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Our Glorious Salvation 3

Published August 20, 2014 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: salvation

Humans sin. That is a statement of fact. Humans will sin no matter what their environment. That’s because sin comes from the inside out, not the outside in. Of course we are tempted to sin from without. However, the nature of man is sinful. Put man in a sterile environment and he will find a way to sin. No wonder man needs help! All the rules, regulations and laws a society puts in place will do nothing to curb man’s sinful impulse. Try as he might, man cannot eradicate sin on earth; there’s no chance of man creating Utopia.

But there is hope. God has created a plan of salvation that takes care of both the personal and social aspects of life. Save a man’s soul, and his whole life will necessarily change. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in him, saving him, convicting him of sin, leading him in God’s will and enabling him to live a God-pleasing life. The Holy Spirit teaches us about ourselves and our God. In doing so, as Augustine taught, man is given a desire for God’s truth and finds joy in the things of the Spirit.

A lot takes place at conversion, that’s for sure. Let’s take a look at God’s plan of salvation and discover what it’s all about.

Repentance from sin, (Acts 2:36 – 41)

Entrance into the “new Israel,” verses 36, 39

Therefore I clearly state to everyone in Israel that God has made this Jesus you crucified to be the Lord, the Messiah! (Acts 2:36 TLB)

For Christ promised him to each one of you who has been called by the Lord our God, and to your children and even to those in distant lands! (Acts 2:39 TLB)

Those words were spoken by Peter as part of his Pentecostal sermon. Peter preached this sermon following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and he preached it to his people, Jews. In the course of this tremendous sermon, Peter urged his listeners to recognize that Jesus is both Lord and Christ. He did this by talking about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and linking those things to God’s plan. He also, to the shame of the Jews, emphasized their responsibility for the death of Jesus.

It was essential that the Jews understand that Jesus is their Messiah. However, He isn’t just their Messiah, but He is the Messiah “even to those in distant lands.” This was a new idea Peter was introducing. A Jewish Messiah that would save even Gentiles! This was a huge pill for the Jews to follow. It’s not insignificant that Peter introduced it. Later on, he would have issues with just eating with Gentiles!

What is important to note is that God made Jesus the Messiah. No human agent did that. God made Jesus the Messiah and it is up to Jews and Gentiles to accept that. In his sermon, Peter did just what God did: he laid out the facts then left it up to the audience to decide the truth the message. Or, to use Peter’s own words, God calls. But we must answer. That decision allows the Spirit to do His work of putting us into God’s family.

Initiation into the faith, verses 37, 38; 40, 41

Peter’s sermon must have hit the bull’s eye! Somebody shouted out: What shall we do? His answer is classic:

Each one of you must turn from sin, return to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; then you also shall receive this gift, the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38 TLB)

This is the essence of salvation: the forgiveness of sins. Verse 38 in no way suggests that in order for sins to be forgiven one must be baptized in water. Salvation results in faith in Jesus as Savior, not in some symbolic exercise. What Peter was getting at was one must be baptized because of the forgiveness of sins. When this crowd, moved by both Peter’s stirring sermon and the Holy Spirit, repented, their sins were forgiven and they wanted to take the next step: baptism.

A.C. Dixon’s comments on salvation are interesting and worth a look at:

We need a quickening of faith; faith in the power of the God of Pentecost to convict and convert three thousand in a day. Faith, not in a process of culture by which we hope to train children into a state of salvation, but faith in the mighty God who can quicken the dead soul into life in a moment; faith in moral and spiritual revolution rather than evolution.

He’s right about that. The church in the twenty-first century is all about evolution; all about teaching and training children on how to be good Christians. When the time is right, we haul them in front of the church or the board of elders, have them make a confession of faith (which they had previously rehearsed), and *bingo* that child is saved.

Or is he? Can an unsaved child evolve into a child of God? Can any unrepentant sinner “ooze” in Christianity just by hanging around other Christians? Not if you follow New Testament precedent. Dixon was right; faith is not a process. It is something that happens in a moment, when a decision is made.

Confess Jesus as Lord, Romans 10:5 – 13

Confession as “covenant renewal,” verses 5 – 8

For Moses wrote that if a person could be perfectly good and hold out against temptation all his life and never sin once, only then could he be pardoned and saved. But the salvation that comes through faith says, “You don’t need to search the heavens to find Christ and bring him down to help you,” and, “You don’t need to go among the dead to bring Christ back to life again.” For salvation that comes from trusting Christ—which is what we preach—is already within easy reach of each of us; in fact, it is as near as our own hearts and mouths. (TLB)

These verses occur in the midst of larger discussion on the state of Judaism after the coming of Jesus as the true Messiah. Paul was very concerned that so many of his people had rejected Jesus in spite of his best efforts. As far as obedience to the law was concerned, Paul made it clear the law was no longer necessary. That flew in the face of what the Jews believed; that the law was a prerequisite for having everlasting life.

Jesus took the complication out of salvation. And Paul used the teaching of Deuteronomy to drive home his point:

Obeying these commandments is not something beyond your strength and reach; for these laws are not in the far heavens, so distant that you can’t hear and obey them, and with no one to bring them down to you; nor are they beyond the ocean, so far that no one can bring you their message; but they are very close at hand—in your hearts and on your lips—so obey them. (Deuteronomy 30:11 – 14 TLB)

Well, as good as that sounds, the history of Judaism has shown it doesn’t work. Thankfully, with the coming of Jesus, God had altered this formula, putting Jesus above the law. He’s allowed to do that, being God and all. Now, instead of dealing with “the law” in order to be saved, simple faith has been introduced. Confessing your faith in the work of Christ is all that is necessary. Faith operates on the basis of the Word of the Gospel; the message of Christ, not of the words of the law. This was a monumental shift in thinking. Thanks to Jesus, salvation could come immediately; the moment one hears the Gospel, believes and confesses, he’s saved! The old way, in theory and practice salvation took forever; only after slogging through the myriad of rules and regulations.

Sinclair Ferguson, Scottish theologian, professor at Redeemer Seminary in Dallas, had said something interesting about this:

So what is the place of the law in the life of the Christian? Simply this: We are no longer under the law to be condemned by it, we are now “in-lawed” to it because of our betrothal to Christ! He has written the law, and love for it, into our hearts.

Confession as “personal renewal,” verses 9 – 13

Verses 9 and 10 describe the two-fold component of faith: (1) “If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord”; (2) “believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead.” Those are the two components of faith that “get the job done” as far as your salvation is concerned. Don’t be afraid to “confess” or testify out loud that Jesus is Lord; that He is your King and Sovereign. Believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Without these two elements, there is no faith; no salvation. Moody famously said,

Believing and confessing go together; and you cannot be saved without both. ‘With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’

If the two components of faith are in verses 9 and 10, the next three verses give us the three blessings that those who have made Jesus Lord receive:

For the Scriptures tell us that no one who believes in Christ will ever be disappointed. Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect: they all have the same Lord who generously gives his riches to all those who ask him for them. Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:11 – 13 TLB)

Receive salvation by faith

Faith alone brings justification, Galatians 2:16; 3:21 – 26

The background of Galatians is, in part, a response to a confrontation Paul had with Peter. It’s hard to believe, but even in the infant years of the church, there were confrontations among the leadership. This particular confrontation had to do with Peter’s moral cowardice. He had been eating with some Christian Gentiles until a group of Jewish Christians arrived from Jerusalem. This group of Jews still clung to certain Jewish rituals believing they were also necessary for salvation. When they showed up, Peter excused himself from the table of fellowship. In other words, Peter was a big Christian chicken who was afraid to actually live the freedom of the Gospel provided. This drove Paul crazy. What Peter did, as far as he was concerned, was the height of compromise. In seeking to placate his friends from Jerusalem, Peter had severely compromised the full Gospel.

The goal of Jesus was not to turn Gentiles into Jews into Christians, but to turn both Jews and Gentiles into Christians.

We are no longer Jews or Greeks or slaves or free men or even merely men or women, but we are all the same—we are Christians; we are one in Christ Jesus. And now that we are Christ’s we are the true descendants of Abraham, and all of God’s promises to him belong to us. (Galatians 3:28 TLB)

No law or set of rules and regulations can make a person right before God. That’s what justification is all about: being just or right before God. It is Jesus who justifies the sinner.

Where the righteousness of Christ is imputed to an individual, a principle of holiness is imparted to him; the former can only be ascertained by the latter. (A. W. Pink)

Faith alone produces good works, Ephesians 2:8—10

Because of his kindness, you have been saved through trusting Christ. And even trusting is not of yourselves; it too is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good we have done, so none of us can take any credit for it. It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend these lives in helping others. (TLB)

These incredible verses show us what salvation is really all about. We were dead in our sin, God saved us by His grace alone, raising us up to heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and we will be – some day – in heaven manifesting the grace of God for all the universe to see. In these verses, we see the fullness of the work of Christ done on our behalf: past, present, and future.

None of this depended or depends on anything we have done. It’s all His grace. We define grace as “God’s unmerited (or undeserved) favor,” but maybe a better definition would be “God’s love in action.” God saved us because He loved us. The faith we place in Jesus and His work not only results in our salvation but that faith enables us to do good works. It empowers us to live the way God wants us to.

Dale Coulter, who teaches at Regent University, wrote:

God takes the broken material of our lives and re-fashions it into something beautiful. Salvation is God’s gift to help us lead beautiful lives that show forth the glory of the Artist.

Well put.

Our Glorious Salvation, 1

Published August 4, 2014 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: doctrine of salvation, glorious salvation, salvation

Human beings are God’s highest form of creation. All other creations, from animals to plants, to the earth itself, are for the purpose of serving mankind. Human beings were created to serve God. Unlike the rest of the material universe, only human beings are theocentric. Sin, however, has changed this aspect of man’s creation. Sin has literally lowered the very character and nature of man so that God’s gift of salvation is the only way to restore him to where he ought to be.

In this series of brief studies, we’ll see what the Bible has to say about salvation. Churches and denominations have creative ways of teaching this thoroughly Biblical doctrine, often to the point of twisting it into a theological pretzel that only a Philadelphia lawyer can understand. Run as fast as you can from somebody who wants to talk to you about “ordo salutis.” Instead, grab your Bibles, let go of your preconceived notions, and we’ll discover how simple, and yet profound, the Biblical doctrine of salvation really is.

Man has fallen into sin, Genesis 3:1—14; 16—19

The nature of temptation, vs. 1—6

Man was created in God’s image. It surprises many liberal-progressive types that men and women were created completely equal. In every way imaginable, neither sex was given prominence over the other. The reason is simple: both were created in God’s image. The differences in the sexes (think: the so-called and hackneyed “war on women”) are a result of sin, not of original creation. Of course, while Adam and Eve were created completely equal, there was a distinction between the work of each.

And the Lord God said, “It isn’t good for man to be alone; I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs.” (Genesis 2:18 TLB)

In spite of being created in God’s image, when sin entered the world the quality of that image was greatly impacted and compromised. Not only that, sin severely tarnished all of God’s material creation.

Man didn’t fall into sin or accidentally swerve into it. It is important to note that the sin of Adam and Eve was no mere moral lapse, but a deliberate act of outright rebellion and a complete renunciation of God and His will for His creation. And herein lies the nefarious nature of temptation: it’s not primarily the temptation to do something naughty, but rather the temptation to go against the express desire of God. On this, Ed Cole was right when he wrote:

Ability to resist temptation is directly proportionate to your submission to God.

Just so. James put it another way:

So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. (James 4:7 TLB)

No doubt a lot of Christians want to resist the devil. But James says mere resistance isn’t enough. We are to “give ourselves humbly to God.” When we do that, the resistance to temptation will come naturally. That’s not say it will always be easy or that we will always be able to resist, just that submission to God’s will goes a long way to creating the necessary conditions whereby resisting temptation will happen.

Adam and Eve did exactly the wrong things. The conditions for resisting temptation were virtually non-existent. Instead of walking away from the serpent, Eve stopped to listen and even reason with it. In the history of dumb things, this was dumbest. Again, James:

And when you draw close to God, God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and let your hearts be filled with God alone to make them pure and true to him. (James 4:8 TLB)

The guaranteed formula for winning the war against temptation: Submit and draw close to God, resist the devil’s temptation, put forth the effort to live righteously (wash your hands, you sinners!) and make sure to immerse yourself in the things of God. Philippians 4 is a good place to start with that:

Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about. (Philippians 4:8 TLB)

The confrontation by God, vs. 7—13

The very moment Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the effects of eating the fruit occurred. They died spiritually immediately, and that ultimately resulted in physical death.

If you eat its fruit, you will be doomed to die. (Genesis 2:17 TLB)

That brings to mind the words of Paul:

For the wages of sin is death… (Romans 6:23a TLB)

The first two chapters of Genesis paint a beautiful picture of the relationship that existed and should exist between God and man. It is a picture of wholeness and harmony. God banished chaos and confusion and created for man a world of order where the two—Creator and creature—could fellowship and work together. When they sinned, Adam and Eve broke that relational harmony and they sought to hide from the Creator that loved them so much.

How sad it is when you stop and realize that before they sinned, God had never needed to confront man before!

The consequences of sin, vs. 14, 16—19

The consequences of sin were not all immediate, but they were many. We just have to look around at our sin-sick and sin-cursed world to see them. But, if you want to see them in print, Paul describes some of them:

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, evil men who push away the truth from them. (Romans 1:18 TLB)

Now do you see it? No one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what the law commands. For the more we know of God’s laws, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying them; his laws serve only to make us see that we are sinners. (Romans 3:20 TLB)

When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world, so everything began to grow old and die, for all sinned. (Romans 5:12—21, verse 12 cited TLB)

Once you were under God’s curse, doomed forever for your sins. (Ephesians 2:1 TLB)

You can see that the consequences of sin began with God’s promised judgment. You could say that all the ills of humanity are the result of what God promised:

If you eat its fruit, you will be doomed to die. (Genesis 2:17b TLB)

Probably the greatest consequences of sin are the effects sin has on our wills, that volitional part of man that enables him to make decisions. We call this our “free will.” Thanks to sin, we now have a sinful nature. Man wasn’t created with one; sin put it in him. It is that sinful nature man now follows—we now act according to what it wants. It is impossible for any human being to act in a way that is contrary to his sinful nature, apart from regeneration.

The consequences of that first act of rebellion are legion, and would touch every area of creation. God made sure man would see the seriousness of his wrong choice everywhere he would look and walk. Curses placed on the serpent, the woman, and Adam’s life (including the very nature of the world itself) would be a constant reminder of what he had done. There would be no escaping the effects of sin.

Man is declared guilty of sin, Romans 3:9-20

Under sin, vs. 9-18

They care nothing about God nor what he thinks of them. (Romans 3:18 TLB)

If you could boil down and distill the essential cause of every sin you can think of, this sentence would be it. This pithy sentence didn’t originate with Paul, even though he wrote it. He’s actually quoting Psalm 36:1. Man’s rebellion against God strikes at God’s sovereignty. When man is tempted to sin, he not only desires to do what he wants, but his actions are a horrible offense to God, who is His Creator. Man, after all, is merely the creature. What right does the creature have to make any decision contrary to what the Creator wants for him? Understanding the true relationship between God and man – between the Creator and the creature – is the very basis of true faith. It is true that God is our Heavenly Father, but He is also our Creator. We are not equal to Him. Our sinful nature, however, repudiates this essential fact.

All human beings, from good citizens to moral reprobates, are dominated by their sinful natures and are, consequently, living in sin and under sin’s influence. It is true that an unregenerate man may do highly moral and upright things, but that does not negate the pull of his sinful nature. In the end, he will will sin because he is in rebellion against God, His Creator. St Augustine captured this idea well:

Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us.

The Law cannot justify, vs. 19-20

Now do you see it? No one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what the law commands. For the more we know of God’s laws, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying them; his laws serve only to make us see that we are sinners. (Romans 3:20 TLB)

Paul was writing to Jews in Rome, so it was natural for him to bring in the “law”; that law being the law of Moses, Judaism. Simply put, the idea Paul put forward is that “keeping the faith” does not offset the sins you commit. We aren’t Jews, so if Paul were writing to us, he might say something like this: “No matter how many old ladies you help across the street, you’re still a dirty rotten sinner.” Or, “You can go to church eight days a week, but you’re still a sinner.”

We all stand guilty before a sovereign and holy God, and no number of “good deeds” can change that. Adhering to a religious creed doesn’t change your standing before God. All mankind from the smallest to the greatest have been declared guilty. Therefore, all men are condemned to die.

Humans are trapped in sin, Ephesians 2:1-3

Once you were under God’s curse, doomed forever for your sins. You went along with the crowd and were just like all the others, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air, who is at work right now in the hearts of those who are against the Lord. All of us used to be just as they are, our lives expressing the evil within us, doing every wicked thing that our passions or our evil thoughts might lead us into. We started out bad, being born with evil natures, and were under God’s anger just like everyone else. (TLB)

Paul wrote these words to Christians – people who had been regenerated by the Holy Spirit – that’s why he’s writing in the past tense. What he is not saying is that we Christians are any better than those who are not. This paragraph shouldn’t make us proud, it should make sad. Those who don’t know Jesus are doomed forever. We used to be in that very position, but not any more. Jesus is the great “doom remover.” Good works and religious creeds will not change our pathetic position before God, but Jesus does just that very thing.

This paragraph of Scripture paints an awful picture of the unregenerate sinner as being trapped in an endless cycle of sin after sin after sin. It tells us that nobody is born “good.” Everybody is born a sinner. Leonard Ravenhill, the great evangelist, once wrote:

There are only two kinds of persons: those dead IN sin and those dead TO sin.

Born again believers are dead TO sin. The rest of humanity, sadly, is dead IN in; trapped in it as surely as a bird is locked up in his cage.

What Must I Do…

Published July 29, 2014 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: choice, lost, salvation, saved, what must I do

In Acts 16, a man who thought he was in big trouble came to Paul and Silas with this question:

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30 TLB)

That’s a good question to ask, especially when you think you are trouble. In this case, the man asking the question was a jailer – the very jailer who was in charge of keeping Paul and Silas incarcerated. When they were miraculously freed and the prison “shaken to its foundations” by supernatural forces, this poor fellow was sure his life would be forfeit. His superiors, he was sure, would hold him personally accountable for both the damage to the prison as well as the escape of the prisoners under his watch. Yes, it didn’t look good for this man. Little wonder he wanted to know how to be saved!

We’re all in the same boat as the Philippian jailer was in, and that boat is gradually sinking. Hebrews 9:27 presents us with an inescapable truth:

… it is destined that men die only once, and after that comes judgment… (TLB)

There’s nothing you or anybody else can do to outrun the Grim Reaper! He will catch up with you. Death is absolutely certain. Life, however, is anything but certain. Who can predict what the future holds? We make our plans with care and precision, but in a moment, everything can change.

Most people, even if they won’t admit it, are aware that there is something beyond death. They may not be sure what it is, but they know death isn’t the end of their existence. The story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, which Jesus told in Luke 16, teaches us that the soul of a man goes on forever, and will either be lost in Hell or escorted by the angels into Heaven.

In Matthew 7, Jesus also taught about a wide gate and broad way that leads straight to destruction, and that there are many traveling on that road. Then He talked about a narrow road that few find that leads to life. Startling contrasts, indeed. Straight and narrow, broad and wide, life and destruction. Your future; your destiny depends on the decision you make here and now. Though Jesus told stories and parables, the truth behind them is real and awaits all men. Are you saved? Or are you lost?

I imagine most of you reading this have heard sermons based on that question, “What must I do to be saved?” Those are good sermons, but I have a better question. My question is, “What must I do to be lost?”

To begin with, let’s deal with Christians.

What must a Christian do to be lost?

It’s a theological pickle to be sure, but here’s what the Bible says:

…what makes us think that we can escape if we are indifferent to this great salvation announced by the Lord Jesus himself and passed on to us by those who heard him speak? (Hebrews 2:3 TLB)

The writer of this letter to the Hebrews was writing to Christians; Jewish Christians, not to the sinner, when he asked that question. Further along in the same letter, we read this:

Do not let this happy trust in the Lord die away, no matter what happens. Remember your reward! (Hebrews 10:35 TLB)

That’s a telling verse. It suggests that a Christian can indeed stop trusting in the Lord. The same chapter concludes like this:

But we have never turned our backs on God and sealed our fate. No, our faith in him assures our souls’ salvation. (Hebrews 10:39 TLB)

It’s clear that it is possible for a believer to turn his back on God and put his soul’s salvation in peril. Peter writes about the danger of forgetting that your sins have been forgiven. Regardless of how you feel about it, the Christian can be lost by his own neglect.

How does this happen? Well, it certainly doesn’t happen quickly or overnight; it’s a gradual process, this turning away from God. When a Christian neglects time spent in prayer, he has begun to turn away from God. When he neglects the Word of God, he wanders even farther from the Lord. And when a Christian neglects God’s House, the Church, he’s showing how far from God he truly is. Hebrews 10:35 —

Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near. (TLB)

When a Christian fails to listen to the “still, small voice” of the Holy Spirit, preferring to do his own thing, he is showing his contempt for God by ignoring one His most precious gifts, His Spirit. Finally, when a Christian reaches the point of blatant, outright rebellion, his falling away is complete.

And when a person has escaped from the wicked ways of the world by learning about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then gets tangled up with sin and becomes its slave again, he is worse off than he was before. It would be better if he had never known about Christ at all than to learn of him and then afterwards turn his back on the holy commandments that were given to him. (2 Peter 2:20, 21 TLB)

What must the ungodly do to be lost?

The answer here is “nothing,” because they are already lost. But to flesh it out a bit, for the ungodly to remain in his lost state, he must:

Reject the love of God manifested in His Son;
Resist the drawing of the Holy Spirit; fighting the conviction of sin he may be experiencing. Every time a sinner does this, his heart grows a little colder, and a little harder;
Reject the Word of the Lord he may have heard in Sunday School or at an evangelistic meeting or that a friend may have shared with him;
Procrastinate. By putting off the decision to follow Christ, a sinner is saying “no” again.

In 2 Corinthians 6:2, the apostle Paul wrote:

Right now God is ready to welcome you. Today he is ready to save you. (TLB)

There may not be a tomorrow; there may not be a second chance to make things right. Remember what God told Noah:

My spirit shall not always strive with man… (Genesis 6:3 AV)

There will come a time when God will stop calling. The thing about it is this: If a person is lost, it’s because they really wish to be that way. Nobody needs to stay lost. Being saved is as easy as making the right decision, as the Lord enables you. But it’s all up to you.

In answer to the Philippian jailer’s question of what must be done to be saved, Paul gave him the simple instruction:

“Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, and your entire household.” (Acts 16:31 TLB)

Only you can do that. Nobody can believe for you. You must do the choosing, while you can, before it’s too late.

CHRISTMAS: BAD NEWS TO SOME, GOOD NEWS TO OTHERS

Published January 1, 2013 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
Tags: choice, Free will, Grace, Luke, prophetic word, salvation, Simeon

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Luke 2:34, 35

Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Simeon, as you recall, was the “silent server,” a faithful follower of Yahweh, waiting patiently and praying for the coming of the Messiah. When Joseph and Mary came to the Temple in Jerusalem to present their offerings, along with their 8-day old Son, Jesus, Simeon recognized immediately that this Baby was the long awaited Messiah. As soon as he took the Baby in his arms. Simeon the “secret server” became a prophet, empowered by the Holy Spirit, as verse 25 suggests,

…the Holy Spirit was on him.

Simeon’s word of prophecy was brief, but powerful; each phrase full of meaning and deserving of our attention.

1. The Mission of Christ

These words must have been startling for Mary and Joseph to hear:

This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel… (verse 34a)

This prophecy was given directly to Mary and Joseph, but it concerned all of Israel, and in fact has implications that reach around the world, down through time to this present day. The coming of this Baby into our world would result in a moral, ethical, and spiritual crisis in the Israel of His day, and even in our world today. The people of Israel, and eventually people around the world world, would be faced with a decision: respond positively to the call of grace or reject it. Later on in the New Testament, we read the same thing like this:

For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” (1 Peter 2:6-8)

Many in Israel would fall because of their response to Jesus. Others would “rise,” that is, they would receive eternal life. While this prophecy, both here in Luke, and in Peter, where he quotes from Isaiah and the Psalms, applies directly to the nation of Israel, its principle is universal because it directly applies to the eternal destiny of all people, of all time. The absolute most important decision any human being can make is what to do with Jesus Christ.

We can look at how it happened to Jesus. He had a huge following for much of His earthly ministry, but later on, when His preaching became stern, when He started talking about the cost of following Him, many of His disciples fell:

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (John 6:60)

After this, the crowds got smaller and smaller. Many fell away.

Of course, there were some followers of Jesus who had to fall first. For example, Saul fell off His donkey before he rose again, a new creation, becoming Paul, the great evangelist. Zaccaeus had to “come down” when Christ called him to a life of discipleship. Maybe some of you have to be “brought down” before Christ could do anything with you.

Yes, Jesus is very bad news for those who reject Him.

For Israel, though, He was “bad news” because by in large His people would have nothing to do with Him. They foolishly, though prophetically, rejected the Messiah. However, He will in time be the best news ever, for though Israel as a nation has fallen, she will rise when her Messiah comes:

“In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’” (Romans 9:26, also Hosea 1:10)

2. The character of Christ

[The child will] be a sign that will be spoken against…(verse 34b)

It was Isaiah who spoke these thrilling words hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

A sign could point to something good or something bad. A sign can be very comforting, like when you have been driving all day and you see a sign that your destination is just around the corner. Or a sign can serve as a warning. In Christ, as a sign, He is—

The red light of danger.

Jesus Christ, the sign, is a sign of danger to those who refuse to accept His gracious gift of grace and salvation. The foreknowledge of God is absolutely infallible; He knows who will accept His freely offered grace and those who will not. He forces neither choice on anyone, but allows people to chose for themselves. Those who turn Him down, will fall, and it is God’s will that they should perish. But, when God’s grace offered in Christ is accepted by sinful man, God raises them up from sin and death.

The yellow light of caution.

Sometimes Jesus is a sign of “caution,” warning you to be careful. To those of us who have accepted Him as Savior, sometimes we think we can simply live for ourselves; that we can treat Jesus like a salt shaker, taking Him out every once in a while when we think we need Him. Thank God He doesn’t treat us like that! Thank God our Savior is far more loyal to us than we are to Him. When we get a little too independent in our thinking, Jesus can be a sign of warning, of caution, to get back to Him. But we have to heed the sign, for again, He won’t force us to live right. It must be our own choice.

The green light of safety.

To the believing, trusting, and obedient, Jesus is like a green light. When you are walking with Him, there is no need for fear or apprehension. When you are living your best for Him, you need never be ashamed to pray or to wait in His presence. Jesus Christ will always show you the way to go, with green lights all the way. But you have to trust Him first and you have to put forth an effort to live in a real relationship with Jesus. We have a good example of a man who was embarrassed to pray, not because of the state of his life, but that of his people:

I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. (Ezra 9:6)

But you never need to feel like that! When you are living for Christ, He’s the green light.

3. The influence of Christ

…so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed… (verse 35a)

To come into contact with Jesus is to have your thoughts revealed, too. Did you know there is nothing about you hidden from Him? You can hide your thoughts and even your motives from most people, but never from God.

Jesus Christ is the living Word; He is the discerner of thoughts and knows the intents of the heart. He knows all about us, and what we think of Jesus is revealed not only by our thoughts, but by our actions as well. Words are pretty cheap these days; we may say we love Jesus and we may claim that He is our Savior, but do our actions support our words or betray them?

Jesus Christ is the touchstone of truth by which all people are judged. There are a couple of interesting verses about Jesus that should never be taken alone, without the other in its shadow:

If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. (John 12:47)

For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind. (John 9:39)

The mission of Jesus, revealed by His character, was not to try, but to redeem, but in doing so the character of man would have to be severely tested. When anybody is confronted with the living Truth, that person will, of necessity, be forced to make a choice: follow or not follow. Jesus came to redeem that person, but that person must make the choice; the decision is his. As Jesus lived and walked among His people, their hearts were revealed—those whose hearts were right heard His voice and followed, but those who preferred darkness turned away.

Today, the Gospel remains the touchstone of human character. There are those who want nothing to do with the light of God. They may be moral and ethical people, but their hearts prefer the darkness over the Light. They will reject Christ. But there are others whose hearts, consciously or unconsciously, are searching for more; they know this life is not all there is. These people find ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction in a relationship with Jesus Christ. What a person does with Jesus reveals what is truly in their heart.

And a sword will pierce your own soul too. (verse 35b)

This was a personal word to Mary, the mother of Jesus. But she wasn’t just His mother, she would become His disciple, as well. And so her “piercing of the soul” carried with it a double-whammy. As His mother, her soul must have been shattered when she saw her Son’s suffering and on the Cross. As one of Jesus’ disciples, her soul was pierced when she faced the jeers and persecution all of His disciples faced and face to this very day.

Jesus Christ; was there ever a Man born whose influence was so diverse and so pervasive? Jesus Christ: a stumbling stone to some, a stepping stone to others, and a touchstone to all.

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