Is The Russian Invasion Fulfillment Of Prophecy? - Ask the Pastor

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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
All right, so forewarning---this question is---we obviously don't know who asks the questions. And so we don't want to be disrespectful, but we also want to look at this from what we believe, a Christian's standpoint should be. Some questions we get, we feel maybe motivated politically, or maybe you hear things from other leaders and preachers. And so we're going to discuss this from what we believe is the perspective a Christian needs from a biblical standpoint.

Gary Schick
It's a good question really.

Ben Poole
It really is. And so we want to honor the question and the one that's asking it, but also, just be prepared. It may not be what you were expecting.

Gary Schick
Do you want the Bible's answer or what you want to hear?

Ben Poole
Yup. So here it is, and this is probably something that you've heard. If you've been online listening, this is definitely a hot topic. So here it is, "As we watch what Russia is doing in the Ukraine, many are wondering if this is fulfilling any biblical prophecy." So again, this is something I've seen a lot of. And I think there's gonna be multiple stances on this, depending on who you listen to. But as always, we want to come at it from a scriptural standpoint. So with that, Gary, why don't you open us up with some plots?

Gary Schick
You know, and I really wasn't thinking about it when I said it. I was just thinking about the snow outside, but if you're familiar with the Narnian kind of allegory, there was a time in Narnia when they were waiting for Aslan to come back. Which is, symbolically, the world under a winter like we're under now, in more ways than one, waiting for Jesus to return. And that's a question, you know, really is this a sign that Jesus is coming soon? And I know there's a lot of places people go in scripture, I actually start with the gospel. Every time people want to talk to me about the end times and "Are we in them and are we getting close?" I start with the words of Jesus, and then I go from there. Out to Revelation and back to Daniel and all those places that people wanna jump to right away. I start with the words of Jesus. And that gives me interestingly, a slightly different perspective on how it's gonna unfold than most Christians seem to have to me. The context is very close to the end of Jesus' life and ministry on this earth. He's in His final week in Jerusalem, He's in the temple---Herod's temple---which was one of the wonders of the world. And, you know, the disciples lived in a time kind of like ours. There was some stability and there was great instability. They were under Roman rule, and they were looking to get out from under it. Everybody was thinking that Jesus maybe was a Messiah, but not the Messiah. Cause they thought, they were thinking, "Political leader to get us out of this mess." Not truly a savior to the whole world. In fact, they weren't even interested in the rest of the world. They, like so many of us, let's just be honest we're interested in ourselves and our own life and our own little plot on the planet. And that's kind of where the Jews were, they didn't really have a God's heart for the world mindset. They had a God's heart for "us" mindset. And so anyway, one of the things that was stable---they thought in their world---was God's temple. "Here it is. Look at it Jesus, isn't it amazing." The buildings and the structures and wow! I mean, it was just really, very recently completed in Jesus time. Actually, I think they may have still been finishing up part of it. And so he just kind of makes this offhanded comment, "Do you see all these great buildings? I tell you not one stone will be left on another." Well to them, the thought of that temple being taken away could only mean the end of the world. And so later in the day, while they're sitting on the Mount of Olives, sun's going down, they're looking across. Today, if you sit on the Mount of Olives, you're gonna see, what is it? The Dome of the Rock. I mean, it's built where the temple was, this Muslim edifice. But there's kind of a mystique about it, the sun's shining off the golden roof. And so probably you'd get a similar feeling. And so the disciples are looking across at God's temple at that point and they're saying, "So Lord, tell us, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming?" You know, because all they could imagine was the final, the showdown. And so I wanna take you back to Mark 13, you could also look at it in Matthew 24, you can also look at it in Luke. All of these end times speeches of Jesus, they're the same one, but each one, you know, Matthew tells us more than Mark does, Luke tells us some different things. But I start with Mark, cause it's the shortest, simplest, and really the core of it. And so Jesus said to them, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one will be left. They'll all be thrown down." So while sitting on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will these things be? What will be the sign that they're about to be accomplished?" Jesus began to say to them, "See that no one leads you astray." This is a topic that people, Christians are vulnerable to being led astray about. Because we have a itching ears that want to know more. "See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name saying, 'I am he' and they will lead many astray." And there were false Christs prior to Jesus: At the time of Jesus, right after Jesus, and there have been a few since. They'll lead ministry. And then, this is what's relevant to us Mark 13:7, "And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are but the beginning of birth pains." So first I wanna say where this does fit into scriptural prophecy, and then I want to key in on just one thing Jesus said there. In terms of prophecy, there has been a lot going on in the world in recent years. You know, we're hearing more about global warming and increasing, you know, violence in our weather. We've had the COVID thing. And just as we're coming out of COVID we all are wondering, I am too, could this lead to world war three? And what will that mean? Well, Jesus talks about how, as we approach the end, the very things that have been since the dawn of time: natural disaster, human war, famines and skyrocketing prices like you and I are seeing at the fuel pump today, these things will happen. But the only part of it that is showing that we're getting closer to "The Turn of the Jesus," is He compares it to birth pains. And I don't know about you, I remember particularly when our first one was born. My wife didn't believe that it was the day, but I'm sitting there at Red Lobster with her having supper and I just started timing the contractions. And they started out pretty spread out, but the intensity and the frequency began to increase. And I remember going upstairs with her to the hospital, she was still resistant and I was all wild, you know, like wild in my head. And I get to the desk and I said to the nurse, "I think we're pregnant." She looked at my wife, "Yeah, I think you're right about that." What I meant was, I think our pregnancy is about to turn into something more. The world is pregnant friends, and we're about to give birth to something. Is it today? Is it tomorrow? I don't know. But Jesus did say there would be an increase in intensity as we draw near to His coming. But what I wanna just move back to, is one word He said here in verse seven, "When you hear of wars and rumors of wars do not be alarmed." The Greek word there is, "θροεῖσθε," and it means to wail, to clamor, to frighten, to cry aloud, to make a noise by outcry, troubled, frightened, be troubled in mind, alarmed. Isn't that where we find ourselves? When we're sitting there looking at the news, whatever news station you happen to watch, whichever one you've decided is telling you the truth or not. We get a little crazy don't we? And Jesus says, "Hey. Hey! Don't be alarmed. Don't be." Then He goes on and talks about what we should be a little concerned about. You're gonna be brought before rulers in this world, and you're gonna have to give an account for what you believe. And even then don't be afraid, just say what the holy spirit says. Jesus says, "You be my people until I come again, you focus on that. Don't be focused on what's in the head lines." Cause it's gonna come, it's gonna go. And it's gonna come with greater frequency and nothing we think about is gonna change it. But what we do wanna focus on is being witnesses for Him. And living out the Christian life and praying for the leaders and letting God be God of the things that we can't control.

Ben Poole
Yeah. This is probably a touchy subject for a lot of people, and we understand that. And I think that from our perspective, whether it is fulfilling prophecy or not, I don't think that should be our main focus. Because one thing I know: God is God, He is unchanging and He is going to send Jesus back. "Period." End of discussion. When that happens nobody knows, not even the Son. He even said, "I don't know, it's only God. When He says it's time, it's time, and that's that." And so what happens that I struggle with, personally, is watching Christians get so wrapped up into things like this. They neglect the ministry of being a Christian. We are called, not to look for signs and wonders and prophecies, in fact, Jesus---

Gary Schick
In this very passage.

Ben Poole
He kind of is antagonistic against those who are looking for the signs and the wonders. And He's saying, "This is who you are to be." He's asked, "What's the greatest commandment?" Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself. These two complete, they are the fulfillment. They are the embodiment of all the law and the prophets. That's who we're to be, is to love God and to love people. And what happens is, so many times Christians are getting caught up in watching the news or listening to certain televangelists or preachers, from my perspective, teaching a fearful faith.

Gary Schick
And it brings in money.

Ben Poole
Yeah, it does.

Gary Schick
It sells.

Ben Poole
Fear sells, and so we are called to something else. And I really love the book of Revelation, and I think I see it differently than a lot of people. Like you said, it is one of the greatest books of hope in the entire scriptures. Because you think about the first generation church---

Gary Schick
God Wins!

Ben Poole
That they were being hunted like animals legally, legally murdered.

Gary Schick
Right.

Ben Poole
And God sends this revelation to John, for John to write down. To send to the churches as a message of hope, that you are going to endure great suffering, but I'm coming back.

Gary Schick
And that's the other thing people don't want to hear. I mean, obviously there are different viewpoints. Is Jesus coming before the tribulation, middle of tribulation, after tribulation? Regardless of your stand on that, Christians will go through times of tribulation. We're going through them now. Is it 'the' great tribulation? I mean, that's gonna depend on your position: Pre-trib, mid-trip, post-trib, and for some of you, what trip? I know, it gets confusing. But I think those arguments can be a ruse, because regardless of what happens at the very end, the last seven years, Jesus---in this passage---very directly says, "You will go through times. There will be times of trouble." And that's when we anchor in Him and say, "You know what? I know you're coming again, and I know you've got me. And I know that I need to rely on you for how I need to respond and not respond in the flesh."

Ben Poole
Yeah.

Gary Schick
But to be Christ's kid in the world and be prayerful and watchful and loving toward all. Which gets harder when it gets tougher. You know, it is hard to love.

Ben Poole
And that's just who God has called us to be. We know that tribulation and hard times are going to come. Who are you to be in the middle of those? You are to be the sons and daughters of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and to live for Him and to worship Him. But we can never use these times to neglect sharing the message of Jesus, because maybe God's coming back soon and maybe it's gonna be another thousand years. It doesn't really matter. He has called us to be His church, His people in the midst of these times. So that's our encouragement to you. I know that, maybe again, this might not have been the way you thought this conversation would go, and we would love to have more conversations about this if you'd like. But again, we're looking at this from a scriptural point from what we believe and really my heart and I think Gary's. No matter what comes be God's people.

Gary Schick
Well, and what gives us a great opportunity here is, just as Christians kind of get a little scared and wondering, or are excited, I would say, the world is actually scared. And to be without Christ in the crisis that we're in, and have just been in and are about to be in next, we don't know what's coming next. There's a lot of instability. You know, we've talked about what's gonna happen with oil and nickel and all kinds of, because we're dependent, we are so dependent. You know, can we even fully break the rush on everything who knows? But we have a message of hope. We know that God wins and that God's got us. And so it's not a blind, fluffy, boy are you're feet even laying on the ground. No, we are. We're walking through it. We're paying at the pump. We're praying for the relief to the people of Ukraine and the salvation of, you know, President Putin that he would just have a different heart and mindset. Whether that happens, you know, we know the gospel is getting through to the people in Ukraine and Russia and we need to proclaim it right here.

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Blind Faith: Is it Biblical?

Hebrews 11:1 (ESV) Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

John 20:29 (NIV) Then Jesus told him (Thomas), “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 (ESV) So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Somewhere along the line in Christian history, someone took Hebrews 11:1, John 20:29, and 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, and simplified what they are saying to the phrase, “blind faith”.

Then society allowed this idea to morph into the belief that Christians have absolutely no logical reason to have faith in God, and blindly have no idea why they are doing anything, other than they “feel” it is right.

To be fair, some Christians do live as if God expects their faith to be blind. This allows them to be lazy in their studies of the Bible and results in choices that are made based on random whims. They use faith as an excuse to do whatever they want, no matter how random or illogical it may be, and act as if they deserve to have things happen in their favor just because they invoked the magic word, “faith”. But this version of “faith” isn’t Biblical.

If we look at Hebrews 11 in context, we see that, “the conviction of things not seen,” simply means that, when God says something will happen--even though we have not yet seen it happen because it is the future--we believe it will happen because God has already proven Himself faithful. 

When Jesus is talking to Thomas, He is just stating the fact that there will be people who don’t get to see Jesus in the flesh during their lives on this earth, but they will still believe He did walk in the flesh.

And 2 Corinthians is speaking about the fact that we can’t be home with God until we leave our physical bodies; and therefore, can’t physically see Him.

We may be blind in the sense that we cannot see the future--or really even the past with our own eyes. We can’t always explain how things will specifically play out. But we aren’t supposed to be blind about who or what we have faith in. We are meant to use reason to determine what we chose to have faith in--the object of our faith

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God makes it clear that He values reason and logic

Psychedelic Brain in Vivid Colors by Bruce Rolff

Proverbs 3:13 (ESV) Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding.

Hebrews 5:12–14 (ESV) For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Acts 17:11 (ESV) Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

James 1:5 (ESV) If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

John C. P. Smith from  answersingenesis.org said:

“The very language of the Hebrew Old Testament reveals that our faith is intrinsically linked to truth. The two words for faith and truth—emunah and emet—are even sometimes translated interchangeably in different Bible versions. Both Hebrew words derive from the same root, aman, meaning ‘firmness, certainty, reliability.’ So rather than being nebulous, biblical faith—like truth—is sure and certain.…Some faith may be unwarranted, and no doubt this faith is blind. In contrast, the Christian faith is both reasonable and justified. It is founded firstly and primarily upon God’s consistent and reliable Word.”

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Just because we can’t see Jesus with our own eyes, does not mean we don’t have logical reasons to believe the Biblical account of Jesus’ life and death. God left us a ton of archaeological, scientific, and historical reasons to have faith in Jesus. 

(Recommended Reading: “The Case for Christ” and “The Case for Faith” by Lee Strobel; “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” by: Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona)

And even though we can’t see the future and have to wait to see God’s promises come to fruition, we still have logical and rational reasons to have faith in who God is: in His character and that He always keeps His Word.

Faith is not supposed to be just a shot in the dark. We are meant to learn who God is by reading the Bible. We test what we learn there through our experiences with Him in our own lives, and our studies of things like history, science, and archaeology. Our faith in God is based on the collection of evidence found.

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The Bible, as a whole, consistently shows us why we should have faith in God and that this faith is meant to be rooted in reason. It is full of examples of people who had the type of faith which God commends. We can examine what their faith looked like, so we know how to best put faith into practice in our own lives. Here are a few examples:

The Unclean Woman of Faith

Mark 5:24-34 (NIV) So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

(Also in Matthew 9:20-22 and Luke 8:43-48)

This story when read on it’s own doesn’t seem like much more than a quick little example of a miracle. But when the Bible is read in context, we learn there is more to it.

First thing we must understand about this story is that this woman is suffering through much more than just a health issue. According to the Jewish law, this specific health issue also makes her unclean. And when someone or something is unclean and it comes in contact with someone or something else, it makes that thing unclean too.

Leviticus 15:19-33 (NLT) “Whenever a woman has her menstrual period, she will be ceremonially unclean for seven days. Anyone who touches her during that time will be unclean until evening…If a woman has a flow of blood for many days that is unrelated to her menstrual period, or if the blood continues beyond the normal period, she is ceremonially unclean. As during her menstrual period, the woman will be unclean as long as the discharge continues…”

So for twelve years this woman has been considered unclean within the Jewish community, which means she has been ostracized from her friends and family, expected to permanently separate herself from their society until the bleeding stops and she could be made clean again.

Since, their medicinal options obviously hadn’t helped her in twelve years, this woman had given up hope of ever having a normal life:

Mark 5:26 (NIV) She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.

That is, until Jesus came on the scene. This woman heard of the things Jesus had been doing, the Messianic prophecies He had been fulfilling, and she believed He was the promised Messiah. Which meant, she also believed He could heal her ailment. 

But, it gets even more specific than that; Mark 5:28 informs us that she believed the only thing she needed to do was touch his garment. “...If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” (NIV)

This woman obviously had a pretty decent knowledge of the Scriptures, because she is putting her faith in one of the Messianic prophecies in Malachi:

Malachi 4:2 (ESV) But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

The Hebrew word for “wings” in this verse is "kanaph". Strong's Concordance, defines it as follows:

Kanaph (kaw-nawf); Noun Feminine, Strong #: 3671

Wing, extremity, edge, winged, border, corner, shirt

-Wing

-Extremity skirt, corner (of garment)

In other words, this verse is saying:

Malachi 4:2 (ESV) But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in the fringes of its robe. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

This woman knew Jesus was the solution to all of her problems. With one little touch, she could return to life with her family and friends and be made clean in the sight of God. The problem was, Jesus was going to be surrounded by a crowd of people which she wasn’t supposed to get close to because everyone she would come in contact with would become unclean. And yet, because of the crowd, she knew there was no way she would be able to get His attention to ask for healing, especially not from a distance. 

It was a huge risk for her to venture into the crowd to touch Jesus’ cloak. But her knowledge of the Scriptures and of the fact that God’s prophecies always come true, led her to have such a strong faith that she took the risk. She pushed her way through the crowd and reached out to touch the edges of Jesus’ cloak.

And, the result?

Mark 5:29-34 (NIV) Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Her faith wasn’t just a random whim or feeling. She knew the Biblical prophecies about the coming Messiah and knew that Jesus had been fulfilling them. Walking into a crowd in her state was too dangerous to risk without being certain of who Jesus was. If she had been wrong, she would have made Jesus, Himself, unclean by touching Him. But she wasn’t wrong. Jesus was the promised Messiah. So, instead of her making Him unclean, power came from Him, through his wings, and He made her clean; just as He does for everyone who puts their faith in Him.  

The Canaanite Woman of Faith

Matthew 15:21-28 (ESV) And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

In this story Jesus tests the Canaanite woman’s faith by testing her knowledge about what God had promised through the Jewish Messiah. 

Jesus made the false claim that He was sent only to help the Jewish nation. But, the woman refused to accept that as an answer the Messiah would give. She was certain that God was not only the God of the Jews but also the God of the whole world. This shows she had knowledge of the Scriptures.

Isaiah 49:6 (ESV) he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Genesis 12:1-3 (NIV) The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Genesis 22:18 (NIV) “…and through your (Abraham’s) offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Psalm 100:1-3 (NIV) Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

The Canaanite Woman’s faith was grounded in the truth of God’s Word. She knew that the Scriptures prophesied that the coming Messiah would be sent to save the entire world, not just the Jewish nation. The Jewish nation wasn’t meant to be thought of as the only people God cared about, they were supposed to be a beacon pointing the entire world to God.

She had diligently done the work of studying the Scriptures. Her knowledge of them allowed her to be certain that God would keep His word. She was so confident in God and His promises that even when the promised Messiah, Himself, questioned her, she was able to stand firmly on God’s truth. And it led to Jesus proclaiming:

Matthew 15:28 (ESV) …“O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Abraham: the Father of Faith

Abraham is not only known as the Father of Israel, but also as the Father of Faith. So, since we are trying to figure out what Biblical faith is, it makes sense that we should look to him as an example. 

Romans 4:16 (NIV) Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

One of Abraham’s most famous faith stories takes place in Genesis 22 when God asks him to sacrifice his son—Isaac—and Abraham obeyed.

Some people in our culture love to get this story wrong, they will claim it means God supports child sacrifice. But, when Abraham’s life story as a whole is considered, it is clear that God was never planning on actually having Isaac killed. God was simply testing Abraham’s faith.

Genesis 22:1-2 (NLT) Some time later, God tested Abraham’s faith. “Abraham!” God called. “Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.” “Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”

The most obvious question after reading this passage is, “Why is it considered a test of faith for God to tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, and not a test of his blind obedience?”

To understand that, we need to understand the context. 

First off, God had made Abraham promises which relied on Isaac being alive:

Genesis 15:4-5 (NLT) Then the LORD said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” Then the LORD took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith.

Genesis 21:1-3 (NLT) The LORD kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he had promised. She became pregnant, and she gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age. This happened at just the time God had said it would. And Abraham named their son Isaac.

Genesis 21:12b (NIV) …it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.

God promised Abraham he would have a multitude of descendants specifically through Isaac. Abraham knew God always keeps His promises and Isaac hadn’t had any children yet. So, Abraham reasoned that God needed Isaac alive. 

Here is some insight into Abraham’s mindset on the issue:

Genesis 22:5-8 (NLT) On the third day of their journey, Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. “Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.” So Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering on Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked on together, Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “We have the fire and the wood,” the boy said, “but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” “God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered. And they both walked on together.

As a child, I used to think maybe these statements Abraham made were lies in order to trick Isaac into being the sacrifice. But, after further studies, it has become obvious that Abraham is not lying, he actually believes what he is saying. His faith is so strong he knows both he and Isaac will be returning to the servants and that God will provide the offering. (Just as God does for the whole world by providing His own son, Jesus, as our sacrifice.)

And how did this story end?

Genesis 22:9-14 (NLT) When they arrived at the place where God had told him to go, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. Then he tied his son, Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. And Abraham picked up the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. At that moment the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Yes,” Abraham replied. “Here I am!”

“Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said. “Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

The idea that Abraham was walking in faith is also confirmed in what is known as the “Chapter of Faith” in Hebrews when this story is referenced:

Hebrews 11: 17-19 (NLT) It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God had told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.” Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.

Abraham didn’t know exactly what would happen when he put Isaac on the altar (he couldn’t yet physically see the outcome), but he knew that even if Isaac did die, God would bring him back to life. Abraham’s faith was strong, because he was firmly rooted in the knowledge that God always keeps His promises.

These are just three examples of what it looks like to put Biblical faith into practice, but the Bible is packed full of stories like these. Every single person who interacts properly with God in the Bible is doing so through faith. If we want to also live by faith, we should follow their examples. 

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Bible stories not only show us what it looks like to live by faith, but they also show us how God consistently acts in response to such faith. They are meant to build a foundation of knowledge in us about who God is and what type of character He has. Based on that knowledge which has been tested and proven over and over, we can know that when we put our faith in God, He will act according to His character and come through on His end.

Malachi 3:6 (ESV) For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

Deuteronomy 32:4 (ESV) The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.

Psalm 9:10 (NLT) Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O Lord, do not abandon those who search for you.

We haven't seen God but we’ve seen his handiwork and fingerprints in our lives and the world around us.

“And while faith doesn’t require external proof, it is entirely compatible with physical evidence. God may be invisible, but His qualities are clearly seen in nature.” -John C. P. Smith answersingenesis.org

Romans 1:20 ESV For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

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Biblical faith is belief put into action. It follows the evidence in order to determine what to believe in and how to act accordingly. Then it stands firm on the belief that the results will follow the logical path set forth by the evidence. For example, we can believe that a chair will do its job: “I have sat on this chair before and it held me up, so I believe it will hold me up again.” We have faith that the results will be the same as all the times before and we act in faith by actually sitting on it.

Biblical faith rests on the knowledge that God will stay true to who He is. We see who He is by reading the Bible and learning about how He has acted in the past. We also experience Him in our own lives over and over again. Faith gets stronger, every time God acts according to who He says He is. We can say, “I have faith because it works. Having faith in God in the past has proven to be wise, so it will be wise to do it again, and to keep doing it.”

In Summary:

We may be blind as to how God will keep His word, but not in that He will keep His word. Faith and reason are not contrary to one another, instead, they complement one another. Each helps the other to see clearly.

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It’s also important to note that faith in God doesn’t mean life will be easy or that we will always get what we want. It means we trust that even when life is hard, God knows what He is doing and He has our best interests at heart.

Romans 8:28 (NIV) And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

“My faith is to rest not in the outcome which I think God should work out for me, my faith rests in who God is…the quietness of my heart is in the fruit of an absolute confidence in God.” -Elizabeth Elliot

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“Faith is the art of holding on to what our reason has once accepted, in spite of our changing moods.” -C.S. Lewis

“Faith is not an instinct. It certainly is not a feeling--feelings don’t help much when you’re in the lions’ den or hanging on a wooden cross. Faith is not inferred from the happy way things work. It is an act of will, a choice, based on the unbreakable Word of a God who cannot lie, and who showed us what love and obedience and sacrifice mean, in the person of Jesus Christ.” -Elizabeth Elliot

“You ask me, ‘What’s the greatest act of faith?’ To me is to look in the mirror of God’s word, and see all my faults, all my sin, all my shortcomings and to believe that God loves me exactly as he says he does.” -Paul Washer

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This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.

What Is The Sabbatical Year And The Year Of Jubilee? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Hashley, Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Tim Hebbert
And so a question we want to sit and visit a little bit about today, we had to do a little digger-thinking on this one. "How about this sabbatical year and the year of the Jubilee found in Leviticus 25? Can you explain those things to us?" So I thought I would just start off by reading that first part of the 25th chapter of Leviticus, and I'm gonna start with verse two. "And when you have entered the land I am giving you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath rest before the Lord every seventh year. For the six years, you may plant your fields and prune your vineyards and harvest your crops. But during the seventh year, the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest. It is the Lord's Sabbath, do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards during that time. And don't store away the crops that grow on their own, or gather the grapes from your unpruned vine. The land must have a year of complete rest, but you may eat whatever land produces on its own during the Sabbath. This applies to you, your male and female servants, your hired workers, and the temporary residents who live with you. Your livestock and the wild animals in your land will also be allowed to eat what the land produces." Then verse eight goes on to say this, "In addition, you must count off seven Sabbath years. Seven sets of seven years adding up to 49 years in all. Then on the day of Atonement in the 50th year, blow the Rams horn loud and long throughout the land. Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a Jubilee year for you, for each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors. And return to your own clan, this 50th year will be a Jubilee for you. During that year, you must not plant your fields or store away any of the crops that grow on their own. And don't gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. It will be a Jubilee year for you and you must keep it holy. You may eat whatever the land produces on its own, and in the year of Jubilee, each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors." And I guess to define the difference there guys, is it goes along with God's plan. Our seven days of creation, He does all the work that He's going to do, to establish the universe and the world that we live in. Everything that's on it in six days, and He rests on the seventh day. So on a sabbatical year he's saying, "Okay, let's take every seventh year, let's shut everything down and let our land rest and replenish itself. Which is just really pretty good advice for a farmer, right? I mean, now they rotate crops, but you can probably go back through the history of time. Smart farmers would let fields rest, they just wouldn't let them all rest at one time, but they were letting the land rest or replenish itself. The Jubilee year, I think God takes that and He said, "Okay, see how we're resting the land on that 50th year? We're not only gonna rest the land, but I'm calling all of you into a Sabbath year, where you rest, you depend on the land." It's a time to reclaim, like maybe, reset yourself, hit a restart button, reclaim the land that you've come from. We're gonna settle all the debts, forgive all the debts that are left unsettled. And one of the things, you know, we see the word slave used a lot in scripture, but it didn't mean the same thing as what we've come to know from our history here in America. But it was all those that you would call slave, people that are indentured to you; you're gonna free them from that. It's also time where you're gonna go back and reclaim the land that you came from. And maybe what you're also going to do is settle some hard feelings and unforgiven debts that you have within your family, so that your families are restored. It's all part of God's plan to get us in a rhythm of work and then rest and depend on Him. So in that Sabbath year, then we would trust Him. They would trust Him for the provision of the food and the livelihood they needed. In the 50th year they would trust Him even deeper to restore to them, everything that He'd given them to begin with. And so I'm gonna turn this over to Gary. What did they do for the people of Israel?

Gary Hashley
I have to smile a little bit, cause there's a little farm boy that's grown up in me all these years. And that is, as you read this, it makes everybody wanna be a farmer, because if your storekeeper who doesn't say anything about shutting your store down every seventh year, you know? If you were a basket weaver, it doesn't say anything about shutting down your basket weaving business or your rug weaving business for a year. But it does say that, you know, those who are in agriculture, that every seventh year they were to not farm that year. And so I just kind of smile and I think more people would be signing up to be farmers if we were living according this instruction God gave to Israel. And that's one thing to keep in mind, this was specifically given to the people of Israel. A specific people, in a specific place, at a specific time. But what did it do for the people? Well, it gave them a rest. Farming's hard. We have equipment today that seems to make it easier, but it's still very time consuming and very long days for some. And here, you basically would get a one year vacation from your planting and harvesting of your crops or pruning of your crops. If it was at like, the vineyard or the olive grove. So there was rest for the people, and you know, we do need rest. Jesus told the disciples one time, "Come apart and rest awhile." Because we weren't designed to work 365 days a year all of our lives without a break. So rest for the people, rest for the land. I mean agriculture does take, growing crops does take nutrients from the soil. This would give the land a chance to recoup from having things drawn out of it and the chance to have it back. But I think one of the biggest things that I see in this is, not just rest for people and rest for the land, but trust for the people. Because in essence, God is saying, "Don't farm for a year and trust me that you won't starve to death. Trust Me that you won't starve to death." God basically told them, "On the sixth year I'll give you enough, to not only live that year, but the following year. And then into the next year when you plant until you harvest," which is partway through the year. Would the people trust God enough to say, "Okay, I will set the land aside, I won't harvest my grapes, I won't harvest my olives, I won't plant my wheat, I won't plant my barley," whatever it might be? It also was a lesson in selflessness, because they were to release any servants, as Tim said, and they were to release any debts they were owed. So that, you know, this idea of selfishness couldn't stand because it's not all about me. In fact, I'm gonna have to let go of this when that year comes. They say a Jubilee which followed a Sabbath year, which meant on the 48th year, God said, "I'll give you enough that you'll eat the 49th. You'll eat the 50th on until the harvest comes in the 51st year." So it was really a challenge to their faith. So Brad, is there any significance for us today in all of this?

Brad Kilthau
Yeah, I think so Gary as you know, those same principles are something we can always adhere to in our day and time. And it's kind of amazing when you look at the Old Testament and you see how many things that God used with the Jewish people; that actually gave us a symbol or a type of what we can learn from and see actually happening on this side of the cross and the work of Christ. You think about the Passover and how important the Passover was for the Jewish people and how that is so significant when it comes to the Lord's supper. The Passover was always a picture of the sacrificed lamb of Jesus Christ who would come. You see in the Old Testament, the story of Noah and the Ark, and of course Noah and the Ark is, as I was just sharing with our congregation a week or so ago. You know, when you're in 1 Peter 3 and Peter actually uses Noah and the Ark as an antitype to describe baptism. And that is to, you know, be free or away from the sinful world, put that behind you. And I think the same thing is true of the sabbatical year and also of the year of Jubilee, because the Jubilee when you get to the heart of it, it gives us a picture of looking forward to the kingdom age. It's a picture of that, of when Christ is going to come and reign on His throne there in the city of Jerusalem for that thousand year reign. And He's gonna fulfill all the promises that He'd made to the Jewish people.

You can read about that spiritual deliverance in Isaiah 61 about the tremendous joy and the freedom that the people of Israel, and basically all people on the face of this earth, when Jesus reigns on His throne there in the city of Jerusalem. And so the year of Jubilee points us forward and gives us a picture of that kingdom age, but it also gives us, as Christians, a picture of our Christian life. Because when you think about when Jesus, in Luke 4, was standing in the synagogue in the city of Nazareth, He was preaching. And He was actually reading from one of the scrolls of Isaiah, Isaiah 61. And He was reading as it shares there in Luke, through the first two verses of Isaiah 61, but Jesus stops short of reading about the day of the vengeance of God in verse two. And so why is that? Why? Because the day of judgment is gonna come, but it's not gonna come until after the Lord has finished this present work that He's doing of bringing all these people to Himself. And so it's actually a picture of the church age that we live in right now, and how the Lord is going to bring that freedom and that ability to come to Him. And of course, it's gonna be in the literal sense during the kingdom age. So it's, again, a picture of things that we are now seeing happen and what we're also gonna see in the future. So it's beautiful how the Lord puts those things together in the Old Testament. And when we study, we can see that that was a type or picture of what is really to come in the fulfillment in the fullest, in our time of the age of grace and looking forward. And then of course, Gary, as you shared also, we can learn always the principle of the year of Jubilee as it forced the Jewish people to say that God is their provider. They didn't have a choice. They went for three years as it came to that, 48th, 49th and 50th year, that through those three years they had no harvest. And of course they had to see that God was ultimately their provider. So maybe we ought to back up, look at that and say, "Yeah, that's true because that is our God for us. He is our ultimate provider."

Gary Hashley
And, you know, I've heard different preachers say, "We have no indication Israel ever did this."

Brad Kilthau
That's right, I've seen that too.

Gary Hashley
That they ever actually set aside the seventh year and then the 14th year and so on to the 49th and the 50th. And I guess the challenge to my heart, Brad, is even when it comes to tithing, when it comes to other things God asks of me, am I willing to trust Him in it? Because to my knowledge, they never let God show Himself powerful by actually doing it.

Brad Kilthau
That's right, because they were so greedy that they couldn't trust God. They had to hold onto their money and their power.

What's New at Cross Reference Library?

To Win Her Favor - An Irishman far from home, Cullen McGrath left a once prosperous life in England because of a horse racing scandal that nearly ruined him. He’s come to Nashville for a fresh start, hoping to buy land and begin farming, all while determined to stay as far away from thoroughbred racing as possible. But starting over proves harder than he’d wagered, especially when Maggie Linden’s father makes him an offer he shouldn’t accept yet cannot possibly refuse. Maggie is certain that her mare, Bourbon Belle, can take the top purse in the inaugural Peyton Stakes, the richest race ever run in America. Maggie only needs the chance to prove it. To give her that chance—and to save Linden Downs from being sold to the highest bidder—Maggie’s father, aging yet wily as ever, makes a barter. His agreement includes one tiny, troublesome detail—Maggie must marry a man she’s never met. A man she never would have chosen for herself. 

To Wager Her Heart  - Sylas Rutledge, new owner of the Northeast Line Railroad, invests everything he has into this new venture, partly for the sake of the challenge. But mostly to clear his father’s name. One man holds the key to Sy’s success—General William Giles Harding of Nashville’s Belle Meade Plantation. But Harding is champagne and thoroughbreds, and Sy Rutledge is beer and bullocks. Sy needs someone to help him maneuver through Nashville’s society, and when he meets Alexandra Jamison, he quickly decides he’s found his tutor. But he soon discovers that the very train accident his father is blamed for causing is what killed Alexandra’s fiance and shattered her world. Spurning an arranged marriage by her father, Alexandra instead pursues her passion for teaching at Fisk University, the first freedman’s university in the United States. But family—and Nashville society—do not approve, and she soon finds herself cast out from both. Through connections with the Harding family, Alexandra and Sy become unlikely allies. And despite first impressions, Alexandra gradually finds herself coming to respect and even care for this man. But how can she, when her heart is still spoken for? Sy is willing to risk everything to win over the woman he loves. What he doesn’t count on is having to wager her heart to do it. Set against the real history of Nashville’s Belle Meade Plantation and the original Fisk University Jubilee Singers ensemble, To Wager Her Heart is a stirring love story about seeking justice and restoring honor at a time in American history when both were tenuous and hard-won. 

The Daniel Dilemma - Christians today face a dilemma: in a world that seems to reject everything we believe, how do we walk closely with God without caving to pressure or alienating those we hope to reach? In this eye-opening new book, Chris Hodges provides a solution by examining the life of the prophet Daniel, who persevered in a corrupt culture that closely resembles our own and emerged as an influential force in God’s redemptive plan. The Daniel Dilemma shows us that we can hold firmly to biblical beliefs without becoming obnoxious, insulting, or mad. We can stand strong while loving others well. Standing for truth isn’t about winning the argument; it’s about winning hearts. And when we learn the secret of connecting before correcting, we discover that we can respond to today’s hard questions without compromising grace or truth. With fresh insights and practical ideas, Hodges encourages Christians struggling with our cultural reality to hold God’s standards high and his grace deep—just as Jesus did. 

Right up there with the fear of heights or of public speaking, is the ever-growing fear of rejection. It’s honestly an understandable fear, if you know what I mean. How many times can the answer be “No,” or how many judgmental looks do you have to receive before rejection becomes an unbearable phobia? Well in each of the new books that I read this week, the authors and characters face the concept of rejection and what it means for them and those around them. In To Win Her Favor Cullen is an Irishman who wants a fresh start, away from the heartache he left behind in his homeland. But when he first arrives in Nashville, Tennessee Cullen receives nothing but contempt from those around him. Getting a fresh start was also a little tricky when none of the land owners would sell to him just because he was Irish. By the end of the story, Cullen is finally able to convince those around him that beneath the funny accent and Irish build, he had a heart worth getting to know. The next book, To Wager Her Heart, takes place in the early 1870s around the same time and place that the Jubilee Singers were starting their career in music. Alexandra Jamison wants to become a teacher just like her late husband, but she can’t focus on fulfilling that wish when her father keeps trying to set her up with a man of his liking. To escape from the expectations of her father, Alexandra applies to work at the Freedman’s school, where the Jubilee singers attend, to become a teacher there. As you can imagine, her family rejected Alexandra for her decision to work at the Freedmen's school, but she truly believed that what she was doing was right. In our final book of the week, The Daniel Dilemma, Pastor Chris Hodges jam packed it with terrific insight on how to share your faith, but from a really cool perspective. Chapter by chapter from the book of Daniel, Pastor Hodges reminds us that Daniel persevered in a corrupt culture that closely resembles our own. Daniel and his people had their lives turned upside down by King Nebuchadnezzar, and the King tried to reject them of their names, their freedom, and even their faith. But when it came down to it, Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego wouldn’t reject God. It didn’t matter if the stakes were as high as being thrown into a lion’s den or into a fiery furnace, they refused to stray from the will of the Lord. Pastor Hodges also included tips on how not to reject who you are in Christ, and once you discover who that is, it will be so much easier to pursue your walk with God. So come on down to the Cross Reference Library and check out these excellent selections.

Discussion on Eschatology - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Jeff Banks, Andy Griess and Bruce Peterson.

Jeff Banks
It's good to be back together, guys. Over the last several weeks, we've been in the area of what theologians would call Eschatology, right, and talking about future things. And so Bruce is gonna give us a little bit of a recap of where we've been, and then we'll try to continue and maybe hopefully wrap up our discussion on this.

Bruce Peterson
Yeah, so eschatology is the things of the end, right? How the world's gonna wrap up in this, God's program. We're not in any eternal kind of never ending show. This is gonna wrap up and Jesus is going to reign and be King. And there's much debate over how it's gonna wrap up right? We all want to claim infinite knowledge and perfect knowledge, I think that's probably a stretch. I personally think that God is shifting, I'm broadly speaking a dispensationalist. So I think you have the Jewish nation, then the church, and then we're gonna go back to the Jewish nation. I think Jesus will be the king. We talked about the millennium, that's when Jesus, if you're a dispensationalist, you're gonna think that Jesus is gonna reign physically in Jerusalem, right? On some kind of a throne even right? And He's going to rule the world with an iron scepter. We're eventually gonna get back to the rapture. That's really what this whole thing started with, is the rapture. And so as we've been talking, it turns out Andy is shifting. And so Andy's gonna give us a perspective today called:

Andy Griess
Postmillennial view of the millennium and the kingdom of God, I guess.

Bruce Peterson
Yeah, so that's the same subject and well, I would like to say right front, that I have the absolute deepest respect for Andy and his biblical study and knowledge. And as he was answering questions, even during our discussions of the weeks ahead, I'm like, "Hmm, I never thought about it that way. Oh yeah, I could see how you could take it that way." And so I would like to make a couple points, first off that Andy is not spiritualizing the text in a negative sense. He's addressing the text theologically and this is a huge, very, very important thing to do, is to look at all the texts through the Bible. All the stories of the Old Testament have a theological point, they don't just have a physical point. You know, David didn't just kill Goliath. There's something very theological going on there in that story, and we are supposed to learn something about God. And we're supposed to understand how, theologically God is saying to the Israelites, "I'm gonna deliver you." And this is more than just a battle scene, right? It's just more than that. Oftentimes people read the text in end times stuff and we read it just like it's a story. So we go to a text and this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen, and this is gonna happen. And we're addressing things too. Literally like, prophecy is always mysterious, it just always is. There's a layer that, if you just take it very concretely, you're gonna miss some wonderful stuff. And so Andy's answers have been really challenging to me and looking at the text, so I really appreciate it. And I really would recommend considering deeply the perspective.

Andy Griess
And I'll say this about where I'm at. This is new to me in the last couple of years and I feel like I'm moving into a post millennial view. I'm not sure if I'm there yet, but it's very intriguing to me. So I'm just gonna try to lay out the view as best as I understand in it. And I, by no means am an expert on it.

Bruce Peterson
And this is a broad overview? It's a 10 minute overview of a 20 week study right?

Andy Griess
Right. Yeah, and so I just wanna try to make it make sense to people who are listening, so they could just consider the broad idea of it. I will say though, as we've been talking, I thought I was more on the fence. And then when we talked, I feel like I'm more solid on it. And then this Sunday at AWANA, one of the kids asked me a question and I threw out an answer without even thinking. I was like, "Whoa, that was extremely postcolonial, I didn't have any reservation about that," so maybe I'm less on the fence than I thought. But I didn't know where to start, it's so different from where I grew up. And this picture of the future, the whole book of Revelation being all future post-millennial, it's gonna be a lot different than that. But let me start with, going back to the Old Testament Daniel 2, one of the foundational promises about the Messiah. God gives King Nebuchadnezzar this dream and it freaks him out. He wants somebody to interpret the dream, and Daniel is given that interpretation by God. And he tells him, "You had a dream about a statue. The statue had four parts that represent four kingdoms." The Jews were currently being ruled over by the Babylonian kingdom, and Daniel said, "That first kingdom represents you, Nebuchadnezzar, you are the head of gold." And then the second kingdom that was gonna come, then there's a third kingdom and a fourth kingdom. And when you trace it, it's very clear that the Babylon kingdom ruled over Israel, then the Persians ruled over Israel. Then the Greeks ruled over Israel, and then the Roman empire ruled over Israel. And at the end of that dream Daniel said to him, that in the days of that fourth king, that's when the Messiah is gonna come. So it gives the people of Israel, a very clear timeline of when Messiah's kingdom was coming. And this is why when Jesus was born, the Roman empire had just taken over the Greeks and now everybody in Israel is on edge. They're waiting for a Messiah, cause he could be in any day because of that prophecy from Daniel. And specifically at the end of that prophesy in Daniel 2:44 he says, "In the days of those Kings," that Kings of the fourth kingdom, "the God of heaven will set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these other kingdoms and it shall stand forever. This kingdom is pictured as a stone that's been cut out of a mountain. It crashes into the statue, obliterates the statue and it starts out as a stone and it grows to be the size of a mountain. And then it grows to fill the whole earth." And I think maybe that's the best picture that I can give you for what the post millennial view is. That when Jesus came in the first century, He came to establish a kingdom and He did establish that kingdom. And that kingdom is in the process of filling the whole earth. And so that's the picture in a nutshell.

Bruce Peterson
There's 2 billion people right now who have called Jesus, God, right? That's a lot.

Andy Griess
Yeah, if you see in the book of Acts, what they started with and what it's become over 2000 years, that there are, I was thinking about today, our nation. We have people worried about losing our Christian heritage and I'm thinking, the original disciples of Jesus, if they knew that there were nations decrying that they're losing their Christian heritage. They probably wouldn't even have known that America, this place even existed on the Earth. And these people are now thinking, "Oh we're losing our grip on our Christian heritage." There's other nations right now that are building their own Christian heritage that would've been wild to them, and they would've said, "Yeah, I guess this is gonna fill the whole earth." So I think that's the picture.

Bruce Peterson
I would agree with all that.

Andy Griess
Yeah and then in Matthew 12, there's a place where Matthew quotes from Isaiah 42 and says, "Behold, my servant who I have chosen. My beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him. He will declare justice to the nations. You will not quarrel or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed, he will not break, smoking flax he will not quench. Until he stands forth justice to victory, and in his name again, the nations will trust." Right after Matthew quotes that, Jesus heals this man who is demon possessed, blind and mute. And this is where the Pharisees say, "Your power to do these miracles does not come from God, it comes from Satan." And Jesus' comment then included; He says, "If I'm casting out demons by the spirit of God, you can be sure that the kingdom of God has come upon you." And then He talks about, "How can anyone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first finds the strong man." And so He's saying, if these miracles didn't come from Satan, if they really did come from the holy spirit, you better believe the kingdom is here. And then He talks about the binding of Satan. I think that parallels pretty nicely with Revelation 20, this picture of Satan being in the abyss for a thousand years, so that specifically, he will not be able to deceive the nations any longer. So now Satan has been bound and the gospel is gonna go forth. You know, Jesus and His great commission. That I think is the distinctive of where, even if I don't end up believing post millennialism is a hundred percent true, I wish that it was. Because it's the one view that treats the great commission as if Jesus intended the church to be successful at it. If He says, "All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to me. Therefore, because all authority belongs to me go preach the gospel, make disciples of the nations." The Old Testament is just filled with these pictures of the New. The Messiah's kingdom being, not just for the Jews only, that it's too small of a thing. I think of Isaiah 49, "It's too small of a thing for my servant to just benefit the Jews. He's gonna be a light to the Gentiles and he's gonna bring salvation to the ends of the earth." It's just all over there in the Old Testament. This is for everybody, this kingdom is for everybody. So Jesus says "The kingdom's here, go get 'em." And that's the Postmillennial view, is that we are part of Jesus' growing kingdom. You know, you talked about it being like a mustard seed that's gonna grow to be the largest tree there is. It's like a little bit of yeast that you hardly can tell it's there.

Bruce Peterson
How does it end? How does the time just run out?

Andy Griess
No, no, no. That's first Corinthians 15 talking about how, just as death came into the world through one man, so the resurrection is gonna come through Jesus. And so Jesus has come, his resurrection guarantees There will be a resurrection for all of us. And then what does he say? 1 Corinthians 15:24, he's gonna end up quoting from Psalm 1:10, which is like the most often quoted Psalm verse in the whole Bible. It's about Jesus sitting at God's right hand until He makes His enemies His foot stool. 1 Corinthians 15 He says, "Then comes the end when He will deliver the kingdom of God to the father, when He puts an end to all rule and authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all of His enemies under His feet. Then the last enemy that will be destroyed is death, for He has put all things under His feet." So the picture is, the kingdom of God is going to continue its work of reaching the nation's, bringing the nation's into the kingdom. I believe that the church very well could be in its infancy. We could just be still in the process of figuring this out, it could go for a long time.

Bruce Peterson
That was so hard for me, but yeah, I get it.

Andy Griess
And eventually the world will see, eventually the Jews are going to see how much God has blessed all of these other nations. The Jewish nation will look on the one whom they pierced and they're gonna come to him---

Bruce Peterson
Through his bride.

Andy Griess
Through the church. And they're gonna join the kingdom the same way we joined the kingdom. It's that picture from Romans that we were grafted in as Gentiles and just like they were taken out, they can still be grafted in. Then that picture is going to happen, that's the picture. And when that does, then there's a picture in Revelation 20 about Satan being released for a time to deceive the nation. So once again, it's not gonna be every single person on earth that's gonna be part of this.

Bruce Peterson
That's gonna be my next question. Like you still end up with a bunch of unbelievers, so does the gospel just have to get to the nations? Does each nation have to get dominantly Christian? What does success look like?

Andy Griess
I think success looks like, the kingdom of God becomes so much a part of this world and blesses enough of this world that finally, the Jewish nation realizes, "We can't miss out on that." And so until they turn, then at some point after that, that's presumably when Satan will be released to do his thing and there will be a final---

Bruce Peterson
Because then that would represent the fullness of Gentiles, which would've brought the Jews back in. So now you have the sons of Joseph with the other natural tribes of Israel, kind of coming back together and at any time after that, it could end with, "Okay and we accomplish---

Andy Griess
Then Jesus returns. When all of His enemies have been sufficiently put under His feet, where He rules the nation and He's accomplished what He's meant to accomplish through the church. And the great commission has been successful and victorious, then Jesus will return. And the eternal state we'll be in at that point.

Bruce Peterson
It would be His kingdom, it would just be the eternal perfected kingdom. Cause even dispensationalists have that millennial kingdom just rolling right into the eternal one.

What's New at Cross Reference Library?

The Gifted Sophomores - Three High-School Sophomores—A cheerleader, a nerd, and a jock—rescued from the rubble of an earthquake. Miraculously healed of their injuries, then gifted with mysterious powers. 

One can see into the hearts of others.

One has feet that carry him to people in need.

One can’t stop talking about the Lord.

Before the earthquake, they weren’t even friends. Now, working together for Christ, they’re an evangelical dream team. But what will happen to their ministry when their brand-new gifts suddenly vanish? 

Vicious Cycle -  When fifteen-year-old Lance Covington finds an abandoned baby in the backseat of a car, he knows where she came from—she’s the newborn daughter of a meth addict he’s been trying to help. But when police arrest him for kidnapping, Lance is thrust into a criminal world of baby trafficking and drug abuse. His mother, Barbara, looks for help from Kent Harlan—the man whom she secretly, reluctantly loves and who once helped rescue her daughter from a mess of her own. Kent flies to her aid and begins the impossible work of getting Lance out of trouble, protecting a baby who has no home, and finding help for a teenage mother hiding behind her lies. In this latest novel of suspense and family loyalty, bestselling author Terri Blackstock offers a harrowing look at drug addiction, human trafficking, and the choices that can change lives forever. 

Lion of Babylon - Marc Royce worked for the State Department on a variety of clandestine assignments—that is, until personal issues led to his dismissal. When Alex Baird goes missing in war-torn Baghdad, State comes calling again. Alex is an intelligence agent—and a close friend of Royce. Three others have also dropped out of sight—a nurse, an aid worker, a wealthy young Iraqi. Are these cases linked? Rumors circulate about a kidnapping conspiracy, yet both American and local officials refuse to pursue it. Blocked at every turn, Royce eventually unearths a trail of secret encounters between sworn enemies. What he discovers could transform the course of rivalry and reconciliation throughout the Mideast. As the human and political drama escalates, can one man summon the courage to make a difference?

How Do We Determine What To Preach? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Kiley Callaway, Tyson Lambertson, John Mulholland and Jon Simpson.

Jon Simpson
We've been discussing preaching. And some of the, maybe letting you behind the scenes a little bit as to how we determine how to preach and what to preach on, and hopefully giving you a little insight into that. Sometimes people wonder how pastors come up with what they do and there's different opinions on styles of preaching. Be it topical or expository. Should you preach through a book of the Bible? Can you preach on a topic? We kind of talked about that a little last time, so we wanna discuss a little bit more maybe how we determine what to preach on in a given year, kind of how we lay that out and what influences those decisions. So, John, how do you kind of look at that in your church?

John Mulholland
Well, like I said last time, for us it's more expository in nature than the topical piece. Try and manage that Old Testament, New Testament piece. So, then we kind of look at, what haven't we gone through? So if a book of the Bible is gonna kind of guide our primary thinking, what haven't we talked about? So are we preaching through, are we teaching through things that we haven't talked about before, and what does that look like? But also just you know, knowing what's happening in our church body. Tyson, you know, you talked about praying and listening to the Holy Spirit, and certainly those things are a huge part of that because of what God is teaching us and wanting us to talk about. A lot of those conversations too, come from staff meetings of like, "What are we kind of," without actually asking the question, "What are we seeing, feeling, hearing from our church body?" But just like being in tune with our other pastors who are connected to small groups and serving teams. Like, you know, "What are we thinking that we see?" And then we set up that calendar, we do operate on a yearly calendar. Usually by October I start getting antsy, cause we want to know what we're gonna teach on in the year. So we're about a year ahead on our teaching. So I would say prayer, discernment of the Holy Spirit, and then just conversations and awareness of what's happening in our local church body of what we kind of feel like we need to teach on.

Tyson Lambertson
I think that's great. You have to pray, be aware of what the Holy Spirit's doing and where you're wanting to take your church as far as the discipleship model or the method where you want to take the scripture. And if you connect that to your small groups and how that works, if you do your small groups in conjunction with your sermon series and all those. So one of the benefactors that I have is, I have a very intelligent wife. Her name's Tammy and she's very in tuned with the Holy Spirit and helps guide how we preach, what we preach, when we preach it. And gives me some feedback on, I'll say, "Hey, what do you think about doing the book of 1 Corinthians or doing a topic on marriage?" or something along those lines. And she'll say, "Yeah, you know, I think that should wait, maybe we can fit it here. This would be better." So just listening to the Lord and listening to my wife and really being sensitive to what's happening to our people, that in the life of our people is so, so important.

John Mulholland
Yeah, and I think a big thing, an advantage, you know, a window that we have into the lives of the people that go to our churches, like social media. What kinds of things are they---

Tyson Lambertson
That gets dangerous.

John Mulholland
It can get dangerous. But what kinds of things are they talking about? So like for, you know, last year we went through---

Tyson Lambertson
Loving your enemies.

John Mulholland
Yeah, we went through the book of Revelation last year, because I just have this sense that people are thinking like, "Oh, you know, we're living in the end times, it's the end of the world," all that kind of stuff. So let's tap, maybe tap into that angst that people are feeling and hopefully coach and guide them through what scripture has to say on those things. How about for you? How do you decide?

Jon Simpson
So one of the things I do throughout the year, I am trying to listen to the Holy Spirit and watch, as you said Tyson or you guys have said, what's going on in the church? What are issues and stuff that we're dealing with or that I see happening in their struggles maybe? And then just the culture at large, what are the issues that are happening in our culture around us? That, you know, because we're so connected to the world it seems like we feel personally connected to something that happens on the other side of the globe, you know, if there's a tragedy. So I think that is what's happening in the world and what the are issues there. And so I kind of take that all together and just let that sort of ruminate in me. I feel like God at times gives me, whether it be a book of the Bible or whether it be, you know, a particular issue to address right? And so just like I said the last series I was in, The Lies That Satan Tells Us. Well, through the last year, I just felt like I was watching, and of course it happens to me, but I see it happen to people where they're believing a lie that the enemy is interjecting. And I see it happen and honestly it makes me angry because it always leads to destruction right? So I'm like, "I want to address that, you know, that's an issue, that's a problem that I see in the world." So then it's like, you know, figuring out, where does the scripture speak to that? And what does the Bible say and how do we? So I think that is kind of what guides me. I've always, since I was a church planner I was coached to do a year, you know, plan that year out. So I always try to go in January. If I have a team, I take some of my team and we just pray over it and talk about, and ask God, seek God, and then look at our church and all that stuff, and try to plan out a year. And you know, 2020 was kind of encouraging, cause that was my first full year here. And of course I went out away in January with Ken, our worship pastor, we figured out, kind of planned the year out. And then as COVID hits, as stuff happens, you know, things just fell in place. Where it's like I had, you know, I did a series on, you know, Fear Less, I think it was, and then I came right after everything kind of was blown up. And it was like, just very timely, I felt like God had really led and it made me feel like, "Okay, God, you're with me in leading this church, you know, and trying to prepare people, cause I know it's not me." But that's where I really trust God to, you know, lead that way and give us the right stuff to address. And so anyway, it's a year out and it's looking at that and then yeah, whether it's a book of the Bible or whether it's, like I said, an issue or a topic, and then just trying to deal with that.

John Mulholland
Now you said a second ago, you said, "Well, that's where you get into trouble," so how do you like, when we see like---

Jon Simpson
Yeah.

John Mulholland
I see the people at Mitchell Berean are really wrestling with they're believing lies. The people at The Rock are doing this, the people at Westway are doing that. Like how, that getting into trouble, explain that. As a pastor, I know what you mean by that. So how do you tackle some of those things without it being, cause this is something I wrestle with. Do you tackle some of those things without wanting it to be like, "I'm looking at you cause I saw what you posted on Facebook last night?"

Tyson Lambertson
So one of my pastor mentors said this to me, "That God always calls you to a place to do a work in you first, and the other, second." More times than not, my sermon series are on something that I've been struggling with and I'm going through. And the minute I preach it, the minute I say I'm gonna preach it, I'm going to deal with that situation a week before or week after, a month before or a month after, there's something that God's doing in me. So what is God doing in me that He can do a deep work in me so that I can give it away? Because other people are struggling with it, we're human, we all have similar issues, similar problems, similar things. And so staying on topic, not trying to curtail it to somebody, who just done you wrong. And so next Sunday you're gonna preach to that person in that pew. I think that gets you in trouble, that's what I meant.

John Mulholland
So you said, "God's doing your work in me," and I would come back on that too, and say, "There have been things that I've read in scripture." And be like, "Oh man, this would be really good like at some point this would be a really good series," whatever that looks like. How much of you, do you bring into like your Sunday morning? Like how much of you, do you bring into that? Like how much do you talk about, maybe something you struggle with or something you're wrestling with or like your own---

Tyson Lambertson
Yeah, I think there's definitely a balance and I think authentic leadership is so important. Authenticity allows you to be at a level with everyone else, that I am human. And I think where we've gotten in trouble with pastors, is being above humanity. Being something above, and we're not, we're human. We all have sinned, we all have fallen short of the glory of God. And so I think there's a point where we have to be vulnerable, but how vulnerable can we be from the pulpit? When that vulnerability should probably be with some trusted, what I would call my life team. These are issues that I need to discuss with them, not to the public where it's gonna be all over Facebook, YouTube, and social media. You know what I mean? So there's that balance. I think there's that line that could be crossed. But we all need to realize that we're all sinners, we've all fallen short to the glory of God and we need His help. So personal stories, those type of things, I think there's tastefulness and I think there's things that cross the line.

Jon Simpson
Yeah, I think for me, what I'm very cautious about is that in my struggles, which I think it's important to be vulnerable. People need to see that, how we help lead people is for them to see how we wrestle through things and how we struggle with stuff, like that's leadership. I think you go, "I've struggled through this, but this is what I've discovered. This is how I've tried to follow scripture, and this is what scripture says." But I'm careful, like I'm very concerned that I, in any of that, it's sort of a counseling session for me to share, you know, my hurts, my issues. So I don't want that, that's not helpful to anybody. At the same time, I think it's important to let people in and see, you know, Paul said that, his weakness is what he gloried in, because where he was weak was where God was strong. And so he said, I celebrate my weakness and I think it's important to go, "Hey, I'm weak, like I have weak areas or I've struggled through this and this was hard," you know? And so, I think part of it for me is that it's not something that I'm personally wrestling. Like if I've worked through it and I've kind of, you know, gotten through that issue, then I think I can help others and lead them through that. But I also, I don't know, when I was younger, it was a lot of my personal life illustrating things. And I don't do that as much now, to me more now it's like, the principles inside of a point. Like, how do you get through something? Or how do you think through it? That's where I'm interjecting what I've learned or what I've experienced or what the scripture says.

Tyson Lambertson
And I don't know if you guys ever seen the meme, "If you're a pastor's kid, anything that's said can be used in a sermon," those types of things. I really try to watch how I speak about my children. I'll use funny stories and stories that would keep them in a good light. I don't want to use the stories that would tear them down or my family or anybody for that matter. But I do think there's this authenticity that people need to be able to reach out and say, "Oh, he's human too."

John Mulholland
Yeah, when I was in student ministry, and I was like coaching someone who was new coming onto our student ministry team, we would talk about like, be appropriately transparent. You know, there's a level and I think relationally, you know, I'm really grateful that Anne and I have had the opportunity to be in some really great small groups our entire Christian life. But especially since we've been here in Scottsbluff. So we've been able to share things with small group that certainly I would never share from the front. But it's always interesting for me when we share things and people's response to that. Like I had someone once in small group say, "Oh man, I always thought the pastor and his family was this." So to sit in small group and hear this, is really, and it wasn't, "This is shocking." And it wasn't like, "I'm rejecting you because it's shocking." But just people don't really, I think struggle with the concept that the people who are their pastors are human beings and wrestle with things.

Tyson Lambertson
And I think that's because of the series that we're in from the ashes and the devastation that we experienced in the last 10 months. I'm grieving and there's no better person to minister, to people who are grieving than one who's grieving. And so there's some of that identification and being able to connect personally with our own struggles, our own grief, our own mourning. So I think, I think authenticity is so important.

Jon Simpson
Well, thanks again for joining us for another session here. Hopefully this has been encouraging to you and maybe insightful.

What's New at Cross Reference Library? Love Never Fails

Love Is - What would it take for someone to live out the Bible’s “Love Chapter” as literally as possible? In a radical attempt to shake up a life that felt unlivable, Kim Sorrelle set out on a yearlong experiment. Using 1 Corinthians 13 to the letter, Kim journeyed past her comfort zone into places and among people she never anticipated. From irritating employees to sexist short-term missionaries to a group of profoundly kind nuns, she shares her many unexpected encounters in a charming voice full of rueful self-reflection and comical commentary. But this is more than a social experiment. It’s an invitation to join Kim on her journey to understand the nuance and power of true love in action even as it fundamentally transforms your life. 

A Confident Mom -  As moms, we often doubt our ability to be the mom we want to be. Unpacking powerful lessons, biblical truths, and practical tools, bestselling author Renee Swope will help you take a deep breath of God’s grace and show you how to:

• Exchange the exhaustion of constantly correcting your child’s bad habits with meaningful and creative ways to connect with their hearts.

• Discover positive and encouraging daily practices that will help you notice and nurture your child’s character and unique God-given design.

• Let go of performance-based living and learn how to pursue relationship-driven parenting.

Discover simple ways to give your child what they need most through the power of heart-centered and character-focused parenting. This book will transform your perspective of parenting and change the way you see yourself as a mom and as a child of God. 

SMART Love - What would happen if you applied the game-changing principles of emotional intelligence to your most important relationship? Smart Love is a system for understanding both your own and your spouse’s emotions, managing those emotions, and walking hand in hand through situations when emotions run high. Through personal inventories, you’ll discover where you are strong and where you need improvement, and each section includes practical action steps you and your spouse can take to implement what you’ve learned. 

In the month of February, the month of love, it only makes sense that we bring in new books about love! While we have a lot of Romance novels among our fiction books, some readers may wonder what some of those characters did wrong or what they did right in their relationships. Personally I do find myself wondering that same thing, being since misunderstandings are a famous source of conflict in most Romance novels. In SMART Love the authors David and Jan Stoop shine some light on how to more easily prevent those misunderstandings. Both being certified counselors, the Stoops dedicate their lives to helping married couples work through their conflicts. And with that experience, they decided to use this book to explain their acronym: 

Self-awareness of your emotions

Managing your emotions

Accountability to yourself, your spouse, and others

Reading the other person’s emotions

Together in the land of emotions

And together they explain how this method has helped them and how it works for so many other couples. So while SMART Love deals with the mental idea of love, Love Is explains love as it is presented in 1 Corinthians 13. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” Author Kim Sorrelle goes into why patience is good, why envy is one of the seven deadly sins, and even why kindness is always the best medicine. Finally, the other book I read was A Confident Mom, which comes from the perspective of a mom who was pretty discouraged while raising two rambunctious boys. She even had a day where she was ready to turn in her motherhood letter of resignation. But then she read a newspaper article where the purpose was to encourage parents to “look for the gold in their children instead of focusing on their faults.” After that, she prayed to the Lord asking for help in finding those good characteristics in her children. And sure enough, Renee threw away that letter of resignation and was able to strengthen the love she had for her sons as the gold inside their hearts had shone through. So come on down to the Cross Reference Library at KCMI and check out these love-stricken books.

Analyzing Popular Sayings: "Follow Your Heart."

Art by Amanda Cass

“Following your heart” is a spiritual concept. It’s not talking about your literal physical heart that pumps blood, but an intangible abstraction representing our truest nature. “The heart” is who we are at the core of our being. 

The advice to “follow your heart” has saturated our culture. It advises everyone that they should do whatever their emotional desires tell them.

But does this advice fit the reality we live in? 

That all depends on whether or not the heart is a positive, trustworthy force.

Let’s take a look at what the Bible has to say about the heart:

At first glance, the Bible leaves us with a pretty grim image of what dwells at the cores of our beings. We are all born with a sin nature, which means we have the natural inclination to want to defy God’s design.

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Matthew 15:19 ESV For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Numbers 15:39 NIV You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes.

Jeremiah 22:17 ESV But you have eyes and heart only for your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.

Sin nature makes hearts evil and untrustworthy. Sometimes our hearts can be so misguided that following them is sabotaging our lives.

The heart also likes to play the blame game. Even when it’s our own fault that bad things happen, an unwise heart will refuse to take responsibility for its actions and will blame God for the natural consequences of our choices.

Proverbs 19:3 ESV When a man's folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord.

Fortunately, this is not everything the Bible has to say about hearts. We may be born with a sin nature, but thanks to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross we can put that sin nature to death.

1 Peter 2:24 NASB and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

Romans 6:6 NASB knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;

Galatians 5:24 NASB Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Just as faith in Christ’s death pays for our sins and brings us into God’s family, faith also gives us the ability to walk with God throughout this life. With God’s help, our hearts can be trained in wisdom, and cultivated into a more trustworthy and helpful force.

Psalm 51:10 ESV Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Proverbs 23:19 ESV Hear, my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way.

Proverbs 3:5-8 ESV Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

Proverbs 4:23 ESV Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Ecclesiastes 10:2 ESV A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left.

Psalm 119:11 ESV I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

Proverbs 28:26 ESV Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.

Psalm 19:14 ESV Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

When we turn to God and let Him guide our hearts in wisdom, he is able to help us through life and work all things for our good.

Romans 5:5 ESV And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 8:28 NIV And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 

Psalm 73:26 ESV My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 37:4 ESV Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

The Bible makes it clear that this world is plagued by sin. If we are honest with ourselves and really do the work of digging deep down into the choices we make and why we make them, it becomes obvious that at our core, we are sinful. Our very natures are tainted by sin. This means we can’t always trust what our hearts tell us. What we want for ourselves may be selfish and is often misguided. 

This doesn't necessarily mean that everything we want is bad, it just means we should be wary of trusting our hearts blindly. If we seek out the guidance of the Holy Spirit and study the Bible to gain wisdom, we can make better choices.

---

This series of blog posts titled, “Holding on to Reason”, is named after Amanda’s favorite C.S. Lewis quote: “Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Click here for more things written by Amanda Hovseth.