Imitators

by Pastor John Fredericksen

A few weeks ago, when our grandson was about 27 months old, we noticed him doing something incredibly cute. He had put on his daddy’s flip-flops (a size 12) and was proudly walking around the room with a big smile on his face. He has become a great, natural imitator of what he hears us say and sees us doing. This got me to thinking that even we adults usually imitate someone.

Once Israel was in their promised land, “the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations…” (I Sam. 8:19-20). This was an unwise decision on the part of Israel. God had been governing them through a series of judges who represented the Lord. These judges certainly were not perfect, but this had been God’s design. Jehovah’s response to their virtual demand to Samuel to give them a king was, “they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them” (I Sam. 8:7).

This pattern of imitating the world later worsened. “They rejected His [the Lord’s] statutes, and His covenant…and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them” (II Kings 17:15). Throughout the Old Testament, God’s people frequently became too close and familiar with the lost people around them. In the case of Lot, he first pitched his tent toward Sodom but before long he was living within the city and had completely lost his testimony. In other instances, Israel made treaties with the heathen nations, began to intermarry with them, and in short order began to worship their false gods. They were imitating the wrong things and the wrong people.

This same danger is still entrapping many believers in our day. Far too often, we are unduly influenced by the way the lost in our society talk, dress, think, and by what they embrace as acceptable, even when these things are clearly displeasing to the Lord. We believers are too often caught in the trap of being overly occupied with sports, recreation, leisure time, and hobbies to the neglect of spiritual things and the Lord’s local work. The Lord has something far better in mind for us, and someone far better to imitate.

The Lord tells us in Romans 12:2: “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” As believers, our lives are to be so transformed that there is a marked difference between us and the unsaved. Our standard ought not to be what the world is doing, or what the latest fad dictates. Our standard should be what would please and honor the Lord. There is no virtue in being weird, strange, or odd. These things do not enhance our testimony or effectiveness as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, we believers should be different from the world in many ways.

Believers do have someone they should be imitating. We should “mark them [godly believers] which walk so as ye have us for an ensample” (Phil. 3:17). Godly, knowledgeable Christians who followed Paul as he followed Christ and are fervent in their walk with Christ are the ones we should imitate.

Fear Of Death — Is It Necessary?

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

Most people live in almost constant fear of death. They do not like to think that man’s days are as grass and all his glory as the glory of a fading flower (Psa. 103:15,16). They do not wish to face up to the fact that “it is appointed unto men once to die” (Heb. 9:27).

This is natural, for God’s Word declares that death is “the wages of sin” (Rom. 6:23) and “after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27) and the “second death” (Rev. 20:14). This is why I Cor. 15:56 says that “The sting of death is sin.”

Yet the Psalmist David was not afraid of death. He said: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” — but note the reason: “for Thou art with me” (Psa. 23:4). David had come to know God and had been graciously delivered from the fear of death. But we, today, have an even greater reason to be free from the fear of death, for 1,000 years after David, Saul of Tarsus, the chief of sinners, was saved by grace and was sent forth to proclaim the “gospel [good news] of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

He went forth to tell men how “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3) and robbed Satan of all his claims against us:

“That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2: 14, 15).

When the Apostle himself neared death, he said: “To die is gain” (Phil. 1:21), “to depart, and to be with Christ… is far better” (Ver. 23), and “the time of my departure is at hand… henceforth there is laid up for me a crown…” (II Tim. 4:6-8).

Living To The Glory Of God

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (I Cor. 10:31).

This is the great guiding principle of the Christian life.

The Apostle Paul points out in the preceding context that what may be perfectly right for one person to do may trouble another’s conscience. The sincere and gracious believer, therefore, will not carelessly violate his brother’s conscientious scruples, offending him by indulging in that which he considers wrong. In Paul’s day, this particularly involved the foods of which men partook, but from both Romans 14 and I Corinthians 10 it is evident that Christian conduct in general is involved.

If, in my daily conduct, I consider not only my own, but also my brother’s conscience, it does not follow from this that I am disobeying Gal. 5:1, failing to “stand fast… in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” True, I have no right to give up my blood-bought liberty, but I do have liberty to give up my rights. This the world about us is slow to do, but it is one of the signs of true regeneration.

My aim in life should not be to gratify my own desires, much less to show up my brother’s weaknesses by vaunting my liberty in Christ. My one aim should rather be to glorify God in all I say and do.

All this, of course, has to do only with the conduct of believers in Christ. The unbeliever can do nothing to the glory of God. His very rejection of Christ is a continual offense to God who, in love, gave His Son to die in our place. The only way in which the unbeliever can honor God is to turn from his unbelief and trust Christ as Savior and Lord.

Dead Works

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

Twice in Paul’s epistles he refers to “dead works”. In Hebrews 6:1 he writes about “repentance from dead works”, while in Hebrews 9:14 he declares that the blood of Christ avails to “purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God”.

Mark well, these references are not to wicked works but to dead works. These “dead works” are the so-called “good works” (whether moral or ceremonial) which men did — and still do — to make themselves acceptable to God. They are “dead” because they are not the product of regeneration or spiritual life, but the mere attempt on the part of unregenerate sinners to justify themselves before God.

Paul himself, once zealously religious, but wholly unsaved, had to repudiate his “dead works” and count them “loss” to find salvation in Christ, through whom alone he could produce good works which God could accept. (See Philippians 3:4-9).

This is why he later declared by divine inspiration: “For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works…” (Eph.2:8-10).

“Dead works” are not only unacceptable to God, but an evil substitute for the faith He desires, “for without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb.11:6). But “he that believeth on the Son of God hath life” and this life is bound to bear fruit– the good works with which God is truly pleased.

The difference between the “good works” of the unregenerate man and the “good works” of a true believer, then, is that the former are “dead works” while the latter are the precious fruit of life possessed.

No man can please God while he denies the truth of His Word or rejects His Son, so graciously given to die on the cross as our Saviour. To try to win His favor by “good works” while rejecting Christ is like sending a gift to a man whose beloved son you spurn and despise.

“The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hands. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:35,36).