8 “But of the Son He says,” … 10 “And,” …

"Without any disrespect, some of the more important areas we differ in our views about God are that we believe only the Father is Jehovah, Jesus was created and is inferior to the Father, and that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force used by Jehovah” Josh, a Jehovah’s Witness, explained. This was our second meeting, and things were interesting from the moment I answered my door.

Instead of his wife, another guy was standing with Josh – both wearing button down shirts and ties, which made Scott and I feel *slightly* underdressed. After a brief recap from our previous encounter two weeks prior, we dove into a discussion about the Trinity and focused primarily on Jesus. Knowing that Jehovah’s Witnesses are prepared to hear many common arguments and verses defending the divinity of Christ, I decided to use two passages they would not have a ready response to.

I had them turn to Psalm 102 and read verses 25-27. We also did a quick rundown of the chapter by pointing out that verses 1, 12, 15-16, 18-19, 21-22 and 24 are all addressing Yahweh (or “Jehovah”). This made it easy to prove that verses 25-27 were also addressed to Yahweh. I then turned to Hebrews 1 and showed them that the author of Hebrews attributed Psalm 102:25-27 to the Son in verses 10-12. To leave them without any doubt I made reference to verse 8 which begins, “But of the Son He says,…” and then quotes from the Old Testament, then continues on in verse 10, “And,…” and cites from Psalm 102:25-27.

For the sake of clarity I offered, “Here is the author of Hebrews attributing to the Son a passage that describes Yahweh/Jehovah. So then, the Son is also called Yahweh in the scriptures. Now if Jesus were not truly Yahweh then applying Psalm 102:25-27 would be incredibly inappropriate, and even blasphemous. But the author of Hebrews has no problem making direct application of this text from the Psalms to Christ because he is Yahweh.”

To their credit they did try to offer an explanation or two from Psalm 102:25-27 and Hebrews 1, but later admitted that they didn’t have a working answer at this point and asked for time to properly address it. I told them I completely respect them for waiting to look into it further. We are scheduled to meet next Saturday around the same time.

Please pray that the triune God might cause them to turn from falsehood unto the true and living God.

Thanks for reading,

Case

What to do with Christians in name-only?

Have you ever noticed that there are plenty of people around who openly call themselves Christians? Usually at work I'll make a passing reference to "my church" which many times will be followed up asking which church, and then they profess to likewise be Christians. But I'll tell ya, there wasn't any indication from their behavior up to that point that caused me to even think they might be a Christian on a bad day (or a series of bad days).

Even more troublesome to me are the professing Christians who attend gospel-preaching churches on a regular basis who, outside of church, act just like any non-Christian person. I have spent a lot of time recently trying to decide what to make of these church-going so-called Christians who act just like those in the world. This last group is the group that really bothers me, and I think the reason is because the world generally understands that real Christians go to church. Which is why I can understand how easy it would be to confuse a non-Christian who attends church regularly or semi-regularly with an authentic Christian.

True Christianity and true Christians produce a life of good works who agree with God's written word. I will add to this, for those who might be wondering (if I were a reader I would be one wondering), that Christians are sinners - redeemed sinners - but sinners nonetheless. We know our hearts and we know how terrible we are. Some of the thoughts we think, the words we speak, and the actions we take are many times wretched sins. But, Christians are a work in progress and we strive to please God above all else. Paul wrote to the Ephesian Church, "⁸for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light ⁹(for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), ¹⁰trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord." (NASB). This is not something that we are able to conjure up within ourselves, and for some reason that analogy of a man pulling himself up by his boot straps is fixed in my mind, but rather we need God to do this work in us. He must cause our behavior to change or it will never change. Sinners will go on sinning unless the Lord does a work in their heart.

Now that we have that out of the way, what are we to do with these ... so-called Christians? Or pseudo-Christians? Christians in name-only, but who are only putting on a show some of the time. The same Apostle wrote the following about such "Christians," "⁹I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; ¹⁰I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. ¹¹But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler--not even to eat with such a one. ¹²For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?" (1 Corinthians 5:9-12, NASB). There is a careful distinction made by Paul between (1) immoral people of this world, and (2) any so-called brother. We are granted the freedom to associate with ungodly non-Christians but not with false-professors of Christianity who live like the ungodly. This passage goes on to quote from the Old Testament which reads, "Remove the wicked man from among yourselves." We ought to be careful the company we keep, especially when it comes to those who claim the name of Christ. I believe one of the reasons for this strict rule about not associating with Christians in name-only is because of the affect it can have on us as individuals and on our reputation.

Personally, when I meet a professing Christian who doesn't act like a Christian I will do one of two things. First, I usually try to discern if there is a possibility of him actually being a true follower of Christ. If he is, then I will do my best to encourage him in his walk with the Lord. If I am led to believe he is not a believer I will treat him like an unbeliever in the sense that I will preach the gospel to him and focus on the radical requirements of repentance God talks about in His word.

It wasn't only the Corinthian Christians who were concerned about this issue - many faithful today have the same concern, which is why I am so thankful for the God-breathed Scriptures and the clarity they offer on such topics.

Rusty

When you judge others do you also judge yourself?

My pastor is working his way through Paul's letter to the Romans during Sunday morning worship, and I walk away each week incredibly challenged. Last week he preached on Romans 2:1-3 and I found myself convicted and knew by the end of the sermon that the Apostle's problem with the Jews was one that I sometimes do myself. Here is the text:

^"1Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. ²And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. ³But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?" (NASB).

What exactly were the Jews guilty of? Judging non-Jews for sinning. Is this wrong? Well, not necessarily. It is good for a person to be able to discern right from wrong according to God's holy standard of living. What then were the Jews guilty of? Their sin was hypocrisy. While judging the Gentiles for their sins they themselves were doing the very same things! Isn't it easy to quickly pass judgment on another person? Your co-worker, your friend, your fellow brother or sister in the faith.

Funny that when you yourself commit the very same sin ... weeeeell you have a good excuse for doing it. There are reasons for why you did what you did and that makes it not as bad for you. Or so the excusing might go in your mind. But in reality, there is no excuse for the one who breaks God's law. The Lord of heaven and earth cares very much about His creatures obeying His commands.

In the case of the Jews, I believe they would face a harsher judgment of God because of the immense amount of light they received from the Old Testament Law and prophets. Now in my case, and your case (if you are one who has heard the truth), we have even less excuse than those around us who don't profess to be Christians and go to a gospel-believing church every Sunday. More light has been given to us and therefore we are expected to live in that light.

Thanks for reading,
Rusty