Mandeville Church

The Story of the Bible

Jesus, bible study, grace, salvation, sin 4 Responses »

Jul 272010

Jesus is the Bible Story

What is the story of the Bible?

The shortest answer is: Jesus Christ. He is the Word (John 1:1); you cannot separate the Man and His message. The Old Testament promises His coming and the New Testament proclaims His coming.

But, if you have fifteen minutes, you can go into a little more detail. You might point out the following:

1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). He created man in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). We are His children.

2. God gave men laws to follow, but men broke His laws (Genesis 2-3). This is called “sin,” “transgression,” and “iniquity” in the Bible. It’s when we fail God’s standard and purpose for us. All of us, since Adam, have made that same choice to do life OUR way and not HIS way. We are all guilty.

3. God punished, but He also promised something good in the future (Genesis 3:14-19). Pain, disease, death, difficulty – these all became our reality when sin entered the world. Sin brings a curse. But God wants to bless even when we sin! Amazing! He called this “grace” and “mercy” and “lovingkindness.”

Responding to the Gospel

4. The Old Testament is a window to the future. God promised over and over to send a deliverer, a king, a savior, a servant who would suffer for God’s people. The light gets brighter and brighter as you read through, but at the end of the Old Testament you still wonder, “Who is this person…or are these several different people…who will deliver God’s people?” Galatians 3:24 says, “Therefore the Law [of Moses - the Old Testament] has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”

5. The New Testament reveals Christ. It shows us His person and His teaching. We find that He came, not only for the Jews, but for all nations! That’s the good news of the gospel. If we continue in Galatians 3:27-29:

27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Surely we have just scratched the surface of the Bible Story, but this is a great start. This reveals the great themes of sin and salvation, of God’s justice and mercy. We’ll go into more detail as we progress.

Comments? How would YOU explain this? There are so many ways to do it.

God bless,
Nathan

Acts 27: A Spiritual Analogy

Acts, apostle paul, faith, grace, hope, salvation 1 Response »

Jul 072010

Shipwreck

I am of the persuasion that all of Scripture is profitable for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16-17). In other words, I believe every piece of Scripture, no matter how historically dry it may seem (i.e. details of the priests, sacrifices, genealogies, etc.), has spiritual value and can be used in some way to reveal spiritual principles. I think Acts 27 has some great principles embedded within the story. Doug had some great comments along those lines yesterday. Allow me to offer a few thoughts of my own…

1. Trusting in Self. The men decided to leave when they did because the weather looked good to them, despite Paul’s warning. They trusted in their own evaluation of the signs of the times. And, at first, they supposed they had obtained their purpose (Acts 27:13).

2. Fear. This is a story of danger and trouble. It’s a story of man versus powers much stronger than himself (the sea and the storm). It shows clearly that man is not in control in many areas of life. And that lack of control produces fear. These men were afraid because they did not know the outcome of their adventure. It looked like death.

3. Loss of Hope. After being lost at sea for many days, “and no small storm was assailing us, from then on all hope of our being saved was gradually abandoned” (Acts 27:20).

4. Learning to Trust in God. Paul received a message from the Lord that he used to encourage the men. An angel of the Lord had promised the lives of all the men on the ship would be saved IF they all stayed on the ship and trusted in God! “Therefore,” Paul said, “keep up your courage, men, for I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told” (Acts 27:25). This is Faith!

5. Salvation. Through the power of God and the faith of the men, the ship was brought safely to land. There was a point at which some of the men sought to abandon ship, but the faithful leaders cut away the life boats so no one could leave. They had to exercise their faith. And the end result was: “And so it happened that they all were brought safely to land” (Acts 27:44). This is the way salvation works: by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8).

What a great story! It’s an analogy of a life of faith. Everyone of us hits periods where we must simply TRUST God because WE are not in control! We can’t see the end from the beginning as God can. We don’t hold all the cards. We have to simply take the steps God has laid out for us…trusting that He will work all things together for good (Romans 8:28).

God bless,
Nathan

Did the Lord Open Your Heart?

Uncategorized 1 Response »

Apr 062010

Open Heart

Are you uncomfortable saying, “The Lord opened my heart”? Unfortunately, in all the teaching we do against the Calvinistic ideas of predestination and irresistible grace we often shy away from this kind of language. Acts 16:14 clearly says, “The Lord opened [Lydia's] heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” I don’t believe God did anything differently with Lydia than He did with any other man or woman who came to Jesus. God opens hearts to respond to words spoken.

In Ezekiel 36:26-27, God said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to walk in My ordinances.”
There is no doubt God does these things. He said He would. He said He did. God opens hearts!

The question is not IF He does it…the question is HOW He does it.

Salvation!

This is where the Calvinist immediately jumps to the idea that there is nothing I can do to respond to the Gospel until God reaches down and enables me to do it. I am powerless because I am DEAD in sin. The Calvinist makes a great deal out of the fact that a dead person cannot do anything. If you are dead, you cannot respond, cannot move, cannot think, cannot reason. That’s how they see the spiritually dead. But the Bible’s usage of the term “dead” is not the same as the Calvinist’s. In the Bible, the point of being dead is that it’s a SEPARATION from God.

The Calvinist believes that God SAVES us before we respond to the Gospel. God causes us to respond to the Gospel. Once God has poured His grace upon us, we are powerless to resist His grace – we cannot help but come to Him. God GIVES us faith. He GIVES us a new heart so that we can respond to the gospel. But in all this, the Calvinist connects dots that are not in the Bible.

The Bible does say God gives us new hearts, and He opens our hearts. But the Bible never says God saves us apart from our will to be saved. In fact, the Bible is replete with explanations concerning our free will to respond to God’s message. We need to understand this new heart is instilled THROUGH His word. Lydia’s heart was opened BY the words spoken by Paul. God operates on our hearts through His message, through His divine communication. His word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). We receive His word, understand His word, and believe His word (John 17:8). God’s word sanctifies us (John 17:17). “Sanctify” means to “make holy.” We are made holy through God’s word! We are saved through His word. We are born again through the living and enduring word of God (1 Peter 1:22).

So…don’t shy away from using Biblical language: “The Lord opened my heart to His Gospel.” But be careful not to go beyond what God MEANS by that language!

God bless,
Nathan

Surprised by Salvation

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Mar 052010

Surprise from Above

We love the stories of men and women in impossible situations, near death, saved in the last hour. We should really love the Bible, then, because it’s full of those kinds of stories! We should really love the Lord, then, because He’s the One who saves.

Peter, I’m sure, loved the Lord greatly after an angel broke him out of prison. The event, recorded in Acts 12, seems surreal at first. An angel appeared suddenly in the prison cell with Peter, and Peter’s chains simply fall off. The angel struck Peter in the side and said, “Get up quickly!” There was no, “Hi, Peter, I’m an angel sent by the Lord to break you out of here…now here’s the plan…” Peter, thinking it was all a dream, quickly dressed and followed the angel past two sets of guards. The prison gates swung open without a touch. And Peter was free – just like that! It was only after he was standing a

lone in the street outside the prison that Peter realized, “Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent forth His angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting” (Acts 12:11).

Peter was surprised by the Lord’s salvation. He wasn’t even expecting it, or at least he never expected to be saved in such an exotic manner!

Peter wasn’t the only one surprised. A bunch of disciples had been praying together in the home of Mary, mother of John Mark. Peter found them there praying, but they wouldn’t believe it was really Peter standing outside their gate. They were surprised by the Lord’s salvation, even though they had been fervently praying for it.

Grace in Amazing Places

We might ask if we really should be surprised when the Lord acts in marvelous ways to save us from various afflictions. Do we demonstrate a lack of faith? We can see from this event in Peter’s life that, although we ask the Lord to intervene and help, we just don’t always know HOW God will work (or even IF He will choose to work) for us. God surprises us all the time because He works outside our little worldview. He does many things we wouldn’t expect. Who would have expected God to sacrifice His own Son to deliver us from the worst possible situation – eternal damnation? Someone coined the phrase: “Surprised by Grace.” We can’t help but be overwhelmed when God acts.

It is so comforting to realize that God works for His children! Like Peter, it’s often AFTER God has brought us through some grave situation that we can look back on the path we took and see His salvation at work. While we walk the road of affliction, we simply trust. After God delivers, we pour out our thanksgiving! Praise be to our awesome God who loves us and gave Himself for us.

Praise the Lord today,
Nathan

No Second Chances? (Acts 5:1-11)

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Jan 252010

Illustrated Jonah Story

For those of you with kids, you may have seen the Veggi-Tales Jonah movie. There is a song called “Second Chances” that says, “Praise the Lord, He’s the God of second chances!” Obviously, Jonah got a second chance, right? The Egyptian Pharaoh got TEN chances to obey. How many chances have I had?

And then we read about Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. Peter simply told Ananias that he had lied to God…and Ananias fell down dead at Peter’s feet!

A little while later Sapphira came in, not knowing what had just happened to her husband. What do you think Peter should do here? I figured he should say something like: “Sapphira, I’m terribly sorry to tell you that your husband lied to us and to God, and he has been killed by the Lord. Now, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to think long and hard about what your answer is going to be.” But, no, Peter put her to the test by challenging her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for such and such a price?” (Acts 5:8). Isn’t that a trick? Isn’t that devious? Isn’t that unfair? No, it was as simple and honest question, and Sapphira had the opportunity to give an honest answer.

And she failed the test. “Then Peter said to her, ‘Why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test?? Behold, the feet of those who have buried yhour husband are at the door, and they will carry you out as well” (Acts 5:9). And she died with no second chances.

Folks, second chances are NOT guaranteed. We can observe the patience and lovingkindness of the Lord throughout the old and new testaments, but we also observe cases when God put His proverbial foot down in a final sort of way. Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10:1-3) were killed by fire from heaven. Uzza (2 Samuel 6:6-11) was struck dead immediately when he touched the Ark of the Covenant. We could go on and on listing individuals whose lives ended suddenly, seemingly without warning, because of their sin.

What makes us think we will have a second chance? None is guaranteed! All we can do is THANK the Lord that we have a chance to serve Him and repent today. And when we sin, we ask for forgiveness and THANK God for granting us the opportunity to be forgiven. God doesn’t owe us anything…but He does love us, and He does protect those who are His. Hallelujah, and Praise the Lord for that!

May God’s blessings be with you today,
Nathan

Does it Please God to Punish? (Mark 13:14-23)

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Oct 262009

Jesus and Me

Individuals often wonder how a loving God could bring such great destruction upon mankind – men He created. Some attribute Him with sinful motives, such as pride, selfishness, control issues, etc. What a gross misrepresentation of God and of His Son, Jesus. Those who have these thoughts just haven’t read the Bible, at least not properly.

Jesus was not happy at all about the coming judgment upon the Jews. He warned them many times. Mark 13 is a chapter of warning. Jesus explained how they must run for their lives when they saw armies surrounding the city of Jerusalem.

The importance of fleeing is seen in the following details:

If they were not in their house, they shouldn’t go back in to get anything (13:15)

If they were in the field, they shouldn’t go back to get their coat (13:16)

It would be difficult for those who are pregnant and nursing babies (13:17)

It would be difficult if it happened in the winter (13:18)

The severity of the tribulation would be historically unparalleled (13:19)

God’s true feelings about this destruction are seen in Mark 13:20: “Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened those days.” God was not going to leave His people “high and dry.” He would intentionally provide relief during this dark period of history.

“But isn’t this God’s punishment in the first place?” you might ask. Yes. And even in punishment, He extends His grace and mercy! This is why David chose to be punished by God rather than the by hands of men, because he knew God is a merciful God.

And Jesus cried out in Matthew 23:37-39

37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.
38 “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!
39 “For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’”

Jesus’ heart was torn for His people. Think about this whole event in light of our sin. What does God think about sin? What will God do with sinners who refuse to come to Jesus? Jesus wants to gather us together under His wings to protect us…but are we willing? Even as the rest of the earth is judged for their unrighteousness, God provides us a way of escape. We don’t know when it will happen, but we know where to put our trust!

God bless,
Nathan

The Story of the Bible

Acts 27: A Spiritual Analogy

Did the Lord Open Your Heart?

Surprised by Salvation

No Second Chances? (Acts 5:1-11)

Does it Please God to Punish? (Mark 13:14-23)

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