Ephesians 6:4

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4

Just because he says "fathers," he does not exclude mothers. Paul simply addresses the party with the overall responsibility.

Even though it is not directly stated, we must remember that God consistently teaches that the strong are responsible to care for the weak. In this context, the parents are strong, the children are weak. However, parents must not depend upon their size and strength to demand respect, but should strive to earn it through strength of character, wisdom, and clearly expressed love.

The Greek word translated "bring them up" at first meant merely providing bodily nourishment. Through time its usage extended to include education in its entirety since bringing up children obviously is more than just feeding a child food. "Training" is more correct than the weak "nurture" used in the KJV. The Greek word means "to train or discipline by repeated and narrow exercises in a matter." It implies action more than intellectual thought and corresponds to the word "train" in Proverbs 22:6, which means "to hedge" or "narrow in." Thus God expects parents to train their children to walk the straight and narrow way rather than allowing them to wander aimlessly about on the broad way.

Paul adds in Colossians 3:21, "Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged." To some degree, all children resist their parents and what they represent and teach. How parents overcome it is Paul's concern. These verses testify that many parents strive to elicit their children's obedience and respect in the wrong manner.

The wrong way provokes embittered, fretful, defensive, listless, resentful, moody, angry, or sullen children. Paul counsels not to challenge the child's resistance with an unreasonable exercise of authority. Correction is necessary, but a parent must administer it in the right spirit, counterbalanced by lavish affection and acceptance. A twig should be bent with caution.

Firmness does not need to be harsh nor cruel. Punishment should never be revenge nor dispensed just because the parent is irritated. Severity only hardens the child and makes him more desperate. If a parent does not use his authority justly, he cannot expect a child to be respectful. It does not happen automatically.

Genesis 19:14

So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, "Get up, get out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city!" But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.  Genesis 19:14

In Lot's family was a measure of contempt. Lot seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking. It is as if they said, “Who cares for anything you say?” Was Lot's wife different? She looked back. Lot's daughters? They escaped, and then proceeded to involve Lot in one of the vilest sins in the entire Bible, incest. Contempt is not unusual for a lingerer, for they are despised by their families, who cannot deal with the person's inconsistency. They are hot, then cold. They blow this way, then that. They command, “Do this,” but they do something different. Their lives do not live up to the words that they say. Lot was a man whose works burned, but he himself was saved (I Corinthians 3:15).

This is not a way that God wants His children to live. Even though He mercifully intervenes and saves, He wants His children to enjoy the best of the abundant life and to be prepared for His Kingdom.

Most are familiar with Herbert Lockyer's series of "All" books: All the Prayers of the Bible, All the Parables of the Bible, All the Promises of the Bible, All the Women of the Bible, etc. In All the Men of the Bible, he says that Lot is the representative man:

Perhaps there is no figure in the Bible who represents so many men of today as Lot of Sodom. Where you will find one Abraham, one Daniel, or one Joshua, you will find a thousand Lots.

Lot had much wealth, but he did not have the abundant life of God because of his choice to coexist with the world, whose constant degenerate pressure virtually destroyed his true spirituality. Lot was not a sinner in the normal sense, but a spiritually small and lean man.

There is an interesting contrast between Abraham and Lot. Abraham was probably exceedingly wealthier than Lot, but Abraham lived in a tent, while Lot lived in a house. This clearly shows that Abraham lived his life in such a way that everybody understood that Abraham was just a pilgrim. He did not put roots down in this world, while Lot, his nephew, did.

Lot was converted but carnal. He was a man of weak faith. His hopes and dreams were in the world, and his interest was in the things of this world. Lot had the same vision as Abraham, but by choice, he was firmly anchored in the world. All of Lot's goodness was virtually wasted because his spiritual life was going nowhere.

One might say that, because Lot was "saved," there is more than one way to skin a cat. There might be many poor ways of skinning a cat, as well as some good ways, too. But there is only one best way to skin a cat. Why not choose the best way of doing it? That is the lesson of Lot's life. Why let our works that we have built burn up? Instead, why not do things the way God says?

God was not in all of Lot's thoughts (Psalm 10:4) because he was living by sight. Lot might very well be what we might call the quintessential second-generation Christian. He believed, but all of his passion was spent pursuing the amusements of this world. Lot, whose faith was weak at best, was not committed like Abraham was. The whole aim of Abraham's life was to give glory to God, while Lot, though righteous, lived by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). His aim was essentially to grasp at life, to do it now and enjoy it, rather than work to develop his relationship with God.

Snapshots-Part Three

As the book of Hebrews ends, the author—likely Paul—pens this benediction:

Now may God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21; emphasis ours.)

This passage begins with the word "may," but Paul's statement is not a mere wish. It is closer in construction to a prayer—at the very least a confident hope. He expresses a desire that these Hebrews be complete in every good work to do God's will, but as we have already seen in Parts One and Two, what Paul desires in this passage he states with confidence in his epistle to the Philippians (Philippians 1:3-6; 2:12-13). He is expressing, not a wish that God would make them complete, but a desire that he knows full well is possible, and thus is there for the asking. Just as Part Two explained that we have to cultivate the salvation that is already taking place, so Paul implies that God's work of completing the Hebrews was already in progress. Their task would be to submit to their parts within it.

This is not to say that their ultimate salvation was a foregone conclusion. Paul had previously written some electrifying things to these people, urging them to beware of hubris or spiritual complacency and to take heed to themselves to get back on course (Hebrews 6:4-8; 10:26-31). While the Bible contains many statements of confident expectation regarding our salvation, it does not support the popular notion of "eternal security." Just as many balancing verses appear in Scripture, admonishing us to continue in faithfulness. In fact, a number of clear warnings show it is quite possible for Christians to fall away.

The passages in Philippians and this one in Hebrews reveal that everything necessary for God's good work to be completed in us either has been or will be provided. There is no good reason for our perfection to be thwarted—but it can be, if that is what we choose. Through little choices that lead to indifference or complacency, we can let this great salvation be cut short. One thing is true: It will never be because God withheld something good from us.

Consider the rhetorical foundation Paul lays in verse 20. He begins with the God of peace—the God who will bring ultimate peace when all things are in Christ. The Hebrew concept of peace—shalom—is far more expansive than the English one. It can generally be described as the presence of all that is good and the absence of all that is bad. Paul alone uses the title "God of peace" in his epistles, and it refers, not only to what the Most High is within Himself, but also to what He is drawing all of mankind into. Jesus Christ is called our peace (Ephesians 2:14) because His sacrifice is the means of our reconciliation—our state of peace—with the Father.

Next, Paul mentions the resurrection of Christ, reminding his readers that even death has been overcome. His resurrection is also the sign that He is the Messiah (Matthew 12:39-40), and just as the Father did not leave His Son in a state of physical death, He is working to bring us out of spiritual death. Just as Jesus was raised to life, so those baptized into Christ are raised to "walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4).

The apostle continues with a reference to the "great Shepherd of the sheep." This evokes images of guidance, care, and watchfulness by One who never sleeps or grows weary (Psalm 121:4; Isaiah 40:28). God not only wields all the power in the universe, but He does so for the benefit of individuals whom He knows personally. Because of the Shepherd's care for His sheep, He lays down His life for them—He has already demonstrated how far He is willing to go for those whom the Father has given to Him (John 10:11, 15; 15:13). As Jesus says of His sheep in John 10:28, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand."

Finally, Paul brings in the precious blood of infinite worth, which not only cleanses us of sin, but is also the ink Christ used to sign the covenant, with all of its promises. On His final Passover, as He passed the cup, Jesus tells the disciples, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many" (Matthew 26:28). He gave His life to demonstrate His seriousness and solid commitment to the covenant, an agreement between God and His chosen ones in which He does nearly everything (Hebrews 8:10-12).

In that covenant, He essentially asks us to yield to His work in our lives, and in return, He faithfully promises to engrave His way of life—the way He lives!—on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 10:16). He guarantees us that He will be our God, and we will be His people (I Peter 2:10; Hosea 2:23). He assures us that we will know Him, which is the essence of eternal life (John 17:3). And He declares that He will take care of the problem of sin (Isaiah 27:9; Romans 11:27), the source of all of our problems, since it separates us from the Source of all good (Isaiah 59:2).

After Paul pulls all these overwhelming, divine elements together, he writes, "May [this] God . . . make you complete in every good work to do His will." While His will can include many particulars, His overriding purpose is to create man in His image (Genesis 1:26). He will make us complete in every good work, so that He can complete His good work. Our work is to believe, with all that entails (John 6:29).

Among the greatest challenges we face is not to let a bad snapshot—or even a whole progression of them—convince us that the journey is not worth continuing to its end. When God is finished with His good work, we will be able to see the whole picture. We will finally see how all the snapshots fit perfectly into place.

Snapshots-Part Two

In the previous essay, we saw how time-lapse cinematography—such as a five-minute video clip composed of 100,000 slightly different pictures—is a useful way of understanding how each moment of our lives relates to the overall progression. So even though a present "snapshot" of our lives looks dismal, it cannot reveal what happens next. In this vein, the apostle Paul writes to the Philippians with confidence and encouragement, "He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:3-6). "What happens next," Paul says, is in God's hands, and He finishes what He starts.

In the next chapter, Paul continues his teaching:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13; emphasis ours)

In these two verses, Paul gives an instruction and then a reason. He builds on the confidence that God would complete His good work by saying that part of His work is to infuse us with both the will and the means to do our part within this project—for we certainly do have a part. A way that the Creator ensures that His project will succeed is by supplying every necessary resource and tool. J.B. Phillip's translation of the New Testament renders this verse as, "For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve His purpose." The NET Bible uses "desire" instead of "will" in this verse. Thus, God gives us both the desire and the power for His tremendous purpose to be accomplished in us.

The reason that Paul gives the Philippians distills down to God's spiritual providence, using it to bolster what he tells them to do: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." The phrase "work out" sometimes causes confusion because it sounds like we are working for our salvation. That is not the case at all. Salvation is a gift, not something we earn through works.

Instead, "work out" has the sense of "carry it to the conclusion." In other words, salvation is ours to lose. Once involved in the salvation process, we have to make sure that we do not derail the process by turning away from God. The Amplified Bible enhances the phrase "work out" by adding "cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete" (your own salvation).

The next phrase adds "with fear and trembling." Again, The Amplified Bible tries to give the sense by suggesting the clarifying phrases "with self-distrust, with serious caution, with tenderness of conscience, with watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ."

Fear and trembling are the effects of catching a glimpse of God or of recalling the power we have seen Him exercise. We can carry our part of the salvation process to its divine conclusion only if our minds are solidly fixed on the Author and Finisher of our salvation. If we know God, such a focus cannot help but instill reverential awe and an attitude of submission.

The proper fear of God helps to keep us from wandering off the path, thus it is a hedge as we cultivate salvation. Without reverence and submission, our view and comprehension of God will come up short in some area, and we will have a difficult time completing salvation. But when our Father and His Firstborn Son are squarely in our view, dominating our thoughts, we will let nothing interfere with God accomplishing His purpose in our lives. Because we trust Him, we will submit to whatever He asks of us. We will keep ourselves so we will not be guilty of neglecting so great salvation. We will seek that next glimpse of God and His work, not for our own glory, but because in seeking it we begin to understand Him and think like Him.

John 6:29 presents a high-level, summarizing answer to the question of what we should do to carry out what God requires: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent." Since mainstream Christianity has cheapened many biblical concepts, it is easy to pass right over this verse without grasping what it means. Genuine belief goes far beyond believing that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for our sins. Those are true things. But in addition to them, genuine belief always involves submission and obedience to God's law and will. It includes committing to, trusting in, relying on, and cleaving to the Creator God as He performs His work.

We can plug these elements back into Christ's statement and expand it. The work that God requires of us is submitting to the Head of the church. It is obeying His instructions and surrendering to His will. God's work for us is to commit ourselves fully to the Messenger and Mediator of the covenant and to rely on Him, even in those times when we are feeling lost, overwhelmed, or profoundly dismayed. Our work is to cleave to Him and to trust that whatever "snapshot" is troubling us is not the end of His creative work. Our work is to decide each day whether we will trust Him or our own limited perception. These responses to God are part of what it means to believe.

As we apply ourselves to this work, our salvation is carried out to its glorious conclusion, not because we are doing it, but because God is doing it and we are yielding to Him. He is helping us to come into alignment with Him, as He achieves the impossible of transforming wretched humanity into His own perfect spiritual image. Considering the material He has to work with, and the limited window of time He has to fashion each person, it should not surprise us that His work involves pressurized and highly disruptive actions or circumstances.

Snapshots-Part One

Some time back, The Weather Channel website featured the creative works of Shawn Reeder, a man who bills himself as a visual artist. Among Reeder's specialties is time-lapse cinematography, and his favorite subject matter is the combination of landscapes, weather patterns, and the heavens over a period of time. One five-minute movie, consisting of over 100,000 individual pictures of various landscape sequences, took more than two years to shoot and compile.

Through such sequential pictures at set intervals of time, and slight variations in the location of the camera, he has captured stunning events in God's creation. Through his work in places like Yosemite National Park and New Zealand, he visually chronicles the beauty of natural events, such as morning sunlight chasing shadows down a canyon wall. He captures the interplay of storm clouds and stabbing rays of light over a lake, and the wheeling of the Milky Way above an expanse of desert. With his time-lapse photography, he allows us to witness fog rolling in, just like a wave of water.

Many such natural events are taking place constantly, yet for the most part, we are oblivious to the changes over time because our minds do not operate like one of these cameras. It takes something outside of our natural abilities to keep track of the variations and progression of the natural world through time. We are not equipped to capture how light, shadow, and weather patterns change throughout the day. Instead, we only capture a snapshot, a moment, that may be intense while we are in it but which usually fades almost immediately.

This effect has a parallel in our walk with God. We probably remember our calling, our baptism, and the opening of our spiritual insight. At the other end, we can read the conclusion of the Book and catch a glimpse of where we will end up if we hold to the right course. But we are not equipped to see each change in us as it happens. We often lose sight of the broad sweep of what God is doing with us and for us. It is easy enough to take a snapshot of where we are now, of our circumstances, and of how things look from our present perspective, but we do not always have the capacity to see how that snapshot fits into the overall record of God's work in our lives, let alone what the future holds.

Sometimes a snapshot of our lives is particularly dismal and seemingly hopeless. Just as any number of the 100,000 individual pictures in that five-minute film could be ordinary, uninspiring, or even depressing, so also we might be focusing on a snapshot of our lives that is not what we would like to see, either in terms of spiritual growth or physical circumstance. Yet, a single picture misses the broad sweep of both history and what lies ahead. It cannot tell us with any accuracy what will happen down the road. The fantastic work that God is doing with us is indiscernible through a snapshot—there is simply too much in the past and in the future that we cannot see.

In his epistle to the Philippians, the apostle Paul begins with an encouraging reminder:

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. . . . (Philippians 1:3-6; emphasis ours)

The meaning of verse 6 places our initial snapshots, not at the beginning of our lives, but all the way back to the first chapter of Genesis, where God declares what He is doing. In Genesis 1:26, Elohim said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. . . ." When man was created, his physical body had the same general form as God's spirit body, but he was far from complete. This verse has not yet been fulfilled.

Together, these verses are talking about our destiny of becoming full, spirit-composed, and glorified members in the Family of God. The work of the Creator is continuing, and it will keep going until man is in the image of God in the fullest sense.

Notice that Paul begins his letter to the Philippians with a statement of his steadfast confidence that God will complete the spiritual work that He has begun in His called-out ones. In John 5:17, Jesus declares that His Father has been working until now, and He is also working. We easily lose sight of this work, because our primary senses are physical, and God's spiritual work cannot be detected or measured with such crude instruments. We need reminders like these that God is fulfilling a divine purpose, completing His good work, even as our moment-to-moment—or snapshot-to-snapshot—lives may not make this immediately obvious.

Occasionally, we do receive a clear glimpse of His spiritual work in our lives or in the lives of those close to us, but it is nearly impossible for us to hold onto that snapshot and compare it with the next. Because we are restricted to these infrequent glimpses of God, it is easy for His divine project to slip from our minds. So Paul reminds us of it because it is crucial that it remain our spiritual focus. Just as the individual pictures in a time-lapse sequence only tell a fraction of the story, so these snapshots that we take are inadequate to provide us a full understanding of what is taking place.

It is imperative that we remember that a Master Artist is at work. We cannot fully comprehend the work that He is doing, since we cannot fully comprehend Him—yet we can share in Paul's solid assurance that He who has begun a good work in us will complete it. Even if our current snapshot is the worst picture we have ever seen, we must remember that that is all it is—a snapshot. It does not tell us what comes next. The project is not yet complete, but the Creator is always overseeing it and advancing it in humanly unfathomable ways.

Hebrews 3:6

"but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end." Hebrews 3:6

Hebrews 3:6 stands at the end of a paragraph in which we are asked to "consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus" (Hebrews 3:1). In the intervening four verses, the author of Hebrews, probably ultimately the apostle Paul, makes a comparison between Christ and Moses in terms of their faithfulness. Jesus is, of course, superior to Moses in many ways, but in the area of faithfulness, He is far greater because He is no mere servant, as Moses was, but the Son and Heir of His own house, the house of God.

A second distinction that the author makes is that, while Moses functioned as a faithful servant or steward of the house, Christ built the house. In other words, while Moses dutifully followed orders concerning the running of the house during his time of service, Christ gets all the credit for planning, designing, building, and maintaining the house, as He is its Creator. The author makes this plain in verse 4: "He who built all things is God."

So the author makes two major points: 1) Jesus Christ is the faithful Son of God and Heir of all things, and 2) He Himself is the Creator God, the One who made everything (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16). For these reasons, He is worthy of all glory and honor.

In verse 6, the object of our comments, the author brings Christians, the church, into the argument. We are the house of God that Jesus has been building and that Moses faithfully served. The Son of God has been faithfully working on us both individually and collectively since the beginning to fit us into His house—whether we wish to look at it as a building or a family—in the place that most suits us and where we will function the best for His purpose.

The emphasis here needs to be on the fact that He, appointed by the Father to this task, has executed His responsibilities faithfully in every respect. He never shirks a job, never does shoddy work, and never fails to finish what He starts. Jesus Christ always does perfect work.

So, as the verse implies, we should have perfect confidence and joy in our Creator in bringing us to salvation and eternal life. We have no reason to doubt! Our responsibility, then, is to "hold fast," to stand firm, to endure to the end, through whatever assails us in the meantime.

There is nothing that can stop Christ from finishing His work perfectly—except us. We can fail Him (see Hebrews 6:4-8; 10:26-31); we can prove unfaithful, which is why the author's next section is an exhortation to be faithful and a warning not to follow the unfaithful, unbelieving example of the Israelites in the wilderness.

To this end, he repeats his encouraging remarks in Hebrews 3:14, "For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end." We have to keep hanging on, faithful and trusting that God, in His perfect work, has everything under control. So Jesus Himself tells us in Matthew 24:13, "But he who endures to the end shall be saved."

Daniel 11:32

Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.  Daniel 11:32

Historical evidence identifies the man referred to as "he" as Antiochus Epiphanes. Because the record of his activities against the Jews parallels many of the activities prophesied about the end-time Beast of Revelation, many believe he is a symbolic forerunner of that one to come. This verse prophesies three things of the coming Beast:

First, we normally and correctly associate the Beast with great, though evil, power. However, among other things he will also be a flatterer. He will not only be a person of great political wisdom, but he will be personally persuasive and charming. Proverbs 31:30 warns us, "Charm is deceitful"—all too frequently, it is nothing more than a social and public relations skill used for personal gain. It can be nothing more than a dishonest puffery displayed to get another's cooperation to achieve an ulterior motive. Practically, it can easily become manipulation and control by a skilled person using honeyed words. David's experience with a charming betrayer is recorded in Psalm 55:21: "The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords." Politically, this activity is defined as treachery.

Second, this verse also tells us he will corrupt or seduce some of those who have made the covenant with God. At first, we might think that these are the unconverted, but that is not so. This refers to the last phrase of verse 30, where the Beast "shows regard for those who forsake the holy covenant." These are people who apostatize. A person cannot forsake an agreement he has never made. Some of the converted will be seduced by manipulative flatteries and corrupted into cooperation. At the end time, that means some of us! Reader's Digest Encyclopedic Dictionary lists some of the definitions of corrupt: "to pervert the fidelity or integrity of as by bribing; to destroy morally; pervert, ruin, change from the original, debase, contaminate."

Putting these two factors together, we ought to imagine God waving a yellow caution flag before us, revealing an area of danger that we should mark well. It is highly unlikely that any of us will move in the same political, social, and military circles as the Beast. Thus, his personal charm or flatteries will not be used to deceive us in an intimate, personal circumstance. Therefore, his political wisdom and flatteries will be exhibited in his public policies. We must never forget that this man will be of the world and as unconverted as a man can be.

Therefore the political strategies he will use will essentially be appeals to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (I John 2:15-17). He will appeal to us to abandon our faith and give our cooperation, trust, and loyalty to him by submitting to political programs and public policies that offer us physical well-being, peace, and safety under his umbrella. It will seem advantageous for us, at least on a short-term basis, to support his programs. He will make glowing promises of preferment, reward, and peace. But never forget, when seduction and subversion through flatteries fail, the reign of terror by persecution begins.

Third and finally, the verse prophesies that those who know their God shall be strong, or stand firm, and do exploits. God inserts this to show us how not to be deceived by flatteries. Jesus says in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Knowing God is the key to seeing through and rejecting the seductive flatteries of the Beast because it is the foundation of faith. We know God gives truths that are eternal.

The Beast will deceive through a combination of outright lies, partial truths, and temporary truths. The people who see through his devious words will do so because they know and believe God and His truth. They will therefore be strong in giving glory to Him. These people will prefer to risk their lives rather than betray God's honor. By believing God, they will be prepared for the Beast's onslaught, and this will give them strength because it produces firm resolve and sense of purpose. Though these prophecies are not yet fulfilled, evidence is accumulating that they are just over the horizon, and thus something we may soon face.

II Corinthians 5:7

For we walk by faith, not by sight.  II Corinthians 5:7

There is a similarity between eyesight and faith simply in the effect that they have—one on the physical, the other on the spiritual. Nevertheless, in terms of II Corinthians 5:7, faith and eyesight are opposites. Recall that Hebrews 11:1 says that "faith is . . . the evidence of things not seen." Faith is the conviction of what we have heard but cannot see. "Faith comes by hearing" (Romans 10:17).

Man says. "Seeing is believing." So when a man sees something, he is convicted, and his mind, then, is inclined to what he has seen. In the life of the righteous, faith is the controlling factor that motivates his conduct. The importance of eyesight is true in the physical realm, but it means almost nothing in the spiritual realm.

Consider physical Israel. The Israelites saw multiple miracles in Egypt and in the wilderness, but they seem to have profited them almost nothing. They saw the Nile turn to blood. They saw the frogs. They saw the lice. They saw the darkness. They saw the hail. They saw the fire on the ground. They saw the murrain kill the cattle. They saw the firstborn die. They saw the Red Sea part. They saw the pillar of fire and the cloud. They saw water coming out of the rock. They saw manna on the ground every day for forty years. They saw all those things.

Yet, what they saw did not affect their minds spiritually at all because eyesight means almost nothing in terms of the spiritual. Faith is the foundation, the assurance, the substance, the confidence, of things not seen—the invisible realm of God. In terms of faith, what a person can see with his eyes is more likely to frighten him and create doubt than it is to build faith.

Faith, according to Ephesians 2:8, is a gift of God. It is a gift because we did not have real spiritual faith until God began to call us. It is a gift because, by a mighty miracle, God opened our minds to enable us to understand His Word so that we can process the evidence we hear from His Word and make right choices relevant to His Kingdom.

Matthew 12:33-37

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.  Matthew 12:33-37

This is a strong statement from our Savior! The fundamental question is: "How Christ-like is our speech?" This is just one area out of the whole of our behavior. We will be judged for every word, even the idle ones that we may just toss off in a time of weakness or when joking around with friends. That is a pretty strict judgment.

Jesus speaks here in black-and-white terms. The tree (meaning the person) is either good—producing good fruit—or he is bad and produces bad fruit. Which are we—the good or the bad tree?

In verse 34, He says, "Out of the abundance of the heart we speak"—and we could add, "and act." Jesus says in Matthew 15:17-18 that it is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out of him. What comes out of a person will be either good things like service, love, kindness, and other fruits of the spirit, or bad things, the works of the flesh, which He names there.

So, what will it be with us? What is the abundance of our heart?

The picture here is that the heart is a kind of vessel—a bowl—and things are poured into the heart. At a certain point, the vessel will overflow, and an abundance will come out of it. What comes out of our heart—this bowl or vessel—will expose the characteristics of the heart.

When we pour information into our minds, we process it. For a while, it stays in the bowl, as it were, and becomes mixed with what has been put there before. Our minds work on it for a while, and over time, it begins to gel into certain ideas. Once our minds are full, ideas break out in words, plans, and behaviors. Evil thoughts within, evil speech and/or works without. Or, we can put it the other way around—godly, kind, Christ-like thoughts within, godly, kind, Christ-like speech and/or works without.

What breaks out of our hearts? We have to answer that ourselves. Do we have profane minds that spew out profane speech? Or, is it "on [our] tongue is the law of kindness" (Proverbs 31:26) because behind our tongues are pure and kind hearts?

This is vitally important because "by those words" we will either be justified or condemned. Our thoughts are just precursors to our speech and action.

So, where do we stand in relation to this line that Jesus Christ our Savior, our High Priest and Judge, has drawn? Are we a good tree or a bad one?

I Corinthians 16:13-14

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.  Let all that you do be done with love. I Corinthians 16:13-14

Paul instructs us: "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity" (I Corinthians 16:13-14; King James Version). Several generations ago, "quit you like men" was a frequently heard phrase in English-speaking countries. To modern ears, quit means "to stop" or "to give up,' but it can also mean "to conduct oneself in a specified way."


The phrase the King James Version translates as "quit you like men," James Moffatt renders as "play the man"; the Revised Standard Version, "be courageous"; and The Amplified Bible, "act like men." Phillips, however, separates verses 13-14 into a paragraph of their own, giving it a sub-heading that says, "A little sermon in a nutshell!" He translates the verse as follows: "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, live like men, be strong! Let everything that you do be done in love."

The Greek word translated as "quit you like men" is andrizomai, which is used just this one time in the Bible. It is an imperative, a word of command, and it literally means "be men."

Now, the women and teens reading this should not bail out at this point because Paul is giving instructions here to Christians in general, not just men, as we see in I Corinthians 1:1-2:

Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother. To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. [Emphasis ours]

Is he talking to just the men here? I think not.

At the end of I Corinthians 16, Paul is closing out his rather long letter and giving his final exhortation. Right after this "little sermon in a nutshell," he mentions Aquila and Priscilla in verse 19. This husband-and-wife team are mentioned six times in Paul's letters, always fondly and always together. They are as one. Thus, right after Paul tells us to "be men," he writes warmly of his good friend, Priscilla.

Lastly, Paul teaches in Galatians 3:28 that there is neither male nor female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus. So if men must "get in touch with their feminine side," as we are so often told in today's feminized society, then the ladies in the church should pay attention, along with the men, to how being a man is necessary to our Christian life!

As many know, the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, and it was later translated into other languages. The translation into Greek, called the Septuagint, is one of the oldest of these, the earliest parts dating from around 300 BC. The Greek word andrizomai, used only once in the Greek New Testament, appears 25 times in the Septuagint. A few verses from the book of Joshua will show how andrizomai was translated from the Hebrew into Greek and then again into English, giving us a better understanding of what Paul was saying in I Corinthians 16:13:

Be strong and of good courage. . . . Only be strong and very courageous. . . . Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage . . . be strong and of good courage." (Joshua 1:6-7, 9, 18)

Here, andrizomai is translated "be . . . of good courage." A literal interpretation of andrizomai would be, as we saw above, "play the man," "live like men," "act like men," or simply "be men"—and that is what Paul is saying: Be men. He is writing to a church living at the same time as he, speaking the same Greek language, and having the same cultural influences, and he could expect his audience to know what he meant. They certainly did.

But we are nearly two millennia removed from those days, which is why the Septuagint is helpful. Paul is telling us to have courage. When Paul says, "Quit ye like men," it is the same as telling us to be courageous. Commentator Albert Barnes says in his Notes that Paul means a man is not "a coward, or timid, or alarmed at enemies, but [is] to be bold and brave." This applies to all Christians, no matter the age or gender. The idea is summed up in the word "courage."

Numbers 33:53-54

"you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to possess. And you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; there everyone's inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers."  Numbers 33:53-54

The eighth commandment is the law that guarantees individuals the right to own property. This, by very strong inference, removes any doubt about whether communism—in which property is owned collectively by the state—is a God-approved form of economics. Numbers 33:53-54 shows God intended the Israelites to own property individually.

When we combine this with the tithing laws in Numbers 18, it becomes clear that God expected the Israelites to work the land to produce wealth for their families. From what they produced they were to pay tithes. The Levites, however, received no land from which they could produce wealth and pay tithes, so they tithed on the tithes they received from the other tribes.

The conclusion is inescapable that the ownership of property and the production of wealth is a God-given privilege. The inequities in the systems and ways by which men produce wealth are givens regardless of when one lives. However, to steal what rightfully belongs to another violates this God-given privilege no matter how one justifies his actions.

Matthew 25:1-13

Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.  Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish.  Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard: "Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!" Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out." But the wise answered, saying, "No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves." And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, "Lord, Lord, open to us!" But he answered and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you." Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.  Matthew 25:1-13

The Parable of the Ten Virgins pictures the church waiting for the Bridegroom's return. Because of an unexpectedly long delay, He finds half the virgins unprepared when He finally arrives.

In weddings of that time, the bridegroom traditionally led a procession of bridesmaids from where they waited to his home. Since the procession almost invariably took place at night, each bridesmaid was expected to supply her own torch or lamp. If the bridegroom came later than expected, the bridesmaid needed to be prepared with extra torches or oil for her lamp.

The difference between the wise and the foolish virgins in the parable is not that one group did not have oil, but that one group did not have enough for the unexpectedly long delay. When the cry went out, their lamps were still burning, but they were sputtering and going out. Oil, of course, represents God's Holy Spirit. The wise virgins, like the faithful and wise servant of Matthew 24:45-51, are prepared. They make sure that they remain in contact with the dispenser of oil, as is implied when they say to the foolish virgins, "No, . . . go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves" (verse 9). The wise had been in recent contact with the dispenser of oil, whereas the others apparently had dallied around. Going frequently to the dispenser, the wise, when the bridegroom arrived, had an adequate supply to trim their lamps and go into the marriage supper. The lesson is preparedness through vision and foresight.

Because it is an internal state, preparedness cannot be transferred. That is evident in the reaction of the virgins. It is a matter of the heart, an intangible that accrues by spending long periods of time under many circumstances with the Dispenser of the Holy Spirit. What cannot be transferred to those who are unprepared are matters of attitude, character, skill, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. They are personal attributes that are built and honed over months and years.

When one needs a skill immediately, how much time does it take to learn it? If a man suddenly needed the skill to repair an automobile, and he had never done any work on one, he may as well have no hands at all! It works the same way with spiritual attributes. Preparing for eventualities is the lesson of this parable. The wise virgins prepared for the eventuality that it might take longer for the bridegroom to come—they showed foresight and vision, and they entered the wedding feast. The others did not.

The oil cannot be borrowed either. In no way can it be passed from one person to another. We cannot borrow character or a relationship with God. The parable teaches us that opportunity comes, opportunity knocks, and then opportunity leaves. The foolish failed to face the possibility that the bridegroom would come later than expected, and when they were awakened, they had no time to fetch any oil and fill their lamps.

No one can deliver his brother. Each person determines his own destiny. No matter how close we are, even if we are one in flesh as in marriage, a husband cannot deliver his wife, and a wife cannot deliver her husband. Nor can we deliver our children. Everyone stands on his own in his relationship with God. God makes this clear in Ezekiel 14:14: "'Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness,' says the Lord God." Though it is a hard lesson, it should motivate us to discipline ourselves, to exercise self-control, to be alert, and to give our attention to our spiritual priorities. Thus, each person determines his own destiny.

Equating the foolish virgins with their modern counterparts, the Laodiceans, their faith is perfunctory. Their church membership is routine, merely going through the motions. They have enough faith that they at least show up for church services. They have beliefs and character and motivation—but not enough!

The Bridegroom's refusal to admit the five foolish virgins (verse 12) must not be construed as a callous rejection of their lifelong desire to enter the Kingdom. Far from callous, Christ's rejection is entirely justified because these people never make preparations for their marriage to Him. In the analogy, though they realize they have met their future mate and admire Him, they never develop the relationship. In a sense, they have already rejected Him. Thus, an additional lesson in this parable is that our relationship with God must be worked on continually.

Romans 5:12

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.  Romans 5:12

When Adam and Eve sinned, God judged them. Since they were the father and mother of all of mankind, and they were the only representatives of mankind at the time, all of mankind figuratively sinned in Adam and Eve. God's judgment was correct, because given the chance, every human has sinned.

What then happened to Adam and Eve? They were ushered out of the Garden, and God put a cherubim at its entrance to guard the Garden and the Tree of Life so that nobody could get back in. This is why at times the Bible bids people to return to God when they had never seemingly turned away from Him. Yet, all of mankind did turn away from God in Adam and Eve, and He invites us to return to the place, symbolically, where everything started, back to the environs He occupies, where the Tree of Life is.

The relationship with God is everything to our salvation. Without what Christ did in dying for our sins, we would not be in the position to have one with Him. Christ's payment of our sins opens up the way for a relationship to be built and for us to grow in the Holy Spirit, because now we have access to the Tree of Life in a relationship with God.

Daniel 5:23

And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified.  Daniel 5:23

This verse ought to make us consider how deeply God is involved in our lives. We should not deceive ourselves into thinking that this principle does not apply to us because we are insignificant. It applies to all men, high or low, rich or poor, slave or freeman, Gentile or Israelite, converted or unconverted. It is deeply moving to consider that the breath on which our life depends, itself such a frail thing, is in the "hand" of an invisible Being over whom we can have no control. He can stop our breath at any time. We continue living only at His pleasure! There is perhaps nothing more absolute than the power God holds over us, yet we do not seem disposed to acknowledge it.

In addition, He claims to have the power to control all our ways. We can go nowhere without his permission; once we leave, we cannot return home without His allowance. We like to think we have faith, but do we really live our lives considering His nearness to us? How little we recognize this! Yet it is what the apostle Paul means when he tells the Athenians, "[I]n Him we live and move and have our being." Solomon reiterates this thought in Proverbs 19:21, "There are many plans in a man's heart, nevertheless the LORD 's counsel—that will stand." Again he writes in Proverbs 16:9, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps," and in chapter 21:1 it says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes." The Living Bible paraphrases this last verse, "Just as water is turned into irrigation ditches, so the Lord directs the king's thoughts. He turns them wherever He wants to."

If the king's heart is in God's hand, and He is influencing his decisions, is it not clear that all governors of men are completely beneath the governmental control of the Almighty? What ruler can resist Him? This does not mean He is inspiring the evil things they decide to enact as policy, but He oversees and thus allows them, or they would never be able to implement them. Belshazzar seemingly had a free hand until God dramatically intervened to bring about His will. We should consider this in light of the "sovereign citizenship" movement gathering grassroots support among certain elements in America. It presents a growing danger to some church members who are being deceived into ignorantly opposing the very governance of God!

Genesis 3:17

Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, "You shall not eat of it": Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.  Genesis 3:17 Neither of the other two curses contains such a lengthy reason for God's pronouncement. Why God does this probably lies in the fact that Adam was not deceived when he sinned (I Timothy 2:14). God saw the need to explain to him why he was being cursed so that Adam would not repeat the grievous error again. Events had deteriorated much too far already, and this preamble is an attempt to shore up the damage by pinpointing to Adam the cause of the problem. God's reason for Adam's curse comes in two parts: 1) He obeyed Eve, and 2) he disobeyed God. He sinned by doing something he should not have done, as well as by not doing what he should have done! Like most sins, his was an act of commission and omission. God first exposes Adam's abdication of his leadership role in the marriage. Though Ephesians 5:21 says to "[submit] to one another in the fear of God," Adam yielded to his wife in an area he knew God had specifically commanded them to do otherwise. He should have led, not followed. Genesis 3 provides no explanation for why Adam followed her lead; verse 6 tersely says, "She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate." It suggests he weakly acquiesced to do her bidding with a "whatever you say, dear" attitude. He chose to appease her rather than correct her. Then God reminds him that he had directly disobeyed His very clear command: "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17). God's words in Genesis 3:17 cut straight to the heart of the matter. However Adam had justified to himself that he could eat the forbidden fruit, he had still committed sin in God's eyes. As the wording suggests, the two reasons go together; it is an Old Testament pre-statement of Peter's words to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5:29: "We ought to obey God rather than men." God's commands take precedence over any words, acts, or persuasions to the contrary - even if they are delivered by a beautiful, naked woman offering to feed us fruit!

Proverbs 16:19

Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil with the proud.   Proverbs 16:19

In 1621, Robert Burton wrote in his The Anatomy of Melancholy, "They are proud in humility; proud in that they are not proud." How carnal men are to twist virtue into sin! It is enough to make us suspicious when we come across a "humble" person.

We have undoubtedly crossed paths with those who were so proud that they oozed with false humility. Many religious leaders in the world today openly appear this way, as they wax eloquent on their televised evangelical programs. Authors have written dozens of books and Hollywood has produced many movies to expose the hypocrisy of such individuals.

Uncountable numbers of both religious and secular leaders have risen to power on the banner of humility. Feigning an image of heartfelt concern for those who can help place them in the limelight, they glow with an air of counterfeit humility. Eventually, this hypocritical image always becomes apparent, just as our sins expose us in due time (Numbers 32:23). The sin of pride is no different.

Of the many things that people have written on humility, as much as one-third refers to false humility. For instance, the French moralist La Rochefoucald wrote in Maxims in 1665: "Humility is often only feigned submission which people use to render others submissive. It is a subterfuge of pride which lowers itself in order to rise."

Isaiah 40:3-5

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: " Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken." Isaiah 40:3-5

Isaiah begins with "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." The voice prophesied was that of John the Baptist, which Scripture confirms in Malachi 3:1; Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:2-3; Luke 3:4; and John 1:23. Who would John be speaking to, proclaiming his message of repentance? To all who would "hear" him! Those "who have ears to hear" (see Matthew 13:9, 43, etc.), which would be all those with whom God is working, His firstfruits!

What did that "voice" say? What did he call on his audience to do? "[P]repare the way of the LORD." The instruction becomes more specific: ". . . make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low, the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth." Filling up valleys and removing the tops of mountains seems like a lot of work for one man. This is where the firstfruits come in. Why are we to do this? So that "the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."

Albert Barnes, in his commentary on Isaiah written in 1851, remarks on these verses:

The idea is taken from the practice of Eastern monarchs, who, whenever they entered on a journey or an expedition, especially through a barren and unfrequented or inhospitable country, sent harbingers [forerunners] or heralds before them to prepare the way. To do this, it was necessary for them to provide supplies, and make bridges, or find fording places over the streams; to level hills, and construct causeways over valleys, or fill them up; and to make a way through the forest which might lie in their intended line of march.

Those who went before, to mark and improve the route, were the forerunners. They were "the scouts, the pioneers, the ones sent before a king to prepare the way," as forerunner is defined. Recall Daniel Boone and his party of thirty expert woodsmen laying out a 200-mile-long route. Over time, as more people came over the trail, it was improved, widened, and smoothed. It all began, however, with one man. That man then led others, and it multiplied from there.

John the Baptist was one man "crying in the wilderness," yet he prepared the way for the Son of God. Each of us, in our daily lives, interacts with family, coworkers, neighbors, and others who may know little or nothing of God and His Word. Our words and deeds could well pave the way for any of them to answer God's call at another time. Each of us has opportunities to set an example that will affect their lives, hopefully in a positive way. In this way, each of us is a forerunner, marking and improving the trail through the conduct of our lives.

Exodus 20:14

You shall not commit adultery.  Exodus 20:14

As far as we know, the crisis of AIDS has been with us since 1981, although blood samples from as early as 1959 show evidence of the HIV virus. Already, tens of thousands have died from it in the United States alone. Although the disease can be spread by other means, the primary vehicle for the contagion is sexual contact.

Before AIDS, sexually transmissible diseases (STDs) like gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, and chlamydia—politely called "social" or venereal diseases—raged around the world for centuries. Like AIDS, these are primarily spread by sexual contact, usually of an illicit nature. Today, the Centers for Disease Control reports, 87 percent of all reportable disease is sexually transmitted!

This means, of course, that 87 percent of all disease is preventable—by keeping the seventh commandment, "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14), which includes all forms of sexual immorality. Mankind could eliminate nearly nine-tenths of all disease by changing sexual behavior to conform to the standard of God's law! Imagine the health, joy, and peace this would cause!

What a breakthrough, right? Wrong! The medical establishment worldwide—except for a few "radical" countries, most of which are Muslim—utterly rejects behavioral changes in favor of the politically correct "safe sex" procedures. Dr. Ed Payne, a faculty member at the Medical College of Georgia, calls the medical community's attitude of rejection of moral values "deliberate naiveté" (World, November 1, 1997, p. 5). Like children, they believe that if they just shut their eyes to the underlying cause of the problem, it really does not exist.

Dr. Payne writes:

The crisis of American medicine is not tobacco, AIDS, silicone, the Gulf War Syndrome, breast or any other form of cancer. . . . The crisis of American medicine is far greater than any one of these problems; indeed, it is far greater than all of them combined, because the answers to these problems do not come from within them, but from medical ethics. It is the same crisis that faces our culture in every other area: How do we decide ethics? That is, how do we decide what is right and what is wrong? (ibid.)

What is the result? In the case of STDs, the medical establishment actually promotes promiscuity and immorality. Rather than "weigh in" on pre-marital sex, it provides sex education, condoms, and birth-control pills to adolescents. To the majority of "health professionals," homosexuality is not wrong, but unsafe homosexual sex is "at-risk behavior." The risk is not that God will punish for sin but that a person might get a fatal disease.

Wrong becomes right, and if it is so right, their actions say, we should do more of it!