John MacArthur’s comments, below,  on Romans 1 and the degradation that follows when philosophy replaces the Word of God (excerpt from a sermon).

What kind of darkness? What do we mean? Well, “empty imaginations” simply means meaningless musings, meaningless thoughts, and useless human dialogue.  In fact the word is dialogismos, for imaginations, human dialoguing, human debate, human discussion, human information, empty words. And into the emptiness and the vacuum comes rushing the darkness. And darkness in the Bible is seen in two ways, first is intellectual and second is moral, and I don’t have the time tonight but if we did we could trace that. You will find throughout Scripture darkness picturing intellectual ignorance and you will find it also picturing moral perversity. And you find it all over the Old Testament and all over the New Testament as well. Darkness refers to intellectual ignorance, the absence of truth and the absence of righteousness, moral perversion. That is precisely what happens. Man says no to God, he will not glorify God, he decides that he’s going to spin off his own musings and in his big empty nothingness that comes out of his own mind he creates a vacuum that sucks in intellectual blackness and moral perversion. And so man has forfeited understanding, he’s forfeited virtue. Well that is why the philosophies of this world tend toward immorality, they have no restraint power, they are … they’re basically intertwined with immorality. The worldly philosophies accommodate immorality because they both come out of the darkness of hell itself.
 
Now all the vain imaginations of man will give you is a legacy of darkness, darkness intellectually and darkness morally. All the philosophies of the world will leave you with nothing but that. Look with me very rapidly at Colossians chapter 2 and I’ll show you why. Colossians chapter 2 verse 8, now this is right straight from the Holy Spirit through Paul. “Beware lest any man spoil you,” and the verb for spoil is a very rare verb used of kidnapping someone, plundering a house or seducing and ravaging a young girl. Don’t let anybody kidnap you, seduce you, plunder you, “through philosophy.” Now that’s fairly clear, isn’t it? Human wisdom, the theories of God and man, the theories of truth, spun out of the empty imaginations of a darkened heart. When anyone comes to me and says, well I’m going to take philosophy.  All, all I ever think about is this passage, Colossians 2:8. You’re going to come out kidnapped, plundered and ravaged, because you’ve given yourself over to the useless musings of blackened hearts who do not know truth and do not know morality. It is vain deceit, and I believe that phrase describes philosophy, it is an empty illusion, it purports to be something, it is nothing, but that which can ravage the soul. It is after the tradition of men, that is it is human, it is from the level of inadequate human thinking, and it embodies the rudiments of the world, and those are…that is a phrase used several times, it means the basic elements of human wisdom, the infantile poverty stricken opinions of a world full of fools. Philosophy doesn’t advance you; philosophy doesn’t give you something deep, profound. Philosophy doesn’t give you something new; it is a regression to the basic perversions of the human mind, devoid of God and lost in the blackness of sin. So man will reject revelation, and he’ll be left with a legacy of darkness.
 
And that will lead him to step three.  Rationalization, this is fascinating. You can see right here the fall of man. The third reason God has a right to judge them is rationalization, verse 22, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Here they are, they have said no to revelation, they have utterly rejected the truth, they are left with empty, meaningless human philosophy, their dark hearts are filled with deceit, and they announce that they are wise.
 
Now that is rationalization. The futility, resulting in the loss of touch with reality, they don’t even know what wisdom is anymore. They’ve obviated the standard. Man doesn’t think right about anything, why should he think right about how he thinks? He doesn’t think right about anything else. He refuses to accept truth, so in effect he destroys the power to discriminate, do you understand that now? You know sometimes when I listen to the philosophers and I read all the garbage and I hear all these people talking about what they believe and what is right and what is wrong, it’s very frustrating to me, and you say to yourself, how could they ever think that way? And you have to remember that they think illogically. They have abandoned any right to think properly, so everything is going to come out wrong. They have no power to discriminate, they cannot perceive truth, they cannot perceive error.
 
You know ah, years ago Christians decided they had to believe in evolution, because they were intimidated by the philosophers who taught evolution. And so immediately they looked for places in the Christian system where you could put evolution, and we still believe in creation and God started it and then evolution took over, and they came up with what is known as quote, unquote theistic evolution or progressive creationism. And it was an accommodation because people were intimidated by the rationalization of a whole fools who didn’t know the truth anyway. What about liberal theology? More schools and churches have been ruined by the theology of liberals because people have been intimidated by their supposed intellectualism when they don’t know anything. They are fools. They live in the ultimate insanity believing they’re wise. And then today it’s psychology. People think that psychologists have all the answers. They don’t have the answers, don’t be intimidated by them. Men think they’re smart when they’re utter fools. By the way, you might be interested to know that the word here, “they became fools.” is moraino, from which we get moron. Men are morons, but they think they’re wise. What an incredible deception. Do you know what they are? They’re wise all right, but their wisdom is limited to one sphere. They are wise in their own conceits. Do you know what that means? They are wise only in their own conceited self-styled perception, that’s all.
 
Martyn Lloyd‑Jones, great saint of God, who is now with the Lord wrote this, “The whole drift toward modernism that has blighted the church of God and nearly destroyed its living gospel may be traced to an hour when men began to turn from revelation to philosophy.”   Simply stated, they stopped listening to God’s Word and decided they wanted to listen to men. And so nowadays you can take a good Christian institution and you start feeling intimidated by the academic community so you start pumping people into it who are educated and trained in the philosophies of the world and pretty soon they undermine everything it ever stood for. And they intimidate the people, who don’t have their supposed credentials. Look with me at First Corinthians 1.
 
Now mark this people, carefully, philosophy is always set against the Gospel, it’s always set against the Gospel, the wisdom of man versus the wisdom of God. So in First Corinthians 1 Paul says, verse 18, well verse 17 he says, “Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not with the wisdom of words.” In other words it is not just verbiage.  “For, the preaching of the cross is to them that perish”. Now, here is this insanity again. While men are saying their foolishness is wisdom, they’re saying true wisdom is foolishness. That’s where they are, that’s where human kind exist, in that sphere. “But unto us who are saved the preaching of the cross is (what?) the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,” so called wisdom by the way, this is quoted from Isaiah, “and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Then where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” It’s foolish. Don’t be intimidated. What did worldly wisdom ever do to transform lives? Has, has all the philosophy of men throughout its generations saved man from the constant decline? No, it has no power. Verse 21 says, in First Corinthians 1, “For since in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” What man’s wisdom couldn’t do God’s foolishness did. Verse 25, “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; the weakness of God is stronger than men.” The blunt, clear message delivered by uneducated Christians with transformed lives infinitely exceeds the tangled, confused complications of human philosophy. That’s what its saying. “Fools, fools, fools.” The biggest fool of all is the one who has rejected the light, gone into the darkness of philosophy and now rationalizes that this darkness is light, and the light is darkness. He thinks he is a super mind or will become one and he is actually a moron. It’s that simple.

THE CRYSTAL ROUND THING AND THE CROSS

The New Year’s Eve Ball is supposed to symbolize “Hope for Fellowship,” “Hope for Wisdom” and “Hope for Abundance.”  Uhhh…well…hmmm.

Do you remember when you first discovered you were loved and chosen by God?  Have you ever meditated on the fact that you were loved and chosen before you knew you were?

God sent a singer to tell us He has always intimately known us (Psalm 139).  He sent His Son to tell us we have always been chosen. “You did not choose me, I chose you,” He said.  He sent an apostle to write from a Roman prison cell, blessing us with the sweet truth that we have been chosen from before the creation of the world.

If it was important enough for God to send a singer, a Son, and an imprisoned apostle to tell us this precious news, shouldn’t we celebrate more?  Shouldn’t we find comfort in knowing that before one of our sinful days became a reality God’s eternal love was set on us?

One day the Son of God gathered close friends into a circle and told them they were loved and chosen.  He then went to the cross to prove it.  Even after validating it in the resurrection it took some time before they began to celebrate it with their lives.

You may have plans to gather with a few friends tonight and celebrate the New Year.  Why not take a few moments and talk to each other about what Jesus, once upon a time, said to His close friends and what He did to prove it?   Get lost in the wonder of this.  It may help you avoid the superstitious hope that many place in the 11,875 pound, 32,256 light, 2,668 crystal round thing that falls in Times Square at midnight.

Celebrate the fellowship, the wisdom, and the abundance of the Cross – Yea!

Looking Back…Skipping Stones

A short walk from my childhood home was a pond where I learned to skip stones.  Ricocheting one to the other side was possible as the pond was narrow.  The skills needed were a precise blend of momentum and trajectory. I mastered it after many tries. Swish…………splat….……..splat…splat…splat…thud.  That was the sound of a successful toss. 

Life is like a skipping stone.  At least mine has been. Memories float as I reflect on moments when time and place held hands with some person or event, thrusting me onward across the pond.  There have been lots of skips in fifty-seven years. 

I didn’t see who tossed and sustained me until I reflected from a properly aged theological perspective (Isaiah 46:9-10).  Then I discovered the primary momentum and ultimate trajectory of my life was from the thrust of an unseen hand.  Providence was not acknowledged by me for years.  I foolishly believed my life had a point of its own (Proverbs 12:15).  I understand now that it was grace that kept me from sinking in my own arrogant ignorance.

Looking back is a vital part of going on.  God has a way of redeeming the skips of life.  Recognizing God’s faithfulness in the past builds confidence for the future.  My pond is not as wide as it was.  I have no way of knowing how long before my thud is heard. However, I don’t worry about that.  I’ve learned that life is not a series of unrelated and pointless events.

God is working (Romans 8:28). 

Here I go again!  

Singing and laughing I fly - crying and groaning I dive - awkward and frantic I sink  – only to suddenly skip and fly again.   I can even look forward to the thud because of the one who is waiting for me on the other side.

Barry

IT GETS ALL OVER YOU

If you like sticky fun you should visit a honey farm.  Take a spindle, dip it in honey, and pull it to your lips.  Don’t be embarrassed to catch each drop with your tongue.  Be warned.  It will get all over you.  A spindle dripping lavishly with honey comes to mind when I meditate on Zechariah’s song (Luke 1: 68-79).  Every word on his melodious lips, after six speechless months, dripped with grace. 

He wasn’t the only sticky singer.  In the same house were his wife Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary.  They were also spindles of grace.  Zechariah’s hill country cottage was a place where grace would get all over you.  I have been in a few of those homes over the years.  Is your home like one of them? What gets all over people when they visit you?  How about your children?  You do know that your little ones have already gotten sticky, don’t you? Everything sticky isn’t so sweet, is it?  

During the last three months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy and the first three of Mary’s they were thrust together by the sweet Providence of God.  They tasted the grace of God together and satisfied their deepest hungers.  Zechariah joined the feast and before long they were all exploding with grace motivated praise. 

It wasn’t a new song.  It never is.  It was Just an Old Fashioned Love Song originally written and sung by God through the dripping lips Old Testament prophets.   However, what was new was that it was being sung again for the first time in four hundred years.  It was also being sung for the first time in New Covenant fulfillment.  The promise of grace was realized in a home that was a four day journey from Nazareth.

Everyone’s home is a four day journey from somewhere. This Christmas people will visit our homes and our churches.  They will visit with us over cups of hot chocolate in favorite coffee shops.  They will bump into us as we try to get into the same door of the shopping mall for the same special offer. What will they find?  What will we be singing?  Of all that we say and think this Christmas will it mainly be so much wasted breath and brain cells about a mythological man flying around in a sleigh?  Will it be only songs about how cute the lighting of the tree was at Galleria? 

Grace drippers realize there are only a certain number of breaths to breathe, thoughts to think, and songs to sing. They are soberly intoxicated with songs that matter.  Songs about how precious is the grace of God that is in Jesus Christ.  They sing the songs that can’t be faked, fabricated, or filed away until next year.

Something about you will get all over someone soon. What will it be?  Let’s pray that each of us would be spindles of God’s grace.  Pray that when we interact with others, even for a few minutes, Christ exalting grace would get all over them.

For a primer on what that is like I recommend a prayerful and meditative reading of Luke 1:68-78.  IT GETS ALL OVER YOU.

 

This is a good article on why Christians should be readers.

http://www.kairosjournal.org/Document.aspx?QuadrantID=4&CategoryID=7&TopicID=13&DocumentID=5824&L=1

However, as C. S. Lewis said, it is also important to know what is fit for  Christians to read: Even in peacetime I think those are very wrong who say that schoolboys should be encouraged to read the newspapers. Nearly all that a boy reads there in his teens will be known before he is twenty to have been false in emphasis and interpretation, if not in fact as well, and most of it will have lost all importance. Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn; and he will probably have acquired an incurable taste for vulgarity and sensationalism and the fatal habit of fluttering from paragraph to paragraph to learn how an actress has been divorced in California, a train derailed in France, and quadruplets born in New Zealand (Surprised by Joy).

BEING FED THIS THANKSGIVING

It’s been more difficult for Joy than for me as we make our final approach (I’ve been on too many airplanes lately) into Thanksgiving.  I enjoy the simplicity of eating from microwavable plates and bowls.  I take the trash out more, or should, but the water bill is less. However, when it comes to Joy and a mother’s need for a kitchen, my love of simplicity must take a back seat to sensitivity. We’ve been without a kitchen going on ten months. The contractor who abandoned us (I hope it isn’t a sin to write that) has tempted me into selective Scripture reading.  I haven’t treasured 1 Thessalonians 5:18 for months. 

However, the Holy Spirit gave me a whipping this morning as I read Matthew 14: 13-21. After He was done whipping, He filled my heart with gratitude.  As I write this, my soul rises with praise to our Lord Jesus Christ.  I’ve discovered anew that I am not hungry.  Oh, I will certainly be ready to eat the turkey and dressing and the rest of the fixings overwhelming the dining room table come Thursday.  I’ll make sure I am hungry for that.  But when it comes to the most important way of being full, I’m already stuffed.  I ate this meal on my knees twenty-eight years ago and washed it down with tears of repentance and joy. 

I was surprised when room service invaded my hotel room.  I didn’t order the meal but the sovereign God sent it anyway.  Mercy and grace captured me when the feast of the finished work of Christ was laid before me.  When I saw Him, I was no longer free to deny the hunger within and I could not resist tasting and finding that He is good (Psalm 34:8).

I lost my spiritual hunger that day when the irresistible grace of God turned a hotel bed into an eternal banquet table.  While the beauty of the Christian life involves continuous feasting on Christ by faith, in terms of growing in His love, it’s also true that the initial feast satisfies and guarantees an eternal place at His banquet table.

I’m thinking about a father who, for the first time, will not be at our dining room table this year.  However, when he was just a little boy his eternal hunger was satisfied with the same bread that would later fill his rebellious son.  This is why that cold plot at the cemetery across town “ain’t ‘bout nothing.”  One day I’ll join him at the greatest thanksgiving feast of all.

My mind is racing with the implications of no longer being hungry.  I’m going to make a list of all the reasons I should dust off 1 Thessalonians 5:18 and treasure it again.   If you decide to do the same perhaps we can compare notes sometime.  Those of us who are not hungry should talk to each other about why. 

Being fed this Thanksgiving,

Barry

KING HEROD WAS NOT A PRO-LIFE POLITICIAN. 

He came to power in Judea because of his friend Marc Antony’s manipulation of  the Roman Senate.  He was not a man of moral character.  He had a murderous heart.  He killed his wife and later his two sons.  He tried to kill baby Jesus by ordering the slaughter of all male children in Bethlehem under two years of age. He was willing to murder children in order to stay in power.  To say the least he was not a pro-life politician. He also claimed to be a religious man and was instrumental in rebuilding the Jewish Temple. 

Does this sound familiar?  One popular political strategy in America includes among the planks of its platform a toleration for the slaughter of the unborn.  Why are Americans so eager to celebrate political victories that revive the spirit of the degenerate King Herod?  Today we have political leaders who claim to be “Christians” while holding to a worldview that allows the murder of children that God is weaving in the wombs of mothers. 

Would the unborn baby Jesus survive in America today?  Of course we know that God, in His Providence, would protect Him today as He did in the first century.  However, it is certainly true that He and His mother would be targets.  If anyone would be directed to an abortion clinic it would be Mary.  She was a young unmarried teenager and yet she was pregnant.  Many today would say, “Mary, what you have inside of you is not really a baby.  It is only a small blob the size of a fingernail.  It isn’t a person!”  However, Mary’s cousin Elizabeth referred to her as “the mother of my Lord”.  Jesus was already God in flesh when Mary was only a few days pregnant. 

Like Herod, many politicians are so arrogant that they will slap the Hand of God.  This is exactly what abortion does.  Do you know where the Hand of God is?  For the answer notice Psalm 139: 13-16 along with some commentary:

·         For You formed my inward parts: You wove me in my mother’s womb. (Who is weaving David in his mother’s womb?  The omnipotent hand of God is in her womb).

·         I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.  (Don’t you think God will judge a nation when her leaders can’t even praise Him for the wonderful work He is doing in the womb?)

·         My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. (When God works secretly in the womb of a mother He sees the entire frame of the child He is creating.  An abortion not only slaps the hand of God but it also insults His intelligence).

·         Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in your book were written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them (God sees the unformed substance as a person with ordained days.  This doesn’t even call to mind late term partial-birth abortion possibilities but only what God understands about personhood at the point of conception).

How can a politician hold to a worldview that supports the murder of the unborn and at the same time close his or her speeches with a smile, a wave, and a “God bless America?” 

Pray for God to have mercy on America.  I recently heard a pastor say: “America is no longer in a spiritual decline.  A decline can be measured.  We can’t measure where we are today because America is in a moral freefall.”

Barry

 

The following poem was penned after God’s amazing grace rescued

me yet again from the power of remaining sin, giving me

a renewed respect for the deceitfulness of sin,

directing my eyes to the sufficiency of

 the Cross, deepening my love for

and freedom in Jesus Christ. 

The ministering Psalm 

of this sanctifying

grace was

107

 

OUT OF THERE BY GRACE

(Inspired from Psalm 107)

 

Will it be different this time?

This sin, this crouching mental mime

Lures me to ponder yet again

That in the mist there is a friend

 

The price, yet paid, has far outreached

The promise of Hell’s sticky leech

But with the aid of serpent hiss

Right thinking yields to cold caress

 

The wasteland once again surrounds

As horror everywhere abounds

And wonder, I, yet once again

Why in the mist I sought a friend

 

The lessons of this lonely place

Are always seen when face to face

With unmasked evil in wasteland

As, out of there, I search for hand

 

Out of there, is not as fast

As it once was back in the past

When echoes of forgiving land

Did clearly show me mercy’s hand

 

Erosion and corrosion grows

Not recognized back then as foes

As sin’s relentless tide is bold

By roaring sound its victim holds

 

The sensitivity is weak

To hear the hope of Zion’s peak

Yet, there a soft voice calls to me

That I might once again be free

 

The voice gives gracious strength to me

As I admit depravity

And look to see on bloody tree

The awful price ‘twas paid for me

 

It is not right, nor is it fair

That I, again, am out of there

For out of there I should not be

For anything found good in me

 

It is by steadfast love of God

That I now stand on Holy sod

And find the strength to pray again

And thank the close and staying friend

 

Into this doomed wasteland He came

To rescue, this, my wicked frame

From my deserved eternal mess

And love me to his home of bliss

 

Barry Bruce (1997)

DEAR CHRISTIAN, YOU ARE FREE TO CHANGE

If you are a Christian you are free because you have understood and trusted the answer to the greatest question. What is the greatest question?  “How can a sinful person escape the wrath of God and come into a loving relationship with Him?”  You have discovered that the answer is the person and work of Jesus Christ.  The eternal Son took on a real human nature (like yours but without sin) in a real human body (like yours) in order to save you from your sins.  He fixed your eternal problem by doing two things.  He lived a perfect life and died as a perfect sacrifice for you.

Since you are relying on Him for this then you are what the Word of God calls saved (Acts 16:31).  God has forgiven you and declared you to be as righteous as Jesus Himself.  When it comes to your eternal security God will always treat you as though you have never sinned and as if you have always obeyed Him perfectly in thought, word, and actions.  You have peace with God. You have been adopted into God’s family and you now bear his holy name.  You are just as secure in God’s love while on earth as those who are already in God’s love in Heaven. Therefore you are free to enjoy your inheritance.

Now, I know what you are thinking. “I agree with all of the above but how does it help me today? What difference does it make when it comes to my present struggles to live a morally pure life? How does it help me when I am depressed and feel hopeless because I have sinned again?  How does what Jesus did comfort me when I have a lack of assurance due to my poor level of obedience?”

I want to tell you something that may be strange to your ears.  The gospel was outside of you when you were saved and the gospel is still outside of you now that you are saved.  In other words, you are saved by something that happened outside of you and you are sanctified—grow into the image of Christ—by something that happened outside of you.  Your salvation, assurance of salvation, and “level of obedience” is always and only related to your faith in Jesus Christ.  It is what Christ did outside of you that has saved you and that is exactly what will sanctify you.  While true believers will change you are not justified (made right with God) by changing and you are not sanctified (made to be like Christ) by changing.

If any of this does sound strange, then you are looking for sanctification in all of the wrong places.  This may be true because of the spiritual atmosphere in which you have lived since receiving Christ.  You may have been under teaching that stressed obedience more than grace.  The evangelical church has drifted so far from a  Christ centered  understanding of salvation and sanctification that the emphasis has been placed on the power of “yielding to Christ” than  on the finished work of Christ.  This emphasis places the accent on the need to change in order to be free instead of on the biblical truth that changing is the results of our freedom.  If you have heard a steady diet of the following then you may have been influenced by a legalistic understanding of sanctification and assurance:

Are you using the keys to the spirit-filled life?

Are you living the surrendered life?

Are you praying through?

Are you holding on to faith?

Are you practicing the principles of victorious Christian living?

Are you letting go and letting God?

Are you experiencing the higher life?

Are you experiencing the deeper life?

Are you living the yielded life?

Are you claiming your blessings?

Are you a carnal or a spiritual Christian? (This view is especially troubling as it involves a view of 1 Corinthians 2:9ff that ignores the context, which leads to a faulty reading of the passage.)

            Are you walking the path to the spirit filled life?

In this sampling of man-centered techniques of sanctification the emphasis is on the believer’s efforts in using the keys, praying through, letting go, holding on, practicing the principles, claiming the blessings, walking the path, and on and on.  While it is true that sanctification involves becoming committed followers of Jesus Christ it isn’t true that it is about methods of self-effort.

One of the first things you must learn is to rest in the truth that, in a sense, you are already sanctified.  You were “set apart”, which is what sanctification is, when you repented and believed in Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30).  As a Christian you have an imputed holiness.  It is a holiness that has been freely given to you. 

Now, this doesn’t mean that it makes no difference how you live.  You have been saved to glorify God through your life.  Your life is to be a demonstration of the reality of your conversion.  However, the obedient life is to be motivated by and from a heart of gratitude.  You are not to live like a person who is trying to prove he or she is saved by keeping the law.

Does this mean that the law of God is not important when it comes to sanctification and assurance of salvation?  It absolutely does not mean that!  The law of God is important.

1.   It is important when it comes to guiding governments in establishing laws that benefit society. 

2.   It is important when it comes to evangelism.  The right preaching and teaching of the law of God will cause a person to recognize his sin and God’s judgment for what it is and motivate them to flee to Christ alone for his hope of salvation.  This is one of the main blessings of God’s law.

3.   It is important to teach the believer what holy living looks like.  The plumb line of God’s moral law helps us to evaluate our love for God.  The put-offs and put-ons of Ephesians 4:17-32 and Colossians 3: 1-17 provide great examples of what practical love to God is like.

While such lists are helpful in understanding your love of God they are not exhaustive.  God’s Word guides you in understanding what it means to love God with all of your heart and your neighbor as yourself.  However, you don’t progress in sanctification by preoccupation with surrendering more but by returning again and again to Christ.  You will only grow in Christ by fixing your eyes on Him who is “the author and finisher” of your faith.  The death of Christ saved you from your sins when you were lost and the death of Christ is what will sanctify you of your sins now that you are saved.  The more you treasure Christ the more your life will be characterized by “faith working through love”.

You are free to change.  The finished work of Christ has freed you from having to surrender yourself into sanctification.  Surrender to Christ is important.  Yielding to Christ is important.  However, that will never happen unless you come to see that it is Christ himself that is the focus of Christian living.  Otherwise you will be like a bird in a cage trying to use this set of principles and that set of laws to peck open the lock on the cage so you may finally be free.  The truth is that Christ has already unlocked the lock and flung the door wide open.  Look to Him and fly!

The more you behold the glory of God in Christ the more you will come to love him.

The more you come to love him the more you will understand your freedom.

The more you understand your freedom the more you will change. 

You may ask “How do I behold him more?”   God has given you his Word, prayer, worship, and fellowship with believers as the means of beholding his glory.  When you read the Word always look for Christ.  Be sure your prayers are always full of Christ.  Only worship where Christ is exalted.  Make sure your fellowship with believers is all about Christ. 

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

 

Barry Bruce

 

 

     JESUS WAS JUST BEING REALISTIC when he said “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13). There is something clear and decisive about being a follower of Jesus Christ.  He mentioned no neutral ground in his description of what it means to be a servant of God.  The emphasis is not on what a servant ought to do but on what one cannot do.

It is interesting that Jesus does not use manipulation or threats of judgment to get his point across.  He simply states a fact.  To follow Christ one cannot be a servant of money.  In light of the present economic “crisis” many who refer to themselves as Christians have an opportunity to test whether or not they are really followers of Jesus Christ. The anxiety level registered among many (not all) professing Christians is leading them in chanting “YES WE CAN!” as a commentary on what Jesus said.  The responsive chanting goes as follows: “Can we serve our stuff and Jesus too?  Yes we can!” 

Our Lord said, “No we can’t.”

Jesus was just being realistic. 

Barry

 

      DEAR MARRIED CHRIST FOLLOWERS,

Joy and I want to share our hearts with you concerning marriage as the holiday season approaches.  We have seen many marriages try and “fake it” during Thanksgiving and Christmas over the years.  However, it is always obvious to everyone else that they are “faking it”.  We want to encourage every marriage to exchange Christ glorifying presents this year.  Give a renewed, Christ honoring, Holy Spirit empowered commitment to each other.

 

We know how easy it is to cave in to feelings of hopelessness.  All Christ followers face this challenge because we are no longer of the world that we live in.  The world system is organized against us. Joy and I have experienced what some of you may be facing at this time.  We have been tempted to be individually selfish during turbulent seasons in our relationship.  When tempted to believe that all is hopeless it is easy to focus on self.  At such times we may tell ourselves that God does not want us to live in misery and that any path away from him or her has to be right. 

 

When a married couple reaches a certain level of bitterness, the temptation is to believe that the only thing left is divorce. This should not surprise us as our common enemy loves to destroy our homes and desires to cast dark shadows on God’s character and the church. 

 

Satan has false teachers and false friends (sometimes in the form of unbiblical family members and professing Christians) whom he will use to counsel us away from righteous choices (Psalm 1).  The Bible only recognizes two sources of wisdom—that which is from above and that which is from below (James 3:13-18).  The promoter of wisdom from below will seek to convince us that God’s clear teaching about any subject—even marriage—is outdated or does not apply to some situations.  Satan wants to deceive and convince Christ followers that God does not mean what he has clearly stated in his Word (2 Peter 2).  He has been doing this from the beginning when he deceived the first couple in the Garden of Eden.  God has given pastors to the church to guard his sheep from the growing deception that will be prominent in the last days (2 Timothy 3, 4).

 

Our purpose for writing this is to encourage the marriages in our church family to pursue a course that honors God, blesses your home, and protects the reputation of Christ’s Bride, the church.  Each spouse must practice self denial in order for God to be glorified. 

 

If marriage were a casual thing, in the plan and purpose of God, it would be easier for us to pretend that separation and divorce are not big deals in certain situations.  However, the Word of God teaches that marriage is central to God’s plan and purpose to exalt Jesus Christ in the world. Therefore, honoring God will involve turning from unbiblical patterns and turning to God with whom all things are possible. 

 

Any marriage between two Christians can be restored.  While it is not always possible for a believer to live at peace with an unbeliever it is always possible for two Christians to do so (1Corinthians 7: 8-16; Romans 12:18).  This is possible because God has placed the desire to please him in the hearts of true believers and has given them the ability to do so by the indwelling Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:3-11).  God will not allow his children to be tempted beyond hope.  He will always give a way of escape from unrighteous paths.  He never commands his people to do anything that he does not also give them the resources to accomplish.

 

He specializes in restoring relationships—especially marriages—because marriage is a major way in which he displays his beauty in a world that desperately needs to see his grace.  God desires to make your marriage into a display of his mercy. 

 

His best is possible for your marriage because of the resources that he has provided for his people: His Word, the Holy Spirit, and the church.  Whether your marriage is healthy or already at the point of faking it we want to challenge you.  We encourage each husband to pursue loving his wife as Christ loved the church.  We encourage each wife to honor her husband as the church honors Christ.

 

In every human relationship there are three motive revealing questions that can be asked about any decision that is being made or course that is being taken:

 

1.         What will I receive or lose? (The lowest motive).

2.         What will others receive or lose? (The next lowest motive).

3.         What will God receive or lose? (The highest motive).

For the Christ follower what God will receive or lose is to be the focus.  The question is, “What will bring glory to his name?”  Joy and I are praying for each marriage—ours especially—to diligently seek what will glorify God.  We are to do this with confidence in the fact that God rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6). 

 

This life is one of seeking Christ in the difficult places because this is how he reveals his power in and through us.  It may be hard for you to see beyond all of the bitterness and hurt but don’t let that hinder you from trusting him.  It has been said: In the stream of history the heavy things sink to the bottom leaving only the straw and stubble floating on the top. Christ followers write a different history in that what is heavy (really important) floats to the top—to the glory of God. 

 

Barry and Joy

 

 

ALBERT

ALBERT ONCE SANG PROFESSIONALLY

Sponsored by the Russian government, his career was promising.  By age 25 he was entertaining official soviet dignitaries and wealthy citizens at ballrooms and theaters in major Russian cities.

Albert’s love of music lead him to join in singing with people he didn’t know as he would walk down the streets of towns and villages. 

During an evening walk he heard singing coming from a church building.  He couldn’t resist the urge to enter.  He asked to participate in choir practice.  The choir asked if he was a follower of Christ.  Albert said he was not.  They told him that unbelievers were not allowed to sing with believers.  He said he just wanted to sing for a few minutes. They said, “While you sing with us we will be praying for you to repent”. 

As Albert sang the lyrics spoke to him.  In singing about the Gospel of Jesus Christ he was convicted of his sins.  When tears flooded his eyes he dropped to his knees asking God to forgive him.  He repented and trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation.

When the Russian officials learned of Albert’s conversion they tried talking him into renouncing Christ.  After he would not deny the Lord they tried to recruit him as an entry level KGB agent in order to spy on the churches.  When he refused they told him he would never be allowed to sing again professionally.

Albert chose singing with the people of God over a promising career.  He is still singing for Christ in Kirovograd, Ukraine.  Pray for him as his health is failing him in old age. Thank God for His great salvation in bringing Albert out spiritual darkness and into the eternal light of His Son. What a merciful and gracious God we serve in ordaining that one of his chosen ones sing himself out of darkness into Light.

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was surprised at the memories of Dad that flooded my mind as I began writing this.  I can’t possibly mention them all.  However, this is a start.  My earliest memory of Dad is from the apartment in North Birmingham.  I must have been five years old when I pulled on the spring of a screen door.  It came loose with a force, hitting me in the eye.  I remember Dad and Mom’s concern as I became the focus of their attention.  That must have shaped my confidence in them at an early age since it has remained vivid my mind for fifty-four years.

At 1204, 44^th place north the memories of Dad are more numerous.    It was there that I came to understand his love of airplanes.  We lived only a mile (as the crow flies) from the Birmingham Airport.  I remember standing in the front yard watching the jets perform when an air show was in town.  We would occasionally go to the airport, park as near as possible to the runway, and watch the planes take off and land.  That is where Dad first told me he had once desired to be a pilot.  His love for planes was the catalyst for my bedtime changing from 9:00 pm to 9:30 pm.  Dad called me one night after I’d gone to bed.  He told me to get up and come into the living room. He wanted me to watch the 1958 “Steve Canyon TV Show.”  I enjoyed sitting with Dad watching Steve pilot his Sabre Jet “off into the Wild Blue Yonder.”

Another special memory of those days was Dad taking me to the Drug Store, where he worked putting himself through Pharmacy School.  I don’t remember the name of the store but I can recall the glass display cases and huge glass jars filled with all kinds of neat things, from stopwatches to magnifying glasses.  It was like discovering a pirate’s treasure.  I was so impressed when Dad told me to reach into a jar for a magnifying glass that he knew I wanted.  I also remember the BB gun Dad (Santa) placed under the Christmas one year.  It was the same year I got the Army suit.   I should have had the rubber Army helmet on my head instead of using it for target practice and I wouldn’t have learned, the hard way, that BB’s can ricochet and chip a tooth. 

My most precious memories, of those days, are the evenings when Dad (I called him “Daddy” back then) would come home from work, into my room, and have nightly devotionals.  A Bible story would be read followed by a Bible song played on the record player.  Looking back I realize something deeply spiritual was taking place in my heart due to my parent’s faith and those simple stories and songs.

Before we moved to Springdale, many times Dad took me work on the house he was building at Clow Lane.    It was there I acquired a taste for Swiss cheese.  Dad allowed me to eat one of the sandwiches from the lunch box of the black man that was digging the foundation.  Just today I made a sandwich from Swiss cheese and my thoughts went back to that day—the man sitting in the shade of the persimmon tree, taking a lunch break, sharing his sandwiches.

I have many memories of Dad from the 7 ½ years I lived at Clow Lane.  Much of them are about rainy days under the hood of a Chevy.  A poncho would be draped to keep us dry while Dad and I changed spark plugs and oil, cleaned battery poles, and all the other things Dad, for some reason (?), saved for cold and wet days.  Dad also taught me to spot grease fittings from a mile away due to the preventative maintenance rituals performed on the neat riding lawnmowers he provided for cutting our yard and Texas.

Oh, Yea!  The cinnamon rolls were awesome.  Dad was an expert at providing a variety.  I remember getting a little tired of him experimenting with the different jelly filled ones.  However, he always had my favorite, the simple sugarcoated kind, in the mix.  I am sure Kim and Neal remember sitting at the huge round kitchen table eating them.    Dad also loved to take his family to “The Spinning Wheel.”  He would always get a large milkshake.  It was never enough!  I remember the sucking sound coming through the straw as Dad searched for one more taste.

He was a man of God.  Jesus Christ was precious to him and it showed (Matthew 5:16) in the choices he made—and did not make.  If “actions speak louder than words” then Dad’s life was a megaphone.  Looking back I realize that my understanding of Christianity, outside of the box (the church building), was shaped by him in the following ways:

• The trips to the Boys Home where Dad would minister to the orphans by teaching and leading in worship.
• Dad’s faithfulness to take his family to minister to paralyzed Mr. Aaron on Sunday afternoons, even while I was anxious to get to playing sports at Springdale field.
• Dad’s support and involvement in inner city ministry in the Gate City community.
• Dad’s obvious joy in helping plan and implement the Navajo mission trips.

I also appreciate Dad’s faithfulness to Springdale Baptist church and her pastors.  I learned to sing bass notes by sitting next to Dad in choir.  I can still sing the bass line to “Love Transcending”, the first Christmas cantata I sang with Dad.  I remember long prayer meetings.  I still have a scar on my left leg (just kidding) from where I was pinched for acting out in church.  It seemed that Dad didn’t stop pinching me until J. E. Renfro finished praying.  J. E. could pray a long time!

I agree with Josh about Dad’s laugh.  One time he really laughed was when Josh spoke to him and, by accident, burped “Pop!”

I will now say a few things about Dad’s moral integrity.  There was a time when I set out on a weird path.  I chose rebellion.  I knew that Dad was broken hearted over what had overcome me.  However, being a man of few words, he never talked with me about it.  He read me like a book but never spoke to me about what he read.  I probably would not have listened anyway.  However, one summer I worked with Dad at Children’s Hospital.  Every morning and evening we would travel to and from work on the streets of downtown Birmingham.  Miniskirts were in style and the sidewalks were filled with young women wearing them.  I watched to see if Dad would look at them.  In my heart I didn’t want him to but I thought he would surely take a peek.  However, he never did.  Never!  He loved his God, his wife—who Bill Houlditch once called “The prettiest woman at Springdale Church” (Bill was right occasionally)—and his Son too much to give even the slightest appearance of evil.  I watched Him all summer.  Dad was real!

At 17 years of age my rebellion took me away from home and in into the United States Marine Corps.  I remember sitting in the living room with Dad, Mom, and the recruiter.    Dad let a tear or two slip through as he reluctantly signed the papers for me to join.  I interpreted his actions that day as love.  During my three year tour there were times when God would send other marines to witness to me about Christ.  Each time my heart would break and then I would think of Dad.  He never knew this but the memories of the life he had lived before me kept me from getting to the last link in my chain of running from God.  However, he knows now.

Mom, I have many more memories of Dad from Parris Island to Smith Lake to Gemini Moses to New Orleans, etc.  I plan to keep this document going.  However, I have to stop somewhere for now.  I will close by saying that you and Dad have been a great gift from God to me.  Dad always cared for the woman that I knew, from high school, I’d somehow be with until I die—Joy!    After all it is partly Dad’s fault since he moved us close enough for her to hit me in the head with a shovel when I was only three.  She couldn’t have had a better father-in-law.  My two sons could not have had a better “Pop.”

While I knew Dad loved me he, to my knowledge, never told me until the last 15 years of his life.  Neither did I tell him.  But we made up for it with even a few hugs thrown in for good measure.  He was the best Father for me.  After all, God, who makes no mistakes, loved me enough to give Dad to me.

Dad lived “a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.  This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of our God and Savior” (1 Timothy 2:2-3).

 

 

ARE WE COMFY IN SODOM?

Once upon a time there were two righteous brothers. Abraham and Lot (the New Testament refers to “righteous Lot”) both belonged to God but one had chilled out–become comfy–in a morally hot environment.  Abraham chose practical holiness and kept his family at a great distance from the wicked city.  This is not to say that Abraham never stumbled. However, Lot chose to move his family to the suburbs of Sodom (Genesis 19).  He compromised with the cesspool to take advantage of her political and monetary blessings.  He taught his children to numb their consciences to what should cause moral outrage.

The devolution of Lot’s thinking is clear in the way he tried to protect his visitors. One day two angels visited Abraham and then made their way into Sodom to survey the sin of the city.  They found hospitality in Lot’s house.  While the guests were preparing for bed the men of Sodom gathered around the house, demanding sexual encounters with Lot’s guests.

Homosexual sin is clearly in view. The language of Genesis 19 isn’t cloudy about the homosexual intent of the men of Sodom.  God condemns this sin throughout the Bible.  New Testament Scripture reveals that it carries a tremendous penalty (Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9). Some, unconvincingly, teach that Genesis 19 is not about homosexual sin but that the men of the city just wanted to be properly introduced to Lot’s guests. However, Lot’s response in offering his daughters reveals their true desires.

 

Sodom has come to America and is parading in our streets, establishing our public school curriculums, winning political elections, and preaching in many pulpits. We must not get comfy with this boiling kettle. It is becoming difficult for followers of Christ to stand for biblical truth without being tagged unloving.  When our love doesn’t overflow the banks of biblical thinking, into the land of anything goes, we are accused of holding back progress. Even a clear proclamation of the gospel is becoming known as “hate speech” in many circles. 

However, we must continue to speak the truth in love.  Let us begin speaking the truth in love to our own Christian brothers and sisters who, like Lot, may have grown comfortable with this issue.  Let us not grow numb to the moral direction of our country.  While preaching the gospel is the only answer for the lost world and for growth in sanctification, it is also true that loving but firm rebuke is often appropriate and necessary inside the church. 

Ron Dunn once said that, “The three times in Romans 1, where it says, ‘God gave them up…God gave them up…God gave them up’ sounds like three clods of dirt falling on the coffin of a society.  He went on to say, “The Bible teaches that God doesn’t mainly give a society up because of immorality but to immorality because his people have forgotten him.”

 Barry