Saturday, November 24, 2018

What a Christian Can’t Say

by Dr. Paul Chappell

“And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.”

Acts 10:13–16

Oswald Smith recounted the story of a Christian young lady who was struggling with the issue of God’s will for her life. After hearing a powerful sermon on obedience and discipleship from the British preacher Graham Scroggie, she went forward and told him she was struggling with yielding her life completely to God. When he asked why, she told him that she was afraid God would call her to China as a missionary. Scroggie opened his Bible to Acts 10 and read her Peter’s words, “Not so, Lord.” He explained that this was an impossible contradiction. Either Jesus is really Lord, in which case we cannot decline, or we are lord in His rightful place. He told the young lady to either cross out “Not so” or else cross out “Lord” for she could not have both. After she prayed, she took the pen and crossed out “Not so,” yielding her life to God completely.

We have a culture that celebrates what they call freedom, which is usually simply a more polite word for unrestrained license to do whatever someone wants. Of course that is not true freedom, because sin always leads to bondage in the end. But as Christians, we must guard our hearts and minds to ensure that we are not influenced by the world into thinking that we can pick and choose which commandments we will obey and which we will regard as optional. We are not in charge of our lives. We do not belong to ourselves. And we have no right to say “Not so, Lord.”

Today’s Growth Principle: 

No Christian has the right to disobey anything that God has commanded in His Word.

³³ “Again ^hyou have heard that it was said to those of old, ^q‘You shall not swear falsely, but ^rshall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ ³⁴ But I say to you, ^sDo not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for ^tit is the throne of God, ³⁵ or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is ^uthe city of the great King. ³⁶ And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. ³⁷ Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.⁷ (Matthew 5:33–37)