Contrary to what false teachers, peddling the prosperity gospel, would have you to believe, suffering is part of the Christian walk.

And yet, as the puritan Octavius Winslow wisely notes below, a calm amidst life’s storms should characterize the believer. (And, yes, this includes COVID-19)

“The Christian is far from being entirely exempt from those chafings and disquietudes which seem inseparable from human life…But through all this there flows a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. It is the peace of the heavenly mind, the peace which Jesus procured, which God imparts, and which the Holy Spirit seals.”

The apostle Paul wrote,

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (2 Cor. 4:8–10).

Paul lists mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering, and, yet, most scholars consider Paul to be the greatest Christian to have ever live! So much the notion that sacrifice, Christian sincerity and “sowing a seed” financially will result in living your best life now!

As John Piper’s desiringgod.org notes,

“All Christians suffer. Either you have, you are, or you will — “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

This reality is a stark reminder that we have not reached the new heavens and new earth. The New Jerusalem of no tears and no pain, of no mourning and no death, hasn’t arrived yet (Revelation 21:1, 4).

But just because we experience suffering as we await the redemption of our bodies, it doesn’t mean that our suffering is random or without purpose. And neither does it mean that Scripture doesn’t tell us how to think about our suffering now.”

So…what was Paul’s secret? One key, I believe, is perspective. Paul continues in 2 Corinthians 4,

16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

As I was reminded recently, amidst my quarantine reading, we must remember that there is something worse than death, and something better than human flourishing.

Read that again:

Worse than death

Meaning worse than physical death, which we will all experience, is spiritual death, the second death of hell described in Rev. 20:14 for those who are not reconciled to God through Christ’s death and resurrection

At this moment, March 31 2:04pm COVID-19 has killed 40,708 individuals. Sadly many of those persons were already dead…spiritually.  Unless they were born again, as Paul says,

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Col. 2:13-14)

Better than human flourishing

Paul told the Corinthians,

“Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:8)

Paul considered physical death, departure from the body, to be preferable, as he would be with Jesus. So, even amidst the best that life has to offer: the most beautiful sunrise, the birth of a beautiful newborn baby, the joy of a wedding or the warm embrace of a loved one, none of this will compare to the new heaven and earth that John Piper referred to earlier.

That fact, along with trust in a sovereign, all-wise Lord, who promises to work everything together for our ultimate good, is what can and should give us the peace of heavenly mind Octavius described earlier.

We’ve all seen those warnings on drug commercials and medications. Communicated in small print and rapid recitation is the fact that prolonged use can produce long-term adverse side effects.

While I wholeheartedly applaud the Church’s current creativity in utilizing an online presence amidst this crisis, I am concerned about the long-term adverse side effects. So, even as we minister now, we must keep the long-term in mind, and shepherd the flock that the Holy Spirit has made us overseers accordingly (Acts 20:28). 

What most are doing now, gathering around our computers isolated in our homes, is not church, and we must communicate that.  It is the best available alternative, and the Church is not a building but a people. Yet, we must be aware that this new paradigm may be very appealing to some and quite unappealing to others, and accurately assess why.

First, we, as a people, tend to be lazy and, like the students that I witness daily at my daughter’s school bypassing the paved sidewalk to carve a barren path in the grass, will take the path of least resistance. This new temporary stopgap measure of online worship and small groups may appeal to many, given its ease and relative anonymity.

And advancing technologies will continue to provide new possibilities; however, just because we CAN doesn’t mean we SHOULD utilize them. Our standard for accountability is sola scriptura, and our motivation is the full spiritual maturity of our people in Christ (Col. 1:28).

Second, there may be a large group of church attendees who find this current scenario woefully unappealing…for all the wrong reasons.  Drawn in by large, emotional worship experiences, quality production values, and state of the art facilities, some find themselves longing for a quick end to quarantine.

Truthfully, many of them are unsaved. Sadly, the church today is full of unconverted people, often drawn by false teachers, tickling their ears with false gospels, cheap grace, and self-help talks disguised as sermons, bereft of sound doctrine.

And while it is certainly an occasion for joy when an unsaved person chooses to observe a worship service of believers, it is also important to remember the primary purpose for worship. 

Steve Lawson in his book, Famine in the Land, states

These first gatherings of the church were designed primarily for edifying believers, not for evangelizing unbelievers. Of course, they were reaching out to the unsaved, for “the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved” (v. 47). But this “evangelism explosion” was the result of their teaching, not the stated purpose of it. They gathered for edification; they scattered for evangelism. The primary focus of their corporate worship gatherings was for building up the believers, not for reaching seekers. When this priority becomes reversed and the church meets primarily to save the lost, the apostles’ teaching soon becomes compromised and diluted.

And what of believers frustrated amidst this current scenario?  R.C. Sproul in his book Truths We Confess, states the following about this statement in the Westminster Confession of Faith:

Saints by profession are bound to maintain a holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God.

Our purpose for assembling together is to worship God, to offer the sacrifices of praise. If people are leaving church because they are bored, that is revealing. The answer is not to put on dramatic presentations on Sunday morning or to include Christian rock music or any other form of entertainment. If people are bored, they don’t have a sense of coming into the presence of God. No one has ever been confronted with the living God and walked away bored.

So while the current online prescription is the only available, let’s beware the danger of long-term exposure to anything less than a biblical expression of a worship service.

If you find memorizing Scripture difficult, let me encourage you by helping you to learn something from each of Paul’s 13 New Testament epistles. 

I guarantee your success! 

“Impossible!” you say.

Nope.

Say with me, “Paul.” 

Okay. You now have committed to memory the first word of each of his letters. 

Take a look:

Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God…(Romans)
Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God…(1 Corinthians)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God…(2 Corinthians)
Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father…(Galatians)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God…(Ephesians)
Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus…(Philippians)
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God…(Colossians)
Paul and Silvanus and Timothy…(1 Thessalonians)
Paul and Silvanus and Timothy…(2 Thessalonians)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope…(1 Timothy)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus…(2 Timothy)
Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ…(Titus)
Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus…(Philemon)

That is the way the Greeks wrote a letter: they began a letter with the name of the author, which honestly seems a lot more reasonable than how we, today, put it at the end.

Another thing to notice is how often Paul establishes himself as an apostle.  

John MacArthur explains why,

“Now, this is something that Paul repeatedly did, and there were many reasons why he did this. You do not find the other writers of the New Testament doing this in the way Paul does. Of course, not all of the apostles wrote in the New Testament, but nevertheless, Paul is the one who is continually identifying himself as an apostle. And I think there are some very specific reasons why he does this. He says: “called an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God.”

He had not lived and walked with Jesus Christ in His pre-death years. He had not seen the resurrected Christ before He ascended into heaven. And the qualifications for an apostle, according to the Scripture – Acts 1 – were that they know Christ in His post-resurrection reality, and that they be specifically and personally and directly chosen by Christ. They had to have seen the resurrected Christ and been called specifically by Him into the apostolate.

That’s the reason we can’t have any apostles today. That’s the reason there couldn’t be any past the biblical ones, because no one since then has seen the living resurrected Christ, and been specifically commissioned by Him. He has ascended into heaven, where He is until He comes again. So, the apostolate has ceased. It was foundational, according to Ephesians 2:20.”

________________________

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us— beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” So they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and Matthias. And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:21-26)

This past week I read the following quote on Jonathan Edwards, about how he handled being voted out of his church at the end of his ministry, for taking the biblical stand that communion should be only for believers:

“That faithful witness received the shock, unshaken. I never saw the least symptoms of displeasure in his countenance the whole week but he appeared like a man of God, whose happiness was out of the reach of his enemies.”

It is impossible to not contrast his behavior with the current political climate in the United States.

One must ask, “What enabled Edwards to handle such a difficult situation with such apparent grace and peace?”

Interestingly enough, I ran across the following insights from H.A. Ironside in my study of 1 Corinthians:

In the third verse we have the apostolic salutation, “Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” We are saved by grace, but of course this is not the grace to which he here refers. He knows that is settled, these people who are sanctified in Christ Jesus are already justified by faith, saved by grace. It is not that which he is thinking of when he says, “Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” And then again all Christians have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We read in Romans 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God”—it is a settled thing—“through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is not praying that these Christians may obtain that grace of which he speaks here.

First of all, it is grace to sustain in all the trials of the way, grace to enable us to overcome in every hour of temptation. In Hebrews we are bidden to “come boldly unto the throne of grace”—upon which our great High Priest sits—“that we may obtain mercy, and find grace for seasonable help” (Heb. 4:16). We need grace every day of our lives. The grace of yesterday will not suffice for today. We need to go to God morning by morning, to draw down from above by meditation and prayer supplies of grace to start the day aright. But throughout the day we need to learn to “Pray without ceasing” that our hearts may continually be reaching out to Him that new supplies of grace may come down to us constantly. We cannot keep ourselves, not for one moment, therefore the need of the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

And the peace, I repeat, is not peace with God, but that peace of God of which we read in Philippians 4:6, 7: “Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

You see this has nothing to do with the sin question. That is settled. We have peace with God because our sins have been forever put away, but this has to do with the question of things that would keep us anxious, the trials of life that press upon our hearts…

My brother, my sister, not a trial ever comes to you, there is not a perplexity you are called upon to face, there is not a need you will have to meet, but God invites you to come to Him about it, and you have the promise, “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Phi. 4:19).

(Excerpt from Addresses on the First Epistle to the Corinthians)

Next month we will have the privilege of hosting visiting pastors from the following countries for encouragement in Scripture and equipping in EA’s strategies:

– Cuba
– Haiti
– Puerto Rico
– Panama
– Mexico

This morning I came across the following passage in 1 Peter 1:1-2,

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.”

Such a great reminder that ALL Scripture is given for our instruction and edification, even this portion where the Apostle Peter is addressing a letter almost 2,000 years ago!

As Jim George notes in his outstanding resource Bare Bones Bible Handbook,

“First Peter was written around the time Rome was burned by the emperor, Nero. The persecution of Christians had been steadily increasing, and its intensity will only accelerate as Nero spreads the false rumor that the fires were started by Christians. Peter writes this letter to Christians throughout the Roman Empire to show them how to live victoriously in the midst of the coming hostility without losing hope, without becoming resentful, and by trusting the Lord and looking for His second coming. Peter believes that if his readers will live obediently in the midst of a hostile society, they can be evangelistic tools in the hand of God.”

As I read the passage I thought of the visiting pastors coming to the Dominican Republic, who likewise are:

-Scattered throughout the provinces,
-Chosen by the Father,
-Set apart by the Spirit,
-For obedience to Jesus Christ.

What a privilege it will be fellowship and learn alongside these Kingdom Co-laborers!

In a recent episode of 5 Minutes in Church History Pastor Steve Lawson explained,

“Charles Spurgeon started a publication called The Sword and Trowel, which was his magazine. It’s drawn from Nehemiah 4. When Nehemiah was on the wall, he had a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. With the trowel, he was building up the work of God, but with the sword he was fending off the enemies of God. Spurgeon saw himself as a Nehemiah on the wall.”

In a similar fashion, EA works to build up the Church of Christ with a trowel in one hand and a sword in another. Several current events within the evangelical community serve as a reminder of the need to be steadfast and identify potential threats, and heed 1 Corinthians 10:12 – “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”

Case Study One: Bethany Christian Services bowing to pressure to place children with same-sex couples

Ministry Implication:

-“There are hours when the Church must say NO to those who should ask communion with her, in the doing of her work, upon the basis of compromise.” – G. Campbell Morgan
– This is danger of relying upon secular sources (governmental agencies etc.) for financial support, which do not embrace your core value
– Uncompromising evangelical nonprofits, such as EA, could be stripped of their nonprofit status, as a result of not adhering to equal opportunity government standards.

Biblical Principle:

-Matthew 6 – Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Case Study Two:  Moral Failures of Bill Hybels at Willow Creek Church and James MacDonald at Harvest Bible Church

Ministry Implication:

-“The immorality of leaders has been a reality among God’s people for as long as God has had a people. The temptations for leaders are as real as they are for the rest of us, but the consequences are more severe. When a leader falls, all are punished.  Not punished FOR the leader’s sin, but BY his sin.” – John MacArthur
-Board strength and oversight

Biblical Principle:

-Proverbs 27:6 – Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
-2 Samuel 12:7 – Nathan then said to David, “You are the man!”

Case Study Three:  Francis Chan speaking alongside False Teachers & The Gospel Coalition’s Sam Allberry Issue

Ministry Implication:

-the necessity of ongoing partnership evaluation

Biblical Principle:

Spurgeon’s The Sword and the Trowel – “Doddridge sometimes mingled in a fraternal manner, even exchanging pulpits, with men whose orthodoxy was called in question. It had its effect on many of the younger men, and served to lessen in the estimate of the people generally the growing divergence of sentiment. In other words, Shindler felt that Doddridge’s tolerance of unorthodox teachers obscured from his ministerial students the awful reality that these men were guilty of serious error, and left the students exposed to the deadly effects of their heresy.”

-2 Thessalonians 3:6 – Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.

Prayer for EA: Clean Hands, Pure, No Falsehood or Deceit

Psalm 24:4-5

He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood
And has not sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive a blessing from the Lord
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This summer the Husted’s will be moving. Therefore, the necessary purging that accompanies packing has begun. And, as my wife reminded me, this task must also include my bookshelves.  However, the task was small and quickly done, as years ago, on a previous move, I had disposed of a number of books for a variety of reasons.

I commend to you two great resources that I reflected on while packing away my library.

First, this article entitled Old Books, New Books, and Trends That Fade Away: Lessons Learned from a Book Sale by Luke Holmes, where he offers the following book-buying recommendations:

– Beware of writing a man’s legacy before his ministry is over.
– Beware of books that promise a quick fix.
– Beware the crashing waves of trends.

Second, a recent sermon by Pastor John MacArthur entitled Leaving the World to Reach the World from Colossians 3:1-4 resonated with me, as I reflected on all the pragmatic ministry books that had I purged in recent years.

The church has been taken captive by a kind of pragmatism that it seems it cannot shake, and I think that pragmatism is dealt with in the simple statements that I just pointed out to you in verses 1 and 2: “Keep seeking the things above, and set your mind on things above.” Rather than doing that, rather than setting its mind on heaven, rather than seeking what is above, believers today, and even church leaders today, seem to be preoccupied with seeking things that are below. The actual purpose seems to be to best assess the world around us and do the most we can to make some kind of superficial alterations in our economics or in our social structure or in our cultural definitions. The church seems to be earthbound. And, of course, that would be satanic strategy, wouldn’t it. If we’re called to heavenly things, then Satan would want to make sure we got trapped in earthly things. And that has been the death of churches throughout church history. But it seems to be that even today, a kind of evangelical pragmatism where we understand the mission, we even understand the message, but we really are confused about the method…

Pragmatism basically says we do what works, we do what attracts people, we give people what they want, we talk the way they like to talk, we play the way they like to play, we act the way they like to act, we like the things that they like. And the more common ground we can find with the world, the more effectively we build a bridge to them to give them the gospel. That’s essentially what pragmatism is. It seems to work, it draws a crowd, they like it; this has to be right. That’s what pragmatism says…

Are we supposed to find as many things as possible that are exactly what unconverted people want in a given culture and make sure we give them all of those? And that is what builds the bridge. Well, in reality that is the opposite of what the Bible says. That is absolutely opposite what God has called us to by way of methodology.

According to God’s Word, we have to leave the world to reach the world. We have to leave the world to reach the world.

This may, or may not, come as a surprise to you; however, the first followers of Jesus didn’t call themselves “Christians.”  It was, in fact, a derogatory term used by people outside the Jesus community.

Acts 11:26 reads,  “In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (ESV).

They were called by others. It was not the name they chose for themselves.

What then did they call themselves?

The answer is right there in the verse: disciples.

The word “Christian” is only used 3 times in the whole Bible; whereas, the term “disciple” is used 281 times in NT.  And yet today, we normally describe ourselves and others as Christians rather than disciples.  

Sadly, altering the term that we use to describe ourselves, believers have lost the clarity the word “disciple” conveyed.

In fact, as Steve Lawson notes in his book The Cost, our use of “Christian” today obscures the fact that a lot of people who call themselves Christians are not actually disciples,

“…large numbers of people, who either attend church or who are morally good people, wrongly presume that they have a right relationship with God. Tragically, though, they have never actually committed their lives to Him. Surely, they know about Jesus. They have a degree of knowledge about Him in their heads, but they do not truly know Him in their hearts. They have been lulled into a false sense of assurance about salvation that they do not possess. Churches are full of such people…In many pulpits, the message of salvation has been obscured, if not altered. As a result, many people pull up short of what it truly is to be an authentic believer in Jesus. I fear that many think they are trusting in Him, but, in reality, have not yet done so. Instead, they have believed in a sugar-coated message with a shallow imitation of the real truth. The result is a synthetic salvation.”

Scriptures speaks directly of this:

– Matthew 7:22 – On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?”
– 2 Corinthians 13:5 – “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”
– 1 John is an excellent test of salvation.

When we read The Parable of the Wheat and Tares, we see that in opposition to Jesus Christ, the devil tries to destroy Christ’s work by placing false believers and teachers in the world who lead many astray.

Matthew 13:37-39 reads, He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.  The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.”

The Church in America is increasingly questioning historical, orthodox beliefs on homosexuality, gender roles, sufficiency of Scripture/Christ’s death, and this may be, in large part, due to the result of tares amongst the wheat.

So let’s pray and work towards “Disciples,” a terrifyingly clear term of what an individual becomes when they truly place their faith in Christ.