Last year I read a book that proved by extensive research of ancient writings that mainstream Protestant belief is completely different from the beliefs of the apostles and the first century church.  The author wrote page after page quoting men who were companions or students of the apostles, men who knew firsthand what Peter, Paul, John, and the others believed.  You would think that by the end of the book the man would have taught himself straight into restoring the New Testament church.  But no, he stopped short.  In fact, he said it was impossible to restore the real thing, and the doctrines he had chosen to attack were only a few.  He never questioned his own desire to keep a few of those “heretical” -isms for himself. 
            I thought about that this morning and went on a rambling train track of other doctrines.  Finally, I hit the premillenial kingdom.  Do you realize that did not become a popular belief until the 1800s?  How can we possibly believe that the men who stood by the Lord as He proclaimed His kingdom and the others who learned directly from them could have missed it?  How can it be that everyone in the next 1800 years was wrong? 
            The problem with that doctrine is the same one the apostles first had.  They thought that the kingdom was a physical one, one that included physical armies that would destroy Rome and install a Jewish Messiah on the throne in Jerusalem.  Even they should have known better.  The prophet Jeremiah prophesied that no descendant of Jeconiah (a Davidic king shortly before the captivity) would ever reign in Jerusalem, Jer 22:28-30.  That includes the Messiah.
            Finally those men got it, and they fought that carnal notion of anything physical, or even future, about the kingdom for the rest of their lives.  John made it plain that he was in that kingdom, even while he sat on the isle of Patmos writing the book of Revelation, 1:9.  We are in a spiritual kingdom, one where we win victories by overcoming temptation and defeating our selfish desires, one where two natural enemies, like a lion and a lamb, can sit next to each other in peace because we are all “one in Christ Jesus.”
            The belief in a physical kingdom here on this earth?  Isn’t that a bit like an astronaut candidate stepping out of a training simulation and proclaiming, “I just landed on the moon?”  Our inheritance is far better than a physical earth--it is “incorruptible, undefiled, [one] that fades not away, reserved in Heaven,” 1 Pet 1:4.  Why should I want something on this earth when I can have that? 
            But it will be newly created, you say?  No, Jesus said my reward is already created, “from the foundation of the world,” Matt 25:34.
            It will last a thousand years?  Then what?  We cease to exist?  No, no, no.  I was promised “eternal life” Matt 19:29; 25:46; John 3:16; 4:14; 5:24; 6:40; 10:28; Rom 2:7; 5:21; 6:23; 1 Tim 6:12, and—well, there are dozens more, but surely that makes the point.  No wonder no one in the first 18 centuries after Christ lived believed such a doctrine.
            We are supposed to have matured in Christ, to have gone beyond the belief in a material, physical kingdom, just as those apostles finally did.  Our kingdom is "not of this world."  It may not look like much to the unbeliever, but we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18.  We have a kingdom right now far greater than anything a mortal man can dream up.  It’s just that only those with spiritual eyesight can see it. 
            But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel…At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens…Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:22-29.
 
Dene Ward

Usually buying gifts for our grandsons is difficult for us.  We have already had the problem of giving exactly the same gift as the other grandmother, but because I thought ahead of the possibilities and had taken my receipt with me, my children were able to exchange mine for something else.  Then there is the matter of not knowing what they already have or even like.  Once we hit the jackpot with scooters and another time with remote control cars, but we have hit that problem age now—middle school and early high school.  I don't want to just hand them money either.  Amazon has helped a lot with their "wish lists."  It's easy to go down a list, choose something in our price range, and hope they meant it when they put it on their list.  So far, they have been happy, if not deliriously so.
            This past Christmas, as I went down Silas's list which contained athletic shoe after athletic shoe and hoodie after hoodie, I was about to give up when suddenly I saw a mini-fridge.  We are talking really "mini" here—it only held 3 cans of soda.  We thought one of those hotel mini-fridges might be better and not much more, so we went searching.  Boy, were we wrong.  They cost about 6 times as much.  So we kept looking and finally found one closer to the one Silas had picked out, about the same price, but large enough for "12-15 soda cans."  So we bought it, told his mom to take the other one off his wish list so no one else would buy him one, and when it arrived, wrapped it and put it with the other presents.
            When time came to swap presents, his was one of the last.  His little brother, due to the relative costs of things, had gotten three less expensive items, and that meant Silas had only the one to open.  Finally we got to his present and when we placed the very large box in his lap and he felt how heavy it was, he wondered aloud what in the world it could be, which really surprised me, and made me worry a bit that we had gotten something he didn't really care that much about.  Surely if he hoped he would get it, he would be anxiously looking for something the right size and shape.
            So he began to tear off the paper, still wondering aloud, "What IS this thing?"  He got about a third of the paper off when he suddenly said, "I know what it is—I think," then more tearing of paper, and we finally heard, "Yes, it is.  It is.  It is!!"  For the rest of the evening he held that box in his lap with his arms wrapped around it, and we were as pleased about it as he was.
            We have had other experiences of gift-giving when, upon opening the present, the person said, "Oh.  I don't like those," by an adult, mind you, and the same person more than once.  I can tell you I was floored.  My mama taught me better than that and it's hard to imagine anyone's mama who did not.  But isn't that just what we do to God and his gifts to us sometimes?
            Most of us have better sense than to say anything negative about the gift of a Savior.  But I have heard enough complaints about His body, the church, to make me wonder why He even bothered to give us one.  This is not just His body, it is His kingdom as well.  It is the list in heaven where our names are written (Heb 12:23)—a glorious honor.  It is the place on this earth, for now, where he has placed his people so they can help one another, support one another, and encourage one another.  Without this help where would we be, how could we ever overcome Satan's temptations and destroy his devices?  But no, some of us are just like the scribes, Pharisees, and chief priests who refused to acknowledge the kingdom because they didn't like the King and the way it was set up—it didn't fill the bill to them.  He once said to them because of their attitude, “Truly…the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you" (Matt 21:31).  How can we expect anything else when we slander one another, complain about the preacher and his sermons, or think everyone should listen to our opinions about how things are run or else we will leave?  Why do we think we can complain about such a gift and be any different than those people were?  Jesus won't take that any better than I took it when my gifts were complained about.
            No, the congregation which you are a member of is not perfect.  Probably they have disappointed our Father more than once.  But that's because it is made up of imperfect people who sometimes fail to follow the perfect law of liberty.  And that includes you.  My group includes me.  But if we all recognized the gift we have been given and what it cost—the life of Christ, at a minimum—then maybe it would come a little closer to the ideal that God designed. 
            When you complain about the gift, you are complaining about the giver of the gift as well.  I am sure none of us really mean to do that at all.
 
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb 12:22-24).
 
Dene Ward

Wives of probation officers learn to live with a lot of things, including fear.  As certified law enforcement officers their husbands regularly go into neighborhoods that well-armed policemen will not enter without back-up.  Yet they do it on a regular basis to keep track of their caseload, making sure they are where they are supposed to be and not out getting into trouble again.  Keeping the community safe by supervising convicted felons is their job.  They knock on doors every day, never knowing who might answer, or what condition they might be in (drunk, high, angry) and what they might be carrying with them.  Yes, it’s illegal for them to have a weapon, but they broke the law already, remember?  One time Keith came upon one of his people parked in front of a convenience store with a shotgun in the front seat next to him.

One of the other rules for the probationer is never to go near their supervising officer’s residence.  Most of them have no idea where their officers live anyway, and the office is not allowed to pass out that information, but when you live in a tiny rural county where practically everyone is related to or otherwise knows everyone else, they don’t even need a phone book to find their officers.  Twice I have had one of those people knock on the door, once when Keith had already left for work.  That is why I always lock my doors when I come inside, and why, since we had a fence put up, we lock the gate 24/7.

It’s a habit now.  I come in the door and shut it with a twist of the wrist and it’s locked.  I don’t even know I’ve done it. In fact, one time I walked outside to do something and locked myself out without realizing it. 

On the weekends, I regularly lock Keith out too.  He will be chopping wood or mowing the yard and I come back in from taking him a jug of water and—flip—it’s locked.  I don’t know until I hear him knocking at the door.  He never gets angry; he always says, “Good job,” and goes about his business.  Now, if I didn’t respond to his knock, that might be a different story.

Acts 6:7 tells us that many of the priests were “obedient to the faith.”  That word “obedient” is the same Greek word used in Acts 12:13.  Peter had been miraculously released from prison and ran to Mary’s house, where the church had met to pray.  He knocked at the door and Rhoda came to “answer”—that’s the word “obedient.”  Just as a knock on the door requires a response, the gospel knocking on our hearts requires one too.

First, let me praise poor little Rhoda.  This was a time of danger for the church.  Two had been arrested and one of those already killed.  The use of the word “maid[en]” or “damsel” tells me she was unmarried and therefore quite young.  Yet she is the one who was sent to answer the door.  What if it had been Herod’s soldiers?  Then she finds Peter standing there and is so excited she forgets to let him in.  It takes others coming to respond to the continued knocking for Peter to actually get into the house.

A lot of charlatans who claim to be preachers of the faith will tell you that all you have to do is look out the door and recognize the Lord and you will be saved.  Faith is merely mental assent, with perhaps a lot of excitement thrown in, too much to actually get the door opened, to prove its sincerity, but this word requires some action.  Those priests in Acts 6 were “obedient” to the faith.  They responded completely and fully to whatever was asked of them.  “Mental assent” is not an appropriate response to the gospel, any more than me looking out the diamond-shaped pane of glass at my locked-out husband and waving, “Hi!”

How many professional athletes have you seen wearing crosses and “thanking their Lord” before going out to live exactly the way they want to instead of the way He wants them to?  Too many.  But what about those of us who do not live with such public scrutiny?  How many times do we tell the Lord, even after having “obeyed the gospel” as if it were a one-and-done deal, I’m happy to serve as long as it doesn’t cost too much money or take too much of my precious time, as long as everyone does things my way (which is the only smart way), or calls me every day to check on me and take care of my every whim?

The Lord is knocking on the door and He wants far more than your words.  He wants all of you, your heart and your life, your total submission to His way of doing things.  Don’t just nod at Him through the peephole.  Either answer the door and let Him in, or allow Him to go on to someone who really wants Him there.

As many as I love, I reprove and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne. Revelation 3:19-21

Dene Ward

A long time ago I rode a bus with my four year old son to visit my sister, about a 12 hour ride.  It was quite an experience.  The only buses I had ever ridden before were school buses and they were another story altogether.  The Greyhound had much more comfortable seats, air conditioning, and a bathroom.  I could tell you countless stories about that trip, both coming and going, but they are beside the point.  Here is the point that matters.
            When I called to find out the schedule, I was given a time and a location for departure and a time and location for arrival.  I knew exactly where I had to be when to get on the bus, and my sister knew where and when to pick us up.  If either had not happened, we would both have been shocked.
            Some of my poor brothers and sisters need to think about that in relation to their salvation.  The Hebrew writer says, And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end (Heb 6:11).  Do you see that?  Hope and full assurance in the same sentence!  Hope is needing a bus, finding the closest bus stop, knowing the schedule and going there to wait for the bus that you know will arrive.  Instead, we have a tendency to treat our hope as someone who needs the bus, guesses where it might be stopping, and going there to stand, not knowing whether it is even the right place or the right time—just "hoping" it is.
            No matter how many times we hear preachers tell us the definition for the Greek word for hope (confident expectation), we force our culture's definition on the word.  We have fought so many battles over the perseverance of the saints ("once saved, always saved") that we scold anyone for saying exactly what John tells us we ought to be able to say.  "I know I am saved" (1 John 5:13).  Don't be so arrogant, we tell them.  You can always be lost.  Well, so can we—in this case for discouraging people to the point of severe anxiety and even giving up altogether.  Shame on us!
            Everywhere I find the word hope, I find words like assurance, confidence, rejoice, power, boldness, courage, steadfastness, and faith.  Does that sound like someone constantly afraid that if he dies unexpectedly he won't be saved?  No.  It does not.  In fact, questioning that hope seems to be a signal of weak faith:  But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope (Heb 3:6).  And notice this too:  we can boast in our hope.  There is nothing arrogant about it!
            Christ did not die so that we would lie in our beds at night, a quivering mass of fears and doubts, almost too frightened to even go to sleep.  He died to give us confidence.  It isn't that we know we are saved because we did so well.  We know we are saved because he said he would save us if we devoted our lives to him—not because we did it to absolute perfection.  Do you do that?  Then get on the bus to Heaven.  There is no question at all about where it will pick you up and where you will arrive.  The bus stops where Jesus is.  Just make sure you are with him.
 
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful (Heb 10:22-23).
 
Dene Ward
 
 

While the boys were still at home, we raised pigs and chickens.  The chickens we kept mainly for their eggs, but when one stopped producing well, it was time for chicken and dumplings.  The pigs were meant for meat from the time they were piglets.  We named the males Hamlet and the females Baconette to remind us.  You don’t want to get close to an animal destined for the dining table, but then adult pigs are so disgusting there isn’t much danger of that anyway.
            Slaughtering chickens is not quite as traumatic as slaughtering pigs.  They are birds instead of mammals, and they are small and don’t bleed as much.  We never shielded the boys from these things.  They needed to understand where our food came from.  I think there are some city people who must think meat is left in the meat markets in the night by elves the way they go on about the cruelty of ranchers and hunters.  When you understand where it comes from, you respect the animals and appreciate them much more than you would otherwise.  Both of our boys love animals and treat them kindly but they are strong-minded enough to understand necessity too.
            Lucas learned that respect in a more difficult way than we intended.  When it was time to put down a pig, Keith got up early, killed the animal and bled him as quickly as possible, and then loaded it on the trailer for the trip to the butcher.  Three hundred pounds of dead weight meant he needed help. 
            When Lucas was finally big enough to actually help load, he went out with his dad to the pigpen and soberly watched the proceedings.  Mindful of the effect it might have on him, Keith quickly poured sand on the blood.  Then he backed the truck and trailer over to the pigpen gate and Lucas crawled in on the other side to help load the pig—stepping right into that camouflaged pool of blood.  It rose around his ankles, warm and sticky.  After his dad left for the butcher, he came in to wash his feet, a little green around the gills and pale as a ghost.  He really understood the sacrifice that pig had made to feed our family.
            I suppose that is why the Lord intended for us to have a weekly reminder of the sacrifice he made for us, in all its gore.  Too often in asking forgiveness we are like the city folks buying meat at the grocery store, not really understanding all that made that purchase possible.  We need to come to grips with the fact that our actions caused a death, a particularly horrible death.  Even more than that, we are the reason for it yet again every time we sin.  The way we treat our failings as something to laugh about or shrug off as trivial, we probably need to stand beneath that cross and step ankle deep in the still warm blood of Jesus to jolt us back into reality. 
            Sin is just as horrible as slaughter.  In fact, it caused a slaughter which will prevent another one, but not if we don’t have enough appreciation for it to make ourselves do better.
 
He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth…Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he has put him to grief: when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. Isa 53:5-7,10
 
Dene Ward

He said he didn't understand "how a person became a thing."  His father had opposed serfdom, as had Catherine the Great before him.  But trying to get the approval of the nobility was not an easy thing.  In fact, Catherine had given up.  Yet Tsar Alexander II did not.  It took five years and the murder of one of his emissaries to finally, on February 19, 1861, receive the approval he needed to pass the legislation abolishing serfdom forever from Russia.  Things did not go smoothly afterward as the peasants expected to be given land along with their freedom, but it is still a monumental event in Russian history, and because of it, Tsar Alexander is called the Liberator.
            But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and [have] been set free from sin…(Rom 6:17-18).  We have been blessed with a far more important liberation.  For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (Rom 6:14).  We have our freedom now, freedom to choose not to sin.  We have been blessed with the ability to overcome with the help of our own Liberator (1 Cor 10:13).  We might have wished we were free to choose before our baptism (Rom 6) but it was simply impossible.  So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members (Rom 7:21-23).  Truly we were wretched (7:24) and in need of deliverance.
            It took years of planning, and it involved the murder of the King's Son, but finally it happened.  The King's Son rose from the dead and abolished the slavery to sin.  …Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!...There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. (Rom 7:24-8:1).
            And now we are free, never again enslaved to sin, a truly monumental moment in history.
 
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.   For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father! (Rom 8:2, 15).
 
Dene Ward
 

My grandson came by for a quick visit recently.  I spent a couple of hours preparing the house, putting up the things that might hurt him and the things that could get him into trouble.  Then I put out the old toys his daddy used to play with, the “new” ones I had picked up at a thrift store, the crayons, a small plastic chair I had bought for him, as well as my old rocking chair, the one I sat in until I outgrew it.
            You are never really sure what a two year old will find interesting.  Their likes and dislikes change with every mood.  I picked up blueberries and chicken nuggets, two of his favorite things, at least the last time I was with him.  That doesn’t mean he will like them this time.  At least I know that about toddlers.  It would have been more helpful to have been able to remember well my own preschool days.  Then I might have stood a better chance of pleasing him.  All of that is entirely normal. 
            In fact, that is normal in every case.  If you could climb into the mind of the person you are trying to relate to, wouldn’t it be much easier to understand them and get along?  A long time ago, Job said the same thing about man and God.  There was no one who could “lay his hand on both” God and man, 9:33. 
            Which is precisely why the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us,” John 1:14.  The Hebrew writer says, “He had to be made like his brothers in every respect” so that he could become our high priest, our intercessor, the one who stands between us and God, laying his hand on both because he understands both worlds, 2:17.  Paul makes it plain in 1 Tim 2:5 that Jesus is the only one of the Godhead who fulfills that requirement--There is one mediator between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus.
            So now we cannot say, “No one understands.”  Jesus went through a lot of pain and sorrow and injustice and indignity just so he could understand.  Any time we excuse ourselves with something like, “Well of course he could overcome sin, he was the Son of God!” we are demeaning the sacrifice he made for us, and the things he bore on our behalf so he could be “the missing link” between our Father and his children.  We are saying that he doesn’t, and can never understand what it is like to be human.
            The Son of God is also the Son of Man.  He knows how we think, he knows how we feel, and he knows what we can and cannot endure.  He sits at the right hand of God even now, making intercession for us, Rom 8:34, because he searches our hearts and knows what is in them (v 27 with Rev 2:23).
            I may make a mistake about what will pique the interest of my two year old grandson.  Christ will never make the same mistake about us.
 
This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them, Heb 7:22-25.

Dene Ward
 

When we bought our paint, it might have been the first time I realized that every can of paint in the store was white.  No matter what color you want, it starts out white.  Then the man at the counter will look up something or other on his computer screen, open the can and squeeze a set number of color squirts into the can.  (Don't you love my technical vocabulary?)  After it's shaken the requisite amount of time in the paint milkshake machine, you have the color you asked for.  Works every time.
            But notice—even for the lightest colors, one squirt and the paint is no longer white.  That's the case with purity, folks.  One sin, and your soul is no longer white.  Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven…(Matt 5:19).  We do our best to get around that, labelling some big and some little, even calling some sins "white," as in "little white lies," but the paint is no longer pure white no matter what we may call it.  It doesn't matter if you grew up going to church and never doing the big, bad sins as we like to say.  It doesn't matter if no one knows about them.  It doesn't matter if we are blind to our own faults.  None of us is pure white any longer and we need to recognize that sooner rather than later, and stop judging others before we recognize our own.
            As dire as that may sound, the amazing thing is, regardless the properties of paint at the paint store, God can make your soul white again, as white as you were before.  Not because you are still white, nor because of the false label you have put on your own sin, but because you have admitted those squirts of sin, no matter how few or how small in our own eyes, and done your best to change—to repent. 
            We were all pure white once, but somewhere along the way we failed.  The only way to get it back is to add the bright red blood of Jesus and, even more amazingly than the paint store, we will once again be a whole can of white paint.
 
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:13-14).
 
Dene Ward

I am often amused by our insistence on certain words to the point that we are willing to make them a test of fellowship, while making up our own words and phrases which can be found nowhere in the scriptures.  In fact, the thing we are describing often has scriptural phrases that we steadfastly avoid.  By imposing our words on the concept we often miss connections that had a profound impact on the people who first heard them. 
            I grew up hearing the phrase “rolled forward.”  Imagine my surprise when I checked half a dozen translations and could not find that phrase in any of them.  Because we understand that “the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin,” someone created this phrase to try to explain how sin was dealt with under the Old Covenant.  Why do we do that when the scriptures explain things plainly enough?
            Thus shall he do with the bullock; as he did with the bullock of the sin-offering, so shall he do with this; and the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven, Lev 4:20.
            And all the fat thereof shall he burn upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace-offerings; and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin, and he shall be forgiven, 4:26.
            And the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savor unto Jehovah; and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven, 4:31.
            And the priest shall make atonement for him as touching his sin that he hath sinned, and he shall be forgiven, 4:35.
            And he shall offer the second for a burnt-offering, according to the ordinance; and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin which he hath sinned, and he shall be forgiven, 5:10.
            And the priest shall make atonement for him as touching his sin that he hath sinned in any of these things, and he shall be forgiven, 5:13
            And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass-offering, and he shall be forgiven, 5:16.
            And the priest shall make atonement for him concerning the thing wherein he erred unwittingly and knew it not, and he shall be forgiven, 5:18.
            Funny how I grew up thinking the word “forgiven” was found nowhere in the Old Testament.  Guess what?  I found it well over a dozen times before I decided that was enough for me to understand that those people were forgiven, just not forgiven the way we are.  They understood that, too, without someone thinking he had to improve on God’s words with a manmade phrase. 
            For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would they not have ceased to be offered?... But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year, Heb 10:1-3. 
            Those worshippers understood that forgiveness in their time would not last forever, that every year God would once again remember them.  And not only did he remember the sins of the past year for which they had offered sacrifices, he also remembered the year before that, and the year before that, and the years and years before that.  Every year that weight grew heavier and heavier on every soul.   
            That made the promise of the New Covenant much more precious.  Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt;… But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people… for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more. Jer 31:31-34. 
            Now forgiveness would include forgetting. That weight of guilt would be lifted forever.  Imagine the relief they must have felt.  If there were no other spiritual blessing under the New Covenant, that one alone would make serving God worthwhile.  How often do we completely miss the importance of that blessing by refusing to use the words the Holy Spirit did?
            It is not that we cannot comprehend an Old Covenant forgiveness that does not forget.  We have a habit of practicing that very thing. We practice Old Covenant forgiveness when we say we forgive yet every time a certain person’s name comes up we say things like, “I’ll never forget what he did to me.”  The remembrance of their sins against us gives us away.
            Jesus told his disciples they were to expect the same forgiveness from God that they gave to others.  His blood of the New Covenant has power beyond the power those Old Covenant people experienced.  But New Covenant forgiveness only works on us when we practice New Covenant forgiveness to others.
 
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Col 3:12,13.
 
Dene Ward
 
 

A prevalent religious tenet says that we can do nothing to earn our salvation.  Now as far as that goes, it is correct.  The scriptures teach us that nothing we can possibly do will ever merit the salvation of our souls.  That is how bad sin is to the Divine Nature of God.  But that doctrine we were discussing goes on to say that obedience plays no part in our salvation at all, that to obey any command is to try to earn salvation, almost as if obedience were a bad thing.
            Common sense comes to the rescue.  How in the world can anyone possibly think that God will accept a disobedient child, especially a deliberately disobedient child?  My women’s class found at least two dozen passages in the Bible to back up this little bit of wisdom.  It took far longer to read them all than to find them, and concordances and topical Bibles put together by men who actually believe that nonsensical doctrine were a big help in finding those opposing passages.  Do you see a problem with this picture?  It takes distortion of epic proportions to put this doctrine together.
            That is not the biggest fallacy though, to my mind.  If I somehow had a hundred thousand dollar automobile and told you that you could have it if you would only drive me home first, would you for a minute think you had earned that car by doing so?  Of course not, unless you think that your time is worth a whole lot more than I do—almost $100,000 an hour in fact.  But I bet every time I needed a ride to the doctor, you would be more than happy to offer it.
            To ever equate baptism and good deeds with earning salvation is to completely misunderstand the seriousness of sin, to demean the sacrifice of Christ, and devalue salvation.  Obedience can never earn the sacrifice of Deity becoming flesh, living in a world of indignities, becoming subject to sin, temptation, and death, and finally being tortured and killed by the very beings He created.  Nothing is equal to that sacrifice, or to Eternity in Heaven with God.  Yet that very fact ought to make us even more diligent in our obedience, not less.
            No, living a faithful life, overcoming temptation, putting up with persecution on its various levels, or even dying for our Lord will never earn us a spot in Heaven, nor will menial tasks like baptism either.  What we do for God is out of gratitude for a salvation we could never have managed on our own and will never be worthy of, except as He has made us worthy with a forgiveness we do not deserve.  But if we think the ingratitude of disobedience makes us worthy, we’ve simply lost our minds.
           
Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, Come at once and recline at table? Will he not rather say to him, Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty. Luke 17:7-10.
 
Dene Ward