Think On These Things
by Richard O'Ffill
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- The Scripture says that the time would come in which the deception would be so well crafted that it would deceive if possible the very elect. That time is here. We expected the devil to come in like a herd of elephants. He came in like a swarm of termites!
- The devil now speaks our language. If you take over the language of your enemy, you make it impossible for him to communicate his ideology.
- The pop-doctrines of self-love and dysfunction have put the power of the Gospel into gridlock.
- The "Gospel" and "doctrine" are not adversarial concepts. "Gospel" means good news and "doctrine" means teaching. The "Gospel" is a doctrine. Those who say that we ought to preach the Gospel and not worry about doctrines often mean that they prefer Baptist doctrine to Adventist doctrine. Baptist doctrine is all right to die by, but it will not get you ready for translation.
- A person once told me that if he has to choose between love and the law, he will choose love. I asked him how the will of God could be adversarial to His love?
- We were not wrong in the past--only narrow and shallow. It was wrong to eat catfish, but we should have included the sin of pride and a mean disposition. It was right to preach the Fourth Commandment, but we should have included the importance of being kind and forgiving. Now, in many Adventist circles pride and meanness are out, but so is the Sabbath. Kindness and forgiving are in, but so is catfish! It is never necessary to throw out one truth to make room for another. To do so is to remain narrow and shallow!
- Question: Can you get something from Willow Creek without getting Willow fundamentals; i.e., congregationalism and a non-doctrinal approach to theology? Answer: It's hard not to. Just check the trends and note recent causalities. Note: The methods that we use to communicate the gospel are never program neutral. They are either correctly representing it or misrepresenting it and thereby inventing a new gospel.
- Question: How can a person who has not made Jesus the Lord of their lives worship? Answer: They can't. What they do will either be self-centered or pure flattery.
- "Unchurched" is a code word for agreeing not to engage in sheep stealing. The Bible doesn't see people as "churched or unchurched" but as saved or lost. This church was raised up not only to save the lost but to keep the saved from losing their salvation when the great deception comes.
- God is not an anybody, or an everybody. He is a Somebody. He can actually be offended. Sacred history is clear that to "do it your way", or "my way", or "their way" is not necessarily God's way. When God took offense at home-grown worship styles in the Old Testament, the results were hardly "accepting".
- We should be careful not to play off God's attributes against each other. He is never more one than the other. He was forgiving and merciful before there was anything to forgive or anyone to be merciful to.
- If it could be said that the revelation of God in the New Testament is mercy and forgiveness, it could also be said that the principal revelation of Him in the Old Testament is holiness. It could also be said that mercy, grace, and forgiveness have little significance until they are seen from a perspective of holiness. To appreciate the grace and mercy of God to their fullness, we must first understand what holiness is.
- Be careful of people who are continually taking a punch at legalism. If legalism has slain its thousands, anti-nominism has slain its ten thousands. If you have to take a punch at Phariseeism, you would do well to take a punch at Saduceeism at the same time. We must not forget that Jesus was killed by a coalition of what we might call liberals and conservatives. The Saducees hated Him because He was so principled, and the Pharisees hated Him because He was so nice. I want to be like that.
- Truth has a name. Truth that intentionally doesn't acknowledge Jesus is error. Much of modern psychology is built on sand. It may have the name Jesus or the Spirit of Prophecy stenciled on it, but take off the labels and it is self-centered self help. Truth that is not nested in truth can be used to advance lies. That is why the only place we must turn to for truth is the Scripture. The Scripture is truth nested in truth, and it is all about the truth; and the name of the truth is Jesus the Son of God.
- Often when we begin to talk about holy living someone breaks in and says that we are not saved by works. It is true that we are not saved by obedience, but we are saved for obedience. Obedience didn't put Lucifer in heaven or Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But disobedience took them out.
- Jesus has no problem with people who keep the letter of the law, He only insists that they keep the spirit of it too. You can keep the letter without Jesus. The spirit of the law comes only from the new birth.
- You can tell if you have salvation or not by how you feel about obeying God. A person who has salvation wants to obey. A person who doesn't have salvation yet resents the concept. The Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and Phil 4:8 have something in common. They are all the will of God for the Christian.
- Those who are saved from every generation will have had the same attitudes in common. They were sorry for their sins and from the heart they wanted to do the will of God.
- The buzzword is that we shouldn't judge each other. Though we are not called to judge each other's motives, we are called to discern between right and wrong, truth and error. This age refuses to discern but chooses to judge. This can be seen when someone commits a crime. Society is quick to judge--that is, to explain why they did it.
- There is a saying going around these days, "What would Jesus do?" That is a good criteria provided that we are talking about the same Jesus. However, it may be dangerous to ask what Jesus would do inasmuch as that can be a rather subjective call. The safe thing is to go to the Scripture. Remember, it was He Himself who would always say, "It is written". The question that we need to be asking ourselves is "What do the Scriptures say that I must do?"
- Now that we have settled the issue as to how we are saved, let's get on to the big one. How does a person live who has salvation?
- We can rise no higher than our concept of God.
- A person's theology tends to be a reflection of their personal morality.
- We cannot lead people closer to Jesus than we are ourselves.
- The active ingredients of the Christian life are repentance and forgiveness.
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