The Son's Obedience to the Father in His First Temptation by Satan in the Wilderness as a Model for a Son With His Father

The Lord Jesus traveled from Galilee to Judea and the Jordan River, some 70 miles by foot, for John the Baptist to baptize Him.  This inaugurated His three year ministry.  John baptized unto repentance.  Jesus didn't need to repent, so John said, I shouldn't immerse you; it should be you immersing me.  John was the sinner, not Jesus.  That was the point John made with no uncertain terms.  Jesus said, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."

Jesus didn't say, Suffer it to be so now, to enjoy myself or have fun or make money.  It was about doing right.  Jesus wasn't held hostage to doing right.  He wanted to do right.  What does someone really get out of doing right?  The value in doing right is the value of doing right.  The value is greater than anything else, but it must be seen as greater.  We know it is greater, because Jesus said it was.

Jesus did everything right.  Through the imputation of justification, we receive the righteousness He lived by faith.  Doing right for Jesus was doing everything His Father wanted Him to do, so at His baptism in Matthew 3, the Father said in one of the rare occasions He spoke out loud for everyone to hear, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

"Suffer it to be so now" were the first recorded words of Jesus in scripture since what He said as a twelve year old in Luke 2, which was similar:  "I must be about my Father's business."  "Business" is supplied in the English.  Jesus must be about His Father's.  Whatever His Father's, but surely His Father's.  That was the Son.  Then in essence, I want to do right, which we know was what the Father told Him to do.  Then the Father validated it with, Son, I am well pleased with you.  Of course, none of what the Father wanted the Son to do was sin.  It was all right.

Going back to the point of my second paragraph, the value of doing right is greater than anything.  Why?  God created everything and sustains everything, and God the Father wants righteousness.  He rewards righteousness in numbers of different ways all over scripture.  The world rewards, but it's all temporal and in the end, it isn't even reward, but punishment.

We turn the page to Matthew 4 and the Son is tested to the greatest extent by the greatest tempter, Satan himself.  The first Adam failed at the first temptation in the Garden of Eden by Satan.  The Father had commanded His son in Genesis 2.  That son did what he wanted.  He didn't do right.  He failed that test.  God's son, Adam, didn't trust Him, so He didn't see the greater value of obedience. He convinced himself that he was justified in his disobedience.  That was a son who had every tree of the garden, which he could freely eat, much like the prodigal son, who lived in his Father's house in that parable of Jesus.

The Second Adam, Jesus, abode in a wilderness.  He fasted forty days and forty nights.  He was hungry.   Those were His conditions.  Then He was tempted.

The temptation started with Satan exalting the Son's position, "if thou be the Son of God."  Of course, He was the Son of God.  Wasn't the Son entitled to certain benefits as the Son?  He was the Son of God.  He could do what He wanted to do.  Jesus didn't assert His position or office as the Son.  Satan tempted Him to do that.  Jesus' job as a Son was to do what His Father wanted Him to do.

The temptation, one might say, is turning stones to bread.  The temptation was asserting His own will ahead of His Father's.  Life did not reduce down to physical needs.  It did reduce down to obeying the plan of the Father, staying in tune with what He wanted.

The Son quotes Deuteronomy 8:3.  Even the Son would obey God's Word.  That was again, doing right.  In the original context of the quote, Israel, which was also God's son, also in a sense of the representative son, Israel seed of Abraham but Jesus the seed of Abraham.  Israel didn't live by bread, but the Word of God.  Jesus had fasted forty days and forty nights.  No one could live like that unless He was kept alive by something beyond the natural.  People live by the Word of God.

There is the Latin, fiat, used with Divine fiat.  It refers to God's creation by spoken word or by divine order, let there be light.  Jesus said to Lazarus, come forth.  Man lives because of the Word of God, not because he is doing all that it takes to live -- eating, drinking, exercising.  The Son didn't need bread to live.  He had the Word of God.  Israel didn't need bread to live.  She had the Word of God.

When Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor, this was an admission that Jesus was God.  Jesus had all riches.  If the rich young ruler had needs, Jesus could meet those. The rich young ruler could live by the Word of God, just like Jesus lived by the Word of God.  That was too hard for the rich young ruler.  He couldn't see the value.

The Father was pleased by the obedience of the Son.  Nothing was wrong with eating bread.  It wasn't a sin.  However, it would be outside of the will of the Father.  Jesus never operated outside of the will of the Father.  He wouldn't turn the stones into bread, even in order to live.  He would continue in hunger.

Life is not about having your own way.  It's not about independence.  It's not about being on your own.  No doubt, if a father wanted just arbitrary obedience to unbiblical instruction, that's not good. Both the Father and the Son authored truth.  But if a son's focus is the will of the true Father, the actual Father, and even beyond sins of commission, where the son doesn't do something he's not supposed to do, he does what the father wants.  Jesus could have eaten bread, but it was more important to do what the Father wanted.

The obedience of the Son to the Father is a model of obedience of the son to the father.  It's of greater value than satisfaction of short term gratification of physical needs, even if it is as something seemingly permissible, like eating bread.  I don't think that's usually the issue though.  It's both doing what the father doesn't want and then also not doing what the father does want -- both.  Short term gratification of physical needs becomes the priority.  If the father gets in the way, he's in trouble.

The comparison in the gospels to Matthew 4 was when Peter told Jesus that on Peter's watch, Jesus wouldn't suffer and die.  Jesus said, Get thee behind me, Satan.  Peter was tempting Jesus, like Satan had in the wilderness.  The will of the Father was for Jesus to die.  Peter instead wanted Jesus to meet short term physical needs.

Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Response to Hearing the Truth, as a Test: Deviations from the TR in the NKJV

Call this is an update of the post I wrote on Thursday, Does the New King James Version Deviate from the Textus Receptus, the Text Behind the King James Version?  Mark Ward wrote Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, which he said was a different approach to the English translation issue.  King James Version (KJV) Only folks of whatever stripe weren't going to change based on reason of the underlying text, because it's too difficult for them.  He thinks they'll move from the King James Version to a modern version based on readability, which is his stated motive, that is, getting them to move to a modern version.

I would probably want to be called a "One Bible" man (not KJVO), since there is only one Bible.  God gave it to us in one set of exact words in Hebrew and Aramaic in the Old Testament and Greek in the New Testament.  Scripture teaches a one Bible position.  That one Bible can be translated into any language and even be updated in a particular language, such as English.  The King James Version is an update.  It could be updated again.  There would still only be one Bible.  God wrote one.  One.  I'm more concerned about the one Bible than I am about the update.  Some either don't care or don't seem to care about that same concern of mine.  Mark Ward is one of those.  He says he doesn't care.

Since there is one Bible, it can't change.  Changing it would make it different, not the one Bible.  This seems simple, but it is still missed.  Enter this New King James Version (NKJV) issue.

Ward has been doing a series at his blog answering the objections to the thesis of his book.  I didn't know he was doing it, but I check on the blog, SharperIron, every day, and they linked to one of his posts in which he made the following point.  King James Version advocates, who won't follow Ward's desires for them to move to a modern version, say that the NKJV deviates from the same underlying original language text as the KJV, when it doesn't.  The NKJV translators said they didn't deviate, he purported, and they not only have not deviated, but the KJV advocates don't have any list of deviations as proof.

Mark Ward starts off his essay by saying that the above KJV advocates are sinning.  He charges us with sin.  Here are the two sentences:

I am going to charge my theological opponents with sin—though a sin of omission rather than of commission. But I can’t avoid it: the KJV-Only movement as a whole, and many individuals within it, are not telling the truth, and the leaders at least should know better.

Maybe I'm a leader.  I'm sinning, he says.  I want to confess the sin.  It's interesting here, because I've thought the opposite as Ward.  I have seen some of the NKJV translators as sinning.  They know they did deviate from the underlying text of the NKJV and then said they didn't.  When asked, they've said they didn't.  It might be a Clintonian lie, it's all a matter of what deviation is.

Years ago, I provided a short list of deviations, almost as a test case. 

I deleted the rest of this post, because Mark Ward posted my comment with the list of deviations in his comment section and he has also answered that post.  I am respecting the work that he and others have done there, and I will be writing an answer to it soon, maybe as I write this edit.

Immoral and Unhappy: Fornication Does Not Make Teens Happy

Our society constantly bombards adults, teens, and children with the message that sexual immorality is central to a happy life.  Television shows countless acts of fornication, but either almost never or entirely never shows a normal happily married family, and never shows a Christian happily married family; were the television the judge, one would think that people engaged in fornication, in same-sex wickedness, and other vile perversions vastly outnumber the number of normal people, and that the most unhappy, twisted, and terrible people were those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and attempt to follow the Bible.

Growing up as an unconverted child and teenager, it was simply assumed that it would be wonderful to commit fornication.  That was the constant message of the media and the brainwashing of the educational system.  This lie was not even opposed by the Roman Catholic school I went to up through eighth grade, and certainly was not opposed by the secular education I received after that time.  With a raging sinful flesh, under the domination of a Satanically-controlled world, and in the realm of the devil himself (Ephesians 2:1-3), my peers and I assumed that sexual immorality was key to happiness.

Of course, the Bible tells a different story--the pleasures of sin are only for a season (Hebrews 11:25), the born-again can "rejoice in the Lord alway" (Philippians 4:4), and the unregenerate are currently under the awful curse of God for their sin (Galatians 3:10; John 3:18).  Indeed, the "unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God[.] Be not deceived: neither fornicators . . . nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind . . . nor covetous . . . shall inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Fornicators are both under God's wrath here and will suffer the unimaginably awful torments of hell fire for all eternity, reaping the appropriate everlasting fiery judgment for indulging in their burning lusts.

Unsurprisingly--but yet oh-so-rarely proclaimed in our culture--the evidence of social science agrees with the Bible.  While as unconverted teens we all thought, and were constantly told, that immorality would make us happy, reality in God's world tells a totally different story: 

• "Sexually active teenagers are more likely to be depressed and attempt suicide. . . . Similarly, girls who reported three or more partners were significantly more likely to report sadness, suicide ideation, suicide plans, and attempts than those with fewer partners." 

• Teenage boys and girls who are sexually active are three to four times as likely to say that they are depressed "all, most, or a lot of the time" as those who abstain.

• Immoral girls are nearly three times more likely to attempt suicide, and immoral boys are eight times more likely to attempt to murder themselves.

• Nearly two-thirds of teenagers who have lost their virginity wish they had waited and not committed fornication.

Thus, in addition to facts such as that immoral youth ages 15-24 acquire half of all new sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), that one in four teens is infected with an STD every year, that one in four college students has an STD, and that many sexually transmitted diseases are incurable and will be with the immoral person until his or her (probably unseasonably early) death, even the large majority of those who do not get infected with a disease wish they had not been immoral.  Not only do fornicators inherit an eternal hell, but they also reap misery--not pleasure--in this life.

However, when I was growing up, not only did I never hear the gospel, nor did I consider that fornication would lead me to hell, but I do not remember ever--not even once, and that despite going to a "religious" school up through eighth grade--being confronted with the facts above that show that sexual immorality leads to misery in this life.  We were warned that doing drugs brought trouble--while there were influences both for and against drugs, at least the message that doing drugs was really dumb and messed you up got out.  The message that sexual immorality was really dumb and messed you up did not get out--only the message that it was lots of fun and something everyone should desire.

Proverbs 5:1-13 warns:

1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: 2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. 3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. 6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. 7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: 9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: 10 Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; 11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, 12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; 13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

God warned that those who followed the strange, heathen, or pagan woman would mourn with their flesh and body consumed, but we thought that getting on with a heathen woman was the key to happiness--a message that teenagers will have pounded into them thousands and thousands of times.

I thank God that, in the Lord's great mercy, despite my wicked heart and my wicked desires I was able to hear the gospel and turn to Christ as a freshman in college before I ruined my life through sexual immorality.  I thank God for His infinite mercy in delivering me from my sin and enabling me to be kept by His grace for my wife and her alone.  I have no regrets about that--none whatsoever--it is a matter of great joy.  Avoid the strange woman of the early parts of Proverbs and you can have the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, Solomon told his son.  Fantastic advice!

Do the people in your church know the facts in this blog post?  Do they know that fornication not only brings God's eternal curse, but misery in this life as well, and that research validates the teaching of Scripture on this subject?  Is that a message that they hear even 1% as often as they hear the worldly, fleshly, and demonic lie that saturates our culture and declares that immorality makes one happy?

If you are reading this and have no power to conquer your lusts, click here to learn about how the deliverance from sin purchased by the risen Lord, Jesus Christ, can shatter the dominion of sin in your life.

-TDR

Does the New King James Version Deviate from the Textus Receptus, the Text Behind the King James Version?

I'm actually stepping on my own post from yesterday, which I want you to read, so don't miss it:  Expectations for Earning of Respect to Lead.

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Mark Ward is being very, very nice.  He's not calling King James Version supporters liars, who say that the New King James Version follows the critical text in certain places.  To be a liar, you have to know you're wrong.  These men don't know, so they haven't perjured themselves.  He writes a paragraph espousing his own personal niceness for not calling these men liars, who are merely ignorant.  He has never seen a list of places where the New King James Version deviates from the same text as the King James Version, so he was willing to make the claim that it isn't true that there was a list and with a long blog post.

I wrote a comment under his post, showing him instances where he is false, that is, producing a list, albeit not a complete one, but a satisfactory one to make that claim (as of this writing, he's published another comment, who "quotes me"--not actual quote of me--and did not publish two comments, where I sent just a list).  I hope he publishes it.  He's very, very nice, and this is important to him, as he very often categorizes King James supporters by whether they are nice or whether they aren't nice.  I'm assuming I'm not nice.  Some people online think they are the niceness pope and can come down with a condemnatory judgment of "not nice."  If something is unbiblical and you don't like it, and you act like you don't like it, you might not be nice. God wasn't "nice" at the flood, the tower of babel, and at many other times. But today, you've still got to be nice, which seems to be more important with many than being biblical.  Plenty of critical text people are not nice, and I could produce an all star list of them, which would mean what?

I want to inform you that for sure I would never take a position that the New King James Version differs than the King James Version in its underlying text, unless I could see those differences with my own eyes.  I wouldn't just make a claim.  I would have to see it myself.  Who would even do that?  I would like to know the name of a person who would make that unsubstantiated claim.  Produce the list!  Ward makes the claim that there is no list of verses that changed based upon a different underlying text, because he's searched a lot and hasn't found it.  I'm going to have to believe that he really searched.  One way to search is to look yourself at the Greek New Testament or read the New King James Version along side the King James Version.  I haven't done a thorough search in my opinion, but I have found several examples to support the claim.

The first list I ever saw was sent to me, and I reprinted that list.  Before seeing that list, I myself just assumed that the NKJV came from the same text as the KJV.   Once I saw it with my own eyes, I changed on that.  I'm going to give you several examples just so that you can have that at your finger tips.  I don't think the critical text critics of the KJV even care.  I've already written about it, and it's just a tool to use for them.  They don't even retract their previous statements.

KJV users have the NKJV and we don't use it, which shows how ridiculous we are, because "it comes from the same text" (but it doesn't), so it isn't a textual issue.  But it is a textual issue.  Even then, move along.  Doesn't matter anyway.  That's what I'm saying.  They don't care.  It's just a tool, when no longer useful, it is meaningless.  I've never seen an apology once it was revealed that they have been lying.  Yes, I'm saying they're lying, because they are too smart to not know this.  You can see that you are translating from a different word.  You know you are changing the text when you do it.

Mark said he really searched for a list.  I took the list I had, and then I started looking some more, and my list grew, so I'm assuming there are many more examples than what I'm producing here.  My gut says that the best answer to this list is that the deviations are minor.  The changes are not minor, because they are still a lie.  They don't respect that words were changed, indicating that the very words in the end are not an issue.

I know now I could make a longer list than what I'm going to produce, especially since I didn't look much into the Old Testament, but here is a mainly New Testament list (since we're focusing on the TR):

Matthew 22:10, the critical has “hous” (“whom”) and the TR has hosous (“as many as”) and the NKJV follows the critical text with “whom.” 

Luke 1:35, the NKJV follows the critical text in leaving out "ek sou" ("of thee") unlike the KJV. 

Luke 5:7, the TR has “tois” (“which”) and the critical text doesn’t have that word, and the NKJV follows the critical text, while the KJV does not. 

Luke 6:9, the TR has a plural “sabbasin” and the critical text has a singular “sabbato” and the KJV is plural, Sabbath days, and the NKJV is singular “the Sabbath.” 

John 10:12, the critical text leaves out the last word, “probata,” sheep, and the NKJV follows that, while the KJV follows the TR, which has that word, “probata,” sheep. 

John 19:10, the critical text leaves out a second “echo” (“have”) and the NKJV follows that, not the TR, differing than the KJV. 

Acts 15:23, the NKJV follows the critical text in omitting "tade", or "after this manner". 

Acts 17:14, the NKJV omits "as it were" ("ws" in the Greek) and thus once again follows the critical text. 

Acts 19:9, the NKJV follows the critical text in omitting "tinos," so it effects the translation in leaving out the word "one," as in "one Tyrannus." 

Acts 19:39, the the NKJV follows the critical text in "peraiterw" instead of "peri eterwn", subtle but different. 

Romans 14:9, the critical text leaves out the first “kai,” which is translated “both” in the KJV and left out in the NKJV, following the critical text. 

Colossians 3:17, the critical text leaves out another “kai,” which the NKJV follows instead of the TR, which keeps the “kai,” which changes the translation, from “God and Father” to “God the Father.” 

Jude 1:3, the NKJV leaves out “our” (“hemon”) following the critical text. 

Jude 1:19, the critical text omits eautou ("themselves"), as does the NKJV. 

Isaiah 9:3, the NKJV changes the Hebrew text behind the KJV by leaving out the “not” (“lo”) with OT textual criticism, the difference being that joy is increased instead of not being increased.

Edit:  This list will be given an edit based on some critique at a post, which answers this post.  I will return and give a link to this post that will give the edits.

Expectations for the Earning of Respect to Lead

A stronger obligation than ever exists in professional sports today to hire a younger coach, who played himself, and can relate better to the younger players.  The consideration behind the thinking is that young players won't just respect a coach any more.  Greater value is put on relating.  The coach indulges them if he wants to see some kind of positive response. The days of expecting obedience and confronting disobedience are long gone.  A coach who says, jump, and thinks a player will ask, how high, better think again.  A popular sentiment is that younger players just aren't coachable anymore.  They can't be coached, only cajoled.

Have the rules actually changed in the relationship between someone in authority and those under him?  Did God change the rules? Should fathers, husbands, employers, teachers, and pastors reconsider the old way of leading and develop a new kind of leadership to relate to a new kind of follower?  Can people still rely on scripture as a sufficient guide for preparing and judging leaders?

One of the major new components to leading are the feelings of the adherents.  How does the leader make them feel?  Is he sensitive enough?  Is he too scary?  Does he relate enough?  Is he using the right pronouns?  Are those under his leadership having a good time, enjoying themselves, having fun while being led?  Do they get enough time in the jumper?  Have they received enough affirmation, high-fives, yellow ribbons for participation, plaques in the back of the store for employee of the month?

Scripture is much more basic or cut-and-dry as it deals with leadership.  The perfect example for understanding this in the Bible is God the Father leading God the Son.  God the Father was pleased with God the Son.  Why?  The Son did everything the Father wanted Him to do.  A few times in scripture, the Father announces He's pleased with the Son and in every instance it is when the Son has completed a required task that the Father wanted.  Of course, the Son never disobeys the Father, so we never find out point-blank whether the Father would still be pleased even if the Son disobeyed, but we really do know that the Father wouldn't.  He's never pleased when someone does something different than what He says to do.  The Son had the one goal of always pleasing the Father.  When instructed to sacrifice Himself, do the hardest things, the Son complied.

Going back to where I started in this discussion, the new requirement for leaders is that they remain pleased even when they are not obeyed.  They can't expect adherence from their adherents.  If they do expect it, it must be a very soft expectation, an ambiguous one with no signal of possible displeasure, just smiles and happy tones, whether the instructions were followed or not.  None of this is scriptural.  Someone who won't do what he's told and with a good attitude is the one who is in the wrong, not the leader.

What has happened?  The culture, society, modern civilization has turned from a biblical view of authority, starting with God.  A civilized culture functioning properly requires respect of authority.  Perhaps you've heard, respect the office.  Even if you don't like the person in the office, maybe because of you and not him, you respect the office.  That idea proceeds from the Bible.  The Apostle Paul wrote that all authority comes from God, so it needs to be obeyed (Romans 13:1-3).  This is a hierarchical view.  Obedience to human authority is obedience to God, except in areas where it would mean disobedience to God (Acts 5:29).

When the leadership template is reversed, and obedience or compliance depends on the pleasing of the follower, the whole paradigm changes.  The one below is now in charge.  He also decides whether he likes the way he's getting led -- the tone, the body language, the rewards, the level of accountability.  This will never work.  It's not working right now, because it is how things are going in the world by the reports of many that I know in many different realms of authority.

Expectations of the Leader

With a scriptural view in mind, what are the expectations for a leader in the Bible?  The person following should want to know that His leader is leading him into what is true, good, and right, so the leader knows the truth, tells the truth, and then himself obeys the truth.  He doesn't expect one thing of those he is leading and another for himself.  If the leader isn't leading in the right direction, isn't telling the truth, taking everyone toward the right goal, then that leader is not meeting scriptural expectations.  No one should expect followers to go the wrong way.

Beyond that first biblical expectation, a leader should provide what is necessary to complete a required task.  I think of Psalm 128.  The wife is like a fruitful vine and the children like olive plants.  The vine and the plants must be watered and fed, essentially planted in good ground like the trees in Psalm 1.  A leader gives his followers what they need to accomplish the right and good goals.  This is what God does.  He is a good God.

God gives mankind everything that he needs.  He provides.  He gives men what they need to do what He says.  He doesn't just give; He gives and gives and gives.  That should be respected.

The follower should be thanking God.  He should be recognizing the bounty, all the good things that God supplies.  He should focus on what He has been given, not what He hasn't been given or just what He wants.  Scripture differentiates followers by whether they are thankful or unthankful.  Unthankfulness characterizes the unbeliever (Romans 1:21).

If you are a follower and your leader has given and given and given, he has been clear with the requirements, he has explained them, believed them, and they are the truth, then he has earned your respect.  God expects you to respect him.  He is entitled to your respect.  If you don't give it to him, you don't have a good reason not to do that.  Your reasons are selfish, proud, ungodly, and rebellious.  You should expect to hear that you are all of those, because that is the truth as well.

Leaders today feel a different kind of pressure from the culture about their leadership.  I read it, watch it, and hear about it.  They've got to give fun and games and good times.  They can't do enough to "earn the respect."  The followers are holding the leaders hostage. Many leaders have succumbed to that pressure by pandering to followers, gaining followers by promising more, by lessening the expectations of the follower.  Almost everything is a negotiation.  This is a recipe for disaster.

A leader says, no, and the supposed follower begins to throw a fit or go dark.  He's not going to do what he's told or he's at least going to moderate his effort to his judgment of his leader.  The leader retreats, cedes ground or authority.  He begins the negotiation, starts promising things, some temporal, fleshly allurement.  Once someone gets his way, it gets worse, because this ploy has worked.  The worst that a leader can do is to give in to these types of threats from those he is leading.

I don't think there is anything uglier than the entitlement of someone under leadership.   They obviously either don't understand or are rebellious against what scripture says about their role.  This might not happen so much in the workplace as it does in other spheres of authority, because the employee values money.  He will put up with some bad treatment, especially if he doesn't have the necessary talent to be indisposable to the boss or the company.  He will do what he's told to keep his job, but during times of low unemployment, like we have right now in this country, employers are putting up with a lot from people.  They understand that they can always get another job and it doesn't matter if the employer is pleased.

Church Authority

As all of the above relates to church authority, things are worse.  I'm not saying they are bad at my church, but what a pastor can expect from church members is worse.  More than ever, members feel entitled to expectations.  I'm not saying leaders are fulfilling most of member expectations, but in general members don't obey their leaders, let alone New Testament commands.  Some of this has to do with a different view of Jesus Christ.  Jesus has become a buddy and pal, and not Lord in most churches.  He's there for therapy.  He's there to forgive.  He's there to provide good feelings, which is exactly how members see their church leadership too.

When someone in a church is in error, a pastor should deal with that.  It's part of loving and protecting the flock.  I've noticed the popularity of certain verses to the exclusion of others.  Members don't remember the chastisement of Hebrews 12, scourging out of love.  They don't remember reprove, rebuke, and exhort.  They remember and emphasize 2 Timothy 2:24:

And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient.

And they like 1 Peter 5:2-3:

2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; 3 Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock.

The emphasis here is on the part, "neither as being lords over God's heritage."  Being gentle and not being a lord over the flock are prone to subjectivity.  Almost anything can be interpreted as not gentle or as lording.  Just speaking with a masculine tone, and not something lilting and dainty, could be taken as intimidation.

Joining a church is becoming a body part that is under its head.  The unity of a church is maintained by enforcement of requirements.  Someone is a member.  Membership means gracious, kind help for church members.  It also means intervention when someone flouts the standards agreed upon.  At that juncture, tone is a lesser concern.  Happiness should not be expected.  Some form of disfavor will occur that doesn't contradict gentleness.  Gentleness and expression of dislike are both required.

Leadership Style

It might sound odd, but prostitutes are effective at leadership.  "Seduce" comes from the Latin seductio, which means "to lead."  We wouldn't call this good leadership, but it works.  Followers might prefer this of their leaders, leadership by seduction.  It's how the leader earns respect, using seduction techniques to charm his followers.  Peter describes this leadership in 2 Peter 2:17-19:  "they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness. . . they promise them liberty."

Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."  As a Shepherd, Jesus leads His followers.  They follow His voice.  Leadership comes from explaining and instructing in the truth.  When followers won't listen, they need to be warned.  Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5:14 that the approach depends on the follower.  Some need comfort or strengthening, others need support, but some, the unruly, need warning.  In Titus 3:10-11, the factious person is warned or confronted only, and then after the third time, he's rejected.

Very often Jesus reminded His followers that He was in charge and that He was telling them what to do.  They needed to listen because of the authority He possessed.  Jesus did that with the Great Commission, beginning that command at the end of Matthew 28 by reminding the followers that He possessed all authority.  Paul reminded His listeners of His authority all the time with what he wanted them to follow.  In 1 Corinthians 11, he starts off by commanding the church to imitate him.

A Concluding Hypothetical

I want to take you through a little hypothetical now.  Let's say there was a leader and he told his followers, expecting that they were followers and thinking that he was entitled based on reasonable criteria to be followed, I want you to do this one thing and if you don't do it, I'm going to kill you.  Would you follow that leader?  Would you grow resentful of the leader because of his intimidation and threat?  God said in Genesis 2:17:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

It isn't a hypothetical.  It's what God said to Adam and Eve, His children.  He took care of His children, provided for them, but if they didn't follow this command, he would kill them.  He did kill them, because they didn't obey.  Why didn't they obey?  Because they were resentful and didn't believe that their Father had earned their respect.  This was the tack Satan took to get them to disobey and it worked. It's still working today, right now on many different fronts.

Adam and Eve didn't like God's leadership style.  They believed that entitled them to disobey.  Cain also didn't like God's leadership style.  You can move out from there, very often unbelievers. The judgment of leadership style is a cop-out.  It isn't a basis for rejecting leadership.  The onus in scripture is upon the follower to follow the leader.  If the leader is practicing the truth, which entails being obedient himself and then repentant and change when he is not, then he should be followed.  If he is in a position of authority, even if he isn't a good example, he should still be obeyed, if he's telling you the truth.  Just because you don't like how he told you to stop or what he wanted you to do doesn't give you a basis for not following.  You're just a rebel.  He deserves to be followed because God says that He is.

A Mess: The World's Music and a Different God -- Sing! 2019

An at least small tremor erupted within Big Evangelicalism in the last several weeks when celebrity evangelical Josh Harris announced he left the Christian faith.  Many other big named evangelicals followed his declaration with an analysis, including Albert Mohler.  I think another evangelical, Carl Trueman, makes a more accurate assessment of the relationship of Joshua Harris to evangelicalism in his post at FirstThings, called "Kissing Christianity Goodbye."   He writes:

While Harris seems to be making a clean break with his past, the style of his apostasy announcement is oddly consistent with the evangelical Christianity he used to represent. He revealed he was leaving the faith with a social media post, which included a mood photograph of himself contemplating a beautiful lake. The earlier announcement of his divorce used the typical postmodern jargon of “journey” and “story.” And both posts were designed to play to the emotions rather than the mind. Life, it would seem, continues as performance art. 

In a sense, that is exactly how and why the YRR was so successful: savvy harnessing of fashionable idioms and marketing strategies, exceptionally clever use of social media, large and well-organized conferences, and professional-grade websites—all fronted by attractive personalities and brilliant communicators. Orthodoxy as performance art, one might say. And Harris was both a product of and a player in the YRR project.

Later he continued:

But the movement’s leadership was often arrogant. In public, critics were derided and then ignored; in private, they were vilified and bullied. An extensive informal network of individuals, institutions, and organizations who wanted a slice of the YRR action was happy to oblige the padrini by keeping critics on the margins. And one by one big leaders fell from favor: Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Tullian Tchividjian, C. J. Mahaney, now Josh Harris. On Friday the news broke that The Village Church, home of YRR megastar Matt Chandler, is being sued over alleged mishandling of sexual abuse.

Sing! 2019  has all the earmarks of Trueman's words about evangelicalism, which I'm calling "A Mess" here, and with Sing! 2019 an exhibit.  It mixes many and varied contradictory characters in the name of the life of Christ and worship.  It really is the jello running into the mashed potatoes and gravy into a soupy matrix, the latter evangelicalism for a lot of reasons, but a major one because its leaders either can't or won't draw necessary lines between the holy, the good, the true, and the beautiful with the profane, the bad, the false, and the ugly.  Because of the confusion arising from association and toleration, most of these, like the Samaritans of Jesus day, think they really are worshiping God.

Trueman lists C. J. Mahaney, who brought Josh Harris into the "sovereign grace ministries."  Mohler writes like he knew all along there was a problem with Harris, even though Mahaney was his close friend as part of the smash, Together for the Gospel quartet.  Mahaney seemed like an outlier in the four, because even though they were all Calvinists -- Mohler, Dever, Duncan, and Mahaney -- he was also charismatic.  Still working right with Mahaney is his longtime partner and still assistant, Bob Kauflin, a part of the Sing! 2019 line-up, which is packed with continuationists, who report extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit and God talking to them.

Sing! 2019 uses the world's music, characterized by its fleshly lust, sensuality, and breathiness.  It uses ecstatic experiences as a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit, what John MacArthur has called, strange fire, the headliner of the conference.  MacArthur has allowed his image, associated with his preaching and preaching about worship, to syncretize with the worldly, entertainment spectacle of Sing! 2019, it's rap, rock, country, and other forms of popular music.  The promotional video includes the "worship" of Irish dancing.  The Gettys, who lead the conference, promote their national tour on their website with more of the same.

MacArthur called charismatic worship, Strange Fire, an offense to the Holy Spirit and counterfeit worship.  The worship of the Sing! conference is strange fire.  Open the lid and look into what the "artists" of Sing! 2019 and you see the influences secular, godless, and pagan, just the opposite of what God accepts in worship.

There is only one true imagination of God and it is according to what He has revealed in His Word.  The god of Sing! 2019 uses the name "God," but it isn't the same God.  The God of the Bible would not be represented by what its adherents say is their worship.  If you are a professing Christian, who keeps the world's music in your life and then think God accepts it in worship, you have a different God than what I have.  We are not worshiping the same God, and a different God than the true God isn't the one who can and will save from sin and death.

Jessie Penn-Lewis: Inspired Woman Preacher (part 7 of 22)

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

 

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

Is Hell Separation from God?

When I explain the gospel to someone, and I get to the penalty for sin, I talk about death and separation.  I have long said that physical death is separation from the body, spiritual death is separation from God because of sin, and that eternal death is separation from God forever in Hell.  This week The Gospel Coalition posted an article written by theologian Michael Theologian entitled, "Hell Is Not Separation from God."  He says that instead Hell is horrible because "God is present."

For a long time, I don't know how long, I've considered the contradiction between "separation from God" and God's omnipresence.  If God is omnipresent, which He is, then how could He be separated from anything?  This is where I distinguish between the omnipresence of God, and the special presence of God.  Regarding God's omnipresence, and Hell, I think of Psalm 139:7-8:

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

On a few occasions, when evangelizing someone, I have made this distinctive, that in one sense nothing is separated from God, because He is omnipresent.  However, I believe eternal separation from God is taught, and Hell is the place of eternal separation from God.  Here are some reasons that come to my mind from scripture, not in any necessary order.

One, eternal separation from God is taught in Revelation 21-22, an appropriate place to talk about that.  Revelation 21:23-27 read:

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. 24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. 25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. 26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. 27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

In the place described where God is and His glory is, some people would be there, but "there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth."  Only those in the Lamb's book of life would be there, which means that those not in the Lamb's book of life would not be there.

Then Revelation 22:14-15 say:

14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

Here some are in the gates of the same city mentioned, and then "without" are others.  Revelation 22:19 continues:

And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city.

God takes away his part out of the holy city.  All three of these places combined teach separation from God.  It misses the point to say, "You're all going to be with me, but the others, they are going to be with me too!"  No, the others are not going to be with Him; they are going to be separated from Him.

Two, in John 14:2-3, Jesus taught His disciples:

2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Jesus said He would go to prepare a place for His own, that where He was, they would be also.  Jesus was distinguishing His unique relationship with His disciples as in Heaven being were they were and they being where He is.  It wouldn't be unique if He would be with them and everyone else too, who rejected Him.  Non-disciples would not be with Him -- Jesus, God -- hence, they would be separated from Him.

Three, a regular statement of the Lord Jesus, Who is God, toward those He sends to Hell is "depart from me," as seen in Matthew 7:23,

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Also Matthew 25:41,

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

Departing from God is to be separated from Him.

Four, God is light and the presence of God is light (1 John 1:5).  The Lord gives the light of the eternal state (Revelation 21:5).  And yet, someone in Hell is in outer darkness, "cast out into outer darkness" (Matthew 8:12).  If there is an outer, then there is an inter.  If someone is with God, Who is light, then He stays in that light.  He is a child of light (Lk 16:8, Jn 12:36, Eph 5:8, 1 Thess 5:5).  Outer darkness is separated from God, Who is light, which is why it is outer darkness, because God isn't present.

Five, speaking of the separation of the lost from God, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 1:9:

Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

"From the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power" is very clear.  The everlasting destruction is not in this lifetime, but the next, so it is talking about someone who dies in his sin and goes to Hell.

Scripture can speak of someone being "absent from the Lord" (2 Cor 5:6).  Since God is omnipresent, then no man can escape that presence, but yet here's a verse that says he is absent from the Lord.  The two ideas can go together.  David prays to God in Psalm 51:11, "Cast me not away from thy presence."  Unless God can cast away someone from His presence, there is no need for someone to cry to God, cast me not away from it.

More could be said to make this argument, but Hell is separation from God.  It's not only separation from God, but it's at least separation from God.  To say Hell is eternal separation from God means that once someone has died physically, he has no more opportunity to be saved.  He remains separated from God because of His sin.