“Honor the king.” And other impossible commands.

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“Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.” (I Peter 2:17)

The Lord seems to delight in calling His disciples to do impossible things, actions which the flesh rebels against, the world scoffs at, and we sometimes question.

I expect He’s trying to shock us out of our comfort zone and into the freedom of the Spirit where obedience to Him is as natural as breathing and where we do our best work.

His is a big job.  To our detriment, we find ourselves questioning most of our Lord’s commands and dragging our feet about obeying some in particular.

For most, the four brief commands of I Peter 2:17 rank among the least doable and most unpleasant.  Nor are we allowed to dismiss them as “not from Jesus but from Peter.” We either believe in the inspiration of Holy Scripture or we do not.

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Sixteen lies Satan feeds us about worship

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“God is Spirit. And they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

“Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; tremble before Him all the earth” (Psalm 96:9).

If worship is powerful–that is, if kneeling before Almighty God in humility and rising to praise Him in gratitude and going forth to obey Him in faithfulness–if this has power in the world to change lives and redirect society, then the enemy will be working to put a stop to it.

Count on that.

If God uses our worship to transform sinners, starting with us, then the enemy will do all in his power to neutralize it.

So–how is your worship these days?

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Things the devil knows about you…but prefers you don’t learn

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“In order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices.” (2 Corinthians 2:11)

First, Satan is a liar and a murderer (John 8:44).  He is a fallen angel who was banished to earth (Revelation 12:9).  He is one angry being (Revelation 12:12) since he knows that after his days here are ended, he goes straight into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).

Keep that in mind.

You don’t want to trust that fellow. He is without the faintest hope of any future, big-time angry at God, and a liar of the first order.  That’s a terrible combination. Don’t ever go into partnership with someone like that.

Trust nothing he says. Accept no promises from this liar.

However, he’s smart.  Giving the devil his due, Martin Luther said of him, “On earth is not his equal.”  You and I are no match for him by ourselves.

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How the preacher can sound really smart

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“I speak as a fool” (2 Corinthians 11:23).

Now, the solid born-again, God-called messenger of the Lord has no wish to sound particularly smart.  True, he does not want to come across as ignorant, but he is not insecure, has nothing to prove, and is not there to impress.  He is a messenger, delivering the word of God, then getting out of the way.*

However, a less than solid preacher just might want to impress his hearers.  An insecure, insincere preacher–one working for the paycheck and seeking the prestige some people bestow on a pastor–might want to bolster his image by dressing up his presentation in some way, and could use some assistance. That’s where we come in.  We can help.

Herewith then is our list of tricks which a poor preacher might want to employ.

Tongue in cheek, of course.

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When churches get the disappearing blues

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This train got the disappearing railroad blues.  –Arlo Guthrie, “City of New Orleans”

The cleaners I used for over two decades has made a decision to go out of business, and has begun doing so very slowly.

They just don’t know it.

It started with a closed sign on the door one morning.  I walked away carrying the clothes I had planned to drop off.

The next day, a sign announced they had relocated the business.  Since the new site was closer to my house with more convenient parking, that did not make me unhappy.

Next, they began cutting back on the hours.  The young man newly hired to run it informed me they were now opening at 11 am and closing at 7.  No longer would people be able to drop off clothes on their way to work.

I said to him, “Shouldn’t you have a sign outside with the hours of operation?  Since this is a big change.”  Why I should care is another question, but I do.

The clerk casually assured me that the small notice on the glass door would suffice.

He was wrong.  To read that a customer would have to leave the car and walk to the door.  This is an ideal recipe for frustrating one’s customers…and thus for losing them.

I never see a car in front of the store indicating a customer inside.

And now, I’m gone too.

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God is giving Christians a unique opportunity

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“…so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world” (Philippians 2:15).

Preachers used to say ours was a “cut flower generation.”  The bloom was still there, all the blessings of our godly heritage, in the same way the floral arrangement on the dining room table carried the colors and delights of the garden.  However, preachers would point out, this generation has cut itself off from the faith of our fathers and while we enjoy the blessings of their faith and their labors, we are doing nothing to keep the faith. The next generation would pay for our failure.

We’re there now.

For most of the decades of my life–I arrived in 1940–Christians were in a majority in this country and it was pretty much agreed that ours was a Christian nation.  If anyone countered that, we never heard it.

We sang hymns in school and decorated for Christmas and even dismissed classes so those who wished could attend a local church service or see a religious film. As a young pastor, I was invited to preach Christian messages to student bodies of public high schools.  No one mentioned a limitation of any kind.

Those days are over.

The nation has changed.

Blame it on whatever forces you choose–immigration, the influx of other religions, the influence of the devil, the encroachment of the world, sin–it has happened and it is here.

This country is never going to be what it was.  It’s never going to be the way it was.

The Lord’s people living in these United States have been handed a choice.

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At judgement, I seriously doubt if the Lord is going to ask how you voted

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He’s going to ask what you did.

Recently, in the ongoing clamor about the upcoming election, some Christians have gone off the rails insisting that while there is much to dislike about Mr. Trump, in voting for him they will not have to stand before the Lord one day to give account for voting for the child-murdering, America-betraying, money-grabbing (et cetera, et cetera) Hillary Clinton.

I have a single thought about that, and it’s this.

Instead of asking how you voted, the Lord is far more likely to ask something else, something far more incriminating:  Something like, What did you do?

I’m not faultless in this regard, let me say up front. I’m a preacher and thus a member of a profession which talks for a living.  We are all liable to say more than we are doing, to preach what we are not living up to yet.  However…

I would like to ask a few questions to those who are so dead-set on not voting for the candidate who endorses Roe v. Wade and (ahem) a woman’s right to choose.  I understand you are concerned about the unborn, and thank you for that.  I am, too.

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What a pastor should tell his people about this election

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Many say there has never been such an election as this.

Whether that’s the case or not depends on when you lived.  John Adams felt that if the country elected Thomas Jefferson as president, it was all over.  Much of the country felt in 1860 that if Abraham Lincoln was elected, the nation could not survive.  It almost didn’t.  And throughout FDR’s four terms, people spoke of him in the bitterest of ways, calling him a dictator, saying whoever assassinated him was doing the nation a favor.

We’ve always had tough elections and flawed candidates.

And now–in 2016–we have the latest incarnation of flawed candidates: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

An evangelist friend said this week that he finds both candidates repulsive.  He plans, however, “to hold my nose and cast my vote” on November 8.

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Pastors: What not to do with search committees

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We’ve written on this website regarding pastor search committees and how they should be approached by alert pastors.  Perhaps it’s time to say a word on what not to do regarding these church leaders determined to find a new leader for their congregation no matter how many bruised and bleeding ministers they have to leave in their wake. 

Just to be safe, you may wish to go ahead and plant your tongue firmly in your cheek.  While the subject is serious, my treatment of it will be only partially so.

Okay. Pastor, you’ve been invited to meet with the search committee from the First Church of Butterfly City, and you’re plenty excited.

You’ve been at your present church a number of years now and have about run out of ideas, patience, and life-savings.  A change would not only be good, it might save your life, your ministry, your marriage or all three.   In fact, your wife might start believing in God once more if you told her He was transferring you to a new church.

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God or a hole in the ground: Our choices

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Some years ago, the well-known astronomer Hugh Ross and I were taking part in a radio talk show at Ohio State University.  We were discussing some theme related to the origin of the universe when an irate woman called in and began to attack us with a volley of words.  Her charge was that our conversation was really nothing more than a smoke screen for reversing Roe versus Wade and taking away a woman’s right to an abortion.  Remember, we were talking about the origin of the universe. 

Throughout her tirade, she repeatedly insisted, “it’s my moral right to do what I choose to do with my body!”  Finally, when she paused for a breath, I said, ‘All right, ma’am, since you brought it up, I’d like to ask you a question.  Can you explain something to me?  When a plane crashes and some die while others live, a skeptic calls into question God’s moral character, saying that he has chosen some to live and others to die on a whim; yet you say it is your moral right to choose whether the child within you should live or die.  Does that not sound odd to you?  When God decides who should live or die, he is immoral. When you decide who should live or die, it’s your moral right.

There was a pin-drop silence.  (–Ravi Zacharias in The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists)

To me, the amazing thing is that the abortionists will frequently claim to be Christians.  In fact, they will claim the exclusive right to the message of Jesus and accuse Bible-believers of usurping His message for their narrow, joy-killing purposes.

When a person sets his mind to deny reality, after that, anything goes.  Nothing is a stretch for them thereafter.

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