Kreig Durham

God’s desire is that every single person come to know Him personally as their Savior, and be spared from judgment in Hell (2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”). God’s desire is not to send anyone to Hell, and in fact He does not send anyone there.  John 3:18 says that anyone that does not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation “is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

God gave us a free will so that we could love Him (no free-will = no love), and after the fall of man (Genesis 3) from his original innocence, it became necessary to make a way back for the lost race of man. God knew that there was absolutely no way that sinful men could ever earn His favor through “good deeds” of any shape or size (Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”). That is why Isaiah 64:6 describes all the good things that we could ever do as “filthy rags,” like the ones that lepers used to wipe their disgusting skin. No, any kind of work would be insufficient for God to grant a man, woman, or child pardon from sin; so Jesus Christ had to die on a cross for the sins of all humanity, giving every person that has ever lived — you see, this death was predicted way back in the Garden of Eden, right after the fall of man (Genesis 3:15) — the opportunity to believe on this Savior, and trust His sacrifice alone. Salvation has always been, and will always be, “by grace… through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).

Now, when an individual accepts Christ by putting faith in Him alone, he is transformed into a whole new individual (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is such an exciting and miraculous transformation that no one could ever give God enough praise for that moment of new birth. But sometimes an interesting phenomenon takes place after a person accepts Christ as Savior — a phenomenon that has become all too common in 21st century churches. A believer, who has done nothing to earn or keep his salvation, may begin to live the Christian life as if the only part God plays in a person’s life is to save them from Hell. This person starts to worry and fret and struggle underneath a burden that God never intended for anyone to carry. He sees very little victory in his life despite how hard he has tried to quit the bad habits and start the right ones. That beer can still binds him, and the little circular tin in his back pocket still dictates part of his life. He sees temporary victory now and then, but eventually sinks back into the bad and out of the good.

However, the Bible still says “thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” How can someone who has been transformed into a whole new creature and has the promises of victory in Jesus to claim still wallow in the works of the old nature? Many of us have faced this same heartbreaking and agonizing cycle at some point in life and wondered if there was even a way out at all. Thankfully, John chapter fifteen gives us a solution that will always work. In John 15, Jesus tells His disciples:

“I am the true, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:1-5)

Jesus begins with the illustration of a vine, which would have been very common to the geography of Israel at the time. Grape vineyards were all over the place in 1st-century Palestine. If you’ve never seen a grape vine, they almost look like little trees. Essentially when Jesus said He was the True Vine, He was saying that He was the trunk of the tree: the important and central part of the plant. Christ immediately informs us that He is, in fact, the important and central figure in the universe. He is God after all, and deserves all the glory and honor and praise of God. He then explains that as He is the vine, we as believers are the branches.

The truth that He draws from this illustration is so incredibly important for us to understand. A branch draws all of its nutrients and strength from what the trunk or vine gives it. It’s just like your arms and legs. They get blood from the heart and signals from the brain. A branch all by itself is about as useful and full of life as an arm with no body. The only way for a branch to exist and for it to be a healthy, fruit-producing member of the plant, is for its connection to the vine to be strong and healthy.

The Christian life is intended to be lived exactly the same way. You and I are just chunks of dirt: sinners saved by the grace of God. On our own, before salvation and after, we are just as useful and vibrant as a branch broken from its vine. Salvation doesn’t make you any more able to please the Lord with your self-produced effort. God does, however, intend for us to work for Him and produce fruit (such as the fruits of the Spirit and the fruit of seeing others trust the Savior); but He has a plan for just how that is supposed to happen. The secret to a victorious, abundant, and productive Christian life is found in the success of a branch. As long as you make sure that your connection to the True Vine, Jesus Christ, is healthy and strong, He will take care of the rest.

What this means is that you as Christian have to develop your relationship with God for yourself. Borrowed spirituality is killing our churches. God doesn’t want you to try to ride the coattails of anybody else, and He is not interested in what you can work up within yourself. What God is interested in is someone who is willing to get thoroughly and genuinely right with Him, someone who has that craving and thirsting for Him like David did (Psalm 61), and someone that is actively seeking and relying on Him. Yes, it will take sacrifice as you give up adequate time to get to know your God through Bible reading, study, memorization, and meditation and through prayer; but if the Lord of Heaven really did save you from eternal damnation in Hell and gave you a relationship with Him as well as an eternal home in Heaven, don’t you think that He is worth seeking with your whole being? The word “abide” means to dwell or remain. What we need today is some Christians who are willing to get with God and stay there.

Remember, this isn’t an option to successful Christianity. It is the only way to successful Christianity. Jesus leaves us with the same heavy and serious reminder that I will leave you with. Your life cannot please God unless you walk in the same faith that saved you. You cannot do anything for God unless you abide in Him. “…for without me ye can do nothing.”

“My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother” – Proverbs 6:20

“Keep” in the Old Testament often means to guard, protect, or preserve. When you “keep” God’s Word, you are guarding it, or protecting it. But what does that mean exactly?

Consider this word picture:

In the Middle Ages, particularly the 10th through the 12th centuries, castles became very important places in warfare. They were designed to be impregnable fortresses against any attack. There were many elaborate designs of castles. They all included some basic elements though. The first line of defense was the outer wall, which was several feet thick (sometime more than 20 feet). There were tall towers along the walls and at the corners, through which archers would attack the enemy. There was often a large moat and elaborate drawbridge. The gates, which were the weakest part of the who complex, were modified with many defenses and traps in order to compensate. There were often several series of inner walls, all with their own towers and gates. A castle was a very difficult place to besiege successfully.

The central part of castle, the innermost structure, is known as the keep. It was essentially the absolute last line of defense, should the enemy break through the other series of walls. These keeps were sometimes nothing more than a hall surrounded by very strong walls. With the developement of battering rams, keeps went from a box-like construction to a cirucular one, as curved walls are harder to break through with a battering ram. Such keeps were also not just used for defence but for actual living accommodation for the royal family, storing armoury and often to guard the main well.

Our heart, then, is the keep of our souls. It is the central, the innermost part of our being. “Keep thy heart with all dilligence, for out of it are the issues of life“ (Proverbs 4:23). It is where you are truly yourself. It is where you store those things that are precious to your memory. Your heart can either be your last and best line of defence, or your weak link. It all depends on what you put in your keep. If you “keep” God’s Word in your heart, if you defend it and protect it inside your heart, God can defend your heart and life from all evil.

So what are you keeping and protecting God’s Word from in your heart? From it slipping from you memory, from it being disobeyed and neglected. You must protect it from the apathy and sinfulness of your flesh, which wars against you every day. When your outer walls are breached, and even your inner walls of spiritual protection crumble, if God’s Word is in the keep of your heart, you have a Sword which cannot be stopped. You have the very power of God to fight for you. Scripture memory and mediation are not just cool ideas that we’ve just recently come up with. They are commandments from God Almighty (look it up if you don’t believe me). More than that, they are powerful tools, weapons, and guides. A Christian who is intimately familiar with his Bible is a force to be reckoned with. The Word of God is your final, and yet your first, line of defense.

1 Kings 18:30-33, “And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name: And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD…”

Prior to Elijah calling down fire from heaven on Mt. Carmel, the idolatrous priests had tried and failed to get Baal to do anything for them at all, and now it was Elijah’s turn. It was time for God to show Himself strong through Elijah in a Bible story that most of us know very well. But before Elijah could see God do the miraculous and incredible feat He was about to do, before he could even place the sacrifice on the altar, he had to prepare an altar. There were obviously places of idol sacrifice already in existence, for the prophets of Baal didn’t need to make or prepare one. However, God is not pleased in just any kind of sacrifice, or just any kind of worship. He has certain requirements that must be met. Before Elijah did anything, he repaired a long-forgotten altar of the LORD in the exact way that God had commanded centuries before.

What a sad testimony that Israel had forgotten God for so long that His altars were forgotten and broken down. Jehovah God – Who had delivered them from Egypt, provided for them in the wilderness, gave them miraculous victories after crossing the Jordan, delivered them over and over and over again during the time of the judges, and so much more – had been forgotten and neglected by the nation as a whole.

In the course of life, we as believers can quickly forget about God as well. We get too busy to pray, too busy to get alone with God and His Word, too busy to go to church, or too busy to share the glorious gospel with a dying sinner. We allow so many other things to become as important, and eventually more important, than God. God will not share the limelight with anything or anyone. Isaiah 45:5, “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.” There is nothing and no one that can even come close to being compared to Him, for He is infinitely higher than everything. He is the uncreated Creator, the unchanging Master, the self-existent, self-sufficient, and all-powerful God of Heaven and earth.

If our priorities place God anywhere but Exalted, Almighty, High and Lofty #1, we have made Him into something He is not. When we view Him as something He is not, we are forming an idol in our hearts. An idol is man-made. An idol is man-dependant. The problem with so many Christians today is that they have a small god that they call the True God. They turn to human strength for every problem, talk only of empty, temporal things, and think on and spend vast amounts of time one every trivial thing under the sun, but they come to church Sunday morning and do their ”Christian duty.” God is tired of Sunday morning Christians. He wants devoted, loving laborers for His harvest. He wants you all day every day of the week, not just a few hours a week in church.

We must consistently humble ourselves before the great and mighty Ruler of the Universe, yielding ourselves to Him. We must seek His face and His power every single day. In order to do this we may have to rebuild some aspects of our personal worship that have been neglected and broken down. We will have to carve out time out of our schedules to find a quiet place to saturate ourselves in the Word. We will have to make a specific time for prayer. We will have to get back into church every time we possibly can (by the way, the first-century church met every day. I think we can stand to meet 3 times between 2 days in the 21st century). We will have to rely on God’s power to talk to friends and loved ones about Christ. It will require a personal sacrifice to renew God’s blessing and power in our lives; but in light of God’s sacrifice for us, the life of His own precious Son, nothing we could do for Him can be considered too great a sacrifice.

The following 4 points are not original to me. They were preached by Curtis Hutson in a message entitle “Building and Battling.” Dr. Hutson was preaching out of Luke 14:26-32 about a man who is going to build and battle for God. This post will focus on his thoughts on verse 27, “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”

His prefacing thought was that you can commit suicide a lot of ways, but you cannot crucify yourself (when you drive one nail in to one hand, how do you get the other hand nailed?). The Christian, then, is not obligated to re-crucify himself every day. He is already crucified with Christ, so he just needs to reckon it so.

1. A crucified man looks only in one direction. He can’t look in any other direction. It is impossible for him to look back. Concentration and focus are crucial for us to learn. Paul said, “This one thing I do…” God wants us to focus on His will and His plan and His desires. Nothing matters but what God has called you to do, so focus on it. Don’t keep trying to look back on what could have been or might have been.

2. A crucified man holds on to nothing. His hands are pierced by the nails, he can’t hold on to anything. He turns loose of everything for God. Stop holding on to things you think will bring you security, and trust God. It’s a little thing called faith. You can trust God, but do you?

3. A crucified man has no further plans of his own. He has absolutely no plans beyond the cross. Give God the absolute and singular right to make the plans for your life. Let God lead you, and you will not be sorry. He knows what’s best for you.

4. A crucified is not coming back. That’s the end of him. You need to come to a place of surrender where you leave yourself behind permanently, and never come back for you ways, your plans, your desires, and your ambitions. George Mueller was once asked, “What’s the secret to your spiritual success?” He responded, “There was a day when George Mueller died.” Surrender your claim to everything you have. It’s not your car, it’s God’s car. They’re not your friends, they’re God’s friends. It’s not your money, it’s God’s money. Any time you want to get back in the flesh, remember that you can’t because you’re already dead!

There’s no telling what God can do with a crucified man. But you have to get serious about your surrender, and reckon yourself truly crucified.

If you want to hear the entire message, go to http://oldpathsermons.com/allspeakers.php?spid=31 and look for “Building and Battling.”

To read part 1 of this post, click here!

While we must be aware that our actions have consequences, is living a good life just to avoid bad consequences and gain good ones really the way God intended the Christian life to be lived? Does Christ really want us to compel people to come to Him on the basis of avoiding the eternal negative consequence and gaining the eternal positive?

Consider the story of the Exodus. Pharaoh refused to let the people of Israel go time after time after time. Finally, after the hail, Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron in urgently. Now that he was really feeling the consequences, he made a desperate and emotional plea (Exodus 9:27-28). For just a moment, Pharaoh seems to be truly repentant. This hardened heathen king seems to finally have gotten the point and decided to yield to God. But you know the rest of the story… “And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart…” (Exodus 9:34).

But wait a minute, before you’re too hasty to judge Pharaoh, consider the story of your life now. How many times do we do exactly what Pharaoh did? We live for ourselves, God brings chastening against us, and we try to rationalize our way out of the consequences. Eventually when the heat gets too much for us, we run to God and cry out for mercy and help.

Our actions reveal our heart in the matter. All we’ve done is live focused on consequences. Our weak flesh will always find a way to rationalize its way around consequences and will tempt us with unbiblical solutions to the problems that God brings our way. If we’re living focused primarily on the repercussions, we’ve missed the boat.

Truth, then, is the to be the basis for our life – not consequences. The truth about who we are, Who God is, and what our relationship with Him is.

1. The truth about who we are. As Romans 6 tells us, we share in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. We are dead to the world and everything it has to offer. We are dead to the demands of our flesh and the wiles of the devil. We are free, free, free from this world of sin! We are raised to new life, given a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17) and the Holy Spirit of God takes up permanent residence in us (1 Corinthians 6:19). We can live every single day in a way that pleases God.

2. The truth about who God is. God is so many things to the believer. He is our Creator, Redeemer, Refuge, Father, Savior, Master, Friend, Comfort, Anchor, Hope, Peace, Truth, Life, Light, Substance, etc., etc. But we must remember that He is  our authority. As a Father, He gave us life, and He protects us; but we must obey and love Him and seek to do things that please Him. As Creator, He made us. He does not need us. We are dependent on Him, and need turn continuously to Him for refueling and repair, just as a car needs a mechanic. As Master He gives us commands, and we must obey.

3. The truth about our relationship with Him. The Christian life is not a list of do’s and don’t’s. It isn’t something you work up within yourself. It isn’t the power of positive thinking as the world knows it. It is not complicated or difficult. God designed it to be as simple and easy as salvation. The fruitful and abundant Christian life that all of us crave is simply an outpouring of our relationship with Him.The word “abound” means to overflow. If you fill up a glass of water to the brim and keep filling it up, the water will naturally flow over the sides. The glass is now abounding with water. That’s the Christian life. Get so filled up with God that He just naturally flows out of your life. But as with any relationship, communication is the central key. You need to talk to God (it’s called prayer!), and you need to let God talk to you through His Word. You can have a practical, personal walk with God if you just keep the lines of communication open.

Galatians 2:20 sums up the Christian life pretty well: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Truth. Without it, we have no basis on which to discern anything. The truth is that Christ died to have a relationship with you, not just to send you to heaven. What are you doing with His priceless gift?