How New Covenant Grace Shifts Your Paradigms

This week's audio message:

How New Covenant Grace Shifts Your Paradigms

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

The Four Gifts of the New Covenant (Transcript)

The New Covenant of Jesus Christ is far more radical than is usually understood and taught by the mainstream Evangelical Church.

Although there are many aspects and many facets of the New Covenant, I would like to share with you today what I believe are the four most important aspects of the New Covenant. Four facets of this beautiful diamond of the New Covenant that are blinding in their revelation. Blinding in the amazing impact they have on the life of us believers, once we understand these four gifts of the New Covenant.

Jesus Is The New Covenant

Let me first say that in one sense, the New Covenant is Jesus Christ Himself. That is, it's not just *from* Jesus Christ. It's not just *about* Jesus Christ. And it's certainly not *apart* from Jesus Christ. The New Covenant IS Jesus Christ in the ultimate sense.

That is, He is our gift. He is our forgiveness, our righteousness, and our Life. Christ is our life, once we are born again and brought under the New Covenant.

The New Covenant is not just a thing, or a set of facts. It's first a Person, and only then does it include what that Person has done and declared to us, His children.

Having said that, let's look at four aspects of the New Covenant, which we will call The Four Gifts of the New Covenant.

1. The first gift of the New Covenant is complete forgiveness.

Now you may be saying, “Of course, Terry. That's obvious. I know that forgiveness is part of the New Covenant.”

But wait. I don't just mean forgiveness. I mean complete forgiveness. I mean forgiveness of all of our sins, past, present and future.

Often, misguided teachers teach some kind of condition that's necessary for forgiveness. You know what I mean.

Some teach that we have to move on into discipleship, to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him, or else we can't be forgiven.

Now discipleship is good. And it's important. And to a certain extent, if we are born again, we will enter into some level of discipleship. God is working in us to will and to do for His good pleasure, Philippians 2:13. And in our heart of hearts we want to follow Him, and deny ourselves.

But discipleship is not a condition for forgiveness. We are forgiven the moment we enter into the New Covenant. The moment we are saved. And as we said, that forgiveness includes forgiveness for all of our sins, past, present and future.

Some teach that we have to confess our sins in order for them to be forgiven. After all, doesn't 1 John 1:9 say, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness?”

Well, here's the problem with that incorrect theory. There are always sins, many sins, that we commit and don't confess. We get too busy, or we move on to another sin, or we simply aren't paying attention to a particular sin that we committed. Isn't that true?

When we are deceived by the world, the flesh and the devil, and we walk for a brief time, or even a longer time, in the flesh, we sometimes aren't even aware that we are sinning. It doesn't cross our minds, because we have temporarily hardened our heart and only when we come to our senses do we really realize the awfulness of what we've done. But then it's too late to remember each sin in all of its glory, so to speak.

And so we move on, grateful for our Savior.

Let me ask you this: Are those sins forgiven, which we neglected to confess? If we take the Bible as true, we must say, “Yes, they are forgiven, because all of our sins are forgiven.”

Jesus, on the Cross, said, “Tetelestai (It is finished)”.

While the Church too often teaches some kind of performance or discipleship as a condition for forgiveness, what the Bible teaches is that forgiveness is a free gift from God, through the New Covenant.

2. The second gift of the New Covenant is the Righteousness of God, given to us as a free gift.

Through faith, that is, our believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, God gives us the righteousness of Christ as a gift. That means that He declares us righteous, which means that we are in right standing with Him.

To be in right standing with the Creator of the universe is no small thing. And it took more than a small sacrifice to bring it about.

The Bible says that Jesus became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). In other words, we are made in right standing before God just as if we had not ever sinned. We are declared righteous by God Himself.

The Church too often teaches that our standing before God is based on our performance. They too often teach that we must *do* something in order to stay in God's good graces.

But the truth is, that the whole point of grace is that it is a free gift. While the Church sometimes teaches that we have to earn our right standing with God, the Bible teaches that our right standing with God (our righteousness), is a free gift for all who will come to Him.

This wonderful doctrine is called Justification, and according to the Bible we believers are “justified” (declared righteous) through faith alone, that is, faith in Jesus Christ.

When this wonderful truth is taught, unfortunately it's often said, “Okay, we're righteous, but only in God's eyes.” Think that one through a moment. Because it borders on insulting God.

After all, whose eyes count? They are implying that we're righteous in God's eyes, but we're not *really* righteous. Which is absurd. When we understand that our being justified means that we're put in right standing with God as though we had never sinned or had a sinful nature, we see that it's God's eyes that really count.

One final note on this: Some want to add good works to our salvation as a condition for salvation, which Paul condemns as "another gospel" that is really not a gospel at all. So they will point us to the book of James where James says that Abraham was "justified" by his works as well as his faith.

This is where language study itself becomes fun.

The word translated “justified” actually can mean two things: 1) "declared righteous", and 2) "shown to be righteous". James is simply saying that when we are born again, we are changed, given a new heart. I'll speak more on that in a moment.

But when we are “justified”, we are "declared righteous" by God completely by faith alone. But because we are given a new heart, we will indeed have some fruit in our lives. James recognizes this, and points out that we are “justified” (that is, "SHOWN to be righteous") by those fruits, those “works”.

This makes perfect sense, doesn't it? God declares us righteous by faith, and we eventually *demonstrate* that righteousness by our lives.

Don't let anyone confuse you by simply quoting James and saying, “See, we are saved by works plus faith”. This is the false doctrine of Galatianism.

3. The third gift of the New Covenant is a new heart.

This is the gift Paul speaks of in 2 Cor. 5:17 where he says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold all things are new.

This is the new heart spoken of by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, when God promised a New Covenant, where our heart of stone would be changed to a heart of flesh. This new heart loves Jesus Christ and hates sin.

This new heart is our very nature, our very spirit.

When we are born again, our very spirit is changed. The Bible speaks of it as a death, and a new life. Our old man, our old nature, our old spirit was crucified with Christ on the cross, in a mysterious, but very real way. And we were given a new nature, a new spirit.

Often the Church teaches that believers continue with hearts that are “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”, denying Romans Chapter 6 which clearly says that we are “dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ”.

In conjunction with this, the Church often teaches that we are still sinners by nature, not understanding Romans 7 which clearly teaches that sin is IN our members, but is not us.

For example, in Romans 7:17, Paul writes, “So now, no longer am I the one doing it [that is, the sin], but sin which dwells in me.” Of course when we sin it is "us" as a total person doing the sinning, but Paul is making the wonderful point that it is not "us" in our new nature, our spirit, that's sinful, but that when we walk by our flesh instead of by our spirit, sin which is not us, but dwells in our members, takes over, and we sin. “So now, no longer am 'I' the one doing it, but 'sin' which dwells in me.”

More now in our fourth gift of the New Covenant, where we see what it means to walk in the Spirit.

4. The fourth gift of the New Covenant is Union With Christ.

“...he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” (1 Corinthians 6:17)

When we are born again, not only do we receive a new spirit, but the Spirit of Christ comes to indwell us. And we become one spirit with Him.

This is an amazing thing. Talk about Emmanuel, God with us! The New Covenant has provided for God IN us. It's hard to articulate the importance and wonder of this truth. “Christ in you, the hope of glory”, the Bible says.

Do we then become God, as the New Agers blasphemously teach? Of course not. But our spirits now dwell with His Spirit in these jars of clay, and the more we realize and walk according to that truth, the more amazing life is.

Now verses of Scripture that didn't mean so much come alive.

When the Bible says to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we understand that we already have the Holy Spirit, but we want Him to have greater and greater control of our whole being, body, soul and spirit.

We want Him to renew our minds through His word, and to tame our tongues, and to live His life in us so that we don't walk by the flesh.

When the Bible says that if we walk by the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, we now understand that when we walk by the *Holy* Spirit, we also walk by *our own* new spirit.

When the Bible says to be filled with the Word, we understand that the very Spirit of God is in us to understand and apply that Word.

When the Bible says that all things are possible with God, we realize that this is the one and only God who now dwells in us.

When the Bible says that we have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer we who live, but Christ lives in us, we realize that this is literal, even while it's spiritual.

But the Church too often reduces this glorious walk of the New Covenant to merely a “new” Old Covenant of “rules to live by”, a sort of law-based behavior modification.

When they say, “Preach the Word”, they often mean “Preach the law”. But preaching the Word without an understanding of the New Covenant could be done BY unbelievers TO unbelievers. It can be deadening, instead of enlivening.

Or as the Bible puts it, "the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life". That's why we are encouraged as preachers of the New Covenant. In union with Jesus Himself, our lives have new purpose, new power, new ways. He is our life. We can never go wrong in surrendering to Him.

The Old Covenant is obsolete, as Hebrews Chapter 8 tells us.

The New Covenant has given us the Gift of Jesus Christ, and four gifts with Him:

Complete forgiveness...
the righteousness of God...
a new heart...
and union with our beloved Lord Jesus Christ.

The Four Gifts Of The New Covenant

This week's audio message:

The Four Gifts of the New Covenant

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

The Wrath of Abandonment

This isn't really about politics.

Well, maybe a little about politics.

But I am a Christian first, a believer and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And way behind that, I'm a political Conservative, a believer in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, limited government, free enterprise, low taxes, constitutional strict constructionism, and right to life. In other words, I generally favor a republican (small "r") form of government, in which people freely and democratically elect their representatives, but with a Constitution which protects the freedom and economic sovereignty of its citizens, even unborn ones.

Almost always, when that type of government is not followed, it results in evil practices. Biblically evil. Few exceptions.

Such veering away from the foundations of our Republic is rapidly happening now, due to a radical Leftist President, and a nearly equally radical Leftist Legislature.

The essence of this is both a rapid erosion of freedom (including the freedom to publicly worship Jesus Christ and speak for His Word), and such evils as abortion, infanticide, and the stealing of the earned income of productive citizens to be used for Marxist or Socialist purposes.

Even Marxism itself is essentially a materialistic philosophy, anti-Christ, and has no interest in the spirits and souls of people, favoring the supposed "good" of the State, or those who by their sheer numbers prop up the power of the State.

Finally, such political coups require such blatant and enormous deceit by its leaders that it makes "normal" political deceit look like shining truth. My observation of such deceit in the current U.S. President and Congress is that it has reached the proportions of "The Big Lie".

You may remember that "The Big Lie" was a concept described by Adolf Hitler as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

Except under the Obama administration, now only a month old, there are many such "big lies", too numerous to detail here.

Anyway, take a look at the following video, and then I would like to comment briefly on WHY I believe this is all happening:



Romans Chapter 1 speaks of the decline of peoples, individual and groups, in roughly the following pattern:

1. First, although knowing the power and attributes of God from the created world, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, not seeking God.

2. Then there is typically a sexual revolution, which America experienced full force in the 1960's and 1970's, until today "shacking up", which was considered somewhat shameful when I was a kid in the 1950's, is now hardly blinked at.

3. Then there is a homosexual revolution, which we are currently in the midst of to an amazing degree.

4. Then, God reveals His wrath on a people, with a form of wrath John MacArthur calls "the wrath of abandonment", in which He, in one degree or another, "abandons" a people, nation, etc.

5. This results in a people of "depraved" minds.

John MacArthur, in an insightful message delivered during the National Day of Prayer in 2007, teaches this Romans 1 pattern regarding America, with a sobering conclusion that this "wrath of abandonment" has basically come about in America. (If that link goes dead, just go to family.org and search "John MacArthur, National Day of Prayer 2007")

MacArthur points out that "depraved minds" are minds which simply don't work like they should. They are illogical. Mentally defective.

So when we remark, "What's going on? Are these people CRAZY?!?", the answer is really, "Yes", in the Romans 1 sense.

Think of this next time you find yourself asking, "Is the Congress nuts!!!?" "Are the voters really that stupid!!?" "Has the world gone mad!!?"

A few suggestions:

1. If you are not a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, I urge you to "flee the wrath to come", believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and follow Him. (More here)

2. If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, more than ever stay in the Word of God, and fellowship with Jesus. You need that truth, and you need that close communion with the Truth. You will not likely find truth in the mouths or programs of political leaders. Walk in the Spirit, be filled with His Spirit.

3. Pray for Obama and our other leaders. If you don't live in America, please pray for us. Hopefully, we can return the favor.

4. Don't be cowardly. It's been said that nothing is worth living for if nothing is worth dying for. If you think these are overly dramatic words, you need to study simple history better.

5. Stay informed, but don't fret and stew and hate. Walk in love, even as you walk in truth. Speak the truth in love. Leave the results to God. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord."

6. Be a witness for Jesus. Tell His story, His good news, His truth, His grace, in private and in public;
in letters to our political leaders;
in blogs and Letters to the Editor;
to your family who may be fearful in these times;
to a friend who may think that political power is the big answer;
to yourself...remind yourself regularly of who you are in Christ, and what He's done for and in you, and what is most important.

The Bewitching of the Galatians (Transcript)

Sounds like some Hollywood science fiction movie.

But we're not talking about the Martians or the Venutians, here. We are talking about some aliens, though, who seem to never stop invading the Church, and bewitching people who really should know better.

The Galatians were not the invaders, they were the ones invaded. They were invaded by the aliens we call the Judaizers or the Circumcision Party.

Here's how it happened. Paul the Apostle, in his missionary journeys, had been to the area called Galatia and preached the gospel. By the grace of God, a good number believed the gospel and were saved. They became the churches of Galatia.

This would include some towns you may have heard of, such towns as Lystra, Derbe, Pisidia and Iconium.

But after Paul had preached the gospel to these folks and, you might say, founded these churches, along came some alien false teachers who sort of went behind Paul's back and told the people that Paul was not really the Apostle he claimed to be.

They said that he was leaving part of the gospel out. They said things that the people began to believe. Things that were so outrageous that Paul was not only a good bit peeved with the Galatians, calling them foolish, but he even went so far as to ask them, “Who has bewitched you?”

But you know what's alarming? The errors that the Galatians fell into are still alive and well in churches today. The evil false teachings that the Galatians were lured by are still luring unsuspecting believers today.

Well, what are these false teachings?

I want to talk about nine of them, which are distinct, yet related to each other.

1. They were bewitched to turn away from the true gospel.

We read in Chapter 1, verse 6, "I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel." "Which is really not another gospel", he says in verse 2.

First of all, what is the gospel? You know, many believers are unable to clearly say what the gospel is. They know they're born again, they know they're saved, they know they believe in Jesus Christ, but when it comes to saying what the gospel is, or explaining the gospel, they really have to think.

Well, here's the gospel in a capsule version:

First of all, the gospel is Jesus Christ Himself. That's the good news. But the other good news ("gospel" means "good news") is that Jesus Christ died for our sins on the cross, was buried and rose again from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.

He is Lord. And when someone believes in Him as Savior and Lord, they are saved by God. And it's by grace, which means it's a totally free gift, through faith, through believing in Him. Through faith alone without works adding to that salvation at all. That's the gospel.

Well, what were the Galatians turning to? It's what Paul called a "different gospel" and here's what that different gospel was: Grace plus works.

Now, I should explain, when we're born again, when we become a new creation, when we're saved, we will have good works. God works in us, He tells the Philippians, both to will and to do for His good pleasure. We are His poiema, His "poetry". He's built good works into us, and they will come out, in one form or another.

But those works don't add to our salvation. They don't gain our salvation, and they don't keep our salvation. Our salvation is gained and kept entirely by grace...through faith.

What does it mean, then, that they had a "different gospel"? Well, it was being perverted or distorted to the opposite of the true gospel. The true gospel is by grace alone, and they were being taught a gospel by grace plus works.

Don't be bewitched by that. If anybody ever tells you that you need to DO something in order to keep your salvation, or to get your salvation, don't believe them. That's another gospel, which is not a gospel at all.

2. They were bewitched to turn away from Christ Himself.

Look again at Verse 6, Chapter 1. "I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel."

See, they were turning... when you turn away from grace, you turn away from the Grace Giver. This takes away the relationship that causes our lives to flourish.

When we understand grace, and walk in unity with Jesus Christ, by grace, our lives flourish. We have the fruit of the Spirit. We have an ability to live the Christian life that we don't have when we turn it into a series of laws and rules, and think that we're gaining something in our salvation by following those laws.

Doctrine is important. But it's important because it reinforces a close relationship to God. It's not a matter of academics. Doctrine should reinforce a close relationship to Jesus Christ. And of that doctrine, grace is foundational.

Don't be bewitched to turn away from Christ Himself, and make your Christian life just a matter of following "do's" and "don't's". Those will come by the fruit of the Spirit as we walk closely with Him.

3. They were bewitched to reject the authority of the Word of God.

Paul was an Apostle, after all. We read in Chapter 1, verse 11 and 12, "For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it. But I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now, as the saying goes, don't try this at home. Paul was in a very unique position as an Apostle, to receive direct revelation. And that revelation has ultimately been put down in the written Word of God. And that's all the revelation that we need.

The Word of God is sufficient for life and godliness. You don't need to go look for direct revelation from the Lord. Because you're not going to get it.

Paul had been given the gospel directly from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And he spends a lot of time in Chapters 1 and 2 defending his apostleship. Because that became important for the Galatians to understand, that when he spoke to them the gospel, and when he wrote them, in this case the letter to the Galatians, that this is the Word of God.

You may remember the salvation of Paul, when he was miraculously saved on the road to Damascus....from there he went into the wilderness of Arabia, alone. He didn't go meet with the other Apostles. He went alone with God, in the desert of Arabia, and met with the Lord directly for years. And during that time he, by direct revelation, received the gospel from Jesus Christ Himself.

And He preached that gospel to the Galatians. And they were bewitched to reject the authority of the Word of God. Don't you be bewitched by that thought, that the Word of God is not sufficient. That you need something more. That a false teacher has something that's revelation from God. If you have anybody that says "I have new revelation from God," [or] that contradicts the Bible, you can immediately know that that's a false teacher.

4. They were bewitched to forget what else happened on the Cross.

Let me read Galatians Chapter 2, Verse 20. This is one of the most important verses in the Scripture. "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and delivered Himself up for me."

You see, when Jesus was crucified on the cross, something else happened on the cross. We who are Christians were crucified with Him, in a mysterious way, but nevertheless an actual crucifixion of our old self. Our old man is dead now because we were crucified with Christ, and we were made a new creation.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says you've been made "a new creation...old things have passed away, behold all things have become new." And that's why Paul was asking the Galatians, what could works or law add to what had already been accomplished?

He says in Chapter 3, Verse 1, "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?" And he says that right after Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ..."

At the same time, we have been justified, that is, declared righteous by God. Totally righteous, in right standing with God, as though we had never sinned. And so he's saying, you foolish Galatians, what can you add to that? Having begun by the Spirit, are you going to be made perfect by the flesh? By following the Law? By doing something to complete your salvation, to gain your salvation, or to keep your salvation?

No, and don't you be bewitched by whoever who would tell you that you need to do something in addition to believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, for your salvation.

5. They were bewitched to forget what the Law was for.

You see, they thought that the Law could give life. That's what the Judaizers taught them. "Oh yeah, grace is fine. But you need to add these works to gain life, or to maintain life."

Well, in Chapter 3, Verse 21, he says this, "Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteous would indeed have been based on law."

You see, the law couldn't give life. If it could, then righteousness would be by the law. We would be made righteous, in right standing with God, by the law. But he goes on in that chapter, where Verse 22 says that the law confines all under sin. In other words, the law shows us that we were under sin.

And so the law is a tutor, Verse 24, a tutor that leads us to Christ. Shows us that we need a Savior who will save by grace. Because we're not going to cut it if we need to gain or keep our salvation by the law.

But after faith, after believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, after we're made a new creation, we're no longer under a tutor, Verse 25. The law has fulfilled its purpose in leading us to Christ, that we might be saved by grace through faith.

Don't be bewitched and think that we need to go back to that law in order to maintain or gain that salvation.

6. They were bewitched to forget that the Old Covenant was made obsolete.

This is really made clear in Hebrew 8, which would be great for you to read. The Old Covenant was done away with precisely because we can't keep the law perfectly, and that's the only way that the law would gain anything.

And because we can't keep it perfectly, God gave a New Covenant in Jesus Christ, which is unilateral. He totally did it on His part, and then gave us the gift of salvation and righteousness through this New Covenant.

Don't be bewitched by going back to the Old Covenant and thinking that the following of those laws will gain or keep your salvation.

7. They were bewitched such that they didn’t stand fast or stand firm.

Chapter 5 of Galatians, Verse 1 says, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm, and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."

Don't fall back into that. Stand firm in the fact that you are saved entirely by grace.

And then in Verse 4, he says that the Galatians had "fallen from grace". Falling from grace doesn't mean that they lost their salvation. It means that they got off of the ground of grace, and got onto the ground of law. And that quenches the Holy Spirit and actually hurts their relationship to Jesus Christ.

They forgot about faith and love, which is the fulfillment of the law.

Don't be bewitched by that. Stand fast. When anybody tries to lure you away from grace, you stand fast and stick with the Word of God.

8. They were bewitched to forget to walk by the Spirit.

Chapter 5, Verse 16, "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." "You will not fulfill the lust of the flesh," one translation says.

They were bewitched to forget about walking by the Spirit. They went back to the law, and began to say that we're going to complete our salvation by these laws.

When you walk by the Spirit, it leads to the fruit of the Spirit, and leads away from the works of the flesh. So our life is actually more abundant when we walk by the Spirit and not by the law.

Don't be bewitched by that. You stand firm and walk by the Spirit.

9. They were bewitched so that they forgot to bear one another’s burdens in grace.

You see, not only are we saved by grace, and kept by grace, but when we do sin, or when we find another who sinned, we need to treat that with grace. It needs to be corrected, but it needs to be done so by grace.

Grace is not self-righteous. Grace doesn't say, "I'm wonderful, and you're not, and you better get your act together."

No, look at Chapter 6, Verse 1. "Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual [See that? You who are filled with the Spirit, walking by the Spirit, you who are spiritual] restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself lest you too be tempted."

See, grace is not self-righteous. It's gracious.

And grace keeps us going. Verse 9, "And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap, if we do not grow weary." And it's grace that keeps us from not growing weary, as we walk in grace and the Spirit of God.

Grace glories in the Cross. It doesn't glory in our own successes, like self-righteousness does ("Oh, now I'm doing really well. You're not, so you have to get it together, buddy!") No, it's not that attitude at all. It's the attitude that we're all under grace, now let's walk by the Spirit together.

Don't be bewitched. Don't be like the Galatians who fell from grace and forgot these things that they had been taught by the Apostle Paul.

The Bewitching of the Galatians

This week's audio message:

The Bewitching of the Galatians

Grace For Life audio archives are here.

What Do Tornadoes and Roe v. Wade Have In Common?

What do tornadoes and Roe v. Wade have in common?

They both happened on my birthday.

On January 22, 1999, tornadoes swept through Clarksville, Tennessee, greatly damaging much of our historic downtown area, including several stately church buildings, the local newspaper building, the County Courthouse, and a bunch of lawyers' offices (no chuckling).

Today's Leaf Chronicle headline:

TORNADO: 10 YEARS LATER

Today, of course, driving through downtown, you would never know it had happened.

A Cultural Moral Tornado

A cultural moral "tornado" occurred on my birthday in 1973. So much more damaging than the Clarksville tornadoes, comparison is absurd.

The Supreme Court of the United States abandoned their rightful role as Interpreter of the Constitution, and took on the role of Legislature by, in effect, making a ruling that the right to "abortion on demand" would now be the law of the land.

Thirty-six years later, just under 50 million unborn children have been slain in (and out) of the womb. Legally.

Just for comparison, here are the current population figures for several entire countries:

United Kingdom - 60.7 million
Italy - 58.1 million
South Korea - 49 million
Spain - 40.4 million
Canada - 33.3 million

Do you see what has been done? The equivalent of a major nation wiped out.

John Ensor is the Vice President of Heartbeat International and author of Answering the Call: Saving Innocent Lives, One Woman At a Time.

He wrote the following:

"Some years ago, a woman named Suzanne came to me while I was setting up a pregnancy-help clinic in Boston.

She said, 'If I have the abortion, I will have more money to spend on my other two children.'

I asked, 'What do you think your children would say if they knew you were doing this so that they could have cable TV and other stuff?'

She said, 'Well, I'll ask them.'

Then and there I knew the baby would live. Abortion is unthinkable to children--incomprehensible, horrific, something that would never enter their minds to do.

Sure enough, the children were aghast at the thought.

'We want the baby,' they reassured her.

Some months later, after the baby arrived, I heard her share her story. She said she was embarrassed to think back on her earlier state of mind. She had joined the circle of those who think abortion unthinkable." (HT: Challies)

I will still have a Happy Birthday.

I trust in the sovereignty of God. I know He will exercise justice in the end. But I also know that some of that justice has already been exercised in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. From that He offers mercy.

The same God who forgave me of all my sins stands ready to forgive all who come to Jesus Christ, believing in Him as Lord and Savior, believing that He died on the cross to pay for their sins, and believing that God has raised Him from the dead.

I'm glad I was born.

And born again.

Remembering 1976 on Inauguration Day 2009

It was 1976.

I was 26 years old, and had been politically active since 1964. We elected a President that was not my choice, Jimmy Carter. Many had great hopes. But for many they morphed into despair, even as America had just marked our 200th Anniversary.

Jobs became scarce. Mortgage interest rates zoomed to 18 percent, so many couldn't buy a home.

We waited in long lines for gasoline, hoping the gas station wouldn’t run out before we got to the front of the line, like other gas stations had.

Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini backed the bold invasion of the U.S. embassy and kidnapping of 52 American diplomats. We sent soldiers to rescue them, but crashed two aircraft in the process, eight soldiers dying. We came home empty handed. The hostages remained for 444 days. The humiliation was broadcast on the nightly news, well...nightly.

President Carter didn’t help things. Many of us think he made things worse. That he was inept and ideologically misguided.

High unemployment, rising energy costs, American hostages, the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan. And a President who at best only meant well.

There are similar feelings of hope and impending despair as we inaugurate our new President, Barack Obama.

But where is our hope, really?

It’s not in a new President who promises to pass the so-called Freedom of Choice Act, wiping out every bit of progress that we’ve made against the holocaust of the unborn since 1973.

It’s not in a new President who boldly promises to steal (let’s call it what it is) from the so-called rich to give to the so-called poor.

It’s not in a new President who promises to undermine the integrity of our Constitution by appointing unjust Judges who won’t interpret the Constitution, as they are called to do, but will in effect make unjust laws by perverting or ignoring the Constitution.

It’s not in a new President who judges moral righteousness, not by the Word of God, but by how it fits a left-wing political agenda.

No, our hope is in the Sovereign Lord who “turns the heart of the king like a river.”

I pray He will turn the heart of our new President to righteousness.

I pray He will yet bless America.

Regardless, though, He is still building His Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

Oh, did I mention...?

1976 was also the year that the Lord Jesus Christ came into my life. What a wonderful year after all.

Whatever the political future holds, it is appointed to all men once to die, and then comes the Judgment. As the Bible says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wrath of God will be poured out on all who reject Him. And the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus said that if anyone comes to Him, He will in no way cast them out, but will save them, by grace. This salvation can't be earned. It's a free gift to all who believe in Him.

If you don't yet know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, please turn to Him today. Believe in Him who died on the cross to pay for our sins, and was buried and rose again from the dead. He promises forgiveness to all who come to Him. Call upon Him. In Him is eternal life. Flee the wrath to come.

Have A Blessed Christmas!

The Real Meaning Of Christmas:





The Rest Of The Real Meaning Of Christmas:



Romans 8:1 - There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:2 - For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

Romans 8:3 - For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did sending His own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

Romans 8:4 - in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Have A Very Merry Christmas!

Why The New Covenant Is Unilateral (Notes)

The Bible is what we call the Word of God. The Scripture itself says that it is “god-breathed” or “inspired” by God. Working through ordinary men, God spoke in a miraculous and mysterious way, through the writing of these men, so that we have a record of the actual thoughts, the very heart, of God. In what we call the Holy Bible.

And as we read and study this Bible, this Word of God, one of the most important things we can do is to “rightly divide” the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

Cutting Straight The Word of God

That phrase “rightly dividing” literally means “cutting straight”. We need to cut straight or rightly divide the Word, in the sense that we see the divisions that God Himself has made as He progressively revealed Himself over many hundreds of years.

In one sense, it’s absolutely stunning that so many men over so many hundreds of years could write something that fits together in a way that makes sense. At least it makes sense if we “rightly divide” it. If we don’t rightly divide it, then some things don’t make sense.

God at various times and various places, with various peoples, sometimes had different plans, different commands, different expectations, and different ways of dealing with those people.

The Old Covenant And The New

And one of the most important ways that we need to “rightly divide” the Word is regarding the difference between the Mosaic Covenant, or Old Covenant, and the New Covenant.

Let’s read from the book of Hebrews something about the New Covenant, and then we’ll look at some comparisons with the Old Covenant.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

For finding fault with them, He says, "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;

"Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord.

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those day, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

...."For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more."

When He said, "A new covenant" He has made the first obsolete. (Heb. 8:7-13, selections)

I’d like you to notice three things from this passage:

1. The Old Covenant is obsolete.

--doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything from it
--well worth studying
--what we want to know is the heart of our Lord, don’t we?
--there is much about Him that we can learn even from the Old Covenant
--but it is obsolete, even for the Jew (it was never meant for the Gentile)
--vs 13, “becoming obsolete” refers to 70 A.D. destruction of the temple

2. The Old Covenant has been replaced by the New Covenant

"When He said, 'A new covenant' He has made the first obsolete...." (Heb. 8:13)

--although promised to Israel, the Gentiles have been grafted in, as Rom. Chapter 11 tells us, and we Gentiles who believe in Jesus Christ, are now included in this great New Covenant.

We see this in such passages as:

1 Cor. 11:25, "In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.'"

2 Cor. 3:6, "...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."

3. There is a reason why the New Covenant replaced the Old, and why The New Covenant is a BETTER Covenant.

Heb. 8:6, “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises."

So what is the reason why the New Covenant replaced the Old, and why it’s a better covenant?

Hebrews 8:7,8, "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: 'Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah."

What does He mean, “finding fault with them”.

Well, it simply means this. The Old Covenant was a bi-lateral covenant. That means it had conditions for both sides. This was expressed many times in the Old Covenant laws, which said over and over this basic message:

“If you follow these laws, you will be blessed. If you don’t follow these laws, you will be cursed.”

Now there are a couple problems with that, to put it mildly.

The Problems With The Old Covenant

1. First, it couldn’t save.

There were over 600 laws under the Old Covenant, and the bible makes it clear that if you broke one single law, one time, it was just as if you’d broken them all, and that would keep you from earning salvation.

And obviously, no one could keep all the law, all the time.

Most couldn’t keep any of the law all the time, and some could hardly keep any of the law any of the time.

So the Law couldn’t save.

2. Secondly, the Law was a great burden.

If you read through Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, you will literally thank God that you are not under the burden of the 600 laws proscribed there, many with a simple penalty: death.

But even if you made the attempt, of course you would fail over and over, at least regarding the perfection the Law required.

And because you would fail, the sacrificial system itself was a burden. Actual rivers of blood flowed from the slain animals sacrificed to cover sins.

3. And that brings up a third problem. There could be no forgiveness of sins, only the covering of them.

Only the temporary covering of sins, because "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins." (Heb. 10:4)

And so the sacrifices had to be done over and over and over, with never any real assurance that it was enough. At times God Himself said, your sacrifices make me sick, because your hearts aren’t right.

Then Came Jesus

Ah, but then came Jesus. Then came the Lamb of God who became the final sacrifice, the once for all sacrifice, the One who gave His blood that truly could take away sins.

In came the New Covenant.

The New Covenant is not a bi-lateral Covenant. The bi-lateral Old Covenant failed, in that man was unable to keep his end of the the Covenant. So a better Covenant was put in place. And the one sure defect was left out, namely, dependence on man doing his part.

The Unilateral New Covenant

The New Covenant is UNI-lateral, that is, it was planned, instituted, carried out, fulfilled, and maintained by God. It is not a Covenant between God and man, with each having conditions to make the Covenant "work". It is not of the "letter", but of the "Spirit", and thus cannot fail.

It has His laws placed into the hearts and minds of His people, and He causes them to walk in His ways. It causes man to die to the Law (the very *principle* of Law), so that he is no longer under Law, but under Grace. And this very construct insures that the Law, all Law, is fulfilled, not by the [always shaky] performance of man, but by the [always sure] performance of God.

1 Cor 11:25, "In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.'"

2 Cor 3:6, "...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."