Category: Matthew

Posted in John, Matthew

Raising Hell – Part One

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28

Two years ago I approached our elder board with a desire to present a position on the nature of hell that is different from what most of the traditional church believes. The elders asked me to wait on doing the talk publicly until they had a chance to study and discuss the topic with me. So I waited, and we went through Scripture together. Here are some of the points we were in full agreement about:

  1. Hell is a place of punishment where those who reject Christ will go.
  2. Hell is a place of conscious torment.
  3. Hell is a place of eternal, irreversible judgment or punishment. There isn’t a second chance nor is its punishment remedial.

What some respectfully disagreed with is the duration of conscious torment. I believe Scripture teaches ultimate annihilation after souls have paid a just penalty for their sins while others believe the traditional opinion that the torment of hell goes on forever. Of course, they would argue that in God’s economy, this too is a just penalty.

I was given the freedom to do the talk as long as I was clear that we were in agreement on the essentials and that the exact nature of hell’s punishment is a non-essential that Bible believing evangelicals can agree to disagree on. (I ended up writing an ebook on the topic called: Raising Hell: A closer look at the church’s darkest doctrine)

God wants us to behold His severity so that we will never experience it. He loves us and has made a way for all of us to be saved through Christ, so that all we ever need to know is His kindness. Yet we are to behold His severity, so that we never forget that He is a holy Judge. If we choose to turn our backs on Christ, Paul warns, we will experience His severity along with all those who have hardened their hearts to His love.

It is important that we believe in hell. There is a heaven, Jesus said so, and He even said that if it wasn’t so He would have told us. (See John 14:2) But the One who is the truth also said there is a hell. In fact, He warned us many times about hell urging us to make sure we didn’t end up there.

Posted in Ephesians, Mark, Matthew

Part of the Bride

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5:31-32

If you have accepted Christ you are a son or daughter of God, but you are not a bride of Christ. Jesus doesn’t have many brides, only one. The two will become one – Jesus is one and the church together is the other one. When we accept Christ we become part of the bride so to fulfill our destiny we must learn how to connect with each other. When we become one unified church, the beauty of the bride will go forth drawing people to Christ, the Spirit and the bride will announce the gospel, and finally, Jesus will come back and take us to the marriage supper of the Lamb. We don’t need anyone but Jesus to become a child of God, but we need one another to really be the bride. That’s why He is so insistent on unity.

Ephesians 4:3 says, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” “Make every effort” means work at it!  Jesus said if someone has sinned against us we are to forgive them without even going to them. “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” (Mark 11:25) He said if someone has something against us and we know about it, we are to go to them and try to make it right. “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23-24)

This is real Christianity that really shows God we are serious. When we make things right, even if we don’t feel like it, the Father is able to bring healing to the bride and prepare us for the coming Bridegroom.

Posted in Matthew

Believing in Hell

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28

It is tempting for human beings to pick and choose the parts of the Bible they like and kind of ignore the rest. Everyone wants to believe in heaven; that God is watching lovingly over us; and that there is meaning to our lives. Jesus gives us all those things, but He also told us there is a hell.

On November 23, 1998 a man named Bill Wiese had a prophetic experience where he was sent to hell for twenty-three minutes. (Google “23 Minutes in Hell” to hear him tell the story.) Near the end of this dramatic experience the Lord spoke to Him about why this had happened: “Because many people do not believe that hell truly exists. Even some of My own people do not believe that hell is real.” (23 Minutes in Hell; pg 33)

To not believe in hell puts one at greater risk of ending up there. This would be the most tragic thing that could happen to any of us. We need to believe in hell, fear God, and make sure that we cling to Christ and His salvation so that we stay off the wide road that leads to destruction.

Posted in 1John, Acts, Matthew, Romans

Overreaching

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed…We who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8:19; 23

My favorite board game is called Ticket to Ride. It involves “tickets” you choose to keep or throw away based on whether you think you can build the trains necessary to connect the two cities listed on the card; it’s all about risk and reward. The problem, of course, is that if you overreach and take a ticket you can’t fulfill, it counts against you in the end. You can be having a great game but then, in a moment of presumption, overreach in a way that causes you to lose in the end.

Overreaching in preaching leads people to disillusionment. Some very zealous teachers today believe that this is the time that the sons of God are going to be fully revealed and begin to remove the curse on creation. As we walk in our full authority, they maintain, everything will change for the better on this earth.

While it is critically important for us to know our identity in Christ, the event creation is longing for only occurs at the return of Christ where our adoption is completed and our bodies are redeemed. The full manifestation of the sons of God happens at the second coming; not in this present age. John said it like this: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (1John 3:2)

Right now we groan with all of creation and the Holy Spirit within us also groans (Romans 8:26-27) because things aren’t right yet and they won’t be until Jesus comes back. Life in this present age is hard, but God is still good. When Jesus described the time we’re now living in He said the wind and the waves were going to hit every life. He promised that those who obeyed His words would survive the storms, not be saved from them ever happening. (Matthew 7:24-27)

I love it when people are excited about Jesus, but we never have permission to overstate what we have been promised. No matter how much we may like a preacher, we have a responsibility to judge all that we hear by what the Word of God actually says. (Acts 17:11)

Posted in 1John, 2Corinthians, Hebrews, Isaiah, James, Matthew, Revelation

Drawing Near

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8

The remarkable thing about the New Covenant is that it gives us as much of God as we want. The Old Covenant featured a veil which stood between sinful humanity and a holy God. It served as a reminder that God needed to keep a safe distance from us, or we might easily be struck down by the consuming fire He is. (Hebrews 12:29)

Everything today has changed because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The veil, it turns out, was a picture of Christ’s body. (Hebrews 10:20) When Jesus was crucified as the sacrifice for our sins, the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. (Matthew 27:51) We now have access to God 24/7 and are encouraged to “draw near with confidence having our hearts cleansed from a guilty conscience.” (Hebrews 10:22)

We don’t have to live far from God! Don’t let fear, confusion, regrets, discouragement, distractions, or even struggles with sin keep you away from nearness to God. No one cleans up before they take a shower – the purpose of the shower is to clean you up. Don’t clean up for God, draw near and God will clean up your life without you even focusing on it. Here’s how He cleans us up in His Presence:

  1. His perfect love casts out fear. (1John 4:18)
  2. The clouds of confusion are cleared by the lens of eternity. (2Corinthians 4:18)
  3. He gives us His beauty in place of the ashes of our regrets. (Isaiah 61:3)
  4. He releases joy which replaces discouragement. (Isaiah 61:3)
  5. His blood silences every accusation against us and gives us a new beginning without sin. (Revelation 12:10-11)

God likes us, and He has done everything to welcome us into His presence which is the ultimate answer to every one of our problems. To live far away from God is to miss the main purpose for living.

Posted in Hebrews, Matthew

Watch!

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.” Matthew 24:42-43 

The word watch means to “keep awake” and be “spiritually alert.” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary) It is the main instruction Jesus gives to His people about the end times. So how does one watch?

First, I think it is important to realize how easy it is to fall asleep spiritually. The flesh or carnal nature is weak and when it’s in control of our lives we go to sleep. It can be hard to recognize you’re asleep because you can still be busy doing stuff, maybe even religious duties. But when we put our identity in doing instead of in the Lord Himself, we start falling asleep spiritually.

Jesus said we have to “keep watching,” so we have to ask ourselves regularly: Have I fallen asleep? Do I find myself compromising in situations that I wouldn’t have in the past? Have I stopped reading the Bible and praying on my own? Do I think most about this world or the one to come? Am I more concerned about what people think or about what God thinks? These are important questions because they warn us when we’re getting sleepy.

If you’re fairly certain you’ve fallen asleep then tell yourself it’s time to wake up. Sound the alarm and don’t hit the snooze button or turn it off until you are all the way out of bed. Take time to repent and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you again. Consider fasting a meal or a day to grab a hold of eternal life in a determined fashion. I’m struck by this verse in Hebrews, “There is a Sabbath rest for the people of God… so make every effort to enter that rest.” (Hebrews 4:9-11)  It really is a paradox – we are fully awake only when we’re resting in Christ’s finished work. Once we’re awake we need to “keep watching.”

Posted in Galatians, Matthew

Keeping the Bats Out 

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’: and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.” Matthew 12:43-45

We had a bat problem in our house in Montevideo, MN. There’s nothing creepier than a bat slithering into your house and flying around in your bedroom.   I remember being awakened one night, and then commanded by my wife to “do something” while she left the room and made sure the door was shut. She snuck a broom back into the room a few minutes later, so I wouldn’t be completely defenseless.

The bat was dealt with that night, but the next morning came with a more difficult problem to solve: how did the bat get in? We ended up hiring a company who came out to bat proof our house. A few days later I was sleeping peacefully when I thought I heard something swooshing around the room. My first thought was a bat but I comforted myself that we had already solved that problem. Surely it’s only a dream.

I wasn’t dreaming. The morning after fighting with the second bat, I called the bat proof company and they assured me that they would come back out and that I didn’t need to be alarmed because this sort of thing happens all the time. He told me something like this: “When bats get evicted from a house they circle that home for up to three days trying to find a way back in. We will find the new way they snuck in and plug it and continue to do so until they find a different home.”

If you’re a believer, the enemy can’t possess you, but if you believe a lie he can bring oppression. When you and I grab hold of the word of God in any area he loses his hold temporarily, but he doesn’t give up easily. He will circle and persecute and test the truth we started believing because he wants his place of influence back.

When we actively believe the truth we plug up any holes that would allow the enemy’s influence back into our lives. Paul told us to “stand firm in our freedom and not be enslaved again to any yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1) So stand firm in the truth and don’t let the bats back in!

Posted in John, Matthew

Shutting the Door

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“When you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:6

Think about the words “shut your door.” Are we too available to this world and to the people of this world? Are we so connected that we struggle to shut the door on human contact to make ourselves fully available for fellowship with God? Bob Sorge says: “God’s not disappointed in you when you fail to spend time with Him alone; He’s disappointed for you.” He has so much to give us in the secret place. We lose our fear of man, we hear His whispers, He changes our desires, He adjusts our perspectives, He removes our weights, and of course, He hears our prayers.

Sometimes people do get alone with God and find their time disappointing because they don’t feel they really make a connection. Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23) If you are a believer the Holy Spirit lives in your spirit and that is where God wants to meet you. Sometimes we close the physical door but we have trouble closing the door of our souls (mind, will, and emotions) so that we can really commune with God in our spirits.

Our emotions, anxieties, and continual thinking can keep us from true communion. Shut the door! Ask the Holy Spirit to help you and become comfortable with the fact that God lives in you. The challenge is to live from our spirits, so that the presence of God and the word of God dominate our souls instead of our carnal nature. When we take time to shut the door to have alone time with God it gets much easier to shut the door of our souls during the day when we need to drink from the Spirit.

The cool thing about disconnecting from this world and its relationships is how much more we will have to bring to them when we reconnect.

Posted in 1Peter, Matthew

God’s Timing

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God and in due time He will exalt you.” 1Peter 5:6

Timing is very important to God. We want everything right now. I remember when our daughter Christina was only about three years old holding up her cup toward me saying, “Daddy, get me some milk.” Wanting to teach her good manners I replied, “What do you say, Sweetheart?” I’ll never forget that cherubic face that seemed to be a contradiction to her demanding tone as she uttered only one word: “NOW!”

It is the pride in us that demands God and people to do what we want them to do, now. God is gracious and loves us more than we can imagine, yet He wants more for us than we often want for ourselves. We think about our short term circumstances while He thinks about our long term character. Our Father wants to break off our pride, so that we can take on the beauty of His Son who is “meek and lowly of heart.” (Matthew 11:29)

One way He does this is timing. In our text the words, “due time,” are a translation of the Greek word, “kairos.” “Chronos” is the Greek word that measures epochs and periods of time, but “kairos” is a specific point of time; “an opportune time,” “at the proper time,” or as the NIV translates, “in due time.”  They all mean the same thing: “In God’s timing.” Ours is to humble ourselves knowing that God’s hand is mighty and able to do whatever we have asked, if we will only wait for Him instead of trying to manipulate things ourselves.

The next verse gives us instruction on how to humble ourselves: “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” We are to rest in His love and know that He is going to be active in taking care of what we have trusted to Him while we wait expectantly.

Posted in Matthew, Romans

Our Mutual Debt

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.  So, as much as I am able, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also.” Romans 1:14-15

How can Paul owe people he has never met?  There are two ways to owe a debt (Timothy Keller’s commentary on Romans): one is when someone lends you money and you owe them until it is repaid; the other is where someone gives you something to give to someone else.  Until you have given them what was entrusted to you for them, you are in their debt.  This is how Paul, and we, are in debt to all those who have not heard the gospel.  Think of when UPS is given a package for someone else.  They could be said to be in debt until the package is delivered and signed for.

To all those God has graciously saved, He has given a charge: “Go into all the world and make disciples of everyone.” (Matthew 28:19-20)  “Go” is to be understood as plural because He is speaking to the redeemed community.  Go together, and take the gospel that has saved you, and give it to everyone in the world for My sake.

I don’t like being in debt; but if I have a debt, I certainly want to know about it.  In Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s dead business partner, Jacob Marley, appears to Scrooge as a ghost with a chain he must carry around as a punishment for how he lived on earth.  Scrooge feels the chain is unfair.

“You were a good man, Jacob.  A man of business.”

At this Marly screams his response, “Business!  Mankind was my business!”

Marley had a debt while on earth even if he didn’t own it.  We don’t get to bury our heads in the sand and say to ourselves, “that’s not my problem.”  If you are a real Christian, it is your problem.  We have a mutual debt to reach the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Let’s own it together and then pray to the Lord of the harvest, “Send us to fulfill whatever assignment you have for us to fulfill.” (Matthew 9:38)