Audiology?

We do need a study of how to listen to the preached Word of God. One of the things that greatly saddens me in the church is that not a few Christians have been trained or raised with hearing everything but an exposition of the Word of God. Short emotional stories, funny jokes, personal testimonies of transformed lives and how to sermons (how to get out of debt, how to have a better marriage and so on) have all become the norm for many. That is not to say those things do not have a proper place in sermons but they are not the point. In fact any effective proclamation of Christ in His Word can do without those things. 

We need to learn how to un-train ourselves from seeking entertainment and sentimentally driven messages and train ourselves to listen that have the glory of Christ and the proclamation of His name as the aim. Any message that mentions the name of Jesus and sprinkles one or two Bible verses does not make it an expositional sermon. We need to train ourselves that when we listen to preachers we are not there to hear about ourselves but Christ. We are to hear the Triune God proclaimed in all His greatness. We need to stop walking out of the church determining if we got anything out of the sermon by how "good" we feel. We need to train ourselves to sit and listen to see if our attention is being drawn to the point of the passage. Are our minds being drawn Christ and the things of the Lord? Or are we listening to "find our place in God's story" where we are the point of a sermon? For the record, everyone is in "God's story." Those who are in Christ through repentance from sin and faith in Christ receive His everlasting love and promises. Those who reject Him find themselves His enemies and the objects of His hatred to suffer His righteous eternal punishment. I've digressed here so I turn to Ken Ramey:

And at end of your life you will stand before God and give an account for every sermon you heard. On that day, God will essentially ask you, “How has your life changed as a result of the thousands of times you have heard My Word preached?” So we see that it is vital that you are ever welcoming the Word of God and diligently seeking to put what you hear into practice, thus proving “yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (James 1:22).

A PLEA FOR LISTENERS

Those who take to heart God’s call to listen will transcend the discouraging trends in the church today. All around us, clear, convicting, authoritative preaching straight from God’s Word is being devalued by both those standing in the pulpit and those sitting in the pew.

The church growth movement that boomed during the eighties and nineties concluded that preaching is an outdated form of communication in our technologically advanced, media-savvy society. Surveys found that most listeners were interested only in hearing amusing and inspiring messages that addressed the practical problems they face in life (relating to your spouse, raising kids, surviving the rat race, battling addictions, etc.).

In the last few years, the Emergent Church Movement has undermined biblical preaching even further by declaring that people no longer recognize the authority of propositional truth or the authority of the preacher. Consequently, preachers must be less authoritative, add more dialogue—swap out biblical confrontation for mere conversation. In fact, some in the movement have gone so far as to hold that the traditional form of preaching characterized by bold declaration is detrimental to the church. Apparently, even the use of a PA system has become unhelpful because it “creates the situation where the recipients are powerless to speak back. What makes this situation even more insidious is when the person with the power of the microphone is also the person who is presuming to speak for God.”3 But isn’t that precisely the situation the church was designed to create—a dynamic duo of faithful herald and fervent listeners?

The Thessalonians understood this supernatural dynamic and it caused them to have a great appreciation and affection for the preached Word. They loved to listen to Paul preach. They could be truly described as preaching enthusiasts, preaching fanatics even. Augustine urged his congregation to attend preaching with “burning thirst and fervent hearts.” Likewise, the Puritans, as we will see throughout this book, understood this dynamic of biblical exposition—that when a man is faithfully preaching the Word of God it is actually the voice of God being heard—which should cause you to pay earnest attention to every sermon you hear. From the very first Sunday I began preaching expository sermons to the congregation God has called me to shepherd, I have sought to develop in congregants a robust appetite and a real appreciation for preaching that comes straight from the Bible, along with an uncompromising commitment to do whatever the Bible says. By and large, they know that “congregations never honor God more than by reverently listening to His Word with a full purpose of praising and obeying Him once they see what He has done and is doing, and what they are called to do.” My desire within these pages is to create congregations that share this passion to honor God by being discerning hearers of His Word, diligent doers of His Word, and devoted lovers of His Word, preaching fanatics, even, who come to church like a thirsty man craving something to drink and whose hearts fervently long to hear the Word preached because they know that in it God speaks to them.

One

BIBLICAL AUDIOLOGY: A THEOLOGY OF LISTENING

"Hearing is the provision made for the soul’s eternal well-being, its everlasting welfare depends on it; if you fail here, your souls perish without remedy. For salvation comes by faith and faith comes by hearing. It is an act of eternal consequence. According to our hearing, so shall the state of our souls be to eternity." David Clarkson

 For “whoever will call on the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

ROMANS 10:13–17

Hearing is a precious thing. The apostle Paul says hearing is required for us even to have faith. Faith comes from hearing. Hearing is not enough though. There’s also heeding—and not all of those who hear heed. That is to say, even if the trillions of tiny pulsations of air pressure reach the unimaginably intricate machinery in your inner ear, where they are inexplicably translated into words that form ideas in your brain, you might not actually listen. You might choose to do nothing with the information. In fact, there may be any number of problems with your hearing. It could be that you simply lack the discernment to know whether or not you are listening to biblical preaching. Perhaps you are listening to preaching you would do best to ignore. Perhaps you have sought out preaching that only makes you feel better about yourself. Or perhaps the preaching is good, but you are the problem. You are burned out on listening. It seems like all you do is listen, while experiencing little growth and change in your life. Week after week, good sermons go in one ear and out the other without ever penetrating your mind or piercing your heart and transforming your life. Perhaps you have the discernment and the desire to obey, but you’re listening to and watching so much during the week that’s not important or entirely accurate that you’ve trained yourself to only half listen, a habit you can’t seem to “turn off” on Sunday mornings. All these hearing problems are the result of never being trained to properly appreciate and practically appropriate God’s Word.

We are in desperate need of both theological and practical instruction in the area of listening effectively to the preaching of the Word. Becoming a better listener begins by establishing a basic theology of listening, a biblical audiology. This should be simple enough to formulate, as listening is a dominant theme in Scripture. Almost every book of the Bible contains some reference to hearing and obeying God’s Word. From Genesis to Revelation—through the poets and prophets in the Old Testament and through Christ and the apostles in the New Testament—God beckons us to hear and heed Him. The God of the Bible commands us to listen to what He has said, and He threatens punishment if we don’t, while promising blessing if we do. The pattern is pretty difficult to miss: It goes: command, threat, promise. And in between, there are examples, narratives describing those who endeavored to obey God—Enoch, Abraham, Stephen—and those who chose not to—Adam, Pharaoh, Judas.

We might systematize everything the Bible teaches on the subject of listening by arranging the verses under four summary statements, or theological truths, as follows:

     1.      God has spoken and commands us to listen to and obey what He has said.

    2.      We all fail to listen to and obey God and deserve to be punished by Him.

    3.      God grants us the ability to listen to and obey Him by His Holy Spirit, whom we receive through faith in Jesus Christ.

    4.      God promises to bless us both now and for all eternity if we listen to and obey Him.

Notice how each of these statements is related to several other key theological themes in Scripture. The first statement relates to the nature of God and His Word. The second statement relates to the nature of man and sin. The third statement relates to the nature of salvation, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ. And the fourth statement relates to sanctification and future things. So the theology of listening overlaps and intermingles with virtually every aspect of systematic theology. It’s almost as if the theology of listening comprises an entire catechism or statement of faith!

*Ramey, K. (2010). Expository Listening (5–11). The Woodlands, TX: Kress Biblical Resources.

The Preacher

He is more than just a speaker. He is a divinely sent messenger of the Most High. He comes proclaiming the Word's of the Triune God. His message is not his own. He is not authorized to edit any portion of the Word of God that he dislikes. He reads it, studies it, receives it, believes it, prays it, delights in it, loves it, obeys it, bows the knee to it (for it is the revelation of Christ the Lord) and preaches it. "Toning" it down or "spicing" it up are not options for the preacher.

He is a man called and gifted by the Spirit of God and if he is called, gifted and bears the message of God then it follows he must carry some authority. Although it is a limited authority it is still a divinely commissioned authority. After all what it the point of sending messengers with messages that can be discarded at will without any consequences?  To reject the preachers of Christ is to reject the King Himself. That statement sounds strange in this age of "contemporary Christianity" but it is confirmed by Christ in the parable (among many other numerous places in Scripture) of the Rich Man and Lazarus, "29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”(Lk 16:29–31; see the following quote from Christopher Ash for further elaboration on the Word of God without the preacher). Think I'm overstating my case?

 23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24 But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. 25 From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. 26 Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers. 

27 “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. 28 And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips (Je 7:22–28). 

"But pastors smell like sheep too!" They do and they better. They are prone to error, sin and wandering therefore they need to be shepherded, too. Because they are sheep and smell like it doesn't negate their authority. There was no one more sheep-ish than the Apostle Paul but yet could still write "For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything (2 Co 2:9). 

There are a million objections to what I'm stating here and before I turn it over to Christopher Ash allow my to address one more. "Who keeps the pastor/preacher in check?" The Word of God and his fellow elders. This is a reason why God gives qualifications for those who will shepherd His flock in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1:5-9. The pastor or preacher cannot just over rule his elders on matters. He is subject to them.

Finally, here is Christopher Ash:

 (b)      The Authority of God is exercised not by the written word but by the written word preached

This is very significant. It means that the authority of God was mediated in Israel not by the written word, but by the written word preached. The word of the covenant was written on tablets of stone. But those written words must be preached. We see both written word and preached word in Deuteronomy. The ‘Ten Words’ of the covenant were ‘inscribed by the finger of God’ (Deut. 9:10), but they were preached by Moses. Moses’ preaching was written on large stones (Deut. 27:1–8); the law was written by Moses (Deut. 31:9). But it was to be read and preached in every generation by the prophets.

And so began that great prophetic succession by whose mouths the LORD preached the covenant to his people. As O. Palmer Robertson puts it, ‘This small single voice replaces all the fearsome signs that accompanied the theophany of Sinai. The smoking, shaking mountain … now finds its equivalent in the gentle voice of the brother speaking among brothers’. These were ‘the eyes of the people’, as Isaiah puts it (Isa. 29:10–14), and they were the watchmen (Jer. 6:17).

This is why the test of obedience to God was whether or not they listened to the prophet. To be stiff-necked is not to give ear to the prophets (Neh. 9:29). When Jesus sums up rebellion against God he calls it ‘persecuting the prophets’ (Matt. 5:12), being ‘the sons of those who murdered the prophets’ (Matt. 23:31) or being ‘the city that kills the prophets’ (Luke 13:34).

The written covenant was the anchor that tied the true prophet into the succession of true prophets. True prophets were preachers of the written covenant. Both were needed. Sometimes the word was written but not preached. But without the preacher the word gathers dust in a forgotten corner of the temple, to be discovered by the builders (as in Josiah’s reign, 2 Kings 22). At other times some kind of ‘word’ may be preached, but this preached ‘word’ is divorced from the written word. And yet without the written word, the prophet becomes simply a ‘dreamer of dreams’ (e.g. Deut. 13:1ff). Neither the written word alone, nor the prophet alone, is sufficient, but rather the written word preached.

God did not just give them the book. He gave them preachers of the book so that face to face they could be taught, challenged, rebuked and exhorted to repentance and faith. And therefore one of the worst things God could do was to stop speaking to his people by the prophets, as he had almost done before the time of Samuel, when things were very dark and everyone did what was right in his own eyes (e.g. Judg. 17:6; 21:25) and the word of the LORD was rare (1 Sam. 3:1). The word was there, written on the tablets in the Ark; but nobody preached it. In the time of Amos God threatens ‘a famine of hearing the words of the LORD’ (Amos 8:11f.); this famine is not so much the absence of prophets to tell them the future; it is more the absence of prophets to preach to them the covenant. Later, at the time of Psalm 74:9 (‘there is no longer any prophet’), they didn’t say, ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter because we’ve got the book.’ They said, ‘There is no longer any prophet … How long, O LORD …?’ because the loving authority of God is exercised by the written word preached. The preaching of the prophets was gradually collected so that the written word grew. But at every stage God governed his people by those who preached the written word, not just by the written testimony in the ark or on scrolls.*

*Ash, C. (2009). The Priority of Preaching (26–27). Geanies House, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications.

John Stott on Preaching

There is an urgent need for courageous preachers in the pulpits of the world today, like the apostles in the early Church who ‘were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness’. (Acts 4: 31, cf. v. 13) Neither men-pleasers nor time-servers ever make good preachers. We are called to the sacred task of biblical exposition, and commissioned to proclaim what God has said, not what human beings want to hear. Many modern churchmen suffer from a malady called ‘itching ears’, which induces them to ‘accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings’. (2 Tim. 4: 3) But we have no liberty to scratch their itch or pander to their likings. Rather are we to resemble Paul in Ephesus who resisted this very temptation and twice insisted that he ‘did not shrink from declaring’ to them what had to be declared, namely ‘anything that was profitable’ for them and indeed ‘the whole counsel of God’. (Acts 20: 20, 27) We have to beware of selecting our texts and topics - even unconsciously - according to personal prejudice or popular fashion. The medicine of the gospel has been prescribed by the Good Physician; we may neither dilute it nor add ingredients to make it more palatable; we must serve it neat. Nor need we fear that people will not take it. To be sure, some may leave, but most will respond. ‘People are driven from the Church,’ commented George Buttrick, ‘not so much by stern truth that makes them uneasy as by weak nothings that make them contemptuous.’

‘Courage,’ said Phillips Brooks in his 1877 Yale Lectures, ... is the indispensable requisite of any true ministry ... If you are afraid of men and a slave to their opinion, go and do something else. Go and make shoes to fit them. Go even and paint pictures which you know are bad but which suit their bad taste. But do not keep on all your life preaching sermons which shall say not what God sent you to declare, but what they hire you to say. Be courageous. Be independent.'

Truly, ‘the fear of man lays a snare’ (Prov. 29: 25), and many preachers get caught in it. But once ensnared, we are no longer free; we have become the obsequious servants of public opinion.*

*Stott, John R. W. (1994-01-01). Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today (pp. 299-300). Eerdmans Publishing Co - A. Kindle Edition.

People Who Meet Together On Sundays

People who meet together on Sundays (inclusive of Sunday School studies, as well as other corporate worship during the weekdays) in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, as confessing members of a local fellowship (assembly, church, union) representative as a part of the body of Christ universal, commit to a type of relational state which, first, professes that union with our Lord and God, entirely through His work, that is spiritual: That is, they maintain that they are literally, in spirit, joined with God as the people He gave to His Son, who showed (explained, demonstrated, expounded) the Father to them, which leads to the second expression of that union:

As God’s people, they must further, by confession and corporate involvement both in their private lives as singular members of that greater organism, as well as in corporate expression with one another - both on those days set by the gospel and church agreement and those days which are not so set –  admit such fellowship was brought about solely by the monergistic regenerative work of the Spirit of God, and continues to be not only possible, but divinely, practically worked out in their lives, by the effectual working of the same Holy Spirit indwelling their reborn spirits in constant union (fellowship in the light as He is in the light).

This sounds great on paper, and indeed it is paper on which we have the foundation upon which we stand – God’s Holy Scriptures – but the corpus upon which we base our union with one another and our God is far more than informational writing; it is the physical representation of both the spiritual and temporal means of life everlasting, and the practice of that life now, along with the hope which we eagerly await.

Why, then, do we negate the Scripture by assigning more importance to our “personal” lives, as if these great and precious promises do not affect how we maintain the unity of the Spirit and the unity of the faith during those times we are not gathered together in and as these local bodies?

I submit to you that we all, to various degrees, do not surrender those parts of our lives which we consider “private;” that instead, we selfishly consider our own petty troubles and pursuits as more real than that Word of God to by which we confess and profess our allegiance to the God of the Bible who saved us while we were yet His enemies.

Consider: We go about our lives without making the effort of staying in touch with one another outside of the corporate meetings. We feel that we have obeyed the command to not forsake the assembling together by attendance at such corporate meetings of worship, yet what we really do is make a legal requirement out of that command instead of understanding it in the great body of writing contained within the Scriptures on the very exact functions of the members of that body which are shown us in Scripture, for we do not, in spirit, remember one another during the times in between these meetings, except, perhaps, by the prayers we bring to our God regarding other members of His body (if indeed we are true to that command).

Again, I submit to the reader, even with intercessory prayers on behalf of the other members of the local body with which they are in covenant relationship with God and one another, that these prayers are no more than be warmed, be fed, go in peace, if we do not follow through in the spirit of such prayers in maintaining that unity which is always to reflect the perfect, infinitely good and holy union which is our God – the triune God of Scripture.

Any true reading of what the body of Christ is, and how it is to function, cannot say the “Amen” to such neglect of that spiritual fellowship which is declared in Scripture regarding the body of Christ. When there is no concern or contact on a regular basis between members of a local body, to a greater rather than a lesser extent, we simply give the lie to our understanding of the Scriptures on these great truths.

Now, many will say that they have problems they must deal with during the weekdays where corporate worship does not take place; they have jobs, relationships in their own families and among their friends (which brings up an entirely different set of commands that are directly relevant to what we are writing about: who, then, are to be the closest of friends among a local body of Christians?) which they must make up and maintain, and we are not saying that such is not the case. What we are saying is that these are pursued with a worldly mindset, in a worldly manner, which in no way reflects that unity of one another being of the same mind, spirit and communion, and this, to the neglect of the maintenance of the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace and love which most greatly reflects that unity that perfectly has, and does, exist within the triune God of Scripture whom we profess and confess that we do, indeed, follow (please take note: this following is not simply a game of tag, as it deals with eternal life now).

Personal emotions and thoughts swarm in the minds of those who profess and confess Christ as their all-in-all, crowding out of all thoughts of fellowship during the weekdays during which corporate worship meetings do not take place, and so take the place of looking to things above, not below, and holding our treasure to be among that which rust, moths and thiefs corrode, eat and steal (even though such unity of worship in spirit and truth is always to be taking place, according to the Scriptures and confessions we say we follow); to this extent, we deny the spirit of that meeting together that we think we are in obedience to, for in essence, by such thoughts, emotions and the actions they engender, we are saying to the other members of the body not only that we have no need of you, but also that we do not rejoice when you rejoice; we do not care for your honor, nor do we suffer your hardships with you. Thus, the reality of the cares and riches and pleasures of life, also called the desires of the flesh, the eyes, and pride in possessions, are of greater importance to us than that maintenance of the union which is so strongly commanded us in Scripture. These things surely show where our hearts are, and so where our greatest treasure is stored, and tragically so, too often, for with very many local portions of the body of Christ, our hearts are on things below, not above, for that is where the things we treasure most remain.

When our temporal reality does not get displaced by the reality of the things of faith, we make our confessions vain, our prayers empty, and fail to show that unity of the body of Christ which is always to reflect the perfect unity of the God we hold we are in union with.

These musings are not stated to negate that we do, indeed, have troubles and cares and a necessary pursuit of those things that are needful to maintain both individual and family lives; they are to state that there are two ways of going about these things, and one necessarily excludes the other. When we make the things that are perishing more important than those things we are to look at in the reality of that eternal life and union with our God, and one another, which is so plainly and repeatedly taught us in Scripture, we do, in fact, declare that these things which are passing away are of greater significance to us than those things which are eternal, and all this is to the detriment of not only our own spiritual life, but the life of that local body within which we are members one of another. We also declare that we will not trust God for the supply of those things that pertain to the maintenance of our mundane needs, for in failing to put the body of which we are a part first, we deny He does so in our relentless pursuit of these things.

The chief concern of each member of the body who is both an heir with Christ and joined inextricably to not only our Head, but one another, is, of course, Christ as the final and full expression of our triune God; many do this to the exclusion of the fellowship of His body, as if they were Christian islands, with no concern but for themselves and Christ, and in doing so, they deny even that concern they express about their own walk with the Lord, for in disobeying His commands concerning His body, they effectively deny that of which they seek to profess and live according too.

To end this on the most simple of notes, our Lord did not only say we are to love Him as He loved us (to His apostles, and us by extension – and notice, He speaks to the church, not individuals), but that this is the manner in which the world will know that the Father sent Him and how the world will know we are His.

An even simpler note is that when we give even a glass of water (signifying the meeting of all needs as joint members of His body local and universal), we are doing so to Him.

The truth of this article should be very plain and pointed, not to mention convicting, to many who confess Christ as their Lord. Scriptures are hinted at – strongly – all through the article, but not cited, for they should be known by those reading this.

Let us see who rejoices and/or grieves when another of that local body they are in is joyous or grieving. Faith that does not result in works of grace-given faith to one another is no faith at all, and prayers that are not followed by actions are of that dead faith.

May God have mercy on us.

SDG - Bill

Worship Reflects Theology

Although the cultural and demographic makeup of a church can influence its worship, the main feature that shapes worship is the church's theology. Every church has core beliefs about God, salvation and man. Even bad and poor theology is still theology, and every church's theology shapes its worship. Catholic worship center around Mass because their theology is based upon the sacraments. The theology of Charles Finney led the church to shift from word-oriented worship, to an emotional driven service. Why? Because, according to Finney, salvation was the result of an emotional appeal and persuasion. Likewise, pragmatism is the theology of the seeker sensitive church. Thus, the demands of the consumer  have caused the church to turn its worship into a form of entertainment with a therapeutic, motivating lesson. The creativity in worship, which is emphasized by the Emergent Church, is based upon an ever-changing theology that contains no absolutes. The take away here is that theology matters when it comes to worship. We learn what a church believes about God, man and salvation by the manner in which the church worships God.

 For this reason,the church needs to worship in a way that reflects a sound theology of worship. If the church desires to worship God, it is fundamental that the church knows what biblical worship is first.*

Jeffery D. Johnson, The Church: Why Bother? (Birmingham: Solid Ground, 2012), 77-78

Weekly Dose Of Lloyd-Jones (On The Local Church)

The church is not a place where people are to be entertained, or where people come to sit and listen either to singing or to the accounts of other people’s experiences, coupled with a brief, light, comfortable message...

There is no independence in the body. Each part derives its meaning, its essence, from its relationship to the rest. That is the truth about the body; and it is equally true, says the Apostle, about the Church. Each organ needs the others, and each one benefits by the functions of the others...

When did you last hear of a person being excommunicated? When did you last hear of a person being kept back from the Communion Table? Go back to the history of Protestantism and you will find that the Protestant definition of the Church is, ‘that the Church is a place in which the Word is preached, the Sacraments are administered, and discipline is exercised’...

‘What are the three essential marks of the Church?’ I wonder how many would have mentioned the exercise of discipline? There is no doubt at all but that this doctrine is grievously neglected. Indeed, if I were asked to explain why it is that things are as they are in the Church; if I were asked to explain why statistics show the dwindling numbers, the lack of power and the lack of influence upon men and women; if I were asked to explain why it is that so many churches seem to be incapable of sustaining the cause without resorting to whist drives and dances and things like that; if I were asked to explain why it is that the Church is in such a parlous condition, I should have to say that the ultimate cause is the failure to exercise discipline.*

*Sargent, T. (2007). Gems from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Anthology of Quotations from 'the Doctor' (55, 56, 57). Milton Keynes, England; Colorado Springs, CO; Hyderabad, AP: Paternoster.

When God Judges A Nation

When our sovereign God judges a nation it is a serious thing and it is never pretty. But when God does bring judgment upon a nation it is always perfect, good, right and just. He makes no mistakes. He is always provoked into doing so. He bears patiently and gives plenty of opportunity for repentance from sin and faith in Christ. All while the nations rage and scorn His holiness. Often mocking and blaspheming Him by perverting His righteous laws. Make no mistake my friends, there will come a time when our Triune God will respond with righteous judgment.

I say this with a heavy heart. I believe President Barrack Obama is God's judgment upon the United States of America. We have long provoked God. We have said of Christ the King, "‘We do not want this man to reign over us’" (Lk. 19:14).  In whatever way in which you believe the Lord Jesus reigns, be it through "natural law" or "theonomy," we can all agree that we have rejected His righteous rule over us (as a nation). We have received what we asked for. A president who blatantly promotes the murder of millions of unborn children while having more of a desire to protect animals and other wildlife. A president who perverts the sacred institution of marriage by promoting not only homosexuality but asking that we embrace them in the sacred institution of marriage. A president who promotes and fights with all effort to steal from one class of people to give to another; creates and breeds a people, who instead of working and contributing to the nation, are lazy, leech off it and become dependent on government (since President Obama is so eager to quote and misuse Scripture as a defense for stealing from the rich to give to who he believes are the poor, he should be aware of this verse, "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." (2 Thes. 3:10).

Is not our re-election of President Obama a reflection of our desire as a nation? Is this not what we wanted as a whole? It is indeed. God is giving us what we wanted. We wanted a president that calls evil good and good evil because we as a nation continue to do so. John Owen has said "The most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men." This, my friends, is what we are seeing. God giving us over to our own desires and hardening hearts of men letting us go further and further into sin and wickedness. Romans 1:18-32 is very applicable here:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. 

The wrath of God is being poured upon our nation for the very reasons mentioned in the above passage. In fact is has been poured upon us for some time but has become very apparent in the re-election of President Obama and I believe we will see it get worse.

It is right to blame the nation as a whole and it is right to blame the church as a whole as well. Instead of being the church militant we have been the church cowardly. Instead of waging the good spiritual warfare (1 Tim. 1:18) we have sat passively back and watched not only the world turn the world upside down but the church upside down, too. Gone are the days when the church turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6) in the early church and in the Reformation. We have not taken advantage of the freedoms God has granted us in the U.S.A. Not only is the life giving Gospel of Jesus Christ preached by few, it is distorted and perverted by many in the pulpit. Many claiming to be shepherds of Christ's sheep have given in to the itching ears of those in the congregation. Instead of bringing the sheep up, they have brought the Scriptures down. The average Christian is not only doctrinally and theologically illiterate, they want the shepherds to be so as well. The freedom our gracious God has granted us to worship Him corporately on the Sabbath has been taken for granted. While our brothers and sisters not afforded this privilege in other countries will travel long hours and stand in difficult climate to worship the Triune God, many Christians in the U.S. are perfectly comfortable going week upon week without corporately worshiping our sovereign God. Instead of being out making disciples of Christ with our freedoms, we have remained ignorantly cooped up. O how we have been asking for our judgment:

17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” 19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (1 peter 4:17-19).

As is always the case God has not, nor will, ever fail us, we have failed Him. Praise the Lord of the imputed righteousness of Christ and God's loving faithfulness!

Let me be very clear here this is not all doom and no hope joy and praise of God. For I surely know and praise God for this judgment since God is glorifying His name and demonstrating His righteousness in all of this. It is a matter of praising God for His just judgments while grieving for our country and the people that make up our country. If anyone knew that Christ was still on His throne during the judgment of his people, it was the prophet Jeremiah. Yet he still wept for his people. It is perfectly fine to know that Christ always reigns and Obama is but a mere vessel in His hands and at the same time grieve for the ruination that will surely follow.

I am also firmly convinced that "we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (Ro 8:28). Perhaps we will now draw closer to Christ and depend upon Him more? Let it be that we will abandon our over individualism and realize we are a corporate body. That we need one another. Let it also be that we learn to love and appreciate, more so than we do now (if we do,) the utter importance of gathering on the Lord's Day to worship Him and proclaim His greatness all while growing up in Him. Perhaps now we will learn to love and long for sound doctrine and healthy theology so that the average Christian will be able to answer the humanist who angrily asks, "How can a loving God send innocent people to hell!?" And maybe, just maybe, when we start seeing the effects of poverty (which shall increase) and families suffering thereby being more open and receptive to the Gospel, we will faithfully and gladly share it with them seeing that the fields are ripe for harvest (Jn. 4:32, it has always been true but now will be much more evident). After all, when God brings judgment upon nations repentance and faith usually follow. Just ask those communist nations that first assaulted Christianity in order to establish their communism and in doing so caused the Gospel to spread further and created some of the strongest followers of Christ.

I give thanks to the Lord for His just judgment and grieve for my countrymen because of the hardships that soon shall come. It is during times of great grief like this where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only truth that brings me great comfort. To God be the Glory!

2 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” 

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

 7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” 10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (Ps 2:1–12). 

Christ will rule and reign as He so desires. President Obama is but a mere vessel in His hands and will serve the purposes of Christ, and glorify His name, whether the president knows it or not. Praise be to our sovereign Triune God.

Fellowship, Not Social Club

From the pen of Jerry Bridges:

 In our Christian circles, the word fellowship has come to mean little more than Christian social activity. It may mean the exchange of pleasantries over coffee and cookies at church, or the social functions of our high school or campus ministry groups. This is not the meaning of fellowship in the New Testament. The first occurrence of the word fellowship in the New Testament occurs in Luke’s account of the beginning of the New Testament church on the Day of Pentecost. As a result of Peter’s sermon, about three thousand people believed in Christ. Luke says of them that “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2: 42). We’re not surprised that these new believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to prayer. But to fellowship? It would seem strange to include fellowship along with teaching and prayer if fellowship meant no more than Christian social activity. Or consider the words of the apostle John in 1 John 1: 3: “What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (NASB). In both Acts 2: 42 and 1 John 1: 3, the New English Bible translates koinnia as “sharing a common life.” This is the most basic meaning of koinonia, or fellowship. It is sharing a common life with other believers — a life that, as John says, we share with God the Father and God the Son. It is a relationship, not an activity. 

RELATIONSHIP

 Those first Christians of Acts 2 were not devoting themselves to social activities but to a relationship — a relationship that consisted of sharing together the very life of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They understood that they had entered this relationship by faith in Jesus Christ, not by joining an organization. And they realized that their fellowship with God logically brought them into fellowship with one another. Through their union with Christ, they were formed into a spiritually organic community. They were living stones being built into a spiritual house (see 1 Peter 2: 5), fellow members of the body of Christ. As William Hendriksen said, “Koinonia, then, is basically a community-relationship.” 1 It is not primarily an activity; it is a relationship. It is this spiritually organic relationship that forms the basis of true Christian community. It is not the fact that we are united in common goals or purposes that makes us a community. Rather, it is the fact that we share a common life in Christ. There are many organizations, both secular and Christian, whose members work together to pursue common goals. Some of these groups may call themselves communities. But biblical community goes much deeper than sharing common goals, though it ultimately involves that. Biblical community is first of all the sharing of a common life in Christ. It is when we grasp this truth that we are in a position to begin to understand true community.*

*Bridges, Jerry (2012-09-14). True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia (Kindle Locations 89-113). Navpress. Kindle Edition.