The Lord’s return
I am sure we realize the signs of the end are being quickly fulfilled, and the time of our Lord’s return is at hand! It is with great urgency that I would like to remind ourselves, that now more than ever is the time for us to make our calling and election sure. We have to watch and pray: now is not the time to be distracted! Now is not the time to be sitting around idle! Now is the time that we should be busying ourselves in the Lord’s work. We should be about our Father’s business. We, like the children of Israel who were about to leave Egypt, are to eat the Passover with haste, with our loins girded, and our shoes on our feet and a staff in our hand. (Exod 12:11). There is no time to waste!
I have come to realize that the fundamental things about the Bible are sometimes missed when we are too busy slicing and dissecting intricate details. There is a lot of benefit in looking at the big picture, like a bird’s eye view of things. If we do this we will notice some fundamental principles.
Firstly, there is only one God and besides Him there is no other. When we recognize and understand this fundamental principle we will quickly realize that since there is one God then it means that we have all sinned and are in need of salvation. The intention is that we must then be humble when we understand that we cannot save ourselves, no matter how righteous we think we are. We will then see Jesus as the only way of salvation, and this will bring about the humility that the Lord seeks from us. Pride is abominable in God’s sight, as I’m sure we already know. Think about it: God made us out of dirt. Not sure how much lower he could have made us. I suspect the point again is for us to humble ourselves.
We recognize that we desperately need salvation. God has provided for our need by sending His one and only Son to die, to declare His righteousness as the basis on which He will forgive our sins. As we have read and know, the principle is that by the death of a sinless man, God is shown to be righteous, while at the same time He is forgiving of our iniquities, transgressions and sins. By Christ’s perfect obedience we can be reconciled to God.
Secondly, God is a savior. What does that mean? God’s underlying ‘modus operandi’ is to save us: that’s the strategic objective. Why is this important? It is important because it should be our objective as well, because we are to be about our Father’s business. This means that we should approach our preaching efforts with the mindset of saving others as the core objective. This means that we don’t say or do things that will chase away people before they even start coming to the meeting. As they say, if we do that, we may have won the battle but lost the war. We are to know time and judgement; there is a time and a place for everything and we have to know when to speak and when to keep silent. It must be seen in our words and actions that we are children of God. This should be even more obvious now as the world continues to decline morally. Even the United States Supreme Court has already declared that the court is going to make it a matter of applying the constitution to allow same sex marriages. We don’t have to look very far to see that our society has hit dirt bottom. We have to watch and pray, for indeed the days are evil. We must not allow ourselves be deceived by what we see. There is the normal opinion that we are an advanced society, and that we are living in modern times, which many say justifies certain evil beliefs and practices. We are not immune: we have to be careful that we do not allow the beliefs and practices of the world to creep into our ecclesia and into our personal lives. We have to watch and pray as we see the day approaching. Who would have thought that topics such as evolution would be a problem or even considered to be true among Christadelphians? We are supposed to be different! We are to be a peculiar people unto our God. We must not try to blend in. It must be even more obvious that we are Christians now more than ever. We should not have to tell anyone that we are Christians: it should be obvious. We must not bring shame to the name of Christ.
God is love. This is telling us that the thing that drives our Lord’s actions is love. We may slice and dice Christ’s crucifixion and look at all the gruesome details, but we run the risk of missing the key point that is at the center of it all. God’s love is shown for all to see in that He sent His only begotten Son to die for us. Also seen is Jesus’s willing cooperation with our Father’s will in following through with it. The love of the Father and His Son is seen in Christ’s sacrifice. Also, it is not just that Jesus died for wretched sinners as we are, it’s also the way he died. It was a horrific and painful death; of which none of us are worthy as we already know. Personally, when I see Christ’s death it helps me a lot, and gives me hope that no matter how bad my sins are/were and no matter how far I may feel I have fallen, that God still loves me, and that He is more than willing to forgive me. This point cannot be stressed enough: God allowed His Only Son to die the way he did to send a message that God will do what it takes to save us; that He really loves us and that He wants us to live. It is written in Ezekiel the prophet “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” (Ezek 18:23).
Retrospection
It is a good time now more than ever to take stock of our lives. We should look into ourselves especially as we are about to partake of the emblems. It is always good to be introspective. We remember Nehemiah, how he assessed and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. He was facing opposition from Sanballat and Tobias who hindered the work of rebuilding Jerusalem. We will notice that Sanballat and Tobias’ tactic was to have the Jews of Nehemiah’s time trade with them and intermarry with them. The intention was for the Jews to just cease from being peculiar and special, but to just blend in with them and then eventually disappear. This Nehemiah vigorously opposed:
“In those days also saw I [Nehemiah] Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves” (Neh 13:23-25).
We can draw valuable lessons from this. The obvious point is that we must be in the world but not of the world. We must not have the same beliefs and practices of those in the world. We must also assess ourselves to see if we are adopting the stance of the world as they oppose that of Christ and of God. We have to pay attention:
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).
There was a song I used to hear on the radio back in the 90’s that said ‘In the end only kindness matters’. So we are to show kindness whenever and wherever we can. We are not Gnostics: knowledge of itself does not save us. It is my understanding that when we study to show ourselves approved, we are actually learning how to think and act the way God wants us to think and act. The intention is that we will begin to do things that are acceptable in God’s sight. We will most importantly, develop the right attitude. Attitude is everything. I believe that attitude makes all the difference. We recall Christ’s words about the judgement seat and the separation of the sheep from the goats. It would appear that the sheep and the goats were both doing what we may call good works. However, the sheep were accepted and goats were not. The only conclusion there can be is that the goats did not have the right attitude. We have to pray for our Lord to guide us and counsel us in this so that we may by his grace develop the right attitude.
We have to make sure that we have moved beyond the academic knowledge. When we say that we love God, and that we love Jesus, and that we worship and adore our Lord and how awesome he is, it should be from deep within our hearts. It should not be something we say because we are commanded to do so, or that we may be under threat of being cursed or death if we do not. We should thoughtfully do so and mean it. If we look closely, it is evident that God gave us freewill, with the power to choose whether or not we are going to love, obey, worship, adore appreciate Him and His Son for all he has done for us. He could have made us ‘pre-programmed’ as it were to do all of the things He wants us to do. I can only imagine, since I am not the Almighty, that He desires that we do these things of our own volition and not because we are made to do it or even forced to do them. Love is not real if there isn’t the option to not love. Likewise obedience is not real if there isn’t the ability to disobey. Similarly praise is not effectual without choice. Again, I can only imagine that making us without choice would probably be like having automatons. I suspect that God wants us to do all of these things not because we have to, but because we want to.
The Lord’s supper
Some more thoughts for us to consider as we prepare our minds to partake of the Lord’s supper. We all recognize how much we have been forgiven of past sins. We all recognize our need for ongoing forgiveness. We all recognize that we are not good people who sin from time to time, but that we are sinners who are being reckoned as righteous because we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Doing a lot of what we might call ‘good works’ does not make us righteous, it is our association with Jesus and our belief in his sacrifice that makes us righteous. This is very important because if we begin to believe that we are righteous because of the works that we have done over the years then we have a big problem. Christ’s sacrifice loses its efficacy. His death becomes of none effect! People in the world do not understand this point. They believe that if they give away billions to charity that that will of itself make them righteous; but not so with God. He requires that we understand that there is none righteous, no not one. He has provided a means by which He will consider us righteous, which is by belief in His Son and our Lord Jesus Christ and baptism. We are reminded of this fact when we partake of the emblems.
God went to great lengths and at great cost to Himself in providing a means of salvation for us. He has forgiven us of a whole multitude of sins for which we are extremely grateful. When God forgives us He closes the book with regards to the sins that were committed in the past. God is very serious when it comes to forgiveness. In fact, not forgiving others is a sin in which God will reopen the books that were closed and visit His wrath on those who have themselves been forgiven but who refuse to forgive others. I am sure we remember well the parable of the two servants where one was forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents. He straightway went to another servant and demanded 100 pence. When the other servant couldn’t pay back the 100 pence he had the other servant thrown into prison. When the Lord of the servants heard of it it made him very angry. We are told “And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him” (Matt 18:21-35). The point is clear: if we are not willing to forgive one another of relatively small things then our Lord will not forgive us of our sins. In fact, he will visit the consequences of old sins on us too. To bring this more into focus, we can see the order of magnitude when we compare ten thousand talents with 100 pence. I have heard it said that ten thousand talents adjusted for inflation would be worth many millions of dollars today1, which would be quite impossible for the unforgiving servant to pay back. While on the other hand 100 pence would be equivalent to about a few months’ pay for an average person. The point that is being made is that the unforgiving servant was forgiven a debt that there was no way he could have paid it back. He in turn refused to forgive a debt that could have been paid back relatively easily. We must recognize that what God has done for us through Jesus In forgiving us of our sins, which is a debt that we cannot dream of paying back. We must appreciate this fact and it should encourage us to forgive one another of the relatively little and insignificant things that they may have done to us.
Forgiveness
We may not realize this, but not forgiving others is in fact a sin! Just like being ungrateful; not appreciating all the goodness and the mercy that God has bestowed upon us.
If we purpose in our hearts that we are not going to forgive someone of whatever word or deed that may have done to us, then we might as well stay home and watch the football game or whatever show is on television, because it would be pointless to come to the meeting. It is a very serious thing that the Lord God will not tolerate. That is what our Lord Jesus was saying: “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses” (Mark 11:25-26). This point is made in many times and in many ways in Scripture.
We are encouraged to produce fruit in season and out of season. That is to say, when it is convenient and when it is not convenient. We must not make any excuses! This applies on both a group level as well as at a personal level. As an ecclesia, we should always be busy doing our Father’s business. This includes not only preaching but the things that are needful and are consistent with the overall strategy and purpose of saving men and women. We should be looking for creative and innovative ways to reach out to the people who we come in contact with or those with whom we interact, or even to go out into the communities and seek those that are lost. Perhaps God will grant them repentance. We should go out of our way, even when if it means leaving our comfort zone in order to reach out to people in the world that need our help. Our Lord has extended His lovingkindness and His tender mercies to us. And we must reciprocate this love to others.
We should also bear fruit on a personal level as well. We are to display the fruit of the Spirit. We are already familiar with the doings of the Spirit: “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal 5:22,23). If we exhibit these good qualities then we will be acceptable in the day of the Lord’s coming. If we are not exhibiting these qualities then there is cause for concern. We have to examine ourselves and pray that our Lord will help us to develop the mind of the Spirit, a Christ-like mind which is precious in God’s sight.
We remember the mercy that was shown to us when our God called us out of the world of darkness and sin, from Egypt as it were, into His marvelous light. It is most definitely not because we are good or anything like that, but because of His love, and His mercy, and for His own name’s sake He has done this. We see and remember the love shown to us in partaking of the emblems, the bread and the wine which are symbols of Christ’s body and his blood.
The bread signifies that we have been made a part of the body of Christ. The wine symbolizes that we are sharing in Christ’s life. With this in mind it should motivate us to walk in a way that is acceptable in God’s sight. We should say and do the things that are pleasing to Our Lord (which by the way includes our activities on Facebook).
We remember Christ’s sacrifice once a week. We do show his death until he come. Again we are counselled to watch and pray for the time of the end of the age is upon us. We must make ourselves ready. He is even at the door. May we all hear those wonderful words:
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One