Going to the Mountains: Mount Moriah

by David Chadwick

If you’re going to the mountains this fall to enjoy its splendor, do some spiritual mountain-gazing as well. How can you do so?

Go to Mount Moriah. It’s where God told Abraham to go and sacrifice his only beloved son, Isaac (Genesis 22). Why would God ask Abraham to do this heinous act? Abraham had waited 25 years for this promised son. He was now a teenager and the love of his life.

The answer is given to us in Genesis 22:1. God was using this command to test Abraham’s faith. God wanted to know if he was still the primary passion of Abraham’s life. Or had Isaac replaced God’s place of primacy?

When you visit Mount Moriah, God tests your faith as well. Tests determine whether we know the information. And here is the one question God wants to pose: Does he possess first position in your heart?

How would you answer? Is Jesus first in your life?

It’s a very important question we all must answer. It’s a test God wants you to pass with flying colors.

Will you?

Going to the Mountains: Mount Ararat

by David Chadwick

The fall season always offers a chance to see God’s multi-colored glory like no other time during the year. How? By going to the mountains.

If you do so this year, always remember that mountains in the Bible are called “the high places.” They are places where you can experience God like nowhere else.

This autumn, make sure you visit the biblical mountains that will enhance your life in Jesus.

For example, visit Mount Ararat.

As the rain ceased and the flood waters abated, the ark that carried Noah, his family, and all the animals landed on Mount Ararat (Genesis 6-9). It was from there that they descended to dry land and the human race had a new beginning.

Mount Ararat can mean the same for you in your spiritual journey. In Jesus, your sins are forever forgiven and you can begin anew. Start over. Have a new beginning. The old, your past, has passed away. The new, your present and future, begins today (2 Corinthians 5:17).

No sin is beyond God’s grace. Nothing in your past is beyond God’s goodness.

Make sure you visit Mount Ararat. It’s a place of new beginnings.

And new hope.

False Teachers: Desiring Personal Gain

by David Chadwick

The final characteristic of false teachers is found in Jude 1:12,13, which says they are “hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear; shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”

These are serious warnings. False teachers don’t feed God’s sheep. They fleece God’s sheep for their own benefit.

They are “waterless clouds.” Have you ever seen a cloud that looks like rain, but never rains? So is a false teacher. Promising rain that never comes. Promising things that never happen. It could look something like this, “If you give to me financially, you will get rich.” This is a false teaching! You lose your hard-earned money and they get rich!

They are “wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame.” If you have ever been at the beach after a wild storm, you have most likely seen the debris, logs, seaweed, and yucky foam that gets left on the shore. So it is with false teachers. They leave a mess in the aftermath of their leadership and shepherding. Their falsehoods destroy people and divide churches.

They are “wandering stars.” But you’re probably thinking, stars shouldn’t wander! You’re right! They are supposed to be fixed in orbit. Not false teachers! They make a huge splash like a meteor or comet, but then go dark. They don’t last over the long haul. Not to mention, they don’t point people to Jesus, the only North Star of objective truth! He is the only truth and the only way for people to follow.

Jesus and his fixed truths will bring us home to the Father. A true shepherd will always point to Jesus and Jesus alone!

I pray that the church at large will grow in our ability to rightly discern truth from error and that we will know how to correctly spot a false teacher in an upside down world where truth is harder and harder to find.