“Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” John 16:32
Abandonment and loneliness are among the most dreaded human experiences. No one wants to be alone in a time of crisis. Whether it is a neighbor, a relative, or just a good friend, human hearts crave companionship in the midst of difficulties. This innate impulse was not absent from the Lord Jesus, who is “God manifest in the flesh,” yet also a perfect man (1 Tim. 3:16; 1 Tim. 2:5.)
On the night before Christ’s crucifixion, His disciples were perplexed and troubled about His repeated statements that He was about to leave them (e.g. Jn. 14:2; Jn. 16:16.) Their fears focused on their personal situation, not so much on what He would endure. What would life be like without Jesus around to guide and protect them? Given that they had left their old lives to follow Him, this sort of talk naturally disturbed them (Matt. 19:27.) Yet the real horror of the coming day would be experienced by the Master, not His followers. His abandonment by the disciples would merely be the beginning of sorrows for the Suffering Servant (Isa. 53:3.)
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Author: krkeyser
The Death Of A Son
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Romans 8:32
The well-known boxing promoter Bob Arum recently lost his son, John, in a climbing accident on Storm King Mountain in Washington state. Although his public persona normally exudes the bravado associated with the boxing world, Arum’s feelings were poignantly revealed to the New York Times interviewer by this statement: “When you lose a child, I don’t care what anybody tells you, you lose part of yourself…It does not get easier over time.”
His words express just a small portion of the tremendous sorrow of a parent losing a beloved child. Mr. Arum was close to his son. They shared a common profession as lawyers, and loved to fish and watch the New York Giants football team. Like his father, John was a driven person, passionate about certain causes such as environmentalism. In keeping with his love of nature, he was an ardent mountaineer, but this dangerous hobby led to his death. His father disliked this arduous form of recreation, always dreading the day when he would hear of a fall. The reporter continues the tale: “Shortly after John Arum’s death, Bob Arum vented to his family, asked the questions everybody asks. How could he have done this? Put himself in that position?
To which Richard told his father: ‘Because he’s just like you.’” The same drive that made him a success in professional life also impelled him to brave great dangers in following his interests.
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Guest post: Repentance – By: Jim McKendrick
“Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”Acts 20:21
The gospel is the heart of the Christian message. Without the gospel Christianity has nothing of value to offer this world. The world can attain a certain degree of health, education and welfare but only the gospel offers true hope beyond this world and changes people so they can be a help to others in this world. If we get the gospel wrong we have no real message. Paul would take this further by saying if we get this message wrong then we are accursed (Gal. 1:8.) He told the Ephesian elders the message he preached both publicly and from house to house was “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is my observation both personally and by reading others that one of the characteristics of the gospel that is sadly missing or misunderstood today is the first aspect of the preaching of the gospel – repentance toward God. If we fail to understand repentance then we have a nonexistent belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. For if we do not repent then there is no need for, nor understanding of, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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In Memorium: DMK
The memory of the righteous is blessed,
But the name of the wicked will rot. Prov. 10:7
The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, if it is found in the way of righteousness. Prov. 16:31
If she were on earth, today would be my paternal grandmother’s 99th birthday. Happily, she is with the Lord. Of course people often assume that their loved one is in “a better place.” But I rest on something greater than wishful thinking or sentimental notions of the afterlife. My assurance that Dorothy Keyser is with her Creator stems from the clear teaching of the Bible. Consider these words: “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved'” (Rom. 10:9-13.) As a teenage girl, my grandmother confessed Jesus as her risen Lord & Savior in this way; thus, as a born again believer in Christ she is described by 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 as being with Him: “So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”
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Let Freedom Ring: Studies in Galatians, Part 5
“But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” Galatians 1:11-14
The contemporary scene is saturated with divergent worldviews and truth-claims. How may one discern truth from error – the counterfeit from the genuine article? Is there one truth or are there many truths that are equally valid? Is truth merely subject to personal preference or cultural background?
Paul provides the answer by pointing to his personal history: God revealed the truth to him. Because Jesus’ messianic claims did not agree with Paul’s rabbinic training, he was culturally predisposed to reject this supposed Christ. Nevertheless, the resurrected and glorified Jesus vindicated both His Lordship and His position as the Christ by appearing to the insolent persecutor on the Damascus highway. The truth was validated in a historical manifestation of Christ’s person in time and space. It created a marked change, transforming the persecutor into a preacher. The Pauline gospel came by direct revelation, and so was unadulterated by human philosophy or religion. As Vine says: “[It is] not of man’s device, not even in harmony with man’s ideas. The interpretation put upon the facts of the gospel by the Judaizers was ‘after man,’ human alike in its origin and its object.”
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Guest Post: A Gem from the past
Since I’m on the road, & unable to post a new article, I present this excellent meditation on John 8:1-11 by the 19th century Bible teacher, John Nelson Darby. JND is notoriously difficult to read, but this piece is remarkably lucid. This version comes from biblecentre.org . Enjoy!
“A Just God & A Saviour”
There is in all persons a certain knowledge of good and evil; such and such things they say are good, and such and such things are evil. But perhaps no two persons fix exactly the same standard either of good or evil. What people do is to fix such a standard of good as they can come up to themselves, and such a standard of evil as shall just exclude themselves, and include others.
For instance, the drunkard thinks there is no great harm in drinking, but would consider it a great sin to steal. The covetous man, who is every day perhaps practising some cheating or deception “in the way of trade,” satisfies himself by thinking “it is necessary and customary to do so in business, and at all events I do not get drunk or curse and swear as others do.” The profligate person prides himself upon being generous and kind-hearted to others, or, as he says, “he does nobody any harm but himself” The upright moral man, and the domestic amiable man, satisfies himself with doing what he calls his duty, and looks round and pities the open sinners that he sees; but he never considers how many an evil thought, how many a sinful desire, he may have cherished, unknown to others, in his bosom: and that God judges the heart, though man looks only at the outward conduct.
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War & Remembrance
“And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.” Hebrews 11:32-40 [Emphasis mine]
An elderly woman, who lived a solitary life in southeastern England died quietly in her home on September 2, 2010. Except for a few singular items that she left behind, her passing would have been utterly unremarkable to anyone not related to her or counted among her small circle of friends and neighbors. Among her meager possessions were high honors from the British & French governments. As one newspaper notes: “Indeed, after dying alone…89-year-old Eileen Nearne was to be laid to rest with few – if any – mourners expected at her funeral. Yet neighbours and council officials were stunned when they found out that Eileen Nearne had been a British spy who had plotted behind enemy lines during much of the Second World War.”
Although she had been scheduled for the equivalent of a pauper’s burial, veterans associations intervened when the extent of her bravery and service during the Second World War were revealed to the astonished public. One obituary comments on the funeral thus: “Her coffin arrived draped in the British and French flags, as befits a hero who was awarded both the British MBE and the French Croix de Guerre. Buglers from Britain and France played the Last Post as the coffin left the church.” This heroine lived the bulk of her life unrecognized for patriotism, her devotion to victory, and willingness to suffer so that others might live in free societies. Likewise, many of God’s choice saints have labored, lived, and died in anonymity. The courageous exploits and faith of others are unknown or forgotten even among professional historians. Nevertheless, Hebrews 11 makes it clear that the Lord remembers each, and has reserved them for the better things that the saints collectively enjoy in Christ (Heb. 11:40.)
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War & Remembrance
“And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.” Hebrews 11:32-40 [Emphasis mine]
An elderly woman, who lived a solitary life in southeastern England died quietly in her home on September 2, 2010. Except for a few singular items that she left behind, her passing would have been utterly unremarkable to anyone not related to her or counted among her small circle of friends and neighbors. Among her meager possessions were high honors from the British & French governments. As one newspaper notes: “Indeed, after dying alone…89-year-old Eileen Nearne was to be laid to rest with few – if any – mourners expected at her funeral. Yet neighbours and council officials were stunned when they found out that Eileen Nearne had been a British spy who had plotted behind enemy lines during much of the Second World War.”
Although she had been scheduled for the equivalent of a pauper’s burial, veterans associations intervened when the extent of her bravery and service during the Second World War were revealed to the astonished public. One obituary comments on the funeral thus: “Her coffin arrived draped in the British and French flags, as befits a hero who was awarded both the British MBE and the French Croix de Guerre. Buglers from Britain and France played the Last Post as the coffin left the church.” This heroine lived the bulk of her life unrecognized for patriotism, her devotion to victory, and willingness to suffer so that others might live in free societies. Likewise, many of God’s choice saints have labored, lived, and died in anonymity. The courageous exploits and faith of others are unknown or forgotten even among professional historians. Nevertheless, Hebrews 11 makes it clear that the Lord remembers each, and has reserved them for the better things that the saints collectively enjoy in Christ (Heb. 11:40.)
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Secular Idolatry
Try as they might, modern naturalists are unable to escape the concept of God. A quote from Stony Brook University’s late evolutionary theorist Dr. George C. Williams demonstrates this tendency:
Though a major expositor of evolutionary theory, Dr. Williams was always aware that his explanations were a work in progress and that they might in principle be superseded by better ones. Evolutionary theory, as stated by its great 20th-century masters Ronald Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane and Sewall Wright, ‘may not, in any absolute sense, represent the truth,’ Dr. Williams wrote at the conclusion of his book on adaptation, ‘but I am convinced that it is the light and the way.’
In suppressing the truth of God, who is the true Creator, he ascribed divine attributes to unthinking, impersonal natural forces. The Lord Jesus Christ – “the way, the truth, and the life” – is supplanted by created things (Jn. 14:6); elsewhere He is called “the light of the world” (Jn. 8:12.) In essence, this is secular idolatry: assigning divine qualities to natural phenomena. For men to do this is nothing new, for Romans 1:25 details mankind’s past departure from the knowledge of their Maker: “[they]…exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”
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Let Freedom Ring: Thoughts On Galatians – Part 4
“As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” Galatians 1:9-10.
When is a gospel not a gospel? According to Galatians the answer is: “When someone tampers with the original gospel given to the apostles by Christ.” Paul declares that the new message being proclaimed by the Judaizers in their midst was a gospel of a fundamentally different type (vv. 6-7.) Its proponents apparently referred to it as a “gospel,” yet it was not actually “good news” for it could not deal with man’s sin problem or satisfy the holy God. Instead it was a message tailored to human preferences, calculated to win over spiritually undiscerning and fleshly religionists. It had a veneer of morality and Biblicism, but it was a counterfeit gospel. Pleasing God or pleasing men is the fulcrum on which a true message stands or falls. The genuine gospel enables the Judge of all the earth to righteously forgive, justify, and reconcile sinful people to Himself. False variations on the glad tidings merely enhance the religious reputations and self-righteous pride of deluded, fallen men.
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