The Gospel: Bolts First (W.o.W. Rewind)

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Romans 1:18-20

When I was in high school I owned an old 1965 GMC pickup. One day, I was driving this truck down a hill in my neighborhood when something cracked in the steering wheel. I quickly realized that my steering wheel no longer controlled which direction my truck went. I was literally spinning the steering wheel to the left while my truck headed steadily toward the curb on the right side of the street. I found out later that there had been two bolts connecting my steering wheel to the steering column. These bolts had slowly eroded over time, and that morning the last remaining thread broke. Now when we think about what a car needs to operate we tend to think of an engine, tires, gasoline, even spark plugs, but not bolts. I never even knew those bolts were there before, yet without those two little, ignored bolts my truck was no good. It couldn't be driven.

In the same way Paul begins his explanation of the gospel with two little known and often ignored truths: 1) Man has rebelled against God and in so doing has suppressed the truth about Him and 2) God feels a righteous wrath towards this rebellion. We don't tend to think about these truths very often. In fact, we may not even be comfortable with the idea that God feels wrath or that we have participated in some sort of mass rebellion against Him. But like those bolts in my steering wheel, without these two truths the gospel simply doesn't work.

That man has rebelled against God is almost undeniable. When we compare what the Bible tells us about what the world was created to be to what the world actually is, it becomes pretty clear that mankind as a whole has turned its back on the Lord. What we tend to deny is our personal role in this rebellion. We may not have ever been table pounding atheists who organized anti-God events, but each one of us is guilty of rebelling against our Maker. We have each refused to live in accordance with His will and in so doing have suppressed the truth about Him. The Bible often speaks poetically of how creation declares God's glory (e.g. Psalm 19:1). Creation does this merely by being what God created it to be, beautiful and awe-inspiring. We were created to do the same but to a much higher degree. But when we sin, when we refuse to submit to God's authority, we refuse to be what we were created to be. We live as though God does not exist or at the very least that His dominion does not extend into our lives. In this case the old saying, "actions speak louder than words" is true. When we choose sin, it is a declaration to the world of our rebellion against His wishes and His authority.

But is it really acceptable for God to respond with wrath? The surprising answer is yes. When you consider the devastation and pain that sin has caused God's perfect creation, you begin to realize how ungodly a "ho-hum" response from God would be. Consider the Holocaust and all the other atrocities of war committed throughout human history. Consider the thousands of children who have been sold as sex slaves and all the others who have been raped, molested and abused. Consider all the terrible ways man has invented to kill and torture one another and all those who have suffered greatly by these means. And now, consider your sin and my sin added to these and all the other sins that have been committed since creation. It begins to become clear that for God to have any response other than wrath would be deficient. It would make Him a lesser God.

But why would Paul begin his presentation of the gospel with God's wrath? Why not begin with God's grace or forgiveness? In the same way the dark night sky allows us to see the brilliant light of the stars, we must understand that God's wrath forms the backdrop for His grace. Without His righteous wrath God's grace means nothing.  There can be no forgiveness where no wrong has been committed. It was the righteous anger of God that led to the gracious crucifixion of His Son.

Let us rejoice that even in His wrath our God is full of grace!

For further reading:

   - Psalm 19, 24, 29, & 96

   - Genesis 1-3

   - Isaiah 40:21-31

Finding God's Glory

The heavens declare the glory of God;

    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

    night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

    no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

    their words to the ends of the world.

                                                      Psalm 19:1-4

Each day you're greeted with a powerful reminder of who God is and just how glorious He is, if you'll only look up to see it. The heavens declare it in their own silent way every single day. On many occasions the sight of a sunrise, a sunset, the twinkle of stars at night, or the beauty of fluffy white clouds set against a backdrop of bright blue has been enough to bring me to worship. It's as if the human heart is programmed to respond in worship to these small glimpses of God's creative power.

But we all know that there are days when God's glory is hard to see. Days when a thick, dark cloud of gray descends on the sky (or on your life) and obscures God's glory from your view. Days when it seems as if Heaven itself has disappeared. What are we to do on these days?

Psalm 19 reminds us that there is another and more perfect revelation of who God is: His Word. "The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul" verse seven says. The psalm goes on to describe God's Word as trustworthy, right, radiant, pure, firm, and more precious than gold. Nothing in all the world compares to God's good Word revealed best in Christ and without error in the Bible.

So, when you feel a dark cloud descending, when your worship has grown cold, and especially when His marvelous creation is hidden from view: read the Word. Memorize it. Meditate on it. Cherish it. It perfectly reflects who He is, and it has the power to lift your gaze from all the troubles of this world and cast it upon your Perfect Father in Heaven. Only then, when you see Him rightly, can you praise Him truly. But will you stop to look? 

You're a Spring

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

John 7:37-39

Think about the Holy Spirit running out of you like multiple streams of living water, Believer. Where do these streams go? Everywhere! The Holy Spirit isn’t a personal water fountain to quench your spiritual thirst. No! He is like multiple, constantly flowing streams that flow out of you to quench a thirsty world. You can’t contain Him. The Spirit of God ought to be spilling out of you everywhere you go. He ought to be spilling out on everyone you come into contact with. Think about it this way, whenever someone enters your presence, they ought to also be entering into the presence of God because the Spirit is there with you.

And as the Spirit of God flows out of you like water, I believe I know what direction He will pull you. Water flows downhill, to the lowest point. So too the Spirit will pour out of you and run toward the lowly. He will pull you toward the hurting, the broken, the hungry and the oppressed. God will lead you to these, so you can meet not only their physical needs but also their deepest soul need.

But some of you are quenching the Spirit. You are damming up your spring. You allow sin and disobedience to restrict the flow of the Spirit in your life and out of your life onto others. One way I see some church members do this is by giving God partial obedience. They’ll give to missions. They’ll pray for missions. But they won’t do missions! While their financial and prayer support is winning souls to Christ all over the world, their next-door neighbors, their family members and the people in their community are dying and going to Hell. But they are unwilling to do anything about it. They won’t be used by God. They won’t open their mouths and share their gospel. Please keep giving to missions! Please pray earnestly for missionaries. They need it! But you also have to go and be a witness! 

Let the Spirit flow out of you and use you to win lost souls for Christ. All around you people are thirsty; won’t you offer them a drink?! When the people of Israel wandered in the desert for forty years and had no water to drink, what did God do? He gave them water from a rock! If God can use a rock to quench the thirst of more than a million people, then He can certainly use you to bring souls to salvation. Let the Spirit flow out of you everywhere you go, and follow His lead. Make up your mind now to obey.