1 Timothy 4:1 (NKJV)
¹ Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,

How is this possible? It will happen, and is happening, through false teachers who have infiltrated the Church.

Jesus warned us that false prophets and teachers were coming—He said they would come dressed in sheep’s clothing but would in reality be ‘ravenous wolves’ who would devour and destroy many with their demonic lies. (Matt.7:15-20)

Paul told us false teachers were coming—

Acts 20:29 (NKJV)
²⁹ For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

Peter warned us they were coming—and that they would bring with them all kinds of destructive and damning heresies. (2Peter 2:1-3)

So Jesus warned us they were coming, Paul warned us they were coming, Peter warned us they were coming–Jude told us they’re here—he said that they “crept into the church unnoticed” (v.4)

How could this have happened in spite of all the warnings? It happened because even though the Church was warned she wasn’t watching.

Now in the first century the main heresy that the early church fought was Gnosticism.

The word ‘Gnostic’ comes from the Greek word ‘gnōsis’ which means ‘knowledge’.

The Gnostics prided themselves on their knowledge—spiritual knowledge that they claimed not even the apostles had when it came to understanding the “deep things of God.”

The Gnostics considered themselves wiser and more spiritual than everyone else. They were the “spiritual elite” and everyone else was below them—which was one of the main reasons this philosophy drew so many people to it because it appealed to the pride in man.

But it was also popular because the Gnostics practiced a form of mysticism which included various practices that appealed to people because it promised that they could “experience God” in a way that others who didn’t practice these things could not.

This is what made Gnosticism so attractive—it gave people things they could do to conjure up God and become one with Him. And through these mystical practices and disciplines they could gain insights and spiritual knowledge that non-Gnostics couldn’t attain to.

So if they meditated a certain way or chanted the right way they could connect with God and reach spiritual perfection—a pillar of Gnostic doctrine.

If Gnosticism was the most dangerous heresy facing the early church in Paul’s day—what do you think is the most dangerous heresy facing the church in our day?

Let me tell you what I think it is (or at least is at the top of the list)—contemplative spirituality also known as Spiritual Formation and at its core is what is known as contemplative prayer.

What is Contemplative Prayer?

Contemplative prayer is a belief system that uses ancient, eastern meditation practices to induce altered states of conscience known as ‘the silence’ (the emptying of all thought to make contact with the spirit realm possible).

There are three different ways to reach the silence:

• By repeating a word or a phrase (mantra)
• By using breathing exercises (that’s why it’s sometimes referred to as ‘breath prayers’)
• By focusing on an object

The most common way to reach the silence is by using a mantra which is why contemplative prayer is sometimes called ‘mantra meditation’.

Ray Yungen in his book, A Time of Departing, had this to say, “Since mantras are central to this type of meditation, it is important to understand the proper definition of the word. The translation from Sanskrit is man, meaning to “think”, and tra, meaning “to be liberated from.” Thus, the word literally means to escape from thought. By repeating the mantra, either aloud or silently, the word or phrase begins to lose any meaning it once had. The conscious thinking process is gradually tuned out until an altered state of consciousness is achieved”.

This kind of meditation has been practiced for centuries by those in Eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism (Transcendental Meditation), Islamic Sufism; also by those in the New Age and occult. However, over the last 50 years it has become ‘main stream’ in American culture.

How Did This Type of Eastern Mysticism Become so Popular in American Secular Culture?

Those promoting these meditation techniques knew that to keep them in the realm of the spiritual would only limit their appeal, they knew that most Americans would not get involved in Eastern religious practices since we are primarily a Judeo-Christian nation. And besides secular people wouldn’t mess with spiritual meditation practices anyway.

So they did ‘repackaged’ their product so that the focus was changed from the spiritual to the physical—in other words things like Yoga (Transcendental Meditation) and Creative Visualization were presented as adds to physical and mental health (physical fitness/stress reduction) and self-help tools to help people “tap into their full potential” and thus become more productive on the job etc.

The whole ‘Human Potential Movement’ is built on eastern mysticism and has infiltrated thousands of corporations under the guise of stress reduction and better productivity techniques.

Ray Yungen—“The health, self-help, and recovery sections of the secular bookstores are now saturated with New Age metaphysical books. Christian columnist Terry Mattingly summed up the situation brilliantly when he observed: ‘The New Age didn’t crest, it soaked in … It is now the dominant theme in commercial bookstores.’ If the self-help personal growth sections of most secular commercial bookstores were examined, the only conclusion to come away with would be that New Age mysticism is the prominent spiritual viewpoint of this country.”

If this kind of Eastern spirituality had only affected secular culture in the West it would have been bad enough—but as Paul warned that in the last days many in the Church would depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and would embrace doctrines of demons—that prophecy has now been fulfilled in our day.

This is a doctrine that’s being embraced by thousands of churches, Bible colleges, seminaries, and Christian publishing houses.

How Did Contemplative Prayer a.k.a Mantra Meditation Infiltrate the Church?

Contemplative prayer got its start in the church through a group of Catholic monks known as the “Desert Fathers.”

These were a group of men who lived in the 3^rd and 4^th centuries A.D. and wanted to live lives of total separation from the world so as to experience God in a deeper way.

So they left their towns and villages and moved out into the desert to live a monastic kind of life (the word ‘hermit’ comes from the Greek word for ‘desert’).

Later they built monasteries and lived together but initially they were individual hermits sprinkled throughout the desert seeking a deeper knowledge of God.

At some point they came in contact with other travelers from the East who taught them forms of eastern meditation that they believed would help them experience God in a new and more powerful way.

In the West, meditation means to “think deeply about something”, but in the East it means to “empty the mind in order to open it to the spirit world, leading to mystical experiences with “God.”

These Catholic hermits thought that if they could learn to practice mantra meditation techniques like contemplative prayer and learn to visualize Christ and biblical events in their imagination, the Bible would become more real and they would mature spiritually.

You say, “How could they think they could use Eastern pagan practices to help them get closer to the God of the Bible?”

The Desert Fathers believed as long as the desire for God was sincere—anything could be utilized to reach God. And so if mantra meditation worked for the Hindus to reach their gods, then Christian mantras could be used to reach Jesus.

In other words everything back then and still today with those practicing these things in the Church is based on intent. Yes Hindus and Buddhists practice these things to make contact with their gods but as long as our intent is good, i.e. to make contact with the true and living God—it becomes sanctified and God honors it.

Well using that logic Christians could justify using Crystal Balls, Tarot Cards and Ouija Boards to make contact with God and come into a deeper relationship with Him—I mean it’s OK because our intentions are good—right? WRONG!!

Wanting to draw near to God is a good thing—but it must be gone about in the right way. Good intentions are not enough—the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

David had good intentions when he wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem but he didn’t follow God’s instructions for transporting the Ark and even thought his intentions were good the results were bad (Uzzah died). The moral of the story is, it’s good to want to do a good thing for God but it must be done in the right way–His way if it’s going to be blessed and not end in disaster!

“So what happened with these Eastern meditation techniques among these Catholic hermits?”

Roger Oakland in his book “Faith Undone” writes, “This practice remained obscure for many centuries and didn’t become mainstream until about fifty years ago when a Catholic monk who was also a world-renowned Trappist monk named Thomas Merton brought it out of the convents and monasteries and presented it to a much larger audience. Catholic priest and mystic Henri Nouwen further expanded this interest to Protestant and even Evangelical circles. Others who played a vital role in the propagation of mystical prayer were: Matthew Fox, Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating. Pennington’s book alone, Centering Prayer, sold over a million copies.”

Thomas Merton eventually came to believe and taught that the realm reached during mantra meditation is the same no matter what religion you belong to (just like spokes on a wheel all leading to a central hub—all religions lead to the same place and connect all of us with the same “God”).

This is the foundational belief that Panentheism (God is in all) is built upon  which almost everyone who practices contemplative prayer for any length of time eventually comes to believe in.

One of the most influential and well-known evangelical Christians in support of contemplative prayer is Richard Foster. His book, Celebration of Discipline, is considered a “Christian classic”. It has sold more than two million copies since it first came out in 1978 and is still going strong today.

Christianity Today named it number eleven in the “Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals” and the readers of that magazine voted it the third most influential book after the Bible!

Richard Foster is a big fan of Thomas Merton and praised him as being right up there with Zen Masters from the East as “an authority on meditative or contemplative prayer”.

Foster is another one who believes that as long as our intent is to make contact with the God of the Bible then contemplative prayer becomes a ‘sanctified tool’ to help us draw close to Him.

Listen to some of what Richard Foster teaches Christians to do to experience “God”—Foster in, Celebration of Discipline, he writes, “In your imagination allow your spiritual body, shining with light, to rise out of your physical body…Reassure your body that you will return….Go deeper and deeper into outer space until there is nothing except the warm presence of the eternal Creator. Rest in his presence. Listen quietly [to] any instruction given” (p. 27).

This is astral projection and is the major occult technique used by shamans (witch doctors) to contact their spirit guides.

Yet Foster claims that it will allow you to contact Jesus: “Take a single event [from Scripture]. Seek to live the experience…apply all your senses to your task…represent to your imagination the whole of the mystery…as an active participant….You can actually encounter the living Christ in the event, be addressed by His voice…touched by His healing power.…Jesus Christ will actually come to you” (p. 26).

Not so! You cannot summons Jesus Christ from the right hand of the Father to appear before you at your beckon call—but any demon will be happy to pretend to be Jesus if you engage in non-biblical occult practices like visualization (which is what Foster is promoting).

If God gives you a vision it’s called revelation, but if you try to conjure one up it’s called divination—and that is strictly forbidden by God in His Word.

In the occult visualization is the quickest way to pick up a spirit guide.

Author Dave Hunt said, “The growing belief that visual images created in the imagination open the door to a closer walk with God is part of an epidemic of extra biblical teaching that is being accepted in the church today. The door is being opened to demonic delusion, and it is astounding how many Christians are walking through it.”

Jesus said, “Father Your Word, (not “Your image, picture or visual representation”), but Your Word is truth”.

If this kind of prayer is so good and of God then why does it come with a “warning label”? Richard Foster writes a curious warning about this practice in his book, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home:  “I also want to give a word of precaution. In the silent contemplation of God we are entering deeply into the spiritual realm, and there is such a thing as a supernatural guidance… While the Bible does not give us a lot of information on that, there are various orders of spiritual beings, and some of them are definitely not in cooperation with God and his way! … But for now I want to encourage you to learn and practice prayers of protection.”

Brian Flynn an ex-New Age medium and now evangelical Christian responds—“Then why do it, Mr. Foster? Why would God put me in a position to fend for myself in this unknown spiritual realm surrounded by spiritual beings that are not in cooperation with God and his way? He would not. “What would martyrs of the faith who departed from Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism say to us if they could speak of our intermingling Christianity with Eastern mystical practices? As a former New Age medium, I know the difference between Eastern meditative practices and biblical Christian prayer. Sadly, too many in the Christian community do not.’”

Roger Oakland in his book, Faith Undone, ends the chapter entitled “When West Meets East” with these words of warning, “Foster’s implication that some contemplative prayer is safe is terribly mistaken. No contemplative prayer is biblical or safe—even the most “mature” of the Christian mystical leaders proved susceptible to its demonic pull. Thomas Merton at the end of his life said he wanted to be the best Buddhist he could be. Henri Nouwen at the end of his life said all paths lead to God. This was the spiritual fruit of their lives after years of practicing mystical prayer.”

And yet many in the Church continue to allow themselves to be led down a path of deception by embracing these teachers and their teachings.

Again much of it is justified based on intent and results—in other words since their intent is good and these things seem to give them an experience with God and a sense of well-being, peace, joy and even feelings of euphoria—therefore, many reason, “If it feels good and the results are positive it must be from God.”

Brian Flynn—“As a former practitioner of TM, I know that feeling; it is very empowering and seductive. After my psychic meditations, I felt tremendously euphoric. What makes contemplative prayer so dangerous is that Christian practitioners believe this power and euphoria come from God. And they believe the voice they hear is the voice of God. They are mistaken, and Scripture clearly warns us that just because something appears good, does not necessarily mean it is: “And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.” (2Cor.11:14-15)”.

Can Mantra Meditation Be Justified From Scripture?

Proponents of this kind of meditation try to justify it from Scripture by saying that the Bible talks about meditation in many different places such as—”This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night…” (Joshua 1:8)

The word translated ‘meditate’ is a Hebrew word that means “to chew the cud” and simply refers to the practice of “chewing on something God said so as to extract every ounce of spiritual nourishment and meaning from it”. It doesn’t mean to go into an altered state of consciousness by emptying the mind of all thought so as to make contact with the spirit realm.

They justify entering into The Silence as a way to know God by quoting Ps.46:10—“Be still and know that I am God…” The Hebrew for “be still” is a word that means to “stop activity.”God is telling us to  “stop running around trying to fix our problems. Be still and let Me show you that as God nothing is hard for Me to solve”.

Nowhere in the Bible did any of God’s people in either the Old or New Testaments ever practice let alone teach contemplative prayer.

While it is absolutely certain no reference can be found anywhere in Scripture that supports the practice of mantra-style contemplative prayer, there is a reference that actually condemns it, and it is Jesus Christ who says: “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (Matt.6:7)

In the Greek “vain repetitions” means “meaningless, repetitive babbling” which Jesus told us not to do when we pray—the very thing mantra meditation is built upon.

Brian Flynn—“Jesus told us not to use vain repetitions as .. the heathen do. While it is certainly true the Desert Fathers experimented with contemplative prayer, what is not true is that it originated with them. In actuality, mantra meditation was practices by pagan religions (including Hinduism and Buddhism), centuries before Christ was born. So it would only make sense that Jesus knew about this form of prayer and may very well have been referring to it directly.”

What are the Consequences of Practicing Contemplative Prayer?

Some of the physical effects for those who practice mantra meditation include seeing flashing lights and feeling strange sensations like tingling on the top of their head. But some of the more severe consequences would include hearing voices and experiencing a change in personality.

Cassandra Batya, who as a Christian, decided to practice contemplative meditation because she wanted to feel a close relationship with God. However, the more she got into contemplative spirituality, the worse things got. Listen to excerpts of her candid and compelling testimony:

“My spiritual focus and prayer became less about Jesus, and more about mystical spiritual highs and insights. Contemplative spirituality became my drug. During prayer, a voice in the back of my head would tell me I was a witch. One night, my thumb/hand began to shake on its own during prayer. By nature, I am a kind and loving person and have been told such, but I started to have hateful and venomous mood swings and became at moments verbally abusive to my loved ones. I was surprised at my own behavior and language.”

Eventually, she realized she had entered a dangerous demonic realm. Immediately, she began praying for guidance: “I repented and renounced all contemplative practices, inner/esoteric spirituality, and mysticism. Actually, I wept aloud, fell on my knees, and begged God’s forgiveness. I threw out all books and music that dealt with mystics, mysticism, and esoteric/inner/contemplative spirituality and anything else related to it. I immediately knew I had done the right thing. The atmosphere in my home changed, and for the first time in a long time, when I prayed to God I felt a peace and joy in my heart, and not great fear or terror.”

One of the major spiritual results of practicing this kind of meditation is Panentheism and Interspirituality.

Panentheism means that “God is in everything”.

Contemplative prayer is giving Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Islamists the same experiences leading all who practice mantra meditation to believe that the same “God” is in all of these faiths.

The inevitable result is then interspirituality—“a uniting of the world’s religions through common ground”. The term means to “break down the barriers that separate religions”.

One leader in the contemplative movement said that the only way to do this was through contemplative prayer— “All these religious traditions [Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, etc.] emerge out of mystical experience, and mystical experience means a direct knowledge of and relationship with the Divine, God, or Boundless Consciousness. One can almost say that the real religion of humankind isn’t religion at all, but rather it is mystical spirituality.”

These practices are preparing people for the one world religion under the False Prophet and Antichrist.

In his foreword to Ray Yungen’s book, A Time of Departing, Ron Comer says: “By using Eastern mystical techniques such as the repetition of words (mantras) and the emptying of the mind, professing Christians are testifying to powerful experiences in the spiritual realms. In Christian circles these techniques are being called: the silence, breath prayer, centering prayer, or contemplative prayer. Through these mystical prayer practices the church today has opened its door to a subtle abandonment of the gospel…Like two rivers merging together, Eastern and Western religious thought are joining together, thus gaining momentum towards a one world religion in which all paths lead to God.”

It is so foundational to Christianity that anyone who denies the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot be a genuine Christian.

Without the resurrection there is no Christian faith, no salvation and no hope for man.

As Paul the Apostle said in 1Corinthians 15: “If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is useless, your faith is meaningless, we are still in our sins, those who have died believing in Christ are lost and we are of all men the most pathetic—we might as well eat, drink, and be merry for there is nothing more to life than this.”

However Paul went on to say, “But now Christ is risen from the dead and is the first fruits from the grave of those who have died believing in Jesus.”

The resurrection is central to the Christian faith. And since the resurrection is the core truth that allows someone to become a Christian—I’d like to use the word “RISEN” as an acrostic which will help you to remember how a person becomes a Christian and what the Christian life is all about.

That brings us to the first letter in the word “risen”–

“R”—Renunciation

The dictionary defines the word ‘renounce’ as “to give up, to refuse to follow, obey, or recognize any further”

The basic idea behind renunciation is to repudiate and walk away from something that you had, up to this point, believed in and followed after—in other words to turn from a way of life to embrace something different.

The biblical term would be “repentance”.

The word repentance comes from two Greek words that literally mean “to have a change of mind that leads to a change of action”—or in other words it speaks of turning from one way of thinking and living to embrace something different.

Of course when we’re talking about becoming a Christian it means to turn your back on the life you are now living—a life of sin and rebellion against God—and to forsake that way of life by turning to God because you want to start living in obedience to Him.

Repentance is the first step before a person can believe the gospel.

Jesus said this in Mark 1:15, “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Now after renunciation that then leads to the second letter of our acrostic—

“I”—Identification

The dictionary defines ‘identify’ in this way—“to be or become the same; to conceive as united as in spirit, outlook or principle.”

To become a Christian not only means you have to renounce the old life of sin but it also means you then need to identify with Jesus Christ.

“Yes, but what does that mean?”

Well, as the dictionary defines it—it means, “to become the same (oneness); to be united in spirit, outlook and principle (doctrine).”

In other words to identify with Jesus means that you believe in Him—in who He is (the Son of God); in what He did for us (died on the cross for our sins) and that you receive Him as your Lord (the One Who now controls your life).

Furthermore, identifying yourself with Jesus means that you understand that you will be required to die to your goals and desires to live for Him in such a way that everyone can see you belong to Him.

One of the classic passages in the N.T. on the subject of identifying with Jesus is found in Mark 8:34-38: “Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. ³⁵ If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. ³⁶ And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? ³⁷ Is anything worth more than your soul? ³⁸ If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (NLT)

Now renunciation and identification automatically and instantaneously lead to the third letter in our acrostic—

“S”—Salvation

Once you have repented of your sins and have come to Jesus by putting your faith in Him, receiving Him as your Savior and Master—the one who now has control of your life—well the result is salvation.

What exactly does that mean? What are we saved from? Many on Christian radio and TV are teaching that what God really wants to save you from is ‘unhappiness, sickness, poverty’ etc.

However the Bible actually teaches that our salvation takes place on three different levels.

As Christians:

1. We have been saved from the penalty of sin—we’re no longer going to hell (1Thess.1:9-10; Rom.8:1)

I was listening to one of the old time preachers who was preaching on this subject and he challenged his audience by saying—“If you say you’re saved—what are you saved from? Are you saved from bitterness? Are you saved from lust? Are you saved from cheating, lying, stealing, alcohol or tobacco? What are you saved from?”

If you’re not being saved from the power of sin (sanctification and personal holiness) what makes you think you’ve been saved from the penalty of sin (not going to hell)?

3. We will be saved from the presence of sin—we’re no longer going to live among sin (Rev.21:27; 22:14-15)

Now once a person is saved the next two letters of our acrostic come into play—

“E”—Emancipation

The dictionary defines emancipate—“to free from restraint, control, or the power of another; especially to free from bondage”

One of the things that salvation brings is, not only access to heaven someday, but freedom from the devil’s control right now.

Acts 26:18 (NKJV)
¹⁸ to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’

You see, the gospel is our spiritual “Emancipation Proclamation” which set us free from the power of sin and Satan.

And as we just said earlier, if you’re life isn’t changing for the better, if it isn’t becoming more and more liberated from the power of sin and the control of the devil—the question you need to ask yourself is have you really been set free from sin—or in other words are you really saved?

And finally the last thing that becomes a reality when a person becomes a Christian is represented by the final letter in our acrostic—

“N”—New Creation

This happens simultaneously with our emancipation and both emancipation and new creation happen instantaneously with salvation.

What does it mean to be a new creation?

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

This verse is a favorite with those who have recently been born again, and is often quoted in personal testimonies.

Sometimes in being thus quoted, it gives quite a false impression. Listeners are apt to think that when a man is saved, old habits, evil thoughts, and lustful looks are forever done away, and everything becomes literally new in a person’s life–at that instant.

That’s true in part. You see the moment we accepted Jesus as our Savior and Master we were born again and made a new creation inside.

At that instant God planted His Spirit within us and gave us a new nature consisting of a new heart—a new heart that has a desire to obey all that He has commanded and that desires to stay away from all that He has condemned.

This is all part of what it means to be a new creation in Christ—that God saves us and plants these things within us at the moment of salvation.

However with anything you plant it takes time to grow.

2 Peter 3:18 (NKJV)
¹⁸ but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…

As Christians we are a part of God’s new creation and God continues to work in us to make us what He wants us to be—His own personal work of art. (Eph.2:10)

In other words, our conversion is not the end; it is the beginning of all that God wants to do in and through our lives.

Philippians 1:6 (NKJV)
⁶ being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;

And so there you have it, the five things involved in becoming a Christian—all made possible by the core truth that Jesus Christ is risen!

Renunciation

Identification

Salvation

Emancipation

New Creation

The first two lead to salvation; the last two proceed from salvation but altogether they make the Christian life a reality.

The question is have you made them a reality in your own life?

Salvation is the greatest gift in the universe built on the greatest event in history. However with any gift it will not do you any good unless you receive it.

Will you reach out by faith right now, repenting of your sin and rebellion toward the holy God Who loves you and gave His Son to die for you and receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

The Bible says that today is the day of salvation, if God is speaking to your heart right now don’t put this decision off–it is the most important decision you will ever make because it alone carries with eternal consequences.

If you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior now He will confess you before His Father someday that you belong to Him. I guarantee you will never regret making that decision!

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day.

Pastor Phil

You might be thinking to yourself—“why is Paul praying that Jesus may dwell in their hearts—I thought he was writing this to Christians who already had Jesus living in their hearts?”

It is true that Paul is writing to believers living in Ephesus. It is also true that Jesus lives in the heart of every Christian the moment they receive Him into their heart by faith as Lord and Savior.

So then what is Paul actually saying here? The answer is found in the word “dwell.”

According to the Greek scholar Dr. Kenneth Wuest the verb literally means “to settle down and feel at home.”

Certainly Jesus was already living in the hearts of the Ephesians, or else Paul would not have addressed them as “saints” in Ephesians 1:1.

What Paul is praying for is a deeper experience between Jesus and His people.

He yearns for Christ to settle down and feel at home in their hearts. He’s not talking about a superficial relationship, but an ever-deepening loving communion.

However, Jesus will never feel at home in our hearts until He feels welcome and comfortable in every room and secret chamber of our hearts—otherwise He will go on feeling like a tolerated visitor.

Remember one thing—Jesus didn’t force His way into your heart when you became a Christian.

He said in Revelation 3:20, “Behold I stand at the door and knock—if anyone opens the door I will come in…” Notice the Lord didn’t say, “Behold I stand at the door and kick it open.” He said, “Behold I stand at the door and knock”.

There was an English artist, Holman Hunt, who attempted to capture this scene on canvas—the painting now hangs in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

He pictured Jesus standing at a door of a neglected cottage—knocking to be let in.

When he first painted the picture, he invited his artist friends to critique it.

After studying it for awhile one of them said to him, “Holman, you have left off a very important part of the door–the handle, you left off the handle of the door.”

“Ah,” Mr. Hunt replied, “This door is a picture of the human heart, and the handle of the door is only on the inside. You see it’s up to the one within to respond to the knock of Jesus and open the door of their heart to invite Him in.”

Jesus will not force His way into a heart. He won’t barge in where He’s not welcome.

He’s a perfect gentleman who knocks and says, “If you’ll respond to Me, I’ll come in and dwell with you—but the choice is up to you.”

Most of us have made that choice. We heard His knock and said, “Come in, Lord. Come into my heart and make it your home.” And He did.

And now that He has come into our hearts He won’t feel comfortable until He has full access to every room and closet so that He can clean out the junk and rearrange and redecorate things so that He really feels at home there.

In his booklet “My Heart Christ’s Home”, Robert Munger pictures the Christian’ heart and life as a house, through which Jesus goes from room to room.

In the library, which is the mind, Jesus finds trash and all sorts of worthless things, which He proceeds to throw out and replace with His Word.

In the dining room of appetite He finds many sinful desires listed on a worldly menu. In the place of such things as prestige, materialism, and lust He puts humility, meekness, love, and all the other virtues for which believers are to hunger and thirst.

He goes through the living room of fellowship, where He finds many worldly companions and activities which He replaces with godly friends and fellowship with Himself.

Next the author pictures Jesus going through the workshop, where only toys are being made and He replaces these with the work of the Kingdom.

Then He goes into the closet where hidden sins are kept which He proceeds to clean out, and so on through the entire house.

Only when He had cleaned every room, closet, and corner of sin, carnality and foolishness could He settle down and be at home.

Author William MacDonald has said concerning this,

The problem with all too many Christians when they invite Jesus into their hearts, is that they lock Him in a ‘back bedroom’ somewhere and only bring Him out when they need His help.

They make most of their lives “off limits” to Him because they really don’t want Him intruding into areas of their thought lives, their associations, or interfering in how they spend their time and money.

But if Jesus Christ isn’t Lord of all He isn’t Lord at all.

Another problem with a lot of Christians is they have neglected their heart relationship with Jesus so much and allowed it to grow so cold that Jesus feels unwelcome, unwanted and abandoned.

Again, using Holman Hunt’s painting of Jesus standing at a door of a neglected cottage knocking to be let in.

One author put it this way—

Folks, if you’ve never opened your heart to Jesus then know that He is standing on the outside of your heart knocking—it’s up to you whether or not you let Him in.

But understand that if you do it’s all or nothing. You must be willing to give Him total control of your life to clean it up and make it holy.

And for those of you who are Christians whose hearts have grown cold to the Lord know this—Jesus loves you and is saying to you, “It’s not too late to repent, it’s not too late to renew the warmth of our fellowship with one another.”

Of course the key to all of this is faith even as Paul stated in verse 17—“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…”

Why has your relationship with Jesus grown cold? Maybe it’s because your faith is failing.

The reality that God has revealed to you has begun to seem unreal. Your faith is dragging.

The solution—you need to turn back to Him and renew your relationship by doing the things you used to do when you first opened the door of your heart to Him.

This would include getting back to church and back into your morning devotions.

Fill your day with praise because God inhabits the praise of His people.

But most importantly you must get back into His Word if your faith is going to be strengthened and renewed.

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. (Romans 10:17)

The first thing to believe is the most fundamental fact of the Christian life and that is that Jesus Christ has come to live in you.

This fact is not dependent upon your feelings, which ebb and flow. It rests solely upon Jesus’ promise given in the Upper Room in John 14:23 when He said to His disciples, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”

And also, “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5)

That is what Paul refers to when he prays that Jesus may dwell in our hearts through faith.

First of all remind yourself of that every day as a Christian—that Jesus Christ lives in you. He has taken up residence in you and He promises never to leave you nor forsake you.

He has made your heart His home and you belong to Him forever!

Now make Him feel at home by surrendering every area of your heart and life to Him that He might start giving you an Extreme Makeover Heart Edition!

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day.

Pastor Phil

I think it’s because of all the changes that are taking place in our country; changes that are moving us from a spiritual nation—a nation founded by God and lived under God—to a secular nation where more and more people no longer believe in the God of the Bible which has caused many to abandon traditional values and do whatever seems right in their own eyes.

And because of it I find myself longing for the proverbial “good old days”—a time when everything seemed simpler and clearer.

A time when peoples’ thinking wasn’t so morally confused; when everyone knew right from wrong instinctively and when speaking out against evil didn’t brand you a ‘phobe’ of any kind.

A time when patriotism and the love of country was assumed and not assailed; and when everyone this time of year went around saying, “Merry Christmas” and no one even thought to be offended.

Of course all of that has changed.

Many retailers have instructed their employees to no longer say “Merry Christmas” but instead to say something generic like “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings.”

Many companies won’t allow their employees to put up a Manger or even have a small one displayed on their desk.

Many employers have instructed their employees that they can’t give one another Christmas cards containing any “religious” themes as they might be offensive to some.

Of course one of the main areas where we see this anti-Christmas political correctness being promoted is in the public schools system.

When I was in school as a kid it was always called “Christmas break” now it’s called “Winter break”—but it doesn’t stop there.

Many school districts have prohibited Christmas carols from being sung during school festivities

I read a story about a school in eastern Massachusetts where the children were informed that they could not sing songs with any religious references in them.

They also could not wear Santa hats or even elf hats with red in them—they had to be white. Christmas trees had to be referred to as “magical trees.”

And so when one parent walked into their child’s class while they were singing, instead of the class singing “we wish you a merry Christmas” they were singing “we wish you a swinging holiday”.

Even the Salvation Army hasn’t been immune from the war on Christmas.

I recently heard the story of a Salvation Army worker who was informed by a policeman that a local ordinance would prevent her from ringing her bells to invite contributions.

She was polite and apologetic that she had “broken” the law—however she was determined not to give up too quickly and so she came up with an idea.

The next day she was back in front of the store doing a brisker business than ever—as she waved one sign and then another in the air. One sign said “ding” and the other said “dong.”

Which is fitting because the world is full of “ding dongs” who are doing all they can to sanitize and secularize the Christmas season to the point where there will be no trace of Christianity left in it when they are finished.

But even more to the point—the war on Christmas is really a war on Christ Himself—Who is the “reason for the season”.

One of the groups that are leading the charge in the war against Christmas (and Christ) is a group called the ‘American Atheists’ who recently spent $20,000 to put up a billboard in New Jersey.

The large billboard is on Route 495 near the Lincoln Tunnel and depicts a silhouette of the Three Wise Men approaching a manger alongside the words: “You KNOW it’s a Myth. This Season, Celebrate REASON!”

Dave Silverman, a spokesman for the group, said the sign isn’t designed to convert Christians to atheism but rather to encourage existing atheists who are going through the motions of celebrating Christmas—poor babies!

Now while the atheists want to remove Christ from Christmas and celebrate a “generic, non-specific winter holiday”—many others have simply gotten so busy with the season they don’t have time for the Savior or have simply forgotten Him altogether.

It reminds me of the mother out Christmas shopping with her little girl who passed by a Nativity Scene in a department store window.

Catching a glimpse of the beautiful scene the child grabbed the mother’s hand and exclaimed,  “Mama! Mama! Please let me stop for a minute to look at Jesus!” But the mother quickly pulled the little girl away and said, “We don’t have time for that, it’s Christmas!”

Pastor and Evangelist Greg Laurie said, “A friend of mine told me about his young son who prayed, ‘Lord, thank you for sending your only FORGOTTEN Son, Jesus.’ He meant to say “begotten,” of course, but “forgotten” may be more accurate for many today!”

Have we, as a nation, really forgotten why Jesus came? Why did God become flesh to live among us for a time?

Charles Wesley, in his hymn “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”—one of the most beautiful and powerful Christmas hymns ever written, gives us the answer.

The whole hymn is beautiful but I’d like to focus on just the third stanza—

“Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

Light and life to all he brings, Risen with healing in his wings.

Mild he lays his glory by, Born that man no more may die,

Born to raise us from the earth, Born to give us second birth.”

“Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!”

This line was taken from Isaiah 9:6-7:

“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”

1. “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” This speaks of His first coming—His incarnation.

2. “And the government will be upon His shoulder.” This speaks of His second coming—His coronation.

3. “And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” These are the titles of the King—His identification.

4. “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.” These are the timeless truths of His kingdom—His administration.

“Hail the Sun of Righteousness!”

This comes out of Malachi—”But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings…” (Malachi 4:2)

When people read this verse and how it refers to Jesus as “the Sun” and not the “Son of Righteousness” they wonder if it’s not a misspelling.

It’s no mistake because in Ps.84:11 it says, “For the Lord God is a sun…”

In Malachi 4 it refers to Jesus as the “Sun of Righteousness” because it is likening His return to establish His Kingdom—a Kingdom of true righteousness to the dawning of a new day.

Paul had this in mind when he said—“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night [of man’s rebellion] is far spent, the day [of Christ’s reign] is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. (Romans 13:11-12)

“Light and life to all He brings”

John 1:4 (NKJV)
⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

John 8:12 (NKJV)
¹² Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

In the Scriptures “light” and “darkness” are used quite often as metaphors.

“Light” is often used in the Scriptures to represent—spiritual truth, holiness, moral purity and obedience toward God.

“Darkness” is often used in the Scriptures to represent—spiritual error, evil, moral impurity and rebellion against God.

Jesus is “the Light,” not merely a light (one among many ‘lights’ or sources of truth) He is the only Light, “the true Light” (John 1:9), Who alone can light the sinner’s way back to God.

When Jesus said, “Whoever follows Me…”, He meant “Whoever believes in and obeys Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”—He was speaking of salvation.

Coming to Christ for salvation results in a different kind of life. A believer will never walk in darkness, that is, he will not remain or live any longer in the realm of evil and ignorance.

John 12:46 (NKJV)
⁴⁶ I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide [remain] in darkness.

1 John 1:6-7 (NKJV)
⁶ If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

“Risen with healing in His wings”

This takes us back to Malachi—”But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings…” (Malachi 4:2)

Many commentators believe the “wings” mentioned here refer to the “rays” of the sun which points to Jesus being the “Sun of Righteousness.” The word “healing” in the Hebrew could also mean ‘restoration’.

When Jesus brings the dawn of the new day of the Kingdom of God to the earth it will be a time of restoration and healing—not just for mankind but also for the earth itself—

Isaiah 35:5-6 (NKJV)
⁵ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. ⁶ Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert…[and they will blossom like a rose]

“Mild He lays His glory by”

This is what the theologians call the ‘kenosis’. It speaks of Jesus emptying Himself of His divine rights and glory so that he might become a man—Jesus was ‘mild’ or humble to do this.

Philippians 2:6-8 (NLT)
⁶ Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. ⁷ Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, ⁸ he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

This concept Charles Wesley no doubt took from passages like John 11:25-26 where Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die…”

In saying this Jesus wasn’t implying that once a person puts their faith in Him for salvation they would never die physically; He simply meant that their spirit (the real person) would never die eternally in the Lake of Fire (Hell) which is called “the second death” in Rev.20:14.

“Born to raise the sons of earth”

The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is found in numerous verses. Two of the classic New Testament passages would be:

1 Corinthians 15:50-54 (NKJV)
⁵⁰ Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. ⁵¹ Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed– ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead—Rev.20

“Born to give them second birth”

Of course this comes out of John 3 where Jesus shared with a Pharisee named Nicodemus that entrance into heaven requires two births—one physical and the other spiritual.

The new birth (the second birth) would be impossible if Jesus had not been born. This, in fact, was the whole purpose of the incarnation and the reason we celebrate Christmas. It’s a celebration of God’s incredible gift to mankind:

John 3:16 (NKJV)
¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Conclusion

The devil, who is the “god of this present evil age”, has been working very hard over the last century or so to turn reality into fantasy and fantasy into reality—what do I mean?

If you’ve gone to Macy’s on State Street in downtown Chicago to look at the windows you saw that the theme this year (2010) is “Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus.”

That theme, of course, was borrowed from the title of one of the most famous editorials in American history.

It was written by Francis Church and first appeared in the New York Sun newspaper in 1897.

The editorial was written by Church, the son of a Baptist minister, in response to a letter he received from a little girl named Virginia O’Hanlon:

Virginia wrote, “Dear Editor, I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?”

Francis Church, the editor wrote back—“Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds…Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus!…Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies…Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there…[even so just because you’ve never seen Santa Claus doesn’t mean he’s not real either]…No Santa Claus! Thank God He lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

Look, I’m sure many people back then applauded Mr. Church’s attempt to bolster a little girl’s belief in Santa Claus—I mean every kid needs to believe in Santa Claus don’t they?—DO THEY!

What’s more important—reinforcing a child’s faith in Santa Claus or in Jesus Christ?

More and more the world is saying that Christmas, which celebrates the incarnation, is a myth while fairy tales like Santa Claus, elves and reindeer are being promoted to children as fact.

This question should never have been passed off to a secular newspaper to answer.

Mr. O’Hanlon, Virginia’s father, should have sat his little girl down and told her the truth—but he didn’t.

And so what Mr. Church, a pastor’s son, should have said was,

“No, Virginia there is no Santa Claus—however I’ve got good news there lives Someone much better! His birth was first announced by an angel God sent to a group of shepherds two thousand years ago who were watching over their flocks one night in the fields outside a little town called Bethlehem. When suddenly the angel appeared in the sky like a bright shining star and said,

‘I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people! For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior Who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you, you will find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men.’(Luke 2:8-14)

And so Virginia there is no Santa Claus to bring you little gifts, but there is a Savior, Jesus the Christ, Who gave to you and me and to all mankind the greatest gift of all—the gift of eternal life! He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary (and hopeless I might add) would be the world be if there were no Jesus Christ! Thank God He lives and lives forever! A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of His people.”

And so to all the “Virginias” in the world—to all children everywhere both young and old—Merry Christmas!!

May the Lord richly bless you this Christmas season as you walk with Him day by day.

Pastor Phil

It is well-known that the first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated by our Pilgrim Fathers in 1621 to give thanks for their first winter in the New World.

Two years later William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Colony, issued this proclamation—

“To All Ye Pilgrims: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us…(and) has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at the meeting house, on the hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and third year since ye Pilgrims landed on Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to your pastor, and render thanksgiving to Almighty God for all His blessings.”

In 1789, President George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving Day Proclamation.

“Whereas, it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; Whereas, both the houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness! Now therefore, I do recommend next, to be devoted by the people of the states to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be, that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country.”

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, discontinued it calling Thanksgiving, “a kingly practice.”

After that, Thanksgiving was observed by some individual states on whatever date suited their liking.

Then in 1828, Mrs. Sarah Hale, the editor of the magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book and author of the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” began campaigning for the restoration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

She wrote letters and sought appointments with national leaders from the President down. Time after time she was politely rebuffed, sometimes being told it was “impossible” and “impractical”.

But she was persistent and finally in 1863 President Lincoln listened seriously to her plea that North and South lay aside enmities and strife and celebrate a national day of thanksgiving.

And so on October 3, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued a formal Proclamation, passed by an Act of Congress, initiating the first annual National Day of Thanksgiving and Praise:

“The year that is drawing to its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful Providence of Almighty God…No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or suffers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged (the Civil War) and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.”

Thanksgiving to God used to be the hallmark of our country—today it seems to be sorely lacking from our national conscience.

The admonition for God’s people to remember to be thankful to Him for all of His blessings towards us permeates the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation and is the inevitable outflow of a heart that has been touched and filled by God.

Psalm 105:1 (NKJV)
¹ Oh, give thanks to the Lord! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!

Those are just a few of the hundreds of verses we could quote from Scripture proclaiming thanksgiving to the Lord for His goodness while admonishing the rest of us, who are His children, not to take His blessings for granted but to constantly be thankful for everything He has given to us and done for us.

As I said earlier, thanksgiving to God used to be a hallmark of this nation, but over the last 40 or 50 years we seem less grateful to God and more self-congratulatory.

The problem is when we lose a heart of thanksgiving toward God—when we stop appreciating what He has done for us, we begin to take for granted His blessings. When that happens God begins to slide from our national conscience—or maybe I should say “pushed”.

As we begin to push God out of our national conscience, we then start taking credit for what He has done. Where there was once thanksgiving and dependence upon God, pride and self-reliance take their place. This begins a downward spiral of national decline.

God warned Israel of this very thing before leading them into the Promised Land—a land of great blessings and bounty like America.

Deuteronomy 8:10-14 (NKJV)

¹⁰ When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. ¹¹ “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, ¹² lest–when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; ¹³ and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; ¹⁴ when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage…

An attitude of ingratitude and selfishness seems to be the inevitable consequence for those who take the blessings of God for granted and begin to feel they are entitled to happiness in the form of all kinds of material blessings.

In fact the Bible warns in 2Tim. 3:2 that this attitude will characterize the last days:

2 Timothy 3:2 (NKJV)

² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful…

The inevitable outflow of an unthankful heart will be ingratitude and complaining just as the inevitable outflow of a heart that has been touched and filled with God will be thanksgiving and praise.

A heart of unthankfulness leads to all kinds of social and psychological problems.

The famous stress researcher Hans Seyle claims that two attitudes more than any others influence the quality of everyday life, and on these two emotions “depend our peace of mind, our feelings of security or insecurity, of fulfillment or frustration, in short, the extent to which we can make a success of life. The most destructive emotion is revenge. But in contrast, among all the emotions, there is one which more than any other accounts for the absence of stress in human relations: that is the feeling of gratitude.”

In other words, a heart of thanksgiving actually promotes good health which means being thankful to God is not only right biblically and morally—it is good for us physically and emotionally as well.

So maybe we could say, “A thanksgiving a day keeps the doctor away!”

And so we agree with the psalmist—“It is good to give thanks to the Lord and sing praises to His name. To declare His lovingkindness in the morning and His faithfulness every night!” (Psalm 92:1-2)

Have a blessed Thanksgiving with family and friends—and don’t forget to thank the One Who made it all possible!

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day!

Pastor Phil

Well the Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest gives four things that come through in the Greek that will help us to understand what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

1. “Be filled with the Spirit” is a command (imperative in the Greek) that God expects us to obey.

It’s a command that is plural in the Greek which means it applies to all Christians—not just to a select few like missionaries, pastors and evangelists.

It’s a command because we can’t begin to do the work God has called us to do without the power that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit. (Luke 24:49)

I believe that this is the greatest need in the Church today and the single greatest reason why we are losing the culture war to the devil in America when Jesus clearly promised us that against His Church the gates of hell would not prevail.

It’s because we are trying to do the work of God in our own strength, ingenuity and intelligence and not in the power of the Holy Spirit. We have substituted programs for the power of God and theological degrees for the dynamic of the Holy Spirit.

A.W. Tozer—“If we removed the Holy Spirit from the work of the early church 90% of what they were doing would have come to a stop. If we removed the Holy Spirit from the work of the church today 10% of what is being done would come to a stop.”

2. In the Greek the verb “filled” is in the present tense and denotes a continuous action—“be continually being filled with the Spirit”.

Now this is important because God never intended us to be reservoirs to “contain” the Holy Spirit, but channels through which the Holy Spirit could flow to a lost and dying world.

John 7:37-39 (NKJV)
³⁷ On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. ³⁸ He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” ³⁹ But this He spoke concerning the Spirit…

As we stay in fellowship with the Lord, abiding in Christ through the Word of God, and using our spiritual gifts in ministry we will enjoy a constant flow of the Holy Spirit in and through our life.

Of course sin will sever that fellowship and will dry up that flow of power until we repent and get back into fellowship with the Lord.

3. In the Greek the verb “filled” is in the passive voice which indicates an action being done to us and not controlled by us.

In other words we do not fill ourselves, the Holy Spirit does the filling but our responsibility is to permit the Spirit to fill us. (Hence the command mentioned in point #1)

The Holy Spirit will never force Himself on us but will fill us as much as we desire or as much as He can depending how much we are already filled with self.

The idea is that of surrender. The degree to which we are emptied of self will be the degree to which the Spirit will be able to fill us with Himself. You simple can’t fill an eight ounce glass with eight ounces of water if it already contains six ounces of dirt!

4. In the Greek the word “filled” expresses the idea of being “controlled by”.

a. Luke 4:28-29 (NKJV)
²⁸ So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
²⁹ and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.

It means that “they were controlled by wrath” and for that reason tried to kill Jesus.

b. Acts 13:45 (NKJV)
⁴⁵ But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul.

“The Jews were filled with envy” (Acts 13:45) means that the Jews were controlled by envy and opposed the ministry of Paul and Barnabas.

c. John 16:6 (NKJV)
⁶ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Because Jesus was going away the disciples were being consumed and controlled by sorrow.

To be “filled with the Spirit” means to be constantly controlled by the Spirit in our mind, our will, our emotions, and of course in our actions.

Listen, at the moment of salvation the Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts—in all of our hearts as Christians. (Romans 8:9)

But just because the Holy Spirit indwells every believer doesn’t mean that He automatically controls every believer.

One of the reasons why the Holy Spirit has so little control over so many Christians is because they think He works automatically in their lives.

And so they’re waiting on Him to work but He is waiting on them to surrender. (Galatians 5:25)

Just as the Holy Spirit didn’t indwell us until we invited Jesus into our hearts, so too the Holy Spirit will not control us until we yield to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and surrender our will, emotions and actions to the control of the Holy Spirit over our lives.

I think that this is one of the great problems facing the church in America—too many Christians are trying to control the Holy Spirit instead of allowing themselves to be controlled by the Holy Spirit.

I think a prime example of this was Jacob. Jacob knew the Lord and yet he had a hard time surrendering his will and actions to the Lord. Finally after years of living a self-controlled life the Lord met him one night and “wrestled” with Jacob (Genesis 32). The result was that the Lord literally crippled Jacob to change him from “Jacob” (self-willed and self-dependant) to “Israel” (governed or controlled by God).

Learn a lesson from Jacob’s life. God doesn’t want to have to lead your life through painful circumstances. Instead He wants you to be in such close fellowship with Him that when He directs you in subtle ways you will instantly follow where He is leading your life.

I think the words of the Psalmist apply here– “The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.” Many sorrows come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the LORD.” (Psalm 32:8-10)

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day.

Pastor Phil

What you are, how you think, what you do are all the result of what condition your heart is in. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that your heart is truly at the heart of everything God desires for your life.

Medically speaking we know that the heart is the organ inside our chest cavity that pumps blood to the various parts of our body.

But biblically speaking the heart is the ‘master control center’ of your soul (your inner man) and the seat of your will which controls the way you live your life.

That’s why the Word of God admonishes us to: “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)

Now, there are 2 kinds of hearts in the world—pure hearts and polluted hearts, or in other words redeemed hearts and fallen hearts.

And since the Bible says that out of the human heart would flow the actions of a person’s life—we can see that great good has come from those who have redeemed hearts, while at the same time great evil has come from those whose hearts are unredeemed and polluted by sin.

A. The Polluted Heart

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”(Matthew 15:19)

The evil in the hearts of people in our society has led to all kinds of problems: adultery, idolatry, pornography, homosexuality, domestic violence, divorce, corruption at every level of government and every other problem we face as a nation can be traced back to the evil in the heart of man.

They tell us the answer lies in better education, if we can better educate people about aids, domestic violence, drug abuse we can solve these problems.

Look, you can educate people about their sin, but they just become more educated sinners.

Educating people about these things only deals with the symptoms but leaves the basic underlying problem undealt with—man’s wicked heart—a heart that’s polluted with evil thoughts and desires.

However, psychologists and sociologists tell us that man’s problem is his environment.

If we can somehow give people a better environment to live in it will make them better people who will be less likely to live destructive lives toward themselves and others.

I see some truth to that, I mean living in poor, crime ridden areas will help promote some lawless behavior.

But what these people fail to understand is that man originally sinned, not in the ghetto but in the Garden—the Garden of Eden, paradise—the perfect environment.

So trying to put him in a better environment isn’t going to solve the problem when he blew it in the perfect environment in the first place.

You see the problem isn’t outward, the problem is inward.

The Lord, speaking in the book of Jeremiah said, “The heart (the fallen depraved heart of man) is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked…” (Jeremiah 17:9)

And Jesus said that out of the evil attitudes in the heart proceed all kinds of evil and destructive actions.

So the only real cure for man’s problems is to somehow cleanse or purify his heart–which Jesus alluded to when He said, “Cleanse the inside of the cup and it will overflow and cleanse the outside also.”

The only problem is that man is helpless to cleanse his own heart.

^“Who can say, ‘I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?’” (Proverbs 20:9)

The answer of course is NO ONE!

^“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil.” (Jeremiah 13:23)

We are powerless to change what we are; we are powerless to change our nature. A person can’t do anything to cleanse their own heart.

And that’s the problem with religion. Religion at its best only surface cleans a person but leaves the heart untouched. A good example of this was the Pharisees. They had a superficial, outward form of self-righteousness that Jesus condemned.

^“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸ Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matthew 23:27-28)

So if we can’t purify our own hearts not even through religious works, ceremonies and rituals and only those who have a pure heart will see God or in other words live with Him forever in heaven—the question is how then can we get a cleansed or purified heart?

B. The Pure Heart

What is a pure heart?

The Greek word for “pure” is katharos. It has 2 basic meanings: clean and unmixed.

Our English word “cathartic” comes from this Greek word. A cathartic is an agent used by a doctor for the cleansing of the physical system.

We speak of catharsis on the emotional level when a person is cleansed of bitterness, anger and other destructive emotions.

But there is also a spiritual catharsis, which is a cleansing of the inner man or the heart.

^“…purifying their hearts by faith.” (Acts 15:9)

^“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1John 1:7)

So “pure in heart” first of all means a heart cleansed of sin through Jesus Christ.

But the Greek word for ‘pure’ also involves being unmixed or undiluted.

Example: Gold is pure when all the dross has been removed—it is undiluted with dross and is pure.

Wheat that has been separated from the chaff is pure wheat—it is unmixed with chaff.

The basic idea here is a heart that is completely devoted to God and not diluted with a love for the world which the Bible calls having a divided heart.

When God cleanses a sinner and makes him His child, he is made pure in heart in the sense his sins are washed away and he has now received a new heart with new and godly attitudes.

But God also wants that person to be pure in heart from the standpoint that God and God alone is their first love to Whom belongs not only their love but their loyalty and complete devotion.

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

^“And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15)

A pure heart will produce a changed life—a life of devotion to God. Blessed is the one with a pure heart for they shall see God.

Now I can hear some Christians saying to themselves, “My heart used to be pure for the Lord. It used to guard it against sin and the pollution of the world. My heart used to be undivided for Him—I don’t know what has happened…”

You sound like King David who God called a ‘man after My own heart’. And yet David drifted in his heart toward God and became comfortable and complacent–the result was he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah murdered as he attempted to cover his sin.

Eventually God sent Nathan the prophet to confront David concerning his sin. David wrote down his confession in Psalm 51: ^“Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. ² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin… ¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me… ¹² Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.” (Psalm 51:1-2, 10, 12)

God heard David’s confession and forgave him his sin. If God could forgive David and restore him to fellowship don’t you think He will do that for you if you turn from your sin?

It’s not too late to ask God to cleanse your heart and draw you close to Him again.

^“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9)

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day.

Pastor Phil

When Jesus likened His disciples to ‘salt and light’ He was basically telling them that the sum total of their Christian character should have an influence on those around them for good.

Now that’s not to say that those we have an influence on will necessarily think it’s good and appreciate us—why?

Because the world is an open sore and we are salt; the world is living in darkness and we come along shinning as lights—both hurt which explains the world’s reaction to us as Jesus described it in v.11-12: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. ¹² Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

The idea behind Jesus’ declaration here is that the world is decaying and the world is in darkness—that is the biblical worldview—the world is not getting better and better it is becoming more and more corrupt.

Man is not evolving upward in wisdom and goodness he is devolving downward—even as the Bible prophesied that in the last days evil men would grow worse and worse.

It’s interesting to go back in history to the end of the nineteenth century—just a little over a hundred years ago when philosophers, poets, scientists and society in general all had an incredible optimism for the coming new century.

Back then most people in the world believed they were about to enter into a Golden Age in the history of humanity where wars would be abolished, diseases would be cured, hunger would be eradicated and all suffering done away with.

They believed that through the education of the masses drunkenness, violence and all other vices would come to an end; that nations would talk and not fight and the world would be characterized by peace.

Some writers even went as far as to say that the world was fast becoming a paradise—and it was all based on the theory of evolution—that mankind was getting better and better; that man was evolving, ascending upwards in character and wisdom.

But then we came into the 20th century—which was the bloodiest in the history of the world containing two world wars and countless other wars between nations.

The Holocaust itself was a gruesome and unimaginable “wake up call” that man wasn’t getting better, his heart was just as evil as ever–if not more so.

Hitler, a big proponent of evolution, tried to hasten the process of evolution on human beings and bring about a master race by exterminating all those who he considered genetically inferior and less evolved—the strong killing the weak—his version of natural selection.

Listen, information in the brain has little to do with the evil in men’s hearts—and that’s where evil resides just as Jesus said to His disciples in Matt.15:19

The Bible says that the natural man is dead in trespasses and sins and when something is dead it decays—enter the need for salt.

The Bible says the world is enveloped in moral and spiritual darkness—enter the need for light.

Let’s look at salt and light and see how they describe us as Christians.

I. The Salt of the Earth–v.13

Matthew 5:13 (NKJV)
¹³ “You [plural--"you and you alone"] are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

In the ancient world salt was a very valuable commodity. The Greeks even went as far as to say it was divine (that’s really no big deal; there wasn’t much the Greeks didn’t consider divine).

The Romans said that nothing was more valuable than sun and salt. Roman soldiers were actually paid with salt and if the man was a rotten soldier they would say, “He’s not worth his salt.”

Now back in Jesus day salt had three main purposes or influences—and each of these apply spiritually to our influence as Christians upon those we come in contact with.

A. Salt created thirst

We Christians are to make people thirsty for the Living Water of Jesus—

John 4:13-14 (NKJV)
¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,
¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Only Jesus can satisfy the great thirst of the human soul for God. The Psalmist said, “My soul thirsts for God for the living God.”

Our responsibility is to drink each day of Jesus so that, when we go into the world with love, joy, peace and purpose, we make the people of this world thirsty for what we have.

B. Salt was used to season

It’s our responsibility to add flavor to life. You see life apart from Jesus can become routine, bland and boring most of the time.

That’s the reason behind much of the alcoholism, drug abuse and all the pleasure mania in our culture today.

People are doing everything they can to put some spice into life because life without Jesus is insipid and unsatisfying.

But the things of this world will never add flavor and satisfaction to life–no matter how much people spend on gadgets, entertainment, and recreation.

Isaiah 55:2-3a (NKJV)
² Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
³ Incline your ear, and come to Me…

The Psalmist said, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps.34) but unbelievers will never desire to taste if the people of God aren’t living in such a way that makes people hungry for what you have.

C. Salt retarded decay

Back in Jesus’ day they had no refrigeration which meant meat would spoil and decay quickly.So they would rub salt on their meat to kill surface bacteria and retard decay.

Look, there’s a lot of ‘bacteria’ out there in this world—a lot of corrupting influences in our society which are causing the decay of morals and decency.

We can see the effects of the process in the high divorce rate, in the disintegration of the family, in the number of murders and other violent crimes and so on.

A corrupt society is bearing witness to the fact that the salt is not doing its work. And as Jesus went on to say in v.13–

Matthew 5:13 (NKJV)
¹³ “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

If we who profess to be Christians aren’t standing up and speaking out against sin—then just like salt that no longer retains its saltiness and is good for nothing—our Christianity becomes irrelevant and meaningless.

So many Christians are content to keep their Christianity confined within the four walls of churches where it will remain hidden and ineffective in impacting the world outside the church.

This brings us to the second thing that Jesus said we are as His disciples in this world—

II. You are the Light of the World–v.14-16

Matthew 5:14-16 (NKJV)
¹⁴ You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
¹⁵ Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

The first thing this implies is that the world is in a state of darkness and we alone are its only light source.

One author had this to say on the subject–”It’s interesting how the world is always talking about enlightenment ever since the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries which ended the Dark Ages. It was regarded as an age of enlightenment where mankind began to take a new interest in knowledge and learning. Regarded by many as the great turning point in the history of civilization as mankind began to look to knowledge, education and science for the answers to man’s problems.”

And sadly man is still looking to science and education to save us from our problems.

However we stand here this morning at the dawn of a new millennium with more knowledge in medicine, science and technology than was known in all of the previous centuries in the history of the world combined—and it not only hasn’t saved mankind or solved our problems—it has added to them.

The sad reality is that the more our knowledge has increased instead of solving our problems it has allowed man to invent more and more sophisticated weapons so that we’ve become more efficient in killing one another—weapons that now threaten man’s very existence.

And I know that many people will defend modern science and technology for all the good things they have done for the human race—and yes there have been many benefits but also many negatives.

So if the negatives wind up destroying mankind then the good won’t mean too much.

God’s word rightly says that mankind is in darkness and so the greatest ‘enlightenment’ that man needs isn’t scientific it’s spiritual—he needs spiritual light that comes from God.

Spiritual light is truth—the truth of God revealed to man. This is what the theologians call Special Revelation (The Bible).

God’s word is truth and therefore it is light.

John 17:17 (NKJV)
¹⁷ Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

All throughout the O.T. period God revealed His word to the prophets in bits and pieces until the full revelation was given to mankind through the incarnation of His Son on this earth.

Hebrews 1:1-2a (NKJV)
¹ God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, ² has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…

So spiritual light is the revelation of God’s truth found in His word and declared by His Son.

And since God is the source of all spiritual light the only way we can be spiritual lights in this world is to surrender our lives to Jesus where the Light of the world, Jesus Christ, comes to live in our hearts.

And it is only then that we become the light of the world as He said in here Matthew 5:13 which means that it is our responsibility to share the truth of God with others through our words but especially through our lives as Jesus shines through us.

Matthew 5:14-16 (NKJV)
¹⁴ You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. ¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

First of all the purpose of a light source is to give light to the surrounding area. There is no purpose in lighting a candle or a lantern only to hide it under a basket.

The purpose of our Christian lives is to be a light to those who are living in spiritual and moral darkness around us in the world.

Jesus didn’t say to His disciples, “You are the light of the church”, He told them, “You are the light of the world.”

And if we don’t take the light of God into the darkness of the world around us but only keep it here in church—then this place becomes nothing more than a giant “basket” to hide our light making it useless.

How do we let our light shine in the darkness of this world?

Jesus alluded to it here in our text—“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”(v.16)

In the rest of this sermon Jesus will be teaching us what He meant by letting the world see our good works—which don’t get us into heaven but reveal that we are already the children of God.

What would hinder the light of Christ from “so shinning” through us? Have you ever seen a candle trying to shine through a dirty window?

You need to clean the window so the light can shine through unhindered.

The same is true with us. If our life is dirty from sin we first need to get cleansed so that the light of Jesus can shine through us unhindered.

1 John 1:9 (NKJV)
⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

A clean life (holy living) will allow our light (Jesus) to so shine through us.

Philippians 2:14-16 (NLT)
¹⁴ Do everything without complaining and arguing, ¹⁵ so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. ¹⁶ Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless.

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day.

Pastor Phil

The problem was that by this time many of God’s people were tired of war. They didn’t want to fight anymore—all they wanted to do was to settle down in peace and comfort and enjoy what they had already taken possession of.

And Joshua seeing this attitude of compromise and complacency beginning to settle over God’s people when there was still so much work left to be done—this was no time to rest the enemy had not been completely driven out as God had commanded!

Joshua being a man of deep conviction and wholehearted obedience toward God knew that partial victory was not good enough—not for him and certainly not for God.

And so he gathers the nation together in chapters 23 and 24 to give them his farewell address.

In chapter 23 he addresses the leaders of Israel one last time and the theme of the chapter is—“God has been faithful to you all these years—now you be sure to remain faithful to Him in the years to come.”

Of course this was something that Joshua had exemplified in his own life as a leader over many years of ministry.

There is something deeply moving and powerful to me about a man who has faithfully walked with God over all of the years of his life.

Someone whose faith never suffered shipwreck or whose ministry for God was never tarnished by scandal or weakened through compromise or corrupted by greed.

A man who could come to the end of his life and say with all conviction, like Paul the apostle, “I have fought the good fight; I have kept the faith; I have finished the race”.

Joshua was that kind of man—and there’s something powerful about a man like that. He’s someone you can focus on and say, “It’s not impossible to live for God—he did it and if he could do it then by God’s grace I can do it!

I don’t have to listen to the voices of those who are telling me that because things are so bad morally and spiritually, so decadent and so dark that it’s impossible to really live for God in this present age.

I can look at the Daniel’s and the Paul’s and the Joshua’s and those like them who stood up against the evil attitudes of their day, who stood fast against the current of the world and against the pressure of the enemy and said, “I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to live for God.  I’m going to stay faithful because I love God more than I love my sin and myself!”

Joshua was that kind of a man; and when a man like that speaks I want to hear what he has to say.

And so in chapter 24 Joshua now brings these final exhortations in chapters 23-24 to their climax and conclusion by challenging the nation with these words—

“Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! ¹⁵ And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:14-15 NKJV)

I want you to notice that Joshua didn’t say “choose for yourselves this day if you will serve some god…”

It’s not a question of whether or not you will serve some god—the question is whether or not you will serve the one and only true and living God—the Lord God Almighty who made the heavens and the earth.

You see not everyone serves the Lord God Almighty but everyone serves some god.

Joshua didn’t say, “Choose this day if you will serve” he said, “Choose this day whom you will serve”.

Because he recognized that we all serve some God (or god). Of course the right choice is to serve the one and only true God with your life.

Joshua put it this way—“Choose this day whom you will serve…as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

Make no mistake about everyone serves some god, even the atheist. Your god is the passion that controls your life.

The god of money

Many people are controlled by money. Money is their god. They live for it; it’s what motivates and drives their lives. It’s all they think about and it’s all they want.

They work sixteen to eighteen hours a day devoting themselves to their god to gain more and more money.

In the Old Testament that man was called a worshiper of Mammon, the god of money.

Just because they don’t call it Mammon doesn’t mean they aren’t worshipping the god of money.

The god of material pleasure

There are many people today who worship pleasure. Their whole life is devoted to the pursuit of pleasure.

That’s all they care about, it’s all they’re interested in. They only work because they have to have money to buy the things or do the things that will bring them pleasure.

They spend their whole five day work week planning the weekend with some activity that will bring them a lot of pleasure.

And so every Sunday you’ll find them on the golf course or out on their boat or camping somewhere—whether they know it or not pleasure is their god.

In the Old Testament if you worshiped pleasure they would say “Well he worships Molech, the god of pleasure”.

Just because you don’t call it Molech doesn’t make it any less your god, pleasure is your god.

The god of intellect

There are those who worship their intellects; their whole life is devoted to the expanding of their knowledge and the recognition that comes from having letters after their name.

They worship in the halls of academia by devoting their lives to study and the development of their intellect.

They believe that education is the savior of mankind. They believe that if we educate people they will stop being violent, selfish and lawbreakers.

If we can just educate them we can save them from these tendencies and the world will become a utopia of love and mutual respect and peace.

What they fail to understand is that man’s problem is not his intellect it’s his evil fallen heart—a heart that’s been defiled by sin. And no educational system in the world can educate sin out of a person’s heart.

If you educate a sinner you just make him or her a smarter sinner but it doesn’t affect their nature and that’s where the problem of sin resides—in man’s fallen nature.

The only way for a person to receive a new nature is through the new birth and that can only happen when they receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and Master.

The ancient Egyptians, in whose land the children of Israel spent quite a few years in slavery, worshiped the god of learning or wisdom called Thoth. The Greeks worshiped Koios who was the Titan-god of intellect.

Just because people today don’t call it Thoth or Koios doesn’t make the worship of the intellect any less a god.

The god of sexual pleasure

There are many people today who absolutely worship the concept of sexual pleasure. It’s all they think about, it’s all they live for—it’s what they watch on TV, it’s what they read, they try to make it the topic of every conversation—it’s something that consumes them and is their god.

In the Old Testament it would have been said that they worship Ashtoreth, the goddess of sexual pleasure (lust and perversion).

The god of power

There are many today who worship Zeus—Zeus was the god of power. And there are many people who absolutely worship the concept of power.

They are consumed with a desire for power. Whether it be power in the corporate world, the political world or the underworld—they are obsessed with a desire for power—it’s what they live for, it’s what they worship, it’s their god.

The god of partying

There are many today who worship the god Bacchus. Bacchus was the god of drunken partying.

And there are those who live to party, to get drunk and have a good old time.

They live for the weekend so they can go partying.

All week long they’re trying to find out who’s having a party this weekend—it’s always on their mind it is what consumes them.

Whether they know it or not their god is Bacchus.

And we could go on and on.

When John the apostle ended his first epistle by saying “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Most people read that and smile because it sounds like something that would be said to the superstitious, spiritually ignorant, and unenlightened culture of the first century pagan world.

Those who bowed down and worshiped carved idols, but it certainly wouldn’t apply to us in the 21^th century. We belong to a civilized, educated, enlightened culture; we don’t bow down and worship idols anymore.

Well let me tell you something—not only is idolatry alive and well in America but those ignorant superstitious 1^st century pagans were far more honest and up front about their idolatry than many of the so called sophisticated, educated and enlightened people of today.

They were honest about it. They admitted to being idol worshippers whereas people in America are idol worshippers and yet are so blind and self deceived to it so as to laugh at the notion that they in any way are idolaters.

You see all idolatry starts in the heart with an idea, a desire, an ambition or some other drive which becomes then the master passion of your life.

This passion is what drives you, it’s what you live for, it is what you worship whether you know it or not and in that regard it is your god and you are an idolater—unless of course it is God Almighty.

Now back in ancient time’s people would take it a step farther and fashion out for themselves an idol to represent this concept or ideal or desire.

But listen, you don’t have to carve out an idol, you can still worship the concept in your heart and with your life without taking it to the next step and making an idol out of stone or wood or gold to represent the concept which you then physically bow down to worship.

As we’ve already said people worship the same things today that people did in Joshua or John’s day.

And so Joshua’s challenge to choose whom you will serve—either the true and living God or the gods of this world was his way of saying, “Stop sitting on the fence, stop playing games”—in other words stop being a hypocrite and just be honest with yourself about who or what it is that you really love and worship and then go for it—but remember what Paul the apostle said with regard to this—

^“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” (Galatians 6:7-8 NKJV)

Now when Joshua challenged the people of his day to choose who they were going to serve; we read in v.16—^“So the people answered and said: ‘Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods…’ ” (Joshua 24:16 NKJV)

We read that and say, “Praise God, they made the right choice.”

However Joshua knew better. He knew they were pledging with their lips but not really with their hearts and lives.

You see by this time they had already turned to other gods in the privacy of their homes and hearts.

That’s why Joshua said to them in v.19—”You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God…’ “(Joshua 24:19 NKJV)

In other words Joshua is saying to them, “You can’t serve the Lord like this—half-hearted, trying to serve Him and the gods of this world too! You have to choose one or the other but you can’t serve two masters”

In verses 21-24 we read, “And the people said to Joshua, ‘No, but we will serve the Lord!’ ²² So Joshua said to the people, ‘You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.’ And they said, ‘We are witnesses!’ ²³ ‘Now therefore,’ he said, ‘put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.’ ²⁴ And the people said to Joshua, ‘The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!’ ”

Unfortunately, we don’t have to look far to see that the nation didn’t follow through on their promise to serve and obey the Lord—all we have to do is turn the page to the book of Judges to see that. You see right after Joshua’s death the people turned their backs completely on God and began to worship and serve the gods of the Canaanites.

This began a long slow downward spiral in Israel’s history until God could take no more and He had the people carried away into captivity.

In the early 1980′s there was a Jewish archeologist named Dr. Shiloh. He excavated the area in and around Jerusalem. He eventually dug down to the level where the Jewish people lived at the time of the Babylonian conquest. And as they excavated each of the houses they found dozens of little idols in each of the homes. The people of God had totally forsaken Him and had given themselves completely over to idolatry.

Paul said, “These things were written for our learning…” (Romans 15:4)

America was founded by God as a nation under God but is now a nation that has turned its back on God.

We have filled our lives with idols and God will not wait forever for us to repent.

The challenge of Joshua is as relevant to the people of America today as it was to the people of Israel some 3500 years ago, “Choose this day whom you will serve…as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

This is the only choice you will ever make that will have eternal consequences attached to it, so consider it carefully and choose wisely!

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day.

Pastor Phil

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the single greatest event in the history of the world and the cornerstone of the Christian faith.

The resurrection was the central message of all Apostolic preaching in the book of Acts and is the very bedrock upon which the gospel is built.

It is so foundational to Christianity that anyone who denies the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot be a genuine Christian.

Without the resurrection there is no Christian faith, no salvation and no hope for man.

As Paul the Apostle said, “If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is useless, your faith is meaningless, we are still in our sins, those who have died believing in Christ are lost and we are of all men the most pathetic. We might as well eat, drink, and be merry for there is nothing more to life than this.” (a paraphrase from 1Cor.15:12-19, 32)

However Paul went on to say, “But now Christ is risen from the dead and is the first fruits from the grave of those who have died believing in Jesus.” (1Cor.15:20)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest source of joy and celebration known to man.

However what ended with great joy and celebration didn’t start out that way.

Matt.27 ends with the death and burial of Jesus Christ; and everyone present that day, the Pharisees, the Roman soldiers, and even Jesus’ own disciples believed that the story ended there.

Of course death is where most people believe the story ends for all of us. They say death is inevitable and final. We don’t like to talk about it; we try to push it from our minds. We try to deny it, we even try to cheat it—but inevitably death will claim all of us someday.

I read a story about a little girl whose daddy tearfully said to her one summer day, “Honey, mommy is dying. She has cancer, there’s nothing more the doctors can do. By the time the leaves fall off the trees, mommy will be gone.”

As the weeks passed the leaves began to turn colors and fall. And one day the father looked out the window and saw his precious little daughter in the front yard with a ball of string in her hand trying to tie the leaves back onto the branches of the trees—she was trying to stop the inevitable from happening.

Death is inevitable, but is it really final?

Some years ago the Canadian author, G.B. Hardy wrote a book about life, philosophy, and destiny entitled, Countdown: A Time to Choose.

In his book he noted that there are really only two questions to ask with regard to destiny:

1. Has anyone ever defeated death?
2. If so, did he make a way for us to do it also?

Hardy goes on to explain that he found the answer to both questions in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You see Jesus died and was buried but the story doesn’t end there.

When Satan entered into Judas Iscariot who then betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees, Scribes and Chief priests who then turned Him over to Pilate who had Him crucified; As they laid the body of Jesus in the Garden Tomb and rolled that large stone over the opening, everyone thought that was the end of Jesus, the story was over and the message went out from the councils of hell—“Jesus Defeated!”

It reminds me of a true story from history.

June 18^th 1815 was a very important day in the history of the world. Napoleon had just left the island of Elba, where he had been rebuilding his army after his exile.

Sailing back to the mainland of Europe with him were 75,000 soldiers, including the Old Guard—perhaps the finest fighting men if the world. Although Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington, Commander and Chief of the British forces, pledged to do his best to stop Napoleon—the prospect of victory seemed bleak.

At Waterloo, with only 67,000 Allied troops, Wellesley engaged Napoleon in battle. If Napoleon, who was heavily favored to win, was indeed victorious, there would have been no stopping him in his drive to reconquer all of Europe.

The people in England waited for hours as the battle raged. Eager for news, they had a ship waiting in the English Channel, which would signal the outcome of this historic battle to watchmen stationed in towers along the shores of Dover.

Finally word of the battle reached the signal ship and they began to flag a message to the watchmen in the towers:

“Wellington Defeated”

By then a fog bank had rolled in and had completely enshrouded the towers.

The hearts of the watchmen sank but they quickly relayed the word to the waiting messengers on horseback and the word spread like wildfire throughout England—“Wellington Defeated!”

Hopelessness and despair set in as the British knew it would only be a matter of time before Napoleon would sail across the Channel and lay claim to their country.

However by this time the fog had lifted, and after firing a cannon to get the attention of those in the tower, flags began to wave again to signal the third and final word of the message—the word “Napoleon.” And what a difference that third word made. The full message–

“Wellington Defeated Napoleon”

So to when Jesus died and was buried a fog seemed to enshroud humanity, darkness fell upon the land and the earth quaked, as all of creation seemed to crying out—

“Jesus Defeated!”

Hopelessness and despair filled the disciple’s hearts; heaven held its breath as it now seemed that nothing would stop the enemy.

But on the third day the fog lifted and Jesus stepped from that tomb and the full message was broadcast to all the world—

“Jesus Defeated Death”

Satan had been stopped and death had been forever defeated.

It is important to note that all but 4 of the major world religions are based on philosophical and ethical principles. Of the 4 that are based on personalities only Christianity claims an empty tomb due to the resurrection of its founder.

1.    Abraham, the father of Judaism died about 1900 B.C. but no resurrection was ever claimed for him.

2.    The original accounts of Buddha’s life and death never ascribe to him any resurrection from the dead.

3.    Mohammed died on June 8, 632 A.D. at the age of 61 in Medina. Every year his tomb is visited by thousands of devout Muslims, but never did they ever claim that Mohammed rose from the dead.

Only the tomb of Jesus Christ is empty, because only Jesus is risen, as was proclaimed by the angels that first resurrection Sunday morning when they said to the women who had come to the tomb to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial—“Why do you seek the living among the dead, He is not here, He is risen!”

The death of Jesus wasn’t the end of the story—it was just the beginning.

Through His death and resurrection a whole new chapter in the history of mankind had begun as Jesus promised—“Because I live you will live also.”

Many centuries ago Job asked the question, “If a man dies will he live again?”

That is a question that has burned in the heart of man ever since the beginning of time. Since the very first time man was made to taste death, the question that has both haunted and hounded man has been, “What happens after I die? Is death the end or is it merely the doorway into another life?”

But Jesus answered that question when He said, “Because I live you will live also.”

Jesus was saying that through His resurrection He was going to conquer death so that death would no longer be able to hold us. And if we believe in Him, because He died and rose again—so would we someday.

“If a man dies will he live again?” Because of what Jesus did early one Sunday morning just outside of Jerusalem 2000 yrs. ago the answer is a resounding “YES!”

C.H. Spurgeon—“The massive door, you will observe was taken away from the grave—not merely opened but flung aside, rolled away; and henceforth death’s ancient prison-house is without a door. The saints shall pass in, but they shall not be shut in. They shall tarry there as in an open cavern, but there is nothing to prevent their coming forth from it in due time.”

And that’s why Christians celebrate the resurrection as the greatest day in the history of the world.

In July of 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. President Richard Nixon went on T.V. and said, “This is the greatest day in the history of the world, man has conquered space…”

The next say Billy Graham came out publicly and refuted that statement of president Nixon by saying, “This is not the greatest day in the history of the world, there have been at least 3 others that have been greater—the birth, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Do you know Him today? Have you put your faith in Him? Give Him your life so that you can also say, “Because He lives someday I will step from the grave and live with Him forever.”

May the Lord richly bless you as you walk with Him day by day.

Pastor Phil