THE TRENTON BULLETIN

THE TRENTON BULLETIN

Trenton Church of Christ, Trenton, Florida

The title should not alarm anyone to some dark numeric revelation like the 666 of Revelation 13:18. It represents the ninth year of the century 2000 and the ninth day of the ninth month. Next year the sequence will fall in October (101010) with the following year as 111111 and then finally in the year 2012 the sequence will be 121212. This numerical sequence of twelve years will not happen again for 989 years. I doubt that 090909 really means anything more than the year, month and day but I suppose some prognosticator can come up with an elaborate scheme of doom having to do with the number nine being an upside down six and that the numerical sequence is in fact the holy grail of the Biblical code for 060606. Lord willing Thursday will come and the world will continue (if not this article will not be read).

I could not help but think about the unique order that our world has in simplicity and beauty. We measure days by hours and minutes; years by months and days; lifetimes by decades and sometimes a single century. Order reigns in the world as if by the hand of an infinite designer who has set the universe in an exact motion. Moses wrote in Genesis 1:14-18 the words of the Creator: “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to divide between the day and the night. And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night, and the stars also. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night; and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:14-18).

After the flood, God promised Noah that “while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). [This disproves the theory of “global warming” and the end of the seasons.] The planets all go about in the exact order as God placed them in creation. The moon is the exact distance from the earth to influence the oceans of our world. The distance of the sun is so precise that a fraction closer would burn the earth and a fraction farther would freeze the earth.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote of the perfect order of creation and how the wonders of creation testify to the power of God. “Do you not fear Me? says Jehovah. Will you not tremble at My presence, I who have placed the sand for the boundary of the sea by a never-ending decree, so that it cannot pass it? And though they toss themselves, yet they cannot prevail; though its waves roar, yet they cannot pass over it? (Jeremiah 5:22). There is precise order in the design of the waves upon the seashore and the tides flowing in and out. The heart is a powerful testimony of God’s precise design as the cardiac muscles may contract at least 2 billion times in one lifetime. The brain processes an incredible amount of information and recalls millions of tidbits of stored data years beyond the event. “I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are marvelous and my soul knows it very well” (Psalms 139:14).

Each time we write the date or take notice of the time we testify to the existence of God. His power is found in creation (Psalm 19; 33:6; Isaiah 40:22-26). The march of time also declares the end of time. “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a rushing noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat. And the earth and the works in it will be burned up. Then, all these things being about to be dissolved, what sort ought you to be in holy behavior and godliness” (2 Peter 3:10-11). Jeremy Taylor wrote, “Life is short and yet upon this short life eternity depends.” The order of things will end one day when the Lord chooses. What should 090909 cause us to do? “Seek Him who created the Pleiades and Orion, and who turned the deep darkness into the morning and He darkened the day into night. Seek Him who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the face of the earth; Jehovah is His name” (Amos 5:8).

To his Ephesian brethren, Paul wrote, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15,16). The more evil the environment in which the Christian must live, the more necessary it is to be careful and to be strong in the Lord. Here at the end of the twentieth century, Christians in America know something about what Paul meant when he said that "the days are evil." From nearly every direction, our culture threatens our faith. The person who takes seriously his relationship to Christ can't help being concerned about what the future holds. And for many of us, the spiritual survival of our families heads the list of our concerns. Modern challenges to the family are as deadly as they are real.

The wave of sexual promiscuity that has resulted from the Sexual Revolution strikes at the very heart of the family: the mutually faithful one-flesh relationship between husband and wife. Homosexuality promises to redefine the very concept of what a family is. Rampant divorce has made it impossible for children to have any confidence that their home will hold together long enough for them to grow up. The children's rights and social parenting movements are advocating that children be raised by the state rather than their parents. Abortion, suicide, and euthanasia each have disturbing family implications. The entertainment media, the educational system, and the welfare state all are arrayed against the traditional family. All in all, it is a frightening array of alien forces that confront the family in our nation.

What can we do to meet these challenges? We can serve God faithfully in our families! It may be a simple idea, but it is true: serving God has always been the best way to stay strong spiritually and survive the attacks of a hostile culture.

Think, for example, about Daniel's three friends. In the familiar story of Dan. 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego were strong enough to risk their lives rather than worship the image Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Threatened with death, they simply said, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king" (Daniel 3:16,17). There is more than a coincidental link between these men's strength in God and their previous service to God. They had what it took to meet their test because they had been serving God before the test arrived.

The same principle governs the spiritual strength of our families. If, as families, we genuinely love the Lord and our fellow man (Matthew 22:37-39), if we have truly given ourselves to the Lord (2 Corinthians 8:5), and if we "serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear" (Hebrews 12:28), we will find that we have what it takes to overcome difficulty. To ward off spiritual disease and destruction, a family needs an "immune system," and the immune system God intended families to have is built up day by day in the process of serving Him. There is no shortcut. Without the resources that are built up in this way, there is really nothing that can protect a family from the devastating influences that we have to contend with right now.

For one thing, serving God is what builds up faith. Most of the modern threats to the family have grown out of a humanistic philosophy that denies the existence of God. Faith in the reality of God, real trust in Him personally, is what is necessary to meet these challenges. Long ago, John wrote, "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith" (1 John 5:4). There is no pill we can take that will give us this faith that overcomes the world. Faith is gained in the daily process of serving God to the best of our understanding.

In the second place, serving God is what builds genuine character in the inward person. The worst dangers our families face today are those that strike at our inmost being, our very nature as beings created in God's image. The strength required to deal with such dangers is the strength of deep, godly character. Paul prayed for his brethren to be "strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man" (Ephesians 3:16). Character is not built up relaxing in an easy chair; it's developed in the active work of serving God. Families today that hope to survive what's happening are going to need more than the superficial strength of those who merely talk about the Lord. We need the real strength of character that comes from genuine, daily service to God.

Thirdly, if our families are to meet modern challenges, we must enjoy deep, rich relationships among family members. These relationships don't just happen; they develop and deepen over time as we serve the Lord. What is true of the local congregation is no less true of our physical families: strength comes from "the effective working by which every part does its share" (Ephesians 4:16). The best strength in the world is the strength of those who have grown strong serving the Lord together. Serving the Lord enriches our family relationships, and in so doing it builds into those relationships a strength that can hardly come any other way.

It so happens that serving God does one other thing for us. It gives us courage! Without courage, we are lost. Paul urged the Corinthians, "Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong" (1 Corinthians 16:13). The godly family that survives modern culture and overcomes in the Lord is not one that makes cowardly compromise with evil. It courageously stands for what is true and good. Ultimately, the courage our families need today is formed in our hearts as we experience the reality of living life in Christ. We must do more than attend the services of the church; we must "taste" that the Lord is gracious (1 Peter 2:3). When we do, our families will have the kind of power that the devil flees from.

Jesus spoke of the inevitability of "offenses," pronouncing a woe against those who commit such offenses (Luke 17:1-2). As serious as the consequence of sinning against others, Jesus warned the disciples about the awesome responsibility of men to forgive sins committed against them (Luke 17:3-4).

"Take heed to yourselves," He cautioned them, "If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him" (Luke 17:3-4).

Seven times in a day?? Has someone really repented if they are sinning seven times in a day? Of course, the passage in Luke doesn't say that the sinner was committing the same sin seven times in a day, but the passage raises questions about repetitious sin and the implications of repentance.

Repentance is literally "a change of mind" (Thayer/Vine). Thayer adds, "especially the change of mind of those who have begun to abhor their errors and misdeeds, and have determined to enter upon a better course of life..." The Scriptures distinguishes between sorrow for sin, repentance and the fruits which repentance produces (2 Corinthians 7:10; Matthew 3:8; Acts 26:20).

In a perfect world, the sinner who repents of a particular sin, i.e., decides that he will not commit that sin, would not ever commit that sin again. However, God recognizes that man does not carry out his intentions in a perfect way ("The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" - Matthew 26:41b). In Romans 7:13-24, Paul pictured the struggle that man faces to do what he knows to be right.

The apostle John conceded that Christians would continue to sin occasionally (1 John 1:8-10), even though they have repented of sin when they obeyed the gospel (e.g., Acts 2:38). He also affirms, however, that Christians may not live in sin, i.e., "walk" in darkness (1 John 1:6-7; 3:6-9). The Christian who continues to sin without sorrow for sin and repentance is not "dead to sin" (see Romans 6:1-4).

Clearly God intends for Christians to grow spiritually (2 Peter 1:5-8; 3:18). We are provided divine help in resisting temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13) and expected to resist temptation (1 Peter 5:9; James 4:7-8).

Conquering sin entirely is a lifetime project and even determined Christians will falter at times. As our desire to please God becomes stronger and our ability to discern between right and wrong grows, our repentance will become more perfect and we will sin less.

WELCOME TO OUR GOSPEL MEETING

DON TRUEX

Sunday 9:30am & 10:30am

Sunday ~ Wednesday 7:30pm

EVERYONE WELCOME