Category Archives: Salvation

There is Reason to Hope

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Reason to hope. Those words exploded within me today during prayer time. Dark forces have been intensely assaulting me for a few days. So those words meant so much; they carried much meaning to me at this particular time.

In my Christian life, I have on a few occasions experienced something like this, but rarely this strongly. I hesitate to tell you the specifics and details, but I was almost knocked out by it. Satan condemns. Satan has no mercy. “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Psalms 19:9). But that is utterly untrue of Satan’s judgments.

Your heart gets hit, your mind gets hit, you wonder if you were ever right about anything. You evidently have been a complete hypocrite and utterly deceived all your life. It can be a real onslaught and, sadly, the devil can tell you a lot of truth about yourself, not to mention all the lies he tells you. He knows your weaknesses; he knows the weaknesses you yourself even know about.

So why did “There’s reason to hope” hit me so strongly this morning? As I have written before, I know that I am sort of a mentalist and have been that way all my life. I have known how much I have needed to grow in the realm of the things of the heart: joy, love, mercy—the whole basket of things that the Lord can provide. There are some people who almost seem to naturally be more that way than others. But some tend to be cold, calculating, cruel, analytical mentalists. Still, the Lord loves those folks and can actually step in and make a real difference in their lives.

So when I heard “There’s reason to hope” this morning, my attention was immediately drawn to the strong fundamental difference between those two words. “Reason” is mostly associated with things of the mind. “The Age of Reason” in the 1700s came to be a movement that was seen to have eclipsed and subdued “religion,” or in actuality, faith in God. It diminished and demeaned God and the things of the spiritual world.

But the reality is that reason doesn’t have to do that at all. The Bible talks about “the reason of the hope within us” (I Peter 3:15). God said in Isaiah, “Come, let us reason together, saith the Lord…” (Isaiah 1:18). So what then is the reason there is to hope? It’s Jesus. All my atheist, secular friends can now scream and freak out, but getting down to reality: the reason there is to hope is Jesus.

Jesus was an utterly real person. But he was prophesied of in multitudes of places in the Old Testament. Where he would be born, that his mother would be a virgin, how he would die, that he would be raised from the dead—all of that had been foretold, and then it happened.

But what does that mean to any of us today? I’ll tell you what it has meant to me. I was able to “receive the Lord.” That means that I invited Jesus to come and live in my heart—and not only to live there but to change it with his power. Because I really, really needed to have my heart changed. Is he finished with me? Nope, there’s still plenty that needs to be done on my heart, and he’s working on it.

Sadly, I’ve been in contact with someone recently who evidently is really not allowing or wanting Jesus to live and work in their heart. So there are so many things there in that heart that are opposite to the warm, sincere, loving, clear, merciful, stable heart and mind that Jesus can make and sustain in every one of us. So many people almost pride themselves on how “reasonable” they are. But they reject Jesus, who actually is the only antidote to the poisons, venoms, and toxic fumes that so often come to be produced and emitted by hearts that don’t have Jesus in them.

Talk about “environmental pollution”! Pause and think for a moment about how much pollution is released into the atmosphere of our lives by the godless, truthless, perverted, warped hearts of those who don’t have the love of God in their hearts! They sadly spew out venom, vanity, toxic initiatives, and meaningless blather that circles the globe and enters the hearts and souls of every person on earth!

“There’s reason to hope.” Reason to me is sort of like an attribute of our minds. However, sometimes “reason” can seem to make “hope” appear “unreasonable.” But that’s not true. In Jesus, what can seem hopeless is not. All the things that seem unattainable in our lives—true peace, love for others, a gentle, kind heart, deep abiding freedom—these are all reasonable and attainable through the utterly reasonable hope we have in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

That’s what happened to me. He came into my heart and has been living there and doing construction work now for over 50 years. He knows my weaknesses, and if it wasn’t for his continuing mercy on me, as well as his continuing faith in me, I’d have been a dead duck long ago.

Don’t let the devil condemn you. Don’t stand at the judgment seat of Satan. Appeal to the “Supreme Court,” the King of kings, the righteous judge who loved us and gave himself for us. Friends, there’s reason to hope. That’s what the Lord told me this morning.

 

Going to hell

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The pinnacle experience of my life was going to hell when I was 20. I’ve shied away from talking about it over the years because it was so unspeakable. But perhaps I shouldn’t.

Near-death experiences are rare and ones where the experience is a horrific one seem to be even more rare. But that’s what happened to me.

Many scoff at the idea of hell. I smile when I see things like that. Through that experience, I was delivered from severely entrenched atheism. Back then, I was an “evangelist” of atheism; I found joy in defeating weak, vacillating Christians in debate. But entering the spiritual world, utterly naked and without any protective covering that salvation in Christ gives, I experienced the full onslaught of the afterlife outside salvation.

I don’t know if I’ve ever really described that experience. Perhaps I should. You may not be able to relate to it, it may seem like gibberish to you. But life after death for someone without salvation in Jesus is going to be a very, extremely, strange world, as it was for me.

Without salvation in the afterlife, I was like a person without diving equipment, 150 meters (yards) below sea level. There was no oxygen. It was a strange, foreign world. There were beings there that were in their realm while I was not in mine. I was in extreme panic and in great confusion.

But worst of all, there was no way back. It was too late. The level of fear, confusion, despondency and utter hopelessness defies explanation in words we have in our present realm.

It’s an incredible thing to enter the spiritual world. One thing I saw so clearly is that it’s really “all by faith’. We say that glibly here in our realm. But in the spiritual world, faith is utterly the coinage of the realm. And I endlessly gasped for even a whiff of faith.

Everything there was inside out, compared to this present world we live in. Materially things there are completely secondary, if they register at all. Elements of the soul and heart are the substance of that realm and your spiritual condition is the only thing that matters.

Jesus talked about the man who came to the wedding feast without a wedding garment. (Matthew 22:12) That’s how I was. I didn’t have the garment of salvation, the transformation that makes life in eternity possible. So I was utterly unprepared to experience the spiritual world.

Did I understand all that then at that time, as I somewhat do now? No; really, really I didn’t. I was in a prolonged terror, experiencing things that I totally didn’t understand and didn’t even have words to describe what was happening to me. I had virtually no understanding of what I was experiencing or the words to describe it , which I came to find after becoming a believing Christian and reading the explanation of life that the Bible gives.

Time, as we experience it here, ceased to exist there. I was in eternity. But also in utter confusion, utter hopelessness, utter lack of truth. I do believe that this is within the element and range of what the unsaved experience in the hereafter, in hell.

The apostle Paul talked about, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord…” (II Corinthians 5:11). No, Paul was not in hell in Acts 9 but he was suddenly face to face with the Lord, who told Paul, “I am Jesus who you persecute.” Paul was utterly on the wrong side of the Lord and that was his introduction.

You don’t find many preachers talking about Paul talking about “knowing the terror of the Lord.” Talking about hell in these times is very passé. It’s just not done. It’s not cool.

Be that as it may, I feel I should speak up more about how that is what I experienced. For me, it was totally what I needed to stun, shock and sear me out of my unbelief. Nobody could talk to me. I was always the smartest guy in the room, at least in my own eyes. So the Lord let this happen, in His mercy, so that I could get a real glimpse of how very far away from the truth I was.

And truth was actually what I’d been looking for all along. So God gave me this experience, outside any contact with others, not a pastor, not my grandparents, not a church, but just me alone. And it worked.

I was so stunned, shocked and almost in unbelief that I was able to return to this realm where we all now live, after experiencing so horrific a place, that it was like some kind of Sci-Fi movie where someone comes back to this earth and world, after a prolonged absence. That might sound like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.

If this is just outside your realm of understanding, I can give you the text to two songs that rather well articulate the atmosphere of Hell. The Eagles wrote in the last words of “Hotel California”, “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!” That’s how hell works: you can never leave.

Similarly, Bob Dylan sang in one of his songs, “There must be some kind of way outta here, said the joker to the thief, there’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.” As the song says, you look for a way out but it eludes you. Meanwhile, confusion engulfs and consumes you. Snippets and dark glimpses of hell, brought into contemporary music.

I’ve been happily encouraged through the years when I’ve read of others who’ve had near-death experiences, that they too have had very similar feelings to mine. They don’t even want to talk about it. They don’t think anyone will believe them. They struggle strongly even to find the words to describe what happened to them. It’s a very personal thing that often their friends and family can’t believe and it makes them estranged from their loved ones, since it all seems so farfetched.

I’m glad I’ve been able to put this on paper, so to speak. Experiencing hell was what it took to lay a foundational event in my life that prepared me to receive the message of salvation from young “Jesus People” a few months later. And it was this experience, that the spiritual world is fundamentally the real world, that made the decision to follow Jesus and to take up my cross in service to Him to be the only “common sense” thing that I knew was the high will of God.

This was all when I was in my early 20’s, long ago. But looking back, I see again how pivotal that experience I had in the spiritual world was, even if it was in the dark side of it. I was there, thrust there by God, because of my hardness of heart and repeated resistance to the Holy Spirit which was trying to reach out to me.

I hope this is somehow a blessing to someone. The spiritual world is real. Unbelief and atheism are your worst enemies, at least they were mine. There is no depth that God in His mercy cannot reach to find us in our worst condition and to lead us back out of that blackness, even virtual insanity, back to the glorious light that is in Him.

 

 

Don’t be soon shaken in mind or be troubled

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The hits keep coming, no? Seems like, if the right one don’t get you, the left one will, unless you watch out. That’s what I’m experiencing right now. And from what I’m hearing from friends, a lot of people -young and old- are experiencing the same.

Maybe you could say, like in the song in the movie “Joker”, “That’s Life!” But actually life isn’t always like that and all the time. Kids in schools here are “identifying” not only as opposite to their genders, but some public school students are identifying as cats or other animals in elementary and middle schools! And they’re getting public attention and media backing if the other students and the school administration don’t fully support them in their new identity as a cat or dog in public school!!

One in 7 students in some middle schools here have recorded a personal suicide plan. Teachers are leaving public schools in unprecedented numbers.

School board meetings across America are becoming the culture wars’ front line of combat. I’ve been involved in those here locally in recent months. But just everywhere you look, there seems to be a great confusion upon this country and it may be the same in other countries as well.

I had to ask some dear friends tonight to pray for me as I’ve been having some health issues and then on top of that the outlook across the landscape of my nation is looking increasingly bleak and foreboding. It’s like a howling storm outside and I’ve had to retreat a little bit at the moment, just to draw back and count my many blessings, to remember the Rock upon which my personal life is founded and to not let “the affairs of this life choke the Word” (Luke 8:14), which can happen if I pay too much attention to “the affairs of this life”.

For the people of faith, the people of Jesus and His Word, these are the times that can test us to the edge. Really a lot of people are just throwing in the towel. They are committing suicide. They are seeking solace in drugs and multitudes are dying there, so many in their teens and 20’s. Or they are grabbing their rifle and going out to kill as many as they can. They are despondent and at wit’s end corner. I too have felt to some degree what I imagine millions of Americans are feeling.

It’s hell to be alone. “All the lonely people, where do they all belong?, sang the Beatles. What a heart cry and question for our times. To be expected, the Bible answered that question 3000 years ago. “God sets the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6)..

I’m so thankful that I’ve had at least some fellowship and community to be a part of in the last 6 or so years. Fellow missionaries rented a room to me in their house and I became part of their family to some degree. Then in the last year it’s worked out to get my own place; a dear missionary couple now rent two rooms from me here and I’m very blessed to have their fellowship and camaraderie.

I don’t know how I’d be doing if I was just totally on my own in this increasingly crazy, cold, confusing world as it is now. I talked to a sister in the Lord a few days ago, another dear soul who’s “borne the burden and the heat of the day” (Matthew 20:12) on some far-flung mission fields for decades and is now alone, a sad widow, longing for friends, family and to find a way forward.

The verse that came to me that prompted me to write this article is worth referring to at this time. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “That you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled…” (II Thes. 2:2). . That is totally how things can be sometimes. Without the strong tower of the Lord –Proverbs 18:10- and His salvation, His Word and safe keeping, none of us are able to stand against the onslaughts that come against every person alive in this world.

But just toughing it out won’t really work. It’s a bigger storm than that. Think of the suicides, the drug overdoses, the mass killings, the howling rage on the Left and on the Right that is just the way it is here in America in these times. And you think you are just going to be blithely oblivious to it all? If you have a conscience and are aware at all of the conditions of our society, you are going to be distraught, troubled and desperate, at least I think so.

Solutions. For one and the first, be saved in Christ. Be assured of your salvation and as well, receive the indwelling power of the promised Holy Spirit, as the Early Church did. You can think, “Oh, if I was about to be martyred by the Islamic forces of ISIS, I would be an incredibly bold witness for the Lord!” Maybe you would be.

But so often the Devil attacks as the serpent, with his words, before He attacks physically as the dragon. Right now the forces of the Serpent are grinding insidiously upon every individual in our nation and you as a Christian are going to have to take on the full armor of God to withstand the darkness, perhaps as you never have until now.

Are you standing on the Word? Have you memorized and are you quoting the promises of God? Are you steadfastly resisting  the darkness and drawing near to the Lord? Also, are you in some kind of fellowship with others who are strong in Him? This doesn’t necessarily have to be some formal church; that actually might not even work since so many there consciously choose to minimize the crises of our times. That’s often been my personal experience here.

Are you in fellowship with other Christians who can pray with your and support you in your faith and battle? “One shall chase a thousand and two shall put ten thousand to flight” (Deut 32:30). You will have all the more difficulty if you’re trying to face these hellish times on your own. Get in contact with praying, believing, fighting, aware Christians who you can band together with and be stronger together with.

“Mark, is this the end time?! Are we about to see the final end time events, Mark!?”

 

I don’t know; it would seem so. But I do know that presently we are seeing “Men’s hearts failing them for fear” (Luke 21:26) ; we are seeing “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12) and many other such verses about the end time that describe well our present distress.

I was listening to a daily devotion by Charles Spurgeon this morning and it really spoke to me. He talked about how God closed the door of the Ark upon Noah and his family. God separated and protected Noah’s family as the very worst days of God’s judgments on earth happened. And then Spurgeon quoted a verse that I’ve been aware of but have seldom every used much.

Isaiah 26:20 says, “Come, my people, enter into your chambers and shut your doors around you; hide for a little moment, until the fury has passed by.” I’ve never been one much for monastic living or the hermit’s life. I’ve believed that the Lord’s admonition, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in” (Luke 14:23) was what Jesus wanted His disciples to do.

But certainly there is a time and place to, for the most part, hunker down, to pray and stay in fellowship with others almost like how it is in Texas when a hurricane or tornado is going over you. Things right now may actually be just that tough.

Are you about to get knocked out by the tempestuous storms of confusion and Godlessness that are prevailing presently in America? Are you staying strengthened in the Lord? Do you know of any lost sheep out there alone in the storm who may not make it without your fellowship and inclusion? It’s very rough right now for many people, 11 year olds and 70 year olds. God help us all to be drawing circles that count others in. Be not soon shaken in mind.

Bad death, good death

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I was thinking about death. I guess I experienced “bad death” just before I turned 21. I had a near death experience that wasn’t one of those “the-angel-introduces-you-to-Jesus” experiences. Nope, I got the other guy. And rightly so.

I was an utter atheist and I enjoyed trying to break the faith of any quasi-Christians that came across my path. But when I was very nearly pulled out of my body by the spirit of darkness, there was a terror and a bundle of emotions which don’t really have words to reflect them in English.

I was experiencing a bad death. I didn’t believe in God and I was very nearly at the edge of the precipice into eternity and everlasting life but in an unregenerate state.

This was the experience of the unsaved because that was how I was at that time, passing out of my body and into eternity but without salvation in Jesus. If you have read much about folks who have life-after-death experiences or near death experiences, one continually striking characteristic is that almost everyone finds it hard to describe what they experienced.

And I believe it’s because they’re trying to describe experiences and realms that our language just doesn’t have words for, or at least very little. So folks think that those who experience these things are just making it up. Or they are in some kind of strange place in their minds and that they will soon “return to their senses”.

But so often those who have gone through these things say that actually and really, those experiences were more real, more true and more containing the essences of life than what we mostly all experience on a day-to-day level. And I can certainly agree with that. So I went through, or at least nearly so, a “bad death”. The death of the unsaved.

And as folks age, as we all do, we often think more of death. For me, I have to comfort myself in the thought that my death at the end of my life will not be what I experienced just before I turned 21. I experienced a “bad death”. And I deserved that at that time because I’d “mocked the messengers of God and despised His word and misused his prophets” (II Chronicles 36:16) so that the Lord allowed me to receive what I deserved, right up to the very point of death and eternal damnation.

But that was what it took to deliver me from atheism. That was the most major turning point in my life and the dawn and beginning of a life of faith, belief and deliverance in God. Some months later I received Jesus as my Savior and after that have served Him in many countries for over 50 years.

Now in my 70’s, longevity in my genes, I look forward to the point somewhere ahead when I do experience what we all experience. “So death passed upon all men…” (Romans 5:12) But that death ahead of me will not be like what I went through over 50 years ago. That coming death will be what can be called a “good death”. Paul the Apostle said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”. (Philippians 1:21)

Death for a Christian, although this goes against so much of our “carnal mind” as the Bible calls it, is actually a release, a graduation, a transition and an alteration into the condition God has planned and ordained for His children and saints since the beginning of time. Jesus said, “Whosoever believes in Me shall never die.” (John 11:26)

So my experience from when I was 20 is not really a good analogy for me to use when thinking ahead to what that experience will be at the end of my life. Maybe in some ways it is because I did experience that sudden, shocking and complete change that occurs. But back then, it was from this world into a so much worse world of horror and meaningless confusion that words fail to describe. I experienced the terrors of hell in its eternal state.

But the “good death” to come for me will have a few similarities but mostly be utterly different. I won’t be falling into bottomless nothingness forever. I will be leaving this physical plane, this earthly existence and going on to inherit the destiny that’s been planned and prepared for me by the Lord since the foundation of the world.

That’s what the people of faith, the people of Jesus, have to look forward to at the end of their lives. Their carnal minds may still grown and creak with the whole concept of “eternal life”. But that’s ok. Like God said to Job, “Shall it be according to your mind?” (Job 34:33) No, it will not be according to our carnal, worldly minds and understanding.

“Now unto him that shall do exceeding abundantly, above all we can ask or think…, unto Him be glory in the church throughout all ages, world without end.” (Ephesians 3:20 & 21)   I’m looking forward to a good death. How about you?

Salvation and rewards

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Is salvation cheap? In some ways it is. In fact it is free because it is a gift of God. This upsets some folks and they just don’t think it’s fair or right. Of course it cost Jesus the ultimate price to give us the gift of salvation. But for us it’s free, it can only be received.

But some say, “Well, the devils believe in Jesus”. Someone said that to me yesterday. There’s a verse that says, “You believe in one God? You do well; the devils also believe and tremble.” (James 2:19) It doesn’t say they “believe in Jesus”, there. Certainly the demons in the spiritual world are knowledgeable that there is a God and when Jesus was on earth some of them said to Him, “We know who you are, the Son of God.” (Luke 4:34) But personally I would never say, “the devils believe in Jesus.”

A verse that was priceless to me at the very beginning of my salvation was this one. “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12)

That’s exactly what happened to me. In my experience of having Jesus dawn in my life, it was “receiving” Him that brought to me a power in my innermost heart and soul that had been so completely missing before that.

Sin had had dominion over me in such a complete and overpowering way. But through some dear young teen-aged Jesus People sharing the Bible with me, I came to know of the path of salvation. So I came to Jesus.

But in my case, “believing” in Him was utterly united and linked to “receiving” Him, as that verse says. Receiving Him by actually verbally inviting Him into my heart and life, after my friends showed me John 1:12 and other verses, like Revelation 3:20, where the Lord said He would come in to us.

Some say, in fact someone said to me yesterday, that this is not enough. But it certainly was for me. It wasn’t some mental thing, a glib recitation of some lines of rhetoric. It was the cry of my heart to the throne of God. And God answered. Jesus did come into my heart. I did become “a new creature in Christ Jesus” (II Corinthians 5:17). I was “born again”. (John 3:3)

But Mark, is that all?!

Well, no, of course not; that’s not all. My life is an example of that in that I’ve gone on from that event (when I was 21) to an incredible life of joy and Christian service that’s still fresh and exhilarating many decades after my original born again experience.

But I think I know what some are concerned about.  I guess it could be called accountability. They’re concerned that someone can just almost trick God, “say the magic words” and then skate home free all the way to heaven, while living the same hellish life that most people do in this world.

No, that’s not how it works. For one, I can tell you that I’ve virtually never run into a person like that who has prayed to receive Jesus. Those who do instinctively come to God with a reverence, already knowing their desperate need and that there is a God and His Son who are there to help and answer.

My life and the life of my friends has been based primarily around witnessing and soul winning. That’s what Jesus called His disciples to 2000 years ago and what the original Jesus Movement of the early 70’s was fundamentally about. So I spent many years witnessing on the streets in places like Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Strip, Trafalgar Square in London, Dam Square in Amsterdam and later in Vienna, Budapest, India, Indonesia and on from there, endeavoring to lead souls to Christ with the message of salvation.

It’s a spiritual thing. It’s something that the Lord does through you and with you and it’s a very serious time when you’re trying to win people to Him. The Lord gives you enough discernment to know whether the ones you are witnessing to are receiving what you are saying and are receptive or whether they are shallow and playing games. So in my experience, I don’t think I’ve run into almost any people who were just insincerely, nonchalantly reciting a prayer instead of really coming to God in prayer for His help and salvation.

But then, you ask, “What happens next?” Well, for so many I know, they really had an experience with the Lord and were astounded by the change in their lives. Like the apostle Peter wrote, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby.” (I Peter 2:2)

That’s what happened to me; I immediately had a huge appetite to study the Bible and to feed from it spiritually. My friends were there to help me and I just gulped down all I could, day after day and it became the new main source of knowledge and truth for me from that day on.

But I know what some are driving at. What about if someone just tries to go on their merry way, no sign of change, no different from what they were before? Of course I would question them about the depth and reality of the prayer they prayed, if that happened. But, to cut to the chase, let’s say that something like that does happen. Are they saved? Will they go to heaven? Have they sort of “pulled a fast one” on God?

This is where rewards come in. I’m convinced that there will be folks in heaven, perhaps a lot of them, with not a whole lot of rewards. They had saving faith. They believed in God, they believed that Jesus was the Son of God and in the basics of what Christ said and did. Maybe they went to church. Sometimes they prayed or even knew a little from the Bible.

But the vast and main thrust of their lives was for this world, the things of this world, the pleasures of this world, and the goals of this world. Jesus and God were in no way first place. What’s God going to do with people like that? Send them to hell? They were actually believers.

Maybe it’s like Jesus said to one group of believers in the book of Revelation, “You have a name, you live and are dead.” (Revelation 3:1) Some people, probably very many people are like this. For some the Lord in His mercy sends along chastening, bereavement, tribulation, tests and purgings to try to get them to turn to Him and away from their sins. Sometimes this works. He has to smash their idols, just as He did with the people of Israel in ancient times.

If we are truly one of His children but we are not following forward with the path and leading that He is calling us to in this life, then He will very definitely send along chastening to our straying ways. There are oodles of promises in God’s Word about that. But getting back to the original issue, still the bottom line and opening paragraph comes back to “belief”. This is repeated over and over in the Word. That’s the beginning and the requirement. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” (Acts 16:31)

Scapegoat

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A perplexing thing to the modern mind is the idea of animal sacrifice. “How could they do that?!” is the thought of so many in the West. It seems so barbaric, so cruel. If you are Jewish or Islamic, you might have a slightly different perspective. Throughout the Islamic world, the yearly celebration of Eid includes rather abundant animal sacrifices in some places. And in Israel today much is being made about the preparations there to begin again the animal sacrifices that were so essential to Jewish worship for thousands of years.

The word and concept of “the scapegoat” has remained in most languages and it comes from these times and places of animal sacrifice. In ancient Israel, the high priest was to bring the scapegoat, laying his hands upon the goat’s head, confessing the sins of the people that the sins would be laid upon the goat and cease from the people. Then the goat was to be led away into the wilderness, carrying the sins of the people, where it was slaughtered and the sins of the people were not to be found.

How strange this can sound to “the modern mind”. But then, so does sin itself. It seems to not really fit into a scientific viewpoint, nor does any element of life continuing beyond our physical death. Were these ancient peoples just fools, that we in our modern times can look back on with benign amusement?

But, if “the greatest man who ever lived” was anything, He was the ultimate “scapegoat”, ordained to that role by God the Father from the foundation of the world. In what was the opening scene of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, His cousin John the Baptist exclaimed to a crowd of followers as he saw Jesus approaching, “Behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) In those times that would have immediately been  much easier to understand than it is for many today. Because the Jewish culture back then had been full of animal sacrifice for at least 2000 years. John was saying that Jesus was “the Lamb”, sent by the Father who would be sacrificed for the sins of the world.

And Jesus said the same thing of Himself. He said, “The son of man did not come to be ministered to but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many”. (Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45) This theme of Jesus being the sacrifice for the sins of mankind is found throughout the New Testament.

But was this just some kind of eccentric weirdness of this ancient Jewish teacher and his followers? No, it is utterly in line and in fulfillment of some of the most profound prophecies that can be found in the Old Testament. Isaiah chapter 53 is regarded as perhaps the most significant, insightful chapter in the Bible in its revelation of the Jewish Messiah to come and His role in the plan of God. There we can read of this Messiah to come that He would be “led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7) And most people know that this is how Jesus famously was before the Roman governor, Pilate, “He answered not a word.” (Matthew 27:14)

Jesus fulfilled the roll of “the scapegoat”, the ultimate sacrifice that God Himself sent into the world to take away sin. Isaiah chapter 53, written 700 years before the birth of Jesus, goes on to predict of the future Messiah, “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all… he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgressions of my people was he stricken… when you shall make His soul an offering for sin, he shall see His seed… he bare the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:6, 8, 10 & 12)

The “scapegoat”. “The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Jesus was not just a great teacher and a wonderful person, as I was brought up to believe. He was not just a prophet, as millions in the Islamic world are told He was. He literal came to take our sins and to take our place in death, that we can have eternal life through Him. That was His purpose, His calling, His destiny.

Do I have perfect understanding of all this? No, I really don’t. I often admire some preachers and teachers who are able to do such an amazing job of presenting the truth of all this. I even really hesitated to try to write this article here because it is such a deep and somewhat mysterious subject.

But I’m happy that I don’t have to have perfect understanding of it all. Because I do believe it. I found it to be true when I called out to Jesus to take away the power of sin in my life and to give me a new heart and a new spirit. That was when I was barely in my 20’s and it resulted in such a change in my innermost being that has remained and grown for all the time since back then.

I hope you will take to heart what I’ve shared here. Even if you don’t understand it with your mind, you don’t have to. So many people are hindered by feeling they have to understand everything first. Truth is something that quickens your heart and speaks to your soul, even when your head may be lacking full understanding. Jesus was and is “the scapegoat”, sent to take your sins so that you can pass from the death of sin to the everlasting life of renewal in Him.

His banished be not expelled from Him

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Sometimes the ways of the Lord are strange to us, but they’re not past finding out. And His power and incredibly undeserved mercy is one of the amazing things about Him. King David said, “Whether shall I go from Your Spirit or whether shall I flee from Your presence?” (Psalm 139:7 & 8) But, you ask, what about the rebellious? What about those who’ve turned away from Him in heart and mind? Is there hope for them?

My personal experience is that there is hope for ones like that. Because that was how I was. But then the Lord reached down and “delivered me from the lowest hell.” (Pslam 86:13) There’s the story told of Napoleon who had sentenced a young deserter to be shot for deserting a second time. His mother pled for mercy for her son from the Emperor of France. “He doesn’t deserve mercy,” Napoleon told her. “Sir, if he deserved it, it wouldn’t be mercy,” the distraught mother said.

And what truth there is in that. Mercy is not something we deserve, it is unmerited grace and forgiveness from a greater power. In our lives we find it from God and from Jesus. And that’s almost certainly what so many of us hope for when we think of the lives of our loved ones, some of whom are so very far away from the path of life and truth that they perhaps once walked on. How can it be possible that they can ever come back to the love of God and the life of God some of them once had?

Many of us know of the story Jesus told of the “prodigal son”, the classic story of a “backslidden” son who finally “came to himself”, repented of his foolish ways and returned to his father. It’s all such a timeless story of contrition, “godly sorrow that works repentance to salvation.” (II Corinthians 7:10)

But how does that happen? How does someone “come to himself” (Luke 15:17), as Jesus described what happened to the prodigal son? One thing we know from elsewhere in Jesus’ words is what He said about how anyone comes to Him, “No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him.” (John 6:44) Jesus also said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” So there’s this abiding event that is going on in our lives today: God’s Spirit drawing men to the truth, to the light and reality of the salvation that is in Jesus.

And yet we know that many, in fact probably all of us at one time or the other, have resisted the drawing of the Holy Spirit, some much more than others. “Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts,” (Psalm 95:7 & 8) King David said. But so many do harden their hearts and resist the loving appeal of the Spirit of God. And basically God gives us the majesty of choice and will not overrule our will. So how do any of us ever get rescued from our own evil hearts and darkened understanding? Like Paul once said, “Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24)

In thinking about these things today, I was reminded of an obscure story in the Old Testament that touches on this subject. One of King David’s sons had been banished by the king but David’s heart yearned to be restored to him. It’s a long story but the highlight of it all came when a wise woman in Israel was sent by David’s general, Joab, to appeal to the king about the matter. She said this to him in trying to find a way for David’s son to find grace in the eyes of his father. “For we must all die, and are as water spilt on the ground  … nevertheless the Lord devises ways that His banished be not expelled from Him.” (II Samuel 14:14)

That’s the essence of it all. God in His mighty, infinite love and mercy “devises ways that His banished [all of us] be not expelled from Him.” Don’t ever discount the mighty miracle working power of God. He is somehow able to reach into the heart of the most hardened prodigal son or daughter, to bring them to contrition and repentance, to grant in their hearts the miracle of remorse and the realization of their often mighty wrongdoings.

He devises ways that His banished be not expelled from Him. That verse brought hope again to my heart this morning as I thought about some dear loved ones who’ve continued for years to “walk in the council of the ungodly and sit in the seat of the scornful.” (Psalm 1:1) But “if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” (I John 3:20) Even when we were dead in sins, Christ died for us. And some are dead in their sins right now but still the Lord is working “behind the scenes” as the author and finisher of our faith to draw hardened prodigal sons and daughters back to Himself and the paths of life.

It was said of Jesus, “a bruised reed He shall not break and smoking flax He shall not quench.” (Matthew 12:20) Some folks hardly even seem to be that. But in the infinitely merciful eyes of God, He sees an ember still there and has hope for the lost and rebellious when they seem past hope to us. These thoughts comforted my heart this morning when the outlook has continued to be bleak for some folks I love. It all really has to just be the Lord. “With man it is impossible. But not with God. For with God, all things are possible.” (Matthew 10:27)

 

Addictions

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I was a drug addict. It was a long time ago and I got delivered but still, it was a major part of my life. And in these times it seems to be more and more a scourge on society worldwide. I just got word now of a friend whose son died last night of an overdose. He’d been in rehab, been incarcerated and had been revived many times. But last night he passed on, after another overdose.

It’s a sad time for his family and loved ones. But also it can be a time of reflection and even for some of us it can underline the militancy and determination we need to have to do what we can to help our fellow human beings.

I don’t know all the details of what happened but I know this young man had a Godly father who loved him and did all he could to try to help him. But this has caused me to reflect on what happened to me because I very easily could have died on drugs and in fact very nearly did. It was near death experiences before I came to Christ which so fundamentally shook me up that ultimately lead me out of atheism and towards the God of Abraham.

What can any of us do? How can we help someone in the grip of addiction, no matter what its form? In some states in America now the morgues are so full of the overdosed dead that they evidently can’t bury them fast enough or find a place to store bodies until they can be buried.

But if there’s anything I can add that can help in any way, it’s to say again that for me personally there was an escape from addiction. Because, at its root is the explanation the Bible gives for the nature of human beings, that we are fallen creatures who are in thrall to sin, in whatever way it has manifested itself in our lives.

(Did you roll your eyes when you read what I said there?) “Sin”, you said, with perhaps a smirk? You have my sympathies because that’s exactly the way I used to feel but actually the joke is on any of us who “make a mock at sin”. (Proverbs 14:9) Here’s a blog post I wrote specifically on “Sin”.

I never got deliverance from my addiction until I finally accepted what the Spirit of truth was hammering into me, that the explanation from the Bible is the most fundamental, elemental account of human existence that there is. So I’m going to take a few thoughts from the Bible that were absolute revelations to me and share them with you. Actually these truths were what reached into the darkest dungeon of my life and brought me out, even before I knew the actually textual verbalization of these truths that existed in God’s Word.

Here’s what Paul said and perhaps you can think of addiction in relation to this. “The good that I would, I do not. But the evil that I would not, that I do.” (Romans 7:19) That’s a short explanation of how sin works in addiction, whatever the form of addiction it may be.

In another place Paul said to Christians, “Sin shall not have dominion over you…”. (Romans 6:14) But, folks, let me tell you from my excruciating experiences and the bottom of my heart: if you don’t have Jesus Christ, sin will definitely have dominion over you. And drug addiction is just one of the clearest manifestations of that. Sin has dominion over you and as James, the Lord’s brother said, “Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death”. (James 1:15)

I’m convinced I was only hours, days or weeks away from death, insanity or prison when I finally was rescued by God. But how? John the beloved disciple said, “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” (I John 3:20) I certainly deserved death, insanity or prison. The police were literally at my door to arrest me as a teenager and I would have been two years in prison. Here’s the story of how the Lord rescued me out of that. But, ultimately, God in His love gave me an opportunity to see things as they were and to choose Him and His ways. As Joshua told Israel of old, “Chose this day whom you will serve”. (Joshua 24:15)

I just didn’t personally have the power to stop using psychedelic drugs. I’d make a resolution to stop, I had all the intentions but then a few weeks or months later I’d go back to drugs. Sin had dominion over me. But here’s the Bible verse that best sums up the miraculous deliverance I experienced. Perhaps it’s my favorite verse.

From the first chapter of John, verse 12, it says, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” That’s what happened to me. I received Jesus. I asked Jesus to come into my heart and save me from my sins. And He did. And He gave me that “power” spoken of there, power over sin that had so wrecked my life.

That still is the final solution against sin and addiction, in whatever form it may take. Yes, you may not be able to quit. But God is greater than you and your heart and even your flesh and your addictions. You can’t, but He can. It’s a simple as that. That’s what happened to me as an addict.

Rampant, predatory males

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There’s a lot in the news about predatory males and a culture of rape. Doubtless, this is real but it’s hardly even news until some big shot really gets caught with his pants down. ( 🙂 ) But, you’re right, it’s no laughing matter at all. Cyberspace is abuzz with discussions about what can be done and who is to blame. I read an article in the New York Times that actually it’s just all men who are to be blamed; all of them are like that.

Well, this can get pretty wild, discouraging and extreme real fast. Again, there’s no doubt that this is a problem, there’s no doubt that countless people have been more than just hurt. They’ve been damaged, they have been ravaged not just in their bodies but in their souls and virtually irreparably messed up. And, as some bring out, it’s not just men doing this to women. Men, some at least, sexually attack other men also.

“Oh Mark, nice people don’t talk about things like this! You shouldn’t even be writing about things like this!” Well, it’s very real, very timely and it’s like one of the many onslaughts of the devil that engulfs our present world. Calls are ringing out for change. Guilt is being liberally apportioned and abundant shaming of males is the order of the day.

But, honestly, do you think it will change anything? I sort of don’t think so. Greater hate and division in society will likely come of it but positive change? I don’t think so. But let’s look at two factors in this. First, the man who’s so much in the news now had the job of being virtually the high priest of “Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth” (Revelation 17:5), as Revelation 17 and 18 say in the last book in the Bible. The modern American “entertainment industry” is the epicenter of satanic filth and immorality that was predicted in Revelation. It says there, “all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” (Revelation 18:3)

American “entertainment” has permeated all nations with its evil, Godless, satanic “wine of the wrath of her fornication.” So it almost goes without saying that one of the men who was at the pinnacle of the entertainment industry would have the nature that this man has had, a heartless, marauding, animal-like sexual predator. The Bible talks about “men of the world, who have their portion in this life.” (Psalm 17:14) And there are plenty like that in every field.

Satan showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And Satan said to Jesus, ‘All this power I will give you for it is mine. If you will worship me, all shall be yours’”. (Luke 4: 5 & 6) Thankfully our dear Lord and King rebuked the devil at that offer. But there are plenty of folks around who’ve taken that offer with glee. The devil has given them all this world has to offer and they’ve served the pleasure of Satan in return. The “casting couch” has been a known part of the Hollywood path to stardom for many decades. Why anyone is surprised about any of this is itself a surprise.

But is there any solution? First you have to get to the root of the problem. And as I wrote in “What is Sin?“, basically no one will go there. Because the problem (I know some of you will hate it when I say this) is sin. It’s not males. It’s not sex. It’s sin in the heart. Without the regenerative salvation of Jesus Christ, coming into our hearts to save us from our sins and our powerful sinful nature, it can be said that any one of us are capable of almost any kind of horrendous sin. It’s like Tennessee Ernie Ford used to sing, “If the right one don’t get you, the left one will.” If your sex urge doesn’t get you, gluttony will. If gluttony doesn’t get you, violence will. If violence doesn’t get you, depression or drugs will. And on and on it goes.

Jesus said of the last days before His return, that  “men’s hearts failing them for fear” would be one of the signs of those times. But, more on our subject, He also said of the Last Days, “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matthew 24:12) Natural God-given human love between a man and woman is waning as demonic interactions abound. Or like Paul said about the Last Days that people would be “without natural affection”. (II Timothy 3:3) People need warm, loving, “natural affection”. They need love, even the Godly, wonderful love between a man and woman.

So, again, is there solution? Probably not one that most people will recognize and accept. The only way to empower men to bring their bodies and desires into subjection is through the power of “Christ in us, the hope of glory.”  (Colossians 1:27) That’s the only thing that ever gave me the power over the sins that were destroying me. I hope you have that saving power through Jesus. Then you “can do all things through Christ which strengthens you” (Philippians 4:13), including becoming a loving, mature, carrying man who can truly find and love the woman of your dreams, who God prepared for you. That’s the only hope. Jesus saves.

God has given …a sound mind

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It seems like everywhere I go nowadays, I hear about people who are suffering from serious mental problems. Fears, confusion, syndromes, suicidal thoughts and just various forms of insanity or bleak mental instability. And these are folks across all spectrums and nationalities, Christian or otherwise. It really moves me because for a time, in my younger years, I certainly battled royally with what some call “mind battles”.

It’s serious stuff. If it doesn’t actually end up killing you, it can just snuff out your life as far as any joy, peace or enjoyment that should be ours. I feel I can really testify that this is a battle that is winnable as I’ve had a lot of those battles but have survived and even, I feel, been blessed and prospered in this life. And of course it’s all through the dear Lord Jesus. It wasn’t pills, therapy, scientists, politics or yoga that got me through those terrible times. A Bible verse that has always meant so much to me on this subject is “God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (II Timothy 1:7)

I was going to say that perhaps the biggest thing that made the difference was when I found out that it wasn’t really my mind, it was my heart. But of course the really biggest thing was the work of God in my life, to show me His love when I was light years beyond any hope. First I found that there is a God, the true God of light and love, the God of Abraham, the God of the Bible. But then it was seven months later that I found that God was not alone up there in heaven. He has a Son who He sent to the earth to die for us, redeem us and “be a ransom for many”, (Matthew 20:28) as He said.

“Aw, Mark, darn. I thought you were going to tell us how to overcome mental problems. Or talk about extreme politics. And then you come along with all that Jesus and God stuff!”

Well, what should I say? This is what happened to me. This is how I found full deliverance and a joyous, meaningful life that’s now gone close to 50 years from the time I was so very far gone in confusion and depravity. So “all that Jesus stuff” may be, for some, too much a price to pay for having mental healing. But for those who will go that far, I’ll tell you more about what happened.

Like I said earlier, it was just a huge awakening when it dawned on me that my mental struggles were a direct result of my unregenerate heart. I didn’t even know I had a heart! No classes about that at the big university I was going to! But through the tender and steady mercy of God, almost against my will, He led me through the deepest depths I’d come to into a place where the simple message of salvation through Christ was shared with me. So by “receiving Him” (John 1:12) I was able to have the first step along the path towards peace of mind, by having a born again heart.  Without that, there never could have been any recovery of my weakened, confused mind.

But once my heart and soul were saved, the Lord went to work on my mind. I’m so thankful that I was able to fall in with a band of young radical Christians back then, “Jesus freaks” as they were known in those days. Most of them had come from a similar background to me so they knew what I’d been through and what it took to start up the road to full recovery.

“So, Mark, what did those people do to you? Did they brainwash you, Mark?!”

That word has a real negative connotation and I suppose someone who was just against the work of God’s Spirit in transforming a person into “a new creation in Christ Jesus” (II Corinthians 5:17) could chose that word. But for some people, like I was back then, I certainly needed a major resetting of my values, concepts, principles, morals, purpose, vision, goals and the way I ordered my life. So I joyously and eagerly got with the program of daily Bible study, learning the basics of what was written there. The Bible talks about “being renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23). It talks about “the washing of water by the Word” (Ephesians 5:26). Jesus even said, “Now you are clean through the Word that I have spoken unto you.”  (John 15:3)

Like I wrote about in “Memorizing God’s Word”, a major part of this training and “rewiring” involved the daily memorization of specific Bible verses. “Oh, Mark! That’s so horrible! You just surrendered your mind!” Well, some people just come to the conclusion that they are their own worst enemy, that they really need help and they can get to where they’re so desperate, they even turn to God and the Bible, as despicable as that may seem to many. That’s what I had come to.

I can see that this subject won’t be exhausted in one blog post. Because it is a big subject and people are dying in their darkness and troubled minds daily for lack of the light of God. I hope to write more about mental problems and how the truth of God can solve them better than anything.