Holy War means two different things depending on whether you are living in the OT or the NT. In the OT the armies of Israel were God’s rod of judgement putting on an end times display of what the final judgement will look like. The land, which represented the new creation was wiped clean of all idolaters. The Israelites were to take up literal sword and shield and apply the death that sin deserves to all sinners in the land. When anyone attacked God’s land or people, the armies of Israel had every confidence that God would bless their military strength and give them the victory. But in the NT we experience holy war in a very different way. The church is no longer called upon to be a literal army foreshadowing the final judgement; instead the church is called to be witnesses, who take a message of Christ’s finished work offering life not death to any who will repent and believe. We no longer have a land to keep clean and purge with the death penalty, we no longer have a nation state to monitor and enforce laws which speak of new creation realities. Our weapons and our warfare have changed. For this reason we look upon events like the crusades and we can criticise those Christians who have waged the wrong sort of warfare. One day Jesus is going to come again, and it will be His job to judge all enemies, subdue all nations to His will, cleanse all of creation, and keep a new creation clean from all sin and death. We live in a world that hates Christ, that resists the truth, that is influenced by satan, satan’s influences are for the purpose of destroying mankind, but also the church in particular. But God has...

Read More

Many a Christian has come to be grateful for the particular difficulty that led them to cry out to the Lord, and by which they were saved. There are many cries to God during times of need; we tend to pray more when we are in trouble than when things are going well. We have all heard of the saying there are no atheists in foxholes. A saying that reminds us that when we get to the end of ourselves and the reality of death or disaster is around us we finally cry out to God. Many modern day atheists resent the statement and some have publicized the fact that there are many military men who are atheists, even in wartime situations. They quip that the saying points to a reality that makes foxholes the problem not atheism. Many people cry to God in their need, and sometimes God answers, some of those people go on to believe in Him, and others go on putting their emergency faith away and going back to the way they were, ignoring God. We all know the famous story of John Newton who was converted through a storm at sea. Here is how one biographer describes it: ‘He awoke in the night to a violent storm as his room began to fill with water. As he ran for the deck, the captain stopped him and had him fetch a knife. The man who went up in his place was immediately washed overboard (Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John Newton, p. 25). He was assigned to the pumps and heard himself say, “If this will not do, the Lord have mercy upon us” (Ibid., p. 26). It was the first time he had expressed the need for mercy in many years. He worked the...

Read More

What is the biggest problem facing the world today? Covid 19? Strong-handed governments who are taking too many of our freedoms to keep us safe? Islam? War with China? Global warming? Critical Race Theory? The new gender ideology? Big Tech? A leftist media? These are big problems but they are only symptoms of the biggest problem that we face, we are in a spiritual battle with the devil. To say this is to provoke laughter from anyone who thinks after the New Atheist school. Here in the West we are afflicted with the problem of naturalism, I don’t mean nude beaches I mean a worldview that does not believe in God, the devil, sin, angels, the soul, the afterlife. On the one hand we have those who don’t take things seriously enough, on the other are those who are fanatics and take things too far. One of the reasons for Conversion Therapy Laws on the horizon is because of those who have believed that every sin and temptation can be traced back to a demonic source, and because they believe that Christians can be demon possessed, you need to cast out the demon of homosexual lust as a way to make people stop being gay. There are Christians view of spiritual warfare that see every problem as having a spiritual warfare solution. Evangelism is done by first binding territorial spirits, counselling is done by casting out demons and inner healing, sanctification is done by casting out demons, and eliminating generational curses; prayer is about gaining knowledge of territorial spirits and rebuking the devil directly, ordering angels around, pleading the blood of Jesus, etc. The Bible gives us the path of sanity between these extremes. Every Christian is caught up in the most powerful struggle in all time and the universe....

Read More

The differences between true religion and false religion are striking. False religion is judgemental, true religion is accepting; false religion is strident and forceful, true religion is gentle and yielding; false religion is critical and harsh; true religion is gracious and encouraging; loveless vs loving; external holiness vs internal holiness; hypocritical vs genuine; we all know the difference between true and false religion. False religion is repulsive but true religion is attractive. Our hearts are by nature religious; that means we are vulnerable to the deceptions and promises of false religion and hungry for true religion. Jesus throughout the gospels is showing how the religion of first century Judaism though it claims to be based on the Word of God and is full of external religiosity is a sham, is hypocritical, is hateful to God, and damning to those who teach and practice it. Jesus has come with the truth, to teach us the truth about God, the true interpretation of God’s word, to show us the true way to serve God, and the true way of salvation. He contrasts the gospel of God’s grace with the manmade legalism of the day. The gospel accounts are full of examples of Jesus putting forward true religion and exposing false religion. The portion that lies before us in Luke 17:1-10 is Jesus stating positively some of the principles of discipleship that stand in stark contrast to the false religion of the day. You will notice in v1 that Jesus is addressing the disciples, that means that the teaching here is directed at them. Jesus covers three areas of discipleship demonstrating how the gospel of grace shapes the way we do religion in contrast the way that religion was wrongly being done at the time. These three areas will be our three points...

Read More

Work is the thing that takes up the largest percentage of our lives. Most of our childhood is spent in school preparing ourselves for our work. Most of our daylight hours are taken up with working. Most of our adult life is spent, working. Many spend more time engaging with their work colleagues than they do with their spouses and families. Many have stopped and thought about this and have sought a dramatic change, some want to see more robots doing more jobs so that we as humans can enjoy our lives more; some have sought to reinvent the work week to less days; some have suggested more work from home; many have encouraged others to change jobs until you find the one that fits. God is a worker who made us in His image to work. And the Bible has much to say about the matter. Despite the millions of people who may be working in difficult situations around the world, the Bible teaches us that work is good. Despite the many evils done in the workplace work itself is a gift of God. In the beginning God made mankind and put them in the garden and they were given jobs. We were put on this earth to take the unformed creation with all of it’s God given potential and shape it into a culture and society that glorifies God. The life of man before sin entered into the work was to be regulated by work and worship. Work has been affected by the fall but did not come into existence at the fall. Why has God made us to be workers? Based on the fact that we are made in His image we can guess that because He delights in work that He made us to delight in...

Read More

We are living in the imaginary world of John Lennon, ‘Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try; No hell below us; above us only sky.’ Unfortunately imagination and fantasy are not reality, and so we are walking around deluding ourselves about the facts. There is a heaven, there is a hell, we have a soul, there is an afterlife and we will face God on judgement day. We live in a dream land where we deny reality, we deny the things that define us, we deny the destiny that inevitably lies before us. We pretend morality is not universal but personal; that biological sex does not define gender but that it is a fluid state of mind that can be guided by choice; that God can be wiped out; that conscience is a relic of a former level of evolution that can be ignored; that souls are the ignorant invention of prescientific people, and on and on we could go. But there are facts we can never escape, we must all die, and we must face the consequences of what we have done in this life. One theologian described death this way, ‘death is the most democratic institution on earth… It allows no discrimination, tolerates no exceptions. The mortality rate of mankind is the same the world over: one death per person.’ Benjamin Franklin said that the two things in life that are certain are death and taxes. That is not technically true, people can avoid tax, but no one can avoid death. We all must die, but death is not the end, we must then go on to reap what we have sown in this life. It is this reality that Jesus places before us in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19-31. Jesus...

Read More

Last week we began to try and paint the picture of slavery in the OT and the ancient world. The reason we have to do these history lessons is because of the false history that is presented in the present political climate. We live in an age of critical race theory which rereads history as a story of monolithic relationship of race oriented oppression. So the race and slavery question is a heated one that is often skewed. The Bible has become a casualty of the present cancel culture that has declared the Bible a book used as a tool of oppression. The call for slaves to submit to masters is seen as evidence of this. Our job is to interpret the Bible honestly, and demonstrate and defend that it is indeed the inerrant word of God which is sufficient to equip us for life, and is superior to all other worldviews, philosophies, religions or ethics. The Bible alone is the inspired word of God all other belief systems are born of man’s ignorance. The modern concerns over slavery in history are being used as fuel to feed a narrative of racism as the core systemic problem which has given birth to things like poverty, violence, family breakdown, etc. The painting of all slavery as having a racial basis is necessary to feed this narrative. In looking into history are not only able to demonstrate how the Bible saws the seeds of slavery’s destruction but we also have an opportunity to destroy a terrible lie which is even being believed by Christians and introducing racial divisions into the church. For example, we are hearing black Christians in America talk about the systemic racism for which whites must pay compensation and the need for black Christians to separate from white Christians...

Read More

Christ’s teaching on money stands in counterpoint to the heart fixed on money. Christ teaches that everything is God’s and we are stewards. He teaches that money should be invested so as to gain rewards in the New Creation. Christ teaches that we cannot have an idol of money, and challenges those who have this idol to sell all they have and give to the poor. Christ teaches that sacrificial giving is good. Christ teaches that the usual preoccupation with security and possessions can be entrusted to God who loves you as a Father and you can seek first His kingdom and give yourselves to more godly concerns. Christ’s spending plan and saving plan does not agree with any of this world’s wisdom because it works according to different rules. Christ’s teaching generated a radical generosity in the early church as people sold what they had to give to the poor; it generated a radical faith and those who preached the gospel trusted in the Lord to provide for the work; it generated a radical contentment as those who lost the things of this world or had them removed could still be joyful having God as their portion. But to those who are perishing the teaching of Christ is folly, His attitudes and teaching on possessions are scoffed at, and this is exactly what sparks off our next section in Luke 16:14-18. This is a chapter that addresses several matters relating to money. Jesus has given the parable of the unfaithful steward and followed that up with challenges about faithfulness. He ended that section with some very strong words about the love of money, v13, ‘No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one...

Read More

The Western world has fallen out of love with Christianity all the way into being an aggressive prosecutor of it. Today people are not talking about reasons why they don’t believe Christianity as one of many possible truths, it is a case of Christianity being one of the things that is clearly wrong. Many of today’s social evils are laid at the squarely at the foot of Christianity. The suicide of teenagers struggling their sexual identity, lets blame the church who tells them that they are sinning. The abuse of woman by controlling men, lets blame the biblical teaching of male headship. Every instance of parental violence against a child, that is all because the Bible is barbaric and encourages us to apply discipline. War, well all wars have been started by religious people, and let’s point to the wars of the OT and speak about Christianity as a genocidal and bloodthirsty religion. The Colonial impact of the West destroying native cultures, well Christianity is the worst because it comes among other cultures and destroys their religion and cultural norms and forces Western norms on other cultures. Slavery, slavery was enabled by the Bible which encourages slaves to submit to their masters; slavery is not clearly forbidden by the Bible; some of the OT laws even regulated and appear to encourage it; and many Christians owned slaves and fought to maintain the institution of slavery in the American Civil War. Sam Harris, one of the aggressive New Atheists in his Letter to a Christian Nation writes, ‘Consult the Bible, and you will discover that the Creator of the universe clearly expects us to own slaves.’ These are just a sampling of the many assaults against Christianity, and in light of the recent blow ups around race the accusations against Christianity...

Read More

‘Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.’ (Matt. 19:24) ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ (Luke 12:15) ‘As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.’ (Matt. 13:22) ‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.’ (Col. 3:5) ‘But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.’ (1 Tim. 6:9-10). The Bible has a lot to say about our love of money. One commentator points out that nearly 1/3 of the parables deal with money. The parable that we are dealing with today, the parable of the unfaithful steward/manager is one of those, Luke 16:1-13. This has been said to be one of the most difficult parables to understand. Ordinarily parables are easy to grasp as they speak through familiar images about spiritual truths. This one stands out as being different in that Jesus appears to be condoning the dishonesty of the steward. At first it sounds like He is encouraging the pursuit of unrighteous mammon, and appears to speak approvingly of shady business dealings. I remember as a young Christian really struggling with this parable....

Read More