Virtual Devotions

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. – Hebrews 13:7

Dear Friends,

The writer of the Book of Hebrews repeatedly emphasizes the superiority of Christ.  He tells us of the superiority of Christ to angels, to Moses, to the priests, in His sacrificial work and in the New Covenant.  Among these proclamations of Christ’s superiority are five warnings to the reader to remember God’s just punishment against those who ignored His commands in the past.  In the closing chapter, the writer encourages the reader to remember those leaders who preached the Gospel to them, to consider the way they lived their lives and to imitate their faith.

Yesterday, my girls and I spent the day in Washington D.C.  As we toured the monuments and museums, I reminded them of the importance of God as the foundation of our government and society.  Throughout the city there are references to God.  Even the mall is laid out as a cross with the Washington Monument at the center, the Lincoln Memorial at the top, The Capital building at the bottom and the White House and the Jefferson Memorial on either side.

But what is of most importance is the faith of our Founding Fathers themselves.  While the secular world is trying to rewrite history by telling us that the Founding Fathers were not men of faith, the truth is that they were.  And their faith shaped the direction of this country.  Here are just a few quotes from some of them:

“It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of God and to obey His will.” – George Washington

“God governs the affairs of men.  And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, it is probable that an empire can rise without His aid?” – Benjamin Franklin

“I am profoundly engaged in reading the Bible.  Take all of this Book upon reason that you can, and the balance by faith, and you will live and die a better man.” – Abraham Lincoln

Then again, we are told that there were men like Thomas Jefferson did not let his faith guide his decisions.  After all, didn’t Jefferson profess the idea of the “separation of church and state” and didn’t Jefferson rewrite the bible to remove all the miracles retaining only the moral teachings of Christ?  This is partially true, but like most things these must be taken in the context of his time.

England, like most other European nations at the time, had an official state religion.  If you were an English citizen, you were expected to be a member of the Church of England, the Anglican Church.  At times, it was illegal in England to practice any other religion.  This is the context of Jefferson’s thoughts on separation of church and state.  He did not intend to remove faith from the government, but he did intend to prevent the government from imposing a specific faith.

As for the “Jefferson Bible,” while it is true that he dismissed the miracles of Christ, Jefferson was a product of his time, the Age of Enlightenment when anything and everything that did not have a rational, natural explanation had to be dismissed.  Unfortunately, this same rationalism of the 18^th century spills over into the disbelief of many people today.

But the best way to rebuke those who would speak ill of the faith of Thomas Jefferson is by his own words in which he stated that his views, “are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from the anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions.”

As the 4^th of July approaches and we begin to make plans for the celebration of our independence, let us remember the words of the writer of Hebrews in the context of his day and let us see if we can apply it to ourselves today.  Let us remember our leaders who indeed spoke so highly of God.  And finally, let us continue their work of keeping faith as a foundation of our government and society instead of entertaining the lies of those who wish to suppress the truth.

In Christ,

David

P.S. - I receommend “Rediscovering God in America” by Newt Gingrich.  It comes both as a short book and as a DVD tour of Washington D.C.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.  Psalm 103:13

Dear Friends,

Psalm 103 is a wonderful praise to the Lord.  The psalmist speaks of the greatness of God and the works He accomplishes for us.  We are reminded that the Lord has compassion for and loves those who fear him and God shows that compassion in many ways.  Proverb 1 says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and that knowledge is imparted to us when we need it most.

Yesterday was Father’s Day, but instead of having breakfast in bed I was out the door early to run to Wal-Mart to get some toiletries for my 11 year-old daughter who was leaving for camp that afternoon.  As I pulled out of the driveway, I could see that the lawn needed mowing, but it wasn’t going to get done today – nor would it get done for most of this week because I knew I would be on the road for work for three days.

When I returned from Wal-Mart, we were all rushing to get ready.  You see, for Father’s Day we rent a boat on Lake Norman and take my wife’s dad and family out on it.  It’s not something I enjoy though.  Being an introvert, I don’t enjoy being with nine people on a boat that has a maximum capacity of ten.  Plus, I neither like the water nor the hot weather and that’s exactly what you get on the lake.

Just before we leave the house, my wife informs me that the upstairs toilet is clogged.  That has to wait and we rush off.   We arrive at my mother-in-law’s at 10:10am, just ten minutes late, but then we wait another hour for my sister-in-law who is never on time.  We finally make it to the marina, do the day on the lake and by 5:30pm, we are on the way home. 

We walk into the house at 6:30pm and my phone rings.  It’s the seminary student who is going to be staying with us this week.  He tells me he is 30 minutes away.  Having just come off of the lake, we make a mad rush to get ourselves clean, straighten the house, and then of course there is still the clogged toilet upstairs.

I work on the toilet while my wife greets the seminary student.  After a half hour of filthy plunging and wrestling with the auger, I give up.  We’ll just have to call a plumber in the morning.  I shower and go downstairs to great our guest.  We have dinner at 9:00pm and relax for a few moments, but the day isn’t over.  As I said before, I’ll be on the road for three days, so I have to get my business files and computer together and pack my clothes so I can get out the door early Monday morning.  I finally hit the pillow sometime before midnight.

Now this was certainly a full and trying day, but there are two things that I left out which are of great importance.  First, my wife did give me a little Father’s Day gift bag with a few things in it, but what was best of all was the card.  She specifically went to the Family Christian Store to buy a card that spoke of the importance of God in our marriage and family.  That meant a great deal to me.

Second, as I pulled out of the driveway that morning dreading the day on the lake and seeing that I needed to add mowing the lawn to my list of things to do, I started to have those self-pitying thoughts of “what a rotten Father’s Day this will be.”  It was at that moment that God imparted to me the knowledge that the joy of Father’s Day is knowing that I am blessed to have two precious daughters and a son on the way.  I have been given the great responsibility by God to be someone’s father.  Though it is a daily chore, it is truly a work of love.

I am blessed to be a father, and I thank my Father in heaven for reminding me of the blessing He has poured upon me.  God gave me that message yesterday morning just when I needed it most and I praise Him for His Fatherly love towards me.

Happy Father’s Day!

In Christ,

David

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!   Galatians 1:6-8

Dear Friends,

After the greeting in nearly every epistle of Paul, the apostle gives thanks for God’s work in the lives of the people to whom he is writing.  In the thanksgiving, Paul touches on the topics or themes that will be found in the body of the letter.  But in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, there is no thanksgiving because Paul is furious with them.  He has nothing to be thankful for as far as they are concerned.  Rather than praising them, Paul chastises them.

What is the cause of Paul’s anger against the Galatians?  Why does he curse some and call the others fools?  Simply this, that the preachers are preaching a perverted gospel, which is no gospel at all, and the people are accepting it

The other day, while I was driving in the car listening to the radio, I heard a commercial for one of the local churches in Charlotte.  In the background was “Come Together” by the Beatles.  The ad began with the pastor of this church saying, “What do the Beatles and U2 have to do with the Bible?”  His answer, “Everything.”  He then offered an invitation to come to his church to hear a sermon series entitled, “The Gospel According to the Beatles.”  I almost drove off of the road.

I am terribly disturbed by the trend that the church has taken in recent years.  In order to attract more members, the church is becoming more like the world.  Is not the cross of Christ sufficient for your teaching?  Is not the Gospel the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes?  Is this not why the church exists?  To look at many churches today, I would say not.

Paul accused the preachers of Galatia of desiring to please men rather than God.  The same is true in many churches today.  With church membership growth being the hallmark of success, and feeling the pressures to try anything to grow a congregation, pastors are perverting the Gospel of Christ by mixing it with the common worldview as if the message of the cross was not relevant today.

And have the members of today’s churches become such fools?  Is the sanctuary of the church a place of worship or a place of worldliness?  Do we go to church to be edified or to be entertained?   And in regard to the Holy Bible, shall we be learned or shall we be illiterate?

If your church is similar to the one described here, then I am sorry.  Sorry not for the things I have said, but sorry that you sit under a pastor who has assumed such a low view of the Gospel.  Here’s my advice for those who will take it.  If your pastor quotes Bono more often than Jesus Christ, run to the exit and never look back.

In Christ,

David

Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. – James 5:17-18

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, my 10-month-old niece, Abby, was in the hospital for almost two weeks.  She suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, SMA-type 1, a degenerative muscular disease that slowly takes away the use of her muscles.  Currently she has very little use of her legs, arms or neck.  She cannot swallow and must be fed through a tube in her stomach.  In her condition, she is vulnerable to the slightest illness.  That’s what happened almost two weeks ago.  Abby caught the rhinovirus, the common cold, but for Abby it was life threatening.

In the Epistle of James, James tells the believers that when someone is sick they should pray for that person and have the elders come and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.  James assures us that the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, meaning that the Lord will raise him up.

Some may become discouraged when a loved one is prayed for and does not get well or in fact dies.  Does James promise that everyone who is prayed for will be healed?  Of course not.  James tells us that first we must pray in faith.  And what faith is that?  I would suggest that it is faith that the Lord will do what is best for our loved one be it renewed health or renewed life through physical death.  God makes that decision and we are putting our faith in God to make the right decision.  So the Lord may raise the person up in health or may raise the person up in glory.

Many of you knew of Abby’s condition and many of you prayed for her.  I thank you and my brother and sister-in-law thank you. And I believe the Lord did hear your prayers and I believe that it was His will to raise Abby up in physical health as a testament to His sovereignty.  Sometimes, we may wonder if our prayers are really of any use.  We look at the great figures of the Bible and consider that there is no wonder that God listened to Elijah’s prayers.  But who are we compared to Elijah?

James answers that as well.  Elijah was just a man, but he was a righteous man, a man saved by his faith, a true believer.  And James tells us that the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective.  You don’t have to be a Bible hero for your prayers to be powerful and effective.  You only need to be right before God when you approach the throne of grace.

So again, I thank you for your prayers and I ask you to continue to pray for Abby and her parents.  For the full story of Abby’s miraculous recovery, you can read the journal entry my brother made at her website, http://caringbridge.org/visit/abigailjudge/journal.

In Christ,

David

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. – Romans 1:32

Dear Friends,

In recent weeks, I have tried to focus my devotions on current events.  This week, the event to discuss is easy, the murder of Dr. George Tiller.

This devotion will probably not be what you have heard discussed in regard to the murder, at least I have not yet heard anyone discuss it.  There have been discussions if this murder was justified, which it was not, and if Dr. Tiller was really a Christian, who by his livelihood I fear he was not.  No, this devotion is focused on the one thing that struck me as the most unusual of all the facts of this event.  That when he was murdered, Dr. Tiller was serving as an usher in his church.

Here was a man whose life was surrounded by controversy because of his career in performing late term abortions.   It was no secret. This man made a career performing infanticide during the week and then served as an usher on Sunday only to return to his murderous ways on Monday.  Talk about hypocrisy.  Yet it was his church that allowed him to serve.

There was a time, a much better time I will add, when the church actually took a stand against immorality and would have thrown a man like George Tiller out of the building no less remove him from his position as an usher.  Read 1 Corinthians 5 as the example of proper church discipline.  Paul tells us to expel the immoral brother from the congregation so his immorality does not spread in the church and so that he might actually repent and be saved. 

But instead many churches today affirm sin.  They fear executing proper discipline and instead of condemning and dealing with the sins of their members, they call what is evil good and in doing so approve of the sinful life.  They prefer man’s political correctness to God’s holy righteousness.  In many ways, I think that by doing this the church is committing a far greater sin than the sin itself.

I was so struck by the fact that Dr. Tiller was an usher that I researched his church, which is a part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.  I was surprised, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been, to read on the ELCA website that, “A developing life in the womb does not have an absolute right to be born.”  I can hardly imagine that a statement like this could be on a website of a church that alleges to be Christian.

For full disclosure, the second half of the statement says, “nor does a pregnant woman have an absolute right to terminate a pregnancy.”  But to say this is just speaking out of both sides of the mouth.  The fact is they are as lukewarm as the church at Laodicea and risk being spit out of the mouth of Christ.  They are seeking to please men, not God.

And this is where it is going.  Churches and denominations are moving so far away from the Scripture that they are no longer Christian churches.  The best book on this subject is Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen.  I encourage you to read it.

In closing, the only person responsible for the death of Dr. Tiller is his killer.  This man chose to execute judgment that is reserved for God alone and in doing so risks condemning himself to eternity in hell if he does not repent and turn to Christ in faith.  But Dr. Tiller has no opportunity to repent now.  And I wonder if the church had executed proper discipline against him, if Dr. Tiller would have repented, been saved and given up his sinful profession a long time ago.

In Christ,

David