Lent 2019 – Attacking The Rock
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
2 Timothy 4:3-4
“The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …
2 Timothy 3:16-17
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Please open your Bibles to 2 Timothy 4:1-5
I don’t know if you know this, but, when Jesus was on earth there were some people who really hated Him! They actually wanted to kill Him.
What are some of the things the Jewish leaders actually said to Jesus?
- “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” Matthew 15:2
o This is not like your Mom saying “go wash your hands before you eat!
o There was a prescribed way to wash your hands that would make them ceremonially holy so they could be used to eat.
o But Jesus was not concerned with their traditions especially when they contradicted the Law as given by the Lord through Moses.
o What else did they say to Jesus?
- “Why are You doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Luke 6:2
o Once again this had nothing to do with the 4th Commandment but with the traditions they had invented and established as law in order to make sure everyone kept the Sabbath in a way that they prescribed.
- “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill You.” Luke 13:31
- “Aren’t we right in saying that You are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” John 8:48
- “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.” Matthew 12:24
- “You do not realize that it is better for you that one Man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” John 11:50
So, we can see from the Scriptures that the Jewish leaders wanted to defame and destroy Jesus.
Yes, the religious leaders of Jesus’ time wanted to kill Jesus.
There are many who have tried to destroy Him since then and there are many with that very goal in their lives today! Sadly, … many who wish to destroy Jesus and the Word of God are preaching from pulpits and are leading multitudes astray!
With that in mind let’s look at: 2 Timothy 4:1-5
May God bless the reading of His Word … (Prayer for help …)
Now, that was 2 Timothy 4 and in 1 Timothy 4 there is Scripture with much of the same message.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 says,
“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”
And Jude, the brother of Jesus Himself, writes in Jude 1:3-4
“Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
“Contend for the faith that was once and for all entrusted to God’s holy people.”?
Why contend? Because the faith that we live in and Jesus, the author of the faith, have been, are now and will forever be under attack until Jesus returns.
But, here is a HUGE difference between what we read about before and what Paul and Jude are writing about!
In the previous readings the religious leaders of Jesus’ day were directly attacking Jesus! They wanted Him either totally discredited or, even better yet, dead!
What Paul and Jude and many of the New Testament writers are warning us about are false shepherds who may not attack Jesus directly but want to remake Him into whatever they can use for their purposes.
What did the devil use when he tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden?
He introduced doubt in God’s Word and self pride!
Just listen to what the evil one says to Eve in Genesis 3:1, 4-5
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? … You will not certainly die … For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So, the evil one is saying to Eve that God is lying to you and that God is holding something back from you that will make you like God Himself!
The devil did not start out by saying that “God is a big fat liar who is keeping you down!” No. Instead he just cast a little doubt on God’s character. But, it was enough!
The very same thing has caused an unholy spiritual epidemic here in America
Jesus is under attack and many want to crucify Him again!
But before they can do that, they first need to kill Jesus’ deity and then reduce Him to a mere human, and, to do that they will ask questions such as these …
- Was Jesus REALLY born of a virgin?
- Did Jesus REALLY live a sinless life?
- Did Jesus REALLY heal the sick and the blind and the deaf and the lame?
- Did Jesus REALLY raise the dead?
- Did Jesus REALLY walk on water?
- When Peter cut off the ear of the servant of the High Priest, did Jesus REALLY reattach the ear to his head?
- Did Jesus REALLY die for my sins when in actuality the concept of sin is so outdated that it is no longer relevant to our enlightened culture?
- Did Jesus REALLY rise bodily from the dead?
- Did Jesus REALLY ascend into heaven?
- IS JESUS REALLY GOD?????
You see how it went from one thing to another and ended up with a question designed to kill Jesus as God.
Yes, Yes, Yes! Jesus, the Rock of our Salvation REALLY IS under attack!
So, how can we know what the truth about who Jesus REALLY is?
The answer lies in our Scripture Memory Refresher verse for today,
2 Timothy 3:16-17
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
And why do we trust the Scriptures and what they tell us about Jesus? We trust them because everyone who wrote the New Testament Scriptures were either eye witnesses of Christ and the events surrounding His life, death and resurrection, or, they interviewed eye witnesses of Jesus’ life.
And, when they wrote what they wrote there were still plenty of people around who could refute the truth of what they were writing if it was in error!
In most instances there seems to be a parallel regard or disregard for the Lord and the Bible.
A person who is genuinely born again by the Spirit of God and has a great desire to please the Father will have an intimate relationship with the Lord and a high reverence for God’s Word. This same person will also have a genuine devotion to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
But a person who does not want to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the person who wants to be the lord of their own life will either avoid Jesus or will rationalize why Jesus is not who the Bible says He is or why the Bible is itself in error.
I have a friend who I went to High School with who is a pastor in the United Methodist Church. He is a pastor who loves Jesus and faithfully preaches the Word of God.
At this very time the United Methodist Church is in crisis. There are those in the UMC who love the Lord and who love His Holy Word.
And, there are others who reject God’s Word as being the source of knowledge needed for eternal life. As Jesus said when being tempted in the wilderness, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4 / Deuteronomy 8:3 and yet they reject the words of the Lord.
Consequently, these same people will also reject Jesus’ virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, atoning death on the cross, bodily resurrection and His deity.
We must be in fervent prayer for the UMC and for The Church of The Nazarene as well because some of these same disbeliefs can be heard in our denomination as well.
Let there be no mistake about this; what has happened to a portion of the UMC would, absolutely would, happen to the Church of The Nazarene if we take our eyes off from Jesus our Lord.
It will happen to the Church of The Nazarene if we every value the approval of society more than we value the approval of God!
It will happen to the Church of The Nazarene if we ever devalue the Word of God and make it something less than the inerrant, pure and perfect Word of God.
It WILL happen to the Church of The Nazarene if we dilute the Word of God in order to make the Gospel less offensive to those who are lost in sin.
1 Corinthians 1:18
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
You see, the Gospel IS offensive to those who are lost, but, when the offensive Gospel is combined with the work of the Holy Spirit the offense becomes conviction of sin and the conviction of sin can lead to repentance and salvation!
Sometimes people will ask us if one thing or another is a sin. There ARE sins that the Bible clearly describes as sins. The hot-button issue now is sexual sin in all its varieties. We are told that if we consider these sins to be sins that we are hateful.
When we come into such a situation we must always point to the Bible and speak the truth in love. We MUST speak the truth in love and it must be the uncompromising truth.
When such a situation occurs we stand in the place of God, not as God but as an ambassador for God. At that moment in time and eternity we can speak life into their hearts guided by the Holy Spirit. It is an awesome responsibility.
2 Corinthians 5:20
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: ‘Be reconciled to God.’”
Doing this can actually be interpreted as hate speech in some countries, but, what is real hate? Hate is knowing the way to eternal life and not sharing it with those who are lost and in danger of an eternity in hell.
Will we stand up for Jesus? Will we be faithful in spite of persecution?
What about the hundreds of Jesus disciples on that last night before Jesus’ crucifixion?
We know that the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead just as our pagan society wants all belief in Jesus to be destroyed.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday there were crowds cheering and waving palm branches shouting Hosanna in the Highest.
When Jesus stood before Pilate there was another crowd shouting crucify Him!
Was it the same crowd in both scenes?
Had the worshiping crowd turned into the howling mob?
I don’t believe so. There is nothing in the Bible that says so. There was always a crowd that was loyal to the religious rulers. Was that the same crowd as the worshipers on the road from Bethany to Jerusalem?
If it was some other crowd, where were the worshipers during the trial? Hiding?
Is that what we will do in the face of opposition when our society says that we must stop speaking Scriptural truth on behalf of Jesus?
Will we hide while the mob howls, “Crucify Him???”
To paraphrase our new memory Scripture, 2 Timothy 4:3-4
“The time [has come] when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of [false] teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from [Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life] and turn aside to myths.”
The mob is outside now shouting, “Crucify Him”;
Many in the media are shouting, “Crucify Him”
Many in our schools are shouting, “Crucify Him”
And even in some churches there are those shouting, “Crucify Him”
We cannot defend sound doctrine unless we know sound doctrine based on the Word of God.
We cannot identify false teachers unless we know the Truth!
We cannot resist the enticement of alluring worldly preachers unless we are bound heart and soul with Jesus!
Jesus bled and died for those who are attacking Him. Will we do the same?
(Final comments leading into Communion)
Communion
