How We Must Fight for Holiness

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

There is a practical holiness without which we will not see the Lord. Many live as if this were not so.

There are professing Christians who live such unholy lives that they will hear Jesus’s dreadful words, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23). Paul says to professing believers, “If you live according to the flesh you will die” (Romans 8:13).

So, there is a holiness without which no one will see the Lord. And learning to fight for holiness by faith in future grace is supremely important.

There is another way to pursue holiness that backfires and leads to death. Paul warns us against serving God any other way than by faith in his enabling grace. God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). Any effort to serve God that does not, in that very act, depend on him as the reward of our hearts and the power of our service, will dishonor him as a needy pagan god.

Peter describes the alternative to such self-reliant service of God, “Whoever serves, [let him do so] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). And Paul says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me” (Romans 15:18; see also 1 Corinthians 15:10).

Moment by moment, grace arrives to enable us to do “every good work” that God appoints for us. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

The fight for good works is a fight to believe the promises of future grace.

John Piper 

 

Trusting God Through Suffering

“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.” JOB 13:15

 

PONDER THIS

There are a lot of people who have a wrong theology of suffering today. They get on television and give this message: “If you get right with God, you’re going to be healthy, and you’re going to be wealthy. It’s cash, comfort, and Cadillacs—you’ll have it all. Oh, by the way, just send me a little money, and you can have it all.” There’s a lot of that going on. Have you noticed that? The idea is that the only reason you suffer is that you’ve done wrong. That you can get everything right, believe in God and have anything you want. There’s just one thing wrong with that philosophy—it’s not true. Some of God’s choicest of saints have suffered, most of all God’s own Son, Jesus.

When have you heard the idea that if you do everything right, God will save you from suffering?

What is tempting about this way of thinking? What is wrong with it?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of biblical examples of righteous people who suffered.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

June 22

Luke 6:27-37

[27] “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, [28] bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. [29] To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. [30] Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. [31] And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

[32] “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. [33] And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. [34] And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. [35] But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. [36] Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

[37] “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;

Philippians 3:15-21

[15] Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. [16] Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

[17] Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. [18] For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. [19] Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. [20] But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, [21] who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Psalm 119:169-176

    [169] Let my cry come before you, O LORD;

        give me understanding according to your word! 

    [170] Let my plea come before you;

        deliver me according to your word. 

    [171] My lips will pour forth praise,

        for you teach me your statutes. 

    [172] My tongue will sing of your word,

        for all your commandments are right. 

    [173] Let your hand be ready to help me,

        for I have chosen your precepts. 

    [174] I long for your salvation, O LORD,

        and your law is my delight. 

    [175] Let my soul live and praise you,

        and let your rules help me. 

    [176] I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,

        for I do not forget your commandments.

2 Kings 18

[1] In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. [2] He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. [3] And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. [4] He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). [5] He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. [6] For he held fast to the LORD. He did not depart from following him, but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses. [7] And the LORD was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him. [8] He struck down the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from watchtower to fortified city.

[9] In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah, king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria and besieged it, [10] and at the end of three years he took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. [11] The king of Assyria carried the Israelites away to Assyria and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, [12] because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. They neither listened nor obeyed.

[13] In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. [14] And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. [15] And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasuries of the king’s house. [16] At that time Hezekiah stripped the gold from the doors of the temple of the LORD and from the doorposts that Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid and gave it to the king of Assyria. [17] And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab-saris, and the Rabshakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Washer’s Field. [18] And when they called for the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

[19] And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? [20] Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? [21] Behold, you are trusting now in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. [22] But if you say to me, “We trust in the LORD our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”? [23] Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. [24] How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? [25] Moreover, is it without the LORD that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land and destroy it.”’”

[26] Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” [27] But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?”

[28] Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! [29] Thus says the king: ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you out of my hand. [30] Do not let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD by saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ [31] Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus says the king of Assyria: ‘Make your peace with me and come out to me. Then each one of you will eat of his own vine, and each one of his own fig tree, and each one of you will drink the water of his own cistern, [32] until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey, that you may live, and not die. And do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, “The LORD will deliver us.” [33] Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? [34] Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? [35] Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’”

[36] But the people were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” [37] Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.

2 Kings 19

[1] As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. [2] And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. [3] They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. [4] It may be that the LORD your God heard all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.” [5] When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, [6] Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. [7] Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.’”

[8] The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he heard that the king had left Lachish. [9] Now the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, “Behold, he has set out to fight against you.” So he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, [10] “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. [11] Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? [12] Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? [13] Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’”

[14] Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD. [15] And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said: “O LORD, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. [16] Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. [17] Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands [18] and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. [19] So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone.”

[20] Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. [21] This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: 

    “She despises you, she scorns you—

        the virgin daughter of Zion;

    she wags her head behind you—

        the daughter of Jerusalem.

    [22] “Whom have you mocked and reviled?

        Against whom have you raised your voice

    and lifted your eyes to the heights?

        Against the Holy One of Israel! 

    [23] By your messengers you have mocked the Lord,

        and you have said, ‘With my many chariots

    I have gone up the heights of the mountains,

        to the far recesses of Lebanon;

    I felled its tallest cedars,

        its choicest cypresses;

    I entered its farthest lodging place,

        its most fruitful forest. 

    [24] I dug wells

        and drank foreign waters,

    and I dried up with the sole of my foot

        all the streams of Egypt.’

    [25] “Have you not heard

        that I determined it long ago?

    I planned from days of old

        what now I bring to pass,

    that you should turn fortified cities

        into heaps of ruins, 

    [26] while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,

        are dismayed and confounded,

    and have become like plants of the field

        and like tender grass,

    like grass on the housetops,

        blighted before it is grown.

    [27] “But I know your sitting down

        and your going out and coming in,

        and your raging against me. 

    [28] Because you have raged against me

        and your complacency has come into my ears,

    I will put my hook in your nose

        and my bit in your mouth,

    and I will turn you back on the way

        by which you came.

    [29] “And this shall be the sign for you: this year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs of the same. Then in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. [30] And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. [31] For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.

[32] “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. [33] By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD. [34] For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

[35] And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. [36] Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. [37] And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

 

The Satisfaction That Defeats Sin

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”(John 6:35)

What we need to see here is that the essence of faith is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Christ.

Defining faith this way emphasizes two things. One is the God-centeredness of faith. It is not merely the promises of God that satisfy us. It is all that God himself is for us in Jesus. Faith embraces God in Christ as our treasure — not just God’s promised gifts.

Faith banks its hope not just on the real estate of the age to come, but on the fact that God will be there (Revelation 21:3). “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’” 

And even now what faith embraces most earnestly is not just the reality of sins forgiven (as precious as that is), but the presence of the living Christ in our hearts and the fullness of God himself. In Ephesians 3:17–19 Paul prays “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith . . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

The other thing emphasized in defining faith as being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus is the term “satisfaction.” Faith is the quenching of the soul’s thirst at the fountain of God. In John 6:35 we see that “believing” means “coming” to Jesus to eat and drink the “bread of life” and the “living water” (John 4:10, 14), which are nothing other than Jesus himself. 

Here is the secret of the power of faith to break the enslaving force of sinful attractions. If the heart is satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus, the power of sin to lure us away from the wisdom of Christ is broken.

 John Piper 

Strength with Gentleness

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

GALATIANS 5:22-23

 

PONDER THIS

When you’re setting a broken bone, what do you need? Gentleness. You need tender loving care. You can’t restore somebody if you’re harsh and overbearing. You’ve got to be gentle. Do you know what I’ve noticed about dads whose children love them most? They’re gentle. All children want a strong dad, a dad they can look up to. But they also want a dad who’s gentle. You can restore your children with gentleness rather than lashing out at them, screaming at them, and criticizing them. Try some tenderness with your children. If you’ve got backslidden children, they need tenderness. Your neighbor needs tenderness. “Restore such a one in the spirit of meekness” (Galatians 6:1, KJV). Do it gently.

How has God been gentle with you when you needed restoration?

How have you experienced the blessing of gentleness from a Christian brother or sister?

PRACTICE THIS

Who do you know who needs encouragement or restoration? Take action to bless that person with gentleness today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

June 21

Luke 6:17-26

[17] And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, [18] who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. [19] And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

[20] And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: 

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 

[21] “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. 

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. 

[22] “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! [23] Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

[24] “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

[25] “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. 

“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. 

[26] “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

Philippians 3:10-14

[10] that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

[12] Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. [13] Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, [14] I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Psalm 119:161-168

    [161] Princes persecute me without cause,

        but my heart stands in awe of your words. 

    [162] I rejoice at your word

        like one who finds great spoil. 

    [163] I hate and abhor falsehood,

        but I love your law. 

    [164] Seven times a day I praise you

        for your righteous rules. 

    [165] Great peace have those who love your law;

        nothing can make them stumble. 

    [166] I hope for your salvation, O LORD,

        and I do your commandments. 

    [167] My soul keeps your testimonies;

        I love them exceedingly. 

    [168] I keep your precepts and testimonies,

        for all my ways are before you.

2 Kings 16

[1] In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. [2] Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God, as his father David had done, [3] but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. [4] And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

[5] Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him. [6] At that time Rezin the king of Syria recovered Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. [7] So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” [8] Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. [9] And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin.

[10] When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. [11] And Uriah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. [12] And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it [13] and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. [14] And the bronze altar that was before the LORD he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north side of his altar. [15] And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. And throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice, but the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.” [16] Uriah the priest did all this, as King Ahaz commanded.

[17] And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them, and he took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal. [18] And the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built inside the house and the outer entrance for the king he caused to go around the house of the LORD, because of the king of Assyria. [19] Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? [20] And Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.

2 Kings 17

[1] In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel, and he reigned nine years. [2] And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. [3] Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. [4] But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. [5] Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it.

[6] In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

[7] And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods [8] and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practiced. [9] And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. [10] They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree, [11] and there they made offerings on all the high places, as the nations did whom the LORD carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger, [12] and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this.” [13] Yet the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

[14] But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God. [15] They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. [16] And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. [17] And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. [18] Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.

[19] Judah also did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. [20] And the LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight.

[21] When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. And Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD and made them commit great sin. [22] The people of Israel walked in all the sins that Jeroboam did. They did not depart from them, [23] until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had spoken by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria until this day.

[24] And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. [25] And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the LORD. Therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them. [26] So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.” [27] Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land.” [28] So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the LORD.

[29] But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. [30] The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, [31] and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. [32] They also feared the LORD and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. [33] So they feared the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.

[34] To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the LORD, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. [35] The LORD made a covenant with them and commanded them, “You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, [36] but you shall fear the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. [37] And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods, [38] and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods, [39] but you shall fear the LORD your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.” [40] However, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner.

[41] So these nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children’s children—as their fathers did, so they do to this day.

Grace Is Pardon — and Power!

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift and power of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.

This is plain, for example, in 1 Corinthians 15:10. Paul describes grace as the enabling power of his work. It is not simply the pardon of his sins; it is the power to press on in obedience. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

Therefore, the effort we make to obey God is not an effort done in our own strength, but “by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified” (1 Peter 4:11). It is the obedience of faith. Faith in God’s ever-arriving gracious power to enable us to do what we should.

Paul confirms this in 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12 by calling each of our acts of goodness a “work of faith,” and by saying that the glory this brings to Jesus is “according to the grace of our God” because it happens “by his power.” Listen for all those phrases:

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The obedience that gives God pleasure is produced by the power of God’s grace through faith. The same dynamic is at work at every stage of the Christian life. The power of God’s grace that saves through faith (Ephesians 2:8) is the same power of God’s grace that sanctifies through faith.

John Piper