Did Christ finish His work?

I found this while perusing Bible.org this morning. It's worth sharing.

How dangerous it is to join anything of our own to the righteousness of Christ, in pursuit of justification before God! Jesus Christ will never endure this; it reflects upon His work dishonorably. He will be all, or none, in our justification. If He has finished the work, what need is there of our additions? And if not, to what purpose are they? Can we finish that which Christ Himself could not complete? Did He finish the work, and will He ever divide the glory and praise of it with us? No, no; Christ is no half-Savior.

It is a hard thing to bring proud hearts to rest upon Christ for righteousness. God humbles the proud by calling sinners wholly from their own righteousness to Christ for their justification.

- John Flavel

Source unknown

It is a hard thing to bring proud hearts to rest upon Christ alone for righteousness. As a former Catholic I can attest to that Church's faithful having nothing to cement their hope in. You are saved, but upon the act of any sin you are lost. You restore your salvation only to repeat the process. Where is the hope that Christ died for your sins and that you are redeemed? For if your salvation is shipwrecked with every sin then you have no hope. The best you have to cling to is a crapshoot of faith.

It is not Catholicism alone that has a practice of adding man's works to Christ's as part of salvation. Plenty of other Churches do so as well, it's just that I'm familiar with the Church of Rome because I was part of it. Christians speak of liberty, redemption, trust and such, but if you allow your pride to attach your works to those of the Almighty then you have no liberty or redemption and your trust is as much in yourself as it is in Christ. Think about that.

Jesus had to die in order to atone for our sins because we were incapable of doing it ourselves. Had we been able to redeem ourselves then millions would have been saved through the Law of Moses. Yet Paul teaches us that this did not happen

17But if you bear the name "Jew" and rely upon the Law and boast in God,

18and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law,

19and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,

20a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth,

21you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal?

22You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

23You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?

24For "THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU," just as it is written. {Romans 2:17-24}

19Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God;

20because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. {Romans 3:19-20}

 

All Dead, All Dead

I still enjoy secular music, even harder rock. However, my all-time favorite band (who could rock hard when they wanted to) is Queen. I try to be careful about what secular songs I listen to. For instance, Queen's "Get Down, Make Love" is off limits, so too Joan Jett's catchy "Do You Wanna' Touch Me". The lyrics of those songs make them something a good Christian boy shouldn't be listening to.

Sometimes, however, you find secular song lyrics that inspire a good Christian thinking session. On my way to work yesterday I decided to get nostaligic with some older Queen, so I popped "News of the World" into the CD player. I hadn't listened to some of those songs in quite some time, including the song "All Dead, All Dead". It's a song about two young lovers. The female dies and the male is left to struggle with the memories and what could have been. Sample lyrics:

All dead all dead
All the dreams we had
And I wonder why I still live on
All dead, all dead
And alone I'm spared
My sweeter half instead
All dead, and gone

While listening to this song yesterday I was struck by what comes near the end of the song. I'd forgotten all the lyrics, so while I was reminded of them as I listened, I don't know that I ever truly grasped this part of the song, and how I can relate to it as a Christian (though it was probably not written in that spirit):

All dead, all dead
But I should not grieve
In time it comes to ev'ryone
All dead, all dead
But in hope I breathe
Of course I don't believe
You're dead, and gone
All dead, and gone

As Christians we believe in the resurrection of Christ, and so too that because we possess faith in Him we will also be resurrected. Thus Paul asks, "O death, where is thy sting?" Christ conquered death and damnation for all who believe in faith in Him. Of course we grieve the loss of others, even when we know they believed in Jesus Christ and so were saved. We know they are better off, but we still hurt. However, as the lyrics above say, it is in hope that we breathe. Our hope is part of our faith; we trust and hope in the promises of God. Also as in the lyrics above, when a believer dies we don't believe they are truly dead. After all, we trust in God to be true to His word, and He has promised that all those who believe in Him are saved and will be resurrected to be with Him forever. '

If you trust in Jesus Christ and believe in your heart that He is God the Son who died to pay atonement for your sins, and that He was resurrected and lives, you shall be saved. In time, death does indeed come to everyone, but we who live by faith know that while those who belong to Christ may die, they are not all dead and gone. In hope we breathe, in God we trust and in Christ we believe.

Scientology’s “Super Power”

I found this story this morning: Scientology nearly ready to unveil Super Power.

While I do not know all of the specifics of Seientology's beliefs I know enough to wonder how anyone, even a flake, could fall for this so-called religion. Scientologists believe that mankind came here from some other planet eons on spaceships. In other words, we are ourselves aliens. We were sent away by the millions from wherever it was we lived, which was run by an evil ruler called Xenu. They believe that this Xenu murdered millions or billions and the souls of those killed sort of invade us and cause us to have psycological and emotional problems. Scientology has a plan for that soul invasion: auditing, the process of cleansing the bad from the person. Oh, and Xenu is still desiring to murder us, although he's not on earth, so we have that to worry about as well.

Misc. Church stuff

Gee, it's been over a month since I posted here. I've become slothful.

My Church has been without a pastor for several months. It has been a time which tries men's souls. Okay, that's overly dramatic, but it's sort of revealed our mettle as a Church, and I have not liked all that I've seen. I finally called someone who holds a position in our Church that would make him familiar with the inner matters going on. I know I could trust him to give me straight answers and he did so. I have to say I'm confused and frustrated by what some folks have done and are still doing. So, here is a compilation of various things, not all of which my Church is dealing with.

All of creation

We Creationists believe that God created all things, just as the Bible says He did. Of course, we are scorned as crackpots by the supposed elite of academia, who belive (as a rule) in evolution. I have read the critiques of evolution and there are many strong points rendered against that belief. However, apart from those there seem to be some obvious reasons to find evolution as not credible.

My youngest son is sleeping on the couch a few feet away. I was watching him and took note of his breathing. The brain is an amazing thing. It regulates the beating of our hearts, processes signals sent by nerves and is “programmed” to continue our breathing when we are not doing it ourselves. Are we to believe that this happened as an organic process of evolution? Did the evolution of species from microscopic organisms to human involve the self-education and self-programming of the brain? How did our brains learn these things on their own?

Another matter is the beginning of life itself. Not even considering the evolutionist’s argument that we came from amoeba to human being, how did the single-celled organisms that are claimed to have begun the evolutionary process gain life? Think about it, if no life exists and some cosmic event occurs, like a big explosion (i.e. the “Big Bang” theory), how did a bunch of matter with no life present in it suddenly (and without explanation) have life exist after said matter hurtled through space, or by smashing into itself? How can life come from matter that contains no life? And how did all of this lifeless matter come to exist? Does there not need to be life at the start for lifeless matter to exist (i.e. life matter dies and becomes lifeless)?

Finally, and similar to my initial point about the brain, how can the most basic and simple of life forms (single-celled organisms) evolve into intelligent forms? A single-celled organism has no ability toward cognative thought. How then did the process of evolution go from that to human beings and our mysterious and magnificent brains? At some point the organism would have had to realize what evolutionary changes were needed to survive, but how could this happen if the organism was unable to collect and process thoughts? If you apply too much heat or cold to a single-celled organism it will die. Evolutionists would have us believe that at some point these single-celled organisms developed the ability to either withstand or counter extremes of heat and/or cold. How? The organism wasn’t able to rationalize what was killing it, let alone how to adapt to it in order to stay alive.

I believe that the so-called crackpots are the evolutionists. But, if it makes them feel intellectually superior to subscribe to their theories then I’m willing to let them have their fun. As for me, I’ll continue to believe what God said. That, after all, makes immensely more sense.

18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

21For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22Professing to be wise, they became fools, {Romans 1:18-22}

Who we worship

Did you watch the Oscars last night? Frankly, I loathe all of the various award shows. They are nothing more than a group of people getting together to praise each other, smooch each other and elevate themselves in the process. They are overtly superficial. However, Americans seem to love this stuff. We eat up what some actor or actress has to say on the red carpet. Oh, and let’s not overlook the whole red carpet thing either. It used to be something done solely for royalty. Now our celebrities have adopted it. We want to know “who you’re wearing”, or who will show up as someone’s date for the event, or whose acting work will win the award, and so on. I wonder, “Who cares?”

I decided to compare how we tend to worship celebrities. Let’s start with how they flaunt themselves:

What is saving faith?

I receive a daily e-mail from the Berean Bible Society. Yesterday’s message was titled the same as this post, and it addresses the question of what saving faith is. Here is the content of the message I received:

“What saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (Rom.4:3).

The Apostle Paul uses the above quotation from Genesis 15:6 to prove that “to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom.4:5).

It is wonderful that God does not require — indeed, does not permit — human works for salvation, but only faith. But the question is: What is faith? What kind of believing saves?

There is no indication in Scripture that “the gospel of the grace of God” or “the preaching of the cross” was proclaimed to Abraham. We must go back to the passage which Paul quotes to see what Abraham believed. Genesis 15:5 says:

“And [God] took [Abraham] forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell [count] the stars, if thou be able to number [count] them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be.” It is this simple, wonderful promise about the multiplication of Abraham’s seed which is followed with the words: “And he believed in the Lord; and He counted [reckoned] it to him for righteousness” (Ver.6). We do not mean to imply that this was the first expression of Abraham’s faith, for in Hebrews 11:8 we read:

“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”

This took place considerably before the Genesis 15 incident and we are specifically told that through his faith he “obtained a good report” (Heb.11:2).

From all this it is clear that Abraham believed what God told him and was counted righteous — as we now know, through a redemption still to be wrought by Christ. We, now, must believe what God tells us — and this is nothing less than the account of the all-sufficient finished work of Christ, wrought in our behalf, on Calvary’s cross.

“[He] was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom.4:25). {by Cornelius Stam}

A tale of two kings

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Okay, apologies to Dickens, but it fits the content of this post. Let us look at the biblical record of two Judean kings and examine how they pleased or displeased God.

More kid stuff and a special Bible verse

I was just upstairs in the boys’ room to see what Noah (4, our youngest) was up to. He was playing with little action figures that appear to be ultra-modern firefighters. One has a flashlight clipped onto his helmet, which is common among firefighters. Noah didn’t recognize it as a flashlight so I told him it was. The figure is also wearing a mask and breathing apparatus. Noah proceeded to tell me the figure was a deep sea diver and he used his flashlight to, “…hunt sharks, whales and fish”.

What would Jesus do?

What a wonderful weekend! Last Tuesday I had a badly inflammed disk in my back. Wednesday I went to the chiropractor and learned that I’d done the worst thing I could do for that on Tuesday night–I used a heating pad. So, I got one of those incredibly handy (when you need one) gel packs from him that can be microwaved for heat, or frozen for use as a cold pack. I froze it and applied it hourly all of Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday I was notably better and on Saturday the discomfort was tolerable. Plus, my parents took the kids for the weekend! So, we went out on a date last night with our best friends. In case you are wondering I had seared shrimp and scallops over angel hair pasta in a white wine Alfredo sauce. It was magnificent! The cesaer salad was very good and the cup of creamed chicken with asparagus (with portabella mushrooms) was delicious (and good for dunking the dinner rolls into as well). Plus, since this was a planned date night for us, we each got a massage from a massage therepist Saturday morning. My first-ever massage, and I now understand why people rave about them. But I digress.