Another kind of Christ – Part 2 “Serpent in the wilderness”

Posted on by kevinjandt

SerpentStick

And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” – Numbers 21:5

The children of Israel have been in the wilderness wandering around for a very long time.  This term term “wilderness” refers to land that contains little vegetation or trees, and because of a sparsity of rainfall, it cannot be cultivated. This land is best used for tending flocks of animals. (MacArthur Study Bible)

In fact they’ve now been there nearly 40 years?  The newness and excitement of escaping bondage had long ago worn off.  They are a complaining bunch.  They have contentment issues.

“Moses, a steak sure would be nice…”  “We are so tired of this manna…”  “And we have no water… why would you do this to us?”  Never mind that in chapter 20 God brought forth fresh water out of a rock.

But before we are too harsh with them in our self-righteous minds let’s take a brief moment to consider our own contentment issues; the times when we don’t like this or that.  “Pastor, I sure think it would have been better if we eliminated that 30 minute prayer time.”   “I think you really missed the point, or why didn’t you include this verse…”  If we are honest with ourselves we complain as much as the children of Israel and we must stop or risk perishing.

So the LORD sent fiery serpents (translated poisonous serpents) among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. – Numbers 22:6

So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. – Number 22:9

I want to point out three important points for us to consider today.

Israel is sinful

Brothers and sisters, we are sinful.  We reject God’s goodness and His provision even in our times of testing.  Do we really want to despise what God tells us is good for us?

James 1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

God judges sin

Numbers 22:6 …and many of the people of Israel died.  God demands our complete trust in Him.  No less than full submission to the Lordship of Christ will do.  I realize how challenging this seems to some, but the alternative is death and judgment as represented by the serpent.  Unless you look to Him you will likewise perish.

God is merciful

Numbers 22:9 “…and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.”

God understands the predicament of our willful disobedience and our sinful nature.  Because of His love He offered a way to live.  He has some requirements that accompany this way out.

We must look to Christ

Isaiah 45:22 “Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth!  For I am God, and there is no other.”

Acts 4:12 “Nor is there any salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

We must repent and turn from sin 

Acts 2:37-38 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”  Then Peter said to them, “Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Can we see the foreshadowing of Christ as God used this lesson to teach His people that man is sinful, God is holy, God judges and will pour out His wrath on sin and then lastly He has provided a way out in Jesus Christ?

John 3:14-15 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Are we beginning to see the authority and the truth of scripture?  Does this give us a new appreciation that God had a plan and His plan is perfect?  I realize for those in disbelief this is foolishness.  The message of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing. (1 Corinthians 1:18)

If you were snake-bit in the wilderness would you look to the serpent lifted up and be saved?  Why would you not look to the resurrected Christ to deliver you from your sin?  Look to Him and be saved if you are in disbelief.

If you are a Christian stand in awe of His amazing sacrifice.

Kevin

Another kind of Christ – Part 1

Posted on by kevinjandt

shepherd-sheep-12Author note: This will be a three part series that I will intermingle with my regular posts over the next few weeks.  I will do my best to give some parallels and hopefully an application for life as Christians.

Do you read the Old Testament with an eye on Christ?  It’s important that Believers study the Old Testament and look with a broader view of how it all points to the Lord and His coming.  He was promised to the Jews as their King yet most missed Him.

Most still miss Him today.

It’s important to see how the entire Bible is consistent and how God has purpose in every word that is written and more importantly it all points to Christ.  It’s this lack of understanding and this denial of the truth that leads people to deny the authority of Scripture.  It allows atheist’s to misunderstand, misapply and take things out of context, so they can deny God.

Most Christians know and understand the prophecies of Christ in passages such as Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 these are very clear but have you seen Christ revealed in pages of the Old Testament at nearly every turn of the page?  Today I want to look at a foreshadowing of Christ as contained in the pages of Exodus chapter 3.

Moses had fled from the glories of Egypt where he had been a prince of the people.  He had a life of great responsibility and pleasure.  He was a ruler and authority over a great kingdom where he had spent the first forty years of his life being groomed to rule over all of Egypt.  Now Moses is a simple shepherd tending to a small flock.  Do you see the similarities that Christ left His heavenly throne to come to earth and live among man?

What was the purpose of God having Moses as a shepherd for forty years?  That’s a long time.  Think of the trials you’ve faced and the times you thought they’d never end but forty years is a long time to be trained by God.

Spurgeon commenting on this time in the wilderness:

It must have been a great change for Moses, after forty years in the court of Pharaoh, to be spending another forty years in the wilderness. But it was not waste time; it required the first two periods to make Moses fit for the grand life of the last forty. He must be a prince, and he must be a shepherd, that he might be both a ruler and a shepherd to God’s people, Israel. He must be much alone; he must have many solitary communings with his own heart; he must be led to feel his own weakness. And this will be no loss of time to him; he will do more in the last forty years because of the two forties thus spent in preparation. And it is not lost time that a man takes in putting on his harness before he goes to the battle, or that the reaper spends in sharpening his scythe before he cuts down the corn.
There is nothing dishonourable about common trade, and matters of business at all. Here is a shepherd, who keeps his flock, and God keeps him and reveals himself to him. When God wants a man to lead his people he seeks for him not among idlers, but busy, active men, and God was pleased to show himself more to Moses as a shepherd, than he had ever shown himself to him as a prince in Egypt. I find no glowing Deity in the halls of Pharaoh, but I find the consuming fire manifested in the lone wastes of the desert of Sinai.

Exodus 3:7 And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 

Can we clearly see the relation God has with Moses and His people?

Can we see the relation between Moses and Christ?

God’s people are oppressed by sin and their inability to break the bonds of slavery.  God’s people need to be delivered.  They need a Savior.  The children of Israel and those that will be redeemed today still need a Savior.

Are you in bondage to your sin today?  If you are a Believer do you need to be delivered from a nagging sin you just can’t shake?  If you’ve never seen the ugliness of your sin and you don’t even know you are a slave do you realize there is a solution?

Jesus Christ is a High Priest and was tempted in all the same ways as is common to man.

Hebrews 7:26-27 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

The only solution is turning to Christ.  Turn to Him and be delivered just as the children of Israel followed Moses out of the bondage of slavery to Egypt there is a solution for the sins that are keeping you from the Promised Land.  Christ is that solution.  Turn to Him and live or die in the wilderness of your sin.

Kevin

…Pants on fire

Posted on by kevinjandt

exaggeration

Exodus 20:16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

Would anyone agree that telling lies is a good thing?  Nobody wants to be called a “liar”.  Those are fighting words for most people.  I would assert even atheists think telling the truth, for the most part, is a good thing.  Although why they think this I don’t know because without God’s command there is no basis for truth telling.

God’s Word tells us repeatedly to tell the truth, and in fact it’s such a serious matter that it’s one of the seven things that are an abomination to God.

Proverbs 6:16-17 These six thing the LORD hates, yes seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, a lying tongue…

Ephesians 4:29-31 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth… Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.

Paul tells us that it is contrary to sound doctrine (1 Timothy 1:10).  There is no doubt God hates lying.

Does anyone disagree?

I’m here to tell you today that we need to reform in this area of truth telling.  I know most of you are probably thinking, “I don’t lie”, at least not on purpose.  I think there is a very insidious way in which Satan deceives us into lying and allows us to wrap ourselves in our own righteous.  It’s called exaggeration.  It’s a subtle but evil form of speaking to your neighbor.

Here’s an example from my own life.

I return from a hard week of work and say, “Oh I’m so tired I put in 40 hours of work in 3 days”.  In reality I did work hard and I am tired but the exaggeration comes in the form of the “stretch” of how many hours I actually worked.  I might have been awake and actually doing something for 40 hours over the course of those 3 days but I wasn’t working the entire time.

In the business I work we get up early.  I may actually have worked 38 hours but there is always the pull to exaggerate, even slightly, to the amount of time or the amount of effort that was exerted.

Why?

I want to seriously ask myself this question, why would I do that?  If I’m telling someone about my long work days do they really care whether it was 40 hours or 38 hours; of course not, but in my mind that sounds more dramatic.  I have the tendency to think of myself a higher opinion.  “Boy I really did something this weekend!”  “Aren’t I special?”

I’m a legend in my own mind…

Don’t we all do this?  Tell the truth…  You know you do this and so do I.

I have a good friend that is an extraordinarily hard working guy.  I don’t distrust him when it comes to his work ethic or his ability to tell me the truth.  Yet he’s an exaggerator.  He has some liberty with the amount of emails sent in a day or the time he arises each morning and goes to bed each night to accomplish his tasks.  Again, I don’t distrust his work ethic but why the embellishment?

I know he’s busy, I know he works hard.  But did he really send out 100 emails today or was it more like 60?  I’m easily impressed so whether it was 40, 60 or 800 in a day I’m going to think he’s pretty special at his job.  He has my respect without the exaggeration.

God thought this was important enough to include this in the top 10 of Christianity (Exodus 20:1-17).  This word “false” holds a very deep meaning.

sheh’-ker

From H8266; an untruth; by implication a sham (often adverbially): – without a cause, deceit (-ful), false (-hood, -ly), feignedly, liar, + lie, lying, vain (thing), wrongfully.

Notice how it says adverbially.  I really like this because it shows us how we use “verbal exclamations” to spin our lies in the form of exaggerations and all along it’s meant to deceive.  And then it goes on to tell us “without a cause”, there’s no reason for it.  Please let that sink in for a moment.  You have no reason to stretch that truth.  It does not profit you.  Ultimately it harms your credibility.

This article is meant to reform the minds and hearts of Bible believing Christians.  I don’t expect it will have any effect on the unregenerate but if God wills it might show someone their sin.  If you are a chronic liar you need to repent and turn from this abominable sin.  If you are just an exaggerator you need to repent and turn from this abominable sin.

Although I’d like to develop some other thoughts, that might have to be another day, but some common expressions Believers should not utilize are verbal exclamations such “I swear to God” or “I swear”, see Matthew 5:33-36.  You should never have to “convince” someone you are a truth teller.

We should also eliminate words like “honestly”, or “to be honest with you”…  This would indicate at other times you are dishonest.  As we begin to consider the meaning of our words and how important the words we use, we can become better communicators and better ambassadors for Christ.

Ephesians 4:14-15 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head Christ…

This is the ultimate goal, to no longer be children, we need to put aside the elementary principles of Christianity and “grow up”; for the glory of the One that deserves obedience and truth telling.

Kevin

Spread good seed

Posted on by kevinjandt

12566863-wheat-germ-spring-wheat-seedlings

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?

Do you ever wonder why so few people respond to the gospel message?  Those of us that take the Great Commission seriously see our efforts go by mostly unheeded.  If we read the Bible we know the answer of course, but yet isn’t it sometimes discouraging?

How many souls have you prayed for?

How many times have you discussed the glories of submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ yet they don’t exhibit change?

Some listen politely, others tell you to buzz off and others think they have time to make a decision later (Acts 17:32-34).

If you share the gospel on a consistent basis I want to encourage you today.  The gospel is the power unto salvation (Romans 1:16) and our responsibility is to spread the good seed (Mark 4:26).

Jesus told us few would be saved… (Matthew 22:14)

If the Lord sees fit to bring a soul back from destruction we must rejoice in that and consider it rare, yet let’s not be fooled into thinking it’s an everyday occurrence.

The human heart is wicked and if we embrace this truth we can rely on God’s Word and trust Him for the results of our preaching.  I know this is almost so simple it seems ridiculous, yet how often I’ve prayed for those I love “if only they would hear what I’m saying”.

Can you think back to a day before you believed?

What things occupied your mind?

Can you remember when God opened your eyes to see the beauty of His truth?

A heart that was at enmity with God, which truly hated Him is suddenly melted like a wax figurine thrown into a fire and a new heart emerges.  What a miracle!

Let us continue to spread the good seed and trust God for the results of salvation.

Kevin

Words matter

Posted on by kevinjandt

Think

Have you spent any time considering how many words you speak in a day?

What did you say?

What was really important about what you said?

In other words, words matter.  More importantly how we speak matters.

The vast majority of the populace will give very little thought to what they say on a daily basis.  Those in the Evangelical Christian world will probably give more thought, but today I want to focus on a subset of those that desire some serious reformation in the way we use our language.

I’m hopeful those that will read and really consider this will believe they are Christians.  Not just a person that attends a weekly church service, but someone that lives a true life of discipleship and desires to be obedient to the demands of scripture.

Am I an expert in the English language and have a mastery of my words?  Far from it, but I have a desire to change, I’m hopeful you will as well.

Let’s begin by throwing out the obvious.  I will probably do another article on this someday.  Christians should NOT use course language of any sort (Ephesians 4:29, 5:4, Colossians 3:8 and many others).  If you are accustomed to this and you call yourself a Believer you need to examine your claims to Christianity.

Jesus was very clear when He said “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.”  In other words you are what you speak (Matthew 15:18-20).

Christians should not use foul language of any sort or foolish joking.  Our call is for holiness not for foolishness.

Ecclesiastes 10:1 Dead flies putrefy the perfumer’s ointment.  And cause it to give off a foul odor; so does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor.

Do you want to be respected for wisdom and to be honored?  Then stop trying to be funny.

Today let’s focus on “cultural” words; the words that creep into culture and are adopted into the everyday language.  This can be commonly referred to as slang or in another generation “jive talk” (I have to laugh writing this as I’m sure my kids will make fun of me), but you know what I’m talking about if you grew up in the 70’s.

Here is a selection of some of these terms that Believer’s should stop using.

“like”

Unless you are  using it properly, this is an awful phrase to utilize and it really dumbs down your ability to communicate your message properly.

“OMG”

This is a clear violation of the 3rd Commandment.  Even though some will try and pass it off as “gosh” it’s still a reference to God and His name.  Please stop it.

“You know what I’m sayin’…”

Need I say anything else?  This is filler and is common in ghetto style talk.  It will not make you look cool and will definitely make you appear less intelligent.

“Just sayin’…”

If you have something to say to somebody and you stand behind your words, don’t hide behind this phrase.  Allow your “yes” to be yes and your “no” to be no.  If you need to confront sin in someone do so in a Biblical manner.  See Matthew chapter 18.

“Don’t judge me…”

This is another modern phrase that the youth of America enjoy.  In other words “please excuse me from any responsibility”.  I have no authority to judge you other than by the Word of God, but if that is judging you then you need to discuss it with Him.

“Umm”

This is my number one and we could also throw in “ahh” as a similar type word.  We’ve began working with our children and ourselves to eliminate “umm” from our vocabulary.  Again, this is filler.  I’m trying to fill in time or make a transition to my next thought.

I think “umm” is devastating to the person who really desires to think before they speak.  We want to be heard and in an effort to be heard we speak quickly and don’t take the time to formulate our ideas.

Therefore our mouth spews out things we haven’t thought through thoroughly (say that quickly three times).  This is one of the things I really enjoy about writing.  I have an opportunity to “think” and then put my words on paper.  If I can transfer this over to the way I communicate in person it will really be beneficial to me as a communicator.

I could spend a more time going through other words that I think God finds offensive and makes the Believer less credible in their message but I’m hopeful I’ve made my point.  So why should we be concerned about this?  I see a couple quick reasons.

The number one reason is to be a better ambassador and witness for Jesus Christ.  The Lord was very purposeful in His use of language.  He spoke with clarity and authority.  The result was few words but very powerful and direct words.  Imitate me as I imitate Christ says the Apostle Paul.

Secondly, we need to constantly be reforming.  If we are truly to live Romans 12:2 then this should be an area to bring under control.  “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless…  James 1:26

Today I urge you to be mindful and purposeful in your spoken words.

Kevin