Words of Encouragement – Newsletter for Sept. 23, 2009

Paul’s Letter to the Believers at Colosse (continued)

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ…” Colossians 2:16-17

The Apostle Paul, writing these words by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, makes his point. Believers in Christ are not to let anyone judge them in regard to their food or drink, in regard to observing certain holy days or religious festivals, or in regard to observing the Sabbath Day.

Why? Because believers in Jesus Christ are complete in Him. They are no longer subject to Old Testament laws which served only to point to the coming Messiah and the salvation He would provide for all mankind by His holy life and innocent sufferings and death upon the cross – the promised Messiah and Savior has come!

The word “therefore” is there for a reason. It gives the basis for the apostle’s assertion, referring back to what was already written in the epistle. God the Father has made us meet and fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light through the sacrifice of His Son. He delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son, Jesus Christ. In Jesus, we have redemption though His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. Christ Jesus is the very image of the invisible God and the creator of all things. In Him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells, and He made peace through the blood of His cross and reconciled all mankind to God by His atoning sacrifice in our stead.

Believers in Christ, even though they were at one time alienated from God and enemies in their minds by wicked works, are now reconciled to God by the death of His Son, Messiah Jesus, that He might present them holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight. And how? Not by being circumcised, obeying dietary regulations or observing certain days, but by faith in the Son – by continuing in the faith, grounded and settled, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel.

Believers in Christ are joined to Him in baptism, have their sins washed away, and are regenerated and given new life by the gracious working of the Holy Spirit, who also raised Christ from the dead on the third day.

Since believers in Christ Jesus already have forgiveness of sins, life and eternal salvation for the sake of His holy life and innocent sufferings and death upon the cross, why would they want to go back to mere shadows meant to point them to Jesus? Why would they listen to anyone telling them that to be saved and pleasing to God they must eat only certain foods, observe certain feasts and festivals and do no work on the Sabbath?

Jesus has already fulfilled all righteousness for us, and He has paid in full for all our sins. We rest from our labors when we place our trust in Him and the salvation He has won for us (cf. Hebrews 4).

In the early church, when certain men said it was necessary for salvation to be circumcised and keep the laws of Moses, the apostles and believers in Jerusalem laid no such burden upon the churches but simply asked them to refrain from “pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood” because of the large numbers of Jews in every region (cf. Acts 15).

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ …” You have all you need in Jesus; He won your salvation for you and gives you forgiveness and life through faith in His name! Simply hold fast to Jesus!

Dearest Jesus, thank You for fulfilling all righteousness in my place and paying in full the penalty for my sins. Graciously keep me trusting in You unto life everlasting. Amen.

Pastor Randy Moll

We All Believe in One True God:

A Summary of Biblical Doctrine

(The entire book is posted under Pages on the Church Web log)

III. The Creation of the World and of Man

The Christian believes that the Holy Trinity “in the beginning” (when time began) created the heaven and the earth out of nothing. That which is stated in Heb. 11:3 is an article of faith for every true Christian: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

Every Christian receives the first two chapters of Genesis as the Creator’s own historical account of His own work of creation, and hence the only authentic history of creation which is or ever will be available to man. He finds this divine “Natural History” poetically embellished in the divine poetry of Psalm 104, and divinely confirmed and doctrinally expounded in the inspired Prologue of St. John’s Gospel (ch. 1:1–14, especially vv. 1–3).

God’s own account of the history of creation, as He gave it to Moses, clearly reveals the identity of the Creator, the time employed in the work of creation, and the sequence in which the various types of creatures were produced by the creative Word. The first topic, the identity of the Creator, specifically, the truth that the creation is a work of the Holy Trinity as such, not to be distributed among the three Persons or attributed to one Person only, has been treated in the third paragraph of the previous chapter of this book, to which the reader is herewith referred.

The second topic, the chronology of creation, is accurately described by the Creator as a period of six days, each consisting of evening and of morning. This is so before the creation of the sun and other heavenly bodies on the fourth day, as well as after. These are not “days of God” (compare 2 Peter 3:8), who exists outside of time in an eternal present, but days of the earth, days of creation. What we are to think of the millions of years comprised in the so-called “geological ages” is clear. They are pure fiction, the fabrication of ignorance which insists on speaking of what it cannot know apart from the revelation which it refuses to accept.

The third topic, the sequence of the “six days work,” is outlined in Genesis, chapter one, with a clarity which leaves nothing to be desired. One of the most notable points in this connection is that briefly referred to above, namely, that light, as well as the variation of light and darkness (“the evening and the morning”), existed before those celestial bodies which we are accustomed to regard as the sole source of the light illuminating our earth were brought into being. All human theories, therefore, which regard the earth’s existence as a part of the “solar system” as dependent upon the sun, especially the absurd fable which represents the earth as a particle thrown off from the sun and gradually cooling through countless aeons into the terrestrial globe upon which we dwell, are discredited as having no ground in fact and entirely unacceptable to Christian faith. Those who imagine that the Scripture passages, approximately sixty in number, in which the earth is said to stand still, and the sun and all stars are said to move, may be “interpreted” in such a way as if really the reverse were the case, we may leave to pursue their fruitless endeavors alone. The Christian way is simply to accept Holy Scripture as it reads.

Another exceedingly important point in the sequence of creative activity on the third, fifth, and sixth days is found in the constantly recurring phrases: “after his kind,” “after their kind” (Gen. 1:11, 12, 21, 24, 25). These phrases, then, are used of the various forms of vegetable and animal life upon which God has bestowed the power of reproducing their kind. According to God’s Word He created each species (to use the scientific term which corresponds to the Hebrew word translated “kind”) as a species and capable of reproducing only its own species. Every “scientific” theory of evolution, which teaches the transition or transmutation of one species into another, is irreconcilable with God’s Word, and hence with the Christian faith. That organic evolution is also irreconcilable with the ascertainable facts of nature has been scientifically proved by Christian writers with the specific learning requisite for this task; but such demonstration is beyond the scope of this book, which rests upon Scripture proof alone. Let us only add that we cannot be satisfied with the compromise of so-called “theistic evolution,” according to which some writers are willing to admit that God made the world, but assert that evolution correctly describes the “process” of His activity. God tells us in Genesis, chapter one, not only that “God created the heaven and the earth” (verse 1), but also that the “process” or “method” which He used was not organic evolution but the direct and separate creation of each species “after his kind.”

The account of the six days work in Genesis 1 and 2 omits any mention of the foremost invisible creatures of God, the angels, but Scripture is full of testimonies to their existence, nature, and activities. Since, however, they are creatures of God (“By Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible,” Col. 1:16), they cannot have been in existence before the first day of creation, when there was only the uncreated eternal God, and they must have been created before the end of the sixth day, since then “the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them,” Gen. 2:1. The Bible also does not inform us as to the exact time when a large number of the angels rebelled against God, and “kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation” (Jude 6). This must have occurred before the fall of man, since the latter was brought about through the temptation of Satan. The existence, incurably sinful nature, and hopeless abandonment of the fallen angels, or devils, under their prince, “that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan” (Rev. 20:2), is all clearly taught in Holy Scripture. These evil spirits were also created good and holy (Gen. 1:31: “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good”); but they turned themselves from God of their own accord, and became enemies of God and man.

Nowhere is the lie of organic evolution more disastrous in its effects than when it is applied (as all evolutionists do apply it) to the origin of man. The Biblical teaching concerning the origin of man is crystal clear and sufficiently comprehensive: “And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them” Gen. 1:26, 27. As “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24), this image is not to be looked for in the physical makeup of man (though even in this respect man is incomparably superior to the beast), but rather in his intellectual and moral or spiritual nature. The fullest characterization in Holy Scripture of this spiritual likeness of man as he was created to his Creator is contained in two passages of St. Paul’s Epistles, in which the Apostle speaks of this image of God as it is partially restored, after its total loss in the fall of man, when he is regenerated or converted to faith in his Savior by the Holy Spirit. In this connection the restored image of God is spoken of as “the new man.” Col. 3:10: “Ye have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” Eph. 4:24: “Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”

As Gen. 1:27, quoted above, shows, this image of God was imparted both to man and woman in their creation. This spiritual equality, however, does not rule out a difference in the God-appointed sphere of activity of the sexes and a God-ordained subjection of the woman to the man, as taught in 1 Tim. 2:11–14 with reference to the very order of creation before the fall as well as to conditions as they obtain from that sad event on till the end of time: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”

With this “transgression” we begin the next chapter, which deals with the subject of “Sin.” Therein we shall perceive the enormous difference between man as he is born into the world today and man as he was created.

By Wallace H. McLaughlin

Bible Study in Preparation for Sunday

The Adult Bible Class will continue on Sunday with its study of Revelation, in chapter 22, verse 18. What warning does Jesus give about altering the words of the Book of Revelation? Does this apply to all of Scripture? Cf. Deuteronomy 4:2; Matthew 5:17-20. How might this relate to the translation of Scripture and to our choosing of a translation for reading, teaching and study?

The Catechism Class is studying the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed and considering the foremost visible creature of God – man – and also how God preserves His creation. Catechumens may find it helpful to read Genesis, chapters 1-3, and consider what the image of God is and how it was lost.

Sunday School Classes are scheduled to study Solomon’s building of the temple. Bible texts behind the lesson are in 1 Kings 5-9.

The Sunday Sermon will be based on the appointed Gospel reading, Mark 9:38-50. In preparation, read the above reading and consider the following: What does Jesus mean by warning against causing offenses? How serious is it to cause others – especially children who believe – to fall into sin and unbelief? How do people do this? What does Jesus mean when He speaks of cutting off hands or feet which offend, or plucking out eyes which offend? Why does He say this? What does Jesus mean when He tells us to have salt in ourselves?

What Do We Believe?

What do we believe about Justification? Consider the following summary statement and look up the supporting Bible passages:

JUSTIFICATION

We believe that God, for the sake of Jesus Christ’s holy life and innocent sufferings and death upon the cross for the sins of the whole world, has pardoned all men and justified them, declaring them to be just, righteous, and acceptable in His sight (1 John 2:1-2; Ephesians 1:6-7; 2 Corinthians 5:19,21; Romans 3:23-26; 4:25; 5:18-19). We also believe and teach that one is individually and personally justified and counted righteous in God’s sight when he believes the Gospel message and trusts that God is gracious to him and has forgiven all his sins for Christ’s sake (Romans 3:28; 4:5; Luke 24:46-47; Acts 10:43). We reject as false all teachings which would make a man’s justification dependent upon his own works and merits or upon his own will or cooperation with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:8-10; Galatians 2:16; John 1:12-13).

Remember to Pray

Remember to pray for our church and for our families that none be lost to Christ’s kingdom, but that all continue in repentance and be strengthened and built up in the true and saving faith in Christ Jesus through the hearing and study of His Word. We continue to pray for Helen Hoth; for Sam Rusch; for Ron Wellander; for Dave Brown; for Tonny Mayer; for Rick and Karen Hawes and their family; for any others who have been sick or suffering among us; and for the soldiers we have adopted.

Mutual Encouragement

Now, more than ever, it is so important that we encourage our fellow believers to stand fast in the faith and not forsake the assembling of ourselves together for mutual encouragement and the comfort of God’s Word. We have been so blessed by God to have the precious promises of His Word and the assurance of God’s mercy and forgiveness in Christ Jesus given us each Sunday as we remember our Lord’s death until He comes. I encourage you to come and be with us as we worship and hear God’s life-giving Word, and I urge you to share that encouragement with others that they too might come and partake of God’s blessings with us.

“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”

Jude 24-25

Information for bulletins or newsletters may be sent to Pastor Moll by calling him at 479-233-0081 or by e-mail at randy@mollfoto.com.

[Scripture in this Newsletter is taken from the King James Version of the Bible]