Believers Armed and Dangerous

James 1:19-20 (ESV) Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;  for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Boy I lost it this week.  Our family car’s engine blew over a month ago, and I’ve been trying to get the manufacturer and dealer to do something about it.  I finally resigned myself to the fact they were going to do nothing and left it at the dealer for repairs.  The had quoted me a price but increased it after I had put down a hefty deposit.  I’m afraid this resulted in my foolishly sending an angry email to their service department.

I don’t know about you, but anger is sometimes a difficult thing for me to control alone.  God has to deal with me and straighten me out.

As is my habit, whenever something becomes a big topic in my life, I research it.  “Anger” is all over the Bible but is seldom mentioned in a good light, for instance:

Prov. 14:29 (ESV)  Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.

I found the expression of our anger has consequences.  We end up passing it along to others:

Prov. 15:1 (ESV)  A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

But, if we work to control it, we are among the best of us:

Prov. 16:32 (ESV)  Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

Controlling our anger is the hardest part, I think.  And how do we do that?  We do that by turning it over to God again and again, every time we get angry.  I found sitting down and writing about my anger and researching what the Bible teaches about it helped me cope and gave me peace.

I think much of what angers us is rooted in pride:  “They can’t treat me that way!  Who do they think they are?”  We’re not always angry at people, though.  Sometimes we’re angry at ourselves for doing or not doing something.  Ever assemble something and it looks more like a trapezoid than the square it’s supposed to look like?  I often wonder how many marriages “Some assembly required” has damaged.

Why is this important?

Still, we need to find ways to quell our anger.  A God who will listen, His Word that calms us, friends to talk with, learning not to blow up in the first place are things to try.  While writing about the problem and seeking what the Bible teaches helps tremendously, there is still the ultimate deterrent, the apology to someone you’ve been angry at.  As Calvin’s (and Hobbs) father would say, it builds character.

I make a point in my apologies (yes, plural) to tell the offended party what I did was not the way a Christian should act and to ask for forgiveness, you know . . . . grovel.

During the period I was angry with the car dealer, God kept bringing one Scripture to mind that I just ignored.  I enjoyed my self-righteous anger, so I wallowed in it far too long.  Here is the Scripture:

Psalm 46:10-11 (ESV)  “Be still, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!”

¹¹     The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

To paraphrase, “Don’t sweat it. Just sit back and let the Creator of the universe deal with this.” The day after I sent my angry email and spent most of the night awake thinking of ancient torture tactics I might use on said auto dealer, he came back to me with a fix to our problem.  God had been at work while I was not.  All I needed to have done was to be still and know that He is God, that He has control of the situation and will see to it it ends as He wishes.

All day, He reminded me “Be still, and know that I am God.”  I pray God will impress that passage upon me the next time I let anger get the best of me.

1 Cor. 12:27 (ESV)  Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

When I was a boy, I asked God to show Himself to me

Not in a spiritual sense, but something tangible I could see.

He didn’t appear to me that night, He wouldn’t show Himself,

So, just to show who’s the boss, I put His Book back on its shelf.

As the years went by, His Book came down, now I know Him as my Lord

But, He never forgot my prayer, He remembered every word.

When I look around the church, I see some very dear friends of mine

Who show me through their lives and loves, God’s qualities divine.

In some, I see the joy of God, His patience, and His kindness

While others share His love in truth to cure the world’s blindness.

With some, it’s His authority that comes bursting through,

With others, His sense of humor with the funny things they do.

If you ever prayed a prayer like mine on some dark and lonely night,

Just look around, He’s wall-to-wall, behold the Body of Christ.

I wrote that poem maybe 40 years ago for a church “talent” show.  In case you can’t recognize the standard required for the entrants, one fellow whistled all four stanzas of Amazing Grace.  The poem may not be the best ever written, but I like the premise.

The truth of what the body of Christ truly is was made very clear to me this last week.  Saturday afternoon, I began to feel chest pains.  As a man, I was sure they would just go away.  After an hour and a half of that, Pam (my wonderful and caring wife) convinced me to go to the VA and get checked out.  Both my father and brother died of heart disease, but I’ve always been told I was fine.

On the way, I texted a group of friends who began to pray for me immediately.

Chest pains give you a golden ticket to the front of the line at any emergency room.  It was no different for me.  After some poking, prodding, and an x-ray or two, the diagnosis changed to gallbladder.  It needed to come out.  Our VA is a smaller one, so they sent me down to the Phoenix VA where a surgeon and a bed were available.  By Monday afternoon, the gallbladder was no more, and I was on my way home by Wednesday.  They kept me longer than usual because the gallbladder looked particularly “angry” said the surgeon afterward, and the surgery went much longer than expected.

During all this time, I was constantly checked up on and prayed for by brothers and sisters in Christ with texts, emails, phone calls and visits assuring me I was loved and missed.  It was like a well-oiled machine.  My wife had never driven deep into Phoenix, so I asked her to stay home rather than be swallowed by the city.  She’s smart, but the city is confusing to everyone the first time and especially alone.

So, it “happened” a Christian couple, friends of ours, texted me shortly after Pam told me she wanted to visit.  Our friends were going to Phoenix and asked if they could stop in.  I asked if they had room for Pam, and I got to see my wife.

Why is this important?

The body of Christ is made up of all the Christians past present and future.  Not only were the people from my church worried about me and seeking to love and encourage me, but so where the Christians at both VAs.  I met Christian techs, doctors, nurses, and specialists as well.  Even the guy the VA paid to drive me home from Phoenix was a fellow believer.

God is present on this earth and presents Himself in the body of His people.  When God acts, He likes to use us to join in His work just as any other Father wants to work with his children rather than work alone.  He could do it all by himself, but the bond with his child is strengthened when they work together.

We must not undervalue the Christians God brings into our lives.  He is acting through them to accomplish His purpose and blessing us all in the process.

Most of us ask this of God often:  “Am I worthy?” We know who we are, what we’ve done, who we’ve hurt.  Most of all, we’ve hurt God.  So, how can we be worthy?

John 4:27-43 brought this to mind this morning.  The passage is the end of the story of Jesus with the woman at the well and addresses the results of their talk.

In the chapter, we find this woman had been married five times and the one she was living with at the moment was not her husband.  Just as a side note, those five husbands were probably not dead.  Imagine if you were number four considering marrying a woman whose previous three husbands had bit the dust.  Wouldn’t you consider hiring a food tester, a body guard, or maybe paying for some anger management for the woman?  So, these men probably left her.  She may not have been easy to live with. There may be a good reason number six hasn’t married her.

The fact she showed up at the well to draw water at the noon hour (the sixth hour by Jewish measure) when the women of the town normally came in the cool morning hours, points to a woman of poor reputation, a woman in sin and the talk of the town.  She wanted to draw water alone. The next thing that happens is the disciples return to Jesus at the well:

John 4:27 (ESV)  Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”

Any decent rabbi wouldn’t be caught talking with a woman alone, especially a Samaritan woman, and a woman of poor reputation, but Jesus did; and the disciples didn’t question either of them.  They knew enough to accept what Jesus was doing even though it seemed odd.

Next, after Jesus had His discussion with the woman, we see this result:

John 4:28-29 (ESV)  So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out of the town and were coming to him.

So, the woman left her water jar – an indication she planned to return to the well – and ran to tell the townsfolk.  Think about this, now.  A woman of bad reputation, who no doubt had made a lot of bad decisions in her life, the subject of town gossip, came to the townspeople all excited and was able to bring people to Jesus.  In fact, the people of the town asked Jesus to stay and tell them more.

Why is this important?

Sometimes we feel unworthy to do anything God asks or commands.  We think the sin in our lives holds us back, maybe we feel ill equipped to share the gospel, or maybe we feel no one will listen.  When that happens, we should think of the woman at the well.  This was a woman of ill repute who was deep in sin.  If anyone would consider themselves unworthy, she would.  Yet, she was approached by the very God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and told all about her sin.  Though she was aware of all that, she ran to tell others of this glorious Savior she had met at the well.

It’s interesting in the Gospels no one except Jesus is called “worthy” of God.  John the Baptist says he’s not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals.  In Matt. 8:8, the centurion says he is unworthy to even have Jesus under his roof.  Jesus said in Matt. 10:37 if we hold our parents in higher regard than we hold Him, we are not worthy of Him.

But in the book of Acts things change.  Jesus has made the sacrifice.  We now stand before God cleansed and worthy to suffer for Jesus (Acts 5:41).

If God can use a poor sinful woman like the one Jesus spoke with at the well, He can use us.  She had no training in evangelism or public speaking, yet the two days Jesus spent in her town of Sychar in Samaria are known by some commentators as the “Sychar Revival.”

Eph 4:1 (ESV)  I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

Only through Christ are we considered worthy, you and I.  We are worthy to be used by Him here in this world and later to stand before Him faultless at the time of judgment.  Halleluiah!

Over the past six years and more than 300 blog posts (this is #317), I’ve made an effort (not always successfully) to try and keep myself out of the picture.  After all, this isn’t supposed to be about me but about our common faith and the God who is at its center.  However, I was asked the other day by a Christian friend what I would say if I were asked why I believe.  I thought this would be a good thing to share with the BAAD readers.

I told him I’m not a Christian because it makes me feel good but because it’s true.  The very miracle that is at the center of our faith, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, is the best documented event in ancient history.  We have eyewitness accounts of that are considered genuine even by secular Greek scholars and historians, genuine in that they were really written by who we believe wrote them and they wrote what they believed they saw.

I’m challenged occasionally by atheists who want to discount the documents of the Bible because the writers were “biased;” they were Christians after all.  My response is always “If you saw Jesus die a terrible death, put in a tomb sealed with a ton and a half to two ton stone, then saw Him walking around three days later and the tomb empty, wouldn’t you become a Christian.  The fact the writers were Christians is evidence for the genuineness of the record they’ve given and not against it.

Another reason I believe is all the New Testament writers except for John died a terrible death but never recanted their message.  In fact, many continued to preach the gospel to their tormentors while dying.  Bartholomew was skinned alive, Andrew was crucified on an “X” shaped cross, Thomas was run through with a spear while preaching to a crowd in India, Peter was crucified upside down.  All could have been spared if they had said the gospel was a lie, yet all continued to speak of Jesus as they were dying.  Their concern was for those listening and not for themselves.

I believe because the Bible has been shown to be reliable both internally and externally, internally because it contains predictions of future events which come true.  Externally because it has been tested and has the greatest manuscript authority of any ancient document or collection of documents, greater than the Homer’s Illiad, Plato’s Republic, and Caesar’s Gallic Wars.  There are nearly 25,000 manuscripts of the New Testament in existence and more being discovered all the time.  The earliest manuscript is dated within 30 years of its writing and less than 90 years of the events it records.

I believe because the existence of God is by far the best explanation for the existence of the universe.  Without God, we would need to believe something comes from nothing, order comes from chaos, abstract thought comes from matter in motion, consciousness comes from a collection of amino acids in a primordial soup.

Astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Ross came to believe God existed and reasoned a God intelligent enough to create a universe like ours may have wanted to communicate with His creation.  Ross began to read the books of the major world religions to see which best matched the cosmos he had studied as his life’s work.  Interestingly, he found all but the Book of Mormon and the Bible to be unscientific.  He then realized the Book of Mormon was somewhat accurate because it greatly plagiarized the Bible.  But the Bible was an accurate representation of the Universe he knew, so he pursued the Christian God and began Reasons to Believe, a ministry attempting to show people the sound scientific basis for the Christian faith.

Why is this important?

Ours is a faith founded on fact and reason.  We need not shrink from critics who seek to discount the things we believe.  We have the upper hand and can stand strongly in the marketplace of ideas.

Let me add one more reason I believe.  I believe in Jesus Christ, the God who sat and conversed with people like the woman at the well in John chapter 4, because like that woman, I’ve met Him.  We talk every day, and as I study His Word, I see Him more clearly, feel Him more closely, and as a result seek Him more earnestly.

Enough about me; what about you?

The Samaritans

John 4:9 (ESV)  The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Samaritans.  Why do you suppose the Jews has no dealings with Samaritans?  I remember being told Samaritans were some sort of mixed race, part Jewish, and so were shunned by the Jews.  I thought it would be good to look into these people and see why the Jews truly didn’t like them.  Here’s what I found:

•  The Jews’ issues with Samaritans began way back in 2 Kings chapter 17 where the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom of Israel jumped into idolatry with both feet.  As a result, God allowed the Assyrians to conquer the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  It was the practice of the Assyrians to relocate/scatter those they had conquered to other parts of their kingdom.  This kept the captives from reuniting and forming a force to overthrow the Assyrians.  Pretty smart!

So, the Jews were moved out of northern Israel. Then Assyrians and other captives were moved into an area of the Northern Kingdom known as Samaria.  Now these guys started worshiping their pagan gods as they always had, but lions had multiplied in the area and started killing some of these folks off.  Their pagan priests thought this was because they were ignoring the God of Israel (Many ancient people thought gods were local, only gods of a specific area), so they brought a Israelite priest back to Samaria to teach them about Yahweh.

The Samaritans then did not worship Yahweh alone but simply added Him to their pantheon of gods. 

• The Samaritans later built a temple to Yahweh on Mount Gerizim and claimed it as the true temple of Yahweh rather than the Jerusalem Temple.  The woman at the well in John 4:20 mentions this.
• After the Jews of the Southern Kingdom were held captive in Babylon (c. 587-539 b.c.), Cyrus, the King of Babylon, said they could return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and gave them resources to do so.  The Samaritans offered to help in the construction, but the Israelites suspected they wanted some of the money given them by Cyrus and refused their help.  This built animosity between the two peoples.
• Nehemiah 6:1-14 tells us the Samaritans made it extremely difficult to complete the rebuilding of the temple by Nehemiah and the Israelites.  This made the Jews even more upset with the Samaritans.
• Samaria then became a refuge for the criminals of Judea.  The Samaritans gladly welcomed them to their community.  Criminals angry and running from the law of Judea added to the animosity of the Samaritans.
• The Samaritans only accepted the books of Moses and discounted the poetic books and the prophets.
• Lastly, during the Maccabean Revolt that ended about a century and a half before the scene of Jesus and the woman at the well, the Samaritans took the side of the enemy of the Jews.

Why is this important?

There were lots of reasons for the Jews to hate the Samaritans.  We all have people we don’t like, people who have a history of hurting us or others.  How should we deal with these folks?  Look at how Jesus did this:

In John 4:4, we’re told Jesus “had” to pass through Samaria.  There is a lot of significance to that word “had.”  It means “necessary.”  Jesus had another way to go from Judea to Galilee.  Going through Samaria was not the only option.  It was necessary for Jesus to go through Samaria because He needed to talk with this one woman and, because of their conversation, many in her town were brought into the kingdom.

We hold grudges, we have biases, we have people in our lives we just don’t like.  Joyce Landorf called the annoying people in our lives “Irregular People.”  Jesus showed us in John chapter 4 there is no excuse at all for the Christian to treat anyone, anyone at all, differently.  For the Christian there is neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Greek.  When we treat people poorly because of our prejudice or because they just annoy us, we are in sin and need to turn to God for forgiveness.

Jesus concern for the Woman at the Well was not about earthly prejudice. It was about eternal freedom.

The Bible tells us we are in a battle against spiritual forces anxious to dull our Christian life.  Someone once said “To Satan, the next best thing to a lost soul is a sterile Christian.”  Satan wants us to be sterile, prevented from showing the world the Christ we know and love.  In Ephesians 6:22-20, God has listed six items of spiritual armor we can use to succeed in this battle:

1.The Belt of Truth – It is important to know the one true God of the Bible.  There are others which are called gods, but there is only one true God (1 Corinthian 8:5-6).  One important definition of “truth” is anything that corresponds to reality.  Truth is consistent not chaotic.  When we run into inconsistency, we need to test what’s being said or taught by the Word of Truth (2 Tim. 2:15).

2. The Breastplate of Righteousness – Our righteousness comes from Christ alone.  Our relationship with Him through prayer and reading His Word is paramount to our lives.  In this way, we seek His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).  James 5:16 says there is power in the prayers of the righteous.  That word for “power” means “a strength which can overcome.”  Our righteous prayers can overcome the enemy and his followers.

3. Shoes are the Gospel of Peace – We need to know God well enough to hold the peace of God within us.  His Spirit fills us and brings us this peace (John 14:27).  I love this.  Isa. 26:3 gives us some insight into staying calm, at peace, in the midst of the battle:

       You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

So, we need to keep our minds on our Backup.  He “has our six.”

4. Shield of Faith – The Bible tells us with just the faith of a mustard seed we can move mountains (Matthew 17:20).  Our confident belief shields us from attacks of the enemy.  It is what protects us from the shots taken by the enemy, and there are shots taken at us all day and every day.  We need to cling to our faith, cover ourselves with our faith if we wish to survive this battle.

5. Helmet of Salvation – To step into battle without your helmet is a deadly choice.  We must have the salvation given by Jesus to stand against evil.  We must be His children (2 Thessalonians 3:3)  I watch a lot of old World War II movies, and one thing the soldier always keeps close besides his rifle is his helmet.  The assurance of our salvation enables us to stand our ground.  It insures God is standing with us in the battle and will protect us.  Our minds need protection.  They are the most vulnerable battlefield. 

6. Sword of the Spirit – This is the Word of God.  Jesus, when He was being tempted by the devil, used Scripture to fend off Satan himself (Matthew 4:1-11).  We have the same power and the same Word Jesus used.  Much of what the devil uses to come after us is temptation to sin.  Reciting from memory 1 Corinthians 10:13, out loud if necessary, is a good defense against the devil’s temptations.  It will help get your heart right and your mind off the temptation.

I’d like to note here the obvious.  The Sword is the only offensive weapon in the list.  The others are for our protection.  The Word of God is our assault weapon.  We need to practice its use, keep it sharp in your mind, and always keep it close at hand.

Why is this important?

We Christians face spiritual warfare daily.  Knowing how to keep the enemy at bay helps us to stand unmoved against the schemes of the devil.  God has given us armor to use in our striving against the devil.  I know people who physically “put on the armor” daily, people who have been in the battle, have scars from it, and know the value of each piece.

Matt. 25:34-40 (ESV)  Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶ I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? ³⁸ And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? ³⁹ And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ ⁴⁰ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

What does God expect of us as Christians?  Most of us pray and read our Bibles regularly.  We attend church and give money to God’s work.  We may even share our faith with someone at work or, at least they know we’re Christians.  What does God fully expect of us, though?  Is this all?

In Matthew chapter 25, Jesus gives us three parables about expectations, His expectations of us.  He tells the Parable of the Ten Virgins, then the Parable of the Talents, and last of all, He speaks directly about His expectations of His people when He returns at the final judgment.  He expects us to have reached out to our fellow man.

I found this quote on expectations at the Billy Graham site and thought it was great: “What God expects, and all God expects, is that we dedicate completely all of our talents and gifts to Him.”

“All our talents and gifts,” that’s a tall order, isn’t it, but so true.  Anything less is to set aside God as a secondary priority where we pray, give, go to church, and read our Bible as more of a daily habit to which we dedicate very little of our time.

This whole subject got me to thinking of time and just what God always expects of us.  Here are twelve “alwayses” I found: we are to always fear God (Deut 5:29), always obey Him (Deut. 11:1), always set the Lord before ourselves (Ps. 16:8), Give thanks for your fellow Christians always (1 Cor. 1:4), always abounding in God’s work (1 Cor. 15:58), give thanks always (Eph. 5:20), we will not be ashamed but courageous (Phil. 1:20), Rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4), always speak graciously (Col. 4:6), always seek to do good to everyone (1 Thess. 5:15), always fulfill your ministry (2 Tim. 4:5), and always be prepared to defend the faith and answer questions (1 Peter 3:15).

Why is this important?

There are other expectations such as giving, church service we need to work on as well.  Don’t get discouraged, though. Like so many things God asks of us, this list is impossible to fulfill, we’ll never be able to remember, let alone, do all these things.  How can God expect this of mere humans?  It turns out there are a couple of more alwayses that apply: Jesus is always with us (Matt. 28:20), and He always leads us (2 Cor. 2:14).  He is the power behind us as we seek to fulfill His alwayses. The Spirit that lives within us will produce these things the more we yield to His will.

There’s a story about John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. When he was asked how much he prayed every day, he said he prayed three hours on a normal day but for five hours on a busy day.  Let prayer be the start and continual priority of your day, and you’ll be surprised how much God can do through you to further His kingdom.  God works through His children. Pay attention, and you will recognize many of the alwayses appearing in your life as you seek the heart of God.

John 3:26-27 (ESV)  And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.”⁷ John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.

Years ago, I used to listen to the Tim and Al Morning Show on KBRT, a Christian talk radio station in Los Angeles.  Tim had a very primitive view of Christianity.  He took the Bible at face value, and I loved him for it.  One morning Tim called other local Christian radio stations asking them to advertize his show on their stations and he would do the same for their shows.  Tim thought Christians should work together for the good of God’s kingdom.  He was flatly and universally turned down.

Something else Tim did was to call massage parlors in the Los Angeles area with a Bible quiz.  He would ask a few Bible questions of the prostitutes or pimps who worked there always ending with “Who created the universe?”  If they got it wrong, he would prompt them until they came up with the correct answer.  Having answered the question, there won a Christian CD and a Bible which would be sent to them. This way, Tim was able to cause lost soles to think about divine things and place a Christian CD and a Bible in their hands.

Since KBRT was a Christian station, Tim had a fairly narrow listenership, yet he wanted to do all he could with what God had given him.  I think we see this same attitude in John the Baptist in the above passage.  We also see the wrong way for God’s servants to act.

In the passage above, John’s disciples think this is a competition. Jealousy and pride flare up.  They show loudly and clearly their resentment of Jesus’ ministry as it grows in size and importance compared to John’s.  They call Jesus “he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness.”  They just couldn’t bring themselves to speak even His name.

John then gives us the proper response in verse 30:  “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

As I was a young Christian teacher, I had dreams of teaching thousands. In my mind, I was going to be a big deal.  That’s the pride of life in case you missed it (1 John 2:16).  That was the same attitude displayed by John’s disciples. We think we’re all that and a bag of chips. “We’re the ones God is using. Who does that guy think He is?”

John knew his place, that he was there to magnify our Lord and not himself.  For some of us this is a really tough lesson to learn but true.  Who we are and how much we are used by God is not for us to say.  If God is going to use us, He will use us as He wills and not how we want. Remember it is hard for Him to use us with a prideful attitude. Usually the one standing in the way is us, so if you’re wondering why God isn’t using you, you might look in a spiritual mirror.

John was happy with diminishing numbers.  So long as God was using Him, he looked at what God had given him and did his best to glorify God, not himself.  This is a hard lesson for us to learn.  We want desperately to serve God in a big way no matter what God wants.  We look at the twelve disciples of Jesus and realize by the end of the third century ten percent of the Roman World was probably Christian.  We want to make a mark like that.

Why is this important?

Ed Kimball was a simple Sunday School teacher, who in 1858 led a Boston shoe clerk to give his life to Christ. The clerk, Dwight L. Moody, became an well known evangelist.

 In 1876, D. L. Moody brought to Christ a student named J. Wilbur Chapman after an evangelistic meeting.

Several years later, Chapman, engaged in YMCA work, employed a former baseball player, Billy Sunday, to do evangelistic work. Sunday’s ministry grew, and he ended up sharing the gospel with 80 to 100 million people before his death in 1935.  In 1934, Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, N.C.

A group of local men were so enthusiastic afterward that they planned another evangelistic campaign, bringing Mordecai Ham to town to preach. During Ham’s revival November 1, 1934, a young man named Billy Graham heard the Gospel and yielded his life to Christ.

Hundreds of millions of people heard the words of Christ because God used a Sunday School teacher who simply allowed God to use him with what little position he had to talk with a shoe clerk.

I’ve never taught thousands.  The largest Sunday School class I’ve taught has been 55, the smallest was 2, but I have seen God change lives.  So long as I present myself to God for His use in His work, I shouldn’t feel any more blessed or teach with any less zeal in either case. 

“He must increase, and I must decrease.” 

It should be tattooed on our foreheads.

When Mormon missionaries come to our door, they would like to leave us with a copy of the Book of Mormon and ask us to pray for God to tell us if it is true.  The goal is to have a confirming “burning in the bosom.”  But what is this book they’ve handed you, this “Second Testament of Jesus Christ” as they call it?

The book itself is a story of two bodies of Old Testament Jews who travelled to the Americas.  The first group left just before the time of the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11.  and sailed, it is supposed, to the west coast of South America.  The second group led by a man named Nephi, left about 600 b.c., just before the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, and perhaps landed on the east coast of North America.

When Nephi died, his group split into two tribes, the Nephites and the Lamanites, who grew to great civilizations and who fought with one another until about 400 a.d. when the unrighteous Lamanites wiped out the Nephites.  The last surviving Nephite, Moroni, was the last of a series of historians who had written all this down on gold plates.  Moroni buried these plates on a hill known as Cumorah in modern day New York.  To punish the Lamanites for their ungodliness, God turned their skin dark and they are ancestors of Native Americans.

In 1823, this same Moroni, now as an angel, supposedly came to Joseph Smith in his bedroom to tell him of the gold plates and where they were buried which happened to be near Smith’s house.  Joseph went to the location and dug finding the plates.  Moroni would not allow Joseph to take them, though, for another three years.

Then Joseph allegedly translated these plates he said were written in Egyptian into the Book of Mormon.  Remember, in the early 1800s Egyptian culture and language was of great interest throughout the world.  The Rosetta Stone from which we discovered how to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics, was discovered in 1799.  Hieroglyphics were very much a mystery to most of the West then.  Egyptian could be represented as saying anything the “translator” wanted them to say.  The story that the angel Moroni took the plates back after Smith “translated” them helped keep any doubters from proving Smith wrong.

How he did the “translation” is interesting, but first we need to know Joseph Smith had, by this time, a reputation as a treasure hunter using a seer stone, a stone which was placed in his hat, he would then place his face into the hat and divine where the treasure might be by observing the stone.

Here is a description of how Joseph “translated” the Book of Mormon from an eyewitness of the time:

“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.” (David Whitmer, – An Address to All Believers in Christ )

Why is this important?

You might ask who David Whitmer was and how can he make stuff like this up.  If you have a copy of the Book of Mormon handy, you’ll find Mr. Whitmer listed as one of the Three Witnesses who testified to the genuineness of the Book of Mormon and that it is true.  He was one of the early movers and shakers in the Mormon movement and was quite well aware of how the Book of Mormon was produced.

Is this how the Bible was produced, by someone putting a hat over their face and looking into a stone for translation? of course not.  The Bible was written in known languages still handed down today.  The civilizations and geographical locations found in the Bible are found and still being found.  There are no artifacts in the Americas supporting the Book of Mormon, quite to the contrary.  The Hill Cumorah, the site where Smith claimed the gold plates had been buried is also the sight of the final and greatest battle between the Nephites and Lamanites.  Millions of men supposedly died in these battles, yet no artifacts have been found there, in the surrounding area, or any area for that matter to support the claims of the Book of Mormon.  The Smithsonian has actually prepared a form letter for all those inquiring about the historicity of the book.  Nothing which supports the Book of Mormon has ever been discovered.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone, and they just don’t seem to understand the terms you’re using or you don’t understand theirs?  A classic example of this is in the brilliant classic comedy skit by Abbott and Costello, Who’s on First. 

With Cults, one of the methods they use is to redefine terms to suit their beliefs.  Let’s use the Mormon’s Mormon Article of Faith to to demonstrate this. It reads: “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”

To the average Christian, this seems to describe the Biblical Trinity pretty well. After all, we believe in the nature of the one true God (Isa. 44:6) there are three distinct Persons: the Father (Gal. 1:1), the Son (Heb. 1:8), and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3,4).

But, to the Mormon, “God the Eternal Father”  means something very different.  They have redefined the terms to match what they teach.  They believe the Father (Elohim), the Son(Jesus), and the Holy Ghost are three separate gods. 

The god the Mormons call the Father or Elohim is an exalted man who was just like you or I, but over time, he was able to rise to the point of godhood and became god over the planet earth.  All male Mormons seek to attain godhood just like Elohim.  So, the Mormon definition of “Father” is not quite what the Bible teaches.  To the Jehovah’s Witnesses, “God the Eternal Father” is the only Person of the godhead.

His Son, Jesus Christ to the Mormon means a spirit child born to Elohim, who preexisted then became truly the physical offspring from sexual relations between God the Father – an exalted man remember – and the Virgin Mary.  The Mormons don’t believe Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit as the Bible teaches (Luke 1:35).

To Jehovah’s Witnesses, “His Son, Jesus Christ”  is also redefined.  The son to them is the first and greatest creation of God the Father.  The son was the creator of all other things as Michael the archangel.  Then the Father destroyed him, took his essence and placed it in Mary’s womb.  As a result, Jesus was born as a perfect man but only as a man.  At the crucifixion, Jesus died and ceased to exist for three days.  On the third day Jesus was recreated as Michael the Archangel as God the Father remembered him and now sits as a secondary being to God the Father.

Holy Ghost  to Mormons means a personage of spirit, a third god of the godhead.  To the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Holy Spirit is nothing more than God’s active force, not a Person at all but God’s power.

Even the word “Trinity” is redefined in Mormonism as three Gods one in purpose.  They deny the Christian/biblical definition as do the Jehovah’s Witnesses who deny the Trinity is a biblical doctrine at all.

Why is this important?

So, we can see how something which sounds like what we believe can mean something very different. When we talk with cultists or anyone who disagrees with our beliefs, it is extremely important to make sure we agree on terms and definitions.  As with Abbot and Costello, non-agreement on terms can lead to deep confusion and misunderstandings.