The Gospel

The Kindness And Severity Of God

Continuing in my reading of Matt Chandler's book The Explicit Gospel I came across this section on the kindness and severity of God, 

Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.

 Romans 11:22

Pastor Chandler rightly points out that we do not talk nearly enough about the severity of God, he writes:

God's responses of kindness and severity both come from His perfect and holy self-sufficiency, they are both extended justly to His creation, but the chief difference between them - and the reason we don't talk about it as much - is that only severity is deserved.

He also notes that the severity of God is not taught today because it does not present God as warm and fuzzy, he says:

Paul says to note God's severity. Mark it down. Remember it. Consider it. But we are disobedient. Because God's severity is not as warm and fuzzy as God's kindness, we not only don't study or contemplate it, but we don't even note it. We live in a day and age when, from pre-seminary all the way through seminary, prospective pastors are fed pablum about church growth. Then once the hit the playing field of ministry they are fed it more and more. From books to classes to seminars to conferences, the church is absolutely consumed with growing at all costs.Forget whether the members of our churches have any real depth or substance to them; we just want to be able to measure and count the three Bs: buildings, budgets, and butts in the seat. The Bible does say a few things about churches growing in those ways, but today this has become the prevailing mind-set of ministry in evangelicalism, and it is a bibically perverted, missionally distorted mind-set.

He then goes on to say:

The avoidance of the difficult thins of Scripture - of sinfulness and hell and God's severity - is idolatrous and cowardly. If a man or woman who teaches the Scripture is afraid to explain to you the severity of God, they have betrayed you. In the same way that it is not loving or kind not to coach your children on the dangers of the street and the dangers of the swimming pool, so it is not loving not to warn men and women about the severity of God. 

He then goes on the illustrate how we can address this topic by quoting Matthew 3:11-12 and showing how John the Baptist addressed it:

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 

Matthew 3:11-12

Then Pastor Chandler writes this:

We get the impression from the Old Testament that the universe is God's threshing floor. John is warning his hearers that Jesus is going to get to work on the universe, and He's going to gather His wheat into the barn. But the chaff He will He will burn in unquenchable fire. This is the purpose of Jesus's arrival. (Note in this passage both the kindness and the severity of God.)

Pastor Chandler goes on to give a description of Jesus' use of the word Gehenna, which is translated hell in our English Bibles; he talks about how Gehenna was a refuse dump on the south side of Jerusalem and how Jesus used this to illustrate the severity of God toward those who reject Him (the chaff in the verses above). He writes:

When Jesus used the word Gehenna, He's saying, "It's like this ravine, the valley of Haman; this is what I am talking to you about." The image to hold in our mind is putrid and repulsive, it is dead and deadly; it is smoldering when not blazing. It is utterly desolate, spiritually dark, and endlessly oppressive, and it is the established picture even in these extremes of the slightest falling short of God's glory.

So I want to leave you today with two verses:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 3:23

For our God is a consuming fire. 

Hebrews 12:29

Spend some time today meditating on these two verses and think about the kindness and severity of God, and how both are related to the Gospel.

The Explicit Gospel

I just started reading Matt Chandler's book The Explicit Gospel; here is the description from the flyleaf:

Even if you go to church, it doesn’t mean that you are being exposed (or exposing others) to the gospel explicitly. Sure, most people talk about Jesus, and about being good and avoiding bad, but the gospel message simply isn’t there—at least not in its specificity and its fullness.

Inspired by the needs of both the overchurched and the unchurched, and bolstered by the common neglect of the explicit gospel within Christianity, popular pastor Matt Chandler writes this punchy treatise to remind us what is of first and utmost importance—the gospel.

Here is a call to true Christianity, to know the gospel explicitly, and to unite the church on the amazing grounds of the good news of Jesus!

As I read through this book I hope to do a series of posts based on what I am learning and on what God is teaching me through what Matt has written. Let me begin today with a brief quote from the introduction: 

Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death.My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Now that is good news! Because of the gospel I don't have to worry about my past sin, my current struggles, or my future failures - they are all covered by the blood of Jesus, and I am forgiven not because of anything I have done or will do, but because of what He did for me.

I have been looking forward to reading this book for a while, and I hope that you will pick up a copy and join me. Let's be amazed again by the grace and mercy of our God expressed in the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The Gospel Matters

A Warning Against Unbelief

As I was reading  this morning I found this quote by J.C. Ryle and thought was worth sharing. The passage that I was reading was Matthew 13:51-58, which says:

“Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there, and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?  Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.

Matthew 13:51-58

Notice that in this last verse Jesus talks about the unbelief of those who lived in His home town, and that He said it was because of their unbelief that He did not perform many mighty works there. Of this verse Ryle wrote:

The last thing which we ought to notice in these verses is the ruinous nature of unbelief. The chapter ends with the fearful words, "He didn't do many miraculous works there, because of their unbelief."

 Behold in this single word the secret of the everlasting ruin of multitudes of souls! They perish forever, because they will not believe. There is nothing beside in earth or heaven that prevents their salvation. Their sins, however many, might all be forgiven. The Father's love is ready to receive them. The blood of Christ is ready to cleanse them. The power of the Spirit is ready to renew them. But a great barrier interposes - they will not believe. "You will not come unto me," says Jesus, "that you might have life." (John 5:40.)

May we all be on our guard against this accursed sin. It is the old root-sin, which caused the fall of man. Cut down in the true child of God by the power of the Spirit, it is ever ready to bud and sprout again. There are three great enemies against which God's children should daily pray - pride, worldliness, and unbelief. Of these three, none is greater than unbelief.

J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Volume 1 (2007 Baker Books Reprint) Pg. 157

How often do we actually think about unbelief being an issue in our lives? But just as we need to fight against pride and worldliness in our lives, we need to also be fighting against unbelief. The truth is that every time we sin - every time - there is an element of unbelief present; what we are saying, in essence, when we sin is "God, I don't believe what You said about ________."

Remember, Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23). And I don't know about you, but I think if God tells us something 4 times it must be important.

Wow, What A Testimony!

 For those of you who may not know, Matt Chandler, who is the pastor of The Village Church in Dallas Texas, had a seizure Thanksgiving Day and after some tests were run it was discovered that he has a brain tumor in his right frontal lobe. He underwent surgery to have it removed the past Friday, but before he went into the hospital he recorded this video and all I can say is Wow! What a testimony!  

Video from Matt

Please pray for Matt Chandler and his family.