Tag Archives: the Bible

Martyred

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2 Corinthians 10

We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against the powers of evil. Paul tells us the weapons God gives us are powerful for the demolition of strongholds. “We demolish arguments…” (vs 4b)

No one used those weapons better than Charlie Kirk. He wielded the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, wearing the belt of truth as he talked to millions of young people on college campuses. He understood the fight wasn’t physical. He didn’t call for violence against people who disagreed. But he demolished his share of strongholds. He demolished arguments with simple, yet powerful truth.

What we learned this week is that the weapons of God don’t stop bullets. This young man was assassinated – yes, it’s assumed for his political views. But let’s not forget his political views were grounded on the truth of God’s Word. Charlie wasn’t afraid to make that abundantly clear.

Satan didn’t care if Charlie was a Republican. Satan cared that Charlie was a vocal Christian fighting, and winning, the war between truth and lies.

We Christians mourn the man, the father and husband, the Christian, the warrior. It’s hard to fathom that God allowed Charlie’s life on earth to end when we see so much more he could have done. But we aren’t God.

Charlie will be remembered as a martyr. A martyr is, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, “one who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce religious principles; one who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle.” The truth is, Charlie knew the risks. He went willingly to Utah to further his belief, cause, and principles.

And, according to the Scriptures, Charlie has heard those precious words: “Well done, Charlie. Enter your reward.” Charlie’s life has just begun.

So the question is, how far am I willing to go to further my beliefs, cause, and principals? I believe Jesus is the only way to the Father. I believe without God’s saving grace on a repentant sinner, the end is an eternity separate from God with more pain than I or anyone can imagine. I believe the Bible is true from Genesis to Revelation, and apart from Scripture there is no truth.

Now what?

I’ve got some soul-searching to do. I thank God for the life and example of Charlie Kirk. I’ve followed his ministry for several years and as someone who is decades older than those Charlie ministered to, he has influenced my own way of thinking about certain things. But is a change in the way I think enough?

I pray that I, that we as fellow believers in Jesus, will carry on the fight with the same fervor and commitment to God as Charlie had. Satan took out one man. Let’s return fire with all of us wielding the weapons of God to carry on the fight against evil. Are you willing? Am I? The war isn’t over.

What Is Biblical Faith?

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Genesis 12:1-3

I’m starting the second of Warren Wiersbe’s “BE” study series in Genesis. After completing the first book, BE BASIC, I’m looking forward to continuing studying God’s Word and considering Wiersbe’s opinions on these chapters. (Be Obedient; David C. Cook Publishers; Colorado Springs, CO; 2010). As always, I will let the Bible be the final authority.

If I am to evaluate my own faith journey, I need to look at what the Bible says about faith. Paul tells us:

So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ. (Romans 10:17)

Biblical faith isn’t based on how we feel. True faith comes from hearing and believing the Word of God. We in 2025 can hear God’s words as we read the Bible. We hear God’s word over the airwaves and in our churches. We hear God’s words in the testimonies of other believers. Placing our faith in God must be based on the words of God.

Abraham, an idolator, heard God’s audible words. He didn’t blow them off as a crazy dream or indigestion. Abraham believed the words he heard, and believed the One speaking was true. The proof of his faith is in the fact he obeyed the words he heard from God.

Abraham didn’t say, “God, if you bless me, I’ll believe and obey.” Wiersbe rightly says, “We are not saved by making promises to God; we are saved by believing God’s promises to us.” (Be Obedient, p 22)

You may have heard tales of salvation experiences go something like this:

“I was desperate so I prayed, ‘God, I promise if you (such and such) I’ll believe in you.'”

or “God, if you do (such and such) I’ll stop sinning and follow you.”

One popular Bible teacher has a similar salvation story. She claims that on a desperate and lonely night she prayed that God could take her sons, He could have her social life, if only He would just give her peace. She goes on to say that is when she received the “Prince of Peace.”

Friends, these are not examples of Biblical faith. You don’t bargain with God for your salvation.

None of the disciples put a condition on their faith. Jesus said, “Follow me.” They heard His words, and followed. It was Jesus they believed.

Wiersbe says “Abraham was saved by faith, lived by faith, and his obedience was the evidence of his faith.” (p22). But Abraham’s faith was built on the words He heard God speak to him. It wasn’t a shot in the dark. It wasn’t give and take. God’s words were foundational to Abraham’s faith.

And to mine.

I want to repeat what Wiersbe said on page 22:

“We are not saved by making promises to God; we are saved by believing God’s promises to us.”

So for the next few weeks I will be looking at God’s promises as I consider my faith journey. Wiersbe’s subtitle for this book is “Exhibiting Real Faith in the Real World.” My prayer is that God will speak clearly as I read His word, will challenge my faith, and equip me to exhibit real faith every day, in every situation. And may God be glorified.

Smart Enough

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Genesis 3:1-6

When you were young and your mother told you the red coil on top of the stove was hot so you shouldn’t touch it or you’d get burned, you had a choice. Some of us took our moms at her word and avoided the red coil. Some of you might be wearing the scars from the burn, or at least remember the pain you felt when you questioned the truth of what Mom said, and decided to find out for yourself.

One criticism of Christianity is that we simply believe the Bible as true without questioning it. The critics imply that we are not intellectual or just gullible or that we are missing out on the enlightenment of the universe (or some such nonsense).

Consider what questioning God’s Word did for Eve. Satan planted a seed of doubt. But instead of going back to the Word of God, she began to use her own logic. The seed of doubt grew to rejecting God’s Word, and to sin.

I will not apologize for believing the infallibility of God’s Word. I will not be intimidated by the intellectual sounding arguments of some. I will not even consider any other so-called truth.

I don’t need to touch the hot stove to see if what Mom said was true.

God, who created me, inspired His Words to be written down so that I can hear and accept the warning, so that I could hear and accept His grace. His Words are true because God is true.

I’m certainly not smarter than God. But I”m smart enough to take His Word for it.

Living What We Believe

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Leviticus 8-11

I recently saw the phrase, “Christian Atheist,” referring to believers who live like God doesn’t exist. I think it can refer to people who believe some, but not all Scripture is true. People who go to church, maybe even preach, who are holding onto sins they refuse to surrender to God. They are Christians who believe God makes exceptions to His rules, and live like they will avoid the consequences spelled out in Scripture.

Nadab and Abihu fit that category. There have been times I have fit that category.

Are you a believer? Is Jesus your Savior? Do you read your Bible, go to church, sing in the choir or teach Sunday School? Then the question is, are you living the truth of what you know? Or are there sins you have yet to surrender to the cross?

James tells us our faith without works is dead. (2:14-26). Faith without living lives that honor God with every choice is as useful as a corpse. Having faith in God yet living like He doesn’t exist is not faith at all. It’s what Christian Atheists are made of.

Dear Christian, if we want to live what we believe, we need to stop right now and confess our sins. All of them. We need to repent, which means turn from those sins, and with the help of the Holy Spirit never repeat them again. It means to surrender to the demands of God as spelled out in His Word, and receive the grace and mercy Jesus died to give us.

Then one step, one choice at a time, we must live to glorify God and not ourselves, to point our loved ones to Jesus as He is revealed in Scripture. We must love our neighbor enough to speak truth, love God enough to stand firm.

It means living like our Holy God really does exist, and to be as serious about sin as He is. It means living what we believe so that others will see Jesus in us and want what we have in Him.

The Bible Tells Me So

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Acts 18

The more I read the Bible, the more I let it speak for itself. My decades of sitting through sermons, studying Bible study materials, and searching trusted commentaries used to shape my interpretation of Scripture. I’d read a passage and something I’d heard in a past sermon would come to mind, or something I’d read in one of the many books on my shelf would remind me of what the author had said about the passage.

But every day for the past 9 1/2 years, I’ve opened my Bible and let it be the single authority in my quiet time with the Lord. Now, when I read a passage that makes me pause, God brings to mind other Scripture that speaks to the same issue. I’m learning to read the Bible through the lens of Scripture.

It’s not that I don’t read commentaries or refer to Bible study materials while I’m preparing my Sunday School lesson. I’ve been known to Google references. But now, instead of allowing the opinions of these Bible scholars to tell me what God means, I let God show me if they are truly saying what He means according to His Word.

Priscilla and Aquila knew the power of God’s Word. When Apollos was preaching only partial truth, they sat down with Him and used the Scripture to explain to him that Jesus was the Messiah. (vs 28)

Paul, in his letter to Timothy tells us:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (1 Timothy 3:16-17)

God-breathed. That’s incredible. What an amazing Book I hold in my hand.

A You Tuber (Brylan and Lisa) interviewed Andy Stanley, who has stopped referring to the Bible when he preaches. He downplays the virgin birth. He calls it a “story” about Jesus’ birth, and doesn’t think it’s all that important. He says the Bible is not how we know about the resurrection. I encourage you to watch this, “BEWARE This False Teacher/Andy Stanley” on the Brylan and Lisa You Tube channel.

I say all this to challenge you to know for yourself what God has written to you so that, no matter who is speaking or writing, you will be able to recognize what aligns with God’s point of view, and what is merely the opinion of imperfect people. Let Scripture be the authority… BECAUSE IT IS!

Andy Stanley is not the authority on Scripture, neither is your pastor, and certainly neither am I.

Prayerfully read the Bible from cover to cover. Then read it again. And again. Join a Bible study. Go to church and Sunday School. Read a trusted Bible scholar. BUT LET GOD’S WORD INTERPRET WHAT THEY SAY, RATHER THAN THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

Sorry, Andy. Your opinion of Scripture is wrong. The Bible tells me so.

Just Asking

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Nehemiah 7

The reading of God’s Word was taken so seriously in Nehemiah’s day. When Ezra stood up and began to read, the people stood and listened closely… from early morning to noon! (verse 3)

Everyone listened, including children who were old enough to understand.

Hours.

Standing.

Listening closely.

Ezra didn’t preach. He read God’s Word.

Does your church stand for the reading of God’s Word (the whole 90 seconds it takes to read the morning passage)?

Do you read for hours, comfortably sitting in your home with a cup of coffee, listening closely to God’s Word?

Just asking.

Mixed Messages

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Ezra 9-10

I wonder if the Church isn’t guilty of “marrying foreign wives” like the people of Israel including priests and Levites were guilty during the time of Ezra.

So the holy race has become polluted by these mixed messages. Worse yet, the leaders and officials have led the way in this outrage. (9:2b)

No one wants to talk about the Church as the holy race. We’d rather talk about how we can be attractive to foreigners, to those who don’t know the Savior. Our goal, preached from so many pulpits, is to actually bring the foreigners into the Church!

That’s like marrying a non-believer, expecting them to change. Folks, you know that doesn’t work. It certainly isn’t working in the modern Church.

I watched a movie on Pure Flix last night, “Play the Flute.” We geezers will recognize Loretta Swift from “Mash,” Fred Grandy from Love Boat (your remember Gopher, right?), and Clint Howard, Opie’s real life brother. It’s a good movie about a young youth pastor, burdened for the teens in his church who not only do not read the Bible, they don’t even see a need to read it.

The youth pastor struggles with whether or not to make his youth group about programs and events and fun so numbers grow. He hears from a friend whose own youth group has grown because of all the things they are doing. He reads articles and commentaries from church leaders who promote the idea that if youth group is an event, kids will come. But he can’t shake the conviction that the Bible needs to be the focus of his youth group.

So he gets up in front of the teens and reads what Jesus says in Matthew 11:

To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a funeral song, and you did not mourn.”

He likens God’s Word to the flute, himself as the musician, and to the teens as those who refused to dance, who just sit there and don’t accept what they hear. The pastor tells the kids he’ll continue to play the flute. What they do with what they hear is up to them.

I hope you’ll watch the movie. I think you’ll like it. It certainly has me thinking today in light of what I read in Ezra.

Church, it might be time for us to divorce ourselves from foreign wives, and return the Church to that which God intended – a holy people. It might be time for us to simply play the flute and quit dancing to get attention. Why do we think the sound of God’s Word is incapable of changing hearts today? What if we got back to having the preaching and teaching of Scripture plus nothing be our focus?

I know some of you will say times have changed, kids are bored with church, we are a technology focused society, that bells and whistles are needed to draw people in. And some of you say we want anyone to come in no matter what they believe.

But is that what God says He wants of His Church? Times have changed, but He hasn’t. His demand for a holy people still rings true today. And foreign wives, mixed messages, are defiling His Church.

That’s not just my opinion. It’s what God’s Word says, whether we like it or not. I’m praying for my church, and for your’s. I’m praying for Christians everywhere to get back to God’s Word and let Him work in the hearts of people without our interference. I’m praying for the holy people of God to pick up our flutes and play them with all our hearts.

And let God do the rest. He’s better at it than we are anyway.

God’s Word Written To You

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Jeremiah 42

The people of Israel asked God what they should do, and they promised to do whatever God said. So God gave them His message – and they rejected it.

He had told them to “stay where you are and I will save you. Don’t go to Egypt because there is death waiting for you there. No matter how scary it is right now, trust Me. Stay put.”

When they received God’s Words, they called it lies. Their plan made more sense to them. So they went to Egypt. And they died.

It’s no different today. So many people who grew up going to Bible believing, rock solid churches, hearing, memorizing, and believing God’s Word begin to listen to other voices, then come to the conclusion that God’s Word is a lie. Their ideas make more sense to them, and the Holy Bible is viewed as just another religious document among many.

Others hear God’s Word for the first time, and because it goes against every other doctrine out there, they come to the conclusion that it’s a lie. Or that if it works for you that’s great, but it doesn’t have to work for me.

Folks, God’s Word we know as the Bible are the words of the Creator God, Holy, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, eternal, King of the universe, and the only one whose words are 100% true. To hear them, then reject them isn’t ok.

That’s not merely my opinion. It’s not even a matter of what I believe to be true. It’s a fact. It’s true according to the God who created you. For you to reject it, is foolishness at best, and an eternal death sentence at worst – according to God’s Word.

Read the Bible and let God speak to you about His heart. Hear Him tell you what He requires and know He’s serious about the consequences of disobedience. Let Him tell you what He’s done to save you, and hear His invitation to come to Him. Shut out all the other voices that would have you question God’s Word. And open your heart, your mind, and your ears to His voice.

God inspired men thousands of years ago to write you a love letter, an instruction manual, a message from his heart to yours. Read it for yourself. Don’t reject it. It’s the only truth that will matter in the end, because it’s the only truth.

Can It Get Any Worse?

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2 Kings 22-23; 2 Chronicles 34

I opened You Tube today and saw the title of a video that got my attention. I’ve never listened to this man before, but he titled his talk: This Pastor Is Worse Than You Thought – Andy Stanley, Jordon Peterson, Voddie Baucham – My Analysis. (The Gospel of Christ; John Henry).

He played a portion of a workshop given by Pastor Stanley, and even though I wasn’t at that workshop or watched the entirety of it, what I did hear left me speechless. Stanley said he no longer refers to the Bible when he teaches. He doesn’t say “The Bible says…,” or “God’s Word says….” In fact, he says Christianity shouldn’t rise and fall on the inerrancy or accuracy of 66 ancient documents we call books of the Bible. It rises and falls on the identity of a single individual… Jesus of Nazareth.

He said that. And he posted the same on Twitter.

Now, to be fair, Stanley said his position on referring to the Bible isn’t a change in theology. It is merely a change in how he talks about theology. It seems he believes he can talk about what is in the Bible without using it as the authority.

In a podcast, Stanley said that in the beginning of Christianity, no preacher said, “The Bible says…, the Bible says…” He pointed out that the ancient Christians didn’t have a Bible, many couldn’t even read, and surmised that what drove the faith was an event, not Scripture.

“We have to shift the focus from the Bible to the resurrection…”

I want to ask him how can we know about the resurrection without the Bible?

Anyway, after listening to this You Tube video, I opened my Bible (yes, I still do that every day). My chronological Bible had me in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles where I read how reading God’s Word changed everything for King Josiah and the nation of Judah. They didn’t realize the seriousness of their actions until they READ what God had to say about them. That lead to repentance and revival in the land.

Ok. You might argue that is all from an ancient ANCIENT document. It’s Old Testament, and we live after the cross. So let’s look at Jesus.

Jesus often used Scripture (the Bible in Jesus’ day). Read Matthew 27, 23; John 13, 15. When he walked with the men going to Emmaus after the resurrection, He talked to them, not merely about the resurrection, but about what Scripture said.

Paul, after the cross, refers to Scripture repeatedly: 1 Corinthians 3, 18, 26, 30; Romans 10,15, and on and on and on.

To say we shouldn’t base Christianity on Scripture negates 2 Timothy 3:16-17. And if we want to base Christianity simply on Jesus’ miraculous resurrection from the dead, we need only read John 1 which clearly states that same Jesus IS the Word!

I hope you’ll investigate this for yourself. If I’ve misrepresented Andy Stanley, please listen to the video I referenced, and go to Stanley’s Twitter account (although I believe he has taken down some of what was said earlier). But let me know if I am in error. I don’t want to put words into Stanley’s mouth.

But let me ask you: what is the authority on which you base your faith? Personally, I am standing on the written Word of God, and I will continue to proclaim the Bible as that authority.

I’ll thank God for the privilege of proclaiming His Word, all 66 books, as His inspired Word live and effective today. And I’ll continue to urge you to read it every day.

Another Jesus

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The King of Assyria sent his thugs to threaten the children of Israel, to bully them into surrendering. They pointed out that Assyria had successfully defeated the nations around them, that none of their gods we’re able to saved them from the mighty Assyrian army, and that the writing was on the wall. Israel was next.

Surrender or die.

Then these representatives of the Assyrian king said something that has me thinking today:

What’s more, do you think we have invaded your land without the Lord’s direction? The Lord Himself told us, “Attack this land and destroy it.”

One of two things could be true about that. Either God is using Assyria to punish Israel for their sin, and indeed instructed the enemy to be His judgment on the Jews, or the men representing the Assyrian king were lying.

Today, Satan is to us what the Assyrian King was to Israel in this portion of Scripture. He is the one threatening to destroy God’s people, and bullying us into submission. And he is using the Name of God to do it.

Bethel names the name of God. Benny Hinn names the name of God. Joel Osteen calls himself a Christian minister. I could go on. And so could you.

The question is, are we going to stand with God according to His inspired written Word, or are we going to be bullied into surrendering to Satan?

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse. (Galatians 1:8)

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. (2 Corinthians 11:3-4)

Guard your heart, dear one. Know what Scripture has to say so that you can recognize Satan’s lies. Then stand firm. Because the truth is, there isn’t another Jesus. There is only the One who is revealed in the pages of the Bible. If anyone says they have had a special revelation concerning Jesus… they are lying

There is only one true Gospel. There is only one true Jesus.

Do not be deceived.