Continuing with our series……Practical implication #2 – God’s Promises Become A Source of Comfort For the Believer.

All quotations taken from the English Standard Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.

It’s very easy to ‘not’ trust God when things get rough. And depending on what theological tradition you’ve been brought up in, you may have been unintentionally taught that God is not able to meet all your needs.

Think about it.

When you are constantly given sermons and teaching that emphasize man’s ability, man’s power, man’s authority and God is minimized…. though on the one hand your lips may say that God is able to do all things, your practical theology does not match up with the confession of your heart.

For the record, I do not believe that holding to libertarian free will makes you a non-Christian. Wesley held to libertarian free will, but at times in some of his hymns, you could hear the true gospel coming out of his pores and into his music. Wesley had this encounter with preacher Charles Simeon in 1784:

Simeon said: “Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions…. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?”

“Yes”, says the veteran Wesley, “I do indeed”.

“And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?”

“Yes, solely through Christ.”

” But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?”

“No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.”

“Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?”

“No.”

“What, then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother’s arms?”

“Yes, altogether.”

“And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?”

“Yes, I have no hope but in Him.”

Simeon replied, “Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things wherein we agree.”

Every true Christian is a Calvinist at heart. When we pray, we acknowledge God’s Sovereignty and His ability to do something we are unable to do. When we pray for someone’s salvation, we are asking God to intervene and change the heart of a person – this is nothing more than the doctrine of irresitible grace in action. When we are pressed, no true believer can ever claim (when pressed) any part of anything in salvation other than coming to God with an empty hand. And every true believer from first to last in their salvation – when pressed (in some cases) and pushed, knows deep within that they rely on nothing and no one else but Christ to preserve them and to give them the strength to persevere.

Some folks’ theology just needs a little time to catch up to their hearts. Everyone isn’t born a Calvinist. For some, their theology won’t catch up to their hearts until they see Christ face to face and know Him intimately. For others like myself, it takes someone challenging you to go to the scriptures and searching them for two, three, five, ten or more years before you become settled on the issues.

It’s an important issue, whether you realize it or not or whether you’d like to think of it as such, or not. The further away from a Biblical view that a person is, the more than likely their concept of God may actually be an ‘idol’ of their own thoughts. And God doesn’t look at an idol and say ‘Wow….nice try!’

In my most recent post, I already demonstrated the practical outworking of theology in daily life. So let’s cut to the chase – can God be trusted ? Can He be trusted with your life or is your life a bit of ‘God does some things and I handle the rest’ ? Is your current life situation looking as if nothing can change it ?

I’m not going to shoot you some hoopin’ and hollarin’ platitudes. I’m not going to shoot you cheap cliches about coming out shinin’ like pure gold.

Life is hard. I know several of my own friends who struggled – sometimes for YEARS – without a steady job after earning their college degree. Strain, stress, disappointment, depression, and more negative things stood in the lives of some of my close friends. All of them were professing Christians. Some cursed in frustration, some wondered where God was, some tried to find something in the ‘god’ preached by folks like T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer and others (you know… the nice ‘god’ who does everything you want him to do, all you have to do is command him with your positive confession and keep commanding him – except that he won’t violate your will). But even in the midst of this frustration, they did not give up hope. The difference in them and the non-Christian, of course, is that the Spirit of God dwelling in them won’t let them give up hope. He Himself is the source of hope for the believer and the evidence and witness within us that God will do what He says He will do. But in the meantime, their outward and intellectual theology has been framed upon false doctrine, hence, when trouble struck, this is what they ran back to – and came up empty.

One of my buddies has a cousin who was heavily into word of faith doctrine. The church taught he and his wife plenty of motivational sermons, but nothing real and true. And when their son passed away unexpectedly and suddenly, the brother almost took his own life in anguish, believing he would see his son again.

God’s people in past times knew these things well. Saints of old were no strangers to suffering. Even to the point of wondering if ‘something they did’ may have brought on this ‘lack’ of blessing. Take for example, Psalm 7:1-5:

1O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,
2lest like a lion they tear my soul apart,
rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.

3 O LORD my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
4if I have repaid my friend[b] with evil
or plundered my enemy without cause,
5let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust.

Selah

Serious words. So were these:

1O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath.
2Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing;
heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.

3My soul also is greatly troubled.
But you, O LORD–how long?
4Turn, O LORD, deliver my life;
save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5For in death there is no remembrance of you;
in Sheol who will give you praise?
6I am weary with my moaning;

every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
7My eye wastes away because of grief;
it grows weak because of all my foes. (Psalm 6:1-7)

Notice – there is no ‘positive confession’ anywhere in these verses (or the ones following them). There is simple acknowledgement of hardship – even to the point of wondering if the hardship is a result of sin (Psalm 119:67).

There is a cry – HOW LONG ????

But then something else happens.

8Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
9The LORD has heard my plea;
the LORD accepts my prayer.
10All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled;
they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. (Psalm 6:8-10)

Notice the hope of the believer here in Psalm 6 – The LORD has heard. Why place faith in a ‘god’ who is limited by human efforts and desires ?

In contrast to quotes like this from televangelists:

Frederick K.C. Price : “God can’t do anything in this earth realm except what we, the body of Christ, allow Him to do. Now that statement is so–that’s so–that’s so foreign and so contrary to tradition that, like I said, if they could get their hands on me right now most evangelicals would burn me at the stake and dismember me and feed me to the crocodiles, because they’ll consider that statement to be just heresy.” (“Ever Increasing Faith” program on TBN [1 May 1992], audiotape #PR11.)

The Biblical writers place faith and hope in the God of the Bible as Sovereign over all situations and circumstances:

6Arise, O LORD, in your anger;
lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.
7Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you;
over it return on high.
8The LORD judges the peoples;
judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness

and according to the integrity that is in me.
9Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
and may you establish the righteous–
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God!
10My shield is with God,
who saves the upright in heart.

11God is a righteous judge,
and a God who feels indignation every day.
12If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword;
he has bent and readied his bow;
13he has prepared for him his deadly weapons,
making his arrows fiery shafts.
(Psalm 7:6-13, ESV)

This starting point – God’s Sovereignty – forms the basis upon which we may know that God’s promises to keep His people are true. A ‘limited’ God is really NO God.

Romans 8:28. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

This is a tremendous promise of scripture for the believer. But only belief in a Sovereign God gives it a proper framework. If God’s will can be actively thwarted and frustrated constantly by human beings, then this scripture is an empty promise and false platitude. It is more ‘fluff’ – a placebo. And when tradgedy strikes, believing upon a ‘god’ like this provides no true and permanent basis for hope for a person.

But the God of the Bible is Sovereign. He does as He pleases (Psalm 115:3, 135:6, Proverbs 21:1) according to the counsel of His own will and infinite wisdom (Ephesians 1:4, 9)

So we can practically apply it to, for example, a relationship. Every hurt, every pain, every failed relationship – has all been the process of training up the heart of a person so that they may more fully with joy, appreciate the person God sends them to become their husband/wife. So yes, you were wounded when you were younger. You were abused. Your feelings were constantly taken for granted. But they joy you now experience in knowing how to properly love the person you are with eclipses the pain of your former years. God has not only provided healing from those years, but has blessed you abundantly with the wife/husband you now share life with.

Your desire to raise a godly family comes from the fact that your father first hit your mother when you were younger and then cheated on your mother AND the women that he was cheating on your mother with. He was no type of father. But God’s righteous standard for families has become yours. He has given you a heart for truth – and in this case, a desire to ‘end’ the cycle of broken families that has marred your family history by you raising a godly family.

Philippians 1:6. And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

God is the origin and completer (author and finisher) of our salvation (Hebrews 11:2). We are told repeatedly in scripture (2 Corinthians 5:1-5, Ephesians 4:30, John 10:27-30) that salvation is both initiated by God (Ezekiel 36:22-26) maintained by God (Philippians 2:12-13) and brought to its’ completion by God (Romans 8:29-30).

Jesus tells us several things in John 6:37-40, but because of time constraints, we’ll focus on v. 37:

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

Never. That doesn’t mean ‘you can jump out’ or ‘you can cast yourself away’, as I’ve heard some Pentecostal folks say. ‘No one’ in John 10:27-28, includes you. As I asked a dear sister of mine on another website regarding John 10:27-29 – “Are we stronger than God and able to snatch ourselves (or jump, or walk out) of His hand ?

That’s rhetorical. Look at the Psalms, Daniel 4:34-35, Isaiah 40-49 and many other places and see if such a thing is true. “

So why, then, do some people still insist that you can ‘lose’ your salvation ? Why do some seek to repeat the error of the Galatian church and add faith to works to try and make their faith and salvation complete (Galatians 1:3-14) ? They add baptism, certain foods, keeping the sabbath and myriad other things to Christ in an effort to ‘stay saved’ – yet these are the very things that are condemned as having ‘an appearance of godliness, but do nothing in restraining the flesh’ in Colossians 2:20-23.

A distorted view of God and sin necessarily leads to a distorted view of salvation. This is why we stress that all of scripture’s teachings need to be taken into account, not just a few isolated verses.

But the promises of God are true for the believer – it is God who keeps them from falling (Jude 24). Likewise, it is God who works in them to teach them to turn from sin and live holy lives and persevere (Phil. 2:13, Titus 2:11-13). It is God’s Spirit dwelling within them and working Sovereignly on their will that keeps them from continuing in sin (1 John 3:9-10).

Any person who thinks that God gives ‘birth to a stillborn faith’ that allows folks to live any old way they want and still be saved (a) misunderstands salvation (b) misunderstands the power and promises of God (c) is self-deceived.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

These are some scary words, but this is also the promise of a Sovereign God. He WILL take vengeance those in the church who take advantage to sexually defraud their brothers or sisters.

Let’s look practically at the issue.

If you are a man in the church and you simply seek out the quiet, wounded women of the church as a means to satisfy your own emotional desires and sexual desires, you are defrauding them. God will get you. It may be today. It may be tommorrow. You may drop dead as you read this sentence. But don’t think that God’s eyes don’t see your dirt. It will be the same dirt that buries you in your eternal grave. Repent.

2In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
and the one greedy for gain curses[a] and renounces the LORD.
4In the pride of his face[b] the wicked does not seek him;[c]
all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5His ways prosper at all times;

your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
7His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8He sits in ambush in the villages;

in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10The helpless are crushed, sink down,
and fall by his might.

11He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

12Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand;
forget not the afflicted.
13Why does the wicked renounce God

and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
you have been the helper of the fatherless.
15Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
call his wickedness to account till you find none.

(Psalm 10:2-15)

I think I’ve sufficiently made the point here. God’s Sovereignty forms the basis of the believers’ assurance of salvation, the basis of the believer’s hope in times of trouble, the basis for the believer’s hope of glorification, the basis of God’s future judgment and vengeance on all evildoers that do not repent and the basis for trusting God. Period.

In your spare time, sit and reflect on these things. My suggestion is to take time in Isaiah 40-49 (yes, all 9 chapters) and see how powerfully God presents Himself against the pagan gods of Babylon and other nations.