STUBBORN AS AN AMAZIAH

Neal Pollard

So far as I know, it is not a proverb or even a saying.  But, it could be.  No mule has anything of this king of Judah.  When he is introduced to us, the Holy Spirit through the penman has these positive words: “He did right in the sight of the Lord” (2 Chron. 25:2a).  There are not a great many kings of Judah (and none in Israel) of whom this could be said.  Yet, Scripture continues, “…yet not with a whole heart.”  He honored the law of Moses (25:4), but he showed from the earliest days of his reign a fighting spirit. He assembled Judah, appointed them for battle, took a census, and even hired 100,000 men of the northern kingdom to combat the Edomites.

For a man who gets relatively little notice in Scripture, he was repeatedly given warnings.  After hiring the Israelites as mercenaries, Amaziah receives a visit from a man sent by God.  The prophet tells him not to let the army of Israel go with them to battle, then tells him, “God has the power to help and to bring down (8).  Ultimately, Amaziah would ignore this message.

After routing Edom, Amaziah brought their gods back, “set them up as his gods, bowed down to them and burned incense to them” (14). This provoked God’s anger, so He sends a prophet to rebuke the Judean king (15). Amaziah promptly threatens the prophet if he does not be quiet.  The prophet replies, “I know that God has planned to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel” (16). Nowhere does Scripture indicate Amaziah even pausing to contemplate the warning.

Instead, his next move is to challenge Israel’s king, Joash, to fight (17). Joash, though far from righteous, tells him a brief parable with a clear message: “Now stay at home” (19).  Of course, Amaziah did not listen and was humiliated in battle and plundered by Israel (21-24).  That is all we know about Amaziah until he slinks off the stage of life ignominiously fifteen years later by conspirators who assassinated him (27).

King Amaziah is one of the best biblical examples of the high cost of stubbornness. What about us? Are we those capable of distinguishing and following wise counsel? Do we listen or do we have to learn the hard way? Beware! Stubbornness can be costly.  Various people are actually called “stubborn” in Scripture, and it is never a good thing (see Pharaoh, Israel in Moses’ generation, Israel in the period of the Judges, etc.). No one should be gullible, but neither should one be incapable of receiving counsel.  Don’t be as stubborn as an Amaziah!

Looking Down The Barrel of a Shotgun

A story is told of a strange piece of art.  This art piece consisted of a shotgun fixed to a chair which was set to fire sometime within the next hundred years.  Strangely, people lined up to sit across from art piece and stare down the barrel of the loaded gun.  Even though the gun could go off at any moment, people were gambling that it wouldn’t fire on them.

While it is unclear if this specific event actually occurred or not, people most certainly gamble with their lives in very real and precarious situations, the most dangerous situation of all being sin.  People foolishly look down the shotgun barrel of sin and hope they will walk away unscathed.  The problem is that they either do not care about the consequences or have forgotten about those who sat in the same “chair” and ruined their lives, some even their eternities.

When we walk in sin (1 John 1:5-7), we are sitting in a chair and looking down sin’s smoking but loaded shotgun barrel.  We are gambling with our lives and our eternal destinations.  Scariest of all, life could end at any moment.  James 4:14 says, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”  Sitting in this chair across from sin is the most perilous chance we could ever take.

The reality is that we all struggle with sin, but maybe this illustration can help us to have a better perspective about the risk we take when we live in sin.  No sin is worth the gamble of eternal punishment.  We all want to go to heaven, so let’s stay out of the chair, away from sin, and walk with the Lord (1 John 1:7).

A HEART FOR MISSIONS

Neal Pollard

I just sat through one of the most enjoyable half-hours of my life, listening to Tony Johnson talk about his first year of work as a missionary in Tamale (TOM Uh Lee), Ghana.  While I listen as one who considers Tony a dear friend whom I had the blessing of teaching "Preacher And His Work" while he was in school, the thrill came from who Tony is and what he is doing.  He has a superior understanding of what it takes to do missions, a rare intellect and knack for analysis, and a heart for soul-winning.  He would excel in a pulpit anywhere in America, but he has chosen to help evangelize, edify, and extend benevolence to the almost entirely Muslim areas of northern Ghana, western Togo, and southern Burkina Faso.  He joins other excellent workers in that region like Steven Ashcraft, men of ability, intellect, and integrity who are faithful to the Word.

As I sat there, this thought occurred to me.  Wherever you and I find ourselves, whether in lesser or greater fertile fields, we need to have a passion and fervent heart for our Lord's mission.  While listening to Tony made me want to make plans to go to a third-world nation, I was made aware of how diligently God wants me working in the field where I have been planted.  Wherever we find ourselves on this earth, our heart must beat for the purpose for which God has us on this earth.  It meant so much to Jesus that He left these as parting words to the disciples before His face and those who would thereafter read them:  "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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. 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. Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem."

Doesn't that stir your heart to missions? To His mission?

What Would Your T-Shirt Say?

Jessica Rocha was very frustrated with her children’s’ behavior (one being her fiancé’s daughter).  They were stealing and bullying at school.  Jessica had tried a variety of punishments including grounding, taking away sports, toys and privileges, but nothing seemed to be working.  In her continued struggle to correct her children, she decided to make a t-shirt describing the child’s actions.  The shirt read, “I steal!!!  Steal means taking property belonging to someone else without permission..." and the back read, "I steal...Please watch me."  Jessica was also planning a “bully” t-shirt for her son.  While the school did not approve of the t-shirt and made the daughter covered it up, Jessica Rocha said that the shirt worked and her fiancé’s daughter stopped stealing after one day of wearing it (Yahoo).

Even though some may disagree with this form of discipline, the thought is very interesting.  What if everyone had to wear t-shirts identifying their sins?  We would hold our children a little closer when a person with a t-shirt reading, “pedophile” or “kidnapper” came by.  It would certainly make us cautious around shirts identifying a person as a “murderer” or “thief.”  We would be skeptical when talking with people whose shirts said, “liar,” “manipulator,” or  “cheater.”

It’s also possible that people would be uncomfortable around us because of what we have done.  Since “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23), we would all have something shameful on our shirts.  What would ours’ say?  Would it make us feel guilty and ashamed?  If everyone we came in contact with knew our sins, certainly it would be a powerful motivator for change.  People would constantly strive to change the message on their shirts or at least be able to say, “I don’t do that anymore; I’ve changed.”

Even though we don’t wear shirts that spell out our faults, this doesn’t make our sins any less of a reality.  While our sins usually aren’t made public, there are no sins hidden from God (Hebrews 4:13).  The good news about all of our sinful pasts is that God offers us a chance to put our shirts in the “spiritual washing machine” (Acts 22:16).  Notice 1 Corinthians 6:8-11:

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.  Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

God is offering everyone a fresh, clean beginning through baptism (Acts 2:38; 1 Peter 3:21; Mark 16:16), and by remaining faithful (Revelation 2:10).  God wants us to repent and take care of our sins to make them part of the past, not the future (2 Peter 3:9).  If we are willing to do this, then the beautiful words of Isaiah 1:18 will become our reality, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.”

Are our spiritual “t-shirts” washed and clean?

Neal Pollard

An important element of thinking among our Catholic friends involves the idea of papal succession.  In this concept, Catholic scholars attempt to look all the way back to Peter and trace a line of papacy.  This elaborate effort to defend the idea of a universal pope goes back to fairly ancient times.  The further back they go, however, the more difficult this effort to find Peter’s successors.

A case in point of this involves the so-called third successor of Peter as bishop of Rome.  Everett Ferguson points out that Irenaeus looks at Clement as this bishop.  However, as Ferguson points out, “As many Protestant and some Roman Catholic historians have observed, the difficulty arises because there was a plurality of presbyter-bishops at this time in the church at Rome, and Irenaeus and others read back into this time the later organization of only one bishop in a church” (Church History, 53).

Though the New Testament does not say where, Peter served as an elder in a first-century congregation (1 Pet. 5:1-4).  Yet, as he indicates in that very passage, the divine model was for a plurality of men to be among their respective flocks.  Those who met Paul from Ephesus were elders (Acts 20:28).  Paul urges Timothy (1 Tim. 3:1-8) and Titus (1:5-11) in their work of identifying a plurality of men who were qualified to serve as elders.  Ferguson later gives theological, organizational, geographical, and political reasons for why Rome was elevated above other cities and Peter was elevated above other men in the whole papal discussion (ibid., 301ff), but the important point is that this “progression” was without New Testament foundation.  In fact, it is generally agreed that the first, officially recognized pope, Leo I, did not emerge until 440 AD (or over 400 years after the Lord’s church was established).  Even if one were to point to Marcellinus, this innovation of recognizing an earthly head over all the church would still be over 250 years after the first generation of the church and without the sanction of Scripture.

It is important that the authority of Scripture not be shared with any other source.  The Bible alone is sufficient to lead, guide, and govern (cf. 2 Pet. 1:3; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Gal. 1:6-9).  Let the Bible be the measuring rod by which every practice, every doctrine, and every name is measured.  What cannot be supported as true to God’s Word must be dismissed as of human rather than divine origin (cf. Matt. 7:24-27; 15:13).