God is Merciful to Us

By Mike Ratliff

Heth
57 Yahweh is my portion;
I have promised to keep Your words.
58 I have sought to please Your face with all my heart;
Be gracious to me according to Your word.
59 I thought upon my ways
And I turned my feet to Your testimonies.
60 I hastened and did not delay
To keep Your commandments.
61 The cords of the wicked have encircled me,
But I have not forgotten Your law.
62 At midnight I shall rise to give thanks to You
Because of Your righteous judgments.
63 I am a companion of all those who fear You,
And of those who keep Your precepts.
64 The earth, O Yahweh, is full of Your lovingkindness;
Teach me Your statutes. Psalms 119:56-64 (LSB) 

God does not need us. God is holy; therefore, He is fully fulfilled in Himself. His holy attributes show us His perfection and infinite power. At the fall of man, found in Genesis 3, God would have been perfectly justified in wiping out Adam and Eve then starting over. However, He did not. Praise the Lord He did not! God was merciful to Man whom He loves. He still is.

God Saves Us

by Mike Ratliff

Vav
41 May Your lovingkindnesses also come to me, O Yahweh,
Your salvation according to Your word;
42 So I will have an answer for him who reproaches me,
For I trust in Your word.
43 And do not take away the word of truth utterly from my mouth,
For I wait for Your judgments.
44 So I will keep Your law continually,
Forever and ever.
45 And I will walk in a wide place,
For I seek Your precepts.
46 I will also speak of Your testimonies before kings
And I shall not be ashamed.
47 I shall delight in Your commandments,
Which I love.
48 And I shall lift up my hands to Your commandments,
Which I love;
And I will muse on Your statutes.Psalms 119:40-48 (LSB) 

The more I study doctrine and research the incredible variances of those held by theologians and denominations the more I realize there are really only two types. One type is focused solely on God’s Glory and is dynamically linked to His sovereignty. The other type (which includes all but God-focused Christianity) is Man based. This type either elevates man above or equal to God in responsibility and glory. The latter type will be those doctrines which “seem right” to most people. When the former are presented, they will cause those espousing their man-glorifying doctrines to be seized by apoplexy when they hear them. The type which is God focused is not politically correct. Why? Those who hold to the second type of doctrines have a false view of God and a false view of Man. Those who hold to the first type of doctrines have the view that God is sovereign and Man, without God’s grace, is completely dead in trespasses and sins. This view says Man is Totally Depraved in his natural state and can do nothing to gain salvation. The “man based” doctrines say Man does have the ability to seek God and can do so if he desires. The “God based” doctrines say God must extend His Grace to save Man from spiritual death. By now, I am sure you know which one I hold. Well you should as well. Why?

Persecution is the natural result of teaching or preaching God’s Word without compromise

by Mike Ratliff

14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would abide, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17 This I command you, that you love one another.
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. John 15:14-19 (LSB) 

A study of the book of Acts reveals that as Christianity spread as the Apostles obediently made disciples wherever they went, it was always accompanied by persecution. The hotter the persecution the more encouraged the brethren became. While that is not logical to the fallen mind, that is exactly how God grew His church. In the early 2nd century the bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John, was brought to the Roman authorities and ordered to confess that Caesar is lord. Polycarp was eighty-six years old at this point. All he had to do was utter that statement as he offered a pinch of incense to Caesar, but he refused. He was martyred by fire.

The Calves of Jeroboam and Depression

by Mike Ratliff

1 Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you died and your life has been hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory.
5 Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. Colossians 3:1-7 (LSB) 

We are born from our Mothers’ wombs depraved and separated from God because we are sinners. Unless God intervenes in our lives we will be self-absorbed and temporally focused in every part of our lives. We are “depraved” because we desperately seek fulfillment from our only avenue open to us for any circumstance which will tell us we are special or deserving of a positive “feeling” of contentment or fulfillment. That avenue is the flesh. Our flesh is all about self. Even seemingly selfless acts are done from a motivation of some form of self-gratification.

Works righteousness is man’s default religion

by Mike Ratliff

13 πορευθέντες δὲ μάθετε τί ἐστιν· ἔλεος θέλω καὶ οὐ θυσίαν· οὐ γὰρ ἦλθον καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλʼ ἁμαρτωλούς. Matthew 9:13 (NA28)

13 But go and learn what is the meaning of this; I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Matthew 9:13 (translated from the NA28 Greek text)

Works righteousness is man’s default religion. The Jews mostly misunderstood the Old Testament sacrificial system. The point of the sacrifice was the taking away of sin and the pointing to the perfect sacrifice that would come in Christ, but most had turned it into a form of works righteousness.

The High Calling of God

by Mike Ratliff

1 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of teaching about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. Hebrews 6:1-2 (LSB) 

Many years ago, my wife and I were members of the same church we belong to now, but it was much smaller back then and the leadership was completely different than it is now. It was also at a completely different location. We had been members there for several years when we got a new pastor. I was a deacon and a Bible teacher. On Wednesday evenings we had a meal at church followed by various Bible studies our Pastor wanted to do.  One thing he did for awhile was a “stump the pastor” question and answer time where we would ask him hard Biblical questions and he would try to answer them. One Wednesday we went and he stopped me on the way in and told me he had to go make a visit to the hospital and he wanted me to fill in for him in the “stump the pastor” thing.  Talk about terrifying… In any case, I agreed to do it. All went very well until right at the end. I was asked about disciples and discipleship. This was in the late 1990’s so it was before God had taken me through my radical turn around, but I had been studying this very thing for weeks just before this. I responded that all true believers are disciples. I was very surprised when an older man I did not know loudly interrupted me and said I was wrong. He said there were carnal Christians and there were disciples. I responded that what most people call carnal Christians are probably not really Christians at all, but were more than likely just religious unsaved people. It got quiet. The questions  ended. We were done. Later my pastor heard all about it and told me that I was right and did a good job. Three months later the company I worked for moved my job from OKC to Tulsa and so my wife and I sold our house and bought one in the Tulsa suburbs and moved there in early 2000. 18 months later I was recruited by a Hospital management corporation located in Lenexa, Kansas. Their offer was too good to turn down. I was to be their Database Administrator and would not have to work on Network stuff or P.C. stuff or Email stuff at all, just Database management. I took the job and we moved to the Kansas City area in September 2001 just a week or so before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I worked for them for over 20 years and retired in December 2021 after I turned 70. While we were in the K.C. area God did a huge amount of reconstruction In this heart. As a result of that I started this ministry and became a contributor to Christian Research Network.

Redeeming Our Time in This Evil Age

by Mike Ratliff

15 Βλέπετε οὖν ἀκριβῶς πῶς περιπατεῖτε μὴ ὡς ἄσοφοι ἀλλʼ ὡς σοφοί, 16 ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρόν, ὅτι αἱ ἡμέραι πονηραί εἰσιν. Ephesians 5:15-16 (NA28)

15 See therefore how carefully you walk not as unwise but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil. (translated from the NA28 Greek text)

There is a great deal going on the visible church, much of it having little to do with genuine Christianity, that most of us can do little about. Yes, we can pray, which is very powerful. We can also obey God and expose the evil to other believers. However, the older I get in the faith the outrage over much of what people like Rob Bell or Rick Warren say or write I no longer allow to consume me. I know what my role is in the Truth War do you what yours is? For most of us it is to obey what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian church in Ephesians 5:1-21. 

Who enters into the Lord’s rest?

by Mike Ratliff

1 Oh come, let us sing for joy to Yahweh,
Let us make a loud shout to the rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving,
Let us make a loud shout to Him with songs of praise.
3 For Yahweh is a great God
And a great King above all gods,
4 In whose hand are the depths of the earth,
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
5 The sea is His, for it was He who made it,
And His hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before Yahweh our Maker.
7 For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 “When your fathers tried Me,
They tested Me, though they had seen My work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation,
And said they are a people who wander in their heart,
And they do not know My ways.
11 Therefore I swore in My anger,
They shall never enter into My rest.” Psalms 95 (LSB) 

Those who insist that we are in a ‘post-evangelical era’ and must, therefore, radically alter not only how we do church in order to reach unbelieving people in our time, also insist that this must be accompanied by a toning down of one’s Christian convictions about the truth. We are told that the culture we are in now will not respond to those who are militant, aggressive, preachy, and extremely sure of their convictions. I ask, since when has pragmatism become how the Gospel works? Did Jesus preach and teach pragmatically or did what He taught cause a huge division between those who believed and those who didn’t? You know the answer to that. He pulled no punches. The reality of His ministry was the epitome of God’s ways not being man’s ways. All we are told to do until our Lord returns is make disciples, teaching them all that He has taught us. In the meantime we are to abide in Christ, love one another, deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus. We are to be the antithesis of world and its ways, not conforming to it in how we minister.

Puritan Quote

“Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts. Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent…If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts. Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time.”
– Edward Hays, A Pilgrim’s Almanac, p. 187

Holiness

by Keith Mathison

In the early centuries of the church’s existence, Christian apologists would sometimes appeal to the distinctively holy lives of Christians as evidence for the truth of Christianity. Would such an appeal be of any use today? According to numerous surveys, the behavior of professing Christians is not discernibly different from the behavior of those who profess other religions or no religion at all. The phrase one often hears on the lips of pagans who observe contemporary Christian behavior is: “The church is full of hypocrites.” This should not be. We worship a holy God who calls His people to be holy and who has provided the means by which they may be holy.

Come to Me and I Will Give You Rest

by Mike Ratliff

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. 1 John 5:3 (LSB) 

Christians should view this life in the temporal as the preparation or training that will develop Christ’s character in them prior to them going home to be with Him forever. However, many false prophets lead their followers into just the opposite. To them, it is all about the here and now. Instead of viewing hardship and sickness as implements or tools in the hands God to shape and form His children, these are seen as things out of His control that we suffer because we don’t have enough faith. Perhaps God is using our sickness or hardship to bring others together in prayer for their spiritual growth. Perhaps He is allowing these things to drive things out of our lives that separate us from Him and keep us from obedience. Our Lord said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15 (LSB)

You will not be able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God

by Mike Ratliff

19 Then Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve Yahweh, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgression or your sins. 20 If you forsake Yahweh and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after He has done good to you.” Joshua 24:19-20 (LSB) 

One of the products of the growing apostasy of the Church in our time that is especially tragic is the loss of the understanding of God’s Holiness. Several years ago I wrote a post about our great need to walk in fear of God. Some of the comments I received on that post were heart breaking. Some insisted that Jesus was their buddy or their homeboy or their ‘bro’ and he loved them so much that it really did not matter how they lived. My brethren God has not changed. He is immutable and perfect. He neither changes nor has any need to do so. 

To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever

C.A. Spurgeon from his Morning by Morning devotional for October 10.

24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, 25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25 (KJV) 

Revolve in your mind that wondrous word, “faultless!” We are far off from it now; but as our Lord never stops short of perfection in his work of love, we shall reach it one day.

The Saviour who will keep his people to the end, will also present them at last to himself, as “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without blemish.” ¹ All the jewels in the Saviour’s crown are of the first water and without a single flaw.

All the maids of honour who attend the Lamb’s wife are pure virgins without spot or stain. But how will Jesus make us faultless? He will wash us from our sins in his own blood until we are white and fair as God’s purest angel; and we shall be clothed in his righteousness, that righteousness which makes the saint who wears it positively faultless; yea, perfect in the sight of God.

We shall be unblameable and unreproveable even in his eyes. His law will not only have no charge against us, but it will be magnified in us. Moreover, the work of the Holy Spirit within us will be altogether complete.

He will make us so perfectly holy, that we shall have no lingering tendency to sin. Judgment, memory, will—every power and passion shall be emancipated from the thraldom of evil. We shall be holy even as God is holy, and in his presence we shall dwell forever.

Saints will not be out of place in heaven, their beauty will be as great as that of the place prepared for them. Oh the rapture of that hour when the everlasting doors shall be lifted up, and we, being made meet for the inheritance, shall dwell with the saints in light.

Sin gone, Satan shut out, temptation past forever, and ourselves “faultless” before God, this will be heaven indeed! Let us be joyful now as we rehearse the song of eternal praise so soon to roll forth in full chorus from all the blood-washed host; let us copy David’s exultings before the ark as a prelude to our ecstasies before the throne.

¹Ephesians 5:27

Judge Not Part 15 – Letting the Word of Christ Dwell in You Richly

by Mike Ratliff

12 So, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; 13 bearing with one another, and graciously forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you, so also should you. 14 Above all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with gratefulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Colossians 3:12-17 (LSB) 

Before I became a Christian, I was a Christian in name only. In other words, I was a religious Christian instead of a genuine Christian. I went to Church. I tried to be good. I was supremely unsuccessful at both being good, and being a good Christian. I thought that someday I would start to like church and get good at it. I simply thought that good Christians tired harder than the rest of us. Then God saved me.