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Embracing An Unstoppable Advantage For Guaranteed Longstanding Victory (Part Two)
Fleshly Lust and Priesthood
Peter commands his readers (1 Peter 2:11): “Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” It is a crucial or key verse in 1 Peter as Peter moves into the primary message of his epistle. It’s also a mandate or instruction, or at least similar one, as in other passages and from other authors.
In the Old Testament, being a priest was a privilege. The priest could go directly to God unlike an average Israelite. Jesus, however, makes every believer a priest, as seen in 1 Peter 2:5:
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
You can see in that very verse: the New Testament priest “offer[s] up spiritual sacrifices,” ones that are “acceptable to God.” The priesthood requires responsibility. The sacrifices are a sacrifice. And the sacrifices are spiritual and acceptable unto God. The priest can’t give to God just any old thing.
If the priest must offer spiritual sacrifices, then he must abstain from fleshly lusts. Fleshly lusts run in absolute contradiction to spiritual sacrifices. God will reject a fleshly sacrifice. Evangelicalism offers non-stop fleshly sacrifices to God. He rejects those offerings. Yet, evangelicals will count them as accepted because of their feelings. What they feel, they feel is acceptable to Him. They even very often think they feel the Holy Spirit in an ecstatic experience produced out of their passions.
Deprivation of the Soul and Idolatry
Posing as Worship
What does rejected worship do for someone’s soul? It deprives the soul. Fleshly lust hollows out a professing priest of God, leaving him spiritually famished. In the realm of spiritual warfare, this fleshly lust wars against his soul.
Professing Christians pose as worshipers. Like the priests of Baal with Elijah (1 Kings 18), they major on their expression of worship. It originates from their own passion, just like sin arises from their lust (James 1:14). True worship humbles itself before God, subjecting to the truth, which is only His truth. That is authentic worship, not the unique expressions of ones own feelings, but that proceeding from Words of God.
Fleshly lust parallels with idolatry, as revealed by Paul in Colossians 3:5, when he writes:
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Mortification
Mortify your members, Paul writes. The members are body parts. Passions arise from body parts. Fleshly lust abides in body parts, as does indwelling sin. Body parts must be brought under subjection. Then they become instruments of righteousness unto God.
The first falling domino that ends in fornication is idolatry. Next is covetousness. Functioning in the realm of fleshly lust betrays fruit of the Spirit. It’s why Paul also commanded in Romans 13:14: “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
“Abstain from fleshly lusts” and “make not provision for the flesh” relate to idolatry. Both result in not offering spiritual sacrifices unto God. God doesn’t accept worldly and fleshly worship, which also means the perpetual offering of a person as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2).
Soundtrack for a Life
Commands and Disobedience to Them
Christians walk according to the soundtracks of their lives, what they might call their playlist. The reformed theologian and author, Douglas Wilson, who wears the mantel of father of modern classical education, wrote this:
While working on this post, to take a snippet of my playlist at random, I have listened to “Feelin’ Alright” by Joe Cocker, “Rivers of Babylon” by the Melodians, “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians, “Lonestar” by Norah Jones, “Almost Hear You Sigh” by the Stones, “Watching the River Flow” by Dylan, “Motherless Child” by Clapton, and you get the picture. Now here is a quick quiz. Get out your Bibles, everybody. Is that playlist worldly?
Not too classical. Education, probably not either. That playlist disobeys two commands: “abstain from fleshly lusts” and “make not provision for the flesh.” And actually many others in the New Testament.
Internal Procession of Unrighteousness
Paul writes in Galatians 5:19, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest.” The works of the flesh are evidence. Like faith is evidence, the works of the flesh are evidence. One of those works is “lasciviousness,” which means “sensuality.” The soundtrack of a genuine Christian is not sensuality.
The viewpoint of “abstain from fleshly lusts” corresponds to the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. God’s righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20). The examples or illustrations of Jesus (Matt 5:21-48) then deal with the internal procession of unrighteousness. It’s not just murder, but hate. It’s not just physical acts, but the lack of abstinence from fleshly lusts. This clashes with the nature of God, the true identify of the believer, the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Fleshly lusts do not retard corruption. They speed it up.
More to Come
My Daily Bible Reading: The KJV Bible Read Out Loud, Free
Do you listen to the Bible read out loud? I have listened through the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, read out loud, numbers of times. (Alexander Scourby is my favorite.) Someone whom we know, mainly as a matter for him to make sure that he is spending time in the Word each day, recorded himself reading the entire Bible aloud this last year on YouTube. He described his YouTube channel’s purpose as:
The goal of this channel is to provide daily accountability to read through the whole Bible and more in one year from January 1 to December 31! God’s Word is a Lamp to our feet and a Light to our path. May this channel help us get strength, encouragement, rebuke, doctrine, and guidance each and every day!
So if you would like a free, albeit non-professional, reading of the entire King James Bible through in one year, feel free to listen to the My Daily Bible Reading channel and prepare to be edified by the Spirit through the Word.
Click here to go to the My Daily Bible Reading YouTube Channel.
I personally spend a certain number of minutes each week reading the Authorized, King James Version and the Hebrew Old Testament Textus Receptus, as well as reading a certain number of verses in the Greek Textus Receptus. I also work on studying through an Old Testament book (I am currently in Proverbs, reading it with Bruce Waltke’s valuable commentary on Proverbs; before that I read Psalms through with Spurgeon’s excellent Treasury of David) and Matthew, reading through the book with a rather brief dispensational Moody Bible commentary, the New International Greek Testament Commentary on Matthew (useful exegetical insights, but generally dry as dust and anti-verbal inspiration because of source criticism and redaction criticism although “conservative”), and Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Matthew (helpful exegetical and devotional thoughts if the paedobaptist Calvinism can be set aside). I also spend a certain number of minutes reading the Septuagint or LXX (I am in Numbers and Psalms). Some days I will focus more on one of these and some days more on another, and at the end of the month I see how many minutes I spent on them all in comparison to how many I am supposed to spend; whatever I have spent less time on, I plan to spend more time on the next month, and whatever I have spent more time on, I can focus upon less.
If I listen to the Bible read out loud, I take the amount of time I spend listening and divide it in half, as I find it easier to get distracted when listening to the Bible then when reading it. We should be especially on guard against our flesh seeking to lead our minds to wander when we are engaged in a spiritual activity like reading God’s Word. I can say with Paul: “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me” (Romans 7:21).
In any case, I am thankful for the hours I have been able to spend listening to the Bible read aloud. Perhaps the My Daily Bible Reading YouTube channel will help you to read and/or listen through God’s Word (at least) once this year, meditate upon what you read, and obey it in reverent love.
The books I referenced above that are linked to on Amazon are affiliate links. I would recommend comparing prices on books here and then clicking through a portal as described here if you are going to buy a book online.
–TDR
The Validity and Potential Value of a Liturgical Calendar (Part Four)
Being Intentional
When you intend to do something — some people today call that “being intentional” — you might plan it or schedule it. Does scripture regulate or legislate intentionality? This thing of being intentional even has a definition: “making deliberate choices to reflect what is most important to us.” King David begins Psalm 101 with intentionality:
1 I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing.
2 I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
3 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
When you intend to do it, you might schedule it. That’s good. It’s how you ‘redeem the time’ (Eph 5:16). How do you seek something first? You’ve got to move it up in priority on purpose. You will and then do of God’s good pleasure. This is sanctification. It’s how you keep something holy.
If I want to ensure I do something, I put it on a “to-do” list. For the year, I write those actions on a calendar. For an entire church, as a church leader, I have a church calendar. What goes on that calendar? I could put a “Jumper Day” on the calendar with intentionality. Jumpers are those inflatable fun houses, serving as a kind of trampoline. Let’s say instead, I intentionally schedule into the year of the church a spiritual emphasis. Let’s call it a “liturgical calendar.” Every year the church emphasizes scriptural events in the life of Christ and other biblical themes.
Using the Calendar
The Psalms are a guide for writing hymns. The prayers of the Bible are a guide for what to pray. In the Old Testament, God weaves into the year a means by which Israel will remember what God did. This included the weekly Sabbath and then festivals. This is a model, not for continuing to follow a Hebrew calendar, but for what to do with a calendar.
Israel began to observe also an event the occurred after the completion of the Old Testament, the Feast of Dedication. It celebrated an event in the intertestamental period. Israel then added that Feast to the Hebrew calendar. Jesus too observed the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22ff). Like the other Feasts, the Feast of Dedication helped Israel remember what God did in saving Israel during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Macccabees.
The New Testament church schedules services on Sunday. Scripture doesn’t say how many, but many churches meet three times on Sunday: Sunday School, Sunday morning, and then Sunday evening. They might hold a midweek time too. Through example, scripture regulates a Sunday gathering for the elements of New Testament worship. It does not regulate how many meetings.
Keeping Holy
A believer can keep his speech holy. He can keep his deeds holy. A true Christian can keep his thoughts holy. He can also keep his motives holy.
Paul says the believer can yield his members, his body parts, as instruments of righteousness unto God or yield them as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin (Romans 6:13). Yielding his body parts as instruments of righteousness unto God is how he presents his body holy unto God (Romans 12:1). Someone can “worship God in the spirit” (Philippians 3:3) or not do that.
Sanctification in the Truth
Sanctification in the truth starts with thinking and understanding what God says in His Word. More than a hearer, he must also be a doer. This requires volition, a readiness of will. It also means a delight in what God said, a holy affection.
Sanctification in the New Testament follows the example of Jesus. In John 17:19, Jesus prayed to God the Father:
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Jesus provided the perfect example to follow, and the Apostle John writes in his first epistle (2:6):
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
Walking as Jesus walked is not arbitrary. It is looking to the scriptural example of Jesus. Also as John Owen wrote:
To see the Glory of Christ is the grand blessing which our Lord solicits and demands for his disciples in his last solemn intercession, John 17: 24.
The Glory of Christ
In 2 Corinthians 4:6, regarding sanctification, the Apostle Paul writes:
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
A church centers on the Person of Jesus Christ and Christ changes the church by its seeing of Him. To conform to the image of the Son a church must see the image of the Son.
I’m contending for purposeful, intentional seeing, thinking, and understanding the glory of Christ. The New Testament emphasizes certain events in Christ’s life. To be sanctified by the example of Jesus, to walk as He walked, and to see His glory, you must focus on Him. Jesus appeared on earth in real history in real time. He was here. In His time here, He accumulated important events in His life. The gospels, Acts, the epistles, and Revelation talk all about them. Put those on the calendar.
Keep Your Year Holy
Validity and Value
Don’t emphasize the events of Christ’s life according to their traditional dates on the calendar. Do emphasize them on their traditional dates. I like my emphasis on the calendar better than your no emphasis.
Putting the events of Christ’s life and other important biblical themes on your calendar is a way to keep your year holy. I’m saying there is a value to it. It is a means by which to accomplish many requirements for the believer from the New Testament. It’s not the putting it on a calendar that accomplishes the seeing, thinking, and understanding of the truth. It is the actual doing of seeing, thinking, and understanding.
Words mean things. The keeping in keeping something holy means something. This year I handed out a Bible reading calendar. Scripture doesn’t regulate the calendar I handed out. The calendar is how someone might keep things holy. Someone can have a calendar and remain unholy. I’m saying a calendar is valid and of value.
Remember and Emphasize
I didn’t hand out a fun-time-a-day calendar to our church. Our calendar did have one verse for each week for scripture memory. Scripture doesn’t regulate that. Does scripture regulate scripture memory? I’m guessing people won’t be arguing over a Bible reading calendar and a scripture memory calendar. Neither are in the Bible.
Believers should assume that they can keep something holy. They are told to keep things holy. Yes, in the Old Testament God instructs Israel to keep the Sabbath holy (Exodus 20:8). By what I read some people write, you might think that I’m writing this series for the purpose of keeping the word “Christmas” holy or keeping a date for Christ’s birth holy. I’ve not written anything like that.
I believe it’s been clear what I’m advocating. Some argue against it with what seems to be red herrings and straw men. I say, let’s be purposeful about remembering or emphasizing the events of Christ’s life during the year. A church can schedule more than that, but I support the use of a liturgical calendar to keep the church year holy.
Sing John 3:16 in Koine / New Testament Greek: Ιωαννην 3:16!
Would you like to learn how to sing John 3:16 in Greek? You can sing these words in the very speech in which the Lord Jesus Christ originally spoke this blessed promise to Nicodemus!
You can learn to sing the infallible words of John 3:16, the most famous verse of the Bible in the video below from Rumble, or watch it on YouTube, or see it at Faithsaves.net.
John 3:16 Song: Koine Greek New Testament Language
Ιωαννην τρεις:εκκαιδεκα ωδή εν γλώσση Ελληνικη
View John 3:16 Song in Koine Greek on Rumble
View John 3:16 Song in Koine Greek on YouTube
–TDR
David Whose Heart Was Perfect With The LORD His God?
David. You look back to Saul, and then back at David. Of course, David. You look forward to Solomon, and then back to David. Of course, David. David. Why? Something is different about David. What is it?
David and Solomon
When you arrive at 1 Kings 11:4, the Lord says:
For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.
God was not saying that Solomon’s heart was not with the LORD his God. It was not perfect with the LORD his God. On the other hand, David’s heart was perfect with the LORD his God. What was different about David, that his heart was perfect before the LORD his God, and Solomon’s wasn’t?
David and Jeroboam
Even Compared to Solomon
Then in 1 Kings 11:6, God says:
And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.
This puts the condition of Solomon compared to David in a different way: he “went not fully after the LORD.” He also did evil in the sight of the LORD. By the time we get to Jeroboam, he’s worse than Solomon. His heart wasn’t even with the LORD his God. 1 Kings 12:32 says:
And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.
Then 1 Kings 13:33 says:
After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places.
Judgment on Jeroboam
Because of this, 1 Kings 13:34 says:
And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.
And then God says to Jeroboam in 1 Kings 14:10:
Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.
In fulfillment of that in 1 Kings 15:29-30 we read:
And it came to pass, when he reigned, that he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according unto the saying of the LORD, which he spake by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite: Because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger.
Distinct Paths Taken
Again and again after this, you can read the phrase, “walked in the way of Jeroboam,” very much like there was the phrase, “as David thy father walked.” These are two different paths in the history of Israel. David’s path is very much described by what God warned Solomon in 1 Kings 9:4 (and 11:38):
And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments.
David did not live a life of sinless perfection, but he walked in integrity of heart, uprightness, doing all God commanded him, and keeping God’s statutes and judgments. Fulfilling that is not sinlessness, but it does mean having a perfect heart with the LORD and going fully after Him.
Scripture distinguishes the heart of David from other kings. Some other kings had a heart fully after the LORD in the heritage of David. The way this manifested itself more than any other was in the worship of David. Someone fully after the LORD acknowledges who God is and then offers Him what He wants.
Solomon was an idolater, not to the extent of Jeroboam. But then Jeroboam was an even worse idolater, because he gave himself fully to idolatry. Solomon gave himself partly to the LORD and partly to idols. Solomon set himself part by building the temple and worshiping God there, even though later he partially turned from that and ruined his legacy with God.
Worship Distinguished David
David murdered Uriah. He committed multiple adultery. He was a polygamist. What does this mean in juxtaposition with the good things scripture says about him?
David was a true worshiper of God, who sought after God. He failed, but his direction and his sincere spirit for the Lord characterized him over the flaws in his life. The Bible and myself do not write these things to excuse David, but to elevate the distinction of worship.
Today churches are rampant with idolatry. The church growth movement changed and corrupts the worship of the church. It centers on the audience and not the Lord. The false worship profanes God and shapes a false god, unlike the God of the Bible, in the imagination of the participants. This is akin to the path begun by Solomon and then taken full fledged by Jeroboam. It’s ruining young people, churches everywhere, and the entire United States of America.
Evangelists / Missionaries For Unaffiliated Baptist Support
If you are a sound Bible-believing and practicing Baptist church, and you are looking to support sound evangelists or missionaries, let me encourage you to consider the following two.
1.) The Suttons in Jackson County, Oregon. I have personally known Brother David Sutton and his family for many years, ever since the time I was teaching at Bethel Christian Academy as a member of Bethel Baptist Church many years ago. He is a godly man, a great preacher, and a wonderful shepherd. As one small example of his shepherding, when Bethel Baptist Church was going to send him and his family up to Oregon, we had a going-away fellowship with some food and beverages. Brother Sutton did not have time to even get any because he was too busy talking to every church member, encouraging, exhorting, and being a blessing to every single person. (We had to save some for him.) If you want to be blessed and encouraged with Scripture, Brother Sutton is the man for you to talk to. His wife is also a godly and faithful servant of the Lord, and his children are all serving the Lord. They are missionaries well worth your support as they seek to establish Jackson County Baptist Church, a church that, if your church is sound, you would be glad to be a member of. He only has partial support for his evangelistic work there. Please feel free to reach out to them if your church would be interested in having him present his work or take them on for prayer or financial support. Also, if you live in that part of Oregon and are looking for a faithful church, you need look no more–visit and serve the Lord at Jackson County Baptist Church, starting this Lord’s Day.
2.) The Dvoracheks in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I am thankful for Bro Dvorachek and his family and their fellowship in the gospel and the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have preached at their church, Victory Baptist in Oshkosh, WI, a number of times. I summarize something Bro Dvorachek wrote as his testimony of how the Lord brought him and his family to Victory Baptist Church in Oshkosh, WI:
I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in December of 1997 as an unsaved man. During my time in college, I worked at a Burger King in downtown Oshkosh. Right across the street from that Burger King was this Baptist church, that I at one time despised. Shortly after college, I got married to my lovely wife, Andrea, and we moved to another city. Shortly after that, in the spring of 2000, we both came to know the Lord! In August of 2006, both Andrea and I surrendered to the thought that if God would be pleased to place us in vocational ministry, we would be willing to follow His lead. Really, we were just saying, “Lord, whatever, you want us to do, that’s what we want to do.”
We had no idea what we were in for. The Lord has taken us on quite a journey since then. In June 2015, I was properly ordained by a council of eight independent Baptist pastors. In November of 2016, the Lord led us back to Oshkosh, and we became members of Victory Baptist Church (the Baptist church across from the Burger King). When we came to the church with our eight children, we more than doubled the attendance. The church was on life support at that time. We served there for two years as I helped the pastor with preaching, songleading, and evangelism. In December of 2018, he resigned somewhat abruptly, and I became interim pastor. For several months, Andrea and I consulted and thought and prayed over the matter, and in April of 2019, both we and church believed the Lord would have me to become officially the pastor. The Lord has been faithful, and (I think sometimes, though in spite of me), He has grown the church to around forty, with many new members. My wife, Andrea and I are blessed with eight children, some of whom are now adults: Jonathan (21), Levi (19), Grace (17), Stephen (15), Sara (14), Abilgail (11), Lydia (10), and Sophia (10). The children are a great blessing in the work.
My primary goal has been to “feed the flock.” I look to primarily preach expositional messages and am doing so through the Book of Romans every Sunday morning, while I have also seen the need to address certain topics as well in the other services. By the grace of God, we are seeing people grow spiritually! All along, I have been praying for the Lord to send laborers here, but in June, I began praying more fervently, and we are beginning to see some possibilities open up. If any man is looking for an opportunity to be used of the Lord and/or get good experience in the ministry, perhaps the Lord would lead him to Victory Baptist Church in Oshkosh.
The Dvoracheks are also missionaries worth your consideration for prayer and financial support. They have no supporting churches and Bro Dvorachek has to work a secular job, pastor a growing church, and take care of his wife and eight children. If you live near their part of Wisconsin, and you are looking for a sound church where you can serve the Lord, you need look no more. Start serving there this Lord’s Day!
You can hear some of Bro Dvorachek’s preaching on their website. Bro Sutton’s sermons at his congregation should be coming soon; you can hear some of his older messages at the BethelElSobrante YouTube channel.
I am sure that there are many other godly families that are well worthy of support by the Lord’s churches. The evangelists or missionaries above are just two that I know personally. I would encourage you to contact our church and other sound churches if you are seeking prayer and financial support. Contacting sound churches directly would be better than reaching out to me. Let me also mention that I have taken the initiative to tell blog readers about these two godly men and their families. Please pray for them, encourage them in whatever way you can, and support them in whatever way your churches lead. Let me also mention that I chose to write this–they did not initiate my writing this post.
–TDR
Roman Catholicism Versus Protestantism: Candace Owens Show (part three)
Worship, Roman Catholic or Protestant
Differences
Roman Catholic George Farmer debated Protestant Allie Beth Stuckey on the Candace Owens Show. Picking up midway of part two, Owens challenged Stuckey about the silliness in evangelical worship. I see this as a legitimate criticism of evangelicalism, not however a legitimate promotion of Roman Catholicism.
Everything about Protestantism does not not translate to modern evangelicalism. Worship and church growth philosophy are two of these. These relate more to the decaying culture of Western civilization and its effect on the church.
I imagine far less change in the formal tradition of Roman Catholic liturgy than what occurred to Western evangelicalism as an offshoot of Protestantism. Built into the formal liturgy of Roman Catholicism is a dogma of a transcendent imagination of God. Cavernous cathedrals, stained glass windows, robes, huge wood carved lecterns, sacraments, and pipe organs, even removed from sincerity and true spiritual reality, communicate reverence and seriousness more than evangelical practices today. Both are false, just like Judaistic and Samaritan worship had become in Jesus’ time.
Perversions in True Worship
Stuckey could not give a coherent answer to Owen’s criticism of evangelical worship. She doesn’t show understanding of the problem from a biblical or theological perspective. Stuckey made some good points about seeker-sensitive church growth philosophy and its effects on worship. It’s true that when churches become man-centered through strategies of church growth, it corrupts worship. She didn’t seem concerned about the issue, which is normal for evangelicals. Very few care that God isn’t worshiped by their worldly, irreverent, intemperate, lustful music and atmosphere. This shapes a false view of God that undermines true evangelism and biblical sanctification.
God calls on us to worship Him in the beauty of His holiness (Psalm 96:9). Beauty is objective. It is defined by God and His nature and the perfections of His attributes. Modernism, which includes modern evangelicalism, ejects from objective beauty and, thus, true worship of God. This changes the true God in the imagination of the worshipers to a false God. This corrupts worship in a significant way akin to the corruption authored by Roman Catholicism.
The Gospel
John 3:5
Allie Beth Stuckey then asks George Farmer what the gospel is. He starts by talking about baptism and the eucharist, first quoting John 3:5. Farmer says that this verse is explicit for baptism as a necessity for salvation. It reads:
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Farmer points to baptismal regeneration as sola scriptura, using John 3:5 and saying he depends on scripture for his doctrine of salvation. He argues this is salvation by grace, because the child can do nothing. At the moment of baptism, we do nothing, so that must be grace. He says the early church agreed with that argument, and I’m assuming he refers to the patristic testimony for it. Farmer follows the infant sprinkling as a means of salvation by speaking of the avoidance of mortal sin to stay saved. He doesn’t explain that, but that clarifies his view.
Ephesians 2:8-9 and James 2
Stuckey quotes Ephesians 2:8-9 from the ESV. She says his description of salvation is grace plus works, bringing merit or works to it. Stuckey explains the Catholic view of grace as an ability to earn the salvation. She continues with a mention of 2 Corinthians 5:21, that we become the righteousness of God in Christ.
Farmer rebuts Stuckey by saying that the Roman Catholic Church does not believe salvation by works. He compares infant sprinkling to irresistible grace. The child can’t resist. He says that as long as someone doesn’t commit a mortal sin from that point, he will go to heaven. Then Farmer brings in James 2, that God inscribes a person with grace and through works he receives more grace. He interprets James 2 as, you are not saved through faith alone.
Stuckey makes two arguments. She references election, that we’re chosen before the foundation of the world. Then she reinforces Ephesians 2:8-9 again. When Owens pushes back, she explains James 2. It is works that accompany faith, as seen in the context of the New Testament, all the clear passages for faith alone and grace alone.
Baptism and the Lord’s Table
The conversation comes back to baptism for Farmer. He says the person receives grace through baptism, so it is grace by which someone is saved. He quotes Chesterton to say that it is more than a symbol. This was the issue for Farmer for turning Catholic from Protestant. He sees baptism and the eucharist as more than symbols.
Stuckey had good things to say to Farmer, but it did not seem that she participated much in evangelism or apologetics with Roman Catholics. She needed refutations for the proof texts Farmer gave her. She also needed more verses on the contrast between grace and faith and works. Actually, Roman Catholics will almost never argue like Farmer. I can count with one hand out of thousands of Catholics, those who try to defend their beliefs. However, Church of Christ, Christian Church, and others will argue like Farmer or harder. They keep you sharp on the issues of the debate.
Farmer continued later with an explanation of the real presence of Christ in the elements. He said this is the earliest Christian teaching, found again and again in Christian writing. He taught baptism and the Lord’s Table as crucial to his becoming Roman Catholic. It is important to show that Roman Catholic history is not the history of true Christianity. False doctrine and practice already corrupted the church by earlier than the third century.
Final Comments
John 3:5
I don’t know what Stuckey thought about John 3:5. Farmer used it first and she said nothing about it. Many Protestants think “water” in John 3:5 is baptism. Martin Luther and John Calvin thought so, so maybe that’s why Stuckey wouldn’t touch it. Thomas Ross and I both believe it is natural birth, the water being amniotic fluid. In answering Nicodemus, Jesus described the second birth, born first of water and then second of the Spirit. He explains the new birth or being born again. A second birth is necessary, a spiritual one after a physical one. This reads clear to me and a quick exposition of this text would have been better.
James 2 and Romans 4
Stuckey should have dealt with justification, which is a good place to answer James 2. Abraham was justified by faith before God, as seen in Genesis 15:6 and Romans 4:1-6, the latter a good place to explain, also including Romans 3:20. Paul doesn’t mention baptism in Romans 3 through 5. In James 2, works justified Abraham before men, which means they “vindicated” him, another meaning of “justified.” A man shows his faith by his works. James explains this.
Galatians and Hebrews
I also think someone must go to Galatians and Hebrews to talk to a Roman Catholic, especially Galatians 2, 3, and 5, and then Hebrews 9 and 10. A good question to ask a Roman Catholic is if he believes he has full forgiveness of sins throughout all eternity. He should explicate four verses in Hebrews 9-10: 9:27-28, 10:10, 14. Through the one offering of Christ someone is forever perfected and sanctified. These are perfect tense verbs, completed action with ongoing results.
I like Galatians 5 to show that even adding one work to grace nullifies grace. Stuckey could have quoted Romans 11:6, which says if it’s grace it is no more works and if it is works, it is no more grace. Grace and works are mutually exclusive.
Preparation
This encounter between the three participants shows a need for regular evangelism. Stuckey seemed uncomfortable with boldness. She might not be able to be friends with the other two. And then maybe she doesn’t get the kind of show or podcast that she has. I don’t know.
Someone who does not in a regular way confront the lost over their false gospel or false religion may stay unprepared for a difficult occasion. It is hard to keep good arguments in your head if you don’t use them a lot through constant practice. Hopefully, as you listened to this conversation with these three, you were ready to give an answer for the glory of God.
Addenda
I wanted to add one more thing, which I thought about driving somewhere this afternoon. Farmer brought in infant sprinkling as salvation by grace. He said this was scriptural. Stuckey also should have pushed back against infant sprinkling. It’s not in the Bible anywhere. She could have gone to a number of places on this.
Obviously, Farmer could just bring the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, and tradition. When you can make it up as you go along, you can believe anything. Not only is infant sprinkling not in the Bible anywhere, but it is refuted by several places. I think of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8, what doth hinder me from being baptized? Philip said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Infants can’t believe in Jesus, so they are still hindered from being baptized. Every example of baptism is believer’s baptism.
Bifurcation in Beauty: Dualism of Spiritual/Sacred and Natural/Secular
You have heard, “Life imitating art or art imitating life.” In that vein, art imitates worldview.” Even when someone says, this is his worldview, his art may contradict what he says is his worldview. The art or his aesthetic is a better or more accurate expression of his worldview than other means of expressing it.
You could see what was important to Jesus by His reaction to the corrupting of the temple, His Father’s house. When someone blows his top because you dinged his car, that says something about the priority of his car, more than if you asked him. A person’s music has that way of explaining the meaning of a person’s life.
Worship of and Love for God
One biblical and historical element of worship of God is music. The Bible is full of music. Worship is an offering to God. God regulates the offering. It must be what God wants for Him to accept it.
Someone said, “You are what (or who) you worship.” Whatever you give God, that’s what you think about Him. If you give that to Him, then that expresses who you are, as much as it does who God is.
You can say you love God, like you can say you know God. If you don’t do what He says, you neither love Him or know Him, which overlap. The love shines through what you offer. It is like giving God the present you wanted, not what He did. You love yourself.
The “life imitating art” part of the equation says that art affects life. Life changes by the art influencing it. A person especially changes by the thoughts expressed about God through the music offered God.
The Meaning
What I have written assumes that art means something. It also says that art itself is not subjective and personal. Scripture says this, when it says that God is worshiped in the beauty of His holiness.
Beauty, which relates to aesthetics or art, is not in the eye of the beholder. It is objective in its meaning. Holiness is beautiful. That would mean that the unholy is not beautiful. Everything is not beautiful in its own way. Some is beautiful and some is not.
God separates from what falls short of the perfections of His attributes. That is the holiness of God. God will not receive as worship what falls short of His attributes. He separates from that as characteristic of His nature.
Bifurcation of Beauty
How is it that today churches do offer God the profane, that is, what conflicts with His attributes? Churches bifurcate beauty, just like they do with truth. They separated the spiritual or sacred from the natural or secular. Like there is total truth, one truth like one God, there is total beauty.
Churches and their leaders (or perhaps the leaders just pander to the people) went along with the split. They regarded and treated spiritual things as sentimental and emotional, not on the same plain as the natural and the secular. Church is an escape from the real world.
The music offers that escape and that feeling, which lifts someone emotionally, and is seen as a sacred or spiritual experience with God. That’s what church does as its most essential. People leave with a skip in their step, ready to go in the real world, the secular one, even thinking it was God.
Some churches and their leaders would disagree they do what I described in the previous paragraph. They explain it as something different, so removed from what occurred, because now that is the norm for a church. It’s been done so long, it’s just church now. It follows the trajectory of a revision of true worship, not true worship.
A church with corrupt music and worship doesn’t see its art as negative or corrupted. That is instead something profane to the extreme like a Mapplethorpe exhibit of a crucifix in a jar of urine, pushed by the National Endowment of Arts in the late 1980s. Certain extreme or exotic modern or even postmodern forms, those are wrong. Not the profanity churches now perform and consider worship.
Tell-Tale
Without the church doing much to anything to help it, the world’s culture has decayed. Churches veered off objective beauty, or one beauty. Something is either beautiful or it is not. Beauty is not related to secular or spiritual or even sacred.
Music isn’t sacred because it is used in the church; it is sacred because it is sacred. That also means it is beautiful, because, again, beauty relates to the glory of the Lord. A corruption of beauty, used in worship in the church, does not become beautiful by a church using it, what some today call, “redeeming” it.
The music someone plays and enjoys, and especially for someone who says he is a Christian, by that you can tell who he is. I know some of you readers hate that. You deny it sharply and often angrily. The reasons for the heat also help explain what is happening.
It is easy today for professing Christians to stand up against decadent culture. They can point out what’s very horrible in bad books in schools and their curriculum. Meanwhile, their churches are decaying at perhaps a little slower pace but a continuous one that isn’t far behind the world.
What is light and easy, sentimental and emotional, and entertaining also sells. Salzburg and Vienna and the rest of Europe went for Mozart’s music because of the former, the light and easy, etc. His dad Leopold, however, liked the selling part of it. It wasn’t lost on the religious leaders that Mozart also boosted their prominence and position.
Church Consumers
Entertainment, Not Worship
Church attenders become consumers, which is the opposite of worship. They also confuse that feeling from true spirituality. It doesn’t matter, because that feeling and spirituality are on the same plain. When the congregants leave their meeting, they take that experience as preparation for the real world. That’s also now constituted as God. The people think they’ve associated with God because it is indistinguishable from Him. It is actually more aligned with the world they enter after their assembling ends.
Even Baptist meetings have long encouraged the decadence of consumerism. They entertain a crowd. The feeling is an apparent sanctified one, which is a lie. The one who does this the best, a kind of circus-master, is a wanted commodity. It or he improves the spirit of the meeting, again this superficial, sentimental emotionalism. God is using his talent. Most cannot resist the popularity of it. It is its own pop music.
How could churches permit a philosophy in conflict with God? Some don’t judge music. Even though arts are full of meaning, they relegate it to meaninglessness. It is in this meaningless realm of spirituality, not like what occurs where there is meaning, eight to five, a real life. Many also judge against the extreme and deem themselves better by comparison.
Loss of Discernment
Young people in church often feel left out. If they get this music, it at least might connect them to the real world. This is the acquiescence to youth culture. Their hormones are raging and they chafe under parental authority. They look happier and parents think the church succeeds at keeping them. Its young people are happy. At least they can smile to the rhythm, the feeling, and the allurement.
Churches lose their discernment, described in a biblical way as unable to distinguish the holy from the profane. It occurs through incrementalism. Men won’t separate from it. They won’t say no to it. It gets worse and then doesn’t stop getting worse. To explain it requires something more than a thirty second sound byte. Even if you can, the Bible doesn’t have a play button to give the kind of proof necessary for such diminished discernment.
Country music or Country Western arose in church settings. It grew among church going young people in the Bible belt. They took the sentimentality and feelings that corresponded to the bifurcation of beauty in the church. Country western stars, who began in church, brought a more intense version of it to the world. It produced an even more extreme response.
Holy and Profane
Ryman Auditorium, the temple of country music, looks like a church building. It gives people, especially young ones, that feeling they had at church, making their experience in the world indistinguishable from church. The entertainers at church just do a lesser version of the same thing. This contrasts with Ezekiel 44:23:
And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
The country stars were good at country music. What started in church succeeded in the world. The success in the world, more excessive in its effect, travelled back to the church. The church accepts it, because that’s the domain of the spiritual.
To Be Continued
The Gospel Is the Power of God Unto Salvation, pt. 6
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
The Apostle Paul writes that “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). He uses those words to explain why in the first half of the same verse that he is “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” Maybe you might think that when Paul is saying that he is not ashamed of the gospel, that there was no way he would be. Paul ends Ephesians and Colossians asking for the churches to pray for boldness for him to preach the gospel.
Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Worship
Paul could be ashamed, but he wasn’t, because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. If he was ashamed, that meant less gospel preaching and then less salvation. What occurs when shame for the gospel brings less gospel preaching?
Earlier in Romans 1, Paul writes, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.” His word “serve” translates the Greek word latreuo, which is translated “worship” elsewhere (Philippians 3:3). As the word “serve” it is the priestly service, which enacts the offerings and the sacrifices. The priests presented these to God as prescribed by Him in His Word. This hearkens to the language of Paul in Romans 12:1, “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
To “present” is to “offer.” “Service” in Romans 12:1 is latreia, the noun form of the verb latreuo. It is reasonable worship. Worship is giving God what He wants. Priests in the Old Testament sacrificial system served, but it was the priestly service of offerings. They presented to God what He said in His ceremonial law.
Jesus made New Testament believers “priests” (Rev 1:6). As Peter wrote, New Testament believers are a holy priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices unto God (1 Peter 2:5). This equals or surpasses what Old Testament priests did. It isn’t lesser.
In Romans 1:9 the Apostle Paul says his gospel preaching is to worship with his spirit. Worship must be acceptable to God. His preaching of the gospel is acceptable unto God. Worship glorifies God.
The Missionary Psalm
The glory of God corresponds to the perfections of God’s attributes. His attributes are revealed before men. Glorifying God exalts those attributes by showing them. Preaching the gospel shows forth the attributes of God. With regard to this, I think of Psalm 67, what Spurgeon and others called and call “the missionary psalm.”
1 <To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm or Song.> God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah. 2 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. 3 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. 4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. 5 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. 6 Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. 7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
Spurgeon writes in his Treasury:
How admirably balanced are the parts of this missionary song! The people of God long to see all the nations participating in their privileges, “visited with God’s salvation, and gladdened with the gladness of his nation” (Ps 106:5). They long to hear all the nationalities giving thanks to the Lord, and hallowing his name; to see the face of the whole earth, which sin has darkened so long, smiling with the brightness of a second Eden.
Exalting God Before the Heathen
Evangelism makes God’s way “known upon the earth,” His “saving health among all nations” (verse 2). The point of this in the end (verse 7) is that “all the ends of the earth shall fear him.” Worship starts with knowing Who God is, which brings reverence of Him, respect of Him, lifting Him up to His rightful place in the imagination of men. The gospel shows who God is in all His attributes. This is worth consideration.
Believers can talk about the gospel among themselves. It’s worth it. However, God wants exaltation among the heathen, among the nations, and in the world. He made those people in His image. He created them for His pleasure. Even if they don’t believe the gospel, they should hear it. When believers preach it, the true gospel, they exalt God.
To be ashamed of the gospel is to be ashamed of the power of God, which is an attribute of God. However, salvation itself as told by the gospel also manifests attributes of God: His holiness, His righteousness, His love, His goodness. His justice, and more. Even if someone doesn’t receive the gospel. believers worship God by preaching it.
More to Come
Sing the Psalms–A Free App for your Apple or Android Phone
Scripture commands: “[S]ing Psalms” (James 5:13). The Spirit-filled saint is singing “psalms” as well as hymns and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:18-21). If you are a believer, you have the obligation to sing God’s inspired psalms. You have the blessed privilege to sing the inspired psalms. You have the glorious blessing to sing to the Father the same words that the Lord Jesus sang to His Father on earth. What a blessing this is!
I am very thankful that recently Bro David Cloud wrote a valuable article commending psalm singing. Our church has sung from the 1650 Scottish Psalter, a literal psalter, for many years. My wife and I have sung through the 1650 Psalter numbers of times in our family devotions–we sing the same psalm every day for a week, and then the next week go on to the next psalm. (We also sing hymns from the Trinity hymnal, Baptist edition–as does our church–and from the Metropolitan Tabernacle’s hymnbook.)
Unfortunately, the edition of the 1650 Psalter that our church and our family worships with–a version which includes conservative tunes, rather than being words-only, called the Comprehensive Psalter–is not in print. The people who have the copyright are planning to reprint it, I have heard, so feel free to reach out to them if you would like physical copies for your church and home. However, if you are not able to get a physical copy, I am delighted to let you know that a quality app has been designed which includes the text and tunes of the 1650 Scottish Psalter. The app also plays the tunes so people who do not know how to read music can easily learn to sing the entire psalter. I would definitely recommend that you download the app, add it to your electronic devices, and joyfully obeying God’s command to sing the songs Christ sung in worship, the inspired, infallible, inerrant Psalms.
There are other metrical psalters (versions of the psalms that can be sung), but, in my view, the 1650 Psalter is the best, because it is one of the most literal of the singable psalters. Probably, in my experience, The Book of Psalms for Singing is my second choice.
I added links to both the Apple and Android version of the 1650 Psalter app on my website here in the ecclesiology section, where you can also find other useful helps for psalm-singing. Here are direct links to the apps:
1650 Psalter App for Apple devices
1650 Psalter App for Android devices
The price is right for the apps–100% free. That also makes it a great price for people who wish to obey God’s command to sing the psalms in foreign lands. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can download the app and sing the psalms using his electronic device. Churches who want to get physical copies of the 1650 Psalter can have everyone sing from his phone until physical copies are in print again.
God commands you to sing the psalms. Why not start today?
If you do sing the psalms, how has it been a blessing in your life, in addition to glorifying the Lord? Feel free to explain in the comment section.
–TDR
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