Monthly Archives: November 2008

Psalm 145:4-7

4 One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
5On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
6They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
and I will declare your greatness.
7They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

2) v. 5 God’s greatness is worth meditation. Meditating on God is a fruitful work. Discovering the greatness of God is for those who really mean to find Him. It is for those who will meditate, think, read, study, compare Scripture with Scripture, pray for illumination and help. And those who work in such a way will never be disappointed. God does not invite us on a fool’s errand. He will reveal Himself to those who search, find and meditate. The reward itself is incentive enough to go on the quest. And, getting to know God is not a matter of visions, revelations, dreams and voices. So often people’s desire for the knowledge of God is just a desire for a spectacular appearance. To know God is, in the words of the Puritan, “to think the thoughts of God after Him”. Coming to God results in godliness in thinking and behaviour.

3) v. 6 God’s greatness will be declared by those who make inroads in their search to know God better. A quest to know God is the greatest quest of all. There can be no more rewarding work and when those who have embarked on the quest find nuggets of treasure that thrill the soul they will not keep quiet. It is a legitimate question to ask if the reason why Christians do not witness more than they do is because they have not sought God out diligently and therefore have not found Him and therefore have no thrilled heart that desires to pass on the knowledge of God to others.

Psalm 145:1-3
1 I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
2Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.
3 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.

Some thoughts from Psalm 145 regarding God’s greatness :
1) God’s greatness is unsearchable (v.3) – When studying to know God better do not fool yourself. You are never going to get into the inner workings of the mind of God and understand all there is about Him. He would not be God in that case. This is a powerful inducement to getting to know God better. He is not only not able to be plumbed, He is unable to be sought out. Then why should we search to know Him? Because He chooses to reveal Himself to us. He allows us to see His back parts. In mercy He invites us into what we are able to handle. So, knowing that God is unsearchable, we have the knowledge that what we do find out is what He has allowed and that since He tells us to come to know Him better we know He will reveal things to us that will thrill our souls. What a glory!! He whose ways cannot be even sought out says, “come and find me” and lets us in to find great wonders!!

Acts 15:1-3 1 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.

Some Jewish Christians are insisting that salvation cannot happen to a man who has not been circumcised according to the Law of Moses. The teaching causes “no small dissension and debate between them and Paul and Barnabas”.

Those of us who get involved in “no small” dissensions need to remember that not everything we disagree with others about is worthy of a contentious debate. The church is to be marked by great love, unity and peace.

However, there are some issues worthy debating vociferously. Near the top of that list is the Gospel and that is what is at stake in this instance in Acts 15. Things for which we should be willing to contend should always at least include the infallibility of Scripture, the Trinity, the Person and work of Christ, holiness of life, and some others. The list is not extremely long but it is extremely important. There is a horrifying view that doctrine does not matter, that what has divided professing Christians over the years has all been over nothing, and that putting doctrine on the back burner will help win people to Christ. We should contend vociferously for the faith.

What causes you to debate with no small dissension? Is it the essentials of the faith or is it things more related to things born out of our all too common self-centeredness that characterizes us far too much? Is it the glory of our great triune God and the amazing Gospel that causes you to be ready to debate, or is it more personal concerns?

1Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. 4But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. 5When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, 6they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country, 7and there they continued to preach the gospel.

Paul and his companions spoke “in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.” What a fascinating comment. Does this credit the manner of speaking as something that contributed to the conversion of lost people? Yes it does, and we do well to pay attention to it. Knowing the Gospel is essential, but it is not enough. God gifts people with the ability to speak convincingly. It is part of the gift of evangelism and we need to pray it into our churches. It is wrong to maintain that all that is needed is good theology. Good theology is needed – very desperately in today’s doctrinally mindless environment.

To speak eloquently with bad doctrine is to condemn our listeners to not receiving truth. But good theology is not a substitute for shoddy presentation. To speak good doctrine in a way that no one will listen will do the same. The Gospel we know must be delivered in the giftedness that God grants for the persuasive declaration of the Scriptures. What a powerful text.

We should want to give Gospel truth to people today. And we should want it to be presented in a manner that attracts people to the truth. This takes great care and wisdom. Let’s not be obnoxious with the greatest truth that mankind has ever been allowed to hear. And let us be struck with awe that God allows us to deliver it.

1Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace,(G) granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

Note here in verse 2 and also throughout the Book of Acts, how the great success of the Gospel is always accompanied by opposition. When you pray for revival, conversions, spiritual awakening … never forget to also pray to be able to handle the negatives that are inevitably going to accompany the positives that take place. The evil one is the biggest loser in the cosmos, but that does not stop him from opposing the works of God. God shows Himself in the midst pf great opposition to the Gospel. Lack of readiness for it can lead to despair, depression, quitting, disappointment, doubt, fear, … . God keeps His promises and we can be sure that the Gospel is going to be opposed. We need to be ready for it. And we need to face them with the faith and optimism that comes from knowing God can’t lose.

1Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. 4But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. 5When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, 6they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country, 7and there they continued to preach the gospel.

The first word of verse 3 is “so”. In other words – the reason Paul and his companions kept on preaching and the reason they stayed in Iconium was because of the opposition. The Jews stirred up the Gentiles against the brothers SO they remained for a long time preaching the Gospel.

This is marvellous. And it is condemning. This is how we should respond to opposition – perseverance, holy intransigence, commitment marked by tenacity. What a great lesson for us to learn in these days. May we learn it well.

But note this also – when the opposition got to the point of an attempted stoning, Paul ran away (14:5-7). Tenacity is not foolhardiness. There comes a time when you need to cut loose. The preachers left there and went to the next city to preach. They did not go back home. They knew they were to preach and the opposition will not stop them from doing that. But they will not attempt to preach where their lives are being threatened. It is better to leave off those who will not respond and go preach elsewhere than to stay and never preach again.

And finally, what happened to the great number of Jews and Greeks (v.1)who were saved under Paul’s preaching and who did not have the luxury of running away from those who were trying to stone Paul? We are not told, but we can safely assume that things did not go well for them.

We should remember and pray for and help in any way that we can, those believers in very difficult situations who cannot escape from their opposition and who may very well lose their lives because of their faithfulness to the Gospel.

46″And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. 47 For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

48And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. 49And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.”

Acts 13:48 – Those appointed to eternal life believed. This is astounding stuff and it is very encouraging stuff. Every person who expresses faith in Christ does so because he has been appointed for eternal life.

This is very encouraging in our day when converts are few and opposition to the Gospel is very great. The day seems (only seems) gone when a whole city will come to hear the Gospel, and the day is certainly gone when non Jews will rejoice because they discover that Gentiles can have the promises of the prophets fulfilled for them. The task before us is huge and if we think that conditions need to be as they were in the days of the Apostles, we are sadly mistaken.

But we can know that the God who did extraordinary things for the Apostles will do whatever He does today in order to bring to faith those who have been appointed to eternal life. The Father shall lose none of all that He gives to the Son (John 6:39).

Give the Gospel to someone today. You may be giving it to someone chosen from before the creation of the world, appointed to eternal life, and you are the one God is using to bring that eternally chosen one into the Kingdom today. What an awe inspiring thing it is to have God orchestrate eternally planned things through us. It should make us very humble, very bold, very optimistic, very faithful and full of indefatigable joy.

Do not use this truth to argue and debate. It was meant to encourage the saints, just like it did those believers in Acts 13.

Acts 13:12 “When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord”.

The proconsul believed for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. The Gospel is amazing stuff. The Gospel of grace is foreign to our thinking. Only the Gospel of free, electing, grace gives all the glory to God. There are those who distort the Gospel of grace into an excuse to live licentiously. But the far, far greater distortion of the Gospel is that people add to the free grace of God. They think they are saved because of some contribution they make. Whether it is pre-existing faith in their hearts, a belief that good works contributes to work that God does, or that God has done all He can do and now the rest is up to us, they all amount to saying the same thing – that we are not saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. The human heart is an idol factory and the biggest idol is “look at me” and this is what the enemy of our souls wants us to believe. Real grace, really embraced will always, without fail, produce holiness of living. It is time for otherwise sound believers to stop implying that we keep ourselves from falling away through our obedience unaided by grace. We keep ourselves through obedience because of the continuing grace of God at work in our hearts and that grace inevitably bears holiness. . We keep ourselves because He who called us is faithful and He will do it (I Thessalonians 5:23-24). And we keep ourselves because He who began the work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:3-6) And that work began a very long time ago (Ephesians 1:3-5).