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Do you come across Bible passages that give you pause? Passages that are really hard to wrap your brain around?
There's a reason for that. Of late, people have shaped Scripture into what they want it to mean, rather than letting Scripture shape their way of thinking. That has led a lot of folks to have a really hard time with some basic Bible truths.
So we're going to pull no punches and let Scripture be the show. More Scripture is packed in here than ever before, because these truths need it.
The Six Tough Bible Truths
- The power of God's Word
- Following Christ is costly
- Making disciples
- God hates
- Bad things come from God
- God is sovereign
Let's run through them one by one.
Tough Bible Truth #1: The Power of God's Word
Key Scriptures: Ezekiel 36:26 · Jeremiah 31:33 · 2 Timothy 3:16-17 · Titus 3:3-7 · Hebrews 4:12
The Buffet Line
We have exchanged what the power of God is. We no longer find it in God's Word.
We don't look at Scripture as a whole. We look at it like a buffet: pick through it, take what we want, and stop when we've had enough and don't want any more.
That is not how God's Word is supposed to be absorbed, read, and studied. It's supposed to be more like when Mom set down dinner and you had to eat everything on your plate, because even the things you didn't like were good for you. She made you eat them. Otherwise, how would you make the Clean Plate Club? That was a big deal at six or seven years old.
That is how Scripture is supposed to be approached. All of it, even the parts you'd rather push to the side of the plate.
Parlor Tricks Are Not the Power of God
Today we no longer look to God's Word as a source of power. Instead, we treat the Holy Spirit as our power, as if God's power were a life force, a kind of spiritual energy that gives us the ability to do stupid little parlor tricks: miracles and healings, leg strengthening, being slain in the Spirit, those types of things.
This is a complete perversion of the power of God's Word.
The power of God's Word is meant to change our hearts and change our minds. That's where the power takes place. Not on a stage, not in a spectacle, but in the heart.
So let's look into God's Word and see how that happens.
A New Heart
"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."
Ezekiel 36:26
And somewhere along the line, I'll have Todd White lengthen your legs.
No, wait. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say that at all.
There's a heart change that takes place. Stone comes out; flesh goes in. So the question becomes how? How is He going to remove the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh?
Written on the Heart
"For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord: "I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people."
Jeremiah 31:33
There you go. That's the covenant. He writes His Word on the hearts of His people, and that is how the transforming power takes place. It takes place through the Word of God.
He puts the law in our hearts. He writes it there. All of that language refers to the Word of God. The thing that changes our hearts isn't an experience or a feeling or a show. It's His Word, written on us.
Training in Righteousness
"All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work."
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Oh, I love a good rebuke.
It's right there in the verse. God's Word teaches, rebukes, corrects, and does all these things for what? For our training. It trains us in righteousness. There's that transforming power of God's Word again.
Notice it says all Scripture, not just the buffet items we like. This runs throughout the whole of Scripture:
- All Scripture trains us.
- All Scripture sanctifies us and teaches us.
- All of it changes us.
Not Because We're So Cool
Titus 3:3-7 is a life verse worth sharing with everyone who'll listen.
"For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He richly poured out upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior."
Titus 3:3-6
My favorite part: not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness.
Verse 6 doesn't say He poured out the Spirit on us because we're so cool. It doesn't say it was because we got it right, as if we played spiritual three-card monte and found the queen. No. It had nothing to do with us. He poured it out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
The Holy Spirit enables us to understand the Word of God. But the key phrase is when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared. We don't see that today, because Christ doesn't walk the earth today. It happened a long time ago. But when we read about it in the Scriptures, there is power in those words and in the story of Christ coming and redeeming us through His sacrifice on the cross.
The Spirit and the Word aren't competing sources of power. The Spirit opens our eyes, and the Word is what we see. So absolutely, it is the power of God's Word.
Sharper Than Any Two-Edged Sword
"For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart."
Hebrews 4:12
Christian brother and sister, it's not so much what you do. It's the intention of your heart when you're doing that thing.
Think that through, and hold onto it on your daily journey.
God's Word exposes our innermost desires and feelings. That's what it does, and that is the power of God. It doesn't make us jump higher. It doesn't make us better cooks. Those are things human beings just do. But it definitely refines the heart. It sanctifies the heart. It's alive, and it's working in us.
"I'm Okay. It's Everybody Else."
Our default setting is the real problem: we don't think we need to be changed.
I'm okay. I don't need to change. It's everybody else around me. If everybody else would change, and our circumstances would change, then I'd be right as rain.
Yeah. If it just wasn't for all those others.
No. That's the battle. We have to live in the world and deal with the world, and the power of God sanctifies us so we can navigate it and do just that. The Word doesn't change everyone around us first. It starts with us.
That, my friend, is the power of God's Word.
Tough Bible Truth #2: Following Christ Is Costly
Key Scriptures: Luke 9:23 · Luke 14:33 · 1 Timothy 6:6 · Proverbs 3:6 · Job 1:21 · Deuteronomy 6:16 · 1 Peter 4:13 · John 16:33
Where the Bummer Train Meets the Hope of the Heart
This is where the bummer train meets the hope of the heart.
You have this hope in your heart that Jesus is going to come and make everything better. And a lot of false teachers out there tell you that if you just have enough faith, if you just plant your seed, if you just do this, if you speak the truth into your life, it'll all come together.
There's a little bit of truth in all of that. But when they take it so far out of context, it puts everything back on your shoulders, and you never think following Christ is going to be costly. You don't think persecution is coming your way. You think it's coming to somebody else.
Free Salvation, Costly Discipleship
We know salvation is free. And salvation is free. You did nothing to earn it.
But following Christ comes with a cost, and we want to make the cost of following Christ as easy, or as free, as accepting salvation. Those are two totally different things. One is a gift you receive. The other is a road you walk, and the road costs something.
"And He was saying to them all, 'If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.'"
Luke 9:23
Ha.
That "take up the cross" part is kind of a bummer. But the whole "deny myself" thing? What's that about? No one told me about that when I signed up.
Denying self is probably the hardest part of hearing that verse. Everything in our culture says find yourself, express yourself, be true to yourself. Jesus says deny yourself.
An Instrument of Death
What does taking up the cross mean? It's a theme throughout Scripture, and in a nutshell, the cross is an instrument of death.
Jesus hadn't died on the cross yet when He said this, but His listeners understood exactly what a cross was. They were very aware of how crucifixion worked. They knew what He meant by "take up your cross," and it wasn't a comfortable thought.
It means you deny yourself to the point where you give up this life for the next. You follow Him, and you let Him make your path straight (Proverbs 3:6).
That doesn't mean you won't make mistakes. It doesn't mean you won't stumble or do things out of context and out of character from time to time, depending on how you're walking with Christ and what's going on in your circumstances. But with the cross, you slay yourself, your desires, and your will every day, especially after they've bubbled up and caused you problems along the way. That happens to all of us in the ebb and flow of any given month, any given quarter, any given year. It's just part of the deal.
We tend to glaze over the phrase now. Pick up my cross and follow Him? Oh, I might have to drive a used car.
That's not the cross. The cross is death to self, daily.
Go Make a Movie About Contentment
If you want to see what that cost looks like, go ahead and make a movie called Contentment with Godliness Is Great Gain Is the Secret Meaning of Life (1 Timothy 6:6).
Four different people attached to that project have had bad stuff happen to them. Seriously bad. The two principals, the director and the cinematographer, have been pounded in so many ways:
- Mostly family
- Sometimes health
- Career stuff
- Other Christians being idiots, for lack of a better term, while they were being idiots in return at the same time
That's not a sign that something has gone wrong. That's following Christ costing what He said it would cost.
Renounce All That You Have
"So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions."
Luke 14:33 (NASB)
When this verse is translated that way and taken out of context, some people decide to give everything away, go be a monk, sit on the floor, and hum until the Lord calls them home.
That's not what He's saying. The ESV has it a little better:
"So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:33 (ESV)
A quick sidebar from Chris's own life. Back when we were actually making good money, he didn't like anybody driving his vehicles, especially the nicer ones. It came to a head with a really nice Yukon Denali. After studying this verse (renounce what you have, trust Jesus, let things go), he decided to loan the Denali out to our daughter's band.
God bless them, they didn't wreck anything. It was quite the vacuuming job, though.
That's what renouncing looks like. It's letting go of all that is earthly. It can be physical things, but it can also be:
- Your reputation
- Your titles
- Anything that has to do with your earthly circumstances
Hang on loosely to those things. Hold them with an open hand, so that when the Lord asks for them, or asks you to lend them out, your grip isn't the problem.
But Don't Throw Common Sense Out the Window
Renouncing everything doesn't mean throwing common sense out the window.
Some people with good intentions have wanted to welcome a homeless person into their house, and they got their house ruined. All kinds of problems, and it helped nobody. You've got to use common sense.
When we were in Tucson, and a little bit in Phoenix, January and February brought an overwhelming number of transients. We always felt so blessed that we felt we had to help people when we could. Someone would ask for food money, and the answer would be, "Hey, there's a Chick-fil-A right over there. There's a Burger King right over there. If you want to walk across the bridge, I'll buy you lunch and dinner right now, and you can take it with you." Sometimes they'd do it and sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes you'd just give them some money, because that's what you felt led to do.
But every now and then a conviction would come: No. Don't. Not this one. No idea why. Just the Lord leading.
You could give away all your money in one trip downtown. So you can't just give everything away. You have to rely on the Lord's leading: Okay, Lord, who is it You want me to help?
Prepare Your Fields for Rain
It comes down to this: the Lord gives; praise Him. The Lord takes away; praise Him (Job 1:21). When we win, we praise Him. When we lose, we praise Him.
Like the old movie Facing the Giants, we prepare our fields for rain and hope God blesses us with rain. Whatever harvest comes, we're grateful for it. And God doesn't ask you to plow a big field year after year after year and come away with a harvest the size of a backyard garden, over and over.
He'll lead you and direct you, and there's common sense to be had here, because some people throw common sense right out the window. Well, God's Word said... That's why Scripture also says, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test" (Deuteronomy 6:16).
If someone says, "Give me your last $10 and God's going to bless you," the answer is no. No, no, no, no. That's not wise.
Food Tastes Better When You're Hungry
"But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice and be overjoyed."
1 Peter 4:13 (NASB)
The ESV is helpful in clarifying it:
"But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed."
1 Peter 4:13 (ESV)
The sufferings we have here are only going to make His coming that much sweeter and more glorious. So we can't be afraid of them.
Food tastes a lot better when you're hungry, right? So don't be afraid if your stomach starts growling. It's okay. We'll eat again. Suffering has a counter-reaction to it, and that counter-reaction is the revelation of His glory when Christ comes.
The Christian Industry
As we got more and more into teaching in the public square twenty-five years ago, we grew into what we call the Christian industry: you do certain things for certain outcomes, and your inputs affect your outputs. When it came to the work of raising money and doing things like that, a manipulation seemed to surround certain people at certain times.
We've been speaking against that for years, because we've been able to live outside of it. When you're on the outside, it's glorious. It's fantastic. We can't explain how sweet it really is.
Inside it, folks get scammed into adding Jesus onto what they've already got going on, so they can improve things and reap the benefits of this "Jesus thing." Then they start thinking:
- If I give to the church, God kind of owes me.
- If I have enough faith, God's going to do what I want Him to do.
That sets you up in the place of God, because now you are determining what God has to do.
Not cool.
In This World You Will Have Tribulation
"I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
John 16:33
The NASB rendering, "in Me you may have peace," is a very, very good translation. Not all translations say it that way, but that's the promise. Peace is found in Him. Not in the world. In the world, you'll have tribulation.
Let's just get it out of the way. This is hard for Americans to accept, because we're so used to hearing, Look out for number one. You can be anything. All good things are good and all bad things are bad. It's very pragmatic, and God is not pragmatic in that way.
He tells us:
- You're going to have trouble.
- This is going to cost you.
- This is going to be hard.
Not many people are willing to tell you that anymore, and unfortunately, a lot of the ones who won't are in the pulpit.
And that's the bad fruit we have to talk about.
Gramster Rant: Baptized for the Animal Kingdom
Key Scriptures: Matthew 28:19 · Acts 2:38 · Luke 9:23 · John 16:33
Can we talk about what's happening in the baptismal waters of American megachurches?
A recent megachurch service, where people were being baptized, gives you really good insight into what people expect when they start following Christ. And it isn't anything we've been talking about. Not the cross. Not denying self. Not the cost.
What They Said
Listen to what these people said as they stepped forward.
The animal warrior. One young woman said she just knew God was calling her to be a warrior for His animal kingdom, and that she was to lead an army of angels to protect animals across the world. She just knew she couldn't do it without God.
The response from the platform: "Come on, give her a round of applause! God bless you."
She wants to be a warrior for the animal kingdom. And they said, "Oh, that's great." And they baptized her, to the applause of everyone there.
It went on like that, over and over. "I want to get closer to God. I want to get closer to Jesus. I just love Jesus."
The positive influences. One woman said she hoped her baptism would bring positive influences into her life, positive things, future opportunities, and a stronger relationship with God.
"That's amazing. Thank you."
The purified sense of being. Another said she'd like to purify her sense of being.
"Come on. Very good."
The next step to romance. Another said that for the longest time she didn't want to be baptized because it felt like a ritual, but now it felt like the next step to romance.
Does that make you go what?
We hope it does.
They Have No Idea What They're Doing
They are baptizing people who obviously have no understanding of the gospel. These people have no idea what they're doing, and that is the bad fruit coming from the pulpit.
Not one thing these people talked about, finding romance or purifying themselves for a better sense of self, has anything to do with baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).
- That's not repent and be baptized (Acts 2:38).
- That's not picking up your cross and following Him (Luke 9:23).
- That's not denying yourself.
It's the opposite. It's adding Jesus to yourself, the same "Jesus thing" upgrade the Christian industry has been selling for years.
Nobody mentioned sin. Nobody mentioned repentance. Nobody mentioned the cross or the blood. Nobody said, "I'm a sinner, and Christ died for me."
The So-Called Leaders
What really gets you, watching that, is the spiritual leaders. So-called leaders. Put that in quotation marks.
"Oh, isn't that great? Oh, that's awesome."
As if it doesn't matter what you say. Someone could come up and say, "I want to get baptized because of my love for chocolate chip cookies," and you really believe the room would hear, "Let's give him a round of applause! He loves chocolate chip cookies!"
There was no "Hold on. Let's understand what we're doing." None.
A shepherd's job is to know whether the sheep understand what they're stepping into. These leaders are applauding people into the water who don't know what the water means. That's not encouragement. It's negligence.
Know What You're Doing
There's a recent book Chris ordered by some old-timey guy, and it hits this exact point. Writing on the sacraments, he stresses how important it is to know exactly what you're doing when you participate.
Ordinances or sacraments, that's where Christians have divided for years. We try to have grace for one another on that. But we have to follow what God has laid on our hearts in this area, and whatever you call it, you can't strip it of its meaning.
And we're sorry, but that type of baptism should be called what it is:
It's blasphemous. It's sacrilegious. It's an offense.
When Pointing It Out Makes You the Problem
When we point this out, we become the problem.
It gets fatiguing. People who should know better, who should have known Christ deeper than this, who should have picked up their cross and followed Him, who should have denied themselves, who should have understood the Scriptures, turn around and say that if you say anything about this, now you're the problem.
So let's be clear about where we stand. If you really feel God calling you to be the champion of the animal kingdom, God bless you. We want to help you. We'll pray for you.
But we're not going to baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because you're going out to do that work. Baptism isn't a commissioning ceremony for your personal passion project. It's a picture of death and resurrection: dying to self and rising to new life in Christ.
We just hope people can see that clip for what it really was.
In This World You'll Have Trouble
It's really very sad, but it only proves what the Bible says: In this world you'll have trouble (John 16:33).
Stand up and say, "Wait a minute, this isn't right," and you're going to get criticized. All kinds of people will come at you with, "Who are you to judge?"
That's part of the cost. Following Christ means loving the truth enough to say it out loud, even when the whole room is clapping.
And that leads right into the next truth.
Tough Bible Truth #3: Making Disciples
Key Scripture: Matthew 28:19
Why Is This So Hard?
That's the call, right? We all know what we're supposed to be doing:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."
Matthew 28:19
So why is this so hard? People have actually forgotten what it means. That baptism clip verifies it.
It has become hard because we've gotten the idea in our heads that we aren't really responsible:
- That's the pastor's job.
- That's the evangelist's job.
- That's for some minister in some formal position. They're the ones who are supposed to do the discipling.
That isn't true at all. Discipling is supposed to take place within the family of God.
We've Got It Backwards
What do we do instead? We invite people to church. We get so excited. People are going to come, and the seats are going to fill up.
Well, what if your seats are filled with people who don't know the Lord? That's a problem. And you saw what happens when those people get applauded into the baptismal waters.
We've got "go and make disciples" backwards. Here's the right order:
- Go out and share the gospel.
- Tell people what Jesus has done.
- When someone comes to know the Lord, invite them into the church.
- In the church, they're discipled by everyone in the congregation, not just the pastor.
We're all called to do that. But we think we're done once we invite somebody to church and they show up. Great, my job's over.
It isn't over. That's where it begins.
Disciple-Makers Need Disciplers
There are many different rhythms of actual discipleship, and that is the calling.
And if you're making disciples, you need people discipling you as well. Even if you've been walking with the Lord for sixty years, you still need someone to help you with your blind spots. You're sinful, I'm sinful, and that's what happens.
Tough Bible Truth #4: God Hates
Key Scriptures: 1 John 4:8 · Proverbs 6:16-19 · Psalm 105:15
Hard Cheese
People think God is nothing but love. And God is love (1 John 4:8). We can't take that away. The Bible says it, and it's true.
But if you don't have the balance of God's truth and His justice and His wrath, along with the love of Christ and the sacrifice made for your sins, all working in you together, you can get all off base. God does, in fact, hate.
That's hard cheese for some of us.
God Is Not a Hallmark Movie
It's hard because we've turned the love of God into a Hallmark movie. God is up there just waiting for people to love Him, because He just wants some human being to know how much He loves them. Eventually, when they turn around, they'll realize His love was there all along. And the first thing they'll say is, "Wow, He gets us."
That's not how it goes down, just for the record. That's not what the Bible says.
What we learn is that as unbelievers, we were in rebellion against God. We were headed straight toward wrath. His wrath.
Then face this reality: He doesn't need us. If every single person on the face of the earth rejected God, God would be fine. He's in perfect harmony and union as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, along with the beings in heaven. He doesn't need us, and He doesn't need our love.
So let's go to the Scriptures and figure this out.
Six Things, Seven Abominations
"There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who declares lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers."
Proverbs 6:16-19
God hates that.
There are some interesting things in there.
He hates a lying tongue. So when someone says, "There's no hate in God," they're lying. And He doesn't like that.
He hates hands that shed innocent blood. The key word is innocent. Think of abortion, or people who aren't doing anything to harm anyone and are suddenly murdered, like the Christians in Iran. He hates this.
We don't fully understand the depth of what it means for God to hate something. We can hate things, but that ain't nothing compared to when God says He hates something.
"Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner"?
A lot of people want to take it off themselves. Well, God just doesn't like those actions. He loves us; He just doesn't like our actions. Hate the sin, love the sinner type of thing, right?
Okay. Keep looking at the verses.
- Verse 18 says God hates a heart that devises wicked plans. What's a heart without a person? There isn't one.
- He hates feet that run rapidly to evil. I've never seen feet without a person attached to them.
- Verse 19 is the proof in the pudding: He hates a false witness who declares lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers. One, meaning a person.
Strife Among the Brethren
That last one in verse 19 gets majorly taken out of context.
If you're trying to share the truth in love and point things out, and it causes strife among the brethren, that does not mean you're wrong. At the same time, you've got to check your motives at the door:
- Why are you wanting to set this record straight?
- Why are you wanting to call your sister onto the carpet?
- Why are you trying to cross five state lines to have a meeting with somebody so you can be right in your righty-rightness?
"Do not touch My anointed ones" (Psalm 105:15) is another one taken out of context. And "strife among brothers" gets used to tamp down every concern and tell people to be quiet, because that's just causing strife.
That is not what the Bible is trying to teach here. It's teaching that God is all holy and all righteous, and there are some things He does, in fact, hate.
So when people start lying about who God is and who Jesus is, and they start teaching heresy, He hates that. The discord doesn't begin when somebody points out, "Hey, that's not right."
The discord began with the lies.
Keep that in mind, especially the next time someone tells you that questioning a baptism for the animal kingdom is what's causing division.
A God Who Hates Nothing
God is not in need of anyone or anything. He doesn't need me, and He doesn't need you.
We are very fortunate even to be in the room. There's real joy in knowing He forgave my sins as a low-down, dirty sinner. I'm just doing the best I can in the sanctification walk, and I need His mercy every day.
But a God who doesn't hate anything has no righteousness in and of Himself.
He's no God at all.
Think about that as we move on.
Tough Bible Truth #5: Bad Things Come from God
Key Scriptures: Exodus 7-12 · Judges 2:14 · Job 2:10 · 2 Thessalonians 2:11 · Romans 1 · John 8:32 · Matthew 13:16 · James 1:5
Have You Even Read Your Bible?
Well, what about this: only Satan brings bad, and God only brings good, and those two are fighting with each other?
Have you even read your Bible? Much of it?
Yes, all good comes from God. But sometimes good from God comes in the form of some things that are kind of bad.
The Plagues
Look again into God's Word. In Exodus, what did God do? He sent plagues on the Egyptians (Exodus 7-12), some pretty nasty ones too. A lot of people died.
You might say, "Well, they're just pagans. They didn't love God, so they kind of deserved it."
Uh, no. You and I deserve that too. So why hasn't it come to us? Ask yourself that question.
Sawing the Branch You're Sitting On
We do this, by the way. We sit there and want justice: They deserved it.
Do you realize you're sawing off the branch you're sitting on?
We get so delusional in our thinking, especially spoiled-rotten Americans, and I'm one of them. You have to come out of that and understand what you're actually going against when you say they deserved it, they're pagans, look at that person. This isn't about somebody who rightly deserves justice. It's about accusing people of doing the exact same thing you're doing.
Oh, man, it happens all the time.
Plunderers Plundering
And the pagans weren't alone. God sent enemies against His own chosen people, Israel:
"The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He handed them over to plunderers, and they plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand against their enemies."
Judges 2:14
God did that. Does it sound nice and good? No.
That's going to be the prayer tonight: Lord, please let there not be plunderers plundering. I'd like to have no plundering plunderers. That'd be nice. Thank you, Lord.
Job and His Wife
Think of Job going through all that suffering, all those difficult things God allowed to come to him. His wife was frustrated, understandably so. The older I get, the more I can relate to Job's wife. That doesn't mean what she did was right. I can just relate.
But Job's response to her was:
"Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?"
Job 2:10
That's the reality. God doesn't just send things that are pleasant and wonderful. Sometimes, to accomplish His good, pleasing, and perfect will, He sends some difficult stuff. Some bad stuff.
The Deluding Influence
This is really something when people are just being foolish, and we see it in our culture. They might have been given over to delusion. Read Romans 1 as well.
"For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false."
2 Thessalonians 2:11
Some translations say they will believe the lie.
When you do a study on "the lie," you find that if you know the truth and the truth has set you free (John 8:32), you can get down on your knees every night and praise Jesus that you aren't part of that delusion. Your eyes have been opened, those with eyes to see and ears to hear (Matthew 13:16). It's all throughout Scripture, and Scripture interprets itself.
If you ask God for wisdom, He'll give it to you (James 1:5).
- Don't ask to be right in your righty-rightness.
- Do ask God to show you your blind spots and where you can be better.
- Do ask Him to open up His Word to you.
He does, and it's magnificent.
Watching the Delusion Play Out
It's becoming so evident that what God's Word says is absolutely true, because when you think about these delusions God sends, we're watching them right now as judgment, not just on the United States but around the world. It makes you really think, Okay, the Lord's coming. It's getting closer and closer.
We've seen it in Portland and Seattle, and now in Paris, where they opened the door to Islam and embraced it. Now that they're feeling the effects, they're bewildered. They don't understand. How did this happen? And many of them, even while they see the rioting, their businesses burned and robbed, and people harmed and hurt, will still go back and vote for the same thing over and over again.
That's the type of delusion God sends. He turns them over to their own way of thinking.
We're going to do our best to do what's good, right, true, and pleasing to the Lord. Whatever the outcome is, we have to remember He is sovereign.
That's our last really tough Bible truth.
Tough Bible Truth #6: God Is Sovereign
Key Scriptures: Colossians 1:17 · 2 Samuel 6:1-7 · Matthew 7 · Matthew 7:21-23
Charting Our Own Course
We have a hard time accepting this, particularly in the United States, where we've been given the right to chart our own course and determine what we want our lives to be.
That's a wonderful freedom given to us by God. But we can get so wrapped up in it that we forget God actually holds all things together (Colossians 1:17).
It becomes very hard when we read passages where God exercises His sovereignty and we don't like it. Either:
- We don't like it,
- We don't understand it, or
- It seems really, really over-the-top harsh, or way, way, way too lenient.
It just doesn't settle with us.
Touching the Ark
One of the hardest Scriptures is the story of moving the Ark of the Covenant (2 Samuel 6:1-7). It tips, and Uzzah, almost out of reaction, puts his hand up to touch it, even though they'd been told they were not to touch it. He's struck dead right there.
That's always been really hard to understand.
But that teaching goes so much deeper. You have to understand the culture. They weren't supposed to have the Ark on a cart to begin with. God was saying, Look, you're going to worship Me the way I laid out for you, not by your good intentions.
Voddie Baucham has a really good teaching on it. After sitting and listening to his very deep teaching on what happened, why it happened, and who God is, you still aren't going, "Oh yeah, I'm glad you got killed." No. It's still very sobering and very sad. But you understand it better.
That gets back to letting the Bible change how we think, rather than demanding that the Bible be interpreted or changed to match what we think.
Notice the thread. Uzzah's good intentions didn't override God's instructions. Neither do the good intentions of a church baptizing people for the animal kingdom.
"What Does This Verse Mean to You?"
One of the things we do at Fresh Road Media, and why we keep doing what God's calling us to do, is be honest with the truth. We are tired of seeing people use God's Word, take it out of context, and shape ideas about what it means to me.
Whenever you go to a Bible study and the question is, "What does this verse mean to you?" you're not at a Bible study.
"Where's My Mary Jane?"
We've moved into a realm of entitlement when it comes to God:
- Look, if I'm a Christian, God owes me forgiveness.
- God owes me success.
- God owes me good things, because I've surrendered to Him and I've been faithful to Him.
- So where's my Mary Jane?
That's exactly what it is: entitlement. And it makes us take a lighter view of sin. Okay, we sinned, but you know, God did all these things, so He's obligated to forgive me.
Is He, though?
No Just Complaint
R.C. Sproul, one of the greatest American preachers of modern times, was talking about dying and going to heaven, or not going to heaven. He said that if God were to send him to hell, he would have no just complaint against Him.
That just shook me. Really.
He had preached sermons, studied God's Word, and shared the gospel. He wasn't saying we can't be secure in our salvation; we can be completely secure in it. He was saying that God is sovereign. God gets to choose. God gets to decide. We don't.
The Coldest Verse in Scripture
Matthew 7 is a whole chapter about learning to judge things properly and correctly. It covers the narrow road (Matthew 7:13-14), warnings about false teachers, and good trees and bad trees (Matthew 7:15-20). It's important that we learn to see things and judge them rightly. Then come verses 21 through 23:
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"
Matthew 7:21-23
This is Jesus talking. It's the one verse that woke me up to my stupidity, and I've taught on it a thousand times over the last twenty-five years. The King of the universe, the Sovereign One, the only Lamb of God, the only way to salvation, looks at you and says:
"Step off. I don't know who you are."
Wow.
There's no colder verse in Scripture than Matthew 7:23. It has to be settled as fact in your mind: it is the coldest verse in Scripture, because of its truth and because of what it actually means.
What They Didn't Say
These people were entitled, just like we were talking about earlier. Hey, You owe me, because I did these things. That's exactly what the sovereignty of God confronts.
Look at their description of themselves. We healed people, we did miracles, we prophesied, yada yada yada.
What they didn't say is equally important.
They didn't say, "Lord, Lord, didn't we trust that You were the only one who could forgive our many, many sins?"
They didn't say, "Lord, didn't we trust that Your shed blood was our atonement?"
It was all about themselves and what they did, and because of what they did, they believed God owed them.
Who Holds the Sovereignty?
They laid hold of the sovereignty of God and gave it to themselves. That's what they do.
| Their way | God's way |
|---|---|
| It's what I have. | God has shown me this. |
| It's what I do. | God has laid this on my heart. |
| It's what I know. | Because the Bible tells me so. |
How do you know? Because the Bible tells me so.
That's where we'll always be just the Bible idiots. We got nothing else.
Final Thoughts
Those are six things that are really, really hard. They're tough Bible truths:
- The power of God's Word
- Following Christ is costly
- Making disciples
- God hates
- Bad things come from God
- God is sovereign
Because of all six, one thing stands above the rest: it is the blood of Christ.
The blood of Christ is the only thing that makes us worthy even to be in the presence of God. It washes us and makes us new creatures in spite of ourselves.
Exactly.