EVANGELISM OF THE JEWS

David Swaggerty, senior pastor of Charisma Life Ministries in Columbus, Ohio, was in Israel for a celebration. He was quoted as saying, "As a Christian who believes in the Great Commission, I feel that the call to spreading the Gospel does not apply to the Jewish people. Especially in light of centuries of Christian anti-Semitism, I am here to support Israel unconditionally and with no strings attached." https://www.christianpost.com/news/should-christians-in-israel-avoid-offensive-evangelism-of-jews.html

“Support Israel unconditionally?” Nonsense! The best way to support Israel unconditionally is to nudge them in the direction of their Messiah, whom they have rejected—the One who will ultimately protect them! Evangelism is not only the greatest expression of love, it is also the command of Jesus:

·       “and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:47)

Years later, Paul reiterated that the presentation of the Gospel should still begin with the Jews:

·       For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)

As tribulation comes to the Jew first (Romans 2:9), so too must the Gospel! While Swaggerty correctly perceives their antagonism to the presentation of the Gospel, does he not seem to also perceive the antagonism of the Muslim, Buddhist, and atheist to the Gospel! Should we not then preach the Gospel to any who might hate the Gospel?

Swaggerty has stepped out onto a slippery slope that eventually leads to the silencing of the Christian voice, the light of the world. He is becoming a friend to the world (James 4:4), which he hopes will gladly receive his “message.”

 

 

ANGER AND WRATH

 

I just read an article on the persecution of Christians, especially in the West, and the favoritism overwhelmingly granted to Muslim immigrants. Yes, I am angry. There is no rational reason for this, especially in light if the fact that the Muslims want to destroy and take over the west. For example, here is the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood

·       “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Should we be angry? The hatred and persecution of Christians is prophesied throughout the Bible: Jesus had warned

·       “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. (John 15:18–20)

Therefore, persecution and hatred of Christians are inevitable, right? Yes! God is allowing it to accomplish His glorious purposes. Why then be angry about it or anything at all? For one thing, God created us with the capacity to experience anger over injustice. Therefore, there must be a good purpose for it.

For another thing, Jesus (Mark 3:5) and the Father became angry (numbers 11:33; 12:9). If righteous indignation was appropriate for the omniscient God, who knew, from before His creation, the evil man would perpetrate, why not an appropriate for us also! Indeed, Scripture informs us that anger has a righteous duty:

·       Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger. (Ephesians 4:26)

Nevertheless, anger must submit to God’s wisdom and righteousness, or it can be used destructively. While the righteous empowerment provided by anger can be used for good, if it is not carefully kept under control, it can also used to produce great evil:

·       Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1:19–20)

 

While we must restrain our anger, it doesn’t mean that we should reject it. Instead, we must allow it to empower us for the cause of God’s righteousness. Phinehas, the grandson if Aaron, the High Priest, was overcome by righteous indication over the flagrant disregard for the word of the Lord:

 

·       And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping [over this sin] in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. And the LORD said to Moses, “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy. (Numbers 25:6–11)

God rewarded Phinehas for his righteous anger. Had not Phinehas intervened, the plague would have continued. The righteous anger of one man of God was able to turn back God’s wrath. This is something for us to consider! 

Many do not like the idea of a righteous and wrathful God. Instead, we must accept that this is His nature, but it is also ours! Therefore, to reject God is also to reject ourselves and to live conflicted and divided lives.

TRUST IN JESUS AND SOMETHING ADDITIONAL TO JESUS?

We must trust in our Lord alone (Psalm 62). Consequently, He must reign supreme in our lives (Matthew 6:33). But what does it mean to trust in our Savior alone and to derive our fundamental identity in Him alone? It certainly cannot come from our political and social affiliations, right? However, one young pastor took it a step further citing:

•    Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?…Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? (Galatians 3:3, 5)

Besides, by adding to Jesus through trusting in our good deeds for salvation is a refusal to trust in Christ alone and to even depart from Him:

•    …I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision [to also trust in our performance according to the Law], Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. (Galatians 5:2–4; Luke 17:10)

This raises the question: “Is our identity in Christ simply a matter of “trusting” Him, or does it also include a determination to turn from our sins (repentance) and to follow Him?” Certainly, trusting/believing in Jesus and what He accomplished for us on the Cross is the ground-zero, the soil from which all else grows!

However, trusting in Jesus also implies doing what He tells us to do. It is like trusting in your doctor. If you truly trust in him, you will do what he tells you to do. If you refuse, it means you don’t trust in him. Likewise, if we trust in the Lord, we will try to do what He tells us to do, at least to repentant to try our best to turn from our sins. This is also part of who we are in Christ. To refuse to repent means that we do not have a saving faith. It is to say, “I can run my own life better than Christ can!”

However, the pastor continued to argue that trusting in our political and social affiliations becomes a matter of adding to our identity in Christ and not trusting Him alone. While it is true that our good deeds will not earn us the love and salvation of our Savior, yet they are evidence that that we do have a saving faith. Consequently, to live like the devil is to share in his ultimate fate:

•    Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19–21)

A lack of repentance betrays a lack of saving faith. Also, knowing to do good, when it is in our power and to refuse to do it is sin (James 4:17). Therefore, even though the Book of Galatians warns against trusting in our good deeds to earn anything good from the Lord, it teaches a lot about the need to follow Jesus’ moral teachings:

•    Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

This isn’t optional! To belong to Christ requires us to say “no” to sin:

•    And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:24–25)

Following Christ is not an add-on. It is part of the gift of salvation. Let’s return to the question of political and moral involvement. We shouldn’t identify so strongly with political party that we compromise our primary focus—serving Christ and loving others. There is nothing wrong with championing those causes that coincide with our Christian identity. Besides, we are to be the light to the world by pursuing the good and exposing evil (Ephesians 5:11).

Instead, by divorcing the Church’s spiritual life from the political/moral arena is to declare that the Church is irrelevant regarding resisting genocide, slavery, kidnapping, the murder of the unborn, and many other forms of evil. It also serves to make Christians cynical about their church and leadership.

WHAT DOES WORSHIPPING OUR LORD IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH ENTAIL?

What we think, say, and do are all expressions of worship. Our entire life is lived as worship, as Paul charged:

•    I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1)

Our "body" also includes the activity of our minds. Therefore, Paul followed this admonition to worship God with our entire being with the charge to be transformed through changing our thought-life so that we could know the will of God.

Why? Because we cannot worship God properly without knowing His will and His thoughts! Jesus affirmed this principle to a Samaritan woman:

•    “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:23-24)

Worshipping God had to be according to His truth—the truth of who He is. Worship is our expression of love for God, and we are not free to love Him in any way that seems right to us.

Likewise, I am not free to love my wife in any manner I please. I cannot love her because she reminds me of my first flame. Instead, I must love her for who she is. Anything short of this is unacceptable.

To love God is to worship Him according to His instructions and revelation. Consequently, I am not free to pick-and-choose among the teachings of the Bible. Following Christ is not like a smorgasbord lunch, where I can simply choose the foods that are appealing and leave the rest.

If Christ is the Master of my life, I must embrace all the Word of God, as He did. Quoting from Deuteronomy, Jesus answered the Devil:

•    “It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4)

Jesus always acknowledged that the Father is in charge. This means that we are required to embrace all His teachings (Matthew 28:19-20). He spoke whatever He had been given. We can do no less!

Nor are we free to worship a God of our imagination. While many suggest that we should imagine for ourselves the God that seems right and comfortable for us, we mustn't do this. Nor will truth allow this. Thus says the Lord of hosts:

•    "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord...I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, 'I have dreamed, I have dreamed!' How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart.” (Jeremiah 23:16, 25-26)

Our God cannot be the creation of our own minds. For years, I had wanted God on my terms—one who would tell me what I wanted to hear, one who would affirm my ethnicity. However, the true God wouldn't conform to my specifications. I had to conform to His, and until I did, God remained distant!

Nor are we permitted to visualize the God of our imagination. The Second Commandment seems to make this plain:

•    “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” (Exodus 20:4-5)

This refers specifically to the creation of any images that represent God:

•    “Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form [of God] on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves [to represent God] in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female...And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven...Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you.” (Deuteronomy 4:15-16, 19, 23)

God makes it clear that the problem is not with making images, but rather, images that represent God, who had refused to appear to Israel in any form at Horeb.

We also have to be careful about whatever the eye sees, even the "sun, moon, and stars," so that these might pervert true worship, lowering our estimation of God.

I am often tempted to visualize God comforting me as I recline in the dreaded dentist's chair. However, this too represents a perversion of true worship, which requires me to meditate on the promises of God's Word instead of the images of my imagination.

Instead, it has been argued that “images of Jesus need not affect our worship of Jesus. Instead, they serve as mere reminders.” Perhaps, this might be true for some. However, I think that there are numerous overriding considerations:

In both the Second Commandment and Deuteronomy 4, physical representations of God are specifically forbidden. Meanwhile, many verses insist that God must be worshipped in truth and not through a creation of our imagination. The entire Bible specifies how God should be loved and worshipped, and images of God are never suggested as aids to worship. Instead, it seems that, at best, they distract us from a true worship according to God's Word.

Just consider one way that our images may prove problematic. Our images and portraits of Christ are competing images, which might cause unbiblical division. Whites want a white Jesus; Blacks want a black Jesus; Asians want a portrait of an asian Jesus. Each group represents Jesus according to its own ethnicity. Consequently, these images serve to divide and not unite.

Clearly, we are not free to worship as we please. Instead, we must love God as He has commanded us to love Him.

I know that this essay will be troubling to many. Some argue that the Incarnation has overturned the Second Commandment. However, I have not seen a biblical case to be made for this.

Instead, we are to worship our Lord according to what He has revealed—His Word!