Tiger Woods has been disgraced in the media because of his infidelities.  Olympian Michael Phelps was disgraced by the public disclosure of his use of marijuana.  David Hasselhoff was publicly disgraced by the unveiling of video of his inebriation and ‘compromised’ parenting.  Then you have the sad narrative of my governor Mark Sanford and his sordid tale of infidelity. The response, both in the media and in conversations around the proverbial water cooler is one of universal condemnation and disdain for the moral failures of these public figures.  In times past, I have joined in on the lambasting of, and laughing over, public figures caught in their moral failures, their sin.

More recently however, I have had a change of attitude, of perspective.  I have to check myself that I do not place myself in the position of being innately morally superior to those aforementioned characters.  You see, what I have come to recognize more and more clearly is that I am just as deserving of condemnation as those celebrities.  My sins, my moral failures, may not be of the same specific and public nature as theirs,  but I am not without my own guilt.  Have I loved my wife as Christ loves His bride, the church?  No, I have at times failed at that.  Have I faithfully loved God with all my heart, soul, and mind and my neighbor as myself?  No, I fail every day.  So has everyone who reads this post, so has everyone.  We have all murdered with our words, and committed adultery in our hearts. Perhaps the most pernicious trap in which to fall is the ‘thank God I am not like the Pharisees’ mindset.  None, apart from the work of Christ, are without guilt before God.

I think about 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 in context the the failings of others.  I think, too, of Luke 18:9-14.  Do I sometimes, as already mentioned, self-righteously place myself in the role of the Pharisee who gloats over the moral failures of the unregenerate?  I think of Ephesians. 2:1-5.  Ultimately, the only thing that separates me from those other miscreants is the grace and mercy of Christ.

1 Corinthians 5:12-13 (New American Standard Bible)

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?

But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

Luke 18:9-14 (New American Standard Bible)

And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt:

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

“The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’

“But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

“I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Ephesians 2:1-5 (New American Standard Bible)

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved,

Stating the obvious, bumper stickers and church signs are often poor venues for declarations requiring nuance, and perhaps one should not put too much effort in analyzing them.  That being said, I ran across a church sign near my house recently that read  “Too Blessed to be Depressed.” These are the same guys whose sign once read “God’s Stimulus Package: The Rapture.” (more on it here) After reading this sign I thought of  the following verses and the tensions contained therein.

Matthew 5:1-4 (NASB)

When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

I think about the inference of that sign that it is normative that Christians should always be happy and never depressed.  What that sign can  be is a slap in the face to someone who mourns.  There are strains of Christianity that really think that Christians are never to be in any kind of want, physical or otherwise.  In light of that church sign, I find it ironic that there is a book in the Bible titled Lamentations.  The Psalms are full of lament; some flirt with utter despair. Psalm 88 comes to mind.

Here are a couple of pertinent quotes that I ran across recently to reflect upon in light of the all the aforementioned:

A. W. Tozer: “It is doubtful God can bless any man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”

Alan Redpath: “When God wants to do an impossible task he takes an impossible man and crushes him.”

HT: Abide In Christ

In light of the above:

“…your poverty is no hindrance, for my Master asks nothing from you – the poorer the wretch, the more welcome to Christ. My Master is no covetous priest, who demands pay for what he does – he forgives us freely; he wants none of your merits, nothing whatever from you; come as you are to him, for he is willing to receive you as you are. But here is my sorrow and complaint, that this blessed Lord Jesus, though present to heal, receives no attention from the most of men. They are looking another way, and have no eyes for him…. My Master is not wrathful with you who forget him and neglect him, but he pities you from his heart. I am but his poor servant, but I pity, from my inmost; heart, those of you who live without Christ. I could fain weep for you who are trying other ways of salvation, for they will all end in disappointment, and if continued in, will prove to be your eternal destruction.” -Charles Spurgeon

HT:“Did I Stutter?”

I do not want to be misconstrued as being one who thinks personal testimonies of faith, of life change, are without value.  Such is absolutely not the case.  They are of great encouragement. That being said, for quite a while, I have had questions about the apologetic and evangelical value of proclamations of a ‘changed life’ as being a primary validation for the truth of the Gospel.

Lot’s of groups, organizations, religions, ideologies, and therapeutic methodologies can make valid claims to being able to change one’s life for the better.  Yusef Islam, the artist formally know as Cat Stevens, apparently has found peace in Islam.  Many find relief from the pain of living by following the teachings of the Buddha.  Tom Cruise and others have apparently found meaning and have experienced a ‘changed life’ due to their involvement with the success oriented faith of Scientology.  Others can point to the ill-defined ‘higher power’ spoken of in Alcoholics Anonymous as helping them overcome their bondage to alcohol.  Interesting that atheists, if I recall correctly, have much lower divorce rates than theists, than professing Christians, at least in America.  As stated in an earlier post, I think Mormons put most to shame in terms of outward morality and expressing family values.  Involvement in the arts, in science to further knowledge, in humanitarian activities brings meaning the lives of many.

In the final analysis, what we are talking about, at times, is subjective experience in seeking to validate a belief system.  It all points inwards to the self, and I have to take your word for it that your subjective experience in your belief system would be normative for me if I believe as you do.  Too, many of these testimonies speak more to therapeutic fixes to emotional and psychological problems than to an addressing of that sin problem.  And that is fine and even necessary when encouraging another Christian, but I have heard these testimonies of ‘life change” given to non-Christians.  What that may lead to is a desire to become a Christian in order to fix one’s relational problems and help with one’s emotional burdens, but what one may not find is a conviction of sin in those verbal transactions.  I am speaking from first-hand experience, both inside of church and in elsewhere.

Going off on a minor tangent, I remember seeing videos of cardboard testimonies from various churches wherein people come on stage while inspirational music is being played in the background . Each one holds up a cardboard sign with a brief description of a problem, something wrong, something tragic, in their lives and then flip it over with a description of resolution or a finding of peace in regards to that tragedy. Following is a sampling of some of the testimonies encountered in some cardboard testimonies.

One read “$$$ Bondage To Pornography.”   It read “Freedom through obedience” on the other.  Another read “God Robber” on one side and “God led giver” on the other side.  “Christian men seemed weak” read another with “Now I am one” on the other side. “Painful childhood memories” read side A of one sign, “God healed those memories” read side B. Many signs read of broken marriages on one side, and reconciliation on the other. “Shy, introverted, and fearful” read on side, “pastor for 18 years” read the other. The pastor who held up the sign said the flip side was due to commitment to ‘the process.’  One sign read “Poor self-esteem” on the A side, and “He makes all things beautiful” on the B side.  Many others signs were quite poignant, speaking of profound heart-wrenching pain on one side and God’s merciful intervention on the other side, speaking of, for one example, the loss of a child through suicide on one side, and God’s healing grace on the other. I cannot help but be moved by such displays of suffering and grace.

Understand without any ambiguity whatsoever that I take nothing away from the heart’s desire behind these testimonies, that I acknowledge that God is good to His children. I completely affirm that the sovereign triune God, creator of all, causes all things to be for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. He can heal marriages, heal sickness, heal depression, and He loves His people. What disturbs me, however, is the remarkable paucity of cardboard testimonies that read on one side “I am a wretched sinner deserving the wrath of God” with the other side reading “I am saved by Christ alone by faith alone by grace alone”  The question is this: what exactly is the problem the Cross is to fix that cannot be fixed by other means? Parenthetically, one may truthfully and Biblically assert that becoming a Christian may cause you more problems than you had before.

What kind of sign would the apostle Paul hold up? “I was a self-righteous man who supported killing Christians and persecuted the church” might one side read. The other side might read “God sovereignly snatched me from Hell and redeemed me that I may be clothed in Christ’s righteousness. I will be persecuted and undergo great trial for the Gospel and then will be killed because of it” Couldn’t fit all that on a cardboard sign, though.

Somebody tell me what kind of sign the apostle Peter might hold up.

Maybe I am putting too fine a point on things; maybe I am just a crusty old curmudgeon, but when I read accounts of the Gospel being proclaimed in the text of the Bible, I find the apostles and evangelists pointing away from themselves to the empty tomb of Christ. They point to something in time and history, they point to something….falsifiable. If the bones of Christ are ever discovered, our faith falls down and I look elsewhere.  As the apostle Paul affirms, if Christ has not been raised, our faith is in vain and we are to be the most pitied of all men.

I have heard the Messiah referred to as a rebel, both by those who I admire and by those outside the umbrella of orthodoxy.  I understand the allure of the rebel, the bold counterpoint to the banal status-quo.  America loves the rebel, the one willing, no matter the consequence to self, to poke the ‘man’ in they eye with a sharp stick for the ’cause.’   Indeed, our great country was born of rebellion, of revolution.

However and not to put too fine a point on it, does scripture ever describe Christ as a rebel?  Who in scripture is actually described as a rebel?  What resonates with me is Christ’s obedience, not any inferred rebellion.  He was obedient to the Father to the point of death, even death on the cross.  The One who created all condescended to take on flesh, humble Himself, and wash the feet of His disciples.  He kept the Law perfectly; He imputes his perfect obedience to his elect, to his sheep.  His obedience, however, does not does not infer a milquetoast demenor.  He is bold in His zeal as indicated in His overturning the table of the money changers, His hard rhetoric towards the Pharisees.  I think, too, of Paul describing Himeself as a bond-servant to Christ while still boldly opposing those who stood against sound doctirne.

Often I feel the need to preface a declaration with a disclaimer, and this post is no exception.  I know there are many Christians, better, wiser, than me by far, who love the Messiah who will disagree with me, some perhaps vehemently, regarding the soon-to-follow thoughts. I know, too, that this is ground that has been tread by countless others, and my voice is but one of a myriad, but I want to speak to this subject.  Thus it goes…

Here is a typical statement, one I have heard dozens of times, that I believe frames the perception of the nature of salvation of the vast majority of American Christendom:

“If you and I did not have free will, we would not be able to choose to love God.   What kind of world would we have if everyone was programmed to love or hate without a choice? God gave us free will so we could choose to love him!”

Another common refrain is that God does not want mere robots to worship Him.  If it is His choice, then our ‘choice’ is coerced and thus meaningless.  I completely understand that perception, where it comes from, and I used to hold to it.

The problem with this well-intentioned human wisdom is that it does not hold up to robust Biblical scrutiny, that it perhaps does not take the fallen nature of humanity seriously enough, that it glosses over the utterly rebellious nature of the human heart and our innate inability to choose the God of scripture.  Read, for one example, Romans 3:11.  Let me orbit around this idea of where love for God comes from.  Again and absolutely without any ambiguity whatsoever, I do not deny that there are many who disagree with or misunderstand my assertions of God’s sovereign role in salvation who love God.  I do affirm, gently, that they misunderstand the perspective of someone who affirms this authentic love for God can, and in the final analysis, must be birthed by the sovereign triune God’s free will in salvation.

First, here are some thoughts on free will:

• Does the fatherless and motherless child choose who will adopt them?  Is adoption not the Biblical affirmation of a Christian’s relationship to the Father? (Romans 8:15)

• Did Lazarus choose to be called from the grave by Christ? Do the dead reanimate themselves? Are we not, in our unregenerate state, referred to in Biblical text as being spiritually dead, everyone of us? (Ephesians 2:1) (Colossians 2:13)

• Consider the Christian description and metaphor of salvation as being born again.  (John 3:3) Consider this: Did I choose to be physically born?  Did I have anything to do with that decision? (John 3:8) (Romans 9:16)

I think that the American church sometimes inadvertently reduces the work of regeneration to a transaction with God that depends to some degree on something we do, even if that work is described as merely making a choice.  It is almost as if, in the free-will scheme, I sit in negotiation with God and God slides this offer across the table to me.  I pick up the offer and look at it.  It is an almost unbelievably good offer, but in the end, Christ’s ability to save is ultimately limited by my inferred ability to ‘choose’ God, to accept that offer.  The offer, Christ’s ability to save, is impotent without my input.  What sometimes happens is that our certainty of salvation is attached to something we do or perform, even if that work only constitutes 0.00001 percent of the work performed.  The results are that we may end up wrestling with doubts about the veracity and ability of our ‘work’.  Was I sincere enough?  Did I believe hard enough?  Is my faith great enough to save? Why am I still struggling with sin  if I raised my hand or walked the aisle? Inversely, we may also place our faith in our ‘work’ in such a way that we bank so much on a fleeting, momentary response to an emotionally manipulative call to salvation that we may actually be ‘inoculated’ and hardened to the Gospel.  We may also end up taking pride in our ability choose Christ when others do not choose (Ephesians 2:8-9).  Think, too, about Acts 13:48.

In searching for some media to give examples of what I refer to, I find this typical example of decisional regeneration in action. I recall being in the audience:

HT:Old Truth

In the end, the evangelical methods used are born out of our view of our role in salvation.  If we are trying to coerce a response to an offer that depends on our inferred ability to choose, we may end up  marketing the Gospel in the way the world markets products to consumers.   I could say more to this, but I have spoken to it ad nausea, among other places, here, here, here, here, and here.  The biblical call of repent and believe in Christ is often replaced with non-biblical rhetoric, of offers to try Christ, to accept Christ, to invite Christ.  To my ears, these calls, if the language used is actually taken seriously, brings us to the conclusion that Jesus appears to be Someone who needs to be evaluated, and if He meets our needs and qualifications, we ‘accept’ Him.  This may not necessarily be the language of someone driven to their knees in despair over their sin and in desperate need of a Saviour.

Here is the crux of the matter.  Perhaps we may affirm that love for God is born by a growing understanding of the cost of the Cross and our inability to do anything to add to our salvation..  It is born by the realization that we are utterly and completely helpless to save ourselves, that even our ability to believe is an unmerited gift of the triune God.  It is born out of the realization that God owes His creation nothing, that if He never gave us a Saviour, He would still be a holy, righteous, and just God. Indeed, one-third of the angels rebelled and God never offered them clemency, redemption.  I love my Saviour, though so imperfectly, because He gave me life – when I was spiritually a walking dead man with no ability to choose God- at the price of His life, that He defeated death as evidenced by the empty tomb.  There is nothing good in me that He should condescend to breath life into me.

I could speak so much more to all this, but time to bring pause to the days blogging.  Perhaps more on this later….

I have been impressed by the Mormons I have met over the years. All have been extraordinarily kind, moral, and very compassionate people, perhaps more so than most. I have rarely heard a Mormon complain or speak ill of others. I have to say the Mormon system produces nice, moral people who love their families. If you want to use that subjective metric of a ‘changed life’, strong, family-friendly morals, and evangelical zeal as a measure of a religions validity, Mormonism would have to be a strong contender in the marketplace.

I have had members of local churches come to my door to evangelize, I have also had JWs comb the neighborhood to proselytize, and just recently, Mormons stopped by to witness to me just after my son and I finished reading from the gospel of Matthew. The two young men politely introduced themselves as Elder this and Elder that, I do not remember their names. They were dressed in the typical Mormon witness gear of dark slacks and white button-up shirts. They politely asked me if I wanted to be a humble follower of Jesus. During the course of the conversation, I answered that I was a Christian whose sins were forgiven, that I was covered by Christ’s righteousness and that Christ bore the penalty of my sins on the cross, that my faith was in a risen Saviour. Cutting to the chase, they kept pointing me to Joseph Smith. In their vocal affirmation that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, they also asserted that Christ had prophets in the Old Testament and the equivalent in the apostles of the New Testament and that Joseph Smith is also a prophet. To be an obedient and humble servant of Christ, I am to follow the teachings of Joseph Smith. I politely and firmly explained the Christ is the summing up of the Old and New Testament, that the Old Testament points to Him, that the New Testament reveals Him as the Word, as God incarnate. It is all about Christ and the atoning work of the Cross in time and space, in history, about repenting and believing in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sin.

I remember being shown a video a few months ago on the old GodTube thing where two Mormons were essentially given an arrogant ‘Gospel’ beat-down by one they sought to convert. Now, I do not abide false teachers, but these are young men at my door were not in a Protestant pulpit. They are in a different category than Joel Osteen and TBN. They were engaging the public marketplace of ideas with good intentions; they do not claim, I think, as belonging to an honestly rather bizarre, polytheistic nineteenth century restorationist movement, much in the way of commonality with orthodox Christianity. I think, though, they cared for me enough to witness to me. They are, however, inculcated into a system that is essentially, at its core, just like every other belief system in the world. You have to climb the ladder to your god, and in the case of Bible-based false religions, their faux Jesus just makes it a bit easier by helping us climb that staircase to glory. These witnesses for Joseph Smith, they needed to be witnessed to; they needed the Gospel presented clearly. I hope and I did that for them in a clear and concise way with the humility with which they approached me. They left when I would not bend to Joseph Smith, when their carefully scripted presentation could not follow, but I hope they understand the Gospel a bit better. In retrospect, I wish I had been more clear in using the Law to convict prior to sharing the Gospel.

I remember stumbling across a Mormon blog once wherein the question was posed if Mormons were more righteous than those in other religions. That is a very sad question. The predominate answer in comment section was, not suprisingly, yes. You see, my righteousness is not my own because I have none of my own. Christ’s righteousness is counted to me.

The Sufficiency of Christ

Let me talk to you about my Messiah, Jesus Christ. Let me open quite controversially. If Christ is just a great moral teacher, He failed, and failed miserably. For all His altruism, His selflessness in serving others, for all His concern for the disenfranchised, for His formidable moral standards, His end is not one that I would consider a glowing endorsement for emulating His life. He was crucified; He died a death quite gruesome and, in death, was associated with criminals. If such is the potential end for emulating Christ the Teacher, then I want nothing of it. If we consider Christ only a moral example, then I cannot endorse Him above the Buddha. I cannot endorse Him above Gandhi. I cannot endorse Him above an Old Testament patriarch. They differ not in kind, but only in degree. His death carries no greater meaning and import than that of Martin Luther King’s. However, if Christ is more than a teacher, if He is who He and His followers claim Him to be, the Son of God whose death on the cross precedes something greater, His physical resurrection, I then must consider Him in an altogether different light.

I read, in the New Testament canon and in early church history, stories of martyrdom. I read, too, of multitudes abandoning the very foundations of their life to turn and follow, often at great personal, and sometimes ultimate, cost, the One whom they believed to be something greater than a teacher. These 1st century Palestinian Jews, the first followers of Christ, had no great need of a Messiah as a life coach, a minister to their finances and marriages. Their lives were, I believe, even if in a time of political tension, quite predictable for the most part. They were tied to the rhythms of the land, of harvest. They were, for the most part, farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen. They were embedded in the life of the synagogue. Too, the individualism, the obsessive focus on self, of contemporary western culture would be, I believe, quite alien to them.

The Messiah that many were expecting and the Messiah that they received were quite different from one another. Again, there was political tension in that time and place. Judea was under Roman rule and before the first century closed, the 2nd Temple would be, as predicted by the Messiah, in ruins. The expected Messiah would be a King, a strong Man who would break the shackles of Roman oppression and return to the Jews self-rule, and Jerusalem, the city of God, would take her place as the beacon of light to all the nations. This did not happen, though. They instead received a Child who would grow up to divide rather than conquer, to turn child against parent, neighbor against neighbor. He would upset the status quo. He would be, for a time, a pauper King, having, as He said to would-be disciples, no place to lay his head. The Messiah was homeless. His family, for the most part, before witnessing the resurrected Christ, did not, I believe, consider Jesus to be anything but perhaps a bit mad. Even his inner circle of disciples could not wrap their minds around Christ’s proclamations about Himself. Rather, they still anticipated a political King who would establish a theocracy. The pre-Easter Jesus, on the cross, left his followers discouraged and defeated. The post-Easter Jesus revolutionized his adopted ones. Easter changed everything.

How can I talk coherently about Easter and find words worthy to address our risen King, words not compromised by cliché? I am humbled by the task. First, Easter is not a metaphysical event having no concrete reality. The resurrection was not just merely a spiritual event; it is more than metaphor. The resurrection actually occurred in time and space. The Creator, the One through whom all things hold together, was willingly brutalized and murdered by His creation. He willingly became our Scapegoat, our blood sacrifice once for all. He is the new Covenant. Everything changed on Easter.

I can give coherent reasons and evidence to help illuminate the reality of the Easter event. It does not, contrary to what most would imagine, require a giant leap of blind faith. I can affirm with as much clarity the physical resurrection of Christ as I can most any event in ancient (and not so ancient) history. Where does this leave me, though? What do I do with this formidable knowledge? What does it mean and to where does it lead? Before we can even begin to address these questions, we must inquire as to the why of the Easter event.

Why did the Word that created cosmos, created humanity, deem it necessary to take on, from the Christmas event to eternity forward, a sinless human nature, and after taking on flesh, have it brutalized and nailed to that tree? Only in the context of that question can we begin to understand the Easter event. Here we find truths both simple and daunting, both compelling and repulsive.

We, as disciples of Christ, are beholden to our Messiah to apprehend these difficult truths to the best of our ability. Because of complacency that often permeates American Christianity, I believe that, as a church, we often worship more a pre-Easter Jesus rather than the post-Easter Jesus. The pre-Easter crowds gathered to the Messiah to receive from Him. The post-Easter Messiah drew to Him those who were willing to die for Him. The followers of the pre-Easter Jesus fell away from Him at the cross. The post-Easter disciples of Christ followed Him to the ends of the earth; they looked to give themselves away, to serve the Messiah, to die to self. I ask myself, which Christ am I following?

From An Ecclesiastical Journey

John the Baptist’s Doubt

February 13, 2009  |  By: Jon Bloom
Category: Commentary

“Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

This was a surprising question coming from John the Baptist.

It’s unclear exactly when John first consciously knew that Jesus was the Son of God, whose way he had come to prepare. The Apostle John quotes him as saying, “I myself did not know him” (John 1:31) around the time he baptized Jesus.

This is remarkable because John’s mother, Elizabeth, had known. She knew because John announced it to her in utero by leaping when she heard Mary’s voice. Was she not allowed to tell him? We don’t know. Regardless, John had known even before he knew.

What is clear is that when the revelation came it was an overwhelming experience for John. That day, when Jesus approached him at the Jordan near Bethany, John couldn’t contain the shout: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” With awe and trembling hands he had baptized his Lord. And then saw the Spirit descend and remain on him.

That day had also marked the beginning of the end of his ministry. From that point he had joyfully directed people away from himself to follow Jesus. And they had.

Now he sat in Antipas’ filthy prison. He had expected this. Prophets who rebuke sinful kings usually do not fare well. Unfortunately, he had not been an exception. Herodias wanted him dead. John could see no reason why she would be denied her wish.

What he hadn’t expected was to be tormented by such oppressive doubts and fears. Since the Jordan, John had not doubted that Jesus was the Christ. But stuck alone in this putrid cell he was assaulted by horrible, accusing thoughts.

What if he had been wrong? There had been many false prophets in Israel. What made him so sure that he wasn’t one? What if he had led thousands astray?

There had been false messiahs. What if Jesus was just another? So far Jesus’ ministry wasn’t exactly what John had always imagined the Messiah’s would look like. Could this imprisonment be God’s judgment?

It felt as if God had left him and the devil himself had taken his place. He tried to recall all the prophecies and signs that had seemed so clear to him before. But it was difficult to think straight. Comfort just wouldn’t stick to his soul. Doubts buzzed around his brain like the flies around his face.

The thought of being executed for the sake of righteousness and justice he could bear. But he could not bear the thought that he might have been wrong about Jesus. His one task was to prepare the way of the Lord. If he had gotten that wrong, his ministry, his life, was in vain.

But even with his doubts, there remained in John a deep, unshakable trust in Jesus. Jesus would tell him the truth. He just needed to hear from him again.

So he sent two of his closest disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

The affection that radiated from Jesus was palpable. Jesus was familiar with John’s sorrows and grief and the satanic storms that break on the saints when they are weak and alone. He loved John.

So he invited John’s faithful friends to sit near him as he healed many and delivered many from demonic prisons.

Then he turned them with kind tears glistening in his eyes and said, “Tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” John would recognize Isaiah’s prophecy in those words. This promise would bring the peace John needed to sustain him for the few difficult days he had remaining.

Out of love for his friend, Jesus didn’t include Isaiah’s phrase “proclaim liberty to the captives.” John would understand.

When Jesus had sent John’s disciples away, he said something stunning about John: no one born of women had ever been greater. This, right after John questioned who Jesus was.

In this age, even the greatest, strongest saints experience deep darkness. None of us are spared sorrow or satanic oppression. Most of us suffer agonizing affliction at some point. Most of us will experience seasons when we feel as if we’ve been abandoned. Most of us will die hard deaths.

The Savior does not break the bruised reed. He hears our pleas for help and is patient with our doubts. He does not condemn us. He has paid completely for any sin that is exposed in our pain.

He does not always answer with the speed we desire, nor is his answer always the deliverance we hope for. But he will always send the help that is needed. His grace will always be sufficient for those who trust him. The hope we taste in the promises we trust will often be the sweetest thing we experience in this age. And his reward will be beyond our imagination.

In John’s darkness and pain Jesus sent a promise to sustain John’s faith. He will do the same for you.

---

“Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand so that at the proper time, He may exalt you, casting all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6-7)

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way…The Lord of hosts is with us ” (Psalm 46: 2,11)

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.” (Psalm 20:7-8)

HT: Allsufficientgrace

Milton Vincent

“The deeper I go into the gospel, the more I comprehend and confess aloud the depth of my sinfulness. A gruesome death like the one that Christ endured for me would only be required for one who is exceedingly sinful and unable to appease a holy God. Consequently, whenever I consider the necessity and manner of His death, along with the love and selflessness behind it, I am laid bare and utterly exposed for the sinner I am.
Such an awareness of my sinfulness does not drag me down, but actually serves to lift me up by magnifying my appreciation of God’s forgiving grace in my life. And the more I appreciate the magnitude of God’s forgiveness of my sins, the more I love Him and delight to show Him love through heart-felt expressions of worship.”