"I believe all religions are the same."

Where's the reverence? John 2:12-25

This week we covered the last half of John 2.  One of the things that really stood out to me this week was the fact that Jesus messed up the temple, and His reasons for it.

If we look at the Jesus presented in most churches today, we see a Jesus that has long-flowing hair, He is a pretty man, is usually glowing (like He has the most perfect skin), and if He were walking around here on earth today, He'd look closer to Bono than He would a carpenter.  Would it be fair to say the Jesus depicted in most churches today would be a tree-hugging metro-sexual?  Can you picture this Jesus making a whip and clearing out a massive area inside the temple like He did in John 2?  He cleared out the temple...by HIMSELF!  Why?

We can see from Leviticus that the temple had some strict rules and laws regarding the temple and the activities that can go on there.  Clearly making the temple a super-mall was not allowed, yet due to the fact that the Jewish nation hadn't heard from God since Malachi 400 years earlier, they had become very complacent and irreverent towards God and His temple.  Jesus comes, sees this gong-show, and is righteously angry.  What does He do?  He makes a whip and uses it.  This brings me to the point for our churches today.

If Jesus can get angry and clear out the temple, why do our churches discourage men and women from having righteous emotion?  Why do men in church today confuse meekness for keeping the peace?  I would argue that most men in the church today are closer to Ned Flanders than the apostle Paul, or Christ Himself.  Is this the picture we have for Christians?  Christians are allowed to cry in church (especially men), they are allowed to be happy, but whatever you do, don't be angry, that's not allowed.

The second point is how many times do we go to church with an irreverent attitude?  This was what Jesus was so angry about.  Do we think that somehow because we're part of the church it's somehow OK to walk in the doors of a church and do so with casual observance?  Why do we go to church?  Is it for fellowship?  The coffee?  The entertainment (God forbid!)? Lord help us if we use the church for business contacts...oi!  We are to go to church to praise God, to worship God, to give glory to God!  If we don't do this with the right heart condition, why would the Holy Spirit ever move in a place that treats God so casually?

Three questions to ponder this week.

a.      How have you come to church?  Do you have reverence for Him?

b.      What role do emotions play in the Christian life?

c.       What would it take for you to give up Christ?

Really... Not Emotional?

Wretched: Oh the Hypocrisy!

These types of arrests have been going on in Western Europe for quite some time now, and getting worse, likewise, the U.S. is getting into the same sort of silliness.  Is Canada far behind?  I doubt it.  As Todd Friel would say, "Go serve your King."

Christianity for the living, not the dead (Luther's 95)

8. The penitential canons apply only to men who are still alive, and, according to the canons themselves, none applies to the dead.


There was thought in the Roman church that indulgences and penitence could be applied to those in purgatory; hence the selling of indulgences to people that lost loved ones.  Luther's point here was that those canons (penitential) applied only to those that were still alive.  There are those out there today (even some in the Roman church) that still believe that what happens here on earth can still affect those that have passed.  This is not applied to just the Roman church, as Mormons (LDS) believe strongly in works for the dead.  Baptism for the dead and acceptance of Christ (post-mortem) is all commonplace within those ranks.

This was not just a mistake made in recent times, but even as we see Jesus challenged by the Pharisees with the question of the woman that had 7 husbands.  The question was posed "Whose wife is she in heaven?"  This idea that what things are on earth will be done likewise in heaven, like somehow someone else can do for you what you didn't.  This is nonsense.  Things here are different than what they will be in heaven (thanks be to God for that!)


Everyone here on earth will be answerable for their actions (or lack of).  No one can come in after you to "do your works for you".  No one here can pay for your sins (except the perfect sacrifice of Christ), no one can get baptized for you, no one can 'accept' Christ on your behalf.


Christianity and the message of Christ is for the living, not the dead. (Matt. 22:32)


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Join us this Sunday as we continue chapter 2 in the book of John.  We meet at Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Rec. Centre.  Coffee is served at 10, service at 10:30am.  We are a family-integrated church, so bring your family and worship together for His glory.

Wretched: Simply Wicked.

R.C. Sproul on God's Glory in Judgment

Follow the money (not the logic)

Let's do a little exercise shall we?  Ready?  Count the amount of money spent on all things youth and children related in your church.  Include youth pastors, children's ministers, programs, buildings, etc.  Absolutely everything that is child or youth related throughout the year.

Got the number?  Good.

Now count up the amount of money that is put towards the men in the church.  Men's ministry, men's retreats, conferences aimed at men...everything.  Got the number?  Alright.  What's the difference?

If you're like 99% of most churches, your first number is in the tens to hundreds of thousands a year.  Your second number, if there is one, is very tiny.  A couple thousand tops...right?  Now why am I bringing this up?  Good question.

Statistics show that when children of a non-Christian family are converted, only 10% of the time do the rest of the family follow suit.  When the mothers are the first to convert, the number jumps to a 40% success rate for the rest of the family.  The men?  If the man converts, the rest of the family converts 90% of the time.

Money, meet logic.  Logic, meet money.

Considering the other scary statistic is that there is virtually NO DIFFERENCE in divorce rate between the evangelical church and the secular society.  I wonder if that money could be better spent elsewhere...

God: The Almighty One

And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God.  (Genesis 17:1)

As of late I have been going through A.W Tozer's book, "The Attributes of God".  How desperately we need to learn once again the glorious nature of our God in North America.  In his chapter on God's omnipotence he posed the question, "Are some things harder for God than other things?"  While in my mind I know that answer must be "No!", for if it was not so God would not be Almighty or All powerful (which of course is what Omnipotent means- Omni is Latin for "All" and Potent it Latin for "Powerful" or "Able").  But even as I know I must answer, "No, some things are not more difficult for Him to do than others".  I find in myself doubt, or perhaps it is more that I really don't apply this in my thinking as I face various struggles, trials and opposition.  While I know it must be true, my actions, fears, anxieties, complaining, questioning often say I really don't grasp God as the Almighty One.

I encourage you to come before God and ask Him, by His Holy Spirit, to teach you this about Himself.  As people who talk about the Sovereignty of God and placing our trust in Him, how often do our words, and thoughts, and actions really reflect that kind of knowledge of God?  Not simply a head knowledge, but an assurance in our heart.  For, if we truly believe that our God is able and mighty to save, then should we not be the most confident, patient, and gracious people on the planet?  Should we not display the fruit of true love, wrought by the Spirit of Christ, which bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things and believes all things? (1 Corinthians 13:7).  Dear Christian, I pray that you catch a fresh vision of God the Almighty One and that in Him you too might find rest for your souls, bread and water for your sustenance.

Tozer wrote this about God's Almighty Nature,

His is an effortless power, because effort means I’m expending energy, but when God works, He doesn’t expend energy. He is energy! With effortless power, God did and is doing His redeeming work. We stand in awe and speak in hushed tones of His incarnation. How could it be that the great God Almighty could be conceived in the womb of a virgin? I don’t know how it could be, but I know that the Great God who is omnipotent, the Great God Almighty, could do it if He wanted to. The incarnation was easy for God. It may be hard for us to understand—a mystery of godliness—but it is not hard for God.

I appeal to you—dare to believe that the Lord God omnipotent lives and with Him nothing shall be impossible. He has all the power there is. Your need is nothing compared with the great things that God has done. And yet God pardons your sin and cleanses your spirit and gives you His nature, just as easily as He makes the heaven and the earth, because God is God!

Submission to church authority (Luther's 95)

7. God never remits guilt to anyone without, at the same time, making him humbly submissive to the priest, His representative.


While I may not go so far as Luther did here in point #7, there is something to what he's saying.  After all, Luther didn't submit to his superiors when commanded to repent of his writings did he?  So what did he mean?


When one is reborn, he is filled with the Holy Spirit.  Calvin called this irresistible grace.  When God quickens our spirit from the dead, we see Him as He is and we come to understand our own wretchedness and His goodness and grace.  At this point we come to repentance and faith.  This comes with it a heart of contrition, we come to God humbly and broken.  This manifests itself in finding the local church and submitting to the authority of the church, provided the church is in fact a biblical church and is lead by biblical leaders.  Once one is found (church), then the reborn person comes under the spiritual authority of the elders of the church, for their benefit.  


I am reminded of our radical individualism in our society today.  When the church doesn't do what we want them to do (whether biblical or not), we have a tendency to just leave.  We can call it 'church shopping'.  When we find a church that seems to be where God is leading us, we join, tithe, give our time and efforts; that is until the church sees things different than we do.  I once had a gentleman from our church body tell me that if the new pastor didn't allow him to do some outreach activity on Halloween that he wanted to do, he would leave the church.  I was floored.  How can someone think so little of their Elder that they would leave over such nonsense?  There are times where you must break away from a church body (biblically), but all too often the reasons for people leaving their church body are for very selfish reasons and have nothing to do with reasons spelled out in scripture.  They simply refuse to come under the authority of the elder(s) of the church, no matter how biblical they may be.

I have some consternation about an elder (priest, pastor, etc) being labelled God's representative.  Maybe it's accurate, but I'm not in favour of the label.  I'm far too fallen a man to be given that kind of title.  Men are put in positions of leadership, an undershepherd of the flock if you will, but not His representative.  People that are reborn must come under the authority of elders, and to not submit to any authority here on earth is to stand firm in their own authority which is against everything a 'reborn' person would or should do.  There is nothing humbling about 'church shopping'.

180 The Movie

I have posted this once, but will do so a few more times as we try to get the message out.

Share this movie.

Gospel of John 1:43-51

Dr. Oz Lorentzen gave the message this past Sunday, and wrapped up chapter 1 for us very nicely.  I will endeavor to give the highlights of his sermon.

Jesus gives an invitation to the disciples to "follow me."  Jesus gives all of humanity that same message.  The meaning goes deeper and further with the changing of Simon's name to Cephas (or Peter, which means "the rock").  We know from the gospel's that Peter was anything but a 'rock'.  He was impetuous, flighty, obnoxious; all in his attempts to be a leader, especially one named 'the rock'.  It wasn't until much later (after the resurrection) that Peter began to act what God had already made him.  We too, that have been called to trust our Lord and Saviour have moments (some lasting years) where we do not act as a child of God.  We do not act holy.  This isn't because we're not holy, but because we have trouble believing that we ARE holy in Christ.  When we doubt our calling, when we doubt our ability to be what God has called us to be, we are in essence saying that we doubt God's word.  

Nathaniel, who was not one to be convinced easily, originally rebuffed Jesus' words of truth about Nathaniel.  He said to Nathaniel "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit."  Nathaniel was not impressed.  He responded "How do you know me?"  With one line, Jesus convinces him that He is the Son of God, simply by saying "I saw you under the fig tree."  We can look at this as a way of Jesus saying "I've known you all along."  We need to remember that we cannot hide who we are from Christ.  He knows us intimately, yet He died for us anyway.  How humbling.  Jesus tells Nathaniel that he would see heaven opened up and see angels ascend and descend from heaven.  In the gospels, we really didn't see that, so what did it mean?  Jesus was pointing to Himself as the living, breathing version of Jacob's ladder, that He was the link between heaven and earth.

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I will be attempting to put our Sunday sermons on line in the near future, even possibly on this site.  If I manage to get it figured out, feel free to listen and respond if you wish.  This is an interactive site, our authors appreciate any feedback they get, and as you may tell, we have two new writers that have come on board.  

Remission of guilt (Luther's 95)

6. The pope himself cannot remit guilt, but only declare and confirm that it has been remitted by God; or, at most, he can remit it in cases reserved to his discretion. Except for these cases, the guilt remains untouched.


This one is closely linked with #5, but we can expound a little more on it.  There was some in the Roman church that believed that as God's representative, the pope could remit sins as though he were God himself.  I won't go so far as to say that the pope thought of himself as God (like Roman emperor worship in the time of Christ), but there was some blurring of the lines when the pope himself would declare the innocence or guilt of someone without the caveat that it is in fact God who forgives.  Because the pope had the ability to discipline (along with the priests) in certain cases granted in the Bible, he could remit those charges (much like a judge in the court system) or press them for trial.  Apart from this, a person's guilt before God is still there, unless they have been renewed by the Holy Spirit and come to saving faith.  This is alone the responsibility of God himself, and cannot be usurped by his 'representative' here on earth.  He can declare that those who have come to saving faith are forgiven, and that they can rest assured in their forgiveness (another point that Luther will bring up later on) but he is unable to declare one saved, as though he were the one saving them.

Again, this was not popular among the priests and the pope, as it was a direct attack against the throne of the pope and his earthly authority.  To this day, the pope is on par with scripture, and what the pope says is considered just as authoritative as scripture.  This point was made abundantly clear in the Council of Trent, the Roman church's reaction to the Reformation movement started in large part by Luther.


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Dr. Oz Lorentzen will be continuing to exposite the scriptures for us this upcoming Sunday at Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Rec. Centre.  Coffee is served at 10, the service begins at 10:30.  Come and join us.

This one stung...(Luther's 95)

5. The pope has neither the will nor the power to remit any penalties beyond those imposed either at his own discretion or by canon law.


By the 1500's (if not established long before) the Pope had become the be-all-end-all for the church and Christendom as a whole.  What the Pope said, went.  The Roman church back then, and to some degree even today leans hard upon a couple of scriptures from the Gospel of Matthew, namely 16:18-19.


18 And I tell you, iyou are Peter, and jon this rock2 I will build my church, and kthe gates of lhell3 shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you mthe keys of the kingdom of heaven, and nwhatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed4 in heaven.”

Luther's issue was that the Pope, speaking on behalf of God himself, could give punitive punishments at his whim and discretion, or take away these same punishments or penalties, all in the name of God.  The problem with this of course is that the Pope is not God, and that the only penalties that can be given or taken away would be those that the Pope himself (not on God's behalf) has declared.  The Pope has no power to remit penalties given by God.  The Pope cannot declare anyone officially lost or saved, for only God knows the hearts of men (1 Kings 8:39).  The scripture that the Roman church was abusing is used to declare church discipline.  The church has every right (and responsibility) to discipline those that identify themselves with the church.  When members of churches act like goats, wolves or false prophets, they are to be disciplined by the church leadership.  They may be loosed by the church (for their sake, that they may return to the church), but the church cannot declare anyone lost or saved.  That was never the intent of the position of the church.  In Luther's time, the church would hold sway over the people by threatening those that didn't do and see things precisely how the church did with eternal damnation, or worse, declaring some right with God.  


This unfortunately, hasn't left our churches today.  How many times have we seen evangelicals declare someone saved after they have repeated a prayer or been baptized?  We have no right to do that, as we do not know for certain the condition of the person's heart, or their motivation behind their declaration.  Unfortunately, people follow the 'formula' for salvation as interpreted by well-meaning people, only to be deceived into thinking that they are eternally saved when in fact they are not.  Church discipline can help in this process, as those that are deceived usually end up turning back to a worldly lifestyle, or they turn Pharisaical where they are saved by their own efforts and self-righteousness.  Both are deadly long term.  Luther wanted the church to stay within the boundaries of Holy Scripture, and not to play God.  As you may guess, this did not go over well with the office of the Pope.


Does your church practice godly discipline as spelled out in scripture?  Does your leadership "pope-ishly" declare people saved or lost?  Church leadership must adhere to scripture and not overstep (or understep) the boundaries given in the Bible.

Tricky number 4 (Luther's 95)

As long as hatred of self abides (i.e. true inward repentance) the penalty of sin abides, viz., until we enter the kingdom of heaven.


All points of Luther's 95 had to do with either abuses by the Roman church, or interpretations of scripture by the Roman church that Luther wanted to discuss.  This one is a little tricky, especially in our day and age where we like to emphasize the freedom that Christ offers us as opposed to continuous repentance that is in step with that freedom.


What did Luther mean by hatred of self?  If we read about Luther (there are many good biographies about Luther's life) we soon see that he was considered quite mad by many people.  Even while in training to be a priest, he drove his senior priests crazy by repenting for hours on end (no exaggerate) in confession, to the point where he was told "Go and do something worthy of confessing!"  The major disconnect was Luther's sensitivity to his own sinfulness in the eyes of God as to compared to the worldly sinfulness as seen by the priests.  Luther was adamant about his wretchedness, confessing every thought and action that he felt was not in accordance to the will of God.  This was a good thing, as the law and God's standards is supposed to point us to Christ, and in Luther's case, it did.


The hatred of self is an understanding that while in these sinful bodies, we will continue to fight against the flesh (Romans 7).  This sinfulness that we fight against daily is the hatred we have.  We do not think like gnostics that claim the body is evil, therefore there is no way Jesus was really a human being, but that we, in our fallen nature, will struggle with sin until our glorified bodies are raised with Christ.  The penalty of sin, as we all know, is death.  We will die in this life, and it is due to our sinfulness that we do die.  But once we enter the Kingdom of heaven, we will have new bodies, bodies that are not stained by sin, which then allows us to live for eternity with God.

Fruit and repentance (Luthers #3 of 95)

3. Yet its meaning is not restricted to repentance in one's heart; for such repentance is null unless it produces outward signs in various mortifications of the flesh.


Luther had some serious concerns about the lack of repentance inside the church, not just from the congregation, but from the very priests leading the flock!  There were (and still are) the activity of confession in the Roman church.  While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with the idea behind confession in and of itself, what really drove Luther was the lack of a sincerity of sorrow for sin, and the severe lack of fruit that follows a life of repentance.  Considering Luther had issues with the epistle of James (he called it an 'epistle of straw'), it's rather humourous that the scripture which supports #3 on his list is from James.  It reads "14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith obut does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 pIf a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 qand one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good2 is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."


The concept of a 'carnal Christian' is one that doesn't stand up to scripture.  Our lives must have some fruit which is the evidence of our faith.  Our works do not save us, but a life of faith without any fruit is "cut off and thrown into the fire." (John 15:6).  We must kill our sin, not just deny it.  The mortifications of the flesh which Luther describes is true repentance where we turn away from our sin and stop living a life that cannot be distinguished from the rest of the lost world.  Does this mean that we live in a convent?  That we destroy fun in life?  That we follow a bunch of rules (called moral-deism)?  Absolutely not.  It's not our clothes, our appearance, our rule-following (don't drink, smoke, chew, or date girls that do) that makes us holy, but who we become in Christ that makes us holy.  Do we love God's law (His 10 commandments)?  Do we love His Word?  His people?  His enemies?  This is what makes us holy, and it plays out in our everyday lives and shows as 'fruit'.


How well is your growth?


Dr. Oz Lorentzen will be preaching the Word on Sunday.  Come join us at 10 for coffee, 10:30 for the service.  Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Rec. Centre, Cochrane.

Repentance vs. Penance (Luther's 2 of 95)

2. The word cannot be properly understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, i.e. confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.


In Luther's time, and to some degree it still happens today in the Roman Church, that the sacrament of penance is practiced.  In the 1500's, when one went to confession, the priest would absolve you of your sins (something only Christ can do) and demand penance; an outward act such as saying 10 Hail Mary's, feeding the poor, and Luther's favourite, buy your way out of trouble by putting money in the church coffers.  It was much like a trade.  The Church will forgive you (according to the Roman church, it's the church that dispenses grace, not God) if you confess and then do some outward acts that show how sorry they are (as demanded by the church).


The church was extremely corrupt in the times of Luther, and he saw the corruption from the inside as a priest.  The hypocrisy drove him mad at times.  Men would be able to buy their way into high-level positions in the church instead of being qualified according to the bible.  Magnificent cathedrals were built on the backs of selling 'indulgences' for loved ones that are stuck in purgatory.  This is another type of penance, which is not only NOT biblical, but was a burden on the people, keeping them in the poor house while extracting money from guilt and worry over loved ones that have passed.


Repentance has everything to do with sorrow over our sins, but not feeling the guilt of failure, but basking in the grace of Christ, and pointing others in the same direction.

Life of repentance (Luther's 1 of 95)

When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.


Luther had many issues with the current state of affairs for the church in his time.  In fact, he had 95 of them that he wanted to talk about.  This was the first one on his list.  Repentance is something that has been largely misunderstood both in the distant past and presently.  Repentance does not mean a worldly sorrow for being caught for doing something wrong, it means that we turn from our sins and follow after Christ.  We reject our sinful ways, we fight against our flesh, the world and the devil.  Repentance isn't something we do on a Sunday (although it is a good time to reflect on our previous week and our upcoming one) but we do everyday.  When we recognize that our lives, thoughts and actions aren't in line with His holiness, we repent of it.  Likewise, our Christianity isn't something we practice on Sunday, but we live out in our daily thoughts and actions.  We cannot separate out our Christianity and everyday living, they go hand-in-hand.


Do you live for Christ everyday?  Do you live a double-minded life?  Are you one person on Sunday and a different person elsewhere?  Do you think that because Christ died for you it gives you the freedom to live however you want?  This is all too often the results of not living a life of repentance.  Consider Luther's first point today.

William Wallace and leadership

I have just finished reading my first historical fiction novel for the first time in what seems like years (I'm still working on Moby Dick) and a couple of relevant things jumped out at me.  The first was that Jack Whyte went out of his way trying to find the historical William Wallace, and after all his research declared that the movie Braveheart was surprisingly pretty accurate.  After reading his book, he actually cleared up a couple of points that the movie didn't quite spell out clearly, but I won't spoil it for you, it was a great read.

What stood out to me was that William Wallace wanted nothing to do with leading his party of outlaws in the Selkirk Forest once he found out that his wife Mirren was pregnant.  By this time he was the clear leader of the group, but for a period of 2 years he stepped back from leadership of the group and allowed others to step up into those roles that he had been doing.  The clerics that were in support of William Wallace thought it crazy that he could just step back, and that there was no way the people would allow him to do it, but they did.  When the situation between the English and Scots deteriorated, and William Wallace felt that he needed to fight beside leader Andrew Murray, he truly became the leader once again, but even more-so than he was before.  By being the man who would not easily abandon his first calling as a husband and father to fight for the Scottish crown, others looked to his leadership and respected him more for the fact he put his family first.  He was a man of his word, and he was not one to put aside his responsibilities lightly.  What was most awakening was what happened when he accepted his role as the true leader of the people.  It was then that he made a foolish mistake that cost him his wife and family.  Once he put others in front of his family (even for the most noblest of causes) did his family suffer the consequences.  What can Christian men learn from this?

We are called by God to provide, protect and disciple our spouse and children.  How often do we put other things in front of this command?  Pastors have been guilty of putting the church in front of their family.  Elders and Deacons have put family behind the church.  Lay leaders have set aside their most important responsibility of family in order to be more important in the church.  In every situation, the family suffers.  This does not glorify God.  We cannot claim to be righteous in our lack of duty for the greater sake of the church, or anything else.  Deut. 6:4-9 states "4 “Hear, O Israel: dThe Lord our God, the Lord is one.1 5 You eshall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And fthese words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 gYou shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 hYou shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 iYou shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."  Anyone who has attempted to do this simple yet most difficult thing would understand just how much time and diligence it takes, and to put anything in front of family means not adhering to the command by God to raise our children in the knowledge of God.  Men become natural leaders when they take responsibility for what God has commanded them to do, and when we look past our primary responsibilities, we then start making errors that hurt everyone, especially those closest to us.


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Dr. Oz Lorentzen will be expositing the scriptures for us for the next 2 Sundays.  We look forward to having Dr. Oz share with us at Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Rec. Centre.  Coffee served at 10am, service at 10:30.  Come join us.