Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. ~2 Timothy 2:15

About Me

I am a young man who is following God's call into pastoral ministry. I have been so blessed with the privileges which the Lord has granted me. I am blessed to serve the Mt. Joy congregation in Mt. Pleasant, PA. I am constantly humbled and amazed at what the Lord is doing in my life.

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

How to Avoid Falling Into Sexual Temptation

            We live today in a very hypersexualized culture. Sexual temptation is everywhere. On our TVs, computers, even in the palm of our hand. It all is just a click or press away. It can be found in the popular romance novels your friends may be reading and wanting to share with you or the blockbuster hit movie everyone is seeing that you might be curious about yourself. You can be watching a clean show or YouTube video only to have it interrupted by a sensual scene in a commercial or ad popping up. The billboard you casually notice while driving down the road or the how someone is dressed at the mall or grocery store. Sexual temptation is something we all have to deal with in some form or fashion. There is no way around it unless we cut off all types of communication with the outside world, but even then, it will still be able to find us. What is needed is knowing how to avoid falling into such whenever it presents itself to us. Thankfully, God’s Word gives us at least 8 different ways we can go about avoiding succumbing to the sexual temptation all around us. There are probably many more we could list as well but we will limit ourselves just to the following eight for now. We’ll look at four of them this month and pick up on the rest of them in next month’s article. To help us better keep them in mind in the moment when the temptation strikes, I have found a word for each of them which begins with the letter “R”.  

 

            The first way for us to avoid falling into sexual temptation is to BE READY. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). It is the very moment when we think that this is something that can or never will happen to us that we are the most susceptible to fall into such temptation. When we let our guard down, we are no longer watching or ready for the temptation to strike and we in turn can easily be blindsided by it. Then, the next thing we know, we are knee deep in it. There is a good chance that the disaster of the Titanic may have been avoided if the ship’s crew would have taken the warnings about icebergs in the area more seriously and had been better prepared for the worst to happen. But they all were so convinced that the ship was unsinkable that they were not as careful and watchful concerning those warnings and wound up facing the dire consequences that now have gone down in history. Don’t foolishly believe that you may be “unsinkable” by sexual temptation or that it won’t have any affect on you. Always be mindful that any of us could easily slip when faced with it causing us to fall headfirst into it. As it has been said, “Unless you are wiser than the wisest man in the Bible, stronger than the strongest man in the Bible, or have a better heart than the man after God’s own heart, don’t think for a moment that you are above falling into sexual sin.” Solomon, Samson, and David weren’t and we certainly are not smarter, stronger, or more after God’s own heart than any of them. This is why every time I hear of another big name high profile pastor being discovered to have been involved in some sort of sexual scandal or affair, I don’t say to myself, “How could this have happened to them?” but “How easy that could be me if I am not careful or let my guard down?” We all can only be one step or two away from falling. And that step begins right when we think we could not fall prey to it. When we are not ready for the sexual temptation to occur and what might happen should we give in to it.

 

            Another thing we are told to do when faced with sexual temptation is to RUN. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:18 that we are to “flee sexual immorality.” Not stay around it. Not flirt or play with it. Not see how far we can get before crossing the line into sin. Not even to entertain the possibility of it. But to get as far away from it as possible. Just like Joseph did when Potiphar’s wife made advances towards him. He didn’t stick around for a minute to even consider giving into that temptation. He literally dropped everything and got out of there! (Genesis 39:12). Whenever sexual temptation presents itself to us, we must turn quickly and go the other way, not looking back as did Lot’s wife (Genesis 19:26; Luke 17:32). And I should point out that the command in this verse to “flee” is in the present tense. We must continue to run the other direction away from sexual temptation.

 

The third way to avoid falling into sexual temptation is REMAIN where you are supposed to be and not go where you shouldn’t. There is an interesting often overlooked detail in the account of David’s fall into sexual sin that we would do well not to miss. At the very start of the chapter, before David ever laid eyes on Bathsheba, we are told, “Now it happened in the spring, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem” (2 Samuel 11:1). Pay attention to that last sentence. David should have went out to war with his soldiers that Spring as normal but instead chose not to. Had he been where he was supposed to be, in this case, he never would have done what he was not supposed to do with Bathsheba. If we do not visit those websites we are not supposed to be looking at or go those places the Lord would not have us to go, we would not find ourselves involved in sexual sin in the first place. If we would remain where the Lord would have us to be according to His Word and not go where temptation knowingly lies.

 

And the place God has for us to find our pleasure and sexual satisfaction in this life is with our husband or wife. Solomon puts it this way in his proverbs, “Drink water from your own cistern and fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for you alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and be glad in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be intoxicated with her love. So why should you, my son, be intoxicated with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?” (Proverbs 5:15-20). Remain drinking from the well God has graciously given you and you won’t be as easily tempted to look to another one instead. And if you do not have a husband or wife to drink from we could say, or circumstances may be hindering it, seek the Lord while you wait for one or things to change. Don’t start looking for other wells or even consider the thought of possibly tasting any of them!

 

A fourth way to avoid giving into sexual temptation is to RESOLVE not to look lustfully at someone other than your spouse. Job made a commitment not to do this. He said, “I have cut a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). Resolve that the moment you see an image you have no business looking at, that you will turn your head and refuse to entertain it in your mind. Say to yourself in that very instant, “I will not give this another glance or a thought.” Martin Luther put it well when he said, “Temptations, of course, cannot be avoided, but because we cannot prevent the birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them nest in our hair.” Prevent sexual temptation from even beginning to build a nest in your hair by vowing not to give it any more attention once it flies over your head so to speak.

 

Something else we must do to avoid falling prey to sexual sin is to strive to be RID of it and its underlying desire. In Romans 8:12-13 we are told, “So then, brothers, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the practices of the body, you will live.” Part of living the Christian life is to be actively putting to death those sins presently a part of our lives and the desires which lead to them. It is declaring war on them and doing everything you can, with the strength and power the Holy Spirit gives you, to work to eradicate them from your life. While our posture towards sexual temptation should be one of flight the moment we find such a temptation dangling in front of us like a carrot before a horse, there is also a sense where we need to be fighting against it as well. The old word used to describe this is “mortify” which has a forceful feel to it of really wiping it out to be done with. I like what Derek W. H. Thomas said about this practice of mortifying or putting our sin to death. He wrote, “There is to be no ‘peace’ with sin. We dare not baptize our sins with benedictions. It is imperative that sin be destroyed. It’s life is not to be spared. There must be a radical destruction of sin. Kill it; strangle it; starve it of oxygen until it cannot breathe again. There is no other way.” Imagine lustful desire to be like a dragon. If you continue to feed it, it will get hungrier and hungrier, seeking to devour you while wanting to indulge in its passion all the more. You need to starve it to put a halt to its craving and be careful not to feed it even a crumb or small morsel so as not to whetten its appetite. And you will find when you keep your eyes and thoughts away from things that your desire for them are not as strong. But the moment you give in just a little bit, the harder it is to say “no” the next time the temptation presents itself.

 

And since we will never fully be rid of these sinful desires within us until we receive our new resurrected bodies, this work of mortification or putting sin to death will not be finished until we reach glory. This means that we can never stop, give up, or let up working to slay the sinfulness within us but must keep at it knowing that our ultimate victory is inevitably certain in the future because of Christ and His wonderful work for us and His Spirit’s continual work in us. Octavious Winslow helpfully reminds us, “Death by the cross is certain, yet lingering. Our blessed Lord was suspended upon the tree from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. It was a slow, lingering torture, yet terminating in his giving up the ghost. Similar to this is the death of sin in the believer. It is progressive and protracted, yet certain in the issue. Nail after nail must pierce our corruptions, until the entire body of sin, each member thus transfixed, is crucified and slain.”

 

The seriousness of this matter is conveyed so powerfully by the Puritan John Owen with his words, “be killing sin or it will be killing you.” View sexual sin like a fire. You play around with it, you are sure to get burnt. If it is not put out, it will burn down your marriage, your family, and a man’s ministry, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. You may think or try to convince yourself that what you are looking at, fantasizing about, or acting on only affects you but that is never the case. We are too interconnected with others for it to be so. A fire that is not put out will grow and spread. Take notice that it is often only a small spark that winds up starting a wild fire. And, if left burning, how much of an area gets affected by it. So serious is this ridding ourselves of sexual sin through putting it to death in our lives that Jesus tells us we need to take radical measures to cut off from our lives anything which would cause us to give in to such sin. He compares this to plucking out our eye or chopping off a hand (Matthew 5:29-30). It would certainly be hard to part with our physical eye or a hand. However, purity before the Lord in regard to our marriages is worth more. And it would be better for us to go without something we deem to be so essential for us than to give into sexual temptation and reap the damning consequences of it if it would lead us down that road.

 

A sixth way for us to avoid sexual sin according to God’s Word is to REMEMBER. To remember in particular something about our sin and something about our Savior. In his recounting of the faith of Moses, the author of Hebrews says, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, regarding the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward” (11:24-26). One thing that sticks out to me from this passage is him speaking of the “passing pleasures of sin.” Whenever we are tempted sexually, we need to remember that while that sin certainly promises pleasure, there would be no enticement for us to do it otherwise, it is only a temporary pleasure. It will not last but is only short-lived. That is the thing to remind ourselves about the sin itself. In contrast, there is far greater and more lasting pleasure to be found in Christ instead. Every time we sin, we are choosing the much lesser and temporal pleasure of sin over the far greater and never-ending pleasure that is ours in Christ. Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that she would continue to be thirsting as long as she kept drinking of that water. But the one who drinks the water He offers will never thirst again. They will be eternally fully and finally satisfied. He is speaking of a complete and lasting quenching of one’s spiritual thirst of course. Something the woman beforehand clearly did not know as evidenced by her sinful relationships with men. Perhaps reminding ourselves of this truth of real lasting pleasure being found in our Savior and not in the sin we are being tempted to give way to can help us choose Christ over the sin with its pleasure which does not last. This is true not just of sexual temptation but really any temptation we may be faced with.

 

Yet another way for us to avoid falling into sexual sin is to RETREAT to the Exit. We are promised in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” Now, this is not saying that God will not give us more than we can handle as is commonly interpreted from this verse. That’s certainly not the case as I am convinced that pretty much everything we have been given is too much for us to handle on our own in our own power and strength but is never too much for God to handle. And the purpose for that is to continually direct and drive us back to One who can handle it and give us the strength to as well. Here, the idea is that God will make sure that we never have a moment where we are so overwhelmed by the temptations before us that it is impossible for us to resist and say “no” to them. He will always ensure that there is some kind of way out of it. An escape from it. You may have had those moments like I have where you are on a long trip driving down the interstate and find yourself needing to get off to go get gas, take a bathroom break, get something to eat, or do all three (if you are like me and try to save time by making it all one stop when possible). But try as you may, mile after mile with less and less gas in the tank and a fuller bladder, you just can’t seem to find any exit in sight where you can stop. This verse reminds us that such will never happen to us on our spiritual journey whenever we come to some temptation. We will not find ourselves without an exit out of it. This means that what we need to do in the midst of such is to look for that exit and be sure to take it! Not to stay on the road but quickly get off it.

 

The final way I can think of that Scripture gives us for avoiding giving into sexual temptation is the most important of them all. In fact, we are not able to follow any of the others without it. And that is to RELY on the Lord. We will fail miserably at being victorious over sexual sin in our lives if we are seeking to fight against it in our strength and power. Because, frankly, we cannot do it on our own. It’s just not possible. You will notice in Romans 8:13 we looked at earlier speaking of us seeking to put to death the sinfulness within us that beforehand Paul states, “BY THE SPIRIT you are putting to death the practices of the body.” We are not doing this by the flesh or by our might. Only by the power of His Spirit which God has graciously given us to dwell inside us. The good news is that God’s grace is sufficient for defeating all the sinful lusts and practices in our lives. As Jesus reminded Paul with his dealing of that painful thorn in the flesh, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). There is hope for all of us to overcome such temptation in Christ alone. We ultimately just keep needing to turn to Him and throw ourselves upon Him pleading with Him for His mercy in taking care of the matter. Then, and only then, can we BE READY, RUN, REMAIN, RESOLVE, GET RID OF, REMEMBER, and RETREAT. 

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Evidence of Saving Faith

How do you know that you are saved? That you are truly trusting in Jesus? Do you have doubts about your salvation for a variety of reasons? Not fully sure whether you are saved or not? One thing that can help us  evaluate if we have been graciously given saving faith from God to believe in Christ is to understand what saving faith actually is. My goal in this month’s article is look at that with you.

 

            First, we could say that SAVING FAITH IS A TRUSTING FAITH. It is a trusting in Christ alone for your salvation and that He has done everything necessary for it. That nothing else needs to be done or could be done to put you in a right relationship with God in spite of your many sins. Jesus truly has paid it all. This faith is more than an intellectual acknowledgement of the facts of who Jesus is and what He has done. It is more than just believing that He actually lived and died for sins. Remember James tells us that the demons believe and even shudder over what they know to be true about God (James 2:19). They know the reality of it but clearly aren’t saved. Saving faith is a resting in those facts and what they mean. It’s a reliance on Jesus to have taken care of everything for you to be saved, forgiven, and accepted by God into His family. A man by the name of Charles Blondin became famous back in 1859 for walking across a tightrope 160 feet above Niagara Falls several times between Canada and the United States. He did this once on stilts, another time on a bicycle, once in a sack, and one time he even carried a stove across and cooked an omelet. Crowds gathered to watch him “ooohing” and “aaaahing” when one day he came across on the tightrope pushing a wheelbarrow blindfolded. He asked the crowd if they believed that he could carry a person across in that wheelbarrow. After all that they had watched him do, the crowd shouted “yes!” He then posed the question, “Who here volunteers to get in this wheelbarrow?” And of course, no one did. Just knowing that someone can do something is not the same as trusting and relying on them to do it. Saving faith in Jesus is trusting and relying on Him so much to save you that you “get in to the wheelbarrow” so to speak confident He alone can push you across the chasm which separates you from God.

All of us more likely can relate to the man who responded to Jesus with “I do believe; help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24). We can confess that we believe but at the same time recognize that we don’t believe as we ought to. The good news for us is that it is not the power or size of your faith that matters but the presence of it. When Jesus’ disciples asked Him to increase their faith, He told them that if they had faith just the size of a mustard seed, the smallest of the seeds, then they could move a mulberry tree (Luke 17:5-6). As the Puritan Thomas Watson put it, “A weak faith can laid hold of a strong Christ.” It’s not our faith itself that makes the difference as much as it is the object of our faith. Keep in mind that it is not faith itself that saves us but faith in Christ. Jesus is the One who saves us through His perfect sinless obedient life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection in our place. Faith is just our latching on to Him, fully assured that He has done all that is necessary for us to be saved and to become a part of His family. Think of Jesus as being like a life raft thrown out to you while drowning. You believe it will save you. But you must reach out to grab a hold of it for it to do so. Faith is simply our grabbing a hold of Jesus to be our life raft and our holding on to Him as the only One who can save us from drowning in our sin and God’s wrath. Are you holding on to Him for dear eternal life, forgiveness, and to be seen as righteous in God’s sight?

            Saving faith is also AN OBEDIENT WORKING FAITH. Not that our faith consists of obedience or that obedience and works contribute to our salvation in any way. Just that true saving faith always inevitably leads to obedience or produces obedience in the life of the one who possesses it. It will ultimately result in works. We could say that obedience is not the root of salvation but its fruit. Or, to put it another way, obedience is not the cause of our salvation but the consequence of it. The Reformers would say, “We are saved by faith alone but the faith that saves is never alone.” John tells us that a clear sign that we truly know God through faith in Jesus is that we obey or keep His commandments (1 John 2:3). In fact, he even goes so far as to say that the one who claims to know Him but does not keep His commandments “is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God has been perfected” (vv. 4-5).

            This is what James means when he says that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-17). It is only a living faith that produces works of obedience. If someone claims that they have faith but there is nothing in their life to show it, James says that such is a dead false faith that cannot save (v. 14). There is nothing to it. One of the examples he gives in that passage proves this. He points to Abraham’s obedience to do the unthinkable and kill his son, Isaac, for a sacrifice (vv. 21-23). Exactly what God had told him to do. That is recorded for us in Genesis 22. It is important to realize that Abraham’s faith preceded this act of obedience as earlier in Genesis 15:6 we read, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” His righteous standing before God resulted from his faith and not his obedience to God’s commands. It was his obedience which revealed the reality of his faith. It showed that he didn’t have a spurious or false faith in God’s promise to provide for him descendants and, ultimately, the One who in whom “all the families of the earth would be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3). His faith that God would do as He said could easily have been all talk with no substance to it whatsoever. However, this willingness to sacrifice Isaac which would have put the promise he believed God for in jeopardy, showed that not to be the case. In fact, what we see is that he trusted God so much to keep His promise that if He would have him to sacrifice the child through which the promise was to be given, it must mean that God intended to bring Isaac back from the dead afterwards somehow (Hebrews 11:19). It wasn’t just wishful thinking when he told the young men who had accompanied them that he and his son would go on from there and that “we will worship, and WE will return to you” (Genesis 22:5). He was fully convinced he would not be coming back alone after the sacrifice. God somehow was going to bring Isaac back, even from the dead if necessary, in order for Him to keep His promise.

            It is important to point out that we are not talking about the perfection of obedience here but the direction of obedience. This does not mean that a true Christian will never sin. Far from it! But the believer will be striving, with the help the Holy Spirit inside him or her gives them, to walk in obedience to the Lord’s law, repenting all the many times we fall short of it and then seeking to get back on the horse yet again we could say to labor to be obedient again. However, the longer one walks in unrepentant disobedience, the greater cause of concern he or she should have when it comes to the reality of their faith. As Joel Beeke points out, “One cannot enjoy high levels of assurance [of their faith and salvation] while he persists in disobedience.” And the remedy to that is repentance. Another way true faith is shown.

            Finally, saving faith is A PERSEVERING FAITH. A faith which remains to the end without ever fully and finally falling away. Scripture is clear that a true sign of real genuine saving faith is that it continues and lasts. Jesus told a group of Jews who had believed in Him, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples” (John 8:31). In the parable of the soils, it is the seed which lands in the good soil, with deep roots which grows up and bears much fruit that represents the true Christian with real faith. The other three were characterized by either never starting to grow as in the case of the seed which fell along the side of the road and was snatched up by the birds or devil or grew but did not continue such with the seed in the rocky and weedy soils. Both of them picture the one who appears to believe at first but over time falls away due to troubles, persecution, the worries of this world, desire for riches, and other things so that they do not bear any fruit (Mark 4:1-20). The reason for their failure to continue and produce was due to them having no root in themselves. No true saving faith. We are assured to belong to Jesus’ household and to have become a partaker of Him “if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope” (Hebrews 3:6) and “if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end (Hebrews 3:14). We have been reconciled to God on account of Christ and can be sure that we will one day be presented before God holy, blameless, and beyond reproach “if indeed you continue in the faith firmly grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel” (Colossians 1:22-23). On the other hand, we are told about the group of false teachers in the church which John wrote to that “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for it they were of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be manifested that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). Their very leaving proved that they never belonged to the church because their faith did not remain. And “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. The one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9).

The question should not be whether you have trusted in Christ sometime in the past but whether you are trusting in Him now. Past faith is never the best barometer for one’s relationship with the Lord. Present faith is because it means you are still believing and trusting in Jesus. You are continuing in that faith. While a true believer with genuine faith will falter and fail at times, he or she will not ultimately and finally fall away from the faith. And this is not because of their strength and power but God’s. When Paul calls the Philippians to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”, he is quick to next point out, “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). The only way any believer with true faith can persevere in that faith and make it to the end still believing is because of God working in them in His Holy Spirit to ensure and enable them to.

             If you are concerned that you do not have this trusting obedient working persevering faith, the solution is not to try to drum up some faith from within yourself but to focus more on the Lord Jesus Christ and all that He has done for believers, praying that as you think more deeply on Who He is and His work that the Spirit would bring you to put your full trust and faith in Him as your only Savior and enable you to continue on in that faith no matter what may happen in your life or comes your way. Look to Christ as your only hope of salvation today and keep looking to Him.

Love in Christ,

Pastor Lee

Monday, October 28, 2024

The Two Most Important Words in the Bible

            They are arguably the two most important words in all the Bible. The sweetest words to the Christian’s ears. Two words we could never read enough or be reminded of too much. The famed preacher, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, once said, “These two words, in and of themselves, in a sense contain the whole of the gospel.” James Montgomery Boice claimed that “if you understand those two words . . . they will save your soul. If you recall them daily and live by them, they will transform your life completely.” What are these two most important words? They are the words, But God . . .”

            The word, “but,” often means a turnaround or contrast to something else that has recently been stated. Sometimes that may not be a good thing. When you are told that someone would love to come to your party or get together to be disappointed to hear that BUT they cannot because of this, that, or the other. Or the doctor says that your health is looking pretty good BUT there is one major concern that he or she has about it. Kind of like when Jesus in the book of Revelation has John write to those seven churches commending them on several things that are going well with the congregation only to follow that with the statement, “BUT I have this against you” (2:4, 20) or “BUT I have a few things against you” (v. 14). However, often when the word “but” is coupled with God and something He has or will do, it signifies a much needed divine intervention in the midst of our perilous plight and desperate situation or circumstance.

            We are told that after God had destroyed every living thing on the earth in the flood and Noah with his family were stuck on the ark as the flood waters remained for 150 days, “BUT GOD remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided” (Genesis 8:1). When things looked pretty grim for Joseph as he had been sold to a man named Potiphar to serve as his slave, we have “BUT YAHWEH [or the LORD] was with Joseph, so he became a successful man” (39:2).  Likewise, later when the young man finds himself in prison falsely accused of wrongdoing, “BUT YAHWEH [or the LORD] was with Joseph and extended lovingkindness to him and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer” (v. 21). And then looking back at the end of his life, he is able to say to his brothers, “as for you, you meant evil against me, BUT GOD meant it for good in order to do what has happened on this day, to keep many people alive” (50:20). We read of David, “And Saul sought him every day, BUT GOD did not give him into his hand” (1 Samuel 23:14). And regarding ourselves and our salvation, “For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. BUT GOD demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-8). “For consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. BUT GOD has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are, so that no flesh may boast before God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29). “No temptation has overtaken you but such is common to man, BUT GOD is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). After pointing out to the saints in Ephesus that “you were dead in your trespasses and sins, Paul shares the wonderful good news, “BUT GOD, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6).

            Oh, what hope these two words bring us! That God will not forget us Noahs who have been saved by His grace and preserved from His wrath. When we find ourselves in less than ideal circumstances such as Joseph in slavery to Potiphar and in prison for a crime he never committed to know that in the middle of all that God is with us working out His greater good purpose. That God will not give us into the hand of our enemy, the devil. Or in the moment of temptation when the pull to sin seems so strong to be reminded that God is faithful in not allowing it to get to the point of overwhelming us where we cannot fight against it and even providing the way out so we don’t need to give into it. The times where we may think that God would not want us or desire to use us since there is nothing special about us according to the world’s standards we can be assured that we are exactly the kind of person He chooses. That when no else would even consider to die for us not being a good person or a righteous one, God sent forth His Son to. And that we are not left in the deadness of our sins receiving what we deserve for them. All because of these “BUT GOD’S” in the Bible.

            Think about the difference these “BUT GOD’S” make. Without the truth of these words, Noah never would have been able to get off of the ark. Joseph could never have went from Potiphar to prison to Pharaoh to the palace where he and his family, God’s people from whom the promised Seed would come, would be saved. David would have been killed by Saul. None of us would ever have been chosen to be a part of God’s family. We each would still be dead in our sins with no one willing to die to remove those sins and pay the penalty they entailed. No spiritual life being given to us. Temptation would always get the upper hand without any way for us ever to escape it.

            None of these things of the “BUT GOD’S” are things we can do ourselves. Noah didn’t have the power and strength to blow the waters of the flood to cause them to subside in the least little bit. It is unimaginable that a Hebrew like Joseph could curry such favor with Egyptians in such a short time left on his own. Young David, as fit and strong as he was, may not have stood a chance against the older King Saul and his forces. We do not have the power to overcome temptation on our own. In fact, we fail at such every time we try. In and of ourselves, we can no more breathe spiritual life into our deadness than a corpse can breathe life back into itself. Than Lazarus or the old dry bones in the valley of Ezekiel’s day could without the Spirit’s working through God’s Word in each of those cases. We cannot save ourselves or earn our salvation in any way. We are not able to go even a day with keeping the Ten Commandments God has given which reveal His righteous standard.

            These two words remind us of God’s grace. God would have been fully just to leave Noah on the ark among the flood waters or even to have him perish with the rest of wicked humanity in the flood. After all, we should not forget that Noah and his family were just as much sinners as the rest were. Keep in mind that the statement of Genesis 6:5 is universal without any exceptions given. The evil of man in general was great on the earth and that EVERY intent of the thoughts of his heart was ONLY evil CONTINUALLY or ALL HIS DAYS. Noah would have been included in that statement being a part of sinful humanity and a descendant of Adam sharing his guilt and sinful nature. And we read about his sinful drunken nakedness after the ark as well (9:20-21). The only reason Noah and his family were spared the flood of God’s wrath was the same reason any of us are spared such; God’s grace. Remember that we are told that “Noah found favor [literally “grace”] in the eyes of Yahweh” (6:8). Not merit on account of his own righteousness. The mention of his rightoeousnness and blamelessness FOLLOWED him finding that favor or grace in God’s eyes (v. 9). As is always the case, it is the result of such and not the cause of it. On account of our sins and unrighteousness, we certainly don’t deserve God to intervene in sending His Son to die in our place and to make us alive in Christ. In fact, we give Him every reason not to. Whenever we read these two words in Scripture, we should remember God’s great grace in our lives and be amazed by it.

            D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones also said in a sermon one time, “Thank God for the ‘buts’ of the Bible.” Certainly, we should especially thank God for the “But God’s” of the Bible and the difference they make in our lives and praise Him for each of them. Be sure to pay attention to them the next time you come across one in your Bible reading and give thanks.

Celebrating the glorious truths of the “but God’s” with you,

Pastor Lee