What Does A Headless King Have To Do With God’s Will?

The Lord’s displeasure over King Saul’s disobedience should serve as a loud, stinging reminder to each and every Christian today.  Myself included.

As believers in the post-resurrection era, we have each been issued a divine mission to go, share the gospel with every creature, and make disciples of all the nations.  To not be wholly obedient to this command is sin, and all sin has its consequence.

“Do not be deceived,” the Scripture warns, “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap”(Galatians 6:7).  If we who call on the name of the Lord continue to sow laziness in our personal devotions, cherish lukewarm pews of convenience rather than dying daily, or lack zeal for the redemption of the unsaved, then we may reap divine judgment sooner rather than later.

Notice, however, that although God immediately pronounced judgment against King Saul, He withheld His omnipotent hand until a later date.  Saul remained king over Israel and lived many years after his failure with the Amalakites.

Could it be that perhaps the LORD was granting Saul an opportunity to repent and return to Him with faithful obedience?  After all, the Lord also waited nearly two full years for the early church to leave Jerusalem before He allowed them to be persecuted in Acts chapter eight.

Could God also be holding back His judgment against any one of us at this very moment?  Could He be waiting for us to finish (or even begin?) the ministry we have been appointed to, rather than making excuses for our lack of effort?

I wonder.

Regardless, however, do not misinterpret the fact that it was God—not man or devil—who ultimately killed King Saul.  A Philistine archer launched the arrow that pierced his flesh and Saul subsequently committed suicide when he “took his sword and fell on it,” but God in His sovereignty ordained all of it to be (c.f. 1 Samuel 31:3-4).

As it clearly states in 1 Chronicles 10:13-14, “So Saul died for his treason which he committed against the LORD, because of the word of the LORD which he did not keep; and also because he asked counsel of a medium, making inquiry of it, and did not inquire of the LORD.  Therefore He killed him and turned the kingdom to David the son of Jesse” (italics mine).

The consequence of Saul’s idolatrous disobedience stands as a warning to everyone today who names the name of Christ.  As sheep prone to wander, we each need to be reminded about how important it is to be passionate about our own personal discipleship, following through with our Lord’s command to “Go therefore and make disciples.”

The requirement of total obedience is as potent today as it was to the early church in the book of Acts.  In the same way that there was a severe consequence for the early church being only partially obedient to God’s revealed will of Great Commission Discipleship, there will be a consequence for us as well; whether in this life or at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Beloved, be intentionally radical about your love for Jesus Christ.  This is most certainly God’s will for your life today.

If You Are Breathing Then You Have Another Chance

President Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter on October 4, 1864 from his office in Washington, D.C.  The letter is not exactly famous, but it is certainly interesting. It reads as follows:

“Upon condition that Roswell McIntyre of Co. E, Sixth Regiment of New York Calvary, returns to his regiment and faithfully serves out his time, or until lawfully discharged, he is fully pardoned for any supposed desertion heretofore committed; this paper is his pass to his regiment.”

What is so fascinating about this particular letter is that at the bottom left corner was scribbled:

“Taken from the body of R. McIntyre at the battle of Five Forks,Va., 1865.”

Roswell McIntyre was a Union solider who, in a moment of cowardice, deserted his military post and went AWOL.  He was eventually captured and imprisoned, but President Lincoln gave him a second chance to reclaim his dignity.  The choice was his alone to make.  To his credit, Mr. McIntyre chose to take Lincoln up on that promise and rejoined his troop.

A year later that decision cost him his life.  Instead of living out the remainder of his years as an imprisoned and disgraced coward, he died a brave and heroic soldier at the battle of Five Forks in Virginia.

And so is every Christian who obediently engages in the next opportunity of ministry that crosses their path.  The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ remains the God of second chances.

May that be the case with every one of God’s children as we obey His revealed will, making disciples of Jesus Christ for the glory of God alone.

* Photo credit: killerturnip (Creative Commons)

To be an Old Testament prophet of the LORD is not an office I would have envied.  That was a tough ministry. It seems the prophets were always delivering bad news and the recipients rarely ever wanted to hear what God’s man had to say.  In fact, most people probably pulled their shutters closed whenever a legitimate prophet of the LORD strolled into town.  For if the prophet was not delivering grim news for a particular sinner, it usually meant the city itself was going up in flames soon.

No, when a legitimate prophet of the LORD wanted to meet with you, it was not often that he was stopping by for biscuits and tea.  And Agag should have known this.

Once Samuel accompanied King Saul back to the place of worship (so that Saul could save face before the elders and the people of Israel), Samuel then returned to deal with yet another wicked king.  Upon his return Samuel said, “Bring me Agag, the king of the Amalakites.”  I assume that Samuel was a bit flustered that day having to deal with two wicked kings back-to-back.  He had already delivered a harsh condemnation toIsrael’s king, and now he was planning a radical act of worship at the expense of one of Israel’s all-time enemies.

One thing worthy of notice from this passage is that just because one person neglects their appointed ministry does not mean it is acceptable for others to allow that duty to go unfulfilled altogether.  Samuel knew this all too well and so he summoned the Amalakite king in order to finish what Saul had left undone.

Agag presumed he had escaped the sentence of death, for he entered Samuel’s presence “cheerfully,” saying, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”  On the contrary, however, the moment of divine judgment had arrived.  Answering Agag’s foolish presumption, Samuel replied, “As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.”

With that brief exchange, Samuel began to worship the LORD.

With a sword in hand, the prophet rushed upon Agag and “Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the LORD at Gilgal” (1 Samuel 15:33; italics mine).  The text is bloody, graphic and violent, yet there is also a sense of goodness to it because divine justice was finally being served.  At last, someone was being wholly obedient to the revealed will of almighty God.

Notice the words, “before the LORD.”  As Samuel was hacking Agag’s flesh to pieces, he was worshipping God!

Do not miss this blessed truth.

As the prophet of the LORD severed each body part and the Amalakite’s blood soaked into the ground, Samuel worshipped God.  This is a tremendously explicit passage of Scripture, yet it potently describes how God expects to be worshipped during every facet of life, even when doing so is uncomfortable, inconvenient, or downright bloody.

As Samuel’s sword rained down over and over again, the LORD was worshipped.  Not through the violence or even in the death of one of His creatures, but in the fact that Samuel cared enough to carry out the finer details of God’s command to King Saul.

This is vitally important, and has tremendous relevance for us—even today—regarding God’s revealed will for Great Commission Discipleship.

Tools Don’t Talk Back To Their Maker

American Christians would do well to meditate often upon the actions and attitudes of both King Saul and Samuel the prophet.  God has given each of us today a mission to proclaim the gospel to every creature on earth—both saved and unsaved.  Even to an Amalakite, if you could find one.  We have not been commissioned to slay the enemy but to love our enemy.  We are not allowed to hate our enemies but to loathe the sin that enslaves our enemies.

Our mission is not to hack sinners to pieces but—by God’s grace—to purge unbelief from planet earth.

God is dishonored when we do not obey His commands with relentless and radical allegiance, yet there is always someone else the Lord can use if we prove negligent in our assigned ministry.  He has many hammers to choose from, after all.

The Lord can raise up children of Abraham from stones, and “the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chronicles 16:9).  If you choose not to honor God by being obedient to His revealed will of Great Commission Discipleship, He will be dishonored and you will reap the consequence.  Nevertheless, the Lord will not allow His plan to be thwarted.  He will appoint another to succeed where you or I have committed the rebellious sin of omission.

Like one New Testament writer penned, “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).

The Lord is sovereign and His plans will never be frustrated.  Remember Joseph?  Joseph responded to the treachery of his wicked brothers by saying, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result…” (Genesis 50:20; italics mine).

When God was delivering Israel during the time which Deborah judged the nation, the opportunity for national glory was given into the hands of Barak, the commander of Israel’s army.  Barak flinched, however, wanting to place conditions on the extent of his obedience.  He said to Deborah, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go” (Judges 4:8).  Rebuking his stupidity, Deborah replied, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman” (Judges 4:9).

That woman ended up being Jael, who drove a tent-peg into Sisera’s head.

God accomplished His sovereign plan despite the immoral actions of Joseph’s kin.  God accomplished His sovereign plan despite Barak’s military foolishness.  And God accomplished His sovereign plan without King Saul’s faithfulness, as well.  That is something you and I need to remember today.

God does not need you and He doesn’t need me, either.  The Lord’s plans will never be spoiled due to the negligent frailty of sinful men and women, even if they are his beloved children.  There is always another who will step up to the plate and be wholly consecrated to perform all the Lord’s work.

Is that someone you?  Are you willing to be radically and wholly consecrated to the Lord, performing all that He commands you to do?  Are you really interested in knowing God’s will for your life, or are you having second thoughts?

In the book of Esther, we read about one of the Amalakite’s descendents (due to King Saul’s disobedience in 1 Samuel 15, incidentally) named, “Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite” (Esther 3:1).  Haman became a thorn inIsrael’s side, concocting a murderous plan to annihilate every Jew once and for all.  If not for the sovereign, covenant love that God has for His people, Haman no doubt would have succeeded.

When the fateful decree was issued that the lives and property of the Jews were free game to any and all, Esther’s older cousin, Mordecai, heard about it and covered himself in sackcloth, crying out to the LORD.  Sending word to Queen Esther, he said, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews.  For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish.  And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14; italics mine).

What about you?  Have you been placed by God where you are “for such a time as this?”  God will certainly bring about all His plans to fruition, but woe to that person who puts the patience of the LORD to the test.

I appreciate very much what J.C. Ryle had to say about the worthlessness of a shallow Christianity.  He wrote, “There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have enough—a cheap Christianity which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice—which costs nothing, and is worth nothing.”

Frankly, a religion worth anything is a religion worth everything.  If Christ means anything at all to you, He should mean absolutely everything to you.

* Photo credit: Fr. Stephen, MSC (Creative Commons)

Rick has been used by God in amazing and diverse ways, and I personally have benefited from his pastoral ministry and his books.  His ministry has been both edifying and controversial (not intentionally by him, I should add) among many of those who might call themselves Reformed.  (See the well-done video interview Pastor Rick had with John Piper to answer some of his critics concerns.)

Rick has written a number of books, one of which is entitled The Purpose Driven Life.  His latest book, The Purpose Driven Church, was called “the best book on entrepreneurship, management, and leadership in print” by Forbes magazine.

But one of the things you might not know about Pastor Rick is that he also leads another ministry called Pastors.com (facilitated by Brandon Cox), which serves pastors and other church leaders from all around the globe.  I have appreciated the Pastors.com website and many of the articles have proven quite helpful.

Personally, I started blogging regularly in the last quarter of 2011.  It has been fun, refreshing, rewarding, and I’ve seen fruit come from it.  It gives me a chance to rant, rave, and edify whenever possible (hopefully mostly the latter one).  And that’s why I was excited to have been approved—just last night—to serve as a contributing writer for Pastors.com!

I’m totally excited.  I plan to write and upload my first article this weekend, but I haven’t decided on a topic quite yet.  There are lots of categories and articles in the Pastors.com database, but I think I will focus initially on their Missions & Outreach category.

Anyway, you should check out some of their articles.  Who knows, you just might get blessed.

If you do, how do you reconcile the fact that this “idea” would seem to indicate that, before the foundation of the world, God willingly “passed over” billions of people so that they would not only not inherit eternal life but would, instead, be subject to His divine wrath…forever?

Well, maybe you don’t believe all that.  Or any of it, for that matter.  But maybe you do.  Personally, I both do and I don’t.

The Religious Schizo

Yep, I’m a Christian schizophrenic, of sorts.  I’m straddling the fence of indecision with this one.

I’ll be the first to admit it.  I just can’t figure it out.  It is beyond me.  I can’t understand how God could elect or “choose” a person for salvation billions and billions of years in the past and condemn a person to Hell because they didn’t believe, which, in reality, they could not believe, since they were not elect.

It’s hard to understand.  I think it is impossible to understand.  Actually, I don’t believe we are supposed to understand it.  But that doesn’t mean we can arbitrarily call it unbiblical, or say “My God would never do that,” or pretend as if those many Bible verses don’t actually exist.

Because they do.  Yes, they most certainly do exist.

Election is a glorious truth the Bible teaches, and unabashedly so.  But the Scripture is also replete with many, many, many passages that condemn the individual person for their own hardness of heart in not believing the gospel.  All I can do is throw my hands in the air and cry, “Ugh! Ugh!  Ugh!”

I think the apostle Paul also struggled with trying to understand it.  I personally believe it is a mystery withheld from us.

When writing inspired Scripture dealing with the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of humanity, even Paul couldn’t articulate an adequate answer.  In fact, if he would have followed through and actually answered this particular question, it is unlikely we would have any Calvinists or Arminians today (Ah, think of that for a moment!)

Here’s how he tried to articulate it in Romans 9:14-24:

“What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?”

Do you see what Paul just did?  He dodged the question!!!  (Shoot me an email if you think you know why.)

Here are 5 truths every Christian needs to understand about what the Bible teaches about God’s choosing of the elect.

1. God, in His own sovereignty and under no obligation whatsoever to provide salvation for anyone, unconditionally chose and elected certain individuals for whom He would regenerate, save, and sanctify, and that this election took place before the foundation of the world (Romans 8:28-30; John 15:16; Ephesians 1:4-11; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 1:26-30; Acts 13:48; 2 Timothy 2:10; 1 Peter 1:1-2). God’s election to save certain individuals is not based on any foreseen act or response on the part of those chosen, but is based solely on His own good pleasure and sovereign will (Romans 3:11; 9:11-18).
2. God’s sovereign election does not contradict or negate the responsibility of every man to repent and trust Christ as Savior and Lord (Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11; John 3:18-19, 36; 5:40; Romans 9:22-23; 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12; Revelation 22:17).  Nevertheless, since sovereign grace includes the means of receiving the gift of salvation as well as the gift itself, sovereign election will result in what God determines.
3. All whom the Father calls to Himself will come in repentant faith and all who come in such faith the Father will graciously receive (John 6:37-40, 44; Acts 13:48; James 4:8).
4. Election should not be looked upon as based merely on abstract sovereignty. God is truly sovereign but He exercises this sovereignty in harmony with His other attributes, especially His omniscience, justice, holiness, wisdom, grace, and love (Romans 9:11-16). This sovereignty will always exalt the will of God in a manner totally consistent with His character as revealed in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 11:25-28; 2 Timothy 1:9).
5. God did not elect some to hell, but rather passed them by, leaving them to their own sinful preference, which is self-glorification and a Christ-less life (Matthew 23:37 Romans 9:15-15; 10:21; John 3:19-20).

QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: What do you think about this doctrine?  How uncomfortable does it make you feel?

* Photo credit: hlkljgk (Creative Commons)

The Holy Spirit has been almost completely forgotten or, at best, relatively ignored in most Christian circles today.  Oh, we probably wouldn’t want to admit that publicly but the fact is we often don’t think about Him as much as we ought.

Let me first begin by saying that the Holy Spirit is definitely a “He” and not an “it.”  The Holy Spirit is a Person of the Godhead and not some whimsical force that is relatively unknown in the universe.  He is God and is to be worshiped as such.

If I were to ask you to give me five things that the Holy Spirit does today, what would you say?  Could you list five things?  How about four?  Three?  You see, I think that contemporary Christians know a lot more about social media than we do about the third Person of the Trinity.

Do you agree?

The Holy Spirit’s Main Ministry On Earth

I love what Jesus Christ said the Holy Spirit would do in John 16:8-11.  Jesus gave us a clear indication of the primary role the Holy Spirit would take once He was sent into the world, after Jesus left the world.  He said,

“And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come.  And if you look around the world in general, He has been very busy in this work.

But what else does the Holy Spirit actually do?  What are some of His revealed characteristics and/or attributes?  I’m glad you asked.  Here are 10 things the Bible tells us about the Holy Spirit.  What else am I missing?

QUESTION FOR COMMENTING:  What do you think about how we have forgotten about the Holy Spirit?  What do you think God thinks about that?  What can we do to change this mindset?

* Photo credit: Fr. Stephen, MSC (Creative Commons)

Let me know what you think about it, and specifically what you think about rap music being labeled as Christian.  Challies has written about this once or twice in the past.  Enjoy!

Today is Shameless Weekend.  Say it with me now: Hip, Hip, Hoorah!

I’m totally stealing (um, I mean “borrowing”) this idea from John Acuff and his Stuff Christians Like blog but…hey…it’s all good.  (And I’m giving him some link-love as payment.  LOL)

What Shameless Weekend means is that you are FREE and ENCOURAGED to leave a link to your personal blog, your church, a favorite para-church ministry, your own Facebook page, and your Twitter account.

What’s your blog and what’s it all about?

What’s your cause?  What’s your ministry?  What’s the Amazon link for your book?

What’s the link you want people to see more than anything else?

Go ahead and post a link to whatever it is you’re all about, with no shame or apologizing or feeling like you’re making a comment on a post you really don’t care about but are instead secretly trying to promote your own blog. (Admit it, you’ve probably done it.)

Use the comments section below to let us know about your blog or your cause or your ministry or your…whatever.  The Internet is so big it’s hard to find everything worthwhile, so help us find you!  But don’t miss my P.S. below.

PS: I reserve the right (as always) to remove any and all links or comments that are offensive, either to me or anyone who reads this blog.