Adam and the Animals

When God made Adam He placed him in the Garden of Eden and brought all the animals to him.  Adam named them and had the benefit of their company.  But that wasn’t enough. God saw that Adam, even with all the animals of the Garden, was alone. 

We live in an age where society practically worships animals.  We glibly say, “Dogs are people, too” or “Cats are people, too”.  That is attributing to them a far higher rank than God gave them.  Even in the unfallen state of creation there was a gap between man and beast.  I have a dog and two cats.  I am very fond of them.  On my desk is a picture of my dog, Molly, and it is in a frame that says, “I love my dog”.  I do, of course, love my dog.  You can read all about her in my book The Gospel According to Molly and in my twice weekly blog about her found on my website.  But as much as I love her, she is still a dog.

After Adam’s sin God tells us in Romans that man began to turn affection for the animals He had created into a foolish religious system.  Man began to worship the creature more than the Creator.  They made images of all manner of beasts.  Even the Israelites fell into that sin and made a golden calf while in the wilderness.  “There,” Aaron said, “is your god.”  In our society today there are many who take that statement quite literally.  In their thinking man is corrupt and animals are perfect.  Man should be, in their theology, subject to the needs of animals.  This is paganism pure and simple. 

God’s comment to Adam was that the creatures were to be subject to him.  When we reverse God’s truth on this point we lose our spiritual perspective of truth.  God created order and that order begins with Him.  He then passed authority to man over His creation.  To put animals above man is to usurp God’s authority in the first place.  That is the theology that Satan, in the form of the serpent, used to bring about man’s fall.  Eve believed that the creature, the serpent, was right and not God.  We must not join Eve in letting God’s order get out of order. It is not creation that we are to worship, but with all creation we are to give true worship to God.  Let us sing with David this song of worship from Psalm 8.

You made man to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; You have put all things under his feet: sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas.  O LORD our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!

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Faith for the New Age

The mantra of our modern society is that faith is either a dead concept or one that is on old age life support.  After all, they say, we have moved beyond the mythology of prehistoric civilizations.  The definition of that is “anything before the internet age”.  We live in an age which is being seduced by the same falsehood that Satan offered Eve in the Garden. That we can be as smart as God was false then and still false today.  So in a day when the leading denominational brand is “no spiritual interest”, how do we communicate that faith is still alive and well and relevant.

First we can face the fact this is not a new phenomena.  Faith had reached a very, very low ebb in America just after the War of Independence.  Just sixty years after the Great Awakening that had spurred a tremendous national revival, America’s schools once founded to train preachers were almost devoid of any Christian presence.  It may seem hard to believe that at the turn of the century between 1700 and 1800 it was considered dangerous to be a professing Christian on American college campuses, but it’s true.  The doctrine of humanism had overtaken the thinking of the young and upwardly mobile American.  Within in the next ten years, however, America was once again in the grip of a major national revival.  So, first, we don’t say the sky is falling and hide in despair.

Secondly we consider how the sky didn’t fall.  I think that would be rather important.  It didn’t fall because God’s word is true.  One man began to preach boldly in the midst of all the opposition and simply preached Christ.  Our churches today have abandoned Christ as nearly irrelevant and society has taken notice.  We replace Christ with the gospel of prosperity (God wants us all rich and healthy), the gospel of biblical mediocrity (maybe or maybe not the Bible is true), the gospel of biblical irrelevance (the Bible is not true but we should still go to church), the gospel of false expectations (God wants the lost to live better lives than Christians), the gospel of antagonism (God hates your filthy guts and doesn’t want you around) and the gospel of self acceptance (be happy that you are god). 

What we have not clearly preached is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That is the gospel story of sin’s condemnation and God’s forgiveness in Christ.  It is the Gospel of hope that was preached by the apostles and resulted in the world being turned upside down.  It is the Gospel message of Law and Grace.  It has always changed the world and it always will.  We don’t need to refine our message for a new day; we need to preach the original message for all days.

Christ is the hope that shines so bright, shines like a beacon in darkest night

Christ is the hope that shouts forgiven, erases the debt that sin has given

Christ is the hope that says, “I care”, to those filled with doubt, false hope, despair

Christ is the hope that is so dear, to the lost and lone o’ercome with fear

Christ is the hope who died for men that trusting hearts may be born again

Christ is the saving hope for all who believing at His feet will fall

  The Friday Benediction

Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop you with His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in the holy Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be enriched with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend.  Amen

 

For quality inspirational, educational, and fictional Christian books visit www.davidccraig.net

Victorious Faith

How many adjectives can we use to describe the profound blessings of faith in our lives?  We could start making lists and find the answer to be a lot.  Some of our answers would be synonymous with others and some would reveal promises we may not have yet explored.  Colossians 2:6 is one of my favorite verses.  It says simply, “As you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him.”  We received Him by faith.  We trusted what God said and moved by the Holy Spirit, we responded and believed in Christ.  Now we are to walk by faith.  Still, it is a matter of believing what God has said, and being convinced of the same by the Holy Spirit, we walk in faith of the promises given.  

One kind of faith that we need to believe God provides is victorious faith.  In I John 5:4 John wrote, “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.”  Paul shared in I Corinthians 15 that faith gives us victory over death.  John told us in Revelation 15 that faith gives us victory over the devil.  When we stop to consider all the areas covered by victory over the world, the devil and death, we begin to see great promise in our life for victory in so many situations that we encounter daily.  I John 2 tells us that our three great enemies are the world, the flesh and the devil.  Since our flesh cries out for immortality, the victory over death also covers victory over the flesh. 

When we are tempted by the world, the flesh and the devil, we can respond by saying that Jesus overcame these three enemies.  I am in Jesus.  Therefore I can overcome these three enemies.  That is placing our faith in Him, not in us.  That is walking by faith in this one area of victory.  But we don’t always say that do we?  We give in and upon reflection and conviction we know we shouldn’t have.  Then we have guilt.  Faith gives us the victory over guilt as well.  Jesus Christ is alive.  He promises forgiveness that is absolutely complete.  We can confess our sin and know that we are washed completely from it.  There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, wrote Paul.  So we have the victory over Satan’s accusations by faith in the promises of God.  What a grand thing is victorious faith. 

John Yates wrote the hymn “Faith is the Victory”.  Sing with confidence these lines.

Encamped along the hills of light, ye Christian soldiers rise, and press the battle ere the night shall veil the glowing skies. Against the foe in vales below let all our strength be hurled; faith is the victory, we know, that overcomes the world.  Faith is the victory! Faith is the victory! O glorious victory that overcomes the world.

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Confident Faith

“I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”  (2 Tim. 1:12)  Paul was in prison.  He had been sentenced to death for preaching Christ.  He wanted to impart some last minute words of wisdom to his son in the faith, Timothy.  This is what he said to him, “I know Christ and I know that I am His now and forever.”  Paul was not shaking with fear.  He was confident with faith.  He had already told the Philippians that “to die is gain”, so he wasn’t living in dread of what awaited him.  What awaited him was Christ. 

For the next 300 years after Paul’s death there were massive persecutions against Christians for their faith.  Some were spread across the entire Roman Empire and some were more localized with fanatical anti-Christian governors venting their hatred of Christ.  What amazed the world was their reaction to being murdered for Christ’s sake.  Stories are told of people being converted while watching the martyrs sing their way into eternity.  They had confident faith. 

One thousand years later the cycle began again in earnest.  The followers of Wycliffe were persecuted in England.  The followers of Huss were persecuted in Czechoslovakia.  One hundred years later the western world was shaken by the teachings of Martin Luther and a full century and a half of persecution against Christians was launched.  The death and destruction of those years was enormous, but the singing that came out of them is rich in faith.  It is confident faith in a sure Redeemer.  It is the absolute confession of Paul, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”

One hymn of the Reformation that resonates with confidence in Christ is “Jesus Christ, My Sure Defense”.   It is dated shortly after the Thirty Years War that finally assured freedom for the Protestant faith in northern Europe.  Take hope in these words of confident faith.

Laugh to scorn the gloomy grave and at death no longer tremble;

He, the Lord, who came to save will at last His own assemble.

   They will go their Lord to meet, treading death beneath their feet.  

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Hold Fast the Faith

I went to school a long time.  A long, long time to be exact.  I had hoped when I graduated from kindergarten that I was finished with school.  As I have mentioned before, perhaps often, I hated school.  I would have happily been done after kindergarten, but alas, the state and my parents said no.  What that means in the short story version is that I had to have nightmares for many years.  They started young and kept on going well into graduate school.  It was the last day of the year and I couldn’t find my classroom.  I didn’t know the assignment.  I wasn’t ready for the test!  I would fail! 

To finish my master’s and doctorate degrees I decided to take them by extension.  There were no classrooms to find.  The nightmares stopped.  The test taking didn’t stop, but the nightmares did.  Fortunately there were a lot more papers to write, though, and fewer tests to take.  I like to write.  It’s easy-peasy for me to take a class requiring writing.  Test anxiety is a real problem for many people.  As a school teacher I tried to be alert to those who visibly suffered from the disorder and give them alternatives to the test. 

But life is full of tests.  They are certainly a different kind of test than the kind that requires someone to know the Plantagenet kings in order.  Tests do exist, however, in all manner of ways in life.  Our patience can be tried by children, employees or bosses, the long lines at the store or bad drivers.  Our endurance can be tested by our sergeants, our trainers, our employers and others.  Our honesty can be tested by the absolutely unclear directions on tax forms.  We may end up breaking under the strain of some of these tests and responding incorrectly to the demands placed upon us. 

There is one kind of test that really is, however, good for us.  It is the testing of our faith.  The testing of our faith works patience and peace in our lives.  It doesn’t always work those things at that particular time, but it will pay off later.  As we go along in life and find new and different tests to confront our lives, the patience and peace learned in the past will sustain us in the floods to come and all the tests that confront us each day.  Ambrose wrote this hymn of exultant faith 1600 years ago.  It is still true today. 

’Twas thus the yearning faith of saints, the unconquered hope that never faints,

The love of Christ that knows not shame, the prince of this world overcame.

In these the Father’s glory shone; in these the will of God the Son;

In these exults the Holy Ghost; through these rejoice the heavenly host.

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Faith that Works

Are we prepared to see faith at work all the time?  Is faith for Sundays or special days, or is faith for everyday.  Solomon said that there is a time for this and a time for that.  Is the same true for faith?  This was the topic chosen by one of our young people as they presented their essays at confirmation. I told her I would borrow her idea for a daily devotion, and here it is. 

The answer that far too many people give to the question of when faith is at work is the wrong answer.  Far too many see faith life as Sunday and special days.  They have put their lives into little compartments and faith is let out right on schedule each week.  But after being aired for a brief season of worship, it is placed back into its cubicle and left there until the next “faith” exercise comes into play. 

God, on the other hand, tells us to walk by faith.  That means that faith cannot be put away and taken out at appropriate times.  Whenever we are awake then our faith should be at work.  As we looked at two weeks ago, it can also be at work when we sleep.  We can place our confident faith in God as we lie down and then sleep in faith the whole night through.  But while we are in our waking moments we are never to let our faith life sleep.

Each moment of each day we are confronted by various trials and temptations.  Satan does not sleep. He is after Christ’s flock to devour them at all times.  But he doesn’t work alone.  We also face our other two prime enemies: the world and the flesh.  How to overcome this triune assault of evil is impossible in our own strength.  That is why we are called upon to walk by faith.  We need to trust that God is able to deliver us and faithfully call upon Him to do so.  We must believe that God desires to direct us and call upon Him to do so.  We must constantly believe that God is always ready to forgive us and call upon Him to do so.  These are matters of faith and we need it to be active and alive each moment of each day.  When is the time for faith?  It is all the time.  Try this new paraphrase of the old song found in Ecclesiastes 3. 

There is a time for everything which God in grace ordains

A time to live and love and die, a time to lose and gain

A time to weep a time to laugh, a time to sow and reap

But in all the times from God’s great hand, it’s time for faith to keep

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Everybody Sing Praise

I know a lady who has been one of the most effective soul winners I have ever met.  Her secret isn’t some clever or well practiced “sales” pitch for Jesus.  She hasn’t developed a technique that she can package and sell.  She uses the technique of those who lived in the first century of the church and saw the world turned “upside down” by the Gospel.  That was the view, anyway, of the heathen world as recorded in Acts 17.  What really happened was that God, through the ministry of the Church, was righting the sinking ship of mankind. 

So, what was their methodology?  What is this lady’s methodology?  It is the simple way of praise.  When you meet her and ask how things are going, she always answers, “I’m just praising the Lord.”  Now there is an opening.  Nobody else seems to be praising the Lord.  Everyone else is grousing or crying or listening to too much negative talk radio.  She, on the other hand, is praising the Lord. 

There are two reactions.  One is negative.  Let me get out of here; this lady is crazy.  The other is quite the opposite.  Why, people ask her, are you praising the Lord?  Now think about this for a moment, what would your answer be?  She will often ask them if they have a minute to hear the answer.  If they do she will tell them then.  If they don’t and are willing to hear the full explanation, she will set up an appointment to meet them in their home or over coffee.  Then what would you tell them?  She tells them the Gospel.  She tells them that Jesus Christ has died and her sins are forgiven.  She tells them that since her sins are forgiven she has the best friend in the whole world who is with her each day.  She tells them that she has the certainty of an eternal home in heaven and that is why, no matter what life is like on earth, she is praising the Lord. 

All that blessing in her life comes from one phrase, “I’m just praising the Lord.”  Perhaps if more Christians were praising the Lord instead of crying in their beer or vilifying their opponents, more of the Gospel message would be heard and believed.  John Peterson wrote a simple praise chorus that calls upon us to live and give this clear testimony of praise, “Everybody Sing Praise to the Lord!”

Everybody sing praise to the Lord, everybody sing praise to the Lord,

Everybody sing praise to the Lord, for He is so wonderful!

  The Friday Benediction

Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop you with His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in the holy Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be enriched with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend.  Amen

 

For quality inspirational, educational, and fictional Christian books visit www.davidccraig.net