Shut in by God

Greetings All, 

     This week's "thought" is called "Shut in by God"  It comes from a book of daily devotions complied from the writings of James Montgomery Boice, who served at 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia for over 30 years before his relatively early death in 2000 at the age of 61.  Boice was a  gifted and well-known Bible teacher who held degrees from Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Basel in Switzerland, and whose "Bible Study Hour" radio program can still be heard on air and online. This is the devotional entry for - January 8th (today!) -- and offers three lessons we can learn from the biblical narrative regarding Noah and his family. Enjoy.

Shut in by God

"And the Lord shut him in..." 

Genesis 7:16

     

     "Consider these three lessons.

     FIRST, when the Lord shut Noah and his family up in the ark, they were totally secure and thereby become an illustration for us of the believer's perfect security in Jesus Christ. The rains    would come. The floods would rage. But nothing would touch these who had been sealed in the ark by Jehovah.  The Lord does not place the safety of his people in the hands of others. He himself throws the bolt-lock. It is said of him, "What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open" (Rev. 3:7 NIV) The shutting in of Noah was the equivalent of our being sealed with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30).  Like him we are not only saved; we are secure as well.

     SECOND, there is a lesson of God's great grace. The last thing we are told in this story before the waters actually begin to come is that, 'the Lord shut him in" (v. 16).  Presumably this was done at the last possible moment.  Noah had been preaching God's righteousness, man's sin, and warning of the great flood for years and years, but no one had believed him. They were still refusing to believe. Yet the door to the ark remained open, and any who wanted to could have gone inside. What great grace!  What magnificent forbearance on the part of God!  Since Noah had believed and had gone in, no one still outside could say that the possibility of belief was closed to him. "Whoever willed" could come. So it is today. All who will may come. Many do not, but none of these can say that the possibility of repentance from sin and turning to Christ are beyond them. 

     FINALLY, there is a lesson in that there is an end to grace. Grace is great, but it is not unending. If it is spurned, the day of reckoning eventually comes. For one final week the door stood open. But the week ended, the door was closed, and the flood came. The same God who opens doors is himself the door (John 10:7 & 9).  He also closes doors and refuses to open them when the time of grace is gone.  For you it is not yet past, whoever you may be.  This is still the day of grace, and though it will end, it has not ended yet.  Won't you come while there is still time?  God said to Noah, "Come... into the ark" (Gen. 7:1). At the end of the Bible we read, "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price" (Rev. 22:17)." 

     Grace is the most wonderful thing! Nothing in all the earth compares with it!  And though it is God's nature to be gracious, and the riches and glory of His grace will be (and should already be) the source of endless praise among the recipients of it, the Bible makes clear (as Boice rightly notes), that God's offer of grace will one day end.

     Isaiah 61:2, in speaking of the ministry of Jesus, states that He was to: "proclaim the year (or time) of the LORD's favor (grace), and the day of the vengeance of our God."  And Jesus did just that. He fulfilled this prophecy about Himself by proclaiming the "year" (the time, season, or epoch) of God's grace in light of the coming day of judgment. He did not preach that grace did away with God's justice and judgment forever, but that God in His great mercy was offering grace to all now in light of the impending Day of Judgment which is to come.

     The Gospel declaration (like Noah's message to the people of his day) was, "Come for safety and salvation now!  Hurry! For the day is coming when the door of God's grace and mercy will close, and the time of judgment will begin for all who have not entered in."   Peter proclaimed that  message in Acts 2:38-41 on the Day of Pentecost.  And Paul proclaims it as well in II Cor. 5:20 - 6:2.

     It assures us that the call of the Gospel must always have a sense of urgency to it.  For it's message is not, "Grace to everyone now and forevermore," it is, "Now is the time of God's favor! Today is the day of salvation! Come to Christ for mercy now, for the day of wrath and divine judgment is coming" (II Cor. 6:2, I Thess. 1:9-10, II Thess. 1:3-10).  Yes, Scripture assures us that there will come a day when the door of God's grace -- like the door on the ark -- will one day be shut and all left outside (all who spurned His offer of grace in Jesus) will experience God's great wrath.

     So come now, says Scripture!  Whosoever will, come!  Be sure you come to Christ before the door of God's free offer of grace is closed to you forever.

     If any of you have not yet come, I pray that by God's grace you would, and without delay.

In the Service of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff

The A21 Campaign

Greetings All!

Stop!  Before you're tempted to close out this 'thought' because it's "too long" (which in our fast-paced society tends to be anything more than a paragraph or two) I would encourage you to read on. What is shared in this thought is VERY important -- both for you and many others around the world -- 27,000,000+ others to be exact.  Believe me it will be worth you time; and all the more so if it moves you to do something in response to it.
It comes from a lady named Christine Caine, and is found in a book called, "Passion," edited by Louie Giglio, and containing articles by many authors including Francis Chan, John Piper, and others. Christine is the  founder of the A21 Campaign, one of the largest non-profit 

organizations in the world, dedicated to rescuing the victims of human trafficking (labor and sex slaves) in 12 countries. This article tells why she chose to get involved. It is impossible (if one has a heart) to read what she writes and not be moved. Please do.

Divine Interruptions

     "I found myself speaking at a conference in Greece around the time that a little girl named Madeline went missing in Portugal. Her picture was plastered across the TV, in airports, and in magazines. Interpol was searching for this little girl everywhere. I was, of course, very saddened by the disappearance of this little girl, but I didn't know her.  I hadn't met her... Then I saw a second poster for another girl that was missing. This child was named Sophia -- the same name as my second daughter... Suddenly these missing children weren't numbers. They weren't posters and they weren't statistics. They were real -- someone's daughters. Someone's sisters and classmates. I stopped and began to wonder if that were MY Sophia on that poster, what would I do to find her? What wouldn't I give up to see her safe? 

     I later found out that these children were the alleged victims of human trafficking, something that at that time I didn't even know existed. I assumed that the slave trade was abolished with William Wilberforce, but I was wrong. On my watch, in my generation, the current state of slavery has been flourishing in the dark rooms of the world.  With all our great Christian gatherings, our tremendous churches, our wealth of worship songs and resources, right now in the 21st century, there are more slaves on earth than ever before.  It was incomprehensible to me.  How could this be true? How could this happen in our day?   Yet it's true. During our day, more people are being trafficked and sold for labor or sex than ever before in human history. This is unacceptable not merely from the standpoint of human rights; it's unacceptable from the standpoint of the teachings of Jesus...

     With knowledge comes responsibility. We know the slave trade is alive and well right now. We know this, and because we do, we are responsible to do something about it... We might be tempted to equate compassion with getting sad watching a movie or hearing a story. That's not compassion; that's sentiment.  Compassion isn't compassion until you are actually interrupted. It's not real until it inspires you to action.  It was the action of the Good Samaritan, not his sentiment, that separated him from the others that walked by the beaten man on the side of the road... In our choice about whether to cross the road, we must begin by realizing that at one point or another, we were the one lying in the ditch and Jesus crossed the road for us.

     I am a rescued person. I did not discover I was adopted until I was thirty-three years old. Though our parents never told us the truth, on a single day we discovered this family secret and the truth was jarring to say the least. Suddenly I didn't know who I was.  I didn't know whether I was conceived in an adulterous affair or a one-night stand. I didn't know if I was the result of a rape or an underage pregnancy.  But as the panic set in, the Lord reminded me I didn't have to know the specific facts to know who I am... I may not know who I was, but I know who I am; I have been rescued by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  Jesus walked across the road between heaven and earth so that I might cross the road for the sake of others.  I was saved by grace that I might walk in the way Jesus did in the world. This is the plan of God -- to use rescued people to rescue people... Jesus has set us free so that we might set others free. He rescued us so that we might rise up, reach back, and rescue others... It could be any one of the twenty-seven million slaves in the world right now.

     But that twenty-seven million must cease to be a number.  Just like you and me, these people are living, breathing human beings created in the image of Almighty God, full of God-given destiny and God-given promise. The same Jesus who set me free can set them free, but how will they hear those words if we do not go tell them? How will they ever know the truth if we, together, don't raise our voices and declare that we will not allow this injustice to prevail? The Apostle Paul said that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1), and we must take that declaration to the world.

     Not long ago I was sitting at one of our shelters with Sonia, one of fourteen rescued victims. One of these young women, one that wasn't a statistic anymore, began telling me about how she was shipped to Istanbul in a container with sixty girls. During the trip, the oxygen tank broke, and when the crate was actually opened, thirty of the girls were dead.  The ones left alive had no passports because the traffickers had taken them. They were locked in an apartment and raped several times a day by men wearing law-enforcement uniforms, so the girls would not trust the police. Then, they were put in a little rubber dingy to be taken from Istanbul to Athens through the Greek Islands. While en route, the traffickers were spotted by a coast guard patrol, and so they threw the girls overboard. Keep in mind that these girls were from villages and had barely seen running water, let alone been in a body of water to swim. Only five survived. Sonia was one of them.

     She was eventually brought to our shelter when police raided a brothel in Athens. It was about that time in this unbelievable story that a Russian girl sitting near us (who had been rescued only one day before Sonia) began to ask me loudly in broken Greek: "Why did you come?" As best I could I began to tell her about how Jesus had rescued me and so I wanted to help her. I told her that God has a plan, a purpose, and a destiny for her life; that it didn't matter what she had gone through -- God was big enough to redeem her past. But it's what she said next that I'll never forget. As I was telling her this good news, she yelled back at me, "If what you are telling me about your God is true, then why didn't you come sooner?"

     Why didn't I come sooner? Those words are haunting. What is so important in our temporal lives that will distract us from the eternal purpose God put us on earth for? What deserves more attention than the very people Jesus died for?  Safety, comfort and security are NOT the goal of Christianity; freedom is.  And because it is, we must rise together to declare that this will not happen on our watch.  Not today.  Not ever again." 

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     I have heard many sermons on the Old Testament passages which speak of the "watchmen" posted on the walls of the city of Jerusalem. Men who scanned the roads and dark outlines of the surrounding terrain all day long, and all night long, watching for danger or any signs of the approach of invading armies. But Christine is right. As Christians we are to do more that simply watch out for threats to the people of God, or the Church. We are to watch out for evil and injustice wherever it occurs, and sound the alarm for other's outside "Jerusalem" who are being mistreated, abused, or are victims of the new forms of human labor or sex slavery.  Many of these victims who are forced into labor or prostitution are children as young as 11 years old (some younger). The question is what are we doing to stop it? To use her words, "we must rise together (as the Church) and declare that this will not happen on our watch."  We are placed on the walls to ensure such things do not go unnoticed or unaddressed.

     The question facing the Church in every generation is: Will we speak up?  Will we somehow get involved?  Will we take the necessary risks and make the necessary sacrifices? Or will we turn a blind eye, and like the majority (at least here in the States), pretend it's not happening around us so we can continue to pursue the three gods of our culture -- "safety, comfort and security."  If it were your 11, 12, or 13 year old daughter (or son) would you simply express your sad "sentiment" or would you be "moved by compassion" to do something to put an end to such evil -- even if your part is to rescue just one of the twenty-seven million slaves worldwide?  God has placed you as watchmen on the walls -- will you allow such a thing to happen on your watch without lifting your voice, or pen, or hands to do something to stop it? As the old Christian hymn declares: "Rise Up Oh Church of God..."  Will we?   Will we think, "How sad..." or will we be,  "moved by compassion..."

In the Bonds of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff

Failure, The Back Door To Success

Greetings All,

     Today's 'thought' comes to you from Erwin Lutzer. It is found in his book, "Failure, The Back Door To Success."
     He is pastor of the Moody Church, Chicago, Illinois.  His book deals with many issues regarding "failure," yet this particular excerpt has to do with how to go about living with yourself, or regaining self-acceptance (through the knowledge of God's acceptance), after failure.
     And since its something most people deal with at one time or another, to one degree or another, I thought it may minister to some of you at this time. After all, who has not had to deal with regrets and how to get beyond them?  Enjoy.

     "Mary looked as if she'd never had a problem in her life. She was friendly, attractive, and cheerful. But beneath that facade, were feelings too deep for words -- feelings of resentment, bitterness and intolerable depression. In fact, she had even contemplated suicide. And that she was a dedicated Christian only made her problem more puzzling...

     Mary's background provided the clue to her problem. Her father died when she was a child, and, as a result, she was entrusted into the care of a harsh step-father who vented his bitterness on this unwanted child. When Mary (then three or four years old) would come to her stepfather for affection, she was brushed aside. One remark he made will always ring in her ears: "I'd like to throw you out! You should be pushed into a ditch."
     Understandably Mary grew up feeling guilty for simply being alive. She felt responsible for her stepfather's misery and developed feelings of inferiority. She knew that she would always be a failure. Furthermore, she believed she deserved to be one. In later years, when friends showed concern for her, she resented it. How could anyone ever love me? she thought...

     Her self-image could not be changed merely by telling her that her opinion of herself was mistaken. Those who reject themselves cannot be convinced to accept themselves by pointing out their personal worth or accentuating their positive qualities. The point is they feel inferior, they feel worthless, they feel rejected. No amount of persuasion can convince them otherwise....

     But God has not left us without hope... Even if we are rejected by our parents, friends, or marriage partner, we CAN accept ourselves -- failure and all. But we can only do this by facing our limitations and considering our lot in life from God's perspective... People reject themselves for many reasons: physical appearance, lack of ability and intelligence, or because of failures of the past (relational and otherwise). Others, like Mary, have warped views of themselves because of their family background. Thank God this can be changed!" 

   Lutzer then gives us steps to follow that enable us to move in the direction of self-acceptance.

     "We must accept our limitations... God fashioned us in our mother's womb (Ps. 139:13-16). Therefore, our appearance was determined by Him. In fact, God even takes responsibility for physical handicaps. To Moses He said, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him dumb, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" (Ex. 4:11). God made us the way we are for a special reason. We must accept the fact that he knew what He was doing when we were assembled. We will never accept our physical features [nor "lack" of skills and abilities] unless we thank God that He made us as He did...

     Our outward imperfections are a reminder of God's priorities. He is concerned with character, not the deception of outward beauty (I Peter 3:4)... If we are dissatisfied with our appearance, God is trying to teach us to find our security in Him. He knows that if we were attractive we might find our satisfaction in the fleeting pleasure of popularity rather than the solid rock of inward godliness.

     We must think realistically.  Some resent God because of their lack of intelligence or ability. They spend their lives wishing they were like someone else. Their conversation is filled with self-pity and self-derogatory comments. Perhaps they believe that such an attitude displays humility... It does not. It is sin. And there will be no victory over such an ungrateful attitude until it is confessed and forsaken... If we are gifted we cannot take credit for it; if we lack abilities, that is no reason for complaining (I Cor. 4:7)...  Some overestimate the importance of their abilities, and others underestimate their gifts.

     The solution? Take Paul's advice: "I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to have a sound (sober) estimation, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith' (Rom. 12:3). We must evaluate our abilities realistically, accept our limitations, and thank God for whatever He has given us...

     Self-acceptance is basically a spiritual issue. What it boils down to is this: are we able to thank the Creator for the way He made us? If not, are we casting doubt on His wisdom? If we thank Him we display our belief that He knows what is best for us. And that will help us accept ourselves -- limitations, failures and all. But even more than this, we must come to appreciate our value from God's perspective. Understanding His acceptance of us (in Christ) gives us the key to understanding ourselves... Christ died so that we would have a basis of acceptance before God that has NOTHING to do with our fluctuating experiences. Our acceptance depends on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross... Christians do differ: some are carnal, others are godly, and the majority are in between. But there is no difference so far as acceptance is concerned...

     Believers are not merely forgiven; they are not merely sinners minus their sins, they are accepted before God as Christ is accepted (Eph. 1:6)! Our acceptance before God is based squarely on Christ's acceptance before the Father -- and He is totally acceptable in every way.

     There can be no such thing as degrees of acceptance with God. He accepts perfection only, and for this reason, Christ alone is acceptable to the Father.  But the good news of the Gospel is that when we receive Christ as Savior, we are accepted "in Him."  Our acceptance before God is as certain as Christ's acceptance... if He has completely forgiven and accepted us, why can we not believe His verdict in the matter and accept ourselves as God accepts us?... If your faith is in Christ, God HAS accepted you just as you are, and to reject yourself is to reject God's grace."

     May God's truth, through the Gospel, free you from the conclusions you may have drawn about yourself by living in a fallen world, with faulty measures of value and success, and thus false solutions to a very important issue. And may the knowledge of God's full acceptance in Christ free your heart, mind and soul from being a slave to the world's unfortunate standards of what gives a person worth or makes them "acceptable."

In His Service, Pastor Jeff

Abandoned

Greetings All,

    This weeks 'thought' comes to you from a classic written in 1659 by two Dutch pastors: Gisbertus Voetius and Johannes Hoornbeeck. It's title, "Spiritual Desertion," speaks of the common Christian experience its pages address.   

 

   Both authors affirm the words of Thomas A'Kempis who states: "I have never known a godly person who did not at times sense the removal of grace."   Says Hoornbeeck, "All those who want to live a godly life in Christ have to expect such oppressions" (ie: times when the soul feels like it has been deserted by God). They affirm the quote of Otto Casmannus who wrote: "No one becomes saved who is not trained in this battle, before, or in death."  

 

    Anyone who has merely read their Bibles knows how common such an experience is, since they will have read the words of such people as: Job (Job 6-7); David (in Psalm 13, 32, 38, 39, 42, 44); Asaph (Psalm 77); Heman (Psalm 88); Jeremiah (Jer. 15:15-20); Paul (II Cor. 1:8-10); Peter (Luke 22:62) and even Jesus Himself (Matt. 27:46). 

 

    Most all believers - if they are honest and don't feel the need to play the part of the superChristian - will admit to wrestling with this common experience to one degree or another, at one time or another.  Thus I offer their words as comfort to those who may be in that place of feeling deserted by God, or may know a friend who is in that place.

 

    I have taken the liberty to cut and paste, update the language, paraphrase awkward sentences and insert explanatory phrases.  I trust you will find the thoughts helpful.  Enjoy.

 

     "No matter how great and heavy you feel your trial and abandonment may be, it is not a complete, total abandonment from God. It is not an abandonment of all grace, but only the feeling of grace. You do not feel the grace as you would like.  But really, is it so serious to miss this feeling when you keep the greatest--the grace itself?  You do not really lose God.  As with your stomach or your heart, even though you do not always consciously feel them, don't you still have them?

 

      What do you think -- can that feeling not become somewhat shocked, darkened and burdened?... If not, think about Christ! Consider (although he did not deserve this) that the feeling of his Father's grace was becoulded and burdened completely -- for you!  And since this suffering you experience concerns only the feeling of grace, and you have kept what is of greatest weight and all that counts for your salvation, can you not be satisified and comforted? Since God left you so much, and especially that which is of greatest weight, should you be ungrateful when you miss only that which is off less importance [the mere loss of feeling his grace and presence]?...

 

     God cannot completely leave you. He shall not and will not do so.  God's gracious favor and salvation cannot be destroyed... That God's grace in the soul cannot be destroyed is shown in I John 3:9, 'for his seed remains in him';  or John 10:28: 'I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand'; or John 14:17, 'He sends another Comforter who will abide with you forever'; or John 6:39-40, 'This is the will of the Father who sent me, that I shall lose none of those that he has given me, but raise them up on the last day.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.' Or consider as well Psalm 37:24: 'Though the righteous fall, he shall not be cast away, for the Lord upholds his hand.' [We see the same in Philippians 1:6 and Romans 8:28-39.]

 

     The beleaguered soul cannot reach such a state that it would be rejected by God or could completely fall from grace.  After all, it earlier shared in God's grace and bore the certain evidences of such grace.  The beleaguered soul must remember this -- it may not have a righteous and strong desire for grace now, but it truly enjoyed this grace earlier.

 

       The soul can draw comfort from this knowledge: Whatever happens, even if heaven and earth were moved, yes, even if the terrors of hell sneered at this one soul, yet it would be kept and would surely remain God's possession, even if it went through the valley of the shadow of death... In view of what you experienced earlier, you can calmly go into the future because what you are going through now is only a temporary black cloud for the hour of trial. And since God never regrets that he granted his grace to us, you will soon again have what you desire so heartily. 

 

      The saints of old comforted their souls in present times of spiritual desertion by reflecting back on former days of grace.  In light of the fact that his soul was downcast, one of the 'Sons of Korah' asks in Psalm 42:2 -'Where can I go to meet with God?'  He confesses that his tears have been his food day and night, and that people are asking him, 'Where is your God?'  And what does he do to comfort himself?  'He says these words: 'These things I remember as I pour out my soul; how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of thanksgiving among the festive throng.'

 

     Former proofs of grace stand as anchors for the soul and comfort us during present states of affliction when we suffer the sense of God's absence.  Remember this: God never leaves your soul completely, even though it may appear that he, for a time, hides his face, and you do not experience the feeling of his loving favor.  Truly the Lord does not forsake his beloved; they are kept unto eternity...

 

      Consider as well that these trials [of desertion] come only to God's children.  Other burdens are general -- many of the same things happen to the righteous and the ungodly. But this cross is sanctified only for the pious; for God's beloved. Other people do not know this cross; it is foreign to them.  The believer has many burdens in common with unbelievers; but the sense of abandonment by God is one he does not have in common with them... And thus when one experiences this sense of abandonment, we can judge that his state with God is good.  For only God's children are chastized with this rod."

 

 

     I conclude with the words of a song which helped me when I was going through one such extended time of desertion. They are from the group "Selah" who sing to the struggling soul: "Hang on, a little bit longer... my God will never let you down."  Such times do end, although when you're stuck in the midst of one of them its easy wonder if (or when) they will.  

                                                     

With you in those occasional times of struggle, 

Pastor Jeff