Back from WV. Had a great hunt with family and friends.

I’m giving Thanks to Jesus Christ for giving me another week to deer hunt with my son, and my mom and dad in WV. So I won’t be posting until the 26th. Before I take some time off, below is an encouragement for you to give thanks to God. Enjoy!

How to Become a Cynic  (the spirit of our age – lack of thanksgiving)

1. Begin to thank God less and less for everything
2. Make sure you perform all duties just as well
3. Keep using Christian Language when appropriate
4. Believe that most people are inferior and phony
5. Develop a split personality (one for public and one for private, one for church and one for home, one for work and one for home, one for your church friends and one for everyone else)
6. Never take the log out of your own eye – just keep harming others while trying to get the speck out of their eye.
7. Never repent of self-righteousness
8. Believe that I’m talking about someone else right now instead of you.

                   Why is saying thanks to God commanded for our good?

1. Thanksgiving looks at reality in the face and is humbled that God would care so deeply.
2. Thanksgiving defeats stinginess and protects a generous spirit. Tight-fisted people are not thankful. See Charles Dicken’s Scrooge.
3. Thanksgiving defeats self-protection and fosters love that gives.
4. Thanksgiving defeats pride and rebellion.
5. Thanksgiving defeats an entitlement attitude.
6. Thanksgiving defeats discontent.
7. Thanksgiving protects humility in the face of suffering (when the temptation is to accuse God of injustice for your pain).

Thanklessness is the first sin to emerge from our rebellion against God:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him – Romans 1:21

Giving Thanks to God is Part of what it means to Pray:

• First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you – Romans 1:8
• I give thanks to my God always for you – 1 Corinthians 1:4
• I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers – Ephesians 1:16
• I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine – Philippians 1:3-4
• We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you – Colossians 1:3
• We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers – 1 Thessalonians 1:2
• We also thank God constantly – 1 Thessalonians 2:13
• For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you? – 1 Thessalonians 3:9
• We ought always to give thanks to God for you – 2 Thessalonians 1:3
• But we ought always to give thanks to God for you – 2 Thessalonians 2:13
• I thank God . . . as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day – 2 Timothy 1:3
• I thank my God always when I remember you  in my prayers – Philemon 4

And We are Encouraged to Pray and Pray and Pray

• In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God – Philippians 4:6
• Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving – Colossians 4:2
• Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances – 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18

May the Lord protect your heart from cynicism by giving him thanks for all that he has done for you.

Experience tells us that hunger pangs are relieved after an evening meal, that thirst is quenched after drinking from a pitcher of cold water, and that weariness is replaced with vitality after a good nights rest, but how does the heart of a child of God get replenished with the joy of the Lord? And how would a child of God know if his heart is being revived with the bread of heaven? The cause (lack of food) and effect (hunger pangs) that you and I are familiar with in the physical realm is not the same in the spiritual. In the physical world, hunger pangs is evidence of an empty stomach. But in the spiritual it is the opposite: Spiritual hunger pangs for God is evidence of a filled soul. Or using blindness and eye-sight as a metaphor, if you want to “see”  Christ, you must become blind – to know that you are spiritually blind is evidence that you can see the Lord.

After restoring sight to a man who was born blind (John 9), the Lord found him later in the streets because he had been rejected and tossed out of the synagogue by the Pharisees and yet they were driven with curiosity, hanging around him, asking cynical questions. Jesus then asked the man, as the Pharisees listened, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” He replied, “Who is He,  Lord, that I may believe in Him?” And Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” Then he who had “seen” the Lord with spiritual eyes worshiped Him. At this point Jesus taught a remarkable mystery: “For judgment I have come into this world,  that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” In other words, if you admit your spiritual blindness, that is evidence of spiritual eyesight. But if you say, “I have no spiritual blindness – I can see clearly,” then that is evidence that you see nothing at all.

Offended at the implication, the Pharisees responded, “Are we blind also?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say,‘we see.’ Therefore your sin remains.” Since the Pharisees boasted that they could see spiritual things just fine, their sins remained, and so they remained in darkness. They could not see (admit spiritual blindness) their need of a Savior to take away their sins. But one who does see (admits spiritual blindness) has his sins removed.

Let’s ask the questions again: how does the heart of a child of God get
replenished with the joy of the Lord? And how would a child of God know
if his heart is being revived with the bread of heaven? Let’s hear C.H.
Spurgeon speak to this:

“My dear hearer, let me assure you for your comfort, that when you go down on your knees and say, ‘Lord, I groan before thee, because I cannot groan; I cannot feel; Lord help me to feel;’ why, you do feel, and you have got the repentance that you are asking for . . . The very grace which you are asking of God is speaking in your very prayer. It is repentance which asks God that I may repent more. It is a broken heart which asks God to break it. That is not a hard heart which says, ‘Lord I have a hard heart; soften my heart.’ It is a soft heart already.  That is not a dead soul which says, ‘Lord I am dead; quicken me.’  Why, you are quickened. That man is not dumb who says, ‘Lord I am dumb; make me speak.’ Why, he speaks already; and that man who says, ‘Lord I cannot feel,’ why, he feels already. He is a sensible sinner already. And when I say, “Whosoever will,  let him come,’ and you say, “I wish I were more willing, I want to be willing,’ why, you are the man. It is only one of Satan’s quibbles – a bit of hell’s infernal logic to drive you from Christ. Be a match for Satan now, this once and say, ‘Thou lying fiend, thou tellest me I do not feel my need of a savior enough. I know I feel my need; and inasmuch as I long to feel it I do feel it. Christ bids me come to him, and I will come – now, this morning. I will trust my soul, just as it is,  in the hands of him whose body hung upon the tree. Sink or swim, here I am resting on him, and clinging to him as the rock of my salvation.”

The New Park Street Pulpit 6 (1859). pg. 399.

David cried to the Lord, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things from your Law.” Even after salvation we still need to admit our blindness – and if we do, we joyfully see!

Dear child of God, Let your soul be filled with hunger pangs for God.

In your spiritual poverty, live on the riches of Christ.

Let your thirst for God be quenched with a confession of unworthiness from a parched tongue.

Be encouraged that a contrite heart for God is the healthiest one.

Admit your blindness and see the Lord!

I’ll be leaving this Friday to WV so that I can spend a week hunting with my parents and my son. Since I won’t be blogging at all during Thanksgiving Week, I want to post about giving thanks this week.

Several years ago I read Evangelism & The Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer. Below is a quote that I have treasured up in my heart to remind myself that I am to give God thanks not only for my salvation, but for my response to the gospel as well, which is why I labeled this post with tongue in cheek. Enjoy!

Romans 6:15-18; Philippians 1:3-6,  27-29; 1 Thessalonians 2:13
2 Thessalonians 2:13-14

“You give God thanks for your conversion.  Now why do you do that?  Because you know in your heart that God was entirely responsible for it.  You did not save yourself; He saved you.  Your thanksgiving is itself an acknowledgment that your conversion was not your own work, but His work. You do not put it down to chance or accident that you came under Christian influence when you did.  You do not put it down to chance or accident that you attended a Christian church,  that you heard the Christian gospel,  that you have Christian friends and,  perhaps,  a Christian home,  that the Bible fell into your hands,  that you saw your need of Christ and came to trust Him as your Savior.  You do not attribute your repenting and believing to your own wisdom, or prudence, or sound judgment, or good sense.  Perhaps,  in the days when you were seeking Christ,  you labored and strove hard,  read and pondered much,  but all that outlay of effort did not make your conversion your own work.  Your act of faith when you closed with Christ was yours in the sense that it was you who performed it; but that does not mean that you saved yourself.  In fact, it never occurs to you to suppose that you saved yourself.

As you look back, you take to yourself the blame for your past blindness and indifference and obstinacy and evasiveness in the face of the gospel message; but you do not pat yourself on the back for having been at length mastered by the insistent Christ.  You would never dream of dividing the credit for your salvation between God and yourself.  You have never for one moment supposed that the decisive contribution to your salvation was yours and not God’s.  You have never told God that, while you are grateful for the means and opportunities of grace that He gave you, you realize that you have to thank, not Him, but yourself for the fact that you responded to His call.  Your heart revolts at the very thought of talking to God in such terms.  In fact, you thank Him no less sincerely for the gift of faith and repentance than for the gift of a Christ to trust and turn to.  This is the way in which, since you became a Christian, your heart has always led you.  You give God all the glory for all that your salvation involved and you know that it would be blasphemy if you refused to thank Him for bringing you to faith.  Thus, in the way that you think of your conversion and give thanks for your conversion, you acknowledge the sovereignty of divine grace.  And every other Christian in the world does the same.”

While at J.C. Penny’s yesterday, I noticed a new advertisement display for clothing that used a three-tier platform that exalted the life-less manikin posed at the top. The first tier at the bottom was boldly inscribed, “My Decree,” the second up, “My World,” and the top read, “My Life.” The clothing company is called “Decree.” It reminded me of the tower of Babel in Genesis where Man builds a monument to himself, decreeing that he is the ultimate goal of his own existence and his name will be the greatest in all the world.

Man is still trying to create a world where he is reaching into the heavens by his own might, making a name for himself. I admit that it’s an attractive proposition that sells and I too can sense this deadly ambition in my own life, especially when I’m hurting inside for some kind of high-tower of refuge from my sorrows, my insecurities, my fears, – even my anger and revenge for justice: everyone is attempting build their own safe-place, high above (_x_), you fill in the blank.

I love the teaching of God’s Sovereignty over my life that helps me to see that if I keep my life I will lose it, but if I lose my life for Christ, I will keep it. But sometimes I don’t, that is, I don’t like the teaching – it feels unsafe and too risky to embrace. Which is why I often consider these alternative worlds to live in:

1. God is Sovereign & Man is Not Responsible
2. God is Not Sovereign & Man is Responsible
3. God is Not Sovereign & Man is Not Responsible
4. God is Responsible & Man is Sovereign
5. God is Sovereign & Man is Sovereign

Neither of these possible worlds will work because none fits into our real-life world (God is Sovereign and Man is Responsible). And none offer any real hope or explanation for my suffering and my upward ambition for refuge from the storm. What explains my anguish is not only my personal sin and revolt against the one who made me to enjoy him, but the revolt of all mankind against its Maker as we all make our own decree for existence, our own world of self-worth, and our own claustrophobic life where we fight for position, place, and praise of man, unable to love others. And what explains my ache for a high-hiding place is a longing to be loved by someone who knows my need and is willing to come down, all the way down into my mess and risk his own life to rescue me – and then lift me up out of my miry pit and set my feet on a solid rock. EVERYONE wants this!

If you don’t know Jesus Christ who came down, lived a sinless life, was crucified on a cross, and suffered the consequence of your rebellious tower-building against God, turn to him by repenting of your sins, and by faith in the finished work of Christ, humbly cry, “Save Me.”

If you do know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, entrust yourself today again, to him who not only has decreed your pit, but who jumps down in there with you, to redeem your life so that you may know that he is greater and deeper than your darkest dungeon.

The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
  the righteous man runs into it and is safe.
(Proverbs 18:10 ESV)

© Dale Kunkel Art – Image Used by Permission

Today, Jesus is still the King of kings and Lord of lords,

he is still seated on his throne to make intercession for your prayers,

he still laughs over the arrogant plans of man,

he is still the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end and therefore owns all in between,

he still has the king’s heart in his hand and moves it like a water channel in whatever direction he pleases,

he still is the way the truth and the life for anyone who would desire to know God,

he still makes all things new and will do so when he returns,

he still calls the church to go into the fields of the world to sow and reap a harvest of souls for him,

he still knows each star by name and knows your name as well,

he still suffers with you because not only is he the shepherd of the valley but also he still weeps with those who weep,

he still determines what turns up when the lot is cast into the lap and he still gives more grace in our time of need.

Rejoice! For Jesus is still all that he has promised to be for us, and his love is from everlasting to everlasting – beyond this election and all the rest to come. Amen.

In just 5 days our country will have elected a president for the next four years. Votes will be cast but the result will be from the Lord (Prov. 16:33). I don’t mind that kind of paradox considering the alternative: You vote and God is not sovereign and we are on our own.

So I will vote and believe that God is so good and just that he will do what is best for his glory, which may not bode well for America because God is not building America, but the Church. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that God has his eye on and the gathering in of the elect – “and then the end will come.” This is why I can have hope no matter what happens.

Dear voter, Believe that Jesus is Coming Back with His Government on His Shoulder:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of host will do this.” (Isa. 9:6-7).

Which means:

If the wrong guy gets elected – the Church is not doomed: Jesus is Coming with His Government to establish over all the earth.

If the right guy gets elected – the Church is not victorious: Jesus is Coming with His Government to establish over all the earth.

The success of the Church and your present godliness and your future glorification is not dependent on what happens next week. That was settled “on a hill far away – the old rugged cross.”

My hope is in the Return of the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth!

When a people group believes that personal happiness is a right, that is a people group that is headed for moral collapse. For example, if I believe that I have a right to the stuff in your garage because I don’t have it mine, then I will take it, if I can get away with it. If I can’t get away with it, I won’t. Not because I don’t believe I have a right to it, but because others don’t – and they will punish me for it. But if more and more people begin to think like I do, then there will be less and less negative consequences for SELFISHNESS. Wa la! – you now have on your hands moral anarchy where nearly no amount of legislation just short of Marshall law will keep things in order.

Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984, pic above) reminded us of this truth in his books, “How Should We Then Live” and also, “The Abolition of Truth and Morality.” He cited world history as evidence for what would come to America if we, as a people group, began to believe the same. When Man places himself, and his own personal happiness (as defined by himself) at the center of all things, then no one will be able to love their neighbor out of consideration for the others’ wellbeing; my personal welfare will always trump yours.

But why do I tether abortion to moral anarchy? If you read in Schaeffer’s books he does the same: If you can justify murder on the most vulnerable of your citizens then you will justify, in time, anything. Your rights and your personal happiness will be a Law to yourself. You see, the death of a baby under the protection of legalized abortion is not the only thing that dies, but also the moral compass that once said, “NO” to abortion and “Yes” to – “I will not hurt my neighbor just to make my life easier.”

The philosophy of abortion is more dangerous for a society than abortion itself. When “My Rights” usurps the rights of another at their expense, when my rights to my personal happiness become supreme, when whatever makes me happy at this moment must be honored regardless of harm to another, then we are well on our way to calling good evil and evil good.

I remind you again: There is no amount of legislation that can hold back the propensity to moral anarchy when this happens; a people group will lose more and more of its personal freedoms because no one can be trusted to be civil anymore.

Dear voter, consider your vote for abortion to be a vote for giving your neighbor the right to plunder your garage – if he wants your stuff for his personal happiness. But I plead with you to reconsider: don’t vote according to your conscience – vote according to what sustains a moral conscience for society, then, not only will babies be safe, but so will you. Why? Because when you are in the way of someone’s personal happiness, and you will be at some point, that person might still have the decency to say “No” to self, and say, “Yes” to you.

Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

A couple weeks ago I gave a sermon to help our people think about God’s character when they vote. When you reverence, trust, delight in – the personhood of God revealed in Jesus Christ, you have started in the right place to think about everything else. Those who do not want to begin here are fools.

Here are 7 points that reflect our delight in God’s character. My prayer is that they would inform and then shape your view on politics and would guide your vote for President. In my opinion, these are in ascending order from the least influential to the greatest, in helping me make the wisest vote possible.

1. God’s Character of Covenant Faithfulness to Israel.

I want to vote for a president who would defend Israel’s right to be a nation and therefore support God’s Covenant with Israel (Zech. 2:8; Romans 11:1-2, 11-12, 24; Psalm 122:6). One day, God is going to graft unbelieving Physical Israel back into the Olive Tree of Salvation. To put an axe to the state of Israel is to cut your own legs off, and one only needs to look at world history and the nations that pick on Israel: Egypt, the Cananittes, Assyria, Babylon, The Medes and the Persians, Rome – Ask Syria how long the 6 day war lasted in 1967. You pick on Israel, you pick a fight with God.

Vote for a candidate that will honor and respect Israel as a nation entitled to her original borders when she was granted nation status in 1948.

2. God’s Character of Jurisdiction.

Even Jesus had boundaries and did not meddle. Jesus said things like,

• If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight.
• Who made me an arbitrator between you and me?
• What does that have to do with me?

God rules over all but he gives men the priviledge to lead with limitations, in the Family, the Church, and Government. In Romans 13:1-5, there is the limitation for goverenment , “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.”

Government is limited in its terror, or threat. It is not to threaten with punishment good conduct. It may not force, tax, fine, strong-arm me into good conduct – I don’t have to mow my neighbors lawn if I don’t want to, as far as the government is concerned – though God is. Consequently, it is not right for a people to expect so much from government as if it has unlimited capacity to fix the human race and force its citizens to do good things under threat of penalty. Therefore, I’m voting for:

• A President that helps its citizens to help one another.
• A President that has a biblical view of what is good and what is evil
• A President that does not believe that government can create utopia.
• A President that does not threaten good behavior with penalty, as a basic principle

3. God’s Character as a Creative & Hard Worker.

*Gen. 1:1 –  “In the beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth.”              *Gen. 2:15. Adam is to work and keep the garden. He is not simply to work but keep, tend – it carries with it the idea of creativity. Work is not to be mindless, thoughtless, and insensitive.                                                                                                        *Prov. 6:6ff – There is wisdom in looking at an ant hill in the summer and watch them gather up for the fall and come to an epiphany: “I better get off my sluggish rear-end and learn the way of an ant.”

I’m going to vote for a candidate that has a basic principle of responsibility for working hard and making your own way, giving you the freedom to succeed or fail based upon the sweat of your brow.

4. God’s Character of Justice Over the Rich and the Poor Alike.

• Lev. 19:9-18 & many passages that says that God cannot be bribed – he does not show partiality.
• The Census tax (Exodus 30:11-16) and the Tenth/Tithe Tax (Deut. 14:22-29). And the Feast of Firstfruits – (Lev. 23:9-14)
• Kindness for poor citizens and helping the poor man to become self-sustaining (Lev. 25).

In the census tax, everyone, both rich and poor alike paid the same an annual fee. In the tithe tax/offering, the man who has 10 acres of fig trees pays with one acre, the man who has 100 pays with 10, and the man who has 1,000 pays 100. Everyone pays the exact same amount for being a citizen, and everyone pays the exact same percentage on all of their income. Which means the rich man can’t use his power to exploit the poor man, saying, “I’m going to pay five percent, but you’re going to pay fifty percent.” Nor were the poor allowed to say, “We’re going to pay five percent and the rich are going to pay fifty percent because they can afford it.” What that is ladies and gentlemen is the politics of envy that legalizes theft.

“Anytime you vote a tax on somebody else that is not a tax on yourself, you’re stealing from your brother. And though the whole world does it and though it’s common practice in the United States of America, a Christian shouldn’t be caught dead voting to fill his own pocketbook at the expense of someone else. Isn’t that plain? Isn’t that clear? And until we get some kind of flat tax, we’re going to have a politicized economy, we’re going to have class warfare, and we’re going to have the whole nation’s rule being determined by the rush for economic advantage at the polls. Don’t do it. Even if that means sacrificing some benefit you might receive from the federal government. Don’t ask other people at the point of a gun to give you from their pockets what you don’t have. That’s sin.” – R.C. Sproul

In addition, just because a business man steals does not justify the government stealing from the business man. Stealing from a thief is still sin.

I’m going to vote for a President who would not steal from from his neighbor – through taxes.

5. God’s Character of Justice for the Oppressed (the poor, the orphan, the widow, the homeless, the incarcerated, the hungry, the naked, the diseased and crippled). All the verses cited on the previous point speak to this.

God goverened his people in such a way that took care of the poor and the oppressed, AND did not steal through unjust taxation at the same time. Simply, I’m going to vote for a candidate whose policies will reflect as close as possible God’s character of Justice for the Rich and the Poor Without Stealing from its own Citizens.

6. God’s Character of Sexuality that is portrayed in the Cross as the husband dies to redeem his bride. Genesis 3 & Eph. 5:22ff.

I’m going to vote for a President who would lean toward a biblical view of man and woman. One groom for one bride. Marriage is not to be defined down to accommodate a platonic, that is, a non-sexual friendship, partnership, ect. between man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal. Marriage is a sexual union between one man and one woman bound by a covenant before God and Man.

7. God’s Character Revealed in Making Man in His Image. Genesis 1. When God created man he did not just create life but also likeness in his image – we are image-bearers of the Living God.

We are not just alive we are like him: we feel love and rejection, we have self-awareness and self-conscience that is able to approve or disapprove an action as good or evil. Though made a little lower than angels yet humans are crowned with glory and honor/beauty.

Gen. 9. After the flood “Anyone who takes life – God will take your life.”

Ex. 20. “You shall not murder” – Murder a human you assault God himself.

Don’t vote for a candidate who would legalize, support, finance, mandate support of abortion through health ins. policy under threat of fine – the murder of 1.2 million of its most helpless citizens – abortion is murder.

How can any a Christian vote on Super Tuesday for a candidate who would support abortion, appoint supreme court justices who would further the holocaust upon humans in the womb and then on Sunday put money in the offering plate to support Pregnancy Information Center to help keep babies alive?

For me, this is a single issue vote. This one trumps all others – no matter what. I’ll speak to this with my next post.