Blinded

Romans 11:1 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, 3 "Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? 4 But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." 5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. 7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. 8 Just as it is written: "God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, To this very day."

All of us have at some point or another experienced the blindness that comes from looking at the sun for just a moment too long. We learn pretty early on not to do that. When you look at the sun, your corneas are overwhelmed by too much light, and you come away from the experience with something like black spots before your eyes. Fortunately, for most of us the eye quickly recovers and normal sight is resumed in moments.

When you are blinded, even for a brief moment, you realize how precious sight is. To be literally physically blind is a circumstance no sighted person would choose. Or would they?

Isn’t it interesting how the Lord has associated truth with sight? And, additionally, how a lie is associated with darkness? We are told at the end of days, we will either be drawn into the beautiful, glorious Light of Jesus Christ, or we will be cast into utter darkness. One thing I don’t think people contemplate enough is that hell will be a place of total blindness and blackness, not only separated from God’s Kingdom and God’s love, but also completely separated from sight.

And why would this be? Because those who choose not to see will never see. What is represented here is a failure to examine the evidence available to anyone who will choose to look. If you refuse to examine the evidence God has provided of His Person in Jesus Christ, than you are willfully and willingly blind – by your own choosing. This is the present condition of the majority of the Jews, which Paul is addressing. It also applies to millions of others currently on this planet.

Fortunately, this condition of blindness can be as temporary as your next glance. Those who choose to see shall see. The Word of God declares the presence and the glory of God to all who will choose to see, by the power of the Holy Spirit – to see with the heart, and to believe. If you truly desire to see Christ, all you have to do is earnestly ask Him to reveal Himself to you, and you shall see.

- Pastor Bill

A Sacrificial Life

Romans 9:1 I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

There is an amazing thing that happens when Jesus becomes part of your life, and we see it right here in the testimony of Paul, (and he is not lying,) you become sacrificial in your thoughts.

It is really amazing to think Paul would sacrifice himself to hell for all eternity, if only his brethren the Jews would be saved in his place. There are few people who have ever lived who have had a clearer view of hell than Paul. After all, Paul had been caught up into the third heaven, to learn the gospel from Christ Himself. Paul had seen the glory of the kingdom, a glory inexpressible by mere words. (2 Cor 12)

Not only does Paul know what heaven is actually like from a first-hand view, he also knows what hell must be like by comparison, and by the express proclamations of Jesus. Yet he willingly offers himself a sacrifice for the Jewish people, if only they could attain what they appear to have no interest in: heaven.

Paul, called to be Christ’s apostle to the gentiles, never loses his passion or his desire for the Jews. We must note he was one, and knows how they think and act, and perhaps this explains his great love for the Jewish people. They are his people. They are his family.

But they are also the ones who rejected his teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they are the ones who stoned Paul and left him for dead, spit on him, reviled him, drove him from town to town, and hated him mercilessly – plotting and scheming continuously to take his life. Paul knew all about that. (See 2 Cor 11)

What then could make any man profess here what Paul professes, that he would “go to hell’ rather than see the Jewish people go there? To understand this, you have to understand the nature and character of Christ. This is no hollow boast Paul is offering as a means to make himself look better. It is a statement of love for those who hate him – because he knows they are his brothers. And how badly it hurt Paul to be hated so by his brothers. We really see Christ in Paul here, don’t we?

- Pastor Bill

More Than…

Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul concludes his great treatise on the benefits of choosing to live a sanctified life with this grand statement of proof that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

Persuasion can be a very effective tool in our lives, depending upon who is doing the persuading. In Paul’s case we have no doubt about Whom the persuader is doing the persuading…It is the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God inside of Paul persuades Paul just as the Spirit of God inside me persuades me that nothing can – as in nothing – separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus Who is in me.

This is what we are to conclude of this world, and Satan and anything and everything that would seek to pull me away from God’s love. As long as my life is fixed on God He is fixed on me, and I cannot be separated from His love.

But what are we to say about this life, right here, right now? The economy is in shambles, and many have lost not only income, but their homes and their cars. The nation as a whole is reeling into moral chaos and uncertainty. Every part of our lives appears to be at risk. What of this present uncertainty?

We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. It is only in the living of life in Christ that it becomes apparent the victory was won before the season even began. Why: because God has said so. Every area of our life is a picture of what the Lord will accomplish because He has said so. It is a done deal. It is a won deal. We walk from victory, in victory. And nothing can separate us from God’s love along the way. Not miles, certainly. Not troubles, unquestionably. Not even politics, as strange as that may seem. God is the eternal, unconquered One in Christ Jesus!

- Pastor Bill

Dead to Sin – Alive to Christ

Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Have you ever thought about why Jesus has commanded water-baptism in the life of the believer? It is not because the believer is saved by water-baptism, as the event is merely symbolic. It is very important symbolism, but it is not the act of baptism that saves, or even assures salvation for the one who has made a profession of faith. (Some think water-baptism is required for salvation. According to God’s Word, this is not the case – see the thief on the cross.)

First, we can say presenting yourself for public water-baptism is simply an act of obedience to Jesus. Those who have made a profession of faith, now take a step in faith by following His command to be identified publicly as a follower of Christ. This is a very big deal in the life of the new believer. It is an act of submission. What’s the big deal about being lowered beneath the surface of the water and raised again? Well, forgetting about the symbolic importance of the act for the moment, let us consider we are doing it because Jesus said so. Period. In the same way those in the camp of the Israelites were commanded to look upon the bronze serpent to be saved from death. How could that work? Faith. That’s it. God desires us to express our faith with actions that sometimes make no sense to our flesh, and publicly expose ourselves as God-followers. “I did it because God said to.”

But what about the symbolism? (This is the second point.) We are demonstrating an understanding we are not the same. Lowered beneath the surface of the water, we are willingly dying to our old selves. No one is forcing us; we are demonstrating we have made that choice. “My old life of sin is dead.” Raised from the water, we are raised in the newness of life, just as Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day. We are justified by His death, but we are saved by His resurrection.

Now, having made this very important symbolic statement about our life in Christ, how could we then go back to the life we have lived previously? No, I have died to that life of sin once and for always. My water-baptism reminds me I have made that choice.

- Pastor Bill

Justification

Romans 4:13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. 16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all 17 (as it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations"*) in the presence of Him whom he believed--God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; 18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be."

Life is inherently unfair, and unfairness is most often dealt with by pleas for “Justice!”

When an injustice has occurred, how may it be overcome? Of course that would be through justice, and punishment for the sin which has resulted in the injustice which has occurred. But does the punishment ever overcome the crime? Is justice ever really attained? Has anyone ever been un-murdered, or un-raped, un-thieved, or un-molested by meting out of punishment?

And what about you? Since we are all sinners, (and we all carry a deep awareness of our sinfulness,) what means of justice would you propose for yourself to overcome your sin? Would you seek justice for yourself - in all those cases of injustice you have practiced? Could you somehow work off that debt of sin and make it un-sin?

I think we clearly see the problem of seeking justice for others, when we have such self-knowledge of injustice within ourselves; our own forms of cruelty, and prejudice, and angry thoughts, let alone the pettiness and plain un-godliness of some of our actions. How could any of that be overcome by some work we may attempt to perform – especially when we then become prideful about the work we have performed in doing what we perceive to be ‘good?’

God deals with injustice in a way no man could ever conceive. Man’s concept for injustice is to make it just, to punish it rightly. To punish injustice to the degree it does not occur again. God’s concept of justice brings justification. What? Justification takes place at the intersection of justice, mercy, and grace. It is the most magnificent intersection in the recorded history of man. Justification does not cover sin - it eliminates the recording of it. It expunges the record. My God, Who has witnessed my sin, now tells me He will die to pay the punishment for it. And – He tells me I cannot work to achieve it, I can only believe it. I can either place my faith in His justification - or receive His justice. One leads to life - the other to death. It is my choice which I will seek. Praise be to God, this is great news! I shall be free of my sin.

- Pastor Bill