Make the heart of this people dull

Isaiah's vision keeps coming back to me. 

"Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed." [Is 6:10]

Why are men like Isaiah no longer going out to preach any more? Why is it one must only preach in a church?  Why is it preachers all want to "have" a church, and churches want to "have" a preacher?  Where are the itinerant preachers of yesteryear?  Where are the prophets and evangelists, street preachers and revivalists?

Of course, not all preachers should be this or the other.  That's not the point.  But there are so few of the kind that aren't owned, that it seems a shame.

My deepest fear is that the Sovereign Lord has shut them up, hemmed them in and squelched them, as the ultimate sign of his wrath against our nation.  I don't like this thought, this fear, this conclusion. I wish I could simply reject it.  But I don't know how else to explain the dire lack of those who will speak the gospel openly in the highways and hedges.

And I cannot explain why I also do not---cannot---go out as I desire and preach and teach openly.

Is it self-consciousness?  Perhaps that is why God told Isaiah to go naked for three years, to really overcome his worry about what people might think.  Perhaps it was really clear that they would not accept his word even if it had been delivered in gorgeous priestly robes, so why not give them something to talk about, and hopefully, at least to think about or laugh about.  A nudist prophet!  That really doesn't make sense to us, but obviously to God and Isaiah, it was exactly what the people needed.

I'm really still not sure it isn't just a gross lack of confidence.  I mean, like Gideon, I need a sign.  My key verse this year is God's commission to Gideon.

The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?" [Judges 6:14, NIV]

Lord, if this is your will for me, to go and preach freely and openly, or at least to go and evangelize as I have been doing, please grant me the courage and strength to do so, and, forgive me, please, but if will help my weak faith, a sign.  IJNA

Stumbling over the little word ἐπὶ

Today I was discoursing with some friends on good works.  It was noted early on that "work" had become a "four-letter word" to most people, because of the Fall and the Curse.  For this very reason, it seems even a great many Christians are theologically disposed against teachings of the Scriptures that center on good works.  Being among staunch Calvinists, the stress kept getting placed on how Christ has finished our work, and no work of ours can grant us any standing at all with God, as Paul clearly states, [Eph 2:8,9]

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

I totally agree, as did we all, that salvation is entirely God's gift. But lest some should persist in the wrong view that we don't have to do any good work, I brought up the next verse, which stresses that good works are the purpose for which God has saved us. The NKJV has,

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

It couldn't be any clearer.  Enter the Greek scholar.  "No", says he. "You are mistaken, along with all those who have ever translated this verse. The word ἐπὶ in this verse means 'upon' not 'for'.  It is a mistranslation.  We are created upon HIS good works.  It does not teach that we are created 'for the purpose of' good works."

"But what about the second half of the verse? Doesn't that mean God prepared these good works for us to walk in, that is, to do?"

"Yes, that part teaches good works, but not the first part."

So now, because of the word ἐπὶ, the clearest verse teaching that we are to work is eviscerated by this rigid interpretation of a Greek preposition by a religious professional. He even asserted (incorrectly) that ἐπὶ is nowhere else translated as "for".  But a quick glance shows that epi certainly can mean "for". Luke 4:43 [KJV] says,

And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent.

This verse contains the word ἐπὶ, translated "because" in the KJ, and "for" in most other places. 
The ESV renders it as "for I was sent for this purpose." Darby's translation is cumbersome, but crystal clear, "for for this I have been sent forth."

I'm sure he meant well.  Yes, many falsely believe their good works gain them standing with God.  And we must resist this. But not to the point of re-translating the scriptures in accordance with our theological pet peeves.

So taken aback was I at this preacher's confidence in his own knowledge of Greek prepositions, and of his disagreement with ALL translators on the wording of Eph 2:10, that I came a little unglued and launched into a tirade about people getting hung up on the salvation by works issue to the degree that they dismiss ALL good works as unnecessary, which is essentially the heresy of Antinomianism.  The tirade was pointless and a bit irrational, and offended the group.  My bad.

But what else but a pet peeve would lead a theologian to such an unconventional and senseless translation of epi here?  My first thought was, well, if Paul was saying "we are created in Chris Jesus upon His good works," surely he would have used "His" there, not left it so ambiguous.  Paul was never careless in his epistles, and most particularly Ephesians.  To add "His" is totally unacceptable, even though, theologically we certainly ARE saved by His work.  But HERE Paul is addressing why we are saved, not how:  to do good works, to "walk in them".  My friend's translation was really interpretation, at least moreso than using just "for" good works, as every other translator has done.

Though flustered a bit at the moment, I can't accept this line of his, that ἐπὶ can only mean "on" and not "for", and thus that we all have misunderstood Eph 2;10.  I'm happy to entertain new interpretations, but this one doesn't work for me.   And thankfully, I am not alone. Experts, no matter how highly-credentialed, are not always correct.  Fortunately, when an expert goes entirely against the consensus of all the other experts, their error is easy to spot.

In context with the teachings of Paul in Ephesians, it is perfectly clear that he intended us to believe we are saved for a purpose, and part of that purpose is doing good works in Christ Jesus, of ministry, of fellowship, and of holiness and obedience to the moral law of the Bible, all of which bring glory to God, which is the ultimate purpose of God in creation [Jonathan Edwards], as well as the deepest desire of those who truly are new creations in Christ.

My own reaction to this brother's presumption was poor, perhaps even carnal.  And, admittedly, I have probably caused others to stumble in the very same way, assuming I know enough to challenge anything and everything.  Lord, grant me the humility to interpret your word in such a way as to obey it fully, never to justify my lack of holiness or willingness to engage the work you have apportioned for me, and the humility to teach so that others do not stumble because of me. IJNA

Learning Holiness by Grace, Bryan Chapell, notes

Learning Holiness by Grace

My notes on a sermon by Dr. Bryan Chapell at Basics 2003

Part I

Book, Holiness by Grace, a journey of my own life as a pastor.

Started pastoring the oldest Presby. Church in Illinois, founded before Illinois statehood.
which had only 3 pastors in its first 150 years!  It was an honor to pastor a historic church. 

People thought it was wonderful to have a young man as a pastor, and aren't you a wonderful preacher!  But I worried: Why wasn't my preaching helping them?  People seemed to not even want new people to come into the church. They knew the code here, but newcomers didn't know it.  I got mad at them, til I realized the problem was with me.  My message was always, "Shape up, do better," week by week.  I was preaching the word, consecutively.

But I was preaching the law without grace.  Grace is the enabling and motivating factor of the law.  Even if I knew grace, it didn't FUNCTION REGULARLY in my ministry. I didn't know how to make Grace function beyond justification. I didn't know how it functioned in sanctification.  So sanctification was all about "trying harder", not grace.

Much of what I do now is take people back to the gospel DAILY, not just at the beginning.

Luke 17, later Galatians 2. 

Luke 17:7-19 "Would he say to his servant, come eat... rather, serve me...  You should say We are unworthy servants"...  10 who had leprosy... one who gave thanks.

"MOM ON STRIKE" -- in a yard in Belleville, a mother Michelle Treebow, got tired of her family and all the backtalk, posted the sign and moved into her tree house.

If we think what we do can make us acceptable to God, we're barking up the wrong tree.  We want God to be real and present in our ministry.  How do we get him to come down to us?  How can we make up to him, when His standard is so high?

How high is His standard?  Look at Lk 17:1-3:  "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 So watch yourselves."

God's first standard:  "Cause no sin."  Look at your impact on others...  This is a very high standard!

Not only cause no sin, but rebuke others for their sin!  (Lk 7:3)  For their sake and the gospel's. 

He goes on, "If he repents, forgive him.... even 7 times a day".   "Increase our faith!"

V.6, if you have faith like a mustard seed, you can uproot mulberry trees by faith. 

Faith in what?  See the parable in vv7-10.  "So you also when you have done everything you were told should say, `We've only done our duty'."  When we've done everything, it still doesn't make us worthy of his affection.  He doesn't have to say, "Well done, good servant".  We're still unworthy.

Let's compare it to our own day and age.  Imagine that after working all day, you go out to Dennys, and the waitress who is also tired, serves you and then sits down at your table to have dinner with you.

To set at the master's table (in ancient times) meant you had the rights of the owner, as if your realtor assumes that because she helped you, she can move in too.

I don't like hearing that my work is only my duty to God, and that it isn't some leverage I have with God now.   We are faithful in preaching, so we think God has to be faithful to us too, on our terms.

God is no man's debtor.  After all we've done, we are still unworthy servants. It goes against my reflexes. I want to trophy my goodness.

A pastor had animal trophies all over his house.  Zebra skin, antelope, elephant foot stool.  The pastor was apologizing for these endangered species.  He didn't shoot them, his father-in-law did.  God would say, "That's wonderful. By the way, have you caused no sin?  Have you confronted others in their sin? Have you forgiven all sins against you?"  What are your trophies if you have failed in these?

Westminster Confession:  Because of the great disproportion between our sins and God's goodness, Not only do our works not merit God's reward, they are also deserving of his judgment.

What moves God?  He is not moved by your deeds.  V.11, "Have pity on us."   And Jesus DID have pity on them. He was not moved by their deeds, but by their desperation.  When we go say to another, "You owe me"... it is not the same with God.

A pastor's older son reached his mid-teens, turned away from faith and obedience and his family. He caused great pain, but great embarrassment, repeatedly. His mother said, "I'm not even sure I love my own son any more."  Yet he protested, "Its not so bad. I'll do better."  She couldn't take it any more, she just left the room.  As he sat alone in the room, he looked at the picture album.  He called for his mom. "When I look at this picture, I know why you can't love me any more."  Their eyes in the pic were linked in tenderness.  "I have dashed all your hopes."  

Master, have pity on me.  Our desperation is what moves his heart.

Who can reach the standard?  Recognize the Father knows all our failures and has pity on us.  To know the power and nearness of heaven, I MUST come and confess my weakness and failures.

We twist it:  If God will love me when I am not good, then why should I BE good?

Jesus shows us: v.13, he told them to go, and "as they went they were cleansed".  One saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice! Threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him... and he was a Samaritan.  What moved him?  DELIGHT in what Jesus had done, and THANKS.

The Samaritan: risked 

• a change in his health, before he was declared "clean", risked his future to go back to Jesus.  He was compelled powerfully to praise Jesus.  He wasn't motivated by gain.
• losing his pride before Jesus, who was NOT a Samaritan.  The implication was the other 9 were Jews.  Jews were his enemy. He wasn't driven by self-protection any more.

His level of appreciation now matched his level of desperation before.

What we know to be true of people in our churches:  what motivates them?   Why do people "serve God"?  Many serve God so the ogre in the sky won't get them, out of self-protection.  Who are you really serving then?  Self.  It is self-protection, and also BLASPHEMY.

Others serve to get more good stuff, either here or in the life to come.... a bigger mansion.

You cannot serve God till you come to the profound conviction that your best works merit you nothing.  Why, if you believe this, would you do good works?   

Heidelberg Confession:  "Q. Since we are saved by grace through faith without any merit of our own, why should we do good works?  A. So that with our whole lives we may show ourselves grateful to God and give Him praise."


Why is this strength, the rescue from desperation, so powerful?  

When I know forgiveness, I know Joy.  Joy is the strength of true obedience in the Christian life.

Not just cleansed any more, but saved! "Your faith has made you well."  What faith?  He didn't state Jesus' divinity or the Apostles creed.  All he did was praise Jesus for making him well.  You did this all.  This was his faith.  

Not a thing in me saved me.  Everything that's right about me, Jesus did.

Part II

Gal 2:20 -- I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

What would it look like for the power of God to come down?  I don't think it would look like worldly success.  It would be God fulfilling his purposes among his people.  It would look like

FAITHFULNESS WITH JOY

A history of preaching: Common denominator of great preaching, expository preaching is new.  More commonly it was topical preaching.  Puritan preaching was so unlike preaching nowadays.
The historian said:  Great preaching always gives hope.

A necessity for that hope is the topic here.  The prayer I have now:  "May God bless my discovery of the powerful means of holiness so far as to save some from killing themselves."  The prayer of Walter Marshall, in "The gospel mystery of sanctification".  Marshall was grieving because of his ministry.  The more I try to preach and live before them as a holy example, the more some despair.  The more we speak about holiness, the more they know they cannot live it, can never catch up with other Christians.  Some in Marshall's congregation began to hate their sin so that they began to mutilate their own bodies. 

Modern evils of porn and sexual expression, compulsions of materialism and erosion of the family, even we long for the destruction of our bodies to be rid of the sins we hate in us.  So, "May God bless my discovery of the powerful means of holiness so far as to save some from killing themselves."

What was that powerful means of holiness?  Marshall found it in Gal 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Marshall felt this was something for all people, not just ministers.  Marshall recognized that we are united to the death of Christ.  "I no longer live".  V.19, the law put me to death so I might live to God. The path to God of holy living was only a dead end.  The means to life was deadening.

V.15 -- we who are Jews by birth, who really know the law, KNOW that a man isn't justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.  Our only hope is faith in Jesus' obedience to the law on our behalf.

This also has to come to fruition in us till we cease from believing in OUR performance of the law.

I am not merely dead, but I am crucified ... with Christ.

What drives some is the sense that we must do this or that to have right standing with God. They must be better than the next guy.  They evaluate their own status as better than others.  They don't know they are crucified with Christ.

Walls between us and others in our church go up because of the recognition of my own performance.

Yet, my spiritual deficits don't destroy me before God. The dead don't get credit, and don't have debts. 

We are here to tell people: "Your guilt is real and true, and it is nailed to the cross."

"My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.  Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O my soul!"

I bear it no more because I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. We aren't just united with his death, but also with his LIFE!  If you are dead and Jesus' lives in you, then who are you?  We're not little gods, but by a forensic act of God, the identity of Jesus has been accounted to you. Not only his death, but also his life and all that it contains, all His active and passive righteousness, is yours!

Phil 1:21 -- For me to live is Christ.
Col 3:4 -- Christ is my life
Eph 2:6 -- we are seated in heavenly places, where Christ is at the right hand of God

Yes, there is a "not yet" dimension to these things, but we inherited these.  The righteousness of Jesus Christ has been applied to me.  

Bunyan's magic mirror, which reflects all our own blemishes, but on the other side of the mirror is Jesus' visage.

Jesus' life is MINE! What does that mean?  Jesus has become for us wisdom, holiness, righteousness and redemption from God!  God calls me His son.  All that was earned by Jesus has been given to me.  

We struggle with this, in the context of sanctification.  There is a progressive nature of sanctification, there is also a definitive nature to it, what is called positional sanctification.  We ARE His. 

I didn't learn in seminary: How messed up most people's lives are!  Because they think they are worthless, they are helpless.  

When I know that I am in union with Christ, which has made me beautiful to God, it becomes the motivation and joy and glories of what God has done, equips me to obey.

The way out of besetting sins is to know my worth before God!

How do I actuate that Union with Christ to become power in my life?  Paul answers in v.20:  "The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Our status does not change, but our ability does change.  Our status before God: I am living as a consequence of Christ's action.  My ability today to live a sanctified life is based on what Jesus did. My sanctification is based on my justification, not vice versa. People who base their justification on their current level of sanctification have it wrong.  Your ability to live is based on what Christ has accomplished.  

When Christian disciplines are performance standards, prayer, fasting, etc., I'm reaching down into the well of God's grace to get some for today.  But we're trying to manufacture [or mine] grace.

The grace is here, like air, all around us, when we pray and read a devotion, we just breathe it in. The glory of breathing!

How does our ability change?  He says, "but Christ lives in me".  Before, we could not BUT sin. Now we're able not to sin. The Spirit reveals to us our sin and enables us to confront it.  God made us new creatures!  Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.

I don't feel new.  But prove it to them:  point out the time in their lives when they sinned and did not care at all.  Now when you sin, you HATE sin. When you grieve the Spirit, it grieves you.  This is evidence of the new creature.

The knowledge that I can be different gives me courage to TRY to serve him, and to delight in it!
Don't tell people to just try again.  They'll take advantage of it.  Confess again, and again, and again. When you learn how vast is the grace of God, you fall in love with the Savior. THAT is the compelling power of holiness.

Bunyan, if you keep assuring God's people of God's love, they'll do whatever HE wants them to.  Not only are you wiped clean of sin, that's only half the gospel.  Now you have riches of heaven, and the righteousness of Jesus to your account.  Knowing this wealth is what provides willingness, strength and joy in service of Christ.

We are in union with the Risen Lord. This gives great, great hope.

Anecdote about the learning expert and the boy with the writing disconnect, who learned that he was not stupid!  Our knowledge is greater still:  now we know we CAN serve God.  

Teach this to your people.  They are in union with Christ and CAN serve Him.  This is their power for holiness.