GREATER RICHES

I suppose I have seen or heard the term “breaking bread” used with its Biblical connotation more often in recent years in secular and political contexts than in Christian contexts.¹  Perhaps this is because most of Christendom has gone away from actually breaking bread in their worship meetings, in favor of a pre-allocated portion to be taken by worshipers as part of their communion service. Digging even a little deeper for the root cause, one might be permitted to suggest that the loss of the terminology of breaking bread stems from a loss of understanding of how breaking bread with others relates to the concept of fellowship, or communion.  Well-read journalists and politicians may be credited for understanding that if you “break bread” with another party, even figuratively, you have established a common ground, a participation, a fellowship with that party and its principles and ideals.

The term “fellowship” is, however, rather commonly used among Christians. Some use the word to denote their particular assembly of believers in a single locale, others may use it when speaking of a gathering of friends and family for fun and natural refreshment. But what does fellowship mean, and what are its connotations, when looked at in the Scriptures?

In the New Testament, both fellowship and communion are translations to English (from Anglo-Saxon and Latin roots, respectively) of the Greek word “koinonia” in its several forms. These terms denote a sharing with or participation in a cause, a person, or an association of persons. Koinonia is also translated using other English terms, and found in many contexts, including:

• That blessed and permanent association with the Father and the Son, into which Christians are called based on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ for us in bringing us to God. See I Corinthians 1:9 and I John 1:3-7.
• That association or participation we as Christians are privileged to have with others in body of Christ, which is effected and enjoyed by breaking bread together at the Lord’s table. See Acts 2:42; I Corinthians 10:16-21; and Philippians 2:1.
• The participation Christians may have in the work of the Lord by the sharing of their time and resources.  See II Corinthians 8:4; Philippians 1:5 and 4:15 (“communicated”).
• The participation in others’ sins that Christians are liable to be implicated in if they are not vigilant and fail to apply Scriptural safeguards.  See II Corinthians 6:14; 5:7-11; and I Timothy 5:22 (“partaker”).

Why is it important to understand the meaning of fellowship within the context of the various passages of Scripture where it is found?  First of all, I believe, it is because God desires to have fellowship with His redeemed ones, sharing with us what He values about His Son, for the Lord Jesus was always, and will always be, the preeminent object of the Father’s heart (John 1:18 and 17:24). How could the Father not have an immense desire to share Him with us, for whom He gave the darling of His bosom, His only-begotten Son?

Secondly, referencing the last three points above, it is the great desire of the Lord Jesus that the members of His body here on earth have fellowship with each other in practice, on the basis of the truth of the Word of God.  For that fellowship to be pleasing to Christ, we must be watchful that the apostles’ doctrine is maintained, that our fellowship is truly “of the Spirit”, and that we, individually and collectively, are not tainted or corrupted by fellowship with falsehood or idolatry.

Returning now to the collective act of breaking bread – the one loaf representing the “one body” of Christ referenced in I Corinthians 10:  The apostles’ fellowship may be beautifully expressed by those that are Christ’s in the breaking of bread, and we have the privilege to do so often, just as the apostles did.²  And from another aspect, it is in the act of breaking bread with other Christians (appropriate care being taken as to whom we partake with) that we really prove and maintain “communion with the altar”³, and with all other saints who are sound in doctrine and godly in practice.

Christian fellowship with others is not a casual matter, nor is it open to all comers without discrimination. Neither is it simply a local association of Christians meeting in one building. Fellowship as practiced by saints is a precious thing in the eyes of our God.  Perhaps we could even speak of it as being delicate, with all the beauty and fragrance of a flower that must be maintained with care.  May we seek to honor the Lord Jesus in our fellowship, until He comes and transforms our imperfect expressions of it into perfection.

 

¹  (Outside of a few circles where the term is regularly used.)

²  Acts 2:42; 20:7-11; I Corinthians 11:26

³  I Corinthians 10:17-18, JND translation (The altar is an allegory of the Lord’s table.)

It was very early on the first day of this week that Americans awoke to the news of a bloodbath in a Florida nightclub. Recounting the details of that horrific rampage in the hours before dawn on Sunday would by now be redundant.  But there are always things we can learn from events like this that bring man’s fallen nature into stark relief against the goodness in which he was created.  “God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes” (Ecclesiastes 7:29 ESV).

A portion of Isaiah 45 has gone through my mind over the past several days as I have pondered this tragedy.  In this chapter, Jehovah is introducing the Persian King Cyrus, who many years later would be used as an instrument in His hand to bring a remnant of Israel back to their land. The Lord declares Himself to be sovereign over the heavens and the earth, even over light and darkness, peace and evil. Cyrus, and by extension all men, may be used as vessels in the hand of the Lord, whether they acknowledge Him in it or not.

But there are many “vessels” who insolently speak against the God who made them thus. “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!”   It is to be expected that the “potsherd” (a clay vessel morally broken by rebellion and sin) “strive with the potsherds of the earth.”  But for the formed clay to have the audacity to ask the One who formed him – “Why have you made me like this?” – is to bring great woe upon himself.  Still others mock at God, accusing Him of impotence by saying: “He has no hands!”¹

Possibly there were many in that gay nightclub in Orlando who had spent much of their short lives questioning or arguing with God about how He “made them male and female”.²   And this may be purely conjecture, but perhaps the Muslim killer felt compelled to take into his own hands the judgment of immorality because he believed the God of Christians to be impotent and incapable of keeping moral order in His realm. Whatever his state of mind may have been, that morally broken potsherd had an issue with other potsherds of the earth, and the resulting carnage shocked America.

What doesn’t seem to shock America any longer is the immorality that seems to have played a part in fanning the flames of religious hatred that consumed so many lives. But which form of immorality and rebellion is more worthy of judgment in the eyes of the Maker of vessels: Perversion or hatred?  God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Habakkuk 1:13), and He “will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6), so that Christians need not offer an opinion as to relative evils. Rather, we ought to grieve over man’s departure from God and his consequently broken condition, and over the judgment that will soon fall upon this world that still rejects Christ.

Fifty souls left bodies of clay to meet their Maker that morning. Millions of the seven billion people on earth do so every day, most from “natural causes” like old age, which somehow manages to make the natural man feel less troubled about death than when violence is involved. Only the Christian knows the real truth about death, its finality, and what lies beyond it, and it should grieve the believer’s heart whenever, and at whatever age, a soul slips into eternity while yet in their sins.

It was very early on the first day of the week that the Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead, Victor over death, hell, and the grave. Into this world where sin once reigned unto death, He brought “grace and truth”, and because of His perfect finished work and God’s acceptance of it, grace now reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, by Him.³  How wonderful to be able to proclaim it! – that all who believe on Jesus are justified from all the sinful deeds that they could not be justified from by the Law of Moses (Acts 13:39), which condemns both murder and homosexuality. God is completely finished with man’s attempt at keeping the “law for righteousness” (Romans 10:4). The seventh day (the Sabbath) represents God’s righteous claims under the Law, but the Lord Jesus waited in the tomb until the first day of the week to rise from among the dead, showing to all that there is healing for the broken, since grace reigns!

 

¹    Isaiah 45:9; Romans 9:20       ²    Matthew 19:4     ³     Romans 5:20-21

At the root of some of the doctrinal difficulty and disagreement in the Christian faith is a lack of understanding of the love of God and its relationship to the grace of God. For example, there are those who declare that God’s love would not allow any sinner to perish, or go to hell; this teaching is called “Universalism.” Five years ago, megachurch leader Rob Bell wrote a book to that effect, entitled “Love Wins”, in which he postulates that people are given an eternity of opportunities after death to respond to God’s love, and so none will be finally lost.  On the other side of the theological spectrum, if we might be permitted to speak that way, are those often referred to as hyper-Calvinists, who maintain that when the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:16 that “God so loved the world,” He really meant that God loved the world of the “elect”, and not the souls of all men.

Wisdom consists in part of the ability to distinguish between similar concepts that differ in important ways. The concepts of love and grace, although intimately related, are not used interchangeably in the Scriptures.  We read in I John 4 that “God is love”, and we understand by that expression that love is His inherent nature.  Another has said that the declaration that “God is love” reveals to us the energy of His nature, while “God is light” (I John 1:5) tells us of the purity of His nature, which necessitates His righteousness. I believe it would be correct to state that the love of God is the wellspring of all His activity in the universe, beginning with creation and culminating with the reconciliation of all things based on the infinite work of His Son on the cross to put away sin, done once for all “in the consummation of the ages” (Hebrews 9:26).

The grace of God, on the other hand, is the means by which God, in the perfection of His love, carries out His purposes in the lives of helpless, unworthy sinners. Grace is effectual, for God always accomplishes what He sets out to do by grace in the lives of His elect (Philippians 1:6; Ephesians 2:10). As difficult as this may be to comprehend, this grace was given to us who are saved “before the world began”.¹  God’s love is not spoken of in Scripture with this particularity, because love is the motive and mode of His activity toward all, whereas grace has the individual soul’s eternal blessing in view, and grace infallibly accomplishes its goal according to the purpose of God.²   John Calvin wrote of “irresistable grace”, but since that term has an objectionable connotation as indicating forcible entry into a soul, we might more accurately and carefully speak of the “effectual grace” of God.  In fact, to say that “grace wins” would be much more correct than the Universalist mantra “love wins”, for grace is effectual while love is motivational.

And what a motive was love in God! So much so that we can state and preach emphatically that God loved the world so that He gave His Son Jesus as the propitiation for the “whole world” (I John 2:2), and that all men are both invited to come and commanded to repent, since propitiation allows God to be merciful while remaining perfectly righteous. When sinners up until their final breath reject and disobey the gospel call, they experience permanent separation from the love of God, and from the God of love.³ However, the love of God is not compromised or diminished because He must judge the wicked, and judgment is His “strange work” (Isaiah 28:21).  We can therefore place both Universalism and hyper-Calvinism at the extreme fringes of the discussion of the love of God, and unworthy of godly consideration.

But grace is God’s unmerited favor toward individual sinners who are no better than “them that perish” – by grace God chooses them, quickens them, saves them, and glorifies them. God’s highest delight now and forever will be to glorify Himself in His Son through us who are saved, and who are the beneficiaries of “the riches of His grace“.   And lest we become overly occupied with our own interests and benefit in the matter of God’s working by grace, let us remember that the believer’s redemption, acceptance, and adoption will throughout all eternity be “to the praise of the glory of His grace.”²

 

¹   II Timothy 1:9

²   Ephesians 1:3-12

³   Romans 8:39; Matthew 22:13; Luke 14:24

I recently became aware of a doctrine on the nature of faith that is apparently widely held by Christian teachers.  One of them wrote this: “An unregenerate person can believe the truth of the law of gravity . . .  Likewise, an unregenerate person can believe the truth of Christ’s gospel . . . Since faith is only the instrument, the response of faith in the gospel is not a special kind of faith. Faith is simply faith. It is the object of faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is special and brings salvation.”

This leading teacher in the so-called “free grace” movement was countering the truth of the necessity of being born again by God’s sovereign will and power, so that genuine faith becomes possible. He makes it very clear by the comparison he uses (above) that they believe faith to be just a natural thing, no different from believing I will fall into the water should I step off a bridge, and that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. He completely discounts the need for any supernatural or spiritual essence to faith when he declares that what is required to believe the gospel is not a “special kind of faith”.

Believing this proposition to be far off the mark from a Scriptural understanding of faith, I felt compelled to write a few words for the benefit of those who may not understand the nature of the faith that justifies the sinner and saves the soul. Hebrews 11 is known by most Christians as the “faith chapter”, and those listed in it are universally believed to now be in heaven with their God, having “died in faith”. Verse 1 of that chapter describes for us the activity of genuine faith:  “Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith gives substance to or makes real what God has promised and “prepared for them that love Him”.¹

No natural, unregenerate mind will ever be able, by natural means of perception (eyes and ears), to perceive, understand, or substantiate what God has done and will yet do in the world and in the heavens through His Son Jesus Christ. The Scripture is clear: IF the princes of this world could have understood God’s secret, this “mystery” that Christians have long “hoped for” and “seen”, then they by all means would have sought to preserve the life of the Lord of glory. But it is precisely because the natural man cannot receive nor know the things of the Spirit of God¹ (since they are spiritually discerned), that we can say with confidence that this “hidden wisdom” requires absolutely “a special kind of faith”. It is faith given by the Spirit of God, who uses the Word of God to quicken the soul of a man. Only then can he “see the kingdom of God” with the eyes of faith.²  (I have written more on the subject of new birth at this link.)

I recently enjoyed a few verses in Matthew 17 regarding faith.  The Lord takes care to qualify the faith that is required to move mountains (both physical and figurative).  It’s exactly the same kind of faith possessed by those saints referred to in Hebrews 11:33-35a, who accomplished seemingly impossible things because their faith was of a special variety.  It had the character of a “mustard seed”.  Now some have made much of the minuscule size of the mustard seed, and have felt that the Lord was simply emphasizing the fact that a little faith is enough to accomplish impossible things when the object of that faith is Christ. I will not dispute the truth of that point of view, except to say that there is more in this passage than the effectiveness of a small amount of faith. After all, why did the Lord chide Peter and others for having but “little faith”, seemingly relegating that poverty of faith to a place not much better than being “faithless”?³

It is instructive that the Lord Jesus did not speak of faith using any of the small and lifeless objects He references in other contexts.  Faith cannot be likened to a mote or a mite or a hair.  Real faith, saving and justifying faith, is living and potent in its primordial state as a seed, when its potential is least obvious to natural perception.  There is no doubt that the object of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, is of supreme importance; but it takes a supernatural work of the Spirit of God in the individual soul (II Thessalonians 2:13) to impart the quality of faith that is pleasing to God, and that lays hold of His infinite provision for our eternal blessing in Christ.

 

¹  I Corinthians 2:6-14    ²  Ephesians 2:8;  John 3:3    ³ Compare Matthew 14:31 and 16:8 with 17:17-20.

This question may strike you in one way or another, depending upon your background and frame of reference. Some might point out what ought to be obvious, that believers in Christ cannot “go to church” because they are the church, or even more properly, the assembly of God. For hundreds of years in the English-speaking world, nonconformist Christians (those who dissented from the great establishment religious systems) spoke of going to “meetings” of the saints, while going “to church” was for those who passed through the doors of ornate or expensive structures they called “churches”. By way of illustrating this, consider this historical fragment: The picturesque and famous Meeting Street in Charleston, South Carolina, was named after the White Meeting House of the dissenting Presbyterian denomination in 1685. Prior to that, Meeting Street was called “Church Street”, because the establishment St Phillip’s Episcopal (Anglican) Church was located there, until it moved a block to the east where it still presides over, that’s right, the current Church Street.

But I have digressed. No doubt it is the spirit of the matter of assembling as Christians, rather than accurate terminology, that is of greatest importance to the Lord Jesus, but our terminology ought to reflect our reverence for the privilege of meeting as members of His body, the church.

Now there are certainly more important questions for believers to think upon with regard to their ecclesiastical associations. Here is one such question:  To what extent should an assembly of Christians be occupied with growing their number, and how should that growth be pursued?  Churches have tried many methods over the centuries for adding souls to their attendance rolls or for keeping them there, often seemingly without considering these innovations in the light of the Word of God. Let’s examine a few of these methods here:

1. Appointing a minister or pastor to serve the congregation in preaching the gospel, teaching the Bible, administering the Lord’s Supper, baptizing converts, counseling individuals, and more. This arrangement serves to take pressure off those who are called “lay people”, who may then not be encouraged to exercise the gift they have been given by the ascended Christ,¹ since the exhortation given by the apostle Paul to “every one of you” in I Corinthians 14:24-40 is rendered obsolete or inapplicable under a clergy system. Spiritual retirement or relaxation in the care of an ordained clergy or ministry may be attractive to many, for we are all naturally lazy in spiritual things. Even Timothy needed to be encouraged to not neglect the gift within him, and his teaching gift was given in a prophetic manner with the fellowship of elders (I Timothy 4:14-16); how much more do we need encouragement to exercise our gift in the assembly! I ought never to delegate my God-given role to someone else whom the Lord has not gifted to carry on the work He has called me to do for Him.
2. Replacing what is often called congregational singing with instrumental music, choir singing, or a “music ministry” replete with a worship leader and contemporary band. Our God values highly the singing of “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” for mutual encouragement and in “worship by the Spirit of God”², but the use of instrumental music is conspicuously absent in New Testament assembly worship. It was not until the 10th century or later that instruments were introduced into the Western (Catholic) church, and it is a telling fact that a capella singing is still the norm in the Russian and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Nevertheless, these musical innovations in Christian worship are effective in attracting people to churches, and rare is the Christian group that maintains the old path³ of spiritual worship not enhanced by artificial methods.
3. De-emphasizing Biblical doctrine or sound Scriptural exegesis, and avoiding the deep, abstract portions of the New Testament, in favor of programs that focus almost exclusively on practical Christian living, or even on a successful natural life in this world.  In many circles, doctrine has the reputation  of causing divisions and strife among believers. Whether or not doctrine is the true root cause of problems, churches often attract and keep members by staying away from difficult subjects like predestination, eternal security, the Lord’s coming, or even justification, sanctification and eternal life. The writer to the Hebrews (likely Paul) lamented this tendency of many early Christians to require and desire an on-going diet of “milk”, while avoiding the “strong meat” of the deep doctrinal principles that go along with spiritual growth (Hebrews 5:12-14). Offering only “milk” in an assembly of Christians may draw crowds, but it has a stunting effect.

There have been many other new ideas and practices brought into the Christian profession over the centuries, and some of them, like the indulgences that Martin Luther preached against, have thankfully fallen out of favor.  But although it may not be popular and attractive to follow the plain and simple “old paths” and the “good way”, yet we have a pattern set clearly before us in the New Testament doctrine of the church, and in maintaining that pattern, earnest and seeking souls may find rest³ and the comfort of the Scriptures.

What ought to attract the Christian’s heart is the Lord Jesus Christ, that glorified Head of the body, who has promised to be in the midst of even a very few saints gathered in His name (Matthew 18:20). And where Jesus is, human innovations deserve no place.

 

¹   Ephesians 4:7-16; I Corinthians 12    ²  Ephesians 5:19; Philippians 3:3      ³  Jeremiah 6:16

 

In our home there hangs a beautiful photograph of Avalanche Creek flowing through a narrow gorge in Glacier National Park. The Scripture that accompanies the scene is taken from the book of Amos:  “Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” That text provides me comfort when I grieve in my spirit over the flood of unrighteousness and humanism that covers our world today, causing a deepening moral darkness even in places where Christianity once had an enlightening effect upon society.  The reason for my hope has nothing to do with man’s schemes or programs, nor has it primarily to do with the gospel of the grace of God, as powerful as those “glad tidings” are now in the salvation of individual souls from despair and judgment to come. The implication of this verse in Amos 5, and of many others like it, is that in spite of man’s blatant disregard for God’s claims on him throughout the ages, there is coming a time when “a King shall reign in righteousness”, and when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”¹

The scriptural concept of righteousness entails much more than a humanistic “no harm, no foul” attitude in which a sin or a transgression only occurs if another person suffers some harm or damage to his or her welfare.  Joseph C. Sommer has described the belief system he is dedicated to in this way:  “Humanism is a philosophy of life that considers the welfare of humankind – rather than the welfare of a supposed God or gods – to be of paramount importance.” In this statement we find the claims of a Creator, the living and true God, to be completely set aside.  But the doctrine of the “righteousness of God” maintains that God must act consistently with His own holy character in judging man for lawlessness and disobedience toward his Creator. So, for example, if God forbids and condemns fornication (sexual immorality), as He does consistently throughout the Bible, then He must mete out punishment for that unrighteousness in order to maintain His own righteousness, regardless of whether another person seems to have suffered harm or not (Romans 1:16-32).

In order for there to be an appreciation for the expectation that “the sin of the world” is soon to be taken away by judgment, there must be a “hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matthew 5:6), and it ought to be clear to us that God’s righteousness is the measure or standard here. The Lamb of God was once slain to provide the righteous basis for sin’s removal, which will begin to be accomplished when He comes to “judge the world in righteousness”, ruling the nations “with a rod of iron” for 1000 years.²  For those who now believe on the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no more guilt or imputation of sin, for God in perfect righteousness dealt with Christ on the cross of Calvary, and “raised [Him] again for our justification.”  Justification means God declares the believer righteous because He has accepted Christ’s perfect work on our behalf (Romans 3-5:11).

Do you look forward to that future period when the Lord Jesus will reign in righteousness, vindicating God’s righteous claims on the man He created? Even if you are doubtful about Christ’s reign in a literal millennium, are you not as a believer in Him looking forward to the time when righteousness will dwell in the new heavens and the new earth (II Peter 3:13)? Do not be deceived by the humanist deception  that magnifies the importance of real or imagined social evils  at the expense of the truth that all unrighteousness is preeminently an affront to a holy God who dwells in unapproachable light (I Timothy 6:14-16).  The Law, the prophets, the Lord Jesus, and the apostles all gave first priority to the claims of God upon His creature man, and references could be multiplied as evidence for that assertion.³

Righteousness will yet vanquish evil in the world, like the waters of a flood (Isaiah 28:1-18), and what a blessed thing that will be for the earth, and for those who love Christ’s appearing. But most importantly, what a glorious vindication of the righteousness of our God, who in love sent His only Son, so that all who believe “might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21).

 

¹  Isaiah 32:1; Isaiah 11:9    ²  John 1:29;  Acts 17:31; Psalm 2:8-9; Revelation 20:1-6    ³  Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 51:4; Mark 12:30-31; Acts 9:4

 

Traveling the back roads of the American South affords a window into the history and culture of the region, perhaps more vividly than in any other part of the United States.  On display frequently in front yards, in windows, and on vehicles is the Confederate battle flag, which carries with it a potent reminder of what it stood for more than 150 years ago, and what it still represents in the minds of many today: the quest for independence from the impositions of a distant regime with foreign ethics.

Americans are used to thinking of freedom and independence together, and many celebrate freedom on Independence Day.  But while freedom from tyranny has thankfully been the result of some independence movements in history, these two ideas (freedom and independence) are not intrinsically bound together, as though one naturally flows from the other. For instance, personal freedoms may be very much limited in politically independent nations. The American Civil War was sometimes called the War for Southern Independence, but to have tied the ideal of freedom to that struggle for political independence would have belied the human bondage and slavery its position defended.

Obtaining independence from established authority is never held up as an ideal to be aspired to in the Word of God. (Avoiding practical dependence on others is admirable¹, but that is a entirely different matter.)  God created man and put him under the responsibility of obedience, and the concepts of independence and obedience are really mutually exclusive. When we are told in both the 17th and 21st chapters of the book of Judges that “in those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes”, it is not because Jehovah found delight in the Israelites being able to exercise their freedom in independence from kingly authority.  We are given this repeated epitaph to the sad decline in Judges to show that the spirit of independence leads not to true freedom, but rather, it tends toward bondage to sin and to self. Peter writes of those who “despise government”, are “self-willed”, and “not afraid to speak evil of dignities”, as being those who promise others liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption (II Peter 2:10-19).

It is a paradox that true moral freedom is inseparably connected to the principle of obedience. “Now, having got your freedom from sin, ye have become bondmen to righteousness.”²  The natural man looks to gain freedom through independence from authority, like Eve in Eden, like the children of Israel at various times in their history, and perhaps like many young people under their parents’ authority, but real freedom will not be gained through independence. The Apostle Paul knew what true freedom was, and enjoyed it as perhaps very few of us do, while at the same time writing of the need for “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5).

Obedience to God by faith, and a respect for the authority structures He has ordained in this world, affords the enjoyment of Christian liberty to the new creature in Christ³, as no flag and all it may represent ever could. “Christ hath made us free . . . [for] ye have been called unto liberty” (Galatians 5:1, 13). Freedom from the principle of sin in the flesh, which faith in Christ brings, allows the “new man” to do what it wants to do by its very nature: to please God through obedience.

 

¹ Galatians 6:4-5; II Corinthians 11:9     ²  Romans 6:18 JND trans.    ³ II Corinthians 5:17

 

The border control agent was just performing his assigned duties by asking the travelers why they were entering Canada.  When he received a response, he asked in a mildly incredulous tone: “A Bible conference over Easter weekend?” He may have been able to think of many other more interesting or gratifying pursuits to fill up a holiday weekend than to spend it at a Bible conference.

Moses may have gotten more than just some incredulous questions or quizzical looks from his Egyptian “family” when at “forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel” (Acts 7:22-23). He had been “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians”, and no doubt there was a bright future in store for him, for the “treasures of Egypt” were his by right, as the heir apparent of Pharaoh’s daughter. However, there was a catch, as we would say, to his claim on those treasures. Moses knew in his soul, given a conscience taught by the flickering light of the promise of God passed along to him by his godly parents, that he could not accept that heritage and enjoy what Egypt had to offer without sinning against the God who had promised Israel the land of Canaan, not Egypt. The pleasures of this sin would have lasted but for a season, for even given Moses’ 120-year life, he had been a great loser to have gained the whole world, while losing his soul (Matthew 16:26).

Egypt is for the Christian a picture or type of the world, and its treasures are without doubt a picture of all that the world has to offer.  Much of what this world offers may seem pleasant or at least not too objectionable to the natural mind, but if these things are sought without reference to God, and with respect only to man’s natural desires, the treasures of Egypt will always take on the character of the pleasures of sin. It cannot be otherwise, for “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”, and we know that “the whole world lies in the wicked one” (I John 2:16; 5:19 JND translation).  The “treasures of Egypt”, which must morph into the “pleasures of sin”¹, are being pursued by a large majority of men and women, old and young, in the developed world today.

But Moses forsook Egypt, and persevered in a course of faith, “as seeing Him who is invisible”.¹ His visitation of his brethren, his forsaking of Egypt and all it offered, and his choosing to suffer affliction and to bear the reproach of the Christ (the promised Messiah), all stemmed from his discovery of much greater riches, as he looked forward in time and to the resurrection of the just for his reward.  We Christian believers have much more to enjoy of Christ now, as well as having “exceeding great and precious promises”² for the future – more than Moses ever foresaw or enjoyed while in the body.  May we live in light of our position in Christ, enjoying the greatest riches God has ever made known to His creatures. The “unsearchable riches of Christ” are found in “the mystery of God, in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”³.

Perhaps we could sum up these thoughts by quoting the 20th-century martyr, Jim Elliot: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

 

¹  Hebrews 11:23-27      ²  II Peter 1:4     ³  Ephesians 3:8; Colossians 2:2-3 (JND)