Satan, the Opportunist

“Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose…(Acts 6:1)”

“When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time. (Luke 4:13)”

Success for God is failure for Satan. He will oppose, in any way he can, the progress of the kingdom. We can count on it: when things are looking good, Satan is looking for an opportunity. And, being a thorough demon, he usually finds one.

The church in Jerusalem was enjoying a brief run of popularity. In spite of the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, “…the people held them in high esteem. And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number” (Acts 5:13,14). Then, all Hell broke loose. The first trouble came from outside: the arrest and flogging of apostles with a warning to shut up about Jesus. Then it came from inside with a complaint of unfair distribution of food. When it originates inside the body our out, it is the work of our adversary. Satan will not abide such advancement since it means retreat for him.

It is highly dangerous to discount his ability to disrupt any forward movement on our part. He will shut us down us if we let him. It is wise to aware of his schemes and strategies and to be assured that he will employ them against us. The warnings are clear:

“Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity” (Ephesians 4:26,27).
“…so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes” (2 Corinthians 2:11).
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).
“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

It is when disciples are growing numerically and everything looks good that we should be on guard. I have, with my own eyes, seen savage wolves filled with the lust for power, tear successful churches apart. The carnage is horrible.

In the case of Jerusalem, seven godly men were chosen to answer the complaint and the tables were turned on Satan. “The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).

In Australia, several churches are making decisions and plans to recapture the purpose and mission of the church. God will surely bless such decisions but we must be warned: Satan is also making decisions and plans.

Gone to Winter

If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog (and who, in their right mind, would not be?) you may have noticed a dearth (shortage) of postings. So, knowing that many, many people are wondering where I am, I feel called upon to inform both of you.

At the moment, I am in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Yes…the land down under. I left the Northern Hemisphere Summer for the Southern Hemisphere Winter. Australia is my “other country,” to which I make yearly trips. I lived here once and fell in love with the people and the land. So, it is a pleasure to return each year to visit friends and churches, do some teaching & preaching, eat Aussie tucker (food) and hear the birds sing. So far I have been to Sydney, Dungog, Maitland, Newcastle and Parramatta. In few days I will head back to Sydney, then Adelaide, then New Zealand and back to Sydney.

I left behind my beautiful wife, Charamon, the Charamon Garden and loving family for a seven-week sojourn. Preparation took a lot of time and precedence over blogging. Getting the garden ready to leave in the capable hands of my family took additional time.

A phone call to my son, Tim, reassured me that all goes and grows well back in the garden. A phone call to my parents (90 year-old father, 88 year-old mother) says they are doing OK (at those ages, good days are treasures) and a phone call to my wife assures me that she still loves me and is missing me. Well, the feeling is very much mutual!

WHO IS THE MESSAGE?

Paul, in his second letter to the church at Corinth tells us why we must get out of the pep rally (“church services”) and into the game (the world). Let me invite you to carefully consider this passage:

2 Corinthians 4: 6 - 11 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.[1]

The world does not see Jesus because we stay out of sight. The solution is simple:

We are our own worst enemy

 

 

Sometimes the opposition seems overwhelming. Most of it has been self-inflicted.
History – people doing horrible things in the name of Christ. The world of observers, not knowing any better, makes uninformed assessments and forms terrible opinions of Christianity.
Televangelists – money-grubbing, high-living, charlatans and false teachers giving religion in general and Christianity in particular a bad rap (1 Timothy 6:3-5).
Division & infighting – people who should be loving each other and thus proving to be disciples (John 13:35) fighting and slinging mud in the most unloving ways. Dividing into yet another denomination over the slightest perceived doctrinal error, we assist the world in its dismissal and unbelief (John 17:20-23).

 

We are our own worst enemy.

Four (4) reasons we will never fulfill the Great Commission

Christians are a meeting and talking people. We meet in church buildings, chapels, public halls and classrooms. We meet in those rooms to talk or to listen to someone talk. We make sure someone is talking most of the time. Someone talks to us in assembly twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday. That’s 156 times a year not counting gospel meetings, workshops and seminars. Mostly, we talk to ourselves.

Somehow we must jump from talking to doing from gabbing to going. We must kick ourselves out of the chat rooms and step boldly into the world as the Great Commission demands. We have to get out because few of Christ’s commands are accomplished in some room.

Okay, let’s consider, one more time, the Great Commission:

Mark 16:15, 16 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”

Matthew 28:19, 20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Now let me give you four reasons why the Great Commission will never be fulfilled.

Paltry, Hodgepodge Evangelism

I believe that one of the most beneficial changes the church could make is to correct our misunderstanding of evangelism. We’ve made such a monster of it in our minds that very few of us do any of it at all. Instead, we count on the drawing power of user-friendly churches with seeker-sensitive assemblies featuring state-of-the-art equipment and methods. We rely on doing Bible classes and assemblies so well that when people visit us to do their “church shopping,” we hope they’ll choose us instead of that other church down the road. There are four things wrong with that.

· First, it’s not evangelism. It’s marketing.

· Second, it’s not conversion, it’s accumulation.

· Third, people who have to be won by attractive methods and surface cosmetics will only last as long as those do.

· Fourth, it is a focus and emphasis unknown by, and alien to, Jesus, the apostles and the early church.

The church that won the Roman Empire knew nothing of “user-friendly churches” or expensive, explicit, exploitive, explosive methods of reaching the unconverted. They simply knew that they were salt and light. To live was to be like Jesus to their world. Mark Galli writes,

What it did have seems paltry: unspectacular people, with a hodgepodge of methods (so hodgepodge they can hardly be called “methods”), and rarely a gathering of more than a handful of people. The paltry seems to have been enough, however, to make an emperor or two stop and take notice. Without publicized campaigns or even an explicit evangelistic strategy, Christianity made its way quietly and effectively in an environment not wholly unlike that in the post-Christian West today (Christian History, Issue 57, p. 8).

Glenn Hinson writes, “Most churches had the same goal: evangelism.” But it was not evangelism based on getting people into church buildings since it was nearly 300 years before the first one was built. This was evangelism by friendship and relationship. It was outreach through good works such as feeding the hungry and rescuing abandoned children (1 Peter 2:12). It was the message of a moral and pure way of life (1 Peter 3:2) proclaimed by word and deed. It was seen in their keen pursuit of justice. Each disciple was ready to tell their friends and associates the reason for their hope (1 Peter 3:15).

Evangelism (being salt and light in our world) is the life-blood of any congregation of the church. We need a transfusion of it! When it begins to course through the veins of the church, when it surges through our sanctified innards and spiritual muscles, then we will see revival.

Cultural Engagement: Every Christian’s Obligation

Let me recommend this article on the Crosswalk.com site.

Something Happened

It was the end of June and Mr. and Mrs. Disciple were listening to their 50th sermon since January. They and their fellow listeners were in danger of becoming the “I’ve heard it all before” group. The preacher was a good enough speaker with an effective mix of humor, illustration and Scripture. He worked hard to communicate God’s will. Unfortunately, however, he was becoming familiar to the sea of faces gathered in the auditorium. They had learned his gestures, his inflection and the new was wearing off. It was getting easier to drop off into a little snooze while he preached.

But today, something was different for Mr. Disciple, because, during the sermon, something clicked.

ASSEMBLY

 

Recapturing the purpose for coming together

In assemblies today a group (the congregation) gathers to observe and lightly participate in a set of rituals (Lord’s Supper, singing, preaching, collection, etc.) and, upon completion, leave for lunch.  This is often referred to as “going to church,” as in, “Sorry, I can’t play golf with you today, I have to go to church.”  This (often legalistic) routine has become the major weekly exercise of the Christian religion.  Great effort and expense is applied to making this production attractive and satisfying to members and visitors.  We want the best preacher and musicians money can buy.  We work hard to script and stage the presentation to please the audience.  We hope that what we do on Sunday will be so well done that the members will keep coming back and visitors will be positively impressed enough to become part of the church. 

Interestingly and unfortunately it is also the major evangelistic effort (usually the only one) for most churches.  In this regard it has a terrible track record.  Almost no one is converted as a result of the most splendid “worship services.”

But what would happen if we decided to fulfill the original purpose of assembly?  In The Urgent Revolution I wrote:

…assembling provides time for encouragement to faithfulness and provocation to love and good deeds.  When our time together is over, I should be filled with a burning desire to bring the love of Jesus into my family and world.  Our sharing together supplies a means (encouraging, edifying, stimulating) to an end (love and good deeds)…In our concern to be scriptural in the form of corporate worship [I have since worked to drop that terminology], we have lost our concern to be scriptural in purpose.  Designed for a time of rallying, assembly equips us and fills us with motivation to become good soldiers in God’s army.  Here we inflame each other with zeal!  We mutually stoke fires of commitment.  We kindle each other’s love and spotlight opportunities for good deeds.  Never designed as a place where people passively observe worship rituals and listen to sermons, scriptural assembly renews our sense of mission and our passion to fulfill it. (pp. 35-37)

I have a suggestion (I obviously lack the apostolic authority to make it a command!): let’s restore the original, God-given purpose of assembly (Hebrews 10:23-25; I Corinthians 14:26).  Let’s make it a priority that no one comes into our assembly discouraged and leaves the same way.  Let’s make it our goal that when someone attends our assembly with a flat faith battery, they leave with their battery recharged.  Let’s provoke the passive, stimulate the sluggish and build-up the beaten-down.

Then the people of God, renewed and invigorated, will march out of our assemblies under the banner of the Lamb to confront the world forces of this darkness assured of ultimate victory.

Then, when Christians say, “I have to go to church,” it will mean, “I can’t wait to assemble with my brothers and sisters!”

BLINK — a book review

I listen to audio books. I download from a service called Audible.com. I pay a certain amount each month and I can download two full-length books on a little digital player and, with a little FM broadcasting thingy which I plug into my car’s 12 volt outlet I can listen to books on my five hour round trips from Abilene to Lubbock where I teach.

I have listened to many fine books (and a few duds) and learned a great deal. I listen to novels which are entertaining or listen to non-fiction (science, history, biographies, etc.) which is educational. Occasionally I hear something absolutely sensational. Two books by Malcolm Gladwell fit into that category.

Some time ago I listened to his book, The Tipping Point. I was blown away. In the last few days I have listened to his book, Blink, and it’s happened again. I recommend both books highly but right now I want to talk about Blink. The subtitle is “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.” Once you read this book you will never think about the way we think the same way.

What if I told you there is a psychologist who can predict the longevity of a marriage by spending only a few minutes observing a couple? What if I told you about some folks who, based on a few minutes listening to a physician talk to a patient, can accurately predict whether he will ever be sued? What if I told you about antiquities experts who can tell you whether a piece is a fake with just a glance?

In this book you will learn about the amazing accuracy of snap decisions. You will learn how what we hear and see can subconsciously impact the way we act. You will learn how, in many cases, a little slice of information is better than a lot of data.

The information in this little 254 page book can change the way you do business, the way you sell, the way you interact with other people…your world.

A special note to those who work with organizations (companies, churches, ministries, etc.) get this book and read it.

Malcolm Gladwell. 2005. Blink, Little, Brown and Company, New York, Boston.