https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/51726175513593

What is a Christian? Some people seem to think the question is unnecessary at best and offensive at worst. “Is it really necessary to define what a true Christian is over against a false Christian? Do we really need to have a category for false Christians? Doesn’t that just encourage us to be judgmental and nasty and suspicious of others? Why can’t we just take people at their word?”

This is the way many people think. They cannot abide by such distinctions. They have no patience for this whole true Christian/false Christian categorization. If someone says they’re a Christian, they should be accepted as such, no questioned asked, according to some. As always, we must resort to the scriptures to resolve the controversy. And when we do, we find that scripture is saturated with this distinction. The Bible is unequivocal – you are not a Christian just because you say you are. Consider…

In Mt. 3:7-9, John the Baptist asserted such a distinction. “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.”

John was not impressed with professions of being a child of Abraham. His basic message was “Show me”. Jesus held the same view.

Mt. 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he 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; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

Lk. 6:46: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” It sounds like Jesus is not terribly impressed with words and with professions of faith alone.

In Acts 8:20-23, after Simon Magus had been baptized, he offered money to Peter so that he could have the authority of laying his hands on people, such that they would receive the Holy Spirit. Whereupon Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! “You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. “Therefore, repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.”

In 1 Cor. 6:9-11, Paul warns the Corinthians not to be deceived into thinking they are heaven-bound if they live in unrepentant sin: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

1 John 1:6-7 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

1 Jn. 2:3-4 says, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

1 Jn. 2:9 says, “The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.”

1 Jn. 2:15: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

1 Jn. 3:10: “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”

1 Jn. 3:17-18: “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”

Rev. 2:8-9: “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this: ‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.”

I could go on, but that should be plenty to prove the point. There are true Christians and there are false Christians. And as that last text in Revelation 2 shows, there are true churches and false churches, which I’ll address later in this series. The reference to those who say they are Jews, and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan, shows us that professions of faith devoid of a life consistent with the profession are not only meaningless for individuals, but also for assemblies. You can call yourself a synagogue and you can call yourself a church but are you a church of Jesus Christ or a church of Satan. The proof is in the pudding.

What we need to understand is that there is a duty implied in all these passages. The duty is to distinguish between true and false Christians, true and false teachers and true and false churches. It is not people like me who need to defend their “judgmental ways”. No, it is people who insist on accepting professions at face value that need to defend their “profession only” policy. And there is no defense for it. We are duty bound as Christians to distinguish between truth and falsehood in all its manifestations. We are not infallible. We can be wrong on both sides of the equation. Even when we look beyond mere professions to the life of the person making the profession, we can still be wrong, and time will always tell. And we can be too hasty the other way, calling someone a false Christian without sufficient information. But we have a duty to study this matter, to search the scriptures for knowledge, and then assess people, teachers and churches according by scriptural light.

The failure to do this was one of the complaints of the Lord against Israel’s priests and it contributed to the judgment and exile of the nation. Ezekiel 22:26 says, “Her priests have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they hide their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.”

But looking ahead to better days under the new covenant, it was prophesied of the shepherds, “Moreover, they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.” (Ezek. 44:23)

Likewise, the prophet Malachi prophesied of better days ahead, in the new covenant, when there would not longer be this habitual confusion and conflation between righteous and wicked. “So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.” (Mal 3:18)

John Owen once said this his greatest burden in preaching was to help those who are saved know that they are, while helping those who are not know that they are not. I couldn’t agree more. And I cannot emphasize enough how reckless and irresponsible it is – not to mention naïve and theologically clueless – to assert that every churchgoer is a Christian or that Catholics are Christians or that the children of believers are automatically Christians. I would never in a thousand lifetimes go to a church that believed and taught such things.

Because Psalms are poetry, they are often full of metaphors. Poetry is not prose. It is much more elastic. Therefore, the church can be described by varying images. She is a collection of noble ladies (v. 9), and queen in gold (v. 9). She is a daughter who is to forget her people and her father’s house and come to the King.

The psalm describes her beauty: she is in gold; she is all glorious within; her clothing is interwoven with gold; the king desires her beauty.

Song of Solomon is also poetic. In that book, the bride of the king is also described as ravishingly beautiful.

Song 1:8-11: “If you yourself do not know, Most beautiful among women, Go forth on the trail of the flock And pasture your young goats By the tents of the shepherds. To me, my darling, you are like My mare among the chariots of Pharaoh. Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, Your neck with strings of beads.”

Song 2:2: “Like a lily among the thorns, So is my darling among the maidens.”

Song 4:1: “How beautiful you are, my darling, How beautiful you are!”

Song 4:7: “You are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you.”

Song 6:4: “You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling, As lovely as Jerusalem, As awesome as an army with banners.”

Song 6:9-10: “But my dove, my perfect one, is unique: She is her mother’s only daughter; She is the pure child of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed, The queens and the concubines also, and they praised her, saying, ‘Who is this that grows like the dawn, As beautiful as the full moon, As pure as the sun, As awesome as an army with banners?’”

Song 7:1: “How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince’s daughter! The curves of your hips are like jewels, The work of the hands of an artist.”

Song 7:6: “How beautiful and how delightful you are, My love, with all your charms!”

How Christ loves His bride. How He loves the church and desires her. He loved her and gave Himself up for her.

What is your attitude about the bride of Christ? How do you speak about the church? Do you have trouble relating with Christ on this point? Do you think the church is quite ugly and wonder what in the world Christ sees in her?

If so, then you need to understand that there are many false churches in this world. The majority of religious assemblies in this world, which call themselves churches, are the churches of Satan, not the churches of Christ. That is why they are so hideous. But the true church of Christ is beautiful.

As Christians, and especially as ministers, we need to carefully distinguish the true and false church. They are radically different from each other. We should avoid all sloppiness of speech and not confuse the two churches. When we condemn things in “the church” these days – things that are fatal to Christianity and completely inconsistent with Christ’s true church that He is building and beautifying – we need to be clear that we’re not talking about His bride, but about Satan’s bride.

Though the true bride of Christ is not yet perfected, she has been washed from her sins and she is being purified.

Eph. 5:25-27: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

Rev. 19:7-8 reveals to us the day when the purification of the church is complete: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”

Revelation 21 describes for us the bride in all her glory, the work of beautification complete.

If you are a true Christian, and yet you look around at the assemblies in your area and you see only ugly churches, then it can only mean one thing: you’re looking at the church of Satan, not the bride of Christ. If you behold the true bride, you will find her gloriously attractive. If you don’t, you must not be a real Christian.

The relevant question becomes: “Does God hate me or love me?” The answer is… it depends. It depends on whether you have faith in Jesus Christ. If you do, you are loved beyond comprehension. If you don’t, then you are yet an object of God’s wrath and holy hatred.

What is faith and why does it make such a difference? Faith is not believing that there is a God. Everyone believes there is a God, even the atheist who pretends otherwise. Faith is what you have when you finally come to the realization that you are not a good person at all and you know you need a Savior. But you can’t believe in Christ while feeling that you are, on the whole, a pretty good person and should be accepted into heaven on the basis of that supposed goodness.

The truth is that we have broken God’s law every day of our lives, times without number. If we were to stand before a human judge with so many violations of the Law, we should expect life in prison or the death penalty as the wages of our sins. But somehow, in our pride, we think that God is required to be lenient with us and not hold us to account for all our crimes against Him. As long as we think that way, faith is impossible.

Faith is the empty hand of a beggar reaching out to receive charity from a benefactor. The beggar is dirt poor and has nothing to trade with. He offers nothing to the donor, but his dirty, empty hands. He only receives, he doesn’t give. That is the attitude of faith, and it is what we must have toward Christ if we would be saved. Jesus illustrated this in a parable in Luke 18.

“And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:9-14).

The religious leader, the Pharisee, had faith in himself. He trusted in his own good works and congratulated himself that he was much better than other sinners. The tax collector, however, did not trust in his goodness. He had been brought to the realization that he was a terrible person. Because he understood his sin, he did not trust in his own righteousness but merely begged for mercy. That is what faith looks like.

Because the tax collector had faith, he “went to his house justified”. To be justified is to be counted righteous before the court of heaven. More to come on why faith justifies sinners.

Have you ever stopped to consider how audacious the psalmist sounds in this passage? Who would dare to tell God, “Arouse Yourself, why do you sleep, O Lord?” He is basically saying to God, “Wake up, get off your bed and do something!”

It sounds like shocking irreverence and blasphemy, but it is actually what we might call holy audacity. It is holy in that it is reverent and humble, though it might not sound like it. There are many examples of it in Scripture, particularly in the psalms.

Ps. 7:6: “Arise, O LORD, in Your anger; Lift up Yourself against the rage of my adversaries, And arouse Yourself for me; You have appointed judgment.”

Ps. 9:19-20: “Arise, O LORD, do not let man prevail; Let the nations be judged before You. Put them in fear, O LORD; Let the nations know that they are but men.”

Ps. 74:22: “Arise, O God, and plead Your own cause; Remember how the foolish man reproaches You all day long.”

Ps. 94:1-3: “O LORD, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O Judge of the earth, Render recompense to the proud. How long shall the wicked, O LORD, How long shall the wicked exult?”

Many other examples could be given. In each case, the psalmist is engaging in borderline insolence, implying that God is just sitting there, doing nothing, or even sleeping while His cause burns down around Him. And suggesting that God needs to rise up and do something to deal with the wicked and vindicate His name and help His people.

What we need to remember is that God Himself inspired the psalmists to pray this way. God put those words in the mouths of His people. This can only mean one thing: God wants us to pray to Him like this. Not in a cocky way. But in a humble recognition that God desires for us to be stirred up to pray and beseech Him with urgency and reverent boldness.

The only way we can pray like this is to believe that God desires it and is glorified by it. These are not the words of a fatalist, passively accepting whatever happens. These are the words of a man who understands what God loves and what God hates, and who prays accordingly.

As we see many injustices in our world — injustices we know God hates — we must beseech God to rise up and do something about them. As we see so little impact of the Gospel around us, we must plead with God to do something about that. When we see the wicked prospering and the righteous languishing, we should assault the throne of grace with importunate complaints. “O God, rise up. Do you see what’s happening? Do something! Act quickly for the sake of Your name and for Your people.”

https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/426261715304162

“A Song of Ascents, of David. O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. (2) Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me. (3) O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever.” Psalm 131:1-3

Politics is one of those loaded words. What a person means by it may vary, but for many, it’s a dirty word. It refers to lying politicians who promise things and don’t do them. It refers to the constant partisan warfare between Republicans and Democrats. Perhaps it may connote the hope, faith and frenetic activity of those whose citizenship is here and who have no hope for eternity and who are trying to build some kind of Utopian society here. For me, I mean the term more generically. Politics, as in the policy decisions that affect our lives.

Abortion, for instance, is a matter of justice. But it very much intersects with politics, in the sense that abortion has been made available by the decision of legislators, governors and judges. You cannot raise your voice for the unborn very well and not interact at some level with politicians, though some consider all such things to be sullying oneself in “politics”. Issues concerning the redefinition of marriage and sexual biology (gender), are matters of justice and morality and truth, but they also happen to intersect with the decision of governing authorities, which we call politics. Many other examples could be given.

But, one cannot navigate the world of politics and political activity very long before you come face to face with your limitations. What can I really change? How many letters can I write? How many times can I visit my representative and senator? When a supreme court justice is there for life, what effect can I possibly have on him or her? I can vote for presidents, which is often a choice between two bad options. But I’ll never get a personal meeting with any president and have his ear. I’m not that important. So, what exactly can I do about illegal immigration and open borders, or crime, or the flood of drugs coming into our country, or the declining birth rate, or the foolishness and unethical madness of the medical establishment, or the corruption in the administrative state, or the national debt, or the filth of Hollywood, or the sinister and pernicious influence of China and other malign actors in the world, or the terrible influence of America in the world? What can I do about these things really? What I can do about the foster care problem, or the laziness problem, or the Medicaid and Medicare fraud problem, or the fact that we’re in a cold civil war, or that it feels like we’re one swirling lap away from the drain hole at the bottom of the national toilet?

Great amounts of time and 500 trillion truckloads of words have been spent analyzing the great problems of our day, griping about them, pontificating about them … and I’ve been guilty of it myself … and what has it accomplished. We have a vast array of talking heads on television and on podcasts, jawing about all these things, operating under the premise that all our opinions and assertions are welcome, that anyone with power actually cares, and that something will be done because of all that we have said. And yet, it’s really just another day of high winds, accomplishing nothing. We don’t know as much as we think we know, we’re not in a position of power, and no one who matters is actually consulting us. We are involving ourselves in great matters of which we have no control.

I’m not saying “do nothing”. I’m not saying “who cares”. I’m not advocating for fatalism. I’m advocating for realism and for the spirit of Psalm 131. Know who you are. Know how small you are. Know what you can control and what you can’t.

“O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. (2) Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.”

Rest against your Father like a weaned child, saying, “I can’t control any of these things, so why fret about things I can’t control? Why go online into chat and comment discussions, and on Facebook and X, pouring out my opinions and anger? What good does that do? I can’t control these things, but my Father can and does. All these evils are happening because He ordained that they would. They are for the testing of the church and for the judgment of sinners.” Let God handle the high and difficult things. Meanwhile, let us learn about what it means to be a little child – a weaned one.

Christ’s adversaries are condemned by Him in the strongest possible terms. They are children of the devil who desire to murder Christ, just as the devil desires to murder Christ. They are liars, just as the devil is a pathological liar. They hate the truth, just as the devil hates the truth.

And yet these same people are described in John 8:31 as those who “believed Him”: “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.’”

These were religious Jews Jesus was condemning, not tax collectors and prostitutes. These were regular church attenders (synagogues). They were children of Abraham (according to the flesh), as they frequently bragged (v. 33). They had been circumcised the eighth day … and so on and so on.

Though they would have heard the scriptures read and taught (or mis-taught) every Sabbath, they were nevertheless one hundred percent opposed to the truth. Consider the astonishing charge Jesus levels at them at the end of v. 45: “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.” In other words, “You are so opposed to the truth and so partial to lies that you cannot believe what I say.”

This raises some important questions:

If these Jews hated the truth so much, why were they regulars in the synagogue? Answer: They attended synagogue because they needed to do so to feel confident about their own righteousness. But they were not offended by what they heard in the synagogue because a) the truth wasn’t being preached in the synagogue; or b) some truth was preached, but none that was offensive and unsettling to the Jews; or c) the truth was preached but without any expectation for people to obey it.

Does such a thing happen today in churches? Do haters of Christ and haters of the truth regularly attend church without being provoked by the truth? Answer: Yes, it happens all the time, probably in the majority of churches today. “Many false prophets will arise and mislead many” (Mt. 24:11). “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 Jn. 4:1).

False prophets do not have horns growing out of their heads. They look good. They’re friendly and personable, not mean and nasty. They wear sheep’s clothing. This will look different in different denominations or traditions. False prophets in Catholic “churches” do not need to fool Christians, though they do try in some ways. They only need to continue fooling Catholics. False prophets in liberal churches don’t need to fool those in conservative churches. They only need to continue fooling liberals. Consequently, they don’t need to hide their support of “gay marriage” and “transgenderism” and feminism and all things woke. Those in charismatic, health and wealth “churches” don’t need to fool Reformed folks. They just need to be able to fool their charismatic followers.

But do not be deceived. There are also false prophets for “conservative churches” (whatever that means) and Reformed churches. The devil is not stupid. He will send messengers fully equipped to deceive the people he’s targeting. Just as the U.S. government sends Russian-speaking spies to infiltrate Russian networks and Chinese-speaking spies to infiltrate Chinese networks (and vice versa), so the devil sends “Reformed” false prophets into Reformed churches. Such ministers are fluent in Reformed-speak. They will know what to say and what not to say, what to condemn and what not to condemn, what authors to quote and what authors not to quote.

When Reformed false prophets preach in churches, they preach a certain amount of orthodox truth. But they never preach the truth that the congregation needs to hear and be confronted with. That will keep many people happy in Reformed or Calvinistic churches. They will be comfortable hearing Reformed orthodoxy and won’t ever be challenged to be doers of the Word they’re hearing.

That’s how you can hear plenty of truth, but never be offended by it. If the truth is simply served up as intellectual propositions to be categorized and systematized, but never obeyed, it won’t offend various people who claim to be Reformed.

They will gladly hear a sermon on church discipline. They will say “amen” and categorize the doctrine accordingly. It is when a preacher attempts to practice church discipline on someone, maybe them, then they will be greatly offended and prove themselves haters of the truth.

A Reformed preacher can preach all he wants about total depravity and sovereign grace, so long as he continues to allow people to be saved by saying sinner’s prayers and “making decisions for Christ”. But he’ll witness genuine anger if he applies the truth of sovereign grace by not accepting such things as the basis for a true conversion experience.

A Reformed preacher can preach on worldliness all he wants in a Reformed church. People will nod their head and say “that was a good sermon, pastor”. But when he exhorts them to repent by turning off their TVs, or something similar, that’s when they’ll get mad.

A preacher can preach about raising children and protecting them from evil influences and the congregation will say “AMEN”. But if he suggests that this might mean they need to pull their children out of public school, then they will be provoked, and his days will likely be numbered at that church.

A preacher can preach against divorce, and many will applaud his boldness for addressing such a sensitive subject. But if he urges those who are divorced to be reconciled, or if he urges them to remain unmarried (1 Cor. 7:10-11), he will probably lose his job or lose many congregation members, who will leave in anger. Many other examples could be given.

This is how many churchgoers can sit in church Sunday after Sunday, listening to varying degrees of truth, and never realize how much they hate it. Sadly, it happens all the time. It did not happen that way with Jesus. Jesus not only preached the truth clearly, but He also called people to repent and obey it. That’s what made so many hate Him and that’s what provoked them to crucify Him.

We have two choices here: we can either accept this truth or we can deny it by trying to explain it away. Let us do the former. To do the latter is to edit God’s word, cherry picking verses we like, while rejecting ones we don’t like.

It is important to understand that when scripture speaks of God’s hatred for sinners, it is a holy hatred, not a sinful one. When God hates any sinner, it is due to the sinners’ wickedness and God’s righteous and justifiable hatred of those who hate Him and reject His law. We should also recognize that a sinner’s actions flow from his very heart and being. When a man commits the sin of rape, rape is not some bad thing that happens outside of him. He is the rapist! He must be punished.

Let’s think about a well-known example in scripture. When God flooded the earth in Genesis 6 because of the wickedness and violence of humanity, was the flood an expression of God’s love or hatred for that generation? The answer is self-evident. The flood was an expression of God’s wrath, not His love.

Of course, Noah and his family were saved in the ark God told Noah to build. Genesis 6:8 says that Noah found favor with God – favor extended to him by God’s grace, not on the basis of Noah’s works. Salvation was an expression of God’s love for Noah and his family.

The same observation can be made concerning those who are cast in hell versus those who are welcomed into heaven after they die. The former are objects of God’s holy hatred and wrath, while the latter are objects of God’s love and grace. Romans 9 is a chapter that should be read in its entirety. The following verses summarize the point well.

Romans 9:10-13: “And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Romans 9:22-24 says “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.”

Such a passage is not difficult to understand, but it might be very difficult to accept due to repetitive conditioning we have been subjected to. We have been told for so long about God’s love for everyone that we don’t know what to do with passages like Psalm 5 and Romans 9. Let us accept them and allow God to tell His own story. It is not our place to tell God how He ought to be. Our place is to accept and embrace His revelation of Himself.

The glory of the gospel is that God sets His love on those who are justly objects of His hatred and wrath. As law-breaking rebels, we have shaken our fists in God’s face and justly provoked His hatred and wrath. And yet, inexplicably, instead of striking us down in His wrath — i.e. those of us who have genuine faith in Jesus Christ — God has chosen to pour out His great love and mercy upon us.

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:1-9)

The shocking grace of God should render us speechless.

https://halovoice.org/my-sons-story-must-be-told-young-man-healthy-organs-ideal-organ-donor/

What should we do?

1. Mourn that we as a nation have so spurned God that He has turned us over to self-destruction and the murder of one another through abortion and euthanasia.

2. Open our mouths for the weak and vulnerable.

“Deliver those who are being taken away to death, And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back. If you say, “See, we did not know this,” Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work?” (Proverbs 24:11-12)

Many people like to refer to human beings in general as the children of God. In one sense they are right. In Acts 17:28-29, Paul indicates that human beings are the children of God in the sense of being created by God. But in the John 8 passage above, we see that the adversaries of Christ are actually children of the devil. They are children of God by virtue of creation, but children of the devil by virtue of attitude and desires.

Jesus was dealing plainly with men who hated Him and wanted to kill Him. The desire to murder Him was evidence that they were children of the devil, not children of God or children of Abraham in any way that actually mattered. Just as the devil was a murderer from the beginning, so all murderers are chips off the old block. Like father, like son. Those who love murder are very much like the devil, who rules in them.

In Ephesians 2:1-2, Paul makes a startling statement: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

I’ve often wondered about this. Are all unbelievers (the sons of disobedience) demon-possessed? Obviously, not every unbeliever is thrown to the ground in violent epileptic fits, while foaming at the mouth. Not every unbeliever is walking around in a cemetery, naked, screaming, cutting himself and violently attacking everyone who comes near.

On the other hand, every unbeliever is the possession of the devil unless and until he is converted.

Speaking of the devil as a “strong man”, Jesus says, “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder” (Lk. 11:20-22).

The strong man is the devil, who has “possessions” that he guards. This clearly refers to people, who are in the devil’s kingdom, which he rules (See Col. 1:13). Because they are his possessions, in this sense we can say that unbelievers are all “possessed”. The spirit of the prince of the power of the air works in them.

In 2 Tim. 2:24-26, unbelievers are described as captives to the devil. “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

I’m not sure what good “free will” does when one is held captive by the devil to do his will, but it is in this sense that unbelievers are children of the devil. They want to do the desires of the devil, even if they do not have any recognition of the devil’s control over them. Like Satan, they want to murder Christ and His people (see John 15:18-20).

Do you believe this, or do you find it hard to believe? You may have unbelieving family members whom you love, or unbelieving friends who seem to very nice. Do you accept the witness of scripture concerning them, or do you trust your own ability to assess them over scripture? Do you trust your gut feelings over the Bible?

According to the Bible, all unbelievers are children of the devil and are by nature murderers and liars. The only hope for any man or woman is to be rescued by Christ, the stronger Man. No one breaks free of the devil’s chains by the power of free will. No one even wants to.

https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/419261656385457

It is understandable why a non-Christian lives in denial of death and why he does everything he an to avoid it, cheat it, and somehow beat it. It is understandable why he doesn’t want to die. He has no hope of eternal life, and so he fears death. He fears standing before God in judgment and being cast into hell.

But for the Christian, a fear of death is puzzling. Why should a Christian fear death? Why should he live in denial of it? Why should he pursue the fountain of youth and endless dubious remedies to prolong his life here? For the Christian, to die is gain.

As Paul said in Php. 1:21-25: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith.”

And again in 2 Cor. 5:6-8: “Therefore, being always of good courage, and 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 of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

Don’t you want to be at home with the Lord Jesus Christ, dear brothers and sisters? To behold Him and be in His presence? To be holy as He is holy. To be like Him.

This is not your home. This place here, as nice as it is (because God has made it so), is not your home. You are a stranger here, an alien, a pilgrim wandering through Vanity Fair, where people think you’re weird and you think they’re weird. They’re offended at you and you’re offended at them. You don’t even speak the same language. You don’t sing the same songs. You don’t observe the same fashions. But heaven is the city of God, where the triune God dwells and where every believer who has died also dwells. That’s where your true family is. And every fellow believer here on earth, whether of your blood family or not, will soon join you in heaven when their appointed day arrives. You will not be parted from them long, and you will be so enraptured in the love and glory of God that you will not even miss them. And death is your entrance into that glory. Why would a Christian hate death or resent death? Why would a Christian want to resist death with all his might? Why wouldn’t he welcome it? And remember, when a believing relative or friend dies, you should grieve. That is appropriate. But remember, you are grieving for yourself. Your departed love one is in heaven and is not a proper object of sympathy. You are the one to be sympathized with, not them.

When Paul’s day to die was approaching, he was to be beheaded. That’s not a pleasant way to go. And yet, listen to how he spoke of his approaching death in 2 Tim. 4:6-8: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Christians are eager to be with Christ. If that comes by the return of Christ from heaven, wonderful. If that comes by death, so be it.

Php. 3:20-21: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”

Heb. 9:27-28 says, “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”

Are you eagerly waiting for Christ to come? Are you ready to see Him? You may have many plans right now. Maybe you’re building a house. Maybe you’re planning to get married in six months. Maybe you have a baby on the way. Maybe you have a big trip planned that you’ve always wanted to take. Suppose Christ came back in a week and ruined all those plans. Would you be OK with that? Do the things you want to do here pale in comparison to your desire to be with Christ? Or are you one of these that has a bucket list, and you want to check those things off, and then you can die in peace? If that’s the case, I don’t think you’re headed for heaven. If you think the pleasures of this world are so great that you would gladly put off seeing Christ, I don’t think you really know Christ and really love Him.

To die well is to be eager to die (without committing suicide) so that you can be with Christ.

For the full sermon, go here: https://www.sermonaudio.com/broadcasters/newhopeks/

You can find out lots of enlightening information from Dr. Heidi Klessig.

In the early 1970s, Dr. Paul Bryne, who pioneered the development of neonatal intensive care units (NICU), cared for a premature infant by the name of Joseph, who was in a coma and on a ventilator. An EEG was performed on Joseph, which showed no electrical activity in his brain. He decided to wait and do another EEG later. The results were the same. The neurologist said the results were consistent with “cerebral death”. After discussing the child’s condition with his parents, they wanted to continue treating Joseph and not “pull the plug”. The result was that Joseph improved, lived, came off the ventilator. And is now married with children.

In 2007, 21-year-old Zach Dunlap was in a car accident and pronounced brain dead at the hospital. Because he was an organ donor, preparations were made to harvest his organs. His cousin, who was a nurse, came to the hospital, and didn’t feel that he was truly dead. So the cousin stroked his foot, at which point, his foot jerked. Then the cousin pressed hard under Zach’s fingernail to see if there was a pain response, at which point Zach pulled his arm away across his body. This was what saved him from being sliced and diced by the organ procurement team. He soon regained consciousness, breathed on his own without a ventilator, and was discharged a month later. Afterward, he said he was conscious and heard the doctors saying that he was braindead and that he would have his organs removed. He was angry and wanted to scream but was unable to do anything.

In 2013, a 13-year-old girl in California, named Jahi McMath, had her tonsils removed and surgery to do palate reconstruction. An hour after the surgery, she started to spit up blood. Her parents repeatedly tried to get a doctor to come in and see her, but without success. Jahi continued to bleed until she had cardiac arrest. She was pulseless for ten minutes during her “code blue” resuscitation. She had to be put on a ventilator and also required several medications and infusions to manage her blood pressure and heart rate. Soon it became obvious that she had a brain injury due to cerebral swelling. Four EEGs were performed and they were all flatline. No electrical activity was measured in her brain. She failed three apnea tests, and a radioisotope scan showed no intracranial blood flow. And so she was declared brain dead, and the doctors planned to “pull the plug” on the ventilator in a few days. Jahi’s parents did not believe she was dead and they got legal help and challenged the decision in court. During the ensuing legal fight with the hospital, Jahi was refused a feeding tube, and she was starved for three weeks. She was eventually flown to New Jersey, which is the only state in the United States that allows a family to reject a brain death diagnosis if it violates their religious beliefs. In New Jersey, several signs of life were observed in Jahi, not typically observed in a corpse. Her heart continued to beat. Her hair continued to grow. She began her period, which comes about by a signal sent from the hypothalamus in the brain, demonstrating that her brain was not actually dead. Her heart rate lowered when a music therapist played a harp in her room. Jahi’s mother began asking her daughter to respond to commands and videoed the responses. She had heart rate changes in response to her mother’s voice. In August of 2014, she was stable enough to be moved to an apartment, with a portable ventilator, and her care was managed there by her mother and nurses. She lived four more years, years her family treasured, before succumbing to liver failure in 2018. Because California had declared her dead, they refused financial aid to the family and refused to allow the parents to claim her on their taxes.

In 2014, 91-year-old Janina Kolkiewicz was declared dead and taken to the morgue. The problem is that she auto-resuscitated in the morgue and woke up feeling chilly and hungry, requesting pancakes and tea. It is because of such situations that families used to have a wake, where they would watch the body and make sure the deceased relatives were truly deceased. It was also the reason for strings attached to bells in coffins at one point in the past. It was for “dead ringers” -- for people who weren’t really dead to be able to alert others that they were entombed alive.

Last year, articles appeared in various media of a 2021 incident regarding Anthony Hoover. Hoover was taken to Baptist Health Hospital in Richmond, KY, due to a drug overdose and cardiac arrest. The doctors performed tests on him and concluded that he was “brain dead”. Because he was an organ donor, the organ procurement team came in to harvest his organs, following a ceremony to honor him. The problem is that Hoover woke up screaming and thrashing in the midst of being cut open. His sister recounted how his eyes had opened and he was tracking the movements of his family members, but when they remarked on this to the medical staff, they were told it was just reflexes. A later investigation into the organ procurement organization, now with a name change “Network for Hope” found that in 28 of 351 reviewed cases, patients may have been alive when their organs were harvested. Of course, the truth is that they were all alive. All organ harvesting is done on living people. The organs of dead people deteriorate too quickly to be of use.

These incidents and others expose the lie of brain death. There is no such thing as a dead brain inside of a living body. Brain death is a prognosis of unlikely recovery from a coma, based on pure guesswork, not a diagnosis of actual death. As it turns out, it’s a legal category (a legal fiction actually), not a biological reality, contrived to make it possible to harvest organs without being prosecuted for murder.

We all know what it’s like to be deceived, and we know what it’s like to have God open our eyes to see something we didn’t see before. We once thought we were pretty good folks, but God opened our eyes to see a measure of our depravity and showed us our need for Christ. Since our conversion, there have been a number of other instances wherein God has shown us things we hadn’t seen before. Sins we tolerated, ways in which we were conformed to the world, areas of moral compromise. Whether it was ungodly movies or TV shows we once watched … worldly music we once listened to … immodest clothing we once happily wore … sinful ways of speaking … unbiblical traditions we held to … unbiblical worship practices … unjust views and strategies we held to with respect to abortion. It’s part of the sanctification process. Well, recently I have experienced another one of these eye-opening discoveries. It has been the discovery of another lie that I bought into … but now, having come to an understanding of the truth, by the grace of God, it is time to repent of the lie I formerly accepted. As you hear this information and consider it, I would invite you to think this over and repent with me, if you have accepted unbiblical and sinful ways of thinking about this.

Just as rejecting abortion is a matter of understanding the truth of when life begins according to scripture and then acting in a way that is consistent with that truth, so we stand in desperate need of a biblical understanding of when life ends. And I do mean biblical understanding. God speaks to this question in His Word. But we have not looked to the Bible to answer this question. We have looked to Science with a capital S -- to scientists and to medical professionals. And lo and behold, they have given us a very different answer about when life ends than what the Bible gives.

Ingratitude is rooted in pride. We think of ourselves as good people who deserve a charmed life. Consequently, we assume that things should go well for us, and when they do, we think nothing of it. “Of course life is going well for me. Why shouldn’t it?” It’s not that we say such things out loud, but our lack of gratitude reveals the subconscious attitude of entitlement. Conversely, when we experience hardship and suffering, we’re shocked and angry.

Habakkuk 2:4 says, “Behold, as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him …” The proud man does not see clearly or accurately. He does not realize that he is a serial violator of God’s righteous Law and that He deserves hell. Instead, he thinks well of himself and thinks he deserves far more than God has already given him.

In Luke 17, Jesus healed ten lepers who called out to Him for mercy, but only one of them came up to Him and fell at His feet and gave thanks to Him for His kindness. Jesus rhetorically asked in verse 17: “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine—where are they?” Indeed, where were the other nine? They didn’t bother to thank Christ because they had an entitlement mentality. Presumably, their attitude was, “It’s about time we were healed of our leprosy!”

If we are proud, then we think God owes us health, wealth, employment, a good marriage, children, long life, etc. If we receive such unmerited blessings, we are glad but not grateful. We are not astonished by Amazing Grace. We assume it. Gratitude cannot grow in a heart full of pride.

May God help us to be grateful to Him for His astonishing kindness. May He open our eyes and show us that what He’s given us is far better than what we deserve. And may we also remember that He has given us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from sin, from pride and from an ungrateful heart.

“They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus *said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. (40) “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. (41) “You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.” (42) Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. (43) “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. (44) “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Today, there is a growing preoccupation with Israel and with the Jews, exacerbated by the conflict in Iran. Some are pro-Israel, some anti-Israel. Among the anti-Israel crowd, it is increasingly common to bring up the crucifixion of Jesus as justification for being anti-Jew. For the record, the Jews of Jesus’ day were primarily responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. There is no getting around that and no point in denying it. The problem with the entire debate is that those who emphasize this fact fail to grasp that the entire world population – all of us – are guilty of hating Jesus to such a degree that we would all crucify him again and again without the grace of God preventing us and changing our hearts. What is the point of emphasizing the rather obvious fact that the Jews of Jesus’ day were the primary instigators in killing Jesus if I would have been happy to help them kill Him myself?

John 8 is not intended to be a damning biography of the Jewish people exclusively. Rather, it is damning biography of mankind. Jews and Gentiles alike share the same wicked, Christ-hating nature. This was Paul’s point in Romans 3:9-18. Paul was a Jew, by the way.

“What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” “THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,” “THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS”; “WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS”; “THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN.” “THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.” (Rom 3:9-18).

This is the sweeping indictment of the entire human race. Until you and I are regenerated and given new hearts, we hate Christ and would gladly kill Him if we had the opportunity. The reason we hate Christ is because we hate God, and Christ is the Son of God and the exact representation of the Father. And the reason we hate God is because we do not want Him telling us what to do and how to live our lives, under the threat of eternal punishment. In Luke 19:14, Jesus describes the sentiment of all unsaved human beings: “But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’”

The only reason 21^st century people – Jew and Gentile alike – have not crucified Christ is because He is not here, walking the earth in our generation, and permitting Himself to be captured and tortured. But if He was … if He had chosen to come in the 21^st century, instead of the first century … if he had come to America, instead of Israel … He would enrage Americans every bit as much as He enraged first century Jews. He would demand our allegiance. He would assert His exclusive claims of truth: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through Me.” He would condemn the vast majority of self-righteous, formalistic American churchgoers, and tell them that they didn’t know Him and He didn’t know them. He would condemn America’s immoral culture. He would lay out the strict cost of following Him. He would condemn easy believism and those who are merely hearers of the Word, but not doers.

This would prove to be as popular today as it was in first century Israel. People would deny His claims of deity. They would call Him a radical, an extremist, a hater, a demon-possessed man, a cult leader, a blasphemer, a heretic, etc. Plots would be formed to murder Him, and if he permitted Himself to be captured by men, He would be seized, tortured, mocked and murdered. And once the deed had been done, the world would celebrate and gloat.

In order to be saved, we must be reconciled to Jesus Christ. We must love the God Man whom we hate by nature. This can only happen by a work of sovereign grace wherein our hearts are changed. Have you experienced this change of heart? Do you know that you were born with hatred toward God and Christ? Have you ever come to terms with that? Are you able to say, “Yes, it’s true, because I was so vile and so selfish, I hated Him and did not want Him to reign over me. But now I see my sin and my foolishness. And now I love Him whom I once hated. I am at peace with Him and I now love to be ruled by Him.”?

Paul speaks of these two Adams in 1 Corinthians 15:45: “So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”

The first Adam was chosen to represent the entire human race in the test God appointed for him. His test was one of obedience. He was told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Much depended on Adam’s success or failure. If he obeyed the one command, he would have entered into a life of blessedness, and all his posterity would have been born into such a state. But if he disobeyed, all his posterity would enter a state of death and condemnation.

Romans 5:12 spells out the devastating consequences of the first Adam’s sin: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned …”

The impact of the first Adam is staggering. Because he sinned, everyone born into this world has been born in a state of sin and death. The moment we’re born, we begin the process of dying. Because we sin against a holy God, we are under condemnation. In short, we come into the world, wired to sin and rebel against God, and are justly condemned to hell for our wickedness. Adam’s sin brought the world under a curse. Disease, pestilence, disastrous weather, war, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, trafficking, drug addiction, sexual immorality, divorce, child abuse, etc. This is what the first Adam wrought.

We may object: “This is not fair. Why am I born into such a condition? No one consulted me. I didn’t ask to be represented by Adam. I didn’t ask to be born into this world.” But such objections do not change anything. The truth is that God is infinitely wise, and He is the one who chose Adam to represent us. None of us would have done any better.

Let’s now consider the last Adam. Jesus was chosen by God to be another representative with far-reaching impact. Whereas the first Adam represented the entire human race, Jesus represents those who believe in Him. Jesus was born into this world without the sinful nature that we are each born with. Every day he lived, he fully trusted God and rendered perfect obedience to all the laws of God. In John 8:29, He said, “I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” He was obedient to death, even bearing the sins of many and suffering the unbearable wrath of God on the cross that sinners deserved.

Because Jesus obeyed God perfectly, all those He represents benefit from His faithfulness. Those who believe in Him benefit by His death on the cross in that their sin debts have been paid by Him, and they are no longer under condemnation. Though believers have not kept the Law perfectly, they nevertheless receive the perfect score of Christ’s obedience to their account, such that they stand before God in complete perfection.

Romans 5:18-19 says, “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”

While it may not seem fair for us to receive the consequences of the first Adam’s disobedience, it is also not fair for believers to receive the benefits of the last Adam’s obedience. Christ was treated as our sins deserve, while we are treated as His obedience deserves.

May all glory and praise and honor and blessing be unto Christ Jesus our Lord.

A case in point was a law passed in California several years ago that downgraded theft of merchandise, valued under $950, from a felony to a misdemeanor. Since prosecutors don’t prioritize misdemeanors in California cities, the public was taught that such theft was inconsequential. The result? Shoplifting skyrocketed.

Unfortunately, the same thing has happened with pro-life laws that probably had good intentions, but terrible consequences. Let me explain. When Roe was imposed in 1973, the nation was shocked. In the scramble to respond, a strategy was employed to chip away at the court decision and undermine the newfound right to abortion. Instead of outright defiance to the Roe decision through nullification, state legislatures instead began to pass various laws which regulated the murder of infants, instead of outright banning it. These laws have had unfortunate consequences. They taught us that some abortion is acceptable. That was not their intent, but that was the result, and it could not have been otherwise. When you ban abortion and apply stiff penalties to all involved, you teach people that abortion is in fact murder and will not be tolerated. But when you try to manage it, or simply limit it, you teach people that it isn’t so bad. It’s only bad when it’s done in certain ways.

Abortion is bad if the baby is killed by dismemberment, but perhaps not so bad if done another way. Abortion is bad if the parents aren’t notified, but not so bad as long as they are notified. Abortion is bad if the “clinic” is not hygiene compliant, but not so bad as long as it is. Abortion is bad if it is done at a certain time of pregnancy (after 6 weeks or after 15 weeks), but not so bad if done before that. Abortion is bad if it’s done for convenience, but not so bad if it’s done for rape, incest or the life of the mother. In all these ways, regulatory laws meant to reduce abortion have had the disastrous effect of catechizing the nation that abortion is fine so long as it’s done a certain way. That’s why we’re still murdering them by the millions, four years after Roe was overturned.

While the murder of infants was regulated and managed for decades, waiting for that magical day when Roe v. Wade was overturned, the American conscience adapted to abortion and became like something seared with a red hot iron. It became callous and insensitive. There was no other choice, except going crazy or going ballistic.

If a matter of so great importance isn’t dealt with in the way of immediacy that it demands … if justice is delayed and punted to a future “some day” … if those who are dying now are essentially told, “One day help will come … hang in there” … it is impossible to maintain any sense of urgency and impossible to believe that abortion is really that bad.

Eccl. 8:11: “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.”

But there is another way in which our faith is tested. It is tested in the same way that the Jews’ faith was tested in John 8:31ff. In John 8:31-32, we read: “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’” From that point on, the conversation went downhill fast.

The Jews were offended by Jesus’ insinuation that they weren’t free agents, fully autonomous and endowed with the power of self-determination. How dare He! Everything Jesus said to them afterward also offended them, until they finally had enough and picked up stones, at which point He did one of His disappearing acts (v. 59).

This is how their “faith” was tested. It may surprise some to think of these Jews as having faith. But verse 31 says that this whole conversation was with Jews who “believed Him”. I have addressed the fact that their faith could not be saving faith in previous articles. The “faith” that they had in Jesus was tested by the hard things Jesus told them, and it was found wanting.

The first hard truth Jesus confronted them with was their slavery to sin, as seen in vv. 31-32 and in v. 34: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Jesus told them in no uncertain terms that they were not free and needed to be set free from their bondage.

The second hard truth was that they hated Christ and hated Him enough to kill Him. V. 37: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.”

The third hard truth was that their claim to Abraham, though genetically true, was worthless. Their greatest boast – “We are Abraham’s children!” -- was useless for Judgment Day. Vv. 38-40: “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” (39) They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. (40) But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.”

The fourth hard truth was that not only were they not children of Abraham in a meaningful way, they were also not children of God either, but rather children of the devil. Like father, like son. Vv. 42-44: “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. (43) Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. (44) You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

More hard truths followed, but those mentioned are sufficient to show how the “faith” of these Jews was tested. It was tested by hard, unflattering, insulting, and humbling truths that Jesus told them about themselves. They couldn’t and wouldn’t hear it. By the end, they proved what Jesus had accused them of. They attempted to kill Him.

Something similar to this plays out in congregations throughout America whenever a preacher with real heaven-kindled fire in his belly is hired to be the new preacher at a church that is accustomed to milquetoast. Every page of scripture is filled with material offensive to religious sinners comfortable in their status quo lukewarmness. When the new preacher begins to open the Word and proclaim it faithfully, the congregation begins to be offended.

They have not heard this sort of thing before. They are accustomed to flattery … or to intellectual sermons that never prick the heart … or to light, chipper, story-time with a few Bible verses on the side … or to addressing the sins of the culture “out there”, but not of us “in here”. The situation will come to a crisis sooner or later, and one of two things will happen. The man will be fired, or there will be an exodus of people out the door. Their faith is tested and found wanting. They believe in some sense … in something about Jesus … but their faith cannot survive when it is tried in the furnace of hard truths.

We see both responses to Jesus. In John 6, many disciples heard things they could not tolerate, and they followed Him no more. In John 8, the Jews who “believed Him” tried to fire Jesus -- with stones.

But as despicable as it is to see these two responses, what is even worse is when the “faith” of the congregation is never tested because the preacher never preaches hard things. He hops and skips over the hard parts. He knows what subjects to avoid. He knows how to cover broad swaths of scripture at a time, so that he always has a plausible excuse for not getting too specific. He sticks with “the big picture”. If he talks about sin, it’s in vague and meaningless ways that would never offend the congregation, never provoke anyone to leave and never get him fired. Thus the church remains full and the people remain self-deceived.

Thankfully, that was not Jesus’ method. Jesus always put his finger right on the sore spot. There was no beating around the bush with Him, no soft-pedaling, no sugar-coating, no avoiding hard things. He tested the faith of men. Some passed the test, by the grace God had given them to hear the hard things and receive them, and others hardened their hearts and got angry.

Unfortunately, this attitude is all too common. Unregenerate men who do not comprehend the necessity of the new birth believe that natural birth is sufficient. They don’t need to be born again. Just being born is sufficient. They think well of themselves and their heritage and their upbringing. Such was the case with the Jews. But Jesus refused to give them any basis for confidence in the thing of which they boasted.

John 8:37-40: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. (38) I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” (39) They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. (40) But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.”

In other words, being a child of Abraham doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Having good genetics won’t compensate for a wicked heart that hates Christ. Having good parents won’t get you into the kingdom of God. Salvation comes by a sovereign choice of God, not through the gene pool.

John the Baptist had said the same thing in Matthew 3:7-10: “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Because of the promises made to Abraham and his seed, unbelieving Jews wrongly inferred that they were good to go. All they needed to do was be born as children of Abraham. They did not comprehend that they needed to be born again. They also did not realize that there were two branches of “children of Abraham”. There were children of the promise and children of the flesh. To be a child of promise was to be like Isaac, not like Ishmael. Isaac was miraculously born, by the hand of God. Ishmael was born of the flesh, by human ingenuity, in an attempt to create the “child of promise” via surrogacy.

Paul explains this in Gal. 4:22-28: “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. For it is written, “REJOICE, BARREN WOMAN WHO DOES NOT BEAR; BREAK FORTH AND SHOUT, YOU WHO ARE NOT IN LABOR; FOR MORE NUMEROUS ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE DESOLATE THAN OF THE ONE WHO HAS A HUSBAND.” And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.”

There are many applications to this today.

1) We need to teach the doctrine of original sin. All men, including children of Christian parents, are born in sin and totally depraved.

2) There is no promise of God to any child that he will most surely be saved if his parents are believers and faithful.

3) Our children must be evangelized, not told they are already Christians. They need to be told that they are at enmity with God and need to be reconciled to Him through Christ. They need to understand that they do not have an exemption because they grow up in a Christian home and go to church every Sunday. Though we love them very much and greatly desire their salvation, we must not cheat, pick the fruit before it’s ripe and tell them they are saved so that we can relieve our own distress or theirs. They need to be genuinely converted, not falsely assured, and we must wait on the Lord to save them in His time, if He will.

The passage above well illustrates the doctrine of total depravity, which we have been considering from John 8. I’ll come back to it in a minute. Jesus had said to the Jews that if they continued in His word, they would know the truth and the truth would set them free. They were very offended by the suggestion that they were not exemplars of free will and self-determination. “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone … blah, blah, blah.” Jesus told them plainly that the one who commits sin (i.e. by way of habitual life practice) is a slave of sin.

Naturally, they didn’t agree and resented the insinuation. What they did not grasp was their own moral inability to do good. The same scenario repeats itself over and over again in churches today. Some pastor starts teaching the doctrines of grace, which includes the foundational doctrine of “Total Depravity”, and many churchgoers become very agitated and resistant. They insist on free will, confusing their ability to make choices with a will that is free to repent from sin and believe in Christ at any time of their choosing.

But the doctrine of Total Depravity does not assert that men are bereft of a will, a faculty within them by which they make choices. Rather, Total Depravity asserts that men are thoroughly wicked to the core, in all the faculties of their being (their total person), including their wills. Consequently, they make choices only in accordance with the state of their heart, which is desperately wicked and beyond cure (Jer. 17:9). Therefore, men cannot repent and cannot believe, even though they are duty-bound to do so.

They cannot repent, because they love sin in their heart and they hate the true God with a passion. They cannot simply snap their fingers and decide by an act of a supposed neutral will that they are going to start loving God with all their heart (whom they hate), and start hating sin (which they love dearly).

Consider a sinner who loves money and is greedy. His life revolves around the pursuit of money – earning it, perhaps stealing it, hoarding it or spending it. That is the state of his heart. Now, how will he go about changing his heart condition so that he can truly repent of his love of money? How will he simply decide to start hating money and loving God? Can he will himself into a new state of mind? No, he cannot.

If a man loves food and is a glutton, how will he go about denying himself for God’s sake? He may decide he would rather look fit than fat, and he may by an act of his will choose to start dieting, and he may in fact lose weight. But that is not repentance. That is trading one idol for another, one expression of self-love for another. But he cannot deny his belly for God’s sake, which is true repentance, because that would require him to love God and he does not love God and cannot make himself love God.

This is what we see in the Genesis passage above. Joseph was his father’s favorite, and Jacob foolishly showed his favoritism by giving Joseph a special coat. Everything went downhill from there. Joseph’s brothers hated him because he was daddy’s special boy. They hated his stinking designer jacket. They hated the looks of him. To make matters worse, Joseph had dreams which he enthusiastically and unscrupulously shared with his older brothers – dreams about how they would bow down to him one day. That was a stroke of genius!

Verse 4 sums up the biblical doctrine of total depravity and moral inability: “His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.” That’s it. They hated him and could not … That’s moral inability rooted in hatred.

It wasn’t a physical or mechanical inability. It was a moral inability. Joseph’s brothers were quite capable physically, verbally, linguistically of saying nice things to Joseph. They were able to put a sentence together, saying, “Good morning Joseph. My, that’s a lovely coat your wearing. How wonderful to be so loved by Dad.” But they could not say such a thing because they hated Joseph.

If you had put a sword to their neck and demanded that they say something nice to Joseph upon pain of death, they probably could have forced some pleasant words out of their mouths. But they were not under such compulsion. They had a will that was free from coercion, but it was not free from the powerful influence of their own animosity toward Joseph. The truth is that they were slaves of their own hatred, and they could not free themselves from it. They could not simply decide by a bare act of willpower to cast aside their hatred of Joseph and start loving the dreamy brat.

So it is with every sinner toward God and Christ. We cannot stand Him and yet we are obligated to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. For there to be any hope of change, it will take something more than a bare act of our will. We must be born again by an act of God’s will, regenerated and reconciled through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)

It is interesting to consider that where belief in the Trinity is weak or nonexistent, the love of God is either twisted or missing altogether.

For instance, Islam asserts a unitarian God, not a trinitarian God. Consequently, there are no interpersonal loving relations between members of the Trinity, since there is no Trinity in Islamic thought. The result is a god (Allah) who is not particularly loving. In fact, the greatest demonstration of God’s love, as revealed in the Bible – the sending of Jesus Christ to die for sinners – is denied by Islam. According to the Koran, Jesus is not God’s Son and didn’t die on the cross to save sinners. The cross is the greatest demonstration of love the world has ever known and yet it is completely missing in Islam.

But there are also consequences for the love of God when the doctrine of the Trinity is acknowledged in words, but poorly understood, as is the case in many church traditions today. In such instances, the love of God has become very man-centered. Without a deeply rooted understanding of the eternal loving relations between Father, Son and Spirit, God’s love becomes dependent on humanity. That’s why many people think God created the world because He was lonely and needed human beings for fellowship. This exalts man’s importance and diminishes God’s self-sufficiency. It implies that God had a problem in His life and dreamed up humanity to solve it. Nothing could be further from the truth, but strange notions like that readily emerge where the doctrine of the Trinity is weak.

The phrase “God is love” from 1 John 4:8) is loaded with deep implications. It means that God defines what love is, not Hollywood. Hollywood is good at portraying lust and calling it love. It is also good at fashioning a storyline around a man and woman’s obsessive fixation with each other as the answer to their unhappiness. But that is idolatry, not love. God is love and God defines what love is.

Before the foundation of the world, God was love. The Father and Son loved each other through the Holy Spirit. Love proceeded from God, went forth by God and settled on God. Love had God as its source, vehicle and destination. Nothing has changed. Love is still from God, through God and to God.

The greatest commandment is for us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and the second greatest is to love our neighbor as ourselves. The problem is that we are totally incapable of this kind of love. The fall of man into sin was not a minor stumble, it was a catastrophic face plant that ruined us.

We are born into sin and into a state of hostility to God, not love for Him. We are selfish and live for ourselves, not God. For us to love God, we must be reconciled to Him through the saving work of Christ in us (Romans 5:10). The Holy Spirit must dwell in us and spread the love of God out in our hearts (Romans 5:5). And we must have a heart transplant, so that we can love God as He deserves to be loved (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

*There is a kind of faith that is not saving and doesn’t help us. It is the same kind of faith the devil possesses. The Jews who opposed Jesus in John 8 “believed Him” but were exposed as haters who wanted to kill Him.

*Jesus offended them by telling them they were not free and needed to be set free by Him. Unregenerate sinners are very proud of their free will and get very angry if you tell them they’re not free.

*Jesus said that those who commit sin (i.e. practice it habitually) are not free but are slaves – slaves to sin.

*Jesus said that true freedom comes only when He sets us free.

At this point, it would be worthwhile to consider a few other verses which speak of man’s depraved and dysfunctional will. No one denies that man has a will, a faculty of choice. Indeed, we make choices all the time that are uncoerced. But what we need to understand is that our will only chooses things in accordance with the dominant desires of our heart. And the heart of man is deceitful above all else and is desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9).

Before a man is born again, his will is in bondage to sin and Satan. In his unregenerate state, a man hates God, hates Christ, and hates God’s commandments. And because he hates everything about God (the one true God, not the god he invents), it is impossible for him to repent of sin and believe in Christ savingly.

This is why Jesus said to the Jews, “everyone who commits sin in the slave of sin” (Jn. 8:34).

And this in John 8:42-44: “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Notice, they could not hear Christ’s word. That speaks of ability, or rather the lack of it.

There are many scriptures that speak of what are able to do and what we are unable to do. If we want to know what the Bible teaches about our abilities, we should look to those verses that directly address the subject, rather than verses which show us our duty. Below are several examples.

John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom. 8:6-8)

1 Cor. 2:14: “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

2 Tim. 2:24-26: “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

Titus 3:3: “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.”

Heb. 2:14-15: “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

Jer. 13:23: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin Or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good Who are accustomed to doing evil.”

Mt. 12:33-35: “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. “The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil.”

It is because sinners hate God and love sin that they cannot do what pleases God, cannot believe in Christ savingly and cannot repent of the sin they love. They cannot repent of sin anymore than you who love chocolate can repent of your love of chocolate. You cannot make yourself hate what you actually love, and love what you actually hate.

It is because men are universally depraved that scripture gives us such a dismal appraisal of humanity: “as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.” (Rom. 3:10-12)

Free will advocates argue in vain about how unfair it would be for God to choose some people for salvation and not everyone. They insist that God gives everyone the opportunity to be saved by exercising a free will decision to choose Christ. But what they fail to understand again and again is that God could “chances” for sinners to love Him and believe in Him all day long for 100 years straight, and apart from His electing grace, they would trample every opportunity underfoot. The so-called opportunity to be saved is only something that is despised and spurned.

Unless God in His sovereign power chooses to awaken and regenerate a hostile sinner (like He did with the apostle Paul), that sinner will never in a million years take the slightest friendly step toward reconciling with God.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9)