Tag: Paul Van Noy

Truth Matters

The old adage was “Polite company does not discuss religion or politics.” That might have worked in a more placid age, but the rapid destruction of our society calls for a new approach.  I would assert that only a useless or defeated society refrains from discussing verifiable, observable truth and the impact it must have on our lives.

I do know that a notable local politician has stated “there are no morals in politics.”  

 

Perhaps he’s relieved about shrugging off that obligation, but the larger question is ‘Should there be’?

The short answer is “yes” and now I’ve violated an unwritten law about releasing your readers before you’ve even warmed up.  Stay with me to learn why we must combine true Christian faith with our political lives.

For years the refrain has echoed, especially in the abortion arena, ‘You can’t legislate morality’.  Yet our entire body of law is a societal agreement about what is right and what is wrong.  It is precisely and solely about legislating morality and nothing else.  So, yes you can.  

For those wishing to live unfettered lives, codified morals are anathema, they might even call advocates of such a system evil.  It’s their only refuge and we must give them that.  What we don’t have to do is elect them to public office.

Our daunting reality, however, is that many of the most virulent purveyors of societal destruction ARE in office, from the highest in the land, down to mere local pugnacity.  What’s a believer to do?

There are two books in the Bible that address parallel societies to ours.  Daniel, where we observe a blatantly evil, mighty empire in an encounter with stalwart men of God, and Ephesians.  When you think of Ephesus, think of San Francisco; in both settings, the light of God’s salvation shines with increased brilliance.  That’s our opportunity in these dark times.

The Book of Daniel . . .

In which prominent captives under constant threat of death, represent who God is to such an extent that Nebuchadnezzar himself writes Chapter 4.  

King Nebuchadnezzar to all the people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you! It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me.  How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders!  His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation. ~Daniel 4:1-3

I’m getting ahead of the story though, the king was a pagan who could snuff out any life on a whim.  How did he get such clarity?  He had an inexplicable dream that terrified him.

No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the last days. ~Daniel 2:27-28

I’d love to say this ends the story on a high note but crawling around for seven years, shaggy-haired and with fingernails like claws, eating grass, driven out of the company of men was still in his future.  We humans are slow learners.

The pertinent point is that God is active and if we know and follow Him even the most venal among us can be convinced.  Daniel conveys the piercing light of the reality of the one true God in a period of captivity and oppression of His people.

On to Ephesians . . .

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. ~Ephesians 1:3-6

 

I find I have nothing to add to the fullness of just these few opening verses.  My pastor, Paul Van Noy, said recently that we Christians often study eschatology (i.e. death, judgment the final destiny of the soul and humankind) but neglect soteriology.  To which I exclaimed, “I don’t even know what that is”!  So for those of you who, like me, could be Exhibit A in ‘what has gone wrong with modern Christians’ . . . I’ll tell you.  Soteriology is the study of our salvation.  The completeness, security, permanence, power, and strength of that singular work – Jesus accomplished perfection for us.  Until we grasp that, we’ll keep adding, subtracting, and messing it up in our heads then communicating that chaos to the world.

If you study Ephesians, you’ll gain the understanding that is desperately needed in this current time.

In essence, we are utterly secure beings surrounded by a time of great darkness.  We must grasp the first before we engage the second.

Human governance is unstable but if we return to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream we know what happens in the end.  The statue is standing there on weak feet, iron mixed with clay . . .

And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.  It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold.  A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this.  The dream is certain and its interpretation sure. Daniel 2:44,45

God is omnipresent and omnipotent.  If we belong to Him, we are standing on the Rock that shatters every other kingdom.  

So go forth into those wobbly kingdoms, as a representative of Christ and watch them fall.   We can’t save the kingdoms but we also mustn’t allow the servants of darkness to dim our light.

 

Let Him Who Thirsts Come

From Pre-School to Doctoral Dissertation

Blogger’s Note:  When you leave a seeker-friendly church after 20 years you have a gnawing, nearly insatiable hunger for deep truths.  You might sense you lack the rooted certainty to get you through turbulent times because you’ve been splashing around in a puddle of milk.  Maybe that’s just me.  In the past few months, since leaving a mega-church, it’s as if I’ve surged from pre-school to post-doctoral preparation.  This is a gift from God and also due to the profound knowledge and shepherd’s heart of Pastor Paul Van Noy.  The resulting certainty brings peaceful contentment and strength.  The end to ignorant striving is in sight, the sheep are resting assured.

Parson to Person –

When believers get to heaven we will declare, “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.” (Revelation 4:11) We will declare, “You are worthy (for)…You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9-10)
We will exclaim, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:10) We will worship saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” (Revelation 7:12)
In the verses above we find an excellent example of the many expressions and declarations we will make when we get to heaven, but there is an unstated truth here revealing so much more. In the declaration of praise to God there is a complete absence of praise for human merit and glory! All the glory belongs to the Lord.
The Apostles warned us that there would be many false teachings introduced to the church. Human-inspired – incremental grace is one of the false teachings we should be guarded against. Any teaching that moves people from the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and toward a human-centered / human-assisted righteousness is forbidden by Scripture. Church history is replete with examples of this error and the array of incidents range from the very extreme to the very subtle. Those who embrace a human-assisted salvation find it difficult to fully embrace the verses cited above. In their view, placing ALL the worth, blessing, glory and honor upon the Lord for salvation is unbalanced. The thoughts supporting their view are summed up in the concept that they participated with the Lord, made efforts and to some degree or another earned a bit of God’s favor by both actions and intentions.
When a person believes people cannot get to heaven, by faith in Christ alone, but add to faith the requirement of making any or every effort to live a life pleasing to the Lord, that person has embraced a performance-based / human-assisted Christianity.
Those who by genuine saving faith in Christ, who have nonetheless been touched by this doctrine, will get to heaven and discover afresh that all their righteous deeds are as filthy rags. Those things thought to be instrumental and worthy of reward will be lost; the works themselves “tried by fire”. In the light of God’s presence they will discover that any “good” they believe to have done is lost and only those things manifest by God’s working within, remain. At this revelation they will say… ALL thanksgiving, blessing, glory, honor and power belong to the Lord. No credit to us at all!
Here is a test. Do you feel condemnation when you forget or even neglect to read the Bible? How about when you fail to spend enough time in prayer? Do you ever feel that God is disappointed with you? Have you felt that you have let God down? Do you feel the need to inventory every sin in your life and confess them one by one in order to be forgiven? What if you forget one? If you can say yes to any of these questions you have need again to understand the true Gospel and see the awesomeness of our God. You need to purge out the leaven of error and embrace the true Gospel of grace. It is God who paid the price for our sin. It is by His work we are saved, forgiven, and made righteous. Remember, “For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 6:21)
Oh Lord, “You are worthy… You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood…” (Revelation 5:9-10)

I love you all, Pastor Paul

 

Much Ado About Something

Church Tossing as a Blood Sport

My husband and I had been attending a church for over 20 years.  I never caused trouble, even though I did have some minor concerns, until one day my exasperation overflowed.  What I did next started a conflagration.  A pastor taught one Sunday about resting in the Lord.  It focused to a certain extent on getting good rest, or sleep.  Sleeping without a cell phone by your bed, sleep studies, how the particular pastor behaved when sleep-deprived, etc.  There was a pleasant nod in the direction of scripture but I walked out frustrated at what I perceived to be a message that completely missed the point of trusting in God, through knowledge of Him, and finding rest in that understanding that comes through deep study of the Word of God.

The church put up a post on Facebook about the sermon.  There was accommodation for comments below and I said “Come on (name of church) let’s study the Word“!  Or something to that effect.  I should never have fallen for the apparent invitation to ‘comment’.  It should have warned me that only laudatory comments could be made or all hell would break loose.  

I met with the senior pastor for two and a half hours.  We talked things over at length, I later provided some well-documented information pertaining to a woman who was coming to speak and is doctrinally light in the loafers.  The decision was made that she was worthy to address our church and deep inside of me hope, and confidence in where the church was headed, simply died.

I did email the pastor that I would blog about what I was starting to research and there’s the rub.  I have been “disfellowshipped” and named as a slanderer and gossip.

As I’ve spent at least 2 weeks, absorbing more of the Word and contemplating why I would confront and scold men I should have been submitted to, self-recrimination was foremost in my mind.  What on earth motivated me to take on a fight against overwhelming odds?  Then I came upon a startling study on the spark that ignited this forest fire and all the lights came on.

The modern church has approved, supported, and executed erosion of God’s Word.

This is kind of long so let me sum it up.  It starts with a passage in the book of Amos.

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.  They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it. ~Amos 8:11,12

What could possibly make the very Word of God disappear?  Another question is why are people seeking it so desperately.  It would seem we are much more likely, whether we call ourselves Christians or not, to avoid it at all costs.  The Word is sometimes just so hard.  That’s why Emerging Church techniques are delightful, that’s why the Mormon-controlled entertainment The Chosen is all the rage.  That’s why devotional books and quotes are the bomb and fraudulent translations like The Message and The Passion are the holy grail for shallow ‘believers’.  Studying the Bible seems exhausting until you actually Just Do It and then you learn it’s so endlessly fascinating you can barely put it down.  Plus it saves your life.

I’m betting that’s why people are literally running after the Word, but they shall not find it.  Where did it go?  It’s being stolen right under our noses as we read it online.  The words are being replaced, small, incremental changes so it will appear you are a trouble-making nitpicker if you point it out.  We are in a time when the very definition of words is being changed, i.e. calling a shot that permanently changes your DNA a “vaccine” being the most obvious.  When people don’t know what words mean, switching them out is absurdly easy.  Before you know it, you will be following a lie and will be absolutely convinced it’s the Word of God.

How do we sidestep this threat?  Get to a church that teaches the Word. We’ve made our way to Candlelight Christian Fellowship where literal passages of the Bible are taken, oddly enough . . . literally.  Choose a Bible that is as close to accurate as possible and go old school, not online. And follow the advice of Psalms 119.

How can a young man cleanse his way?  By taking heed according to Your word.  With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!  Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.  Blessed are You, O Lord!  Teach me Your statutes.  With my lips I have declared all the judgments of Your mouth.  I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches.  I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways.  I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.  Psalms 119: 9-16

We have been warned against deception but I think we little realized how insidious and pervasive it would become.  Go deeply into the Word, and run to the Lord.  The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.  Hide His Word in your heart and hide in Him.  The storm is upon us, take shelter.  You might get tossed out of a church, but you’ll be found in Christ.

When it comes to the word of the Lord – stay thirsty my friends.