not just destroyed but removed from memory

Zechariah 13:2 “And on that day, declares the LORD of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. And also I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness. “

How easily good things can become idols. We may find ourselves loving our idols for years. They may become so precious to us that we find it hard to live without them. They are our saviors from whatever our hell is. Perhaps they save us from such hells as boredom, anxiety, isolation, poverty, loneliness, etc.

On that day our idols will not only be destroyed, but actually removed from the memory of all people. “On that day” is not a certain time; perhaps it was soon after it was prophesied, perhaps it is at the return of the Lord, perhaps is is now or perhaps it is all three.

I have experienced a removing of idols in my life. The Lord has removed desire and love for idols that I have once cherished and he has granted repentance to me, in his mercy. Do you have good things that you love. Are they saving you from a pseudo hell? Call out to the Lord for his grace to you today. See the vanity in idolatry: how meaningless to invest your treasure in that which will be forever forgotten.

Jars of Clay be encouraged!

2 Corinthians 4

⁴The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

 ⁷But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

 God doesn’t use beautiful flasks to house His fragrance.
He has chosen to put the treasure of His fragrance in clay pots.
He uses earthen vessels, not the fine china. He takes simple clay pots and fills them with His glory. Fragile and flawed, cracked and leaky clay pots are His choice vessels.

He uses clay pots so He alone can get the glory.

Most of the time these old pots have to be broken before they emit the sweet fragrance of His grace. God does it through the pressures that come in our lives.

The apostle Paul writes: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (4:8-10, KJV).

The NASB reads, “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also maybe manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (4:8-11).

God’s power is perfected in our weaknesses. When we die, He lives. When we lose, He wins. When we are weak, He is strong. When we are dependent, He is powerful. When we are tempted, He is triumphant.  

 

(excerpt from www.abideinchrist.com )

Offended by a Gospel tract

Yesterday Bradley posted this comment on this blog in response to receiving one of our tracts. We are always happy to have the kind of discussion that he requested. I have move the comment to its own post, so it’s easier for people to find. Well we should start with Bradley’s comment – here it is:

I find your material not only offensive, but not at all, that is the message you are purporting to bring, in the spirit of christianity. For example, I was walking through the Murray St Mall recently, when a pleasant enough women handed me a small piece of paper – your message – stating that I (1). have sinned (2) will spend eternity (because of my sin) in hell, and(3).conveniently enough, if I accept certain conditions and adjustments I may be fortunate enough to be forgiven (for what I do not know?) by some omnipotent entity who you are, apparently, on very familiar terms with.
Now I would like to respond, does any sane person truly believe (1). if some all-knowing etc entity was in fact able to remove all my supposed sin, that he may have, in the first instance, thus created a people, in his own image nonetheless (mind boggling stuff again, but more on this later), that were a little nicer, so they did not in fact require their sins to admonished?
Good point say I. Your material, which was handed to me in a public place, I find analogous to pornography. That is, I would not want my children to read it or to try and interpret it’s message. The implications resemble a horror movie (rated R or X) and as such should not be on public display.
Thus I find your actions reprehensible, irresponsible and worse yet, the conclusions one can draw from such material, may cause physical harm – in this world – which is the only world anyone has every spoken of with any authoritative and first hand experential knowledge.

Please respond, as I am interested in debating this topic further.
So, as all matters concerning human interests, which to your mind are the most pressing, please do (respond and debate) through the site so it (the debate) is in the public domain, so others who may not yet be fully committed to to your religious ideology, have an opportunity in which they can hear other, and as equally coherent, views expressed.

This should not be an issue, since if one is convinced in their belief, then there will be little I could say or do to change it. However, if they are not yet totally convinced, then we have equal opportunity to convince them one way or the other; that is , to convince them otherwise.

Kind Regards
Bradley

Bradley I am sorry that you are offended by the Good News (Gospel) of Jesus Christ. I want all people everywhere to receive Jesus as their King and Saviour, but I also know from scripture that this is not going to happen. I am sad, but not surprised, when someone finds the Gospel offensive.

The bible teaches that we all are rebels against God from birth. We are dead in our sins against a Holy God. We desperatly need God to have grace and mercy towards us and to shine His light into our blind condition. It is impossible for us to get right with God through our own effort – we need to be saved.

In your first paragraph you intimated that you have an appreciation of Christianity. What do you think the Christian message should be?

Popular pseudo-Christian Idolatry

Isaiah 55v8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Deuteronomy 4v16-18 “Beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.”

Idolatry is loving/worshipping/serving any good/bad thing that is not God. To identify your idol, just consider the thing(s) that you think about late at night; honestly reflect on what/whom the true affections of your heart are dedicated to. It is also possible to think we have come to know God, but to instead be worshipping a god of our own or another’s imagination. One current fast selling book, The Shack, presents an idolatrous image of God in the likeness of male and female people.

Visited by Timothies

Josh, Angela, Georgie and myself have all been greatly encouraged by a visit from a great group of guys from South Australia, the Timothy Fellowship. Thanks Daniel, Nathaniel, Nathin and Chris for your encouragement and passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You have refreshed us in every way, welcome any time!

If you want to catch up with the guys from Timothy, check out their blog.

Oops, would have been great to have gotten a photo to share in this post, but we were too busy talking about the things of God, our concern for His Church and the proclamation of the gospel. I personally feel reignited to engage in street evangelism and blogging, but to always keep my steady preoccupation upon Jesus Christ.

Tell the Truth about monergism.com ;)

It was wonderful to get our ‘monergism’ from the postman today. We were amazed that it was so quick, maybe less than a week from USA to Australia. What a great ministry! We ordered some brilliant books, including 2 evangelism manuals, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, by Mark Dever and Tell the Truth by Will Metzger.

Had a quick flick through both and I’m excited to have these amazing practical evangelism books in my hot little hands. One diagram from Metzger’s weighty book jumped out at me as I flicked through it. There is, of course, a detailed explanation of the diagram in the book but its something interesting to think about:

The Salvation of All Men, by John Calvin

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For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior: Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 2:3-5

When read out of its context, 1 Timothy 2:2-5 is an Arminian manifesto. But here Calvin clearly puts it into some context for us – its all types of men – not just the one chosen people (the jews) that the then Church was familiar with. It puts a smile on my face when I read about the great hope we have in reaching out to all sorts of people – even elderly people that might be as tough as an old boot; yes even this sort of person can, with God’s regenerating work, respond to the gospel. There is hope that all sorts of people will respond to the gospel. 

When we despise those whom God would have honored, it is as much as if we should despise Him: so it is, if we make no account of the salvation of those whom God calleth to Himself. For it seemeth thereby that we would stay Him from showing His mercy to poor sinners, who are in the way to ruin. The reason why St. Paul useth this argument, that God will have all the world to be saved, is that we may, as much as lieth in us, also seek the salvation of those who seem to be banished from the kingdom of God; especially while they are unbelievers.

Tell the truth

In thinking of witnessing, we have to walk between a narrow and a broad definition. Narrowly defined, witnessing is confined to a rehearsal of a few gospel facts in the hearing of a nonbeliever. Broadly defined, it is whatever we do as Christians before the watching world. Neither of these definitions is satisfactory. The first narrows witness to only our lips; the second broadens it to just being nice. Both our words and our ways are inextricably bound together in witness. It is easy to excuse ourselves by saying either “Well, I told her the gospel!” or “I just live my life before others.” These two extremes
seem to have developed more in reaction to each other than on any biblical basis. What might be a more balanced view?

The main design for each man and woman is not “to be a super soul-winner night and day.” As the Westminster Catechism says, it is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” This means that we, as whole people, are to enjoy God, starting now, and keep his honor in focus in all that we do.
Clearly the way we live is a primary aspect of our witness. Yet our life is to be coupled with telling God’s truth. People need to be told who makes our lives different. Our lives, then, will illuminate the truth we express to nonbelievers. The airplane of Christian witness has two wings: our lives (conduct) and our lips (conversation).

To remain silent and let others interpret our actions is wrong; God himself did not do this. The pivotal points of God’s redemptive action in history are accompanied with verbal revelation. God wants us to understand the meaning of his actions. Likewise, we must speak—and speak of Christ— even if we sense our own inconsistency of life. We must speak even when
we do not know much about the Bible. We must speak even when it is inconvenient.
God is bigger than our sins, our ignorance, our pride. He will honor his word in our mouths.

Idolatry

I ordinarily begin speaking about sin to a young, urban, non-Christian like this:

Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry.

Why is this a good path to take?

First, this definition of sin includes a group of people that postmodern people are acutely aware of. Postmodern people rightly believe that much harm has been done by self-righteous religious people. If we say “sin is breaking God’s law” without a great deal of further explanation, it appears that the Pharisaical people they have known are ‘in’ and most other people are ‘out.’ Pharisees, of course, are quite fastidious in their keeping of the moral law, and therefore (to the hearer) they seem to be the very essence of what a Christian should be. An emphasis on idolatry avoids this problem. As Luther points out, Pharisees, while not bowing to literal idols, were looking to themselves and their moral goodness for their justification, and therefore they were actually breaking the first commandment. Their morality was self-justifying motivation and therefore spiritually pathological. At the bottom of all their law-keeping they were actually breaking the most fundamental law of all. When we give definitions and descriptions of sin to postmodern people, we must do so in a way that not only challenges prostitutes to change but also Pharisees.

Another “Unpopular” Promise of Sin’s Consequences

Just sharing a short devotional thought from Hoekstra. Being reminded about the ultimate reality of eternal life is very needy in our material western lives.  

So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. (Mat_13:49-50)

Here are some more “unpopular” promises from Jesus. This series of promises intensifies the warning He gave in our previous meditation concerning the consequences of sin. “If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins” (Joh_8:24). Our present verses reveal by promise the absolute certainty of, and dreadful extent of, sin’s consequences. In a world that wants to ignore eternity and deny accountability, these are unpopular promises.

All who die in the guilt of sin will definitely be judged some day. It is an absolute certainty. A day of accountability is coming. “So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just.” Those who die before this day will also face judgment. “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb_9:27). The place of final judgment for the unsaved will be the great white throne. “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it… And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God… And the dead (the unredeemed dead) were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books… And they were judged, each one according to his works… And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:11-15).

This absolutely certain judgment also has a dreadful extent. It is eternal. Sin is a spiritual crime against God. The true and living God is eternal. He is the great “I AM” (Exo_3:14 and Joh_8:58). Therefore, the consequences of sin are also eternal. Thus, all unbelievers will be “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone… And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev_20:10). The ultimate torment of hell will be separation from God’s presence for eternity. “These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (2Th_1:9).

The absolute certainty of, and the dreadful extent of, the consequences of sin make earlier promises we have examined all the more critical. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord… And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish” (Rom_6:23 and Joh_10:28).