The Facet of Grace Orientation
BD09-02© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1971)
We
now begin a very exciting passage of Scripture and course
of study as we look over a series as we look at what the Word of God
has to say about basic Bible doctrine. We are now
looking particularly at the subject of Christian maturity. The Bible describes certain spiritual
qualities which it puts together as constituting being a spiritually
mature Christian. We’re
called upon to build this structure of maturity within our souls. This
is erected, as we saw last week, upon the basis of positive Bible
doctrine in our human spirits.
Now
the basic facet of being a mature Christian as to do
with orientation to the grace of God. So
we are going to spend two or three Sundays first of all on learning
what it is to be oriented to grace. I would think
that all of you sitting here are oriented to the grace of God. In
all likelihood there are some Christians
here, there are some people here, who are disoriented to the grace of
God. You’ve got some real legal hang-ups in your
spiritual life. You have
something in your background that has given you guilt complexes. You
have something in your background that
started you off on the wrong course so that you have sought to please
God by things you do and things you don’t do. If
so, you are a very fortunate person because you’re going to have a
chance to get a relaxed mental attitude by learning what it is to be
oriented to the way God thinks, which is grace.
2 Corinthians 5:17
So, we begin with looking at the product of this thing we
call the grace of God. If you’ll turn in
your Bibles to 2 Corinthians to a very familiar verse in the 5th
chapter. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says,
“Therefore, if any man be in Christ he is a new creation. Old
things have passed away. Behold all things
are become new.”
Now in the previous 16 verses of this 5th
chapter of 2 Corinthians, you have a list of some of the fantastic provisions
of the grace of God. For example, in
verse 1 we’re told that if we die, we enter an eternal residence in
heaven. If you leave your human body through death
you will enter a place of eternal residence in heaven which God has
prepared for you. That’s the product of grace.
We’re told in verse 5 that the Holy Spirit indwells every
believer as a token on God’s promise to take us to heaven upon
our acceptance of His provision of salvation. That’s
an act of the grace of God. Verse 6 thus
indicates to us that God Himself makes it certain that if we leave our
bodies we go immediately to be with the Lord. If
you know anybody who has died who is a believer, you know right now
that the provisions of the grace of God, the plan of God which is a
grace plan, has made it certain that that person is now in the Lord’s
presence. When He left his body, you know without any
shadow of a doubt that he immediately went to heaven.
Verse 10 tells us there will be rewards for Christian
service. Service which has produced
divine good as the result of the workings of God the Holy Spirit
through us. Not a lot of rinky-dink Christian
activity which produces merely human good—and God rejects that.
Verse 15 tells us that it is the grace of God that has given
us the provision of spiritual death on the part of Jesus Christ in
order to pay for our sins. We were spiritually
dead. We needed somebody to pay the wages of sin which is spiritual death, and He did it for us.
Now these 16 verses list these tremendous provisions of the
grace of God. When you get to
verse 17 you reach a conclusion. The Greek word
here is “hoste” which is translated
“therefore” in verse 17, or “so
that.” It simply indicates that a conclusion has
been reached. Then we come to that Greek “if.” It looks like
this in the Greek: “ei.” This
is the word “if” that is in the Greek
what we call a first-class condition. We
have mentioned this before and you perhaps will remember that the Greek
language uses the word “if” in four different ways. It
always uses it in such a way that when you
read it in Greek it is telling you something more than
there’s a condition, an uncertainty. This
“if” in first-class means: If, and it is
true, that this is the case. “If any
man be in Christ, and you are in Christ—you are born again, you are
saved.” It’s an established fact. You may translate
it by the word “since.” “Therefore,
since any man by in Christ …” And the word “any
man” is the Greek word “tis” which means
“anyone.” It’s a generic term. It means men,
women, boys, and girls. So, that if any person is a Christian… Then
it uses a term here: “In Christ,” which is a term for the believer.
In the Greek language there is no verb. You
will notice in your English version that
the word “be” is in italics. Now
that’s kind of important that whenever the Greek language leaves out a
verb—If God the Holy Spirit wanted to punch something across to us very hard, then this
is the way they do it in Greek. So, God is
saying that “I want to impress you very deeply that if
anybody (and you are—you Christians to whom I’m writing at Corinth—you are)
in Christ, you are a new creature.”
Now this being “in Christ” is a term for a position
that we Christians hold. It’s the basis of what
we call positional truth. Galatians 3:28
speaks to us of this position that we hold in Christ. “There
is neither Jew nor Greek; there is
neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female, for ye are all
one in Christ Jesus.” Now all Christians have
been bound up into one body and they have been placed in Christ. They
have been set aside to all the merits
that belong to the Lord Jesus.
Now the result of being in Christ, and this is the point
here: To be in Christ means to be joined
in union with Jesus Christ equals something very tremendous, and that
is “new creature.” You are a new
creature. And again the Greek leaves out the verb to
emphasize that “in Christ” is to be a new creature.
Now I know that some of you are sitting here this morning
and you are thinking that you are a new creature because
you’ve knocked off your smoking; because you knocked off your boozing around; or, because
you knocked off your running around and playing around. And so you’re a new creature. And
I know that some of you who are on the new side of your Christianity or
on the immature side of your Christianity are prone to get up in a testimony meeting
and tell about you have become a new creature in Christ because you quit smoking
and chewing and going with girls that do, and so on.
This verse has been tremendously distorted in the minds of
Christians because they’re always associating it with what
I’ve quit doing and what I don’t do any more in the way of living. As a matter of
fact, it seems that for the new Christians this is one of
the biggest fun-killing verses in the Bible because to be a new
creature means all the things that you don’t do anymore, and
that’s not true.
But somehow along the line, new believers and immature and
untaught Christians pick up this idea that a new creature is that
because he gives up something or someone in his way of living. There
are meetings of the professional church
ministry and (that) the professional church preacher deliberately
creates. Oh, camp is a beautiful place to do
this. Meetings where you get everybody
around the campfire and you get a guy there with a guitar strumming
away (the Gilmore Holt type). Then you begin to
sing a few of these inspirational little songs. You
start out with something jazzy first of all so that everybody is
kind of moving around. Then you smooth
it down and you let the fire get to a certain point. Then
somebody gives a few emotional testimonies,
and somebody gives you a little devotional about calling upon you now
to sacrifice your life for the Lord, and to put aside the things that you
should put aside. Then maybe just to put a good
touch to it, they give you a little stick...
And they say, “Now when you have made a decision as to what
you’re going to put out of your life, throw it on the fire
and let it burn like that stick.” Pretty soon
you’ve got this conflagration that’s rising to the heavens and everybody
charges out of that camp… And they go home
and they say, “Boy, have I had an experience. I’ve
just been on the mountaintop. I’m
going to go with God like I’ve never gone before. I’ve
just really cleaned up my life.” Bologna!
You
haven’t done anything but had a great big emotional
high, and you’re not going anywhere. You
haven’t even started. You’ve
been conned. You’ve experienced the biggest
con game in the religious profession. And
you’re not going to get to be a new creature by that game. The
Word of God says if any of you (and you
are) in Christ, you have a position of salvation, you are a new creature.
Now we have all kinds here at Berean Memorial Church. We
have the worst kind of slobs you could
imagine. We have the nicest people you
could ask for. We have all the stinkers
and we have all the devious ones and we have all the clean-cut
ones—the all-American type. There’s
one thing that’s great about all of them. They’re
all new creatures in Jesus Christ. They
have a variety of backgrounds and a variety of past and a variety of
present sins. But they’re all new creatures in
Jesus Christ. And because this place is
so positive toward the Word of God, God uses it and uses you in a fantastic
way.
If you want a closer walk, even unsaved people (you
remember) are giving up things to go to heaven: You
will not get a closer walk with the Lord because of something you
give up. Now God the Holy Spirit, as a
result of doctrinal instruction may lay it upon your heart to get rid
of something or to discontinue something, and that’s OK. That’s
going to be a deepening expression of the fact that you are
already a new creature. But we all have
an old sin nature that loves to make sacrifices for us to achieve a
status of spirituality, and then we’re very proud of what we achieved. This
verse has to do with what God in His
grace has done for us—not what we do for Him.
I want you to take a look at this word “new.” In
the Greek language we again have two very interesting words. One is the word
“neos.” That stands for “new.” But it means
“new” in terms of time. We might say, “It’s recent.” But
there is another word called “kainos” that also means new. But this is new
in reference to “kind” or we might say
“species” or “breed.” And
guess which word is used here in 2 Corinthians 5:17. That’s
right, this one right here: The “kainos” is what is
used. It’s the word for “new breed” or
“new species.” A great and dramatic
thing has come on the scene of human history which was never true
before. In the church age God has added a new
creature to His panoply of creation. This
new species was begun on the day of Pentecost with the baptism of
God the Holy Spirit when He joined all believers in union with Jesus
Christ to form the body of Christ.
Now the baptism of the Holy Spirit was delayed until the
Lord was ascended to heaven (John 7:39, Acts 1:5). This
baptism was never found in the Old Testament. People in the Old
Testament were never joined to God. But in the New
Testament the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the experience of the
believer in being placed in Christ. The Old
Testament saints were born again but they did not experience union as a
new breed, as a new species with Jesus Christ. They
were not part of the body of Christ.
Now the Christian becomes this new species at the point of
salvation when he is joined by God the Holy Spirit automatically to
Christ. Now he’s not joined because he
has changed any of his behavior patterns. He’s
not made a new creature because he has promised to do something
better and therefore he’s joined in. He
is joined because he says, “Yes” to the offer of
eternal life, and he becomes a
new creature, and this word is “ktisis” in the
Greek which means “creation.” So
that what he has become is a new species
in God’s created order—not because he has achieved
some level of victorious
living. What I’m trying to get across to
you, if you are going to be oriented to God’s grace, the
first thing you have
to learn is that you and I are nothing and that we provide nothing and
God asks nothing. But God has a great plan and
you’re already in it. You can step
outside of that plan and you can botch up and scour up your life
fantastically, or you can get into the swing of things, and you can get into the plan
of God and ride along to the most fantastic human experience you could have
imagined. We a new kind entirely because of what God did for us who didn’t deserve it, and
that’s grace.
However, because you are God’s unique creation, you also
come under the unique position of being the prime target of
Satan’s attack. Our Lord is now in heaven beyond the reach of Satan. You have become
the target of Satan’s attack, and that’s why we are
going to go over these weeks explaining to you how to build up a defense against Satan and it is
entirely dependent upon having this spiritual maturity structure in your soul. And
if you don’t get grace orientation, it’s
not going to do any good for us to talk to you about how to have a
relaxed mental attitude and about mastering the details of your life or being
able to express love or having an inner happiness because you’re not
going to get any of those things until you are oriented to the grace of God. (Until)
you’ve gotten over your legalisms, you’re not going to ever get off the ground.
Now you will notice that he says that this position in
Christ, which is the basis for our orientation to the grace of God, has
established the fact that we who are a new breed, for us old things
have passed away. Not our old experiences, not our old ways. This world
“old” here refers to what is archaic. As a matter of
fact the word means a thing that existed from the beginning, and your sins
did not exist from the beginning. The thing that
is the oldest thing in you that did exist from the beginning is that
old sin nature. God says it is that old sin
nature’s expression in spiritual death that has passed away. What
has passed away from us is spiritual
death. You will never again be able to
die spiritually once you have become a Christian. Spiritual
death has abruptly been neutralized.
Now there are people all over this city who are going day by
day in the agony of wondering whether they are going to make heaven or
not; who are going through their little legalistic procedures in order to stay
on the good side of God. And yet the Word
of God says that for us who are in Christ we have been made a new breed
and all this spiritual death has passed away, “… behold
all things have become new.” And
again it is this word for new: It is a new
thing. We have the eternal spiritual life of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And grace has permanently secured this for you.
Now there is no way you can make yourself a new
creation. It’s all the work of God. And grace always
finds a way for our need. We’re
going to go more deeply into
this next Sunday morning about how grace meets our needs. It
has never failed. It is what God
Himself is free and able to do
in our behalf.
The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
Now it would be well for us to pause and just spend a couple
of minutes reviewing this subject of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Very
briefly:
1) It did not occur in the Old Testament or in any previous
dispensation (Colossians 1:25-26). The
baptism of the Holy Spirit is a unique experience of Christians in this
age.
2) The Lord Jesus Christ predicted the baptism of the Holy
Spirit (John 14:20, Acts 1:5).
3) The technique of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that a
believer at the moment of salvation is entered into permanent union
with Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13).
4) The unity is established among believers by the baptism
of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:5).
5) Baptism of the Holy Spirit implies all social
distinctions are destroyed. This is the
only place where true equality exists (Galatians 3:26-28).
6) The baptism of the Spirit identifies believers
retroactively with Christ on the cross (Romans 6:3-4, Colossians 2:12).
7) The baptism of the Holy Spirit began the dispensation of
the church (Matthew 16:18, Acts 1:5, 2:3, 11:15-17).
8) The baptism of the Spirit is the basis of our current
positional truth—our position in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-6).
9) Finally, and very importantly, the baptism of the Spirit
is not an experience, including speaking in tongues or the ecstatics. In
1 Corinthians 12:13 it’s that aorist tense
in the Greek which means we have all, once for all, and it says,
“… we all have been baptized …” including all the variety of
people that exist within the Christian community who are born again. The
tongues crowd are way off on the baptism of the Holy Spirit when they
try to make it an experience.
The history of grace begins in the Garden of Eden. This
was provided for Adam and Eve. Man, you remember, was created perfect, but
he used his will to choose to sin. God didn’t make him sin. It
wasn’t necessary for him to sin, but he elected to sin. It’s
sometimes hard for us to take a look at the beautiful situation in
which they existed with everything provided for them; no cares; no
worry; a perfect relationship between the perfect right man and his particular
right woman. And yet they said, “We’ll step
out of all this and we’ll go the road of sin.” And people are
inclined today to take up what is great and to mess it
up.
I don’t know how many times it has been my experience to
have to listen to people as they related their marital problems and to
sense that these people had a good marriage but one of the people in it
didn’t have enough sense to know it was good so they beat it to pieces because of
some inane ideas and goals and fixations that were created, and they kicked to
pieces a perfectly good relationship. We’re
doing this all the time in one way or another. That’s
exactly what Adam and Eve good. They
kicked to pieces a perfectly good relationship and a perfectly good
setup.
The Essence of God
Now Satan’s temptations to them proceeded by attacking the
essence of God. So, it’s necessary for us
to pause for a moment this morning and, as you think about the grace of
God, to review the essence of God. Remember that
first of all God is sovereign. Now the
sovereignty of God could have decided to wipe Adam and Eve, and
consequently all of us, right out of existence. He
had the right to do it. But the sovereign God did not exercise this right.
You remember that God is righteousness. His
righteousness was revolted by what had taken place in the Garden of Eden. Yet
He did not destroy them. Though His justice demanded that a price be paid for the sin that was committed. But
all the righteousness and justice of God was tempered by His love. He had the
right to do it. His nature demanded it. But His love sought a way out for
Adam and Eve. The result was that He
provided the quality of eternal life for them by a plan which God
Himself devised—that plan of which we want to speak this morning.
In His omniscience, God knew the doom that would come upon
all of us who would be descended from them, but He didn’t
destroy them. In His omnipresence, He was right there to
see what happened. In all the steps
He was witness to man’s depraved act. And
in His omnipotence, He was able to come up with a plan that He could
effectively enforce to destroy the power of sin over us. And
because God is immutable (He never
changes), His character will not tolerate sin, and His promises,
because He is veracity (which is truth) will be kept.
So, here God in His grace has been perfectly true to His own
character and He came up with a plan. Now
we’re a sorry lot but God’s grace has given us a
way out. We deserve nothing and yet Titus 2:11 says,
“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared
to all men.”
Now it is an important thing to be positive toward
doctrine. It is important that you don’t
try to impose your changes on people’s personalities; on
their way of dressing, on their habits. It’s
relaxing to remember that God does all this for us. And
we need to learn how to be oriented to grace and to start people in
grace—to thank God for who and what He is that makes all this
possible. Yet we are forever having Christians who are
running around, and because they’re not oriented to grace,
God who can be oriented to grace in spite of being this kind of a perfect personality,
we can’t be oriented to grace. We
are forever going around being disturbed on what people do, the disposition
of their personality, and how they dress.
Did you ever complain about how somebody dressed? I
have two college sons and they are beside
themselves with the way some of the older generation at Berean dresses. They
come home and they can’ believe how
these old cats are going around. I
mean they come home from college and try to put on a little style and class
and they walk in here. How are you going
to compete with white pants, white tie, and a red shirt? And
they go down the line and they tell me
what all the classy gentlemen around here have been wearing last Sunday
morning. And they just can’t believe
it. They dress in what they call conglomerates. Nothing matches. It’s
just a conglomerate. But it’s style. It’s
just distressing to them because they walk in and they’re just out of their class right away.
Now maybe that disturbs you, how people dress. Well
that’s between them and the Lord if they
want to dress in conglomerates. And you
don’t put any screws on them in trying to change their
dealings with themselves. Now you can get
pretty serious about this all the way down the line. Some
people, you would be surprised how they get up in arms about what
some people wear.
Now we’re a sorry lot. God in His
essence knows how to deal in grace. One
of the first signs of not being oriented
to grace is that you can’t mind your own business. The
provisions of the grace of God are
something terrific. God and His plans
are perfect. He has come up
with a provision for every one of our failures and every one of our weaknesses.
Romans 8:28
Will you turn to that grand passage in Romans 8:28-30? The
plan of God is perfect, and if you are
oriented to grace, you’re not going to try to be improving on
God’s plan either for your salvation or for your life. Satan
is constantly challenging the plan of God in trying to bring us
into substitutes of human good. A
believer who is ignorant or negative to doctrine begins emphasizing his
experience and he looks for some kind of an emotional good feeling.
Now there are five satanic challenges to the plan of
God. Romans 8:28 says, “We know that all
things work together for good to them that love God; to them who are
the called according to His purpose.” Then
he goes on and tells us about the things that God has provided, bringing us
right up to the state of glorification at the end of verse 30.
Now in verse 31 we have one of the first challenges of
Satan, and that is opposition. Verse 31
says, “What shall we say to these things? If
God be for us, who can be against us?” God’s
plan for the believer functions by
means of Bible doctrine which is cycled in the soul and spirit. Satan
doesn’t fool around with believers who
are minus doctrine. There are all
kinds of Christians who are play church and Satan doesn’t bug you
at all. But when he finds a believer, and when he
finds a church which is cranking out doctrinal instruction so people
are getting hold of life principals and getting hold of the mentality of
God into their mentality, that’s a church where all hell is going to
break loose. Because Satan is going to move in on that
kind of a group and on that kind of an individual believer.
This is the kind of a believer that Satan will egg on into
pseudo spirituality: into tongues,
into self-crucifixion living, and into legalisms. Now
no sin is too great for the plan of God. And your
salvation is not lost if you sin, even if you have a flagrant sin. Most
of you are probably too nice to know what a flagrant sin is anyhow.
I want to tell you something else. Your
flagrant sin doesn’t eliminate you from
Christian service either. Every now and
then I come into contact with Christians who explain to me that they
have limited area of service in their church because they were guilty in
their past of something called a flagrant sin. So
they’re eliminated from certain areas of services, certain
areas of office-holding. This is legalism. This
is blasphemous. It is an insult to the grace of God. Any church that
operates on that basis is the most disoriented operation to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that
you can imagine.
It is blasphemous because the grace of God never permits
anything to come into our lives that He cannot cover. I’m
telling you, Christian, you’re covered. Now God will
discipline you and me for our flagrant sins, but you are covered as to your salvation and
as to your service. When you’re ready to pick
yourself (up) out of the dust and say, “OK, I’ve
had enough groveling down here
and eating the dirt, and I’m going to stand upright again as
the son of God, as the daughter of God that I am, and I’m going to move on
again.” You make your confession and you’re back in operation.
Now you know your own thinking. You know
whether you’re hung up on the idea that
there’s something in your background, in your experience that
puts some brakes and limitations upon your being all-out gung-ho in the service that God
opens to you. If you have any reservations,
any mental or emotional reservations, you’re out of line. You
are not oriented to the grace of God. And Satan is
going to constantly egg that on you. Now you can
believe him or you can believe the Word of God. If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There is not
sin that is too great for the plan of God.
This verse here says, “What shall we say to these
things? If God be for us…” And
you’ve got the word “if.” And
again you have the first-class condition
here: “If God is, and He is for us, who can
be against us?” Now you will
notice something if you look closely at your English (version). Again
you notice that when God the Holy Spirit wants to say something
very dramatic, He chopped the verbs out again. There’s
no “be” and there’s no “can.” He just puts it
in Greek.
Now I love this verse. I used to have it
written out in Greek and for years had it tacked to
the lamp in front of me on my study desk because it looked nice to look
up there and see in those pungent Greek words, “If God for us,
who against us?” And that’s how it puts it: “If
God for us, who against us?” Nobody. Now a preacher
has to remember this but you have to remember this just
as well in your experience. You people who are going around singing the blues, saying, “I just
can’t understand why nobody likes me.” Most of us can
understand why. Because you’re so hung
up on yourself and you’re so disoriented to the relaxed and
gracious way of life to which God has called you that no wonder you’re
offensive.
You people who run around and say, “Oh why did God do this
to me?” Do you know what you’re
saying? You’d better stop and think what
you’re saying: “God,
why could you have been so disoriented? Why could you
have been so foolish? Why could you
have been so dumb as to do this to me?” Are
you ready to say that to God? Then
don’t run around saying, “Oh why did He do this to me?” as if
He made some kind of a mixed up mistake. He knows what
He’s doing. His plan is perfect. He is perfect,
and everything (that includes you) is perfect along with it. That’s
the great thing about grace.
Now it’s a matter of whether you’re willing to get with
it or whether you’re willing to say, “Well
I’m going to operate on the basis of
good judgment, my capacities, and what I learn from the
world,” and then you’re just another worldling. “Who
against us?” No one can oppose us in God’s plan. No one is greater.
Now the second challenge from Satan to the grace of God with
opposition is in verse 32, and that’s provision. “He
that spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all
things?” Has God provided for you? Can He keep His
Word and His promises to you? “I just
can’t understand why God is
doing this to me” suggests that God can’t keep His
word. “I just can’t understand why God doesn’t take
this problem away from me. I just
can’t understand why God doesn’t help me. I’ve
asked Him so much. Why doesn’t He help
me with this?” Are you going around whining like that? Like God is not
keeping up on His work?
We fail God, but He never fails us because it’s against His
essence to do so. God has provided the greatest thing for us. This verse should
remind us of another verse. “He that
spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he
not with Him also freely give us all things?” Right
away your mind clicks back to Romans 5:8 here that says, “But God
commendeth His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ
died for us.” He gives us all things, not because
we were nice and good people, but grace says that He did this, and He
works (Romans 8:28) “all things together for good when we were His
enemies.” When we were not people who loved Him, He
gave us the most. The biggest thing was salvation, to solve that. Now God has
given us the most, and He has freely given us all things subsequent to
the most.
Now after God gives you the most, how can He give you more
than that? That’s what He does. The most that He
could give you was eternal life, but now He freely gives you beyond that. No
challenge is too great therefore to meet these “all things” of
Romans 8:28. You already have the most. He follows
through in addition to that. He takes our sorrows, He takes our spiritual
failures, He takes our sinfulness, and he takes the disasters and He
weaves them all together and makes them good. The
plan of God is greater than all our needs.
Do you know when you lack? When you step out
of the plan of God. It’s
when you go negative toward doctrine. It’s
when you are ignorant of doctrine. It’s
when you’re in your carnality. That’s
when things go bad for you. That’s
when things begin to creep up on you
because you’re out of the plan of God. You
are not benefiting by what He has proposed for you. And
God will let you work it out. You bet. You go ahead and
keep working on your own plan. You’re
going to work all this out by yourself
just like the world does. What
you’re going to end up is a massive catastrophe.
In verse 33 Satan challenges with criticism, “Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God’s elect? Shall
God that justifieth?” Who dares to challenge an individual believer within the plan of God, as to
salvation or to that believer’s life? Satan
does all the time. Satan has his little demons running around all the time and these demons are
creating files on every one of us. Then when the file gets big enough, Satan walks into heaven and slaps it on the desk
before God as the judge and says, “I want to show you what one of your
little sweet patooties down there at Berean church has been doing. Now
here in the first of the month this guy had three great big
monstrous sins. I mean not one of your little run-of-the-mill sins. I mean
these were three biggies, all in one day. Over
here on the fifth of the month he did this. Then on
the tenth I want you to notice this. And there it
is.” And God says, “Is my sweet patootie in
Christ?” Satan says, “Well, yeah.” And
God says, “OK” and He throws it out of
court. Now do you get the feel for grace
orientation? Satan’s got the goods on us
and we deserve to be hauled in, but God says, “No case. I’ve
covered it. I’ve covered it.”
So, you’re going to come along here. Satan
can’t criticize us, and yet we have
Christians who think that they have a right to go around judging other
believers. You know that the Bible forbids this (Matthew 7:1-2). Romans
14:4 says, “Who art thou that judges another man’s
servant? To his own master he standeth or
falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.”
Verse 10 of that 14th
chapter says, “But why dost thou judge thy brother?” Or,
“Why dost thou set at nought thy brother? For we
shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ.” Now
here’s another thing that we are prone to
be inclined to do. God says He reserves
judgment of other Christians for Himself. I
don’t care how flagrant you think their sin is that you know about. It
is none of your business. I don’t
care what you think you need to do
about it. It is God’s business to deal
with that believer and to do something about it.
Now if you are a parent, it is your business to judge and to
discipline the shortcomings of your children. If
you are a civil authority of the state, it is your business to judge
and to discipline the lawlessness of the citizen. If
you are a spiritual leader of a local
assembly, it is your business to evaluate and to judge and to
discipline what the Bible calls sin—not what you don’t like or what
you don’t think is good,
but what the Bible credits as sin, and that’s all. But
outside of that, you have no business
particularly as the Scripture indicates the judging of motives. God
reserves the right to deal with the Christian’s
failures and with his carnality, and it is not yours to help yourself.
It’s only God because of His omniscience who knows all the
circumstances. I’m all
the time having people coming to say things to me, and they’re saying it to
me, you know, in a
way that they think they’re just coyly talking to me, but
they’re trying to get
a message over to me. They’re
pretending to give me an evaluation that they think they’re qualified to
give on some other believer, and they’re not, and they have to be cut down
if necessary sometimes. Because only God
has the omniscience to know. Only He was there
to see it. He has the omnipresence. You
don’t. Only God has the omnipotence to make an effective discipline. Only
He has the love and the justice to be fair and exercise it in propriety. Only
He can express righteousness in the way it should be
expressed—not you and I. We don’t have the right to be
pursuing this. You don’t have the right to be judging the believers.
And so Matthew 7:1-2, you might want to read it, in effect
tells you that the way you’re going to deal with other
peoples’ sin is the way
it will be dealt to you. What that is
saying is that the judgment that you’re going to mete out is
going to be given to you for someone else’s sin as well as your own.
Another thing that Satan challenges on in verse 34 is
sinfulness. “Who is he that condemneth? Shall Christ that
died, yea rather, that who is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who maketh
intercession for us.” The challenge to
the reality of our salvation or the challenge to yourself as a believer. There
are always some misinformed people that
think there was some sin that was outside of the plan of God that
didn’t get covered. There are always
some self-righteous believers who go around with their legalistic taboos who
are agonizing in their closets who look down their noses at Christians who
go out and live it up. It is not your
place to be dealing with what you think is the sinfulness of other Christians.
We have these oddballs who are forever running down the
aisles to reaffirm their faith or to rededicate their lives. That’s
a monstrosity if there ever was one. And all the
professional preachers use it to prove that something big has happened. And
these people who rededicate walk out and because
they don’t have doctrine, because they haven’t been
oriented to techniques of divine operation, they’re just as bad off as they were before. We
don’t do a thing in the plan of God, and that’s grace. Christ died. That’s
His spiritual death. He’s seated at the right hand of God the
Father. He makes permanent intercession.
There is one thing more, and that is in verses 35-39 Satan
challenges us with suffering. If God loves you, if God is really for you, if you’re in His plan,
why is He doing this to you? Verse 35 gives us the
answer to the question, what shall separate us from the love of Christ? Nothing. He gives
seven types of suffering: tribulation, or
pressures of mind and body; distress, or troubles that
come in; persecutions, or attacks from the world; famine, or lack of
things; nakedness; peril, or hazard; or, sword, or war. None
of these things can separate us from the plan and love of God. How
grace will preserve us through all of them.
In verse 36 Satan seeks to destroy the Christian with his
constant pressure. In verse 37 we have
victory because God’s plan works by grace. Verses
38-39 say that there’s no situation too great for the plan of
God. We are in the plan of God and anything that challenges it is going to fail.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1971
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