Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: worldliness

  • Protect Them from the Evil One

    Protect Them from the Evil One

    Keep Them

    I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.

    John 17:15 CSB

    JESUS prays fervently in an upper room in Jerusalem. He intercedes for disciples of every era, not for everyone but only for those the Father has given to Him for eternal life. Protect them.

    Are you one of these?

    For I have kept H8104 the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

    A Psalm of David 18:21 KJV

    The Lord confirms the praises and prophecy of scripture interceding as priest for His own.

    a Benediction

    “… You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.

    John 17:6b CSB – the prayer of Jesus

    This last formal prayer of Jesus feels like a benediction – a good-bye to His disciples ‘until we meet again.’

    Jesus prays, “They have kept Thy word [KJV].”

    He is leaving them unguarded in the flesh and asks our Father God, ‘please accept them into Your keeping and protect them.” Our sinless High Priest confirms to the Father that these are worthy of eternal life!

    Benediction:

    ben-e-dik’-shun: From the earliest times the records bear testimony that pronouncing the benediction or giving the blessing was a common practice. In the temple service, this duty was assigned to the Aaronites and was made an impressive part of the service. The form of the benediction used is given in Numbers 6:22-27. source: BlueLetterBible

    יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ׃ ס

    יָאֵר יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ׃ ס

    יִשָּׂא יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלֹֽום׃ ס

    Numbers 6:24-26 Masoretic text – Command of the LORD to Moses for the benediction of the priests.

    How encouraging to know that the Lord will bless us, and keep us, to make His face to shine upon us, and give us peace.

    You, beloved believer, have likely heard priestly benedictions with some frequency. Jesus, no doubt, must certainly have blessed the multitudes many times as they returned to their homes from His preaching.

    After Christ’s resurrection and ascension the Apostles boldly preached the Gospel from town to town. They too would bless the church, often distant from their presence but near in their prayers:

    • The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. – benediction of Paul’s letter 2 Corinthians 13:14
    • You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. – benediction of Peter’s letter 2 Peter 3:17-18
    • Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. – benediction of leter of Jude 24:24-25

    John 17:

    Jesus, now departing from His Disciples to His suffering prior to the Cross, prays for the earthly flock; these His beloved friends and soon-to-be anointed shepherds of His flocks and keepers of the New Covenant.

    11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, ..”

    Our Lord and priestly intercessor now prays:

    “… protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.

    12 While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me.

    I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction…”

    He refers to Judas Iscariot, of course; who not only is absent from this worship before the Father, but who will very soon betray His Master and Lord Jesus to the evil rulers of this world.

    And Jesus continues by pointing to the purpose of His Sacrifice,

    “… so that the Scripture may be fulfilled.”

    Fulfillment of Scripture, a turning point between Covenants

    Genesis 3 excerpt:

    • Now the serpent … said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” – 3:1
      • The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! – v.4
      • For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” -v.5
    • The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this Cursed are you more than all… v.6
      • … And between your seed [offspring of the serpent]
      • and her seed [sons of adam]
      • He shall bruise you on the head,
      • And you shall bruise him on the heel.” – v.15

    By the sweat of your face
    You will eat bread,
    Till you return to the ground,
    Because from it you were taken;
    For you are dust,
    And to dust you shall return.”

    Genesis 3:19 NASB

    YES, Jesus the Son of Man will die and so will you and I.

    Yet why would our King and High Priest Redeemer pray that He will suffer for us?

    Romans 5: NASB

    • Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— v.5
    • For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. v.19
    • ..as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. –v.21

    The Enemy

    From before Jesus was born as a son of man, He turned back all opposition of man’s great enemy the serpent Satan, the spirit of evil opposing all righteousness.

    • The evil one could not kill the child born of the virgin in Bethlehem by the hand of Herod.
    • Satan could not tempt Jesus in the wilderness or from a vantage point above the whole world.
    • The great deceiver could not manage through corrupted Jewish leaders of false faith to push Jesus off a cliff.
    • The serpent and ruler of this world was about to have his day by the hand of Judas, the betrayer not present as Jesus prays to the Father.

    Yet by His Sacrifice for sin Jesus will crush the head of the evil one.

    John 17:

    King James Version - an appropriate kingly honor and 
glory of Jesus, our High Priest 
as He stands before the LORD our Father
praying for us.

    Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

    As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

    I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

    While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

    I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

    They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

    Believer, do you hear Jesus as He prays?

    Though we were not in the room where Jesus became the servant washing our feet as He did for the Disciples, the perfect High Priest now prays for not only the eleven, but for those the Father has given to Him from every era until these last days are completed.

    Are you one of these?

    For if you have by God’s grace come to the Lord Jesus you, like Him, are no longer of the world.

    Yet because the evil one opposes Christ Jesus, you have chosen Him over the world and Satan will seek your soul if you fall away.

    Jesus will continue praying for us as our High Priest before the Father. The Lord has yet more encouragement to keep you in the days ahead.

    To be continued...

  • James – Preaching to a Worldly Church – 4

    James – Preaching to a Worldly Church – 4

    Worldliness in the Church

    These people create divisions and are worldly, not having the Spirit.

    Jude 1:19

    Jude, brother of James and also witness of Jesus risen from death, stands with all the Apostles when he urges us, “Contend for the faith.” He cautions, “some have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

    The concern of both half-brothers of Jesus for the saints (those of the church) to whom they write calls for inward discernment. Among us are worldly (false worshipers) who do not have (or know) the Holy Spirit, therefore beware of the divisions they would create.

    What is worldliness?

    Some versions translate ψυχικός [psychikos] (a root you will recognize in the common thinking of the church today) as worldly-minded (a caution rarely heard from a contemporary pulpit). Other versions translate it as: ‘sensual,’ ‘natural instincts,’ ‘worldly.’

    • the principal of animal life, which men have in common with the brutes
    • the sensuous nature with its subjection to appetite and passion

    James cautions the church to beware of the worldly among the sheep, men and women without the Spirit who would devour us. (And what if they are most of the church or among our leaders?) He tells us how to recognize them.

    Jude calls them ungodly. James calls them adulterous, comparing the worldly of the church to unbridled horses and rudderless ships. And why is that?

    The ungodly (by definition) are destitute of reverential awe towards God, condemning God, and impious. But it goes deeper than that; for examination of the Greek root word for ungodliness, ἄλφα [Alpha] (as a negative particle) literally implies, anti-Christ.

    Christ is the Alpha to indicate that he is the beginning and the end. The ungodly do not teach or recognize Jesus in this way and do not have the Holy Spirit.

    ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME,
    TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’”

    Matthew 15:9

    Previously in the Letter of James

    We introduced James in Witness of a Converted Brother, clarifying that this leader of the church in Jerusalem was likely none other than one of the unbelieving half-brothers of Jesus. A commentator suggests, ‘This book offers sound advice for practical Christian living.” So I have begun today by mentioning Jude.

    James 1:2-3 words meaning count or consider joy

    In Count it All Joy we learned that James writes his letter to several churches, much as we read the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John addressing several churches by a letter sent by messenger.

    Then in a Word on Works James encourages followers of Christ to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

    Now he has something to say about teachers and preaching; but first, more about the tongue.

    Our Untamable Tongue

    2 For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is mature, able also to control the whole body.

    We are sinners, every one of us. All stumble, but as James suggests earlier, watch your mouth. Hold your tongue, some would say.

    IF anyone does not stumble — is he kidding? Who does not open their mouth and insert a foot, as the expression goes?

    But James suggests that by the Spirit (and not our own natural worldliness) some may be mature enough in Christ to speak for the Lord. He suggests that what we say shows the fruit of justification, but our words could possibly yield fruit spoiled by our sins.

    James 3:

    3 Now if we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we direct their whole bodies.

    Those who live by the Law of Freedom may not run wildly. Christ does not give us license to do as we please, but He is our Master who reigns over us and reins us in.

    4 And consider ships: Though very large and driven by fierce winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.

    5 So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things.

    campfire burning at night

    Consider how a small fire sets ablaze a large forest. And the tongue is a fire.

    The tongue, a world of unrighteousness, is placed among our members. It stains the whole body, sets the course of life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

    Every animal can be tamed by mankind, James tells us. Neither your preacher nor I can illustrate this power and control of the tongue any better. In addition to other applications of reason for us to bridle our tongues prior to speaking James continues:

    … but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

    James 3:8 CSB

    10 Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way.

    Be SLOW to speak. Does blessing only pour from the spring of your mouth?

    Therefore be QUICK to listen. Does your brother or sister in the Lord, even a leader of your church light a forest or produce the wrong fruit of the tongue?

    James will address these when we continue, God willing. 

    To be continued...
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    Teachers and Preachers

    Some time ago I embraced this verse from Job.

    I will teach you concerning the hand of God;
    That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal.

    Job 27:11 ASV

    To this, most everyone I know would say, “Amen.”

    Although I include teaching as one of my gifts, speaking for the Lord is a high calling which James addresses.

    My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.

    James 3:1 NKJV

    †