Psalm 51 and Hosea 14

HOW TO REPENT .

In my pastoral work, a number of times I have been called upon to help a flock that has strayed in to sin. A few have stayed on in their sin and had to be removed from church membership, while the majority have repented of their sin and were forgiven by the church and restored. However in both cases, it was clear to me that the understanding of sin and repentance is not as easy as many would think. There are a number of issues that lead to biblical repentance of which I want to bring to the attention of not only errant church members but also the pastors. Psalm 51 and Hosea 14 will be my reference passages.

The understanding of sin.

Many terms have been used in describing what sin is: Missing the mark, falling short of God’s standard etc. Whatever term is used, sin is an affront against God. ALL sins committed are done against God. After prophet Nathan confronted David with his many sins that he committed against Uriah’s house, David responded not by apologizing to the remaining relatives of Uriah (which is not bad) but in Ps 51:4 he sees clearly that what he did was an affront against God and confesses thus: ‘Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.’ Any crime done against God is crime against humanity. When we are right with God we will be right with man. The point here is that David understood that his sins, like all the sins that man commits, were committed against God first. In Hosea 14:1 the same is seen, the call is to return to the one that has been offended-God.

On the other hand we need to understand that everyone is born a sinner and we do not acquire sin as we grow up in life. Sin is ingrained, we are born sinners and we only need a temptation to trigger the act. We carry sin with us. Man is like a gun with deadly bullets in it and only need an index finger to pull the trigger. When David repents he does not say ‘Aah God you know this sin just came in to my mind when I saw her at the open Bath room.’ Instead he says ‘in sin did my mother conceive me.’

Need to call sin, sin.

The greatest vice in my country that the government is ‘fighting’ is the issue of corruption. Somebody was bold enough one day to declare that corruption is a human right in this land. As far as I know, the Bible calls this sin and sin can’t be human right. Human beings do not have a right to sin. Anyway, Christians are equally overwhelmed with this vice and many times they have fallen but when confronted, they baptize it with terms like ‘I just gave a token of appreciation.’ Or ‘I just ministered to a need that I saw.’ The problem here is that some of these tokens of appreciations and needs are given to very rich people in the land. In short, sin is not seen as sin but given some nice name. King David did not turn around and say ‘you know Mr. Nathan; I was just admiring the beauty of God’s creation in Bathsheba.’ In V3 he says: ‘For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.’ Hosea in the same vein encourages Israel to take words with them before the Lord v2, words that say we are idolatrous and have forsaken you God.

Need to take responsibility.

This is the challenging part to repentance. It is humiliating and humbling hence we want to pass the blame. Excuses like ‘Ooh it is because the pastor has not visited me for the last one month.’ ‘Oh it is my boss who is so inconsiderate.’ So long as there is a straw of excuse for a sinner to hang, he will not see the seriousness of his sin and offer acceptable repentance. David might as well have blamed Bathsheba for making her bath room directly opposite to the King’s palace and said for that matter she deserved it.

While still on this, let me address an issue that is commonly happening in many churches today in Africa. A person will come forth confessing sins of adultery or whatever his besetting sin is. Instead of being asked to call it sin and take responsibility of his/her sins, the pastor will direct him to some imagined ancestral curses. The battle is then directed to the ‘ancestors’ while meanwhile the fellow continues in his sin. When you sin, you are the sinner, not the ancestors. In Hosea and other Prophets, when Israel sinned, God dealt with Israel as a nation as the sinner without passing the blame. But in his sovereignty over the nations on earth he also descended on Babylon, Egypt and Assyria. This did not mean that he exonerated Israel of her own sins because of the nations that tempted her. There is a need to say: ‘God I am responsible for this sin’ without passing the back or enjoining someone in your mistakes. Taking responsibility of your sin is an integral part to biblical repentance. Here again, Hosea exhorts ‘take with you words.’

Genuine repentance.

In a case of church discipline, I once confronted a man who had fallen in to adultery and taken the lady as a second wife. In the process, he was very remorseful and ‘repented’. But when I asked him what he will do with his second wife (two months in to marriage) he said he will keep her and somehow God will understand. I asked him: ‘In the event that I stole 10,000 Shillings from you and got convicted that I have done wrong and came back to you and said, you Know George(not his name), I am the one who stole the 10,000, and in fact, it is still intact in my pocket, I have not used it, but I am very sorry forgive me for stealing your money, but anyway, since I am in need of money badly, I will not return it to you.’  

Now the point is, genuine repentance requires forsaking the sin and doing what is right. If you have the money in your pocket return it, Luke 19:8-10.

Ordinarily, man would not like to ‘return’ the money yet wants everyone plus God to believe that he has genuinely repented. If this happens, it is clear that the sinner has not appreciated all the above points that I have put up in as far sin and repentance is concerned: He does not understand what sin is, he has not called it sin and neither has he clearly chosen to take responsibility of his sin. Like in the case above, the fellow was quick to blame his first wife. One may want to challenge this view by asking why King David did not ask Bathsheba to go back to Uriah’s family to show genuine repentance. God willing, we will meet one day and discuss that. But for now may I draw your attention to some fellows in Rome who were telling Apostle Paul that it is good to keep on sinning for grace to abound more because sin provides a fertile ground for grace to flourish. Apostle’s reply to them was ‘not at all.’ (Rom 6: ff). In fact if you continue in your sins, it proves that you haven’t experienced that grace at all. You are still a slave to sin. Any sin un-repented and not forsaken will invite his uncles and cousins to come and pitch their tents in you.

God’s grace in forgiving sinners. Hosea 14.

That popular verse in 1John 1:9 is heartwarming to fallible sinners like us: ‘If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ Surely His grace forgives all kinds of sin. This has been the nature of God since OT.

In Hosea 14, the prophet speaks God’s words to Israel by saying ‘return’ (repent) to the Lord your God.’ In a manner of speaking he encourages them thus: ‘Take your words, and go to God, tell him that you have messed yourself in sin as a nation and that running for help from other nations will not help the situation until we come back to you our God in repentance of our sins.’ In the spirit of John above God responds: If they will realize their sins, acknowledge it and take responsibility then God says in Hosea 14: 4, ‘I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.’ Yes, sinners who repent Jesus will receive freely. We must never fear repenting of our sins and forsaking them whatever they may be and as the Father forgives freely, so freely we must forgive repentant sinners.

Written by Pastor Sam Oluoch

Bible reference ESV.

Cessation of Gifts.

During my time in high school, there was a book we used in our CRE (Christian Religious Education) lessons; the title was ‘God speaks to men.’ Looked at in different angles, the title of the book can mean many things:

1.      That God does not speak to rocks but to mankind.

2.      That God spoke sometime ago to mankind and he no longer speaks in the same way he did.

3.      That God, going by the tense of the title of the book, still speaks to men today.

It is the third view that I want to expound on in form of asking and answering two questions:

1.      Did God speak in history past? Does He speak today?

Did God speak in the past?

There is no doubt that Almighty God spoke in times past. Several Scriptures testify to this and here I list a few:

 Numbers 12: 6. And he said “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream.”

 This together with passages like Joel 2:28 clearly show that God chose various ways in the past to speak to men (Heb 1:1-3). Moses would meet God in the mountain and speak to Him as a man speaks to his friend. Moses was a prophet of God just like Isaiah and Jeremiah amongst others. Surely, God spoke to men in the Old Testament.

When we come to the New Testament, we see that God reached out to men through visions and dreams as well. Joel 2:28, and in Corinth we see even gifts of speaking in tongues in place.

However, though such gifts through which God spoke to His people existed even after ascension of Christ, it appears that their use was clearly coming to an end in the ministry of the apostles. And Hebrews 1: 1-3 hints to this fact. All that God had endeavored to say in the Old Testament culminated in the coming of the Son. The Son was the object of the prophetic words. The Old Testament prophets therefore ministered to people about the Son to come and the Apostle later ministered concerning the Son who has come, whom they have seen in His human form and heard speak to them in person (1John 1:1-4, 2Peter1:16-19).  One can therefore say that the Son is the culmination of the prophetic message. What this means is that it is the twelve Apostles that received the full message of Christ without any addition or taking away. What they heard and received is now deposited in the Holy Book of the Bible which I can argue here that it is the final revelation of the will of God to the Apostles, now deposited to us in print form. It is safe for any Christian to stick to the Apostolic message in this holy Book.

This brings us to a short overview of what Christians believe about the Bible:

1.      The Bible is an inspired Book of God. God is the one who gave out the words to the Apostles to write down for our instruction.2 Tim 3:16, 2Pet 1:20.Every part of the Bible is God given including the words there in.

2.      The Bible being the word of a perfect God, there can be no error in it.

3.      The Bible being the word of the Almighty powerful God, it has authority in it.

4.      The Bible being the word of inerrant God is therefore accurate.

5.      The Bible being the book of God is sufficient and final and therefore should not be added to or any word removed from. This warning is sounded out three times in the Bible, at the beginning, in the middle and as it closes lest man forget (Deut 4:2, 12:32. Proverbs 30:6. Rev 22:18).

All the above five beliefs that Christians hold concerning the Bible can be proved but that is beyond the scope of this work. For now I want to pull out point number five above to argue for the sufficiency and finality of God’s speech to man with regard to the cessation debate that has been going on amongst Christians today. The question this debate seeks to ask and answer is whether some gifts like prophecy and tongues still exist as means through which God gives instruction to His people today.

The question begs: If the Scripture as it is in the Sixty Six books of the Bible is final and sufficient, what is the need for further talks of ‘the Lord told me?’ Assuming that the Lord is still telling people some things then it follows that the Bible as it is, is not sufficient and final hence we have further room for the Lord to keep on telling us more things. 

If this be the case, passages cited above on point five are rendered meaningless and presents our God as very confused. At one point He says that His words are final and sealed and on the other hand He still chooses to reveal further stories to men. Either we take it that God is lying to us or those who purport that God is speaking to them are the liars. And it cannot be our Holy God telling lies here. Far be it. Further to this, we believe that the Bible has authority and is the rule of faith in all the congregations of God. These congregations are suppose to be under the rule of one voice, that of God. What we see today are competing voices, sometimes contradicting one another and we are expected to believe that God is speaking contradictorily. Surely, these men must be speaking to themselves and assuming that God is. 

I have already mentioned that passages like Hebrews 1:1-3, 1John 1:1-4, 2 Peter1:16-19 all point at the finality of revelation in Christ the Man. That is why Peter can afford to say that ‘and we have the word of prophecy made more certain (in Christ) and you will do well to pay attention to it.’ Vs19. Mark this: You will do well to pay attention to Christ and teachings of Christ other than adding other strange visions to words of prophecy already existing in the Bible.

It is interesting that even in the Apostolic churches that existed as Paul said that ‘Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues’ (1Cor.14:39), this is said in the background of some chaos that did not pass God’s message to the congregation. Prophecy (forth telling) pointed to Christ’s messages to the church in a much orderly way than un-interpreted gibberish gimmicks of tongues. It is also noteworthy that when Paul gives to Timothy (a pastor in Ephesus) the church liturgy in 1Tim. 3:14, we never hear him say things like ‘after hysterical worship Timothy, allow time for tongues and prophesies.’ He clearly says that: ‘Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s house hold…’ The whole of first letter to Timothy therefore is how people ought to behave in the church. In 1Tim 4:13 we have a glimpse of what must be done in a church service. Prophecy and tongues are nowhere.

But one may ask: Was there times in the New Testament when God spoke to people either by word of prophecy or tongues? My answer is straight yes. I have already alluded to this when Paul does not condemn speaking in tongues and prophecy in Corinth but wanted order so that they are instructive. However, we must appreciate that during the time of the early church, the Apostolic church, the privilege of having the full Bible (New Testament) was not theirs, yet an instruction on NT was necessary for the existing churches before its compilation. The contents of this missing link of the Bible (New Testament) were being revealed to the Apostolic churches in prophetic way and tongue speaking-including declaring the Gospel in strange tongues to strange people who are not Jews. Now that we have the entire Bible (NT and OT compiled) , as per the revelations in Apostolic times, anything more is time barred and is tantamount to additions and taking away from God’s word and is the Devil’s trick to divert attention of the people of God from His revealed will.

Lastly.  All gifts are given to the church for the edification of Christians and not to scare them and add mystery to their lives (1Cor 14:5, 17). The word ‘edification’ in Latin means ‘build’. So we are talking of gifts as means of building saints in their faith. Aah! I have heard several strange prophecies including ‘God spoke to me commanding the church to build me a big house and buy me a Range Rover car’ This is not only abusing prophecy, but claiming a gift that is no longer in existence. No wonder people can say anything in the name of prophecy. Some prophecies have come around many times giving scary dates of sad events that never was-nothing to build saints in their faith.

Dear readers, if we truly treasure the Bible as the word of God, let us not add or minus from the Holy Book in anyway. Not only in form of pen and paper but also with our tongues which is small but can set the whole forest on fire and can corrupt a whole person.

I here turn briefly to attend to some passages that proponents of prophecy do run to.

John 14: 26

Many people have argued from Jesus’ words here that after all He was promising that the Holy Spirit will teach us new things. To get the meaning of Jesus’ words here correctly a few questions need to be asked in form of interrogating the passage and letting it speak to us without putting words in its mouth:

Q1. Who was Jesus addressing? All Christians or the apostles? Reading the passage from Chapter 13 will clearly show that Jesus has retreated from the public to have a somber moment with the Apostles. This is a very sad time for Jesus and the twelve and he needed to encourage them pending his departure from the world. In the last part of the verse Jesus clearly says: ‘remind you of everything I have said to you.’ The you here are those that have been in Christ’s school for now three years since he called them to be His Apostles. So the promise here of the Holy Spirit (in the context of John 13-14) as a teacher and a reminder is to the Apostles, not every Christian.

Q2. What are the ‘all truths’ mentioned here? I see this as the Scriptures which the Apostles left for us. Some of the things we have in the Bible were revealed to the Apostles after Christ’s ascension but without contradicting His teachings. The active time Christ spent with His Apostles was only three years. This may have not been enough to teach ALL things.

I conclude that John 14: 26 promises no further revelation to Christians in all ages but to the twelve Apostles ONLY and their words are left for us in the Bible today.

 Joel 2: 28-32.

I submit that the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled during the Apostolic ministry and before the Bible was compiled for us. For those who want to claim that this passage support continuity of prophetic gifts and dreams and visions, you still have to tell us what you mean by sufficiency and finality of the Scriptures. Peter read Joel with this in mind, that the promises of Joel was fulfilled during their time (Acts 2:16-22).

Ephesians 4:11-13.

This passage has nothing to say concerning continuity of prophetic gifts and the likes. Instead the Apostle is looking at the church in its full life from Apostolic times to end time and its gifting according to the need throughout history with the twelve Apostles playing the foundational role. As I have already accepted, during the foundational years of the church before the Bible was compiled, there was need for gifts of tongues and prophets to declare the will of God. In our times, the last lap, we now need more of pastors and teacher of the revealed word of God just like during the times of Corinthians they needed interpreters of tongues lest the word of God spoken in tongues hold no meaning. We must seek God in our churches to give us more capable expositors of the word and not prophets and tongue speakers. When Paul is instructing Timothy and Titus  on what to look for in choosing elders, in both cases he instructs them to look for men ‘able to teach’ and not  ‘able to prophesy and speak in tongues’(1 Tim 3:2. Titus1:9). There is a reason for this, the church was clearly heading towards the way of needing more people who are able to expound Apostolic teachings with the imminent departure of the Apostles and the cessation of prophetic and gift tongues.

Reasons why Christians must hold tenaciously to cessation of these gifts.

1.      It makes no sense to hold to the teaching of the Bible being sufficient and final word of God when on the other hand still hold that God is still speaking to some people today.

2.      We get in to deep confusion in verifying the words the ‘super apostles’ purport to have come from God through them. In August 2014, I attended a conference in which there were two ladies of the ‘God speaks to me type.’ Prophetess A later gave us a written prophecy for our reading and prayer. It had some drawings of some pictures expressing unprintable words. Later at night, in their dormitory, my wife reported to me the chaos that ensured when prophetess A met prophetess B with another upcoming prophetess C. Chaos exists where God is not.

3.      Most of the time the ‘message’ of the prophets/prophetesses today is basically ‘repent, repent and repent.’ Is this any different from what the Bible tells sinners to do?

4.      The Bible will cease to be the ONLY rule of faith and of authority since competing rules and authority exist side by side in the name of prophets and ‘tonguers’ and ‘visioners.’

5.      Be careful, where chaos and confusion is the order of the day, the devil will have a field day and it is very clear that already he is having a field day in these churches.

6.      Church History has consistently showed the dangers of accepting any other authority in the church other than the Bible. Why did reformers cry out Soli Deo, Sola Scriptura? This is what saved the church from going to the rule of men without God.

7.      You need a prophet for daily guidance? The Bible can do this, 2 Tim 3:16-17.

8.      In African context, one needs a prophet/prophetess to tell them where his poverty, sickness and misfortunes come from. These prophets have been imported in to churches and given the seat of honour. They are even consulted to say a word of prophecy just like my dad would consult his witch doctor. He took me as a young man to some of his visits and I would have fun seeing my dad sitting there obediently drinking in those lies. Be warned of the wolves in sheep clothing right in church masquerading as prophets. These are the very clouds without rain and shepherds who feed not the flock but themselves Jude 12.

9.      Loud whisper is now in the air that churches that stick to Scriptures alone are narrow minded and end up limiting God to a book. This is the MOST dangerous call. In the entire world, no book has ever been compiled that presents to man the whole will of God to man than the Bible. I think that the proponents of this view are the very agents of the devil. Be warned. 

I conclude that every Christian worth his salt and every minister worth his salt must insist on the cessation of prophetic gifts and tongues and similar gifts that seem to suggest that God is still speaking in this manner. But if anyone wants to insist otherwise, it is better for him to declare openly that he does not believe in the long preserved doctrines of Scripture, and go headlong to listening to all kinds of voices that speak around him.

Does God still speak to men? Yes He does, but ONLY through the Bible. Extra biblical claims are basically not from God but man speaking to men.

By  Sam Oluoch (Grace Baptist Church-Kisumu-Kenya)

What is the Gospel and what is Gospel ministry?

 There are a lot of ‘gospels’ going around. There is the gospel of heaven now – how to get as many physical blessing as possible as quickly as possible. More subtly, there is the gospel of ‘commitment’ – give your life to Jesus, surrender control to him, ‘get born again’, and God will forgive you, transform you, steer you to heaven (and bless you on the way if you walk closely with him). In the gospel of ‘heaven now’, stuff is king. In the gospel of ‘commitment’, decision is king.

The gospel according to the apostle John is quite different. Let’s look at chapter 3 briefly. We all love John 3:16. But first comes the conversation with a religious man about the need to be born again. The order is important: new birth, then belief.  Naturally we all love darkness rather than light (Jn. 3:19). The Light of the World turns up and our natural reaction is to run from the light like bats and owls or to try to snuff it out as our enemy. In our natural state we do not understand what true blessing is. We reject it when it stares us in the face. In our natural state we will never make a ‘decision for Christ’. We must be born again – a radical once-for-all death of our old man and the birth of a new man, no longer from Kisumu or Nyeri but from heaven. This new birth doesn’t come from our decision and will (Jn. 1:22); but from God and his will, as free and unpredictable as the wind (Jn. 3:8).

Once we’re born again now we have eyes to see and ears to hear the gospel. It comes famously in John 3:16 but it’s even clearer a couple of verses earlier: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus is taking us back hundreds of years to the time when the people of God have just been rescued out of Egypt and they’re wandering around in the Sinai desert and grumbling against God – throwing his grace back in his face.  God sends venomous snakes into their camp; they start biting people and people are dropping dead all over the place.  And the people come to Moses and say, "Please pray that God will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prays for the people and something very weird happens – God doesn’t take away the snakes, he said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live."

Now that is a weird story.  But Jesus is saying that is exactly why I’ve come – I’m going to be the snake on a pole who’s going to save you from the plague.  The sinless one will become sin for us so that we can be called righteous (2 Cor. 5:21). He will rescue us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). As he hangs on a tree he will become the problem – become us, sinful flesh, corrupt humanity, evil and curse. The bowl of God’s wrath will be poured out upon that sin and curse and corruption until the bowl is completely finished. And how do we receive that rescue, that salvation? Just as the Israelites in the desert did – simply by looking.

 Believing in the Son means recognizing the obvious fact that I’m cursed, infected, perishing, in a desperate helpless state like the snake-bitten Israelite, and looking at the Son hanging on the Cross, being my sin, being me, perishing instead of me – and as I look I live, now and eternally.

So if that is the gospel, what is gospel ministry? Surely it is simply to lift up Christ crucified so he can be looked upon; to paint word pictures of Christ crucified before people’s eyes so that they can see him and live (Gal. 3:1). John the Baptist is a brilliant model of this. He doesn’t point to himself, he points to the Light (Jn. 1:7-8). He doesn’t try to ‘be Jesus to people’ – again and again he says “I’m not the Christ, I’m not the Lamb of God, I can’t do anything for you, I can only get you wet, go to Jesus over there, he’s the one who will be the sacrifice for your sins.” John is like a new Moses, lifting up Jesus, pointing to him as the one way of escape from the plague.

When John’s disciples notice that Jesus’ ministry is drawing bigger crowds than their man they start getting worried (Jn. 3:26). But John could not be happier. Here is a minister who is glad when attendance at his church falls, overjoyed when people walk out on him... so long as they head off south west to Judea to find Jesus. Because that’s his job – to point people to Jesus (Jn. 1:28). And he absolutely loves it – “The friend of the bridegroom rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:29-30). John’s great privilege and joy is in being the best friend of the heavenly bridegroom. And now he is the MC at the greatest wedding in history and his supreme joy is for the Bridegroom to be front and centre and for John to fade into the background.  John’s joy is ‘complete’, goes off the scale, overflows when Jesus is the centre of attention, when everyone is running to Him, looking at Him, finding their joy and salvation in Him. That’s being a servant of the gospel.

Article by: Andy Harker, servant of the gospel at iServe Africa.