trying to uphold the family as breadwinner?  So, what happens when women are persuaded to shoulder a workload (assumedly a big cultural “blessing” nowadays--More money to spend!) They also experience the same ailments, the same shorter lives. My theory is likely proven by how the mortality gap between the two genders is shrinking, a known fact, as more women went to work.  Plus, since women actually still have maternal instincts, when they make the mistake of going to work while some kids are smaller, or as adolescents, and need good parental guidance—but she cannot reliably do it.  And the moms feel guilty. (But that is another blog).  

You ought to read Ephesians 5:25-29 when you hear people say that our patriarchy, doing what God prescribes, is “detrimental to women,” as they accuse God’s system. Many respond by fear, or by burying or twisting the Scripture. Many of us  hang our heads and have no response, and are ashamed; we should not do this; it is God’s command, so have confidence that it will work out best. Never be ashamed of following God. Ask yourself:  Do these verses below look like husbands abuse women? As you can read, God wants him to  love her.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her… ²⁸ So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. ³⁰ For we are members of His body…

If we trust our loving God, His commands and structures will not steer us wrong.  Simply be obedient to His Word. We men do not suddenly convert into an abuser. With that kind of accusation, they are actually saying that Jesus is an abuser of His bride, the Church—would He do that to the Church that He loves and gave His life for?  This blasphemes Christ’s love for His bride. That’s why we can’t give them this ground. This is sinister and comes from the mind of Satan. 

Many of you are like Mr. Spock, taking actions based primarily on logic, and lean away from Scripture when it seems illogical comparing to what the culture does. Did you know that you are judging God?  Well, when it comes to Scripture, you gotta stop doing that. I was that type, and with my pubescent mind, there was good logic in frequently lying to my parents.  I was very rational, honest, yet I almost wiped out our savings and would have made my family penniless.  Our minds, compared with God’s mind, are nothing and perverted by sin. His mind is often not understandable:  it is immense, cosmic, and eternal. If we believe Him, we can just relax and do His will when decisions involve moral choices. And His commands for male and female are that sort. I’m not saying husbands will be perfect (based on my experience).  I’m not saying that if the husband is not moral we should divorce him.  (Divorce is for another blog).  Think of Abraham, when after so many years he had a child under a freewoman (Sarah), finally seeing God’s promise come true. Then God asked him to offer that son as a blood sacrifice. What?! There are a million logical reasons why he “should have” ignored that voice that told him to do that. It seemed crazy.  And think of Job, who clearly lived for following God and living a righteous life.  But he lost his kids and all his earthly fortune, and his health. Why not curse this illogical God? In all this, there is sometimes no explanation—but we cannot mistrust God out of our lives—that would mean hell for us, to be blunt but truthful.  God may do this to test us, to let us find out if we will follow Him no matter what.  Or God may do it to prove that His children are not guaranteed a life of roses when we become born again.  If He had that pleasant idea, some people would do a con job to become Christians, just to grab those benefits. But they never wanted a relationship with God. Then you have  churches full of unsaved people, so His bride’s reputation becomes filthy, not spotless and sanctified.

Well, given that school systems, laws, and certain government employees are going crazy, not logical at all, we need some harsh words to wake up and not fearful of becoming different; we do.  May God bless you receive these words, and to spread Truth around when you see it in Scripture. 

 

 

 

 

God's 5 Covenants Part 2

 Last week we covered the covenants with Noah and with Abraham.

The third covenant God made was with Moses, the Mosaic Covenant. This was given upon their exodus from Egyptian slavery, 430 years after Abraham.  This was about settling in, the occupation of the land. It was a covenant of (possible) security.  It was for their nation alone. He gave no less than 613 laws (10 of those were “big ones”) in the Old Testament, all the way from what kind of foods were acceptable, and sanitation facilities to keep out disease, what is sin and what are the retributions from man to man for sin, on family life, on deaths—as well as things I mentioned above. If they follow these laws, God would make the land fertile, and they would be happy and, well, could be rich. The downside is, the opposite was also true.  With disobedience came the curses, which God named as a part of His covenant:  pestilence, drought, no rain, killed and oppressed by conquerors, even finally exiled from His land. It took then a thousand years of fighting to get the land, but only 500 to lose it all. This was a reminder that “God keeps His promises”—both negative and positive.  Few Jews will admit that that curse was brought on by themselves. God is serious; He means what He says. One day He will divide the nations, like sheep from goats.

The Mosaic was a temporary covenant; it was only intended to operate until the Messiah came.  Those laws make us really aware of what sin is. Speaking of replacing the Mosaic with the New covenant, we don’t abolish all the old law. We’re saying that operating our economies on the “Jubilee” scale might still work on evening out the business cycle.  Or, the criminal justice system could learn something by applying the Mosaic system that emphasized restitution, instead of mostly punishment.

The fourth covenant was with David, and was about succession. The covenant had two parts:  God promised successors who would permanently sit on David’s throne—IF they obeyed Him.  Secondly, from David would come, not just a king of the Jews, but the King of kings, Jesus, who would sit on that throne forever.  That second part was unconditional.  Jesus will come to do that.

In Matthew and Luke, the genealogies of Jesus, from both mother and stepfather, were given and it was proven that Jesus on both sides came from David.

David had great faith in God’s promise; on his deathbed, he thanked God, even though he could not see any of it come true.  Again, he showed faith. A side note Pawson makes:  we were not made for democracy; that concept was nowhere in Scripture.  We are to exist in a kingdom, under a benign king—and what of a king that would lay down His life, who would have a special concern for the poor, someone who is not going to become power-hungry, or dazzled by wealth or fame—someone whose model is “service”—well, we found such a person—Jesus the Messiah.  There were several times when people wanted to make Him king during His first advent, but He rejected all that.  His purpose then was to show what love was, and to die for the ungodly.  His purpose on His second advent will be different.  It is to be a Judge and our King and Sovereign.  We will meet our Maker then. He will judge from David’s throne in the Millennium.

Now we come to the final, fifth covenant.  It is called the New, or Messianic covenant.  It is detailed in three places in the Old Testament. God was kind enough to provide all five covenants in the Old Testament—and all five can be found in the New. This New covenant was foretold by three prophets:   Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. One was from Jeremiah 31:31-34:

 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ³⁴ No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me…  For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

.

First, as the Jeremiah verses show, the New covenant would not be written on stone tablets, but on men’s minds and hearts.  This means they would have an inclination to avoid sin.  They wouldn’t have to be told for each thing how to live, but they would know the rule of love, and have a desire, not to seek for their own pleasure, but to live Christlike. Today, some churches in England, when each of the 10 Commandments are read, the congregation responds by saying, “Lord, incline our hearts to keep this law.”  The beauty of the New covenant is, the inclination is already there. We will want to obey God; we will want to do good.

Secondly, it shows us that there will be intimacy--all of us will know better what the Lord is feeling or thinking. There would be no need for teachers or classes on what God is like.

The third characteristic of the New covenant in Jeremiah is innocence. As opposed to guilt—which comes between you and someone you love. Are you hiding a secret from your love?  Not a good idea.  But innocence happens when you have confessed and have been forgiven; it is a wonderful feeling. Again, we will desire to have nothing between us and our husband, God.

Jesus improved the Mosaic commandments by warning us, and making us guilty for thinking about some things, not just acting upon them. If our mind hates someone, and if we think about lusting after someone of the opposite sex, for instance—we are guilty as well as killing or having sex with them. Also, sin is not just “avoiding what we shouldn’t do;” it’s also not doing what needs to be done. Jesus had some radical ideas in His commands: When mercy is called for, we must practice to act and be merciful—or else we miss heaven.  If we need to forgive someone, we must do it regularly—or we miss heaven.

It’s important to stress this overall fact:  This covenant is made active, in part, in each of us, by the sanctification of our souls, after we have truly seen Jesus for all He did, and have repented the wickedness of our nature, have confessed, been born again—and been baptized.

In the second set of Old Testament verses, from Isaiah, there is a seeming contradiction of character.  Isaiah 9:6ff, we learn that Jesus will be one who governs.  And He will be a:

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace

And what will be His kingdom like? Endless, peaceful, with Judgment and Justice--forever.

Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever.

But in Isaiah 53, He is prophesied to be the opposite, a suffering servant:

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all

The details of Isaiah 53 are an accurate prophecy of Jesus’ first advent—written nearly a thousand years before Jesus fulfilled it and died for our sin. The 9:6 verses will be fulfilled on His second advent.

The early Jews never thought that there would be two advents, and they could not put the two Isaiah statements together (they have even suggested two Messiahs coming), and never suspected Jesus to fulfill any of the Messiah’s requirements. They ignored the Servant and wished for a King out of a great desire for a ruler to deliver them from Roman oppression. Jesus  spoke of a kingdom, but a kingdom of the mind, and conquering our enemy, sin.

Their desire to kill Him was more likely due to the fact that He was smart—and snubbed the religious leaders of the day.  He also made blunt, outrageous statements pointing out their sin. They were so full of hate that they lied  to the Romans that He  wanted to grab a kingship (Remember, the Romans alone had the authority to kill Him).

Now to Ezekiel on the last Old Testament explanation of the New covenant.  He says, in Ezekiel 36:26:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Thus, He will soften our stubborn hearts.  He will also give His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was hidden until near the end of Christ’s ministry.  But Ezekiel wrote on it, even though he was writing hundreds of years before.

Rev. Pawson insists that we will never truly enjoy the New covenant until we receive the Holy Spirit. He believes in a separate filling of the Holy Spirit. He has excellent  proofs (unless he is lying and deceiving us.  But his sermons have always blessed my spirit, and I think God would warn me if there were any deceptions at all going on.)  So read what he says next. His testimony is powerful.

He doesn’t have time to debate this special baptism position theologically, but he does touch on one thing:  it was big enough that  the idea was an introduction to 3 of the 4 Gospel accounts with the words of John the Baptist.  Here is Matthew 1:8 for example:

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Being so baptized means, he says, “filled to overflowing”. How would you know when that occurs?  The mouth is the “overflow” chamber.  Jesus did say that whatever you are full of, will come out of your mouth. He told of two incidents. The first was a conversation he had with a missionary in a park, who was bewildered and sad, and said that he hadn’t really accomplished anything measurable in 10 years of evangelism and work. The missionary confessed that he didn’t think he was ever filled with the Holy Spirit--though he was clearly saved.  He asked for Rev. Pawson’s prayer, and as soon as he gave an inauspicious one, the man’s head shot upright and he shouted “Hallelujah!” in the loudest possible voice. Got everyone’s attention.  Fortunately, they were in a public park Rev. Pawson asked him if he had ever done that before, and the missionary said, “Never! I am a reserved Englishman.” But then he said, “Is that it?”  Pawson said, “I just heard you overflow. That’s it.”  Rev. Pawson says, within 24 hours the missionary had administered healing on two very sick people—which he had never done before.

Then he related an even better second story, this time involving him. When he was a senior pastor, a man at his church (named James) was the self-appointed leader of the opposition—repeatedly saying “we’ve tried that, it didn’t work”” or “we’ve never done that before, and we’re not going to try it now.”  He flattened every idea of progress that Rev. Pawson brought up.  Pawson regretted him greatly, since the church wasn’t together or moving ahead.  But Pawson always got 6 weeks respite every year, when he could actually pursue some ideas—because James had a weak chest and was laid up in the hospital every springtime (all his life) with hay fever miseries.  He was gasping for air at the worst of it.

Well, upon Pawson’s annual trek to see him, driving there he heard the words “James 5” ringing in his skull. He thought “That’s his name, but what’s the five?” Perhaps you might have guessed what the words refer to: in James 5, when you are sick, you should call for the elders, who administer oil, and you would be healed. Pawson thought, ”I don’t want to do that for James.”  He rationalized that he needed a break, and it would be good for the church. Then he made a startling confession: “In fact, I had never administered oil.”  Clearly he was a more worldly man then, since no one in his congregation even thought of him for any expectations of healing. Like many congregations, belief in the supernatural or miracles was most uncomfortable. Asking to administer oil showed belief in the supernatural, and that God would act now like He did in the Book of Acts.  Few people had enough faith for that. Well, what was the first thing our hospital patient said when Pawson came through the door? “What do you think about James 5?” Pawson said, “why do you ask?”  He responded “I want you to do it to me.” His lungs were full again, the doctors said he should stay there for another 3 weeks, but he was thinking about a business appointment he didn’t want to miss, only 3 days away. So he said, “Will you come and do that?” Pawson sought a way out, so he said “I’ll pray about it.” He did pray on the way home, but not heroically--He said, “Lord, please tell me why I shouldn’t do this?” But the heavens were brass, he said.

Two days later James’ wife finally called, and asked, “James wants to know if you’re coming to anoint him.” He said, “All right, I’ll come tonight.”  He bought a large container of olive oil and went. James was, as usual, gasping for breath, so he opened his Bible to James 5, and read it robotically. The first thing it said was, “Confess your sins one to another.”  So Pawson said, “James, I’ve never lied to you.”  (Rev. Pawson’s audience was really enjoying this.) James responded, “That’s mutual.”  So “we dealt with that part,” he said to his laughing audience. So when they got to the “anoint” part, he got his bottle of oil, took the top off, and poured it all over his head!

Guess what finally happened?  Absolutely nothing. He still lay there gasping.  So Pawson was muttering how James would act worse than ever as he slunk out the door.  In a final grasping for straws, he said “I’ll run you to the airport for your business trip tomorrow.” But he didn’t believe it. Nor did he sleep all night, and didn’t think of James come morning. But he got a phone call.  “Hello, James here; can you pick me up?”  Pawson, shocked, finally said “Are you all right, James? What happened?” He said in the middle of the night, it was as if two hands squeezed his chest.  He coughed up a bucketful of liquid from his lungs, and, lo and behold, he could breathe freely. Upon Pawson asking, he assured him the doctors gave him a pass.  “In fact,” he said, “I’ve even been to have my haircut.” The barber said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to wash your hair first. I’ve never seen such a greasy head in all my life.”

Three more miracles arose from that event.  First, he never had that problem again.  Second, James got filled with the Spirit; and third, he became Pawson’s best friend.

“But I’ve missed out the most important part: Just before I did that, I went to my church, knelt down, and tried to pray for James. Have you ever tried to pray for a sick man when you want him to stay sick? And then, to my astonishment,” he said, “I found myself praying with all my heart and soul—but not in English!” He looked at his watch, and figured it went on for an hour.  He’d never done that intensive prayer that long, before. “That’s when I understood Acts chapter two, and understood the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Now I find myself doing things I’ve never done before in my life. I could administer God’s healing, give people wisdom and knowledge, even prophesy.” That’s the New covenant. To go on being filled. The Spirit is softening our heart, conveying God’s forgiveness.  Thank God for His Spirit! Thank God for His covenants!

God's 5 Covenants

 

I’d like to summarize a wonderful set of sermons by David Pawson on the subject of “God’s Covenants.” I have to split it up into two weeks. These are God’s promises to us.

First, he distinguishes between covenant and contract. The contract is, when two parties each have something the other party wants, they strike up an agreement, usually on price, and complete the transaction.  In the case of the contractor to build a house, he has the skills, you have the money.  A covenant is different:  whereas a contract is bilateral, a covenant is unilateral. One person decides the terms, and may put themselves under an obligation to another or makes certain promises.  The other person cannot change the terms—the only choice they have is to believe and accept or ignore the covenant. 

Along this line, he mentioned marriage--we used to see it as a covenant, following Scripture.  To most people 75 years ago, marriage was permanent. The only way out, Scripturally, was by finding your partner was unfaithful.  And even then a divorce was still a scandal.  Now, marriage looks more like a contract—they negotiate who makes decisions, in what area. They may even, before the marriage, anticipate the division of assets in the event of a divorce.  So you’ve got one foot out the door even before you begin. God wants long-term commitment in marriages, like they formerly said in their vows, “for better or worse.” He knows what’s best, so our ignoring Him guarantees that divorces will multiply.  Explaining a definition of love will help; a Hebrew word translated “lovingkindness” should better be defined as “covenant love,” or “loyalty.” That also suggests sticking to a covenant.

An oddity is that many people, while ignoring covenants, try to make a contract with God.  “I will avoid this sin forever if You agree to let me win the lottery.”  But you can’t make a bargain with God.  That’s because you’ve got nothing that He wants.  In Psalm 50, God says

If I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you.  The silver and the gold are mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.

Everything you’ve got is His—even if we think it belongs to us. Really, how much can you take with you when you die—so who does it go back to in the end?   Even while alive, God could give something to you and later take it away, just like that.  Rev. Pawson muses that he has never heard a preacher do a sermon on that part of God’s sovereignty. Such “deals” don’t establish our relationship with God.  Some preachers encourage this by saying, ”You should give your money to the Lord, and He will bless your business.” Speaking of wrong theology, we should also note that if we are told to “tithe,” which usually means give 10% to the church, that idea originated under the Mosaic covenant, which we are not under any more, since Christ made a New covenant. (More on this later.)

Some covenants are “unconditional.”  Which means that if one party breaks their promises, the covenant still stands. But some are “conditional;” and they look more like a contract because God says “if you do this, I will do that forever.”  But He sets the terms, and they are non-negotiable, so it is still a unilateral bond—thus, a covenant. 

But think how amazing that a holy God, the creator of this vast universe, would pay attention to us and make a covenant with sinful people. He actually puts Himself under obligation to us when He forms a covenant.  Covenants have amazing good things for us—but in some cases, we have to stick to conditions to keep the benefits; in other cases, we don’t have to do anything, but the benefits still come around.

Another explanation that is needed to clear things up:  The Greek for “covenant” is the same word from which we get “testament” (as in “Last will and testament”), to unilaterally direct the flow of your assets to named other parties.  What’s beautiful about that is, WE (if we love and obey Christ) are the Heirs of His last Testament, or the New Covenant. This took effect upon His death.  (The fact that this covenant is still operating does not mean to suggest that He is still dead. He is very much alive). 

But there is a problem:  Since people know there is an “Old Testament” and a “New Testament,” they might think that God only has had two covenants--and that since the time of Christ, His New covenant replaced the Old one. So many people conclude that it’s not necessary to pay attention to the Old Testament anymore. Some modern theologians even suggest there is no real value in studying the Old Testament. This is wrong for reasons stated below.

Rev. Pawson believes God made five covenants. These are, the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and lastly, the New.  Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David lived in the Old Testament times, yet those covenants (except part of the Mosaic one) are still active, thus proving the value of reading the Old Testament after all. The New covenant replaces the Mosaic covenant. For instance, Jesus, author of the New covenant, commands, in the area of giving, to give everything above what we have to spend on necessities, and to give cheerfully (which replaces the 10% tithe in the Old covenant—and, I must say,  which even fewer people obey).

Each of the covenants we will briefly discuss. Each covenant is for a particular people (not always Jews), a particular purpose, and for a particular period. 

The first covenant in Scripture is with Noah, and is called the Noahic covenant.  Man’s violence and depravity had become so extreme that Scripture records that their thoughts were evil continually.  One of his worst sins was because mankind violated the “keeping separate” rules God demanded of animals, of mankind, and of angels.  Barriers were given, but crossed: Men had sex with animals.   Angels were having sex with human women, and producing non-human hybrids--strange creatures, including many tall and super-strong men. (I have another blog on that.)  Humankind DNA was getting perverted by crossing these barriers.  So, by a Flood, God wiped out the entire earth’s population—except Noah’s family.  Noah, once he landed on dry ground, would have been fearful about any further rainfall, but God reduced his anxiety by declaring His Noahic covenant—which is good for all mankind—that He would never destroy all of us again by water. The rainbow was His sign. He thus insured the survival of the human race, the purpose of the covenant—so it is still active. (Rev. Pawson makes an interesting case here:  Based on God’s desire to insure our survival, He has always kept food production capable enough to feed every single person on earth, no matter how much population has grown.  The fact that many die of starvation is due to mankind’s selfish desire to not share our food. (Ed. If you have ever read of Malthus and his fear of population increase, and his glum starvation theories, these ignore God’s promise.  Acting on them have led to horrible results—genocide, abortion, even some wars,  have all been encouraged by many of his adherents through the generations.

But the starvation is not God’s fault; it is ours.

To the question, “Is there a proviso in this covenant?  Is there a penalty attached if we don’t do something?”  For the Noahic covenant, the answer is No. BUT God hopes that we respect certain rules regarding separation, and there are judgments for breaking them.  Here are some facts that are too often ignored. Human life alone is sacred—made in the image of God; so killing a person intentionally is sacrilege, a terrible sin, and should have life for life penalty.  So God is in favor of capital punishment.  (Ed. This speaks volumes regarding abortion: the embryo, even the zygote, has separate life from the mother; so the mother who kills her baby at any time in the womb is guilty too—a fact never commented upon, either by law or by pastors—but is easy to figure from God’s statements). Rev. Pawson had predicted that once we in the U.S. ignored God’s rule on capital punishment for murder, our disrespect for Him and for life meant a loosening of laws on abortion would follow—which came true--but then euthanasia would follow after that. There are a few organizations that encourage suicide for the old, but this editor predicts that when the next widespread famine comes, euthanasia will be acceptable by law in many places. A widespread minority will think like Hitler or Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood), who have called the old or disabled “useless eaters.”

 Respecting God’s rules, there is no capital punishment for killing an animal, since none of them are sacred—so they could be for food.  Evolution and pagan theology have ruined our thinking on that, making man simply an evolved animal or making animals sacred. (Ed. Fornication without feeling guilt is happening more often among men, since they rationalize that, as animals, men cannot expect to be monogamous.) God allowed killing and eating animals, but—only if the blood is drained out first, so we don’t get a taste for blood. Having sex with animals is unfortunately a growing trend.  But violating these will not result in another Flood; since the Noahic covenant is unconditional.

God preserved Noah’s immediate family and started over, despite our sin, because He wants to develop a family from His creation; He wants to share with us, to love us in person, someday. The Bible often shows His feelings; God often said “I will be their God, and they will be My people.” That’s why we are here; He put us here to search for and find Him, and have an ongoing relationship with Him. As Scripture says, He is not far away.  Our “pursuit of happiness,” to quote Jefferson, cannot be obtained, except in relating to God.  BUT—he has rules involving sanctification and fellowship with Him before we obtain heaven.  So God started again, with a righteous family, Noah’s family. We are all descendants of Noah—but more important, if we are born again and obey God, we are His descendants.  He adopts us and we share His inheritance.

Now let’s look at the next Covenant that God made with the human race—the Abrahamic covenant.  God picked  Abraham because he had faith in Him.  Archeology proves that he was living comfortably in Ur of the Chaldeans.  But God told him to walk away from that to a Promised Land.  That would mean traveling a long distance—and he was 80.  And leaving friends and relatives.  He knew that he and Sarah, his wife, could not lay title in the new land (there were powerful territorial tribes around), despite God’s promise—it was for his race that he founded, the Jews. So they would be living in tents.  (I am amazed how Sarah was willing to do this, especially after Abraham tricked her. Despite his sins, his faith pleased God. He believed in the trustworthiness of God so much as to not only abandoning a house, but he also believed God’s promise of an heir. He and Sarah were childless, and she was around 70 years old, so having a child would be a miracle.  But he had faith that God would do that, so he did the trip. 

God’s covenant with Abraham was a covenant of selection. Abraham and his descendants became, because of their laws that He gave them, Jews.  They were supposed to be a people that “stood out,” blessed by God, following His kind laws, so other nations would see their blessings and give credit to the Jewish God, and glorify Him as the only true God, not the “gods” they worshipped.  Some of the Laws made no sense (like rules on making clothes), but those were only to make the people stand out. He didn’t choose blessings on Abraham and his descendants because they were especially “good.” The sins of the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—were laid bare.  But these patriarchs had faith that God would do what He promised, and they did what He told them to do—they were obedient. God’s selection of them for blessing is called, by theologians, using an obsolete word this way, “the scandal of particularity.”  Why did God choose and bless that group of people, in some ways forever, when the people were small in number, and even turned to idolatry—and they even wanted to kill their Lord? They didn’t deserve it.  Well, none of us deserve it. And, honestly, that question doesn’t deserve an answer because it questions and judges God’s sovereignty, and we can’t truly know His plan with our limited mortal minds. Let’s trust in His goodness, which He has proven thus far, in other ways.

Still, we owe the Jews much:  Primarily, they did an outstanding job of preserving His Scripture over the ancient years before the time of printing—they spent a lot of money and resources to copy Scripture, and made counting rules that assured there were no errors.  Few people, secular or otherwise, doubt the Old (or even the New) Testament’s authenticity, and ALL of it was written by Jews. Also consider, many innovations have blessed society through these people today. The Nobel Prizes have been won disproportionately by them.

God was giving them responsibilities which they carried out well in most areas—for awhile.  One law that they were loyal to, could be a blessing or a curse because it made the men easily identifiable as Jews:  circumcision.  Interestingly, His Scripture directed them to cut with the knife on the eighth day after birth.  Yet that day was, as mankind didn’t find out until thousands of years later, the exact day when boy babies had the maximum chemical that was best to survive the operation from leaving infection.  It’s also true that stripping off an excess layer of skin there, would help reduce certain disease or infection that would otherwise grow between the layers—which did, indeed, happen to those uncircumcised men who refused to clean the area properly. This was another fact unknown to science of that day.  Other laws regarding “Jubilee” were effective in reducing the ups and downs of inflation and the business cycle—and still would be today.  So some laws God gave them were just to make the nation “stand out,” i.e., for evangelism, and others were for their benefit, as you can see above.

Details of the Abrahamic covenant: First, He promised land.  He laid out the boundaries of that land, in the area called Canaan.  Though Abraham never owned it, nevertheless, in his will, he gave it to his son—that’s how much faith he had in God’s promise.  Same goes for Isaac, leaving it for Jacob.  Jacob was renamed Israel. The boundaries were never quite obtained, except maybe under David much later—and the land they have now is a small slice of what God promised.  God told them to fight for that land.  But disobedience through their idolatry removed them temporarily from the land as exiles.  But in 1948 they chose that land again to live.  One day those of us who believe and act on Jesus’ commands will sit down there with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and have a banquet with Jesus, Scripture says.

Secondly, God promised Abraham a child so his generation could live on and form a nation and obtain the land. There is only one proviso, or condition:  If a man is not circumcised, he is out of the covenant.  As Rev. Pawson put it: “Every man who was circumcised was carrying the title deed to the Promised Land inside his trousers.” If you’re Jewish, don’t presume that this has anything to do with salvation, or heaven.  The early Jews thought they would obtain heaven just by being a Jew.  Paul, in Scripture, tells both Jew and Gentile the requirements for being a true descendant of Abraham—were being spiritually born again, on faith in God, as Abraham had. Also, the problem in the Middle East today with the Muslims is, they don’t believe God’s promise. They just want the land.

Thirdly, there is an international promise:  God promised that through the Jews, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Notice my comments above on that.  But the big one is, the Jews produced our Savior, Lord, and King,  Jesus. Those who want to go to heaven must believe in what He did, He being a Jewish Messiah.  Related to that, when the Gospel was proclaimed about His death because of our sin and His resurrection, it was proclaimed by Jews and went to the Jews first.  And our church began with the Jews. On that regard, despite how some feel about “organized religion,” which does, after all, have many members who are unsaved, and corrupt the Church, a simple reading of history shows not only evangelism in moving people to God, but social justice (see last week’s blog) and missionary activities to pagans-- all are good, on balance, when done by God’s true people. (Missions is not to make them to follow “white men’s” or “Western” laws,” or some other racist nonsense, but to bring people to follow Jesus, the ONLY way to heaven, per Acts 4:12.) It’s too bad that God’s people do not contain too many incoming Jews, currently.

 A possible explanation for that:  The good things that Jews did, they have been poorly rewarded with our mistreatment of them. This was done by many who call themselves “Christian,” so Christianity has a terrible reputation among Jews.  In fact, our mistreatment is fatal to the salvation of many people--this ungodly behavior will prevent many Gentiles from reaching heaven, along with the Jews who refuse to listen to the Christian gospel. Did you know that Jews have suffered more in “Christian countries” than in Muslim countries?  Just think of Germany 80 years ago.  There is a “codicil” to God’s covenant:  Scripture says that every nation who blesses the Jews, God will bless; and those who curse them God will curse. The stain of the Holocaust gave Germany a destroyed economy in World War II, for example. Yes, God curses as well as blesses; He hates as well as loves; He kills as well as heals. He is a God of goodness—and severity. Just read the Old Testament—and no, the New Testament does not give God a personality change, making Him gloss over serious sin (I have a blog on that). He is the same God in Old and New Testaments. 

There is a relevant poem:  How odd of God to choose the Jews. But odder still for those who choose the Jews’ God—but scorned the Jews. God, through picking Abraham and the resultant Jews, got a channel through whom He could communicate to the whole world, how blessed He could make you if you act under His Kingship.  And the position of Israel is in a perfect geography to do that—a land between the West and the East. But the Jews dropped the ball often, and also demonstrated how cursed they could be if they were idolatrous and unfaithful to Him. The Jews have been a living demonstration of both. Just like us.  (I have a blog on having us get together and healing our differences, with a Passover+”Easter” celebration. A LOT of people have no idea that those two events have anything in common.)  

JOIN US NEXT WEEK FOR THE COMPLETION OF THIS STUDY