Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Are You Ready to Change?

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Am I repentant? Is my husband, wife, son, coworker, sister-in-Christ truly repentant? We said we were, but were we? They said they were but were they truly sorry for what they had done? How do we know? Is there some kind of test or score card to judge repentance by? Will we just know, experiencing some kind of emotional peace when the moment comes? How do we know that someone is sorry when words can be so empty?

This is a huge question, touching on everything from relationship dynamics to legal realities. The Bible speaks to this issue in 1 Samuel 12:19-25. The people of God thought they were right with God. They had even offered peace offerings back in 1 Samuel 11. Church was happening, but all was not well. The people had not repented. Then in verse 19 of chapter 12, they do. A thunderstorm pops up in the middle of their dry season, revealing God’s displeasure of their sin. The people of Israel respond by pleading with Samuel to intercede with God for them.  The text says, “And all the people said to Samuel,

Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.

The nation of Israel finally got it. They finally understood that they had sinned against God and that their sin warranted their death.

Friends this is always the first sign of true repentance, a hatred of sin. When God begins to enlighten the mind and sanctify the soul, men and women begin to hate sin. The man or woman who claims to be repentant and who treats their sin as a minor thing to be swept under the rug is not repentant. He or she does not get the depth of their evil. They do not understand that God is a holy God and that this holy God cannot be next to evil. As Romans 3:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” As long as, a man or woman views their sin to be an addiction, a set of bad circumstances bound together by an unfair social construct, or a matter so insignificant that no one should be bothered by it, the man or woman is not repent. Ultimately all these excuse proclaim that we are not culpable for our actions. This the opposite of true repentance. As Thomas Watson reminds us, “Confession is self-accusing: ‘Lo, I have sinned (2 Sam. 24:17).”

The repentant person is the person who gets that their sin is evil and that he or she has done evil. And they get that there is nothing they can do to make things right. They need help. They need someone to pray for him or her. And they don’t need a prophet. They need the prophet, priest, and king, Jesus Christ. As 1 John 2:1b reminds us, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The repenter understands that their sin is weighty, large, and deadly. They hate it but also know they cannot escape it.

Thus they run to Christ seeking both his forgiveness and power. And when they run to God seeking forgiveness of sins, he gives it. James 4:8-10 promise the following hope for the repentant believer:

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

After understanding their wretchedness, the repentant ask for forgiveness and stop sinning. Yes they may struggle with sin again, but they do not stay in their sin. They see it as evil, flee from it, draw near to God, and experience the mercy of God. As Watson notes, “Never do the flowers of grace grow more than after a shower of repentant tears.”

Are you repentant? Do you understand that your sin is so vile you need Jesus to intercede for you?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Was King Saul A Christian?

King Saul is an odd duck in the biblical narrative. He experiences an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that culminates in supernatural prophesies. But then almost in the next breathe, he lies to his uncle. He offers sacrifices with unclean hands (1 Sam. 13). Things only get worse from their. He contemplate killing his son, Jonathan, because he ate some eating honey. He would have done if his soldiers had intervened and stayed Saul’s madness (1 Sam. 14). The king defies a direct order from God and keeps some of the spoil from the Amalekites (1 Sam. 15). He sets out on a murderous rampage against David because teenage girls faun over the giant killer (1 Sam 18). Perhaps must troubling of all, Saul murders most of the Levitical priesthood for unknowingly helping David escape from Saul’s murderous hand (1 Sam 22). At the end of his life, Saul’s pattern of disobedience manifests itself once again when he appeals to the Witch of Endor for spiritual advice (1 Sam. 28).

If the guy two seats down from us on Sunday regularly flew into explosive rages, attempted to lead Sunday morning worship without the pastor’s blessing, openly defied God’s Word, put out a hit on his pastor, and consulted with the local fortuneteller, we would not ask him to lead our next Youth retreat. We would be implementing church discipline and calling the police department. We would not consider such a man our spiritual brother because the fruit of his life demonstrates a lack of conversion.

Though we are tempted to write off Saul as spiritual madness, we struggle to make that judgement because of his earlier spiritual experiences.  First Samuel 10:9-10 clearly states that “God gave [Saul] another heart…and the Spirt of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them.” Saul seemingly experienced the Holy Spirit in a way that most modern Christians could only dream about. Still he clearly lacked all other evidences of salvation: namely, faith and obedience.

What do we do with Saul? Can a person experience conversion and remained unchanged? The answer is no. As the famous Pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jones noted,

The moment a man is justified, the process of sanctification has already begun. (374 John 17).

If a man or woman comes to faith, their life begins to change as soon as they embrace Christ, because they have been liberated from the power of sin (Rom 6). Instead of sinning all the time, the redeemed can love their kids, control their tongue, and suppress their anger with the help of the Holy Spirit. Saul’s lack of works indicates that he lacked sanctification, proving he was never saved, justified, or liberated from his sins. The famed Bible commentator,  Mathew Henry, rightfully concludes, “Saul by praising God in the communion of saints, become another man, but it may be questioned if he became a new man.” Paul blunts says in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

How could someone experience great interactions with the Spirit and become another man without becoming a spiritually reborn man?

To make sense of Saul’s supernatural experiences with have to place them back into their historical and biblical context.

In the Old Testament, the rushing of God’s spirit can be equated with salvation. But it also can be equated (as Louis Berkhoff noted) with a “visible sign of an appointment to office.” In the OT God appoints earthly leaders by giving them special outpourings of the Spirit for the purpose of endowing them with supernatural power and leadership skills. The Spirit of the Lord rushes upon Samson on multiple occasions giving the OT Judge the supernatural strength he needed to defeat the Philistines (Jud. 14:19; 15:14). The Spirit of God also rushes upon Saul in 1 Samuel 11:6, blessing the sluggish king with good leadership. Moreover, when Saul attempts to kill Samuel, the Spirit of God stays Saul’s sword, causing the corrupt king to prophecy in the nude (1 Sam. 19:20-21). In short, interactions with the Spirit are not always proof of salvation. Often God uses his Spirit do mark secular leader, a role that signifies nothing about the leader’s heart. As the late English Pastor Andrew Willet said of Saul’s spiritual encounter:

This was no inward renewal; nor did he become a regenerated man who was born of the Spirit.

The wimpy self-centered, godless man who could not find his donkeys in 1 Samuel 9 simply becomes the wimpy, self-centered, godless king of 1 Samuel 10. Saul was not redeemed.

What do we do with the life of Saul? We should take heed lest we too fall. We should realize that phenomenal religious experiences do not trump a life of sin. We may have been baptized in front of our family, friends, and coworkers. We may have shed crocodile tears over our sin as we were overcome with emotion. We may have done a million odd jobs around the church. We may have gone on a mission trip. We may have felt and done a million different things at the beginning of our spiritual journey. But then nothing else came. We still lie; we still get angry; we still cheat on our taxes; we still mock our teachers; and, we still mistreat our spouse. We define our faith by the one spectacular moment because we can point to no other evidence of faith. Friend if our life resembles the life of Saul, we are not saved. One or two emotional experiences does not invalidate a life of sin. The life of sin invalidates those one or two emotional experiences.

Jesus spoke directly to this issue in Mathew 7:21-2

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

Friends don’t trust in a moving experience. Trust in the ongoing works of the Spirit in your life. If the works are missing, repent and believe. Saul’s judgement does not have to be your judgement.

Do you have a faith that is greater than Sauls?

Peter Witkowski Church History, Discipleship

Jonathan Edwards, Friendship, and Your Next Big Decision

EdwarsThe defeated and somewhat despised Jonathan Edwards called together a council of pastors in May 1750. Recently dismissed from the pulpit of Northampton, Massachusetts because his pastoral skills did not equal his doctrinal convictions, Edwards faced a difficult choice regarding his future. A devote minority of Northampton citizens including his daughter Marry and her husband were pleading with Edwards to establish a new church in Northampton that would take the Lord’s Table, Baptism, and church membership seriously. Around the same time, the City of Stockbridge, Massachusetts had also invited Edwards to be the pastor of their English-speaking congregation and a missionary to the local Indian population. Though Edwards believed Stockbridge to be the better choice, he humbly submitted to the collective wisdom of his brothers-in-Christ. After hearing the case for both options, the council advised Edwards to move to Stockbridge (365).

51QLzAKPcZL._SX346_BO1,204,203,200_The situation repeated itself in 1758. In the span of three weeks, both Cambridge University’s main benefactor, Governor Belcher, and its President, Aaron Burr (the forty-one-year-old husband of Edward’s daughter Esther), died. Reeling from loss, the university quickly invited Edwards to serve as its next president (430). When the less than enthused Edwards countered their offer by asking for more money and a reduced teaching load, the university’s board of trustees happily acquiesced. Edwards again called a council of local clergy to help him make a decision. After hearing Edwards’ many objections to becoming the President of Cambridge, the council decided Edwards should move to New Jersey. When the usually stoic mannered Edwards heard the decision, he wept. The move to New Jersey would almost assuredly limit if not prevent Edwards from writing is Magnus Opus. Historian George M. Marsden noted, “More likely, he was overwhelmed by the sense of loss at maybe never getting to his projected great works (431).” Regardless of his feelings, Edwards still humbly submitted to the council’s decision and took up residence at Cambridge.

Edwards reliance upon the wisdom of other believers stand in stark contrast to the individualism championed by many modern Christians. Increasingly, we make spiritual decisions isolated from the body of Christ. We accept jobs, get engaged, adopt children, buy homes, and trade-in cars without every stopping to hear from our brothers and sisters in Christ. We simply assume that a little prayer, some positive emotion, and a good quiet-time is all the verification we need. We check back into church waving around our latest decision seeking to gain the admiration of our fellow church members. But we never invite the church into our decisions.

Edwards did. Edwards realized that God’s voice often comes through his people speaking his Word. Elders and spiritual leader have been given to the church by God to keep men and women from wondering into error. As Paul told Titus the elders of the church exist, “to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” If we want our lives to match the Scriptures, we must not rest in our own application of the Scriptures to our life. We must seek to invite godly leaders and those who are spiritual to speak into our lives (Gal 6:1-5). As Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted,

The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own is uncertain, his brother’s is sure. 

We need our brothers and sisters in Christ to live the Christian life well. Edwards understood this truth well!

If Edwards had a failing, it was his inability to relationally connect with his congregation. After being dismissed from Northampton, Edwards feared he only possessed the skills needed for studying and writing (349). Despite all of his efforts to be more sociable and graceful, Edwards always suffered from a lack of interpersonal skills. He struggled to disciple his congregation. While he welcomed visitors to his study, Edwards would not go visit his members as Richard Baxter and other puritan pastors had done.  Marsden noted,

Although he was a Calvinist in theology, he was a perfectionist by nature. He asked more than could be hoped for from a people, applying to a town the disciplined standards he held for himself (350).

In short, He called his church members to high standards but struggled to help his people reach those standards. Though he served at Northampton for 21 years, Edwards never installed a new elder at his church. As a result, Edwards had to look elsewhere when the time came for godly advice.

Pastors and lay leaders should follow Edward’s example and appeal to the body of Christ when making major life decisions. But the goal of the local church leader should be to raise up godly leaders within their local congregation. As Paul told both Timothy and Titus, “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also (2 Tim 2:2; Ti.1:5-9).” Those best suited to offer advice are those who know both the Scriptures and us intimately. Outsourcing as Edwards discovered maybe necessary for some leaders. But faithful pastors should seek to raise up leaders within their congregation that can one day speak into their pastor’s life.

In short, Christians should seek to cultivate relationships with other like-minded men and women so that when times of decision arise they are not left alone. Edwards could appeal to wise friends when seeking to determine the will of God for his life. Can we do the same?