The Sifford Sojournal

Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.

Category: Christian (Page 17 of 18)

David’s Digest: Love of Christ: The Motivator of True Obedience

August 26, 2011 / / 2 Comments

I have read to Sue, as part of our family worship, the Puritan John Owen’s Complete Works, Vol 1, “The Glory of Christ”, which I highly recommend; our fellowship is going through it as well on each Lord’s Day.

Among the many wonderful revelations of Christ in it, one point really stuck out to me that Dr. Owen spends time declaring and defending in chapter 12 of the work “Christologia or a Declaration of the Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ — God and Man”: the Bible declares that if we love God, we will obey His commandments; but this also means that those acts which are actually accepted of God vs. ones that are not, even though they might be the same acts, are differentiated primarily by the motivation behind them — that motivation being love for Him. Any person can perform an act that outwardly performs a command of God; but if it is not out of love for God, it is selfishly motivated — performed improperly inwardly — and thus cannot be acceptable by Him.

Here is a snippet from Dr. Owen’s chapter, which, along with the rest of the volume, I hope you will read in their entirety:

That which does enliven and animate the obedience whereof we have discoursed, is love. This himself makes the foundation of all that is acceptable unto him. “If,” saith he, “ye love me, keep my commandments,” John 14:15. As he distinguisheth between love and obedience, so he asserts the former as the foundation of the latter. He accepts of no obedience unto his commands that does not proceed from love unto his person. That is no love which is not fruitful in obedience; and that is no obedience which proceeds not from love. So he expresseth on both sides: “If a man love me, he will keep my words;” and, “He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings,” Verses 23, 24.

In the Old Testament the love of God was the life and substance of all obedience. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, thy mind and strength,” was the sum of the law. This includes in it all obedience, and, where it is genuine, will produce all the fruits of it; and where it was not, no multiplication of duties was accepted with him. But this in general we do not now treat of.

That the person of Christ is the especial object of this divine love, which is the fire that kindles the sacrifice of our obedience unto him — his is that alone which at present I design to demonstrate.

The apostle has recorded a very severe denunciation of divine wrath against all that love him not:

“If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha,” 1 Corinthians 16:22.

And what was added unto the curse of the Law we may add unto this of the Gospel: “And all the people shall say, Amen,” Deut. 27:26. And, on the other hand, he prays for grace on all that “love him in sincerity,” Ephesians 6:24. Wherefore, none who desire to retain the name of Christian, can deny, in words at least, but that we ought, with all our hearts, to love the Lord Jesus Christ.

I do not so distinguish love from obedience as though it were not itself a part, yea, the chiefest part, of our obedience. So is faith also; yet is it constantly distinguished from obedience, properly so called. This alone is that which I shall demonstrate — namely, that there is, and ought to be, in all believers, a divine, gracious love unto the person of Christ, immediately fixed on him, whereby they are excited unto, and acted in, all their obedience unto his authority. Had it been only pleaded, that many who pretend love unto Christ do yet evidence that they love him not, it is that which the Scripture testifieth, and continual experience does proclaim. If an application of this charge had been made unto them whose sincerity in their profession of love unto him can be no way evidenced, it ought to be born with patience, amongst other reproaches of the same kind that are cast upon them. And some things are to be premised unto the confirmation of our assertion.

1. It is granted that there may be a false pretense of love unto Christ; and as this pretense is ruinous unto the souls of them in whom it is, so it ofttimes renders them prejudicial and troublesome unto others. There ever were, and probably ever will be, hypocrites in the church and a false pretense of love is of the essential form of hypocrisy. The first great act of hypocrisy, with respect unto Christ, was treachery, veiled with a double pretense of love. He cried, “Hail, Master! and kissed him,” who betrayed him. His words and actions proclaimed love, but deceit and treachery were in his heart. …

2. As there is a false pretense of love unto Christ, so there is, or may be, a false love unto him also. The persons in whom it is may in some measure be sincere, and yet their love unto Christ may not be pure, nor sincere — such as answers the principles and rules of the gospel; and as many deceive others, so some deceive themselves in this matter. They may think that they love Christ, but indeed do not so. …

There is much more, and I do hope you will read the whole chapter from the beginning, chapters 13 and 14 also, which continue on this topic, and even the whole volume.

Is your “obedience” truly motivated by love for God? A true love? Are you sure? If it is not, then your obedience is not obedience at all. Have you ever thought about it? If not, then your religious activities and worship might actually be sin. Ask the Searcher of hearts (Psa. 139:23-24 to examine yours and reveal the truth of your motivations toward obedience. Ask Him for love for Him and a true and deeper revelation of Christ, as He is the source of all things spiritual (John 3:6; John 3:27; John 15:5; Acts 17:28; Gal. 5:22-23).

May He grant us love for Him, and repentance for acts of selfish obedience.

— David

David’s Digest: Quick Quiz

March 2, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Quick quiz:

Who invented Agrarianism?

Answer: God

Before the fall: Gen 2:15 – “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

After the fall: Gen 3:19,23 – “19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.“

Who invented Industrialism?

Answer: Man

Jer 17:9 – “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Prov 4:23 – “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

Prov 14:12 – “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.“

Agrarianism or Industrialism: it’s God’s way or the highway.

— David

Our First Fellowship Betrothal

January 2, 2011 / / 8 Comments

Well, it has been a few years since several of us started living here on the land. When we first got here, all of the children were just that — children. But, after five years, as you would imagine, that’s not exactly the case for all of them any more. In fact, one of our young misses just recently became betrothed — our first betrothal on the land!

Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines “betroth” as the following:

BETROTH’, v.t. [be and troth, truth, faith. See Truth, and Troth.]

1. To contract to any one, in order to a future marriage; to promise or pledge one to be the future spouse of another; to affiance; used of either sex. “The father betroths his daughter.’

2. To contract with one for a future spouse; to espouse; as, a man betroths a lady.

“Betrothed?” you might ask? Yes, betrothed. The ideas of “romantic love” and engagement, or even “courting,” are foreign to the Bible; not that there can’t be romance, but it is not the main driver or motivator behind relationships; and in fact, betrothal is what is prescribed in the Bible. Why might it be important to have betrothals instead of typical engagements? First, the Bible prescribes it as the only pre-marriage methodology; and second, it was set up as a picture or “type” of the relationship between Christ and His bride-to-be. In this current reality of time, Christ’s chosen bride, the elect from the foundation of the world, is not married to Christ yet — that happens at the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-9). His chosen is betrothed, or espoused, as expressed in 2 Cor 11:2 – “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” God instituted the “type” of betrothal to show the unbreakable bond of His chosen bride to Himself based on His volitional, self-sacrificing, and unconditional agape love.

A betrothal would usually include the father of the daughter making the original offer to potential groom, and if he accepted, the father and man would form the contract for the man to marry the daughter, with various other agreements between the father and the man. Although not absolutely necessary in the strictest sense, since an older and hopefully wiser parent, with God’s help, should be able to determine which man would be good for a daughter to marry, the father might first allow for the daughter’s approval of the gentleman in question, and ideally she would. 🙂

And I believe these are the things that occurred in our first betrothal here. 🙂

Lastly, the following is a video from the evening of the betrothal party day, after gathering for a time of celebration, fellowship, and a meal, which includes a discussion about the betrothal ceremony and some important parts of the ceremony itself (please forgive the quality of the video as our camera doesn’t film well at night):

We are thankful here on the land to be able to be a part of a couple joining in the way the Bible prescribes. We pray for many more, as the Lord wills, and that He continue to grant us understanding of His revealed will as described in the Bible.

— David

David’s Digest: Lest Any Man Should Boast

May 18, 2010 / / 1 Comment

I heard a minister ask something similar to this once on the radio…

Quick question:

If you consider yourself a Christian, and that you made a free-will decision to have faith in God…

Think of a person you know who has heard the same Gospel you have but has rejected it…

Assuming that making a decision to believe in Christ is a better one than rejecting Him, what about you allowed you to make that better decision? It had to be something about you that caused you to choose that way. And it had to be something better than the person choosing against. Was it your better intelligence? Your better analytic capabilities? Your better ability to understand things, even though you both heard the same gospel message? Something had to be better about you…what was it?

Hmmmmmm……..

That’s why the Bible declares that God’s sovereign will is the cause of the gracious gifts of faith and belief in Him, not a person’s “free will” — lest any man should boast (of himself over the glory that is only due God):

John 1:12-13 – “12 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: 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.“

John 6:29 – “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.“

John 6:44 – “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.“

John 6:65 – “And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.“

Eph 2:8-9 – “8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.“

Phil 1:29 – “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;“

Jam 1:18 – “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.“

— David

David’s Digest: The “True” Church?

March 29, 2010 / / 4 Comments

Several years ago in a conversation, a friend cautioned me to be wary of any Christian teacher who talked about there being a “true” Church vs. I guess everyone who calls themselves Christian being the Church. I suppose he was trying to warn me against people who think that they have the only true way. But is everyone who takes the name of Christ a Christian? Is there a true Church, thus implying a false “church”?

First, when I use the word “Church,” I refer to Christ’s bride, those who are or will be saved, and not a place where people go to meet to worship.

Now, using typology in the Bible can help us find answers to the above questions. For review, briefly, typology is seeing the spiritual realm via the temporal.

Let’s start with the people of Israel — God’s “chosen people.” God called them out from among all other nations of people to be His people (Deut 7:6). While God temporily saved the people of Israel out from bondage of Egypt as a “type” (shadow) of spiritual salvation and separating a people (His children, the Church) unto Himself, later on, many of those individuals who were brought out of Egypt perished in their sins (Num 16; Num 14:22-34; Num 21:4-9). How could this be if they were part of the group called “God’s chosen people”?

In Jer 5:25-31, God declares that among His people are found wicked men and false prophets; but how can they be such if they are His people? The Lord goes on further to say in Jer 23:3 that He will gather the remnant of the people of Israel who He scattered to other countries. Why only the remnant? Are they not all God’s chosen people?

During His time here on earth, much of Christ’s ministry was the condemnation of the Jewish religious people of the day (John 8:44; Matt 23:27). They called themselves God’s chosen people, their genealogical father being Abraham; but Christ condemned them; and yet, there were a few around Him of the same Jewish chosen people that had a God-given faith in Him (Matt 16:16; John 11:24-27). How is that possible?

As you can see with these examples, God deals with these two groups within the “people of God” separately, one being false professors of religion, the others being actual (true) followers of God. But what about the heathen as a group? If you look at it high-level, most of who Scripture addresses are the people of God in general, and the heathen are not really dealt with by God or even Christ, other than in their relation to God’s people — all of the Old Testament is generally directed toward God’s chosen people, Christ never really dealt with the heathen authorities, and the New Testament is essentially written to Churches in various locations. And so, it is evident that there are three groups of people in the Bible — the two divisions of God’s chosen people, and the heathen — and not just two groups — the saved vs. the not saved, Christians vs. non-Christians (although those delineations do exist).

This is shown to be true in the New Testament, where Paul states in Rom 9:6 that “…they are not all Israel [spiritual], which are of Israel [temporal].” And he further describes who are the true seed of Abraham (spiritual Israel) in Gal 3:16,29: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ….And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed [spiritual Israel], and heirs according to the promise.” Now, Abraham had his physical seed, which were Isaac and Ishmael — both the seed of Abraham, but yet one not the spiritual seed, as Ishmael was not of the line chosen by God. The same was with Jacob and Esau. Similarly, the Jewish people at Christ’s time were of the temporal seed of Abraham, considered by themselves to be God’s chosen people (from lineage); but the religious leaders of the day weren’t of the spiritual seed, whereas the apostles were — both groups of people known as “God’s chosen people” from Abraham, and yet only some of them being truly (spiritually) God’s chosen people.

As previously noted, these temporal conventions are “types” or shadows of spiritual realities. Spiritually, the heathen are still the heathen; but the people of Israel, those called by Jehovah’s name, were “type” for those who are called by Christ’s name (this is not an argument for dispensationalism or otherwise — it’s simply type and antitype). Now, since there were those in Israel who weren’t godly and those who truly were, the same applies in the spiritual realm, with those who are not Christians even though they call themselves such, and those who actually are Christians. Thus, there are those who are false professors of Christianity, and those who are true Christians (ie. the true Church).

Understanding this then begs the question: how do we know who is part of the true Church? The Bible declares we know them by their doctrine (Rom 6:17; 1 Tim 1:9-11) and their fruit (Matt 7:15-20). Not everyone who claims the name of Christ is saved (Matt 7:21-23), and so having the truth is important, in beliefs and how one lives his life.

May the Lord always give us eyes to see and ears to hear His Word, may He grant us a love of the truth (2 Thess 2:10), and may He grow us in the knowledge and understanding of who He is.

— David

David’s Digest: Walmart-Jireh

March 4, 2010 / / 7 Comments

Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines the word “provider” in the following way:

PROVI’DER, n. One who provides, furnishes or supplies; one that procures what is wanted.

I’d like to ask a few questions:

Who or what is the provider of our water? If we pay to get our water piped into our house, the company that does that is our provider.

Who or what is the provider of our food? If we go to a grocery store, the grocery store is (along with every part of the chain involved in getting it there).

Who or what is the provider of our clothing? If you get it from a retail store, the store and the manufacturers are.

I could go on; but if we’re paying someone or some entity for us to have the necessities of life, then by the definition above, they are our provider.

If we’ve placed a middle man between us and God’s direct provisions, then in reality we no longer look to God for His providence — we look to the middle man. Don’t believe that? In a town, if our water stopped flowing from the faucet in our house, what would we do? We’d call the water company — our water provider. If we would starve without the nearest grocery store having food to buy, then it is our provider.

To whom we look for your life provisions, they are our provider.

Gen 22:13-14 – “13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh [the Lord will see/provide]: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.” (see John Gill’s commentary on vs. 14)

God provided the ram for the sacrifice, and we are to look to Him alone as our provider.

Spiritual Provisions

God providing temporily is really a “type” of His spiritual provisions (we eat bread — He is the bread of life (John 6:35); we drink water — He gives the water of life (John 4:14); etc.) In the same way God provided the ram above (also as a type), He provided a Sacrifice, a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, for His people; and we are to look to Him alone for salvation.

Further, God is the only source for all other spiritual provisions, such as spiritual graces, as the heart of man is desperately wicked; and everyone is dead in their sins until God, by His own sovereign will, graces and mercies, breathes new life into them. Did we conjure up our own free-will faith to believe in God, and that’s why He saved us? Then we were the provider of our faith (and thus our salvation?!) Do we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, have “power thoughts” for courage and strength, and declare we’re going to be meek and humble and not let the things of life get us down? Then we are the provider of our Christian graces.

The Bible says otherwise, and prevents any man from boasting of providing his own faith and spiritual graces.

And so, in the end, who is our provider?

— David

David’s Digest: The Truth, or Not the Truth: That is the Question

January 28, 2010 / / 6 Comments

It is of the utmost importance for us as Christians to have the truth as given to us by God’s Word. We can not lay hold of Christ nor worship God properly if we don’t know who we are, who He is, and what He in the personages of the Trinity has done.

If we are to have any hope of having truth, then something in and of itself must declare it, wholly; and if salvation is indeed to be had, and if we are to know how to love and worship God properly, then those must be revealed as well. Thankfully, according to His graces, God has provided us with His truth in His Word, the Bible, which in and of itself contains the whole truth necessary as God would have for us. It then, and it alone, must be our measuring stick, otherwise truth becomes relative, which then cannot be trusted as truth.

By its very nature, truth is absolute: a truth can only be truly one thing at one time. If a thing is entirely the color green, it cannot also be the color blue. There is no such thing as “my truth” or “your truth”; there is only THE truth.

Also by nature, the truth divides, showing what is true and what is not true. Not having the truth is having a lie. Jesus Christ, being the truth Himself (John 14:6), was a divider: Matt 10:34-35 – “Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.“

The Bible says that the Lord Jesus is the Word (John 1:1) and, as noted, the truth. It follows then that, if we do not have the truth as described in the Word of God (ie. we have a lie), then we do not truly have Christ. Therefore, it behooves us to make absolutely sure that we have the truth as it is brought forth in Scripture.

Paul says in 2 Cor 13:5, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith…” Being in the faith does not just mean having faith versus not having faith. It also refers to which faith we have: whether our faith is an alive faith versus a dead faith (Jam 2:17,20,26), whether we believe in another Jesus versus the true Jesus Christ (2 Cor 11:4), or whether the Gospel to which we hold is the true Gospel or not (Gal 1:6). And so to discover whether we are in the faith or not, against what can we examine ourselves? It must be against something that shows the truth of our beliefs, so that we can know whether our faith is a true faith, our Jesus is truly Jesus Christ, and our Gospel is the true Gospel. Since God’s Word contains those truths, we must examine ourselves against it.

Is the way to heaven via a false faith, false Jesus or false Gospel (ie. via a lie)? How can it possibly be? And so examining our beliefs is of great importance. We had better have THE truth, or it could be to our eternal detriment.

Further, when we examine ourselves, can we say that we have a love of the truth? The Bible declares a love of the truth is given by God: 2 Thess 2:10 says, “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” We therefore need to pray for a love of the truth, for our benefit and because of the warning that follows in 2 Thess 2:11-12: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.“

May God’s graces and mercies in this regard be with us, may God grant us a love of His Truth and Word, and may He grant us the desire and ability to honestly examine ourselves in the light of His Word.

— David

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