Believing God - Chapter One

I was not disappointed. Chapter one is all about Scripture and thus it is well stocked with Scripture. To the point, it's all about the fact that we really don't believe Scripture. We say we do. We're utterly convinced. Sproul points out a few key reasons that hit right home why we really don't believe.

First and foremost is sin. Our problem is local, right in our very own hearts. Sin is not bounded by time, culture, or environment. It started very nearly in the beginning and has been on the loose ever since. Sin takes its natural course of decay and has no respect for the occasional upticks in this world. Neither the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, or the Reformation will ever make sin or its consequences go away. I hope all readers of the book get this point and go no further until they do. We must become completely convinced of the futility of education and effort to help us become better people or better students of God's Word.

In fact, there is one element of our culture brought on by the rebellion in the Garden and lately fueled by Darwinism. Sadly, even Christians adopt this myth as firm belief and call it sancification. The evolutionists call it survival of the fittest. In the world of business it is called continuous improvement. In the Garden, the devil called it "you shall be as gods."

We really do believe that we are getting better. We really do believe that if we could just get back to the good old days prior to the 60's, or during the height of the Reformation, or some other imagined glorious day, that things would be better. And so we strive to get there by any means and we justify it by saying it is God's will. But God says we are not to wrestle against flesh and blood. God says that the wages of sin is death. Period. We will get no better in this life. Our bodies will die. Our old man of sin and death will be just as wicked and deceitful and stinking rotten until the day we die. There is not one bit of us that will improve or get better.

We are only as good as the One Who indwells us. And that work is finished. I won't go into what sanctification really is here. It is not self-improvement however. We don't get more spiritual and less sinful as we go on with Jesus. Do we learn more? Yes. Do we get to know Him better? Yes. Do we sin less and less? Hopefully. As students of the Word, we do increase in something. Sproul calls it "competence" or "completeness" according to II Timothy 3:16. Completeness for the purpose of doing the good works that God calls us to do.

We simply make the mistake of thinking that these works are on an inclining set of stairs. Each level marks a higher plane of maturity, spirituality, or again, sanctification. Yet the honest Christian you can imagine at the highest elevation will fall just as hard as the newborn Christian with the onset of just one sin. It is sin that makes us all equal. Likewise, it is Jesus who makes us all equal as well. Among and within are selves, there is to be no comparison (see II Corinthians 10:12).

Sproul does a great job of pointing out this reality in many other different ways in this chapter. I added my two cents. Readers would do well to allow the Holy Spirit to plumb their depths to shed light on what things hinder them in this area. Be prepared to experience some pain. But allow God to incise these bits of deceit and then forsake them all for the excellency of knowing Jesus.

At this point, we should take the advice of another godly man, Oswald Chambers. Here are his words in today's meditation from My Utmost for His Highest, "Are you prepared to let God take you into union with Himself, and pay no more attention to what you call the great things? Are you prepared to abandon entirely and let go? The test of abandonment is in refusing to say - "Well, what about this?" Beware of suppositions. Immediately you allow - What about this? - it means you have not abandoned, you do not really trust God. Immediately you do abandon, you think no more about what God is going to do. Abandon means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions. If you abandon entirely to God, He says at once, "Thy life will I give thee for a prey." The reason people are tired of life is because God has not given them anything, they have not got their life as a prey. The way to get out of that state is to abandon to God. When you do get through to abandonment to God, you will be the most surprised and delighted creature on earth; God has got you absolutely and has given you your life. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience or a refusal to be simple enough."

And that is R. C. Sproul, Jrs. point. We must be simple. So simple that we believe the simple truth of God's Word. But we will never get that way until we obey and allow His Holy Spirit to shed the myths, unbeliefs, assumptions, and suppositions from our minds and hearts. Sometimes we're just too smart for our own good because we think we're getting better at this Christian life. But Jesus simply said, "Abide in me."

The Simple Gospel

This past Sunday wrapped up our annual week-long Missionary Conference. Typically the way this works is the missionary speaks to the congregation; the congregation provides new or continued prayer and financial support, and; the missionary goes back to the field. The missionary's message is usually along the lines of, "This is what I did in the field; these were the results, and; please continue to support me."

Missionaries, those who are called, are all called to the same purpose. Jesus gave that call in Acts 1:6-8, "When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

Quite simply, we have received power of the Holy Ghost to be witnesses everywhere. Witnesses to what? The gospel. That is given to us simply in I Corinthians 15:1-6, "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep."

From these few passages just shared I want to focus on two bits that perhaps you wonder why I included. For instance, what does Acts 1:6-7 have to do with the call and what does I Corinthians 15:6 have to do with the Gospel? I'm glad you asked.

First I will tell you what I personally have to do with this. God has called me to minister to the Church, to call them to "awake unto righteousness and sin not" and to be ready at all times for the Lord's coming for His Bride (us). When I hear missionaries or other witnesses speak anything other than the simple truth of the gospel, I fear for them and the unsaved listeners. No other words will God use than His own in the salvation of a sinner. No other words will He use than His own to wake up a sleeping Christian to repentence.

God is telling us in Acts 1:6-7 that the kingdom is coming. Therefore we have a job to do to be used of Him to usher it in. God tells us in I Corinthians 15:6 what happens to us when we don't do this work according to His Word and commandment. Quite simply, when we don't proclaim the gospel in it's pure simplicity, we fall asleep.

This is quite on purpose. God does not want His Word compromised, added to, taken away from, or changed in any way. It is HIS Word. And so mercifully He puts some to sleep that they continue not in this sin. God desires that they be awake and bold in the Word.

The missionaries I heard just on Sunday spoke of things that are not the Gospel. They are fleshy things like quotes of our culture, personal experiences, feelings about God, "Christian-ese", words that are not bold, and do not speak the name of our Lord Jesus Christ nor His exclusive role as Savior. Rather, they speak of experiences, blessings, and numbers. I am really not so concerned with what they said however. My wife thought I was getting too deep into it. I said, "No, I am trying to stay simple. All I was listening for was the simple Gospel and the bold proclamation of the name of Jesus and the power of such." It's not what they said, it's what they didn't say.

I have prayed many years for the remnant. I will pray no more for them (slight detour here for a moment).

The "remnant" as I find it in Scripture applies strictly to Israel. My use of the word up until now was incorrectly applied to the Church, the wheat of God's kindom. So from now on, I will simply refer to the Church as the Church. I will pray for them. I will pray also for the remnant. (Now back to the post.)

My prayer for the Church is to intercede on their behalf when God brings before me such situations as this past Sunday. This ministry of intercession is well described by Oswald Chambers in today's "My Utmost for His Highest":
"HEEDFULNESS V. HYPOCRISY IN OURSELVES

"If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him Life for them that sin not unto death." 1 John 5:16

If we are not heedful of the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other folks are failing, and we turn our discernment into the gibe of criticism instead of into intercession on their behalf. The revelation is made to us not through the acuteness of our minds, but by the direct penetration of the Spirit of God, and if we are not heedful of the source of the revelation, we will become criticizing centres and forget that God says - ". . . he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death." Take care lest you play the hypocrite by spending all your time trying to get others right before you worship God yourself.

One of the subtlest burdens God ever puts on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning other souls. He reveals things in order that we may take the burden of these souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them, and as we intercede on His line, God says He will give us "life for them that sin not unto death." It is not that we bring God into touch with our minds, but that we rouse ourselves until God is able to convey His mind to us about the one for whom we intercede.

Is Jesus Christ seeing of the travail of His soul in us? He cannot unless we are so identified with Himself that we are roused up to get His view about the people for whom we pray. May we learn to intercede so whole-heartedly that Jesus Christ will be abundantly satisfied with us as intercessors."

The sin of which I speak is not unto death for God desires these to wake up and sin not. He has called them to be witnesses. Rather than focus on their words alone, I shall focus on the need of God for them. Get right with God and He shall pull the Word from them and it shall be pure.

You see my friends by my own admission that I was guilty of the same thing, so I must be no hypocrite, but rather an intercessor. We must all watch with certain tongues, for God says in Proverbs 18:21, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." This power can only be His own Word.