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Daily Bible thoughts 580: Tuesday 25th March 2014:

Micah 2:12, 13
Not only must we have a Biblical ministry in the church (a point emphasised yesterday), but it must also be a balanced ministry. We often find in the prophets that following strong and even severe words about judgment, you get others bringing comfort, encouragement and hope. These two verses look to a time in the distant future when God’s people will return to the land from exile. However, the word remnant reminds us that judgment is a terrible reality. Of those taken into captivity, only some (those who remained faithful to God) would return.

  • Following scattering there will be gathering (12; see also Isaiah 10:20-23): You can feel the tenderness and loving desire in these words. God wants His people back home. The Shepherd of Israel longs for the sheep to be in the safety of the fold. There is a certainty about what is going to happen. Look how the word surely is repeated. Beyond the dark night of judgment the sun will rise and a new day will dawn. This prophecy began to be fulfilled in a preliminary way when the exiles returned from Babylon, beginning in 538 B.C. However, the promise in verse 12 would only be completely accomplished in the Messianic age. (Consider, for example, John 10. It is being brought to pass through the coming of Jesus, and all that it means will gradually unfold.).
  •  Following reduction there will be expansion and growth (12b): …the place will throng with people. (a milling throng of homebound people! The Message. )
  • Following their King there will be breakthrough (13): ”…Then I, GOD, will burst all confinements and lead them out into the open. They’ll follow their King. I will be out in front leading them.” The Message. The key to breakthrough in every situation is to look to the Lord as your head; keep your eyes on Him and follow Him. He goes before (x2). He is the One who breaks open the way so that you can break through the gate. He is the One who will lead you out of captivity and bondage and into true freedom. But you have to let Him go before you. Your King will be your Shepherd. The mind of the prophet conceives of the people as captives in a foreign city, surrounded by lofty walls and frowning gates. Like impassable barriers, these lie between them and liberty. There seems no hope of their being able to break forth; but all suddenly a Breaker appears, who, summoning them to follow, breaks through the opposition of armed men and of mighty bulwarks. With resistless might, He breaks his way through; and they that follow Him are described as having broken forth, and passed on to the gate, and gone out thereat. First the Lord, then their king, and then hosts of men. No finer description could be imagined of the resurrection, which we celebrate as the first day of every week recurs…”The Breaker is gone up” before his redeemed ones. See! They too are breaking forth, and passing on through the gate – their King passing on before them. This is also true of every new era of time and novelty of circumstance. Circumstances, like prison walls, may confine us; but our Breaker is always preceding us, breaking down opposition and strong ramparts of apparently impassable difficulty…Keep close beside Him, as the armour-bearer behind Jonathon. Let there be no perceptible interspace. The iron gate of the city will open of its own accord, through which you shall pass into perfect liberty. F.B. Meyer: Great Verses through the Bible, p.351.

Prayer: Lord you know how badly I need a breakthrough. Help me to look to you with complete trust for what only you can bring about.

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Daily Bible thoughts 579: Monday 24th March 2014:

Daily Bible thoughts 579: Monday 24th March 2014:.

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Daily Bible thoughts 578: Friday 21st March 2014:

 Micah 2:1-5

There always have been, and there always will be (at least until the end of time) evil people who plot and plan dastardly things, without even a flicker of an impact on their consciences (1). Doom to those who plot evil, who go to bed dreaming up crimes! As soon as it’s morning, they’re off, full of energy, doing what they’ve planned. The Message. They do wrong because they can. They are powerful and able and they don’t believe anyone can stop them. They are also convinced that they will get away with it. This section says otherwise. As a man sows so shall he reap. God has His own plans for those who do evil against the poor and needy (3), and who …see people only for what they can get out of them. GOD has had enough. He says, ”I have some plans of my own:’ The Message. The mighty in the land had not respected proper boundaries. God says through Micah that when the invader comes in nobody’s boundary lines will be respected.

GOD HATES INJUSTICE. This is the particular form of iniquity/evil in mind in (2). It’s the rich and powerful trampling on the poor and exploiting them. As part of our discipleship, we do need to ensure that we are siding with the God of justice, and not inadvertently supporting things that grind the poor into the dust. The prophetic books will show to us again and again a God who cares deeply about social justice. As Christians we should do all we can to stand with the poor (all-be-it, according to Jesus, poverty will never be eradicated this side of the second coming.)

God judges sin (3-5). I know this is highly repetitive, and there will be no evading this point as we study the prophetic books. Perhaps God wants us to understand how serious a matter this is and that He really does mean what He says. (This is one of the key doctrines the devil has persuaded many theologians and preachers to ditch. Or at very least, he’s got people to soften the message and dilute the truth.) But here are some of God’s Words to an unrepentant people: Mocking ballads will be sung of you, and you yourselves will sing the blues: ‘Our lives are ruined, our homes and lands auctioned off. They take everything, leave us nothing! All is sold to the highest bidder.”’ And there’ll be no one to stand up for you, no one to speak for you before GOD and his jury. The Message.

The gospel message is enshrined in (3a). A disaster is coming against ever sinner. It is the ‘disaster’ of God’s wrath and judgment. The gospel is bad news before it is good news. We have to understand how bad the bad news is before we will be ready to receive the good news. The good news is that we can be saved. We cannot save ourselves, and this point must be fully understood. But God sent His Son Jesus into the world to be our Saviour, and the Saviour of all mankind. He saves from the wrath of God, all who turn away from a me-centred life and put their trust in Him. That is the best news in the world!

Prayer: Thank God for Jesus!

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Daily Bible thoughts 577: Thursday 20th March 2014:

Micah 1:8-16

  • Sin saddens (9): An old song goes like this: ‘Lord crucified give me a heart like thine, teach me to love the dying souls of men…’ When we watch the news and see just something of what sin does (and let’s face it we only see a fraction of the damage and suffering) how can we remain unmoved and dry-eyed. Micah wept like a man at a funeral. He could see that the Assyrians would invade Judah too (which they did in 701 BC, and they destroyed nearly 50 villages.) Does the certainty of coming judgment cause us to feel deep concern for lost people and seek to win them to Christ?
  • Sin spreads (9): Samaria, the capital city of the northern tribes, had a wound that was incurable. The wrongdoing up north had passed the point of no return. Punishment was inevitable. But now Micah pronounced that the evil he saw there, with its attendant consequences, had travelled as far as the gate of Jerusalem itself. The influence of badness will spread like …yeast…through the whole batch of dough (1 Cor.5:6).
  • Sin starts (13): You were the beginning of sin to the Daughter of Zion… For each one of us there is a beginning of sin and that is the point at which we must nip it in the bud. At the faintest hint of temptation show it your heels; be Joseph like and flee as fast as you can, even if you have to leave behind your cloak. You can’t even begin to consider the possibility of yielding. That is to surrender too much territory to the devil. It is to expose your ‘goal mouth’ to trouble. You’ll be down one – nil before you know it. I heard a well-known Christian leader speaking, and I was impressed by his honesty. He said, ‘One day I was walking in a wood, and just ahead of me I saw a pile of pornography laying on the ground. Someone had just dumped it. You know what I did? he asked. I went as fast as I could in the opposite direction, because I know I can’t handle material like that!! ‘That’s honest. It’s also radical. He wasn’t going to let that ‘litter’ be the beginning of sin to him. It is illustrative of the kind of evasive action you may have to take when feeling under moral pressure. I think it is one example of the kind of approach Jesus was advocating when He said If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away…And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away… (Matthew 5:29,30)

All you who live in Chariotville, get in your chariots for flight. You led the daughter of Zion into trusting  Not God but chariots. Similar sins in Israel also got their start in you. The Message. Sin ‘starts’ somewhere. We must try to head it off at the pass; cut it off at its source.

(By the way, in these verses there are a lot of word plays in the names of towns listed. You may see this reflected in the footnotes in some Bibles. But it also comes across brilliantly in the text of the ‘the Message.’.

Prayer: Lord God help me to go into this day wearing the breastplate of righteousness. Enable me to take my stand against everything you hate.

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Daily Bible thoughts 573: Friday 14th March 2014:

 2 Corinthians 3:12 – 18

Christianity is not an ‘undercover’ operation (12, 13). We are not in hiding; we don’t wear a disguise. We don’t slink around at the edges of society trying to avoid detection. Unlike Moses, we have nothing to hide. Everything is out in the open with us. The Message. I like the comment made by John White that Christian witness is about honesty, plain and simple. We are who we are: followers of Christ, and we are not trying to pretend otherwise. We want the glory of the gospel to be reflected in our lives, and we know that this is an ever-increasing glory (18) and not one that is fading away (13). We are going to let our light shine before men and not hide it under a bucket.

However bright the light of Christ may shine out of a Christian life, it will not be seen (not truly seen) or understood by people who are not Christians, until their eyes are supernaturally opened to it (14 – 16). Paul here continues with the veil theme, and he says regarding his fellow Jews that they are unable to see the truth when the Old Testament is read. They are spiritually blind. But whenever a person turns to the Lord, they have an eye-opening experience (16). They can say that once they were blind, but now they can see. (Look how this theme runs on into 4:1-6). We can take heart that someone who we know and love, and who is unable to see the truth about Jesus today (perhaps a friend or neighbour or colleague or relative) may ‘see the light’ tomorrow. Whenever anyone does it is a miracle. Christian conversion is about turning people from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.

Once we get to know the Lord Jesus, and we’re in a ‘face to face’ relationship with Him (reflect can be translated behold), we are changed increasingly to be like Him (17, 18). The Holy Spirit’s work in sanctification causes each Christian to shine ever more brightly with the glory of Christ. The literal idea in (18) is that we are ‘transfigured’. The Greek word employed by Paul is one from which we derive our word ‘metamorphosis.’ This big, complicated sounding word describes the amazing process by which a caterpillar is changed into a butterfly. When someone becomes a Christian they commence a similar process. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. The Message.

Each day, you can have your own personal transfiguration as you worship the Lord and yield to the Spirit. Warren W. Wiersbe: With the Word, p.758.

There is a paradox seen in (17, 18). It speaks of the ‘Lordship of the Spirit’, you might say. But where the Holy Spirit is in control of a life there is freedom (or liberty ). There was a lot of talk about ‘liberty’ in the Pentecostal church circles I moved in when I was a teenager. Often, what these dear people seemed to be referring to was a certain liveliness in the preacher (that might make him particularly fluent, and loud!!) or in the congregation (with similar results!). Some years later I discovered that the freedom of the Spirit, according to the New Testament, is a  freedom to become more like Jesus. This will happen when we are under the rule of the Holy Spirit. So when we are most led by Him we will be most truly free.

Prayer: Lord make my life a mirror to reflect your rays into this dark world.

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Daily Bible thoughts 572: Thursday 13th March 2014:

2 Corinthians 3:7-11

There are three phrases in this passage that, I believe, supply the key to understanding it: …will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?…how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness…how much greater is the glory of that which lasts! (8, 9b, 11). The New Covenant is much more glorious than the Old one. In fact it shines with surpassing glory (10b).

Paul here contrasts the two covenants:

  • The Old Covenant brought death (7) in that people broke that which was engraved in letters on stone. To sin is to die. To be sinful is to be in a state of death.
  • The Old Covenant condemns men (9). People who break God’s law are condemned by their actions. In fact they do not so much break it as they are broken by it.
  • The Old Covenant was glorious (9, 10, and see 7), but it was a fading glory (11): a point brought home by looking at the fading glory on Moses’ face (7b).

So what we have under the new covenant is better (as the writer of Hebrews keeps emphasising.)

  • The New Covenant is the ministry of the Spirit (8). As someone said, He, the third Person of the Trinity, is the executor of the God head. So we can say that whatever the Father has planned, and the Son made possible by His death on the cross, the Spirit makes real in our lives. An executor ensures you get what is yours.
  • The New Covenant brings righteousness (9). As the Spirit applies the God-ordained work of Calvary to our lives, we become right with  God (positionally) and we are enabled to live right before men (practically) by the Spirit’s power. Through His sanctifying work we become more and more righteous in life.
  • The New Covenant is one of surpassing glory (10)
  • The New Covenant lasts (11b). Its blessings are eternal.

Let’s realise, today, the enormous benefits of living in these New Covenant days. If you have put your trust in Christ to save you, and if God’s Spirit, thereby, has come to live in you, you have entered an era, a realm of indescribable glory. You have been brought out of darkness and into God’s marvellous light  (1 Peter 2:9; see also Prov.4:18). Take time today to adore the loving God who has so blessed you.

Prayer: Lord, I cannot fully grasp that I am able to see the light while so many grope around in the darkness, but I know that it is due to your sovereign grace.

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Daily Bible thoughts 537: Thursday 23rd January 2014:

 2 Chronicles 32:6-8

We continue today with the wonderful story of Hezekiah and his magnificent leadership. (It certainly was at this point.)

  1. What he did (6b): To ‘encourage’ is literally ‘to put courage in.’ It is an indispensable part of leadership. Discouraged people won’t serve to the best of their ability, and some may put a brake on serving altogether. Leaders need to learn how to speak and act in encouraging ways. Yes, we have to challenge people. There is a definite time and place for that. But we need to remember that week by week assembled…before us are people who are often facing great fears and overwhelming odds. Our leadership should exhale the air of encouragement.
  2. What he said (7, 8): As noted previously, Hezekiah was a realist. He did not hide from the brutal truth or attempt to shield his people from it. He just told them a greater truth. He acknowledged the presence and power of a contemporary ‘Goliath’. But he told the people that they needed to see him, as David did, in the light of God. The Himalayan peak of trouble is dwarfed before the infinite Almightiness of our God. Perspective is regained. Hezekiah’s approach was simple. He admitted that the army amassing against them was big, but he said ‘our God is bigger.’ In fact, ‘He is much bigger.’ Again and again we preachers have to stand in the pulpit and say, ‘’Yes, it is true that our world is like this. It is, as someone said, ‘going to hell in a hand cart.’ And yes, it is true that our personal problems often loom ominously over our heads. But here’s a larger truth: God is greater than all of this.’ Acknowledge the gloomy truth, by all means, but then ‘check mate’ it with the glorious truth. Play the ‘trump card’ of revealed truth. When we get a vision (and at best it can only be a glimpse) of who God is, it takes our breath away, and we are encouraged. The truth sets people free. Our task; our calling as leaders is to state it and restate it in all its sparkling clarity and simplicity. ‘There is a great enemy against us. How true! But there is a greater power with us.’  Hezekiah rallied the people, saying, ‘’Be strong! Take courage! Don’t be intimidated by the king of Assyria and his troops – there are more on our side than on their side. He only has a bunch of mere men; we have our GOD to help us and fight for us! The Message.
  3. 3.       What happened (8b): I had to smile to myself. For a number of years a Bible College student spent around three weeks with us at ‘Bridge Street’ church in Leeds. Every year we had someone different, and they came to get some practical training experience. It was always a joy to have them. But I remember one rather cool young guy asking the senior minister, ‘Did you get a result last night?’ It makes me smile still today when I think about it. He was referring to a visit the senior pastor had made the previous evening, and I knew that my esteemed older colleague would not have used those terms! However, as I recall, I think he did ‘get a result’ on that visit!! There was a good outcome. Hezekiah certainly got his result. And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said. This is how it reads on the Message: Morale surged. Hezekiah’s words put steel in their spines. Result! (With a capital ‘R’)

Prayer: Lord, take my tongue and speak through me words that build and fill others with courage and hope.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 522: Thursday 2nd January 2014

2 Chronicles 29:6-11

During last August, just before attending the ‘Global Leadership Summit’ at Willow Creek Church, my wife and I spent approximately twenty four hours in down town Chicago. We managed to fit in a guided tour of both the north and south sides of the city. To my surprise and delight, when we were exploring the south side, the guide pointed out the ‘Moody’ Church and Bible Institute. Not long after this we were shown Hugh Hefner’s former Playboy mansion, then the club where Frank Sinatra and his cronies hung out when they were in town, and also the bullet hole in the façade of a church building left from the Al Capone gangster era! I was struck by the thought that this one humble and simple (in the best sense) man made such an enormous impact on his city, that he is still remembered today. (Of course his influence was even greater than on this one city. He impacted the world as an evangelist: a powerful preacher about Jesus.) It was this same D.L. Moody, I believe, who said, ‘The world is yet to see what God will do with one man who is fully surrendered to Him.’ Then he added, ‘God helping me, I will be that man!’ It appears he was.

I thought about Moody as I was mulling over Hezekiah’s commitment expressed in 2 Chronicles 29:10: Now I intend to make a covenant with the LORD, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. In my Bible I have highlighted the words: Now I intend…  As the great Anglican pastor, John Stott, observed, no-one drifts into holiness. Hezekiah wasn’t making a ‘new year’s resolution’ type of thing that would be broken in days, or perhaps weeks. He was making a serious commitment, and he was highly intentional about it.

We have seen in recent days how the people of Judah had turned away from God, and from regular worship in the temple. In fact, the ‘church’ in Hezekiah’s day had closed down. This led to very serious consequences, and this comes across well in The Message, which is a modern paraphrase of the Bible: And because of that, GOD’s anger flared up and he turned those people into a public exhibit of disaster, a moral history lesson – look and read! The Bible repeatedly teaches the principle that we reap what we sow. We do so personally and nationally. There is a lesson to be learned that sin (that tendency in all of us to go our own way rather than God’s), if unchecked, will lead to a car wreck at the bottom of the hill. Ultimately it doesn’t lead anywhere good. It takes us in the direction of pain, misery and loss. (But it was to rescue us from the guilt and power of sin that Jesus came into the world: an event the world has apparently been celebrating recently. I have noticed though that Jesus is not always welcome at His own birthday party! But that’s another subject altogether.)

Hezekiah was appalled at the situation he had inherited. He saw the spiritual danger he and his people were facing, and he was determined to do something about it. He drew a line in the sand. Things were going to change if he had anything to do with it, and he was going to have a lot to do with it: I have decided to make a covenant with the GOD of Israel and turn history around… The Message. One with God is a majority, and Hezekiah intended to be a history maker. Was it Wesley who said something like this, ‘Give me a handful of people who love nothing but God and hate nothing but sin, and we’ll change the world’? It doesn’t take large numbers to make a big difference. It just takes a heartfelt commitment; a life fully given over to God. Someone said: ‘Be the difference you want to see in the world.’

Prayer: Lord, It amazes me how you take very ordinary people and use them in your service. Like Hezekiah, I give what I am and have to you. May I be a difference-maker in your purposes.

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Daily Bible thoughts 521: Wednesday 1st January 2014

: 2 Chronicles 29: 6

Hezekiah came to the throne as a young man and sought to reverse a situation of national spiritual decline. It is surely noteworthy that the turning away from God went hand in hand with turning away from the ‘church’: They turned their faces away from the LORD’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him (6) Our ancestors went wrong and lived badly before GOD – they discarded him, turned away from this house where we meet with GOD, and walked off. They boarded up the doors, turned out the lights, and cancelled all the acts of worship of the GOD of Israel in the holy Temple. The Message. I strongly believe that (what I see as) an ever decreasing desire in many professing Christians, to be habitually part of regular fellowship with other believers, is a symptom of a serious and potentially terminal illness. There is something profoundly unhealthy going on. Now let me stress that I don’t consider you can measure spirituality by the number of church meetings attended. That’s not my concern. But through my lifetime I have observed a marked change of attitude towards worship gatherings. I was brought up in an era where we went to meetings three times on a Sunday. I’m not saying there was anything inherently virtuous about this, but it was the reality of our childhood years. There would also be at least one midweek meeting to attend as well. (It seems to me that many Christians of my father’s generation had a sense of ‘churchmanship’ that is not so common today.) About 20/25 years ago, I began to notice a shift in church culture: a significant number of Christians were starting to attend church once a week only. (This was so much the case that when a young couple joined our church in Boston Spa, and turned out twice on a Sunday and again in the week, we spoke of them as having a kind of ‘old-fashioned’ commitment to the life of the church. Needless to say, this was not a disparaging remark. We were delighted with them and their involvement, which was somewhat out of sync with where things were heading in the church generally.) We are a now in a situation where many believers will show up at a meeting once a fortnight, possibly every three weeks, and even monthly.  Although there can be legitimate reasons for this, it seems to me, as a pastor, and as an observer of these trends over a number of years, that domestic and social commitments often take precedence over commitment to the local church.  I repeat that we can’t measure the true health of a person’s spiritual life by the number of meetings they attend. I accept that totally. But commitment to Christ cannot be expressed apart from commitment to His body, the church. I believe many pastors would say that Sunday by Sunday their local expression of ‘the body’ seems like a multiple amputee case! So many ‘body parts’ are missing!! How can you say you are committed to Christ when you are not playing your full part in His church? This is not a healthy trend.  It feels like an attitude of, ‘How little can I get away with?’ in terms of commitment to the church services. Are we gradually heading towards boarding up the doors and turning out the lights and cancelling the acts of worship? Perhaps not. But who would have thought that such change as we have seen could have come about in one generation?

I will return to this tomorrow, but in (10) Hezekiah says: Now I intend… (I have decided…The Message). On this New Year’s Day, I would like to see every Christian re-evaluate their relationship with Christ’s church. Maybe 2014 requires some intentionality towards change?  Perhaps we need to make decisions that will enable us to be like the first Pentecostal church: They devoted themselves…to the fellowship… (Acts 2:42). Such devotion is sadly lacking in large sectors of the church.

Prayer: Lord you tell us not to forsake our gathering together as your people. Forgive us, please, our increasing apathy and lethargy about such meeting, and help us to obey you.

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