Numbers

God’s people meet 156 times a year in the church building for the purpose of exhorting people to save themselves from a wicked generation (Acts 2:40). Three times in a week they are reminded of the condition of their soul. Taking into consideration sleep each night, the average person has 5,840 hours in a year to think about where they would like to spend eternity.

Paul said, “For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” How many “days of salvation” have you had? Most people consider the age in which someone becomes accountable to the gospel to be 12. Accepting this at face value, if you are 20, you have had roughly 2,555 days to respond to Christ. If you are 30, 6,570 days. If you are 40, 10,220 days. If you are 50, 13,870 days. If you are 60, 17,520 days. If you are 70, 21,170 days. If you are 80, 24,820 days.

You only have one decision to make! You have zero chances to change if you are condemned to hell and are in torment! When the Son of Man “will come in His glory,” what will be your decision (Matthew 25:31)? Will you be ready to “come forth,” having done good, to “the resurrection of life” (John 5:29)? Today may be your only chance!

Kyle Campbell

The devil can hide

John Blanchard once said, “Nothing promotes the activity of the devil more than the Christian’s proximity to God.” If the Christian was assured that he or she could always see the devil or know that he was near, they would always be faithful.

But unfortunately for us, we can see the devil but we don’t recognize him. In Genesis 3:1-6, Eve listened to the devil, who came in the form of a serpent, which, at that time, was harmless. Her heeding the devil introduced sin into the world, and opened a new domain for the devil. In 2 Corinthians 11:13, Paul wrote, “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” Christ furthermore said in Matthew 7:15 that you cannot recognize false workers because they look harmless. Given the fact of the devil’s aggressiveness (1 Peter 5:8), we have to know what the devil is like and what he wants to do to us. Like someone once said, the devil may can hide, but he always leaves a stink behind him!

Kyle Campbell

Are you hated?

I am! The Bible actually says that Christians will be hated because of their diligent stand for the truth. Luke 21:17 says, “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.” A Christian, while living above reproach, will cause, by their righteous life, the dismay and anger of others. Soon before Jesus died on the cross, He said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). John 17:14 adds, “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

No one I know enjoys being hated. In fact, it’s pretty reprehensible to most people. But one cannot change the fact that we are disliked by the world. Jesus explained it by saying, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19-20). Are you hated? If not, perhaps you are not being distinctive enough. John writes, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother” (1 John 3:9-10). If you are hated, first make sure that you are hated for the right reason, and secondly, rejoice that you have done the will of God!

Kyle Campbell

The sin offering of Christ

Calvinistic doctrine teaches the idea of “substitution,” or that Christ took on our sins when He died on the cross. Passages such as 2 Corinthians 5:21 are used as proof: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” A ramification of this doctrine is also erroneous. It says that now that we are saved, God does not see us, but He only sees Jesus; Jesus stands in our place. However, we are righteous because of God’s forgiveness of our sins, not because Jesus is our righteousness in any substitutionary way or by Jesus’ righteousness being imputed to us.

Jesus certainly did not sin (Hebrews 7:26-27; 9:14; 1 Peter 1:18-19). But He was our sin offering. This was prophesied in Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Hebrews 10:1-18 makes the same case of Jesus being our “sin offering.”

Galatians 3:13 is another passage that people have misapplied: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” When you read, “for it is written” and you look to the cursing applied to those hanging on a tree (cf. Deuteronomy 21:22-23), you know it has nothing to do with Jesus taking on our sins! Furthermore, it cannot mean that Jesus literally became a curse in the sense that His work and character were displeasing to God, because the contrary doctrine is taught everywhere in the New Testament. If we understand sin as something one does (James 4:17; 1 John 3:4), we should know sin is not something you “take on” (Ezekiel 18:20). If you know Jesus is/was without any sins (1 John 3:5), you know that you cannot understand any verse to be saying He became sin! You know then you have to look “deeper.”

That Jesus died “for” us means that He died on our behalf. None of us could ever die for our our sins or for the sins of others; therefore, Jesus was not our substitute.

Kyle Campbell

Walmart and wine vending machines

This week, CBS reported that Walmart has preliminary approval to put the kiosks in stores in Pennsylvania. The machines require customers to swipe their driver’s license and even give a breathalyzer test before they can choose between more than 50 varieties of wine. This article got me to thinking about the people I have encountered in the past who justify social drinking (they know drunkenness is wrong) by saying that Jesus made wine in John 2:1-11 at the wedding feast in Cana.

This belief is misguided because it rests on five incorrect assumptions. First, it is assumed that the word oinos (the Greek word for “wine”) indicates only “fermented-quality grape drink.” Second, it is assumed that since the word oinos is used in reference both to the wine which ran out and the wine that Christ made, both wines must have been alcoholic. Third, it is assumed that the Jews did not know how to prevent the fermentation of grape juice; and since the wedding was just before Passover (John 2:13), that is, six months after the grape harvest, the wine had ample time to ferment. Fourth, it is assumed that the description given by the master of the banquet to the wine provided by Christ as “the good wine” means a high-quality alcoholic wine. Fifth, it is assumed that the expression “well drunk” indicates that the guests were intoxicated because they had been drinking fermented wine. Consequently, the wine Jesus made must also have been fermented.

It was common custom to bring out the freshest wine at the beginning of the feast. As the wine ran low, the older wine was brought out. In John 2:10, the master of the feast made the comment that Jesus had saved the good wine until the end. This “good wine” was fresh, unfermented wine. Jesus did not make intoxicating wine!

Kyle Campbell

Archaeology: Nehemiah's wall artifacts

A team of archaeologists discovered the wall in Jerusalem’s ancient City of David during a rescue attempt on a tower in 2007 that was in danger of collapse.

Artifacts including pottery shards and arrowheads found under the tower suggested that both the tower and the nearby wall are from the 5th century B.C., the time of Nehemiah. Scholars previously thought the wall dated to the Hasmonean period from about 142 B.C. to 37 B.C.

Kyle Campbell