Truth Magazine

By Randy Blackaby

Reading the prophet Nahum’s poetic “burden” is shocking to the sensibilities, unsettling if you don’t “know” Jehovah and yet consoling to the righteous who grasp the apocalyptic message.

Nahum the “consoler,” writing at the peak of Assyrian power as God’s people were oppressed by the world power headquartered in Nineveh, paints God as few today see him.

Nahum’s poem opens averring God’s jealousy, vengeance, furor and slow, but powerful, wrath on his enemies. Nahum says God will not acquit (find guiltless) the wicked. The prophet peels back walls of ignorance to reveal a Supreme Being who is the “stronghold” of his trusting, righteous people, but an “overwhelming flood” of destruction to his enemies.

Nineveh stands in history as a figure of the world. An ancient city founded by Nimrod, the great grandson of Noah, it was strong, had stood for centuries, and was the ruling power of the day. A bloody city, full of lies, robbery, brutality, cruelty and idolatry, Nineveh struck pure terror into the hearts of its enemies through torture and atrocity.

But Nahum’s message is an artfully crafted psychological terror itself. He preaches that Nineveh will reap what it has sown in “the day of the Lord.”

He gives insight into the real “terror of the Lord.” The brutal Ninevites, who piled the corpses of their enemies in heaps, are promised a judgment of parallel but dramatically greater proportions.

At the approach of judgment the faces of Ninevites will drain of color, their hearts melt and their knees shake as they finally acknowledge the power of Almighty God.

Terror is a relative thing. To the righteous it is one physio-emotional reaction – but to the terrorist himself it is magnified by the mental images of his own past terrorism and sin.

God, through Nahum, calls Nineveh a great whore and vows that in punishment her “skirts will be lifted over her head” to expose her nakedness and her shame.

History confirms the dramatic fall of Assyria and its capital, just as Nahum had predicted.

The picture Nahum paints of Jehovah coming in judgment, terrorizing the wicked, devouring his enemies like stubble, humiliating evil men like whores caught in the act, destroying in raging, jealous vengeance, is hard for most to accept.

Is the God of the Old Testament a different God than the one we read about in the New Testament? Just read the book of Revelation – after you’ve read the book of Nahum – and decide.

Our God of love is not destroyed by knowledge of his terrible anger over sin. In fact, for the righteous, this knowledge adds to our admiration of his love. You see, we read of God’s fury over sin before we read about his love in sending his Son to die for sinners. Can you imagine the degree of love that must be involved to sacrifice a Son for people involved in something you hate so bitterly?

And, the book of Nahum, like the book of Revelation, consoles the righteous. As those martyrs under the altar cried out, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”, so the faithful today wait in anticipation of justice.

And the message of Nahum still rings in the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:11: “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.”

Nahum instructed the Ninevites about the terror of Jehovah when the time for change was gone. Let us pray we learn the lesson before that great and mighty Day of the Lord.

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 2, pp. 35-36
January 17, 1991

By Ron Halbrook

I claim no expert qualifications in raising children, just some training in the school of life. I have not even graduated yet, neither from life nor from raising children. My wife and I are getting our training with three children: ages 18 (Jonathan), 14 (David), and 11 (Deborah). In addition, I taught junior high school for six years, and have been working with families while preaching the gospel of Christ for about 25 years (the six and 25 overlap). Experience and the counsel of successful parents are helpful to us all, but the Bible contains the wisdom of God to guide and direct parents in raising their children. God wrote the ultimate textbook on the subject.

The 12 points listed below are beginning points for study and thought. Another list of ” 12 Steps to Raising a Drug Addict” by an unknown author is provided. Parents who wish to see which way they are leading their children may wish to put a check mark by each step they are taking in each list. Do we need to change the direction of our steps?

1. Pray with the child and teach him to pray at home (Matt. 6:5-15).

2. Teach him the stories and lessons recorded in the Bible at home (2 Tim. 3:15).

3. Take him (don’t just send him) to worship God, assembling with the people of God where the truth of God’s word is publicly taught (Heb. 10:25).

4. Teach him honesty by your example. Be honest in every word and deed, in both family and business matters. Do not steal even small things or lie about work or school absences (Col. 3:9).

5. Work to provide your family’s needs and teach your children that work is a blessing, not a curse. Give him jobs and chores within his ability (Eph. 4:28).

6. Spend time with your wife and children. Do not think that money and material things can substitute for your personal attention and love. Do not spend all extra time on the job, with friends, or in hobbies (Eph. 5:22-6:4).

7. Exercise balanced discipline. Balance firmness with patience. Spank when necessary but without excess or abuse (Prov. 23:13; Col. 3:21).

8. Teach the child respect for authority by praying for civil leaders and by obeying the laws of the land. When he complains of school problems, speak respectfully of school personnel; contact them if needed to seek information and solutions (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

9. Teach your child to love his fellow man by your conduct at home, controlling your temper and weighing your words. Never address the mate who shares your name or the children you brought into the world as dogs or dirt under your feet (Col. 3:18-21).

10. Let your children learn appreciation from your example. Let him learn to say, “Thank you,” and mean it, by hearing you say, “Thank you,” sincerely (Rom. 16:3-4).

11. Be courteous, kind, and considerate as you teach him to be courteous, kind, and considerate. Show him that we have friends by being friendly, being genuinely interested in the welfare of others (Matt. 7:12; Eph. 4:31-32).

12. Teach your child that the Bible is our God-given standard of right and wrong. Immorality, foul speech, dishonesty, temper fits, intoxication (whether by illegal drugs or alcohol), violence, malice, pornography, and any form of irreverence toward God are always wrong. No exceptions! The Bible teaches what is right, good, and true (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Eccl. 12:13). All the principles stated above are rooted in a knowledge of God and the Word of God. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” and it is our job as parents to provide our children this solid foundation for life (Prov. 1:7). When the child is grown, he may,’ choose to turn from truth and right in spite of the best training, as Adam and Eve sinned after being perfectly taught by God. The book of Proverbs is a veritable handbook for raising wise and godly children, and reminds us that the task is not impossible. In fact, it inspires our efforts by stating a general rule which observation and experience confirm, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6).

1. From his infancy give the child everything he wants. In this way he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living.

2. When he picks up bad words, laugh at him; this will make him think vulgarity is cute. It will also encourage him to pick up cuter phrases, that will blow off the top of your head later.

3. Never give him any spiritual training, wait until he is 21 and then let him decide for himself.

4. Avoid use of the word wrong. He may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him to believe later, when he is arrested for stealing a car, that society is against him, and he is being persecuted.

5. Pick up everything he leaves laying around, such as books, shoes, clothing. Do everything for him so he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility onto others.

6. Let him read any printed matter he can get his hands on. Be careful that the silverware and drinking glasses are sterilized, but let his mind feast on garbage.

7. Quarrel frequently in the presence of your children. In this way they will not be too shocked when the home is broken up later.

8. Give a child all the spending money he wants. Never let him earn his own way. Why should he have things as tough as you had them?

9. Satisfy his every craving for food, drink, and comfort. See that every sensual desire is gratified. Denial may lead to harmful frustration.

10. Take his part against neighbors, teachers, and policemen. They all are prejudiced against your child.

11. When he gets into real trouble apologize for yourself by saying, “I never could do anything with him.”

12. Prepare for a life of grief, you will be apt to have it.

If these 12 steps do not produce a drug addict, at least it cannot be said that we did not try. On the whole, these 12 steps are proving to be abundantly successful in producing drop-outs, dead-beats, leeches, and assorted criminals in addition to drug addicts. Because of the provisions of God’s grace, a few have “fallen away” from their evil beginnings and risen above their training. This is in spite of their parents, not because of them.

May we all – parents and children alike – open our hearts to the Word of God.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.

Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:1-4).

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 1, pp. 16-17
January 3, 1991

By Dalton Key

Sometime back, I heard a preacher make the above statement. He explained by saying, “I never intend to preach another doctrinal or issue-related sermon. I believe in the motivational positive approach to preaching. ” He went on to say that he considered the preaching of such men as N.B. Hardeman, Gus Nichols, and Foy E. Wallace, Jr. “old fashioned” and believed these men did “more harm than good.”

This dangerous and snobbish attitude has become alarmingly popular of late. A Bible College teacher made a rousing speech in a south Texas community a few years back. He exclaimed, “I wish all Bibles could be removed from our pews, class rooms, and Christian homes for one year, because our people are beginning to use the Bible as a crutch.” On another occasion, a different speaker, who had once gone the Pentecostal route, threw his Bible on the floor and screamed, “If this old book is going to keep me from Jesus Christ, I don’t want this book!”

In the frenzied search for something “new,” many have rejected both the “old paths” of God’s truth and those faithful men of the past who have so ably defended these scriptural paths. Men may throw away their Bibles; they may openly berate and belittle those who have given their lives in proclaiming and protecting the blessed Book of God; yet the Bible is still true, the Word of God is still right; and the gospel is still the power of God unto salvation (Psa. 119:160; 33:4; Rom. 1:16). Moreover, the “more harm than good” supposedly done by men the likes of Hardemen, Nichols, and Wallace could not be harm they did to the cause of Christ or his church. The “more harm than good” would best refer to the harm they did, and would do now, if alive, to this subjective scourge of social evangelism.

The simple message of the New Testament Christianity has never been as popular with the masses as the fabricated fables of the religious snake oil salesman. Men will usually prefer having their ears tickled to having their toes stepped on. King Ahab much preferred the false testimony of the four hundred phony prophets to the truth as proclaimed by Micaiah, the outcast prophet of God (1 Kgs. 21). John the Baptist lost his head because of his “doctrinal, issue-related” preaching. No doubt he could have taken the “motivational, positive approach to preaching,” pleased Herod and his legalized mistress by so doing, and kept his head, But as B.C. Goodpasture once said, “It’s better to have a head like John had and give it as he gave his than to have heads like some people and keep them.” Did not Paul, that apostle of persecution, write, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ?” (Gal. 1:10) May we never become guilty of cheaply selling the truth of God for the laud and plaudits of men.

We must never hang up our swords. As never before, we must take up the “sword of the Spirit” that we may ably combat the “wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:17,11). Ours is a spiritual battle, “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). To hang up our swords in the face of such a battle would be nothing short of spiritual treason.

There is one sense in which all preaching must be alike; all preaching must be based, grounded and founded in the Bible. Nothing short of this will get the job done (Sword and Shield, Nov. 1990).

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 1, p. 15
January 3, 1991

By Randy Cavender

In some of my religious discussions with others, I have found that individuals are disturbed by the number of denominations if our community. They are troubled by the different “gospels” that are preached. This is very difficult for some to understand. Sometimes it is difficult to explain also. What does the Bible say concerning denominationalism? Is it of God? Did Christ promote or encourage denominationalism in his death? Did the apostles establish denominations? Let us investigate what the Scriptures teach concerning denominationalism.

First of all, we must realize that the Lord expects his people to be one. Jesus prayed earnestly to the Father on behalf of those who would believe, “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me” (Jn. 17:21). What does it mean to be one? Paul pleaded with the Corinthians, “let there be no divisions among you” by speaking the same things and being perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10). Now it is obvious that the religious community does not speak the same things. They are not perfectly joined together in the same mind or judgment. You might hear some who are members of the Methodist church proclaim that one’s baptism may be a sprinkling, while the Baptist church believes baptism is immersion, but neither of the above believes that baptism is essential to one’s salvation. Notice the following quotes:

We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or deserving. Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only (emp. mine, RHQ is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort (Discipline of the Methodist Church 1956, Articles of Religion, IX. Of the Justification of Man, p. 71).

We believe that the great gospel blessing which Christ secures to such as believe in him is justification; that justification includes the pardon of sin, and the promise of eternal life on principles of righteousness; that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith (emp. mine, RHQ in the Redeemer’s blood; by virtue of which faith his perfect righteousness is freely imputed to us of God (Baptist Church Manual, J.M. Pendleton D.D., Declaration of Faith, V. of Justification, p. 48).

While these two denominational bodies disagree concerning the mode of baptism, both agree that it is not essential to one’s salvation. Still yet, many of the Pentecostal groups believe and teach that one must be baptized to be saved. The amazing thing about this is these groups all claim to be one. They claim to believe the same Bible; they claim to follow the same God; but these religious bodies do not speak the same things. They are not of the same mind or judgment. Neither are they one as the Lord prayed.

Still yet, denominationalism violates another Bible principle. In Galatians 5:19-21, Paul gives a list of the works of the flesh. Two words one should notice are “seditions and heresies” (Gal. 5:20). The term “seditions” means, “disunion, dissension: division, sedition” (Strong’s Concordance). Also notice what W.E. Vine says concerning this word in his Dictionary of New Testament Words, “a standing apart, hence a dissension, division.” Kind reader, if denominationalism does not fit this description, what does? They are divided among themselves on various subjects such as salvation, their religious names, and their worship. The term “heresies” means, “a choice, i.e. (specially) a party or (abstractly) disunion: heresy [which is the Greek word itself], sect” (Strong’s Concordance). Again, I suggest to you that denominationalism violates this Bible principle by the various groups dividing into parties or sects. Each group calls itself by a name foreign to the New Testament. Some call themselves Pentecostals, while others call themselves Methodists. Many are Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others, Baptists. Friend, you can search your Bible completely, and you will never find any of these names mentioned. Those who were members of the church of Christ died for were called Christians. That’s all, nothing more.

One might object and say, “I believe the church of Christ is a denomination.” Well, let us see. If you attend the congregation where I preach, you will find that everything one must do to be saved will be preached. You will be given Bible proof for the teaching we do. If you attend the church of Christ elsewhere, you will find nothing different preached concerning how to be saved. The reason there are no differences in doctrine is that each church is “of Christ,” teaching and practicing only those things which please him! There is no variation at all because the Bible is being taught! You will also notice that there is no difference in our worship services. Oh, the order or arrangement might be different, but each act of worship will be the same. Our work is the same also. You will find each congregation doing its own work, abiding in the teaching of God’s word. If you were to find something different concerning these subjects, then that is evidence that the truth is not being followed and someone is wrong.

Furthermore, the church of Christ is not a denomination because Christ established it, not man. You can look back in history and see where man, not God, established denominations. Jesus promised, “. . . and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). The Bible clearly points out when the church of Christ was established, i.e. on the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2). The church Christ built was not a denomination, for they all obeyed the same commands and were added to the church by Christ himself (Acts 2:47).

We also see members of the New Testament church were called Christians. They did not call themselves “Church of Christ Christians.” These people were simply disciples or followers of Christ, and the Bible declares plainly what name God chose for his followers. Notice two passages, “The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. You shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will name. ” “And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch” (Isa. 62:2; Acts 11:26). We are simply Christians, wearing this wonderful name given by the great God of Heaven.

Where will you put your faith, in denominationalism or the Lord? Please don’t close your eyes to the truth of the Bible. Denominationalism is wrong and sinful. It promotes sects, divisions, and men. The church of our Lord seeks to promote only God and his Son (Eph. 3:21). How can you be part of the Lord’s church? Simply obey the commands of God as the Jews did on Pentecost and be added by Jesus himself to his church (Acts 2:47).

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 2, pp. 33, 41
January 17, 1991