Alas, the axe!

The living quarters were too cramped. Even preachers training in the school of the prophets appreciate some comfort. They asked Elisha if they could relocate their headquarters to the banks of the Jordan where there would be a bit more room and the requested was granted. The students went to work clearing the land and cutting down trees (2 Kings 6:1-7). One man, laying his axe to the work, ended up laying his axe in the bottom of the river. He was more of a John Bunyan than a Paul. The Jordan was a muddy river and there wouldn’t be much of a chance swimming and finding a piece of iron at the bottom. The worst part was this was a borrowed axe. This might not be such a big deal for some people. I knew a man who asked his neighbor if it would be all right if he came over to his garage. He said “sure, you don’t need to ask, but did you need something?” He said “I was working on a project and wanted to borrow some of my tools from your garage.” This young prophet was evidently that rare sort of man who actually takes care of borrowed items with the mind to return them when finished. May his tribe increase. The iron sinks --  immediately he thinks of losing the borrowed axe, and that law, righteousness, and honor would require him to replace it. That would in turn reminded him he needed to borrow the axe because he couldn’t afford to buy one, let alone replace.

Elisha asked him where the axe fell and the young man pointed to the water. Elisha cut a stick and threw it in the area of the axe head. Bubbling up from the depth came the axe! It popped up and began to swim over to the shore. Now that's amazing! On the banks of the Jordan, away from the multitudes, in the middle of a work day, God came and showed His great power to this band of prophets. In the grand scheme of things, a lost axe head isn’t really that big a deal; and yet God was concerned with his problem. There are no issues too small or too insignificant for God. That’s one glorious aspect of God’s omnipotence and omnipresence. God’s attention is not divided and his power is not limited. He can hear your most earnest plea, and sympathize with your smallest request. There is nothing insignificant to our Father in the life of His child. There is also nothing too difficult for God. In hopeless predicament with the loss of a borrowed tool that he could not buy, could not repay, nor retrieve, the man was without hope. But God comes in mercy and does what only God could do. That is what we all need, God’s saving grace. We are in the dire condition of having a sin debt that we cannot pay and our only recourse is to cry out unto a merciful God who is able to deliver us.

Doctrinal Preaching

Should pastors preach doctrine? Some say preaching has to be changed to suite the culture. Preaching was acceptable in Paul’s day, but times have changed and we need to change with them. We might have iPhones and air-conditioning, but the spirit of the times hasn't changed. Paul was persecuted by the government and thrown in prison unjustly, under the heavy hand of a God hating, heathen tyrant. He lived in a time when preachers of a false gospel were rising up in every quarter teaching a works salvation. There were not very many churches, and the ones that were in existence were dividing over doctrine. The political scene in Jerusalem was turbulent with factions and seditions. There were prominent political groups in Jerusalem wanting to rise up against Rome and go to war desiring to restore the liberty of the nation of Israel. Timothy was the pastor of the church in Ephesus, located in modern day Turkey, the capital of the Asian confederacy of Rome. The city was full of false gods, witchcraft, and idolatry, and overrun with sexual immorality. The church was in a city of worldliness, false religion, false doctrine, government overreach and a growing opposition to the truth of God’s Word and the saving gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The times haven't change that much. So what was Paul's theory on preaching? What did Paul council Timothy to preach in such turbulent, God hating times?

Doctrine. In the pastoral epistles of First and Second Timothy, and Titus, Paul mentions doctrine (good or bad) or refers to teaching doctrine over 20 times. Doctrine is simply teaching or in instruction. Doctrinal preaching is presenting principles or truths systematically. Biblical doctrine is starting with the Bible and teaching and expounding what the text of scripture says about certain themes or topics. What is needed in our time is the doctrines of the Word of God explained, expounded, learned, and applied. The pulpit needs to sound forth with the truths of God's sovereignty, the depth of Christ's atoning work for the salvation of sinners. We need to hear about the doctrine of sin, God, the church, and man, to name a few. The reason for war, fighting, drug abuse, marital problems, wayward children, financial problems is sin. The answer is not to put pastoral band-aids on the gaping wound with self-help messages. The answer must address the root cause. We need doctrine. It will not be the most popular message, but it's what God commissioned His church to preach, and what the world really needs. What's more important that eternal life? What is more important that knowing where you will spend eternity? There is no higher pursuit than to know God, and to make God known. What you know about God and what you believe about God effects how you live and how you think. Knowing God and knowing more about God is the most important thing you can devote your mind and heart to. You need doctrinal preaching.

The Expositor Online

I've been posting many of Lewis Kiger's articles here on the blog for about a year now. I shall do so NO LONGER!! That's because he has his own blog. So make like something that does something very fast and with great urgency, and visit his new blog:

The Expositor Online

Read, subscribe, follow, and all the other things you to do to stay up to date.

Why are you still here? Seriously, click the link. 

The Temptation Workout

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” James 1:2-4. 

 Temptation and patience are hard at work in your life, are you taking advantage? Count every bit of the temptation and trial you are enduring as joy. To do that, we have a bit of work to do ourselves. No temptation is joyful when we are resisting against it and enduring through it, but it is our task to “count it all joy”. We need to look at the bad situation and prayerfully take an accurate account of the temptation, and see it as a means for joy because of what it is going to accomplish. We must look at temptations in the right way – temptation is working something in us for our good. Hopefully it will give your spiritual muscles a workout. When I played football, we put in hours of off-season conditioning in the weight room. When the coaches were pushing us and working us hard,  I was hot, tired, sore, and wishing it was all over with. But we were working our physical muscles and getting stronger with every workout. We couldn’t see the immediate effects but we kept it up being reminded of the benefit this workout would have on the football field on Friday nights. We counted every exercise as profitable to what we wanted, even though it wasn’t very fun at the time. Likewise, temptation works our spiritual muscles.

Temptation gives your patience a workout. It is “trying” your faith. It is putting your faith to the test. Biblical patience is endurance, it is not giving in or giving up, but patiently pressing on looking for our deliverance. Temptation makes us  struggle against it and to endure in holiness. It’s resistance training, fighting through the trial and not giving up because it's hard. After months of offseason training, it was time to start actually playing the games. Those players who had put in the hard work of conditioning and strength training were better equipped to play in the games. We wanted to play the game and play well – that was what we wanted most. In order be better players, our coaches put us through difficult weight resistance training. Every time I was excised by resistance, I became just a little stronger. Temptation works in our soul in a similar way. As Christians, we desire holiness, and one of God's ordained means for spiritual growth is enduring temptation. As we press back against the resistance of temptation, it exercises our patience and endurances. Patience, in turn, completes us. It strengthens our spiritual life, by making us more dependent on God, motivates us to prayer and Bible reading. The more we fight through trials and battle against sin in our lives, the more endurance we have. It gives us a full spiritual workout.

Fraternal Twin Errors

An antinomian is someone who believes that once saved, they are under no obligation to obey God's moral law, we can live however they want. The leagalist believes that you must obey the law in order to go to Heaven, and justification is based on our good works. These seem like opposite views, but in fact, they are very similar. They are, as Sinclair Ferguson said, "unidentical twins". The person that declares there is no law has the spirit of legality. The lawless do not rejoice in the rest of Christ, but in freedom from law; which reveals the legalistic heart of the antinomian. Both the legalist and the antinomian have the same problem. One thinks the law can justify, the other rejoices that the law is gone and believes it to be altogether unprofitable. The legalist has a heart to keep the law to go to Heaven, the antinomian has a heart to break the law because he feels freed from its grievous hold on him. The legalist tries to keep the law because he feels he has to; the antinomian has no concern for the law, because he no longer feels he has to. Both people are running in opposite directions because of the law. One loves the law and runs under it for justification. The other hates the law and runs from it for perceived freedom. But both are running on account of the law.

The motivation is the law; the love of the law, or the hatred of law. The Child of God runs to Christ, with Christ, and for Christ. He is the freeman who is motivated by love for Christ. The Biblical teaches that we are dead to the law for justification. We cannot, could not, and will not keep God’s law and Jesus Christ came and freed us from the curse of the law. The law now has no condemning power over Christians any longer. We are not under the law for justification, but under grace. We are not free to live in sin because grace abounds. We follow Christ and keep His commandments, not for salvation, but because we have been saved. We do not obey God to be saved, but because we are. No longer is it "do this and live", but "live and do this." We cannot please God without faith and faith without works is dead. A Christian follows and obeys Christ, not out of hope of Heaven, but love for the Lord.

The Lord’s commandments are a rule of life to us, not a means of justification. We need to keep the car on the road and not to drive into the ditch of the legalist who uses the law to earn salvation; and not to swerve to the other side into the ditch of antinomian and rebel against following Christ in spiritual anarchy against the Lordship of Christ. The remedy for antinomianism isn't to become more legalistic and vice versa. Grace is the remedy for both errors.