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Surveying the Text: Micah

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

Micah was a younger contemporary to the prophet Isaiah, and ministered across the reigns of Jotham (c. 740 B.C.) and Hezekiah of Judah (who died 687 B.C.). Other contemporaries would be Amos and Hosea, which accounts for similar themes—they were all confronting the same kinds of cultural problems. The two great ones were idolatry and social injustice. The name Micah is a shortened form of a name that means “who is like YHWH?”

The Text

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; And what doth the Lord require of thee, But to do justly, and to love mercy, And to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8 ).

Summary of the Text

In our text, we find a succinct treatment of what true religion looks like. Is God impressed with high pomp or pretentious sacrifices? What could I give that would earn God’s favor? The answer is nothing, nothing whatever, which men of understanding have always understood since the world began. If salvation is not all of grace, then there is no such thing as salvation.

The book of Micah is not long, and is a collection of oracles, bundled loosely according to this recurring pattern—warning, oracle of judgment, and promise of salvation. Each of three sections is begun with the call to hear/listen (Mic. 1:2; 3:1; 6:1). The first cycle begins with warning (1:2-16), moves to judgment (2:1-11), and concludes with the first word of hope (2:12-13). The second cycle begins with warning and declared judgment (3:1-12), but then turns to hope (4:1-5:15). The third cycle begins with warning (6:1-16), moves to a lament over judgment (7:1-7), and concludes with a promise of hope (7:8-20). As it turns out Micah should be credited with saving Jeremiah’s life, even though he lived a century earlier. Jeremiah was accused because he had prophesied destruction for Jerusalem, which was considered as treason by some, but certain elders of the land defended Jeremiah by pointing out that Micah had done the same thing (3:12), and Hezekiah had not put him to death (Jer. 26: 17-19).

Your Best Apocalypse Now

The better days of Uzziah are now in the rear view mirror, and the shabbiness of decadence and decay are definitely starting to show. False teachers are willing to start showing their true colors. “If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; He shall even be the prophet of this people” (Mic. 2:11 ). As things get worse and worse, the fulfillment of earlier dire

warnings are entirely missed. When judicial stupor visits a people, the more manifest it is, the harder it is to see. “Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; And it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; And the sun shall go down over the prophets, And the day shall be dark over them” (Mic. 3:6 ).

Gospel Tension

Micah alternates between fierce Deuteronomic denunciations and glorious kingdom promises. This gospel is going to conquer the world, but an essential part of the gospel message is found in the key word repent. Repent and believe. Before we ask what we are to believe, we must first ask what we are to repent of. We are to repent of great wickedness, as defined by Scripture, and our views of how high salvation goes will be shaped by how deep we believe the sin went. In the book of Micah, he calls the mountains to witness (Mic. 6:2 )—may we do the same. As the Lord taught us, the one who loves much is the one who was forgiven much.

This tension stretches from Genesis to Revelation. God is not mocked—a man reaps what he sows,and yet through the death of Jesus Christ, a man does not reap what he sows at all. The curse runs through it all, and yet the grace of God runs as bedrock underneath that.

So Turn to the Promise

The judgments in the mouth of Micah were judgments that applied to Samaria and Jerusalem, to Israel and to Judah. But the promises were for the whole world. “But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, Though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2).

“But in the last days it shall come to pass, That the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, And it shall be exalted above the hills; And people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, And to the house of the God of Jacob; And he will teach us of his ways, And we will walk in his paths: For the law shall go forth of Zion, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Mic. 4:1–2).

And Back to the Text

In this world, what is the consequence of having our sins washed away? What does it look like when God comes down and the mountains of our religiosity melt under His feet (1:3-4)? When God interferes with us, when He saves us, when He fixes us up, what does that look like? What we could not do with burnt offerings, what we could not do with rivers of oil, what we could not accomplish by giving our firstborn for our transgression, God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And when He did so, the result in our lives tastes like this. He has shown us what is good. He has taught what He requires.

He says three things. First, do justly. Second, love mercy. And third, walk humbly with your God. And I can only do this when I come to the cross. Only there can I do what is just. Only there can I love the mercy of God. Only there can I behold the humility of God. In Jesus I can do justly, in Jesus I can love mercy, and in Jesus I can walk with humility. Only there.

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On Christian Disobedience #4

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

In the light of the Supreme Court’s decision this last week, where they sought to sanctify and dignify something that God has declared confused and abominable, our responsibility as Christians to think through a biblical understanding of our relationship to the state becomes even more pressing.

We have already learned that no human government is absolute, and that when a human authority commands us contrary to the law of God, we must obey God rather than man. But now we must consider what to do when a lesser authority commands us contrary to the lawful requirements of a higher human authority. In short, we have to discuss whether limited government is a biblical concept. I want to argue that it is, by good and necessary consequence. Unlimited government is, by definition, idolatrous.

The Text

“Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king, and said thus unto him, King Darius, live for ever . . . Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God” (Daniel 6:6–11).

Regardless . . .

At this time in his story, Daniel is an old man, and his political enemies contrived to get a law passed that would make Daniel’s prayer to God illegal. As soon as the law is passed, Daniel, in accordance with his station, goes home, opens the windows, and prays facing Jerusalem, as was his custom. Darius labored within the legal system to save him, but Daniel was not going to change regardless. Sometimes a higher human authority is on your side, and sometimes not, but in either case obedience to God comes first. Moreover, open obedience to God comes first. There was no requirement in biblical law to pray with your windows open, but under the leadership of the Spirit, Daniel was ready for a confrontation.

Common Law

The teaching of Scripture requires us to see all post-biblical history with biblical eyes. The Bible does not give us an inspired narrative of our history, but it does give us prophecy of how that history will go, and also gives us doctrinal guardrails so that we can stay on the road. We have a responsibility, which we have grossly neglected, to teach our children the mighty acts of God with regard to those times where we had no inspired historians. At the same time, in talking about these circumstances, it is crucial that we do so in a hard-headed biblical way, and without a hagiographic high gloss finish.

Old Testament case law —in Scripture, law is overwhelmingly incarnational. That is, it is commonly enfleshed in particular situations, from which wise men should always be able to derive the principle. Each law carries its own version of “general equity.” For example, consider the requirement of Deuteronomy 22:8.

Alfred the Great —in the history of our culture, Alfred (849-899) was responsible for the establishment of this system of common law. This particular heritage runs so deep that it cannot be rejected as easily as some secularists might wish. And this is why we have written constitutions.

Humane law and lawful men —a central part of our scriptural heritage is that fact that we have a biblical view of men as sinners, and the need to honor “checks and balances.” This is not something that began in 1776, but rather was part of our received and ancient heritage. We fought the English government over this, but it was for the sake of a political tradition that the English discovered. In short, the Declaration was simply Magna Carta 2.0.

Romans 13? —now this Christian history changes the picture entirely. For example, suppose an office-holder, sworn to uphold the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, takes you aside and wants you to join him in rebelling against it. An example of this can be found in the Supreme Court’s decision just a few days ago. Do you obey him (“because of” Romans 13), or do you do the biblical thing and disregard him because of Romans 13? Disregard is the biblical response, and it is because these judges are manifest rebels against the document that is senior to them—the Constitution—as well as being rebels against the authority behind the Constitution, which would be the people. And never forget, Christ is over all.

An Historical Illustration

The American War for Independence provides us with a dear example of this issue. Remember, we are to consider history as Christians, and not mindless partisans. Therefore we do not have a simplistic “white hats” and “black hats” approach.

Usurpation —the parliament of England did not have any constitutional authority over the colonies. This did not prevent them from claiming they did. The king, who had a feudal obligation to protect the colonies, refused to do so. Their obligation to him as vassals therefore ceased. They never did have any obligations to Parliament.

Resistance, not revolution —this is why the War for Independence was an example of godly civil resistance, and not an ungodly revolt against established authority—like the French or Russian revolutions were.

But . . . American Exceptionalism?

The question I think we must get right revolves around the idea of American exceptionalism. The phrase admits of various meanings, some of them sound and therefore not all that exceptional, and some of them grotesquely heretical. Different meanings of the phrase have been more than a descriptor of American history, and have actually been something of a driver.

The phrase can be of the Madisonian variety, or it may be merely descriptive, as it appears to have been for de Tocqueville, or it might be used to justify our “Manifest Destiny” march to the Pacific, or lie behind the neo-con desire to remake the Middle East. This is a question that winds all the way through American history, and it is the exceptionalism of the Founding that we need to preserve. The Founders knew that we were not exceptional, and that was exceptional. This is not a contradiction in logic, but rather an exercise in what the Lord taught when He said that the first would be last and the last first.

Ozymandian pride is as old as dirt, but humility leads to greatness. In the Old Testament there was Babylonian exceptionalism, which reduced Nebuchadnezzar to a level of bovine exceptionalism. There was Assyrian exceptionalism, which God judged. At the time of Christ, there was Pharisaical exceptionalism—where carnal men took the sovereign election of Israel by God, and turned it upside down so that they could take personal pride in it. In the post-biblical era, the Franks were exceptional. So were the Visigoths in Spain. Then there was Austro-Hungarian exceptionalism, followed of course by German exceptionalism. The same heresy cropped up in England, and then again in the United States. It is like looking at a long row of jitney messiahs, all of them made out of tin.

But there was for a time a true exceptionalism at the time of the American Founding. Here is James Madison.

“It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself” (James Madison, Federalist 51).

The entire system of government established by the Founders had a biblical genius to it, in that it regarded as axiomatic that Americans were not ever to be trusted, and were a nation of hustlers, mountebanks, and scamps. This really was genuinely insightful.

Lord of All History

“Daniel answered and said: ‘Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding” (Dan. 2:19-23).

What God does —Daniel is clear on the fact that God in heaven rules over the affairs of men. Even Nebuchadnezzar, once recovered from his insanity, understood this (Dan. 4:34-35). A refusal to acknowledge this is the heart of insanity and madness.

The God who does it —in order for us to understand the events around us, and our role in them, we must recover a biblical vision of the Godness of God.

Whom do we serve? The god of contemporary religion is an idol and a loser. The gods we have fashioned in the forge of our own brains are not the God of the Bible (Is. 40:12-31). Who is the Lord? Who has known Him? Who has the power to define Him down to theological putty that men may shape as it pleases them?

We as a people will recover our liberty when we recover a biblical vision of God, and not a day before.

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Surveying the Text: Jonah

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

Jonah is a short book that records the famous story of a message being given to the prophet Jonah by God, and he rebels against the idea of delivering it. His motive for rebellion was that he despised Nineveh, and he knew that God was far more merciful than Jonah was disposed to be. So he fled in the opposite direction, and his goal was to get a long way in the opposite direction.

The Text

“Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here” (Matt. 12:38–41).

Summary of the Text

The scribes, the ordained men, and the Pharisees, the devout laymen, demanded that Jesus perform for them a sign. Jesus said that to hunt for a sign is an indication of an evil and adulterous generation. So the Lord went on to refuse them, but the refusal was a strange one. He said that no sign would be given to that evil generation except for the sign of Jonah—no sign but the very greatest sign. Resurrection is the sign beyond all signs. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of theketos (sea monster) so also the Son of man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. After Jonah “rose,” the men of Nineveh repented, and the contrasting implication is that the men of Jerusalem will not repent after the resurrection of Jesus.

Background of the Text

We don’t know a lot about the prophet Jonah. We know that he ministered during the time of Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14 25), and we know—given the fact that he had to be the source of the information recorded in the book of Jonah—that he had to have a highly developed sense of irony. The prophet Jonah is the butt of the story told here, but we should not forget that it this is, in some way or another, Jonah’s account of it.

The Basic Story

The book has only four chapters. In the first, Jonah is told to preach to Nineveh. He rebels because he knows how gracious God can be. They might repent, and Jonah didn’t want to risk that. He takes passage on a ship going the opposite direction, heading for

Tarshish. Some locate this in Spain, while the Vulgate and the Septuagint render it as Carthage. In any case, it was a long way from Nineveh, in the neighborhood of two thousand miles away. The Lord sent a tempest (Jon. 1:4), and Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard. They reluctantly do this, and Jonah is swallowed by a great monster of some sort (Jon. 1:17), a monster prepared by the Lord. The second chapter records Jonah’s prayer for deliverance, and concludes with the fish vomiting Jonah onto dry land. My suggestion here is that Jonah actually died—in 2:2 it says that he cried out to the Lord from the belly of Sheol, the place of the dead. When he comes back to life, he is still in the fish, and then he prays. And then in chapter 3 God suggested that “we try this again.” This time, Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, preaching a message of destruction—“Yet forty days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The message was heard with real repentance, from the king down to the livestock. Jonah was furious, and tells God that this is why he fled to Tarshish. He knew that God needed very little excuse to forgive sinners. God was just like that—incorrigibly low standards. God gave Jonah a plant to shade him from the heat, and then sent a worm to destroy the plant. When the heat struck Jonah to the point of fainting, so that he was ready to die, God compared Jonah’s greater pity for the plant than he had for the many thousands of the inhabitants of Nineveh. And there the story ends.

The Presence of the Lord

Jonah sought to flee from “the presence of the Lord” (Jon. 1:3 ,10 ); And so this is lesson number one. It cannot be done. The Lord is as present on the way to Tarshish as He was when He first spoke to Jonah. No doctrine is more self-evident than the omnipresence of God and no doctrine is easier—when in the grip of temptation—to forget.

All Except for Jonah

This is a book in which absolutely everyone and everything obeys, except for Jonah. God gives Jonah his mission, and so he heads due west (Jon. 1:3). So the Lord sent out a great wind over the sea, and the wind obeys (Jon. 1:4). The prophet tells the sailors to do a hard thing, and they do it (Jon. 1:16). The Lord prepared a great sea monster, and the sea monster was there, right on time (Jon. 1:17). Jonah preaches the Word of God, and the people of Nineveh believe God and obey (Jon. 3:5). The Lord prepared the gourd plant to shade Jonah, and it obeyed (Jon. 4:6). The Lord prepared a strong east wind to destroy the gourd plant, and it obeyed (Jon. 4:8). Everybody honors God in this book except for Jonah.

Greater than Jonah

The prophet Jonah slept in the boat in a storm (Jon. 1:5), and so did the prophet Jesus (Mark 4:38). In both instances, the winds and the waves were obedient. In one instance, the prophet slept the sleep of disobedience and in the other He slept the sleep of the righteous. One was supposed to go to a city that would repent, and the other to a city that would not. Both Jonah and Jesus died, and went to Sheol/Hades. Both of them were brought back, one in a type and the other in the great antitype.

And in the final contrast, the greater Jonah is delighted with our repentance, not furious. There is joy in the presence of the angels over just one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10). Who is this referring to? What is God actually like? We call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and some who want to be able to condemn somebody, call it the Parable of the Elder Brother. We really ought to call it the Parable of the Running Father, or the Father Who Jumps Fences.

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On Christian Disobedience #3

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

We continue to consider the increasingly relevant subject of Christian resistance to tyranny. But as we look to the Scriptures, beware of the danger of excitement over “right- wing red meat.” If ever a conflict with the magistrate comes, it must be a plain matter of submission to divine authority, and not an obvious example of a scofflaw who has just recently discovered a few Bible verses. It must be a matter of an upright man standing before a lawless throne, and not two dogs fighting over a piece of meat.

The Text

“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 12:18–13:10).

Milestone’s in Paul’s Argument

Not only is general context important in understanding “Romans 13,” but it is also crucial to grasp the much-neglected immediate context.

Lovers of Peace: effective resistance will never be accomplished through those who love rabble-rousing (v. 18).

Give Place to Wrath: Paul opposes the spirit of vigilantism. Do not avenge yourselves, but return good for evil (vv. 20- 21). This is not inconsistent with calling the cops. In fact, it requires calling the cops. God is the one who executes wrath and vengeance (v. 19), and He does it through His deacons, discussed in the next few verses. God says “vengeance is mine,” not “vengeance is bad.” Note here that we are talking about vengeance, and not emergency self-defense. It has been rightly observed that when every second counts, the police are only minutes away.

Subject to Authority: we must not even think about resistance until we have learned this demeanor. Where must we learn it? First, we learn in godly families and churches. Learn the basic tune before you attempt the part with the difficult harmonies and complicated words.

Do Right: the existing authorities are the ordinance of God (v. 2), established to reward righteousness and punish evil. Therefore do what is right—the Christian is to be a model citizen. Too often resisters say they hate the tyranny, but what they really hate is the very idea of authority. But if we love God, we must hate all evil (Ps. 97:10), and we must also love and honor true authority (1 Pet. 2:13-17).

Love through the Law: nevertheless, Paul’s conclusion is not “do whatever they say.” His conclusion is that we are to give ourselves over to loving one another, and this is measured by means of the holy law of God. We keep the Ten Commandments, and whatever other commandment there might be,as we love. This is the requirement of God. We are to obey the magistrates to the extent it is consistent with this charge. This boundary is not just limited to major issues like “preaching the gospel.” It applies to anything that is covered by the revealed will of God.

The Deacons of God

Now remember the broad context of the Bible as we consider this. The authorities established by God are men, and therefore cannot be treated as an absolute authority. Nor does Paul require this of us in the context of this passage.

First consider the word diakonos. The civil authorities are called God’s deacons three times in this section (twice in v. 4, and once again in v. 6.). In other words, they have an authority above them, and that authority has expressly charged them with a specific task. That task is the administration of justice as defined by God. Paul assumes throughout this particular discussion that the assigned task is being faithfully discharged.

Put another way, he is not talking about a situation when the civil authority is penalizing the righteous and mandating celebration of iniquity. A deacon is a steward. He is entrusted with something, and is not the inventor of that something.

Second, consider the reason for taxes. The reason we pay taxes is that the recipients of these taxes are God’s deacons, attending continually to the administration of justice. Third, we obey for conscience sake. We submit for the Lord’s sake (1 Pet. 2:13). We are directed by conscience, and not because we granted any final authority to our earthly rulers. We obey because God says to, to the extent God says to.

When to Just Say No

To the extent a regime is in high revolt against Heaven they forfeit the investiture of the Lord. Nevertheless, because of the deceitfulness of our own hearts, even when we have determined the general right of resistance, we must take care to pick our battles carefully. A refusal to resist can be as principled before God as drawing a line. Do not accept the privilege and then make a “flaming battle for liberty” out of your reluctance to pay the bill. If you did a lot of dancing, then don’t do a lot of objecting when it comes to the piper-paying.

So Then . . .

Focus on the meaning of marriage. Sodomy is not what a federal judge says it is. Sodomy is what the Lord who rained fire from heaven on the Cities of the Plain says it is. It has been the good pleasure of God to send us this particular challenge in the “glorifying” professions—photography, floral decorations, cake baking.

Remember the politics of child-bearing. We have many duties with regard to our children are given directly to us, without any civil middle man. This includes all questions of spanking, nurture, conscription, education, and, on their side, suicidal birth control and abortion. “In a multitude of people is the glory of a king, but without people a prince is ruined.” (Proverbs 14:28, ESV)

Be jealous for the liberties of the church. The church answers to her Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has said we are to preach the gospel to every creature, baptize the nations, and teach them all. He did not say to ask permission from others, or to make sure we got a license.

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Pentecostal Boldness (Pentecost 2015)

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God was poured out in abundance. That initial baptism of the Holy Spirit was followed, throughout the book of Acts, and throughout church history, with repeated fillings of the Spirit. When the Spirit fills a man already Spirit-baptized, the result is power, authority, logic on fire, and boldness.

The Text

“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:8–13).

Summary of the Text

Peter is the spokesman. He is the one who, just a few weeks before, had denied the Lord repeatedly. Christ not only forgave him, but had also empowered him. Peter was naturally impetuous, but this was something else entirely. So here Peter is filled with the Spirit. When filled with the Spirit, he stands up and he reasons with them (v. 9ff). If they wanted to know how a lame man was healed, Peter would tell them. Remember that Peter is here speaking to Annas, Caiaphas, et al. The last time they had an opportunity to hear Peter speak, he was cursing and swearing. Do you want to know how the lame man was healed (v. 9)? He was healed by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth (v. 10). Lest there be any mistake, Peter adds, “whom ye crucified” and whom God raised from the dead. This man was healed in the name of the man whom they had murdered, and whom God had vindicated through resurrection. What a message! What a congregation! What a preacher! This is the stone the (you) builders rejected, and which is now the cornerstone (v. 11). There is no salvation anywhere else, there is no other name (v. 12). This is the sign of the Spirit’s presence—the name of Jesus is being honored. But there is more. This is the signature of the Spirit’s presence—the name of Jesus is proclaimed with boldness (v. 13).

Boldness Hungers for More Boldness

They had healed a lame man. There was a commotion, and they were hauled in to give an account before the bloodiest men in Jerusalem. Peter preached straight up the middle. The authorities were stymied, and so they threatened them and let them go. When they were let go, they returned to their company and prayed. What did they pray for? “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word” (Acts 4:29 ). And when they prayed for this, what did God give them? It wasn’t the day of Pentecost any longer, but nevertheless what He gave them was a mini-Pentecost. “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). Having just faced down the chief criminals of all human history, they concluded that what they needed was more boldness.

Boldness is not a trick or a technique. It is not a homiletical style. Boldness is more than waving your arms when you preach. Boldness is what happens when the Spirit signs His name to the message. It is His signature. It means that He is present and active. When the gospel is preached, we should want far more than for the Spirit to be fifty miles away, murmuring that what we just said was technically accurate. We should want the Spirit to be present, close, and in motion.

More Than a Local Excitement

“According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, butthat with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death” (Phil. 1:20).

Whatever happens, this should always be our longing. Decades later, the apostle Paul still includes it among his prayer requests. “And for me, that utterance may be given unto me,that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:19). The apostle is not here asking to have his stage fright taken away, or to have the Spirit remove his butterflies.

Boldness is not something that can only happen when there are enemies and adversaries. Boldness is what attracts the enemies and adversaries. If a preacher on the north coast of Alaska were given boldness, the entire machinery of the secular establishment would be deployed to shut that man down.

Vertical and Horizontal

Now the only possible way for us to have a Pentecostal boldness before the world is for us to have a justified boldness in the heavenly places. Before we can have boldness about God in the presence of man, we must have boldness as men in the presence of God. And that is not possible apart from the blood of Jesus Christ, and the free grace of justification in His resurrection. Consider these truths.

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:19–22).

We can only go out to our fellow man when we are able to come into the presence of God.

The apostle John tells us the same thing.

“Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

Those who have boldness in the day of judgment are able to “be” in this world. This is what enables us to bear witness, to testify. And not only to testify, but to do so with boldness.

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