Post Tenebras Lux

In Geneva, Switzerland there is a wall called The Reformation Wall. That’s it in the picture above.  I’ll tell you a little about it.

But first, let me tell you a happy — and sad — and happy story on this Reformation Day, October 31.

A happy story…

The happy story is that over two thousand years ago, God came to Earth as a baby, born of a virgin, Mary in Bethlehem of Judea.

His name was Jesus (which He was named because it means something like “yahweh or jehovah saves”, and He would indeed save his people from their sins — “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay.  Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day.”).

Jesus grew to be a man, was crucified and died on a cross to pay for our sins, was buried, and rose again from the dead on the third day.

And whoever will believe in Him is saved from their sins and hell, and will have eternal life forever with God.

This good news is called The Gospel, because “gospel” means “good news”.  And this salvation was (and is) a free gift from God to all who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  That “free” aspect is what is called “grace”, and our salvation is by grace…that is, free!

There.  I’ve covered Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and and the Gospel.

A sad story…

But there is a bad news, sort of.  The bad news is that a form of religion crowded in on this good news, this gospel.

Men, in the name of The Church, began to add things to this Good News, this Gospel.

Things like Sacraments which they said could give us “grace”.

Things like priests, and popes who claimed to be “intermediaries” between God and men, even “vicars” (actual fill-ins for Christ on Earth).

Things like “good works” which they said must be mixed with “grace” in order for us to get to heaven.  They wrote in official documents that the Sacraments and the “good works” gave us “grace”, contradicting the very meaning of “grace” as a “free gift”.

They even invented something called Purgatory, so that those who didn’t do enough good works and sacraments on Earth could get “purged” of their uncleanness by suffering over many many years after death, sort of earning their final passage into heaven.

The popes sold what were called “indulgences” for money, so that fearful people could buy the way out of purgatory and into heaven for their friends and relatives who had already died.

They so perverted the Good News of the Gospel, that the masses of people descended into Darkness, no longer even knowing what the Gospel was.  They descended into the Darkness of trying to earn their way into heaven, an impossibility in light of the awesome holiness of the God whose standards all of us have broken.

And no doubt millions perished under this great Darkness, just as millions today perish under the dark illusion that they can merit what can only be given as a gift by God through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But the story becomes happy again.

After 1,000 years of this Darkness, God opened the eyes and hearts of a few…then many. 

One of the first was a Catholic Monk, Martin Luther, who had his heart opened as he read the Scriptures, and realized for the first time that salvation was a free gift of grace, through faith alone, not earned by works.  Alas, lacking blogging software, he posted his “95 Theses” by nailing them to the church door at Wittenburg, Germany, stating some of the errors of the Roman Catholic Church and its Pope.  And thereby endangering his own life.

That day, October 31, 1517, Luther began, and joined with others, in a movement that blew open a window of Light that the Darkness folks have not been able to shut since.

I said I’d tell you about the Reformation Wall in the picture above.  It portrays four others of these “Reformers” who went out and proclaimed the Light of the Gospel which had been mostly hidden in Darkness for so many years.

They are Guillaume Farel, the first to spread this Reformation in Geneva — John Calvin, a main leader of the Reformation Movement, and spiritual father of Geneva — Theodore Beza, Calvin’s successor, and — John Knox, friend of Calvin and the mighty preacher of the Reformation in Scotland.

These men were not gods.  They were mere men.  Fallible men.  But God used them to light a fire that has still not gone out.  And on this Reformation Day we “give honor to whom honor is due”, to these men whom God used so wonderfully.

On that wall is printed a Latin phrase, the title of this post:

Post Tenebras Lux.

It means literally “After Darkness Light”, or:

Light After Darkness.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.”  Then He said, “You are the light of the world”, referring to us, His disciples who tell others about Him and His Gospel.  As we shed the light of the Gospel of grace, God opens up more and more hearts, making disciples who desire to learn of Him.

Friend, if you don’t know Jesus Christ, I urge you to call on Him as your Lord and Savior.

After 1,000 years of darkness, God saw fit to raise up a few men, who recaptured the ancient truth:

Whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.

Will you?

Reversing The Reformation – How Some So-Called Protestants Are Subtly Undermining Justification By Faith

Note: This is re-posted from October 30, 2009. I want to add an important point: Much as I am reluctant to recommend studying the writings of neo-legalists…if you DO, you must remember one thing…they are false teachers, and false teachers almost always “blow smoke” (at best), confuse, and outright lie. This is important, because typically these neo-legalists will SAY that they believe in Justification By Faith, fooling the unstudied or gullible. By redefining “justification” and “faith”, they can say it with a straight face, and defend themselves when confronted with their own writings DENYING biblical justification, and promoting works salvation. This re-definition and deceit is similar to the statement in the document of “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” which declares that Justification is “by grace through faith”, yet is signed by Cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church — Cardinals who also subscribe to the canons declaring anathema on those who believe this.

October 31 is Reformation Day, celebrating the Protestant Reformation, when the biblical gospel of grace was re-introduced to the Church at large.

The Roman Catholic Church held an almost monopolistic grip on the hearts of millions of people for hundreds of years.

Through the Dark Ages and Middle Ages, the awful legalistic system of “salvation by works” nearly choked out the light of the Gospel of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only small pockets of true believers in Christ escaped the dark heavy blanket of Romanism.

Then around 500 years ago came what we call the Reformation.

Men like Luther and Zwingli and Calvin and Knox, intense students of the Scriptures, rose up and shined the light of the Gospel into the darkness of European Catholicism.

These brave men brought an end to the monopoly of the Popes. They boldly proclaimed that salvation was

by grace alone, not by merit;

by faith alone, not by works;

by faith in Christ alone, not in sacraments;

under the final authority of the Word of God alone, not the unscriptural teachings of the Bishops of Rome.

The Central Point of the Reformation

The central point of the Reformation is what we call Justification by Faith. This is the sublime and simple truth that when we believe in Jesus Christ we are “justified” or “declared righteous” by God. This means that we are fully in right standing with God, our sins forgiven and no longer held against us.

This is accomplished because God judged our sins in Christ on the Cross, and gave us the “gift of righteousness” (Romans 5:17) by imputing the righteousness of Christ to us, when we believe in Christ.

As 2 Corinthians 5:21 puts it, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Romans Chapter 5:1,2 gives us the result of this wonderful act of the Lord:

“Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.”

The Permanence of Justification

When we are justified, declared righteous by God, it is forever. It is permanent. And it occurs at the moment when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, when we believe the Gospel.

The “gift of righteousness” can never be taken away, because it is part of a package deal, to put it crudely. This righteousness is given to us by grace through faith, and that is “not of yourselves” and “not of works” (Ephesians 2:8,9). Even the very faith by which we believe in Jesus Christ is a gift given by God through the New Birth, regeneration.

This “imputed righteousness” contrasts starkly with the unbiblical Roman Catholic teaching that one is actually “made righteous” (“infused righteousness”) through the sacraments like Baptism, and the Eucharistic Mass, and through meritorious good works — and that this so-called righteousness leaks out through sinning, and therefore can be lost, thereby damning the soul of the one who fails to maintain his “righteousness” by his works and attendance to the sacraments.

In Come the Neo-Legalists

The Reformation did not, of course, abolish Roman Catholicism. This cult of works salvation has continued these many years, and still thrives today.

But until recently one could more or less count on Protestant Bible teachers to uphold Justification by Faith Alone. One could more or less count on Protestant Bible teachers to oppose the so-called Justification of Rome, where grace and works are mixed, making it “no longer grace” (Romans 11:6).

But back in the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a professor at Westminster Seminary named Norman Shepherd. In 1975 some of his former students were being questioned for ordination, and when the question “How is a sinner justified?” was asked, they answered, “By faith and works.” Shocked questioners traced their answer back to their professor, Norman Shepherd.

Shepherd was allowed to teach for six more years, a disgrace in itself, but was finally released in 1981, the proverbial dung having hit the fan hard enough. Even then, several professors who then agreed with Shepherd were allowed to remain, teaching hundreds of students who spread the cancer yet today.

The big foot of undermining Justification by Faith had been stuck in the door, and the result has mushroomed into several full-blown ministries and movements, some directly from Westminster, and some relatively independent.

Allow me to name some names and then I will attempt to capsulize the kernel of the heresy.

Pioneering writers include E.P. Sanders, N.T. Wright, Steve Schlissel, Steve Wilkins, Douglas Wilson, and Peter Leithart.

They have been joined by a multitude of Pastors, bloggers and other writers, and teachers in Seminaries. Many in the Emerging/Emergent Church movement have gravitated toward these men, particularly N.T. Wright. And they have infiltrated otherwise orthodox places, including R.C. Sproul’s Tabletalk magazine, where R.C. Jr. as editor published a column by Douglas Wilson for three years, as well as articles by Steve Schlissel and Steve Wilkins.

[Important note -- I would like to correct a wrong impression given by the last above statement. Since the publication of this post, R.C. Sproul Jr. has made the following clear to me...1) He loudly and publicly disavows Federal Vision, and 2) He not only published those FV gentlemen before anyone even heard of Federal Vision, but before that time and since that time has published many gentlemen who despise Federal Vision. I'm grateful to RCJR for that clarification.]

They operate under names and ministries you may have heard: Shepherdism, Auburn Avenue Theology, Federal Vision, or the New Perspective on Paul. And they lead churches in virtually every Reformed denomination.

What They Have In Common

I won’t pretend the issues and sub-doctrines are not varied and even complicated, but they have one important thing in common – a rejection of the biblical Justification by Faith (even while sometimes saying they support it).

Like most false teachers, their terminology is often the same as orthodox terminology. But the expression of their error can mostly be bunched under an important term: Covenant Nomism (sometimes called Covenantal Nomism). “Nomism” refers to “Law”.

Though their implementation of the doctrine varies (for example, some teach that one enters the “covenant” through water baptism, others through so-called “faith alone”), the basics are as follows:

1.One enters into a “covenant” of the “people of God”, through “faith” and/or baptism. This is a real covenant which makes one a real Christian.

2.Once in the “covenant” of the family of God, it is now one’s responsibility to stay in the covenant, and follow Jesus as Lord all the days of one’s life…or else (more on the “or else” in a moment). This is blatant Legalism.

3.IF one remains in the “covenant”, by assembling together and obeying the Law sufficiently, THEN, at the end of one’s life, or the end of the age, one will be truly “Justified”, or “declared righteous” ON THE BASIS OF THEIR LIFE AND WORKS.

4.Here’s the “or else”: If one departs from sufficient obedience to the Law, or (in some cases) stops fellowshiping in the local assembly, they are deemed “out of the covenant”, will never be “justified”, even though they truly believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and were in His “covenant” and were a true Christian. Their works, or lack of them, have ultimately damned them.

What Can Be Done?

Admittedly, this is an extremely brief introduction to Neo-Legalism, or Covenant Nomism.

The men teaching these things are not ignorant, and they’re not stupid. They are biblically classic false teachers.

What would I recommend?

1.I don’t recommend studying these men, except by the most discerning and biblically knowledgeable.

2.I do recommend studying the biblical doctrine of Justification by Faith, just as the FBI reputedly studies real money, in order to quickly identify the counterfeit.

There are many good books on the subject. A thorough classic is by James Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification. Another good one, perhaps easier to read, is James White’s The God Who Justifies.

An excellent sermon by Charles Spurgeon can be read at:
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/3392.htm

Scriptural support for Justification by Faith can be found at:
http://www.carm.org/doctrine/justification_verses.htm

3.If you accept true biblical Justification by Faith, have courage to say so. And don’t be afraid to mention names.

Too many Protestant believers and teachers have been “returning” to Roman Catholicism. While for some there may be an inherent attraction to the ancient religious trappings of Romanism, in many cases it’s simply an abandonment of the great truth that God justifies us, declares us righteous, forever, when we believe in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be all the glory.

The Legalistic Tendencies Of The Puritans (Part 2)

Part 2 – by Michele Rayburn
(Part 1 is here)

It seems as though Thomas Watson had an unhealthy preoccupation with sin, causing him to heap unnecessary condemnation upon himself, and leaving little or no room for himself or other Christians to experience the grace of God toward their sinful condition.

It seems as though Watson was collapsing under the weight of his own heavy yoke.

I was quite thrown by the words Watson used to describe God’s behavior toward His children. “A godly man loves the menaces of the Word. He knows there is love in every threat.”…”God…mercifully threatens us, so that He may scare us from sin”…”There is mercy in every threat”…???

Was Watson’s definition of “menace”, “threat”, and “scare” different from that of today? Is it to be interpreted differently, or did he really mean what he said?

Then I thought, “Where is the Scripture to support his belief that God menaces, threatens and scares His children from their sin?” The Scripture that Watson used to support how the believer “loves the threatening part of the Word” I found to actually be supportive of how God regards His enemies in Psalm 68:21, and regarding evil in 1 Kings 3:26 and Zechariah 5:1, and not supportive Scripture regarding the believer.

So, it became increasingly unclear to me as to who Watson was talking about…the Christian or the unbeliever. It seemed he was mixing the two. How God uses the Word on the unbeliever and how He uses the Word on His children is quite different.

How God speaks to the unbeliever, or brings the unbeliever to repentance through His Word is different than how he teaches His children to grow in that grace by which they have now been saved.

Watson says, for instance, “The Word has a double work: to teach us and to judge us. Those who will not be taught by the Word shall be judged by the Word.” Was he talking to the believer here regarding being judged, or the unbeliever? Or both? I’m guessing he meant the unbeliever because it refers to “those who will not be taught by the Word”.

Watson says, “We do not want sin covered, but cured. We can open our breast to the bullet of the Word and say, ‘Lord, smite this sin.’” I am not sure what kind of remedy for his daily sin he is looking for here. The sins of the people of Israel were “covered” in the Old Testament by the blood of bulls and lambs.

Under the New Covenant, our sins were not “cured” but the Lord did “smite this sin” on the cross with His own blood. “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all…” (Romans 6:10)

As Keith Green sang, “The work is already done.” Our sins are no longer temporarily “covered”, but now we have been permanently “redeemed” by the blood of The Lamb.

There is no “cure” for sin in our daily life but in Romans 6:11-14,17-18 it says, “…reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord…do not let sin reign in your mortal body…present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead…for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace…though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”

And 2 Corinthians 3:5-6 says, “…our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

And finally, Galatians 5:16 says, “…Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”

Watson says, “The Word is a spiritual mirror through which we may see our own hearts…When the Word came like a mirror, all my opinion of self-righteousness died.”

That is true, but the Scripture goes further. It says in 2 Cor. 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

When I read the Word I do not feel threatened, because I love and trust the Lord. I feel challenged to grow in His grace…but not threatened.

I do not need to be scared away from sin. I am already repulsed by it, because I have been given a new nature. I am a new creation in Christ who is alive to God and dead to sin.

- Michele

The Legalistic Tendencies Of The Puritans (Part 1)

Part 1 – by Terry Rayburn
(Part 2 is here)

Since there are certainly a large number of Christians who read the Puritans, I wanted to make some comments about the Puritans in order to bring attention to a form of Legalism that they are prone to, largely because of their Covenant Theology.

No one likes to pick on such esteemed men as the Puritans, but Grace is too important to neglect the subtle spiritually-detrimental influence that the Law-based message of the Puritans can bring on an unsuspecting reader.

The following link is to a fairly representative message from Thomas Watson, entitled “A Godly Man Is A Lover of the Word”:

http://www.puritansermons.com/watson/watson2.htm

I urge you to read it before reading comments by me in this post (“The Legalistic Tendencies of the Puritans, Part 1″), and by my wife Michele in the next post (Part 2).

Part 1, Comments by Terry:

Warning: Sin-centered Christians will not like the following comments. But sin-centered Christians love warnings, so I knew it would be an attention-getter 

Watson, like other Puritans in general, thought he was being Christ-centered by being sin-centered.

This is a result of his not cutting straight (rightly dividing) the Word of Truth.

He didn’t understand that the Old Covenant was made obsolete by the New (Heb. 8).

He didn’t understand that sin shall no longer be master of us because we are no longer under Law but under grace (Rom. 6:14).

While he acknowledges grace in a vague way, his *focus* is on himself and his sin. This is unbiblical under the New Covenant.

Our *focus* is to be on Christ, and walking by His Spirit. Keeping our eyes on Him, fellowshiping with Him. Not examining our spiritual navel 24 hours a day to see if we’re more sinless than we were yesterday, and wringing our hands and hankies when we’re not.

“If we walk by the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). The love of Christ constrains us to walk this way, and the love of Christ is grown in our hearts and minds as we look on Him, not our fleshly wretchedness.

And the Puritans didn’t get it, because they were reactionaries, reacting to a decadent immoral secular English church. And they reacted with a law/sin-focused life and study.

They rightfully gloried in the greatness of God, and this is the one value of reading the Puritans, but it’s a big mistake to go to them for tips on Christian living.

They are the Emperor who has no clothes. Greatly admired, almost worshiped like they were Christ himself, they were Law/Sin nerds who never got out of Old Covenant thinking, and into the bright light of Gal. 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

And yet, I mean no disrespect to them as men. They were influenced by their peers and their times.

But we are in another time, friends. A time in which we have an opportunity to bring the light of the New Covenant to a generation of believers who still think that their performance is the point.

A time when we can shake off “Religion” and replace it with Christ Who is our Life (Col. 3:4), and leave “Religion” for the World.

A time in which we can build true “…fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn. 1:3), because “…the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 Jn. 1:7)

We all want “true revival”. But true revival is happening now in the hearts of those who understand the radical nature of Grace, who understand the freedom which is in Christ, and I don’t mean Antinomianism.

The Performance-Based Believer can never have the revival he thirsts for, because his *focus* is himself, and he doesn’t even know it.

He thinks he still has a wicked heart, and doesn’t realize that he’s been given a *new* heart, a heart of flesh to replace the heart of stone. (He has no idea what Paul means in Rom. 7:17, when he says, “…it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”)

His goal in a good sermon is to be “convicted”, so that he can head back to his laboratory of Performance and maybe get it right this time.

“Tetelestai!” It is finished! He has done it! Life conquered Death! Our sins, beloved are *all* forgiven. We are free to take our eyes off of ourselves and put them on the Author and Finisher of our Faith.

And the Catch-22 is that then we will sin less.

And it’s all of Grace.

That’s the New Covenant.

The Lord Provides – A Honeymoon Story

In June 1984, Michele and I were on our honeymoon, driving from New York in a big circle South through Virginia, Tennesse, Kentucky, then back to Michigan.

Yes, that’s our actual car — a 1970-something Plymouth Satellite Sebring — heading out from our wedding reception at the Knights Of Columbus Hall in Long Island, where we ate Baked Ziti and danced the Tarantella (Michele’s family is Italian from Napoli – see video below)

Anyway, we were traveling Skyline Drive, high atop the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, when the starter went out on our car, and we were in trouble.

Stark wilderness. Not much money. Having left our overnight motel cabin, we BARELY got the car started, and were pretty sure it would not start again.

What to do? There were no service stations on Skyline, and no signs pointing to where we could find one. Even if we could find a repair place down in the little side valleys off the mountaintop, we couldn’t really spare the cost of a new starter.

We prayed.

We finally knew we had to take one of the little side-roads down into a tiny valley village, and see what happened. We also needed some lunch, but didn’t dare to shut the car off.

We meandered down a thin road into a village so small that they didn’t even have a traffic light.

But they had an oily dusty old 2-bay auto repair shop (think Gomer and Goober in Mayberry, but a much smaller town)!

The country mechanics told us not to worry, they’d take care of it. They invited us to walk next door to the little cafe, grab a sandwich, and they’d be done by the time we finished.

I can’t remember what a starter cost in those days, maybe $100-$150 installed.

When we went back to the repair shop, they presented us with a bill for $12! 

“What?”, I asked. “The starter wasn’t bad after all?”

Gomer said to us, “Oh no sir, the starter was bad alright. But we took it apart and replaced a worn brush, and she’s as good as new! Sorry it took us more than an hour, so we had to charge you for an extra half-an-hour. Hope that’s alright, sir…maam.”

And he pointed to a cardboard hand-written sign on the wall – “Labor $8 per hour”.

We were on our way to finish our honeymoon drive back to Michigan, and 29 years later the Lord is still providing, often in ways we could never have guessed.

History Of The Charismatic Movement To Early 1980′s

History Of The Charismatic Movement, Part 1
(Pending audio)

History Of The Charismatic Movement, Part 2


History Of The Charismatic Movement, Part 3


The Charismatic Movement And The Reason Why

I loved George Gardiner (1919-1984).

Pastor George Gardiner was a Pentecostal for many years. He said that his journey out of Pentecostalism “began with nagging questions about the gulf between Charismatic practices and Scriptural statements–a very wide gulf!”

He was still in a Pentecostal Bible School when he and his room mate began discussing their doubts about Charismatic teaching.

He determined to study the book of Acts.

“I re-read the book of Acts, slowly and carefully, praying as I did, ‘Lord, let me see what it says, and only what the Word says. Give me grace to accept it if I have been wrong and grace to apologize if I have been unduly critical.’

“The journey through Acts was an eye opener! The actions and experiences of the early churches were far removed from the actions and experiences of the modern movement. In some ways they were completely opposite!”

I met this great preacher in 1977 while attending Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music. He was the Pastor of Calvary Undenominational Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan (founded by M.R. DeHaan), and was a great Bible preacher, having long since left pentecostalism.

In 1982, after my spending about 6 months in the “Charismatic Movement” myself, George graciously met with me in his study, and we pored over many scriptures regarding the teachings of this Movement, which I had begun to see were untrue.

Gardiner is the author of “The Corinthian Catastrophe” (http://www.amazon.com/The-Corinthian-Catastrophe-George-Gardiner/dp/0825427088), and gave me a copy of his book, which I still highly recommend to this day for those who have questions.

George Gardiner’s explanation of the History of the Charismatic Movement (preached in these recordings in the early 80′s) is thorough and enlightening. And he really explains well what the Bible teaches about tongues, interpretation of tongues, signs, wonders, and miracles.

Saints In The Hands of An Angry God?

Question: When is God angry with His children, born-again saints of God?

The answer: Never.

Now I know you’ve been taught that He’s angry, directly or by implication. Admit it. You may even think when you are sinful or disobedient to the Word of God that God sees you as “wicked”, and everyone knows “God is angry with the wicked every day”, right?

Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, “Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God” in the 1700′s, and the picture has been applied to believers and has stuck…

…with those who don’t understand the difference between a Sinner and a Saint. Or who don’t understand the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

Oh, how the devil loves confusion. He loves confusion between the biblical concept of a “saint” as anyone who is a born-again child of God, and the Roman Catholic nonsense that a “saint” is someone who meets some elaborate criteria of the Mother Church, and is “voted in”. The devil loves confusion between the Old Covenant (which Hebrews 8 says failed in bringing righteousness because of man’s inability to keep the Law) and the New Covenant, in which God puts His laws in our hearts, fulfills those laws in Christ on the cross, declares us righteous, and forgives us of all our sins, past, present and future.

Yes, the devil loves confusion.

So it’s no surprise (though a crying shame), that children of God think that God is angry at them when they fall short and sin. And otherwise fine Christians who mean well perpetuate this ridiculous notion, without one shred of support from the New Covenant scriptures!

And so Christians often run away from this angry God, instead of toward Him, when they fail. They won’t look Him in the face, because they think it’s a face of anger. What a tragedy.

This is not the place for an extended exegesis (“drawing out”) of the subject in the scriptures. But here’s a challenge for those who doubt what I’m saying: Search the epistles of the New Testament for any teaching that God is ever angry with His children.

By the way, don’t think the passages on God’s chastisement are regarding some kind of punishment out of anger. Study them closely, and you will see they involve loving gentle correction, from a loving Father, who just wants his kids to be in close fellowship with Him. No condemnation, no unforgiveness, no bitterness, no anger.

Like a daddy teaching his 1-year-old to walk, while the kid keeps wobbling, staggering, and falling…sometimes painfully in the wrong direction, but often into a laughing Daddy’s arms for a big hug.

Why Did God Mess Up Your Day?

The following is, of course, pure fiction, and even a little hokey (a little), but it is one of the most beautiful illustrations I’ve ever seen regarding…

1) how little we know what we really need;

2) how ignorant we are of the future — “like totally!”; and

3) how important it is to trust our loving Lord, to thank Him, and to not grumble and complain, in ALL circumstances.

It was written by that good ol’ writer Anonymous, but I would love to give credit to whomever actually originated it.

====================================

Me: God, can I ask You a question?

God: Sure.

Me: Promise You won’t get mad?

God: I promise.

Me: Why did You let so much stuff happen to me today?

God: What do you mean?

Me: Well, I woke up late.

God: Yes.

Me: My car took forever to start.

God: Okay.

Me: At lunch they made my sandwich wrong, and I had to wait.

God: Hmmm.

Me: On the way home, my phone went dead, just as I picked up a call.

God: All right.

Me: And to top it all off, when I got home, I just wanted to soak my feet in my new foot massager & relax, but it wouldn’t work! Nothing went right today! Why did You do that?

God: Let me see….the death angel was at your bed this morning and I had to send one of my angels to battle him for your life. I let you sleep through that.

Me (humbled): Oh.

GOD: I didn’t let your car start because there was a drunk driver on your route that would have hit you if you were on the road.

Me: (ashamed)

God: The first person who made your sandwich today was sick, and I didn’t want you to catch what they have. I knew you couldn’t afford to miss work.

Me (embarrassed):Okay.

God: Your phone went dead because the person that was calling was going to give false witness about what you said on that call.  I didn’t even let you talk to them so you would be covered.

Me (softly): I see, God.

God: Oh, and that foot massager, it had a short that was going to knock out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn’t think you wanted to be in the dark.

Me: I’m sorry, God.

God: Don’t be sorry, just learn to trust Me — in all things.  The good and the bad.

Me: I will trust You.

God: And don’t doubt that my plan for your day is always better than your plan.

Me: I won’t, God. And let me just tell you God, thank you for everything today.

God: You’re welcome, child. It was just another day being your God and I love looking after my children…