It’s really comforting and reassuring that even God himself was criticized by Satan. Satan temped Eve by calling God as a liar, as he contradicted God by saying that for eating that fruit, Eve will not die. He will be continuing at shooting his fiery darts at us, especially Pastors. Great anointed leaders like Moses, David all had their shares, not to forget Paul and Peter. Moses had the most terrible time in those 40 years when he was constantly criticized by his 3 million Jewish nation from food, to water, garlic, even after some of the greatest miracle’s humanity has witnessed. David was running away for his life not from some Philistine’s army, but his own son, Absalom! To say, that’s demoralizing is not scratching it, because Absalom almost killed him! The principle here is that God allowed some of these criticism come our way as pastors, because it’s precisely this that molds us, shapes us, even though restlessness, agony. No wonder Martin Luther who was often criticized on every side, said letting God be God is more than half of all true religion!

Jesus endured the reviling on the cross because he entrusted himself to God who will judge righteously in the end time. The ability to entrust ourselves in facing criticism unto the Lord God who will judge righteously is so empowering. Christ’s response to criticism against him should shape our minds our affections, determination in serving him in this hostile world.

Criticism humbles us and bring us down to face the reality of life as pastors are sometimes full of themselves by being so well trained in the scriptures, however dealing with people in the congregation with their emotions problems and challenges in life is another thing altogether. So sometimes criticism comes because God allows them to mold and shape us. Although sometimes they are unreasonable and this will warrant us to stand up to defend our own reputation and the word of God so that nothing is being dismayed. Therefore it will require us to receive them humbly and soberly and to look at it carefully and analyze, check our own hearts and motives. I love how David runs towards the Lord like in Psalm 139 and asked the Lord to search his thoughts and it’s always good to pray that kind of prayer as we face criticism.

It is so important to have a relational ministry in pastoral ministry and that will help us to absorb any criticism and also in the way we could respond to those criticisms with liberty and with care and grace. It is so much easier to handle criticism among friends. However of course there will be criticism from non-friends and we will need to be careful.

It is also important to know how we can critique our congregation when needed. Paul’s affection like in 2Cor 6:11 in the way he rebukes them with so much affirmation and love and passion. Richard Baxter said correctly that they will hear anything and bear anything from you when they see that you love them. Criticism to admonish is a job of a pastor. Without criticism we cannot prepare our congregation towards the judgment day when we all be required to answer for all our deeds and the words we have spoken.

It’s also so good to know that Paul suffers so much and he could bear the sufferings because he compared his sufferings to the eternal weight of glory 2 Cor 4:17. This eschatological vision should fill and saturate our minds and souls as pastors.

I love the idea that we have a divine author for the scripture and of course rightly so. I’m only saying this to counter folks like Kaiser who, only believing the human author and the historical text, and when I read that I have an immediate reaction thinking is he even a Christian to begin with? And if anyone wants to do critical thinking, I would imagine a better subject would not be a divine book, maybe critical race theory now I suppose. There are s may critical theological scholars who love to dabble with the holy Word of God, not knowing that they are dabbling with every power of God himself. To call Bible as written by a human author, and to eliminate anything that’s of sign and wonders for their sake of human reasoning and rationale is beyond anything that’s even remotely rational on the first place. Because God cannot be rationalized, He is above reason. Even the foolishness of God (so to speak) is wiser than the wisdom of men. 1 Cor 9. So why dabble with the holy word of God? I am amazed I haven’t not heard of any dabbing with Koran or the Buddhist book thus far, why? I wonder if the devil knows who is he going after?

To make the matter worse, these scholarship has produced man made theology twisted to fit their agenda, case in point homosexuality usually be taking the case of slave, women. Calling slaves of the bible as wrong, therefore the whole bible is not from God is so wrong, for instance, because the slavery of the bible is not closed, and its debt paying, while the American slavery of the past is closed (meaning you are in it for life and your children etc.), and also its not debt paying, it’s just bought. Therefore the argument via the slavery just doesn’t stand at all. The case for women, its actually the bible teaching that lifted women in the Roman empire days, and its Jesus who included Mary Magdalene, it’s Jesus who stopped on his way with many men following him, for the bleeding woman who was unclean. It was Jesus who wept after seeing Mary and Martha wept for their brother who was dead. It was Jesus who rebuked Simon the Pharisee who tried to stop the woman pouring her perfume on Jesus’ feet. It was Jesus who chose to appear to women first at his resurrection even before the apostle big names like Peter James and John. So scholarship has no ground to criticize that the Bible is old fashion and out of date for the women.

To even select a divine book or at least a religious book full of God’s love, glory, passion  and interaction with his people called Bible and to call it as a human author book is either a total waste of time or as a spiritual assault of the divinity of God and his hands on his book. It is inconceivable how Bible has been made to be so broad , in fact as broad as you want, in the way you interpret it to suit one’s agenda. The critical and progressive churches today love to remove the supernatural of Christ, and to remove any scriptures on his resurrection, and to impose their LBGTQ ideology upon scriptures, by bending a twisting the scriptures to fit their quest. Now it’s shocking and deeply disappointing the Church of England Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury has endorse same sex marriage with all his theological training. It tells you something, the liberal theologians have no lack of knowledge, and knowledge itself if not taught properly falls in bad hands. People need to be aware of the warning Jesus gave:

Rev 22: ¹⁸ I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. ¹⁹ And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

I love what Dr Belcher said about his exposition on David when he wrote Psalm 23:4, because there is the divine author, he understood that the Messiah will go through the valley of the shadow of death and therefore we today have the assurance of Christ as we are going through tough times and difficulties that Christ has gone thru that before us. We have therefore the assurance he will be with us and pull us through. And that is beautiful. Like professor said if we don’t have a divine author, we won’t see the connection of that Psalm 23 text for God’s people today. If we take away the divine authorship from the Bible, what is there left for us to find God and seek God from his holy scriptures,? We might as well read out some human author best seller book on how to be a good guy or how to find happiness in life!

Psalm 1 Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
² but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

Psalm 1 says blessed be the man who meditates upon the Word of the Lord day and night, he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, and bear fruits in due season. You know why is it so blessed by reading the bible and meditating it? Because the bible is life. It’s the logos, the Lord Jesus himself, and you draw life, strength, hope, joy from it. Because the author is God himself. And such divine book is no just intellectual book, but its intellectual but LIFE in it too.

Jesus struck the man of lawlessness on his coming back by the word of his mouth. It’s the word that Jesus and the Father created the world. Word is so powerful, and we must submit and honor and love passionately the word of the Lord daily.

God sovereignty sets up a showdown with Pharaoh to show his glory to Israel, Egypt and us today

Exodus 10 talks about God, set up a scenario of the big scene of exodus for the nation of Israel, through the hands of Moses. He told Moses “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” It is very very clear that the entire saga of the seven plagues they almost destroyed Egypt, and in fact, killed the firstborn of pharaoh’s family, and the entire nation of Egypt is something beyond normalcy and bordering of a Third World war.

Exodus 10:1–2 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, ² and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.”

God’s relentless assault of the nation of Egypt, who had enslaved the nation of Israel for probably 100 or 200 years during their 400 years stay in Egypt. To begin with, the entire nation of Israel in Egypt is also master mind by God himself. In fact, God spoke to Abraham, your descendants of possess the land I will give to you and your children , I shall make your name great but your descendants shall be in bondage in Egypt for 400 years however, I will punish the nation Egypt for us leaving them.

Genesis 15:12–14 ¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.

The one who makes history is God and God alone

That was like 3 or 5 generations before Moses and Israel’s generation, and all happened precisely as God told Moses. The one who makes history is God and God alone. He himself designed orchestrated the entire history of humanity. And if you want, you can see God in the book of Hebrews says before the foundation of the world God has already Destin and plan that his son Jesus Christ shall die on the cross to redeem mankind. Everything is set up.

1 Peter 1:20–21 (NIV)

²⁰ He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. ²¹ Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

Easter resurrection and the death of Christ on the cross is not an accident, and in two weeks time or one month time we’re gonna celebrate Easter, but the reality is so true that God has designed that. Why? So this answer can be easily obtained by looking at God’s answer to Moses. God told Moses “Go and bring my people out of the nation of slavery in Egypt, I will  harden Pharaoh’s heart, I will rain down plagues after the plagues upon them. Pharaoh will refuse to give in because I hardened his heart.”

So how did the plague after the plague came in to being because Pharaoh refused to give in even after the almost destruction of Egypt after the first few plagues. And why is that you ask? The simple reason is as God, in Exodus 10, said he will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that “The people of Israel with see great sign, miracles of God for delivering Israel out of the bondage of Egypt, so that Israel can tell their sons and daughters, and their grandchildren and children about what God has done.”

 It’s very very important for people of God to remember what God has done. After the deliverance in Exodus, when they walked through that miles of Red Sea on dry ground, when God, also at the same time drowned thousands of Egyptian armies, that impression will never ever be erased from the minds of the people of Israel. For sure some liberal modern Jews today in America have even come up with a theory that Moses never existed. This is another story altogether that is why they called the junk and rubbish the enemy has thrown at God‘s people. To deny Moses’ existence is to deny the move of God in one of the greatest history in the whole entire world.

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to set up a ultimatum gigantic Armageddon if you like between God and the powers of Pharaoh. In fact, what drives Egypt is not just Pharaoh but its the idols the forces of darkness in Egypt driving him. People don’t seem to understand that the opposition and the trials that we face as Christian in this world is not just because the ideology the culture of fight against us, but really its the forces of darkness, principalities in the air, behind them are driving this forces of darkness against us, believers in Christ Jesus.

Now this is huge because God wants us to remember. God sets it up so that Pharaoh would not relent. So that God had the opportunity to demonstrate to show his power again and again and again, and almost wiped out the whole population of Egypt. The last  climatic point, God killed the first born of Pharaoh and all Egyptians. This is very very antithetical and fore shadow of God, having his own son first born, and only son Jesus Christ, killed on the cross in the reversal order to redeem mankind so that mankind’s first born lived. This article is really about the sovereignty of God.

The sovereignty of God mapped out everything while he needed to do.

The sovereignty of God mapped out everything while he needed to do. The lesson for today, for all of us is that God has mapped it out for each, and everyone of us, and that’s why we got his call to run a race that we have to win as Paul wrote in his epistles. Everyone  has a race, and that has been set up and given to us by our God in Jesus Christ. So now it is really important that we need to know, what God has destined for each one of us. And that is the only way God can showcase his power and he’s his glory to each and everyone of us in this very broken generation that we live in. Man’s depravity and anger and lostness and greed is unfathomable. However, having say that, God has also destined, common grace upon the world. Even people without Christ shows virtues of goodness and kindness and faithfulness, because of the doctrine of concept of common grace of God.

In conclusion, I hope this just would really encourage and everyone of us to know that we are not living in this world by chance and got his call for specific calling to do the works He has called us so that we can love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul. And love our neighbors as ourselves. And this takes supernatural the Spirit of God to deliver, working all hearts, because no man will bow to God in his volition, it has to be The Spirit of God. Amen a.

The Bible exhorts us to be humble before God. In fact, God told Israel in Jeremiah, if my people would humble themselves, and call upon my name, I will show them great and mighty things. It is interesting to see the great and mighty things comes after two conditions: 1) they will humble themselves, 2) they will call upon God. You know there’s a correlation between humility and calling upon God. In fact, most people and Christians, if not humble, would not even call upon God. Therefore, it is the humble, the meek, the needy, cry out to God. Very often calling upon God comes in the form of crying to God. This basic human psychology when we are lost, when we are despondent, we cry out to our savior. To many people in the world, they will cry out to a lot of other helps whatever they can find, especially in this world of brokenness and depravity. What’s worse is people who are in dire need do not realize that they are actually in great need of help. So that two things to block people from coming to call upon God, the self-sufficiency is number one deterrent for people to come to God. That’s why humility is a beautiful character before God.

If you look at the life of Moses, when he was in the probably 20s, as a prince of Egypt, he seemed to have a special call from God even at a young age without God, speaking directly to him. He had a special burden to set his own people, Israel, free from the bondage of Egypt while he himself was a prince of Egypt. What we call as dual nationality. He had the Egyptian persona or position or upbringing, but he also has the ethnically, biologically Jewish ethnicity though he was never brought up in a Jewish family. Although when he was a baby, he was actually brought up by his mom in a very providential way of God when Moses was found in the basket floating in Nile river by The princess of Egypt. She became his adopted and real mom. And just at that point the princess upon hearing a baby crying in a basket while she was bathing in Nile with her maiden servants, asked if they could get a Jewish mom to raise this baby for her.  Moses’ sister heard that and she ran to call upon their mom to come and raise her baby Moses. She must be overwhelmed with joy and thankful for how God intervened and saved her baby and even gave her a chance to race her own baby for at least a period of time. So it is that incredulous providential story testimony of the divine plan of God being worked out right in the Nile river before the very princess of Egypt daughter of pharaoh himself. Folks never underestimate God’s plan; He can even work out to get the enemy’s power to fulfill His plan. He’s plan cannot be stopped by anybody.

The plan of God continues to operate in the very palace of Pharaoh of all places, while the people of Israel continued to suffer under the tyrant hands of Pharaoh, who made them to be slaves to build the pyramid. One fine day when Moses was walking around, and he saw an Egyptian slave master flogging his fellow Jewish man, who was laboring away to collect to get to make bricks, etc., and in such an urge of wanting to save his fellow man, Moses killed that Egyptian. And then a few days later, while walking around the field again and he saw some Jewish men quarreling with one another. Moses went out to them and said “Hey guys, don’t fight one another, you are brothers.”  Those guys turn around and asked him “Who made you to be our leader, do you want to kill us as you did to the Egyptian?” Hearing that, Moses knew the news of him killing that Egyptian Must have leaked out. It is unusual Pharoah to go after him. In any case I guess Moses is really Jewish ethnic adopted child of his daughter. So Moses started to flee while Pharaoh was raging and had his army to kill Moses.

But Moses escaped and he landed at the wilderness at the far away land from Egypt, he landed at Jethro‘s Vineyard, who turned out to be his future father-in-law. Can you believe the providential hands of God? How beautifully God set up for him to be in Egypt, for him to be persecuted, and for him to flee, and for him to flee to the exact spot in the universe, called Jethro‘s vineyard. While he was there, he saw Jethro‘s daughters came out to draw water for the camels and the straws and some shepherd boys came and hustled them. Moses saw that, he came forward and defended Jethro‘s daughters, and he drove them away.

Jethro’s daughters went back , and their father heard of this of this Jewish man who saved his daughters. Jethro said to his daughter “how one on earth did you not invite him back? I want to thank him for that.” So they invited Moses back to the house, and Jethro hosted a big feast for him, looked up to him and finally they discovered that he’s a great material to be his son-in-law. I wonder is that not such a possibility? Well, most of such a charming prince of Egypt, and the called one of the Almighty God Yahweh, is there any doubt he’s the man? To cover story short, Moses married Jethro’s daughter and lived among them. And you know what? He lived in Jethro’s wilderness area far away from Egypt for 40 years. For 40 long years Moses lived in obscurity from the ivy league, tower of pharaoh’s palace to the shepherd boy status of the wild, and not for four days ,not for four years, but 40 long years. Those 40 long years were in complete silence, as per the divine sovereignty of God there’s no record of what the heck went through his mind, how exactly he was transformed. But suffice to say, it took 40 years for God to completely humble Moses with the self ego, self-confidence, to a totally transformed, fine man of God, with humility, and a heart full of gold for God as you can see later. Seriously, there’s hardly a man, with such piety as Moses in the Old Testament, I would argue. He didn’t squander the massive wealth that he got them for he didn’t get any massive. Unlike David and Solomon, accrued, massive wealth, massive number of wives and prostitutes, only to the downfall of Solomon complete destruction, but a part to partial downfall of David but thanks be to God with God’s grace, David’s immaculate heart of passion and love for God, David survived and lived a legacy that is pretty much unmatchable in the old testament, nevertheless.

So what we see here is a man of top caliber for God when he was called by God in the burning bush experience, he said he couldn’t even speak properly, he could not speak eloquently, and he had no courage to face Pharaoh when God called him. God was even frustrated with him so He appointed Moses brother Aaron to be his spokesman to help him to do the task and made made Moses to be like God to Aaron.

The rest of the story is Moses exploded into international limelight, he dethroned Pharaoh from being a humble shepherd boy in the wilderness, something that is unheard of, and God indeed displayed his utmost mighty powers that is unprecedented to the level of seven plagues that destroyed Egypt from the harvest, to blood on the Nile river, locust, eating up all the food harvest, and eventual the killing of all the firstborns of Egypt, including pharaoh’s. That demonstration of God’s power was ruthless, vicious, and mighty indeed. God’s power was ready to dethrone the idols of Egypt whom Egypt claimed to be gods. God delivered Israel, but also send a message to Egyptian how Yahweh is the true God, and opened up the door for them to put the faith in Yahweh.

So Moses became famous, and finally got into the calling (he originally wanted to do that when in his 20s in Egypt as the Prince of Egypt). Now he’s got it. But he’s a totally changed man. He faced enormous trials and challenges and difficulties from the people of Israel climaxed into the highest pinnacle of the golden calf story, and also rebels, led by some factions in Israel challenging Moses authority. God defended Moses mightily and zealously. In fact, those rebels did not get killed in the normal way, but as Moses proclaimed, “if this people do not die in an unnatural way, God has not called me”. With that the earth opened up and swallowed up all those rebels into earth alive with their families, the children and the wives, the whole lot. It is so incredibly shocking and sorrowful and grieving story, but God put an end to those rebels.

You see the tension between humility and ambition? It was resolved when God showed up in a burning bush. I believe the resolution of the tension of humility and big ambitions will be resolved in our burning bush with God, i.e. an encounter with God, showing us the way to go and what to do. The call must be and has to be from God himself. And he’s faithful and he loves his people. He loves the people he calls into ministry.

Paul say that we should know our calling and remain humble. We should be like David poured out his heart to God during his time of difficulties and hardship. For anyone going through a time of being humbled, you will need a time of patience and waiting upon the Lord. Someone said for I will wait upon the Lord. Paul says those who wait upon the Lord shall soar like an eagle.

Isaiah 40:30–31 (ESV)

³⁰    Even youths shall faint and be weary,and young men shall fall exhausted;³¹    but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Our strength will be renewed as we wait upon the Lord. There’s something about recharging of inner energy and inner self as we spend time in the presence of God waiting for God and hearing from God. Very often this would take the form of just prayer, meditation of the scriptures and lead a contemplative life. A lot of times we can’t wait upon the Lord because we can’t trust him. That’s a deeper group problem if we manifest impatience with God which I must admit very often I face that. It is good to wait upon the Lord, so that we shall renew our strength, so that we shall mount up like eagles and shall run and not be weary, Hallelujah! How many of you know that running a race in the Lord it’s not exactly an easy task? We need to really know him and wait in his presence.

The basis of revival is the work of the Holy Spirit supernaturally: He stirs the hearts and minds of men and women, to worship him to pray, and to read and study the word of God. Many people do not know the Spirit of God can do such a thing in our lives experientially; except that we can be grounded by the Word of God.  If ever, the testimonies and biographies of what happened for decades and centuries ago, remains far-fetched events that’s almost too remote for us to identify with, to long for, to pray for in our days, in our generation. Many have brushed them aside, but the time has come for us to arise and pursue that. Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones have preached 24 sermons series on revival, and written a book on it. This well-known renown reformed preacher of the Word of God who has exercised enormous influence over his generation and us today, will be continuing to be a major force to reckon with in the days to come. He preached for revival consistently. Wow many churches today hardly talk about revival or be completely silent about it.

By any definition, a revival is characterized by spontaneous long-lasting episodes of collective worship: extemporaneous prayer, stirring music and rousing preaching. The concept has a history stretching back to at least the First Great Awakening in 18th-century New England, when crowds of newly fervent Protestants gathered to hear vivid extemporaneous sermons by pastors like Jonathan Edwards. (NYT ‘Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town)

Today we saw what seems to be a revival that broke out in Asbury university almost 2 weeks ago, and apparently they closed down the meeting hall as classes begin to commence again. What has happened over time, people seem to think that revival meetings have come to a grind ,to stop as reported with glee and simplistically in papers like liberal media that revivals has come to a stop. What they don’t know is what God has started, no man can stop. Hallelujah! And you know what? It has spread to other campuses nationwide even before the stopping, but now because of this stopping, the starting of the new revival works in other campuses, have taken on the new life. This is truly an exciting moment to live in. In fact New York Times today has reported the up springing of revival from Asbury again.

—————————-

‘Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town

For two weeks, tens of thousands of people have made a pilgrimage to a tiny Christian college, about 30 minutes south of Lexington, for what some scholars and worshipers describe as the nation’s first major spiritual revival of the 21st century.The revival at Asbury began on Feb. 8, when a few dozen students lingered after an ordinary morning chapel service to continue singing and praying together. Word about the spontaneous gathering spread on campus, and by evening, students were dragging mattresses into the chapel to spend the night. Within days, their enthusiasm had exploded into a national event.The university estimates that the revival has drawn more than 50,000 people to Wilmore, a sleepy town of 6,000 people where the grocery store hosts a weekly Bible study and police cars read “In God We Trust.” The Asbury revival is “marked by overwhelming peace for a generation marked by anxiety,” said Madison Pierce, a student at the unaffiliated Asbury Theological Seminary across the street who volunteered to pray with visitors and help with logistics.—NYT ‘Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town)

Our hearts’ longing for revival depends on how much you’ve experienced disappointment, trials, downs in life that you either give up with the Lord, or you long for a revival. Also how much you believed in the revival accounts like in Acts 2,  the Pentecost outpouring of the Spirit of God. If you say that it’s only for the Apostolic age, you’ve done a huge disservice to the body of Christ, and indeed to yourself.

“Never could I have imagined what we are experiencing now,” said Kevin Brown, who has been the university’s president since 2019, and spent several very late nights in the chapel. “There’s a deep hunger born of this trenchant dissatisfaction and disillusionment with what has been handed to the younger generation, and I think they’re just raising their gaze to higher things.”–NYT ‘Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town)

Healing is a consistent theme in the modern history of revivals.

But if 20th-century revivals focused on healing physical pains and disabilities, accounts of healing at Asbury are overwhelmingly about mental health, trauma and disillusionment.

“You have a generation identifying that these are the problems of our generation that are intractable,” said Erica Ramirez, the director of research at Auburn Seminary, who has written often about revivals and charismatic theology. “So many of their friends are not well.” Healing is a consistent theme in the modern history of revivals. But if 20th-century revivals focused on healing physical pains and disabilities, accounts of healing at Asbury are overwhelmingly about mental health, trauma and disillusionment. NYT ‘Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town)

Don’t box God in, and restrain him only operating miracles and signs in the apostolic age.  That’s simply inconceivable, and indeed, preposterous. Why would anybody do that? That somehow the gift of the Spirit and God’s promise to pour out the spirit of God, is looked at and perceived  with great suspicion in this day and age, especially in the reformed world. With all due respect, the reform teachings which I love most dearly, and I’m holding on and passionately preaching  myself, has some truly questionable doctrine opposition towards the gift of the Spirit, unfortunately (Gaffin—he wrote on the cessation of the gifts). To continue for all in this path of Doctrinal Theological understanding, it will box God in, correction, you won’t go box God in, you would just box yourself in. But I got to say that not all reformed folks believe this cessation of gift, and I know for a fact that when I took my worship class with Dr Ligon Duncan, he clearly articulated the prophetic gift as long as it is exercised in order in church service. I also know for a fact that John piper believes in the gift of speaking tongues though he himself does not get it because he believes God has called him to preach with prophetic word. That I love to be able to prophesy in preaching at a more grander scale that are short 2 minutes of prophecy. It’s important for reformed theology to accept continuation of gift to be a continuous in a proper order. God can never be boxed in by humans or any force. There is no return. The will of God must be done. And it will be done.

Pentecost has arrived. This is so significant because there are millions of millions of people who are in dire need of a refreshing touch of God in their feeble Christian walk.  Many have walked away from their faith in Christ, reduced that to a nominalism or a cultural Christ devoid of the power thereof. They perceivably has already left the Lord, and no amount intellectual, apologetic, argument or preservation will bring them back. They are gone. The only way to bring them back to Christ is by the Spirit of God and the revival. You better pray for the revival to come to your town today and keep praying. Because your hope is in the outpouring of the Spirit of God, like Pentecost. Don’t let the issue of speaking in tongues block you down or bind you. Like many thrown out the gift of the Spirit like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This is an unacceptable theology. Admittedly, Pentecostal excess has happened, but just because it has happened, we must not discredit the genuine move of the Spirit of God and the gift of the Spirit. We have to move on and continue to pray for revival like Martin Lloyd Jones has been teaching and urging us to do.

The entire conversation of revival is so important and significant, because we humanly have no solutions to a lot of brokenness in our society, to a lot of sicknesses in our society in our churches in our community, in a lot of backsliding, a lot of confusion on sexuality and abortion in our church, and our society today in America. We need to pray for God to pour out the Spirit of God in the transformation of our lives, and the renewing of the mind so that we can be transformed. However, we’ll never have a chance to be transformed if my mind is not renewed. So you can argue that we are providing justification sanctification etc, and all these are good teachings and why are the peoples’ minds experience no renewal? Well, the simple answer is you can push all you want, however, if they don’t want to come to church, they’ll never hear. Even if they come, they may not receive it into the hearts. That’s why we need the Spirit of God, moving in a supernatural way. We need this supernatural move the Spirit of God.

And of course, the other problem of many charismatic churches is the love for the move in the Spirit of God, but they don’t have the doctrine of teachings the word of God for transform renewing of the mind sufficiently. Either way, we’re gonna miss the revival, we’re going to miss the move of God from that perspective. So the question is how much do we want the revival?

If you really want the revival, yeah, stop criticizing the move of the Spirit of God, and dwell in the presence of God and dive into the sovereignty of God, the beautiful bigness of God and the doctrine of teaching as well!

Trying to understand why would thousands of college students will flock into an auditorium, worshiping, singing, praying and listening to the word of God for 24 hours a day nonstop and for days and days. This is something truly phenomenal unheard of. What draws them there in the first place? When thousands and thousands of college are not interested to even to come to church. We have difficulty to fill 50 person room Space on Sunday morning let alone 5000 people flocking here and not wanting to leave! Not wanting to leave. There’s something to it. It’s called Spirit of God, working in the lives and is called revival.

While we study apologetics, study culture and philosophy, and systematic and biblical theology, they’re all good, however, without the move of the Spirit of God, this remains as a head knowledge and we bring no revival. Let’s be honest and real about this, the previous revivals of happened first with the Methodist Holiness, then, the Pentecostal, then really the college students now. You know it is really strategic for God to choose to revive to break out to college students, because it is precisely the same domain, demographic group that the devil has worked, penetrated it into their thinking through the professors and preaching the heresy on sexuality, heresy on abortions, heresy on Creation and Redemption substituting that by evolution. It’s hard to be a conservative, godly Christian in college campuses in America today, you have to face a whole lot of woke teachings that major on social justice (which is important) , and to the extent that, they paint themselves as the victim card and trying to get everything out of it in the name of emancipation in the picture of the Exodus narrative. However, Exodus narrative has come with the purpose of worshipping the Lord as God told Moses delivered Israel from Egypt and bring them out so that they can worship Him. Modern-day emancipation stories fight for racism, for sexuality, for anything major on emancipation and deliverance, but absolutely silent on to worship God. It is reductionistic and a heresy. Precisely they take God out of the equation they going to pay for it. No one mess around with the God.

We need and pray for the Revival. Gloria Yesus.

God catches the wise in their craftiness

One verse that I share with you the “Lord catches you’re the wise in their craftiness”.

1 Corinthians 3:¹⁸ Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”

Paul writes in the book of 1 Corinthian that if you think you’re wise in the world, if you think you’re wise in this age,  you know this age is this spirit of this age. It’s a craftiness, deceitfulness, evils, potting, anger, unforgiveness, murderous, self-centeredness and everything that is against the Spirit of God. If you think you’re wise in this age means you wise in the scheming, godlessness living for yourself life. The Bible says let him become a fool that they may become wise.

Paul says they you need to become a fool in this age so they become wise. Because what is foolish in this world, in the world, in the eyes of this carnal, worldly fleshly world is actually wise in the sight of God. That’s why you don’t have to worry about on what the world accuses us to be on the wrong side of history. Or they said that you are missing out, you know. You act weird. You act holy and piety, piety. You’re really against the culture of the world. The culture is saying let go, be authentic you, enjoy the authentic you ,enjoy the life you’ve got. You only got one life. Yeah. I don’t plan to bring myself to hell, that’s what that one life. But I plan to run a good race, receive my reward from your father in heaven. The eternal reward.

If you say this to be wise in this age, this is the catch. It means going to do what the world tells you. The trend, the trending of the of the culture. Everything the culture says that it’s, it’s contradictory to the wisdom of God. There’s some amount of common grace in this world. The virtues of this world, forgiveness, kindness, helpfulness and the gentleness. There are snippets here and there, you know, thank God this image of God is not thoroughly destroyed yet. We still some see some patches of them around. Thank God.

However, the overall scheme of things is horrible. So what Paul is saying, if you’re thinking you are wise in this age, if you’re thinking you’re cool and hip, you want to blend in with this society this age. Think again, he said. May I suggest you become foolish in their eyes, then you become wise. I’d rather be foolish in the eyes of the world and be wise in the eyes of God. Would you not want that? Or would you really want to be wise in the eyes of this age, this? Very  accepted among the friends, your friends and all this. But you are a fool in the sight of God for eternity, for eternity. Think about that. You know people who opt for the wisdom of this age.  They’re cowards. They’re just afraid of being missing out on their friends and losing the culture friends and all this. You know, they’re afraid they offend their friends, offend their spirit of the world, offend this age, the spirit of this age. See, this is what they’re saying.

If you think you are wise in this age, let you become a fool at this age so that you may become wise in God’s sight. Alright, so the only way to be wise in God’s sight is go against the culture of the world. That’s it. Because the culture of the world cannot satisfy you. You know it.

Worldly satisfaction is a very ephemeral way, temporal way, you know, but there’s no lasting footing and the fruits out of it. You know, I’ve heard stories like Christian young lady, there’s a shortage of young men in the church, young lady said, “ You know what, I’m go out to meet with young men outside, date them, and if they are nice and kind, if they allow me to be myself, you know? Accept me going to church, that’ll be fine. We can raise the family and I’ll pray for him. As long as he doesn’t stop me, go to church. So you plan to go to church alone and leave your husband at home and you got to fight off  for the kids to follow your church and leave at home half of your life? What kind of marriage is this? The two shall be one. And no, it’s not like the two shall be two. You can’t do that. You know this. This is a fool in the eyes of the Lord.

They’re trying to craft something to get you and the Lords plays along and catch them from behind. In the incident. Being tested by the Pharisees. When asked, “Rabbi, shall we pay tax to Caesar? Jesus replied give me a coin and he asked them, whose face is on the coin? They replied Caesar. Then Jesus said , “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.” That shocked everybody what a brilliant answer. They thought they’re being crafty and we’ll get Jesus because if Jesus said give to Caesar, the Jews is going to blame him forgiving or supporting an occupier of the Jewish people, and if he said don’t give to Caesar, they will accuse him of studying a rebellion against Rome. But neither, Jesus caught them the wise in their craftiness.

This is what we need to experience more of God so that we can outplayed the world. The Bible says be innocent as a dove, but as shrewd it’s a serpent. The wisdom of God of the powers the world through the cross, when everybody loved laughed at the cross, mocked Jesus at the cross, just like the world mocks Christianity Today, Jesus will always have the last laugh.

Logic of Equivalence

Definitely our contemporary society follows the logic of equivalence. The logic of equivalence means essentially I’ll buy you a drink and I expect you to buy me a drink next time or in some philosopher’s words it’s a tooth for a tooth in the negative sense. Anything done for anybody else will have an expectation of some payback. This applies to the business world in particular, the professional service world, or even just family relationship or friends’ relationship even. The world looks at that as the norm. It is the logic of transaction and the market, a reciprocal paradigm in which debts must be paid in full but no more.

The Logic of Superabundance

This will transform our contemporary society because first and foremost it is only possible by God and from God. It is humanly impossible due to our fallen nature and our depravity, by human default in nature, we are all selfish beings, self-centered beings in our society is so shaped on the transactional calculative economy. This is not to say that there is nothing or no one that is selfless in this world, because there is generous heart that gives to charity in enormous amount, people volunteered their lives to fight for the countries, people volunteer to serve the poor and fight for the marginalized. All these are beautiful spots and manifestations of the common grace of God. Common grace of God is available to every creation and he doesn’t have to be people of the elect or believers in Christ even. In other words even non-believers non-Christians can manifest those virtues of generosity caring and fighting for the poor and marginalized. However they cannot move into the realm of superabundance because that will require supernatural ability and conviction.

Superabundance requires the grace of God meaning something supernaturally empowering us. The Son of God offered himself to die on the cross on behalf of mankind for the sins they have committed, so that whoever believes in him shall be saved and not perish. For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life, John 3: 16. That is the epitome of the superabundance of God and no one has ever seen or even imagined the mystery of God that he would even dare or willing to take upon the sins of the world upon himself while He is sinless and perfect to receive condemnation from the Father on our behalf. It’s scandalous.

So imagine if we apply that to our society, we will see so much flourishing, forgiving, caring, and believing in one another that we’ve never seen before. Jail population would drop drastically, political debates for self-gain or ideology will dim down to a simmer. Wars will cease. There’s just so much hope and joy in such a society and human flourishing it’s a sure thing to come.

There are numerous reasons why the Bible’s account of sin is one of the greatest overlooked resources for cultural engagement.

First, there’s a general disdain towards the whole idea of sin in this world

And the reason for the disdain towards seen as defined in the Bible is caused by the perception of the concept of sin by our culture today. Because people today love to commit sins so to speak, because they don’t want to be controlled or feel constrained by the laws of God in the Bible, example to have sex before marriage. It’s a huge deterrent for cultural engagement today. People do not think biblical concept of sin is in line with today’s understanding of what life is about especially its so influenced and the polluted by the corruption of sin itself, and also by the liberation theology or theory from the Enlightenment. Enlightened philosophers have taught that we need to look into our souls to find our authentic self, and that can only be found from within us not from the outside. This is very much influenced by people like Russoue and Freud and the like who keep telling us that inside each of us is the pure beauty however when a person is only wrong when he is corrupted by the surrounding him. So this generation is misled to think that inherently we are good people, however its the world and society that corrupts us inside. And that’s why for cultural engagement, people stay far away from the bible’s account of sin.

Secondly the people’s perception and conception of sin from the Bible is wrong that they look at the Bible’s laws and sin as a legalistic way

They do not understand that when we sin, we do not sin against a set of contractual agreements or laws like the Moses laws etc. But the Bible’s concept of sin is really a personal relational person called God. People do not understand that God is grieved when we sin, that speaks of the love relationship between humans and God. How can God be grieved if he doesn’t love us when we have done wrong? That’s precisely just like us when our kids done wrong, our hearts grieved because we loved them. The whole concept of sin from the Bible is motivated and driven and originated from the love of God. If only people today understand God starting point is love, I think the cultural engagement today with the proper understanding from Bible’s view of sin will be much more widespread.

Thirdly they are running away from God

The whole definition of sin in today’s culture is very much warped according to the idolatry of cultural leadings. Cultural mood is defined by the fallen human nature, the least the greed the corruption that’s rampant in our culture today. So when people deal with culture they do not want to bring sin as defined in the Bible to deal with real life, precisely because they are running away from God. To not to utilize Biblical concept of sin is really running away from God. Just like the prodigal son, he ran away from his father because he wanted money and for his own usage and wanted to do whatever he wants with inheritance. He grieved his father and the father gave him the inheritance with much reluctance and sorrow. That young man left his father and went to squander all his money with prostitutes with women with drinking parties and whatever and he was totally broke. And the parable that Jesus talked about says that that young man hit the bottom of the pit when he was so broke and on top of that a famine came and hit the ground hit the land. He was so hungry he didn’t know what to do so he applied and got a job to feed pigs. And while he was trying to feed the pigs, a realization dawned on him that he was so hungry he could conceivably eat those pigs’ food, it is at that moment he woke up.

He said to himself in my father’s household his servants eat proper food and here I am even longing to eat pig’s food. He woke up and he said I’m going home to my father and I’m not worthy to be his son anymore, and I will serve him as a servant. And the story goes when he gets back to his father, his father saw him from a long distance coming home, he ran out all the way straight to his young son, and he hugged him tight. The prodigal son said, “ Father I’m not worthy to be your son. Take Me Home to be your servant”. The father said to his servants, “Kill the fattest cow tonight we have a big feast, bring the best robes and put it on to my son and let’s celebrate tonight because my son was lost but now he’s found.” This parable story told by Jesus is precisely humans are running away from God and that’s why they want to run away from their sins as define and as in the biblical account.

Conclusion: Redemption brings reconciliation with God

But they don’t realize God’s waiting for the prodigal son to return to him. God is waiting for us to return to him it’s our Father in heaven. They do not realize that there is a hope to be reconciled with God. And God has initiated the redemption act by sending his son to this world to die for us, and whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life John3:16.