Jeff Smith
Let’s ask God to bless the ministry of His Word.
Our gracious God, we thank you for the privilege of the Lord’s Day Sabbath. We thank you that we can come together and hear Your Word; but Lord, all of the preparation and even the delivery will be nothing, unless You, by Your Holy Spirit, come with Your Word and bring it home in power to all of our hearts, from the youngest to the oldest, whether converted or unconverted. We ask, even now, that You would graciously give Your Holy Spirit to all of us; that we would truly commune with You; that we would benefit from Your Word; that we would be changed by Your grace and power in Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, amen.
Well, the day was April 18th, 1521. Gathered in the large imperial palace in Worms, Germany, were over 200 officials, including the Holy Roman Emperor Charles Ⅴ, dukes, princes, barons, ambassadors, archbishops, and representatives of the pope from Rome. Martin Luther, a preacher of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, was summoned before this council there in Worms, Germany, in order to repudiate his biblical teachings and writings. Luther understood that he would be condemned as a heretic if he did not repudiate his teachings, and that he would probably be burned alive at the stake if he did not recant, recall all of his teachings.
Now, listen to Martin Luther’s clear answer of conviction in that occasion. Because there were many people recording everything that was spoken, we know that this is what Martin Luther spoke, and, of course, Martin Luther himself recalled what he did. So, Luther said on that occasion, “I cannot submit my faith either to the pope, or to councils, because it is clear as day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, I am bound to the Scriptures I quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand. May God help me. Amen.” And God did help Martin Luther.
Now, let’s fast forward a little bit. The day was May 11th, 1685, the place is not Germany, but Scotland; a place called Black Noc, Scotland, on the Irish Sea. It was the time of the Covenanters of Scotland, a time of severe persecution of Christians who insisted that Jesus Christ was the King of His church, and Christ’s Word alone was the rule of the Christian life. Not the king of the political realm, but Jesus Christ was the King of His church. That’s what these Covenanters believed and insisted. Behold with me, on that very day, two Christian women: Margaret McLachlan, who was 63 years old, and Margaret Wilson, who was 18 years old. For their refusal to renounce their biblical convictions, they were tied to wooden stakes that were embedded in the sand of the seashore in a place where they knew when the tide came in they would be overwhelmed with the seawater and drown as they were tied to these wooden stakes.
Margaret McLachlan—the older woman, 63 years of age—was tied to the stake that was farther out in the shore so that 18-year old Margaret Wilson, who was tied in order to see the older woman, (would see her drown). Margaret, the older one, was out further so that the younger woman would see her drown. The persecutors were hoping and expecting that young Margaret of 18 years of age would waver in her biblical convictions, seeing the older woman drown, and would change her way, change her mind, but that did not happen. Young Margaret, having seen the martyrdom of her older sister in Christ and holding her Bible in her hand, read aloud Romans 8, which begins—as you know—with the words, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”
Think, young ladies! You young ladies here, think, all of you think! 18 years old. Just watched her older sister in Christ drown, the tide is coming in, and she begins to read Romans chapter 8. That chapter concludes with these words: “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You see, Margaret McLachlan, the older woman, and Margaret Wilson, the younger woman, they were women of biblical convictions, as was Martin Luther. Young Margaret died as the waters rose, singing Psalm 25: “My sins and faults of youth do thou, O Lord, forget; after thy mercy, think on me, and for thy goodness great.”
Well, my message, I have entitled it “The Desperate for Men and Women and Boys and Girls of Biblical Convictions.” Now, please understand that in this message if I say at times “we need men of biblical convictions” I’m not excluding you women, I’m not excluding young girls, I’m not excluding boys. I use that term in the broadest sense, and what do I mean when I say, “We need, desperately, men of biblical convictions”? A conviction is a firmly held belief. A biblical conviction is biblical truth held firmly in the heart and mind. It is a conviction from Scripture that you not only believe, but you love. And not only love, but you’re willing to speak of it; you’re willing to declare it; you’re willing to defend it; you’re willing to promote it; you’re willing to live and die by your biblical convictions.
What I’m saying to all of you here and I say to myself: we need desperately in America—indeed in the world, amongst Spanish-speaking people, amongst English-speaking people—we need men, women, boys and girls of biblical convictions. We live in a day and age, in a culture which aggressively promotes so called toleration, and, of course, when you examine toleration, you find out that those who promote toleration are actually very intolerant themselves. They’re very intolerant of anyone who proclaims biblical truth, right and wrong, righteousness and sin, truth and error. Political leaders, media pundits, so-called experts, school teachers, psychologists, a host of others, are urging everyone here in America, pressuring everyone, “Don’t be judgemental; be tolerant. You can’t say there’s really right and wrong. Accept people who perform abortions; accept homosexuals; accept lesbians. What does it matter if he’s a pedophile? What does it matter if she wants to go up and shoplift a little bit?”
We need not wishy-washy young men and young women. We need men, young men who have guts, biblical guts to stand for what is right and true according to the Bible. We need young women who are willing to do the same, and we need older folks to do the same. We need men and women, boys and girls of comprehensive, clear, courageous, gracious, holy, biblical convictions. Well, more specifically, what do we need? Brethren, I urge all of you that you need an unwavering, biblical conviction that includes a rejection of all worldliness. I’d like to give you some sober warnings from the Word of God, secondly, some strong exhortations, and thirdly, some compelling examples.
First of all: the sober warnings. Turn in your Bibles to 1 John chapter 2, and I’d like to read verse 15 and 16. These are very familiar verses, or should be to most of you. 1 John 2: 15-16. The Apostle writes, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory or pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” So, sober warnings from the Apostle John. His words really could not be plainer.
He says, first of all, “Do not love the world or the things of the world,” but we should ask the question “what does John mean by this word ‘world’?” The word “world” is used in different ways in the New Testament, and it has a wide range of meanings. The context in other Scripture always enable us to understand the particular meaning of the word “world” in a specific passage. In this passage, John has in view the world of men in rebellion against God. That’s what he means when he says, “Do not love the world.” Do not love this world-system of people, who are in rebellion against God. John is warning professing Christians, and that’s what many of you, probably most of you, are: professing Christians. He’s warning them and instructing them to refuse to love the world, its values, its ethics, its pleasures, its entertainments, its pastimes, its desires. “Do not love the world,” he says.
Then John goes on. He wants us to understand that we are not to try to court, to gain the intimacy and the favor of unchristian people all about us. He is not saying that you should not have friendships in a legitimate, holy way with unconverted people, but he is saying your closest, intimate friend should not be ungodly, worldly people. You should not have a love for them in that way. You should have a love for their never-dying souls, you should want to be liked, and so, you should want to speak gospel truth to them, but you should not say, “Well, let’s go off to the bar together. Let’s go off to happy hour together. Let’s go watch this R-rated movie together. Let’s do this and that.” No, do not court the intimacy and favr of the unchristian world around you. Do not adopt what they regard as great and wonderful as you perspectives as to what’s great and wonderful. Don’t take the world’s customs and make them your guide for living!
Do not be consumed with buying things! Your life does not consist in the clothing you’re wearing; it doesn’t consist in the food you eat; it doesn’t consist in the house you live in. John reminds us through these words, that we are not to be materialists, but that’s what America says you should be! That’s what the TV ads say you should be, that’s what the ads on the Internet say you should be. “Buy, buy, buy, and if you can’t afford it, put it on your credit card. You need things! You need more things! You need bigger cars, newer cars! You need this play toy, you need that gadget!” Brethren, you are not to be just pressed in to the world’s thinking about these things. You’re not to love the world. You are to be, instead, men, women, boys and girls, of biblical convictions, and reject worldliness, reject loving the world from your heart and in your life.
John, the Apostle, goes on here. In 1 John 2, those verses, he says, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” He is telling us that love for the world and love for God the Father are totally incompatible. Have you ever tried to mix vinegar and olive oil? You can shake up that bottle with the vinegar and the olive oil and it kind of mixes together for a while, but you let it sit aside for a few hours and it separates! There are Christians, so called Christians, in America, everywhere. People who say, “I’m a Christian,” and they think that they can be in love with the world and still in love with God the Father. But it’s that world that crucified Jesus Christ on the cross. It’s impossible to both love and serve God, and at the same time love that which God hates: the world in rebellion against God.
Do you profess to love God? Do you profess to be a Christian here, tonight? Then you will validate your profession of love to God by hating what He hates, starting with your own heart sins. You will not coddle and protect your own heart sins. You will not justify and defend your own marriage sins. Instead, you will say, “Lord,” in prayer, “give me a hatred, a holy hatred for what You hate.” You will delight in the Law of God in the inward man. You will long to show you love to Christ by keeping His commandments. You will love His Word the Bible.
You know, I read a quote recently, I’m probably not going to be able to quote it exactly. It was by a Christian man that is a fine Christian man. I’m not going to say who it was, but he said, “One of the uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove on the day of judgement that people did have time for reading their Bibles, but made excuses and didn’t.” In other words, all the time they spend on Twitter, all the time they spend on Facebook, all the time they spend on the Internet, all the time they spend on text-messaging, all the time they spend on email, it will all come and rise up against them when they say, “Well, I didn’t have time to read my Bible.” Nonsense! Am I saying that if you go on to Facebook or use text-messaging or use Twitter you’re sinning? I’m not saying that. I’m simply saying that if you are a Christian you have a love for Christ, a love for His Word, you make time to read His Word, because you want to be a man or woman, boy or girl, of biblical convictions in this needy world, and you do not want to love what God hates. You’re not going to waste your time with nonsense, but you’re going to give your heart to studying God’s Word and taking delight in God’s Word. That’s what Christians do!
You will love the preaching of the Word of God. You will love the church! You will love the people in the church. It’s easy to be a Christian isolated on an island. You don’t have to rub shoulders with any other Christians who rub you the wrong way, but a genuine Christian loves Christians in the church, with all of their weaknesses, with all of their sins and failures. And that’s what happens! So, if you say you love Christ and love the church, but you don’t want to be a part of the mature, Godly people of the church, then probably something is actually wrong with your heart. John says, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” but then he goes on. He says, a little bit more specifically what the love of the world is.
He says, “The lust of the flesh is a manifestation of worldliness.” To be worldly is to indulge the sins and the lusts of the flesh, and that, certainly, includes fornication, adultery, pornography-viewing on your smartphone, pornography-viewing on the Internet on your computer, your tablet, your laptop. But in John’s writing, the lusts of the flesh has a broader meaning, and would include all ungodly desires. Drunkenness, drug abuse, gluttony, materialism in the heart, the attitudes of selfishness, those are the lusts of the flesh, and if you want to be a man of biblical convictions, you need to be killing those sinful desires for the flesh, every manifestation of it.
John goes on and he says, “The lusts of the eyes.” That is also a manifestation of worldliness. When your eyes desire what others possess and you do not have, that is the lust of the eyes. Someone over there, you find out he’s very wealthy; this person has a good reputation and you don’t; this one has friends that you wish you had. Whatever those lusts of the eyes are, it is covetousness, it is idolatry, it is discontentment with God, it doesn’t make you a man of convictions biblically, but rather, you are indulging that which is worldly. “The pride of life,” John says, is also a manifestation of worldliness. When a man boasts of what he has and what he does, and when he boasts of his accomplishments and he glories in himself; when he’s full of himself; when he’s arrogant and puffed up. You see, John says that is a manifestation of worldliness.
You see, Christians, the root issue in all of these matters is your heart. Instead of loving the world and the things of the world, you need to love God and the will of God instead. Well, how do you do that? How do you, as a Christian, cultivate love for God? How do you know God’s will? Well, you cultivate love for God, first of all, by confessing your sins when you know you have sinned against God. If you sinned against your wife in your marriage with your tongue, or you sinned against your husband by being unsubmissive, or you sinned against your parents by lying to them, whatever the sin may be, if you sinned against another human being, you need to confess that not only to God, but to those individuals. Then you are dealing with your heart, and then you are, indeed, starting to mortify worldliness. Then you are, indeed, endeavoring to love God.
You need to also remember that all that we here is passing away. Now, I’m younger than Pastor Piñero, I think. I guess I’ll find out momentarily. When I was in my twenties and I’d hear what I thought were older people, and they’d be talking about, “Ugh, you know, I’m thinking more about death.” I’m talking about Christians, thinking more about death, thinking more about eternity. “This one of my Christian friends has died, that Christian loved one has died.” I thought to myself when I was in my twenties, “Well, God willing that will happen to me one day, I suppose, but I just can’t imagine ever doing that.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to think about eternity or death or those realities, I just thought, “That’s so far off in the future.” Well, this year, God-willing, in December, I will turn 60. There’s this student at Trinity Christian School who told me this past week, respectfully, he told me he thought I was 74. He said I have a lot of white hair, but it has struck me, indeed, this world is passing away.
It will not be long, it could happen tomorrow, next week, a month from now, it could happen twenty years from now. In the light of eternity, never-ending eternity, a day is coming when my children, if God spares them, as adults, will attend a funeral service for me. When I think of those who have already died in the Lord and those who have already died outside of Christ, and I think of eternity, I remind myself, indeed, this world is passing away. How am I using my time? I love baseball. I love Yankees baseball, if you’re a Mets fan, I’m sorry. I don’t get YES Yankee entertainment station, or whatever it’s called. I don’t get that on my TV, because I don’t have cable TV. But every once in a while, in one of those baseball games during the week, it’s on one of the other channels, the regular channels. I like to watch it, but I have to say I’m finding it harder and harder, not because the Yankees aren’t doing well, they’re not, but, what does this really matter? What does this really matter? You’ve got adult men running around a baseball field being paid millions of dollars. What does this really matter in the light of eternity?
I say to you, young men—and I’m looking at some out here—young men here, I say to you: don’t push off what I’m saying to you. We need young men who have biblical convictions, who are willing to speak those convictions, who are not interested in wasting their time frittering away all of their valuable time on all sorts of worldly nonsense that’s all passing away. Worldliness, you see, according to the Apostle John, is not an innocent matter. It is not morally neutral to be worldly. It is sinful to be worldly. It should not be a matter of indifference to anyone in here.
So, you see, this is a sober warning from the Apostle John: “Do not love the world, neither the things in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the lust at the pride of life, those are all manifestations of worldliness. Dear brethren, kill them, by the Spirit of God, with the world of God. Kill them in your heart and life, in private, in public, in every area of your life, daily; and love God and His Word, His Son, His people, daily.
Now turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy 4:9-10. We’re still looking at sober warning here. Paul writing to Timothy, “Give diligence to come shortly unto me; for Demas forsook me, having loved this present world, and went to Thessalonica.” What was the problem with Demas? Paul tells us right here: he loved this present world. He loved the world that’s in rebellion against God. He loved the things of the world, it would seem. He forsook all of his previous biblical convictions. He forsook biblical truth, biblical holiness, he forsook Paul the Apostle, and he forsook Christ Himself, and where is Demas right now? Where is he? Was he annihilated when he died and gone into nonexistence? No! He had a never-dying soul, and he is presently suffering righteous, eternal punishment, because of his love of the world!
When you go to the Bible, you see he was not the only one who fell in love with the world and apostatized to one degree of another. Lot’s wife; Achan; Gehazi; Ahab and Jezebel I would never call part of the people of God, but they surely were covetous, worldly individuals part of the community of Israel; Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament; and Judas Iscariot. None of them had biblical convictions that they grasped, loved, held to. All of them forsook God, His Word, righteousness, truth, because they were in love with the world.
Sober warnings, but now turn to Romans chapter 12. I now turn to some strong exhortations. Romans 12, beginning with verse 1. We’ve looked at the sober warnings, now strong exhortations. Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. And do not be fashioned according to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” You see, as Paul wrote these words and as I just read them to you I would say to all of you—I’m not the Apostle Paul, far from it of course—but I would say to all of you, “Dear brethren, in the name of Christ, I beseech you, present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. And do not be squeezed into this world’s system. Do not be molded and shaped according to the world’s lifestyles and thinking, but transform yourselves, starting with your mind.”
That’s what Paul says here, “Be transformed in your mind,” and how are you to do that? You are to do that by studying the Word of God; by coming here faithfully Sunday by Sunday, morning and evening, to hear the Word of God; by interacting with other Godly Christians and exhorting one another with the Word of God. And through the Word of God, by the Spirit of God, your mind will be transformed, your life will be transformed as a result. My strong exhortation is to you this: do not permit the world around you to squeeze you into its mold, but be transformed by the Word of God.
Turn to 1 Corinthians 16 now. Another strong exhortation. 1 Corinthians 16:13. The Apostle Paul, in chapter 16, is concluding his letter—his first letter, for what we call 1 Corinthians—to the church of Christians at Corinth, Greece, and so these are concluding words, concluding exhortations. In verse 13 Paul wrote these words, “Watch, stand fast in the faith, act like men, be strong,” and then in verse 14, “Let all that you do be done in love.” Here are five commands from God through the Apostle Paul to all of us. Five commands which every Christian must fulfill if you would be a man of unwavering biblical convictions.
The first is: do not be oblivious to the temptations and dangers which surround you right here in New Jersey! The dangers and temptations that surround you family, the church, and the world today. Don’t be oblivious! Fathers, husbands, if your teenage son is spending a lot of time in his bedroom, and the door is shut, and you go and knock on the door, and he says, “Yeah, what is it?” Or however you say that in Spanish. You say something, and then you try the doorknob and the door is locked! Why? Why? You have a teenage son in his bedroom, and the door is shut and the door is locked. Why? What’s he hiding? What’s he doing? “Oh he has his laptop in there.” Do you have a filtering software on his laptop? Or are you so naive that you think he won’t be tempted to go online and look at pornography? Don’t be naive. Don’t be oblivious. Watch!
If your son says, “Dad, don’t you trust me?” Say, “Yeah, you’re right, I don’t trust you. I love you. I don’t trust you. I trust you in some ways, yes, but I’m a man. I’m your father, you’re a teenage guy. I understand these things in ways you don’t. Don’t give me this, ‘So don’t you trust me?’” That’s a sinful attitude, that’s a worldly attitude! You need to correct that. Graciously, lovingly, say, “Look, that’s not the way you should be responding to me, as your father. That is worldly!” Your son will not become a man of biblical convictions if you just let him do whatever he wants. At the end of the day only God can make your son a man of biblical conviction, but God uses means called fathers and mothers.
The same with your daughters. Fathers, do you look at what your daughter is wearing when she goes off to school or off to work and she’s still living in your home? Do you? You need to instruct you daughter as to what is modesty. Your wife should do the same, because otherwise they are going to be just like the world. “Who cares that the latest, greatest color for women’s dresses is this putrid chartreuse green?” I don’t know if that is the color right now but I’ve seen it worn. It’s what I call chartreuse green. It’s an ugly color! Like, why would you buy—well, because everybody else is buying it. That’s just following the world! You say, “Well, I’m concerned with the heart.” Well, I’m concerned with the heart also! Why does somebody want to do that? Why does somebody want to dye their hair purple? That external reality is showing what’s in the heart. You deal with the heart, yes, but you deal with the outward behavior, as well.
So, don’t be oblivious, be watchful! Entertainment is not morally neutral. How any thinking Christian, whether young or old, can watch what’s typically on television nowadays I have no idea. It’s not just what you see, it’s also what you hear. The same with movies out in the theater. God hates violence, and yet, a lot of these computer games, that’s all they are, they’re violent! Well-animated army soldiers going out and killing all sorts of other people. I was in the army. I’m thankful I was not in a war. My father was in a war, World War Ⅱ, we shouldn’t be making light of these games, of these murderous games. That’s what they are. It’s worldly!
“Well, if I do that I’ll drive my son and my daughter out of the house.” I have an unconverted son named Nathaniel, he’s 26. I love him dearly. He has recently told some people that though he didn’t always like what his dad would do or say, he now looks back and he thanks God—it’s what he actually says—he thanks God that his father stood firm, that he has no doubt what his dad believes; his father is consistent. Now, that’s by the grace of God alone in my heart and life. My point is not to put me on a pedestal. My point is: you don’t give in to the pressures of your unconverted children. You do what God tells you to do in His Word. You love your children. My son knows I love him, he’s told people that! He’s told Christians at Trinity Baptist Church that. He said, “I know my dad loves me, and I love my dad. You don’t give in to them. You should be concerned to do what God in His Word tells you to do as a father, a mother, as a church member.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 16:13 also goes on his second command here. First one was “Don’t be oblivious. Be Watchful.” The second one is: don’t be compromising, but stand firm in the faith. One of the things that I found difficult now that I’m almost 60, is I have seen professing Christians apostatize, and some of them professed to be Christians for 25-30 years. “He who thinks he stands, let him take heed, lest he fall.” That’s what I say to myself. My God is able to hold me firmly in His hand, but the fact is without His grace we would all be compromisers. Paul is exhorting all of you here. Don’t be compromising the Word of God. Don’t be fickle. Don’t be conformed to this world and what it thinks, but stand firm in biblical truth!
You know, you may not have people filling the empty spots in the pews.We’ve got a lot of empty spots in pews at Trinity Baptist Church. So what should we do? Bring in a rock band? Absolutely not! Change the message to attract more young people? No! When God the Holy Spirit works with His infallible Word, when God sovereignly chooses to bring revival, if that happens in my day I will be greatly rejoicing. I’m praying for that, but my duty and your duty is clear from the Bible: you do not have the right to change God’s Word, to be conformed to what the world and America wants. Who cares what America thinks and wants? What matters is what God thinks and what God says and what God wants! He requires you, dear brethren, to be faithful to Him, faithful to His Word, not compromising!
Should you be harsh? No, that’s why I read verse 14, “Let all that you do be done in love.” You show by your heart, by your words, by all that you are, that you have a sincere, a real love for lost sinners. Again, I’m not patting myself on the back, but I’m just saying God has done that in me, and He will do that in you. He has done that, no doubt, in you. He does that in His people when they’re in His Word! They’re not harsh, you’re not to be harsh. You’re to be loving, but you’re not to be compromising God’s truth.
Then Paul goes on. He says in verse 13 of 1 Corinthians 16, don’t be immature and childish. Don’t be a little pouting child, as a Christian, but act like a man. Live a godly, mature, stable life of consistent, biblical convictions. Be biblically predictable. What’s the characteristic of children? They’re unpredictable. One day they want to play with this set of toys, actually, maybe ten minutes later, they don’t want to play with those toys, they want to play with these toys. Ten minutes later, “Oh, forget those toys, let’s get this toy.” The next day they’re not even thinking about any of those toys, they want books, and that changes. One day they want this food, the next day they don’t want that food. That’s children! Paul is saying don’t be like children, and young men, don’t be like children. Be young men. Be stable in your life.
Then he goes on and he says, don’t be weak and faint. Be strong, Christians, spiritually and practically. Be strong! Strength does not come from within. He’s not talking about going out to the weight set and pumping iron. He’s talking about inward strength, and by nature I actually am very much one who does not like to confront somebody about sin in their heart and life. As a pastor, I don’t’ enjoy it, I don’t like it. I’m often fearful. I get very anxious. I then have to pray, “Lord, you have commanded me in your Word ‘be anxious for nothing.’ Help me to not be anxious.” But then I go back to the reality that, “No, God has made me a pastor; God has given me His Word. I must be faithful to Him. I must be faithful to this soul. I must be strong. Lord, give me the strength.”
That’s, dear brethren, what you have to do whether you’re young or old; whether you’re married or single; whether you’re male or female. As a Christian you need to say, “Lord, I am weak, but I ask You to please give me the strength to be a man/a woman/a boy/a girl of true biblical convictions.” Persecution in America is increasing. It’s still relatively mild. Many of you know I go to Pakistan. We have a missionary there in Pakistan, and I always come back convicted of how grace they are. I also say to myself and I pray, “Lord, help me. Help us at Trinity Baptist Church, the Christians here in America to be men and women who are strong spiritually. Not weak, because persecution very well may increase here, and if it does, will we pass the test?”
So, brethren, those are strong exhortations for you from 1 Corinthians 16:13 and Romans 12:1-2. I’m just going to name the compelling examples and then close with one final example.
Joseph, in the Old Testament in Genesis, is an outstanding example especially for young men, but really for all of us, as to what it is to be a man of biblical convictions. Egyptian culture did not squeeze Joseph into its mold. Social pressures did not cause Joseph to relinquish the Law of God and just give in to sexual desires. Joseph had a love for God his Savior. He was a man that was full of heart, full of conviction, and God used him in a mighty way for the redemption of Israel. There could be Josephs sitting right here. I don’t mean in some biblical way, like Joseph in Genesis was, but there could be young men who, by the grace of God, can be Josephs for this very generation in America. That’s what we need!
Daniel. Daniel was a man of biblical convictions, and, interestingly, he chose his friends wisely. This morning at Trinity, when I preached there, I had to touch on Amnon and Tamar in 2 Samuel chapter 13, and if you know that story you know that Amnon basically raped Tamar. “Amnon had a friend,” the text says, “Jonadab.” His cousin. When you read the text carefully you realize Jonadab, his friend, was his cousin. That’s what it says! It says he was the son of David’s brother Shimeah. He was his cousin! He was an evil influence upon Amnon. Now, Amnon was already wicked in his own heart, in his own life, but he wasn’t a man of any conviction and Jonadab was able to manipulate him. You young men, you young ladies, you don’t need friends like Jonadab. You need friends like Daniel.
What Daniel ate and drank, his prayer life, to whom he prayed, when he prayed, how he prayed, was all determined by his emotions! No! The way Daniel prayed, what he prayed, to whom he prayed, when he prayed, all that was determined by his emotions? No! Not his feelings, not his emotions, not his circumstances, not the world about him, not the pressure of the world, not the pagan society about him. What he did with regards to what he ate, what he drank, how he lived, how he prayed, to whom he prayed, when he prayed, it was all determined by the Word of God! That’s what we all need to be doing. We need to be following Daniel’s example like that.
Steven. In the New Testament in Acts chapter 7, he proclaimed and lived by his biblical convictions, and as a result of that he was falsely accused, he was seized, he was arraigned before the Sanhedrin court. What did he do? “Well, you didn’t really understand me, let me restate what I said. I didn’t mean that.” No, it’s not what Steven did. He had courage. He had guts. Christian, biblical, sanctified guts. He stood firmly rooted in his biblical convictions. He feared God not men. He faithfully proclaimed God’s truth, and he was murdered.
The last example is the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes we think wrongly. “Well, Jesus Christ, when He lived on earth, had it easy, because He was truly God.” He was truly God. He was the God-man: truly God, as though He were not man; truly man as though He were not God. But we should not think that He didn’t feel the pressures of the world around Him. He did! He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. He is our supreme example of true manliness. Not baseball stars at Yankee Stadium; not basketball stars in the NBA; not football players in the NFL; not corporate CEOs; not Wall Street billionaires. The perfect example for all of us to look to and emulate is the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know what it’s like. You’ve had good personal devotions, you get up from your devotional time, reading the Bible, praying. You go into the kitchen, whether you’re the wife or the husband. You interact, and all of a sudden there’s this spark of sin between husband and wife. Your wife said something that you got defensive and responded with shortness, sinfully. Sinful in the heart, sinful with your words. Or she responded sinfully. You say, “Lord, how is this? I had true communion with You in reading my Bible. I sought You in prayer. You fed my soul. Heaven came down near to my heart, and then I walked into the kitchen and I sinned.” That’s why you need a Savior. That’s why I need a Savior. The blood of Jesus Christ continually cleanses from all sin.
You see, Jesus never, never, never sinned in His heart, in His thoughts, in His emotions, in His words, in His deeds, in His life. Never. He is the best example of a man of true biblical convictions and Godliness. We need to be praying, “Lord Jesus, that’s what North Bergen needs. That’s what the Spanish-speaking community here in New York City, in New Jersey needs. This is what America needs. We need—all of us, whether young or old, whether married or single, male or female—we need to be like Jesus Christ, the God-man. We need to follow Him; we need to obey Him; we need to be like Him; we need to ask Him to change us from the inside out. That’s what the gospel does. it is good news for every sinner: that Jesus Christ is able and willing to forgive, to cleanse, and then change you and make you like Himself. But you must, I must repent daily, forsake our sins daily, and trust in Him wholeheartedly everyday. That’s not being a fool, that’s being wise. May God help us to be such men and women, boys and girls, in our day. Let’s close in prayer.
Lord, our God, we pray that indeed You would do what we desire: save those here who are lost, have mercy upon them, deliver them from their enslavement to sin and lust and Satan. And Lord, for all who are Christians, transform them more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ, inwardly and outwardly. Make us all, Lord, men and women, boys and girls, of biblical conviction, rejecting all worldliness and thus being bright lights in this very dark, needy nation of America. We ask that You would answer our prayers abundantly. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
