JURONG OUTREACH - July 10

A True Profession of Faith
4th July 2010

Perpetua, a young, well to do woman, lived in Carthage in 200 A.D. Carthage, modern day Tunis in north Africa, had a vibrant Christian community living amongst a pagan people, and Perpetua had come to believe in Jesus as the Christ. She and five others were arrested by the Roman authorities.

Septimius Severus, the Roman emperor at the time, was cracking down on Christians who refused to worship him as god. He feared that Christianity undermined allegiance to the government and he would have none of it.

While awaiting trial Perpetua's father, a prominent member of Carthage society and a pagan, came to her jail cell, begging her to recant her new faith. She turned to a vase in the cell and asked her father, "Can this vase be called by any other name? I am what I am, a Christian. I will not recant."

Later, after Perpetua had been moved to a more comfortable cell so that she could nurse her baby, her father returned and laid a heavy guilt trip on her, saying, "You will die for your faith. Why would you bring such heartache to your father and mother? Don't you care about your husband and your infant? Will you bring reproach on me and shame me by dying as a criminal?" Perpetua was moved by her father's arguments but still refused to recant.

Later at her trial her father burst into the hearing with Perpetua's baby and begged her again to recant her faith in Christ. Perpetua again refused. The judge, not wanting to execute a young woman who was nursing her baby, offered a compromise. Would she merely offer a sacrifice to the gods? Again she refused, and at that point the judge sentenced her to death, along with the other new believers. They were led to the local coliseum with hundreds watching, and a wild heifer was unleashed on the Christians. It threw Perpetua into the air and trampled her. Next a leopard came at her and the others. Their deaths were taking too long so finally the authorities ran each of them through with a spear.

In our post-everything world (many people no longer believe in absolute truth and Christianity) perhaps now, more than ever, true profession is essential. Paul puts forth in Ephesians 1:15 two undeniable characteristics of a Christian. Ask yourself, do you have these characteristics in your life?

1] The first is faith in the Lord Jesus. The faith about which Paul is speaking is not mere knowledge or lip service. It is not mere belief in God for many say they believe in God. But true faith grasps, rejoices in, glories in the gospel essentials – that we are sinners justly deserving God's wrath and displeasure, believing that Jesus is the only mediator between God and man, the only Savior of the world. Such belief does not leave open the possibility of salvation in any other religion. Can you imagine Perpetua agreeing that other ways to God existed? True faith is not merely a one-time faith, but one of persistent and consistent obedience.

2] The second characteristic of true profession is love for all the saints. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another (John 13:35).”“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you (John 15:12).”“We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen (1 John 4:19-20)?” 

This love is not mere feelings or lip service. It is not a refusal to challenge, correct, rebuke, question, or warn a brother or sister in sin. It is action. It is a willingness to risk loss – loss of time, money, emotional energy. It is a willingness to be disappointed in those whom you try to help. It is a willingness to challenge, rebuke, and question a believer. Think of the difference between a doting and loving father. The first wants to be best buddy with his children and will likely not challenge them, especially when they reach their teen years. That's not love. We glory in the truth of our justification by faith, but this does not remove our responsibility to walk in obedience and holiness. The pessimistic, post modern, post everything people of our day need to see authenticity, community, reciprocity (love one another, forgive one another, be kind to one another), humility, and generosity. We have the ability, those of us who have true profession of faith, to live this way.

So where are you? Are you truly in Christ? If not, then repent and truly believe now, casting yourself on Jesus who alone can save you. See how rebellious you are, how much you deserve God's righteous anger and judgment, and then run to Jesus for refuge, plunging yourself in His blood which alone can save. Confess His Lordship and be baptised for the forgiveness of your sins.

If you are a believer, would you draw daily upon the unsearchable riches of Christ through daily feeding upon His Word? Would you truly believe? Would you truly obey? Our words mean little to nothing if actions of obedience do not follow. Perhaps now, more than ever, our post-everything world needs to see true profession of faith.

Work And Money
11th July 2010 

Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. (Eph 4:28)

earn the money they receive are very poor managers of it. They most often squander it. To put children in that position is very harmful to them.

Fifthly, save all you can in order to give away all you can. Share with those who have need. Paul said that those who are rich are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. Obviously we need to be prudent in how and when we give, but the principle is there. Give to the poor. Give to ministries and charities. I am not saying that you must give it all away every pay cheque. I am not saying that you ought not to provide for your retirement. Some of you make lots of money and have the ability to increase your expenses continually. Do you really need a bigger house? Do you really need more toys? Why not limit your expenses, no matter what your income may be?

So, are you stealing? Do you view your work biblically, as a dignified responsibility from God? Do you rightly understand money? Do you worship it, disdain it? Keep in mind it is a powerful tool for good or evil. Do you save all you can? Saving $13.70 per day, for forty-five years, at 12% yields $2.2 million. Do you give away all you can?

Our work and money are blessings from God, but they come with a responsibility to practise good stewardship and honouring God with what we have and what we do. Try it, and you will feel that your life will take on more meaning and a better sense of fulfillment.

What Will Not Save
18th July 2010

It was the third day after Jesus was crucified. As the women went early that morning to anoint the Saviour's body, they were asking: "Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre (Mark 16:3)?" They need not have worried, for an angel had already descended from heaven to roll the stone away. But, though they did not know it, there was another difficulty in their way. The chief priests and Pharisees had gone to Pilate professing concern over Christ's prophecy that He would rise from the dead on the third day. They expressed their fears that the disciples would come by night to remove the body. So it was arranged that around the grave would be placed a guard, who "made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch (Matthew 27:66)." But the angel's "countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow (Matthew 28:3)" and, as a result of that supernatural glory, the watchmen were afraid - "for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men (Matthew 28:4)".

The circumstances were such that you might expect any group of sinners, no matter how hardened, at once to repent and turn to Christ. But the outcome was altogether different, as is clear from the subsequent actions of the guards. They accepted a large sum of money from the chief priests to spread a false story to this effect: Christ's "disciples came by night, and stole Him away while we slept (Matthew 28:13)". Clearly, however great the glory of the angel and its effects on the men who formed the guard at the grave, it made no spiritual impression on them whatever.

This account illustrates the point that no event, however unusual, or even miraculous, can have the least spiritual influence on sinners, for they are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph.2:1). This was true of most of the Jews while the Saviour was on earth; John commented: "Though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him (John 12:37)." And we need not be surprised when sinners continue spiritually unmoved by such events as a prolonged illness, a serious accident, or the death of someone close to them - what we might expect to bring them under genuine concern of soul. It ought to be clear that no influence (other than the Word of God), however severe, will do spiritual good to a sinner unless his heart is good soil (cf. Luke 8:15).

There has often been a similar response when sinners have been touched in their consciences as a result of some difficult event in providence, or by a powerful sermon. They accept that they are sinners; they can see that God is displeased with them; they know that they are under condemnation and will perish for ever unless they repent and obey. But they resist these convictions; they are unwilling to submit to God's authority; they want to go on in their sins. And God leaves them to hardness of heart. It is highly dangerous to assume that those who have undergone some “spiritual experience” have been saved. It is indeed the Spirit's work through the Scriptures to bring about conviction in a soul (cf. John 16:8), but conviction is not conversion.

Paul and Silas were giving the outward call of the gospel without knowing whether it would prove successful or not. And the jailer did believe and obey, as did his household, though we must bear in mind the further teaching from the Word of God which Paul and Silas gave them. Yet, while the earthquake was no doubt a significant factor in what happened, it was not the critical factor. What was critical was the fact that the jailer and his household were called effectually by the gospel (cf. 2 Thes.2:14). It is only when the free offer of the gospel is made and the sinner responds in obedience that the sinner is saved.

Though earthquakes and other unusual events have been used as subsidiary means in the conversion of individuals, they are most certainly not essential. In particular, as we have seen, supernatural appearances will not bring about a saving change. When the rich man, suffering in Hades, asked Abraham to send Lazarus "to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment", it was made clear to him that this was not a means which God had appointed for salvation. We are told that Abraham said to the rich man: "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them". Moses and the prophets - the Old Testament scriptures - were the means, and they were perfectly sufficient. Matthew Henry notes that "a messenger from the dead could say no more than what is said in the Scriptures, nor say it with more authority".

In response to the repeated request of the rich man, Abraham again insisted: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead". So today, the whole Word of God - Old Testament and New - and the proclamation of its message in public preaching, are the means which God has appointed for the salvation of sinners. Matthew Henry comments further that "Scripture is now the ordinary way of God's making known His mind to us, and it is sufficient. It is presumption for us to prescribe any other way." The account of the rich man should convince us that miracles, including the return of someone like Lazarus from the dead, would be totally ineffective in bringing even one sinner into the kingdom of God.

In the Bible we have the gospel of God, which speaks of a glorious Saviour who died and rose again; and it tells us what we must do to be saved. Nothing else is needed.

No More Than One Gospel
25th July 2010
In this world we live in which exalts the human mind, education, invention, technology and philosophy, change is touted as a big factor for moving forward in ever increasing break-neck speed toward what the humanist Abraham Maslow termed as “self-actualisation.” The motto of self-actualisation is “What a man can be, he must be.” It is nothing more than a poetic way of addressing the headlong pursuit of one’s over-riding desire to fulfill his/her potential, to be the best that one can be in any chosen field of endeavour. 

In moving up the “hierarchy of needs”, change is inevitable, so claim the “change agents.” Cultures, and the people who create the cultures, change. Old ways of thinking and working must change as well – the much lauded “think-out-of-the-box” maxim – in order for mankind to keep up and improve. Religions, too, must change to keep pace with the movement. Just like any institution, religions must “adapt-or-die”. When this notion is either forcefully or subtly applied to the church, it often goes along the line of “reinterpret the Bible to fit the thinking and practices of this post-modern world”.  

Alarmingly, many in the brotherhood have subscribed to this diabolical fancy and twisted the gospel to agree easily with the spiritual and moral deviations that presently plague the whole world. This is nothing new, in fact. The apostle Peter mentions in his second epistle “...they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).” The bane of liberalism is the fruit of just such a call for change and ‘upgrade’.  

The Galatian churches fell victim to and were infected by the false doctrine that the gospel of Jesus Christ was insufficient to save them. Judaists had infiltrated the churches in Galatia when the apostle Paul was absent from them. In addition to faith in Jesus, the Galatians were told that they must observe the Jewish rites of circumcision and abstaining from certain foods. Indeed, obedient faith in Christ is essential; however according to these Judaists, it is not enough. When the apostle received word of this aberration, his response was sharp, decisive and uncompromising. 

“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed (Gal 1:6-8).” 

In case anyone should misunderstand his intent, the apostle to the Gentiles repeated his point. “As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed (Gal 1:9).” There is only one gospel; anything else anyone – even an angel – may proclaim, is false, perverted, condemned and the false teacher cursed and under the holy wrath of God Almighty. 

A few years ago, The Times religious correspondent Clifford Longley, wrote some perceptive words on this issue. “Evidently, there was something about this subject which caused hot tempers . . . salvation was perhaps more highly valued then, or damnation more feared; it mattered enormously which was the road to one, which to the other.

“Here, surely, is the crux of the issue: Has our Lord Jesus done something by his sinless life, sin-bearing death, and resurrection that has secured God's salvation for judgment-deserving sinners? If he has, then is it any wonder Paul writes as he does? Is it really any wonder that he calls down God's curse, his eternal anathema, on those who seek to turn men and women away to a 'different gospel', that is no gospel at all? Paul is not being narrow-minded or unthinkingly intemperate in his choice of language. He is writing as a man who is passionate about the glory of his Saviour and about the eternal good of sinners.”
 

The epistle to the Galatians is a staunch reminder that the church is standing in the line of defense against all attacks on the gospel – whether its message, inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility – for the church is the “pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). Unto us is given the grave responsibility to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints (Jude 3).” 

The gospel of Jesus Christ is unchangeable; it is not subject to revisions according to the whims and fancies of men or the ‘change in post modern thinking and practices.’ There is only one gospel. It must be preached faithfully to the lost. The glory and honour of our Lord Jesus demands it; the eternal good of men and women requires it.