FAITHFUL FRIENDS

 

FAITHFUL FRIENDS

 

Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (Gal. 2:11-21).

Introduction

There was a group styling themselves as “Pagans” who met in a neighbourhood where I once used to live. Some people were stirred up enough to write into the neighbourhood newspaper about it all. I must admit that I usually cringe when I read the letters of so-called Christians written in the local rag – especially when they attempt to defend the Faith against outside attack. I get the distinct impression that they’re Christians in name only, that they are ignorant of the Scriptures. They often promote what I call “Doormat Christianity.” Doormat Christianity invites people to walk all over them. It’s a caricature of Christianity. It’s not the real thing. It’s what those outside of the church usually think Christianity is, you know, Hallmark Christmas movies etc. The trouble is that there are many in the church today who believe the same lie.

Well, we should already know that the Gospel is about setting people free, that the Gospel is about being set free from all false religion, be it Communism, Atheism, Socialism, Secularism, Neo-Marxism, Evolutionism, Humanism, Greenie-ism, Wokeism, etc. The Gospel can even set you free from Paganism (which includes those isms just listed). It can free you from all -ism. However, the freedom isn’t just so that you can do as you like. The freedom Christ purchased with His blood is the freedom to serve God, i.e., to serve Him the way He wants to be served. It’s the freedom from serving the idols of false religion and false philosophy. It’s the freedom to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. And it’s the freedom to love your neighbour as yourself.

St Paul's Presbyterian Church, Brisbane

The church often has failed miserably to express her love for the Lord by keeping His Commandments in their various life applications. In the following I want you to see how the Apostle Paul loves God and his neighbour as himself. You’ll see him admonish a Christian brother right to his very face. And you’ll see that he did this out of love for the Lord and love for his neighbour.

Before we get started, I want you also to remember that Paul the Apostle said these words, “Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern” (Phil. 3:17). 

Faithful Friends are Tried

How many times has the Lord given you opportunity to demonstrate Christian love? Look at the opportunity that the Lord has given Paul. Look at the test he’s undergoing. The Council at Jerusalem was in total agreement with Paul’s Gospel. And then, (who would have thought!), the Apostle Peter starts playing the hypocrite (2:13). He’s having a bad influence, setting a bad example, destroying the pattern Christians are to follow. The rest of the Jews are playing the hypocrite along with him. Peter’s even got Barnabas climbing aboard too. So, what’s going on here?

A bunch of Jewish men came from the place where James was ministering. And what does Peter do? He turns up his nose at the people he used to dine with, and he goes and sits with these Jews. This, of course, is a strange thing for Peter to do. In chapter 11 of the book of Acts there’s a record of Peter’s encounter with Jews over this very issue. The Jews then had accused him of eating with Gentiles. So Peter told them all about the vision he had had – how he was commanded by the Lord to eat all these things that according to their dietary law, were unclean to Jews. Peter complained to the Lord, but the Lord said, “What God has cleansed you must not call common” (Acts 11:9). And Peter spoke these words, “So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them [the Gentiles], by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:8-9).

So what’s Peter playing at? He’s siding with Jews and shunning everyone else. Well, Peter, it would seem, is prone to saying one thing and doing another. For He is the man who said, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.” Then before a rooster could crow, he said, “I don’t know him!” But let’s give the Apostle Peter the benefit of the doubt here. Perhaps he hadn’t thought through what he was doing.

John Know's grave, Edinburgh

Let’s say you were an Aussie living in Scotland. What would you do if you bumped into a bunch of Aussies over on holiday. You’d want to spend some time with them. Why? Well, you’d want to reminisce about things back home. You’d have so much in common. But I think we’re clutching at straws trying to make excuses for Peter actions here. Because we’re told that Peter was “fearing those who were of the circumcision” (2:12).

Now, as Christians, when it comes to races, we tend to say that there is only one race – the human race. Depending on where you look it up, there seems to be around five races listed – from white Caucasian through black Negroid with others in between. However, as Christians, we look to the Table of Nations as described in Genesis 10. If all but the eight on the ark died in the Flood, then we are all descendants of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives. Why am I telling you this? Paul is calling Peter racist! He says to Peter, “We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles…” (2:15).

The word Jews has to do with Paul and Peter being Ju-dahites. They were of the line of Shem, from whence we get Semites. The descendants of Ham, generally speaking, are those who spread over Africa and beyond, the Hamites, and the Japhethites, generally speaking, are the Greeks, those who spread all over Europe and beyond. The Arabs are also Semites. But let’s not get too carried away here.

Instead of Judahites or “Jews by nature”, the NIV has “Jews by birth.” The words “by nature” accommodates both by birth and by nature. The word “Gentile” has to do with the ethnics, as in all those from nations other than Paul and Peter’s. Gentiles simply means nations, nations other than the one Paul and Peter belong to, including those descended from Ham and Japheth, from black through white.

Being Celtic, the Galatians, i.e., these “Greeks”, would predominantly be fair skinned. Anyway, Paul is calling out Peter for being racist by his actions. Up ahead in Galatians Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek … for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). He says in Romans, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek…” (Rom. 10:12). In 1 Corinthians, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – whether Jews or Greeks…” (1 Cor. 12:13). And in Ephesians, “having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity” (Eph. 2:15-18). We could add more verses, but the Gentiles, the Ethnics, i.e., the other Nations, have now been grafted into the same olive tree that Paul and Peter belong to (Rom. 11:17), which is to say, that the Church is the Israel of God. “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed” (Gal. 3:7-8, cf. 3:13-14).

Triquetra or Celtic Knot

Therefore, Paul confronting Peter for his racism is very relevant for our own day where we have some Christians ascribing a special status to today’s Jews, even the present day nation of Israel! The eyes of many of them are on the nation of Israel, as if this nation, and not the Church that the Lord bought with His own precious blood (Acts 20:28), which is made up of Jew and Gentile, is, because of its ethnicity, the people of God. This is exactly why Paul is rebuking Peter! According to Paul, there is no chosen race. Christ is the chosen One; and if you or your nation are not in Christ, then you or your nation are not chosen.       

How is the Apostle Paul going to demonstrate genuine Christian love to this erring brother? Is he going to turn a blind eye and hope it will all go away on its own? “If the blind leads the blind both will fall into a ditch.” Maybe Peter can’t see it, but Paul can. He’s not blind. Peter is at fault. “He was to be blamed” (2:11). And so, the Lord has given Paul the golden opportunity to act as a faithful friend to Peter. Paul, let’s see if you really do love God and your neighbour. That’s his test.

Faithful Friends are True

“But when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed” (2:11). And we are told in verse 14 that Paul told Peter off in front of everyone. There was none of this behind the back stuff with Paul. Paul publicly “shirtfronted” Peter!

How is a person going to know you love him if you refuse to openly express that love? How many times have you or I said to someone, “I don’t think so and so should be doing what they’re doing”? Instead of talking about the person you should be talking to the person. There’s a proverb which says, “Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed” (Prov. 27:5). It goes on to say, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” It’s my belief that there’s too much deceitful kissing and slobbering over each other in Christian circles today. Don’t get me wrong. We all need to be encouraged to walk the walk worthy of our calling. But it’s the way some Christians go about this that has me puzzled.

Christians have been falling for this self-esteem nonsense that doing the rounds. There’s sensitivity and then there’s sensitivity. There’s a time for a quiet word of encouragement in an erring brother’s ear. But there is also a time for a loud rebuke in his face. We don’t see much of this nowadays as we all try to be SNAGS. We’re not talking about sausages. A SNAG is what we used to call a sensitive New Age guy. But don’t listen to Pagan New Age gobbledegook. Listen to the Word of God.

Did Paul say to himself, “I better not say anything to Peter in case I shatter his wounded self-esteem”? Let’s face it, Peter’s been through a great deal – what with denying the Lord and all. I mean, he must have really had his low self-esteem flattened into the mud the time the Lord, with all the sensitivity of a twelve-ton sledgehammer, said to him, ‘Get thee behind Me Satan!’ How’s Peter ever going to get over that? Did Paul think, “I’d better take it easy with Him.” Paul wasn’t about to kowtow to psychobabble when the truth of the Gospel was at stake.

Today’s low self-esteem ploy is nothing but a wily trick of the devil. We live in an age where everyone in the churches is psychoanalysing everyone else. How did the Lord’s Church ever manage before Freud and Jung? I’ll tell you. The Church did what the Bible told them to do. They rebuked an erring brother to his face if need be. They did this because it was an expression of Christian love. “ All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Luther and Calvin rebuked others in the same loving manner – just as Paul rebuked Peter to his face for his blatant compromise of the Gospel. And Peter, had been admonished to his face in public, by better than the Apostle Paul. When the Lord rebuked Peter, was He afraid of damaging Peter’s low self-esteem or self-confidence? Wasn’t the Lord afraid that Paul would end up resenting Him? Was Paul afraid that Peter would end up resenting him? No! “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” The wounds are the evidence of the friendship. They are the expressions of your love for another. How do I know this? Because the Bible tells me so.

Thus saith the Lord, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent” (Rev. 3:19). The Lord wants people to repent and be saved. But how will people repent if they are never confronted with the truth of the gospel? And how will they be confronted with the truth of the gospel if we’re too afraid of wounding that person’s self-esteem? We live in a society where this is considered unloving to correct the faults of another. Especially since you’re anything but perfect yourself. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” They’ll even quote the Scriptures at you, taking them out of context, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” All this, like the low self-esteem trick, is an attempt to stop you from correcting some wrong. “Look at all the wars that have been fought in the name of religion.” “Look at all the wrong things the church has done in the past.” Therefore “Who are you to be telling someone else they’re doing something they shouldn’t?” “So what!” says Paul who has invited us to follow his example, “I withstood [Peter] to his face, [Why?] because he was to be blamed”

Faithful friends are true – true to their Saviour – true to His Law and Gospel. They’ve been set free from the bondage of cultural protocol. If you live in a culture, such as ours where open rebuke is considered unloving, then so what? The Gospel has set you free, free to serve the Lord, not the customs of culture, pagan culture. You’re free to love God and your neighbour the way the Lord wants you to. We need to see things as they really are. We need to see things as a matter of life and death.

Listen to this piece of Scripture, “Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20). Do you want to save souls from death? Let me ask you the same question using different words, “Do you love your neighbour as yourself?” If you’ve really been set free by Christ and His Gospel, then express your love for God and your neighbour. Stand up for the truth of the Gospel wherever you see people turn a blind eye to it. But it’s easier to turn a blind eye with them, isn’t it? You might hurt the other person’s feelings. And they might hurt more than your feelings.

Image from Web

The Titanic turned a blind eye toward an iceberg – and a ship went under. The Thredbo ski-resort turned a blind eye toward a leaking pipe – and a village went under. The Church turned a blind eye toward the truth and the whole of the Western world went under. So what in a nutshell was the big problem with Paul and the rest? Paul says, “they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel” (2:14). They, i.e., Peter and the Jews, “were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel” (NIV).

If we are to express our love to our neighbour, we need to tell them when they are stepping out of line with the truth of the Gospel. Just like Paul, who set the example, did. But we ourselves need to know what the truth of the Gospel is first, don’t we? But how will we ever know if we carry on the way we are in the Church at large? Most, it seems, are more willing to turn a blind eye, than run the risk being called unloving by those affected by culture. We’re supposed to be influencing our neighbours, not the other way around.

So then, as we begin to tie things together: How did the Apostle Peter handle Paul’s confronting him with the truth of the gospel? Did he become all bitter and twisted because Paul rebuked him to his face? Did he become suicidal? Not at all, for Peter speaks of Paul as his “beloved brother” in 2 Peter 3:15. Wise man! As the proverb says, “The ear that hears the reproof of life will abide among the wise” (Prov. 15:31). “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend” (Prov. 27:17).

I think the Holy Spirit speaking through His Word has rebuked us. It’s how He shows us that He loves us. So let’s be zealous and repent. Let’s get back on track again. Let’s stop ignoring the truth. Let’s start doing what the Word says we’re to do. Who knows? Maybe the Lord will rescue His Church from beneath the rubble, from beneath the murky depths of false religion and philosophy, the paganism, that permeates the society in which we live – even Christian society. But we’ll have to catch hold of His lifeline of truth, won’t we? We’ll have to start looking in the direction of His voice. If we’re ever going to get out of our sorry predicament, we’ll have to do exactly what He tells us. He has given us an example of the way we should go. He has given as a pattern to follow in the Apostle Paul. And the Lord says His Scriptures are sufficient for all our needs (John 17:17).

Like every true Christian I long for reformation in the Church. I long to see Christ mount His white charger and gallop across whole nations again with His Law and Gospel. Just as He did during the great Reformation. Oh! You might think that the Lord’s Church is dead and buried and I’m living in the past. Christians need to wake up. We need to stop our sleepwalking. Christians have been turning a blind eye to sin. The blind have been leading the blind for far too long. It’s time we climbed out of the ditch and dusted ourselves off and got on with it. It’s time we reclaimed the ground we’ve lost to those who hate Christ and His Law and Gospel!

Image from Web

Take the YMCA, for example. The Young Men’s Christian Association appears to be Christian in name only. Christians have let Christian institution after Christian institution like this one fall to the enemies of Christ. Our schools, colleges and universities were taken over by the Secular Humanistic State. Christians send their children to these institutions, then wonder why when they stop coming to church. These institutions have become factories of secular humanism, atheism, New Ageism, etc., yes, paganism. Christians sat idly by and watched it all happen! Even the Christian schools and colleges have all but been swallowed up by Pentecostalism and Secular government-ism. There’s a verse of Scripture I’m clinging to which says, “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him” (Isa. 59:19). I don’t think there could be a better time than now in Australia and amongst the other nations.

Conclusion

I’m sure you can see many places where the Lord is trying you. Are you going to remain a faithful friend tried and true? If you are, then maybe the Spirit will use you to raise up His banner. I don’t have to tell you that there are thousands of “worthy” causes around. We could be run ragged defending the truth of His Law and Gospel all over the place. Try not to be Don Quixote – tilting at every windmill that moves.

The devil, it seems, likes it when we spread ourselves thin. The main thing the church today needs is to rediscover what the truth of the Gospel is.

Is there any hope? There were one or two letters that Christians had written into the local paper about this YMCA/Pagan issue that actually made sense. They didn’t cause me to cringe as these things usually do. In fact, I found them to be very encouraging indeed. They were being very straight forward with the truth of the Gospel! In fact, they reminded me a bit of the Apostle Paul. More than that, they reminded me of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; who was never One for wishy-washy, lovey-dovey tolerance of sin in human beings. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”

Jesus Christ rebuked and chastened people right to their very faces if need be. Let us go and do likewise, dispensing with all the psychobabble that might prevent us. Who knows – maybe the Spirit of the Lord is lifting up a standard against the enemy.