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| Volume 25 Number 2 February 2023 |
Page 5 |
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| Volume 25 Number 2 February 2023 |
Page 5 |
Jerry R. Kendall
Satan is working constantly to blind and bind people (2 Corinthians 4:4; Luke 13:16). When we are hurting, broken, beaten down, angered and facing things beyond our control, he uses these situations to get our feelings and emotions to work against God’s will for our lives. His desire is to move us to be controlled by our circumstances and not by the will of Christ. It is his aim to lead us to become captives of, be blinded to and to be bound by our sins. When the painful results attack faith and the desire to pray, his blinders are there.
Jesus came to save us, to “bind up the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18 ESV). When the unsaved see our reactions to life, this often leads them to question what good serving the Savior produces. If we don’t give our broken, blinded and bound lives to the Lord, what do we expect the unsaved to do? Do we struggle to give ourselves wholly to Jesus Christ? Do we hold back and ignore the life He offers (John 10:10)? Is Satan more powerful than the Christ? We know he is most deceitful, and we must not let him deceive us (1 Timothy 2:14). Let’s oppose and expose Satan and not be ensnared and enslaved by him. How does he bind people?
Ignorance and Apathy
Choosing to remain ignorant and not being energetic enough to question what we are told is used by our enemy. Imagine not wanting to leave slavery and have freedom because it meant work, hardships and responsibility. After the Civil War, one former slave commented, “A war was fought and a president was murdered, but many of the slaves lived on as slaves, as if nothing had happened” (cf., Galatians 5:1). Christ frees from sin, but some don’t desire to be set free. Satan keeps them in darkness about the freedom available in Christ. Satan binds, while God in Christ set free (Ephesians 5:8-13).
Pride and Self-Righteousness
Some have bought into the lie that following Christ will limit one’s freedom. What do they mean by free? If it means to be able to do whatever one prefers in violation of God’s Word, this is being blinded and in bondage. If freedom means rights but no responsibilities, Satan has one bound. When it means I can save myself through my goodness and personal efforts, he has me imprisoned.
Grief, Tragedy and Loss
Satan whispers to many, “God doesn’t love you; if He did, why did this happen to you?” When life deals the unexpected or the unbelievable that knocks us down and leaves us looking up, we may become the captive of pain. Dreams are shattered, relationships ruined, a loved one’s life is cut short, a business goes bad, etc., and God is forgotten. The devil uses such to blind and bind. God can heal broken hearts and shattered dreams, and He gives the promise of reunion with loved ones. He knows the pain of a loved One dying. Pain is not the measure of His love. The Bible faithful faced constant pain in triumph (Job, Moses, David)!
There are many other ways we can become bound by Satan. We must not think we can impress God by who we are and by what we accomplish through our abilities to sidestep obedience to Christ as our Savior. We cannot make ourselves worthy by what we do, earn His forgiveness by great feats and deserve Heaven. We can’t climb to Heaven through our own power. Let’s learn to bind the devil (Mark 3:26-27) through the work of Christ.
Godly Mathematics
Derek Broome
Before my wife and I were blessed with children, we discussed how we wanted to raise our kids – if the Lord blessed us in that way. Of course, the number one thing on our list was to raise them in the Lord, and I hope we are doing a good job at that. I know we fall short sometimes. One of the things that we wanted to do to help us raise them in the Lord was to homeschool our children. I know many that disagree with homeschooling for various reasons, but for my family it is what works best for us.
Recently, I was being asked about their schooling by someone who was curious about how things were going. He was especially curious about math and wanted to know if we were using the new math. If you do not know, that is a touchy subject with some people. I said we were using old math, which we are, but to be totally clear, we also teach the math that is in the textbooks. We spend a great deal of money on our children’s curriculum, and it would be unwise and wasteful to not teach what is provided and expected. My wife and I want our children to have a great education, to be well rounded and to grow up to be faithful in the Lord. If that means that along the way they learn to do some math in a different way than I learned, that is okay, as long as they get the correct answer.
Have you ever thought about the godly mathematics we see in the Bible? Unlike mathematics you see in some school systems, the mathematics in the Bible never changes. There is only one God (Ephesians 4:6). If you are trying to solve or figure that problem or question out, the answer will always be one. He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). This one God provided one way to be saved. Jesus is that one way (John 14:6). When we are baptized into Christ, we call on the name of the Lord and appeal to God to wash our sins away (Acts 22:16; 1 Peter 3:21). Our sins are subtracted and taken away, and when we are saved, Jesus adds those that have obeyed to His church (Acts 2:47; Matthew 16:18). He established one church, one body (Ephesians 4:4; Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:12-25). His church is to be one body of saved people that is made up of many people (1 Corinthians 12:12). There are not to be divisions among its members. Christ is not divided (1 Corinthians 1:10-13). As individuals, as Christians, we are to work hard to keep the unity in the body and to continue to add to and to grow our faith so we can be pleasing to our God (Ephesians 4:1-3; 2 Peter 1:5-8).
In Scripture, when we look at the church, we see a group of people who had “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). They were being obedient to God, and the church was growing. The number of disciples was multiplying. It even seems that the church was multiplying so fast that a problem arose which had to be solved by faithful men through the help of God. The solution helped the church to grow and multiply even further (Acts 6:1-7). None of this would have been possible without the help of God, Who gives the increase (1 Corinthians 3:7).
As you can tell, there is a lot of godly mathematics discussed in the Bible. Like God Himself, they never change. Let us continue daily to follow the instructions of Jesus. After all, Jesus is the answer.