A SAFE PLACE IN JESUS

 

 

I have no problem telling the unsaved that God loves them. However, there is also a place for stronger medicine. In the first two evangelistic sermons in the Book of Acts, Peter went right to the sin issue:

• "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” (Acts 2:22-23)

• “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life.” (Acts 3:13)

In both cases, Peter called upon them to repent. He didn’t have to mention faith because faith and repentance are inseparable, opposite but complementary sides of the same coin. Both are the product of a regenerated heart. However, Peter’s focus on repentance zeroed in on the central issue.

This illustrates an important but often neglected principle. Good preaching and evangelism should usually be accompanied by the conviction of sin. In letters to five of the seven churches of the Book of Revelation, Jesus convicted them of their sins and commanded that they repent.

The preaching of many churches often lacks this key element. It is often replaced by unbiblical concepts of “niceness” and “love,” which equates preaching sin with judgmentalness or even self-righteousness. However, this is the very thing that the Church is commanded to preach:

• Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. (2 Timothy 4:2)

Paul had warned that sin was like yeast. Just a little dab could transform the entire loaf (Galatians 5:9) and also the church. This is particularly the case regarding the Church’s unwillingness to preach against sexual sin. I asked several church leaders regarding the presence of homosexual couples and the transgendered in their church. I was told that instead of preaching against it, “We just want to love them into the Kingdom by providing a safe place for them.”

However, the real safe place for the unrepentant sinner is the place that confronts him with his sin in hope that this will produce repentance and lead him to the only true hope in Christ.

Do We Confront our Painful Temptations or Run from them?

How should we deal with our temptations to sin? Do we confront them or do we flee from them – flight or fight? Perhaps we should apply a little Christian behavior modification and systematically desensitize ourselves from our fears and temptations through confrontation with these unwanted feelings.

Jesus confronted temptation head-on. He went the desert for 40 days and nights where He was tempted by the Devil, and, of course, triumphed. Should this form of confrontation be a model for us? I think that it is it important to observe that Jesus didn’t pursue the temptation. Instead, He had been led into the desert by the Spirit (Mat. 4:1).

As with Jesus, we experience temptations to sin that are unavoidable. If our children tempt us to anger, we do not have the option of becoming an absentee father. We need to deal directly with the temptation and trust that our Lord will make a way of escape for us so that we might be able to endure without sinning (1 Cor. 10:13).

However, flight is an option that Scripture often commands (1 Cor. 6:18; 10:14; 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:22). In fact, Jesus taught His disciples to pray that they wouldn’t be led into temptation:  

•  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Mat. 6:13)

Note that Jesus didn’t instruct them to pray, “Lead us into temptation so that we might learn to overcome sin through systematic desensitization.” Such a strategy doesn’t seem to have been a biblical option. Jesus also instructed His disciples:

• “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mat. 26:41)

He did not instruct them to “Seek temptation so that you will learn to overcome it.” Instead, the message of Scripture seems to be all about the Lord and His willingness and ability to deliver us:

• Because he [Jesus] himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Heb. 2:18)

I used to think that if I didn’t confront my “demons,” I would never overcome them, and they would continue to plague me. However, He is our help and our strength, and without Him, we can do nothing:

• Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)

But can’t we confront our temptations and disarm them as we trust in Jesus? Sometimes, we must. We have no other choice. However, if we seek out our temptations, we might be acting presumptuously and putting the Lord to the test – the very thing that Satan tempted Jesus to do:

• Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” [Psalm 91] Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Mat. 4:5-7)

When we foolishly put ourselves in danger depending on God to rescue us from our foolishness, we “put the Lord your God to the test.” Likewise, if we are recovering alcoholics and go to the bar with friends, determined to overcome our addiction in this manner, we act presumptuously and put God to the test, demanding that He rescue us RIGHT NOW! Instead, we need to realize that we are weak and dependent sheep and therefore must flee from sin.

While we do need to hold our ground against sin, we should not seek a confrontation with it.  Instead our trust must be invested in our Savior:

• So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!  No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Cor. 10:12-13)

We should not be so self-confident that we think that we can stand in any situation. Therefore, it might be hubris, not piety, leading us to confront our temptations. Instead, Paul warns that this kind of self-confidence will lead to a fall. Rather, we need to trust that the Lord will deliver us from temptation. However, if we seek out our temptations, we are presumptuous of God – that He will deliver us.

Our Lord can make the weakest stand:

• Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. (Rom. 14:4)

However, we mustn’t take these divine encouragements as an excuse to be passive. Instead, we are required to actively fulfill our Lord’s commands (Mat. 6:33), insofar as He is providing the grace.

I had suffered decades of depression followed by crippling panic attacks. During these times, many told me what I should be doing to overcome. However, I was just too far down to apply these oftentimes sound principles. Often, my feeble efforts were like fighting against quicksand. The harder I’d struggle, the quicker I’d sink. Finally, I just reconciled myself to the fact that I truly could do nothing without Him (John 15:4-5) If He didn’t lift me up, I would not be lifted up – end of story! However, He did lift my up in many ways – sometimes in ways that I couldn’t observe - and I have been teaching at the New York School of the Bible for more than 22 years.

He has taught me many truths in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. One of the most important is this one: it is the humble – those whose confidence is in Him alone (Psalm 62) - who He will make stand (James 4:6; Mat. 18:4; Luke 18:14).

Heidi Mund and Speaking Truth to Power

What would you do if you went to church one Sunday and found that an imam who was attempting to Islamize your country and to bring your faith under subjection to Islam was giving the opening prayer? What would God have you do? And what if you had been seeing many other churches, compromising with secularism and religious pluralism, losing their Christian witness?

This is what happened at the Memorial Church of the Reformation in the Rhineland city of Speyer, built to honor Martin Luther:

• When the Muslim imam began his call to prayer during the concert, he was interrupted by a small woman [with her banner] in the balcony proclaiming that "Jesus Christ alone is Lord of Germany.”

Others tried to reassure Heidi Mund that "This is a concert for peace." However, she understandably remained adamant:

• "No it's not! Allahu Akbar [which is what the imam had prayed] is what Muslims scream while murdering people! Don't be fooled! Don't be fooled! This is a lie!" 

As I thought about this, I envisioned parasites eating at the foundation of my home, and no one seemed to be concerned about it as long as the house was still standing. I could imagine someone reassuring me, “Don’t worry. Soon the termites will be full and will stop eating.”

I knew that that wasn’t true. They would only stop eating once there was no more house to consume! Instead, I likened myself to the priest Phineas, who, when seeing the Israelite men cavorting with the Moabite women, determined to stop this horrid defilement of the people of God at any cost, even with a spear (Num. 25:7).

However, would Phineas’ methods coincide with the teachings of the New Testament? Would Mund’s methods coincide? I recalled the many verses calling for gentleness, patience, peacefulness and non-offensiveness.

I began to wonder whether the peaceable New Testament was so radically different from the combativeness of the Old, but perhaps not. Jesus never shied away from confronting others with their sins, sometimes using highly offensive words like “hypocrite” or “children of Satan.” And He even resorted to physical force, overturning tables and driving the traders out of the Temple with a whip. Should His life be a model for us?

But perhaps Jesus’ example doesn’t apply to us. After all, does things that are inappropriate for us. He calls the dead out of the grave and judges. So perhaps we would be mistaken to follow His example in every regard.  However, the Apostles also weren’t kittens. They were bold in carrying forth the will of God, especially when it came to the governing of the church. Let’s look, for example, at Paul’s instructions to Titus about the selection of elders:

• He [the elder] must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach. (Titus 1:9-11)

Paul taught that elders had to silence mouths/teachings for the sake of the church. In light of this, perhaps Mund’s interruption was a matter of righteousness. However, she wasn’t an elder. Did this disqualify her?

In the Book of Revelation, God gave seven churches the results of His spiritual examination. He criticized two of these churches – at Pergamum and Thyatira – because they had tolerated teachings they shouldn’t have tolerated:

• “But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality.”  (Rev. 2:14)

• “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.”  (Rev. 2:20)

There are clearly limits to tolerance and peaceable-ness. Besides, it wasn’t merely the pastors or the elders who were held to account but the entire church. Each was their brothers’ keeper, and, consequently, all were responsible for the health of the church. Similarly, our Lord praised the church at Ephesus for their exercise of spiritual oversight:

•  “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false.” (Rev. 2:2)

We “cannot endure” false doctrine within the church. Nor would Heidi endure this! As Paul taught Titus, such teachers “must be silenced,” since they were “disrupting whole households” with their teachings.

However, Paul also made a sharp distinction between our conduct towards those in the church and those on the outside. In His letter to the Corinthian church, Paul chastened them for not taking the appropriate action against the sin in their midst, warning them that just a little bit of unchecked sin will undermine the entire church (1 Cor. 5:6):

• I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—  not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” (1 Cor. 5:9-13)

According to Paul, those who are part of the church must be disciplined if they remain unrepentant. However, God would discipline those outside of the church. In a similar way, James taught us to correct, not simply tolerate, the brethren:

• My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)

All of this argues that we should be more proactive about our church involvement, even to the point of defending the Gospel (Jude (3). However, Mund traveled to another church and disrupted their service.  Did she overstep scriptural boundaries? There is nothing in Scripture that would suggest that our responsibility for the church stops outside of the walls of our own church. Instead, we are all brethren, all part of the same spiritual body headed by Christ.

Perhaps then, Mund had a biblical responsibility for all those who consider themselves brethren, but she was also disruptive. Are there any Scriptural grounds for this? Yes, in certain rare, clear, and extreme circumstances. For example, Paul opposed Peter in the midst of a church fellowship:

• When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray… I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.  (Gal. 2:11-14)

Paul justified this public correction of Peter in several ways:

1.     Peter was clearly wrong.

2.     His actions were harmful to the church and Gospel.

3.     He was acting in a hypocritical way and was leading others into this same hypocrisy.

4.     It was a situation that was presently taking place and, therefore, needed to be addressed in the present.

Mund’s bold intervention was in line with all of these concerns. Extreme apostasy requires extreme measures. The German church and the German Christians have become apostate – as have many Christians in the West - and require some extreme shaking. In light of this principle, we can better appreciate Jesus’ harsh words against the religious leadership:

•   “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Mat. 23:33)

However, our responsibility to boldly proclaim and embody the Gospel does not stop within the walls of the church. The Apostles had been forbidden to openly preach Christ. However, this is just what they did! They opposed the authorities of their day. However, they were able to justify their “disobedience” in terms of their allegiance to a higher Authority:

• But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)

•   Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! (Acts 5:29)

When our responsibility to God collides with our responsibility to the State, God must be honored, even if it places our lives in jeopardy.

The Meaning of Love

Jesus’ ministry was about compassion (Mat. 9:36; 14:4; 20:34; Mark 8:2; Luke 7:13) and love (John 15:9; 11:5; 13:1; 19:26; Rom. 8:35; 5:8; Mark 10:21; 1 John 3:16).

His disciples knew that Jesus loved them. In his Gospel, John was very explicit about knowing Jesus’ love for him (John 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). However, it is likely that they all knew that Jesus loved them. He eventually made it very plain to them by laying down His life.

However, the Gospel accounts lack any verse where Jesus encouraged His disciples. He never told them that they were growing or doing a good job. Instead, Jesus was very critical of them. For example, He corrected Philip right before He would be taken from them:

·       “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” (John 14:9-10)

Despite His critical talk, they knew that Jesus loved them. I think that this points to a fundamental difference in how we measure and understand love as opposed to the 1^st century understanding. Today, we measure love in terms of how highly the other regards me – the kind things they say about me, their lack of criticism of me, and their agreement with my lifestyle choices. In other words, we measure love in terms of affirmation. If you affirm me, you love me. If you don’t, then you hate me.

Perhaps there is something wrong with the way we measure love. Instead, the Bible measures love by our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for the ultimate welfare of another. Jesus defined love this way:

·       My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:12-13)

And Jesus modeled this love by dying for us. How then do we love our neighbor? Not necessarily with agreeable and encouraging words – words of affirmation! Jesus often spoke painful words to people, but this was because they needed to hear them (Mark 10:21).

We too must love enough to go beyond stroking egos and affirming our friends so that will like and appreciate us. If we love, we will confront as Jesus confronted. We will pursue the ultimate welfare of the other, even if they might hate us for this.

Jesus informed the Pharisees that if they didn’t believe in Him, they would die in their sins (John 8:24). Those words might have seemed harsh, but they were words of love, spoken to undermine false hopes in favor of the One true hope!

We too must expose false hopes to show the way to the One true hope. One friend related to me her regrets. She had many homosexual friends and would even party with them at the gay bars and clubs, never once warning them about their false hope. She now laments that she had come to understand love too late for them.