Nehemiah 13: 15-22; Ex 20: 8-11

Introduction

Sabbath observance as described in Neh 13 is remarkably modern.

1.  People of God were blatantly and violently breaking the Sabbath, treating it as just another ordinary workday—v. 15

2.  Non-believers who lived among them were doing the same thing and pushing the people of God to further break the Sabbath.  They were selling the Judahites their merchandise, making the people of God even more like themselves—V. 16

3.  Nehemiah warned Judah of the danger in breaking the Sabbath and took steps to ensure proper Sabbath observance.

Keeping the Sabbath

God’s commands regarding  Sabbath observance are clearly stated in Ex 20: 8-11.  The foundation of this and all commandments is the authority and holiness of God.  The clear implication is:  if you truly belong to God, you will obey His commands without compromise.  You must understand that the purpose of the Law is to glorify God, to experience His love and His best and pursue His purposes.  As Christians, we must understand what God expects and do it.

What God expects is stated through Moses here in Ex 20 and through Jesus in the gospels.  Jesus did not change what Moses said, so this command is for us today. Jesus however explained what Moses said against the burdensome interpretations of the Pharisees.  See Mt 12: 1-13.

He allowed His disciples to pluck grain and eat them on the Sabbath because they were hungry.  Also, He healed the sick on the Sabbath.  The principle here is stated in v. 12 of Mt 12:  it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. Acts of mercy on the Sabbath day honour the intent of the Sabbath law—v. 8.

The context explains the word good—to meet a legitimate human need.  Pastors break the Sabbath every week, as do doctors, nurses, firefighters, etc., without being guilty [Mt 12: 5], because they are involved in meeting urgent, legitimate human needs.

Christians today, however, have pushed the limits far beyond mercy and necessity, to the point of low discipleship.  So Christians go shopping after church, go to work on Sunday--by choice, etc.  In effect what some Christians do is reduce the Sabbath day to the Sabbath ½ day or ¼ day.  So for some Christians, Sunday is extra time for catching up on laundry, house repairs, gardening, car repairs or oil changes, grocery shopping, etc.  Things became worse in Canada after the government struck down the Lord’s Day Act.  Which introduces the next thing Nehemiah 13 deals with.

Disobedience Encouraged by the Secular Society

Neh 13: 15, 16, especially v. 16.  Rather than setting an example of holiness and obedience for the unbelievers, the Believers willingly followed the leading of the sinner in violating the holy Sabbath of  the God of Israel.  Some Christians have  always violated the Lord’s Day.  However, since Sunday opening became legal in Ontario even faithful Christians, including even some pastors, have willingly and voluntarily  chosen to follow the behaviour of  unbelievers in Sabbath behaviour. Christians following sinners! They do business with them, and even allow themselves to be controlled by the unbelievers--for example,  by being involved in programs, such as sports, which the unbelievers control.  Would Muslims do  that?

In effect, what we have is the enemy controlling the Lord’s Sabbath day with God’s people willingly cooperating with them against the law and will of God—plus excusing and justifying their behaviour.

The Tragedy of Sabbath-Breaking

Nehemiah

(a) warned Judah of the dire consequences of breaking the Sabbath

(b) took steps to ensure proper Sabbath observance

(a).  Note Neh 13: 17-18.

I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this wicked thing you are doing—desecrating the Sabbath day?  Didn’t your forefathers do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity upon us and upon this city?  Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.”  

There is something about breaking the Sabbath that really scares one.  The command is governed by the same principle that governed the fall.  Compare these two statements:  Ge 2: 16.  God commanded Adam,  You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.   Place beside that Ex 20: 9, 10.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.  On it you shall not do any work.

Now here is what scares one.  When God clearly gives you freedom in a wide area and gives only one prohibition, if you violate that one restriction you are courting death.  That one prohibition has got to be extremely crucial to God and to your spiritual safety.  If you break that one you may not be able to enjoy the others.  The spirit that makes you violate the one prohibition will likely make you break all the others.

But more importantly, God has structured life so that the structure is largely dependent on your not disobeying the one prohibition.  If you break it, dire consequences will follow, for you and society, perhaps because thereby you remove primary protection.

When Adam and Eve ate of the one tree forbidden to them, they forfeited the entire garden with all the other trees they were free to take from.  Now here is Nehemiah in13: 17 and 18 saying essentially the same thing about breaking the Sabbath.  Breaking the Sabbath led to the destruction of Israel and exile from the Promised Land just as eating the forbidden fruit led to the expulsion or exile of the couple from Eden.  Furthermore, it was breaking the Sabbath rest of the land that led them into  exile for the same length of time they had not rested the land according to the Sabbath law.

The Sabbath is the one day reserved for exclusive focus on God and preoccupation with the Lord.  When you lose that single pillar, your house is liable to fall.

The Sabbath commandment is a restatement of the first commandment:  I am the Lord your God…You shall have no other gods before me.  Constant violation of the Lord’s day may very well be the basic cause of Christians violating other commandments and becoming involved in such sins as sodomy, adultery, divorce, marriage breakdown, abuse, lack of respect for parents and authority, violence, dishonesty, conflicts, church splits, lack of growth, etc.  If you break God’s #1 provision, which other will you not break?  The focus on God, the immersion in God, which indicates the primacy of Jehovah, represented in Sabbath-keeping, controls the rest of behaviour.

Here is an example from Scripture.  In Gen 39 when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph. How did he respond?  How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?  His focus on God enabled him to keep the commandment against adultery.  Sabbath observance sharpens our focus on God and thereby protects us against sin.

(b)  Nehemiah took steps to correct abuse of the Sabbath and prevent the dire consequences that could occur.  The action he took is described in 13: 19-22.  He put a hedge of protection around the Sabbath to make it virtually impossible for God’s people to bread God’s Sabbath.  We not only need to stop violating the Sabbath, if we are, but also put a hedge of protection around our Sabbath observance, by establishing the principles of Scripture in our thinking, planning, and acting, to make it most unlikely that we would ever break the Sabbath again.

Those of you who now or in the future may have children involved in sports may face the question:  Should I allow my child to attend practices or games on Sunday?  We would advise you, take a clear stand on God’s Word.  Say NO!  Do not do it.  Teach your child God’s expectations and provide  positive biblical reinforcement for his faithfulness and obedience. Do not manufacture logical excuses from psychology and culture. But you must start early in the child’s life.  Make your decisions as a family early, with the children’s participation, ensuring their cooperation in the decision making process.  As a family, make a covenant with God by taking a clear and definite stand, giving God the whole Sunday, with no compromise with the world.  Decide to be like Daniel and stand with God, even if you have to stand alone.  People in other religions do the same for their deities.  How can the Christian do less? Stand like Joshua who said, Choose this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.  Obey God 100% of the time and leave the consequences and results to Him.  He will reward you richly.

The same applies to work.  If  you work long hours and work also on the Sabbath, it will be almost impossible to convince your wife or children that you love them.  Secretly they will see and think and be convinced that you are married to your job, and your children will say you are more interested in your job than in them.  You see, for both wife and child LOVE spells TIME [and attention].  What we do with our children is really what we teach them.  Our children in fact want us and need us to do what is Godly and right, without compromise.  We lead by example.  We teach by living.

Conclusion

How should the Christian family observe the Lord’s Day?  By doing what Jesus would do.  The Christian must begin by recognizing that God’s Sabbath law is not optional.  On it, as on all days, we do only what pleases and glorifies  God, especially worship. On it we do what clearly honours the Lord, what obeys Scripture, what promotes God’s kingdom, with special reference to rest and worship.

We have 6 other days! But on this one day rest all the balance of life, because it represents and provides for exclusive focus on our holy God, the giver and sustainer of life!  Here is a key to life:  When I take all 6 days for myself, plus 2/3 of God’s one day, I rob myself of the rich blessings God wants to give me all 7 days, because the one day I give exclusively to God is the day I most give to myself.  That one day releases for me the store of God’s blessing and protection.  To rob God of His one day means we rob ourselves of the riches blessings of all our 7 days. The fact is, that one day controls all  our days.

Meditate on eph 6: 14-16, 23, 24.

Nehemiah 13: 1-14

Introduction

The message of Neh 13: 1-14 is as relevant today as it was in Nehemiah’s day. The original situation reveals the message of the principles governing God’s people and God’s house as holy unto the Lord

1. Holiness as Separateness

The basic principle is that of the nature of holiness. Holiness means separateness and distinct difference. Verses 1 and 2 indicate that the Law of Moses commanded that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God. For further information, read Dt 23: 3-6. The reason given in v. 2 is that they had not met the Israelites with hospitality but with opposition, during the exodus and entry into the Promised Land.

Nu 22-24 records that in fear of Israel, Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel. In addition, Nu 25 says the women of Moab seduced the men of Israel into ritual sexual immorality.

Moab was East of the southern pat of the Dead Sea. The Ammonite territory was N of Moab. There apparently was a bond between the two neighbours, who were partners in crime. However, we do not have an explanation of what Ammon had done to Israel. The explanation may be in their origin.

Genesis 19: 37 reports that the Moabites were descended from Lot through incest with his elder daughter. According to Gen 19: 38, the Ammonites were descended from Lot through incest with his younger daughter. So both the Ammonites and the Moabites were related to Israel, who were descended from Abraham, uncle of Lot; and of course related to each other. It was therefore reasonable for Israel to expect from both groups some kindness and hospitality. But they refused to feed Israel and instead opposed them.

The Believer should not be surprised at the rejection of relatives who are unsaved.

Verse 3. When the people heard the law that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God’s people, they excluded from Israel all such people—an act of significant, radical obedience.

Behind this regulation and practice is the principle of purity and holiness. God included in His family only those persons who would not corrupt His people but instead promote their purity. To further understand it, we need to look further at the background.

Ex 12: 37-38 says that in the exodus from Egypt about 600,000 men left, plus women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them. These unbelievers who attached themselves to God’s people were a constant source of problems. For example, Numbers 11: 4 records that the rabble who were among them had greedy desires and apparently influenced the Israelites to complain against God. Rabble is an

apt term for the non-Israelite mixed group of people who followed he Israelites out of Egypt, pointing to a recurrent source of complaints and trouble in the camp. Those who did not know the Lord and His mercies incited those who did know Him to rebel against Him

[NIV footnote].

No doubt they were the prime movers toward the worship of idols and ritual prostitution by God’s people. There is no evidence that they ever took God genuinely as their God. Otherwise God would have admitted them to Israel. Ruth the Moabitess was admitted to Israel’s assembly. But note what she had done. Naomi said to her, Go back to your people and your gods. Ruth responded, Your people will be my people and your God my God. She even swears by the Lord.

But if pagans insist on rejecting God, Believers must separate themselves from them—that is, regarding relationships where the unbeliever can influence the inner life of the Believer. In 2 Co 6: 14-17 is a principle well established in Scripture, one which we ignore or violate to our own peril and possible destruction.

Some Christians tend to react to this principle. Just remember that God is Love and His commands are statements of love, principles established for our protection. God does not want for us what is good. He has provided for us His best! But this is the only way to enjoy it.

2. Consequences of Violation of Holiness

Note the message of vv. 4 and 5. Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the store-rooms of the house of God. However, he had a bond with Tobiah the Ammonite. It was an emotional bond, perhaps a legal bond. Tobiah the Ammonite was governor of a neighbouring area, East of the Jordan. He apparently felt politically threatened by Nehemiah and chose to become a sworn enemy.

If Eliashib was in fact the highpriest, then v. 28 has his grandson marrying the daughter of Sanballat who was comrade-in-crime with Tobiah. This bonded Tobiah with Eliashib. Tobiah convinced Eliashib the priest to provide him personal space in the holy temple of God, which he was not allowed to even enter. The priest of God installed in the house of God the enemy of God. Yet the priest of God should have known the law of God that no Ammonite was allowed in the house of God.

Not only so, but to accommodate Tobiah, he had to throw out God, effectually, by excluding all the tithes and offerings that were supposed to be stored in the same space [v. 5]. So God’s pure purposes and provisions are replaced by paganism. The consequence was the weakening of worship and the spiritual life of God’s people, especially of the leaders of the church [v. 10].

We must never allow in God’s place any interest but God. This applies to the Believer, the church, the church buildings and property. Under no circumstances should pastor or church compromise with secular leaders, with sinners of any kind, with sin of any colour.

3. Restoration after Violation

In angry response, Nehemiah took very radical action to cleanse the temple.

1. He threw out Tobiah and his furniture

2. He had the temple rooms purified, to get rid of the evil influences of the pagan enemy and replace them with the holy influence of God

3. Having emptied the rooms of the enemy’s properties, he replaced them with the valuables of God—the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense—v. 9. He provided proper staff [v. 13], men of honesty and integrity

4. He restored the spiritual leadership [v. 11] and the worship life of God’s house.

Nehemiah is a great example to non-ordained Believers. He was a political, government leader functioning as a spiritual leader and reformer. We should go and do likewise.

The action of Nehemiah has a parallel in Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. He took a whip and drove the Tobiahs out of the temple, along with their animals and merchandise, overturning the tables of the money-changers and salesmen. He said to them, Get these out of here! It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’ How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market! Jn 2: 14-16; Mt 21: 12, 13. It also parallels the cleansing of the temple by King Josiah [2 K 23: 1-7] and by the Maccabees, commemorated today in the Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah.

There are at least two reminders here for us.

1. Personal. The Word of God says you are the temple of the living God—2 Co 6: 16—and God’s Spirit lives in you. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you—1 Co 6: 19. Do not allow any Tobiah, anything pagan or sinful, to take up residence in your body, your mind, will, emotions, desires, heart or spirit. Never allow anything anti-God to take the place of God in your life.

If there is any evil in you, let Christ cleanse you by your confession and His forgiveness, His washing and sprinkling of His blood, purifying you from the inside out. Take action to throw out of your life any source of pollution: music, literature, magazines, computer, TV, friends…and replace them with Godly counterparts. Allow no vacuum in your life. Throw out Tobiah’s furniture and put in God’s holy provisions and equipment.

2. Congregational. How should we use the church facilities? Is ours simply a community building? We need to take the position that God’s building must be used only for programs and purposes that promote the Gospel of Christ and the worship of our God. That is, our facilities are to be used according to the nature of the God to whose glory we dedicated them, set them apart for His exclusive use—purposes that glorify the eternal God. This is how Jesus saw it.

If God’s house is used for something secular, it may mean something holy is being neglected. God has not provided for any vacuum in ministry. God has so much work to be done in the world that empty areas of time and space indicate ministry areas being neglected, or at least opportunity being missed. Everything the church does, everything the facilities are used for, must be clearly and immediately related to God’s purposes. The house of God is holy and must never be used for any unholy purpose.

This is clear all through Scripture. The tabernacle, the Temple, utensils, furnishings, priestly vestments, priests, Levites, temple/tabernacle areas are all holy and to be used only by those who are engaged in worship of Jehovah or service to God. Even the unsaved, such as Ammonites and Moabites, were forbidden participation in the assembly of God’s people. That is why Jesus cleansed the Temple. Did Jesus change this principle? Note Acts 5: 12, 13.

Nehemiah 13 shows that the use of God’s house for non-holy purposes was based on a tragic compromise.

Conclusion

Neh 13: 1-14 reminds us of God’s principle of holiness of people and property—both to be faithfully kept holy and never violated. In case there is any violation, the holy must be cleansed and restored, rededicated to God, without any further violation or compromise. Jehovah is a jealous God, a God of holiness and principle!

Nehemiah 12: 27-43; 1 Chron. 29: 1-20

Focus: Neh 12: 31b, 43. I also assigned two large choirs to give thanks. And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy.

1 Chron 29: 14b. Everything comes from you….

Introduction

That Nehemiah and the people of Judah had a great and joyous celebration was not surprising. They met in a special service of worship to give thanks and praise to God because they had finished the work they set out to do. It is quite normal for God’s people to worship in this way even today, and it is both important and helpful to see the nature and quality of that worship.

More important for us, however, is to see the real reason for their praise. Why did they have such a celebration of thanksgiving? Was it simply that they recognized that God had helped them to complete the task, or was there more to it than that?

The evidence suggests that there was a great deal more to it than the obvious. They recognized that God was the source of their success and so they met to focus on Him as the ultimate doer of the work. They offered great sacrifices, rejoicing, acknowledging that everything came from God. That is the source and secret of Nehemiah’s success and the people’s celebration.

Nehemiah’s Success

1. From the very beginning, Nehemiah acknowledged God as Source of all success. Only by God’s empowering and by the operation of God’s principles could any good be achieved. So in chapter 1, having found out the nature of the need and the work that needed to be done, Nehemiah threw himself in total dependence upon God, His power and provisions. He recognized that he himself could do nothing; he could accomplish nothing without the Lord’s empowering. So as he prepared to make his petition to the king, he prayed,

Oh Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.

Nehemiah understood that the heart of the king was in the hand of God and He could turn it in any direction. Pr. 21: 1. He proceeded in that confidence and the king gave him everything he needed. He was so well supplied that in Jerusalem instead of receiving his rightful provisions from the people, he gave to the people.

2. Because he knew God to be the Source of success, Nehemiah’s main instrument was prayer. [a] At the very beginning, he turned to God, knowing that the answer to Judah’s tragedy was in God. Chapter 1. As he prepared to petition the king, he asked God to give him success [b] As he thought about his response to the king’s question, he said, I prayed to the God of heaven—2: 4. Before turning to answer the king he utters a brief, spontaneous request to God, essentially asking God to supply the answer [c] He responds to opposition by turning over his opponents to God instead of attempting retaliation. As the hymn advises, Take it to the Lord in prayer. So he prays:

Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity. Do not cover up their guilt…

4: 4, 5. Similarly in 6: 14 he prays, Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, because of what they have done; remember also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who have been trying to intimidate me. Also in 13: 29 he prays for other rebellious opponents: Remember them, O my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.

In response to continuing attacks aimed at discouraging the workers, he prayed for strength because God was the only source of strength [6: 9]. He repeatedly prays, Remember me, O my God, for what I have done [5: 19; 13: 14, 22, 29, 31]. We interpret these apparently self-focused petitions as acknowledgement of the final authority of God, from whom comes all success.

So with us. The road to success on the job, in school, at home…is the combination of fervent prayer and hard work.

Application

Through Nehemiah, God is saying to us at least two very significant things.

1. Commit whatever you do to the Lord and do not be afraid of anyone. Pr 16: 3 says, Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Do not assume that your success is really dependent on the pleasure and will of other people; e.g., your boss or employer. They are not in control of your destiny, so you need not be afraid of them. Respectful, yes; afraid, no! Pr 29: 25 warns us: Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. Pr 19: 23 teaches: The fear of the Lord leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

If Nehemiah had feared Sanballat and his company, he would have failed. Instead, he kept his faith in God. In whatever we do we must focus on God as owner and controller, not on man. If, for example, in a job you acted as though you were fearful of your boss or co-worker, or fearful of being fired, it would become more likely that you would be fired or otherwise fail. Serious leaders do not want to be surrounded by inconfident people but by workers who are secure and focused.

That is a major factor in the victory of Gideon over the Midianites. Gideon mustered an army of 32, 000 men. But the Lord told him,

You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hand….Announce now to the people, “Everyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead”

Judg 7: 1-3. Fearfulness destroys morale. But you need not fear when God is your Leader.

Notice what is almost a refrain in the O. T. God repeatedly tells the leaders of Israel, I will give your enemy into your hand; I have given this nation into your hand; I will drive them out and give you their territory. Sometimes He even says, You will not need to fight. March into battle, and watch the Lord fight for you. I will cause them to hear a rumour, or, I will attack them with hailstones. He even does it with a touch of humour sometimes, as we read in Acts 5: 17-26, the account of the persecution, arrest and imprisonment of the apostles. During the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail, brought out the apostles and told them, Go, stand in the temple courts and tell the people the full message of this new life. So they did, at daybreak. When the court reconvened the next day they sent the guards to bring them out. Think of the humour of the report of the officers. We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside. Catch the look on their faces, the faces of the authorities!  Acts 12 similarly records Peter’s miraculous escape from prison, and is even more humorous, except it has a grim ending for the guards. Etc. God is the source, the sovereign source, of our success.

We face in our society various serious challenges: sodomy, family dysfunction, hatred of God and Christianity, and so on. We should never fear. All we need to do is obey God, place our hope and expectations in Him and leave the rest to Him. Never should Christians panic. It is God who is doing the work. We are simply His instruments. And He is at work in us to will and to do His good pleasure.

2. There is in God’s kingdom

a. no place for fear of boss, supervisor, or employer. Eph 6: 9 makes it clear that you and your boss have the same Master, who is in heaven, and with Him there is no favouritism.

b. no place for competition. As 1 Co 3: 6, 7 says, Paul planted, Apollos watered, but it was God who produced the growth and the harvest. Only God really matters, because He is the Source.

c. no place for jealousy. Each Believer, like a separate organ in the Body, has a different cooperative function. See 1 Co 12. But even if there is jealousy, look at the situation from God’s point of view, as the apostle does. Paul says in Ph 1: 15ff, some may preach the gospel out of selfish ambition, envy or rivalry to hurt him, while others preach Christ out of love. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached—v. 18. Therefore, there is no place for tension or fear of failure.

Conclusion

The secret of success for the Christian is obedience. Obedience means knowing God’s purpose for your life and for individual tasks and accomplishing His purposes in love. This is quite independent of power or position. For the Lord can save by many or by few. He can save by a child or by a powerful man. Simply trust Him and obey Him. Trust and obey for there is no other way to be successful!

Here is the bottom line. A little outside Windsor, Ontario, you are traveling on your own private road. Your road ends at the ramp where you can and are obliged to take either the Highway 401 E or 401W. You have been very reliably informed that 401E at this point has multiple lanes but soon narrows into a single lane. 401W enjoys multiple lanes for its duration, with very comfortable rest stops and beautiful scenery. As you approach the ramp you notice that there is much traffic speeding along 401W. The voice on your OnStar monitor tells you clearly, To really get the most out of your time and your adventure, take the road less traveled.

You recall the words of Jesus: Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. You also recall the thoughts of Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, just as fair’

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

You must decide! To be, or not to be? To do or not to do? To go, or not to go?

Jesus concluded His Sermon on the Mount with this application and warning:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But every one who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish men who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

He whose heart has eyes to see and ears to hear, let him see, perceive and hear! And obey!

On which road are you? Which road will you take? If you are on the broad road, observe that there are exits and interchanges all along the route, except at the end. To be or not to be? To change or not to change? To go or not to go? To act now, when there is opportunity, or later, which may be too late? The broad road or the narrow way?

Hear again the word of the Lord to Israel, recorded in Dt. 30: 11-20, recognizing that everything that as written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope [Ro 15: 4].

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it? Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it? No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase….This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him. For the Lord is your life….

This message is confirmed by the Lord in Joshua 24: 14, 15. Joshua counsels God’s people:

Now fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your fathers worshiped…and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

Jesus the Lord of glory, King of the universe, has very clearly and categorically said, He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters—Mt 12: 30. James Russel Lowell declares the urgency of the decision this way:

Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, some great decision, Off’ring each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes on forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, When we share her wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, And ‘tis prosp’rous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses, While the coward stands aside,

Till the multitude make virtue Of the faith they had denied.

Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet the truth alone is strong;

Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong,

Yet that scaffold sways the future, And, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadows, Keeping watch above His own.

As the prophecies if the Old Testament prophets and of Christ Himself in the gospels and the Revelation declare, the day is coming when Christ the righteous Judge will examine all people and reward each person according to the life he will have lived. Truth will win and truth declare the truth of the truth, the truth which the written Word of God and the Word Incarnate in Christ have proclaimed. As Henry Longfellow taught in his lyric titled I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day:

I thought how the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along the’unbroken song Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head: “There is no peace on earth,” I said,

“For hate is strong, and mocks the song Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Yet pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men.

Then ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day—

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime Of peace on earth, good will to men!

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORDER

Genesis 1; Nehemiah 11: 1- 4. 20-24

Introduction

One of the principles that stand out in the life and work of Nehemiah is the priority of order and organization. His records have already dealt with two aspects of this: attention to detail; and organized labour. Let us look at the principle of order and how Nehemiah employed it. Let us then go on to examine the lessons it teaches.

Order in Nehemiah

From the very beginning, Nehemiah was committed to order and pursued God’s work in an orderly way.

In chapter 2 he organized in his mind a logical plan for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. This included its materials , work force and time schedule. He inspected the walls in an orderly fashion: the Valley Gate, Jackal Well, Dung Gate, Fountain Gate, etc., then back to the Valley Gate where he had started.

In chapter 3, he organized the workers according to logical sections of the wall.

Chapter 4 records that the work went on despite threats of attack, because he also organized military defenses.

In chapter 7 Nehemiah developed accurate records of various categories of the population; e.g., priests, Levites, singers, temple servants, gatekeepers.

Chapters 8-10. Even the reading of the Law is obviously done in an orderly way.

Then we come to chapter 11, which records the orderly arrangement of the population. People volunteer to move to Jerusalem. No one group is exclusively represented or favoured. Volunteers come from Judah, Benjamin, the priests, Levites and gatekeepers. This produces a situation of balance.

The principle continues in chapter 12, which provides a rich climax in the drama of order, as the people celebrate in wondrous worship the completion of the wall. See vv. 27-31, 38-40, 42b-43. But that is not the end. Nehemiah makes orderly assignments to support the worship life of Israel: 12: 44-47. And on it goes.

What can we learn from Nehemiah’s example? There are several lessons and reminders here for us. For example, Nehemiah reminds us that order is essential to life.

1. Order is Essential to Life

Order is required for successful living and meaningful achievement. Order is essential to success. As plants require the order of the seasons so people need the order of God for growth and fruitbearing. Some people may be able to function productively, as far as the world is concerned, without an organized life, but generally speaking, from God’s point of view, he who rejects order rejects real life.

Among those who reject order are homeless people who would rather sleep on the street in the cold of winter than in a shelter, because the shelter has rules and order. But that life without order places them on the street begging-- and at risk.

Where there is little or no order there must be much or total chaos. Chaos breeds insecurity and destruction and invites negative control. So the absence of order signifies a state on the road to decay and death. Life in the person or the group depends on the operation of the principle of order.

We observed that in at least one case of school shootings in the late 1990s, the students who killed suffered from a lack of inner order—what we normally call peace.

2. Only When You are Organized Can You be Spontaneous and Creative

That is why we say if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person. A successful busy person is usually an organized person; that is why he can get many things done and be very productive. Chapter 5 shows that Nehemiah could take time to help the poor without disruption to his task and without losing sight of his purpose or threatening the completion of the work. Only an organized person can be truly spontaneous and use interruptions to good advantage.

3. Order enhances Safety and Security

Neh 11 follows upon Neh 7: 4.

Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people init. So my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the common people for registration by families

presumably to see how the population of Jerusalem could be increased. Neh 7: 73 records that various categories of people settled in their own towns. Then 11: 1, 2 shows the need to increase Jerusalem’s population and the response made. You know the importance of close neighbours to the safety and security of your home and property. We watch our neighbours’ homes on their behalf, especially when they are away. The police promote that. But when houses are far apart, security is reduced. Therefore Nehemiah’s reorganization.

You certainly appreciate the presence of order in cases of emergency in the home. If the lights go out, you know precisely where your flashlight is, where furniture are; that all toys were put away, etc. You know where your coat is hanging, precisely where your shoes are, etc. If fire breaks out, you know how to get the family safely out of the house. Further, the fire marshal will tell you that an untidy house burns a lot faster than a tidy one. ETC. Order is crucial to safety and security.

4. Order Saves Time and Energy

Neh. 6: 15 says, So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in 52 days—71/2 weeks. Since order maximizes efficiency, one can get more done in less time. It is quite possible for students to accomplish much more education and learning in less time than presently required. I believe that it is possible to complete grades one to twelve in at least one-third less time, if students and the education process were gifted with a rich faculty of order. There is a certain element of chaos inside too many learners, and perhaps in the education process as well. One can see it in the amount of politics involved in the teaching learning process of the average public school. It is expressed too clearly in the work pattern of too many learners.

The value of order in simple practical matters pays big dividends. In the home or workplace, where there is a place for everything and everything is in its intended place, we can easily lay hands on it or direct action regarding its use. Perhaps that is one reason our wives place so much emphasis on having a tidy house.

5. Order Makes It Easier to Deal with Distractions Or Opposition

Because of one’s focus, one’s sense of priority, and one’s commitment to time, even opposition and threat are not allowed to distract one from the urgent. Sanballat and his company tried repeatedly [chapters 4, 6] to distract Nehemiah and destroy his work [6: 9]. But Nehemiah was focused and organized. So he was able to give them this final and conclusive answer:

I am carrying on a great project and cannot do down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?

They even tried a fifth time. The enemy does not give up easily. At the same time, it is interesting that Nehemiah kept count of the number of their attempts. Finally, he counter-attacked [6: 8]; and there was a sixth time—through Shemaiah, who, as agent of the enemy, tried to scare Nehemiah into breaking the Law [6: 10-13]. The NIV footnote to v. 13 says, If Nehemiah had wavered in the face of the threat against him, his leadership would have been discredited and morale among the people would have plummeted.

How was he able to succeed? By remaining focused on his purpose and on his God. Observe that Nehemiah is always praying—especially as he responds to opposition and distractions.

6. The Importance of Inner Order

The main quality we see in Nehemiah is inner order. His passion, focus, work, sense of purpose, his achievement rooted in his unity with God, self and others. Nehemiah had an orderly mind, which was governed and driven by his single focus: the glory of God in the security of His people.

Chapters 2 and 3 show that he had a well thought out strategy which he readily gave to the king, then completed and executed in Jerusalem in 52 days [6: 15].

Studies and experience show that truly successful workers and students are usually those with orderly minds as part of a pattern of total personality integration and unifying purpose. They are thereby able to process, store, retrieve and use information with maximum effect, including achievement of purpose. For example, it has been found that baroque music, especially Mozart, helps students learn better by lifting IQ and improving memory and that music education promotes academic achievement. The explanation is that, first of all, this quality of music reduces blood pressure and pulse rate, helps brain frequencies and increases the ability to learn. Secondly, music education improves listening skills and promotes growth of body, mind, emotion and relationships. Thirdly, practising an instrument enhances coordination and concentration, memory, eyesight and hearing. All of this suggests that the various parts of the person are working together in harmony, for one purpose. So even at the scientific level, the principle of inner order works.

When King Saul and King Nebuchadnezzar were fractured and falling apart inside, they could not function as kings or as persons, but when inner order was restored they became functional again. Inner order is crucial to life. It is the most important of all. James 1: 5-8 says,

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave [the surf] of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord.

Inner order is crucial to purposeful living. Here is the Living Bible paraphrase.

If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask Him and He will gladly tell you, for He is always ready to give a generous supply of wisdom to all who ask Him; He will not resent it. But when you ask Him, be sure that you really expect Him to tell you, for a doubtful mind will be as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind; and every decision you then make will be uncertain, as you turn first this way and then that. If you don’t ask with faith, don’t expect the Lord to give you any solid answer.

Conclusion

Someone defined order this way: Orderliness is preparing myself and my surroundings so I will achieve the greatest efficiency. This summarizes what we learn from Nehemiah. Let us use it to pursue the principle of divine order in our lives, applying and employing that comprehensive order to achieve God’s goals and purposes for us.

The narrow road is the way of and to absolute security in time and eternity. Jesus Christ himself gave us this assurance. In Jn 10 He says to us, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full [10]. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd [16]. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one [27-30].

Security in time carried the apostle Paul through his times of privation and adversity because he learned how to be content regardless of circumstance. Whether in need or plenty, he could roll with the punches because he was poised in his certainty and security in Christ. God had taught him the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. He knew that that he could do all things through Christ who gave him strength—Ph 4: 11-13. It was this basic security that carried him through the harsh experiences of suffering that he enumerates in 2 Co 4-6, 11.

Those on the narrow road have the Lord’s assurance of eternal rewards. At the final judgment, the King will say to them, Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world—Mt 25: 31-46. Furthermore, the certainty and security of our inheritance has been guaranteed to us by the Eternal God. Having believed the gospel of our salvation, we were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory. Eph 1: 13, 14. Read all of Eph. 1. On the other hand, those on the broad, comfortable road will hear the same King say, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

The present population of those on the narrow road will receive their rich inheritance when the Lord Himself comes down from heaven, with a loud command, and the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God. The dead in Christ will rise first, then those who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever—1 Th 3:16, 17; 1 Co 15: 51-52. The future congregation following the rapture will be gloriously and similarly resurrected, and all saints joined in the celebration of worship of the Lamb, the King of Kings and Lord of lords—Rev. 19.

There are very many more perquisites for those on the narrow, rocky road. The Scriptures are well supplied with other examples—such as the privileges that accompany full fellowship and unity with the Holy Spirit—Jn 15, 17; 2 P 1: 2-4. These are sufficient to inspire, motivate, empower and drive us to faithfulness as we face the threats and joys of the narrow way. But the question is, Are you on the right road, the road that leads to life here and hereafter?

The way of Christ is the way of discipline. In 1 Co 9: 24-27 Paul states the principle, using himself as example.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last for ever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

We practise self-denial, control our appetites and treat our bodies as the temple of God’s Holy Spirit so we can be fit for the Master’s use. 1 T 6: 11, 12; 2 T 2: 20-22; Ph 3: 12-14. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present and the life to come. In 2 T 2: 3-7 Paul adds this strong challenge:

Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, it anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.

Christian discipleship is a life of strict disciple of body, actions and priorities [which paradoxically produces true freedom, joy and holy pleasure]. We discipline the body and its appetites so we can perform to the best, for the glory of God and our joy. E.g., we practice self-control, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and all the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We practice thought control by applying our minds to what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, praiseworthy, things that produce poise and peace—Ph 4: 8, 9. We reject worry and instead trust God for all our needs—Mt. 6: 28-33; Jas 1: 5-8; Ro 5: 1-5. The way to Life is a way of rigorous discipline.

Suffering

The way to life is also a way of fruitful suffering. In 2 Co 11: 23-29 Paul catalogues his sufferings for the sake of Christ and the gospel. Jesus had told Ananias at the very beginning, regarding Saul of Tarsus, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name—Acts 9: 16. So here in 2 Co 11 Paul lists the fulfillment of the Lord’s prophecy: Worked very hard, flogged severely, exposed to death repeatedly, 5 times flogged with the 39 lashes, beaten with rods 3 times, shipwrecked 3 times, stoned once; exposure at night on the open sea, constantly on the move, in danger from rivers, bandits, the Jews, from Gentiles; danger in the city and the country, in danger at sea, danger from false brothers, often without sleep, in hunger and thirst, cold and naked—plus the burden of taking care of the churches in all their ups and downs.

But note his response to suffering. In Ro 8: 18 he says, I consider that our present sufferings are no worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us [v. 37]. But imagine in the same letter to the Corinthians Paul saying that our light momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all [2 Co 4: 17]!

We may not be called upon to suffer as Paul was, but our Lord Jesus Christ has warned us that we may be called upon to suffer because we belong to Him. So we must not be surprised when it comes—1 P 4: 12-19—but rather rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven—Mt 5: 11-12. We must not lose heart. We must fix our eyes on the unseen eternal. Always be prepared for some form of suffering and identify with, pray for and support and encourage those who suffer, especially the persecuted. Heb 10: 32-34.

Growth

The way to life is a way of growth. Growth comes in various ways. It comes through testing and hardships. Jas 1: 2-4 challenges us:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

The Believer grows by feeding on God’s Word regularly, by fellowshipping with God’s people, by ongoing worship and meditation and interaction with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 2 P 3: 18 reminds us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Christian disciple must be careful not to stunt his growth by settling down at the point of conversion and church membership. Salvation is a process in which we grow from one stage of glory and maturity to a higher. We grow from conversion through sanctification to glorification. To grow we must follow the pattern of the believers in Acts 2. Those who accepted the Word preached through Peter were baptized and devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Read Acts 2: 37-47.

In Ro 5: 1-5 the Word of the Lord says,

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

That is growth! That is spiritual progress!

Jesus places great and primary emphasis on growth. He says in Jn 14: 15, If you love me, you will obey what I command. In Jn 15: 4, 16 he instructs: Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.

Do you want to grow in God? Begin by meditating on the details of Psalms 1, 19, 119 and living by their precepts. Go on to feast on the Sermon on the Mount, living its details. Proceed to other Scriptures such as Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Hebrews and Revelation. At the same time, immerse yourself in intimate fellowship with father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Life

The narrow road is the way of and to the true abundant life that is eternal salvation. It is the life Jesus describes in Jn 10:10. I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full Romans 3-5 shows that Jesus kept His word. Put briefly, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But all who believe in Jesus Christ, by His sacrifice are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that comes by Christ Jesus [3: 22-26]. This makes the repentant sinner righteous before God, declared not guilty [4: 25-5: 1] by God the righteous Judge. This means that those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness [will abundantly] reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ—5: 17.

In this life we will have tribulation and persecution, but because God’s abundant life is in us, we will not be overcome but will be more than conquerors. Read Ro 8; 2 Co 10; 11: 16-12: 10; 2 Co 4: 7-12.

Faith, Hope and Love

The narrow road is driven by faith, hope and love. These three combine in us to define, describe and drive our lives, giving us the life of heaven, as a foretaste of the fullness to come, while we continue on earth. The Lord says it through Paul in Ro 5: 1-5. By God’s grace we have been saved through our putting our faith in the Saviour. In His love God has adopted us into His family, given us open and standing access into His holy presence where He is always available to pour His love upon us by hearing prayer and affirming our sonship. This is the basis of our hope for time and eternity.

Our faith and confidence in our God grows as we exercise it and fellowship with our Heavenly Father. Our faith carries us through temptation, hardship and suffering, so we do not lose heart. Instead, even in darkness we persist, as the saints of Hebrews 11, and do not give yup. Our faith and our hope carry us through the valleys, so we endure to the end, and are saved. We copy the saints of Heb 11 and find strength and encouragement in their example. We endure by faith and hope as the apostle Paul did—2 Co 4: 16-18.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Paul continues the emphasis in his catalogue of hardships in 2 Co 6: 3-10; 11: 21-33, showing that our faith, hope and love carry us through anything.

The love that drives us is God’s gift of His quality of divine love that drove Him to give His only Son to save the world, and the love that drew salvation’s plan, the love that brought Him down to sinful man, the love that Christ demonstrated in His ministry, His crucifixion, His resurrection, His patient restoration of those who failed, His gift of the Holy Spirit, His saving lost sinners through His church; His ongoing love for His people. This love carries in us all the qualities and characteristics of 1 Co 13 and Jn 10: 1-21. As we persist, the Lord can say of us what 1 Th 1: 2, 3 says of those Believers: how pleased He is with us for our work produced by faith, our labour prompted by love, and our endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tough Joy

The narrow road is the way of tough joy, joy that pursues through pain, that persists in spite of suffering; joy in the midst of distress, in all circumstances. In 1 Th 5: 16, on the basis of experience, Paul counsels the Believers, Be joyful always. Be joyful regardless of circumstance. In Mt 5: 11-12 Jesus teaches us that when we are persecuted because of Him, we should rejoice and be glad. Our future rewards are a source of the reason for rejoicing in the midst of the negative. So in Acts 16: 25; 2 Co 4: 16-18, Paul and Silas, in prison for doing the Lord’s will and work, after being stripped and beaten, severely flogged, about midnight were praying and singing hymns to God. So we give thanks in all circumstances. 1 Th 5: 18.

The Christian sees suffering and trials as opportunity for joy. Jas 1: 2-4 challenges and encourages us to regard it as pure joy whenever we face many trials at once, because the testing of our faith develops perseverance and full Christlike maturity. Similarly, Paul in Ro 5: 3-5 celebrates and exults: we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Note the dynamic cooperation between joy and hope. In suffering, our hope gives us at least a first installment of joy, which comes in fullness after suffering. As the psalmist says, weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning—Ps 30: 5.

Our Lord gives the same assurance to His disciples as the shadow of the cross lengthened over Him. In Jn 16: 17-24 He encourages them to strengthen them for the crisis they would endure because of His condemnation and crucifixion. The point He makes in this passage is summarized in the statements:

In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me [v. 16]. I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you. Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy—20-22.

Septimus Winner [1868] caught the spirit and essence of the power of hope in his lyric, Whispering Hope.

Soft as the voice of an angel, Breathing a lesson unheard,

Hope with a gentle persuasion whispers her comforting word:

Wait till the darkness is over, Wait till the tempest is done,

Hope for the sunshine tomorrow, After the shower is gone.

Whispering hope, oh, how welcome thy voice

Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice.

If, in the dusk of the twilight, Dim be the region afar,

Will not the deepening darkness Brighten the glimmering star?

Then when the night is upon us, Why should the heart sink away?

When the dark midnight is over, Watch for the breaking of day.

Hope, as an anchor so steadfast, rends the dark veil for the soul,

Whither the Master has entered, robbing the grave of its goal:

Come then, oh, come, glad fruition, Come to my sad weary heart;

Come, O thou blest hope of glory, Never, oh, never depart.

Jesus’ word came true--literally! They were filled with joy at His resurrection, ascension and the Pentecost He sent. When brought before the supreme court and commanded to stop preaching Christ, they replied, Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. Released, Peter and John reported their trial to the church. At this the Believers raised their voices in fervent, joyful, confident prayer. After they prayed the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly—Acts 4: 18-31.

On their next arrest and trial, they told the court, we must obey God rather than men! Further threatened by the authorities, the apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name and persisted in their ministry—Acts 5: 27-42.

For the child of God, difficulty is no hindrance to, but rather an occasion for, joy. See Lk 4: 4-20. Above all, the hope of earth and joy of heaven, our present hope of the joys of heaven, empowers us and frees us with joy on the journey, our eyes fixed on the Hallelujah choruses of Rev. 19, which we will all sing. We identify with and function like our Saviour Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Heb 12: 2. So we fix and fasten our eyes on Jesus as we run with perseverance the race marked out for us----Heb 12: 1, 2.

Nehemiah 9; Luke 19: 28-44; 1 Timothy 2: 1-5.

Introduction

Our focus for this meditation is Luke 19: 42, where a Saviour, weeping over the city of Jerusalem, mourns, If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. We will use this statement to help us understand how to save a nation by saving its cities.

Jerusalem as Example

Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem? He wept over her because He knew her past, her present and her prospects. He wept because He knew Jerusalem to be a city of potential, privilege, prestige, and even of power: a city of great opportunity. But because Jerusalem rejected God, it rejected all those blessings and possibilities, thereby becoming a city of great guilt and tragedy. Let us note and learn from the following things regarding Jerusalem.

1) In popular view, though not etymologically, the name Jerusalem was believed to mean vision of peace, or city of peace. Jesus was saying, You may have the beautiful name of peace, but you have no idea what peace really means or how peace is made or maintained. You have no idea of what peace really is.

Perhaps the connection between Jerusalem and peace relates to ideas such as Ps 122: 6-9.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you be secure.” May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels. For the sake of my brothers and friends, I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your prosperity.

Jerusalem was famous as the site of God’s great Temple.

2) Jerusalem had been blessed with great leaders, provided by God. We first meet Jerusalem in the O. T. when we encounter Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God Most High, the Creator of heaven and earth. Ge 14: 18-20. And of course David and Solomon, as well as other kings of Judah, reigned from Jerusalem.

3) Jerusalem was a city of status and prestige, certainly in Israel. Ps 122: 3-5 describes it as follows:

Jerusalem is build like a city that is closely compacted together. That is where the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, to praise the name of the Lord according to the statute given to Israel. There the thrones for judgment stand, the thrones of the house of David.

The ultimate description is by our Lord Himself in Mt 5: 34, 35. Notice the company Jerusalem keeps.

Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is His footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King.

Who is the Great King? David was a great king. But it is God who is the Great King. It is the place where the victorious and triumphant returning Messiah will set up His earthly throne for His millennial reign. So Jerusalem is more than the City of David; it is the city of God, and the location of the Temple, to say nothing of the future throne of the reigning Christ, God the Son. Psalm 48:1-3 declares,

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, His holy mountain. It is beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth. Like the utmost heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the City of the Great King. God is in her citadels; He has shown Himself to be her fortress.

Why Jesus Wept

Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem? Because of this principle: Of the one to whom much is given much is expected [Lk 12: 48]. Despite the many recorded blessings of the city, and its place in God’s priorities, Jerusalem and Judah consistently rejected God. Even with all the experience of the exile, its suffering and divine discipline, its restoration under Nehemiah and others, they did not change. Rehearse the experiences of Jeremiah, including the final chapters of his prophecies, and observe the stubborn rebellion of Judah and Jerusalem! They continued to reject both God and His word. It was not a city of peace but a city of violence and rebellion, though a city of eternal potential.

Furthermore, they not only rejected but also killed God’s messengers. Listen to Jesus’ lament in Mt 23: 37.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers he chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

The final self-driven nail in their coffin was their rejection of Jesus Christ the Messiah, which they stubbornly continue to do. John 1: 11 laments, He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Even after Him, Stephen said to the Jerusalem Sanhedrin, Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered Him—Acts 7: 52. Just as Jesus had clearly predicted [Mt 20: 18-20].

We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and will turn Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged.

For this criminal rejection of Christ there would be catastrophic consequences, as with Sodom. Luke 19: 43-44 describes it:

The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.

This actually happened in A.D. 70 when Rome destroyed Jerusalem totally, even burning its buildings. God’s people failed to learn from their own history, such as we read in Jeremiah, Daniel and Nehemiah. So Jesus wept.

We fear some similar fate awaits any city or country that treats God the same way. Yet God does not want people destroyed, but that all come to repentance. How can we ensure that a disobedient city or country be saved? How could Jerusalem have been saved? Jerusalem itself provides much of the answer. The Bible gives us a program. All through the Scriptures we see that all Israel could have been saved if Jerusalem had been saved.

National Repentance for National Reformation

The basic answer is: Bring the nation to reformation through repentance by bringing the city [especially the capital] to faith. Passages such as Neh 9 and others provide steps such as the following.

1. Recognize God’s greatness and goodness and adore Him for them. Neh 9: 5-15.

2. Believers must accept responsibility for the spiritual state of affairs. They must confess the sins of past generations and themselves, repent and ask God’s forgiveness. Neh 1: 5-7; 9: 16-18, 26-28, 30-35; Dan 9: 1-19

3. Intercede for your city—as Abraham interceded for Sodom. Neh 1: 8-11; 1 Tim 2: 1-5

These will prepare the soil for further preaching, for repentance, salvation and lasting reformation.

4. Believers must repent, renew commitment to God, renew covenant, and be what we are. Neh 9: 38;10: 28-39. This means we must as Christians live a righteous and holy life. We must spread the gospel intensively—to every corner of society. We must multiply Believers, who are the salt of the earth, the preservative of society. Remember what God said to Abraham about Sodom: If I find ten righteous there I will not destroy the city.

For the sake of ten I will not destroy it. So it is important to multiply Christians in the population. Above all, this is God’s country, as this is my Father’s world. The devil is a usurper. We must let God use us to retake His territory.

Application: Canada

Does Canada need reformation? It is a good land, up to now. But Canada is gradually drifting into paganism, rebellion against God through multiculturalism, accommodation, inclusiveness, compromise, political correctness, the rejection of absolutes, etc.—which are all based on the rejection of God and divine sovereignty.

Governments in Canada have signed on to resolutions regarding children’s rights, free sex, abortion, euthanasia, power of children over parents, questionable human rights, etc., that seriously affect the family, the freedom of speech and of religion, and other crucial areas of life. Court decisions encourage child pornography and the gay lifestyle as natural, as art, as rights, etc. Gay pride parades are now mainstream in various countries, probably led by Canada. Education becomes deficient because of a high dropout rate among certain segments of the population. Crises such as the drug trade, guns and violence are a plague on our society. And of course, the bottom line is that the vast majority of people reject Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.

So, does Canada need reformation?

How Can We Save Canada?

The simple answer is: Apply the Bible’s answers to the nation. E.g.,

1. Accept responsibility for Canada’s sins. Repent. Renew covenant with God and commitment to holiness.

2. Intercede, seriously, always, for the country: all leaders and people. Develop a healthy evangelistic prayer ministry.

3. Win the city and region for Christ, through (a) intercession—for all leaders of church, state, community, business, families, all institutions (b) evangelistic outreach to fathers and men, families, leaders, institutions….Our young people could reach their friends at school. Ethnic immigrants can reach newcomers to Canada. Pray for our political leaders that they may be truly saved. We must always remember that with God all things are possible.

Let us continue to intercede for Jerusalem, the timepiece of all history and the whole world. Israel is crucial to world peace. Jerusalem has never really known prolonged peace, except for the times of David and Solomon. It has been battleground for the Jebusites, the Jews [David], the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Crusaders, etc. Today they are even speaking of partitioning the city, which has already had a Christian Quarter, a Jewish Quarter, a Muslim Quarter and an Armenian Quarter. Will there be peace in Jerusalem when the Palestinian state is declared with its capital in East Jerusalem? Previously and recently, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Jerusalem would never be divided [2009].

But what about our city? If Jesus came riding down our main street today, what would He see? What would we see? What would He say? What would we say? Has our city accepted Christ or rejected Him? Has it rejected His Gospel? What does the name of our city mean, and are we living the message of the meaning of our name in such a way as to advance God’s purpose for us?

There are undoubtedly many faithful Believers in our city, but if Jesus rode into it today, would perhaps many pastors and other church folk laugh at Him and reject Him? Would the politicians be constrained to participate as they do in the gay pride parade?

We cannot judge, but at least on Palm Sunday we should wonder, in order to motivate ourselves. Above all, would we welcome Him and help Him to save our city? Could it be that He has in fact sent us to save our city for Him? Are we busy trying to do that? Regarding their level of response, would we cry with Him, or leave Him to cry alone? Would we in fact join the city leaders in asking Him, What are you crying about?

The way to Life, says Jesus, is a narrow, one-lane road, entered through a small gate. The narrow way is the way of rigorous disciple, strictness and stricture, clear, consistent boundaries and unchanging limits, together with rich present rewards. It is the way of hard work, the serious student knows, burning the midnight oil, because he is committed to the principle that the heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept [or played video games and watched TV, or surfed the net] were toiling upward through the night.

The narrow way principle therefore is seen and illustrated in life generally, not only where God’s kingdom is obviously operative. The narrow way is the way of health of body, mind, will, emotions, spirit, relationships. The easy way leads to health hazards such as obesity, and to life-style diseases, including some forms of cancer. The narrow way leads to success, through discipline and moral integrity. The narrow way of Spirit-control leads to a life marked by the qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control—Gal 5:22,23—NIV. The broad road of pleasure and ease leads to destruction through such habits as self-indulgence and accompanying lifestyles, such as

repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, trinket gods, magic-show religion, paranoid loneliness; cut-throat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants, a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community

[Gal 5: 19-21, Message], etc.!

This is the road to failure here and to hell and destruction in eternity. The door and the road into God’s eternal kingdom is small and narrow. People who like to be broadminded and who accuse Christians of being too narrow do not understand that Truth is narrow and exclusive. Every religion is narrow at its inevitable point of exclusivity. Jesus Christ says, I am the way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Islam says, No god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. Truth by nature is narrow. Every cutting edge is by nature and by definition narrow. Sharpness demands narrowness. There is no other way.

Jesus’ way to Life and Eternity is entered by a very narrow door of strict sacrifice. He told the Rich Young Ruler, Go sell all you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me. Mt. 19: 21. This describes His basic requirement for discipleship. If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me—Lk 9: 23. The Son of Man has no place to lay His head—Lk 9: 58. Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God—Lk 9: 60. No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God—Lk 9: 62. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple—Lk 14: 26.

That’s the door the Christ-follower must enter through, the very narrow, strict, constricted door of absolute, complete and unconditional sacrifice and full and glad self-surrender. But that is the door that leads to the one-lane road of narrow, sacrificial, successful, fruitful living that is and leads to true and eternal Life. Come to think of it, this is a principle of universal application. We confront it and it faces us all over life, in this way functioning as a parable pointing us to the eternal, heavenly focus of Jesus. When you are flying out of the airport to desired destination A, the announcement is given, Passengers for flight #602 bound for Destination A, enter by Gate 9. You have no other choice. Choosing an alternative gate will get you into rejection, because that is not what your ticket indicates. You are not free to enter by Gate 10, though the waiting room may be more commodious. That gate leads to a different flight number of a different airline bound for a different destination. Nor are you free to board any plane of your choice, and you are absolutely required to have read your boarding pass and your ticket. So every detail is pre-determined, once you choose your destination and purchase you ticket. Only one narrow door and one aircraft goes to Destination A.

Life is narrow. The broad way is not the life way. It leads to failure, disappointment, disease of some kind, and to death. The gate is narrow, the road is a one-lane thoroughfare.

The way that leads to life is narrow by nature and by necessity. It is the only way that consistently works. It is hard and demanding, as every successful worker and student knows. In the Beatitudes, Jesus shows who can come to life: those who are broken by sin and hopelessness without God; those who are broken by sin and guilt and repent, who desperately desire to be right with God, self and others. Those who are committed to being and living like Jesus—merciful, pure, peace-makers, those who lay all on the altar of sacrifice with Jesus and are ready to suffer anything because of Him. Those who are committed to the life of God’s kingdom, as described in Scripture, especially as described by Christ Himself, especially, for example, in His Sermon on the Mount, and by His apostles. Following Jesus means enlisting for the front lines in the battle with Satan and sin. As the commentator William Hendrikson says,

The kingdom, then, is not for weaklings, and compromisers…It is not for Balaam, the rich young ruler, Pilate and Demas….It is not by means of deferred prayers, unfilled promises, broken resolutions and hesitant testimonies. It is for strong and sturdy men, like Joseph, Nathan, Elijah, Daniel, Mordecai and Peter…Stephen, and Paul. And let us not forget such valiant women as Ruth, Deborah, Esther and Lydia

[quoted by MacArthur in his Commentary on Matthew 7: 13-14, 455-56]. The followers of Jesus, Who is Life, must be prepared to face persecution, ridicule and tribulation, on the way to joy, true freedom and the rich rewards of eternity. Only the fruits of hard work are truly sweet.

Christian Obedience and National Security

Nehemiah 8 – 10

Introduction

There continues to be much consternation and considerable discussion and debate regarding the incidence of violence in our society. Journalists in both secular and Christian media have analyzed conditions, incidents, causes, consequences. Talk show hosts raise questions, such as What is the real cause of and what is the cure for this kind of human behaviour? It is interesting watching people flounder and fail to discover a lasting answer—although one thinks Christ has the answers to all our questions, whether or not we are willing to entertain the validity of those answers. We suggest that it is really up to Christians to formulate and apply the real answer, which in effect is the answer to the human condition.

The Bible has the answer, although sin forces man, including the most educated and professional, to reject God’s prescription for man’s abiding disease. Nevertheless, we must show and show God’s answer to the world and demonstrate its validity and power, being controlled by it in our daily and ongoing obedience.

Part of the answer is outlined in Nehemiah 8-10. By drawing a parallel between Judah and Canada, we can at least begin to outline a viable answer and prescription. In these chapters we see

1. Judah’s condition

2. the cause of the condition of crisis

3. Judah’s consciousness of her condition

4. Judah’s cure of the condition through

   1. confession

   2. covenant

Judah’s Condition

Judah’s national crisis is summarized in 9” 36, 37.

We are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our forefathers so they could eat its fruit and the other good things it produces. Because of our sins, its abundant harvest goes to the kings you have placed over us. They rule over our bodies and our cattle as they please. We are in great distress.

Tenants in the house we own. Slaves in the land of our freedom. Foreigners rule over us in our own houses. We produce the food but cannot eat it; we must give it up to our overlords. The king drafts us into his army when he wishes and forces us to feed his soldiers. We are not free to control our own lives. Persia controlled their work, food supply, movement and security.

We in Canada and the United States fast becoming a controlled people. Laws and law court decisions place children over adults. Children and teens have freedom and protection and authority while parents have only responsibility. Home-schooling is threatening as virtually illegal. It is relatively easy for a child to destroy his parents with the help of law. The state has essentially appointed itself as guardian of our children.

Deprived of authority and power, parents not surprisingly often do not know what their children are doing in their rooms in their own houses, to say nothing of what they are doing on the Internet. At the same time, parents must earn money, clothe, feed, educate and protect their children, over whom they have such limited authority. And the whole psychological culture assumes that this new paradigm is guaranteed to produce better adults.

Multiculturalism is trumping democracy. The laws of foreign nations nullify our own and consequently, court decisions. The freedom Christianity produced and bequeathed on Western society is now used against Christian expression and freedom of speech. Our morality has been being drastically replaced by the old immorality as new morality, driven legally by political correctness. We bend over back wards to accommodate the enemy in tuxedo.

So there are some very interesting parallels between Judah and Canada.

The Cause of the Crisis

Stated simply, the national crisis was caused by Israel’s rejection of God’s law and specific commands. Instead of obeying His Word and living by the Lord’s guidelines, they had chosen to go their own way, follow the thinking of pagans and idol worshippers, and follow false philosophies such as the pursuit of pleasure and materialism.

Drifting farther and farther way from God their Good Shepherd, they finally found themselves among wolves; or among false shepherds who, instead of feeding the sheep, fed themselves on the sheep. So now they were barely existing, whereas they used to prosper under Jehovah. In Dt 28, God had solemnly warned Israel against this eventuality. Note Dt 28: 1-7, 15-21, 25, 36, 45, 49-51. This is essentially what we read in Neh. 9: 26-28, 34, 35.

But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they put your law behind their backs. They killed your prophets, who had admonished them in order to turn them back to you; they committed awful blasphemies. So you handed them over to their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to you. From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion, you gave them deliverance, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies. But as soon as they were at rest, they again did what was evil in your sight. Then you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies so that they ruled over them. And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time.

Our kings, our leaders, our priests and our fathers did not follow your law; they did not pay attention to your commands or the warnings you gave them. Even when they were in their kingdom, enjoying your great goodness to them in their spacious and fertile land you gave them, they did not serve you or turn from their evil ways.

Therefore, says v. 36, as a consequence, we are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our forefathers….

Think of what has been happening in the US and Canada, The US repeatedly violates its own constitution by such measures as: driving out of its schools prayer and Scripture, traditional values, etc. Canada has done and is doing the same, in the name of fairness, equality, pluralism, political correctness, rights and freedoms. Students are no longer aware of the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, the 23^rd Psalm, etc., and the values they teach. At the same time they are taught that there are no moral absolutes [which is an absolute]. Everything is relative. Right and wrong are what you make them to be. It is all situational. The natural and logical consequence is that if it is right for me to kill you then kill myself, why shouldn’t I? The actual effect and natural consequence are the invasion of drugs and violence, as well as the necessity of cameras, police officers in the hallways, etc.

The Lord’s Prayer was taken out of Ontario schools on September 23, 1988, after a ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal in the case of Zylberg vs. Sudbury Board of Education [Christian Parents Organization Update, April/ 89]. New Ministry regulations offered 3 choices for schools:

1. O Canada and multi-faith readings

2. O Canada and silent prayer

3. O Canada.

The Supreme Court of Ontario did uphold religious education in the public schools, but with no one religion being treated as primary. Yet even this had been challenged for a long time. Earlier, in 1985, the Peel Intercommunity Relations Association, the Brampton-based multicultural group, was busy asking the Peel Board of education to remove all religious Scriptures from classrooms. This would mean that the Gideons would no longer be able to hand out New Testaments to grade 5 students, as they had been doing since the early 1950s.

Perhaps the biggest part of the cause is the failure of the church to penetrate the culture and the society with the gospel, and the failure of Christians to be unconditionally faithful to covenant. Christians tend to follow the culture rather than counter the culture with Christ. As a result, for example, today there is no significant difference between Christians and pagans regarding divorce rates. We seem to be more focused on personal happiness than of Christian obedience. This trend will not strengthen either the church or the peace and security of the nation.

Judah’s Consciousness of Her Condition

The people became fully conscious of their condition and its ultimate cause. They describe their condition in clear terms, as stated in 9: 36, 37. Now we are slaves in the land of our freedom. That they were equally aware of their ultimate cause is revealed in their brokenness. Neh 8: 9 says all the people had been weeping.

How did they become conscious of their condition? By experience. When they heard the Word of God, their eyes were opened to see their true condition and to see clearly the ultimate cause of their historic dilemma.

The same applies to our society today. What the world needs is Christ. Our task is to present to the world Christ the Living Word, through the spoken and the written Word.

Responses to occasions of violence in Canada and the USA usually involve a good deal of psychological analysis. What really disturbs us, generally speaking, is that so many Christian leaders who greater faith in and loyalty to human psychology than to the Word of God and the eternal power of Christ the Healer.

Psychology certainly helps, but we are not aware that it ever leads to repentance and salvation, and the profound and lasting change guaranteed by obedience to the principle of Hebrews 4: 12-13. Ezra and Nehemiah were quite effective without Freud, Adler, Jung and company. Those who fire the shots need the Word of God in their hearts more than any therapy. When God controls one’s spirit, one’s underprivileges have no power over one. He fired shots because he was spiritually dead. The same applies to other similar and related societal situations.

The Word of God applied to the heart of man produces a new creation. Neh. 8: 1-8, 13, 18; 9:3 report that Ezra and the Levites taught God’s Word to the people and explained it. the result was that the people were broken, they wept, they repented, they changed.

To get Christ into people, Christian leaders must stop compromising and start preaching unadulterated truth.

The Rev. Dale Lang, father of Jason Lang, murdered in Taber, Alberta, said,

Twenty-five years ago when I wasn’t a Christian, if this happened to me, I would have wanted revenge because this is terrible. I would have wanted to kill somebody and I think I would have been capable of it. I think actually right now I would be capable of it, if it wasn’t for the Lord.

There is the difference!

The Cure

Consciousness of condition and cause clearly pointed to and even dictated the cure. When they became aware of how seriously they had broken God’s Law, the people were themselves broken before God.

(a) They confessed their sin and guilt in full repentance. So broken were they that they wept and humbled themselves. Neh 9: 1 says, The Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads—a dramatic expression of repentance. V. 2 says, They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers. In addition, the clergy [Levites] confessed Israel’s gross sins of rebellion with which they repaid god’s grace [e.g., 9: 16, 17, 29-31]. But they went beyond that.

(b) They made a binding covenant with God, solemnly promising to obey everything God had commanded. Not only so, but they put it in writing and signed it, See 9: 38. It was signed by the governor, the Levites and the leaders of the people as representatives.
they also detailed particular laws and actions they committed themselves to do.

[1] The spiritual and moral purity of the person and the family. 10: 28

[2] Marital purity. 10: 30. Note that they began with the foundations

[3] Sabbath observance. Worship! 10: 31].

[4] Resting the land every Sabbath year [which would increase fertility and productivity]. 10: 31.

[5] The canceling of debts—which would produce personal and financial freedom. 10: 31.

[6] The faithful giving of offerings [10: 32-39] for the support of the worship life of Israel, thereby providing sacrifices, money, meat, wood, fruits, other crops, sons, animals; support of the clergy….

The people were sincere and genuine. This was symbolized in action already taken.

Neh 9: 2 records that the Jews separated themselves from all foreigners. This forms the backdrop of 10: 3, a pledge not to marry non-believers.

Conclusion

This was a new day for Israel. It was a new opportunity for the Word of God to prosper in the land and to save the nation of Israel from pagan domination.

If Canada is to have the quality of peace, security, harmony and health that we desire and need, the Word of God must fill the church, and overflow to fill the community. Christians must be fully obedient, and the Word of God must fill the nation. The guilty must repent and renew covenant. We must work to get the Word of God into the heart of every individual.

As far as the individual church is concerned, leaders must present to Believers an outreach plan designed to do just that—in each church’s section of the world. Every church must be about the business of fulfilling Christ’s Great commission [Mt 28: 18-20; Acts 1: 6-8].

Meditate on Ro 16: 25-27.

Fathers as Teachers

A second major step was taken in the process of celebration. Nehemiah 8: 13 says,

On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and the Levites, gathered around Ezra the scribe to give attention to the words of the Law.

This is continuing education for leaders. This is a fascinating idea. Not only did the priests and Levites come to learn, but also the fathers—heads of all families—male heads of families and extended families did. The head of every household was expected to be the pastor-teacher of that household. Dt 6: 4-9; 7: 6 say,

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commands that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession.

As several passages indicate, the father, with the help of the mother, is to be the prime teacher and spiritual leader of the home and family. And here in Neh 8: 13 the fathers have enrolled in a serious course lof Bible study so that they can teach their families, in order to celebrate their uniqueness as the people of God.

Why is it that there is so much rebellion among youth today? Why are the foundations of homes and families crumbling? Why does society reject authority, discipline, and the word of Jesus Christ? One of the main reasons is the failure of fathers. Fathers have abdicated and left the family to be run by women. Mothers have to be mothers, fathers, pastors, teachers, spiritual leaders, sometimes even where husband is physically present. This is a violation of the Word of God, and the results are a judgment of God. And wives are crying out for their husbands to assume their spiritual leadership in their homes.

One of the most crucial and most neglected prophecies is Malachi 4: 5, 6.

See I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.

How many problems of church and society will be solved when the hearts of fathers and children are one!

Fathers, it is God’s assignment to us to learn the Scriptures and to teach them to the family; and to encourage all heads of families connected with us to do the same. It is our responsibility to learn to pray, and to pray with and for our families. We encourage you to begin by setting aside one specified hour each week of this purpose. Begin today! Read a meaningful passage of scripture, deal with related and relevant questions and issues, discuss issues family members may have. Make up a prayer list. Give each one an opportunity to pray. Develop projects for actually living the passage. Follow up with personal daily prayer as art of your own daily devotions. You will be off to an excellent start.

We can even learn from persons and groups who are very different to us, theologically. For example, we understand that The Mormon church is based on the family unit. Every father is the teacher in the home. Material is supplied and one specified night each week the father teaches his family. A bishop is available for help and consultation with each family.

Fathers have a crucial and controlling mission from God. When fulfilled, that mission will produce a revolution in the home, the church, the community and the nation.

Give serious consideration to the suggestion that the evangelization of men and fathers constitutes the single greatest challenge and opportunity facing the church right now. When you win a father to Christ you win the entire family.

Note one other crucial dynamic. As the people in Jerusalem studied the Bible, they did what it said. Our study of the Scriptures will not save us unless we do in life what it says in the Word. This applies especially to us fathers. The whole family will can me a hypocrite if I the father taught them one thing and then acted as though I were above the Word, or that it did not apply to me.

Consecration

As a large part of celebration, the people of Jerusalem consecrated themselves—chapters 9ff.

1. They repented of their sin and disobedience, mourning in sackcloth and fasting. They confessed their sins and those of their fathers. For a quarter of the day they studied the Scriptures, for another quarter they confessed their sins and worshipped. Then Ezra the scribe [pastor] recounted their history, making a public confession on behalf of the people. He showed that it was disobedience that made it necessary to confess before the climax of celebration.

2. Then they made a solemn covenant, signed and sealed on their behalf by their leaders. The covenant said that all people that could understand bound themselves solemnly to obey the Word of God, including God’s orders regarding marriage, giving to the needs of the sanctuary, giving of the firstfruits of the field, flock, and family; they paying of tithes, the paying of pastors …and observe the last statement of the covenant: Neh. 10: 39 : We will not neglect the house of our God.

3. Then comes the climax of the celebration—12: 27-47. They celebrated with singing and pageantry and music and thanksgiving of praise. Do you see the order? The celebration has been a process, of which the rededication was the climax. The service of thanksgiving came only after obedience had taken place. The temple was purified and rededicated to God. The temple area, the city walls, were rebuilt to the glory of God. and then the people praised and worshipped.

Also, note very carefully that first they rededicated the people, then the building. That is always God’s order.

Now, is this where you are? Have you come to the climax? Have you been obedient in keeping the Word of God, in being teachers of God in your home? Have you pledged and given to the house of God according to the needs? Have you given yourselves?

The Jews in Jerusalem covenanted and sanctified themselves, then they held their service of rededication. They were then obligated to continue being holy and continue being obedient to God as they continued the process of celebration as lifestyle. Genuine celebration is a daily response, a daily living out of obedience, otherwise you cancel out the climax of your celebration.

Conclusion

How shall we then live? We have said celebration is a process; it is a life-style. If we do not live our commitment, a thanksgiving service is a pretense. But if we live it, a celebration of worship is truly acceptable and honouring to God.

How shall we then live? The very next chapter, Nehemiah 13, shows that already the people were going back on their covenant, so a new cleansing had to take place.

Everything is dependent on you as an individual. Your personal life-style will determine how God receives your praises and thanksgiving as His people. The Lord calls and challenges to live a life of consistent holiness and obedience. Learn from the tragedies Choose to obey or pay the price of the inevitable consequences!

The Wide Gate and the Broad Road

Jesus exhorts all persons to make every effort to enter through the narrow door. To assist their decision-making, He explains in Mt 7: 13-14 that wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. The NASB and the Message, respectively, say,

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Message:

Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easy-going formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.

Jesus deals succinctly but conclusively with the principle of the wide door/gate and the broad road and the consequences of choosing this thoroughfare through life’s earthly pilgrimage.

1. He introduces the choice by emphasizing the basic principle that there is only one way to real life, but many ways, as many ways as there are individuals, to destruction. The way away from eternal life and citizenship in God’s kingdom is a major, multi-lane freeway. It is the easy way, the way of instant gratification, self-direction, pleasure, no boundaries, popularity, following the majority and the trends of the dominant culture, going with the flow….

It is the easy and popular way that does not go against the current. It is the way of so-called freedom, rights, autonomy, celebrating life, giving people what they naturally deserve, giving people what they want, and protecting them from the consequences of foolish choices. It is the way of inclusiveness and of a multiculturalism that says you can be anything you want to be. It is the way of political correctness and tolerance. It is the nature of today’s world, hurtling down the Broadway of destruction, rejecting the warnings of physical and other consequences, such as the AIDS epidemic. It is the way that powerfully attacks the way of discipline, boundaries, true values, such as purity, absolutes and super-natural law. It is the way that leads to destruction. It is the way of salvation through religion—ritual, offering sacrifices, going on pilgrimages, without changing on the essential inside. It is the way of having your cake and eating it too. It is the way of doing what you want, when you want, how you want, nobody telling you what to do. It is the way of chronic self-focus. It is the way of so-called liberty and rights and freedoms without responsibility or anticipated consequences, and preparation for dealing with those possible outcomes. It is the way of universalism, because a loving God would never send anyone to hell and, because Jesus died for the whole world, everyone will be saved. It is the way of utopianism, without any necessary change in human nature and behaviour. If ever there was a wide gate and wide open door, this is it!

Today’s world, especially Western society, is speedily rushing down the comfortable freeway leading to destruction. Serious accidents happen along the way, but they are ignored, as we continue on our chosen speedway. Regardless of the warning signs, we rush merrily on. Indeed, we seem to choose to go faster with each succeeding warning sign. No AIDS epidemic, no increase in sexually transmitted or other diseases will stop or slow our mad rush toward fatal pleasures of so-called freedom. The society and its high priests encourage, even legislate and demand the right to live dangerously in the pursuit of pleasure without boundaries. The obvious negative effects of rapid social and moral changes seem not to concern or phase us.

On this subject, and with a view to encouraging the choice of the narrow way instead of the highway, David Van Ness in his book Crime and Its Victims, points out that studies have shown that character development is basic to crime reduction. It is even more significant than family life, urbanization, and personal predisposition to crime. Historically, the amount of investment in character development has been demonstrated to seriously affect the incidence of crime. For example, crime in the US declined between mid 19^th century to early 20^th century, despite social upheaval, because a series of reform movements swept across the country, beginning in the 1820s and 1830s. These included the Second Great Awakening, the growth of the Sunday School movement, the development of the YMCA and YWCA, the temperance movement—and we may add the Christian Volunteer Movement with the leadership of John R. Mott. These provided homes and education for young people migrating from rural to urban centres to find work. In effect, they enhanced the role of families in building character and provided substitutes for family influences during a time of growing personal liberty and rapid social change. The goal was to create in individuals self-control and thereby enhance character [145-46].

Unfortunately, change of a different kind, dramatically driving life onto the wide freeway, occurred in the 1920s, with professional emphasis upon self-expression in place of self-restraint, freedom of choice in place of inner control, personality development in place of moral education. The Great Depression and World War II provided a natural control factor, but when the baby boomers came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, crime rates started to rise, as self-expression came to full bloom [146].

Josh McDowell [Right from Wrong] adds that post WWII North American societies saw a new materialism, caused by unprecedented economic prosperity, expressing itself in a new consumerism. The effect has been the creation of an attitude that increasingly values material benefits above other priorities (such as having a close relationship with God, for example, or living close to other family members). These children were raised without a moral mindset, but with an economic perspective [38-39]. McDowell adds:

I believe that one of the prime reasons this generation is setting new records for dishonesty, disrespect, sexual promiscuity, violence, suicide and other pathologies, is because they lost their moral underpinnings: their foundational belief in morality and truth has been eroded. They don’t seem to know right from wrong [12].

The spirit of the age says, Give people what they want. Be politically correct. Don’t fence them in. People have rights and freedoms and liberty; never mind about such old-fashioned values as responsibility, self-control and sacrifice. Focus on yourself. Live while you live. Hedonism is good for the soul, to say nothing of the body. Furthermore, people have a right to be protected from consequences at the expense of all others, including those who believe and live and act differently—let the rights of the “traditionalists” be modified by those of the “free” and the “liberated.” Society says abstinence is dangerous and unfair, there are no absolutes, an orgasm a day for teenagers is good for their health, adultery renews marriage, Life is short; have an affair! Sex is everything, so-called conservatives, Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists are far too narrow and therefore in effect hate those who believe differently. It says, Do not discriminate. It also insists that disagreement, thinking and believing differently is hate, a crime punishable by law. On the other hand, support for their deviant culture is love. Life is pleasure. Freedom means the absence of boundaries, except those they choose to set to protect their evils. The bottom line is, they call darkness light and light darkness, bitter sweet and sweet bitter. They condemn the innocent and reward the guilty. They invert life and truth and expect prosperity. Isaiah 5: 20-25.

The architects, owners and controllers of the Broad Way operate by a philosophy that says things such as: Do not make people feel guilty. They ignore the fact that if people are guilty they need to be set free from guilt. One supposes that a theological conclusion would be that no jury or judge should ever pronounce an accused guilty. They also seem to insist that we must get rid of pain as a warning signal. But it would appear that their essential goal is to get rid of conscience by replacing it with a new and liberating definition. But how higher in the scale of beings than an animal is a human without a healthy conscience—as defined by God, and by traditional ethics?

They say, Get rid of purity; it is only control over a free and autonomous human being. Set people free to do what they have a right to--of course within the bounds of practical liberalism. As the Christianity Today essay, The Clash of Stereotypes [July 20, 2009] explains, there are two types of liberalism (1) that which is reflected in such principles as the right to vote, to free assembly, to trade with others and keep the profits, freedom of religion and political beliefs (2) modern liberalism, characterized by the right to blaspheme, to enjoy pornography as a protected form of free expression, the exclusion of religious symbols from public places, the right of teenagers to receive sex education and contraceptives, their parents having no say in their decisions; the right to abortion, prostitution as [sex] workers’ right, etc. Could there be a clearer description than this modern liberalism of what Jesus means by the broad road?

The philosophy is based on a view of human nature that places humans on the same level as animals, controlled by drives and operant conditioning, promised rewards for base behaviour, etc. It also elevates animals to the human level by making a broad statement that animals make people human. This view of human nature is utterly sub-human, to us, but not to them, those who choose to operate on the animal level, or probably lower.

The philosophy does not extend their claimed rights to those who believe differently—conservatives, evangelical Christians, etc. To this philosophy, whatever is traditional and conservative is against freedom, prosperity, right, truth and human nature. In fact, it is hate—all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. The bottom line of course is the crass rejection of absolutes!

Our Lord says wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. He is saying (1) one way through life is the broad, easy way (2) the easy way is very popular and is crowded (3) the easy way leads eventually to destruction. We have been describing characteristic #1, the broad, easy way.

Now we proceed to describe #2, the easy way is very popular. Most people are on that road. But this is a glaring case where the vast majority are totally and tragically wrong, because it operates ultimately in a universe where democracy does not apply. God is King and Judge of all the earth. Parades of questionable moral character are extremely popular. Pleasure is easy and popular and the multitudes stream there. It is natural for water to run downhill. Sin is sweet—at first.

We are accustomed to thinking the majority are always right. We should always follow the crowd, whether or not we know whom they are following and where they are going. So we are liable to follow the crowd into destruction. The majority like the easy way--no boundaries, free choice, instant gratification, as is shown in the Marshmallow Experiment. In a psychological experiment at Stanford University, conducted with children at the Bing Nursery School, young children were placed, individually, in a small room with goodies on the table. Each was given by the researcher the freedom to choose one marshmallow, or other treat, and told they cold eat their treat right away or wait till the researcher returned to the room 15 minutes later. If they waited they would be given a second treat. If they rang the bell on the desk while he was out of the room he would run back in and they could eat their treat, but would forfeit the second. Most struggled to delay gratification, but in the end about 70% ate their treat and did not wait for the second after 15 minutes. The broad easy road accommodates the majority.

The many enemies of Christ and His gospel preferred the broad road. The Jewish leaders were committed to self-interest and so opposed Jesus and by majority vote of the Sanhedrin crucified Him [Jn 11: 45-48]. In John 6 the majority of Jesus’ disciples withdrew from Him, offended by the narrow way He preached, apparently leaving only the Twelve, at that point [6: 60-69]

The broad way is easy, requires little discipline and self-control and rewards the lust for instant gratification. The way that is broad is the easy attractive, inclusive, indulgent, permissive, and self-oriented way of the world. There are few rules, few restrictions, and few requirements [MacArthur, Commentary on Matthew 1-7, 454]. The broad way tolerates sin, inverts truth, ignores humility, requires no moral character, no commitment and certainly no sacrifice or self-discipline. It is an easy way, a perpetual, uninterrupted vacation, cruising down the river, without a care in the world—about the next world—doing what feels good, doing what comes naturally!

3. The easy way leads to destruction. Jesus says [Mt 7: 13], wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction…. According to Lk 13: 24ff, Jesus warned that many…will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, “Sir, open the door for us.” But he will answer, “I don’t know you…or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers.” There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth when you see…you yourselves thrown out.

Walter Mischel, psychologist at Stanford University, followed the students who participated in the marshmallow experiment into their high school years. He discovered that low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly, seemed more likely to have behavioural problems, both in school and at home. They got lower SAT scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had trouble paying attention and found it difficult to maintain friendships.

Remember, more than 2/3 ate the marshmallows because they could not wait. Walter Mischel followed up on the children as adults and discovered that those who simply couldn’t wait generally had low self-esteem and had suffered in school, branded by both their teachers and parents as being stubborn, envious and easily frustrated [Everyday Money.ca, July 24, 2009; The New Yorker, Dept. of Science, May 18, 2009].

Everyday experiences prove the present reality of our Lord’s principle that the easy way leads to failure and destruction. Pr 24: 30-34 says,

I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.

See also Pr 6: 10; 20: 4.

These however are but pointers to the eternally serious warning Jesus gives. He speaks of the tragic end of a life that pursues the easy way of living as against that of discipline, sacrifice and obedience of God’s Word. The easy way, the broad way, claims to lead to Heaven but in fact leads to hell. It is the way of easy religion and false religion. This is the tragedy of religion and works that take no notice of the seriousness of sin, the cross, the gospel and repentance, taking up one’s cross daily. Every religion except Christianity…follows the same spiritual way and leads to the same spiritual end, to hell. There are many of those roads….But not a single one leads where it promises, and not a single one fails to lead where Jesus says it leads—to destruction [Macarthur, Commentary on Matthew 1-7, 457].

By destruction Jesus means total ruin and loss of well-being. It is the destiny and destination of perdition, hell, everlasting torment. Ps 1: 6 says the way of the wicked will perish. See also Mt 18: 8; 25: 41; 2 Th 1: 9; Jude 6-7.

Many travel this road to destruction in hell, including pagans, nominal Christians, atheists, agnostics, humanists, unbelievers of all backgrounds and races, all who have not come to salvation in Jesus Christ the only Way to Life, to Truth and to God. This group includes many sincere, well-meaning people who will try to enter heaven but be rejected as strangers. They will be cast out into darkness where their agony will be absolutely indescribable. Lk 13: 24-27; Mt 7: 22-23. Tragedy of all tragedies: this will include nominal Christians and regular church-goers who had a form of godliness but followed their own version of Christianity, rather than the way laid down by Christ Himself. Mt 22: 14.

People today, as always, are busy rushing down the easy way that leads to destruction, rejecting all warnings, listening to voices that tell them what they prefer to hear. They prefer cults and religions that think for them and control their behaviour, that offer a life that does not require essential, eternal change, that offer a culture where they can have their cake and eat it too, that do not require any real personal transformation, that provide for living contradictions [sometimes it is necessary to tell a lie, the end justifies the means, you can have morality without religion, goodness, compassion and inclusiveness are all we need, we do not need a heaven because we can create utopia….we can connect with the supernatural on our own…].

These of course are not new. They are old evil philosophies in modern dress. They all lead to hell and destruction, and are very popular. Regardless of all evidence to the contrary, people passionately cling to denial and even militantly demand public cures and antidotes for the consequences of their folly. They are neither warned nor corrected by the devastations of the consequent epidemics, with their possible terminal pain and suffering. They bristle at the suggestion of abstinence and even blame abstinence ethics and morality for certain forms of suffering that follow folly. Evangelical Christians and Conservatives are rejected as being too narrow. We must be broadminded and inclusive, even if we are embracing a viper.

David Jeremiah in his book, What in the World Is going On? reminds us that in the normal 200 year life span of the world’s greatest civilizations, individual nations passed through the following stages:

From: bondage to spiritual faith

spiritual faith to great courage

great courage to liberty

liberty to abundant prosperity

prosperity to complacency

complacency to apathy

apathy to dependence

dependence to bondage

[p. 135]. This we see in Israel. Quoting Carle Zimmerman, Jeremiah notes that there were eleven symptoms in the fall of both the Greek and Roman civilizations—symptoms clearly seen in 21^st century USA and Canada.

1. no fault divorce

2. birth death; increased disrespect for parenthood and parents

3. meaningless marriage rites/ceremonies

4. defamation of past national heroes

5. acceptance of alternative marriage forms

6. widespread attitudes of feminism, narcissism and hedonism

7. propagation of anti-family sentiment

8. increased juvenile delinquency

9. common acceptance of all forms of sexual perversion

[pp. 135-36].

Former US president Herbert Hoover is reported to have said, Our greatest danger is not from invasion by foreign armies. Our greatest dangers are that we may commit suicide from within by complaisance with evil—p. 137. In all cases of decay and destruction, the destruction happened because wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many [the majority] enter through it—Mt 7: 13.

Are You Saved? Are You Living in Obedience?

Whenever you come to Christ with a question, be prepared for a rigorous assignment. He is the Master Teacher! People like to challenge the character of God and the integrity of the Gospel by asking, What about those who have never heard the Gospel? and similar escapes from coming to terms with one’s eternal destiny. In response Jesus would say, What about you who heard the Gospel several times? Apart from the fact that God is missionary and declares His truth through nature [Psalm 19], reason and preaching [Ro 1, 2; 1 Co 1], the Lord knows the hearts of all people, and therefore the nature of your response to the divine truth that you know.

Notice how Jesus responded to the leading question: Lord, how many will be saved? just a

few, or several? Jesus said to not only the questioner but to all who could hear, Don’t worry about the total population of heaven. Focus on your own personal salvation and that of the people in your world. Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because on the final day many will try to enter, but will be too late; it will be impossible. The door will have been shut permanently.

The Message translation puts it this way:

He went on teaching from town to village, village to town, but keeping on a steady course toward Jerusalem. A bystander said, “Master, will only a few be saved?” He said, “Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you’ll sit down to God’s salvation banquet just because you’ve been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you’re going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you’ll find the door locked and the Master saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not on my guest list.”

Lk 13: 22-25. So here is the true leading question from Jesus himself: Are you saved? Are you in God’s family, or simply hanging around His house?

You ask, How do I get into His family? Jesus gives you here His first prescribed step: Struggle, strive, make every effort to enter God’s family, God’s kingdom, life, salvation, through the narrow door, especially in a world where people despise everything that is narrow, insisting that everything should be broad and wide, open and inclusive. Repent! Confess your sins, and ask God’s forgiveness, then proceed to live His life according to His commands.

Strive, struggle, make every effort, pay any price, make any sacrifice necessary. The author of Hebrews says at 12: 1, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every thing that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out of us. Strive to enter by the narrow door.

Jesus explains in Mt 13: 44-46,

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything and bought it.

The NIV footnote helpfully explains that the truth Jesus teaches in these two parables is that God’s kingdom is of such great value that one should be willing to give up all he has in order to gain it.

Strive to enter! Make any necessary, even if strenuous, effort, spare no energy, to make sure you are in God’s kingdom, that you are on His guest list, that you are included in the Messianic banquet’s guest list. Make any sacrifice necessary. Jesus told the rich Young ruler, If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me—Mt. 19: 21. According to Lk 18: 22, Jesus prefaced His instruction by saying, You still lack one thing. However, the young man went away sad because he had great wealth. Jesus then explained to the Twelve, I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God—Mt 19: 23, 24.

People who are too busy for God, too busy to worship, too busy to pray, too busy to repent and grow; people who are genuinely too busy because they are controlled by circumstances of life, must struggle to enter and continue, and struggle hard, for there is nothing in all of life more crucial and urgent than one’s eternal destiny; and that destiny begins here and now. Such busy and probably prosperous persons must pay any price necessary, willingly make any unavoidable sacrifice, risking radical change of lifestyle, to the extent of descent to subsistence or poverty, in order to gain and own the pearl of ultimate value. Strive, struggle, make every effort, pay any price demanded, in order to be sure of entry.

Celebrating the Blessings

Nehemiah 8

Introduction

For emphasis on the power and depth of the celebrations in chapter 8, let us review and contrast the background of the Jerusalem and Jewish situation and the reason for celebration--recorded in Nehemiah.

To begin at the very beginning, Nehemiah is in Persia (the name being changed by Reza Sha Pahlavi 1925-1941, to Iran). He is there in the 5^th century B. C., occupying the office of cup-bearer to King Artaxerxes I [464-424 B. C. ]. The Jews were exiled to Babylon after Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 587 B. c. Then Persia conquered Babylon. So now, in Nehemiah, Persia is in charge of Judah and Jerusalem. There are of course Jews both in Persia and in Jerusalem. The Jews in Jerusalem are demoralized; the city walls are, to their public shame and embarrassment, burnt and broken down, the temple and its worship neglected and unclean.

In the midst of his busy life, Nehemiah, because of his basic commitment to god and god’s people, maintains very active concern for his people’s welfare. He is so concerned, he keeps in touch as much as possible with the situation back home. When he hears bow badly things are, he weeps, fasts, mourns and prays.

He recognizes the need for repairing and rededicating God’s place of worship for God’s people, and asks God for opportunity and material to complete the job. He makes very careful plans in a most businesslike fashion and gains the permission and authority of the king to complete the work. His prayers are answered. He secures all the necessary permits, tools, material, labour and other resources, and in a thoroughly organized way they attack the very difficult task. They face great difficulties and organized opposition, from other authorities, but by prayer and confidence press toward and finish the work.

Then they celebrated. This is our focus. God wants to use them to show us how to celebrate. Observe that their celebration was a process of living, of which the day of jubilation was but a special high point, with the process going on before and after.

Celebrating Spiritual Teaching

Their celebration occupied a major period of time. Celebration constituted the beginning of crucial acts of obedience which were to continue for ever, It is like saying to the Lord, Lord Jesus, I love you, and having Him respond, If you love keep my commandments. That initial time of worship[p when we say I love you is but the beginning of a lifetime of obedience.

Let us then observe how they celebrated and what the implications for us are.

1. They celebrated the Word which has been taught them. Neh 8: 1-4, 6-12 says all trhe people gathered together—men, women, and all the young who could understand the word, and they were taught the Scriptures by the priests and Levites—the clergy. It was all explained, so that the people understood the meaning. And the people wept when they heard the word of God.

Why did the people weep? Because they understood it. they wept because they had not kept the Law. They had been consistently disobedient simply because of ignorance. They had not been taught what God expected of them. Furthermore, their own disobedience and that of their predecessors had brought disaster on them. And why was it necessary for them to celebrate with the word?

When we read the law carefully we notice that it has 2 parts: blessings and curses. The blessings are promised as a reward for obedience; the curses are the consequences of disobedience. Hear the words of Dt 10: 12-13.

And now, Israel, what does the Lord require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I command you this day for your good?

Also Dt 11: 1, 2.

You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statures, His ordinances, and His commandments always. And consider this day (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand and His outstretched arm.

Additionally, note Dt. 11: 26-18, 31, 32.

Behold I set before you this day a blessing and a curse: the blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day,, and a cruse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I commanded you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known.

For you are to pass over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land which the Lord your God gives you; and when you possess it and live in it, you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the ordinances which I set before you this day.

Now listen to Dt 27: 11-13.

And Moses charged the people the same day saying, “when you have passed over the Jordan, these shall stand upon Mt. Gerizim: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, Benjamin—to bless the people. And these shall stand on Mt. Ebal for the cruse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

Crucial also are the words of Dt 28: 1-2.

And if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commands which I command you this day, the Lord your God will set you on high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Then comes the warning of v. 15:

But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all His commands and His statutes which I command you this day, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

God promised that this principle would be operative in the case of their deliberate disobedience: they would be cursed in those very areas in which they should have been blessed. Dt 28: 47-49 [RSV] is legally specific.

Because you did not serve the Lord your god with joyfulness and gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and in want of all things; and He will put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until He has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you do not understand….  

The principle is this: If you are really grateful to God for what He has done for you, then obey His commands, do His will. If you are thankful, show it in you life everyday. If you love your wife and appreciate he, do not wait for her birthday—you may forget it anyway. Tell her thanks at every meal. Always show an attitude of gratitude. If you are grateful to God this day, then live in Christian obedience today and tomorrow.

On Sunday, you, God’s people are gathered; on Monday you will be God’s people scattered among the world. If you truly celebrate gratitude on Sunday, then live Christ at home, on the job, as you drive, in all your relationships, in your general attitude. Worship and obedience go together. Try to impress God with your spirituality. Impress Him with your daily thanksgiving. Be always grateful for everything, recognizing that He is the Source of all things that you have, including your very life itself.

Review the warning of Dt 6: 10-13 [NIV].

When the Lord your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Fear the Lord your God, serve Him only….

The principle is that if you give thanks together in the house of God, then insult the name of God in your home, in your income tax, in your marital relationships, with your co-workers, in your life-style, in your investments, in your recreations, in your thought life, in any of your relationships whatsoever, then your celebration in the house of God is hypocrisy, and He will replace your blessings with curses. Remember the words of Isaiah 1: 11-20. However, and there is always the positive, joyful side, hear the words of the Lord in Ex 19: 5-6 [NIV].

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Revisit the fantastic promises of Dt 28: 1-14.

Note, however, that the promises and blessings of God are conditional upon obedience by each believer in his everyday living. It is not simply dependent on the program of your church. The prosperity of the church is to a large degree determined by the quality of your personal private life. It is your life during the week that will determine the blessings of God on your church. If your church does not prosper, it will be very likely because there is sin in the camp. If your church prospers, tit will be largely because you are people of clean hands and pure hearts who do not lift up the soul to what is false and do not swear deceitfully. So your church receives blessings from the Lord and vindication from the God of our salvation.

Thanksgiving is more than saying thanks. It is more a matter of obedience to God. It was disobedience that robbed Judah of both temple and holy city. As they stood before Nehemiah on a day of celebration they wept at the teaching of the word, because they had not obeyed it. Hopefully, you can stand before God and rejoice and laugh in His presence because you have been known and kept the Word and commands of God.

2. There is a second significant aspect to this process of celebration. It was the ordained leaders who taught the people the Word of God and explained it so they understood: Nehemiah, the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, the Levites, assistants to the priests. A major continuing tragedy of the church is this: there is incredible biblical-spiritual-theological ignorance among Christian Believers. One can encounter people who have been in the church for years who are not sure of their salvation; worse, one can encounter many persons who are committed Believers who are ignorant of the basics of the Bible and the faith. So many Christians are not equipped to explain or defend what they believe or answer the questions or statements of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons or Muslims. Who do not even know the books of the Bible by heart and how to find them quickly, let alone to explain what each book of the Bible contains. Our people simply have not been equipped to always have an answer ready for those who questions their eternal hope. Here and now in the 2000s biblical ignorance in North America is rampant. Too many Christians have a syncretistic faith, a mixture of Christianity, Eastern mysticism and New Age philosophy. Some Christians believe the essence and genius of the Faith is to live by the Golden rule. Some would say they have been Christian all their lives—contrary to John 3: 3, 5, 6, where our Lord states categorically, I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. As Christian leaders, we will and do have a lot to answer for, with respect to the ignorance of the people we serve. We need to take immediate steps to repair the damage and attack the lack. If people are to celebrate by daily obedience they must be taught the Word of god, which they are supposed and expected to obey. Ignorance is sin.

Why did the people of Jerusalem not know the Word of God? The priests and Levites who stood before Ezra and Nehemiah to teach the people were residents of Jerusalem. They had been there for years. Moreover, there were enough of them. Neh. 11: 10-18 shows that there were 370 priests, 284 Levites, total 654 clergy, and yet the people did not know what the word of God said. Pastors and teachers, leaders and administrators, take heed. Hear the word of the Lord. Is 5: 13 says,

Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; their men of rank will die of hunger and their masses will be parched with thirst.

How shall disobedient pastors and teachers and other leaders escape the judgment of Hosea 4: 4-6:

But let no man bring a charge, let no man accuse another, for your people are like those who bring charges against a priest. You stumble day and night, and the prophets stumble with you. So I will destroy your mother—my people are destroyed form lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law or your God, I also will ignore your children

Nevertheless, rejoice in the hope of Jer 3: 15. I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding. It is, however, an awesome responsibility to be a pastor-teacher, because judgment will begin with us. That is why Jas 3: 1-2 gives us the warning:

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.

At the same time, Christians today, especially in the west, cannot place all the blame for ignorance on pastors and other leaders. Everyone who is able to read and write has access to all kinds of educational resources: the Scriptures, the Holy spirit, God’s prime teacher, seminars, courses, workshops, CDs, DVDs, radio, TV, Internet, etc., resources, plus church classes, including Sunday school, home study courses, etc., etc. Furthermore, if you have never gone to a leader and said, Please teach me, if you have not studied for yourself, you are at least equally guilty. Bible societies have incredible stories of hungry sinners who have gone to extreme lengths to get a copy of the Scriptures, found salvation and even founded churches. So we are today without excuse. Even nature and reason teach us about God and eternity. Romans 1-2; Psalm 19.

The people of Jerusalem cried when they heard the word of the Law, which they had not known; then they began to obey it once they knew it. We must go and do the same.

THE BOTTOM LINE: TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

DISCIPLESHIP: DETOUR, DESTINY, DESTINATION

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Luke 13: 22-30. Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as He made His way to Jerusalem. Someone asked, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers.’ There will be weeping there and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed, there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”  

Matthew 7: 13, 14, 21-23. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrows the road that leads to life, and only a few find it….Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name dive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.’

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The Leading Question and the Real Issue

The evidence indicates that people loved to ask Jesus questions. Curiously, it appears that their pattern of questioning seems designed to prepare a modern audience for Question Period in the

House of Commons. The Opposition seems to glory in asking questions less for truth than to embarrass, ridicule, prove incompetent the government, protect and expand voting base, and generally protect self-interest.

In the present case, however, the enquiry seems sincere, the kind of approach a Believer might employ. Lord, are only a few people going o be saved? Had he been hanging around with Jesus for some time, seen the large crowds, and observed the low response ratio? On the basis of his observation, was he concerned that perhaps the fig tree was near barren, bearing mainly leaves?

Behind the man’s question is a dynamic that reminds us of the event described in John 6. After the discourse on and controversy about Christ as the Bread of Life, many of His disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” V. 60. Verse 66 reports, From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him. The principle indicated in this episode is that the Truth sets us free, but it hurts. If we are not willing to endure the surgery we will not experience the freedom of improved health. Jesus had already made abundantly clear that discipleship meant death to self and total absorption into Christ. However, many—perhaps, as here, the majority—were not ready to receive life, health and freedom according to His prescription.

Could it be the case that Jesus Himself knew that the implication of the man’s question was in fact quite true? In the parable of the Sower and the four soils, the seeds that fell along the path, on rocky ground, and among thorns all died. Only one soil out of four produced a crop. Perhaps aware of this serious dynamic—that, of the multitudes to whom Christ ministered, only a small percentage remained faithful—this person asked this leading question. A crucial factor, of course, was that Christ’s message seemed to discourage half-hearted followers, as Lk 14: 15-33 indicates. As one commentator [MacArthur] says, regarding on v. 33:

Only those willing to carefully assess the cost [vv. 28-33] and invest all they had in His kingdom were worthy to enter. This speaks of something far more than mere abandonment of one’s material possessions; it is an absolutely, unconditional surrender. His disciples were permitted to retain no privileges and make no demands. They were to safeguard no cherished sins; treasure no earthly possessions; and cling to no secret self-indulgence. Their commitment to Him must be without reservation.

The questioner had probably contemplated all those factors, thought long and hard about the issue and could hold the question no longer. So he asked Jesus, Lord, are only a few people going to be saved? Jesus said He had come to seek and to save any and all that were lost, but only a few responded to His message. What did this mean? Are only a few people going to sit at the banquet in God’s kingdom with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs, David, the prophets, the Twelve, and a few others?

As it turned out, despite the multitudes healed and fed, there were only 120 praying and preparing for Pentecost [Acts 1: 15] and more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, probably in Galilee [1 Co 15: 6], saw the resurrected Christ.

Note how Jesus handled people’s questions. He consistently shot through the question to the heart of the questioner as with a Cupid’s arrow, never failing to hit the bull’s eye! For example, in Mt. 22: 23-46, the Sadducees confronted Him with their trick question about a woman with seven husbands, all of whom died leaving her childless. In the resurrection, whose wife would she be? Jesus punctured the balloon of their prideful ignorance by proving that God had spoken clearly about the resurrection as a fact, in the Exodus, part of the Pentateuch they accepted and which they claimed said nothing about resurrection. He also proved their failure to understand Scripture which taught that in the resurrection life, marriage was irrelevant.

Then Jesus posed the Pharisees, who were obviously listening, His own question. David called the Messiah “Lord.” How then can the Messiah be David’s son? In response, they were speechless [the answer, by the way, is in Ro 1: 1-4]. See also Mt 21: 23-27.

So in the present case. The man’s question was, Are only a few people going to heaven? Jesus did not answer the question with a simple yes of no. Instead, as a Master teacher, He gave the questioner and the whole class an assignment to work through in order to discover the answer for himself. Jesus’ response was, Your question is not the issue. The real issue is, Are you personally going to be among those few or many going to heaven? Why worry about others when you have not taken care of your own salvation? How can you help a sinner come to salvation if you remain lost? Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. Why worry about the statistics if you are not one of them? Instead, make sure you are in.”

Jesus went to the heart of the issue. Similarly, on another occasion,

There were some present at the time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Perhaps not at the hands of Pilate, but certainly your sins will condemn you to hell, if you cry, Lord, Lord but do not do God’s Truth.

Or those righteous who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish

Lk 13: 1-5.

Or consider the 14 year old girl in Guelph, Ontario, on whom, in June 2009, the washroom wall fell and killed her. Do you think she was more sinful than anyone else? No! But if you do not repent, you too will perish, not necessarily in a similar way, but in an equally final way. So repent! And those of you who insist on being preoccupied with the red herring, What about those who have never heard the gospel?—you have heard it! Have you repented? Do not worry about them, unless you have been saved and are going to be engaged in getting the Good News to them. So what Christ says to all He says to you: Repent! Examine yourselves to see if in fact you are in the Faith. Unless you have believed in vain.

Foundations for National Reformation

Nehemiah 7: 73b - 8: 18

Introduction

An analysis of Neh. 7: 73b-8: 18 shows that the Word of the Lord taught, understood and obeyed caused national revival to break out, Hopefully it led to national reformation. To verify the duration of the reformation is beyond our present scope; a study of such prophets as Joel and Malachi would give us an idea. Such revival, in all cases, needs to mature into a lifestyle of permanent national reformation.

Canada needs spiritual reformation. The principles and insights of Nehemiah provide us a model for the beginnings of an effective program of national transformation.

To be effective, we need to recognize that the strength and security of a nation rests on its spiritual foundations. Secondly, if those foundations are inadequate, we must work for national spiritual reformation to complete the adequacy of the foundation. This means that, thirdly, if Canada’s foundations are weak, Christian Believers are required to work for spiritual transformation in the country.

1. The Need for Strong Spiritual Foundations

The security of the state is in the hands of the church. A nation is as strong as its keepers are trustworthy. The character of a country is rooted and grounded in the character of its people, especially its leaders. It is the duty of the religious institution to produce people of spiritual and moral character and impeccable integrity.

Whenever a nation falls, it usually falls from within. A nation’s worst enemies are usually of its own family. There is an internal crumbling before an external attack. The spiritual institution is responsible for the moral, spiritual and character foundations of the state. Jesus summarized it in His declarations: You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

The common factor in the death of nations is inferior religion, weak faith, worship of idols instead of Jehovah, issuing in immoral behaviour, the rule of pleasure, the lust for power and the death of discipline, as well as destruction as the fruit of folly. This is clear in the life of Israel as she drifted relentlessly toward Babylonian exile. And while Hitler decidedly marched toward Britain, Britain’s leaders were convinced that Hitler was quite harmless and posed no real threat to their sovereignty. For the same reason, the advanced Aztec culture and nation of Mexico was destroyed by Hernan Cortes because the leaders thought the invaders and their leader were in fact their long departed god Quetzacoatl and his entourage returned. The belief was that Quetzacoatl, having fallen from glory, had departed into the eastern sea, and would return to preside over the downfall of the empire. Their confidence and their destruction were rooted in deception—deception of wrong religion and wrong belief. Perhaps we can see similar tragedies in other religions today [India and Hinduism in the face of industrialism; Islam and illiteracy; etc.].

A city of 300,000 fell passively to a [party of several hundred, while Montezuma had fierce armies! Reason: wrong religion. The Aztecs had a religion that was ferocious, bloody, cruel, and based on human sacrifice.

Religion [faith life] is the foundation of every nation. However, at the same time, wrong religion is inimical to national strength and security.

Even the Communist revolution of China was largely produced by the weaknesses and follies of Chiang Kai Shek. This is also the story of Russia, as one writer has pointed out—destroyed by a tragic combination of impatience, haste, greed, anger, hatred, rejection of God, folly and vodka.

On the other hand, a nation grows strong by being taught truth, divine truth, and by living a life disciplined by the demands of that truth.

The future of Canada is in the hands of Christian believers—certainly should be. God has called us to strengthen the foundations of the nation by teaching God’s Word to Canada’s children, families, fathers, and leaders. We must find a way to do it. Beginning where we are, with our own church, our own families and church leaders, we must operate in ever-widening circles to teach the Word to leaders of state, business and social institutions, till the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea—Hab 2: 14.

Strategy

How can we do this?

1. We can treat the biblical education of Believers with far greater urgency and seriousness. We must so thoroughly teach our people that they will be adequately equipped to teach God’s Word in their homes and in their workplaces. We spend thousands of dollars to train pastors, but pennies to train lay Believers. Yet the Word of God says we were called to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation of priests [1 P 2: 5, 9; Is 61: 6].

It is the responsibility of pastors and other trained leaders to teach God’s people. And we are not simply talking about teaching a Sunday School class for an hour or less per week. Lets us digest the truths and implications for us of Nehemiah 8: 1-9, 13, 18; Ephesians 4: 11, 12 and Acts 6: 1-4.

From these passages we gather that God has appointed clergy and other trained leaders [priests, Levites, pastors, evangelists, teachers, preachers, etc.] to train and equip Christians all week for their ministries. If this is so, we need to require greater accountability from pastors, and other trained personnel. Like the apostles, pastors need to avoid doing what others could, so we can focus on the ministry of the Word and prayer.

It is not enough to teach a class of a few Believers on Sunday or another group once or twice a month [a crucial as these are] if the security of the state is in our hands, as salt and light. Every congregation should have a Bible college program for its people. There are some churches that have very rigorous teaching-learning programs for their congregation, meeting throughout the week.

As we equip our people, they will be able and expected to give God’s Word to their worlds [family, community, job/coworkers, nation…].

2. A second step would be to work out ways and means of teaching the Word to leaders of business, education, other institutions, governments of all levels, etc. This is entirely possible because it has been being done, and it is possible to be done.

2. Strengthening the Foundations

What we have in Nehemiah 8 is a case of national revival. It was not a big nation. We are not sure if those outside Jerusalem were involved, but insofar as Jerusalem represented Israel, this was a national revival. It was also one that is a model for us. In it we see the leaders of church and state encouraging purity of faith, obedience and celebration on the part of the whole population.

All through the Bible is the clear message that national security and prosperity are fully dependent on the people’s obedience to God, on the rule of divine law, which in turn depends on the faithful biblical teaching of the nations’ leaders. Deuteronomy 28 clearly promises prosperity in response to strict obedience of God’s Word. Proverbs 14: 34 says, Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

However, what Nehemiah was working for was reformation, not simply revival. The history of revivals shows that change does not continue unless revival issues in reformation, and reformation does not develop and hold unless discipleship training is consistently maintained, from generation to generation.

Nehemiah succeeded in his generation, because the revival described in chapters 8 and 9 is but a part of the whole process of reformation. By reformation we mean thorough, widespread, long-lasting, positive Godly change. As described by Nehemiah, it included rebuilding of the wall, renewed love, respect and commitment to Jerusalem, helping those in need and under oppression, renewed commitment to the Word of God, repentance with confession, renewal of covenant, reformation of marriage, renewed celebration of festivals, renewed commitment to the holiness of the Sabbath and to the primacy of worship, etc.

You will observe that this means that the church must have its life in order before trying to bring order to the foundations and structures of the nation.

3. Woe, Canada!

Canada needs Christ. Desperately! We took the Bible out of our schools, now we must contend with drugs, guns, cameras, and police officers in the halls. We musty get God back into the schools, and all other institutions, including our legislatures, businesses. We must commit ourselves to the primacy of evangelism, including especially prayer evangelism!

We are required by Christ to work for radical spiritual reformation in Canada. How do we do that? Through appropriate principles and specific actions. David Barton of Wallbuilders offers 8 principles for national reformation.

1. Do not develop a conspiracy mentality [us vs. them]. This creates fear of man, which Proverbs 29: 25 says proves a snare. Do not assume that the other group has bad motives and is against you. Most leaders are willing to change when given truth.

2. Think like God. Remember that with God all things are possible. Act accordingly. Where Christians are a majority, it is really easy to make a difference. But in any situation, with God, even a few can win. One + God = the majority. The action is ours; the results are God’s.

3. Be aggressive. Pr 21: 22 says, A wise man attacks the city of the mighty and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust. Take the offensive. Go into the enemy’s territory and attack.

4. Be willing to go step by step, little by little; be satisfied to make small gains each time. Don’t say all or nothing. Be patient. Deut 7: 22; Ex. 23: 29, 30.

5. Be willing to go for a long-term battle and stay there. You will win if you do not give up. Gal 6: 9.

6. Demand responsibility on the part of others and yourself. Accept responsibility for the state of affairs in your nation. Take responsibility for your behaviour and its consequences. Do not shift blame. Learn from Nehemiah 1, Daniel 9 and Jer. 31: 29-30.

7. Be tolerant of other Christian groups and be willing to network with them to get common goals accomplished. See in Nehemiah how different professional groups worked to build the walls of Jerusalem.

8. Join prayer and action. Every activist needs an intercessor, and vice versa. Both should work together. The power of prayer is a proven power. Pray for provincial legislatures and legislators, school board meetings, etc., that right decisions may be made.

These principles and practices will help us to change our schools, governments, communities, provinces, people’s lives, and ultimately our nation into a holy nation.

Conclusion

Be ready to embrace opportunities for ministry to impact individuals, communities and institutions. Be praying about what God would have you do to make your city and beyond a part of God’s eternal kingdom.

Prayer and Meditation: 1 Co 15: 58; 16: 23.

PAUL AS EXAMPLE

Part 3

2 Co 11: 22-33; 12: 7-10

In this amazing passage, without this being his intent, Paul shows how he had met our Lord’s basic discipleship requirement of taking up his cross daily and was following Christ. In vv. 22, and 23 he states: Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am more. All the Jewish pedigree ammunition he gave up for Christ. He says in Ph 3: 4-8.

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law a Pharisee; as to zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.

Paul’s action and personal program is literal obedience of Christ’s demand stated in Lk 9: 23: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. He sacrificed the total content and foundation of his Jewish pedigree as impediment to faith, both for himself and all Jews, and Gentiles, who became Christians. Everyone must renounce his sinful self to follow Christ.

Paul goes on to say that he is more a servant of Christ than the judaizers who had been questioning his apostleship, those false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ—v. 13. The true disciple of Christ is the one who has denied self totally, takes up his cross daily, dies daily with Christ, for Christ’s sake, for faithful obedience to the Master—all without grumbling or complaining or self-pity.

Paul proves that he is a true apostle of Christ rather than the false apostles involved in religious politics; the proof is his total obedience to Christ’s basic demand of taking up one’s cross daily. These other so-called apostles did not suffer persecution and hardship, as Paul was experiencing and had experienced. These arrogant men have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong [Ps. 73: 4]. Paul had worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely and been exposed to death again and again. Then he goes on to catalogue the details of this claim. This is exactly what has been experienced by faithful Believers in India [October 2008] and China on an ongoing basis. But God preserves His own, by life or by death. So we do not fear those who can only kill the body [Mt 10: 28].

In 2 Co 4: 8-11 Paul also reports,

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body.

The Catalogue: 2 Co 11.

1. V. 24. Five times he received the Jewish flogging of 40 lashes prescribed by Dt 25: 1-3. When the proper sentence of an accused is flogging, he is to be beaten in the prone position in the presence of the judge with the number of strikes appropriate to his crime, as determined by the judge, to a maximum of 40 lashes. More than 40 lashes may degrade the accused socially. Five times Paul received the maximum, suggesting the severity of his crime for preaching Christ.

2. V. 25. Three times beaten with rods. This was a Roman punishment, consisting of flexible sticks tied together. Acts 16: 22-24 records this experience by Paul and Silas in Philippi after the healing of the demon-possessed girl. The magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, their feet fastened in the stocks. After the earthquake, the jailer took them and washed their wounds, showing how severe this kind of punishment was. Eight times Paul was flogged—by both Jews and Gentiles. Note that Paul’s Roman citizenship did not give him the immunity guaranteed by the constitution and its charter of rights and freedoms.

3. V. 25. Stoned once, a Jewish traditional form of execution. This happened at Lystra and is recorded in Acts 14: 19-20. Jews from Antioch and Iconium , changed the minds of the adoring crowd, who proceeded to stone Paul inside the city, instead of outside the city, at the usual place of execution, and left him for dead. Perhaps that was when Paul had his vision of heaven, described in 2 Co 12: 2-4.

4. V. 25. Shipwrecked 3 times, before his voyage to Rome, Paul being so often on missionary voyages, as detailed in the Acts.

5. V. 25. Exposure—a night and a day in the open sea, probably caused by one of the shipwrecks, clinging to some kind of raft from the wreckage, waiting to be rescued—with all that implied--wet, cold, having had no sleep, no food, no water, enduring exposure to marine wild life—all for the sake of the gospel!

6. V. 26. In a variety of dangers, in addition to those already listed. He constantly faced dangers, plus other labours and hardships. Travel by land was dangerous because of robber bands and rivers given to flooding. He was frequently in danger from fellow-Jews [See Acts 9: 23, 29; 17: 5; 18: 12-16; 21: 27-32]. He was also in danger from Gentiles sometimes, though less often. Acts 16: 16-40; 19: 23-20:1. He was in danger from false Christians, people who only pretended to be Believers.

7. Vv. 27-29. Paul’s devotion to Christ and ministry demanded of him intense privation. Often he was hungry, sleep deprived, water deprived, warmth and comfort deprived--plus his daily work burdens of ministry to the churches, including bearing the pressures of counseling members in crisis or sin. Those who were weak in faith or who fell into sin caused great pain to his shepherd’s heart, so closely did he identify with them. He longed for those who sinned to be restored and he burned with anger against those who had led them into sin.

8. V. 32. In Damascus the governor under King Aretas IV, father-in-law of Herod Antipas, ruler of the Nabatean Arabs, tried to arrest him. He was rescued through a humbling escape, lowered in a basket from a window in the wall. Acts 9: 23-25.

In these ways was God’s word to Ananias fulfilled. Acts 9: 16 records God’s word to Ananias about Saul of Tarsus: I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.

9. 2 Co 12: 7-10. In addition to all these things that come and go is something that is always there, Paul’s unspecified but specific thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan that God chose not to remove but to retain in order to prove in Paul’s weakness His perfect strength. By submitting to God’s will he can rejoice in this situation of handicap and weakness, because God proves His word in the apostle’s own words: For when I am weak, then I am strong. God’s power flows through, in and in spite of, Paul’s weaknesses. We can identify with that! Human weakness provides the ideal opportunity for the display of divine power. As in Paul’s case, it demonstrates and proves how God works through complete and absolute death to self, as Christ requires of His disciples. Lk 9: 23-26; 14: 25-33.

In these ways God presents to us the apostle Paul as a shining example of a disciple who had died completely to self, taken up his cross daily, and faithfully followed Christ. How do we measure up? We can take courage and encouragement from the apostle’s reminder in Hebrews 12: 4, In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. We are very fortunate. So let us prove ourselves tryuly faithful disciplesw by living out our covenant, based on Luke 9: 23-26.

CHAPTER 7

PAYING ATTENTION TO DETAIL:

THE IMPORTANCE OF ACCURATE RECORD KEEPING

Introduction: Background Principle

Our responsibility as Christians in this world is to demonstrate the Kingdom of God, with our focus on eternity. This basic idea is stated in 2 P 3: 10-18. Here Peter focuses on eternity, when the heavens will disappear and the earth destroyed by fire, everything in it laid bare, and these being replaced with a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

This very crucial question is asked by the apostle: Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. He goes on to add that you should make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with Him. He also encourages us to be faithful to truth and to keep growing in Christ.

Contained in this message, among other things, is this basic idea: Jesus said, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full [Jn 10: 10]. The abundant life in all its fullness is possible only in heaven. However, it does begin here and now. We experience that abundant life by living our Christian life here on earth according to the principles of heaven. This means we live the life of heaven now by pursuing the activities and responsibilities of life according to the laws of eternity. Put another way, we live heaven on earth, to the full extent of possibility. The Christian life is the life of heaven lived here and now in this world.

This explains what the Scriptures are all about. They describe God’s life and the life of God’s kingdom as His people are to live it here and now in this world. It also explains that the Christian lifestyle will be out of step with secular living, but it also shows to unbelievers how to be truly successful. Whenever the unsaved applies kingdom principles, they will have a higher level of success than others. However, and unfortunately, they will not have true and lasting success, because they are missing the one thing needful, namely, Christ the foundation, on which it all rests.

Basically, the simple idea is: If you are a child of God, you live now like this, being controlled by the principles of His kingdom. That is, you live here and now as though you were actually in heaven—because you are under the control of the Sovereign Lord.

We will examine one example of living on earth by the principles of heaven. This is the idea of keeping accurate accounts as preparation for giving our account to God. Our Scripture is Nehemiah 7. By way of additional preparation and clarification, read

1 Co 3: 10-15, focusing on VV.12-15; and Rev. 20: 11-15

Nehemiah is a text in stewardship. Basic to the whole idea of successful stewardship is the principle of accounting and accountability. Every steward, every person responsible to someone else for the management of resources of any kind, understanding that one day he/she must report to the owner/supervisor, keeps detailed and accurate records. Those records will earn either reward or condemnation, depending on quality, adequacy, and accuracy [which raises the question as to why some places--some think abortion clinics-- do not keep records on clients].

The employer in Lk 16: 1-5 was informed that his manager was wasting his possessions. So he called him and asked him, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.” At which the manager proceeded to further falsify the records in favour of the debtors, so they would feel obligated to him and help him after he was officially and effectively fired.

Note carefully that managing any responsibility requires attention to detail, both in planning, recording and executing. That is why on your job you keep such careful records and keep records carefully. As a Christian, your recording and preparation for accounting will include your use of the company’s time and resources, according to your responsibility and freedoms. This is especially important if you are privileged to travel for the company on an expense account.

Perhaps the most important thing is that our model for the practice of recording accurate details is God Himself. He is the Source of the principle and the practice. It is a part of His creation and His nature. In all our living, in all aspects of our earthly stewardship, we should imitate the Creator.

There are 3 things we need to be aware of to make ourselves more efficient.

1. Since it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful [1 Co 4:2], every responsible worker must be careful to keep accurate records.

2. In recording facts, pay careful attention to detail

3. Remember, God is the author, creator and model. Learn from Him. Imitate Him.

1. Keep Accurate Records

Clear accurate records are a sign of efficiency. Nehemiah had a goal to achieve in a limited time. From the very beginning he engaged in very careful planning. In chapter 2, he had a ready answer for the king and specific requests for goods and services. When he got to Jerusalem he inspected the wall section by section, noting the true nature of the work to be done.

In chapter 3, he records who repaired what, where, beside whom, etc.

In chapter 5, he deals with clear social, psychological, economic and spiritual problems and solved the issues burdening the people.

In chapter 7 he is a careful census recorder.

Similar facts and details are evident in chapter 12.

Observe the value of accurate records. Facts point to truth. Truth protects you and gives you freedom. The careful census made work easier, so he could organize the population according to tasks to be done. Observe:

1) It protected the religious and spiritual life and order of the people. Chapter 7: 64-65 says,

These searched for their family records, but they could not find them and so were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. The governor therefore ordered them not to eat any of the most sacred food until there should be a priest ministering with the Urim and Thummim.

Proper records protected the community from ceremonial and spiritual uncleanness and from having the wrong people function as priests.

2) It revealed the resources they had in relation to the needs. Vv. 66-72 report the number of the whole company, menservants, maidservants, male and female singers, animal population; that some of the heads of families contributed to the work, with examples of contributions by various givers and the nature and value of the gifts, even noting the total given by the rest of the people. The section showed who could contribute what to which need, and did. It also provided an inventory showing how much animal power was available for transportation of material.

3) The records enabled Nehemiah to properly distribute the human population for the best interest, security and prosperity of the community of Israel—7: 4, 5, 73.

4) The total effect was to produce a condition of stability and peace—7: 73b-8:3.

When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their town, all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law, which the Lord had commanded for Israel. So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and all the others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.

These steps made the people willing to hear the Word of God. Their basic needs and the necessary arrangements having been satisfied, they could then focus on the most important element in life.

2. Pay Attention to Detail

We will never know how many aircraft, bus, and car crashes happened because a mechanic did not pay attention to detail; or how many patients died unnecessarily for the same reason. There are even horror stories of engineers ignoring the danger warnings of their own instruments. Nehemiah did not function as many experts do today—as, for example, in the financial sector, and even with respect to national security and travel safety. He counted individuals. In addition, he checked the genealogy of each. In this way he was able to exclude from religious duty those priest-claimants not qualified to serve. Look at the figures and you will see they are not rounded, even numbers. Every person was counted, every person in every category was accounted for, every pack animal was numbered. Contributions were enumerated: garments, bowls, gold, silver; and the account totaled.

You will note that this is the way it is all through the Bible. It is interesting to note that this principle in Nehemiah is presented as operating in the context of modern business. This is operating in the workplace today, showing that God’s principles are of universal application and are for the proper functioning of human affairs. It also shows the sovereignty of God over all aspects of life, and His provisions for our success. Here is a case in point:

Ivanka Trump, daughter of Donald Trump, was asked by an interviewer, What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from your mother? She answered, My mother is incredibly precise when she takes on a project, and she has a passion for details, and I think that’s why everything she odes is executed so well. I think…when you separate the good from the great it tends to boil down to attention to small things, especially in our business, it really does boil down to the details [Canadian Business Magazine, February 2010, p. 68]. Being completely outside the context of faith or even religion, this comment is noteworthy. It shows that this biblical principle is written into life and human wisdom. In a sense, it is commonsense. God has put it there in human nature.

Why such focus on detail? Because everything related to God is important. There is nothing and no one insignificant. Keeping details is very tedious, perhaps even boring, but it takes on meaning when we see it as part of God’s prescription for efficiency because He loves the individual and is the creator of every item—person, animal or material thing. Indeed, life may depend on a particular detail [like a king pin].

3. God is Creator and Model

God created the principle of accurate recording. God created every detail. Even the hairs of our head are all numbered by God. This means every detail is a divine creation. God is our example of accurate record keeping and attention to detail. It reveals His character. And a person or institution’s character and potential would be indicated by the way one operates with respect to order.

1) He is a God of truth [and facts]. So he gives us genealogies [Ge 10; Mt. 1; Lk 3]. He gives us censuses. The Book of Numbers is well named. Not only does God record census information, but details regarding the tabernacle and the life of worship.

2) Our Lord is a God of order. The Book of Numbers gives the placement of the tribes around the tabernacle and the order of their march [Chapters 2, 3], plus the stages of their journey [10-16]. Even the genealogy has order built into it. Mt 1: 17 says, Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ. Observe carefully that it is Matthew the tax collector writing.

3) God pays attention to detail because He cares. That is why Christ the Saviour and God the Father Himself are described as Shepherd. Every shepherd counts his sheep one by one at the end of each day. Jesus ended the feeding of the 5,000 with the instruction: Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted—Jn 6: 12. In Mt. 10: 29 our Lord said, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

If you have 100 sheep and one goes astray, you do not console yourself by saying, Thank God, I have 99 left. The same principle applies to losing small amounts of your bank account.

God is a God of detail. Note Mt 10: 30: even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. You could hardly get more detailed than that!

God keeps records. That is clear from Genesis to Revelation, literally! For example, in Rev. 20: 12-15, John reports:

I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the book. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire

.

Jesus warned His disciples in Mt 12: 36, 37,

I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

That is frightening! So when you in your job or family pay attention to recording accurate details, and take deadly seriously details of life, you are imitating God. For this you will be richly rewarded.

Application

We encourage you to keep on being thorough and detailed in your work. Keep accurate, detailed records. Pay attention to individuals. There is power in the practice of the particular.

1. It shows that you care and are careful; that you attach significance to every particle, that you especially value every person.

2. It reveals your character as a person who is meticulous, careful and committed to the success of your company, group or institution; but especially to the success of God’s kingdom here and now and hereafter.

3. It will earn you the trust and confidence of your boss or leader.

4. It will equip you to give ready answers with supporting evidence and proof of accuracy. Meticulous records will protect you against accusation by anyone who wants to replace you, or see you fail.

5. It will describe you as efficient. It will speak of quality work and a thoroughly organized mind.

6. All in all, it will open doors to witness for Christ. It will position you for greater trust and responsibility; that is, for promotion. In any case, in itself, it will be a Godly testimony, representing the character of God.

Do the same for your family. E.g., account for all income and expenditures. If you should die, the executor of your will should be able easily to locate all your records of insurance policies, investments such as RRSPs, funeral prearrangements, instructions for disposal of each item of real property, other resources such as bank balances, debts, if any; whom to contact for final business arrangements [pension companies, etc.]; and also other personal wishes, etc.

It will be a testimony of a life of order, love and caring, of consideration for those navigating the opposing emotional currents of bereavement. In short, plan your life, all aspects or your life, in detail and live accordingly. Imitate God.

Prayer

Holy Father, arm me with watchful care As in your sight to live, And now your servant, Lord, prepare a strict account to give. Help me to watch and pray, and still on you rely, O let me not my trust betray, But press to realms on high.

Part 2

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Acts 26: 9, 10. I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that was just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

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The apostle is a shining example of true discipleship. We see in him how a terrorist dies completely to self and transfers to his new Lord the same degree and quality of surrender, commitment, obedience, enthusiasm and investment of gifts and qualities as he had in relation with his previous master.

Acts 9: 1 says Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. His anger is described as being like the snorting of a horse—breathing out murderous threats. The spiritual and emotional intensity is being described. In Acts 22: 4 he confesses, I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison. In Acts 26: 9, 10 he repeats,

I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

When Paul surrendered to Christ, it was with the same quality, degree and passion of commitment, focus and purpose. He changed masters but brought to Jesus his total person and personality. We see his intensity in Ph 3: 4b-6. If anyone else thinks he has reason to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church, as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. That’s intense emotional motivation, powered by pride of pedigree.

Now rather than causing intense suffer8ng for others, he was going to suffer intensely for Jesus, because he had changed sides. In Acts 9: 15 Jesus told Ananias about Saul, This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.

The Acts and epistles demonstrate Paul’s total surrender according to Jesus’ principle in Lk 9: 23-27. His total and unconditional surrender is described in Acts 20: 22-24. Paul states clearly:

And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will heppen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardship are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.

His quality of commitment is further seen in Acts 21: 13: I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

His sufferings are catalogued in 2 Co 11: 23-33; 12: 7-10. His absolute focus and determination is described in Ph 3: 7-14, and on various occasions he uses himself as an example. Ph 3: 7- 4:1, 8, 9; 1 Co 11: 1.

A primary component of this quality of discipleship Paul describes in Ro 6. All the legitimate resources you invested in your life of sin, transfer to your life in Christ with equal or greater intensity. Read the whole chapter of Romans 6, but note especially vv. 11-23, and especially 13 and 19.

The degree and intensity of involvement we had in our life of sin must be transferred to and increased in our life in Christ. Observe how God used Paul to establish the church, to influence the West and to write the New Testament, as well as to preach to millions through the ages to this present day. God is still speaking and working through the terrorist Saul of Tarsus. Copy him as he copied Christ!

 CONQUERING OPPOSITION

Expecting and Responding to More Opposition

The enemy does not quickly rest, cease and desist

V. 1. Sanballat. This Babylonian name means Sin [the moon-god (Allah?)] has given life. Sanballat was a Horonite, which most likely means he was from Upper or Lower Beth Horon, key cities 12 miles NE of Jerusalem, cities which guarded the main road to Jerusalem. Beth Horon and its highway featured in Joshua’s battle with the Amorite allies under Adonizedek, king of Jerusalem--Josh 10: 10, 11. As governor of Samaria, Sanballat led the opposition to Nehemiah. Neh 2: 19 says he and his allies mocked Nehemiah’s work.

Tobiah means the Lord is good. His son was Jehohanan, which means the Lord is gracious. Jehohanan was married to the daughter of Meshullam, son of Berekiah, the leader of one of the task forces working on the wall. Tobiah was most likely a worshipper of God. Why would he then oppose Nehemiah and God’s work? Tobiah was an Ammonite official. The Ammonites descended from Lot through incest with his younger daughter. Ge 19: 30-38 [Tobiah was most likely governor of Trans-Jordan [Jordan] under the Persians].

The reason for the opposition was apparently politically motivated through fear of losing power and authority. Cp John 11:45-53; 12: 19. Neh 2: 10 explains that they were very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites.

Geshem the Arab. Records in NW Arabia and in Egypt [Tel-el-Maskhutoh near Ismailia] mention Geshem. He may therefore have controlled large areas of N. Arabia to NE Geshem the Arab. Records in NW Arabia and in Egypt [Tel-el-Maskhutoh near Ismailia] mention Geshem. He may therefore have controlled large areas of N. Arabia to NE Egypt, including S. Palestine. He may have opposed Nehemiah’s development of an independent kingdom because he feared that it might interfere with his lucrative spice trade—NIV footnote to 2: 19.  

He is called the Arab. Arabs are a Semitic people who originally occupied Saudi-Arabia and the rest of the Middle East. Semites are the descendants of Shem, son of Noah. They would include Jews, Arabs, Assyrians and Phoenicians [Lebanese]. Arabs became dominant in Transjordan [now Jordan] from the time of the Assyrians to the Persian period [before Nebuchadnezzar to the time of Cyrus king of Persia, beginning 539 B. C.], probably roughly about 200 years.

Opposition—Vv 2ff. In Neh 2: 19 this club of opposition ridiculed Nehemiah’s work. Nehemiah’s response was a statement of faith in god’s provision and success—2: 20. In 6: 1-14 they resume and continue their opposition by scheming against Nehemiah, even hiring Noadiah and Shemaiah to engender fear in Nehemiah. Psychological warfare! These opponents were very persistent. Satan and his helpers are persistent. They never gave up till defeated.

Lesson. We must be even more persistent and determined, in order to defeat the enemy.

Note the subtle scheme. V. 1. They proposed meeting in neutral territory. Ono was 7 miles SE of Joppa, near Lydda, about 20 miles NW of Jerusalem. It looked like neutral territory, but Nehemiah easily discerned the trap. They could easily ambush him on the way. A similar situation is seen in Acts 23: 12-22. It reminds us of Cain’s plot against Abel—Ge 4: 1-8.

The enemies were getting desperate, since the project was almost completed and they had failed. Now they began a new approach—attacking Nehemiah’s character and person.Meeting in lush Ono was a temptation to relax just when they needed to make their final push. Let us meet together sounds friendly and equalizing, but was a trick to draw Nehemiah away from the final push to completion. Their goal was Nehemiah’s failure and humiliation.

I had not set the doors in the gates. The project was almost done. There is joy, hope and excitement in anticipation. If the enemy could stall the operations, the whole thing would still be vulnerable and its effect could be undone. A wall without gates is no protection.

Lesson. It is great to start and continue, but crucial is to finish. In a race you must finish. In building you must finish, and finish in freedom. In study you must finish, if you are to graduate. Jesus emphasizes the crucial importance in the spiritual life of finishing. In Lk 14: 28-30 He emphasizes: …sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it…this fellow began to build and was not able to finish. In Mt 10: 22 the Lord says that he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Nehemiah’s Response to Opposition and Intimidation

V. 3. (1) He maintained his focus and the value of his assignment from God. I am carrying on a great project. God had in a marvelous way answered his prayer of 1: 5-11 and given him a crucial mission. God assigned him a sacred task of immense significance and symbolism. He fully appreciated its eternal and spiritual value for God’s people.

(2) Nehemiah emphatically refused the invitation [which was no invitation] to Ono with Oh no! I cannot neglect my crucial and urgent task for a meeting. As a leader he had the power of discernment. He also knew when to say no and not change. Jesus, of course, is our prime example of focus: Jn 7: 1-9; 8: 27-29; 14: 9, 10.

V. 4. They tried 3 times, trying to wear him down. He was even more resolute than they. It is significant that Jesus also answered each temptation with a statement of truth and a focus on mission. Lk 4: 1-13.

Lesson: 1 P 4: 1-13 exhorts us: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith….

Vv. 5-9. The enemy, persistent as ever, decided to increase the pressure, in a 5^th attempt, this time imputing motive through a lying tongue, accusing Nehemiah of planning to rebel against the king. Their purpose was to weaken God’s workers through fear, so they mission would fail and they would rejoice, having successfully protected self-interest. Nehemiah however, by the obvious guidance of God’s Holy spirit, discerned the true situation and replied accordingly: Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head. Then he prayed, Now strengthen my hands.

Principle. Maintain your focus on purpose and on God. Keep your cool. Criticism and opposition are often a sign of fear of your success, perhaps jealousy, and fear of the power and potential obviously in you.

Note the animosity and disrespect of the enemy. V. 5 says the 5^th time Sanballat sent his assistant to Nehemiah, this time with an open, i.e., unsealed, letter. In addition to the symbol of insult, the open letter suggests its content was public knowledge, its purpose being to intimidate Nehemiah into failure. Their plan was to weaken Nehemiah and bring him to their meeting and to his death, no doubt protecting themselves in the presence of the king with false accusations re Nehemiah and presenting themselves as friends and protectors of His majesty’s royal interests.

Vv. 10-14. The plot thickens. Nehemiah paid to a visit to Shemaiah, son of Delaiah, a friend of Nehemiah, only to discover that he was a false prophet hired by the enemy to lure Nehemiah into desecrating the Temple by taking refuge there from a murderous gang. This would have proven Nehemiah to be both a coward and law breaker, since he was not a priest, qualified to enter the Holy Place.

Having set his face like a flint, Nehemiah held firm to his integrity and his purpose, resisting firmly the enemy. Always discerning, Nehemiah remained faithful to God, having put his complete faith and full trust in Him.

V. 14 says He prayed for his enemies.

Lesson. The enemy that seems so strong and confident against God’s servant is often afraid. Their feet are set in slippery places [Ps 73: 18].

Vv. 15, 16. The wall was mission accomplished in record time. The effect on the enemies was the effect they wanted to accomplished in Nehemiah and his workers—fear. They all recognized that this work had been done with the help of our God.

The walls that lay in ruins for nearly a century and a half were rebuilt in less than two months, once the people were galvanized into action by Nehemiah’s leadership—NIV footnote.

Lesson. God works through faithful people, but it is God who works. Always, despite the pressures, keep your focus on God. Let Him work through you.

Vv. 17-19. Enemies within. During the building process the nobles of Judah who refused to work on the wall [3: 5] corresponded with the enemy forces, being in alliance with them because there were family ties between the nobles and the enemy. The evil cooperation made matters worse, as the nobles acted as spies against Nehemiah and played both sides, pretending to be some sort of friends to Nehemiah. They were effectual hypocrites.

Nevertheless, by the grace of God, the mission was accomplished. As a matter of fact, the work was finished in record time—52 days! This record accomplishment struck fear in the hearts of the enemies, including those in the surrounding nations.

7: 1-3. Not only so, but Nehemiah, being an accomplished administrator, set about consolidating his accomplishments and securing the continuation of the life of the city by appointing appropriate and competent assistants—men of integrity and trust, and especially of spiritual maturity. We see the same principle in Acts 6, which shows us the eternal value God places on what we would normally consider more material and social, less spiritual ministries to God’s people. The apostles instructed the Jerusalem congregation, regarding meeting the need for serving tables, to choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them…1-4.

Nehemiah gave his appointees clear instructions regarding their duties, and trusted them to perform according to assignment and expectation.

Goals and Achievement

Nehemiah developed a perspective that went well beyond the immediate task. He saw his task as serving a wider and more comprehensive purpose and did all he could to enhance that wider purpose. This occupies most of chapters 5-13. This greater goal was the complete and comprehensive renewal of God’s people. Eph 4: 11-16.

Chapter 5 focuses on Nehemiah’s efforts to relieve the economic burdens of the oppressed. Apparently the situation Nehemiah faced was the following. As the NIV footnotes point out, Nehemiah was in effect running a business. His aim was to complete the wall in the shortest possible time. He had an adequate labour force and sufficient resources. However, in the middle of the process a serious social-psychological-economic crisis threatened to compromise productivity. In short, he was not able to get out of his workers maximum output. Nehemiah had to call a special meeting in the midst of the project.

What was the problem? The workers were burdened with personal and family problems, issues not directly related to the job, but influencing it nevertheless. The problem so controlled and preoccupied the people that they were not free to focus sufficiently on the job and be as productive as they could be. So work was suffering. Nehemiah had to stop and deal with the personal and family problems before work could proceed according to plan. Notice that 3 classes of workers were affected, probably the vast majority of the workforce: 1. the landless 2. the landowners 3. the indebted—who were forced to borrow money from loan sharks, and sell their children into slavery. What were the issues?

The Issues

By way of introduction, note v. 1. The situation was so serious that the wives joined in the protest because they could not feed their families. Furthermore, the oppression was not coming from the Persian overlords but from their fellow Jews who were enslaving people freed by the pagan emperor. Instead of strengthening them, they were weakening their brothers and sisters. So here were the issues:

1. The landless were short of food—aggravated by one of the frequent famines that attacked Palestine due to its climate: limited rainfall and absence of perennial streams.

2. Even landowners were forced to mortgage their property, making the rich richer and the poor poorer, as usually happens in an economic crisis or depression.

3. Many were forced to borrow at exorbitant interest [usury] from their fellow-Jews money to pay their taxes. V. 5b shows some had both mortgaged land and borrowed money for taxes.

Given their situation, what would borrowers offer their creditors as collateral? Family members: wife, children, selves. If the borrower failed to repay his loan and interest, his wife, children, himself could be sold into bondage to work off the debt. If the Jewish lender followed the Mosaic Law, the bond-servant would serve him as a hired worker [Lev. 25: 39-40] and be released after 7 years [Dt. 15: 12-18]. However, borrowers were failing and loans were being called. See v. 5b.

Nehemiah’s Reaction and Action—vv. 6-18

1. Nehemiah was very angry [v. 6]. His first reaction was moral outrage at the injustice. He expressed anger at the guilty people, their policies, their practices and the conditions that were damaging his workers.

2. He took action. He confronted the culprits and the conditions [vv. 7, 8]. In confronting them he acted to correct the total situation and set the people free: not to make them more productive for the good of his enterprise, but for their own sakes—to make them better people, healthy and free in spirit, soul, emotion, body and family.

He showed the culprits that what they were doing was not only cruel but illegal. The Law of Moses forbade taking interest from a fellow Hebrew, to say nothing of loan-sharking or usury [Lev 25: 35, 36]. It also forbade selling a fellow Hebrew as a slave [Lev 25: 39-42]. People should be treated with love, respect and compassion.

Nehemiah worked to restore their properties and he made an end of interest charges. With this came the restoration of self-respect and security. So he set the people free. Do you think they would work harder for him?

3. Nehemiah demonstrated moral leadership. He led by example and sacrifice. He, the boss, modeled compassion and respect, by not taking and using what he had a right to. Instead of taking, he gave. He literally invested in the people. Instead of demanding his rights he gave up his rights. He invested in his workers [vv. 14-18].

Application

In the Word of God Christians have rich principles and resources for introducing people in their workplaces to the wisdom of God. By applying the Word to problems faced by a company, Believers can not only help their companies to be more profitable, but open hearts to the grace of God. E.g., companies that are losing profit can be encouraged to consider investing compassion in their workers by meeting urgent needs of employees and their families. The controlling principle would be Mt 6: 33. As they helped workers to become freer people, they would automatically have better workers and higher productivity. Some companies have found that it proves highly profitable to help their workers to become persons of noble character and to build their families.

There is a great need for new people, in all areas of life, the type spoken of in 2 Co 5: 17.

Evidence shows that workers, including especially those higher up the ladder, need to be persons of honesty and integrity, recognizing that as the company prospered, they too would prosper, and vice versa. A report in a Brampton business paper, several years ago, quoted the Retail Council of Canada’s 1997 Canadian Retail Security report as saying that employees stole from their jobs $3 million per day. The average dollar loss per employee theft was $338 per incident. To quote, In many instances, diminished profits can also be attributed to having hired a problem.

In part, a workplace rule is that at least 10% of employees will steal at any opportunity. Regarding cheque and cash handlers, often your best employee is the one most frequently doing the most harm, said the article.

Reasons for theft, according to the paper, were: opportunity, rationalization, greed, need. I suggest there are only basically two reasons: need and poor character. Actually, only one: poor character, leading to dishonesty. Any company, any employer, could increase productivity by forgetting about productivity for a moment and having compassion on its/his/her workers by meeting urgent needs, especially the building of Christlike character in the worker and in his family. But note: this is essentially the work God has given the church; to produce new creatures out of sinful people!

The Word of God works, and works everywhere—wherever there are people. Several companies have been proving this truth. Several years ago I discovered the following examples. Kimray, Inc., of Oklahoma City, put in place a Bible-based program for developing Godly character in its employees. Though the company was going through a recession, over a 5 year period profits increased by 25%, morale increased and worker’s compensation costs decreased 80%. Hollytex Carpet Mills, Inc., followed Kimray with similar results, including a 90% reduction in workers’ compensation costs. This is one reason I say the Bible is not a religious book. It is a life book. It is the Word of the Sovereign of the universe, whose wisdom guides all areas of life—making, e.g., the Scriptures and Christianity good for business, and everything else.

Companies daring to teach biblical principles find these results, plus a decrease in absenteeism, marked increase in productivity and decrease in employee theft. Plain wisdom is crucial to success of any kind. Failure to use wisdom can lead to disaster. Lk 14: 28-30. Slumping companies, and all companies, would do well to study and learn Nehemiah’s approach to labour and the needs of workers, and see how compassion and consideration, putting people before profit, maximizes productivity. Our Lord’s principle in Matthew 6: 33 is of universal application. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the other things will follow. Study carefully Luke 16: 10-12. Also reflect on the principle: God’s work done in god’s way will not lack God’s supply.

Considering this issue of character: I found most interesting a feature article in the October 12, 2009 issue of Canadian Business. Titled Expenses, the article reported that a growing number of employees are being fired for abusing their expense accounts. E.g., the former CEO of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, who billed taxpayers thousands of dollars for nannies, gym memberships, etc. [and of course we could add the case of EHealth]. Surveillance is proving just how dishonest employees are and how much stealing is going on; one [journalist] even expensing a toothbrush in foreign travel. Many engage in outright fraud.

The size of the problem? There is a booming, multibillion dollar industry engaged in helping companies track employee expenses. The problem is worldwide and wild, literally, some employees claiming even brothel expenses. One surveillance company has 10,000 corporate clients, 130 in Canada, the company earning $US215m [I suppose per year].

So employee dishonesty is so serious that there is such a thing as expense account fraud, handled by such experts as the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, who operate in the expense account surveillance market. This means people higher up in the company [those who travel, with expense accounts] are the culprits, just like the culprits in Nehemiah’s situation who were stealing from the country and the people. It costs the company big time. In 2008 an estimated $13.5 Billion was spent by companies on security software, those monitoring employees growing at the fastest rate.

Lying and stealing go together, sometimes blatantly. E.g., one executive attempted to expense the cost of his daughter’s wedding since clients had been invited as guests. Another had his company pay for his multimillion dollar homes in Florida and New York, plus antiques and furnishings. These are the nicer examples.

The issues of course go far beyond the area of business. One Christian leader who travels and speaks a great deal to leaders in various institutions and various countries, recently expressed great concern for how troubled the world of politics is. He said, We lack any leader in the world whose vision is balanced with character against the needs of society. Every time I am privileged to address a gathering of political leaders, so many talk privately to me about how discouraged they are working within the bastions of power and how desperately our governments across the world need moral and spiritual rectitude [Ravi Zacharias, RZIM Fall Newsletter, 2009].

This all proves at least 3 things: 1) Life is spiritual 2) We live in a moral universe 3) It proves the crucial role of the church—changing people’s hearts. It is the most crucial, necessary and productive action, social, economic and especially spiritual that we as Christians could ever do. That is what I have been trying to say. The whole work of the church is producing new people. Everything in the world depends on that!

Regarding values by which people, including companies, should operate, we could see this need in the T. Eaton Company, in what turned out to be the approach of their crisis. Eaton’s was preoccupied with and focused on profit and survival, not on meeting the needs of the majority of people. This was suggested in the company’s decision to focus on fashion goods. As the report at that time said, their main thrust was moving the department stores more upscale, with greater emphasis on more profitable fashion goods.

This means that the company would be catering to a minority market, the wealthier people. My guess was that they had misread the market, whereas Wal-Mart and even Home Depot and Canadian Tire, at that time, accurately discerned the needs of the majority, not only for goods and services at economical prices, but the human need to feel appreciated, wanted, and to be treated as human persons and not simply as sources of revenue. In addition, one gets the impression that some companies really care about their workers and their families, not just as workers but as persons. I read of one company that paid its employees according to need [e.g., family size], not according to seniority, etc. That is part of the lesson we gain from Nehemiah.

A significant footnote here is the question or issue of vision and motivation. Second generation executives can sometimes prove rather ineffective to the point of losing the company. That the T. Eaton Company, a Canadian institution, be no longer a department store chain, can be viewed as a national tragedy. On this topic, an article in Your Wealth Planning Guide, published by Canadian Business, November 2009, gives the following advice.

Don’t give all your money to Junior. Shifting wealth from one generation to the next results in a loss of net worth 70% of the time, according to a Leadership Family Institute study….Experts say family-run businesses fail at least 50% of the time when control is passed on. Why? Wealthy children often develop personalities that aren’t cut out to follow in the footsteps of self-made entrepreneurs, which is why some succession planners recommend putting Jimmy (or Jane) Jr. in front of an industrial shrink [psychiatrist] to see if they have what it takes to succeed as Family Biz CEO 2.0.

One suspects that this is what affected Eaton’s, and threatened Canadian Tire.

The bottom line is this. Invest in people—clients, customers, employees, even employers, and their families. Work for their freedom in spirit, soul, body, emotion, finances, homes….Meet their genuine needs and the profits will follow. Here is further evidence of the universal applicability of our Lord’s principle in Mt. 6: 33: Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things will be yours as well. Note the celebrated case of the telephone manufacturing company in Chicago which discovered, much to their surprise, that productivity went up, not because people were responding to the changes in the work environment but to the fact that they were being studied. People were paying attention to them. Meet their genuine needs and the profits will follow.

We can see these principles at work in businesses today. The Maclean’s Special Report: Canada’s Top 100 Employers, published October 19, 2009, carried the following lead sentence: Even in tough times, these companies know what it takes to get the most out of their staff and attract the best talent out there. The things that work for the companies include:

1) the realization that employees are less concerned with well-stocked lounges and foosball tables—the keyword is stability.

2) Showing interest in workers as human beings and encouraging them by giving practical help to them and their families. Examples:

Training programs, excellent medical and dental benefits, maternity leave improvements, health coverage for retirees [very crucial with the retirement of baby boomers], making life outside the office easier…. The top employers offer tuition subsidies for employees’ children and employees, improved maternity leaves, flexible hours, even private rooms for napping, etc.

Examples of Companies Who Do:

1. Carswell [Publisher of Toronto] offers improved compassionate leave, paying up to 95% of salary for 8 weeks, and $5,000 per child in adoption assistance

2. Harley-Davidson of Richmond, B. C., offers paid time off for volunteer work

3. Loblaws of Brampton offers tuition subsidies of up to $1,200; maternity leave with 75% of salary for 17 weeks

4. Compass Group of Mississauga gives 3 weeks vacation for new employees; compassionate care top-up to 80% of salary for 6 weeks.

The essential point is that these measures, like Nehemiah’s, are in harmony with Scriptural principles, demonstrating that God’s wisdom detailed in such principles, produces success, including productivity and prosperity, both material and spiritual [human/psychological]. The Bible and Christianity are good for business because God is sovereign over His world and has written His wisdom into its universal laws.

To repeat: The bottom line is this: Invest in people—clients, customers, emp0loyees, even employers [You cannot lift the wage-earner by lowering the wage-payer—though the union may debate the idea], and their families. Work for their freedom in spirit, soul, body, emotion, finances, homes, families….Meet their genuine needs and the profits will follow.

Note that after Nehemiah 5 and the governor’s compassionate investment in his workers and their families comes chapter 6 verse 15. In spite of fierce competition in the form of organized opposition, the wall was completed…in fifty-two days.

I think we would regard this as high productivity—calling for celebration. So Neh. 7: 1 says,

After the wall had been rebuilt and I had set the doors in place, the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed.

This could happen in your workplace. This could happen in your church—through you!

Marching Orders Col 1: 9-12.

May God fill you with the knowledge of His will, through spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, giving thanks to the Father by the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In 1 Co 9: 24-27 Paul challenges the Believers:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly, I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

The price of the prize is to take up one’s cross daily and follow Christ. This image rules in all situations. The nature of this sacrificial and disciplined life is also described in 1 T 6: 11-12.

But you, man of God, flee from all this [love of money, materialism, false doctrines, covetousness and all that flow from these], and pursue righteousness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

This all implies total surrender, absolute and consistent focus, determined obedience! The discipleship which Christ demands is the life of the marathon runner, and the soldier on the front lines. At the end of the race, at the victory over the enemy, having paid the price, having the wounds to prove it, having come in first, the faithful disciple of Christ can celebrate with Paul:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day…

2 T 4: 7, 8. We must encourage ourselves with the advice of Heb 12: 1.

Therefore, since we are surrounded with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles [habits, activities, relationships, hobbies that destroy—surfing the net, jealousy—see Ro 12: 9-20; Mt 5-7], and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

In 15 and 16 Paul goes on to say that all mature disciples should operate by this perspective and live up to what we have already achieved. The truth we now have must be evident in our lives. We must live what God and life have taught us. We must live according to and on the level of spiritual maturity we now have and keep on growing, depending on God to make clear details we do not now fully grasp or accept. Learn from the failures of the Corinthians in 1 Co 3: 1-9.

V. 17. Learn from my example, says Paul, as others have been doing. You know my history—where I started, how I have lived and operated as I follow Christ. As he says in 1 Co 11: 1, Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. See also 1 Th 1: 6. This reminds us that we are to live in such a way that others can copy us and thereby be automatically following Christ.

Vv. 18-19. Tragically, some who call themselves Christians live an opposite lifestyle, as enemies of the cross rather than as family. We should be alert to them and their fruits. They are false teachers whose habits reveal their true character. They are carnal, focused on their stomachs and materialism. They may preach the orthodox gospel but their lifestyle shows they neither believe the gospel nor live according to it. They are in fact among those to whom Christ will declare, I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers. See also 2 P 2: 10-19.

Vv. 20-21. Whereas they have fixed their minds on earthly things we have set/fixed our focus on heavenly things where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Col 3:1. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which he is able to subdue all things to Himself—NKJV.

In this world we are aliens, pilgrims, resident aliens. We are on our way through….We are fully engaged with this world, as Christ’s ambassadors, but we are not permanent residents, we are not citizens. We are citizens of Heaven, where Christ reigns, where Believers live in union with God. See Heb 12: 23. Just as Jesus is not of this world, so we are not of this world. As our Lord says in Jn 17: 14-16. This means we must hold lightly the things of this world—1 Co 7: 29-31; 1 P 2: 11. We are obliged, by the principles of our citizenship, to live by the principles of Col 3: 1-4

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

Legally, we have been raised up, elevated, ascended with Christ, seated by God in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus—Eph 2: 6. Paradoxically, we eagerly await from there our Saviour who will resurrect and ascend us actually, so our legal position become our actual position. The Holy Spirit was our guarantee, our down-payment. Now we have the full payment, the full endowment and inheritance, after our ascension. 1 P 1: 3, 4. In the meantime, however, we naturally focus on the future position and think, feel and begin to act as though we are already there; we also live and behave in such a way as to enhance our inheritance. Similarly, when in your workplace you are offered a higher position, you begin to function as though you are already there.

This means that in the meantime, though we eagerly wait, we wait patiently, though with great expectancy, eager for Christ’s return [Ro 8: 23]. At the same time, we wait by being obedient, by living holy, godly and fruitful lives, as we focus on our life mission.

Our Lord’s Second Coming will be absolute glory for us. Christ will instantaneously transform our mortal bodies to be like His glorious resurrection body, capable of passing through space unaided, passing through hard objects, with no need to open doors. It will be a totally different order of physical being, designed from inside out. He will do this by the power He has, the total authority over all things in heaven and in earth and the whole universe [Mt 28: 18-20]. By that power and authority He will supersede natural laws so that we can in our new bodies function in His new creation.

4: 1. Paul summarizes and concludes this part of his message with the words: that is how you should stand firm in the Lord. Stand firm in the Lord, in your obedience as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, as a faithful recruit and soldier. Stand at your post as a faithful sentinel. This is how you ought to function—by forgetting your past and focusing on Christ, His Second Coming, your coming glorification and exaltation. Follow Paul’s example as described in Ph. 3: 17-4: 1. Set you minds on heavenly things, not earthly things, as stated in Col 3: 1-4.

Stand firm in the midst of enemy attacks. Under all conditions, be faithful to your gospel mandate. As disciples of Jesus Christ who have denied self and who take your cross daily, faithfully follow Him, even if it means death. Be sure you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. Be sure you know and understand His assignment given you, and pursue it without flinching, even in the face of persecution. Be challenged by our Lord’s invitation: For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it Lk 9: 24. Therefore my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Co 15: 58.

Look at your Past Look to your Present Look to your Future.

THE PRESENT: SALVATION

He goes on to say, I consider all these things loss, rubbish. Now my profit column is totally empty. Now I want to fill it with only Christ. The total focus of my life is Jesus Christ. My passion is Christ, Christ Himself: His commands, His life, His ministry, His purpose for my life, His Great Commission, even His cross and His agony, because I know that my total identification with Him means rejection by sinners and enduring suffering. But these little experiences will bring me closer to Him. I will more fully understand what he endured for me, and so I will truly understand the depth and quality of the love with which He loved me and continues to love me. So I willingly give up all the world’s achievements and institutions, including the religious systems and values, that I may gain Christ, all of Christ. I am passionately determined to know Him intimately, by all necessary experience, so I come to be like Him, transformed into His likeness, so others looking at me will see Jesus and only Jesus.

In v. 9 he says, I want to be in Him and have Him in me, totally integrated—He in me, I in Him, God in Him, God in me, I in God, experiencing the Lord’s High Priestly prayer of

Jn 17: 21, 23. He and I will then have one and the same life flowing through both of us. What he means is precisely what he says in Gal 2: 20, confirming his seriousness and total surrender. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

In my surrender to Christ for salvation I spiritually participated with Him in His crucifixion and His resurrection victory over sin and death. My old self is dead. I am a new creation. Old things have passed away, all things became new—2 Co 5: 17. Christ now indwells me, empowering me and having His life flow through me. That is, He lives His life through me as I possess and think with His mind. As Paul told the Corinthians, we have the mind of Christ-1 Co 2: 16.

In my salvation experience God the Father imparted to me Christ’s righteousness, God regarding Christ’s righteousness as mine. Because of Christ’s sacrifice I am put right with God, simply by surrendering to Him, acknowledging that His death is mine; that He died in my place. That is righteousness. Since I and all people fail to keep God’s law and to live up to His spiritual and moral standards, we are all unrighteous. But Jesus did! By grace, God imputed, credited to us, who surrender, Christ’s perfect satisfaction of God’s standards. His righteousness! So now I am declared righteous, o.k., acceptable, holy, qualified, by the Judge of all the earth, qualified to join His eternal family. Ro 3: 21, 24. This is the righteousness which comes from God by faith. Now I must live the life of the royal family, which is the life of total obedience Jesus Christ the Son lived on earth, the life of obedience we see so fully dramatized in the apostle Paul.

The apostle says, I want to be found in Christ not having a righteousness of my own. Having a righteousness of my own is to congratulate myself on my religious achievements, which can be measured by men, according to the rituals and ceremonies of external piety. But God sees the heart and knows that that righteousness was precisely that which Christ condemned in the Pharisees and pronounced His woes upon in places such as Matthew 23. I want to be found in Christ not with this secular, human, sin-based, sin-laced righteousness, but with the righteousness that comes from God by faith—which is by definition the only genuine righteousness, namely, that which comes by faith in Jesus Christ, the only Saviour.

THE PRESENT-- TRANSITION TO THE FUTURE: MY MOTIVATION

V. 10. Every serious disciple of Jesus Christ, with the apostle, says, I want to know Christ with the deepest, most intimate knowledge. I want to know intimately the power of His resurrection, His power to raise Himself from death, by which power He demonstrated His authority over the worlds of matter and spirit.

I want to experience the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings. When I suffer because I am His, I can say, So that’s what Jesus experienced for me! In Paul’s case, God had from the very beginning told Ananias, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name—Acts 9: 16. When I suffer because I am a Christian, I will understand better what it meant to be Jesus. It brings me closer to Jesus, as a fellow sufferer. Furthermore, I know He fully understands and can comfort me, from the things He learned from His suffering. 1 Co 1: 3-7. Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted—Heb 2: 18.

I want to know Christ in His death. As he said, if a grain of wheat dies by being planted in a grave, it produces much fruit. Like Christ, I want to die a fruitful death, I want to give my life for the salvation of sinners, just as Christ did, though in an essentially different way. I pour out my life, for Christ’s glory, so that I reach sinners with the gospel of salvation and abundant life. I give my life and invest my self in the same purpose as Jesus Christ did.

THE FUTURE: RESURRECTION AND EXALTATION

V. 11. By living like this, I know I will be raised with Christ, raised from death as Christ was, to be exalted with Him at the rapture. As he says in Jn 5: 29, those who have done good will rise to live. Paul admits, in Acts 24: 15, I have the same hope in God…that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. See also 1 Co 15: 23; 1 Th 4: 16.

Vv. 12-14. Paul makes it clear, however, that he does not yet have it made. Just like the rest of us who struggle with him. I have not yet “arrived,” He confesses. I am still on the journey to the finish line and the award and reward, “to take bold of that for which Christ took hold of me,” the goal which Christ assigned me. Furthermore, He will supply the strength and endurance I need to reach it. So I totally and absolutely immerse myself in the life, ministry, mission and goal-achievement Jesus Christ assigned me.

APPLICATION

What is the mission that Christ has assigned you? How are you pursuing your assignment as a disciple of Jesus Christ? What kind of progress are you making? Are you on target to achieve it in the time He assigned you?

Forgetting what I left behind—my life of sin and rebellion, my sinful attitudes, my mistakes and failures, my disobedience and what I considered necessary sacrifices and piety—all forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Christ--forgetting it all, I set my face like a flint, totally focused and absorbed in my goal, pressing on, employing all the energies which He so powerfully works in me [Co. 1: 29]. I fix my eyes, unblinkingly, unswervingly on the prize, on the face of Jesus Christ who holds in His hands the gold medal He has been polishing for me, the everlasting glory of God which I will share with Him for ever and ever. As Jesus prayed in Jn 17: 20-24.

The goal God has fixed for me is in heaven, where my home and citizenship are, and where Christ my Lord reigns, at God’s right hand. Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, he goes on to say in v. 20. So I set my heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God—Col 3: 1.

The disciple of Jesus must always remember that the Christian life is not a hundred yard dash but a marathon. It requires life-long commitment, focus, total immersion, persistence, constant effort, without breaks, learning to grab a bottle of water and drink while in motion. Absolute discipline, strict training, forward movement, rejection of distractions, focus on hope, building of confidence, obedience, determination to win, to get the gold. This shockingly means that Christianity is not for everybody; only for those up to the challenge and the privilege. Those permanently addicted to the soft life are automatically voluntarily excluded.

THE PRESENT: SALVATION

He goes on to say, I consider all these things loss, rubbish. Now my profit column is totally empty. Now I want to fill it with only Christ. The total focus of my life is Jesus Christ. My passion is Christ, Christ Himself: His commands, His life, His ministry, His purpose for my life, His Great Commission, even His cross and His agony, because I know that my total identification with Him means rejection by sinners and enduring suffering. But these little experiences will bring me closer to Him. I will more fully understand what he endured for me, and so I will truly understand the depth and quality of the love with which He loved me and continues to love me. So I willingly give up all the world’s achievements and institutions, including the religious systems and values, that I may gain Christ, all of Christ. I am passionately determined to know Him intimately, by all necessary experience, so I come to be like Him, transformed into His likeness, so others looking at me will see Jesus and only Jesus.

In v. 9 he says, I want to be in Him and have Him in me, totally integrated—He in me, I in Him, God in Him, God in me, I in God, experiencing the Lord’s High Priestly prayer of

Jn 17: 21, 23. He and I will then have one and the same life flowing through both of us. What he means is precisely what he says in Gal 2: 20, confirming his seriousness and total surrender. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

In my surrender to Christ for salvation I spiritually participated with Him in His crucifixion and His resurrection victory over sin and death. My old self is dead. I am a new creation. Old things have passed away, all things became new—2 Co 5: 17. Christ now indwells me, empowering me and having His life flow through me. That is, He lives His life through me as I possess and think with His mind. As Paul told the Corinthians, we have the mind of Christ-1 Co 2: 16.

In my salvation experience God the Father imparted to me Christ’s righteousness, God regarding Christ’s righteousness as mine. Because of Christ’s sacrifice I am put right with God, simply by surrendering to Him, acknowledging that His death is mine; that He died in my place. That is righteousness. Since I and all people fail to keep God’s law and to live up to His spiritual and moral standards, we are all unrighteous. But Jesus did! By grace, God imputed, credited to us, who surrender, Christ’s perfect satisfaction of God’s standards. His righteousness! So now I am declared righteous, o.k., acceptable, holy, qualified, by the Judge of all the earth, qualified to join His eternal family. Ro 3: 21, 24. This is the righteousness which comes from God by faith. Now I must live the life of the royal family, which is the life of total obedience Jesus Christ the Son lived on earth, the life of obedience we see so fully dramatized in the apostle Paul.

The apostle says, I want to be found in Christ not having a righteousness of my own. Having a righteousness of my own is to congratulate myself on my religious achievements, which can be measured by men, according to the rituals and ceremonies of external piety. But God sees the heart and knows that that righteousness was precisely that which Christ condemned in the Pharisees and pronounced His woes upon in places such as Matthew 23. I want to be found in Christ not with this secular, human, sin-based, sin-laced righteousness, but with the righteousness that comes from God by faith—which is by definition the only genuine righteousness, namely, that which comes by faith in Jesus Christ, the only Saviour.

THE PRESENT-- TRANSITION TO THE FUTURE: MY MOTIVATION

V. 10. Every serious disciple of Jesus Christ, with the apostle, says, I want to know Christ with the deepest, most intimate knowledge. I want to know intimately the power of His resurrection, His power to raise Himself from death, by which power He demonstrated His authority over the worlds of matter and spirit.

I want to experience the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings. When I suffer because I am His, I can say, So that’s what Jesus experienced for me! In Paul’s case, God had from the very beginning told Ananias, I will show him how much he must suffer for my name—Acts 9: 16. When I suffer because I am a Christian, I will understand better what it meant to be Jesus. It brings me closer to Jesus, as a fellow sufferer. Furthermore, I know He fully understands and can comfort me, from the things He learned from His suffering. 1 Co 1: 3-7. Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted—Heb 2: 18.

I want to know Christ in His death. As he said, if a grain of wheat dies by being planted in a grave, it produces much fruit. Like Christ, I want to die a fruitful death, I want to give my life for the salvation of sinners, just as Christ did, though in an essentially different way. I pour out my life, for Christ’s glory, so that I reach sinners with the gospel of salvation and abundant life. I give my life and invest my self in the same purpose as Jesus Christ did.

THE FUTURE: RESURRECTION AND EXALTATION

V. 11. By living like this, I know I will be raised with Christ, raised from death as Christ was, to be exalted with Him at the rapture. As he says in Jn 5: 29, those who have done good will rise to live. Paul admits, in Acts 24: 15, I have the same hope in God…that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. See also 1 Co 15: 23; 1 Th 4: 16.

Vv. 12-14. Paul makes it clear, however, that he does not yet have it made. Just like the rest of us who struggle with him. I have not yet “arrived,” He confesses. I am still on the journey to the finish line and the award and reward, “to take bold of that for which Christ took hold of me,” the goal which Christ assigned me. Furthermore, He will supply the strength and endurance I need to reach it. So I totally and absolutely immerse myself in the life, ministry, mission and goal-achievement Jesus Christ assigned me.

APPLICATION

What is the mission that Christ has assigned you? How are you pursuing your assignment as a disciple of Jesus Christ? What kind of progress are you making? Are you on target to achieve it in the time He assigned you?

Forgetting what I left behind—my life of sin and rebellion, my sinful attitudes, my mistakes and failures, my disobedience and what I considered necessary sacrifices and piety—all forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Christ--forgetting it all, I set my face like a flint, totally focused and absorbed in my goal, pressing on, employing all the energies which He so powerfully works in me [Co. 1: 29]. I fix my eyes, unblinkingly, unswervingly on the prize, on the face of Jesus Christ who holds in His hands the gold medal He has been polishing for me, the everlasting glory of God which I will share with Him for ever and ever. As Jesus prayed in Jn 17: 20-24.

The goal God has fixed for me is in heaven, where my home and citizenship are, and where Christ my Lord reigns, at God’s right hand. Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, he goes on to say in v. 20. So I set my heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God—Col 3: 1.

The disciple of Jesus must always remember that the Christian life is not a hundred yard dash but a marathon. It requires life-long commitment, focus, total immersion, persistence, constant effort, without breaks, learning to grab a bottle of water and drink while in motion. Absolute discipline, strict training, forward movement, rejection of distractions, focus on hope, building of confidence, obedience, determination to win, to get the gold. This shockingly means that Christianity is not for everybody; only for those up to the challenge and the privilege. Those permanently addicted to the soft life are automatically voluntarily excluded.

NEHEMIAH 4

RESPONDING TO OPPOSITION

Opposition started looming in 2: 10, 19-20.

Motivation of Opposition

Opposition came from enemies of God who felt their vested interests were threatened. Sanballat as governor of Samaria felt threatened by Nehemiah, the new governor of Judah. Geshem the Arab probably feared that if Nehemiah succeeded in developing an independent kingdom it would interfere with his lucrative spice trade. Often opposition is the product of envy, jealousy, fear, or misconception.

Response to Opposition

Nehemiah and his team focused on God and His assignment, their task. They refused to be side-tracked. Nehemiah replied honestly, forcefully and without compromise that the attackers were outsiders, but God was the assured source of the builders’ success. In chapter 4 we see examples of specific responses to specific attacks.

1. Opposition. VV. 1-6. Sanballat became incensed at their progress, perhaps out of fear, and ridiculed them publicly. In his attitude he was supported by Tobiah. Their strategy of course was to discourage and defeat God’s people and God’s work.

Response. Vv. 4, 5, report that God’s workers prayed. Instead of putting return pressure on the opponents, they put the pressure on God. Their attitude was: Let God deal with them. When they were reviled they did not revile in return, but trusted God who judges justly. 1 P 2: 21-23. They saw no need for personal retaliation or self-defense. They saw themselves as God’s property and knew God would take good care of His property. They prayed for divine justice to be done instead of desiring personal revenge.

In addition, they refused to be distracted by opposition. They maintained their focus on their goal, and the work they had to do. They also maintained their enthusiasm: they worked with all their heart [v. 6].

2. Opposition. Vv. 7 – 11. As success increased so did the opposition, to the point that the opponents threatened bodily harm and plotted physical attack. Note

The Intensification of the Opposition

1. Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs and the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod formed an alliance to oppose the Lord’s work and the Lord’s workers

2. The people in Judah became afraid and concerned because the workers were becoming stressed out because of the work. In the meantime, the enemies maintained their pressure through threats

3. The Jews who lived near these enemies became alarmed

See vv. 11-12.

However, note the response of Nehemiah and God’s workers.

Response.

1. V. 9. God’s people responded with prayer

2. Vv. 9b, 13 They also took full precautions. They developed a defensive strategy, and .posted round-the-clock guards, equipping them with offensive weapons: spears, swords, bows/arrows; and defensive weapons: shields and armor. See Eph 6: 10-20 Also, they were careful to pay particular attention to the most vulnerable areas [the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places—v. 13]. 1 P 5: 8, 9 advises us, Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering.

3. V. 14. Nehemiah encouraged and strengthened the workers in the Lord. He told them not to be afraid of the enemies. The fear of man brings a snare. See Deut 3: 22; 20: 3; 31: 6; Ps 56: 4; Pr 29: 25.  He also challenged them by reminding them of the importance of protecting their families—v. 14.

4. Division of Labour. Nehemiah divided the work force into two dominant groups, for work and for defense. Vv 16-21. They took their stand against the enemy. Eph 6: 13, 17. In Addition, the officers posted themselves behind all the people, to support, encourage, and protect them as they worked. At the same time, the workers themselves carried weapons, plus their tools—v.18.

5. Nehemiah placed all the people on high alert and advised them to take every necessary precaution. Vv.19. [a] Because the work was spread out over a large area, Nehemiah appointed an assistant leader to blow the trumpet, announcing an emergency, in case the enemy turned up. This assistant was to stay close to Nehemiah, as every assistant should to the leader. Then all would rally to that point to defend the territory. Trumpets were used to summon troops, give warning, etc. This could refer to the pastor [as team leader]; the pastor’s trumpet must never give an uncertain sound—1 Co 14: 8. Josh 6: 4, 6, 8, 13 shows it was the priests who carried and blew the trumpets. [b] V. 22. All workers stayed inside the city instead of going home at the end of the workday. This was for defense at night, just in case. [c] They kept their clothes and weapons on at all times; they even slept with their clothes and weapons on. They remained armed in case of attack, always ready. Eph 6: 10-20. Those handling material were alert to both work and defense, so at any moment all could fight. As Peter said, Be alert for the enemy prowls around….

NOTE: THERE WAS VERY LIMITED RESPONSE TO THE ENEMY. GOD’S PEOPLE RESPONDED TO THE ENEMY BY GOING THROUGH GOD

Effect

V. 15. When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.

How can we deal with enemies on the job?

Jesus said, Love your enemies. One alternative is to change your enemy into a friend. Show appreciation—for his qualities and job performance, etc; show genuine concern—for his family, etc. Get to know the real person and his needs. There just may be a good reason for his wrong attitude.

Keep your focus on God, not the enemy

Keep your focus on your responsibilities. Never let anything detract you for your task.

Fight for your family and your home, and especially for God’s kingdom—in terms justice, etc.

Equip yourself daily with the Word of God and prayer. Never neglect your daily time of meditation, Bible study and prayer. It prepares you for the day. Eph 6.

Maintain regular fellowship and worship with God’s people, the church. There are no solitary Believers. No man is an island…. Heb. 10: 24, 25.

Work should always be sweetened with encouragement, a feeling of being appreciated and supported

Recognize that your work place is your mission field and treat it as such

Live in such a way that the appearance of an enemy is not a surprise. You are walking the same path Jesus your Master walked.

NEHEMIAH 3

EXODUS 5: 6-18

Introduction

Remember that our purpose is to learn Nehemiah’s principles for success and apply them to ourselves so that we may become at least as successful as he. Chapter 3 reveals several significant principles, including the following:

1. Nehemiah’s use of the principle of division of labour

2. Nehemiah’s encouragement of his workers through commendation and affirmation

I. ORGANIZATION: DIVISION OF LABOUR

1) Background

(a) Nehemiah organized the labour [work] and the labour force [workers] efficiently and smoothly coordinated the entire operation. For a project of that size to succeed he had to do very thorough planning. The planning of work and workers is evident in the repeated use of the phrases the adjoining section, next to them, next to him, etc. In 32 verses there are 31 such expressions. This suggests a thorough, detailed organization and supervision of labour.

(b) Nehemiah must have worked long hours to plan and organize the work and the workers. Nothing good is easy. If we hope to be as successful as he was, we have to be prepared to work as hard as he did and plan as thoroughly as he did. As one writer said, God takes 6 hours to make a mushroom but 75 years to make an oak.

2) Division of Work.

Nehemiah divided up the work into sections, divided the workers into teams, and assigned each team to the most appropriate section. Each group was therefore given a specific, manageable, measurable and achievable assignment to complete. No group or person would be overworked.

To be effective, you must plan your work and work your plan. You must be a good planner to be a successful worker or leader, especially since you are working for God. This means, you must, like Nehemiah, bathe your plans in prayer and faith.

Are you at work in God’s program doing your part? On the job, do you shirk, or do you work diligently? As an organ in the Body of Christ, you must perform your assigned function! Eph 4: 16 says,

From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

3) The Leader Set the Pace. V. 1 reports that Eliashib the high priest and his fellow priests went to work—apparently first! The high priest set the example, followed by the priests. Leaders were first to work. However, note the statement of disgrace in v. 5.

The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors.

In doing work for God, leaders [pastors, priests, kings, presidents, prime ministers] are wise to take the lead and not simply give ideas. These aristocrats were not noble in character, only in social position. Unlike the priests, they disdained manual labour and refused to do their part. As a result, they put extra burden on the men of Tekoa who also had to build the section from the projecting tower to the well of Ophel [v. 27].

A related though not identical situation exists in many workplaces today. Many who exercise power and authority cause and put much unnecessary and unfair pressure on their workers. Many employers today are making some serious mistakes. While they divide labour and workers efficiently, with cutbacks and downsizing, plus Sunday work, people are being overworked and under-affirmed, and it appears being deliberately burned out. Fewer people do what many more used to do. In addition, there is pressure for the fewer people to produce as much as the many more used to produce. The situation in many workplaces is essentially the same as the slavery of Ex 5: 6-18.

There seems to be a strategy to pressure more experienced workers so they quit. The employer can then hire part-time workers and save on benefits, or younger workers who are paid less [however, with mass retirements coming up, older workers are becoming a premium]. In the whole process there is often a failure to affirm and encourage workers who are under added stress, because of the conditions of work. They may even say, If you can’t handle the job you are free to quit. Add to that increased automation, and you have a very negative, unfriendly work life for many people. We will come back to this subject, reviewing some suggestions from the book, Civilizing the Workplace.

Employers are making a serious mistake because there are bound to be consequences. E.g., more absenteeism, more people taking sick time, deceased productivity, decreased sense of personal value, lowered morale, personal demoralization, increase in health costs, plus job-related homicide. All of which results of course in reduced productivity and perhaps increased cost in consumer goods and services. Such managers and employers could profit greatly from a few lessons from Nehemiah.

II. NEHEMIAH BUILT ENCOURAGEMENT INTO HIS STRUCTURE

Affirmation. Note Neh 3: 10, 23, 28, 29, 30b. The organization of labour was tempered with wisdom, good sense, considerateness and compassion, in addition to expressing appreciation. Note the wisdom in the statement: Jedaiah made repairs opposite his house; the priest made repairs, each in front of his own house; etc. Sections of the wall not very convenient for workers who lived in Jerusalem were assigned to those who lived outside [Jericho, Tekoa, Gibeon, Mizpah—2, 5, 7]. This suggests:

1. they would take special care to ensure the work was done properly, out of vested interest

2. economy of time and energy. They would not need to travel far to work.

3. in case the enemy attacked, they would stay and protect their families

4. the work would be a family project, carried out by motivated people.

The total effect would be reduction in anxiety and stress as well as increased productivity.

Nehemiah appreciated people. The chapter lists names as well as names and accomplishments, recorded for history. He knew his workers by name and where they worked. He observed them individually. So v. 20 records that Baruch zealously repaired another section. One hopes that all bosses and employers function in such a way. Nehemiah commended the person who put out an extra effort. He did not simply say, Well, that’s the way I expect you to work!

As a supervisor, as a co-worker, on your job, in the church, do encourage others sincerely and regularly. Never flatter, but praise and affirm, and express gratefulness, as deserved. Flattery is commending someone for something over which he has no control; it is a self-centred and insincere compliment rooted in a dishonest motive. Expressing gratefulness, on the other hand, is very effective. One person’s definition of gratefulness is: communicating to others the precise ways in which they have benefited my life.

It is a good idea to start by practising at home. Then move to the classroom or job. Remember Pr 12: 25:

An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.

Also Pr 16: 24:

Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

Encouragement sweetens labour!

CONCLUSION

One of the most significant factors in Nehemiah’s work is his strong focus on the gates of the city of Jerusalem. The city gate was a major segment of the fortifications and defenses of any city. The gate was the place of entrance and exit, the place of influence in both directions, the place of power and government—city hall!. So in our work, we must make particularly strong the areas of influence, especially from outside. Leaders must be not only protected, but adequately equipped for leadership and for protection of the institution.

Learn well from and apply these 2 basic principles of Nehemiah:

1. Organize well the work to be done; divide up the work wisely, and assign tasks fairly

2. Be an encourager to those you work with and those you supervise.

In addition: relate Nehemiah’s approach to Paul’s teaching on the church as the Body of Christ. Be sure that as an organ in Christ’s Body you are functioning so as to promote the health of Christ’s Church. 1 Co 12.

EXHIBIT #1

DISCIPLESHIP: PAUL AS PRIME EXAMPLE

Part 1

Philippians 3: 7 – 4: 1

Introduction

The popular maxim says, I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day. Most of us would tend to agree with the alleged truth of this statement. However, it did not seem to work with most of the people who heard and saw the sermons and teachings of Jesus. Nevertheless, for us as Believers, there is great encouragement and direction in having great spiritual models to copy. In the apostle Paul we have such an example, a bright and shining model.

We come to an amazing, living, and dramatic example of what Jesus Christ means by being His disciple. Here is a man who truly and viscerally understands exactly and in detail what Christ the Lord means when He says, If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me—Lk 9: 23. Here is an apostle who so completely identifies with Jesus Christ as Master and Lord and so completely and obediently follows Him, that he can with absolute integrity say to the Ephesians, Be imitators of God, therefore, as God’s dear children [5:1], and to the Corinthians, Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ [1 Co 11: 1]. In addition, he is able honestly and with the same integrity, without fear of been successfully contradicted, to say to the Philippians, Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice, And the God of peace will be with you [4: 9].

The bottom line for this focus is the absolute necessity of a covenant such as the following commitment : Having totally renounced my past, having it fully cleansed by the blood of Christ, I am now totally immersed in Jesus, absolutely focused on achieving Him—that is, achieving 100% intimacy with Him—and accomplishing the mission He has assigned me—at any price—God being my helper.

QUALIFICATION

How can the apostle Paul be qualified to make such claims? In his defense of his apostleship he catalogues his cross-achievements, the ways in which he had consistently been taking up his cross daily and been following Christ, having been crucified with Christ. He challenges his opponents in 2 Co 11: 23 - 28.

Are they servants of Christ…? I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day on the open sea. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

THE PAST: CRUCIFIXION

Profit and Loss = Loss and Profit

This blessed apostle had taken absolutely literally our Lord’s demand that His disciple deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Him, even to the death! So in our text, Ph 3: 7-4: 1, he begins by saying, Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss…. Under the control of the Spirit of God, everything in my profit column I have by deliberate choice transferred to my debit column. I did it to clear space in my profit column for Christ. I did it so that I may gain Christ. This demonstrates how the values of the world and the sinful human nature, with its ambitions are opposite to God’s. The world complains and grumbles at suffering; God’s word says, Count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance—Jas 1: 2-3.

Not only so, the apostle celebrates with the Romans, but we rejoice in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character hope—5: 3, 4.

Christ’s Sermon on the Mount demonstrates the upside-down nature of the kingdom. E.g., each beatitude contradicts the corresponding ethical standard of the popular, secular value system. Loving one’s enemies assaults the normal natural sensibilities. Now Paul learns that what is profit to his human mind is loss in God’s eyes, and vice versa. As is stated in Ph 2: 5-11.

Similarly, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing , but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. It is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God—1 Co 1: 18-25.

Secular man regards Christianity as a crutch, ignoring the fact that not only is non-faith--or atheism or psychology, or pleasure or alcohol, or humanism—more-so a crutch, but most assuredly, if God exists and is as Christianity claims Him to be, when man faces God, he does not have a leg to stand on. Furthermore, if the crutch is demonstrated to work, why should it be rejected any more than an aspirin or Tylenol, if it works for pain, a headache—unless you have a proven superior substitute? If God does exist and has the qualities we claim, we should expect Him to have a real, experiential impact on our lives. Only if God does not exist and exercise sovereign control over life should we be worried about the alleged crutch.

Part of the reason for secular man’s rejection of the Christian response to suffering is being raised in comfort—which usually produces a weakness in the fabric of character, not wholly unlike osteoporosis and its accompanying fragility. For such soft spirits, positive and praise response to suffering is not only a major challenge but more-so a frightening challenge. If the world has taught us to expect only comfort and convenience, then the Christian gospel, at least in this particular, will be repellent and frightening. Therefore it would be rejected as unnatural, unfair, an act and attitude which betrays failure to grasp the nature of true, objective reality. One must grasp the fact that Christianity is concerned with real reality, true reality, objective reality, what the true nature of life really is and means.

In its very essence, the gospel then supersedes this aspect of psychology and even medicine. Instead of prescribing a psycho-analytical session and psychological counseling and anti-depressant for a situation of personal pressure, the gospel offers the reality of submission to God and responding to difficulty as opportunity for growth and freedom and joy. Trials make us bitter or better, depending on our response. Carefully examine the prescriptions of Ph 4.

Dr. Julian Whitaker in his health newsletter for November 2008 has this piece titled Its Life, Not Depression.

Sharon’s husband was diagnosed with cancer, and they were looking at months of chemo and radiation. She worried, had trouble sleeping, and found it hard to stay positive and upbeat for her husband. When she mentioned this to her doctor, he prescribed an antidepressant.

Laura was exhausted after the birth of her second child. Unlike her first baby this one was fussy and rarely slept more than two hours at a stretch. On bad days, Laura questioned her ability to cope. She talked her symptoms over with her doctor and was prescribed an antidepressant.

Elizabeth, a bright and outgoing college student, would often wake up during the night worrying about one thing or another. One night, she awoke in a full-blown panic attack, her heart pounding so hard that she was sure she was going to die. She visited the campus infirmary the next day and was given a prescription for an antidepressant.

Thirteen-year-old Matt had just changed schools and was having a hard time adjusting to his new surroundings. His parents took him to see a psychiatrist, who—you guessed it—gave him an antidepressant.

Without question, Sharon, Laura, Elizabeth and Matt were going through some tough times. But we all go through rough patches—it’s part of being human. So how in the world did we arrive at such a place where normal emotions and reactions to life’s events warrant treatment with drugs?

That’s the way the world operates. That’s the mind of natural man. What should be loss is counted gain and want should be counted gain is counted loss!

The apostle Paul, on the other hand, like his Lord, rejected what previously had been calculated as profit, moving it to the loss column. This included his marks of Jewish pedigree: circumcision according to the law; tribal heritage as a Benjaminite, a Hebrew of Hebrews, not a Gentile convert or proselyte; a member of the spiritually superior Pharisee division of Judaism; a Jew of such superior zeal as demonstrated in persecution of Christians; in terms of legalistic righteousness, total obedience to the law of Moses, regarding efforts to qualify to gain God’s approval and blessing, in terms of meeting the legal demands of the ceremonial law—faultless!

CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE AND CONDUCT IN THE WORKPLACE

Nehemiah 2: 1-18

Introduction

The Christian understands that work is participation in creation and the job is privilege and mission. As such, it is crucial that the Christian pays serious attention to his attitude to work and at work, including one’s attitude to the employer, supervisor, co-workers, and to their families.

1. Attitude to work

1. The Christian’s attitude to work is controlled by his principle of work as mission and that God is his real boss and works through his earthly overlords. Learn from Nehemiah. He maintained his focus on mission and used every legitimate opportunity to pursue that mission. He prayed constantly. This is clear throughout the book. He was always ready to grasp every opportunity that God provided. The Christian does not yield to the temptation to say, I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go. Thank God it’s Friday. He says, Thank God for Monday.

2. Nehemiah diligently and carefully gathered necessary information, which he then submitted to God, asking God’s help, while immersing himself in the situation needing correction. The Christian should be diligent and meticulous in his fact gathering.

3. Like Nehemiah, the Christian will be diligent and productive, pursuing excellence in work performance, in character and conduct.

2. Attitude at Work

1. Nehemiah always had a pleasant face and spirit at work. [Cp the attitude and spirit of Joseph in prison. The warden trusted him with responsibility and authority over the other prisoners. Joseph asked Pharaoh’s officials in prison, Why are your faces so sad today? Ge 39: 20-40:7]. Because of his attitude, Nehemiah earned the respect and concern of his employer. Neh 2: 1c, 2. God used his change in face to accomplish His purposes. Your attitude must not say, I am working just to make a living, to get money to pay my bills. You must seek first the kingdom, and these other things will come. What does your attitude at work say?

Alternatives: I am working just for a living.

I want to squeeze everything out of my employer and give back as little as possible.

I wish I did not have to be here, but that’s the way life is.

I can’t wait for Friday. Clock-watchers!

I will perfectly toe the line the Union set down.

I could own this business one day, so I will do the very best I can.

I am here to help my employer prosper, so God can speak to him through me.

I am really enjoying my job; it is God’s gift to me.

What does your work face say? Read Eph 6: 5-7; Lk 7: 1-10. Would it not be wonderful to know that you were a servant whom your employer valued highly—as a worker and as a person? Remember the story of the builder who built one last house for his employer—shoddily, not realizing he was building his own house.

2. Your attitude at work should impress your employer positively, without your making this a conscious goal—such that he will tell his wife about you. It seems the queen put in a good word for Nehemiah: 2: 6, 8.

Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take…? And because the gracious hand of my god was upon me, the king granted my requests.

3. We can safely assume that Nehemiah had proved himself at lower levels before being promoted—to cupbearer, then as governor of Judah.

The Effect

1. The king was concerned, receptive and generous. He provided every request, furnishing all necessary material, customs documents, authorizations and even an armed security guard to ensure safety. This is a pagan king assisting the work of God. Prov 21:1 says, The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases.

2. The king appointed him governor of the province of Judah.

3. In Judah, he was to face serious opposition, though operating under the authority of the king. So do not expect everybody to like you. Our task is to please the Lord and work to earn the trust and respect of others in the workplace, if possible and if in harmony with God’s will.

THE LEADERSHIP STYLE OF NEHEMIAH

Nehemiah was an organized leader. He was a planner

1. Well in advance, he developed a plan. It was an act of faith, but faith always plans, plans for response to the answer to prayer.

2. He patiently waited. He prayed, planned and waited from Kislev [December] to Nisan [April], 4 months. He worked out details of his plan. When the king asked him for his vision, he was able to give clear answers.

3. Nehemiah was a man of vision. And he was focused. This is absolutely essential to effective leadership in any situation. He had a clear purpose—to rebuild Jerusalem’s wall. 2: 5. He clearly estimated the time required, and promptly gave it. In the end it took 52 days—6: 15. This was fast work. He was able to work efficiently, effectively and fast because of his leadership style, including careful, detailed planning, geared to his focus, his vision. His mission and vision were clear and simple: To rebuild Jerusalem’s wall.

Similarly, a cancer society mission is stated as: To conquer cancer. A statement I read recently said: When a leader does not know what to do, he tries to do everything. Doug Fields, Youth Pastor, describes his earliest efforts as a youth pastor: I started youth ministry in 1979 as a volunteer for the junior high ministry at my church. I loved it! Although I had no idea what I was doing, I knew God was using me and my energy to connect with students and care for them…One year later I still didn’t know what I was doing, but I was sure busy doing it! He had the idea that as long as there was a good size group of teens coming to events, he was ministering. Jesus would say, his fig tree had nothing but leaves. On the other hand, Dr. Robert Schuller said something like this: One day I woke up to the fact that I was depressed, because I had accomplished my 50 year goals in 15 years. [now I understand the workplace no longer talks about mission and vision by simply objectives. Interesting!]

4. He clearly estimated the resources required: legal documents [2: 7], construction material [2:8], accommodation for himself [2: 8].

Nehemiah was well prepared. For every question the king asked, Nehemiah had a ready answer. He had done his homework and done it thoroughly. That’s Christian leadership! Be always ahead of the game, always ahead of your boss or Master’s needs or instructions. Always anticipate them. Take personal interest in the organization or process.

5. Nehemiah had initiative. Nobody had told him to plan. A glance at chapter 3 shows how thorough he was in preparing for success. If you have faith, you plan! If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. To fail to plan reveals that you are not a person of faith but a person of presumption, and perhaps laziness. Be not like the 5 foolish virgins. If you expect God to answer your prayer, plan for it.

6. Absolutely basic to true success is the primacy of vision. Peter Newman wrote this about the late Ted Rogers:

The upside of working for Ted was that his senior people felt part of his unique vision, a man who had a sense of how Canadians might one day use future technologies that all too often had made their boss appear almost mad—until it turned out that he was right about it all. They recognized that he was one of a kind and felt privileged to have helped make his vision a reality.

Nehemiah demonstrated the heart and foundation for true, biblical and effective leadership. God gave him a vision; he ignited his leaders/staff with his vision; they in turn set on fire with the vision the whole people, who then engaged effectively in the work and completed it in record time, THAT’S LEADERSHIP! This is the only way for a Christian leader to function. It is something pastors in particular desperately need to learn and practice. We will say more about this later.

How do our churches plan? How do we plan budgets? Every budget item should be preceded by a plan for ministry, for which the budget item is being requisitioned. Often the budget is simply based on the previous year’s estimates and by guesswork/guestimates. Churches too often fail to plan for biblical ministry. E.g., compare how much is budgeted for fulfilling the Great Commission in comparison to how much is provided for building upkeep and salaries. A church’s budget is a very eloquent description of its theology, spirituality, priorities and expectations, and a good description of its relationship to the New Testament. What does the church’s budget say about its vision and mission? Where there is vision there is thorough planning.

In your job, plan thoroughly and plan ahead, according to your responsibility. [Also plan for your retirement, but especially for fulfilling your life purpose].

Nehemiah took one step at a time. Read chapter 2.

With a careful sense of timing, he proceeded step by step.

1. He went on a fact-finding mission. He got firsthand information by personal investigation and observation. He did so wisely and discreetly, making a thorough, night-time survey [with a few trusted men] Why by night? So as not to arouse fear and opposition through suspicion. He did so for the sake of privacy and confidentiality. It was a delicate situation, as 2: 10 clearly shows. Early opposition could seriously retard the work and possibly scuttle the whole scheme.

2. His investigation was detailed and thorough. Any leader, to be successful, must pay attention to detail. 2: 13-16. Getting firsthand information would help him plan efficiently and facilitate success, making work easier. The facts he personally discovered confirmed the information he had been given in Susa. This means he did not need to change his original plans. Cp 1: 3 and 2: 17.

3. He shared his vision at the right time with the right people. 2: 12, 17. In part this means Nehemiah knew how to control his tongue. 2: 16. As previously pointed out, sharing your vision too early and with the wrong people could seriously threaten, scuttle or otherwise seriously impair your plans.

People will not from the heart support your plan unless they share your vision and own your dream and your goals. People who are not accustomed to dreaming will be negative and fearful because they feel threatened by your vision and will work to destroy it. So your timing is crucial. After Nehemiah had the facts, based on direct personal observation, it was time to share the vision and build a team of like-hearted people.

4. Nehemiah motivated others. Observe how he took this very crucial step.

a. He took with him a few trusted men to inspect the walls. He told them nothing, but they would see for themselves and feel with him as he responded emotionally to the devastation. They would no doubt be the first to support his plan and to help motivate others.

b. He identified with the problem and the people in it. 2: 17. You see the trouble we are in….

c. He focused on an urgent need that touched them deeply. Note the word disgrace—1: 3; 2: 17

d. He showed them how the results would benefit them spiritually, internally. Pride and security would replace disgrace, shame.

e. He encouraged them, reminding them that he would be fully involved with them. He would not assign them their tasks then retire to the office. Come, let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, he said.

5. He gave others credit. Nehemiah consistently gave credit to others--honestly.

2: 18. He gave credit to the king—his boss. But above all, he gave credit to God. He made no attempt to have others praise him.

In 2: 11, 12 he says, I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days I set out. What did he do in those 3 days? The book so far suggests he was praying and probably fasting. Busyness does not always mean productive work and quietness does not necessarily imply inaction. It is not how much you do that matters but how much you get done. In Nehemiah’s case, it showed his dependence on God, and its impact on his productivity.

In 2: 12 he says,  I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. This meant everything was of God and nothing was from himself.

In 1: 11 he had prayed to God for success. In2: 4 he pled for guidance. In 2: 8b it is God who moves the heart of the king to fund his mission. Success is sweeter when we acknowledge God as the source. He was not anxious to show off his ideas and get personal credit.

The effect of the whole strategy was willing cooperation, commitment, unity of purpose, hard work and signal success. The wall was finished in 52 days. Then followed a great and historic celebration, which recognized the contribution of all the people. Then a revival broke out.

Conclusion

In our jobs, homes, churches, we can have the same quality of success. But we must focus on God, be ready to credit others when this is due, plan carefully and thoroughly. Once you plan your work , work your plan. We must plan thoroughly, in detail, well ahead/in advance. We must appreciate the spiritual nature of facts. Thorough, detailed, informed, advance planning is a sign and symbol of the quality of our love and depth of our commitment. Furthermore, that’s how God did things, and does!

This trip was made possible through an anonymous donor who contributed a substantial amount of money to subsidize it along with 4 other mission trips. The purpose is to have pastoral leaders in Canadian Baptist churches exposed to ministry and mission globally and to learn from each other as well. Our trip comprised of pastors from Ontario (4) Quebec (2) and New Brunswick (3) and Western Canada (4). We all are deeply grateful for this individual for investing in the kingdom of God and enriching our lives, which in turn will impact our ministries. I was also blest by the good bond of fellowship that developed and how we sharpened each other.

The trip has come to an end and the challenge has started - to distil the lessons from it and make it relevant and practical. Thanks to all of you who have been praying, please continue to pray for wisdom so that I will be more effective and fruitful in ministry because of this experience.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. With all the pictures that were taken collectively we took we have thousands upon thousands. Over the course of time I will share more with you and other thoughts from the trip.

Mission Trip to London/Lebannon - June 12-24 2010

Day 1&2

When I touched down at Hearthrow Airport at 8:15 am on Saturday, my dream had come through. England is a country I have always wanted to visit. So far London has not been what I had envisage as foggy and damp. England is s small country, so are the houses and the cars. This little country though has played a big part in world history. One of its influences has been in the spreading of the gospel around the world.

Today England now needs to have missionaries because the country is now very secular with the influence of Islam getting stronger. The churches are dying and the buildings are closing.

On Sunday I had the opportunity to visit 2 churches that are the exception. The first one was Trinity Baptist Church led by the pastor, Rev. Kingsley Appiagyei. He is originally from Ghana with the members primarily from that country along with others coming from other African countries and the Caribbean, this church as 2 services with about a thousand in attendance.

The other church I attended was Hillsong (originally started in Australia). They meet in a theatre and have 4 services per day. The 1 pm service had about 2 thousand in attendance and there was a long line-up for the 3:30 pm service when I was leaving. The church is reaching young adults with a strong emphasis on music. In the afternoon we went to London School of Theology, where our Canadian host Anna Robbins is a professor. We met with Jason Clark who is the pastor of a growing and creative church. He gave us an overview of the different expressions of church by people who are seeking new ways of doing church. Anna had us over to her house for supper. There we met Richard Chewter who is the chaplain in a town near London. He was hired a few years ago by a group of churches and is seeing people coming to faith in Christ including laptop dancers and the manager of the mall. These are the results of prayer that began 12 years ago amongst the churches. I was encouraged as we have been praying and working together in the Jane -Finch Church Coalition.

Day 3-4

Some of us visited a church that was started in an area of London that is like Jane-Finch, with lots of government housing and similar social problems. The church is lead by a Salvation Army couple, Nick and Kerry Coke. (It is a small world after all – Nick’s father is from Jamaica and I know his cousins for we attended the same high school). This couple live in the community and are committed to see lives transformed through the gospel, even though it has been difficult to see this amongst the largely Muslim population. In the afternoon we all went to an art museum. Most of the pieces were quite abstract and disturbing. They highlighted the fact that when people are not walking in the light of the word, the result is darkness and hopelessness.

After this visit we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral for the evening prayer service. The present building was completed 300 years ago, this magnificent building was quite a contrast to the art that I had seen. It is a testimony of men’s creativity when it is dedicated to glorify God. Nearby was London Bridge, I had to see as I use to sing about it falling down in the nursery rhyme. To my disappointment it was not the original one there because it was sold to a rich American and moved to Arizona.

INSIDE ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL

Tuesday In the morning visited Emmanuel Network Church. It is part of Fresh Expression a movement in the Anglican and Methodist churches to plant new churches that are different from the norm. This church meets in a pub (a restaurant with a bar) the church wants to go where people are and reach them with the gospel. The emphasis the church is people not a building. Our visit with the pastor was in the pub where they meet on Sunday morning before it opens and it was there we also had lunch. Our visit to London has now concluded. The purpose was for me and the 12 other pastors from across Canada to see a country like England with only 7 % who are connected to the church and how some are addressing this in London. Please pray that we will be able to have wisdom from all this knowledge so that coming back to Canada we will be like the men of Issachar who the Bible said understood the times and knew what to do. On Wednesday morning we will be leaving for Lebanon.

Day 5 – Wednesday

We left London for Lebanon via Cairo in Egypt. As we are near landing I got to see 1 of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, the pyramids, built over 3800 years ago. I also saw also the river, Nile. After a brief stop we transferred to Egypt Air for Beirut. We were met by Elie and Mireille Haddad, who are originally from Lebanon. They had been living comfortable in Toronto when they followed the Lord’s leading to return. Elie is now the president of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. From today until Saturday morning we are staying at a very nice hotel that overlooks the city and the mediterranean sea.

Day 6 – Thursday

All day we were at the 7th annual Middle East Conference being held at the Seminary. The theme this year – ‘Muslim and Christian, youth as the Present Future: Seeking Understanding, Sharing our Faith.’ It is the view that the young people are often more open to building bridges between those of different faith and can lead the way in transforming enmity into peaceable relations. This conference is about providing them with support in their desire to share their faith, helping them to do so sensitively and appropriately. I have found the conference so far to be helpful, stimulating and challenging. Other attendees are from USA, Africa, England plus students from the seminary. It has students from across the Middle East and North Africa. The school is strategically placed to train leaders to impact the Arab world with the gospel. This is one of the hardest region to reach because of the strong Muslim influence. Please pray for the Haddads and the school. This year marks the 50th anniversary. On Sunday there will be a big celebration including the graduation. The conference will conclude on Friday.

Day 7 – Friday - June 18^th

I was glad for the opportunity to attend the conference as it was informative and challenging. One of the sessions that were quite interesting was a presentation that gave guidelines for Christian and Muslim in sharing their faith. This was developed in England where they recognized that people of both faiths are witnessing to others. Here are a few  1)  We will speak of our faith without demeaning or ridiculing the faith of others 2)  We will speak clearly and honestly about our faith, even when that is uncomfortable or controversial. 3)  We bear witness to and proclaim our faith not only through words but through our attitudes, actions and lifestyles.

Day 8 – Saturday – June 19^th

In the morning we moved from the hotel to stay on the campus of the Seminary. In the afternoon we visited By byblos, a very old city on the coast, north of Beirut. It is from this city we get the name Bible, because it was an important trading centre for the papyus that was used to write the scriptures on. Our guide told us it was not for from this city that it was believed that the fish had ‘vomited’ Jonah. He then had to walk hundreds of miles to Nineveh.

Day 9 – Sunday – June 20^th

Some of us attended a Baptist church in downtown Beirut. Surprisingly the men and women sit separately and the latter covered’ their heads with veils.

The evening was the 50^th anniversary celebration of the seminary and graduation ceremony. I was privileged to meet the wife of the founding president, Mrs. Julia Graham who is now 93. Her testimony was inspirational and is worth sharing when I return.

Day 10 - Monday – June 21

‘The most explosive global issue relates to the Palestinians.’ These were the words of one of the speakers at the conference. Today I understood why he made this remark after we visited a Palestinian camp in Beirut. These are the people who were displaces from the land of Palestine from the area now occupied by Israel. The condition that they are living in is quite deplorable and we learnt one was like a ‘5’ ‘5 Star’ compared with others. There are thousands of Palestinians camped in a concrete jungle without fresh running water, adequate health care and a limited educational system. They are people without citizenship and are not allowed to find jobs in Lebanon. The joblessness and overall hopelessness are fuels for the young men to resort to violence. It is easy to see why they would take money to be freedom fighters and to become bombers.

We need to pray for justice and peace to prevail in the Middle East.

Day 11 – Tuesday – June 22

The Bible became more alive for me today as I saw the ‘cedars of Lebanon’. There are places where it is mentioned read 2 Chronicles 2: 1-16 in building the temple; ‘the righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon’(Psalm 92: 12 see also Ps 104: 16) and read Song of Solomon 5: 10-16 how the lover describes her man.

Four days a go I was using Psalm 72 to pray for our political leaders when verse 16 ‘jumped out at me’. As we drove through the valley of Beqeo I understood what Solomon was writing about. We did not stop to buy any fruits because we have been having some of them for desert at the seminary and the restaurants each day.

Today is the last day. I will be traveling Thursday 10:30 Toronto time which is 5:30 Lebanese time leaving from seminary to arrive by 5:15 Toronto time. Continuation posted by Andrew Petley, June 30th. Titled Back in Toronto.

FREEDOM IN DISCIPLESHIP

Romans 6

INTRODUCTION

The late Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones of Britain thought it most curious that a person should use as a title the topic of The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life—which is the title of what is regarded as a Christian classic, the book by Hannah Whitall Smith. Dr. Jones goes on to say that an unhappy Christian is both a contradiction and a very poor witness. Given our inheritance in Christ, given what God has made us as His adopted children, despite the fact that Christians will suffer at times, we have to ask, Why do so many Christians lack laughter? Why do they lack true joy, freedom and victory over sin?

Too often we hear the criticism that there is no practical difference between Christians and people who are not Believers. That the divorce rate among Christians is even higher than among sinners. Why is this so? Why is there so much defeat among us as God’s people? I understand that the Word of God answers that the cause is the Believer’s failure to recognize and live according to what the Believer has and is. The Word of God goes on to show us the way to freedom and victory. This is what the blessed apostle Paul is doing in this 6^th chapter of his Epistle to the Roman Christians. Let us look at the answers he gives to questions such as we have posed.

Vv. 1-4. He begins with the questions: 1. What shall we say, then? 2. Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Then he proceeds in the rest of the letter to show us how to have victory over sin and temptation and to live a life of freedom in Jesus Christ, who has saved us from the power of temptation, sin and death.

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Answer: A very strong: By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Do you have no commonsense in your head? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  The old life of sin leading naturally to death we died to by uniting with Christ who died in our place. That life now has no power over us.

In chapter 5 [see vv. 9-11,18, 21, then 6: 1ff]. Paul has been dealing with and celebrating the freedom from sin that God has granted us through the grace and sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He set us free from the control of sin and the power of the Law, which reveals how sinful we used to be. God’s grace has set us free from the power of sin and of the Law, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ—Ro 5: 21. Then he goes on in chapter 6 to explain that the disciple of Jesus Christ is one who has been crucified with Christ, who died with Christ, and is now dead to the power and control and tyranny of sin and the Law. He is now totally under the control of Christ—in his thinking, his choices, his decisions, his acting and obedience. In his previous state of sin he naturally did what his sin nature naturally, logically, dictated. Now, being totally in Christ, a new creation, born from above by the Holy Spirit, with his new nature, with Christ in him, he [super] naturally does what his new nature [super] naturally and logically dictates.

This means that we cannot go on sinning since we died to that kind of lifestyle. We are dead to sin. We are like a person who is sound asleep: dead to the world. Temptations have no more power over us because the whole idea of sinning has been expelled from our territory. We are free from the power and tyranny of sin. It has been conquered and exiled. We now live logically and wisely. Sin was erased by grace, and we do not sin again in order to experience more grace. We are living in grace. Our whole new life is grace life. A wife forgives her husband’s adultery when he admits guilt, asks forgiveness, truly repents. The reunion is sweet. But he does not repeat his infidelity to experience again the sweetness of forgiveness and renewed covenant. Repetition of such sin proves his repentance was not genuine, was hypocritical, that he does not love her but loves himself, and that he has no regard for holy covenant. He has qualified himself for divorce. How can we who died to sin live any longer in it? We have totally aligned our life with Jesus, totally identified with Him and His death and resurrection life. In natural birth we were united with Adam, in our spiritual birth, our new birth, birth from above, by our faith and God’s grace, through baptism, we were united with Christ. As, being in Adam, we naturally sinned, so now being in Christ we [super] naturally obey God, we live a new life, a life of purity and sinlessness, through the glory of the Father. His divine nature with His qualities of excellence, rightness, power, brightness of light, now appear and work in us.

Being in Christ carries a different lifestyle to being in sin, just as being married is a different life to being single, especially if the couple have children. The life of employment is a different life to being not yet employed. Life in Christ is a life of personal holiness, being radically set apart to God alone. We are dead to the sin life and lifestyle, being totally absorbed and immersed in Christ and 100% identified with Jesus. Now we have a new life, quality of life, type of life. Righteousness marks the new and present life.

Vv. 5-7. Being totally identified with Him in His death, having died to sin, totally surrendered to God, justified freely by God’s grace because of our response to Christ’s redemptive sacrifice, we have been given new life, a resurrection life--in Him. We have been crucified with Christ, the old self-life no longer lives. The life we now live we live by faith in Jesus Christ who love us and gave Himself for us—Gal 2: 20. This new life is Christ’s resurrection in us, marked by the character already indicated. It is the life of regeneration, in contrast to the qualities of the previous sin life. Sin has no dominion or control over us.

If any person is in Christ, he is a new and different person. The old self has gone, the new has come. 2 Co 5: 17. He has put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness—Eph 4: 24. He no longer lives a life of sin but a life of righteousness like Christ. And one day, at Christ’s Second Coming, he will be raised bodily from death as Jesus was, and ascend with Jesus, to rule and reign with Him. Presently we have the new resurrection life of Christ in us. That is why our resurrection is guaranteed. But we do not yet have it in its total fullness. At the Second Coming we will. And the Holy Spirit is the down-payment and guarantee that this will be our inheritance in Christ. So why be depressed and defeatist?

Note the qualities of Christ’s resurrection life. He was not subject to temptation, He had power over sin, flesh, evil desire, ego. He had power in a new dimension, because the Sanhedrin could do nothing to Him now! He was focused on heaven, on the Father and the glories of heaven that He was returning to. So Paul says to the Colossians, in 3: 1, Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. This is a guarantee against unhappiness and many forms of depression. It is a guarantee of spiritual freedom!

The old sinful self that controlled us in thinking and acting, is dead, and no longer has power over our will and behaviour. The new self of Christ in us is now our Master. He compels us to do right and to live righteously. Temptations have no more power over us than it did over Jesus, for His nature is now in us. Heb. 2: 18 assures us, Because He Himself suffered when he was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted. So when I face a temptation I can and I must look it in the face and say, You have no power over me. Be gone, Satan! Christ is in me. Here and now I do the opposite to what I used to, now for the glory of God! Since I am dead to sin, I do not respond to it. It cannot affect me. I am dead to sin as a sleeping man is dead to the world. The bottom line is: The Christian lives like Christ!

Vv. 8-11. Christ triumphed over death. Death now and for ever has no power over Him. He cannot die again. That is, death cannot kill Christ Nor can death kill us who are in Him. Heb 2: 14, 15 explains:

Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Death cannot kill Christ again because He killed death. He nailed death to the cross, from which death cannot come down. It is not fully dead yet, and so can still influence sinners. But its total death is sure. The only power death has over us is that which it manifests in its death throes. Those who joined Christ in nailing death to the cross are equally free from sin’s power, having participated in Christ’s triumphant death and resurrection, in being born again. We are in charge. Sin can influence us only if we choose to allow it to. However, we have been freed from sin’s control to live a life of moral and spiritual purity, righteousness and holiness. We now have the power to do so. We must always use that power. We must consciously choose to let Christ rule and control our thinking, feeling, desiring and acting.

Vv. 12-14. Paul tells us in 12-14 how we are to think, feel and act, as new persons in God. We are in Christ free from sin’s control. We no longer have to do what sin demands. We are free to do what is right, what God and our best interest demand. From now on we live as free beings, not slaves. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we now call the shots, to the glory of God. We must be and do what we are. Christ, not sin, reigns in us and therefore we must obey Him only.

As an autonomous being in Christ, take charge! Recognize that you are free from sin’s control. Consciously choose to and present yourself to God—your total self: your mind, will, emotions, appetites, physical organs, heart, spirit—give all to God, for Him to control and for you to use to reveal His glorious attributes. Note the details of the hymn: Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee: Take my moments and my days, my hands, my feet, my voice, my lips, my money and investments, my intellect, my love, myself. All of God and none of self. This is total, absolute, full and glad surrender of self and all that goes with self, for God to order and control totally. This is true and joyful freedom and power. All parts of my being are ruled by God now. So when tempted I say, I am God’s holy temple. I have given that part of myself and my life to the Lord to be used only for His glory; so I cannot do that. He has not given me permission.

The basic issue of vv. 11-14 is, How can the new self become dominant over sin. Why is there ongoing struggle with sin, if the old self is dead? In answer, Paul uses the key words Count/reckon and offer/present: Count/reckon yourselves and offer yourselves….On the basis of what I have been saying so far, he says in v. 11, exercise your newfound confidence in the facts and truths God has revealed to you and live accordingly. Note the role of the will. In v. 12 he goes on to say: Do not allow sin to control you through your thoughts and actions; rather, let God’s truths control your thinking and acting. Instead, v. 13, consciously choose to present, dedicate, set apart, commit your body, your total self, including your physical self, and all your organs and faculties, to God as His channels and instruments, to be used by Him to do His work. Cult members and suicide bombers do this kind of thing; why can’t the Believer be surrendered and obedient to Christ to the same absolute and total degree? As THEY totally surrender body, soul, spirit and life to the Enemy so WE must surrender to the same absolute degree our total selves to God. After all, what they do and do so effectively, is a prostitution of this divine principle.

In v. 14 he says: Sin can affect us only if we give it permission. So do not allow sin to have any power over you, a child of God. You are in control, even of Satan. You are now being controlled by grace, which empowers you to reject and conquer temptation and sin and fulfill God’s requirements stated in the Law, as Ro 7 will go on to show.

Vv. 15-18. Freedom means surrender to the control of God who is Love, Father, Dad, who has only the best for us, regardless of appearances. We are totally free because we have become slaves to righteousness and eternal Love.

Since we are now saved by grace, out of pure gratitude we live a life of purity and obedience. We do not repeat sin to get more forgiveness. That would only prove that we are hypocrites. Our repentance was a sham—as we said about an unfaithful, unrepentant husband/wife. If God is in control of every aspect of my being, I cannot sin with any part of it. I can only use each area for righteousness. If God is my Master, how can I disobey Him? That was what controlled Joseph in Egypt, and saved him from Potiphar’s wife. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? It is out of the question. That’s how you conquer temptation! He is my Master, and I cannot disobey Him. He is my Dad, and it would break my heart to break His heart. No! I always obey, and with my whole being, with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. I wholeheartedly obey the teachings of Christ and His Word. As Jesus said, If you love me, you will obey what I command-–Jn 14: 15. He is in full control of me. I always check with Him about everything and do only what He says.

As a sinner, I was addicted to sin! As a child of God I am addicted to love, purity, obedience, righteousness! I am addicted to God, controlled by Him! I am now His slave, and he is Love. I am a slave to Love!

The Lord is saying through Paul: Remember what you are! Remember who you are! What you are is not what you were. You were not able to control your sinful nature because you were a slave to sin. But now you are a slave to Christ. Similarly, you should now be able to control your new nature because you are a slave to Christ, who is power. A married person should have no problem being faithful to one’s spouse, because one is now controlled by the marriage covenant relationship. When you get a new job, you function according to the responsibilities and terms of the new job. You do not function as though you are still in the old job. It is a new relationship and situation. The Believer now has an innate and compelling desire to know and obey God’s Word. As 1 P 2: 1-3 says,

Therefore rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Vv, 19-23. Paul uses the master-slave analogy simply to explain his point. Any analogy is limited and we must not press this one too far. But it does communicate the idea of absolute control. There are two examples of slavery—one means absolute destruction, the other is positive control, rooted in God who is Love and therefore means total and true freedom, joy and continual growth. The negative brings profit to the master only; the positive brings profit from the Master to the slave. The Master needs nothing, the slave needs everything. It is one thing to be a slave to hate and sin, quite another to be a slave to Love! Imagine being addicted to Joy. By the grace of God, the slave of righteousness gains the blessings that accompany holiness. These blessings include living a life of separation to God, enjoying such blessings as righteousness and eternal life here and now, but especially hereafter.

The primary profit of slavery to God is this free gift of eternal life, the abundant life, of victory, the life Jesus provides for time here and now and for all eternity hereafter. This is the opposite of what slavery to sin pays—death, eternal/everlasting separation from God in hell! Two opposite types of salary!

CONCLUSION

Are you in possession of your possessions? Are you the older son eating the equivalent of pigs’ food because you have refused to go in to the banquet? Are you enjoying the joy of the Lord? Are you living in victory, or are you always talking about Under the circumstances…? Are you enjoying true victory? Do you find it easy to pray and give thanks despite circumstances? Can you live by Romans 5: 1-5 and James 1: 2-4? If so far you have not been really enjoying and celebrating your new life, here in Romans 6 you have the answer. Meditate on it deeply, then go ahead and live it! That’s victory! That’s freedom!!

Meditate on Romans 8: 31-39.

Tune in Next week for more- Topic: 

EXHIBIT #1

DISCIPLESHIP: PAUL AS PRIME EXAMPLE

Part 1

Philippians 3: 7 – 4: 1

CHRIST’S CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP

Luke 9: 23-27, 57-62.  Jesus said to all His disciples:  If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for me will save it.  What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?  If anyone is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

57-62.  As they were walking along the road, a man said to Him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”  He said to another man, “Follow me.”  But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”    Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”  Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

 INTRODUCTION 

Our focus is Christ’s Call to Discipleship.  Given some clear facts of history, in a real sense, in the life and ministry of the church there is nothing more crucial and urgent than our Lord’s commission to make disciples and to be faithful disciples.  I consider this mission the most urgent need of the entire world, both church and society.  Furthermore, making disciples is not a theory; it is an assignment by our Lord.  Christ is calling us to be disciples and to make disciples, in order to bring in God’s rule on earth and bring sinners into total intimacy with God.

 WARNING

For the sake of all people in the world and for the sake of the glory of God, we must not fail in this mission—understanding that making disciples is not a theory but an assignment by our Lord.  Christ is calling us to be disciples and to make disciples.  Failure has proven utterly devastating to the cause of Christ. 

 Regarding the failures and devastations,

1. various witnesses have told of how Christians, including some missionaries, have demonstrated the tragedy of the truth of Isaiah 53: 5, quoted by the apostle Paul in Ro 2: 23, 24.  Isaiah attacks Judah’s failure by saying, [And] all day long my name is constantly blasphemed because my people disobeyed and rebelled.  As a result, they were taken into captivity, which brought disrespect for the God of Jerusalem.   In Ro 2: 23, 24 Paul attacks disobedient Jews, in his letter to the Believers in Rome, by saying, You who boast about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?  As it is written, “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

We have had some wonderful Christ-like missionaries who totally identified with the people and with Jesus.  However, we have also had some who functioned as neocolonialists—according to certain testimonies.  In India, for example, according to at least one Christian writer, a missionary lived in a mission compound, with walls and a gate.  One such compound even had at the gate an Indian guard—with a gun!!—just like the colonial overlord.

 I reflect on the ministry of missionaries I knew.  They were wonderful persons.  However, they lived in the best houses, with domestic help and proper transportation, pastored the largest and best churches, taught in school and seminary.  None demonstrated to us how to evangelize, how to lead sinners to Christ, or how to plant new churches.  They were all wonderful persons, but never seemed to demonstrate God’s love for the common masses among whom we pastored.  As a result the gospel did not prosper as it could have.

Our obedience as a witness to Christ and a call to repentance greatly impacts individuals and society.  To return to India:  It is reported that Mahatma Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Christianity.  He replied, I like their Christ; I have no use for their Christians.  To me, a Christian is a man with a jug of beer in one hand and a chunk of beef in the other—and that in a land where cows were sacred! 

 A very important question to answer is this:  How did Hinduism come to America and the West and gain such a strong foothold in a Christian society?  One very reputable Christian leader explains that Hinduism was literally shot into America one night in 1893 when the young guru, Narendranath Datta Vivekananda [1863-1902—dying at age 39] brazenly stepped, uninvited, onto the stage at the Chicago World’s Parliament of Religions, and verbally lambasted Christians for what colonialism  had done to India.  He blamed Christianity for supporting the colonialists and  creating in the mind of the Indian people the picture of India as a man at the mercy of England who had his foot on the necks of 250 million Asiatics.   

He charged that Christian nations were guilty of the most devastating atrocities, cutting the throats of the masses.  Hinduism, on the other hand, he claimed, was based on the laws of love.  Love is the key, he claimed.  And in that brazen act, Vivekananda introduced a point of prejudice which has made the expansion of Christianity in the world very difficult.  The failure of some Christians he generalized. I. e., he not only unfairly compared the failures of some Christians with the alleged success and popularity of Hinduism, he generalized  that what a few Christians did or failed to do represented the whole of Christianity and the essential nature of Christianity.  And, amazingly, no one there challenged him—in Chicago!   The tragedy is that if  Christians had been faithful to Jesus Christ, a Hindu could not have had any cause to blaspheme the name of Christ, and this young guru would not have gotten away with his biased evaluation of Christ.

 2. An important responsibility of the Christian disciple is to learn from Christ and teach Believers everything the Lord has taught and was, and to live accordingly.  There also we have been most disobedient.  There is considerable ignorance among Christians because we have not done a satisfactory job of equipping disciples with God’s Truth.

In a testimony heard on Christian radio in June 2009, a Muslim convert shared that growing up in Europe as a Muslim he had had opportunity to observe Christians.  However, he had had no respect for Christianity because of their lifestyle.  They confirmed his conviction that Islam was far superior to Christianity Some Christians, both in Europe and in the United States, tried to convert him but he found  that they were very ignorant of both Islam and Christianity.  What finally brought him to Christ was the love of the Christian community in the US town where he lived and a special personal experience of the Holy Spirit.

It is of the utmost importance that we be such faithful disciples of Jesus Christ that we know, live and are just like Him—as we read of Peter and John in Acts 4.  Let me ask you, Have your co-workers or fellow students, neighbours and friends discovered that you are a Christian?  If they have not yet discovered it, do you think that when they do they will say, “Oh, that confirms my suspicion”?  Do you think your witness and life are leading them to Jesus?

 On the positive side

1. faithful obedience according to knowledge has the potential of totally transforming the world.  Dr. John Stott, several years ago, speaking in Vancouver on the subject of Christian leadership, quoted the Sociologist Theodore Roszak as saying that 2% of a population could transform the whole culture, out of all proportion to their size, when they are driven by a passionate vision.  Dr. Stott went on to say, We [Christians] are much more than 2%.  Why are we not making more of a difference? 

I confess that as a Christian and as a Christian leader, I am very embarrassed and humiliated at the effect and change brought about in our society and the church by the gay community and feminism.  My exercising question is, How is it that they could change us so thoroughly and we did not change them to the same extent, or at all?  Why did change happen in the direction it did?  What did we not do, when the few early Christians and apostles turned the Roman empire literally upside down—given all the amenities and resources at our disposal today; also and especially given the power, powers and Power—God Himself—available to us?  How was it that in 2009 the celebration of the Plains of Abraham and the Toronto Canada Day Parade were cancelled, but the Gay Pride Parade was not—despite a garbage strike?  What in fact is happening?

2.  Many do acknowledge the superiority of Christianity and the Gospel.    One writer records that in the challenge of a Communist to a group of Christians, he freely admitted, The gospel is a much more powerful weapon for the renewal of society than our Marxist philosophy.  Gideons International and the Bible societies have a huge collection of testimonies and reports detailing the transformations brought about in individual lives by the Bible.  Only the Bible, among the world’s religious books, has been regularly banned, burned and persecuted because of its independent power to change persons and groups, unaided by human intervention.  The Bible and faith, Christian preaching, teaching and action have virtually determined Western society and its institutions—health,  education, welfare, economic prosperity, compassion, ethics and morality, freedom from slavery and oppression, the value of human beings, the equality and value of women and children, prison reform, etc., etc.

No one and nothing in the world is as powerful as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, His Gospel and the church.  The potential of Christianity and the power of Christian disciples are incalculable.  Yet the church is in a state of weakness and even decline, especially in the West; and this endangers the very foundations of society, which foundations are clearly crumbling by design and by default.  And why is the church so ineffective?  I suggest that the answer is that most Christians do not really understand what Jesus means by Follow me.  Let us then try to clarify the nature of Christ’s call to discipleship.

CHRIST’S CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP

The longer I live and the more I learn, the more convinced I am, and the more burdened I become, that the vast majority of Christians, including the most evangelical, do not really understand what  it means to be a Christian.  There is among Christians widespread ignorance and illiteracy  regarding what Jesus means by being His disciples and following Him.  To remind ourselves of what Jesus means, let us return to Luke 9: 23.

In Lk 9: 23 Jesus says, If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  What does Jesus mean by come after me, follow me, take up his cross daily?  According to Jesus, following Him as His disciple means being totally, unconditionally sold out to Him.  It means literally walking behind Him, walking in His footsteps every moment of every day.  It means learning and having His mind, becoming totally like Jesus, controlled by Him in every detail of our lives.  It means surrendering to His absolute control over our money and all material possessions, our time, our priorities, our values, our actions.  It means being prepared to lose everything, including life itself, in order to obey Him.  The bottom line is: Being a disciple of Jesus Christ  means being His slave!  To get the impact of the relationship, read again John 3: 13-18; 1 Co 13.

When Jesus says he must deny himself, Jesus means that you must prove that you do not know yourself, as Peter said he did not know the prisoner Jesus.  You give Christ your ego and all self-interest, all self-directed goals and replace them with Jesus and His goals.  Read Php 3 and you will get the picture.

When Jesus says you are to take up your cross daily, He means that each day you commit yourself again to obeying Him in everything that you will do that day, even if it means losing your job, failing a course, or even losing your life.  You are a soldier on active duty on the front lines of life, confronting the Enemy.

When Jesus says follow me He means our living His life, acting like Him, knowing and communicating Truth as He does, being like Him in nature.    This means that people could confuse you with Jesus—for better or worse--because you will be exactly like Him.

Demonstrating     Discipleship

In practical terms, this means that as a Believer you never have a struggle on a Sunday morning as to whether to go to worship or do your ironing or your gardening, or staying away from worship and watching TV.  It means that on the job you always consciously choose to do what is right, even if it means risking the loss of your job.  It means driving your car according to the rules of the Highway Traffic Act. It means spending time every day with God and in His Word, given the fact that He is your God and therefore #1 in your life, #1 in your day, and #1 in your priorities. It means telling others about Jesus, in order that they may be saved.  It means teaching Christ to your family through regular family devotions…ETC! ETC!

Listen, friend.  Christianity is not a set of philosophical propositions and theories, though we have the richest theology.  Christianity is life!  It is relationships!  It is a life and lifestyle of unity and harmony with God, self, others—including enemies—and the universe—including the environment.  It is the life of heaven on earth, on its way to eternal glory.  Let’s be even more specific.

We must demonstrate the kingdom life as individuals and as a church.  We must be always aware of the importance of everything we say and do.  We must pay conscious attention to detail and always maintain the highest standards of behaviour.  We must as individual Believers and as a church understand and live by the principle Paul states in 2 Co 3: 2-3.

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.  You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Pay close attention to the apostle’s statement:

1. You are a letter from Christ
2. known and read by everybody.

These statements carry the same meaning as John 1: 14.   

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 

It carries the same meaning as Heb 1: 1, 2. 

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.   

This means that the disciple of Jesus Christ, the Christian, is the Incarnation Continued, is Christ Continued!  Through you, me and the church, God is speaking and must be heard.  We are to be totally and absolutely and completely identified with Christ, so God will say through us exactly what He said through Jesus.  In short, we are Christ to our generation.  We are a letter from Christ known and read by everybody.  What are people reading in us?  In us as individual Believers and as a church? 

Paul’s principle carries the same meaning as Ge 1: 27. 

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;

male and female He created them. 

Sin entered and marred God’s image in us, but by His work on the cross Christ restored that divine image in the Believer. 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come      

2 Co 5: 17.

A person who is a true and obedient disciple of Jesus Christ is so one with Christ that he can justly say as Jesus said:  Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.  I am in the Father and the Father is in me.  When I speak and act it is the Father living in me who is doing His work.  John 14: 9, 10.

It is not for nothing that the church is called the Body, the physical representative and representation, the Incarnation, of Christ.  It means each Believer is Christ in flesh.  As a church and as individual Christians, we must so function and live and act that people do not get the wrong picture of Christ, but a true reflection of the divine Christ.  We are revealers of God, as Church and persons, always demonstrating what Christianity and Christ are really all about.

Principle and Practice

In terms of principle undergirding practice, we pay close attention to Eph 5: 1, 2, 15-17.

1-2.  Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

15-17.  Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

The Message rendering says:

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.  Mostly what God does is love you.  Keep company with Him and learn a life of love.  Observe how Christ loved us.  His love was not cautious but extravagant.  He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of Himself to us.  Love like that.

15-17.  So watch your step.  Use your head.  Make the most of every chance you get.  These are desperate times.  Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly.  Make sure you understand what the Master wants.

Specific Actions

In terms of practical action, we remember that our focus is demonstrating God’s kingdom. Going beyond preaching and in addition to preaching, we pay careful attention to detail and make sure that everything we say and do speaks of the nature and dynamics of Christ and His kingdom.  Wherever we meet as a church or as a Christian group, we are particularly careful to demonstrate Christ.  So, for example:

 1.  We conduct ourselves and conduct our meetings and all sessions according to the standards and principles of His kingdom, including order, dignity, preparedness, diligence, appropriate seriousness and joy, punctuality, excellence, etc.

2.  We display the servant spirit of Christ by serving one another and taking good care of the environment, willingly, without being asked.

3. Women function as Christian ladies and men function as Christian gentlemen.

4.  Our attitude is consistently Christlike.  If someone asks a favour, we graciously help, and cooperate with a smile.

5.  We are always conscious of opportunity to demonstrate Christ to unbelievers, whether those of the church or those of the workplace or of the home or neighbourhood, being aware that everything we do speaks of Christ.  Eg.,

(a)   remembering that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, we  consume nutritious food and avoid anything that could be associated with junk food; so when a person who is not a Christian sees what we leave behind, he/she will be encouraged to say, These Christians are a real healthy-eating people.  I would like to know their secret. 

(b)  When we use another person’s space, we are careful to leave everything, at the end of our use, in order and cleanliness.

6.  We and our children respect and take excellent care of the Bibles.  Bibles are holy.

7.  We treat with tender care all material things relating to worship

8. We demonstrate love and respect and care for one another, especially the weak and less fortunate, our children and seniors. 

In such ways as these we demonstrate the life of Christ’s kingdom, as we live lives as obedient disciples of Jesus Christ.  The disciple imitates his/her Master.  His basic standard and requirement for discipleship is clearly stated in Lk 9: 23.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

He illustrates this with specific application in Mt 20: 25-28.  Jesus called His disciples to Him and told them:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you.  Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever  wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

CONCLUSION

This is the life to which Jesus Christ calls us.  This is what He means by discipleship.  What has been your response?  What will your answer be?  Note that His discipleship is by invitation only.  He does not take applications.  He invites us.  We either accept or reject His gracious invitation.  I urge you to accept His challenging invitation to follow Him.  Accepting His invitation will mean for you heaven here and hereafter.  If you reject His invitation you automatically chose the opposite.

Meditate on Php 3: 17 – 4: 1.

DISCIPLESHIP: PAYING THE PRICE

Matthew 10: 34-39.  Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.  I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to turn

“a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

This is the Prince of Peace speaking. Of Him Isaiah 9: 6 and Luke 2: 14 speak.  He Himself told His faithful disciples in Jn 14: 27, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.  What then does Jesus mean by not peace but a sword?  The answer is to be found in the full context of the gospel and the life of the church, especially in the New Testament.

Christ’s mission is to bring peace between the sinner and God and between those so reconciled to God.  His redemption reconciles persons in conflict with one another because they are alienated from God.  When opposing persons are reconciled to God they are automatically members of the same family and must be reconciled to one another.  However, those not reconciled to God remain or come to be in conflict with those who have been reconciled, even if in the same human family. 

Eph 2: 11-20 shows how Jesus reconciled Jews and Gentiles.  But those Jews or Gentiles not reconciled to God will be opposed to and alienated from those saved by grace.  This is dramatically demonstrated today in Muslim and Hindu families. When family members become Christian disciples, they are persecuted and even martyred; many have to flee into hiding.  During Soviet rule, many Christians were turned in to the KGB by family members.  This is the result of inevitable conflict between Christ and Antichrist, light and darkness, God’s children and Satan’s children, even where these persons are of the same blood family, as vv 35 and 36 describe. 

So, though Christ brings peace with God, as Ro 8: 6 indicates, He frequently is an offense causing internal “family” conflict. One who follows Christ, given one’s situation, must be prepared to suffer.  Christ is quite upfront about the dangers of being His disciple.  He does not deceive.  It is full disclosure.  We are talking here about the foundation of discipleship.

Jesus Christ must be #1 in the life of the disciple, with no close second.  He must be far ahead of our love for and commitment to parents and children, the closest, tenderest and most affectionate relations.  Luke 14: 26 goes further.  There our Lord says, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.  Jesus Christ as Saviour and Master must be absolute in our lives, with no rival, not even a close second.  The disciple must be willing to sacrifice everything for Christ, similar to the degree of commitment and abandon seen in the suicide bomber.  More accurately, like the Muslim who surrenders to Christ, knowing that this means or could mean a clear break with his family, including wife and children.  Christ demands total, absolute, glad, unconditional surrender.  I must sell everything to purchase this pearl of greatest price.

You must take up your cross and follow Christ.  The cross as an instrument of death symbolizes the demand for total commitment, to the point of death.  We must follow Christ, which means walking in His footsteps, which means living like Him.  As He obeyed the Father totally, to the point of death, so we must obey Him totally, to the point of death.  We must pay the price to accomplish the mission He gave us as He paid the price to accomplish the mission the Father gave Him.  Any one who thinks and acts otherwise cannot be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Foundational to spiritual and personal success is this basic natural principle:  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for Christ’s sake will find it.  The principle is stated also and more clearly in Jn 12: 24-26.  The person who totally immerses himself in Jesus Christ and His mission, to the point of complete self-obliteration and to the point of being prepared for personal suffering, spiritual and physical death, is the person who lives on the eternal and abundant plain here and hereafter.  His life bears abundant fruit in the lives of others, particularly those who are brought into the family and kingdom of God.  Those who do the opposite reap the opposite.  This is a major part of the abundant life Jesus gives.

Samuel Nadar was the fifth child of his family, after 4 girls.  His parents’ religion told them Samuel was a curse.  As Samuel grew he was shown total rejection by his family. He was severely abused.  At 18 he suffered a terrible illness which left him with an injured nervous system.  No one cared for him.  He lived in despair.  In a job he later secured he met a Christian lady who told him about Jesus who loved him unconditionally.  Samuel became a Christian, with hope and life.  The effect was that now his family totally rejected him, threw him out of the house and he was forced to become a street person.  His church found out about his situation and the pastor took him into his home. Eventually Samuel became a student, and today is an effective pastor.  By joining God’s family Samuel was rejected by his human family.  They made themselves his enemies.  This is what Jesus meant.  At the same time, by giving his life to Christ, Jesus gave Samuel life full of eternal meaning and lasting fruitfulness.  

In which family are you?  Are you friends with your human family who are enemies of God?  Or are you in God’s family?  The best of course is for your whole family to be part of the family of God.  Is this the case?  If not, how will you work to make it a reality?  In any case, are you in God’s family or the Devil’s?  You are in either one or the other, regardless of the cost.  Choose!

COME AFTER …AND FOLLOW ME

PART I

Read carefully Mark 8: 34-38.  Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.  What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?  If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Luke 9: 23-26.  Then He said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.  What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?  If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”

Focus:  Mk 8: 34.  If anyone would come after me, he must…follow me.

INTRODUCTION

In this basic principle Jesus is laying down the number one, the basic, non-optional requirement for discipleship.  He is in effect telling Believers that for them to have a life of power, true, lasting and everlasting success, He requires and demands absolute, total, unconditional surrender and obedience.  Obedience means thinking, speaking, acting, loving, living, becoming and being exactly like Jesus Christ. 

Now note that Jesus is not simply speaking about what we call your spiritual life.  The Christian does not have a spiritual life. The Christian has a life that is spiritual.  The spiritual is not a compartment or department of the disciple’s life.  It is his or her whole life.  The unsaved have a carnal life; the Believer has a spiritual life, sold out totally to God.  

UNIVERSALITY

Observe that this is an objective, universal principle.  It applies to all disciples of all nations or stations, without exception.  As stated, it is a universal, absolute, non-optional requirement for Christian discipleship.  Note who were the people to whom Jesus spoke this demand.

Audience

Did Jesus address this demand only to The Twelve and those who were already His disciples?  Mark says, He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said….  Luke says, He said to them all.  The Lucan context suggests that Jesus and the Twelve had withdrawn from the crowd for prayer and Peter’s confession.  Then He returned to the crowd for vv. 23-27.  This means that Jesus made very clear to the crowd of followers and disciples the nature and foundation of Christian discipleship.  This then is a principle to be taught to present and potential followers of Jesus Christ.  There should be no deception but full disclosure when we invite and challenge sinners to repent and become disciples of Christ.

It is failure at this point that has led to the legal attack on the church in the USA and even in Canada, and Christians’ response to, as well as participation of Christians in the genocide in Rwanda.  It is the reason believers become apostates.  As Jesus explains in Mt 13: 20, 21, 

The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.  But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time.  When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.

Neglect or rejection or misunderstanding of this demand of Christ is the reason why we speak of Christianity as being a mile wide and an inch deep.  A contract always sets out ahead of time the requirements.   Then you sign your life away.  With Christ this is literally true.  Never should we try to make disciples under false pretences. We don’t compromise or soft-pedal Christ’s demands in order to have more baptisms.  All people must know ahead of time what they are getting into when they join themselves to Jesus.  It is a life and death commitment, like joining the military and being prepared to be assigned to the front lines immediately.  At the same time, it is a life that brings joy, hope, eternal meaning and freedom.  It is the only life, for all life outside of Christ is Satan’s slavery.

We emphasize that Jesus is always upfront with prospective disciples.  He is not looking for fans but for disciples, soldiers ready to fight and die.  On one occasion,

As they were walking along the road, a man said to Him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”  Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”  Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Lk 9: 57, 58, 61, 62.  Jesus was always brutally honest and open with every prospect.  One wonders about the claims of evangelists who report on the vast numbers of converts who raised their hands to receive Christ, thereby becoming new Christians.  How many of those converts have been deceived into a false security?  This would be a monumental sin!

CHRIST’S FIRST DEMAND: COME AFTER…FOLLOW

If any one would come after me [Mt 16: 24; Mk 8: 34; Lk 9: 23].  To come after means to follow, to bind oneself to a leader in total surrender to his leadership, teaching, and lifestyle, to the point of imitation and total identification, so that the follower is known by that identification.  The Jews told the blind man healed by Jesus, We are Moses’ disciples….Jn 9: 28.  Jesus told the Jews, Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hope is set—Jn 5: 45.  You are supposed to be like Moses, if you are his disciples, but you are not, so Moses will be your judge instead of your leader.   

Peter told Jesus, We have left everything to follow you—which accords with Ph 2: 5-8, the example of Jesus Himself.  Mt 19: 27.  So a follower, a comer after, is a student or disciple or apprentice who is fully immersed in and preoccupied with the leader he follows.  Jesus says, If any of you wants to follow me in this way, here is the basic non-optional foundational requirement:  Come after me, follow me to the point of becoming exactly like me.  To come after Jesus and to follow Him is to walk in His way, to duplicate Him in every way, including the cross. 

Identification

Here are important examples of that identification.

Suffering.  1 P 2: 21-23 explains:

To this you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps.  “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.”  When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats.  Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. 

To this you were called.  This what?  V. 20 explains:  if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 

To follow Christ means doing God’s will, not being surprised at persecution and death as consequence.  Jesus warned in Jn 15: 20, No servant is greater than his master.  If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.  The apostle Paul had a firm grasp of what it meant to follow Jesus, so he made it his ambition not only to please Him by fulfilling his ministry, but also to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death—Ph 3: 10.

Fulfilling the Great Commission.  By far the major part of following Christ however, is fulfilling the Great Commission, doing the work Christ gave us to do, as individual parts of that Commission.  Following Christ is doing the Father’s will, as Jesus did.  It is being able to say the things Jesus said and doing what he did.  Examples are: 

Characteristics of the Disciple Life.

Luke 4: 18-19.  The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  Discipleship is fulfilling your life purpose. 

Lk 4: 43.  I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God…because that is why I was sent. 

Lk 19: 10.  the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. 

Lk 24: 46-47.  The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 

Jn 4: 34.  “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.”  The disciple must be preoccupied with and immersed in the work Christ gave him/her to do. 

Jn 8: 28, 29.  I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me…for I always do what pleases Him.  That’s the disciple’s commitment.

Jn 8: 49-50.  I honor my Father…I am not seeking glory for myself.  The disciple is totally focused on God just as Jesus was.  He is dead to self-interest, because Jesus was.  He must follow after Christ. 

Jn 10: 11.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  The disciple life is one of self-sacrifice. 

Jn 12: 48-50.  There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.  For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.  I know that His command leads to eternal life.  So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.  .

Jn 18: 37.  You are right in saying I am a king.  In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.  The disciple is controlled by divine Truth, not by personal opinion.  In addition, the life and ministry of the Christian is to declare God’s Truth by word and action. 

Jn 13: 13-17.  You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.  Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.  I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.  The disciple has the servant spirit and lifestyle of Jesus.

Jn 13: 34, 35.  A new commandment I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.  Love and compassion characterize the Christian disciple.  It is the main quality of the Believer.

Jn 14: 10, 12.  The words I say to you are not just my own.  Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work…anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things than these….The disciple is a consecrated copy-cat! 

Jn 14: 15.   If you love me you will obey what I command.  V. 23—If anyone loves me he will obey my teaching.  Love and obedience go together.  If you love you want to please the One you love.   

Jn 15: 4, 5, 12, 13, 16, 18, 20.  Vv. 4, 5:  Remain in me and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  Apart from me you can do nothing.  The ultimate goal is total intimacy with the Trinity.   

12, 13:  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  The Christian life is a life of joyful sacrifice.

V.16:  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.  Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

18:  If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.

20:  If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.   

Jn 15: 21 - 25.  They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin.  Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.  He who hates me hates my father as well.  If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.  But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.  But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law, “They hated me without reason.”  Expect opposition from the opposition. 

Jn 17: 31.  Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.  I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

V. 8.  For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.

V. 19.  For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.  The disciple is faithful to his/her purpose.

Vv. 20-23.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them and you in me.   There are two very important factors here: 1. This is the ultimate goal of discipleship—our unity in the Trinity.  2.  We are to so live as to impart God’s glory to other Believers.

V. 26.  I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.  The faithful disciple lives and ministers to promote this glorious goal. 

Jn 18: 20.  I have spoken openly to the world.  I always taught in synagogues or at the temple where all the Jews come together.  I said nothing in secret.  We disciples are to openly proclaim Christ, in accordance with our individual missions. 

Jn 21: 15-19.  Feed my lambs….take care of my sheep…Feed my sheep…Follow me.  This brings us back to where we began.  These indicate what it means to follow and come after Jesus Christ. 

ACTION--OBEDIENCE

How do we bring ourselves to be so conformed to Christ that we live and are and do ministry according to His pattern?  Answer:  By meditating on and personalizing and doing what the Scriptures say, Scriptures as represented by each quoted.  By working out in detail the commands and principles of every relevant statement of Christ, doing and living each, in accordance with  Jn 17: 21-23, already quoted, and 2 Peter 1: 3-4, which says, 

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.  Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 

Basic to your obedience as a disciple is that you discover your life purpose and pursue it, just as Jesus did.  In a sense, that is really all the Believer has to do in order to be an obedient disciple of Christ. 

CONCLUSION

However, take careful note.  You will observe that all of this is for Believers only.  The whole Bible, the whole gospel of blessings and promises and teaching, of glory and heaven, is only for the children of God.  If you are not a child of God you cannot participate in this life of discipleship, and in the life and joys of heaven here and hereafter.  You are on the outside, even if you are in church.  You are outside God’s kingdom and on your way to eternal hell. 

However, there is good news for you; there is hope for you.  You can be a member of God’s eternal family.  Jesus invites you to be His disciple.  All He asks is that you confess your sin,  ask God’s forgiveness and totally surrender to His absolute control.  We invite you to do that right now, where you are.  This hymn is for Christians to renew their surrender, but it is especially for you—to surrender all to Jesus.  The hymn is All to Jesus I Surrender.  Note carefully the words: 

All to Him I freely give.  I will every love and trust Him…Worldly pleasures all forsaken…Make me, Savior, wholly Thine.  Lord, I give myself to you.  I surrender ALL! 

MY PRAY FOR You is Heb. 13: 20, 21.  May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.  Amen.

COME AFTER AND FOLLOW ME

PART II

Scripture.  Luke 9: 23-27   

Ro 12: 1, 2.  Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will. 

INTRODUCTION

We are living in a very serious time in history.  There are many clear signs that Canada, the Unites States and especially Europe are dying.  The institutions and the moral and spiritual foundations are crumbling by design and by default.  The evidence suggests that the Western church is mainly to blame.  We have failed to be the salt and light Jesus made us.  We have not been obedient disciples of Jesus Christ.  We have replaced evangelism in particular and the Great Commission in general with worldly approaches to ministry, and Christians do not clearly understand what it means to be Christian. Above all, the church has been dozing through a revolution that has been eroding its very foundations.  Many years ago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned that a dangerous stupor had settled over the West and in 2005 Ted Dekker published a book titled The Slumber of Christianity.  Today, Christians need a fully renewed understanding of what Jesus meant by Follow Me.    

THE MEANING, THE NEED AND THE CHALLENGE

Follow Me involves very practical, daily acts, in addition to absolute surrender to the total control of Jesus Christ.  The late David Watson in his book Discipleship, brings Christian discipleship right down to where Everyman lives.  He points out that our Western Christianity has very little or  no understanding of what Jesus Christ means by discipleship.  Whereas Jesus Christ is the only One who can answer the deepest cries of the human heart for meaning, love, forgiveness, freedom, hope, God,  Western Christianity is too weak and ineffective to contribute anything significant to this struggle between Islam and Christianity.  While it is absolutely true that only Jesus Christ has the power to change the human heart, western Christians are too flabby to do anything much in the strenuous battle against Islam.  Today this is abundantly clear.  The reason is that Christians in the West have largely neglected what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ  The vast majority of us, he says, are church members, pew fillers, hymn-singers, sermon-tasters, Bible readers, even born-again believers or Spirit-filled charismatics—but not true disciples of Jesus.  If we were willing to learn the meaning of real discipleship and actually to become disciples, the church in the West would be transformed, and the resultant impact on society would be staggering [16]. 

True, vibrant discipleship demands total sacrifice of self, and flourishes in the forest of personal suffering and strict discipline, which is by nature paying the price of costly discipleship. 

It speaks volumes that Christ’s small group of disciples, equipped by Him and empowered by the Holy Spirit, turned the world upside-down.  Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges, in their book, Lead Like Jesus, remarked on being fascinated with how Jesus transformed twelve ordinary and unlikely people into the first generation of leaders of a movement that continues to affect the course of world history some two thousand years later…Christians have more in Jesus than just a spiritual leader;  we have a practical and effective leadership model for all generations, for all people, for all situations [xiii].  Discipleship sums up Christ’s plan for the world, says Watson [p. 18].  Together with the continuous renewing power of the Holy Spirit, this is our one real hope for the future.  Nothing else can save our present world from plunging headlong into despair and destruction.  God wants His church to be His agent in the healing of the whole creation.  He wants and calls people who are willing to dedicate their lives fully to Him to commit themselves to all other true Christians out of love for Him, and to present their bodies to Him as a living sacrifice for all that He wants to do in His world today.  That is what discipleship is all about [18].    

It is important that we recognize the unique feature of Christ’s call to discipleship.  He calls us to Himself, not simply to His teachings.  Note carefully: We are called to Himself!  The disciples on their journey to Emmaus were depressed, not because they had lost His teachings, but because they had lost Him! Knowing Him, experiencing deep fellowship with His spirit on a deep personal level was what formed the foundation of being His disciples.  On that basis His teachings were authoritative and on that authoritative basis were proclaimed.  That explains statements such as the following: 

1.  Acts 1: 9.  You will be my witnesses….

2.  Acts 2: 22, 32, 38.  Men of Israel, listen to me.  Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles , wonders and signs….God has raised this Jesus to life…and we are witnesses of the fact…God has made this Jesus…both Lord and Christ…Repent and be baptized everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins….

3.  Acts 4: 12.  Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

4.  Acts 10: 37, 38.  Peter says to Cornelius and his household and friends: You know…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how He went around doing good.

5.  In Eph 4: 20 Paul says, You, however, did not come to know Christ that way.

6.  In Ph 3: 10 he says, I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. 

Note the consistent focus: to know Christ Himself!  Ask yourself, as a Christian, How well do I know Jesus Christ personally?  How am I getting to know Him better and better?  It is important to know the Bible, but that is a means to an end, the end of knowing God--the Father, Son, Holy Spirit!!  To achieve this total knowledge, unity and fellowship, we are called to obey His teachings,  be what He was and do what he did.  In this way we practise being one with Him by being totally obedient to the degree that revolutionaries are.  

Discipleship is always absolutely unconditional.  We are His disciples by radical obedience, more radical than that of terrorists and revolutionaries, such as jihadists and Al Qaeda.  The disciple of Jesus Christ lays down his life for his Master who laid down His life for him/her.  This means a life of death to self, of sacrifice and simplicity, just like Jesus, who had no place to lay His head. 

Community

Discipleship means being called into full fellowship with the Trinity and with all other disciples.  God passionately loves the individual and calls us personally into the fellowship of community, as His family.  But above all and beyond anything we can experience on the level of earth,  He calls us into the Trinity, to participate in the divine nature and in the Divine Himself, in the Godhead!  This is the last word on fellowship and community!  There is nothing beyond that! 

Note also that God places priority on community and fellowship, in an age of self-worship,  loneliness and a self-love that is promoted as merited.  God’s church is His answer to human isolation, loneliness and self-deception.  By His dynamic, fatherly interaction with His disciples [teaching, caring, feeding, etc.], Jesus modeled how the church is to function, on both the horizontal and the vertical.  Of course, the foundation of that fellowship is not primarily Christ’s teachings, but knowing the Father personally [Jn 17: 3; Eph 4: 20, 21].  The disciples came to know Jesus in a deep intimate personal union, as in community they interacted with Him.  The early church caught this vision and left us an example that we should follow in their steps—Acts 2: 44-47; 4: 32.

DISCIPLESHIP MEANS TAKING UP MY CROSS TO FOLLOW HIM

Marks of the Discipleship Life

A.  Hardship and Suffering

Christians today, as obedient disciples of Jesus Christ, by definition and by nature, need to prepare ourselves for persecution, given the gathering clouds of radical Islam and such other threats as the drift of culture toward anti-Christianity.  The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s letter dated October 22, 2009, carries the headline: Allowed to be Christian?  What Will the Courts decide?  The letter goes on to say, I need to warn you that our religious freedoms continue to be at risk.  It also points out that Christian charities face their biggest threat ever—a threat to their right to be Christian.  This means that your church could be forbidden by law not to function as a distinctively Christian church, but as some form of inclusive community service—especially given the fact you are a charity and do not pay taxes as a place of worship.  We should strengthen ourselves, warns David Watson, in the time of peace and unite for the present, and the future. 

B.  Discipleship Means Having Christ’s Servant Spirit

The disciple must be a reproduction of Jesus Christ Himself, one in whom Jesus has reproduced Himself.  This means, among other things, that the Christian disciple must bear the following characteristics.

1.  Be willing to serve.  Jesus demonstrated this principle in washing the disciples feet.  Jn 13

2.  Learn to listen with your heart.  Peter, James and John learned this lesson on the Mount of Transfiguration [This is my beloved Son…Listen to Him], and by Christ’s repeated warning, He who has ears to hear let him hear. Lk 9: 35; Mt. 13: 9.  This quality marks the difference between the Martha principle and the Mary principle.  Lk 10: 38-42 records that Martha was distressed by all the preparations that had to be made while Mary  sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He had to say.  Jesus explained to Martha, You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen  what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

3.  Be willing to learn.  In Mt 16: 22-28, Peter had to be sternly rebuked to learn the necessity of Christ’s cross and resurrection.  Jesus had to go on to explain that the cross experience was in fact the foundation of discipleship for every follower.  These two lessons Peter had never to forget.

4.  Be willing to be corrected by honest criticism.  Mt 18: 15.

5.  Be willing to submit to authority and to God –appointed leadership.  1 Th 5: 12, 13;

Heb 13: 17

6.  Learn humility by following the principles of Ph 2: 3-11.  Examine your own life before criticizing others—Mt 7: 1-5—recognizing and owning your weaknesses [2 Co 12: 9, 10], being honest with yourself about yourself and your weaknesses—Jas 3: 1, 2; 1 Jn 1: 5-10.

7.  Be forgiving.  Mt 18: 21-35

8.  Be reliable.  1 Co 4: 2; Lk 16: 10-12

9.  Do little things well.  Col 3: 17

10. Maintain your focus on God.  Jn 12: 43; Jn 5: 30; 8: 29; Lk 18: 1-8; Acts 6: 2-4 

11. Obey God immediately.  Lk 5: 4-9

C. The Discipleship Lifestyle

The true disciple maintains a simple and sacrificial lifestyle, remembering his Master who said, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head—Lk 9: 58.

Discipleship is marked by strict, unquestioning obedience of the Master.  When He says, Let down you nets for a catch, though it may make no sense to the disciple, he obeys.  When He says, Follow me; go and proclaim the kingdom of God, after saying, The Son of Man has no place to lay His head, the disciple obeys.  When He says, Sell your possessions and give to the poor, the disciple sells and gives, adjusting his own lifestyle accordingly.  

Where our treasure is our heart focus is also.  Material and other worldly possessions tend to turn our hearts away from Jesus.  The disciple is single-mindedly focused on Jesus, by requirement.  And Jesus never compromises.  He demands absolute obedience.  This obedience frees us from covetousness and the tyranny of things.  Christ is the absolute preoccupation of the disciple.  He is Lord, absolute controller, as well as Saviour.

D.  Faith as Discipleship Lifestyle

When Christ is my sharp focus, I trust Him to supply all my needs.  This trust protects us from worry and the tension of anxiety [Mt 6: 25-34; Ph 4].  As we trust Him to supply in the needs of daily life, so we can trust Him to supply in our spiritual ministry.  Note that the most vital expression of Christianity today is among the poor, those who have been spared the affluence of the West.  This includes slum dwellers in places such as India and Egypt. 

E.  Discipleship Marked by Integrity

This approach to discipleship makes disciples people of holy and divine integrity.  So Paul could say what he said in 2 Co 2: 17; 4: 1, 2; 6: 3; 7: 2; 1 Th 1: 5; 2: 9. Satisfaction in Jesus saves from many influences that destroy character.  E.g., 1 T 6: 8, 9.  So Paul enjoined that a Christian leader must not be greedy for money—1 T 3: 3, 8; Titus 1: 7.  Christian leaders must be fully led by death to self and self-interest and personal material or popularity gain, so we will hear the Lord’s Well done!  Jesus Himself is always our model!   

F. Discipleship Marked by Identification.

As Christ fully identified with us in His becoming human [Incarnation], so the Christian must identify with the world [without being polluted by its evil].  Like Paul, we must become all things to all men that by all possible means we may save some.  1 Co 9: 19-23.  If we are to engage in effective evangelism and compassionate service, we must operate by this principle.  We must redemptively identify with and liberate the poor, as did Jesus and the apostles, in the power of the Spirit.  Acts 3: 1-10.  The spirit of sharing and generosity that characterized the Jerusalem church was rewarded by God with great spiritual power to save.  They had been faithful in little and were rewarded with true riches.  In our church lifestyle [buildings, worship, etc.], we need to identify with the poor in order to preach and for the purpose of preaching the good news to them.  This means that we must be extremely careful not to compromise the Truth and purpose of the Gospel in our identifying with and ministering to the world of sinners.  We must be extremely careful whom we accept gifts, especially large financial gifts, from.  We must be clear about the motives and agenda of the giver.  Gifts and grants can mean control. As Catholic schools have found, government funds mean government control over their distinctive moral standards.  Also, gifts can weaken the recipient.  Working for what you need strengthens one.  Getting something for nothing can be very dangerous.  Wonder why Eatons no longer exists. Could it be that the first generation worked hard, then handed the fruits to the next generation who had not earned it by hard work?  Always maintain the integrity of the gospel, especially in your attempt to serve the world.  We serve the world best by giving Christ and His gospel to them. Salvation is the greatest of the unsaved poor.  The best gift to those in any kind of need is Jesus Christ. Besides, we must always remember the instruction of the apostle James, in 1: 27, Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  This means taking care of needy Believers and living in spiritual purity. 

G.  Love as the Foundation of Discipleship

Love must be the foundation and controlling factor in the life of the disciple.  Our love drives us to save others, support others, and like a magnet our love draws people to Jesus.  It is the most powerful evidence of the God of love. 

Our love must be expressed in sacrificial giving.  Jn 3: 16; Acts 4: 32-34; 6: 1-7. As disciples of Christ sacrificed for oneanother, evangelism prospered.  Sacrificial love for fellow Believers spills over into evangelistic fruit among the outside population.  1 Jn 3: 17; Acts 11: 27-30.  Western Christians must submit their hearts and possessions, especially money, to Christ, giving sacrificially, as in Third World Christianity, where persecution purifies and liberates Believers.  In this way, Western disciples will pose a prophetic challenge to our affluent society. 

We need to live on enough, being satisfied with food and clothing [and housing], giving the rest away for every good work.  1 T. 6: 8.   In this way the local church becomes a magnet and in automatic evangelism draws sinners to the Saviour.  The N. T. Church is our example.  Perhaps the first step, in terms of priority, not necessarily time, in evangelism, is to develop a magnetic church.   

When others see that our faith really means something, in practical and material ways, then the good news of Jesus Christ will be very much more than religious words. Of course, our spirits are liberated to live like this only when the bomb of the Holy Spirit explodes in us in Pentecostal dimensions.  1 John 3: 18 says, Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  Paul puts it this way in 1 Co 4: 20, For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 

CONCLUSION

There is no call more crucial and urgent today than  the call to discipleship.  There is no action more crucial for the eternal survival of mankind and the future of the world than answering the call in obedience.  The safety and salvation of the entire world depends on it. 

I urge and encourage you to respond to this word from the Lord in the light of  Heb 2: 1-3. 

We must pay more careful attention therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.  For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? 

Meditate on Col 3: 23, 24.  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving.  

DEATH TO SELF: FOUNDATIONAL TO DISCIPLESHIP

Read carefully the following Scriptures:  Matthew 10: 37-39.  Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 

 Mark 8: 34-38; Luke 9: 23-26 

Luke  9: 57-62.  As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus replied, “foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  He said to another man, “Follow me.”  But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.”  Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” 

 Luke 14: 25-35; John 10: 23-26; Romans 6; Colossians 3: 1-3; 2 Timothy 2: 11-13. 

The Basic Idea is:  Absolute, total, unconditional surrender to Christ as prerequisite for discipleship, as well as the basis of authority and way to power and true and lasting success.  

Text: Luke 9: 23 [Mark 8: 34]. Then He said to them all, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 

Introduction: An Exploration of the Idea of “Deny”

Jude 1: 3-4  says, Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.  For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you.  They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. 

These apostates disowned Christ as sovereign Lord, saying Jesus Christ was not God.  The passage agrees with 2 P 2:1, But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.  They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them…. Those who deny Christ will not submit their lives to His lordship. 

Titus 1: 16 speaks of those who claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him.  Personal conduct shows that they do not regard Christ as Lord.  They actually totally reject Him. 

In Acts 4, at the trial of Peter and John, the council admitted, Everybody living in Jerusalem   knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it [v. 16].  We cannot say the miracle did not happen. 

To deny means to say No!  In Luke 22 our Lord warned Simon, I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.  The fulfillment of this prophecy is described in Luke 22: 54-62, in a section the NIV titles, Peter Disowns Jesus.  Peter told the servant girl, Woman, I don’t know Him.  Then he told a man,  Man, I am not one of them, meaning one of Jesus’ disciples.  An hour later, he told another man, Man, I don’t know what you are talking about!   

Matthew  explains that the second time, Peter denied with an oath that he knew Jesus.  The third time he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”  This is a very emphatic form of denial. 

These passages suggest that to deny means to totally reject, to say an emphatic NO to, to refuse to be controlled by, to not know, to disown; essentially to die to. 

Definition

The New Testament word deny means

a)  to say…not, to contradict, to fail to confess.  John 1: 20 says that when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to question John the Baptist about his identity, He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”  John did not deny.

b)  to disown a person.  Our Lord clarifies this in Mt 10: 32, 33. 

Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also will acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. 

See Matthew 7: 21-23.  Luke 12: 9 puts it this way:  But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.  2 Tim 2: 12 warns that if we disown Him He also will disown us. 

One can deny Christ by falling away from the faith, following and teaching lies, and by immorality.  2 Peter 2: 1 warns, 

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.  They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 

c)  to deny oneself in the good sense of disregarding one’s own interests.    In its stronger form, it means to deny utterly, to affirm that one has no connection with a person.  This we see in Peter’s denial of Jesus: I  know not the man.  It means to deny oneself as a follower of Christ—as we find in Luke 9: 23.  To say of self what Peter said of Jesus: As far as my commitment to Christ is concerned, I do not know me!   To deny oneself means to put oneself last, to focus totally on the object of your commitment, regardless of  cost to self.  It is essentially to say and live the declaration, I do not know myself; I know only Jesus Christ  See Philippians 3:7-14.  It means to completely identify with Jesus Christ, copying Him, as described in Ph 2: 5-8. It means complete death to self. 

Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but make Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross. 

Application

To deny self is to die completely to self, ego, self interest, life, etc. and become totally immersed in God Himself, God’s cause, just as a soldier posted to Afghanistan leaves his family behind to fight for the prosperity of people he does not know.  Knowing he may not return alive!  It is total surrender of everything to Christ.  It is illustrated in the hymns, Take My Life and I Surrender All.   The first has the declarations:  Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to thee.  Take my moments and my days—Let them flow in ceaseless praise.  Take my hands, Take my feet, Take my voice, take my lips, Take my silver and my gold—my money and  investments—Take my intellect and use Every power as Thou shalt choose.  Take my will and make it Thine—It shall be no longer mine.  Take my heart—it is Thine own.  It shall be Thy royal throne.  Take my love—my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure store; Take myself—and I will be Ever, only, all for Thee.  That’s denying self!  That’s death to self!  That’s being immersed in and to live only for Jesus Christ. 

The second hymn, I Surrender All, affirms the same principle.  All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and serve Him, In His presence daily life.  I surrender all, all to thee, my blessed Saviour, I surrender all.  All to Jesus I surrender.  Humbly at His feet I bow.  Worldly pleasures all forsaken, take me Jesus, take me now.  Make me, Saviour, wholly Thine.  May Thy Holy Spirit fill me, May I  know Thy power divine.  Lord, I give myself to Thee.  Fill me with Thy love and power. Let Thy blessing fall on me. 

All Christian martyrs and sufferers for the faith incarnate this basic non-optional principle of denial of self, and taking up one’s cross.  We see this, for example, in Acts 20: 22-24, as well as Ph. 3: 7-11 [which we will treat separately, later].  First, let us remind ourselves of what the Lord says in Acts 21: 12, 13. 

When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem.  Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart?  I am ready not  only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. 

That is what Jesus means by denying self! This is taking up one’s cross to follow Christ.  This response of Paul follows his affirmation in Acts 20: 22-24. 

And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.  I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.  However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace. 

That is to deny self, to surrender one’s life totally to the service of God like a soldier on the front lines, fully conscious that you could be killed.  But if you are, it will be in obedience to the Master’s will, in keeping with the terms of your enlistment in His army, the territory of the covenant.  That is what Jesus means by denying oneself.  ARE YOU THERE YET?

TAKE UP HIS CROSS

Luke adds, and take up his cross daily…. The background idea was that the condemned criminal would carry the cross beam, of the cross on which he would be executed, to the place of execution and death.  Jesus was demanding of His disciples the same absolute devotion and commitment to the point of death that He demonstrated in His ministry and would show in the end as He faced the cross. All through His life, because of His total commitment to the Father and to Truth, He was a hunted man, accused, abused, opposed, attacked, threatened, doubted and in the end rejected and executed like a common criminal by a miscarriage of justice.  But He kept His face and His focus like a flint, never thinking of neglecting or compromising devotion to His purpose.  Course through the Gospel of John and see it.

1.  In John 5  Jesus healed a man who had been an invalid for 38 years.  The healing took place on the Sabbath. So because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, The Jews persecuted Him—v. 16.  Jesus kept His face focused on His ministry, regardless!  He told them, My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too, am working. For this they tried all the harder to kill Him; not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. Every day He literally took His life in His hands in order to be obedient to the Father, but Jesus simply kept proclaiming Truth and pursuing His mission. 

John 6: 66 reports that when Jesus explained the foundational principle of His incarnating of life, as the bread of Life, that is the only Source of Life, Many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him.  Jesus did not run after them but confronted the Twelve, You do not want to leave too, do you?—V. 67.

In John 7: 19 Jesus asked, Why are you trying to kill me?  “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered.  “Who is trying to kill you?”  Chapter 5 verse 18 records that the Jews tried harder to kill Him.  7: 25 says the people of Jerusalem asked, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill?  In v. 30 they tried to seize Him, and v. 32 says the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest Him.  He carried His cross every day.  

In John 8: 1ff they brought to Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery, using the law of Moses to trap Him in order to have a basis for accusing Him –v. 6.  In Jn 10: 31 the Jews picked up stones to stone Him.   After the raising of Lazarus, the Jews plotted even more earnestly to kill Jesus—11: 53. Even among the Twelve was one who plotted against Him—12: 4.  Jesus knew that Judas would betray Him—13: 18ff—which was fulfilled in His arrest, trial and crucifixion.  So all through His ministry Jesus carried His cross—daily!  Since the servant is not greater than his lord, and since the disciple is not greater than his Master, the disciple must take up his cross daily and follow! 

2.  The Synoptics also describe our Lord’s daily carrying His cross. From His very birth, according to Matthew 2 and Luke 2: 33-35, the cross hung over His head.  In the Temptations [Mt 4: 1-11; Lk 4: 1-13] the source of His threats and suffering was revealed, Satan himself.  Luke 4  goes on to record that at the very start of His ministry He was rejected in His home town, and in Mt 14: 57 they took offense at Him, as did the Pharisees in Mt 15: 10-12. 

In Mt 12 the Pharisees attacked His Sabbath principles and behaviour.  V. 14 reports that the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus [Mk 2: 23-28; Mk 3: 1-6; Lk 6: 1-11.  In Mt. 12: 22ff [Mark 3: 23-27; Lk 11: 17-22], after the healing of the demon-possessed blind mute, the Pharisees accused Jesus of being an agent of Satan, casting out demons by the power of Satan. In Mt 16: 1 [Mk 8: 11] the Pharisees and Sadducees tested Him.  The question about divorce [Mt 19: 1-3; Mk 10: 1-2] was to test Him so they could accuse Him.  The Pharisees were at it again.  After His cleansing the Temple, following His triumphal Entry [Mt 21: 15, 16; Mk 11: 18], the chief priests and teachers of the law...began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared Him. 

In Mt 21: 23 [Mk 11: 27-28; Lk 20: 1-2] the chief priests and elders demanded to know by what authority He was operating [His credentials].  Their question about paying taxes to Caesar was a trap laid by the Pharisees [Mt 22: 15-18; Mk 12: 13-15; Lk 20: 20-23].  The Sadducees’ question about marriage in the resurrection [Mt 22: 23-28; Mk 12: 18-27; Lk 20: 27-40] and the Pharisees’ question about the greatest commandment [Mt 22: 34-36; Mk 12: 28-31] had the same pernicious intent. The whole process finally climaxed in the plot against Jesus, His betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, denial of His resurrection and persecution of the apostles—Mt. 26 – 28; Mk 14-16; Lk 22-24; John 18-21; Acts 4: 4-28.   

Every generation of Christians repeats the process, walking in the footsteps of our Master.  Every single Believer must commit himself to the same vocation, taking up his cross as a follower of the Christ.  This is basic to what it means to be a Christian, taking up the cross daily, as lifestyle. 

But what is it to take up my cross, really?  The cross was an instrument of death.  It therefore means being committed to obedience, even if it means being killed or dying as a result of faithfulness.  It is similar to obeying my commander by going to the front lines to attack the enemy.  I could get killed, but that is the life of a soldier on active duty in a war zone.  It means that as a medical person I could contract the disease for which I treat a patient.  But that is what it means to be a health care professional.  Daily, in the course of my professional life, I risk, in obedience.  So I could lose my job or my life for my Christian obedience.  I could lose my family or friends, or both.  Converts from Islam prove this every day.  Muslin Background Believers face death daily.  They know ahead of time that if they repent and submit to Christ they will be rejected, ostracized and driven out or killed by their own families.  They have to go into hiding and seek protection from other Believers.  This is taking up one’s cross to follow Jesus.  As the NIV comment on Luke 9: 23 says, Disciples from Galilee knew what the cross meant, for hundreds of men had been executed by this means in their region. 

Luke emphasizes the daily, regular, ongoing nature of this commandment.  It cannot be intermittent.  Any day the disciple may be called upon to pay the ultimate price.  Any day the soldier may step on a landmine, be fired upon or ambushed.  Daily you commit.  Any day the nurse or surgeon may be infected.  Most days nothing happens, but any day it could happen.  So each day you obey Christ you may ask, Could this be the day? And proceed accordingly, prepared! 

This means heightened alertness, ears pricked to hear God’s voice and life’s warnings, even the enemy’s threats; certainly the latest intelligence.  It means living on the highest level of alertness, preparedness, awareness, both ears toward your Great Commander’s voice.  It means being always alert to opportunity for witnessing, even if there is danger in the situation. 

Satan was not afraid to use his opportunity to compromise Eve and Adam, though he knew the danger to himself and his angels.  If Satan does it, and he does all the time, why should not the disciple of Christ in his/her universe?  Daily we must pray, daily fellowship with the Holy Spirit, daily sharpen our tools, daily obey, daily die to self. 

The heart of the apostle Paul grasped our Lord’s meaning. See 1 Co 15: 31; 2 Co 11: 29.  In 2 Co 11: 29 Paul says, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.  In addition to his daily thorn in the body was his daily burden of concern and responsibility for the churches.  Believers who fell into sin and those who were weak in faith he daily carried on his heart in intense spiritual and emotional pain. 

More specifically, in 1 Co 15: 31 he says,  I die every day—I mean it, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord.  He continually risked his life in self-sacrificing ministry, in obedience to Christ.  Any day he could be attacked physically.  He was in daily and hourly danger.  But we should go back to 2 Co 11 and note vv. 23-28. 

I have been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.  Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.  Three times I was beaten with rods.  Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked.  I spent a night and a day on the open sea. I have been constantly on the move.  I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers.  I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food.  I have been cold and naked.

Talk about taking up one’s cross daily!  What a catalogue of daily threats, death threats!  Daily death threats!  All these conditions were life-threatening.  Eight floggings, 5 by Jews, 3 by Roman authorities, who flogged him with rods, despite his legal protection against such treatment, being a Roman citizen.  Stoning was the traditional Jewish form of execution. Three shipwrecks, probably apart from the one mentioned in Acts 27: 39-44. 

Canadian Christians are coming ever closer to experiencing the cost of discipleship, as Human Rights Commissions rule against us.  Hefty financial fines are being imposed in defense of political correctness. Churches in the USA are being threatened with loss of tax exempt status.  Christian charities [e.g., in Britain] are being forced to close, for the same reason [perhaps God is forcing us back to the Great Commission, to which He called us in the first place—as our #1, perhaps our only task].  Individual Believers in the West are moving ever closer to the experience of the Hebrews, as described in Heb 10: 32-34. 

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering.  Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions 

[treasures in heaven:  as our Lord promises in Mt 6: 25-34; 1 P 4: 15]. 

The apostle goes on to encourage the suffering Believers [35, 36] as follows: 

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.  You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. 

ARE YOU THERE YET?  There is no other way to be a Christian.  Choose this day whether or not you will respond to Christ’s call to discipleship!

  DEATH TO SELF OR DEATH OF SELF:

THE CASE OF THE RICH YOUNG RULER

Context: Mark 10: 17-27. Recommendation: Read the passage in the Message translation.

Focus: Mark 10: 21. Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” He said. “Go sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.”

Exploration

This young man was obviously motivated, on the basis of his perceptions, to know the way to salvation. He ran up to Jesus, fell on his knees in worship, and asked Jesus, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus challenged him to go further and recognize that He was God. He was correct in calling Him good, but since only God was truly good, he should go on to recognize that Jesus was God Incarnate, and that only God could provide the gift and inheritance of eternal life.

That he used the word inherit is significant. He apparently was focused on the how of earning eternal life, yet spoke of eternal life as an inheritance. An inheritance is never earned. It is a gift. The child inherits what the father provides in his will. So one gains eternal life by the will of God. One’s inheritance of eternal life is totally dependent on having one’s hope placed in God’s grace. Only God can give eternal life, as only the father can give the inheritance, being in control of the gift. Eternal life is a gift, not wages. As Jesus says in v. 15, Any one who will not receive the kingdom like a little child will never enter it.