Sermon Text: Galatians 1:6-9
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 27th June 2021
(Sermon starts around 34:35.)
Sermon Text: Galatians 1:6-9
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 27th June 2021
(Sermon starts around 34:35.)
Rev. Ephrem Chiracho (Gethsemane BPC, Ethiopia)
Dear Elder Mah,
Greetings in our Lord’s most blessed name!
We praise the living and true God for granting us such a season of receiving much blessings from His almighty Spirit ministering to us through His infallible and inerrant Word, which was declared to us through His faithful servants.
We were all refreshed in our hearts – the messages revived our commitment to Christ’s cause and rekindled our love for one another. It was a season of mighty spiritual awakening to stand firm in the truth, to persevere in declaring the truth in season and out of season, and to model the life of Christ in our daily walk.
We have decided to preach the series of messages we have received in the conference so that these timely messages will be conveyed to our church members, who could not attend the conference because of the language barrier, as well as other limitations.
The mission reports given by God’s servants around the globe brought much encouragement to our hearts and challenged us to strive for greater work for Christ. We praise God for all the good works that are being done by our missionaries in various nations.
We praise God for moving your hearts to provide for our accommodation in Addis Ababa, so that we can “drink” of the pure milk of the Word and “eat” the meat of God’s truths without any external distraction. We were truly enriched by all that we have heard and seen.
Thank you all for your labour of love in organising and executing very well the 6th Missionary Conference. Please convey our thanks to the leaders of the church, to all committee members, and to all Gethsemaneans.
Rev. Paul Cheng (Bethel BPC, Melbourne)
Once again, thank you, Elder Mah, for the invitation and privilege to share the Word of God. I am truly blessed by all the programmes, the chairing, the messages preached by God’s faithful servants, as well as by the missionaries testifying of God’s goodness. Looking forward to meet you again – whether in Singapore or Melbourne, if the Lord permits. Till we meet again, take care and God bless.
Rev. Reggor Galarpe (Gethsemane, Cebu, the Philippines)
Praise God for the 6th Missionary Conference! It was a joy to see everyone and hear from one another as we labour on in the Lord’s vineyard. Most uplifting of all, is the privilege to hear the faithful preaching of the Word! Philippians 1:3-6.
Preacher Donald dela Cruz (Pangasinan, the Philippines)
Dear Pastor Koshy,
I praise the Lord for enabling Gethsemane B-P Church, Singapore, to hold the 6th Missionary Conference (online) last week. It was a great time of learning God’s Word and, at the same time, refreshing to see God’s work in other mission stations. Praise the Lord for the Lord’s messengers in expounding God’s Word. Praise the Lord for giving wisdom to the brethren who were involved in working behind the scenes. As for us here, praise the Lord for enabling the brethren to gather in our mission station to listen together during the afternoon sessions. More than 30 people joined the meetings.
I praise the Lord for the family of Sis. Marianette, who had stayed in the mission station for two weeks with the intention to join the Missionary Conference. She brought her 3 children with her from Manila. They returned last Sunday after the worship service. They also went together with us, as we ministered God’s Word in Binday, Inlambo and Macayug.
Praise the Lord for enabling us to live-broadcast our Sunday Worship service for three weeks already. Previously, we pre-recorded the messages and uploaded them the next morning. With the live broadcast, we reduce the preparation time and still achieve better results. Thank God that the brethren from far places can worship with us every Sunday.
I praise the Lord for enabling Jesher to finish his kindergarten. He had his final exam last week (on June 10), and their virtual graduation will be this Friday. Praise the Lord for the provision of school fees for his Primary 1. We have enrolled him in a Christian academy near the mission station. The new school year will begin from July 12.
Praise God for keeping and preserving our mission church in the last 7 years. We commemorated our 7th anniversary thanksgiving last week, June 8. Praise the Lord for the support and prayers of the brethren from Singapore. May the Lord keep us all.
Preacher Sujith Samuel (Vizag, India)
Dear Pastor,
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!
I am thankful to the Lord for His special help and blessings upon the 6th Missionary Conference. It is by His providential arrangement that we were able to gather, at least virtually, to study God’s Word and hear reports from mission fields. Thank God for God’s Word preached by various preachers in the conference. I was encouraged particularly by the theme sermons on the topic, “In His Steps”. The evening sermons addressing contemporary issues facing the church, like immorality, false preachers, false doctrines, etc., were also very helpful and much needed. May the Lord help the church to be discerning in these last days. I am also thankful to the Lord for the devotions given by the preachers, as well as for the exhortations from the mission fields.
It was really a great opportunity to know about the works in the mission fields of our church. The Lord has hitherto helped the missionaries to minister to the needs of the people, even in the midst of this great pandemic. It is encouraging to see how the Lord’s work is flourishing even in great difficulties. We will continue to uphold all the missionaries and their ministries in our prayers. We will particularly pray for the urgent requirement of provision of funds for the Cebu Building Fund.
Due to half-day lockdown restrictions and lack of connectivity in the home towns of our GBI students, many here didn’t manage to attend the sessions. But those who attended told me that they were blessed by the messages and had conveyed their gratitude for inviting them to attend the conference.
I like to express my gratitude to you, Eld. Mah, and others who had laboured much for this conference. May Lord bless all who served in different committees of this conference. Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement in the Lord. Please continue to uphold the work here in prayer.
Jessie Ng
Psalm 9:1 – “I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.”
It’s my joy to share the Lord’s wondrous grace and mercy upon me with all the brethren in Gethsemane BP Church. Earlier this year, I started to experience chest pains and weakening of my body. After going through medical tests, it was confirmed by the doctor that I had several heart-artery blockages, and needed bypass surgery.
I was anxious and worried about the thought of going through an open-heart bypass, given my senior age. Thank God for granting me assurance in my heart, to make the bold decision to go for the bypass. As I started to prepare for the surgery day, I was greatly comforted and reminded of Philippians 4:6-7 – “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
On hindsight, I wondered how I could go through such a major operation without a tinge of fear and anxiousness. Truly, I know the Lord’s presence is with me throughout this time. I am grateful to Him for His protection and sustenance of me during the operation. Even now, I give Him all praise and glory for my good recovery, as well as the bearable pain I am going through.
I am also deeply touched by the love and care I received from all the brethren from Gethsemane BP Church. I thank God for Pastor, the elders and brethren who have been caring and praying for me fervently. Truly, as Galatians 6:2 teaches us, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” Thank you all for supporting me in prayer and action, which have helped me so much during this time.
All glory and praise be to our Lord!
Prayers of thanksgiving arose to God when the apostle Paul remembered the church in Philippi and their "fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now" (Phil. 1:5). The apostle could not contain his gratitude to God for the "fellowship" extended to him by the Philippian believers. He wrote, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy” (Phil. 1:3-4).
Paul's memory of the church in Philippi began with his first visit to that city during his second missionary journey. Then the Spirit of God explicitly instructed him to go to Macedonia (the province where Philippi was located) though he was planning to go with Silas to Bithynia (Acts 16:7-10). Upon his arrival in the city, on a Sabbath day, Paul and Silas went to a riverside, where they met a group of women at prayer. One of the women was Lydia, "which worshipped God". In all likelihood, she was a proselyte, a Gentile converted to Judaism. The Lord opened her heart, and she believed the Gospel which she heard from Paul, and was baptized with her household (Acts 16:13-15). Lydia and her household were the first Christian converts in Philippi and in all of Europe, and they exhibited generous hospitality to the apostolic team and greatly supported their evangelistic efforts. Soon, many more believed. When their Gospel ministry delivered a young demon-possessed slave girl (Acts 16:16-18), her masters caused an uproar in the city, resulting in Paul's beating and imprisonment. However, the Lord used that painful experience to convert the jailor and his family (Acts 16:26-34). Before they departed from the city, Paul and Silas went to Lydia's house for the last time and were encouraged by the many believers who came to see them off (Acts 16:40). All these memories and more about the church in Philippi lifted Paul's heart to God with praise and thanks.
The word "fellowship" (koinōnia) indicates sharing something in common. In a larger sense, Paul used the word to show the Philippian believers as partners in propagating the Gospel. The fellowship Paul mentioned comprises their cooperation in his effort to preach the Gospel of salvation to those who have never heard it. Even the prayerful support they extended to Paul during his arrest, imprisonment and afflictions as he attempted to spread the Gospel, was also regarded as the " fellowship in the gospel". He wrote in Phil. 1:7, "… inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace." The Greek word translated as "partakers" is sugkoinōnós, which comes from the same Greek root word for "fellowship".
Additionally, Paul used the word "fellowship" in his epistles to indicate the sharing of possessions or money by the brethren to support the Gospel work and the needy brethren. He was thankful for the participation of the believers through their generous financial support extended to him (Phil. 4:15-16), and to the needy believers in Jerusalem (2 Cor. 8:1-5). This, too, was in Paul's mind when he mentioned the "fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now". Later he wrote in his epistle, "Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity" (Phil. 4:15-16).
When Paul said that the Philippians' fellowship was "from the first day until now", he was commending their promptness and consistency in showing their commitment to the cause of the Gospel work. The perseverance of the brethren in Philippi was outstanding, and worthy of note and thanksgiving. What excellent character is manifested in a congregation that steadfastly persisted in helping the servant of the LORD to fulfil his divine calling concerning the Gospel work.
When we consider our church's just-concluded 6th Missionary Conference (June 7th -11th, 2021), we too find ourselves having much in common (fellowship) with all the sentiments expressed by the apostle Paul. We must continue to strengthen our resolve to establish more and more Gospel mission stations, and to strengthen our existing mission churches. As we pray for more faithful and fervent labourers to be sent, let us also continue to express our love and support for all those who currently serve the Lord in the various mission fields.
We should never be slow nor backward in partaking in the global mission works. Neither should we fall short of our Lord Jesus Christ's Great Commission through fickleness and inconstancy. Let us always be forward in extending our fellowship to everyone who labours faithfully in the Gospel frontiers. May the Lord help us to encourage the hearts of the preachers of the Gospel, that they may rejoice and give thanks to God in the midst of their labour. Let us earnestly and persistently pray for the fruitfulness of the Lord's servants in His vineyard. Let us continue to cheerfully share our material resources to support the works of the Lord increasingly. May Gethsemane tirelessly and selflessly partner God’s servants to establish many more faithful churches that worship the LORD, and preach the Word faithfully in more places – till Jesus returns.
Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19–20
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 6th June 2021
(Sermon starts around 24:27.)
These days, it is common to hear people saying, “Everything happens for a reason.” Not all, however, who make that assertion have in their minds the biblical truth of Romans 8:28 – “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Some express it out of their fatalistic mindset. Fatalism recognises neither God’s sovereign providence nor His overarching plan. Instead, fatalism propounds some blind, arbitrary, aimless impersonal force that controls and determines everything. To its adherents, there is no rhyme or reason to the “fated” outcomes. So, to them, the world is an arena of irrational events and calamities.
However, Scripture teaches (as in Romans 8:28) that it is God who controls and directs all things. God’s providence coordinates all the events of this world, for the good of His people and for His glorious purposes. So, the biblical view, which is contrary to fatalism, states that God “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11b), and that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).
While it is true that everything happens according to God’s providence, it is totally wrong to think that all things will work out for good to those who conduct themselves irresponsibly and without faith in God. It is a vain assumption that all things will work together for good to those who reject the Gospel and defy the LORD. The sad truth is, things do not work out for the good of those who renounce the grace of God and live in their sins without repentance.
God’s providence works everything out for the good of those who love Him, and for His praise. This is a very comforting promise of God in the Scriptures for His people. When we trust and obey God, He guides our every step forward. As the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass” (3.1).
God determines not only the final outcomes of events, but also the means to those ends. For instance, God, who decreed that Joseph would be the second-in-authority in Egypt, next to Pharaoh, for the good of his family, also ordained the successive events that led him to that outcome (Gen 50:20). The cruel actions of his brothers, and even the malice of Potiphar’s seductive wife, which led to his incarceration, were all determined by God’s providence.
It must also be asserted that the biblical teaching about God’s providence in guiding His people to a good end does not eliminate human responsibilities and duties. Fatalism, on the other hand, suggests that no matter what we do, fate will serve us a quite different outcome. So, it implies that our actions are completely futile. Such a notion is totally contrary to the biblical teaching of divine providence in His people’s lives. According to the Scriptural revelations, His providence does not negate our decisions and responsibilities in life. God’s sovereign decrees and outworking include man’s choices and actions. God foreordained our faith and obedience to His truths, expressed in our choices and actions, to accomplish His good purposes. His foreordination also includes the serious repercussions resulting from man’s unbelief and disobedience.
Of course, God’s secret decrees include our every choice and action. There is no need for us to worry about what He has not revealed to us. We also need not be anxious when calamitous situations arise that threaten our plans. Instead, we should rest in His good providence and wait on Him with faith and obedience. He will accomplish all His wonderful plans concerning those who love Him, as well as the great purposes of His kingdom, through His obedient people.
We should never adopt the fatalists’ mentality that our choices and actions are of no importance to God. Regrettably, some people, who embrace the doctrines of God’s sovereign and gracious will, use them illegitimately to justify their laziness and disinterest towards serving His purposes. The Westminster Confession of Faith firmly rejects such an idea. It tells us that God “by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established” (3:1).
God’s foreordination of all things includes us as agents free to act according to our choices. God requires us to choose to serve Him willingly, readily and obediently to bring about His purposes (Mic 6:8). No Christian ought to stand by idly, expecting things to happen on their own. Neither should a Christian cite or be overtaken by fear of possible dangers and calamities (Prov 22:13; 26:13), because God’s purposes are accomplished not without His people’s willingness and obedience. We must always do what is right in His sight, and then wait on His providence to guide us to the ultimate destiny He has planned for us.
Scripture gives us the understanding of God’s sovereign providence for the sake of His glory, and our comfort and strengthening. The biblical knowledge that God governs all things in order to fulfil His perfect plan through us, is most assuring to all His people. There is no greater comfort than remembering and being convinced that God will successfully work out all things for our ultimate good. Even in difficult and uncertain times, we can recite the great and precious promise of Romans 8:28, deriving comfort from it. John Calvin wrote, “Ignorance of providence is the greatest of all miseries, and the knowledge of it the highest happiness” (Institutes, 1.17.11). When our minds acknowledge God’s sovereign providence as always working for us, we will be filled with confidence and enthusiasm to seek and to do His good pleasure.
For more than a year, many globetrotting people have become homebound people. Worse still, all have become homebound, leaving home only for essential matters. That is what the pandemic COVID-19 has done to us all.
Christians have lost their opportunities to worship and serve together. The fellowship gatherings are no more. The recent surge in COVID infections once again stopped us from meeting together for our usual spiritual activities.
However, the enforced restrictions to our social gatherings and travelling, though necessary, should not make us “introverts”. We cannot become negligent of our LORD’s mandate to reach others, with love and compassion, to care for them and spread the Gospel. Even though we have many constraints today in physically meeting with others, especially those who are far away, we must resist the temptation to become introverts.
We must be thankful that by His good providence, we have many ways to reach others these days (e.g. Zoom, Facebook, live streaming, etc.), to encourage them and to spread the Gospel blessings even to people farthest from us. After all, the mandate of our Lord – “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) – challenges us to be always outward-bound for the Gospel’s sake; not even this time of pandemic should negate this mandate. Our methods of reaching people for the Gospel’s sake may change, but we must not waver in our commitment to being outward-bound for the LORD.
Christ’s commission to His apostles gives the Gospel work a global scope. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be offered to the whole world. It is His will concerning us that we make every effort to extend the Gospel beyond all boundaries, divisions and classes. The whole world is to be reached with the Gospel. When it comes to our commitment to spreading the Gospel, it should not be subject to limitations of country, or distinctions of culture, or barriers of ethnicity, or restraints of language. We are commissioned to preach the Gospel to “every creature”. Wherever there is man, Christians should attempt to bring the Gospel. Our Lord has commanded us to expand our vision for the Gospel outreach constantly. It is gross disobedience to limit our attempt to spread the Gospel beyond our region. We must be ever ready to forward the Gospel to new frontiers.
No one who takes the words of the Lord seriously can remain passive about the global advancement of the Gospel. Christians must know that they are commissioned by their Lord and Saviour to be wholly involved in the global movement for the Gospel. They must join forces, as God has enabled them to send forth the Gospel everywhere with the rest of the church. Not every Christian is called to be an evangelist or missionary or preacher. However, every church and every Christian must joyfully yield to advancing the Gospel across the world.
The preaching of the Gospel is the greatest work that Christ has entrusted to Christians. Therefore, all true Christians must enthusiastically give themselves to make Gospel-preaching a worldwide movement. It must be their joy to be part of the Lord’s grand plan for redeeming sinners and gathering them as His saints for the eternal celestial home which He is preparing. The apostle Paul asks us, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:14-15).
Our Lord says to us, “Go”. Will we then answer Him, “No, we will stay back or hold back”? Our Lord’s charge is that we must always be committed to spreading the Gospel. Let us arise then and go to preach the Gospel to the uttermost part of the world. Let us do our part for global evangelism.
The 6th Missionary Conference is organised to strengthen our mission efforts around the world. It provides every Gethsemanean and all our friends an opportunity to joyfully partake in fulfilling our Lord’s mandate concerning global Gospel dissemination. May none of us turn his/her back on this extraordinary occasion to serve our King in His kingdom expansion on earth. Let us participate in the Conference prayerfully and enthusiastically. See you online during the Conference (7-11 June 2021).
(A recent report on the preparations for the upcoming Missionary Conference presented by Elder Mah to the Church Session is reproduced below, with minor editing.)
n just about two weeks, the 6th Missionary Conference will begin on Monday, 7 June 2021. Much has been achieved by all the various teams over the past months, with a few important tasks remaining. Thanking the Lord – for all that He has provided in enabling the progress thus far – is due. Thus, I would, with much joy, share some recent accomplishments, updates and relevant information on behalf of the teams.
From the registrations received thus far, we expect 396 adults and 23 children to participate in the conference. Praise the Lord for this encouraging response. Of course, some members and regular worshippers have not taken time to register (Please don’t delay any further in registering, if you have not yet done so.)
We praise God for providing two brethren from our like-minded churches to teach the children, namely Bro. Kelvin Li (from Berith BP Church) and Sis. Rachel Leong (from Tabernacle BP Church). They will be teaching 7 lessons each, based on the theme, “Life of Jesus Christ”, with the aim that the “children may grow to manifest the traits of Christ-likeness in their lives”. May the Lord be pleased to grant these two brethren, who are recent FEBC graduates, the joy and blessedness of serving Him – that through them, the younger children of our members and friends will be drawn closer to the Lord as they learn more of Him.
We praise the Lord for His enabling grace given to the Music Team in their recording of all 33 hymns needed for Singspiration Time during the conference; they are 100% completed. The audio and video recordings of 4 special items by the Children and Youth Choirs are also almost done – with some editing remaining (which is certainly expected to be completed within this week).
The technical/operational aspects of planning and managing this online Missionary Conference were undeniably a major focus area in recent weeks. The drive to enable a flawless execution and to produce audio/visual content of high quality for brethren over the large expanse stretching from Ethiopia to Australia (across a time-zone difference of 7 hours), amid varying bandwidth qualities, poses significant challenges to the team. A simple indication of the amount of work done just the previous week, may be seen from the 8 trial runs conducted to simulate the challenges and issues that may arise when we have these online/virtual meetings. We praise the Lord for the lessons learned through the 2 local trial runs last Wednesday, as well as the 3 trial runs with our Asian missionaries and with Rev Paul Cheng in the morning, and the 3 trial runs with our Ethiopian missionaries in the afternoon. Another 3 trial runs on the Children’s Programme were also held on Wednesday afternoon. A further internal technical trial run on Wednesday evening was conducted to test the quality of a completely home-based event in Singapore as a contingency plan.
Brethren, pray for the spiritual building up of all participants, our church and our mission endeavours. May the LORD continue to open more doors of Gospel mission through faithful and fervent men whom He will call and send.
Dear Pastor,
…We also thank God for a successful trial session to help us from Ethiopia to participate in the upcoming 6th missionary conference. We praise God for all those who are working hard to make the online conference a success.
We are looking forward to the refreshing, strengthening and enriching time of fellowship with all Gethsemaneans during the conference.
Please convey my regards to your dear family and all the brethren in the church…
Yours in Christ,
Ephrem Chiracho
Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19–20
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 30th May 2021
(Sermon starts around 36:23.)
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 7:18–29
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 23rd May 2021
(Sermon starts around 21:09.)
What is the greatest problem that the church is facing today everywhere? Pandemic? Economic downturn? Persecutions? Though all of these are undoubtedly painful and disconcerting, nothing is as acutely damaging as the opposition posed by the haters of God and of His truths among church members.
How ironic it is that some of the most defiant and dangerous enemies of God are found in the church! They claim to be believers and outwardly express a superficial devotion to Christ. But they speak and live contrary to the truths and counsels of God’s Word. Such people are found even in the leadership of the church. They are apostates who embrace false doctrines, worldliness, materialism, etc. They distort the truths of God, and propound and propagate perverted forms of Christianity.
Just as in the past, such God-haters are found even now. The Bible warns, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1). Apostate Judaism and false Christianity, along with all their teachers and adherents, are deceivers and haters of divine truth and of God.
God had the harshest criticism for such people in ancient Israel. The Bible records in many places God’s strong condemnation of them. Isaiah 1:11-16 is one such severe denunciation – “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil”.
God has no pleasure in worship from those who live in an unbiblical manner. Isaiah 29:13-14 reiterates this matter – “Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men…for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” Through the prophet Amos, God also declared His utter disgust for the haters of His truth who were disguised as genuine worshippers – “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols” (Amos 5:21-23).
Those haters of God’s truth would even “swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness” (Isaiah 48:1). The LORD directed the prophet Jeremiah to deliver a hard-hitting reprimand to the counterfeit religionists of his day – “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these… Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 7:4, 8-11).
During Jesus’ public ministry, He did not spare the Pharisees who rejected His teachings from His unvarnished condemnation. He plainly told them that they were motivated by greed, avarice and covetousness: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:13-15). While the Pharisees were listening to Jesus’ teachings, they were mocking Him. What triggered their hostile reaction and scorn towards Jesus? Their obsession with material gain was the root of their rejection and ridicule of Jesus’ doctrines. Moreover, they were self-justifying. They wanted to avoid being seen by people as mistaken in their thinking, teaching and conduct. To them, accepting Jesus’ teachings would mean that they had to confess they had been foolish in their ways and then repent. But as Jesus noted about them, they would rather “justify [them]selves before men”.
In 2021, what do we see in the church? Increasingly, Christians are denying the plain teachings of the Scriptures, branding them as impractical, inconvenient and unworkable in this post-modern world! Many churchgoers have upheld material success as more important than spiritual excellence. Greater possessions, a glamorous lifestyle, a place among the world’s elite, etc. are more commonly cherished passions of contemporary Christians than a lowly, biblically ordered life. Are we not now living in the perilous times that the Bible warns about in 2 Timothy 4:3–4? “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Let us examine ourselves and see whether we are turning against God and His truths to justify our love for worldly living.
Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 7:1–17
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 16th May 2021
(Sermon starts around 37:37.)