The Fundamental Blog

“And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19: 11-12 KJV.

When God speaks to me with an idea to write about, I am always surprised at the remarkable ways He finds to present Himself . I am not claiming to be any modern-day prophet, or anything like that, but I do believe that the Spirit speaks to us to accomplish the will of the Father; may He guide me now! I was reminded of the account of the rending of the mountain, the earthquake, the fire and, especially, how God was not found in those things, but rather, in the still small voice. We could understand a thundering voice of God as he rumbled atop Mt. Sinai, give us trembling and great fear, and we could at least consider the possibility that God is speaking, but no… it’s in the still small voice that he reaches out to us.

As I drove across rural Indiana recently it occurred to me that in that peaceful, low-key relationship between the row crop farmer and the Lord, I could almost hear the still small voice. I do not want to imply that there are more Godly people in rural America than in the cities, (though it may be true), because I am sure that there are many deeply rooted, firmly convicted disciples in all walks of life regardless of the place they live. But in the quiet countryside there seems to be a presence of God that is practically touchable, a sense of the Holy that is as if Jesus could lay a hand on your shoulder and, (though majestic and awing in all respects), it would seem somehow, not out of the ordinary. There is an atmosphere in the country that city folk just have the hardest time trying to understand.

The urbanite goes to the country and one of the first questions they ask is, “What do you do for excitement around here?” The person who is raised in the city, (and I know I’m generalizing here), needs to be busy. It’s always go, go, go, go! This is the society we have created as a result of our willful secularizing of the masses. “Forget about God, what He has to say and the most important eternal consequences that you will face one day, there’s places to go, things to be done and people to see!” God is still there though, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” Psalm 139 :7-8 KJV. But we have allowed ourselves to be trained into lives that use every possible distraction to drown out the still small voice. Satan has us so thoroughly mixed up that we think that we must pay attention to the shouting of the daily grind to the exclusion of the voice of God which longs to be heard in our quiet moments.

I know people who hate solitude. For them, to simply be quiet and rest in the Lord is the hardest, most uncomfortable thing they have ever tried to accomplish. The sound of crickets, the taste of sweet tea and the twinkling of firefly lights viewed from the back porch is almost unbearable. These people take vacations to go on adventures. River rafting, theme parks, skydiving and all sorts of excitement are the things they crave. If they can spend two weeks in hyper-drive, chasing pursuits that test their endurance past the levels of their regular jobs, then they feel as though they have utilized their vacation time well. I have a difficult time understanding these people. It seems to me that the only way they can feel relaxed in their regular day-to-day lives is to spend time over-exerting themselves to the point that when they get back to normality, it seems dull by comparison. This, they call restful.

I knew a woman who had lived in cities all her life, her family moved out into the country and she decided to go along with them but from then on, all she could do was complain about how badly she hated it there. There were no shopping malls, no theater, no social ladder which she felt was worthy of her attendance, only simple country folks that seemed to speak a different language. In the very heart of God’s glory, she was sure that she had been trapped in a Hell, but it was a Hell of her own making; she could not hear the still small voice. Her ears were so conditioned to the noise of Satan’s cities that without it she nearly went mad. Why should we allow ourselves to ignore the blessings of God? Are we so deluded that we genuinely, and gladly, desire the things that drown out the voice of God? Why should we prefer the wind, earthquakes and fires over the loving voice of our very Creator?

You can be sure that Satan would rather you never hear the still small voice. He wants to overwhelm you with the struggles of today so that you haven’t the time to consider the realities of your own eternal tomorrow. If he can keep one person’s eyes off the prize, away from the desperate seeking after Christ Jesus, then he will succeed in keeping one soul from believing the only truth there is, that Jesus wants to give us His peace and His rest. I hear people complain that in this life they struggle because they never got the rule book. They think that if they knew the, “game,” better, it would all be so much easier. I wonder if perhaps it isn’t so much that they never got the rule book, as it is that they never learned to be quiet and allow themselves to hear the still small voice of God instructing them on the truth of Jesus Christ through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

There are times when action is called for. When Moses stood at the parted Red Sea it was time to move. God didn’t split the ocean to amaze and intimidate Pharaoh, He did it to provide an avenue of escape! It was time for action, it was time for Israel to MOVE! But there are many more times that I believe that we would benefit greatly by meditating on the Word of God, to listen for the still small voice of the Maker of Heaven and earth. “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10 KJV. This is an explicit instruction telling us that we are to calm down and be still. God receives no glory in pseudo-Christians running around half-cocked, willy-nilly like so many headless chickens. God is not exalted by random action, for action’s sake.

Consider creation, not what we have done to it, but what it was in the beginning. Find in Eden, or anywhere else for that matter, where God establishes Himself through chaos, it can not be done. God is not random, there is no accident in His providence, there is divine purpose in all He does. Satan is the destroyer of God’s peace, he deceives us at every turn and fills us with so much anxiety that the light of Christ is hidden or nearly extinguished. God wants us to act for His glory. Obedience to God is all about allowing Him to be magnified by the works He performs through us. How can that happen if we are so filled with the ringing of Satan’s bells of Hell that we can not hear the still small voice that God uses to speak to us? In Satan’s game of three card Monte, all he need to do is misdirect our attention long enough to hide the Saviour Christ Jesus. Once that’s done we are nearly helpless to find our way. But there is still hope because the Christ-card speaks to us, in a still small voice, but we have to be able to hear it!

Is Jesus glorified because you worked late, missed your daughter’s school play, and got out that extra order at the production plant? Is Christ lifted up because you finished that report instead of keeping that anniversary dinner date with your spouse, even though they said they understood? No! Family, commitment and the love of God evidenced in the little things; these are the things that exalt the Lord. There are thousands of things you can do, a virtual never-ending list of accomplishments yet to be completed that do nothing but prove you are too busy to hear God’s still small voice. You can work yourself to death for an ungrateful employer and it will serve nothing but Satan’s glee. On the other hand… Be there, on your knees, along side your 6 year old when they say their, “Amen,” at bedtime and you are listening, you are practicing obedience by raising up a child in the way they should go, you are living…


All for the Glory of Christ

“But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.” Mark 3:29 KJV

Does this Scripture verse give you cause to be concerned over whether or not you may have committed this unforgivable act? How can a warning, such as this, be reconciled with the doctrine we all learn that tells us that no matter how black our sin, regardless of the depravity of our heart, in spite of all that’s backlogged in our past; we may have unconditional forgiveness if we will look to Jesus and meet Him at the cross? Does the day come when we wake up and say to ourselves, “What if I did that which is unpardonable, am I beyond the grace of the Lord?” I believe that because of our fallen state, Satan uses this weakness to try to move us away from Calvary’s grace.

This is another example of why we need to read, study and give our utmost to the Holy Spirit so that we may gain a right fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of knowledge. If we only know the verses that we hear preached from the pulpit or the occasional, “Close your eyes, open the book, poke a finger at a random page and see what God wants us to know today,” method of Bible reading; we miss a lot of the essential information that God has placed before us, to know and understand the ways of His heart. Scripture must be interpreted in light of Scripture. How can we have a right understanding if we leave most of the meat on the table? Satan comes, as he did in the garden, and says, “Look at this. See, you are past the point of even God’s redemptive plan, you have done the unforgivable!”

Then those of us who are inadequately trained in the Word of God think that perhaps Satan’s right. The next thing is to begin an inventory of all the sins we have committed since we first made our profession of faith to see if we can find a sin that is so bad, (in our judgment), that it could disqualify us from the prize. The worst part of this is that even though we may not find anything with which to damn ourselves, Satan scores a point because he has taken us aside and made us doubt the promises of God. “ But it’s in black and white! The Bible says that there is a sin that will never be forgiven!” Alright, let’s have a look at the logical and reasonable underpinnings behind such a statement.

A lot has been written about the unforgivable sin and it’s easily attainable on the internet. We could go deeply into definitions and Greek origins of words and the seemingly mystical interpretations of the profoundness of this verse, and I almost went there, but then I was stopped. I was stopped by the realization that this was a single statement made - to who? Fishermen, farmers, tradesmen, the common folk! It was not meant to spark serious debate among the most learned scholars and theologians of the time. I think that this is something that can be understood by common folk like us, with a little plain thought, using the Bible as our guide.

For openers, let’s consider the makings of salvation. It is purely the gift of God, by His grace, through His Son, Jesus Christ. There is no act that we can perform to earn God’s grace, because as the Bible says, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The only, “doing,” that we must do, (if it can even be thought of as ‘doing’), is to decide to trust Jesus as our Saviour. Now if there is no act that we could do to save ourselves and if all our sin is forgiven the moment we believe, then does it make sense that there could be an act that could cancel God’s promise of salvation through Jesus Christ? Paul, then Saul, hunted down the followers of the, “Way,” and gave his approval to the murder of the saints! He had scores arrested, he persecuted the fledgling 1st century church and our Lord Jesus said that it was He who Saul was persecuting, but were these sins that were beyond the reach of God’s grace? Hardly. So it seems that the unpardonable sin must mean something different than an act that is typically thought of as a sin of commission.

The Bible tells us that the heart of God is not vindictive, He is no bully waiting to see how we mess up so that He can squish us like bugs! God says that it is not His desire that any should perish but that all might find eternal life in Christ Jesus. So then, how does this, “finding of eternal life,” occur? God sends His Holy Spirit to touch us. The Bible tells us that no one may come to Christ but that the Father draws him. So then it is God’s first move to bring us to the Saviour. He does this by the power of His Holy Spirit. When a person is confronted with the call of God through the Holy Spirit and then refuses to allow their heart to be softened in order to respond, this is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

“But at one time we all did that!” Yes, but we WERE moved. God spread the clouds that covered our hard hearts and gave into our lives enough grace that the message of Christ, through the Spirit, was able to begin convicting us. Even those who have never heard the gospel are not off the hook though. Paul explains in Romans, that ALL have known the truth but that we chose instead to harden our hearts against God and that we preferred to walk in darkness. So what changes in our sin nature as a result of accepting Jesus? We know that sin is not an obstacle that is removed from our experience, we all backslide from time to time. No, it’s our attitude toward sin that changes. Sure, we would all like to be sinners no more, (good luck with that), but the truth is, we continue in many of our old ways, finding ourselves repeating patterns that we had hoped would have been removed.

The Christian mourns over their sin, they grieve that they should do things so against the new nature that God is building in us, in Christ. THIS is the keystroke! It’s attitude that makes us different from who we used to be. So we need to look at the attitudes of the unrepentant worldling and consider how different, (not meaning better), we are. Think about the people you know who are not saved, or better yet, yourself before you came to Christ. Was sin prominent there? Of course it was. Does the worldling care? Not at all. To them, all this salvation stuff is hooey! The worldling sins without the slightest regard to the slap in the face that it is to God’s Holy Spirit. To them sin and salvation is all make-believe religious nonsense anyway, right? That is because the teaching of the Spirit has never taken root in them, they are too hard hearted, and what’s worse, they are blind to their own ignorance. The only time they find remorse is when their acts cross the boundaries of legality. If they get caught breaking man’s law, it’s a crime; breaking God’s law is mere fantasy.

The born again believer, on the other hand regards God’s valuation of right and wrong far above the standards of man’s opinions. When we sin, we know that it is an offense against God first, making it far worse than any crime committed before mortal man. The only reason that we can feel that way is because the Holy Spirit has placed in us a new paradigm to tell us the truth about sin. As the Spirit begins to teach us the extent of God’s holiness, we begin to understand the blackness of our sin; for as holy is God, is as black our sin.

The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which is unpardonable, is refusing Him. To say to the face of God, “I am justified without you, I don’t care for your grace and I’ll do fine on my own,” is the height of blasphemy. It is to take the most holy and reduce it to nothing more that common folklore, religious fairy-tales. But the only way to recognize this as a sin is to have the Holy Ghost guiding you. What this means is that if you are concerned that you may have committed this unforgivable sin, you have just proved that you didn’t! If you had, you wouldn’t think such a thought because you would know nothing of sin to begin with. The worldling doesn’t understand God’s standards but we do, that’s the difference. It is the Holy Spirit of God that convicts us of our sin and without that, how can we have any regard as to sin at all?

Satan can not be allowed to win this time. When you feel as though you may have committed the unforgivable sin think about this… If you have, you won’t have any sense of guilt of remorse for doing so; If you THINK you might have, it means you couldn’t have, because the only way to think such a thing is to have the Holy Spirit working in you already. This should give us all we need to help anyone who is struggling with this matter. If anyone comes to you and says, “I think I may have committed the unforgivable sin.” Tell them that they haven’t because there is only one way to even consider the question and that way requires the Holy Spirit to be present in that life. There are many struggles that we face on a daily basis but brothers and sisters, this should not be one of them. Whenever we fear that we might be guilty of the unforgivable sin, know that it is only Satan, foolishly attempting to disparage a life that’s…


All for the Glory of Christ