Evangelism In Times Of The Coronavirus

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” - Jeremiah 31: 31 - 34 ESV

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” - Hebrews 8: 8 - 12 ESV

In case you are wondering, no, i didn’t make a mistake and paste the same portion twice over. What we see here is that Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah 31 - almost word for word.

Now, what strikes me as fascinating is not the fact that the latter of these two books of the Bible quotes the former despite them being written almost 700 years apart (Jeremiah being between 670 BC to 540 BC and Hebrews in the 1st century, after Christ’s death). Rather, I would like us to draw our attention to the fact that in Jeremiah 31:31-34 we find what many scholars will call the most signficant prophecy of the Old Testament. It is the only reference to a "new covenant" in the Old Testament, and is no doubt the most significant of Jeremiah's prophetic utterances. By stating that the Lord God will write His law on the heart of the individual, this passage finds its fulfillment only in the true believer in Jesus Christ and His covenant with sinful humankind. To give some context to Jeremiah, the words are addressed to a people in exile, far from home and bereft of hope. The covenant between God and Israel, the covenant made so long ago at Sinai, is broken. God has not protected Israel from harm and they have been taken into exile. Into such a situation, the prophet Jeremiah speaks words of promise. But he frames those promises in terms of the very relationship in question. The prophet speaks of a covenant -- like the one made at Sinai -- between Yahweh and Israel. He points people to the truth that God will not forget God's promises made so long ago at Sinai: "I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God." (Exodus 29:45; cf. Exodus 6:7 ESV) "And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people." (Leviticus 26:12 ESV) As such, in this new covenant, God promises, "And I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (Jeremiah 31:33 ESV). The relationship is not new. Israel knows this God, and God knows these people. The promises Jeremiah speaks build on a long and shared history between Yahweh and Israel, a history marked by wavering on the part of the people and by faithfulness on the part of Yahweh. God continues to love this wayward people; they continue to be God's treasured possession. The Old Testament bears witness to the fact that the first set of stone tablets was broken (Exodus 32:19), the second set written again (Exodus 34:1) and hidden away in the Ark of the Covenant (Deuteronomy 10:5). The book of the law, containing the stipulations of the covenant, likewise was stored beside the Ark (Deuteronomy 31:24-26) and mostly forgotten until it was rediscovered in the reign of King Josiah (2 Kings 22), in the early days of Jeremiah's prophetic career. Unlike the old covenant, however, written on stone tablets that can be broken and scrolls that can be lost, the new covenant will be written within the people, on their very hearts. No need for remedial religious education, because everyone will know Yahweh, from the king to the stable boy, from the oldest elder to the youngest child. "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." - Jeremiah 31: 34 ESV. The people have not demonstrated a great aptitude for faithfulness during the many years of the old covenant, so this time Yahweh will do it differently. This time, the covenant relies solely on His mercy, His ever-present grace in forgiving disobedient people and calling them back into relationship with him.

How will it come to pass? I would like to submit to you that it will be through you and me! This will come to pass as you and me go about propagating the gospel like our master commanded us to in Matthew 28; yes even in times of the Coronavirus. Why? Because we are ‘Covenanted to Engage’ under this new covenant.

We are living through a unique, era-defining period. Many of our old certainties have gone, whatever our view of the world and whatever our beliefs. Whether you are a Christian or not, the Coronavirus pandemic is perplexing and unsettling for all of us. How do we begin to think it through and cope with it? In times of crisis, meaning, purpose and hope is what we look for. So, yes, we should be focused on evangelism especially in times such as this. In a New York Times article on March 10, 2020, Italian journalist Mattia Ferraresi wrote: “Holy water is not a hand sanitizer and prayer is not a vaccine….” When life seems predictable and under control, it is easy to put off asking the big questions, or to be satisfied with simplistic answers. But life is not that way right now—not for any of us. It is not surprising that, whatever your faith or belief system, the big questions of life are breaking through to the surface, demanding attention. Coronavirus confronts us all with the problem of pain and suffering. This, for most of us, is one of life’s hardest problems. Experience rightly makes us suspicious of simplistic answers and facile attempts to come to terms with it. It is therefore I believe that we each need to make sense of Coronavirus in three different ways: intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. All are important—and together they present a formidable challenge to anyone who seeks answers to dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic and in turn the God shaped hole in them as Pascal would put it. In his new book Coronavirus and Christ, John Piper writes: “God’s all-knowing, all governing sovereignty over all things will keep us from jumping to the conclusion that God’s fingers in the Coronavirus discredit His holiness or righteousness or goodness. We will not be so naïve as to equate human suffering with divine unrighteousness. Or to conclude that God has ceased to be holy or good when He governs His world. Make no mistake, our God is sovereign even over the Coronavirus. Make no mistake, the Coronavirus was sent by God. It is a bitter season. And God ordained it. God governs it. He will end it. No part of it is outside His sway. Life and death are in His hand.” Job is known to have said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21 ESV) The Lord gave. And the Lord took. The Lord took Job’s ten children. Spiritually, we often forget that in the presence of God, no one has a right to life. Every breath we take is a gift of grace. Every heartbeat, undeserved. Life and death are finally in the hands of God. It is hence Dueteronomy 32: 39 ESV reminds us, “See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.” So, since nothing surprises Him, confuses Him, or baffles Him, His infinite power rests in the hands of infinite holiness and righteousness and goodness—and wisdom. And all of that stands in the service of those who trust His Son, Jesus Christ. And what God did in sending Jesus to die for sinners has everything to do with the Coronavirus. How, you ask? The connection is seen in Romans 8:32 ESV: “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will he not also with Him graciously give us all things?” This means that God’s willingness to send His Son to be crucified in our place is His declaration and validation that He will use all His sovereignty to “give us all things.” It is guaranteed by the blood of His Son. And what are these “all things”? They are the things we need to do His will, glorify His name, and make it safely into His joyful presence. Three verses later, Paul explains how it works in real life—in the time of the Coronavirus. What does it look like when God’s infinite, blood-certified commitment to give us “all things” meets the Coronavirus? Here’s what he says: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. (Rom. 8:35–37 ESV) Emotionally, we are to remember that Jesus expresses the sweetness of God’s sovereignty for His disciples as beautifully as anyone: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:29–31 ESV) Not one sparrow falls but by God’s plan. Not one virus moves but by God’s plan. This is meticulous sovereignty. And what does Jesus say next? Three things: You are of more value than many sparrows. The hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not. Why not? Because God’s meticulous sovereignty— whether we live or die—serves His holiness and righteousness and goodness and wisdom. In Christ we are not His dispensable pawns. We are His valued children. Intellectually therefore, we are to remind ourselves that knowing the same sovereignty that could stop the Coronavirus, yet doesn’t, is the very sovereignty that sustains our soul in the midst of the crisis. And not only sustains, but sees to it that everything, bitter and sweet, works together for our good—the good of those who love God and are called in Christ (Rom. 8:28–30) I would like to submit to you that if we can internalize these truths Intellectually, Emotionally and Spiritually, at such a time as this, when the world longs for meaning, purpose and a hope, we are called to stand and show the way. And in doing so, we would be fulfilling our God given purpose of bringing the nations to Him - all so that His law shall be written on their hearts, towards ensuring His Kingdom come, His will be done! To this extent we would do well to remember that our job here is not to Imagine, like John Lennon’s famous song; how beautiful the world would be without the Coronavirus now. Lennon tells us to imagine that there’s no heaven, no hell, but only sky. And then he says that such imagining is easy. Just try. Right. It is easy. Way too easy. The Coronavirus demands hard reality, not easy imaginings. God and His word are the reality we need—the Rock under our feet.

The last question that then needs answering for us is what God is doing through the Coronavirus? John Piper writes about the same:

1. God is giving the world in the Coronavirus outbreak, as in all other calamities, a physical picture of the moral horror and spiritual ugliness of God-belittling sin.
2. Many people will be infected with the Coronavirus as a specific judgment from God because of their sinful attitudes and actions and some others for reasons we cannot fathom.
3. The Coronavirus is a God-given wake-up call to be ready for the second coming of Christ.
4. The Coronavirus is God’s thunderclap call for all of us to repent and realign our lives with the infinite worth of Christ.
5. The Coronavirus is God’s call to His people to overcome self-pity and fear, and with courageous joy, to do the good works of love that glorify God.
6. In the Coronavirus God is loosening the roots of settled Christians, all over the world, to make them free for something new and radical and to send them with the gospel of Christ to the unreached peoples of the world.

Even as the world imagines and struggles to make sense of the situation and tries to find meaning, purpose and hope, we’re called with dependence on the Holy Spirit, to discern which gospel metaphors people need to hear most. We must communicate a believable gospel, especially in times such as these:

• To those searching for acceptance in all the wrong places, we can point them to perfect acceptance in the gospel of justification.
• To those searching for fulfilling relationships, we can point them to profound, personal union with Christ.
• To those who struggle with tolerance, we can show them the uniqueness of Christ in the gospel of redemption.
• To those who fear disapproval or demand the applause of others, we can share the gospel of adoption, which offers an enduring approval and produces humble confidence.
• To those in abject physical need, we must share our physical blessings and through it our hope in Christ alone.
• To anyone longing for a new start, there is the hope of new creation.

Yes, now more than ever we need to mobilize ourselves to evangelize the world! Let’s pray!

Painting Courtesy: https://www.catherinetimotei.com/

References from:

1. https://www.preceptaustin.org/jeremiah_31_commentary
2. https://www.abideinchrist.com/messages/jer31v31.html
3. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1089
4. https://www.rzim.org/read/rzim-global/where-is-god-in-a-coronavirus-world
5. Coronavirus and Christ: John Piper - https://document.desiringgod.org/coronavirus-and-christ-en.pdf?ts=1586278809
6. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-to-share-a-believable-gospel

Covenant of Salt

You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. - Lev. 2: 13 (ESV)

Before we get into the core of this verse, let us understand the grain offering. The grain offering (also called the meal offering or cereal offering) was one of the main offerings presented by the Jews in worship to the Lord. It was formally instituted in Leviticus 2 for use in the Jewish tabernacle. It would later be practiced in the Jewish temple as well.

In Leviticus 2, the teaching regarding the grain offering includes four main sections: the uncooked offerings (Leviticus 2:1-3), the cooked grain offerings (Leviticus 2:4-10), the ingredients involved (Leviticus 2:11-13), and the grain offerings given as first fruits (Leviticus 2:14-16). Unlike the burnt offering (Leviticus 1), the grain offering did not include meat. Therefore, it did not include blood. Also, since it originated in the wilderness years in the desert, the grain offering likely was relatively uncommon and may have involved offering grain seeds rather than mature grain.

The grain offering also differed from the burnt offering in other significant ways. For example, only a portion of the grain was burned. The priests could use the rest for food. The opposite was true of the burnt offering in which only a small portion could be kept to eat. Also, while the burnt offering was for atonement of sin, the grain offering's focus was worship. A person could add grain to it to varying degrees. 

Another important aspect of the grain offering was that it had to be pure. No leaven (yeast) or honey could be added to the grain. Both would cause the grain to decompose faster. Oil and frankincense were also to be added, ingredients often associated with joy or celebration. Salt was also included.

The reason for the salt is what we’ll be focusing on today. More specifically as many of your bibles might read today, the covenant of salt is what we’re interested in understanding. Though it is used only three times in Scripture, it has great significance to the believer in Christ today. 

The first time this phrase is found is in Leviticus 2:13 where the order of the words is “salt of the covenant.”  The context of this passage is the grain offering, which was to have salt added to it.  But the Spirit didn’t stop with just the grain offerings.  He had Moses write in the same verse that the Israelites were to “add salt to all your offerings.”  Thus, all offerings made by the Israelites to the Lord, not just grain offerings, were to have salt added to them. Notice here that the offerings were to be seasoned with salt, which is identified as the salt of the covenant.

The second usage, found in Numbers 18:19, is also in the context of offerings.  This time, however, the word order is “covenant of salt”.  In Numbers 18, the Lord tells Moses to instruct Aaron and the Levites that it is their responsibility to take care of the Tabernacle.  Moses was also to let them know that all the holy offerings the Israelites gave to the Lord back,  He would give to Aaron and his sons as their portion and regular share. This was their allotment, as they were not going to receive any inheritance in the Land because God was their inheritance.  All the offerings, except for the burnt offerings, belonged to them.  God was letting them know that He Himself was going to provide for them through the offerings given by the people.  “All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you.” - Num. 18: 19 (ESV). The priests were to serve God and trust Him for their livelihoods and they could base their trust on this covenant of salt.

The last time the phrase is found is in 2 Chronicles 13:5.  In this particular passage the Lord gave the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever through a “covenant of salt.”  

So, what does this covenant of salt mean? It is biblical phrase for a two-way agreement, the inviolability of which was symbolized by salt. An Ancient Middle Eastern saying, “There is bread and salt between us,” meant that a relationship had been confirmed by sharing a meal. Salt symbolized the life and enduring nature of the alliance. In the OT salt appears in the relationship between God and Israel. As a purifying agent and preservative in the cereal offering, salt symbolized the indissoluble nature of the covenant between God and Israel. 

As salt was regarded as a necessary ingredient of the daily food, and so of all sacrifices offered to The Lord(Lev 2:13), it became an easy step to the very close connection between salt and covenant-making. When men ate together they became friends. Therefore the Arabic expressions, "There is salt between us"; "He has eaten of my salt," which means partaking of hospitality which cemented friendship. This is the context of "eat the salt of the palace" in Ezra 4:14. In the Ancient Near Eastern part of the world, covenants were generally confirmed by sacrificial meals and salt was always present. Since salt is also a preservative, it would easily become symbolic of an enduring covenant. So offerings to God were to be by a statute forever, "a covenant of salt for ever before the Lord" (Num 18:19). David received his kingdom forever from the Lord by a "covenant of salt" (2 Chron 13:5). But this phrase is not only used in the Middle Eastern part of the world. This is the most likely origin of the hindi phrase ‘namak haraam’ (generally used in the context of one who has betrayed) or one who has been unfaithful to the salt eaten together. This same sort of context is found all across the Eastern part of the world, because this context of salt was used in place of verbal agreements. India and the North East is no exception. In the Rongmei tribe of North East India, there is a concept of ‘Tsagoitai’, wherein two parties trying to reach a settlement after a disagreement would negotiate and then the guilty party would give the other salt in order to acknowledge that they are wrong and they have now reached a peaceful settlement. In the context of Nagaland, India, the land for Patkai Christian College was negotiated over a deal with the village elders of Chumukedima and to seal the deal, the college founders gave the village elders a bag of salt and a rooster. You yourselves might be familiar with similar practises of salt and food being used to come to an agreement in your context and upbringing.

Why is this salt so important to people of that time? There is a book written on it. Salt: A World History. The author chronicles how salt was the root cause for wars waged and agreements made; in short how salt was influential in shaping the history of the world. For our understanding, let's remember this was around 3,000 years ago. Salt was like gold, rare and only for the wealthy. This was the reason why when the British made salt even more inaccessible to the common man, Gandhi led the salt march to Dandi to give the common person access to salt. For traders, salt was used to pay wages for a long time. 

Salt was carried by many travelers. They each had a pouch containing salt. When two travelers came into agreement on something, they'd seal the agreement with an exchange of salt. I give you a pinch of mine, you give me a pinch of yours, and we both place that salt in our pouches. It implies that for either of us to break the agreement, we'd have to find the salt that was given and return it to take back our agreement. Or, in other words, it was a lasting agreement since it was going to be next impossible to segregate the salt that belongs to you in the pouch. 

What is God trying to say with the use of salt? God is using like He always does, our cultural context and limited understanding to explain things to us. God is saying that He wanted us to exchange salt with us. That God wanted to enter into an everlasting agreement with us. God provides the salt from the earth and we exchange it with Him in an offering, thus sealing an agreement. The terms of the agreement are simple. He will be our God and we will keep our trust in Him and depend on Him. Why? Because we have exchanged salt!

I want you to understand the implications of this statement. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” - Rom. 5: 8 (ESV) We may have walked away from God, but He still kept up His part of the covenant of salt He made with us aeons ago. He had no need to make a covenant with us in the first place. He is God. But the continued motif of God doing His part to make Himself available to us is very clear. We his creation are to choose to return to Him and submit ourselves whole. Despite Him being more than able to control us as robots, He will not. He would rather use reason, intellect, emotions and conversations to draw us to Him. Why? Because He is the God of Amazing Grace. God’s tenderness and compassion avalanche upon us from the peaks of his steadfast love and mercy.

Perhaps a quote from the French philosopher Blaise Pascal will put things in their proper context: “To make a man a saint, grace is absolutely necessary and whoever doubts it, does not know what a saint is or what a man is.” Why? Because every saint was once a sinner and every man has a future in the Lord Jesus. Let us make no mistake Church. If we are able to partake of God’s eternal blessings for us, it is purely because of His grace. In his devotional about the same, while meditating on Lev. 2: 13, Richard Hawker wrote in The Poor Man's Morning Portion, “Ponder over these words, my soul; and looking up for grace, and the divine teachings, see whether Jesus is not sweetly typified here. Was not Jesus the whole sum and substance of every offering under the law? The Holy Ghost taught the church this, when he said the law was a shadow of good things to come, but the body is of Christ. And did not the church, by faith, behold him as the Salt which seasoned and made savory the whole? Moreover, as all the sacrifices were wholly directed to typify Him who knew no sin, but became sin for his people, the seasoning the sacrifice with salt, which was also a type of Christ’s purity and sinlessness, became a sweet representation to denote that the sinner, when he came with his offering, came by faith; to intimate that he looked for acceptance in the Lord as his sacrifice, and for preservation in the salt of his grace, in Christ Jesus. And who then, among believers now, would ever approach without an eye to Jesus, and the seasoning with this salt all his poor offerings. Lord, grant that the Salt of the covenant of my God may never be lacking; for where Jesus is not, there can be no acceptance. Lord, let me have this Salt in myself, and may every renewed presentation of myself be there salted. Then shall I be as the salt of the earth, amidst not only the putrefactions of the world, but the corruptions of my own heart. Lord, say to us, and impart the blessing of thyself in saying it, Have salt in yourselves; and then shall we have peace with thee and with one another.” In those last few words, Hawker is actually referring to Mark 9:50 (ESV), “Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

It is therefore we celebrate this covenant of salt that the Lord shared with us. That in the light of this salt, we might stand strong no matter what. Because He is our God and He has not forgotten us, despite us constantly forgetting Him. Even when we rebel and sin, like each one of us seated here has, He grants us grace and how it abounds! He seeks us and keeps us, for all He wants of us. It is in remembrance of this grace and the duty it behooves us to remember that we are Covenanted to Engage. We're to engage the world around us with the truth of Christ.

I’ll end with this true story. A boy was born in 1725. The only godly influence in his life was his mother, whom he had for only seven years. When she died, his father remarried, sent him to a strict military school. The boy rebelled and ran away at the age of ten. A year later, he renounced school forever and became a seaman apprentice. He hoped to step into his father's trade and learn to navigate a ship. Gradually, he gave himself over to the everything else other than God. He did that until he entered the military service, where discipline kept he in check. Still, he rebelled. His spirit would not break, and he became increasingly more and a rebel.

He despised so many things in the military that he finally deserted, only to be captured and beaten publicly several times. After enduring the punishment, he again fled. He entertained thoughts of suicide on his way to Africa, the place he could get farthest from anyone that knew him. 

Somehow, through a process of events, he met a Portuguese slave trader and lived in his home. His wife hated the boy, now a young man. She beat him, and made him eat like a dog on the floor of the home. If he refused, she would whip him with a lash. He fled penniless, with only the clothes on his back, to the shoreline of Africa where he built a fire and attracted a ship that was passing by. The skipper was surprised to learn that he was a skilled navigator. He lived on board for a long period of time. It was a slave ship; it was not uncommon for as many as six hundred Africans to be in the hold of the ship, being taken to America.

He went through all sorts of narrow escapes with death only a hair breath away on a number of occasions. One time he opened some crates of rum and got everybody on the crew drunk. The skipper, incensed with his actions, beat him, threw him down below, and he lived on stale bread and sour vegetables for weeks. He brought the young man above to beat him again, and he fell overboard. He couldn't swim so he harpooned the young man to get him back on the ship. He lived with the scar in his side, big enough for anyone to put a fist into, until the day of his death.

On board, he was inflamed with fever. He was enraged with humiliation. A storm broke out, and he wound up again in the hold of the ship. To keep the ship afloat, he worked alone as a servant of the slaves. There, bruised and confused, bleeding, diseased, he was the epitome of the degenerate man.

Remembering the words of his mother, he cried out to God, calling upon His grace and mercy to deliver him. The only glimmer of light he found was in a crack in the ship in the floor above him, and he looked up to it and screamed for help. God heard him. 

Thirty-one years passed, He gave up his former lifestyle and married his childhood sweetheart. He entered the ministry. In every place that he served, rooms had to be added to the building to handle the crowds that came to hear the Gospel that was presented and the story of God's grace in his life. He died in 1807 and the tombstone above reads:

Born 1725, died 1807. A clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he once long labored to destroy. He decided before his death to put his life's story in verse. This person was John Newton and that has become this song we love, Amazing Grace.

Let us pay attention to the fact that we are sinners who God calls saints and that we are so only because of His grace, because of the covenant of salt that He chose to share with us. Let us remember therefore that we are called to be the salt of the earth, for we are made whole only due to this covenant of salt that keeps God’s faithfulness in our lives. Let our lives be a song for His glory, for He who saved us deserves much better than who we are. I say this to you even as i ponder as did A C Craig on the fact that, “The paradox of the pulpit is that its occupant is a sinner whose chief right to be there is his perpetual sense that he has no right to be there, and is there only by grace and always under a spotlight of divine judgment.” 

Painting courtesy: Alicia Ludwig https://mojarto.com/prints/ludwig-alicia/seeing-blue-ii-227362

Denying Christ - A Good Friday Message

Simon Peter followed Jesus and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in. The servant girl at the door said to Peter, "You also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?" He said, "I am not." Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself. The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said." When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, "Is that how you answer the high priest?" Jesus answered him, "If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?" Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest. Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, "You also are not one of his disciples, are you?" He denied it and said, "I am not." One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, "Did I not see you in the garden with him?" Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed. - John 18: 15 - 27 (ESV)

When i was younger, there were 2 adjectives that i heard most commonly to describe the disciples of Christ - Doubting Thomas and Denying Peter. Poor Peter. Even a cursory reading of the passion narrative across the gospels show us that each book leaves out certain details and concentrates on some others. As such, there is a hope that at least one of the Gospel writers could’ve been kind enough to omit the shameful story of his denial of Christ. And yet there it is, one of those few episodes important enough to make it, in substantially identical form, into all four Gospel accounts. What’s worse, it is in that part of the Gospels that would be most frequently read, year in and year out, down through the ages of the Church. For many of us, having grown up hearing the story and having wondered in our youthful innocence how anyone could be so cowardly and inconstant, it is the first thing we associate with Peter, despite his many other noble moments.

Yet there is a curious tweak in John’s narrative. John breaks up the story: first Peter denies Jesus the first time. Then John suddenly cuts the narrative from the fire outside where “Peter was standing and warming himself” to the inner chambers where Jesus is before Annas, fearlessly rejecting the charges against him, then suddenly the narrative cuts again and we are back, with strange repetitiveness, at “Peter was standing and warming himself,” before John recounts briefly the latter two denials and the rooster crowing. Why the interruption? I confess that the reason had never occurred to me before, but like most literary gems in the Gospels, it is blindingly obvious once you do notice it. Like a master author, John seeks to heighten the drama through contrast and irony. Outside is Peter, too afraid to answer a simple question from a servant girl; inside is Jesus, who is unafraid to boldly answer the high priest. Outside is Peter, unwilling to speak openly about his own relatively lowly identity, but tries to keep it secret; inside is Jesus, who proclaims in verse 20 “I have spoken openly to the world….I have said nothing in secret.” The sheer pitifulness of Peter’s cowardly denial is driven home with every line. But it gets worse.

The key issue in the exchange between Jesus and Annas seems to be Jesus’ teaching, but John inserts in verse 19, almost unnoticed, a couple of keywords that bear light on the context of the events taking place: The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Of course, it is precisely about Jesus’s disciples that those outside by the fire are also interested in. Peter’s refusal to answer seems to be its own answer—apparently he is not Jesus’s disciple after all, or he is not acting as one at the moment of denial at least. But what does Jesus have to say to Annas about his disciples? In verse 21, “Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said.” 

Jesus was essentially saying, “You don’t need to ask me about what I’m up to—ask my disciples; they’ll be happy to speak up for me!” Meanwhile Peter is outside loudly shushing the servant girl. While Jesus is essentially saying, “They know all about me and what I’ve taught.” Peter is outside swearing, “I know nothing about any of it!” Of course, seen this way the exchange is as much to Christ’s glory as to Peter’s shame. Jesus knows full well, after all (cf. John. 13: 36 - 38) that Peter is denying him. And yet he does not deny Peter. Even while his disciples are scattering and hiding, Jesus confidently declares that they will bear witness to him, as indeed they would after his resurrection.

By the way, one of the most interesting statements in this account and in the life of Peter at this point comes from Luke 22: 61. The cock or the rooster crowed a second time, and Luke 22:61 says, “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.” The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Straight into Peter’s eyes went the gaze of the Lord Jesus. Perhaps his trial had just ended and He was coming back across the courtyard, headed to prison, where he’d be kept for a few hours until the dawn, fake trial, scourging, crucifixion in the morning.

His face, covered with spit, black and blue, puffy from being punched in the face and slapped. His garments, covered with sweaty blood that had oozed out of His sweat glands in the agonies in the garden. And as He bound is taken through the courtyard, He looks right into the eyes of Peter. I’m pretty sure that’s a look that Peter never, ever, ever forgot. While you and I have never had the eyes of Jesus look at us in that way; believe it, the eyes of Jesus are on us all the time. And the same gaze sees us in our sin that saw Peter in his. What a painful moment. It’s like the collapse of Peter is crystalized, captured and frozen at that moment when their eyes meet. 

Peter reached the top, called by Christ, commissioned by Christ, set apart by Christ, loved by Christ, taught by Christ, given the keys to the kingdom, granted/delegated miraculous power to heal the sick and cast out demons, leader of the twelve, privileged preacher, and here he lands in the pit of profanity, denying the very Lord he confessed. And yet before we go judging Peter, let us recall that all of us have denied Christ in our own lives. But before i get into that, i want to narrate 2 true incidents.

Most of us are familiar with the song I have decided to follow Jesus. For the benefit of everybody, latest research shows that the song was sung in the middle of the 19th century by Nokseng, a Garo tribal, while Meghalaya was still part of Assam. Having accepted Christ along with his family, he faced opposition from his chieftain and village. He was tied to a tree and beaten as they asked him to recant his newly found faith. As he refused, he started singing I have decided to follow Jesus. His family was dragged in front of him and two children were killed. In response to the threats to his wife, he sang Though none go with me, still i follow. His wife was then killed and he was executed, while continuing to sing, The world behind, the cross before me. The song was then written down by one Simon Marak in Jorhat who probably heard of the incident, who then made the acquaintance of Sadhu Sundar Singh, who made it popular. A song in the face of death, instead of denying his Christ. 

Fast forward to October 2015 in Roseburg, Oregon, USA, a troubled youth held people hostage in a community college campus. As he held them hostage in the classroom, he pointed the gun to their head and asked them if they were Christian. All who answered yes, he shot them dead. He killed 9 people in all before he walked away from the building; shortly after which he was gunned down by the police. Young people died that day for choosing to not deny their Lord.

Matthew 10:33 reads, “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” Was the Lord advocating that we should rather die than deny Christ? Matthew 10: 39 gives us clarity on the subject, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” So that is the context of losing your life instead of denying Jesus. When all is out in the open about our faith and our hope, we’re called to stand for Christ. So the Christian, must love Christ so much that denying him is more fearful than death. Of course, saying that is one thing, but actually having the wherewithal to do it in the moment of death is another. What would you do in the face of death - gun pointed to your head and asked to deny Christ and recant your faith? Like Peter, let’s not be too quick to rebut the question with a false confidence in ourselves.

But even when not faced with such exigent circumstances, i dare say that we all continue to deny Christ each day in our lives. See, I’m not sure I’ve ever denied Jesus publicly when pressed like that, but the older I get, the more I realize how completely and totally I’ve denied him. Because, you know there’s more than one way to deny Jesus, right? You don’t have to say “I don’t know this man” with your words to do it. With every careless unloving action to my wife I say, “I don’t know this man.” Every day I get up and live my day without reference to him I say “I don’t know this man.” Every time I cultivate anger, pride, socio-economic disdain, or lust in my heart I say “I don’t know this man.” Every time I chase money instead of generosity I say “I don’t know this man.” Every time I keep silent about him out of fear of rejection by our culture, or neighbors, for being one of those “Christians” I say “I don’t know this man.”  In a million different ways, my life, and if we’re honest with ourselves, all of our lives have screamed “I don’t know this man!”

We, like Peter, deny Jesus in the workplace or places of study when we keep our faith and convictions quietly to ourselves, trying to fit in unobtrusively with a culture of crudeness, greed and ambition. We, like Peter, deny Jesus on an airplane or bus or whenever making small talk with a stranger, when we try to steer clear of mentioning our faith. Let me clarify that i’m not asking us all to become street preachers or go around forcing the gospel down people’s throats. But I’m pointing out that more often than not we choose to keep our faith under the wraps and thus keep losing brilliant opportunities to speak about our Lord; for if we love Him that much, we will speak about Him naturally; just like we do about our passions, our hobbies, our interest, our sport.

To be sure, Christians are also called to exercise prudence, and in the very next chapter of John, we see the examples of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, secret disciples of Jesus among the Jewish leadership, who used their high position to gain permission for a honorable burial of Jesus’s body. Jesus himself tells his disciples to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Mt. 10:16), and this might mean being strategically silent about one’s Christian commitment in certain contexts.

Yet in the face of Peter’s denial and ours, we’re faced with a truth staring down at us. Jesus knew what Peter was going to do and loved him anyways. Jesus had a perfect knowledge of who Peter was, all of his fears, all of his failures, and how he would betray him at his greatest hour of need, and yet he still called him. Jesus knew Peter at his most sinful, his most rebellious, his most pitiful, and seeing all of that darkness loved him. 

This truth is the beating heart of the Gospel. Paul, in Romans 5: 6 - 11 says this:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

In the Bible, the heart of life, of goodness, of salvation itself is to know and be known by God—to be in a true, whole, relationship with him. That’s what Jesus says in John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” This is why the most terrifying words of Jesus was his warning to those who were fooling themselves into thinking they were believers and telling them that at the end, if they didn’t repent, they would come to him and he would say “Depart from me I never knew you.”

With this in mind, we can finally start to understand the crushing reality of Peter words when he curses by God’s name and says, “I don’t know the man”–he was showing us what our sin leads to. See, sin is a rejection of knowing God and all that goes with that. So, God’s righteous judgment, his wrath and the punishment we deserve is to give us what we ask for: a life without God, separated from all goodness, all love, all joy, all truth and beauty. That’s what sin asks for and that’s what sin gets.

On the Cross, however Jesus suffers the judgment of God in our place. We deserve death and he receives it. We deserve spiritual separation from God, but he, as the only perfect one who ever lived, experiences it in our place so that we don’t have to. It is only when you see this you understand that, while Peter is cursing his name, bringing the curse down on himself, Jesus is preparing to go bear the curse for him on the Cross so that Peter and us would be able to know the God that he’s denying.

And this is the heart of the Good News: we have a God who sees you at your worst, sees ME at my worst, and yet still loved us, and was willing to come, in the person of Jesus to suffer on our behalf, that we might know him. You have to understand, God doesn’t look down with shock. He knows it all. He saw it all with his eternal gaze every sin - past, present, and future that you and I will ever commit and he took up the cross. In fact, He knew exactly who I was and He still chose to die on the cross for me. And this is why we call this Good Friday. On this day we see the love of God revealed in Jesus’ suffering. We find a God who truly knows us and loved us yet to the full measure.

The promise is that if you put your trust in Jesus and what he’s done for you on the Cross, you can know and be in relationship with this God. If you’re asking, “How can i know for sure that i can trust Him?” you can do so because the Bible goes on to tell us that the same Peter who denied Christ in His hour of need was restored. Yes, restored. Remember, our Lord said in Luke 22: 31 - 32, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail,” and it did not fail. He stood up on the Day of Pentecost and preached a great sermon and three thousand were converted and he preached again and again and tens of thousands were being converted in Jerusalem.

And then he sat down and wrote 1 Peter 1, and he wrote about how trials that are fiery trials (1 Peter 1:6-9) prove your faith. When you go through the worst collapse of cowardice in your spiritual life and your faith doesn’t fail, it’s the proof that your faith is the kind of faith that will remain until Christ appears. That’s what Peter said. It’s a great lesson for us to learn. Not to be overconfident but to understand the weakness of our flesh and steel ourselves against the kind of cowardice that broke the heart of Peter and grieved the heart of his Lord.

So the only question left is, “Do I trust Him?” For some of you, you might have never placed your faith, or accepted Jesus. If that’s you and you’d like to, find a Christian leader you can trust and let them lead you to the Lord. If you have in the past placed your trust in the Lord, but you’re still wallowing in sin, maybe you’ve been far, maybe you’ve been cold, maybe you’ve been wandering – the invitation is to trust and believe that even that is covered and you can trust Him; for He laid down His life that you might have yours - eternally with Him. The invitation is to believe today that we have a God who saw us at our worst and He still came - all so that He could die on the cross for you and for me.

References From:

1. https://derekzrishmawy.com/2014/04/21/when-were-at-our-worst-my-good-friday-sermon

2. https://politicaltheology.com/good-friday-and-the-politics-of-denying-christ-john-1815-27

3. http://www.ligonier.org/learn/sermons/peters-denial/

4. http://desiringgod.org/interviews/gun-to-your-head-will-you-deny-christ

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Matthew 6 : 9-16

New Living Translation (NLT)

9 Pray like this:

   Our Father in heaven,

   may Your name be kept holy.

10 May Your Kingdom come soon.

   May Your will be done on earth,

   as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today the food we need,

12 and forgive us our sins,

   as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

13 And don’t let us yield to temptation,

   but rescue us from the evil one.

James 1:13 says, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one" (James 1:13). 

That’s true. But the Bible also says, "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil" (Matthew 4:1). 

This line (In Matthew’s version of the Lord's prayer) has never made sense to me, although I continue to recite it since this is the way it is usually translated; but I cannot really appreciate it as is. Sometimes, it is translated "do not put us to the test" (In Luke’s version), which still seems strange and problematic. Why would God "lead" us into temptation or "put us to the test" to begin with? Is human life an obstacle course, a testing ground? Are we all on trial? I thought God’s usual job was to lead us away from temptation! Why would we need to ask God to NOT lead us INTO temptation? 

Understanding the Old Testament Background

I began with a word study on the word 'peirasmos' as it appears throughout the Bible. The word 'peirasmos' in the Old Testament is most commonly the name of a place, Massah. This place is named in Exodus 17:7. 'Massa' is simply the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word 'peirasmos'; it seems to be derived from the word 'piel', a feminine singular participle of 'nasah', meaning to test or put to the test, hence place of putting to the test. In the OT, Massah was the paradigmatic place where Israel’s relationship with God was fractured and God became somewhat distant from them, despite His covenantal commitment just recently demonstrated in Him delivering them from Egypt. 

In Exodus 14-15, God had saved the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, taking them through the Red Sea. Exodus 14: 30, 31 states "Thus the LORD delivered ('errusato') Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses."

But no sooner had God delivered Israel from the Egyptians, then they began to grumble and complain against God their deliverer. They had been delivered through two walls of water 'into the wilderness', and their first act on being delivered was to complain about the lack of water (Exod 15:24). They seemed to think that the God who had just parted the Red Sea couldn't give them a few mouthfuls of water in the desert! From that time on, God's relationship with the Israelites was a relationship characterized by 'testing'. God gave them water, but in doing so He 'tested' Israel to see if they would obey His commandments (Exod 15:25). Next, they complained about food, so He gave them bread, but even the bread-giving included a 'test' from God, a command not to gather too much (Exod 16:4)—which many failed (Exod 16:20). Then, once again, in Exodus 17 the people complained about lack of water. Moses ominously describes this complaint as 'putting the Lord to the test', that is, 'testing' God to see if He really loved them and cared for them (Exod 17:2). God again gives them water, but the place is named from that time on Massah, the place of testing (Exod 17:7).

Exodus 17:7 "And He called the name of the place Massah ('peirasmos') and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested ('peirazein') the LORD by saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

"God had delivered them from Egypt because of His love. But He had then led them into 'testing' in the wilderness, the place where God tested their commitment to Him and where the people tested God's love for them. Later on, just before the people are about to enter the Promised Land, they again 'tested' God. God had promised them the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey to be theirs. But the people didn't believe Him. They were afraid of the previous inhabitants of the land, they suspected that God didn't love them and they didn't trust God. They didn't enter the land. As a result, God told them they would not inherit the land for forty years. This 'test' was the final straw for God; His people didn't trust Him and so He banished them to forty years' wandering in the wilderness (Num 14:22-23). Throughout the rest of the OT, Massah is referred to as that terrible place of testing, the place where mutual suspicion entered into the relationship between God and His people (which was not God’s fault of course, for He was always faithful to His promises. They had no right to test God). The law and the prophets began to refer to Massah, the 'place of testing', as if it applied to the whole wilderness experience, from the crossing of the Red Sea until the entry into the Promised Land 40 years later. (Deut. 6:16, 8:2, 9:22, 33:8; Psa. 78:18, 78:41, 78:56, 95:8-9, 106:14) In the end, Israel emerged chastened and humbled by the whole 'testing' experience (Deut 8:16). But even then, the people still had a problem: they did not fully trust God, and so the testing continued throughout Israel's history. God tested them to see if they would obey Him (Deut 13:3; Judg 2:22, 3:1, 3:4; 2 Chron 32:31) and they generally failed; for their part, the people tested God to see if He really cared for them and loved them and would keep His promises (Judges 6:39). In the light of the OT, Matthew 6:13 literally means Don't lead us into Massah. That is, it is a prayer asking God to make sure that we don't relive that desert experience of Israel, where they suspected God of foul play, and God (quite rightly) suspected them of ungrateful and disobedient hearts.

Testing and God’s Redeemed People

God never tests His people in the NT like He did in the OT. Christians certainly do undergo 'tests' in the NT, but these 'tests' are not an act of God 'testing' us to see if we will obey Him, like a distant examiner or a suspicious husband. Christians never undergo special 'tests' such as God gave His people in the wilderness, but simply the 'trials' that are common to humanity (1 Cor 10:13), or the temptations of Satan (1 Thess 3:5). God always provides a way of escape from these type of trials (1 Cor 10:13, 2 Pet 2:9). They are described like a refiner's fire, proving our trust in God and our willingness to follow Jesus (1 Pet 1:6, 4:12). In all these things, God's attitude to us is always as a loving heavenly father, never as a 'suspicious heavenly examiner'.

The book of James provides an extended commentary on the theme of testing, applying the 'testing' that Jesus mentions in His prayer to a Christian's everyday life with all of its economic inequalities - (modified ESV):

James 1: 2 - 15 "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet testings ('peirasmois') of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under testing ('peirasmon'), for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tested ('peirazomenos'), 'I am being tested ('peirazomai') by God,' for God cannot be tested ('apeirastos') with evil, and He Himself tests ('peirazei') no one. But each person is tested ('peirazetai') when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."

Applying Matthew 6:13

Hence the prayer of Matthew 6:13 is a prayer of confident trust, asking God to keep us trusting His loving care for us. It is a prayer that God our Father will keep our focus firmly on His ultimate act of care and provision for us: the deliverance from sin provided by Jesus' death on the cross. It is a prayer that, in the midst of the common trials of this life, God will help us remember that He is not distant from us, He is not standing back and testing us to see if we will obey, He is not inflicting these things on us as a test; but that He is lovingly refining us and making us more like His Son Jesus Christ. It is a prayer asking God to 'give us our daily bread', not to test us to see if we will obey Him (as He did when He gave bread to the people in the wilderness), but simply to provide us with what we need as our loving heavenly Father. It is a prayer to deliver us out of the clutches of Satan, who lies to us, who tells us that God does not have our best interests at heart in the midst of these trials, who wants us to become suspicious of our Father and forget how much He loves us. The evil one wants us to think that we know best, and that God doesn't love us as much as we love ourselves. We may not know exactly why we are suffering; like Job, we may never find out the precise reason for it until the Lord returns – all we may know is that God is compassionate and merciful in our suffering (James 5:11). But that is enough!

When would you need to pray, ‘Lead me not into temptation’?

Maybe you have accepted that Jesus died for you and brought you into heaven … But you still think your life is a desert wilderness, and you need stuff to fill up the void. You suspect God because you don't trust that He will give you what you need. So instead of generosity and love, your life is about greed and holding on to things that you don't really need. Satan is just as active in material things as he is in spiritual things. You then need to pray, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'

Maybe you are tempted when it comes to your relationships. Maybe you're unhappy with whatever relationships you have, or unhappy because you don't have a relationship that you long for. You may be single, widowed, divorced, married, friendless, unappreciated, just tired of giving. And you know that God has saved you from sin, and given you eternal life. But you suspect that He doesn't really have your best interests at heart when it comes to these human relationships. And you think He's being mean; He's saved you from the greatest enemy of all—sin and death—but He's just brought you into a dry desert wilderness and He's not going to give you anything to drink.

Of course, that can lead to disaster, can't it? You are tempted to look for other ways to gratify your desires, ways that God hates. You join in with your mates when they drink too much so you’ll be accepted by them. Or you look for cheap thrills. But you don't care because God doesn't seem to care for you. You then need to pray, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one', trusting God's goodness, even in the desert.

Addiction can be a form of temptation too, can't it? When you start to feel that some thing can look after you, or ease the pain, because you think that God doesn't care. Whether it's alcohol or pornography or sex or even food.

Of course, it might be helpful to take some active steps to remove these temptations from your life. Don't watch the TV shows that provoke you to greed or lust. Put porn blocking software on your computer. Whatever it takes to keep yourself for the Lord! But the most important thing you can do is to pray.

And do you know, this prayer is quite an amazing prayer? Because the act of praying it is itself part of the answer to the prayer! If you ask God to not lead you into temptation, to help you to trust Him, that prayer is itself an act of trust. When you talk to God, you trust Him. And the more you trust, the less you suspect Him of being mean, and the less you are tempted; because you know that God is good to you, even in the hard times.

You may not know why your life seems like a desert now. You may never know until the end of time. But we do know that God is our Father. And God is our Father because Jesus has died for us and made us God’s children.

As Paul says in Romans 8:34-39 - So God does not do the tempting—He does not put evil desires in our hearts (for He can have no evil desires in His heart) - but He does allow us into the presence of many tests and temptations. "A man's steps are from the Lord." (Proverbs 20:24). 

In fact, every step we take is a step into the presence of temptation. There is no moment of your life that is not a moment of temptation - a moment when unbelief and disobedience is not a possibility. 

The Lord's prayer does not teach us to pray against that kind of sovereign guidance. 

What it teaches us to pray is that the temptation does not take us in. Don't lead me into temptation. Deliver me from this evil that is set before me. 

Today we stand before innumerable temptations. That's what life is: endless choices between belief and unbelief, obedience and disobedience. But, O mighty God, forbid that I would yield. Hold me back from stepping inside the temptation. 

"And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one."

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/does-god-lead-us-into-temptation

http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/lead-us-not-into-temptation/

http://www.lionelwindsor.net/2010/02/24/lead-us-not-into-temptation-matthew-613/

P.S: This completes the last installment of the Lord's prayer and hopefully the beginning of me getting disciplined with my writings.

Forgive Us Our Sins

Matthew 6 : 9-16

New Living Translation (NLT)

9 Pray like this:

   Our Father in heaven,

   may Your name be kept holy.

10 May Your Kingdom come soon.

   May Your will be done on earth,

   as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today the food we need,

12 and forgive us our sins,

   as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

13 And don’t let us yield to temptation,

   but rescue us from the evil one.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound; that saved a wretch like me....

I once was lost, but now i'm found; was blind but now i see...

These words deserve for me nothing less than me on my knees; crying in awe of the God who gave it all to redeem a wretch like me! And cry unashamedly i will, for the Lord, our God, the creator of all, in whom all there is, lives and moves and has its being (Acts 17:28); chose to leave aside His home and come as a babe, that you and i might be with Him for all eternity (Phil 2:6). Wow, truly what child is this!

And forgive us our sins

But here is something interesting about this line in the Lord's prayer - and forgive us our sins. Notice that it starts with the conjunction 'and'. So in effect there is a joining with the previous sentence of the Lord's prayer when we asked the Lord to Give US this day our daily bread. Perhaps the Lord was teaching us to recognize that every time we ask for and receive our 'suprasubstantial' daily bread we ought to remind ourselves of His pardon that we so need too. There is a deeper implication to this - the Lord by this was asking us to remind ourselves of a fact that we all as humans get very complacent about. We all love to get into the 'I deserve better..' mode. But if we were to truly talk about what we each deserve, we deserve no good thing. For all of us have sinned and fallen short (Rom 3:23), more times than we are willing to accept or even truly comprehend. 

We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind. (Isaiah 64:6)

But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one! (Psalm14:3)

Do we truly deserve his pardon, let alone His love? I think not!

The Lord however through His grace and mercy chose to give us all good things (1 Tim 6:17, Jam 1:17), even much more than we can ask for or imagine (Eph 3:19-21). We are reminded therefore to not forget the fact that we need His forgiveness more than we need food; for we shall not live by food alone (Mat 4:4). After all, isn't it easier for the Lord to heal us of our infirmities that are a consequence of our sin, by first forgiving us? (Mat 9:5).

Sisters, Brothers, you and i take too much for granted the need for us to be forgiven each day. On this side of the bridge leading to eternity, we are bound to sin by birth. As such, in order to truly be new wine (vine) in a new bottle (branches) (Mat 9:17, Jn 15) we ought to seek His forgiveness every day like Daniel did (Dan 9).

The Lord was teaching us to pray seeking His forgiveness by confessing our sins (1 Jn 1:9), for He is faithful to forgive us. Where i do not accept the practise of confession in the Catholic persuasion, its main motive is unquestionable - we ought to take our sin seriously. Just in case, the Lord's coming to earth couldn't have made this clear enough, He taught us to the importance of the seeking forgiveness for our sins by including it in the model prayer He taught us.

But as everything else in the Bible there is a second side to this statement.

As we forgive those who sin against us

As with the previous statement, this one too starts with a conditional conjunction. The Lord was substantiating His teaching about not coming to His presence asking for grace and mercy without first treating others the same way (Mat 5:24).

The German philosopher Schopenhauer compared the human race to a bunch of porcupines huddling together on a cold winter’s night. He said, "The colder it gets outside, the more we huddle together for warmth; but the closer we get to one another, the more we hurt one another with our sharp quills. And in the lonely night of earth’s winter eventually we begin to drift apart and wander out on our own and freeze to death in our loneliness." Christ has given us an alternative: to forgive each other for the pokes we receive. That allows us to stay together and stay warm. For in the same way that we have freely received His forgiveness, we ought to give it too (Mat 10:8).

In essence we are asking the Lord to forgive us our sins LIKE we forgive those who sin against us. So we make our own forgiveness conditional to forgiving others first. Is that a trap? We seem to be after all telling the Lord to not forgive us if we have not forgiven others ; as a direct implication of the statement.

The biggest problem is any time a hurt happens to you, a crisis is initiated. A wrong was done by someone else, but you are left holding the bag of hurt. It’s not fair, but it’s very real. You are faced with the question of what to do with the pain.

What do you do, if forgiveness is your destination? You hold the wrongdoer accountable for what he or she did. It’s not forgiveness if you just slough it off and say, oh, it was nothing. It wasn’t nothing. It was hurtful. It was unfair. The person needs to be held accountable. By saying that I don’t mean that you necessarily have to confront the person. Sometimes that is exactly what you need to do, but other times it’s not feasible or practical. Maybe the person has moved halfway around the world, or has died. Or the person has no interest whatsoever of patching things up or apologizing. The place where you hold the person accountable is in your heart. You can do the work of forgiveness whether the person apologizes or not. Whether the person knows a wrong was done. Or not. Whether the person cares. Or not. It’s tough to accept, but we need to understand that sometimes people are just plain insensitive to the fact that their actions have hurt someone else.

Some people are fenceposts – insensitive, unaware. The good news is that you can forgive someone whether they take responsibility for their actions or not. Because forgiveness is something that happens in you.

Once you’ve acknowledged that the bag of hurt belongs to you, even though the wrong was done by someone else, you need to take a little trip to the dark side of your soul. The place where anger and rage and even hate sometimes live. Hate can be either passive or aggressive. In a passive kind of hatred you will not seek revenge, but you will not wish the person well either. Hate becomes more aggressive when you actively hope that the person suffers, and even want to help that suffering along. If you deny that you have such dark feelings and desires, you will get stuck in the mud on the road to forgiveness. You will find yourself mired in the muck and not even AAA can pull you out. You will be unable to live happily and fully. But if you face the feelings and acknowledge them, at least to yourself and God, then they can be a part of the healing process.

Hateful feelings are normal and you need to face them, but on the other hand, if you stay in them, they will kill you. It’s kind of like morphine. A little helps you through the pain, but if you keep taking it, it will take you. You have to move on through to the healing.

"If you cannot free people from their wrongs and see them as the needy people they are, you enslave yourself to your own painful past, and by fastening yourself to the past, you let your hate become your future. You can reverse your future only by releasing other people from their pasts." - From The Art of Forgiving, Lewis Smedes

Jesus’ model prayer underscores the essential connection between receiving divine forgiveness and forgiving others. As we experience God’s gracious forgiveness, we are called and empowered to forgive those who have wronged us. If we choose to hoard the forgiveness granted to us by failing to forgive others, not only do we disobey the Lord’s teaching, but also we miss the full benefit of forgiveness. God’s purpose in forgiving us is that we might be reconciled to him and to each other. The experience of divine forgiveness enables us to do what otherwise is beyond our strength.

When you forgive the person who did you wrong, the hurt and the hate are healed. Forgiveness does not change the past. But it changes how you view the past. You are able to let the pain go and move on. You can breathe again. Laugh again. Love again.

How do you know when the miracle has happened? When you have truly forgiven someone? It happens when you genuinely begin to wish that person well. You no longer daydream about them getting hit by a truck or getting AIDS or getting attacked by a pit bull. You genuinely wish them well.

Corrie Ten Boom's life reminds us of the same thing - she had been incarcerated in one of the worst concentration camps in Germany during the Second World War. Many years after that horrendous experience, she met for a second time one of the most cruel and heartless German guards she had ever known. He had humiliated and degraded her and her sister. He had jeered and visually raped them as they stood in the delousing shower. The former guard was among the audience at one of her talks. Now, the man stood before her with hand outstretched. "Will you forgive me?" he asked. Corrie writes: "I stood there with coldness clutching at my heart, but I know that the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. I prayed, Jesus, help me! Woodenly, mechanically I thrust my hadn into the one stretched out to me and I experienced an incredible thing. The current started in my shoulder, raced down into my arms and sprang into our clutched hands. Then this warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘I forgive you, brother,’ I cried with my whole heart. For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard, the former prisoner. I have never known the love of God so intensely as I did in that moment!"

How can we pray this prayer today?

1. Forgive those who hurt you: Because if you do not forgive, you in essence are asking God to not forgive you too! But more importantly you are choosing to remain in bondage. Break it down in Jesus name!

2. Pray for wide spreading mercy: As a result our prayer and our own forgiveness becomes a wide spreading mercy. Our own forgiveness is not simply an individualistic thing, but a corporate. So ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’ echoes with a deeper meaning and a more eternal and cosmic significance than simply, “Help me to forgive the people who have hurt me.” Instead it becomes a great intercessory prayer pleading for forgiveness not only for ourselves, but for the whole world. Because let us not forget that like the remainder of the Lord's prayer, we are taught to ask that He forgive US as WE forgive those to sin against US.

3. Reflect Christ through your lives: It’s said that, “to sin is human, to forgive divine”. We’re never closer to God’s grace than when we admit our sin and cry out for pardon. And we’re never more like God than when, for Jesus Christ’s sake, we extend forgiveness freely and completely to those who have sinned against us.

http://www.paulsibley.net/forgive-us-our-sins-as-we-forgive-those-who-sin-against-us/

http://walkingwithourlord.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/the-beggar-of-heaven/

http://bible.org/seriespage/daniel%E2%80%99s-prayer-and-gabriel%E2%80%99s-proclamation-daniel-91-27

http://www.morningstarchurch.org/sermons/forgiveus.html

http://www.thehighcalling.org/reflection/forgive-us-our-sins-we-forgive-those-who-sin-against-us-0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrie_ten_Boom

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2010/06/as-we-forgive-those-who-sin-against-us.html