Bible

Human Heart and Unbelief: A Biblical Perspective

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

“Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done. Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the Sanhedrin together, and were saying, ‘What are we doing? For this man is doing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, all will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.’”  (John 11:45–48, LSB)

It is amazing how deep the human capacity is for unbelief and skepticism. In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus tells the parable of the rich man who is cast into hell. The man begs for permission to allow Lazarus to rise from the dead to go and warn his brothers that hell is not only real but that they are heading toward joining him. The rich man believes that if only a dead man will warn them, then their hard hearts will melt and they will believe. In Jesus’ parable, Abraham tells the rich man that these five brothers have the Scriptures and that this testimony from God should be enough. The rich man disagrees. After all, he too had the Scriptures, and he ended up in hell! No, a man raised from the dead was needed. Something so miraculous, so irrefutable that they had to believe and repent. He had one shot at getting through to his brothers, and he knew he needed a BIG sign to get their attention.

After Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead (not the fictional man by the same name), we read in John 11:45-48 the response of those that were eyewitnesses. Many believed in Him, Jesus (v. 45). But notice where the emphasis moves after the mention of those who believed; some went to the unbelieving religious leaders and told them what Jesus had done. Since this group is set apart from those who believed, we shouldn’t be confused about what they were doing. They weren’t reporting the miracle as a good thing, but as a concern.

And the Pharisees, how did they take it? They didn’t deny that Jesus was doing sings that pointed people to God, and that they were irrefutable. They were past the phase where they considered Jesus a huckster and fraud. No, Jesus was demonstrating unmistakable power, most likely from God Himself. His power not only confirmed that He had been sent by God, but it further undergirded His own claim to be God.

This led them to a greater fear than the fear of God. They feared losing their positions of power and prominence. They feared that if word spread, the believers would grow to the point that everyone would believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah. But their fears were unfounded. Everyone wouldn’t believe, and their own resistance in the face of proof was evidence of the stubborn hearts of men. A man had been raised from the dead and it was very clear that Jesus did this by His own power. Yet, those who reported didn’t believe in Him, and neither did the majority of the religious leaders.

There are some people who say they are agnostic in their beliefs, denying God because they think evidence is lacking. But will there ever be enough evidence for these doubters? The proof of God is all around them and even beats within their chests. God sent His Son, and His Son died on the cross as the Savior of the world. “But…I need more proof.” The problem isn’t that proof doesn’t exist. The problem is the human heart, laden with sin, doesn’t want to believe. There is no neutral ground. God has shown Himself in so many ways, but still the human heart wants to suppress that knowledge:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.  (Romans 1:18–21, LSB)

The people that watched Lazarus come out of that tomb believed in God, but they couldn’t believe in Jesus. The Pharisees believed in God, but they rejected Jesus. The agnostic doesn’t deny God exists, he just doesn’t have enough proof to believe. But that’s not an honest assessment, as much as the agnostic wants it to sound humble and honest. The evidence is “clearly seen” and so all people, are without excuse.

What’s the solution? Seek God. Go to Him in humble prayer and ask Him to reveal Himself to you. Pick up a Bible and read it. It is God’s Word to you. Begin in the New Testament, maybe in John, the Gospel I am writing from this morning. Then as you read, let the God who came to save the world speak to you through His Word.  

The Heart of Teaching: Aligning with God’s Truth

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

“Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.” (John 8:43–45, LSB)

In the back-and-forth between Jesus and the religious leaders, Jesus made a telling comment regarding the reason behind their resistance to His teaching. These devout Jewish leaders were not representing or speaking on behalf of God as they purported. They were not God’s men, even though almost anyone within Israel would have believed that they were. They had been well-trained in the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, and they knew the traditions of the rabbis that dated back many years. And yet, Jesus doesn’t align their teaching with God, but rather with Satan.

The root of their teaching wasn’t so much the words they said as the heart from which it emerged. The doctrine they espoused may have found its source in the Old Testament, but it never had penetrated much deeper than their minds. Their hearts were filled with murder and malice. Even though they knew what the Old Testament said and taught, their hearts twisted and ignored God’s teaching so that they were planning murder even in the face of the most unmistakable evidence of Jesus’ divinity.

Just as in the 1st Century, there are a lot of competing ideas about religion. Some incorporate truth with a mixture of folly. Others are more satanic. But even those that are closest to the teaching of Scripture, if not aligned with a changed heart given by the Spirit of God, can lead to cultic, even satanic behavior. In other words, our teaching and doctrine might be orthodox, and yet our hearts might be spewing the infectious poison of hell.

How can we know? Jesus made it clear that knowing the truth is not enough. We must believe the Word of God and not lies. When we read the Scripture and yet our lives demonstrate rebellion against the God of heaven, we ought to pause. “Do I believe, or do I merely say the right things and live in rebellion to the God I say I love?” I can’t answer that question for you, but Jesus’ words are a good reminder for all of us that it is not words versus deeds, but deeds that emerge from beliefs (however imperfect) that give evidence of what is truly in our hearts.

Yesterday was Sunday. Now What?

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

“But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of Yahweh thus you shall say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Regarding the words which you have heard, because your heart was soft and you humbled yourself before Yahweh when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants that they should become an object of horror, and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you,’ declares Yahweh. ‘Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace, so your eyes will not see all the evil which I will bring on this place.’ So they brought back word to the king.”  (2 Kings 22:18–20, LSB)

How will we respond to the Word of God once we know what He has said? Many of us spent a good portion of our Sunday in our local church and we heard the Bible taught to us—possibly multiple times in different ways. In addition we sang biblical words, and prayed Scriptural truths. But, what happens to that truth we heard now that it’s Monday?

Josiah was a king who began his reign at the tender age of 8. His prospects for a long and godly reign didn’t look good. Many kings before him had been assassinated, and most of the kings who ruled David’s former kingdom (now divided in two) ruled in evil ways that looked more like the pagan nations around them. But King Josiah was different. His heart was set to obey the Lord, and the influence of godly priests around him hardened his resolve to follow God and lead his nation with wisdom and godliness.

At 18, Josiah began making some long-overdue changes. The temple had been neglected and he made arrangements for this to be corrected. In the process a copy of the Word of God was discovered and brought to the kings attention. As this mysterious book was read to the young king, he reacted with great emotion. He tore his robe in grief and anguish, and called the priest and his scribe to go and seek the Lord on his behalf.

What had disturbed this young king? The words of the Law of God spoke clearly about how God’s people—Josiah’s people—were to behave. They were to be a holy people, a godly people. They were never to worship any other gods, and they were to follow the Lord’s directions for life. But Josiah knew that it had been a long time since they had done that, and that the nation was guilty of great sin against the Lord God.

Imagine taking on a new job, and you start with anticipation of how well you will perform your duties. You work there for a few years, and you begin to learn that you are in a long line of serious slackers. Not only did they fail to do their jobs, but they stole from the company, sold secrets to the competition, and talked bad about the company owner. Some even called the company by the rival company’s name! Now you have the job, and you are a company man, and you hope to change things, and straighten up things. Then one day you find a book that not only has the company history, showing you the glorious past of your firm, but it also has all of the expectations that you should be meeting. As you read it, you become terrified! “We’re failing every metric in this book! Every worker in this company should be fired, and even sued for the damage they have caused to the owner. His losses are immense!”

This was Josiah’s dawning reality. He sent the priest and scribe to the Owner, the real King of his kingdom, to find out what He really thought about their situation. The word that came back was what Josiah feared—God was furious. Payback was coming, and it would cause the ears of those who heard about it to buzz.

Josiah, this righteous king, was overcome by grief. Yes, he was filled with sorrow for the coming judgment. But even more so, he was crushed by how his people had been toward their God. Josiah wanted to be a good king, obedient to all that the Lord had spoken—but he was in a long line of losers. It was almost payday, and not the good kind.

But God saw Josiah’s heart, and he saw his grief over the situation. The Lord told his ministers to tell the king that the judgment was so great that there was no avoiding it, but that it would be delayed. Josiah would reign, and he would be recorded as a good king. God would wait until after he was gone to bring the promised judgment.

How would you respond? Josiah was surely relieved. But even more, he was determined. He knew the judgment would miss him, but instead of sitting back and enjoying his royal life, he leaped into action. He leaned into the reforms he knew were needed. He tore down the centers for idol worship and reinstated God’s holy standard. He made godliness great again.

Let’s go back to Sunday—yesterday. What did God say to you through His servants? Do you have the zeal of Josiah? Are you looking at this week with anticipation for how you will carry out what God shared with you through His Word yesterday, or are you comfortable sliding back into your life, like the kings that came before Josiah?

Josiah is known to this day as one of the godliest kings of Judah. His reforms didn’t last long because the people quickly slid back into their wretchedness when the kings after him continued the long path toward paganism. But that doesn’t matter. Right is right, and God calls us to obey. What happens after we are gone isn’t our problem. He calls His people to walk with Him, and we need to strive to do so every day of our lives. We can prepare the next generation as best we can, but ultimately, they will need to do it themselves, and will give an account before God, just like we will.

Yesterday was Sunday. Now what?

Grown Ups Eating Theological Baby Food

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

Every two years Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research conduct their “The State of Theology” study to identify what Americans believe about God, the Bible, and doctrines historically accepted by the Christian faith. The findings are often helpful in gaining an understanding of how America thinks about moral and religious issues.

Regarding the question of the belief that the Bible is true, evangelical Christians stated in the 2022 survey:

“A rising disbelief in the Bible’s literal truth may help us understand why American evangelicals also increasingly believe that religious faith is a subjective experience rather than an objective reality.”

STATEMENT NO. 31: Religious belief is a matter of personal opinion; it is not about objective truth.

U.S. Evangelical Finding:

2018: 32% agree
2020: 23% agree
2022: 38% agree

Source: “The State of Theology”1

The idea that belief is personal opinion and not objective truth didn’t come out of nowhere. This idea surrounds us in a cultural milieu where truth is relative, and “my truth” can coexist alongside contradictory truth claims, even within the same person. As if this weren’t serious enough, this foolish abandonment of truth has found a place within the evangelical church.

In addressing the believers in the letter to the Hebrews, the biblical author chastised the church for its own lax views toward a rigorous and thoughtful faith: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.” (Hebrews 5:12, LSB)

We don’t have any indicators about how long these Christians had been believers (“by this time…”), but the author is confident that they are way behind in their ability to pass along the faith to others. Some Christians feel as if they do not need to study the Word, or to do so seriously because they are not “gifted to teach.” But the author of Hebrews doesn’t seem to give this as an option. He doesn’t say, “Now to you who have been called by God to be teachers…” His words of rebuke are aimed at a general audience, strongly implying that all believers ought to be teachers.

Lest anyone think that this is an anomaly, Paul writes these words to the church in Colosse: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with gratefulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16, LSB). Paul commands the church to be, among other things, “teaching and admonishing one another.” We understand that there are those within the church who are called as teachers, but Paul is assuming that there is also an informal type of teaching that is to be practiced by all within the body of Christ–the more mature teaching the less mature.

This idea has deep roots within the Jewish community that was commanded by the Lord to make sure that the children of God’s covenant people were well taught by their parents: “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7, LSB).

In his book, The Disciplines of a Godly Man, R. Kent Hughes recalls an interview with radio talk show host Dennis Prater, who is Jewish. Prager states:

“One thing I noticed about Evangelicals is that they do not read. They do not read the Bible, they do not read the great Christian thinkers, they have never heard of Aquinas. If they’re Presbyterian, they’ve never read the founders of Presbyterianism. I do not understand that. As a Jew, that’s confusing to me. The commandment of study is so deep in Judaism that we immerse ourselves in study. God gave us a brain, aren’t we to use it in His service? When I walk into an Evangelical Christian’s home and see a total of 30 books, most of them best-sellers, I do not understand. I have bookcases of Christian books, and I am a Jew. Why do I have more Christian books than 98 percent of the Christians in America? That is so bizarre to me.”2

More than bizarre, such a statement is to our shame if it is true. And according to The State of Theology study, it is true. So, what can we do about it? Tolle lege! Let us take up and read! Some have a sense of superiority connected to their simple thinking and willful ignorance. May we instead dive deeply into the things of God to grow–not in arrogance and price, but instead into a deeper love and relationship with the God of the Bible.

  1. https://thestateoftheology.com/data-explorer/2022/31?AGE=30&MF=14&REGION=30&DENSITY=62&EDUCATION=62&INCOME=254&MARITAL=126&ETHNICITY=62&RELTRAD=62&EVB=2&ATTENDANCE=254 ↩︎
  2. R. Kent Hughes, The Disciplines of a Godly Man, 97. ↩︎

Plugging Your Ears Doesn’t Do Anything

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

Remembering back to your childhood days, you probably remember a common practice by kids that don’t want to listen to other children–they stick their fingers in their ears, and sometimes shout, “I’m not listening…I’M NOT LISTENING! LA LA LA LA LA.” But here is the thing, the child with his or her fingers in her ear may not be listening, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t being spoken to by someone else. The fingers in the ear trick works for the stubborn child, but it doesn’t negate the message.

The prophet Jeremiah had repeatedly spoken out words of warning and calls for repentance, all of which went unheeded. He had suffered abuse and ridicule, and yet he continued to faithfully declare everything that the Lord God told him, even at great personal cost.

In chapter 36, Jeremiah received words from God that he dictated to his faithful assistant. The words were threatening the wrath of God, and Jeremiah’s hope was that the warning might affect the hearts of the people and that they might turn from their sins and return to the Lord in humble submission and obedience. Jeremiah, who was imprisoned and unable to go himself, took the completed scroll with the Words of God written in them, and he handed them to his assistant Baruch with these instructions:

““So you shall go and read from the scroll, which you have written at my dictation, the words of Yahweh in the hearing of the people in the house of Yahweh on a fast day. And also you shall read them in the hearing of all the people of Judah who come from their cities. “Perhaps their supplication will come before Yahweh, and everyone will turn from his evil way, for great is the anger and the wrath that Yahweh has spoken against this people.”” (Jeremiah 36:6–7, LSB)

Baruch took the scroll first to the elders of Judah, and when they heard the words written from the mouth of God through Jeremiah, they were struck with terror at what the scroll said. Clearly, God was angry and they needed to have these words read before the king. As the leader of God’s people in Judah, surely he would do what is best and right. But instead of an open heart that was willing to listen, King Jehoiakim figuratively did what a 1st-grade child might do on the playground–he plugged up his ears and refused to listen. Except, the king was no child, and his actions went far beyond those of a child in his offense against the King of Heaven:

“Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king as well as in the hearing of all the officials who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, with a fire burning in the brazier before him. And it happened that when Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it with a scribe’s knife and threw it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. Yet the king and all his servants who heard all these words were not in dread, nor did they tear their garments.” (Jeremiah 36:21–24, LSB)

No wonder wickedness ruled in the land with such a wicked king upon the throne! Instead of listening with a broken and contrite heart, Jehoiakim literally cut the scroll that contained the Word of God and tossed it into the fire, piece by piece. He refused to listen and made sure that nobody else was bothered by the message from God either.

Today, rulers all over the world, politicians, people of wealth, power, and influence sit in places where they have a great responsibility. God’s Word is not hidden from our world. He has given us His complete revelation in the written Word of God, the Bible, and in His Son Jesus Christ. Our institutions of Higher Learning treat the Bible as classical literature, our judges and officials swear upon a copy of the Word of God, and in many of our halls of government the Words of God are inscribed in the stone and marble upon the walls. We have no excuse.

And the common man has no excuse either. Ministries like Gideons International according to their own accounts, “have taken more than 2 billion Scriptures in more than 95 languages to 200 countries, territories, and possessions across the globe.” You can find a Gideons Bible in many hotel rooms to this day.

But are they listening? Is the world listening to the warnings clearly written in the Word of God? Some politicians and leaders, including religious leaders, are doing what Jehoiakim did–they are cutting out the parts of the Bible they don’t like. They don’t like hearing about sin (especially those sins they indulge in themselves), and they don’t like feeling the conviction that comes when God’s Word and Spirit press upon their hearts and tells them that they have committed these sins not only against men but worse, against the holy Creator God!

You cannot muzzle God. People have tried throughout history. Communism and other godless regimes have sought to confiscate and destroy Bibles, but they cannot. They have tried to silence God’s servants, imposing sanctions, imprisoning, torturing, and murdering them. But they have found out that they cannot silence God! They plug their ears, but the Words are still spoken and they are still true. The rebellious heart may not want to hear them, and they may stifle the sound for their own conscience, but it will be to their own detriment. God cannot and will not be silenced.

The question is not whether they (the rulers, leaders, celebrities, politicians, and the “power brokers” of this world) have refused to hear God. The question is whether YOU have done this. Have you plugged your ears to the warnings that God has sent in the Bible? Have you ignored the reality that if you would simply listen, these warnings are filled with the mercy and grace of God offered to you? If God didn’t care, why would He warn? If He did want you to turn from your sin, why would He mobilize an army of His servants to take His message all over the world? God cares, the question is, are you listening?