When “believers” stray…

 

When I was a new Christian, I attended a church for a while that taught the opposite of what I believed. They had the idea that a person willed to believe and could do the opposite and ‘unwill’ it and lose their salvation. They pointed to texts in Scripture that seemed to say that, often taking them out of context.

One verse says: “For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Hebrews 3:14) and seems to put the onus on us to hang in there. In light of many other verses, I read it as saying that the mark of true faith was being firmly confident to the end.

These days my prayer list includes several young people that might be called prodigals. They started out in a Christian family, going to church, professing faith, but as they grew older, they walked away. Perhaps their faith was a choice, something like today’s reading suggests:

“Just take your childhood Psalm and say, ‘This is my Psalm, and I am going to believe it. I have always known it by heart, but it has never meant much to me. But now I have made up my mind to believe that the Lord really is my Shepherd and that He will care for me as a shepherd cares for his sheep. I will not question it again.’ ”

The problem is that this is not a good description of saving faith. The Bible says:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

As Jesus said, saving faith is a relationship. It is also a gift that comes through hearing God speak and gives deep assurance and a conviction of truth without being able to ‘see’ it. In other words, if my mom or anyone else told me what I should believe, spelled it out, gave me verses to read, but God did not apply them to my heart and I did not hear Him speak, then this ‘faith’ was learned, not the same as the gift that changed my life.

Sometimes those with that kind of ‘learned faith’ stay in the church, think they are a believer, do good things, but their faith is not what Jesus said it should be:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21–23)

A friend says that true faith knows Jesus and this results in them beginning to be like Him. That changed life is evidence that God has been at work. Paul said: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)

Genuine faith, given by God, is a done deal. Once changed, I will never be unchanged. How can ‘eternal’ be temporary? How can the promises of God be turned back? Not by any doubts I might have, for if have such a problem. He simply does things to show me the reality of His grace and saving power.

My prayers for these ‘prodigals’ is not that they get sick of eating pig food (though that might help), but that they hear the voice of Christ, that He will speak grace to them and they will be offered His gift and accept it. Some do but let doubts move them from the congregation, but if they are God’s, He will finish what He started and bring them back. Some do not. They only heard people telling them what they should believe and do, not Jesus. They need to hear Him and know Him, not dogma and doctrine or they will not come back.

PRAY: Lord, You know hearts. I don’t, but I do know that Your firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His” (2 Timothy 2:19) and that You want no one to perish. Bring the stragglers home to Your great heart and help me to show them the love that also brought me to You and forever keeps me close.

Sealed by God

Years ago a friend gave me a wax candle shaped like a flat pencil and a SEAL with my initials on it. The idea is ancient; melt the wax in a blob on a document and stamp it with the seal to confirm or guarantee my approval or identification with that document.

This practice is common in the OT but does have a different inference. For example, Isaiah 8:13–16 says:

“But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken. Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples.”

The prophet makes an important statement about the place of God in their lives and what He will do with their enemies. Then he says to seal this teaching to His people.

Later in Isaiah 29:11, he says that God has closed the minds of His disobedient people so that “The vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.”

This verse shows the power of God to put His stamp of approval on people, and to deal with unbelief by sealing minds so they cannot discern what He says or will do, or what He wants from them. He says in Daniel 12:9. “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.” No one can understand unless God unseals His words.

In the NT, the first use of this term is the human sealing of Jesus’ tomb — which did not stop Him from rising from the dead. In speaking of Himself, Jesus said in John 3:33, “Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true.” Human effort to stop or cover up the resurrection was a failure. Those who believe it happened do know without a doubt that whatever God says and does is true. His seal verifies it!

 This seal is deeply marked in the hearts of God’s people. He verifies what He has done, not with wax and a stamp but with the power of the Holy Spirit:

2 Corinthians 1:22. God “who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”

Ephesians 1:13. “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”

Ephesians 4:30. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

2 Timothy 2:19. “God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.’ ”

In the very end of days, John’s vision includes a scroll that is sealed. Only Jesus Christ is “worthy to open it” and when He does, judgments pour forth. This section in Revelation 5 to 7 is not pretty but there is hope. The God who sealed judgment and is releasing it says in Revelation 7:3, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”

And that happens, just before the Lamb opens the seventh seal. Then there is silence in heaven for about half an hour and those without the mark are judged. Satan is thrown “into the pit, and (God) shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer.” Then John is told in Revelation 22:10, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Jesus told His disciples that they could bind or release — making our power in prayer a picture of God’s power to seal. His seal can bind and release, yet also marks and protects His people. To know that I am sealed or marked as His child is a vital part of living by faith. His seal is truth stamped on my heart by the Holy Spirit as He speaks to me in Scripture and in the experiences of life. To know that He can open bound hearts to see and believe truth is important when I pray for seemingly oblivious people who have little or no understanding of what Jesus Christ has done for them. God as the One who seals and deepens my faith in Him and the faith of others.