An Adaptation of “Why I Believe in God” by Cornelius Van Til PH.D.
Hey! We have been around each other a lot lately and I have loved getting to know you. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to have this conversation with you. I hope you will allow me some time to share some things with you today.
I am taking a lot for granted. I am assuming that you want to discuss these things. We both should agree that they are important. I’m assuming with your intelligence you have from time to time asked yourself some questions about the foundation and direction of your life. Maybe you have gone as far to question about death and whether there is an afterlife. Deep down you may ask, how do I know that there is no God?
I hope I am not being too intrusive and you can stop me at any point, but I really desire to discuss with you our differences. I want to hear what you believe and deeply desire to share with you why I am confident of my belief in God.
To start with, I want us to talk about our past. We both have studied the psychological debate of nature and nurture. We both live in a world that seeks to make all truth relative and discount faith as completely separate from any reason. My desire to share this with you is social taboo because I am supposed to keep all of this quiet.
One of your first arguments against my faith will be that I was brought up to believe these things, while you were not.
My answer is that I don’t deny this at all, I was taught to follow God early in my life. But my childhood was not a cocoon. I have heard all the reasons why not to believe and I have observed a lot of people who live differently than me. In spite of issues within and without myself, I am more convinced of the truth of God’s existence than ever before and I am more in love with the Christian gospel than ever before.
You see, without God, nothing in this world makes any sense. Because of God, the whole of history and civilization makes complete and perfect sense. I am so convinced of this that I dare propose that if God is not in back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything. I can’t argue for God without taking my belief in Him for granted.
Here’s the kicker- I contend that you can’t argue against Him unless you take him for granted also. You see, when I listen to you argue about God I realize that He has given you the very air to breathe the very words, that comes from the very thoughts that come form the very intelligence that He has given you.
After I listen to your arguments, they make no assault on my position of faith, because I believe you argue from the darkness while I stand in the light. You believe the opposite is true.
So, in love, I want to continue my story and then we can proceed.
I come from a family of faith. It doesn’t discount truth to be in it at a young age. Our family wasn’t a bunch of holy rollers, but it was a family impacted by the Christian worldview.
I see you are ready to jump out of your skin to counter me- go ahead.
Why the Christian God? Well I believe in Him and you do not. Let me argue from what I know than from what you can’t know.
Why do you not see Him? Well surely you don’t expect me to bring Him in the room so you can see Him? If I were able to do that, He wouldn’t be the God of Christianity.
What I want to offer to you are reasons to believe. People want proof, but all that exists is evidence. That is true for any worldview. I serve a reasonable God- He invented reason, and organization, and orderliness.
Why are you so agitated? Calm down, I am being a friend. We can stop at any point a get a cup of coffee and talk football.
You ask me why you are agitated? Well, you know what this conversation means. If you change your belief about God, you will have to see yourself in a whole different way- and that may bother you.
Hang with me a little longer- I want to continue my story.
When I was little, our family believed. We said prayers at meals and went to worship services on a regular basis. If I told my mom I was afraid of monsters she would give the answer that you would expect – “ There are no monsters and I shouldn’t be afraid anyway” “Why mom?” “ Your body and soul belongs to your Savior who died for you on the cross and rose again that no one should be afraid.”
That’s the way we talked from time to time at our house. It was the atmosphere of our home. We still watched TV and talked about everyday stuff and even fought! But there were Bibles and Christian music and occasional family devotions.
As I went to Sunday school and Bible camps, I began to grow accustomed to the grand old stories of Abraham and Moses and Paul. All of these things began to condition me. I cannot help but believing. The love of Christ rained on me in soft showers of gentle moments that seemed very insignificant at the time.
Let’s stop there and parallel what you have told me about your life. Your family did not believe in God. Your parents worked hard to keep your upbringing free from the trappings of religion. They spoke to you of hard work and freethinking. They worked hard to cultivate an open mind. Where I was conditioned to believe in God you were left free. But were you free? I dare say that you were conditioned to not believe. You think that religion was poured down my throat and I counter that anti-religion was poured down yours. And that becomes the first truly awkward moment of our conversation. Can you agree with me at this point?
My story goes on. My parents sent me to a Christian school and my conditioning continued. I was daily instructed by a formula – it said that I had been conceived in sin, like all men. But I was now a child of the covenant of grace- redeemed by Christ- and part of my parent’s responsibility was to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Part of that training was to constantly teach and remind me of what God’s Word taught about the world.
This environment prepared me for the day of my conversion- where I personally committed my trust in Christ’s death as the only means of salvation. According to God’s word, at that moment I was justified and adopted into God’s family. I now began a road of being set apart for God’s work and His glory. I wish I had been completely faithful to this and understood it with the depth I know now. I have done a lot of harm in the name of Christ. I still have sin in me.
You tell me that your schooling was much different. You went to a “neutral” school. Your school outlawed religious expression and remained secular. God was never mentioned in your study of nature or history. Even allusions to the Bible in literature were kind of skipped over as teachers became very fearful of what might happen if they were accused of “bias”.
I hope you are smart enough now to realize that the classroom was not neutral. To secularize the classroom becomes a worldview itself. An unbiased, neutral classroom is just a thin disguise of a negative attitude toward God. Can you agree that the person not for God is actually against him?
I see that you don’t agree with me. Let me put it this way. God is plainly seen everywhere. This is His world, He made it. He made the majestic mountains and encoded our DNA. We are living by His decree and are we are living on His property. You don’t see them, but His ownership signs are everywhere. His stamp is on every song, picture, and poem - He is the expression of life and love and beauty.
If you stay “neutral” to Him- is it not the supreme insult? Atheists will say, ‘God has not given me enough evidence, so how can He blame me?” But our counter is that the evidence is as plain as the engineering of their pinky. If they cannot see, it is because they are blinded by sin. See, the Bible says that we are dead in trespasses and sin. That deadness is also blindness. I am telling you that unless God opens your eyes, you will see me only as a “goody- goody” and will resent my proposition of truth as arrogance and intolerance.
My Christian schooling continued. Can you see the difference in my conditioning? All my teachers pledged to teach their subjects from the Christian worldview. It wasn’t just Bible class. Even Algebra was presented under the authority of God’s Word! We were taught that to leave God out of the picture would prevent us from understanding the framework of truth.
We studied non-Christian teachings and philosophy. I have a keen understanding of Darwinism and existentialism. We read Plato, Kant, Emerson, Freud, and Marx. I was taught the best logical reasons to not believe in God. I heard all these things, but was also given sound refutations of these arguments and philosophies.
My Bible classes became exhilarating. I was exposed to systematic theology and read from great minds like C.S. Lewis. Martin Luther, and Blaise Pascal. I had great teachers explain Biblical history and geography. I learned how to defend the reliability of the Bible and argue my faith through apologetics. I was taught about evangelism and missions. I also heard countless testimonies about the life changing effect of the gospel. I became equipped in sound doctrine and Church history.
I am finished with my background. You know the God to which I am testifying for. This God was behind my parents, my teachers, my youth leaders, and many of my friends. It was He who conditioned all that conditioned me. He is the God of Christianity. He is the All-Conditioner.
Believe it or not- He also conditioned everything that conditioned you.
I love that laugh of yours. I hear it as one of incredulity.
What do I mean by this you say? He is real and outside of us. He is objective truth. He is the God who controls all things. In Him all things exist and are held together. The counsel of His will controls all reason. We do not condition him - he conditions us. My belief in Him does not make Him anymore real and your disbelief in Him does not make Him less real.
Think about this. I have heard of all of the best arguments against His existence. All of these theories of life and philosophy have been propounded for centuries of discourse and dialect.
I can tell by your gestures, that you cannot understand how anyone acquainted with the facts and arguments can believe in a God who created the world. Well, I am one of many who hold to the faith in full view of what science and philosophy is telling us.
If you give me time, I will be happy to show you where science ends and where faith begins. But again, let me warn you- that all men are biased and all live by faith. The scientist pulls a little sleight of hand and wants you to believe that he lives by fact.
The bottom line is this. When someone rejects God- that person offends Him. God’s displeasure rests on the rejecters. Do you worry about this at all? You and God are not on speaking terms. You feel like you have very good reasons that He does not exist. Now, if He does exist, you are in trouble. Your anti-God glasses are not an excuse for refusing to acknowledge or thank Him. Even the good things in your life heap up wrath because you never thanked Him for any of it- you took all the credit. You have tasted all His goodness without offering even a dime of reverence.
I am about to offend you without apology. I am telling you that God has made His existence and presence plain to you. I can give you all the sound arguments- but you will counter them all. I say creation- you say evolution. I say providence- you say accident. I say prophecy- you say human agenda. I say miracle- you say human ignorance. You ignore him because you want to.
So what am I to do?
I want to win you to Christ. But in every technique of trying to win you I cannot offend my Savior.
I apologize that the Christian church has let you down in this way. The American church in particular is a poor and impotent expression of the true gospel of Christ. We have marketed a messiah to consumers instead of boldly sharing the truth.
But again, in spite of my shortcomings, in spite of the churches failings throughout history, - the sacred canopy of salvation in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, understood by scripture alone, to God alone be the glory still stands in victory and momentum.
What am I to do? …….. I just did it.
I am to share my story and my faith. It should be plain to you by now the sort of Savior I believe in. It is God, the All-Conditioner. It is God who created all things, including you. It is He who by His providence conditioned me, making me believe in Him, and by His grace makes me want you to believe in Him. It is by His love that I can say that I love you. It is by His word that I want to serve you. It is by His truth that I will not compromise for you.
So our debate is really over. From now on, you need to take it up with Him. Down in your heart, you know I am speaking the truth. I am praying right now that God will open the eyes of your heart. But that is up to His pleasure. I do not have to save you. I cannot save you.
I have peace- do you have peace?
I am not afraid of death? Are you?
I have joy, true Biblical joy? Don’t you want to find that?
I have a purpose? Can you define yours?
I base my belief in a God inspired authority called the Bible? What is your source of truth?
Trust Christ now, please! Each moment you reject Him, the more hardened you get to Him. Your callousness will one day seal an unimaginable doom. God is a gentleman. He will give you your desire- a life without Him.
Just know that at some point the decision will be permanent. The gates of hell are locked from the inside.
I will be your friend. I hope you appreciate that I shared all of this with you because I believe I owe it to you. If I held it back, it would say one of two things. Either I really did not love you or I really did not believe this to be true.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
The Hard Glorious Frustrating Beautiful Road of Christian Sanctification
Call me a joker, call me a fool
Right at this moment I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight
CHORUS
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
“I Go to Extremes” Billy Joel
Questions: What is your life about? If you are a believer in Christ, why are you still on the planet? Why didn’t God just catapult you straight to the heavens upon conversion?
Part of the answer is that we are in an amazing and miraculous period referred to as ‘sanctification” that is- we are being molded and set apart as a vessel of service to the glory of God.
There are many Biblical passages we can look at to investigate the process by which we are putting off (actually putting to death) the Old man of sin and putting on the righteousness of Christ.
There are two passages I want to use as a foundation for information to share with you what Christ is doing in my life and an outline of what we all can do to “walk in the light as He is in the light”.
The first passage is an introductory reminder in Psalms 119:1-10
1 Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord!
2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart,
3 who also do no wrong,
but walk in his ways!
4 You have commanded your precepts
to be kept diligently.
5 Oh that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
6 Then I shall not be put to shame,
having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
7 I will praise you with an upright heart,
when I learn your righteous rules.
8 I will keep your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me!
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
10 With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments! Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord!
We live in a “How to America”- How to win a million dollars, How to install surround sound. In our quest for How to we often miss the instruction book- We cannot neglect the Bible- Christian books, magazines, programs, music are all great- but don’t allow them to substitute the pure refined milk of God’s word.- The Holy Spirit will only be enabled to produce gospel fruit in your life with the tools available to Him by scripture- Holy Revelation. God’s word is fine tuned to steer us down the road of sanctification.
Michael Horton wrote a recent article called “The American Religion” I wanted to read a small section of that as food for thought.
Just imagine a first-century Christian hearing an average "testimony" in a modern church. Here's someone who has lost his job and has been imprisoned for believing that Jesus Christ is the only Savior and King. He may also be fed to lions or turned into a lamp for Nero's garden. And this first-century believer is sitting in one of our meetings listening to a well-meaning brother or sister saying something along these lines: "Since Jesus came into my heart, it's been one blessing after another. I got a new job and I've claimed prosperity and healing in all areas of my life. It fixed my marriage and made me feel good about myself for the first time in my life. So what do you have to lose? Try God! Give Jesus a chance! He'll turn your scars into stars and your sorrows into stepping stones." How do you think your first-century Christian friend would react to such a display of uniquely American religious pragmatism?
We do not find a single instance of conversion in the New Testament based on the usefulness of Christianity vs. other religions. Instead, the issue is always objective truth. Either Jesus did or did not rise from the dead. Either he was God incarnate saving sinners by his life and death, or he was a deluded imposter. So what if it "works" for you! Mormonism has worked for millions, as have other cults, sects and non-Christian religions. False religion is very good for people in this life, but the end thereof is death…this… falls short of St. Paul's assertion that "If Christ is not risen, our faith is in vain....If we have only been able to trust Christ in this life, we are of all men the most to be pitied" (1 Cor.15:18). The Apostle, for one, saw the validation for Christianity in the truth of the resurrection as a historical fact, not in the utility of Christianity for living a jollier and fuller life.
An example of the Bible’s ability to steer us in the walk of sanctification is found in Ephesians 2:8-10
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
What a great passage- we often leave off vs. 10 But it is a great balancing verse.
The Spiritual walk with Christ is a beautifully balanced and properly paced journey that needs to be enjoyed as much as endured.
We have an impossible time living this kind of life.
Why? Well we are sinners - the reformed idea of “total depravity”. It is a concept that is losing credence in our post everything world.
Total depravity does not mean that we are as bad as we can possible be. It means we are born in sin, it is in our very DNA, and we are comfortable with sin and are immersed in our own sin and the sin of others. Any good that man is a gift of the common grace of God and the remnant of God’s image on his life. Everything we touch is tainted by sin. Do you believe this?
We are subtly tempted to not believe this. The conventional wisdom of our day is that man is good. President Clinton was described as a good man who did a bad thing. Is this true?
C.S. Lewis described our sin as having two distinct personalities- our animal self and our diabolical self. Sometimes we join a church and clean up our animal self- we have 2 beers instead of 20. But our diabolical self so twists our thinking, motives, and imaginations that we begin to believe that we are good and pleasing to God and he is lucky to have us.
Now back to this passage:
We are not saved by our works. When we speak of sanctification, we are not putting a plan together to make God happy with us. The Great Solas of the Reformation still ring true today- Christ Alone- Grace alone- Faith alone. We never say “I am covered by Christ and I an active in men’s group”. Christ + nothing is where justification and adoption are found.
Without the redeeming blood of Jesus, we are still in our sins- dabbling with life and losing our very existence. Building up a day of wrath for not acknowledging the precious blood spilled for us and our blaspheming of God’s Holy Spirit.
Now this passage is like a beautiful highway- an expressway with day to day road signs and top down exhilarating travel.
The problem is that there are two huge ditches on either side of this road. And we often steer in them. On the right side of this road is legalism- our diabolical self comes in and says- Oh you are cleaning up so well- and you start feeling really good about yourself – and you start looking around at others- and in your desire to help them you package your rules and rituals and begin to try and help others. Before long, we find ourselves as self righteous Pharisees- looking down at sinners and trying to be everyone’s Holy Spirit.
I know the Pharisee well- I play him a lot. Our culture helps me play him very well. We have become the biggest opinionated and judgmental civilization in the history of man. We have talking heads on TV espousing one view after another and call it entertainment. I love it! I am an O’Reily junkie. The problem is that I began to love my arguments over loving people.
The worst part of my Pharisee legalistic self is my gossip and criticism of others. I am not loving- I am condemning. We point out the 10% bad and refuse to see the 90% good.
So I finally get out of the legalistic path and drink grace and liberty. Ahh! Christian freedom. It is glorious! Christ’s death frees us from the ceremonial and civil law. There is a better law- the moral law, written on my heart- the Sermon on the Mount puts it into my motives and mind- it is a beautiful thing!
But just beyond Christian liberty is license. It is a ditch as derailing as legalism. Paul wrote in Romans “How can we who died to sin, still live in it?” In this state, everything goes- all truth is relative, I do what I think and I feel- there is no suspicion of my motives or actions. I do what is right in my own eyes and put it under the blood.
I walk into a situation, run to sin, eviscerate my conscience and say “I am forgiven”. Before long, I am powerless, hardened, and my God is my comfort. The irony of the ditch of license is that we love people even less than the Pharisee. I don’t care about their eternal destination. I am afraid of confrontation. If I stand for truth, it will indict me. So I walk around and tell people all is fine when I know we are growing colder and darker by the second. Loving someone means saying no - and that includes to myself.
Out of that ditch I find this beautiful path- a balanced and tense walk with my Savior as He directs me by His Spirit and through His word in a new life- in this life I learn to love and lean on Christ- I become an admirer of people- I seek my way less and edify others more- I pour myself into relationships, especially my wife and children. I laugh- I cry- I get weary- I long for heaven- God picks me up at the right time- I fall in ditches- He cleans me off and starts me straight again- 1 step forward- 2 steps back- 3 steps- 5 back and when I lose hope- He allows the dust to settle and I look back and God’s kingdom has been built- in spite of me. To His praise and glory!
I wanted to list a few things that help me avoid these ditches:
Devotion to the Word and Prayer
Unflinching commitment to consistent worship
Education
Private fasting- hobby/TV/delicacies
Prudent feasting
Small group accountability
Loving my wife well
Pushing work down my priority list
Crying out for God’s spirit- I am powerless to do it- I need to abide in the vine of Christ.
A final note: Be patient- God’s sanctification takes TIME. It is measured in decades, not in days.
Well as we close- we do all of this to live the greatest of all the Solas- To God alone be the Glory- may we be great beacons of light to the glorious life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ-
Right at this moment I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight
CHORUS
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
“I Go to Extremes” Billy Joel
Questions: What is your life about? If you are a believer in Christ, why are you still on the planet? Why didn’t God just catapult you straight to the heavens upon conversion?
Part of the answer is that we are in an amazing and miraculous period referred to as ‘sanctification” that is- we are being molded and set apart as a vessel of service to the glory of God.
There are many Biblical passages we can look at to investigate the process by which we are putting off (actually putting to death) the Old man of sin and putting on the righteousness of Christ.
There are two passages I want to use as a foundation for information to share with you what Christ is doing in my life and an outline of what we all can do to “walk in the light as He is in the light”.
The first passage is an introductory reminder in Psalms 119:1-10
1 Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord!
2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart,
3 who also do no wrong,
but walk in his ways!
4 You have commanded your precepts
to be kept diligently.
5 Oh that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
6 Then I shall not be put to shame,
having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
7 I will praise you with an upright heart,
when I learn your righteous rules.
8 I will keep your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me!
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
10 With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments! Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord!
We live in a “How to America”- How to win a million dollars, How to install surround sound. In our quest for How to we often miss the instruction book- We cannot neglect the Bible- Christian books, magazines, programs, music are all great- but don’t allow them to substitute the pure refined milk of God’s word.- The Holy Spirit will only be enabled to produce gospel fruit in your life with the tools available to Him by scripture- Holy Revelation. God’s word is fine tuned to steer us down the road of sanctification.
Michael Horton wrote a recent article called “The American Religion” I wanted to read a small section of that as food for thought.
Just imagine a first-century Christian hearing an average "testimony" in a modern church. Here's someone who has lost his job and has been imprisoned for believing that Jesus Christ is the only Savior and King. He may also be fed to lions or turned into a lamp for Nero's garden. And this first-century believer is sitting in one of our meetings listening to a well-meaning brother or sister saying something along these lines: "Since Jesus came into my heart, it's been one blessing after another. I got a new job and I've claimed prosperity and healing in all areas of my life. It fixed my marriage and made me feel good about myself for the first time in my life. So what do you have to lose? Try God! Give Jesus a chance! He'll turn your scars into stars and your sorrows into stepping stones." How do you think your first-century Christian friend would react to such a display of uniquely American religious pragmatism?
We do not find a single instance of conversion in the New Testament based on the usefulness of Christianity vs. other religions. Instead, the issue is always objective truth. Either Jesus did or did not rise from the dead. Either he was God incarnate saving sinners by his life and death, or he was a deluded imposter. So what if it "works" for you! Mormonism has worked for millions, as have other cults, sects and non-Christian religions. False religion is very good for people in this life, but the end thereof is death…this… falls short of St. Paul's assertion that "If Christ is not risen, our faith is in vain....If we have only been able to trust Christ in this life, we are of all men the most to be pitied" (1 Cor.15:18). The Apostle, for one, saw the validation for Christianity in the truth of the resurrection as a historical fact, not in the utility of Christianity for living a jollier and fuller life.
An example of the Bible’s ability to steer us in the walk of sanctification is found in Ephesians 2:8-10
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
What a great passage- we often leave off vs. 10 But it is a great balancing verse.
The Spiritual walk with Christ is a beautifully balanced and properly paced journey that needs to be enjoyed as much as endured.
We have an impossible time living this kind of life.
Why? Well we are sinners - the reformed idea of “total depravity”. It is a concept that is losing credence in our post everything world.
Total depravity does not mean that we are as bad as we can possible be. It means we are born in sin, it is in our very DNA, and we are comfortable with sin and are immersed in our own sin and the sin of others. Any good that man is a gift of the common grace of God and the remnant of God’s image on his life. Everything we touch is tainted by sin. Do you believe this?
We are subtly tempted to not believe this. The conventional wisdom of our day is that man is good. President Clinton was described as a good man who did a bad thing. Is this true?
C.S. Lewis described our sin as having two distinct personalities- our animal self and our diabolical self. Sometimes we join a church and clean up our animal self- we have 2 beers instead of 20. But our diabolical self so twists our thinking, motives, and imaginations that we begin to believe that we are good and pleasing to God and he is lucky to have us.
Now back to this passage:
We are not saved by our works. When we speak of sanctification, we are not putting a plan together to make God happy with us. The Great Solas of the Reformation still ring true today- Christ Alone- Grace alone- Faith alone. We never say “I am covered by Christ and I an active in men’s group”. Christ + nothing is where justification and adoption are found.
Without the redeeming blood of Jesus, we are still in our sins- dabbling with life and losing our very existence. Building up a day of wrath for not acknowledging the precious blood spilled for us and our blaspheming of God’s Holy Spirit.
Now this passage is like a beautiful highway- an expressway with day to day road signs and top down exhilarating travel.
The problem is that there are two huge ditches on either side of this road. And we often steer in them. On the right side of this road is legalism- our diabolical self comes in and says- Oh you are cleaning up so well- and you start feeling really good about yourself – and you start looking around at others- and in your desire to help them you package your rules and rituals and begin to try and help others. Before long, we find ourselves as self righteous Pharisees- looking down at sinners and trying to be everyone’s Holy Spirit.
I know the Pharisee well- I play him a lot. Our culture helps me play him very well. We have become the biggest opinionated and judgmental civilization in the history of man. We have talking heads on TV espousing one view after another and call it entertainment. I love it! I am an O’Reily junkie. The problem is that I began to love my arguments over loving people.
The worst part of my Pharisee legalistic self is my gossip and criticism of others. I am not loving- I am condemning. We point out the 10% bad and refuse to see the 90% good.
So I finally get out of the legalistic path and drink grace and liberty. Ahh! Christian freedom. It is glorious! Christ’s death frees us from the ceremonial and civil law. There is a better law- the moral law, written on my heart- the Sermon on the Mount puts it into my motives and mind- it is a beautiful thing!
But just beyond Christian liberty is license. It is a ditch as derailing as legalism. Paul wrote in Romans “How can we who died to sin, still live in it?” In this state, everything goes- all truth is relative, I do what I think and I feel- there is no suspicion of my motives or actions. I do what is right in my own eyes and put it under the blood.
I walk into a situation, run to sin, eviscerate my conscience and say “I am forgiven”. Before long, I am powerless, hardened, and my God is my comfort. The irony of the ditch of license is that we love people even less than the Pharisee. I don’t care about their eternal destination. I am afraid of confrontation. If I stand for truth, it will indict me. So I walk around and tell people all is fine when I know we are growing colder and darker by the second. Loving someone means saying no - and that includes to myself.
Out of that ditch I find this beautiful path- a balanced and tense walk with my Savior as He directs me by His Spirit and through His word in a new life- in this life I learn to love and lean on Christ- I become an admirer of people- I seek my way less and edify others more- I pour myself into relationships, especially my wife and children. I laugh- I cry- I get weary- I long for heaven- God picks me up at the right time- I fall in ditches- He cleans me off and starts me straight again- 1 step forward- 2 steps back- 3 steps- 5 back and when I lose hope- He allows the dust to settle and I look back and God’s kingdom has been built- in spite of me. To His praise and glory!
I wanted to list a few things that help me avoid these ditches:
Devotion to the Word and Prayer
Unflinching commitment to consistent worship
Education
Private fasting- hobby/TV/delicacies
Prudent feasting
Small group accountability
Loving my wife well
Pushing work down my priority list
Crying out for God’s spirit- I am powerless to do it- I need to abide in the vine of Christ.
A final note: Be patient- God’s sanctification takes TIME. It is measured in decades, not in days.
Well as we close- we do all of this to live the greatest of all the Solas- To God alone be the Glory- may we be great beacons of light to the glorious life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ-
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Modern Reformation Recommended
I want to recommend "The White Horse Inn" and Modern Reformation Magazine- great stuff!
Example below:
Example below:
Who Are the Reformers?
© 2007, Modern Reformation Magazine, "A Time For Truth" (January / February 2007 Issue, Vol. 16.1). All Rights Reserved. Subscription Rate: $29 Per Year or call 1-800-890-7556.
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Luther is credited as the founder of the German Reformation. Luther's study of the writings of the Apostle Paul and Augustine of Hippo led him to the belief that men and women could only be justified by the grace of God, through faith rather than through good works or religious observances. Luther's writings include On Christian Liberty (1519), To the Christian Nobility (1520), The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), and On the Bondage of the Will (1525). In his Small Catechism (1529), Luther commented briefly in question and answer form on the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, baptism, and the Lord's Supper. The Small Catechism explains the theology of the Lutheran Reformation in simple yet colorful language.
Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), Lutheran
Melanchthon shared a lifelong friendship with Luther. Having arrived at Wittenberg with a strong humanist background, he was won to the Reformation by Luther, and became the reformer's leading associate. It was Melanchthon who urged Luther to translate the Bible into the German of his day for the common people. In Wittenberg, Luther had little time to systematize the various doctrines of evangelical theology, so in 1521 Melanchthon took on this task, writing the first systematic summary titled Loci Communes. Based on several already completed writings and on the negotiations of Augsburg, Melanchthon also wrote the first great confession of the Reformation, the Augsburg Confession (1530). Lutheran pastors to this day are ordained with this confession.
John Calvin (1509-1564), Reformed
Calvin was the French reformer best known for his work in Geneva and his seminal work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536). Calvin's teachings shaped the beliefs of most Reformed churches. Calvin had a great commitment to the absolute sovereignty and holiness of God. Because of this, he is often associated with the doctrines of predestination and election, but it should be noted that he differed very little with the other magisterial reformers regarding these difficult doctrines. The five points of Calvinism are a reflection of the thinking of the great reformer, but were actually a product of the Synod of Dort, which issued its judgments in response to five specific objections that arose after Calvin's time.
In 1541, Calvin began to reform the institutional church in Geneva. He established four categories of offices: Doctors held an office of theological scholarship and teaching for the edification of the people and the training of other ministers; Pastors were to preach, to administer the sacraments, and to exercise pastoral discipline, teaching and admonishing the people; Deacons oversaw institutional charity, including hospitals and physical welfare; and Elders were twelve laymen whose task was to oversee the spiritual well-being of the church.
Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575), Reformed
After the death of Ulrich Zwingli in 1531, Bullinger became pastor of the principal church in Zürich and a leader of the Reformed party in Switzerland. He played an important part in compiling the First Helvetic Confession (1536), a creed based largely on Zwingli's theological views as distinct from Lutheran doctrine. In 1549, the Consensus Tigurinus, drawn up by Bullinger and Calvin, marked the departure of Swiss theology from Zwinglian toward a more Calvinist theory. His later views were embodied in the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), which was accepted in Switzerland, France, Scotland, and Hungary and became one of the most generally accepted confessions of the Reformed churches.
Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), Anglican
In 1533, Cranmer was chosen to be Archbishop of Canterbury. With Thomas Cromwell, he supported the translation of the Bible into English. In 1545, he wrote a litany that is still used in the church. Under the reign of Edward VI, Cranmer was allowed to make the doctrinal changes he thought necessary to the church. He is credited with writing and compiling the first two Books of Common Prayer (1549, 1552), assisted by the Strasbourg Reformed leader Martin Bucer, and the Thirty-Nine Articles, which established the basic structure of Anglican liturgy for centuries.
Hugh Latimer (c. 1485-1555), Anglican
Hugh Latimer was Bishop of Worcester in the time of King Henry, but resigned in protest against the King's refusal to allow the Protestant reforms that Latimer desired. When Mary came to the throne, he was arrested, tried for heresy, and burned together with his friend Nicholas Ridley. His last words at the stake are well known: "Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust by God's grace shall never be put out." In October 1555, he was burned at the stake. The deaths of Hugh Latimer, Nicolas Ridley, and later Thomas Cranmer are now known as the Oxford Martyrs.
John Knox (c. 1513-1572), Reformed
John Knox was a Scottish teacher who embraced the principles of the continental Reformation. As chaplain to Edward VI he was involved in the revision of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. After a period in exile following the accession of Mary he returned to Scotland, where he pioneered changes along Reformation principles. He was primarily responsible for the First Book of Discipline and the Book of Common Order, which were adopted by the newly formed Church of Scotland.
Friday, January 26, 2007
The American Church in Crisis- The Rise of the Pharisees
The problem of sin nevertheless still impacted the apostles and early converts to the new faith.
The controversies came in as the church began to struggle with outside opposition, often resulting in persecution and death.
The church began to struggle with false teachers and the new age of Christian liberty and conscience. Jews and Gentile were new converts to a new law of love and a path to God purchased by God incarnate.
The opposition was also supernatural and strategic.
The Christian walk is a joyful celebration but also a “boots on the ground”, all out assault. It is an internal peace of the presence and power of God along with a fantastic display of battle wounds and setbacks.
The key to any victory in any competition is harmony. A unified team is hard to defeat. The Bible makes it clear that our head is Christ. He is the cornerstone of our foundation, and we should strive to be unified in Him.
We are to forgive, bear with, go the extra mile with. How are we doing?
Any Google search will reveal that the American church is rife with tremendous infighting and splits. From worship wars to translation debates, the American expression of the evangelical church is imploding.
What is the problem?
While it may seem trite and shallow to suggest a straying from Biblical truth and sound doctrine, I believe it is just that. The inspired writes of the New Testament urge us to pursue peace and purity while accepting and watching out for the weaker brother.
In a Nov 5, 2006 broadcast of the White Horse Inn, Michael Horton and a panel of pastors do a splendid job of presenting perspective from Romans chapter 14 in our current culture.
The discussion centers around a common problem within the church. What is the relationship of Christian liberty in the gospel age to God’s moral law and the binding of conscience? Paul and Peter themselves went through a similar controversy regarding the early cross-pollinization of Jews and Gentiles.
The Pastor roundtable gives us great insight into many problems today and the news is sobering. We are more like Pharisees than children of the living God. Our culture is teaching us to opine and judge. Our news programs are centered around argumentation and debate. We are quick to judge, quick to speak, and very slow to listen. We think with our eyes and reason with our lips.
There are some great ideas in this broadcast.
1-We violate the Christian idea of humility the very minute that we are worried more about our neighbor than ourselves.
2- We are in the wake of modern universal principles where wisdom and prudence has been replaced by policy and procedure.
3- Christian liberty is an appendix to the doctrine of justification. We can believe in justification but be in bondage ( the judgment of works) if we violate liberty.
4- In view of the mercy of God, we should live lives that are distinctly different. God’s moral laws are the same, but now our motivation is different. The law of the gospel is love.
The bottom line- to the degree that I use my spirituality to judge and condemn sheds a lot of light on my possibility of being a Pharisee. The more oppressive my ways the more in error I am likely to be.
I pray that we somehow find a spirit of unity. It is vital to potential victory in this current culture.
I have been told that the way porcupines sleep together is that they have the ability to pull in their quills. Isn’t it time to put off dissension and put on love? Please pull in your quills and forgive. Our society is teaching us to use wounds as a weapon. There is a lot of power in pain in American culture. Is this what scripture encourages?
Hebrews 13:13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he (Jesus) endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God
Romans 15:5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“The lessons my mama taught me were to always treat people right. It don't cost nuthin' to be nice.
It don't cost 'nuthin' to do the right thing most of the time, and it costs a lot to lose your good name by breakin' your word to someone.” Paul “Bear” Bryant
Stephen Grellet, French/American religious leader (1773-1855) said, "I expect to pass through the world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show to any creature, le t me do it now. Let me not defer it, for I shall not pass this way again."
Until the Lord comes or closes the curtain on our society, let’s keep up the work of grace and peace!
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Deconstruction Cut and Paste
Sorry I don't have all the info to give credit
Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon continental philosophy and literary theory.
In contemporary philosophy and social sciences, the term deconstruction denotes a process by which the texts and languages of (particularly) Western philosophy appear to shift and complicate in meaning when read in light of the assumptions they suggest about and absences they reveal within themselves. Jacques Derrida coined the term in the 1960s, and found that he could talk more readily about what deconstruction was not than about what it was, most especially in reply to questions posed by others about it.
Subjects relevant to deconstruction include the philosophy of meaning in Western thought, and the ways that meaning is constructed by Western writers, texts, and readers and understood by readers. Though Derrida himself denied deconstruction was a method or school of philosophy, or indeed anything outside of reading the text itself, the term has been used by others to describe Derrida's particular methods of textual criticism, which involved discovering, recognizing, and understanding the underlying—and unspoken and implicit—assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that form the basis for thought and belief, for example, in complicating the ordinary division made between nature and culture.
Derrida lays many of his presuppositions out in a hard but very important essay called Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. You can tell what it is going to be like from the title! The argument goes as follows:
1. Western thought and language have always had a fixed centre in absolute truth. This places limits on what it is possible to think or believe. It provides a foundation for being (ie what we are), and for knowing (ie how we think). Absolute truth provides certainties.
2. However Derrida’s underlying assumption is that there is no God in the equation to guarantee such absolutes, and hence ideas about certainty are now ruptured. He concludes that any idea of a fixed centre was only a structure of power imposed on us by our past or by institutions of society, and does not in reality exist at all.
3. Hence for Derrida there is no ultimate reality, no God outside the system to which everyone and everything relates. Instead the only relationships that we can know are within the system of the world which Derrida calls discourses. For him ultimate reality is only a series of these discourses.
4. Because there is no fixed centre, there should no longer be any limits on what it is possible to think or believe. We should literally be able to think anything. We can be playful and flexible about the way we think, when we realize that “truth” and “falsehood” are simply wrong distinctions to make. Indeed they are just a destructive and harmful manifestation of that power structure.
5. Therefore we must stop considering everything in life, culture and thought in relation to absolute truth. To not do so is, for Derrida, oppressive and immoral.
6. Derrida says that history is traditionally thought to be determined by Being. In other words God guarantees history There was a beginning and there is an end to which we are working. Most human optimism for Derrida springs from this fact. The whole of science for example is based on the fact that true things are there to be discovered and worked towards.
7. However this idea of history is what stops people thinking radical new thoughts because the assumptions we pick up from history are oppressive. But the fact that people can and do think radical new thoughts is seen to deny this oppressive version of history, and, of course, any absolute Being behind history.
8. Derrida’s ideal of play or flexibility therefore completely denies the possibility of absolutes or of God.
Emergent writers criticize our emphasis on the verbal and written as a product of Enlightenment modernism. Yet postmodern approaches to language are clearly more dangerous. Deconstructionism, its predominant literary theory, seeks to sever the link between words and the things they signify, so that defining words is seen as an exercise in power rather than submission to reality. While no Emergent writers would endorse this theory in full, their usage often reflects its influence. Gross oversimplifications, subtle redefinitions of common terms, and elegant vagaries are maddeningly common. For example, they regularly dismiss their critics for “labeling” or “in-grouping and out-grouping,” but are somehow unaware of their own dependence on caricatures of other Christians for nearly every argument. Captive to the preeminent postmodern virtue of tolerance, stark value judgments are concealed behind seemingly charitable phrases like “I’m just not interested in … or I don’t have time for a Christianity like that…”. Unwary readers are often simultaneously inspired and confused, sensing that something is off but unable to put their finger on it. The problem is a low view of language, and a low view of language leads to a low view of our speaking God.
Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work had a profound impact upon continental philosophy and literary theory.
In contemporary philosophy and social sciences, the term deconstruction denotes a process by which the texts and languages of (particularly) Western philosophy appear to shift and complicate in meaning when read in light of the assumptions they suggest about and absences they reveal within themselves. Jacques Derrida coined the term in the 1960s, and found that he could talk more readily about what deconstruction was not than about what it was, most especially in reply to questions posed by others about it.
Subjects relevant to deconstruction include the philosophy of meaning in Western thought, and the ways that meaning is constructed by Western writers, texts, and readers and understood by readers. Though Derrida himself denied deconstruction was a method or school of philosophy, or indeed anything outside of reading the text itself, the term has been used by others to describe Derrida's particular methods of textual criticism, which involved discovering, recognizing, and understanding the underlying—and unspoken and implicit—assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that form the basis for thought and belief, for example, in complicating the ordinary division made between nature and culture.
Derrida lays many of his presuppositions out in a hard but very important essay called Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. You can tell what it is going to be like from the title! The argument goes as follows:
1. Western thought and language have always had a fixed centre in absolute truth. This places limits on what it is possible to think or believe. It provides a foundation for being (ie what we are), and for knowing (ie how we think). Absolute truth provides certainties.
2. However Derrida’s underlying assumption is that there is no God in the equation to guarantee such absolutes, and hence ideas about certainty are now ruptured. He concludes that any idea of a fixed centre was only a structure of power imposed on us by our past or by institutions of society, and does not in reality exist at all.
3. Hence for Derrida there is no ultimate reality, no God outside the system to which everyone and everything relates. Instead the only relationships that we can know are within the system of the world which Derrida calls discourses. For him ultimate reality is only a series of these discourses.
4. Because there is no fixed centre, there should no longer be any limits on what it is possible to think or believe. We should literally be able to think anything. We can be playful and flexible about the way we think, when we realize that “truth” and “falsehood” are simply wrong distinctions to make. Indeed they are just a destructive and harmful manifestation of that power structure.
5. Therefore we must stop considering everything in life, culture and thought in relation to absolute truth. To not do so is, for Derrida, oppressive and immoral.
6. Derrida says that history is traditionally thought to be determined by Being. In other words God guarantees history There was a beginning and there is an end to which we are working. Most human optimism for Derrida springs from this fact. The whole of science for example is based on the fact that true things are there to be discovered and worked towards.
7. However this idea of history is what stops people thinking radical new thoughts because the assumptions we pick up from history are oppressive. But the fact that people can and do think radical new thoughts is seen to deny this oppressive version of history, and, of course, any absolute Being behind history.
8. Derrida’s ideal of play or flexibility therefore completely denies the possibility of absolutes or of God.
Emergent writers criticize our emphasis on the verbal and written as a product of Enlightenment modernism. Yet postmodern approaches to language are clearly more dangerous. Deconstructionism, its predominant literary theory, seeks to sever the link between words and the things they signify, so that defining words is seen as an exercise in power rather than submission to reality. While no Emergent writers would endorse this theory in full, their usage often reflects its influence. Gross oversimplifications, subtle redefinitions of common terms, and elegant vagaries are maddeningly common. For example, they regularly dismiss their critics for “labeling” or “in-grouping and out-grouping,” but are somehow unaware of their own dependence on caricatures of other Christians for nearly every argument. Captive to the preeminent postmodern virtue of tolerance, stark value judgments are concealed behind seemingly charitable phrases like “I’m just not interested in … or I don’t have time for a Christianity like that…”. Unwary readers are often simultaneously inspired and confused, sensing that something is off but unable to put their finger on it. The problem is a low view of language, and a low view of language leads to a low view of our speaking God.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Running God’s Glory out of the Temple: Why these are Dangerous Times for Our Churches and Our Nation
We are in critical and perilous times as a nation. The influence of post modern thinking has caused an erosion of Judeo-Christian values. The light of Christ is dimming to a flicker of an ember as we are swallowed up in consumerism and values based on feelings and selfish desires. The Bible based churches in our land are facing a full frontal assault of the enemy and largely responding with impotence and fatigue.
This same battle is happening in our midst. We are engaged in a struggle for the future and direction of the visible representative of the body of Christ.
Many Bible believing and teaching Pastors are under satanic attack. This tension and discussion is not unique to Pastors who boldly teach the whole counsel of God. Jonathan Edwards was dismissed from his church and found great resistance throughout the course of his ministry. John McArthur was himself under great criticism and almost lost his church as he preached from God’s word.
Why the problem may be us and not our Pastors.
In II Timothy 3, Paul tells us a lot about what is happening in our culture today.
"1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra”which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. 12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
Many pastors and people who have positions of spiritual authority will continue to struggle as these characteristics become more prevalent in our land and in our congregation.
Reasons for these persistent problems:
#1 Our culture resists authority when it goes against them. “Every decision is from the Lord” (Prov. 16:33.) It is common now to resist the God ordained authority in society. Romans 13 tells us to accept this chain of command and be submissive. Our culture is uncomfortable in doing so.
#2 Our culture wants ear tickling feel good sermons. The largest congregations in our nation today contain more fluff than stuff. Expository preaching is on the decline and entertainment based presentations are on the rise.
#3 Personal holiness is out of style.
#4 Leisure and consumerism dominates our idle time.
The consequences:
The book of Ezekiel is arguably the saddest book in all of Scripture. It documents the decline of God’s presence and His glory leaving the temple.
I truly believe that we are witnessing this same movement in our land today. We are driving God out in the midst of our rebellion and our land is becoming desolate in its wake.
EZ 2:1 And he said to me, Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you. 2 And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. 3 And he said to me, Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. 4 The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God. 5 And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.
EZ 11: 12 and you shall know that I am the Lord. For you have not walked in my statutes, nor obeyed my rules, but have acted according to the rules of the nations that are around you.
EZ 12:1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house
EZ 13:22 Because you have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and you have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life,
2 And the word of the Lord came to me: 3 Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? 4 Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, 5 that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols. 6 Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. 7 For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the Lord will answer him myself. 8 And I will set my face against that man.
There is still hope:
I have grown tremendously in Christ since coming to my church and learning under the leadership of my pastor. My knowledge of the Bible has deepened, my love for Christ has grown more passionate, and my ministry has been fruitful. We have seen changed lives and restored marriages in our small group. My wife and children have grown. Our Sunday school class has been amazing. We love memorizing the scripture together!
The gospel has never been hindered and our mission is one of hope and excitement. Our church has been involved in faithful laboring for Christ in Nashville and around the world.
My church has a tremendous ministry in our academy with a promising future and momentum.
We are on the threshold of seeing great fruit for the cause of Christ in a strategic city in our nation and world!
People are in need of the hope of the gospel. The Holy Spirit can use even our missteps and weaknesses for His good and glory.
I call on us to pray for the peace of the church and ask for prayers, petitions, and fasting on behalf of all pastors and churches. May we weather this attack of the enemy and move on to more glorious and fruitful days ahead.
Ez 11:17 "Therefore say, Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. 18 And when they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. 19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God."
This same battle is happening in our midst. We are engaged in a struggle for the future and direction of the visible representative of the body of Christ.
Many Bible believing and teaching Pastors are under satanic attack. This tension and discussion is not unique to Pastors who boldly teach the whole counsel of God. Jonathan Edwards was dismissed from his church and found great resistance throughout the course of his ministry. John McArthur was himself under great criticism and almost lost his church as he preached from God’s word.
Why the problem may be us and not our Pastors.
In II Timothy 3, Paul tells us a lot about what is happening in our culture today.
"1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra”which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. 12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
Many pastors and people who have positions of spiritual authority will continue to struggle as these characteristics become more prevalent in our land and in our congregation.
Reasons for these persistent problems:
#1 Our culture resists authority when it goes against them. “Every decision is from the Lord” (Prov. 16:33.) It is common now to resist the God ordained authority in society. Romans 13 tells us to accept this chain of command and be submissive. Our culture is uncomfortable in doing so.
#2 Our culture wants ear tickling feel good sermons. The largest congregations in our nation today contain more fluff than stuff. Expository preaching is on the decline and entertainment based presentations are on the rise.
#3 Personal holiness is out of style.
#4 Leisure and consumerism dominates our idle time.
The consequences:
The book of Ezekiel is arguably the saddest book in all of Scripture. It documents the decline of God’s presence and His glory leaving the temple.
I truly believe that we are witnessing this same movement in our land today. We are driving God out in the midst of our rebellion and our land is becoming desolate in its wake.
EZ 2:1 And he said to me, Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you. 2 And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. 3 And he said to me, Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. 4 The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord God. 5 And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.
EZ 11: 12 and you shall know that I am the Lord. For you have not walked in my statutes, nor obeyed my rules, but have acted according to the rules of the nations that are around you.
EZ 12:1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see, but see not, who have ears to hear, but hear not, for they are a rebellious house
EZ 13:22 Because you have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and you have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life,
2 And the word of the Lord came to me: 3 Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? 4 Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, 5 that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols. 6 Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations. 7 For any one of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel, who separates himself from me, taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to a prophet to consult me through him, I the Lord will answer him myself. 8 And I will set my face against that man.
There is still hope:
I have grown tremendously in Christ since coming to my church and learning under the leadership of my pastor. My knowledge of the Bible has deepened, my love for Christ has grown more passionate, and my ministry has been fruitful. We have seen changed lives and restored marriages in our small group. My wife and children have grown. Our Sunday school class has been amazing. We love memorizing the scripture together!
The gospel has never been hindered and our mission is one of hope and excitement. Our church has been involved in faithful laboring for Christ in Nashville and around the world.
My church has a tremendous ministry in our academy with a promising future and momentum.
We are on the threshold of seeing great fruit for the cause of Christ in a strategic city in our nation and world!
People are in need of the hope of the gospel. The Holy Spirit can use even our missteps and weaknesses for His good and glory.
I call on us to pray for the peace of the church and ask for prayers, petitions, and fasting on behalf of all pastors and churches. May we weather this attack of the enemy and move on to more glorious and fruitful days ahead.
Ez 11:17 "Therefore say, Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. 18 And when they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations. 19 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God."
Saturday, January 13, 2007
A Warning to Warriors
Been reading an excellent book by Max Hastings called Warriors. I am becoming more and more convinced that our culture is less and less comfortable with strong leaders who fight by conviction and principle. Enjoy some of his quotes:
"Warriors are unfashionable people in democratic societies during
periods of peace ... [But] in times of war, fighting men are suddenly
cherished and become celebrities
“In civil life, people with a penchant for fighting are deemed at best
an embarrassment, at worst a menace.”
Every army, in order to prevail on the battlefield, needs a certain
number of people capable of courage, initiative or leadership beyond the
norm.”
A greek or roman soldier was required to engage in hours of close
quarter combat with edged weapons capable of hacking through flesh.
Part of the nobility of the warriors calling stems from in part from his
acceptance of the risk of losing his own life while taking those of others
In every society on earth, the most durable convention, from ancient
times until very recently, has held physical courage to be the highest
human attribute. For thousands of years, in nations dominated by the
warrior ethic, this quality was valued more highly than intellectual
achievement or moral worth.
Many acts of heroism have been committed in the active hope of
advancement or glory.
Eager warriors are generally disliked and mistrusted by those of a more
commonplace disposition.
Many celebrated warriors are detested by their contemporaries.
All armies need a handful of soldiers who possess an extravagant warrior
spirit to fight alongside a majority of other soldiers who threaten the
success of such army by their eagerness to preserve their own lives.
Successful warriors are often vain and uncultured- but their nations in
hours of need have had cause to be profoundly grateful for their
virtues, even if they have sometimes been injured by their excesses. For
all their social limitations and professional follies, the warrior is
willing to risk everything on the field of battle, and sometimes to lose
it, for purposes sometimes selfish or mistaken, but often noble."
If you are a man's man and have grown up fighting for what you get- look out- this culture will not accept you with great comfort.
"Warriors are unfashionable people in democratic societies during
periods of peace ... [But] in times of war, fighting men are suddenly
cherished and become celebrities
“In civil life, people with a penchant for fighting are deemed at best
an embarrassment, at worst a menace.”
Every army, in order to prevail on the battlefield, needs a certain
number of people capable of courage, initiative or leadership beyond the
norm.”
A greek or roman soldier was required to engage in hours of close
quarter combat with edged weapons capable of hacking through flesh.
Part of the nobility of the warriors calling stems from in part from his
acceptance of the risk of losing his own life while taking those of others
In every society on earth, the most durable convention, from ancient
times until very recently, has held physical courage to be the highest
human attribute. For thousands of years, in nations dominated by the
warrior ethic, this quality was valued more highly than intellectual
achievement or moral worth.
Many acts of heroism have been committed in the active hope of
advancement or glory.
Eager warriors are generally disliked and mistrusted by those of a more
commonplace disposition.
Many celebrated warriors are detested by their contemporaries.
All armies need a handful of soldiers who possess an extravagant warrior
spirit to fight alongside a majority of other soldiers who threaten the
success of such army by their eagerness to preserve their own lives.
Successful warriors are often vain and uncultured- but their nations in
hours of need have had cause to be profoundly grateful for their
virtues, even if they have sometimes been injured by their excesses. For
all their social limitations and professional follies, the warrior is
willing to risk everything on the field of battle, and sometimes to lose
it, for purposes sometimes selfish or mistaken, but often noble."
If you are a man's man and have grown up fighting for what you get- look out- this culture will not accept you with great comfort.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
I Am the Most Dangerous Man in the World?
In the Nov 13, 2006 edition of Newsweek Magazine, renowned atheist, Sam Harris unleashes his heartfelt beliefs about people of faith…. we pose a “tremendous danger.”
The basic points of Harris’ arguments include (1) science has forever debunked faith, (2) Christians’ belief in the end of the world give them “no incentive to build a sustainable civilization,” (3) religion elevates morality over human and animal suffering, and (5) because of fanatical belief, religion is the most dangerous institution in the world.
While I may be wasting time and ink writing a rebuttal to Mr. Harris, I can’t resist using my newly declared notorious state to ease the fear of all the atheists and agnostics within my reach.
I do want to make it clear that to treat all faiths as equal is the most improper presupposition of our post-modern carnage. All religions are not the same. They have different systems and practices. I do believe that jihadist Islam poses a violent danger to our world today. All religions have the possibility of perpetrating great oppression and harm. One has to look no farther than the Crusades to see the destruction that misguided human beings can cause in the name of religious belief.
But even in the case of the Crusades, there are fundamental differences in belief.
The Crusades demonstrate followers of Islam doing what their faith requires them to do and followers of Christ ignoring what their Savior requires them to do. The Crusades represent Islam at its best and Christianity at its worst.
To lump all religions together for the purpose of generalizing criticism of faith makes as much sense as criticizing all people of non-faith by the adherents of the North American Man Boy Love Society (NAMBLA).
I am a teacher and coach at a Christian School in the United States of America. I love my wife and three children. We read the Bible, pray, worship in a local congregation. We live about as simple a life as one can live in the 21st century. We give to missions and desire to tell others what the Lord has done for us. May I use this simple and dangerous position to counter a few of Mr. Harris’ assertions?
One, science has not eliminated Christian belief or doctrine. It is proper to say that the relationship between Christianity and Science is not without controversy. There has often been strenuous debate between the Church and scientists, who often held the same beliefs. As a believer in Christ and the Bible in 2006, I can say that we live in advantageous times because of the light of science and the truth of Scripture. Both are helpful when they are properly placed according to their use. Science is limited concerning many matters of life and faith.
Today, there is a scientific jihad as non-faith scientists try to use reason to trump faith. They use superiority of educational pedigree to intimidate the public.
The average person today does not understand, for example, that traditional Darwinian evolution is no longer acceptable as an explanation for the origin of life as we know it. When scientists say, ‘Evolution is a fact” they are not honestly representing the actual assertion of that quote.
There is ample scientific data that supports ‘microevolution’ and many natural history museums have altars to that truth. Microevolution is the accepted and provable truth that certain species have changed through slight, successive adaptations based on the ability to survive the environmental challenges to their survival.
The problem with this scientific mantra is that it is the end of the statement of fact and the beginning of the propagation of the myth. In the study of evolution, there is no observable data to support ‘macroevolution” or the ability for these adaptations to change into new species. M.I.T. physicist Geoffrey Schroeder correctly points out his analysis of the impressive display and tribute to evolution that is found in the Natural History Museum in London. “It is all impressive. Impressive, until you are able to walk out and reflect upon that which they are able to document. Daisies remained daisies, moths remained moths, and cichlid fish remained cichlid fish. (The Science of God pg. 31).
When non-faith adherents attack intelligent design and other theories about the origin of the species as “faith” and their acceptance of evolution as “science” they are pulling a slight of hand. All debates about the origin of life are debates of faith and not observable by true science.
As a Christian, I see little controversy about what science has discovered and what the Bible teaches. I believe in the existence of God and the creation of life. I believe God has given science as a wonderful gift to uncover His grand design. Science does not discredit the Bible at all. If anything, it helps the Bible make more sense. My better understanding of the natural does not negate my belief in the supernatural. When science stays within its proper boundaries, it strengthens our wonder about the majesty of the Designer!
The second incorrect assumption asserted by Harris is that Christians have no vested interest in preserving civilization. I will admit that we often stumble in our mandates from the Creator, but Mr. Harris does not understand Biblical teaching on our responsibilities to our bodies, our nations, and our planet. God has instructed His followers to be good stewards of all with which they have been entrusted. C.S. Lewis correctly pointed out “If you read history you will find that Christians who did most for this present world were those who thought most of the next.” (Mere Christianity 134) A recent book suggests that current data demonstrates that Christians give more and do more than their non-faith counter parts. How many “Atheist Homes for the Poor or Orphans” exist in the world today? To assert that Christians have no vested interest in this present age because of the hope of Jesus’ return makes as much sense as a student wanting to destroy his undergraduate resume because of an eagerness to succeed in graduate school.
Christians are re-discovering our need to serve the poor and help the weak. History shows the church to often be slow in addressing human misery, but Christians are found in every hard circumstance loving. serving, and persevering. People of non-faith, if true to their world-view, should turn to destroy the weak as an act of nature’s law of survival of the fittest.
Harris’ weakest argument is his assertion that Christian’s obsession with right or wrong leads to unnecessary human or animal suffering. It is also the atheist’s weakest position. If there is no God, what is justice? What is love? Why is goodness even a pursuit? Why be unselfish? Why have any values at all?
The belief in right and wrong is what holds the world together. Even though we debate what is right and wrong, our belief in right and wrong is universal and necessary. The fact that values sometimes rule over human comfort is actually a comfort in and of itself. Values restrain our harmful human impulses. Restraint produces order.
As a Christian, I do value life as a gift from God and this belief requires me to hold life as sacred. I do believe God has clearly communicated his desires for love, service, truth telling, and unselfishness. The more we hold to these values, the better life is. Test tube ethics will always default to heartless pragmatism. In a world without values, the atheist’s utopia would be the horrible display of death and oppression that would make Joseph Stalin look like a saint.
Is the Christian Church “dangerous?” Christianity has done more to promote love and humility than any other movement in history. If you remove Christian work and influence, how many hospitals, homeless shelters, orphanages, educational institutions, good laws, powerful leaders, and beautiful artists would never have had the positive influence and redemptive power that the world has enjoyed?
The bottom line is that our greatest danger is that we ever lose the life and faith of Jesus in our society. The cultural landscape grows darker and colder as we stab at the Creator and deny His right for our adoration. The time for repentance is now.
The basic points of Harris’ arguments include (1) science has forever debunked faith, (2) Christians’ belief in the end of the world give them “no incentive to build a sustainable civilization,” (3) religion elevates morality over human and animal suffering, and (5) because of fanatical belief, religion is the most dangerous institution in the world.
While I may be wasting time and ink writing a rebuttal to Mr. Harris, I can’t resist using my newly declared notorious state to ease the fear of all the atheists and agnostics within my reach.
I do want to make it clear that to treat all faiths as equal is the most improper presupposition of our post-modern carnage. All religions are not the same. They have different systems and practices. I do believe that jihadist Islam poses a violent danger to our world today. All religions have the possibility of perpetrating great oppression and harm. One has to look no farther than the Crusades to see the destruction that misguided human beings can cause in the name of religious belief.
But even in the case of the Crusades, there are fundamental differences in belief.
The Crusades demonstrate followers of Islam doing what their faith requires them to do and followers of Christ ignoring what their Savior requires them to do. The Crusades represent Islam at its best and Christianity at its worst.
To lump all religions together for the purpose of generalizing criticism of faith makes as much sense as criticizing all people of non-faith by the adherents of the North American Man Boy Love Society (NAMBLA).
I am a teacher and coach at a Christian School in the United States of America. I love my wife and three children. We read the Bible, pray, worship in a local congregation. We live about as simple a life as one can live in the 21st century. We give to missions and desire to tell others what the Lord has done for us. May I use this simple and dangerous position to counter a few of Mr. Harris’ assertions?
One, science has not eliminated Christian belief or doctrine. It is proper to say that the relationship between Christianity and Science is not without controversy. There has often been strenuous debate between the Church and scientists, who often held the same beliefs. As a believer in Christ and the Bible in 2006, I can say that we live in advantageous times because of the light of science and the truth of Scripture. Both are helpful when they are properly placed according to their use. Science is limited concerning many matters of life and faith.
Today, there is a scientific jihad as non-faith scientists try to use reason to trump faith. They use superiority of educational pedigree to intimidate the public.
The average person today does not understand, for example, that traditional Darwinian evolution is no longer acceptable as an explanation for the origin of life as we know it. When scientists say, ‘Evolution is a fact” they are not honestly representing the actual assertion of that quote.
There is ample scientific data that supports ‘microevolution’ and many natural history museums have altars to that truth. Microevolution is the accepted and provable truth that certain species have changed through slight, successive adaptations based on the ability to survive the environmental challenges to their survival.
The problem with this scientific mantra is that it is the end of the statement of fact and the beginning of the propagation of the myth. In the study of evolution, there is no observable data to support ‘macroevolution” or the ability for these adaptations to change into new species. M.I.T. physicist Geoffrey Schroeder correctly points out his analysis of the impressive display and tribute to evolution that is found in the Natural History Museum in London. “It is all impressive. Impressive, until you are able to walk out and reflect upon that which they are able to document. Daisies remained daisies, moths remained moths, and cichlid fish remained cichlid fish. (The Science of God pg. 31).
When non-faith adherents attack intelligent design and other theories about the origin of the species as “faith” and their acceptance of evolution as “science” they are pulling a slight of hand. All debates about the origin of life are debates of faith and not observable by true science.
As a Christian, I see little controversy about what science has discovered and what the Bible teaches. I believe in the existence of God and the creation of life. I believe God has given science as a wonderful gift to uncover His grand design. Science does not discredit the Bible at all. If anything, it helps the Bible make more sense. My better understanding of the natural does not negate my belief in the supernatural. When science stays within its proper boundaries, it strengthens our wonder about the majesty of the Designer!
The second incorrect assumption asserted by Harris is that Christians have no vested interest in preserving civilization. I will admit that we often stumble in our mandates from the Creator, but Mr. Harris does not understand Biblical teaching on our responsibilities to our bodies, our nations, and our planet. God has instructed His followers to be good stewards of all with which they have been entrusted. C.S. Lewis correctly pointed out “If you read history you will find that Christians who did most for this present world were those who thought most of the next.” (Mere Christianity 134) A recent book suggests that current data demonstrates that Christians give more and do more than their non-faith counter parts. How many “Atheist Homes for the Poor or Orphans” exist in the world today? To assert that Christians have no vested interest in this present age because of the hope of Jesus’ return makes as much sense as a student wanting to destroy his undergraduate resume because of an eagerness to succeed in graduate school.
Christians are re-discovering our need to serve the poor and help the weak. History shows the church to often be slow in addressing human misery, but Christians are found in every hard circumstance loving. serving, and persevering. People of non-faith, if true to their world-view, should turn to destroy the weak as an act of nature’s law of survival of the fittest.
Harris’ weakest argument is his assertion that Christian’s obsession with right or wrong leads to unnecessary human or animal suffering. It is also the atheist’s weakest position. If there is no God, what is justice? What is love? Why is goodness even a pursuit? Why be unselfish? Why have any values at all?
The belief in right and wrong is what holds the world together. Even though we debate what is right and wrong, our belief in right and wrong is universal and necessary. The fact that values sometimes rule over human comfort is actually a comfort in and of itself. Values restrain our harmful human impulses. Restraint produces order.
As a Christian, I do value life as a gift from God and this belief requires me to hold life as sacred. I do believe God has clearly communicated his desires for love, service, truth telling, and unselfishness. The more we hold to these values, the better life is. Test tube ethics will always default to heartless pragmatism. In a world without values, the atheist’s utopia would be the horrible display of death and oppression that would make Joseph Stalin look like a saint.
Is the Christian Church “dangerous?” Christianity has done more to promote love and humility than any other movement in history. If you remove Christian work and influence, how many hospitals, homeless shelters, orphanages, educational institutions, good laws, powerful leaders, and beautiful artists would never have had the positive influence and redemptive power that the world has enjoyed?
The bottom line is that our greatest danger is that we ever lose the life and faith of Jesus in our society. The cultural landscape grows darker and colder as we stab at the Creator and deny His right for our adoration. The time for repentance is now.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
New Year and New Posts
I haven't posted in a while. Our school changed the internet filter and I am blocked from school. I hope to transfer some of my writing by e-mail to home and post from here. Look for some new info to be posted shortly.
God bless!
God bless!
Monday, December 25, 2006
Hope for a Blessed Christmas
Here is a wish for a Merry Christmas. Without wanting to be too personal, this has been a tough week.
I have no doubt that the Lord is in control, but I do need His gracious help.
Bless everyone and Merry Christmas.
I have no doubt that the Lord is in control, but I do need His gracious help.
Bless everyone and Merry Christmas.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Polls and Perseverence
I normally stay away from politics, but with elections on the forefront I decided to write a few words. I get so tired of election year leadership. Where are our leaders?
Are there leaders who believe in something and stay the course, even if it costs them votes? If candidate "A" said, "I stand for this" and candidate "B" said, "I stand for this"- then we could really choose.
What do I want? I want as small a government as possible. It needs to protect and provide excellent service. I do not want a welfare state of entitlements and confusing tax programs. I want a secure border and a system to eliminate illegal aliens with a comprehensive program, including punishing companies who hire them.
I want to aggressively pursue terrorists. Keep the fight to them over there or we will soon be fighting here.
I want a unified country. I want to support our leaders, but they need to stand.
I go on record here to say that I will stand with our President. I do not think that every move has been correct, but faced with the aftermath of 911, I believe he is doing the best we know how.
Anyone else under the scrutiny and criticism that he has endured would have already retreated.
I believe that most democrats are soft on terror and until that changes, I will still vote republican. I am not a republican, I am a Christian, but the GOP is the least of two evils for me.
Who is strong enough to stand up and be counted?
Are there leaders who believe in something and stay the course, even if it costs them votes? If candidate "A" said, "I stand for this" and candidate "B" said, "I stand for this"- then we could really choose.
What do I want? I want as small a government as possible. It needs to protect and provide excellent service. I do not want a welfare state of entitlements and confusing tax programs. I want a secure border and a system to eliminate illegal aliens with a comprehensive program, including punishing companies who hire them.
I want to aggressively pursue terrorists. Keep the fight to them over there or we will soon be fighting here.
I want a unified country. I want to support our leaders, but they need to stand.
I go on record here to say that I will stand with our President. I do not think that every move has been correct, but faced with the aftermath of 911, I believe he is doing the best we know how.
Anyone else under the scrutiny and criticism that he has endured would have already retreated.
I believe that most democrats are soft on terror and until that changes, I will still vote republican. I am not a republican, I am a Christian, but the GOP is the least of two evils for me.
Who is strong enough to stand up and be counted?
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Character and Unity- Keys to Victory
Our football team is doing well this year. A big part of that is our team character-perseverence, work ethic,compassion- and team unity-following the coaches,pulling for each other,forgiving differences.
What can we learn from that?
On the 5th anniversary of 911- we are far from being a winning team.
We have to improve our national character- we are more perverse and materialistic and selfish than ever before. When pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry- dependency at an all time high-illiteracy-poverty-racism- corporate greed- rampant consumerism- we have a hard time having a national resolve.
We have to get behind our leaders and show unity. I do not believe that our President has done everything right, but I am for him and I support him. 911 changed the way we do business and this man has labored to try and win this crucial war. All of this whining and complaining from the far left only weakens our strength.
It is OK to ask legitimate questions- but the viciousness is appalling.
Lord, are you raising up the Jihadists for our sins? May You protect Your remnant. I pray You will come soon! Forgive me for all of my depravity. Thank-you Jesus for covering Me!
What can we learn from that?
On the 5th anniversary of 911- we are far from being a winning team.
We have to improve our national character- we are more perverse and materialistic and selfish than ever before. When pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry- dependency at an all time high-illiteracy-poverty-racism- corporate greed- rampant consumerism- we have a hard time having a national resolve.
We have to get behind our leaders and show unity. I do not believe that our President has done everything right, but I am for him and I support him. 911 changed the way we do business and this man has labored to try and win this crucial war. All of this whining and complaining from the far left only weakens our strength.
It is OK to ask legitimate questions- but the viciousness is appalling.
Lord, are you raising up the Jihadists for our sins? May You protect Your remnant. I pray You will come soon! Forgive me for all of my depravity. Thank-you Jesus for covering Me!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
How Clear Do You Want It?
John 8:"21 So he said to them again, I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. 22 So the Jews said, Will he kill himself, since he says, Where I am going, you cannot come? 23 He said to them, You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins. 25 So they said to him, Who are you? Jesus said to them, Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. 26 I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him. 27 They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. 28 So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. 29 And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him. 30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him."
"You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins."
Pretty straight forward statement by Jesus.
We are sinful- deserving of death. If we stand before God without an advocate, without a ransomer, without an atoner..what hope do we have?
My only hope for salvation is Jesus. I am banking it all on Him.
What are you trusting in? Please don't say your self or your own intellect that has explained it all away.
It is a very dangerous game you are playing.
"You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins."
Pretty straight forward statement by Jesus.
We are sinful- deserving of death. If we stand before God without an advocate, without a ransomer, without an atoner..what hope do we have?
My only hope for salvation is Jesus. I am banking it all on Him.
What are you trusting in? Please don't say your self or your own intellect that has explained it all away.
It is a very dangerous game you are playing.
Friday, August 25, 2006
The Victorious Praying Warrior
Zechariah 10- 1 Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the Lord who makes the storm clouds, and he will give them showers of rain, to everyone the vegetation in the field.
God is a giving God- who hears and acts- He gives in abundance.
Fruit of the Lord :
"5 They shall be like mighty men in battle, trampling the foe in the mud of the streets; they shall fight because the Lord is with them, and they shall put to shame the riders on horses. 6 I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the Lord their God and I will answer them. 7 Then Ephraim shall become like a mighty warrior, and their hearts shall be glad as with wine. Their children shall see it and be glad; their hearts shall rejoice in the Lord. 8 I will whistle for them and gather them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as many as they were before. 9 Though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and with their children they shall live and return. 10 I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria, and I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, till there is no room for them. 11 He shall pass through the sea of troubles and strike down the waves of the sea, and all the depths of the Nile shall be dried up. The pride of Assyria shall be laid low, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart. 12 I will make them strong in the Lord, and they shall walk in his name,declares the Lord."
strength-courage-accomplished-righteous living- harmnomious homes-fearless victory
it is good to walk in His name.
God is a giving God- who hears and acts- He gives in abundance.
Fruit of the Lord :
"5 They shall be like mighty men in battle, trampling the foe in the mud of the streets; they shall fight because the Lord is with them, and they shall put to shame the riders on horses. 6 I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the Lord their God and I will answer them. 7 Then Ephraim shall become like a mighty warrior, and their hearts shall be glad as with wine. Their children shall see it and be glad; their hearts shall rejoice in the Lord. 8 I will whistle for them and gather them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as many as they were before. 9 Though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and with their children they shall live and return. 10 I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria, and I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, till there is no room for them. 11 He shall pass through the sea of troubles and strike down the waves of the sea, and all the depths of the Nile shall be dried up. The pride of Assyria shall be laid low, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart. 12 I will make them strong in the Lord, and they shall walk in his name,declares the Lord."
strength-courage-accomplished-righteous living- harmnomious homes-fearless victory
it is good to walk in His name.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The Truly, Truly Bottom Line
"24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. 25 Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."
Do we really take into consideration what Christ is saying? The one who holds the power to undo the greatest tragedy is the One we run from. Not only do we escape death... we escape judgment.
Praise You, Lord Jesus...what a promise.
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."
Do we really take into consideration what Christ is saying? The one who holds the power to undo the greatest tragedy is the One we run from. Not only do we escape death... we escape judgment.
Praise You, Lord Jesus...what a promise.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Oh I Needed That
We had a big win Friday night 51-20 over a team that beat us 36-9 last year. I can't relate how much I needed that. It was a long October losing 2 straight and missing the playoffs and a longer winter- but we had a good summer and I had an impatient camp.
Confidence was low.
My players picked me up! They have done all that I asked them to do. We have an off week this week- but I am excited- this could be a fun ride!
Thanks Lord, I really needed it.
Confidence was low.
My players picked me up! They have done all that I asked them to do. We have an off week this week- but I am excited- this could be a fun ride!
Thanks Lord, I really needed it.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Sunday Soccer and the End of History
Another impact of post-modernism is a loss of a pattern or rhythm of life. As Communication and Informational technologies (CITs) explode- a big casualty is TIME David Lyon in his book, Jesus in Disneyland, gives a remarkable summary of what sociologists are seeing in the compression of space and time.
The speed of life is approaching warp dimensions. Instant communication, insatiable consumer appetites, and the extended present of cyberspace has put us in a world more liquid than solid. A rolling stone may gather no moss, but our culture’s tread is fractured.
There is no long lasting stability. No life long careers or marriages.
“To disrupt time is to generate uncertainties, to loosen anchors, to dissolve meanings.” Life is more disposable. Is it any wonder that stress and exhaustion is at an all time high?
One important aspect of God’s Sabbath command is a need for pace. God set the pattern- 6 days work and a PAUSE. That pause is to reflect and gear our minds toward Him. To have our souls cleaned and missions adjusted. It helps us to see eternity.
I believe the blue law days are forever done. I live in an NFL town and Sabbath ends at kickoff (or 2 hours before if you tailgate).
Travel youth sports jump right in to the rapid stream of the post-modern pace.
The stereotypical 10 year old is being molded by his parents for success by meals on the go, the chalice of college scholarships, motel bills, and pilot seat DVD’s. Any wonder why a 55-minute worship service is “boring”? We have squeezed minutes into seconds and pushed God out in the process.
I’m sorry – but when I drive to church on Sunday morning and see the soccer fields buzzing with activity at 9:15 A.M., I get really discouraged.
I’m not afraid of getting behind. I worry about what happens when we leave God behind.
The speed of life is approaching warp dimensions. Instant communication, insatiable consumer appetites, and the extended present of cyberspace has put us in a world more liquid than solid. A rolling stone may gather no moss, but our culture’s tread is fractured.
There is no long lasting stability. No life long careers or marriages.
“To disrupt time is to generate uncertainties, to loosen anchors, to dissolve meanings.” Life is more disposable. Is it any wonder that stress and exhaustion is at an all time high?
One important aspect of God’s Sabbath command is a need for pace. God set the pattern- 6 days work and a PAUSE. That pause is to reflect and gear our minds toward Him. To have our souls cleaned and missions adjusted. It helps us to see eternity.
I believe the blue law days are forever done. I live in an NFL town and Sabbath ends at kickoff (or 2 hours before if you tailgate).
Travel youth sports jump right in to the rapid stream of the post-modern pace.
The stereotypical 10 year old is being molded by his parents for success by meals on the go, the chalice of college scholarships, motel bills, and pilot seat DVD’s. Any wonder why a 55-minute worship service is “boring”? We have squeezed minutes into seconds and pushed God out in the process.
I’m sorry – but when I drive to church on Sunday morning and see the soccer fields buzzing with activity at 9:15 A.M., I get really discouraged.
I’m not afraid of getting behind. I worry about what happens when we leave God behind.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Any More Goosebumps?
As I continue to observe our postmodern culture and the influence on our youth, I get most concerned about their apathy. Nothing seems to excite our youth. They do not seem to be inspired. They seem to be coasting.
I refer to it as a spirit of casualness. They appear too cool to care and make fun of people who get really juiced about something. Even my daughters have been made fun of - you don’t want to be accused of being a “track freak”- (which means you practice everyday.)
This may be a by-product of affluence. I have players who have been everywhere and done everything- so there is nothing left to excite them.
Or
It could be a by-product of our postmodern consumerism. It is a radical departure from our Puritan and reformed heritage.
“The frequently caricatured puritan ideals of asceticism, self denial, fixed boundaries that would lead to delayed enjoyment, saving for a rainy day and marriage for life are clearly out of kilter with the culture of the so called me generation that does its own thing and where anything goes.” (Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland)
Consumerism affects what inspires us, what excites us, and what connects us.
What caricatures your life?
The Kingdom of Christ or The Kingdom of Consumerism
Excited by the Glory of God or My Goods on Display?
Inspired by The Love of Christ and stories that tell that narrative or Flamboyancy- “What is bigger-better-cooler?”
Connected by a love of people or a love of things?
Please pray for me. I want to find a spark to inspire a football team. And right now I feel like all the kindling is wet.
I refer to it as a spirit of casualness. They appear too cool to care and make fun of people who get really juiced about something. Even my daughters have been made fun of - you don’t want to be accused of being a “track freak”- (which means you practice everyday.)
This may be a by-product of affluence. I have players who have been everywhere and done everything- so there is nothing left to excite them.
Or
It could be a by-product of our postmodern consumerism. It is a radical departure from our Puritan and reformed heritage.
“The frequently caricatured puritan ideals of asceticism, self denial, fixed boundaries that would lead to delayed enjoyment, saving for a rainy day and marriage for life are clearly out of kilter with the culture of the so called me generation that does its own thing and where anything goes.” (Lyon, Jesus in Disneyland)
Consumerism affects what inspires us, what excites us, and what connects us.
What caricatures your life?
The Kingdom of Christ or The Kingdom of Consumerism
Excited by the Glory of God or My Goods on Display?
Inspired by The Love of Christ and stories that tell that narrative or Flamboyancy- “What is bigger-better-cooler?”
Connected by a love of people or a love of things?
Please pray for me. I want to find a spark to inspire a football team. And right now I feel like all the kindling is wet.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Church vs Cyberspace
Thanks to David Lyons, "Jesus in Disneyland"
Church - Cyberspace
Authority - Anarchy
Continuity - Instant Fluidity
Community - Individuality
Wholeness - Fragmentation
Purpose - Inconsequentiality
The destabilization of the post modern movement has put an incredible strain on our society and is paying horrible dividends to our youth. Can anyone but me hear the creaking of broken foundations and fear the weight of sin?
If we do not move back to the Church side of this equation - what hope is there for long term success?
Church - Cyberspace
Authority - Anarchy
Continuity - Instant Fluidity
Community - Individuality
Wholeness - Fragmentation
Purpose - Inconsequentiality
The destabilization of the post modern movement has put an incredible strain on our society and is paying horrible dividends to our youth. Can anyone but me hear the creaking of broken foundations and fear the weight of sin?
If we do not move back to the Church side of this equation - what hope is there for long term success?
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
True Believer?
Nice comments below by John McArthur
Are You Really Saved?
John MacArthur: When I was in high school I had a very dear friend—played on our baseball team, played on our football team, we were buddies, he played first base, I played short stop, he played a backup quarterback position, I was a tailback—and we were close. His father was real active in a church group and, of course, my father was a pastor and we did a lot of personal evangelism in those days, we’d go down to the Pershing Square in LA and witness. Ralph went away to Redlands University—I saw him after his second year, after I’d been away to college, and I was so glad to see him and he said, “John, something’s changed.” I said, “What?” He said, “I’m an atheist.” I was shocked. I said, “What do you mean ‘you’re an atheist’?” He said, “I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe any of that “blankety-blank” stuff in the Bible.” I just didn’t have a category in my theology to put him in at that point.
I went away to college. I had a very, very similar experience with a number of guys that I knew, who named the name of Christ at one point in time, and who abandoned Christ. The guy that sticks in my mind most of all—I was in my senior year at college. He was my running mate in the backfield; he was a great football player. We had great times together. He was a youth pastor on the weekends; he taught the College Sunday school class in a Presbyterian church, and I taught the College Sunday school class for my dad—we always compared notes. He graduated. I went on to seminary. He went on to get a Ph.D. in Psychology; he went to teach at Cal. State University in Long Beach, and I picked up the Times one day to find out that he had brought nude students into the classroom and was demonstrating sexual stuff in front of the whole class. He was defrocked—kicked out of the school…found out he was selling drugs on the side…he wound up with a seven-year prison sentence. You know, when you play football with a guy for three years, you get close. He was the student body president, I was vice president; his father was a pastor, a good friend of my dad’s; to this day he denies Christ.
I went away to seminary—the son of the Dean of my seminary married a Buddhist and set up a Buddhist altar in his house after graduating from Talbot Seminary. I struggled through a lot of that kind of stuff. Then, I went to a church and I baptized a guy who was a porno film maker and within 2 months, he was back making porno films.
As a pastor, I have seen them come and go and come and go and come and go…and trying in my own heart to access the nature of true conversion was very much a personal struggle with me, not a theological one. Then, I began to study the gospel of Matthew and I preached in Matthew for 8 years at our church and in that process of going through Matthew, I began to come to grips with the whole gospel record, because I was doing a study of the synoptics and John at the same time. I began to fix on how Jesus evangelized and what he called for and so forth and born out of that, I began to look at the church at large.
I began to look, for one thing, at the Charismatic movement, which I say this with compassion in my heart, has been, without question, the most disruptive disastrous thing that has happened to the church in the last 50 years. It has devastated the church in America in a number of ways. I wish I had time to go in to them. And then coming behind it, this psychological salvation stuff. The combination of this has created the illusion of salvation in our society.
I’m not trying to make people insecure; I’m just trying to make sure there aren’t some people thinking they’re on their way to heaven, who are going to wake in hell, and fulfill Matthew 7:21-23 and say, “Lord! Lord! What about us?” That, to me, is the most frightening passage in all of Scripture. It’d be one thing to go to hell and know you were going there, it’d be one thing to go to hell and not expect anything different; it’d be another thing to go to hell and wonder why you got there when you thought you were a Christian. I just don’t want any responsibility in my life or any of your responsibility with regard to that doctrine.
So, that’s really what motivated me through the years, just going over that and trying to deal with the reality of that issue and then watching people who name the name of Christ, but their life is the same.
Board Member: Another question here then, John. If I were an unsaved man coming to you today in desperate need of salvation, and were to ask you, how I can receive eternal life, what would you tell me? How much would I have to understand concerning Christ, to get saved? Please give the Scripture you would use.
John MacArthur: Well, you’d have to understand who Christ is—I mean, you can’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved unless you know who the Lord Jesus Christ is. You would have to understand that He is God in human flesh who came into the world to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin and that He accomplished the atonement on the cross, paying the penalty for your sins and thus allowing God to grant forgiveness to those who put their faith in Him.
So, you’d have to explain Christ and then it would be a question of believing in Him. The issue is what do we mean by belief? Do you believe that Jesus came into the world, God in human flesh? Yes. Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again the third day? Yes. Do you believe Jesus died as a substitute for your sins? Yes.
Is he saved? Not necessarily. I believe all that; so do the devils…James 2, “…they tremble…” There’s something else. There’s got to be some content in this believing. Jesus said, you know, He didn’t commit Himself to people who believed in him. Many believed on Him, but “He didn’t commit himself to them because He knew what was in their hearts,” remember that?
So, the first question I try to ask in the book is: what is the nature of saving faith? What is it that sets saving faith apart from non-saving faith? I am sure that every person in this room would affirm that there is such a thing as a non-saving kind of belief, right? The Catholics will sign on the dotted line, everything in the life of Christ, His death, His resurrection…That doesn’t save them. What does? Well, somehow, saving faith has to have some component. Let me suggest the components to you.
Component #1—Saving faith forsakes all human means of salvation.
Listen to the apostle Paul. Acts 9 was the history of his conversion; Philippians 3 is his heart attitude. You want to know what Paul was feeling on the Damascus road? Read Philippians 3. What does he say there? He says, “I was circumcised the eighth day. I was of the nation Israel. I was of the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, persecuting the church. As to the righteousness which is contained in the law, I was,” what?, “blameless.” I mean, that’s some heavy-duty credentials.
What was all that stuff to him? That was all of his asset column; that was all profit. “These things I counted as gain,” first. Right? This was my assets. Why? Because his hope of salvation was in those. Salvation by race; salvation by ritual (circumcision); salvation by rank (tribe of Benjamin—one of the highest ranking of all tribes. I mean, they got the territory in which Jerusalem existed; they were the only son born in the promise land, and on and on it goes).
And then he says, “I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” What do you mean? I’m a Hebrew son…Hebrew parents. I kept the tradition. I kept the language. I kept the customs. I got it all. When it comes to zeal, do you want to see a sincere believer in God?! I killed the opponents of the old covenant. I killed the opponents of salvation as I understood it. That’s how zealous and sincere I am. The guy had it all. As to the law: blameless, from the human viewpoint. They couldn’t hold anything on me. I kept the law; I was a Pharisee: strict, loyal.”
6,000 Pharisees—that’s all there were at that time; he was one of those—that small little elite group. So, he says, “That’s all in my asset column and I hoped in my salvation for that and then I met Christ on the Damascus road.” And, you can believe this: he already knew the facts of Christ, right? And he already knew what the gospel preachers were preaching—that’s why he was persecuting them. But, all of a sudden, he met Jesus Christ and what he saw was skubalon, rubbish, excrement…and he trashed it.
And what does that say? That says that salvation comes to someone who turns his back on any confidence in the flesh whatsoever. Paul says, “I counted it rubbish. It was gain to me—I counted it as loss.” He doesn’t say, “Well, it was nice, but it wasn’t adequate.” He says, “It was excrement.” That’s the word skubalon. “Why?” you say, “to be a Jew, to be from Benjamin’s tribe,…why was it such a vile thing?” I’ll tell you why. Not because in itself it’s wicked, but because when you trust in it for salvation, it’ll damn your soul. That’s the issue. So, he says, “I counted it all loss in order that I might gain Christ. And what did I gain? The knowledge of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, the power of Christ, the fellowship of Christ in His sufferings, and the glory of Christ in the resurrection to come.” That’s the exchange.
You say, is that taught in the gospels? Absolutely. What did Jesus say in Matthew 16, “What will a man give in exchange for his,” what? You see, Paul had to make an exchange. He had to give up all of the stuff he was trusting to trust only in Christ. That’s exactly what Jesus meant in the parable of the treasure and the pearl. When the guy found the treasure, he sold everything he had and took the treasure. When he found the pearl, he sold everything he had and took the pearl. It is an exchange of all that I have trusted in for my salvation, for Christ. It’s all rubbish.
So, the first thing about saving faith is it has no confidence in the flesh. It is by pure grace, through faith, plus or minus nothing.
Component #2—(I believe you must affirm this to a person) is that it involves a turning from sin.
How can anybody argue with that, when that’s what Jesus preached: repent…and that’s what John preached: repent…and that’s what Paul preached…”We preach repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,” Acts 20. It’s “Repent! Repent!” Now, I know people say it means you change your mind about who Christ is; I don’t believe that. I mean it is a conscious recognition that I am a sinner and I am turning from my sin to a Savior. I think that is just all through Scripture.
And then I believe there’s one more element of that saving faith and that is…
Component #3—it is a commitment. It is the entrusting of my life to the Lordship of Christ.
Now, let me say this. I believe that you are turning from all confidence in the flesh, you are turning from sin to a Savior who can forgive your sin, and you are committing your life to the care of a sovereign Lord. Now, let me say this. I do not believe that at the moment of salvation, you or anybody else, fully understands all the implications of that kind of a thing. I’ll tell you right now, you may not understand it a few years after your salvation because it’s an ever-increasing awareness of what that meant.
“But, ah,” you say, “well, is that a human work, to turn from your flesh?” No. “Is it a human work to repent?” No. “Is it a human work to submit?” No. That is the divine work. It’s God who produces the loss of confidence in the flesh. It’s God who produces the repentance. It’s God who grants repentance; it says in the book of Acts, “God granted the Gentiles repentance.”
Are you willing to turn from anything you’re trusting for your salvation and trust only in Jesus Christ? Are you willing to turn from your sin—commit it to Him—ask Him to cleanse your life…and, are you willing to follow Him? What did Jesus say, “Make a decision for me”? No, He said, “Follow Me.” Continuity—that’s the way I would give the message. I don’t think everybody understands the full implications of it.
The second thing I tried to point out in the book—the first is the nature of saving faith—the second is the nature of conversion. What is conversion? If you tell me conversion is where you get saved but don’t change, I got a problem because I don’t understand that that’s what the Bible teaches. So, maybe we need to talk about that…that’ll probably come up.
Are You Really Saved?
John MacArthur: When I was in high school I had a very dear friend—played on our baseball team, played on our football team, we were buddies, he played first base, I played short stop, he played a backup quarterback position, I was a tailback—and we were close. His father was real active in a church group and, of course, my father was a pastor and we did a lot of personal evangelism in those days, we’d go down to the Pershing Square in LA and witness. Ralph went away to Redlands University—I saw him after his second year, after I’d been away to college, and I was so glad to see him and he said, “John, something’s changed.” I said, “What?” He said, “I’m an atheist.” I was shocked. I said, “What do you mean ‘you’re an atheist’?” He said, “I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe any of that “blankety-blank” stuff in the Bible.” I just didn’t have a category in my theology to put him in at that point.
I went away to college. I had a very, very similar experience with a number of guys that I knew, who named the name of Christ at one point in time, and who abandoned Christ. The guy that sticks in my mind most of all—I was in my senior year at college. He was my running mate in the backfield; he was a great football player. We had great times together. He was a youth pastor on the weekends; he taught the College Sunday school class in a Presbyterian church, and I taught the College Sunday school class for my dad—we always compared notes. He graduated. I went on to seminary. He went on to get a Ph.D. in Psychology; he went to teach at Cal. State University in Long Beach, and I picked up the Times one day to find out that he had brought nude students into the classroom and was demonstrating sexual stuff in front of the whole class. He was defrocked—kicked out of the school…found out he was selling drugs on the side…he wound up with a seven-year prison sentence. You know, when you play football with a guy for three years, you get close. He was the student body president, I was vice president; his father was a pastor, a good friend of my dad’s; to this day he denies Christ.
I went away to seminary—the son of the Dean of my seminary married a Buddhist and set up a Buddhist altar in his house after graduating from Talbot Seminary. I struggled through a lot of that kind of stuff. Then, I went to a church and I baptized a guy who was a porno film maker and within 2 months, he was back making porno films.
As a pastor, I have seen them come and go and come and go and come and go…and trying in my own heart to access the nature of true conversion was very much a personal struggle with me, not a theological one. Then, I began to study the gospel of Matthew and I preached in Matthew for 8 years at our church and in that process of going through Matthew, I began to come to grips with the whole gospel record, because I was doing a study of the synoptics and John at the same time. I began to fix on how Jesus evangelized and what he called for and so forth and born out of that, I began to look at the church at large.
I began to look, for one thing, at the Charismatic movement, which I say this with compassion in my heart, has been, without question, the most disruptive disastrous thing that has happened to the church in the last 50 years. It has devastated the church in America in a number of ways. I wish I had time to go in to them. And then coming behind it, this psychological salvation stuff. The combination of this has created the illusion of salvation in our society.
I’m not trying to make people insecure; I’m just trying to make sure there aren’t some people thinking they’re on their way to heaven, who are going to wake in hell, and fulfill Matthew 7:21-23 and say, “Lord! Lord! What about us?” That, to me, is the most frightening passage in all of Scripture. It’d be one thing to go to hell and know you were going there, it’d be one thing to go to hell and not expect anything different; it’d be another thing to go to hell and wonder why you got there when you thought you were a Christian. I just don’t want any responsibility in my life or any of your responsibility with regard to that doctrine.
So, that’s really what motivated me through the years, just going over that and trying to deal with the reality of that issue and then watching people who name the name of Christ, but their life is the same.
Board Member: Another question here then, John. If I were an unsaved man coming to you today in desperate need of salvation, and were to ask you, how I can receive eternal life, what would you tell me? How much would I have to understand concerning Christ, to get saved? Please give the Scripture you would use.
John MacArthur: Well, you’d have to understand who Christ is—I mean, you can’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved unless you know who the Lord Jesus Christ is. You would have to understand that He is God in human flesh who came into the world to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin and that He accomplished the atonement on the cross, paying the penalty for your sins and thus allowing God to grant forgiveness to those who put their faith in Him.
So, you’d have to explain Christ and then it would be a question of believing in Him. The issue is what do we mean by belief? Do you believe that Jesus came into the world, God in human flesh? Yes. Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose again the third day? Yes. Do you believe Jesus died as a substitute for your sins? Yes.
Is he saved? Not necessarily. I believe all that; so do the devils…James 2, “…they tremble…” There’s something else. There’s got to be some content in this believing. Jesus said, you know, He didn’t commit Himself to people who believed in him. Many believed on Him, but “He didn’t commit himself to them because He knew what was in their hearts,” remember that?
So, the first question I try to ask in the book is: what is the nature of saving faith? What is it that sets saving faith apart from non-saving faith? I am sure that every person in this room would affirm that there is such a thing as a non-saving kind of belief, right? The Catholics will sign on the dotted line, everything in the life of Christ, His death, His resurrection…That doesn’t save them. What does? Well, somehow, saving faith has to have some component. Let me suggest the components to you.
Component #1—Saving faith forsakes all human means of salvation.
Listen to the apostle Paul. Acts 9 was the history of his conversion; Philippians 3 is his heart attitude. You want to know what Paul was feeling on the Damascus road? Read Philippians 3. What does he say there? He says, “I was circumcised the eighth day. I was of the nation Israel. I was of the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, persecuting the church. As to the righteousness which is contained in the law, I was,” what?, “blameless.” I mean, that’s some heavy-duty credentials.
What was all that stuff to him? That was all of his asset column; that was all profit. “These things I counted as gain,” first. Right? This was my assets. Why? Because his hope of salvation was in those. Salvation by race; salvation by ritual (circumcision); salvation by rank (tribe of Benjamin—one of the highest ranking of all tribes. I mean, they got the territory in which Jerusalem existed; they were the only son born in the promise land, and on and on it goes).
And then he says, “I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” What do you mean? I’m a Hebrew son…Hebrew parents. I kept the tradition. I kept the language. I kept the customs. I got it all. When it comes to zeal, do you want to see a sincere believer in God?! I killed the opponents of the old covenant. I killed the opponents of salvation as I understood it. That’s how zealous and sincere I am. The guy had it all. As to the law: blameless, from the human viewpoint. They couldn’t hold anything on me. I kept the law; I was a Pharisee: strict, loyal.”
6,000 Pharisees—that’s all there were at that time; he was one of those—that small little elite group. So, he says, “That’s all in my asset column and I hoped in my salvation for that and then I met Christ on the Damascus road.” And, you can believe this: he already knew the facts of Christ, right? And he already knew what the gospel preachers were preaching—that’s why he was persecuting them. But, all of a sudden, he met Jesus Christ and what he saw was skubalon, rubbish, excrement…and he trashed it.
And what does that say? That says that salvation comes to someone who turns his back on any confidence in the flesh whatsoever. Paul says, “I counted it rubbish. It was gain to me—I counted it as loss.” He doesn’t say, “Well, it was nice, but it wasn’t adequate.” He says, “It was excrement.” That’s the word skubalon. “Why?” you say, “to be a Jew, to be from Benjamin’s tribe,…why was it such a vile thing?” I’ll tell you why. Not because in itself it’s wicked, but because when you trust in it for salvation, it’ll damn your soul. That’s the issue. So, he says, “I counted it all loss in order that I might gain Christ. And what did I gain? The knowledge of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, the power of Christ, the fellowship of Christ in His sufferings, and the glory of Christ in the resurrection to come.” That’s the exchange.
You say, is that taught in the gospels? Absolutely. What did Jesus say in Matthew 16, “What will a man give in exchange for his,” what? You see, Paul had to make an exchange. He had to give up all of the stuff he was trusting to trust only in Christ. That’s exactly what Jesus meant in the parable of the treasure and the pearl. When the guy found the treasure, he sold everything he had and took the treasure. When he found the pearl, he sold everything he had and took the pearl. It is an exchange of all that I have trusted in for my salvation, for Christ. It’s all rubbish.
So, the first thing about saving faith is it has no confidence in the flesh. It is by pure grace, through faith, plus or minus nothing.
Component #2—(I believe you must affirm this to a person) is that it involves a turning from sin.
How can anybody argue with that, when that’s what Jesus preached: repent…and that’s what John preached: repent…and that’s what Paul preached…”We preach repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,” Acts 20. It’s “Repent! Repent!” Now, I know people say it means you change your mind about who Christ is; I don’t believe that. I mean it is a conscious recognition that I am a sinner and I am turning from my sin to a Savior. I think that is just all through Scripture.
And then I believe there’s one more element of that saving faith and that is…
Component #3—it is a commitment. It is the entrusting of my life to the Lordship of Christ.
Now, let me say this. I believe that you are turning from all confidence in the flesh, you are turning from sin to a Savior who can forgive your sin, and you are committing your life to the care of a sovereign Lord. Now, let me say this. I do not believe that at the moment of salvation, you or anybody else, fully understands all the implications of that kind of a thing. I’ll tell you right now, you may not understand it a few years after your salvation because it’s an ever-increasing awareness of what that meant.
“But, ah,” you say, “well, is that a human work, to turn from your flesh?” No. “Is it a human work to repent?” No. “Is it a human work to submit?” No. That is the divine work. It’s God who produces the loss of confidence in the flesh. It’s God who produces the repentance. It’s God who grants repentance; it says in the book of Acts, “God granted the Gentiles repentance.”
Are you willing to turn from anything you’re trusting for your salvation and trust only in Jesus Christ? Are you willing to turn from your sin—commit it to Him—ask Him to cleanse your life…and, are you willing to follow Him? What did Jesus say, “Make a decision for me”? No, He said, “Follow Me.” Continuity—that’s the way I would give the message. I don’t think everybody understands the full implications of it.
The second thing I tried to point out in the book—the first is the nature of saving faith—the second is the nature of conversion. What is conversion? If you tell me conversion is where you get saved but don’t change, I got a problem because I don’t understand that that’s what the Bible teaches. So, maybe we need to talk about that…that’ll probably come up.
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