Rajesh

Why Christians Must Esteem the Lord’s Day above All Other Days

August 24, 2015

Many believers think that Paul teaches that whether a believer esteems the Lord’s Day above other days is a matter of Christian liberty (Rom. 14:5-6). For several key reasons, this is a serious misapplication of Paul’s teaching in Romans 14:5-6.

Divine Consecration of One Day above the Others

In the beginning, the Lord created light and called it “Day” (Gen. 1:3-5a). He so created the universe that “the evening and the morning were the first day” (Gen. 1:5).

Having finished His work of creating all things in six literal 24-hour days, “God . . rested on the seventh day from all His work which God created and made” (Gen. 2:3). He then blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it” (Gen. 2:3). These statements show us that even though God was the one who made all the days, He set apart one day as special above the other days.

Adam, Eve, and all others who were among God’s people prior to the giving of the Mosaic Law would thus have had direct divine activity that would have unmistakably made clear to them that they were to esteem the seventh day above the other days of the week.

Divine Mandate to Esteem One Day above the Others

Through His giving the Decalogue to Moses, God revealed to His people His command that they were to esteem the seventh day above other days:

Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

⁹ Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

¹⁰ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

¹¹ For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

We should notice that God directly ties His commands concerning the Sabbath day to what He did at creation on and concerning the seventh day. God’s people from this point until the Resurrection of Christ and the birth of the Church on Pentecost had both divine consecration and divine mandate that would direct them unmistakably to esteem one day above the other days of the week.

Divine Possession of One Day above the Others

God raised His Son Jesus Christ from the dead on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1-8) and gave Him glory so that our faith and hope might be in God (1 Pet. 1:21). Apostolic use of Psalm 118:22 in Acts 4:10-11 shows us that the Psalmist’s statements in Psalm 118 about the day which the Lord hath made are not to be taken generically to apply to every day but specifically are prophetic prediction about the first day of the week when God would raise Christ from the dead and make Him the head stone of the corner! God’s people ever after are to rejoice and be glad on the day the Lord has made—the Lord’s Day!

Furthermore, on Pentecost, God birthed the Church on the first day of the week (Acts 2). In obedience to an apostolic command (1 Cor. 16:2a), His people thereafter assembled to worship Him on the first day of every week (cf. Acts 20:7), including giving offerings for helping meet the pressing needs of His saints (1 Cor. 16:1-4). All these facts show that the first day was a special day for His NT people in many respects.

In providing His climactic revelation to mankind, however, God revealed that the first day of the week was now special to Him in a singular way unlike any other day was—it was “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10)! The Greek construction used here reveals a crucial truth:

Rev 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

Rev 1:10 ἐγενόμην ἐν Πνεύματι ἐν τῇ Κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ· καὶ ἤκουσα ὀπίσω μου φωνὴν μεγάλην ὡς σάλπιγγος,

In the expression τῇ Κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ (‘the Lord’s Day’), the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle John to use the Greek adjective kuriakos (“belonging to the Lord,” [Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, 115]) to teach us that the Lord now has possessed this day in a unique way that was and is distinct from all other days.¹ Yes, He created all the days of the week at Creation, but through His work of raising His Son from the dead on the first day and giving Him glory, the Lord took possession of that day in a glorious new way!

The Holy Spirit thus teaches all believers that the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day that He distinctively possesses and that His people are to esteem that day above all the other days of the week. Romans 14:3-5 most definitely does not apply to how a Christian should esteem the Lord’s Day, and Christians must esteem the Lord’s Day above all other days!

¹ I am indebted to my pastor Dr. Mark Minnick for his excellent teaching through which I first learned this glorious truth.

In Biblical Greek, Exposition, Interpretation, Theology

Should Public Christian Worship Include Dancing to the Lord?

August 17, 2015

Some evangelicals use 2 Samuel 6:14 as evidence to assert that many fundamentalists are lacking in their public worship of the Lord. Some even go so far as to imply that fundamentalists try to “put a spin” on such texts about dancing to the Lord in order to resist the supposed force of this record of David’s exuberant and uninhibited worship of the Lord.

For many reasons, 2 Samuel 6:14 is not a text that shows that public Christian worship should include dancing to the Lord.

The passage is not a record of a normative occasion of public Israelite worship. It records what one man did on a once-in-a-lifetime occasion of immense national significance—moving the Ark of the Lord from the home of an individual to Jerusalem to put it in the middle of the Tabernacle of the Lord.
The passage does not provide definitive proof that David’s public worship of the Lord routinely included such dancing because we do not have other unambiguous accounts of David dancing as part of his worshiping the Lord publicly. David does testify elsewhere of the Lord’s turning for him his mourning into dancing (Ps. 30:11), but the passage is not explicit that David is here testifying of his dancing publicly before the Lord in a worship context.
The passage does not include any explicit divine commendation of David for what he did.
The Old Testament does not anywhere record even one other spiritual “giant” of the faith who danced before the Lord as part of his worship of the Lord. Neither Job nor Samuel nor Hezekiah nor Josiah nor Daniel is ever recorded as dancing before the Lord in worshiping him.
The Old Testament does have two references that record commands to worship the Lord with dancing (Ps. 149:3; 150:4), so we must hold that dancing was a proper and necessary part of Israelite worship of God at least in some manner on some occasions. Key passages, however, that record faithful Israelite worship of the Lord on pinnacle occasions of divine worship in Israel’s history make no mention of such dancing (for example, 2 Chronicles 5; 29:20-36; 35:1-19), which suggests that these commands in Psalms 149 and 150 were in some unstated manner of limited scope for specific settings.
The New Testament does not even once record that dancing was a part of Jewish or Christian worship of the Lord. Nor are there any commands or instruction in the NT about dancing as part of proper worship of the Lord.
Biblical passages that reveal information about heavenly worship never mention dancing as a part of the worship of heaven.

Based on these points, it is illegitimate for evangelicals to assert that fundamentalists are willfully resisting unmistakably clear implications of 2 Samuel 6:14 as a text that shows that faithful worshipers of the Lord should dance before Him when they worship Him publicly.

In Interpretation, Theology

Five Things God Will Not Make New in the New Heavens and the New Earth

August 9, 2015

A glorious day is coming in the new heavens and the new earth when God will have made “all things new” (Rev. 21:5). Based on what other Scripture passages say, however, we know that there are five things that God will not make new:

God will not make new the serpent, which will still eat dust (Gen. 3:14; Micah 7:17) in the Millennium (Isa. 65:25). Whether the serpent will be made new in the new heaven and the new earth is unknown because Scripture does not provide any revelation about animals in the new heaven and the new earth.
God will not make new all the unredeemed humans of all the ages who failed to repent of their sins and believe in Him. They will all perish eternally in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15).
God will not make new the seas that He created as good (Gen. 1:10). In fact, there will be no sea in the new earth (Rev. 21:1), which proves that there will not be a “restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21) without any exceptions.
God will not make new the lake of fire, which He prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41).
God will not make new Satan and his demons who have sinned against God. They will never be renewed to their unfallen state (cf. Ezek. 28:15). They will be punished eternally in the lake of fire (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:10).

Scripture, therefore, does not teach that God will make all things without any exceptions new.

In Interpretation, Theology

An Excellent Evangelistic Illustration

August 3, 2015

Many people think that as long as they are not hurting anyone else with what they are doing, they should be able to do whatever they want. At a funeral service this past Saturday, I heard a great illustration by my pastor Dr. Mark Minnick that explains in an excellent way why such reasoning is flawed.

Here is my version* of that illustration that so clearly explained why such a belief is false:

On a long, straight 40-mile stretch of highway in the middle of a desolate part of a Western state of the US, a lone vehicle speeds along at 25 miles above the speed limit with the driver completely oblivious for quite some time to the fact that he is going far faster than is legal. Given that there is no one else anywhere on the road on the entire stretch of the highway, the lone driver of this vehicle “innocently” exceeds the speed limit without even knowing it for a long time because he is caught up in his thoughts about many other things.

When the driver realizes that he is going way too fast, he thinks to himself that what he is doing is not wrong because there is no one else on the road that he is hurting by what he is doing. He decides to keep going at 80 mph instead of the posted 55 mph maximum speed.

About 25 miles down the highway, the driver notices flashing lights coming up behind him and realizes that a state trooper is coming after him. He pulls over and tries to tell the officer that what he was doing was not wrong because he was not hurting anyone else by what he was doing.

After all, there was no one else on the road with him at all. Of course, the office does not buy his argument and tickets him heavily for going way above the speed limit.

Just as the trooper in this illustration did not buy that what this driver was doing was right to do just because the driver thought that he was not hurting anyone, so God is not going to excuse anyone who breaks one of His laws simply because he thought that what he was doing was right to do because he thought that he was not hurting anyone else by what he did. Whatever God says is wrong to do is wrong to do whether we think otherwise because we think we are not hurting anyone by what we are doing.

To read the good news of what God offers to all of us because we have done wrong before Him, please read this post.

* My version maintains the key points of the illustration as it was told by Pastor Minnick. I wrote this version because I wanted to share this great illustration with others and do not have the time to listen to the illustration over and over again and transcribe it exactly as he told it.

In Evangelism, Mount Calvary Baptist Pulpit

Mi Oración por La Ofrenda – 8.2.15

August 2, 2015

Padre celestial, oh Dios de paz, que resucitaste de entre los muertos a Jesús nuestro Señor, el gran Pastor de las ovejas mediante la sangre del pacto eterno, haznos aptos en toda obra buena para hacer tu voluntad, obrando Tú en nosotros lo que es agradable delante de Ti mediante Jesucristo, a quien sea la gloria por los siglos de los siglos. Gracias por esta ofrenda. Te rogamos que bendigas esta ofrenda y la uses para glorificar tu nombre. En el precioso nombre de Jesús. Amén.

In Ministry, Prayer, Spanish

Is This a Valid Assessment of Fundamentalism?

July 30, 2015

On a Facebook thread, a friend of mine posted in June the following assessment of fundamentalism:

Music is a clear instance where fundamentalism teaches a Manichean (an ancient heresy) view of the world by dividing everything into good or evil – good styles vs. bad styles, worldly music vs. Godly music. Augustine and other orthodox Christians rightly saw this as a faulty cosmology. It calls evil what God has created and declared as intrinsically good.

If you believe, as this friend does, that fundamentalists who reject certain musical styles are “Manichaen” heretics and hold “a faulty cosmology,” please show us “heretics” point-by-point from the Bible alone how we are calling “evil what God has created and declared as intrinsically good.” Where and how exactly does the Bible itself teach that God created all musical styles and declared them as intrinsically good?

In CCM, Theology

25 Parallels between Genesis 1-4 and Revelation 19-22

July 26, 2015

This morning, I finished teaching an 8-week Sunday school series, Beginnings at the End: Creation, Fall, and Redemption in the Book of Revelation. The series featured a thorough comparative analysis of Genesis 1-4 with the book of Revelation.

In the final lesson this morning, I presented to my class that there are at least 25 clear parallels between Genesis 1-4 and Revelation 19-22 that show how important and fit it is to study these passages comparatively. By carefully studying the following references concerning the stated subjects, you will be able to see just how closely these two passages correspond to each other!

creation	Gen. 1-2	Rev. 21:1, 2, 5, 10
night	Gen. 1:5, 14, 16	Rev. 21:25; 22:5
sea	Gen. 1:10	Rev. 21:1
sun and moon	Gen. 1:14-18	Rev. 21:23; 22:5
humans ruling for God	Gen. 1:26, 28	Rev. 20:4, 6
blessed	Gen. 1:22, 28; 2:3	Rev. 19:9; 20:6; 22:7
humans with direct fellowship with God	Gen. 1-4	Rev. 21:3; 22:4
the tree of life	Gen. 2:9; 3:22-24	Rev. 22:2, 14
river/ (water of life)	Gen. 2:10-14	Rev. 21:6; 22:1-2; 17
gold	Gen. 2:12	Rev. 21:18, 21
human service for God	Gen. 2:15	Rev. 22:3
marriage	Gen. 2:18-25	Rev. 19:7-9; 21:2; 21:9-27; 22:17
demonic deception of human beings	Gen. 3:1-5; 13	Rev. 20:3, 8
the devil	Gen. 3:1-5; 15	Rev. 20:1-10
curse	Gen. 3:14, 17; 4:11	Rev. 22:3
death	Gen. 3:19; 4:8	Rev. 20:6, 14; 21:4
fallen human beings	Gen. 3-4	Rev. 21:8, 27; 22:15
divine evaluation of human beings	Gen. 3:9-13; 4:4-7; 9-10	Rev. 20:11-15
divine punishment of sinful humans	Gen. 3:16-19; 3:22-24; 4:11-15	Rev. 19-22
divine provision of clothing for humans	Gen. 3:21	Rev. 19:8, 14
divine redemption of humans	Gen. 3:15, 21; 4:1, 4, 26	Rev. 19-22
vital role of righteous angels in ministering to humans	Gen. 3:24	Rev. 19:17-18; 20:1-3; 21:9-21; 22:6, 16
false worship	Gen. 4:3 cf. 4:5	Rev. 19:10, 20; 22:8-9
true worship	Gen. 4:4	Rev. 19:10; 22:9
a city	Gen. 4:17	Rev. 21:2; 22:19

In Sunday School, Theology

A Profound Truth about God as the Redeemer

July 20, 2015

The word redeemer occurs 19x in Scripture. Incredibly, the NT never calls God the Redeemer even once!

Of its 19 occurrences in the OT, 15 are in statements that explicitly speak of God as the Redeemer of national Israel: Psalm 78:35; Isaiah 41:14; 43:14; 44:6, 24; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7, 26; 54:5, 8; 59:20; 60:16; 63:16; Jeremiah 50:34. Furthermore, as the preceding listing shows, 13 of those 15 occurrences are in Isaiah 40-66.

What’s more, the glorious ending of the book of Isaiah has at least 13 other explicit statements about God’s redemption of national Israel: Isaiah 43:1, 3, 4; 44:22, 23; 48:20; 51:10, 11; 52:3, 8, 9; 62:12; 63:4. A careful examination of these 26 explicit references about redemption in Isaiah 40-66 (and many other passages in both Testaments, including Jeremiah 31:35-40; 33:14-26; Ezekiel 20, 36; Zechariah 14; and Romans 9-11) shows beyond any doubt that God is yet going to redeem national Israel for His own eternal glory!

As Christians, therefore, we need to understand that God as the Redeemer in Scripture preeminently concerns God’s future redemption of national Israel!

In Interpretation, Theology

On Fallen Angels as a Leading Source of Human Unbelief in Creation

July 16, 2015

God is the only One who has existed forever. When God, therefore, created the first angel(s), there were no other created beings in existence.

Because all angels are created beings, they must believe what God has told them about His having created them and that they have not always existed, as God has. Since no angels were around to witness God’s creating at least the first angel(s) who was/were created, righteous angels exercise faith in what God tells them about their origin.

It makes sense to think, however, that some or perhaps all fallen angels reject what God has told them about their origin. Given this demonic rejection of the truth of their being created beings, it would naturally follow that some or all demons have played a leading role in influencing humans around the world to reject the biblical doctrine of creation.

I think that we would do well to present this biblical line of reasoning to those who reject the biblical doctrine of creation and challenge them that their rejection puts them in line with evil supernatural beings. What do you think?

In Evangelism, Theology

Twelve Times through the Book of Revelation This Year!

July 10, 2015

Today, I read through the book of Revelation again, which makes twelve times that I have read the book since mid-April. I can testify to how greatly God has blessed me through my reading this book over and over again, just as He has promised to do for anyone who will read, hear, and do what is written in this phenomenal book!

In Bible reading, Testimony

Archives For rajesh

Divine Consecration of One Day above the Others

Divine Mandate to Esteem One Day above the Others

Divine Possession of One Day above the Others

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