Tag: Salvation

Evangelism, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Heaven, Hell, Homosexuality, Legislation, Marriage, Salvation, Sin

From the ERLC: “Your Church and the Same Sex Marriage Decisions”

Michelle Lesley

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The ERLC has come out with a helpful fact sheet on the recent Supreme Court decisions on same sex “marriage.” It can be distributed or even used as a bulletin insert at your church, (it’s a free PDF download available in both English and Spanish). Anyone is free to use it– it’s not just for Southern Baptists. It’s really a great resource, so I wanted to share it with you.

I think there’s one point of clarification that needs to be made, though. Under the heading “What Hasn’t Changed,” we find this statement:

“Jesus Christ is still alive, and ultimately will bend history toward His kingdom.”

I read that, then read it again, then turned it over in my mind several times, then tried to recall a verse of Scripture that says anything about Jesus ultimately “bending history towards” His kingdom. Nada. Bupkis. Zilch.

I’m still not exactly sure what the fact sheet writer meant by this phrase. All I can figure (and perhaps I’m misunderstanding his intent) is that he’s referencing Christ’s return and the coming judgment.  When I read Scriptures referencing Christ’s return, I see things like Revelation 19:15:

“From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.”

and Matthew 21:44:

“And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

Not exactly a soft summer breeze gently bending a stalk of golden grain, is it? At least that’s the mental picture I get when I read a phrase like “bending history toward His kingdom.”

Judgment is coming for all of us, lost and saved, regardless of sexual preference. It’s going to be fast and furious and without any second chances to change your mind. The wheat is going to be gathered into the barn and the tares burned up. The sheep are going to be placed on the right, and the goats on the left. Period. End of story. That’s all she wrote.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it?

It should. And that’s a good thing.

As Christians, it should scare us enough for ourselves that we do what 2 Corinthians 13:5 says to do: examine ourselves– our hearts and the fruit of our lives –against Scripture and make certain we are, indeed, saved. (If you’re not sure where to start with that, here’s an excellent tool that I’ve found very helpful.)

It should also scare us for our lost friends and loved ones. It’s a hard, cold, frightening fact, but anyone who does not repent of his sin and place His faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for his sin is going to spend eternity in hell when he dies. There’s no Purgatory. There’s no god who just forgives everybody and lets everybody into heaven.

Does that scare you for your children, your parents, your siblings, your spouse, your best friend?

Yeah, me too. And it makes me want to plead with them to repent and believe the gospel so they can escape that terrible fate and we can all spend eternity together with the Lord.

So use these fact sheets at church and share them with your friends. They’re good! They’re informative! But forget the “bending” and remember the sword, the fury, the wrath, and the crushing that are coming, and let them ignite a passion within you to love your lost neighbors enough to plead with them to flee to the cross for cleansing, forgiveness, and eternal life.

Bible, Gospel, Salvation, Types and Shadows

The Cross in the Exodus

Michelle Lesley

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I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment.
I will take you as My people, and I will be your God.
You will know that I am Yahweh your God, who delivered you..
Exodus 6:6b-7a

Evangelism, Gospel, Homosexuality, Salvation, Sin

Cancer: A Love Story

Michelle Lesley

cancer love story

Cancer.

The dreadfulness of the word hung heavy in the air between Jana and her friend Denise.

“The doctor says it’s terminal,” Denise choked, “I’m so confused. I don’t know what to do.”

Jana’s heart broke as she envisioned the difficult emotional road ahead for Denise and watched the tears streaming down her face.

“I’d do anything to take that pain away,” thought Jana. “Anything.”

For days after they parted, Jana’s thoughts were consumed with how she could help Denise accept and feel better about her condition. By the weekend, when they met for coffee, Jana was ready.

“Denise,” she began, “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and I think I know why you’re so uncomfortable with having cancer.”

“Oh? Why?” asked Denise.

“Well, first of all, you shouldn’t be fighting against the idea of having cancer. It’s a completely natural biological event. In fact, you were probably born genetically predisposed to cancer. It’s part of who you are. Accept it and embrace it as something that makes you unique and wonderful!”

Denise seemed skeptical, but Jana plunged ahead.Girlfriends Enjoy A Conversation

“You’re also worried about what other people will think of you. Maybe they’ll think you’re weak and try to help you with things that you’d rather do for yourself.”

“But maybe I’ll need some help,” Denise suggested quietly.

“Nonsense!” Jana retorted, “Having cancer doesn’t make you different from anybody else. It’s exactly the same as not having cancer. What we need to do is show that to the world. Maybe we should have a rally for cancer equality!”

“Jana, that’s great and all,” Denise whispered somberly, “but I’m going to die. That makes all the stuff you’re talking about seem a lot less important.”
Jana seems like a very loving and kind person, but does the “help” she was offering Denise seem…well…helpful?

What if I told you that during this entire scenario, Jana personally knew a doctor who had a proven cure for Denise’s type of cancer, and was giving it away, yet Jana never told Denise? How loving and kind does Jana seem now?

Now read back through this story and substitute homosexuality for cancer.

We live in a culture that tells Christians that we are to “love” our homosexual friends and loved ones by embracing homosexuality as good and natural. We even hear people who claim to be Christians saying this. But is this how the Bible defines love? Is this how Jesus loved people?

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:10-11

Think back over the encounters Jesus had with people, from the woman at the well, to Zaccheus, to Nicodemus, to the woman caught in adultery, to the rich young ruler, to anybody else Jesus ever interacted with.

Did Jesus ever “love” someone by telling him it was OK to stay in his sin?

No, He didn’t.

Jesus loved sinners by calling them to repentance, forgiveness, and a new life in Christ.

Why? Because it isn’t love to help the slave to embrace his chains. It’s love to set him free.

Christ loved us by going to the cross and becoming the propitiation –satisfying God’s wrath—for our sins. He laid down His life for our freedom.

And, Christian, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. We must lay down our opinions, our politics, our ideas of what we’d like the Bible to say, maybe even our actual lives, in order to help people know freedom in Christ. We have the cure for their spiritual cancer—the gospel—and it is not “love” to knowingly misdiagnose them or keep that cure from them.

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13

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But as important as it is to rescue the perishing, there’s an even greater issue at stake here for those of us who claim the name of Christ.

For our sin, our Savior endured wrongful conviction, ridicule, mockery, and bullying.

For our sin, our Savior was slapped, punched, spit on, had His beard yanked out, and thorns and brambles mashed into His skull.

For our sin, our Savior had the skin flayed off His back, buttocks, and legs, whipped nearly to death until He was a bloody mess.

For our sin, our Savior, beaten, bloody, and broken of body, hoisted a heavy, splintery cross onto His shoulders and carried it through town and up the hill to His execution.

One nail.

Two nails.

Three nails.

For your sin. For my sin. For our neighbors’ sin.

How dare you, or I, or anyone spit in the face of our bleeding, dying Savior by saying that the sin that put Him on the cross is OK?

How dare we?

How can any of us claim to love Christ while celebrating the nails, the spear, the crown of thorns?

By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
1 John 2:5b-6

Jesus walked the way of leading people to repentance from sin and to the beauty, the freedom of a glorious new life through faith in Himself. Will we, who say we abide in Him, love Jesus and our homosexual neighbor enough to walk in the same way in which He walked?

Mostloving

Evangelism, Faith, Forgiveness, Gospel, Salvation, Sin

The Gospel According to Lot

Michelle Lesley

Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.
Genesis 19:12-14

The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah would make an epic movie. You’ve got your good guys: Abraham, Lot, and the angels. Your bad guys: everybody else in town. Violence, dramatic tension, a narrow escape, major pyrotechnics, and the good guys take the day. Epic, I tell you.

But that’s just what’s happening on the surface.

If you look closely, you can see the light of the gospel casting a shadow over Sodom. A shadow that’s the size and shape of a cross.

The city of Sodom was so wicked that God personally came down to deal with it. Judgment was coming. There was hell to pay—quite literally.

God revealed His plan of destruction to Lot, His only follower in Sodom. But God didn’t stop there. Did Lot have anyone in town that needed to be rescued from the coming devastation? Hurry! Go get them and urge them to flee!

“My sons-in-law!” thought Lot. Perhaps he raced out the back door, slipped carefully past any of the blinded mob left on his front porch, and scurried surreptitiously through town to avoid other hostile neighbors. Arriving at the respective homes of the two men betrothed to his daughters, he must have pleaded with them to drop everything and come with him. It was the only way they could be saved.

But they wouldn’t go with him. They didn’t believe him.

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The next morning, judgment came. And that handful of people—righteous Lot, and those who believed with him that God would save them if they left everything behind and followed Him—were the only ones spared.

Is that shadow becoming clearer?

This world is a frightfully wicked place. And, one day, God is going to come down personally to deal with it. Judgment is coming. It will be swift, it will be terrible, and it will be final. God has revealed this to us in His word. He has also revealed to us, His followers, the plan of escape: Jesus.

But God doesn’t stop there. Do we have friends and loved ones who need to be rescued from the very real and eternal hellfire and brimstone that await them if they stay in the Sodom of their sin?

Jesus tells us to “go out and…compel them to come in” (Luke 14:23), and that they “must be born again” (John 3:7).

This isn’t some kind of “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” game we’re playing here. It’s urgent, a matter of life and death.

Eternal life. Eternal death.

And God’s way is the only way out.

God didn’t offer Lot’s sons-in-law the option of having their cake and eating it, too, by remaining in Sodom and being saved from His wrath. And it doesn’t work that way for us either. We don’t get to have Jesus and continue to rebel against Him by remaining in our sin.

Just as Lot’s sons-in-law could not survive God’s judgment any other way than fleeing the sin of Sodom and following God’s escape route, there is only one way we may escape. We must flee from our sin and into the forgiving arms of our crucified and risen Savior.

This is the gospel with which we must compel them. It is the only gospel that saves.

“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for. – C.H. Spurgeon.

Faith

God’s Cartography

Michelle Lesley
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Are you “directionally challenged”?

I am.

I mean, I can read and follow a map, but if I make some wrong turns or get distracted, I tend to get disoriented. And don’t even try to tell me to “go north” or “turn south” when you’re giving me directions. I just don’t have that internal compass some people have. Heck, our church has had an “east campus” and a “west campus” for over a year, and I still can’t figure out which one is which. Thank goodness for map apps. Without those step by step directions, I’d probably still be wandering around out there somewhere.

But, you know what? I did really well in geography when I was in school.

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When I can see the big picture, the whole map at once, the beginning, middle, and end of the journey, it’s a piece of cake. I never get confused about which direction is southeast or northwest. I don’t get distracted by twists or turns in the road. If I could just have this perspective when I’m trying to get somewhere, I’d never get lost again.

But life isn’t like that.

We live inside the road trip where it’s easy to get confused and go the wrong way. Where we can get distracted by the twists and turns of circumstances. Where we sometimes deliberately choose to turn off the right road and take a side trip that takes us farther than we wanted to go.

We can’t step “outside the map” and see the big picture of our life’s journey from beginning to end.

But God can. That’s where He lives.

…in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:19

And since He alone can see the big picture, He’s the only One who’s really qualified to give us direction. And that perfect direction can only be found in His word.

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Just like my map app, He tells us our starting point:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:1-3

He tells us the detour we need to take:

…repent and believe in the gospel. Mark 1:15b

He shows us the right direction to go:

…what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness…
2 Peter 3:11

And he reveals our ultimate destination:

Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:17

Not using “God’s Positioning System”?

Recalculate.

(Don’t groan and roll your eyes. You should have seen that one coming :0)