“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.You are good and do good; Teach me Your statutes.” Psalm 119:67-68

In these two verses, the psalmist is thanking the LORD for the affliction because of the results of this God-sent affliction. Therefore, the affliction (67) must be from the LORD (YHWH) or there would be no corrective, directive or instructive power or intent in the affliction and so there would be no one to thank. In other words, it is clear from these two verses that the affliction was necessary in order to bring the one who was going astray into the blessing of obedience. It is also clear that the psalmist is thanking the LORD for the benefits that he has received from the affliction.

By the way, it is both implicitly and explicitly clear that the one who goes astray and who does not obey the LORD is not blessed, but is rather under the LORD’s wrath and displeasure. (Read Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 to see this truth.). So to go astray (67) subjects the person to the LORD’s judgment and assures them of an absence of blessing, whether they are aware of this condition or not.

In the Bible, there is the place of blessing and there is the place of wrath, but there is no neutral place in between. This verse states that the LORD has purposefully, graciously and actively brought affliction into the psalmist’s life for the express purpose of moving them into the blessings of obedience. Thus the affliction is an act of God’s grace, a grace that drives the person from their place of disobedience to the place of submission and repentance.

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” (67)

Consider Titus 3:3 now in light of this verse. (See also 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Ephesians 2:2-3; others) “For we were once foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” These people to whom Paul refers were going astray similarly to the psalmist in Psalm 119, and Paul gives the sordid details of this “went-astray” lifestyle. Many of us are too familiar with this pattern of life. (“And such were some of you.” 1 Cor. 6:11) But now the Lord has brought us to repentance and “the kindness of God our Savior has appeared . . . and He has saved us (Titus 3:4-5).” We see from these that the Lord is actively involved in bringing the means of repentance and salvation into a person’s life.

The psalmist is saying the same thing here in 119:67-68, although he is much more economical with his words and more discreet in his details. He is saying that the LORD has used affliction as His tool of grace and guidance. The LORD has used affliction to bring the straying sinner into the fold and to teach him the blessings of obedience, so that the psalmist knows by personal experience that “the LORD is good and does good (68).”

Thus we see the beauty and the blessing of the affliction of the Lord. (Consider also “the discipline of the Lord” in Hebrews 12:5-11.) The Lord brings affliction; indeed, He ordains affliction in the lives of His chosen ones to bring about His divine purposes for salvation, for correction, for direction and for instruction.

So when we are experiencing a time of affliction, we must turn to the Lord and ask Him what His purpose is in the affliction. We accept the affliction as from His hand, as given by Him for His purposes, and as intended for our good, and then submit to the affliction and allow it to have its intended effect. If we do this, in the end we will cease from going astray and will obey His word and will know Him as the good God.   SDG  rmb 12/30/2015

And the king said to Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, “If you do not worship the idol I have made, you will be cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?”

In the prophecy of Daniel, in the third chapter, is one of the most radical narratives in all the Bible. These three men of God had refused to bow down to the king’s idol and now they faced the terrifying consequences. To obey the Most High God, the one true God, the God of Israel, and to defy the idols and the gods of this world will often result in an experience of the fiery furnace. Now with the awful cost of their boldness staring them in the face in the furnace of blazing fire, the question is how the children of God will respond. Will they compromise or will they stand firm?

Boldly they say, “We do not need to give you an answer in this matter, O king. Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and He will deliver us, O king. But even if He did not choose to deliver us, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to bow down to your idol.” The men literally risk their lives and put all their trust in the Most High God, believing that the LORD will be faithful to deliver them from the furnace. (By the way, to trust in this manner is the normal response of the Christian to this kind of persecution.)

When these believers are then thrown into the furnace of blazing fire, the pagan king is amazed to see the three Hebrews not consumed by the flames, but rather loosed in the furnace and joined in the fire by a fourth man whose appearance is like the son of the gods. Of course, this is the pre-incarnate Christ, the Son of God who delivers them unharmed out of the fire.

And so it is for all believers. To be a believer and a true follower of Jesus means that you will experience the Lord in the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. The believer will be in the flames and there in the midst of the fire, the Lord Jesus will join him and will deliver him. In this light, I want to consider three furnaces from which the believer is delivered: the furnace of testing; the furnace of persecution; and the furnace of eternal condemnation. And we begin with the furnace of trials and testing.

SDG  rmb  12/23/2015

It was ten minutes before four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. Five minutes ago, the guys in the lab had come to me and said, “We need to have this sample in tomorrow morning!” “Not only is this a ridiculous request, but it is also impossible. No one can get you a sample the next day if you make the request at a quarter till four.” Despite the absurdity of the request, I said I would make the phone call and at least ask the question. So I called the Customer Service person at the supplier, knowing my mission was hopeless. But I knew Susan and knew that she was very good at what she did, which was to get samples to their customers, so I called her up.

I gave a pleasant hello when Susan answered the phone, then identified myself and my company. She recognized my name and my company, mostly because we have made a lot of sample requests, and she replied in a likewise pleasant way. “Susan, I know this is probably impossible, but we need to have a sample overnighted to us for delivery tomorrow. Can you help us out?” In a courteous, professional way, Susan explained to me that I had not given her enough time and the best she could do was a Friday delivery. “Besides,” she said, “the office Thanksgiving party is going to start in ten minutes and everyone is really already off for the day.” I asked if she was going to the party as well, and she said, “No. I don’t feel much in a party mood. This is actually my first day back in the office this week. My mother died this past weekend.” “Were you close to your mother?” “Yes,” she said, “very close.” Had her death been sudden? No she had a stroke about ten years ago and had been declining steadily since then. Five weeks ago she stopped eating and so the end was anticipated. “I am sorry to hear about your mother, Susan. I am sure it is a great loss.” We exchanged a couple of other pleasantries and then ended our phone call.

But I thought about Susan’s mother and about what her life had been like. It sounded like there was no “Susan’s father” in the picture. Had her mother and father divorced? It seemed to me more than likely that Susan’s mother had lived a quiet, fairly uneventful life, and then, when she was sixty or sixty-five, she had a stroke and just sort of faded away, quietly dying in her home under hospice care. Then, because I am a follower of Jesus Christ, I asked myself the ultimate question: “Was she a believer when she died?” Susan had given me no reason to believe that her mother had been a woman of faith. And if she was not a follower of Jesus, then she had already stood before the Lord, the Holy One, and been forever condemned for her sins. If she was not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, she was right now in the agony of hell forever.

I frankly recoiled from that idea. What could this harmless, anonymous woman have done to deserve the wrath and eternal condemnation of almighty God? Is it really true that those who do not place their faith in Jesus Christ are forever damned? What evidence do I have that this could actually be the case? Is there something somewhere in the Bible that would convince me that all people deserve condemnation for their sin and that all men and women, even kindly, harmless women who have had strokes, must repent of their sins or they will perish?

Yes, there is evidence that this is the case. Yes, there is something in the Bible that proves conclusively that my sin and your sin and Susan’s mother’s sin must be punished by our holy God. What proves the horror of sin is the horror of the cross of Jesus Christ. Sin is horrible because the sinless Son of God came to earth for the express purpose of dying on the cross to satisfy the holy demands of God. This means that Susan’s mother did not need to murder someone to deserve hell and she did not need to steal a car or bow down repeatedly to some pagan idol. One sin was enough to guarantee this woman’s eternal condemnation and it is only by placing one’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that a person can be rescued from the eternal punishment of hell.

As I thought about it, the only thing that convinces me that my sin is horrible, and that Susan’s mother’s sin is horrible and that we must all be delivered from our deserved condemnation, is a steady gaze up Calvary’s hill to the One who died there on the cross. The glorious Son of God wore a crown of thorns and endured huge spikes nailed through His flesh, and suffered for hours on the cross before accomplishing His goal, the redemption of all His elect by the shedding of His blood as an offering for sin. Sin is horrible because it made the crucifixion of Jesus Christ necessary. Consider Romans 3:19-26. SDG rmb 12/15/2015

As I left to go to lunch with a friend of mine, with a man who did not have the greatest reputation in terms of his character, a couple of the folks in the office joked with me about my lunch companion: “Better be careful, Roy. He’s going to be a bad influence on you.” “Hey, Roy! Watch out or he will change you.”

Even though these were just idle, funny comments, just office banter, I still felt obligated to say, “You need to know who is influencing whom. What if I’m the one changing him?”

You see, I was the one who invited him to lunch, and I did so for the explicit and premeditated purpose of influencing him. He is the one who must change. He is the one who must repent and come to faith in Jesus. Now the Lord Jesus Christ has called me to be His change agent in the world. Because I have been forever changed, I make it my goal to be a change agent for Jesus.

“Who is changing whom?” Will I be the one who is changed? Not when my feet have been firmly planted on the solid rock of Jesus Christ (Psalm 40:2). I will not be moved (Psalm 125:1), but I will instead attempt to move the wicked in the direction of repentance. “Who is changing whom?” I have already been changed by Jesus Christ and therefore can never be moved back into the place where evil controls me. “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4).” So since I have His power at work within me (Ephesians 3:20), I can boldly try to change others. “Who is changing whom?”

The LORD said to Jeremiah, “If you extract the precious from the worthless, you will be My spokesman. They for their part may turn to you, but as for you, you must not turn to them (Jeremiah 15:19).” The LORD is telling His prophet that he is to be a spokesman and an influence, a change agent for the LORD, but that he must not turn to the wicked and take up their wicked ways. And this is exactly what we are called to do. We are called to be change agents for the Lord. “Who is changing whom?”

So who are you influencing? Who are you changing by your godly life and by your telling others about Jesus Christ? Are your feet firmly planted so that the world’s influence does not move you, but instead you stand steadfast and immovable on the Rock? “Who is changing whom?” SDG rmb 12/14/2015

As I was spending time with the Lord on Saturday morning, I had a growing awareness of all my areas of weakness and dependence, of all the ways that failure threatens my life. I think about my marriage and about parenting, about my job and my finances, about relationships and about witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ. On a larger scale I think about my purpose and about eternity, about sin and evil and death. I think about all these areas of my life where stumbling and failure are ever-present risks, and I realize how much I depend on the Lord every day.

When these threats begin to overwhelm me, my tendency is to seek fleshly ways to manage these risks. One way to manage risk is to limit activity and to limit involvement, the strategy of managing risk by retreat. While there is some initial appeal to this idea, this option is not open to the believer. The believer is commanded to be courageous and act (1 Chronicles 28:20) and is forbidden from shrinking back (Hebrews 10:39). The author of Hebrews declares that “we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” So I cannot shrink back or retreat or withdraw or disengage because I want safety or simplicity, but instead I must choose to act boldly and without fear on the basis of my trust in the Lord (Psalm 40:4; 84:5, 12). Therefore the believer takes obedient action and presses forward toward the goal, aware of the risks and the challenges and the dangers, aware of the possibility of failure and even the possibility of death, but infinitely more overwhelmingly aware that the Lord is with him as a dread champion (Jeremiah 20:11) and that if God is for him, who can be against him (Romans 8:31-39). Other verses to consider are Psalm 46:1-2; 91 (all); 142:3; 143:3-4.

When the challenges of life press down hard and the fears of failure seem to overwhelm, then continue to press into Jesus Christ and remember that He will never leave you or forsake you, and that it is our calling to be dependent on the Lord, weak in ourselves and faithful in the face of threats, so that God receives the glory when He displays His power.  SDG rmb 12/6/15

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This is how the author of Hebrews describes faith at the beginning of the eleventh chapter. I wanted to take just a few moments to think about that some more: “What is faith?” Can we describe this a little more concretely, so that we can distinguish a false faith from the true?

A good definition of faith would be “an initial decisive act of trust and belief in Jesus Christ AND a continuing attitude of trust evidenced in action.” Both the initial act and the continuing action are necessary to provide evidence of faith. Marriage would be a good analogy of this faith. On your wedding day you took the “initial decisive act” when you said “I do,” but you continue in the marriage by the ongoing actions of a married person. So there is a one-time unrepeatable decisive act followed by many actions based on that initial act.

Another definition of faith would be “a wholesale surrender and an embracing of Christ that is expressed in actions requiring faith.” The Bible describes the initial wholesale surrender as “being united with Christ” or as “a baptism into Christ.” This latter phrase is not referring to water baptism, but is talking about a spiritual coming together as one.

Faith involves the whole person, so it is not just an agreement to intellectual or doctrinal facts (although you must agree with certain foundational truths). It is not just an emotional response to a compelling speaker (although you may be emotionally moved). It is, instead, an irreversible act of the will that is sealed by the Holy Spirit wherein you unreservedly surrender all of your being into God’s hands and cast yourself on His mercy for salvation. It is hearing the gospel, and believing the gospel, then acting in faith.

How would you describe your faith? Was there a time when you took that initial decisive act to fully and unreservedly trust Christ? When was that? Did that initial act result in changes in your life? In your life since that initial decisive act, has there been evidence of ongoing faith that manifests itself in actions requiring trust in the invisible God? What evidence would someone find in your life that would prove your faith in a powerful God?

Faith that evidences trust in the invisible God is the faith that pleases God and assures us of heaven (2 Peter 1:10-11). This is the faith that gives hope, which becomes an anchor for the soul (Hebrews 6:19). Make sure that you have this kind of faith. SDG rmb 11/27/2015

As we examine the epistles of the New Testament, one of the most common features that we find is the identification of the author of the epistle with the Lord Jesus Christ. As an example, consider 1 Peter 1:1, which starts out with, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ . . .” Notice that the very first thing we find out about Peter is that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. Peter puts this right at the head of the letter. The most important and most significant feature of Peter’s life is that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. That fact defines who he is. Ever since Peter met Jesus on the shore of Galilee, his relationship with Jesus has been the dominant fact of his life. Jesus is Peter’s Lord and Master. If you would know Peter, you must know that he is a follower of the Lord Jesus. Peter knew Him when He walked on this earth as a Man, Peter knew Him when He was crucified and buried, and Peter knew Him when He was raised from the dead, and when Peter is writing this letter, Peter still knows Jesus as the ascended King of kings and Lord of lords. Peter’s first point of identification is that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ.

As I thought about this, I realized that this should be true for every disciple of the Lord Jesus. Every disciple of Jesus should seriously consider how to make sure that everyone in their sphere of influence is aware that they obey Christ. The fact is that a Christian is defined by their relationship with Jesus Christ and this should be public information.

A believer in Christ is born again, according to John 3 and 1 Peter 1. A Christian is united with Christ (Romans 6:5). A Christian has died and been raised up with Christ (Romans 6; Galatians 2:20). For the believer, Christ is your life (Colossians 3:4). There are many more teachings in the New Testament that make clear that the follower of Christ, the Christian, is defined by their relationship with Christ.

The follower of Jesus, therefore, should be bold to identify with Jesus and should make sure that their relationship with Jesus is their first point of identification. SDG rmb 11/27/2015

I just read a friend’s latest email about her trip to Nigeria, November 21- December 17, where she is going to be doing more things with mobile technology and getting the Scriptures out to the people and the tribes of Nigeria. These people live in remote areas of Nigeria and they may not even have a written language, but many of them have access to mobile phone technology, so they are in this way accessible to the gospel.

The reason that the people in remote and unreached places are so fascinated by the Bible and are so interested in the Bible is that they have nothing else in their language or in their experience that is remotely like the Bible. There are no books or magazines or songs or poems in their language, and then the Bible explodes onto their eyes or into their ears. In fact, in many of these remote and unreached areas, the very first book written in their language is the Bible. Can you imagine how wonderful this is, that the first book, and at least for a time the only book in their language is the word of the living God! And so the Bible or a portion of the Bible appears in their language. Suddenly in the Bible the people have access to fascinating stories about how our great God has related to and interacted with real men and women since the beginning of the world. For centuries the living God revealed Himself to ordinary men and women and the Bible tells these stories to us in the pages of Scripture. There is story after story of God reaching down from heaven and acting in the lives of men and women like you and me. Then in the New Testament there are the amazing narratives about the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who does miracles and accomplishes deeds of power before being crucified and then rising from the dead. And simple people read these stories and believe them, for they are not “sophisticated” enough to reject them, and they come to faith in Jesus Christ. They see Jesus as He is, the Son of God and the conquering King, and they want to worship this great conquering King who has risen from the dead. Who would not want to worship a King who has conquered death and has provided for the forgiveness of sin and who promises His followers heaven and who gives to His followers the privilege of knowing the Most High God of the universe? And so the simple people of Africa and of South America and of Asia read the Bible and they believe and are saved. Here in this context Satan’s strategy is to prevent the Word from ever getting there in the first place. He wants to keep the people ignorant and in the dark, benighted in their illiteracy and not knowing that there is a Book that tells of how God has reached out to man in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and has offered them eternal life with Him. Satan wants to keep the Bible from ever getting to their ears.

But Satan’s scheme in America and in the “West” is different. Instead of doing everything that he can to prevent the Word from getting to the people, he floods all the available media outlets with meaningless media and books and noise so that people will not heed the Bible or see that the Bible is unique in all of the world, the only book that contains all truth and nothing but the truth. Since the Bible is already released and is readily available in every imaginable form, Satan must now make the Bible appear simple and unsophisticated and outdated. Satan floods the bookstores with all kinds of fantasy novels and fictions and competing voices that sound cool and that appeal to the fallen flesh, and his plan is to drown out the voice of God in the Bible and to create so many distractions that the people remain in the dark. Because of so many other books and media outlets, the Bible, the very word of the living God, is lost in obscurity. That is Satan’s plan here in America, and that plan is largely working. SDG rmb 11/27/15

“Have you ever walked with Jesus in the midst of the fire?”

In Daniel 3, the three Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, defied King Nebuchadnezzar and so were thrown into the furnace of blazing fire. But there in that furnace, King Nebuchadnezzar saw four men walking in the furnace and one looked like the son of the gods. We know that this fourth man in the furnace was the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. In a few minutes, the three Hebrew men emerged from the fire completely unharmed.

What is the believer to make of this?
We need to realize that the only place where we can walk with Jesus in the fire is here on earth. In heaven we will experience no fire and no trial, and in heaven we will never experience Jesus delivering us out of the fire. That experience is only available in this life on this earth. So many believers long for a life of safety; of no fire and no suffering and no trials, and they intentionally avoid those fiery experiences when they can meet Jesus in the fire. Many believers live as if they want to be in heaven now, forgetting that they are still in the war as the church militant. Many believers live intentionally safe lives, forgetting that the only way to meet Jesus in the battle is to risk the flames and the lions and the sword.

Jesus met Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego in the fiery furnace because they had obeyed Him unquestioningly and had trusted Him unconditionally.

(Acts 18:9-10, when Paul received personal encouragement in Corinth; Mark 4:35-41, when Jesus showed His power to His obedient disciples; 2 Timothy 4:17, when “The Lord stood with me” in Paul’s time of testing)

How do you want to live? Do you want to get to heaven via the safest way possible, carefully avoiding risks and steering clear of confrontations with unbelievers? The one who would follow the safe path does not need a God who can deliver them from furnaces or dungeons or swords or lions’ mouths. The one on the safest path will never look up in the midst of the fire and see Jesus walking with them in the flames. The one who would walk the safe path does not really need much faith and does not really need a God who is mighty to save. So do you want to live on the safe path?

Or do you want to live boldly and radically for Jesus and trust Him to deliver you from the flames and from the lion’s mouth? In my opinion, it is the believer’s privilege to walk with the Son of God in the midst of the flames throughout life. Since I have a Savior who will be with me in the fire, should I not live without fear of the furnace? Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego abandoned all safety and accepted the furnace of fire, believing that Yahweh would deliver them. Because they trusted in Yahweh, they walked with Jesus in the midst of the furnace. Only in this life can we be thrown into furnaces of blazing fire. Only in this life can we trust Jesus and tell unbelievers of His power to deliver.  SDG rmb 11/21/2015