Sunday Sermonette

October 25, 2015
Christian Metaphors
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)

 

The Christian believer and his characteristics are described in terms of many colorful metaphors in the Bible. In our text, Christ calls us “my sheep,” and has also said: “I am the good shepherd, . . . and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14-15). If we are truly His sheep, then we will surely follow Him, receiving safety, peace, and nourishment.

 

He has also said: “Ye are the salt of the earth: . . . Ye are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13-14). We are therefore expected to bring the salt of preservation and joy to a bland, tasteless, and otherwise decaying world, and the light of salvation to a dark, sinful world.

 

In another beautiful metaphor, the Lord Jesus has likened us to fruitful branches: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit” (John 15:5).

 

The apostle Paul compares us variously to soldiers, to athletes, and to farmers: “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. . . . if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits” (2 Timothy 2:3, 5-6).

 

With regard to our Christian life and witness, Christ said we must be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). The apostle Paul compares us to individual members in a great body (1 Corinthians 12:27). Peter says we, “as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house,” and also are like “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5, 9) to offer up spiritual sacrifices.

 

There are many other beautiful and meaningful figures of speech in the New Testament, all of which help us to appreciate the richness and fruitfulness of the Christian life. HMM

h/t: HENRY M MORRIS, INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH

Sunday Sermonette

October 18, 2015
The Wisdom Mine
“Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of
understanding?” (Job 28:20)

 

In one of his monologues, the patriarch Job compares his search for spiritual understanding to man’s explorations for metals and precious stones. “There is a vein for the silver,” he said, “and a place for gold. . . . Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone” (vv. 1-2).

 

These all are easier to find than true wisdom. “It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold” (vv. 16-19).

 

Neither have animals discovered it. “The fierce lion passed by it. . . . it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air” (vv. 8, 21). “The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me” (v. 14).

 

“But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?” (v. 12). Job is driven to ask: “Where must one go to find and mine the vein of true wisdom?”

 

It is certainly “not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought” (1 Corinthians 2:6). The mine of evolutionary humanism which dominates modern education and scholarship will yield only the fool’s gold of “science falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20).

 

Job found true wisdom only through God, and so must we, for only “God understandeth the way thereof . . . unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job 28:23, 28). The Lord Jesus Christ is the ever-productive mine “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). HMM

h/t: HENRY M MORRIS, INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH

Sunday Sermonette

October 11, 2015
Line upon Line
“The word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.” (Isaiah 28:13)

 

This familiar passage (repeated mostly from Isaiah 28:10 just before it) is often cited in support of a detailed, verse-by-verse method of Bible study and exposition. However, the context is one of rebuke to the people of Ephraim (that is, the Northern Kingdom of Israel) in the days of the divided kingdom. Isaiah especially castigates the priests and prophets who should have been teaching God’s Word to the people, but who had instead become proud and then drunkards, leaving the people in great ignorance and spiritual confusion.

 

Therefore, cried Isaiah: “Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts” (v. 9). Before they can really grow in the knowledge of God, they must be built up carefully, line upon line, for they are yet carnal babes in spiritual matters.

 

A very similar rebuke was administered to the early Christians and would be even more appropriate today: “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age” (Hebrews 5:12-14).

 

Such an admonition is greatly needed today, when Christian believers subsist almost entirely on spiritual milk—or even worse, on the froth that passes for evangelical literature in most Sunday schools and Christian bookstores today. We need to get back to the strong meat of the Word, lest we “fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.” HMM

h/t: HENRY M MORRIS, INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH

Sunday Sermonette

The Bible Stands!

by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D. | Oct. 4, 2015

“Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” (Psalm 119:160)

Very few books survive very long. Only a few survive past the first printing, and science books especially get out of date in just a few years.

But one book is eternal! The Bible stands! Even its most ancient chapters are still accurate and up to date. Furthermore, despite all the vicious attacks of both ancient pagans and modern humanists, it will continue to endure. Jesus said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33). Even after everything else dies and all the bombastic tirades of skeptics and secularists are long forgotten, the Word endures. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever” (Isaiah 40:8).

Note the oft-repeated testimony to this same effect in Psalm 119. In addition to the comprehensive promise of today’s text, this great “psalm of the word” also contains these affirmations: “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven. . . . Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart. . . . The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: . . . Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever” (Psalm 119:89, 111, 144, 152). Founded forever, inherited forever, settled forever, lasting forever! God is eternal, and His Word was true from the beginning.

Men may, in these last days, arrogantly think they can “take away from the words of the book of this prophecy” (Revelation 22:19), but such presumption will only “take away [their] part out of the book of life,” and the Bible will still stand. “The word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1:25). HMM

h/t: HENRY M MORRIS, INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH

Sunday Sermonette

September 27, 2015
The Discerner
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

 

The Word of God (both the written Word and the living Word, Jesus Christ) is “living and energizing” and is the double-edged sword of the Spirit, piercing into the deepest recesses of body, soul, and spirit, where it “discerns” even the very thoughts and intents of our hearts.

 

This discernment, however, is more than just understanding or insight. The Greek word for “discerner” is kritikos and is used only this one time in the Bible. Our word “critic” is derived from it, and this is an important dimension of its meaning. Its discernment is a critical, judging discernment—one which convicts and corrects, as well as one which understands.

 

It is paradoxical that men today presume to become critics of the Bible when it should really be the other way around. There are textual critics who sort through the various ancient manuscripts of the Bible, trying to arrive at the original text; there are the “higher critics” who critique vocabularies and concepts, trying to show that the traditional authors did not actually write the books attributed to them; and then there are many other purely destructive critics who criticize the Bible’s miracles, morals, and everything else, hoping thereby to justify their rebellion against the Word.

 

But the Bible still stands! It stands in judgment on our lives and our subconscious motives. It will have the final word when “the books [are] opened . . . and the dead [are] judged out of those things which were written in the books” (Revelation 20:12). It is far better to heed the constructive criticism of the Word now than to hear its condemnation later. HMM

h/t: HENRY M MORRIS, INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH

Sunday Sermonette

September 20, 2015
The Comfortable Church
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” (Revelation 3:17)

 

This is the heart of Christ’s rebuke of the church at Laodicea, the “lukewarm” church (v. 16) of the last days. This is an evangelical church for its candlestick is still in place (note Revelation 1:20; 2:5), but it has become a neutral church, “neither cold nor hot” (3:15). The reason for its tepid witness is because it has become “rich, and increased with goods,” comfortable in a culture which tends to equate material prosperity with success and God’s favor. It may have acquired large and beautiful facilities, developed special programs of many kinds, featured a variety of musicians and other artists, and even gained a measure of political power. Yet, Christ calls it poor and blind and naked!

 

Not all large churches become like this, of course, but it is always a real danger. The desire for large congregations can easily lead to compromising biblical standards of doctrine and practice. “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion,” the prophet warned (Amos 6:1).

 

Note that the Lord began His letter to the Laodicean church by identifying Himself as “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3:14). This strongly suggests that a major reason for the development of such complacency in a large church (or a small church, for that matter) is neglect of these three doctrines—the sufficiency of Christ, the inerrant authority of God’s Word, and the special creation of all things by God.

 

The letter to this church ends with the sad picture of Christ standing at its door, seeking admission (v. 20). “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (v. 22). HMM

h/t: HENRY M MORRIS, INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH

Sunday Sermonette

September 13, 2015 The Writing of God “And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.” (Exodus 32:16)   In this verse is the first occurrence in the Bible of the word “writing” and, appropriately enough, it is speaking of “the writing of God” rather than the writings of men. The reference, of course, is to the two tables of the law, the Ten Commandments, “written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18) and rewritten on a second set of stone tables to replace the first, once they were shattered (Exodus 34:1).   All Scripture is divinely inspired, but the Ten Commandments were divinely inscribed! This testimony of their unique importance is a sobering condemnation of any who ignore them or distort their meaning (including the one referring to the six-day creation in Exodus 20:11).   But there is another writing of God—this one recorded in the New Testament, one of even greater personal significance to the Christian: “Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ . . . written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3). No longer an external standard divinely engraved in stone by the finger of God, but an internal conviction inscribed in the heart by the Spirit of God! “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them” (Hebrews 10:16).   This remarkable writing of God’s law in our hearts and minds has been accomplished because Christ came not “to destroy, but to fulfill” the law (Matthew 5:17) and “hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). Now, with the law in our hearts, we have become epistles of God, “known and read of all men” (2 Corinthians 3:2), and it is vital that the writing read true and clear through our lives. HMM h/t: HENRY M MORRIS, INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH