Moses Prophesied

Posted on by korgrocker

“Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes. If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”
John 5:45-47 NLT

Was Jesus correct when He told the Jewish leaders that Moses wrote about Him? Of course He was, although admittedly it wasn’t by name. Jesus quoted Moses’ writings several times in the Gospels. For example, we have John 3:14, “And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up”. Then there is the parallel between manna and Jesus being the bread of life, or Jesus proclaiming that anyone believing in Him will produce rivers of living water flowing from his heart. The Jewish leaders, however, failed to make the connection between what was written in the Pentateuch by Moses, and the Man standing before them. Their minds and religious thinking was stuck in a groove more focused on a different religion of rules and regulations, and nothing was going to change their minds. Not even with God’s own Son standing before them.

But the Jews were not unique in their approach to matters religious. Today we have Christian denominations and movements stuck in their own individual grooves. For example, if we look at the Church of England, we find the Book of Common Prayer. In this worthy tome we will find Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer, various Creeds, the Order of how Holy Scripture is to be read, and so on. There are a shed full of scenarios for all the offices of the Church but perhaps we wonder why all this is really necessary. After all, the early Church liturgy can be found in Acts 2:42, “All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer“. So what would happen to the orders of service if Jesus came along with a counter-cultural exposure of congregants trusting in liturgies rather than His teaching as recorded in the Gospels? In Hosea 6:6 God said, “I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings“. Perhaps we could write, “I want you to show love, not follow a liturgy. I want you to know Me more than a pew or the Book of Common Prayer”. Of course, I might be doing many sincere Christian believers a disservice, but I’m sure my readers will understand my point.

By now, I’m sure my readers will also recognise that I am passionate about the Bible and its integrity and value in supporting life in the Kingdom of God here on 21st Century Planet Earth. In His day, Jesus came as the fruition of many prophecies about Himself, and He accused the Jewish leaders of not believing in Him in spite of all the evidence that said He was who he said he was. In particular He pointed out the incongruity of the leaders putting their hope in Moses and his writings, and yet refusing to believe and understand what those writings meant in the Person of the Man standing before them. But we pilgrims today must never abandon or rationalise the Scriptures to make them fit in with our ideologies, liturgies or world views. Just because we don’t understand, or refuse to understand, what the Bible says about living in the Kingdom of God, it doesn’t meant that what is written isn’t valid. We will never achieve everything that the Bible says we need to attain holiness by trusting in our own strength. But through the grace of God and the blood of Jesus, we can stand before God righteous and holy. It’s all about Jesus, not about the man made liturgies we love to install in our churches and fellowships. 

There is much more written about Jesus in the Bible. Throughout all the Old Testament books there is a thread foretelling the Messiah, woven almost into every page. And then He burst upon the scene, making an impact that launched the new order, the New Covenant between God and mankind. Most of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day failed to recognise Him, as many still do today. We have to remember though that the enemy has blinded the eyes even of God’s own people. But one day everyone, including all powers and authorities, will be forced to bow the knee before Jesus, the Son of God.

Dear Lord Jesus. We give You all the praise and glory. Amen.

Jesus is God

Posted on by korgrocker

”No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.”
John 1:18 NLT

I have never seen a famous historical person such as Shakespeare or John Wesley, because they were dead before I was born. But I know about them from their writings and biographies, and have seen artist’s impressions through paintings and drawings. But God is different. Even though He has always existed, no-one has ever seen Him, for one simple reason – He is Spirit. Human beings are natural and physical. There are occasions in the Old Testament when the greats of old such as Moses, Elijah and others apparently came close to seeing God, but not in any coherent and tangible way. But back to, for example, John Wesley. Although I have never seen him in the flesh, I can find out many details about him. His life has been picked apart by others who knew him to the extent that I can almost imagine that I have met him in person. 

When Jesus came, He revealed God to us. In the same way a son can tell us much about his father, through his memories, his mannerisms, his looks, Jesus told us much about His Father. We read in John 14:8-10, ”Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me“”. In his Colossians letter, Paul wrote, “For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body” (Colossians 2:9). 

So we pilgrims, by following Christ, follow God, and in Him we will find a complete diet for our souls. In our natural world, there is much fretting and fussing over the food we eat, or don’t eat, or can’t eat. I know someone who is almost paranoid about the perceived harm done to their body by ultra processed foods. There are many diet sheets loudly proclaimed by their adherents. But there is only one diet for our spiritual lives and that can only be found in the Bible. Nothing ultra processed there! In this Book we will find out all that we need to know about our Trinitarian God. Fellow pilgrims – are we reading it? As often as we can? Through it God feeds our spirits. 

Two thousand years ago a baby was born, of peasant parents in humble surroundings, but that Child started a life dedicated to His Father that ended on a Roman Cross in the greatest sacrifice, and consequent moment in history, that this world has ever seen. Many, if not most, have discounted it as being irrelevant to them and their lives. But we need to proclaim this wonderful Son to all regardless. At every opportunity. How else will people know the wonderful God, the Creator of this Universe?

Dear Father God. Thank You for Jesus and all You have done for us. Amen.

Twisting Scripture

Posted on by korgrocker

“And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him— speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.”
2 Peter 3:15-16 NLT

Almost as an aside, Peter rushes to the defence of his spiritual brother Paul, who was a trail blazer when it came to theology in the early years after Jesus was crucified. Paul’s life was overturned on the Damascus Road, and regarding his message, we read in Galatians 1:12, “I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.” In the first and second chapters in Paul’s Galatians letter we get a hint of the preparatory process Paul went through before he was able to set out that “direct revelation from Jesus Christ”, and God’s plan for mankind, but it was, at that time, probably so radical, particularly to Jews, that he suffered much abuse, not only because of his message, but also his theology. People in his day misinterpreted what he said, and, as Peter wrote, “twisted his letters to mean something quite different”. But the same process goes on today. 

The Bible is not difficult to understand. The Gospel message is perhaps too simple for some. The problem is that when we get to a passage or verse of Scripture, that might not fit in with our sinful world view, we try and make it say something that it doesn’t. The Bible was written over many years and the last contribution to it was nearly two thousand years ago. In those days the culture was different. The geography was different. In our technological age, however, Western Christians are sometimes left puzzling over what God thinks, but the answers we seek are in the Bible somewhere, if only we look. A modern approach to Scripture involves “liberal” thought, where people miss out or reinterpret Biblical truths to suit their own point of view, or try and make it more palatable, so they think, to the secular society around them. So someone of a particular sexual orientation will ignore what difficult verses say. Jesus’ teaching about marriage makes some people feel uncomfortable, so they say it was for that culture but it doesn’t apply today. And then we find the Anglican bishop who even denied that the virgin birth actually happened.

As an aside, an Anglican vicar, David Goodhew, summed up the dangers of liberal theology, when he said, “churches trimming faith to fit in with culture have tended to shrink, and those offering a ‘full-fat’ faith, vividly supernatural, have tended to grow.” A religious observer, commenting on the previous quote, wrote, “Christianity is not dying – rather, it is becoming more conservative. Congregants don’t want to be preached to about politics. What they want is the full-fat version of faith.” There is no point in going to a church that has effectively become secular in what it offers to society around them. We can find all the secularism we want in the local pub. Only Bible believing churches will survive, because they regard the Bible, in its entirety, as the inspired and eternal Word of God. Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever“.

Paul aptly summed up the Bible when he wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We ignore this verse at our peril, something that Peter emphasised, as he wrote that life for those twisting Scripture will not end well. And the same end is waiting for those who ignore the parts of Scripture that fail to fit in with secular thought.

To avoid misinterpreting Scripture we must rely on the Holy Spirit within us to lead and guide us and bring to our minds exactly what God intended. So we precede reading a difficult passage with a prayer, and we allow the Holy Spirit to do what Paul wrote, teaching “us to do what is right”. And we definitely don’t ignore those Bible passages that challenge us.

Dear Father God. We pray for Your Spirit to open our eyes to the truths embedded in Your Word. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sodom and Gomorrah (2)

Posted on by korgrocker

“Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people.”
2 Peter 2:6 NLT

We will have another look at the account of Sodom and Gomorrah in the light of 21st Century Christianity. We considered in a previous post the sins committed in these two cities. We read in Ezekiel 16:49-50, “Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen”. And the situation was so grave that God removed the only righteous people He could find there – Lot, his wife, and their two daughters – before casting judgement. We read what then happened to these cities in Genesis 19:24-25, “Then the Lord rained down fire and burning sulphur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every bit of vegetation.” The Genesis 19 account focused on Ezekiel’s “detestable sins” – homosexuality.

But we pilgrims believe that God never changes. Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever“. Malachi 3:6, “I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed“. So surely, what God considered a detestable sin in the times of Sodom and Gomorrah He must consider equally detestable today. How does that fit, therefore, in 21st Century Christian beliefs? Today we have certain Christian denominations who are ignoring clear Biblical teachings on sex and marriage. On the 15th November 2023, the synod of Anglican bishops decided to allow the Church of England to bless same sex partnerships. But the traditional wing of the Anglican church issued a press release that said, “This action is offensive to the God of love. It replaces his wonderful gospel of grace with a distorted message, blessing what God calls sin. This is heart-breaking, wicked and outrageously arrogant“. Why is there such a desire to set aside clear Christian teaching in order to satisfy the strident lobbying of powerful groups who would not have survived God’s judgement had they lived in Sodom all those years ago?

It’s time, perhaps, to look at some basics. To start with, who or what is a Christian? The Cambridge English dictionary definition states, “someone who believes in and follows the teachings of Jesus Christ“. Literally, the word “Christian” means “Follower of Christ”, and the word first appeared on the scene in the New Testament in Acts 11:26, “When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. (It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians)”. So a Christian is someone who believes in Jesus and trusts Him for their eternal salvation. The “believing” bit includes the virgin birth, the teachings and life, and the death and resurrection, of Jesus. The “following” bit means doing our best to read all that has been taught about Jesus and God’s ways in the Bible, and trying to implement them in our lives. A Christian therefore will fall under the category of being “born again”, as Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3, “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God””.‭‭ A Christian will be susceptible to sin, like everyone else, but he or she has an Intercessor in Heaven, praying for us, and offering forgiveness for our sins through His shed blood at Calvary.

Quotation from “Gotquestions.org”, “Unfortunately over time, the word “Christian” has lost a great deal of its significance and is often used of someone who is religious or has high moral values but who may or may not be a true follower of Jesus Christ. Many people who do not believe and trust in Jesus Christ consider themselves Christians simply because they go to church or they live in a “Christian” nation”. I have a good friend who calls himself a Christian, because he believes that there is a God in Heaven, and whose father and grandfather were elders in the Church of Scotland, but he never goes to a church service (funerals excepted). He lives a good life, he says, and all that qualifies him to call himself a Christian. A common misunderstanding? The UK census in 2021 found that 27.5 million people identified as being Christian. This is about 43% of the UK population but another survey in 2021 estimated that only 5% of the population actually attend a church service regularly. I know, of course, that church attendance doesn’t make someone a true Christian, but sobering statistics nonetheless.

So perhaps we pilgrims need to qualify what we mean when we refer to Christians. And we perhaps need to be aware that everyone who calls themselves a Christian isn’t quite what we expect them to be, because they neither truly believe in Jesus and certainly don’t follow all His commands. But I’m sure there are many Anglicans who are true Christians, believing in, and following, Jesus, although there are also many, like the bishops who seem to have abandoned Biblical teaching on sex and marriage, who aren’t. 

But back to Sodom and Gomorrah. The problem with those cities was that depravity was total, involving the whole population. Lot and his family were the only ones who stood firm in their faith in God. Today there are thankfully many true Christians who stand as beacons of light in their communities and workplaces, holding back the righteous judgement of God. We must never stop interceding for our friends and families, our communities and workplaces, praying that God will show mercy and compassion. Will God find 10 righteous people in our community? We pray that he will.

O Lord. Please help us to follow Your commands of being Salt and Light in our communities. Your way is the only way. Thank You. Amen.

Myopic Believers

Posted on by korgrocker

“The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.”
2 Peter 1:8-9 NLT

We need to go back a few verses in 2 Peter 1 to verse 3, “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous glory and excellence“.  And I wrote in response, “the availability of His Power is intricately related to our knowledge of God. As we delve into the depths of understanding Him, we unlock the reservoir of His power available to us. Peter then wrote in verse 9 some strong words, implying that if we don’t grow in our knowledge of Christ, we have become forgetful by not remembering that day when we were saved, that day when we made a decision to follow Jesus for the rest of our lives.

I once knew a man whose testimony was based on a decision he made for Jesus many years ago. But since then his times of private prayer and Bible reading have been sadly lacking. Yes, he would stand up in church and read a passage of Scripture or say a prayer, but for the rest of the time, as he openly confessed, his life carried on as it always had done. “I’ve always been a good person” was his belief. Peter said that such a person was “shortsighted or blind”, because becoming a believer is the start and not the end, of the process of sanctification. It has been said that in terms of our faith, we either go forward, developing “in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” or we go backwards “forgetting that [we] have been cleansed from [our] old sins”. Standing still is not an option. 

Myopia is an ocular condition more commonly called short-sightedness. A person with this condition finds that they can focus on objects near to them, but things further away become a blur. But there is a condition called spiritual myopia, where a myopic Christian fails to see God’s truths clearly enough to use them in their own lives. The Apostle James wrote about this, and we read, “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves” (James 1:22). He expands this theme in the following two verses, “For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like” (James 1:23-24). We find his conclusion in James 1:25, “But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it“. We find that the remedy for natural myopia is a pair of glasses or spectacles. We can find a remedy for spiritual myopia by reading God’s Word, the Bible, and applying it to our lives, so that we will grow in the “knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Spiritual myopia, according to Peter, can develop to the ultimate condition of blindness. In this case, the sufferers, even if they read the Bible, or sit under the ministry of many preachers, will fail to connect with God’s truths. They prefer to remain in the domain of their old sins and nothing will change them otherwise, because they cannot see that they are failing in obedience to God’s Word.

James 1:22-25 makes uncomfortable reading because we pilgrims are guilty of doing what he warned against from time to time. We find a cul-de-sac, or backwater somewhere where we find comfort and freedom from the constant slog of journeying to our promised land. We put our spiritual lives on hold for a time, but even when we behave like lost sheep, God is always there for us. Always willing and able to welcome us back into His arms. Jesus said He will always seek us out. Matthew 18:12-13, “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away!” What a Saviour! If we find ourselves failing to see Him clearly today, God’s prescription for our condition is waiting for us to open it up and start reading. 

Father God. You have the Words of eternal life, written for all time in Your Book, the Bible. Please help us to see clearly what You have for us, as we read it day by day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

A Clear Conscience

Posted on by korgrocker

“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.”
1 Peter 3:15-16 NLT

Our consciences are deeply embedded within our minds, and they are a very important driver of our thoughts and actions. A person without a conscience doesn’t exist, but a conscience can be trained to be more or less sensitive to certain behavioural patterns. Our thought processes can rationalise what we do and override our conscience-generated feelings and emotions. But, generally, our consciences make us feel bad when we do wrong and feel good when we do right. A big driver of how we feel and behave is related to our morality. The modern ideology of “if it feels right just do it” is a conscience-busting principle where our personal morals have failed in keeping us free of guilty thoughts.

So we must ask the question – what is our moral or values system? Where do we find the standard which we can use to programme our consciences? This is where the world view clashes with the God view. There is obviously some behaviours that are essential in society, driven by a pragmatic understanding of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:12, “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets“. This, called the Golden Rule, cannot be disputed even by those who are not believers. Bluntly, we don’t abuse our neighbours because they would then feel entitled to do the same to us. 

We must operate a system of self-evaluation within us, but we know that we can’t depend on ourselves in this process. We read all about this in Jeremiah 17:9-10, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve“. We need that external guidance to eliminate any possibility of our consciences being tarnished by our own deceit. Paul, on more than one occasion, publicly declared that he had a clear conscience. Acts 23:1, “Gazing intently at the high council, Paul began: “Brothers, I have always lived before God with a clear conscience!”” 

So we pilgrims must work hard to maintain a clear conscience, and the only source of the data we need to ensure our consciences are in line with what God requires is through His Word, the Bible. We must constantly read the Scriptures, because we forget and are often in danger of being subtly lured away from the straight and narrow path by the whisper of the enemy bringing half-truths into our thoughts. Remember what the serpent said to Eve? “Surely God did not say …”. Thankfully God’s presence is always with us. By constantly flushing our thought processes with the water of His Word we will maintain a soft heart.

One final thought. There will be others around us in the family of God who will perhaps not be in the same place as us when it comes to matters of the conscience. We pilgrims treat them with love and compassion, as God does with us. 

Father God, we thank You for the way we are “wired”, with a conscience aligned to Your Spirit. Amen.

Pure Spiritual Milk

Posted on by korgrocker

“So get rid of all evil behaviour. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.”
1 Peter 2:1-3 NLT

Milk is a common food. It is freely available in many guises on supermarket shelves, and is still delivered to doorsteps in some places here in the UK. So we have skimmed, semi-skimmed and full fat. Then there is one of my favourites, a “gold top” variety approaching single cream in its consistency. We have the “lactose free” variants, for those with dairy intolerances.  I remember that when I was a small boy the milk wasn’t homogenised so a layer of thick cream formed at the top of the milk bottle, and was much prized when combined with the morning breakfast cereal. In recent years a variety of plant-based alternatives have emerged, based on soya, almonds and even oats.

There wouldn’t have been the same choice in Peter’s day, but milk then would have been available and his analogy for “pure spiritual milk” would have resonated with his readers. And Peter wasn’t alone – New Testament references also occur in the Hebrews letter and Paul makes mention in 1 Corinthians. So why is this connection between natural and spiritual milk such a good one? I have been blessed this year with two great-grandsons, and their mothers are both feeding them their own milk. And watching these babies thrive and grow is a joy to watch. The “newborn babies” in Peter’s letter would immediately create a picture in his readers’ minds of demanding children, not long born, and needing to be fed. The milk they crave for helps them live and grow.

We move onto the spiritual craving and ask ourselves if we are as demanding for the spiritual food as a new born baby is for their mother’s milk? And not any milk will do. Peter wrote that it should be “pure”. There is no other source of “spiritual milk” than the Word of God, the Bible. Just as a baby needs his or her mother’s milk, so a Christian needs to feed on the milk of the Word, the spiritual food that God has provided for us. And just as a baby graduates onto solid food one day, so must the new believer. Peter said that the “pure spiritual milk” will enable the new believer to “grow into a full experience of salvation”. It is interesting that Peter used the word “grow”. A new-born Christian cannot get off his knees of repentance and then carry on as before. He has to “grow”. Just as a baby starved of milk will fade away and die, so will a new believer die spiritually. There is no going back.

There are many helps available to encourage a new believer. Bible plans and notes. Apps for our smartphones to remind us of prayer. But new and quick fixes are not to be found.  Instant growth may be a modern expectation but there is no substitute for spiritual growth through the renewing of our minds. The Holy Spirit will lead and guide us. But in the end it is our self-will that applies. 

Peter also reminded his readers that the “pure spiritual milk” is necessary for the “full experience of our salvation”. Once again we are reminded that salvation is an on-going process. We were saved when we repented of our sins and believed in God’s saving grace (Justification). We are being saved as we consume the “pure spiritual milk” (Sanctification) and one day we will receive a full experience of salvation when Jesus returns (Glorification). No short cuts! But there’s no pressure. God isn’t a strict school master wielding a cane, expecting us to do well in exams and appear on the league tables of Heaven. We drink the milk. God will do the rest.

Father God. We thank You for Your Word, so necessary for feeding our inner beings. Please help us apply all the teaching and encouragement You provide for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

An Afterthought

Posted on by korgrocker

“And now I make one more appeal, my dear brothers and sisters. Watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people’s faith by teaching things contrary to what you have been taught. Stay away from them. Such people are not serving Christ our Lord; they are serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words they deceive innocent people.”
Romans 16:17-18 NLT

Paul suddenly remembered something. Probably a thought popped into his mind, put there by the still small voice of the Holy Spirit within him. And it was a very important thought, a warning even, in those days before the canon of Scripture had been established. Paul’s concern was for the integrity of the faith in the Roman believers, and he started his warning with “watch out for people”. In those days without Google and social media, without media outlets or TV, it was through travellers that news was shared, and apparently some travellers had funny ideas about the Christian faith. Such people would potentially “cause divisions and upset people’s faith by teaching things contrary to what [they] have been taught”. 

Those were the days in which the Gnostics were emerging. These people taught that salvation could be found by special knowledge, and redemption could be found within us. Gnostics believed that there is a “spark” of God within us that could be released into self-redemption where we could be freed from our corrupt body and reach God. This was a doctrine that seemed attractive to many and it was supported by a quasi-religious belief system that seemed to dovetail well into the true faith. All the characters were there, such as God and Jesus, but they bore no resemblance to the true God, and His Son Jesus who died for us at Calvary. Sadly Gnosticism is still present today, and, arguably, has emerged in the transgender ideology, which involves a person ‘escaping’ from the body they were born with and instead choosing their gender based on how they feel.

Pastor Paul was concerned about the flock in Rome, warning them to look out for people who preached ideas and doctrines counter to what they had been taught originally, about Jesus and Him crucified for their sins. These wayward preachers are just “serving their own personal interests”, he said. Perhaps they hoped to get some financial benefit from sharing their divisive messages. At the end of his first letter to Timothy, Paul wrote, “Timothy, guard what God has entrusted to you. Avoid godless, foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge. Some people have wandered from the faith by following such foolishness. May God’s grace be with you all (1 Timothy 6:20-21). The old Apostle John was also aware of error and wrote in 1 John 4:3, “But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here”. John also recorded what Jesus said to the church in Pergamum, “But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching” (Revelation 2:14-15).

Erroneous teaching was rife in the first century, but we can’t be complacent today. There are different denominations that have doctrines or Biblical interpretations that disagree with each other. Sometimes, there is an emphasis on a particular Biblical truth to the exclusion of another. And, worse, there are church leaders in established denominations who question, dilute or abandon Biblical truths and try and absorb worldly practices into their churches. Just the other day there was a news report about a Bishop in the Anglican church who said that referring to God as “Father” was a problem, in spite of what the Bible says to the contrary. As in Paul’s day, we too must “Watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people’s faith by teaching things contrary to what [we] have been taught“. Thankfully, in 21st Century Planet Earth, we have God’s Word, the Bible, to refer to, and as we hold fast to the Bible’s teaching we will continue to walk the path that leads to eternal life.

Father God, we thank You for Your Word and the teaching of Your Son, Jesus. Please help us to hold fast to the Holy Scriptures, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Bless the Persecutors

Posted on by korgrocker

“Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them.”
Romans 12:14 NLT

In 1955 a man called ‘Brother Andrew” started smuggling Bibles into communist countries, and founded an organisation called “Open Doors”. The work grew, and “Open Doors” has for over six decades supported persecuted Christians all over the world. They maintain a “watch list” identifying the most dangerous places to be a Christian, and their statistics are sobering. They estimate that 360 million Christians worldwide suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith – that’s a staggering 1 in 7 believers. In the top fifty of persecuting countries are North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and far too many others. But , as an aside, we should also note that in many of the countries where Christians are not persecuted, the church is in decline.

Paul echoed the words of Jesus by asking his readers to bless their persecutors. Jesus’ teaching can be found in Matthew 5:10-12, “God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way”. He also taught His followers to pray for their enemies, as recorded in Matthew 5:43-44, “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!”

Christians are counter-cultural in their faith, turning round the expected norms in society, turning them into something that challenges natural human behaviour. There has to be a Higher Power to make this happen because we mortals are wired by sin to respond so differently. How was Jesus able to pray for those Roman soldiers as they hammered crude iron spikes through his hands or wrists. Amidst the normal screaming responses there would be curses ringing through the air. Luke 23:33-34, “When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice” (emphasis mine). The answer was that He was, and is, God and man, but in His humanity He was able to show us the way. What other religion has a God who came to this earth, taking on human flesh, thereby showing how much He loves us? The hardened Roman soldiers were challenged by Jesus’ response to the nails and His death, as we read the comment of the Roman centurion, “When the Roman officer overseeing the execution saw what had happened, he worshiped God and said, “Surely this man was innocent”“(Luke 23:47). 

Thankfully, we in the West don’t suffer much for our faith. Not like those in other countries, who spend large parts of their lives in prison. Who experience beatings or rapes. Who lose their homes and jobs. The persecuted Christians are in good company. We read in Hebrews 11:36-39, “Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised“. 

But we pilgrims can pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters. We can regularly return to the Open Doors website to find up to date information for prayer. And we can pray for ourselves as well, because here in the UK there are dark clouds already forming on the horizon. There is a new ideology emerging with adherents who want to cancel anyone who don’t agree with them and their extreme views. They want to close our churches because what we preach is to them an existential threat, and they are lobbying politicians to get them to introduce legislation that will make it illegal to pray with, or for, someone who, for example, wants to go against God’s order and change gender. Even if the person concerned has asked for prayer. Christian leaders are being pressurised to officiate at same-sex marriages; some have already capitulated. Liberal “Christians” are reinterpreting the Bible to suit society’s increasingly strident anti-God requirements. Christians are being sacked from their employment because they wish to wear a cross or other religious artefact. Persecution is here, folks. But we pray for our societies, and our misguided leaders, that God will bless them. Why? Because Jesus has asked us to. 

Father God. We pray that Your people will rise up and stand firm against the dark forces that are coming against us. Please help us, Lord. In Jesus’ name and for His sake. Amen.

Regrets

Posted on by korgrocker

“No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.”
Romans 3:11-12 NLT

Paul’s grasp and memory retention of Scripture verses from what we call the Old Testament was extraordinary. Google didn’t exist in those days. Not only did Paul remember Bible passages, but he also knew how to use them, or how to interpret them, in connection with his daily life, and the lives of those around him. So here he is continuing to remember and write down Scriptures that apply to what he had been told about the Christians in Rome. He hadn’t been to visit them of course, so the intelligence he had received must have been solid enough for him to write the words he did. And we’re grateful that he did, because his words are just as relevant today as they were two thousand years ago.

In the verses we are looking at today, Paul is quoting from Psalms 14 and 53. The implication behind Paul’s thinking is that wisdom is associated with God and all that He demands. Perhaps we can rationalise and say that the societal factors applying in Paul’s day were different to 21st Century Western societies. Two thousand years ago, the pre-Christian pagan society in places like Rome was being influenced by the early Christians, who brought with them the wisdom of God and all His ways. But Paul mourned the apostasy of those early Christians, quoting well-worn scriptures penned in a day when people had largely turned their backs on God. 

It is said that we in the West now live in a post-Christian society, where the reality of the Godly roots that founded our laws and society have been hijacked by ignorant and foolish people, who claim them for their own. And now such people are introducing a new morality not based on God. Just look at recent legislation introduced by the Scottish government. The verses that Paul quoted still apply today, as they always have done. Mankind hasn’t changed, with sin often getting the upper hand in the minds of our leaders and politicians, drawing them into paths that are unwise. Rather than seek God for the right way, they follow their sinful inclinations and choose a wrong way. 

Paul wrote the words that he did in the hope and expectation that something redemptive would happen in the hearts of those who heard them. We often remember that God never changes, and we are so fortunate that his unchanging character and ways are recorded for us in faithfully-translated books we call Bibles. Collections of God’s sayings that are founded on the willingness of faithful people to record what He said to them through His Spirit. Paul’s letter was addressed to God’s people who had lost their way a bit. And it probably brought many of them back on track, as the Holy Spirit brought Paul’s words to life in their day to day lives.

We pilgrims too have an opportunity to dig into the Holy Scriptures, seeking God there for the sake of our societies. Bringing to life the wisdom of God, influencing a godless society largely populated by people who “have turned away”. We look for opportunities to provide alternative Bible-based morality and laws because we know that therein lies the wisdom of God. 

Father God, we thank You again for Your Word, the Bible. So full of wisdom and Your thoughts. Please encourage us to read and re-read it, because it contains the Words of eternal life. Amen.