Today and That Day

The Danger of Labels

2011-08-06T11:55:00.001-05:00

Some years ago in an adult Sunday school class, I remember an illuminating misunderstanding taking place. A dear older servant of the Lord, who had given over a decade of her life to missions in Central Asia, commented that, measured by conversion growth, Christianity is the fastest growing religion in the world. Another class member, a college professor, asked what kind of Christianity she was referring to. She replied, “Evangelical Christians.” The professor’s response was “That’s scary.” The missionary lady looked a little taken aback but said nothing.

The church was an American Baptist congregation with strong Willow Creek influences. The messages that were presented from the pulpit were Biblically based and upheld the authority of scripture and faith in Jesus as necessary for salvation. So what was going on in this particular situation? Was there a fundamental difference of perspective, or were the two parties missing each other in communication?

Although I did not interview these people after the fact, I strongly suspect that the real issue was not doctrinal difference, but different understandings of labels. In missions circles, it is common to define the term evangelical like this:

[Evangelical Christians] are all who emphasize and adhere to all four of the following:

The Lord Jesus Christ as the sole source of salvation through faith in Him, as validated by His crucifixion and resurrection.

Personal faith and conversion with regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

Recognition of the inspired Word of God as the ultimate basis and authority for faith and Christian living.

Commitment to biblical witness, evangelism and mission that brings others to faith in Christ.

Evangelicals are largely Protestant, Independent or Anglican, but some are Catholic or Orthodox. It is one of the TransBloc movements in this book. …
(http://www.operationworld.org/glossary)

However, for the college professor and her husband, the word likely carried a rather different set of connotations. As far as I know, they would indeed affirm the four points above; at another time, I heard them describe themselves as “confessional Christians.” In their politics, however, they leaned to the left. Thus, the word “evangelical” carried baggage for them which made it uncomfortable and even “scary” – names like Jerry Falwell, Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson, George W. Bush, etc. and phrases like “Moral Majority,” “Christian Coalition,” and “Religious Right.” For them to imagine the strand of Christianity which birthed such political movements exported to all the nations as the world’s fastest growing religion was understandably, and perhaps even deservedly, scary.

I bring up this story in order to confess my own stumble into confusion over labels. Over the few years that I transitioned from the church that I described above into IHOP-KC, my latent belief that the gifts of the Spirit continued to operate today flowered into full-fledged participation in the gifts of tongues, healings, and prophecy. In this transition, I began to refer to myself, rather incautiously, as a “charismatic.” What I meant by the term is very much what Operation World means by it:

Those who testify to a renewing experience of the Holy Spirit and present exercise of the gifts of the Spirit such as glossalalia, healing, prophecy and miracles. The charismatic renewal, or “Second Wave” Pentecostalism, has generally remained within mainline denominations. A further “Third Wave” renewal movement occurred with many characteristics of the Second Wave, but with less open identification with formal Pentecostalism or the charismatic movement. Second and Third Wave charismatics are counted as a single entity in this book. In our global survey of denominations, we have assessed percentages of affiliated charismatic Christians for each of the 37,500 denominations in the world from 1990-2010. The assessment largely excludes those no longer actively associated with charismatic renewal.
(http://www.operationworld.org/glossary)

I discovered, however, that not every one thinks of this definition when they hear the word. What may come to mind instead is two-tier system of Christianity, in which those who are Spirit-baptized are superior to those “without the Spirit,” or perhaps a ministry rife with unbridled emotionalism and manipulation, or worst of all, a church in which Biblical teaching has been abandoned in favor of the latest dream or vision from the “anointed prophet” who has a unique revelation from God, not to be questioned by the unanointed layman.

Fortunately, IHOP-KC is none of the above, nor would I be a part of the organization if it were. IHOP-KC’s statement of faith places it squarely within the stream of the “Third Wave” charismatic movement, which clearly affirms that every born-again believer has the Holy Spirit living within them, though many forego the benefit of conscious experience of the Holy Spirit’s power that comes by being “filled” with the Spirit (Eph 5:18). As for emotionalism and manipulation, I have rarely experienced more level-headed Biblically-based ministry times as those at IHOP-KC. Mike Bickle follows closely in the footsteps of John Wimber, who strongly encouraged leaders in his movement to avoid every kind of hype and showmanship and to be “supernaturally natural” in platform ministry. As for abandoning the Bible because of the latest dream or vision, I have read my Bible more, studied it harder, and been more impressed at the clarity and depth of Bible teaching at IHOP-KC than at any previous point in my walk with the Lord.

So perhaps, I am not a “charismatic.” But I unashamedly affirm and practice the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given His church. Labels will always be dangerous, but fortunately the Lord Himself has prayed that His Church be unified around allegiance to Him (John 17:21-23). When men and women of goodwill who love Jesus meet, even if their respective labels should make them enemies, I am convinced that the Holy Spirit can and will make them friends.

The Courage of the Creator

2010-12-27T17:15:00.000-06:00

“Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.” – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (“The Romance of Orthodoxy”)

If we could look from the perspective of heaven, perhaps it would not be very surprising that when God visited His people He would be regarded as a troublemaker and a rebel. He had warned them for centuries that He was not on their side. Either they were on His side, or they were against Him. Looking frankly at the history of Israel, most of the time they were opposed to Him. He had spoken to them in judgment, in deliverance, in blessing and in cursing, and still they persisted in their own way.

So He came to them as a subversive. He began to put the world right by turning it inside out and upside down. The poor are rich, the persecuted are joyful, suffering is pleasure (2 Cor 12:10), and death by crucifixion is glory. And what is highly exalted among people is an abomination to God (Lk 16:15). The age to come will vindicate those who side with God, no matter how foolish they look now.

We have been invited into the Grand Conspiracy to fix the world by turning it on its head. But we immediately run into our own fear. Turning the world upside down and making pretty much everybody mad is scary stuff. We’d be a lot more comfortable if we could preach moderation. Or if we could pick a side and make sure “the good guys” win. But we don’t get to do that. Our King took no one’s side except His Father’s, received no honor from human beings (Jn 5:41), and was utterly fearless. We learn what courage looks like by looking at Jesus. There’s never been a Man more brave.

The Spiral of Adoration

2010-12-22T17:13:00.001-06:00

The Hermeneutical Spiral is a book that I never read, but the title changed my life. Well, perhaps “changed my life” is an exaggeration, but it really helped me understand Bible study. The idea is that knowing what whole books are about helps understand what individual verses mean, which in turn helps understand the whole book, which helps understand the verses, and so on. The process of understanding the Bible is “the parts interpret the whole interpret the parts, etc.”

I’d like to suggest that something similar happens when we meditate on the Incarnation. It has been well said that we completely miss the significance of the stable in Bethlehem unless we keep fully in mind Who it is that is lying in the feeding trough. The story slides into sentimentality unless we remember that the helpless Baby born in squalor is the very God who created the heavens and the earth with a word… who in judgment for sin, wiped the entire human race from the planet except Noah’s family… who demolished the global superpower Egypt to rescue slaves and make them the His own special people... who sent them into exile when the rebelled against Him… and promised them a restoration beyond hope. Unless we remember that it is this same God of creation, covenant, exodus, exile, and restoration who is now lying in a manger, we miss the entire point of Christmas.

But we need to go one step farther. God incarnate in Jesus reveals the God of Sinai in ways that are unthinkable otherwise. How would we know about the humility of God if it were not for Jesus? His gentleness with sinners? His joy? Gratitude? Courage? The Son interprets the Father for us.

As we meditate on the Incarnation, let us remember that it is Yahweh who became flesh – and that through His flesh He revealed what we could never have known about Him any other way. It is in this “spiral of adoration” that we will find ourselves, as Wesley wrote, “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

Why I hate suicide

2010-07-17T20:53:00.001-05:00

An acquaintance of mine, a follower of Jesus, recently took his own life, apparently in the midst of a bad bout of depression. This is the second time a Christian I have known has killed himself in the past 10 years. Aside from grief and anger over the situation, I have another reason to hate suicide. The story below happened to me about 6-7 years ago.

I am convinced that every suicide – especially of believers – is a victory for Satan and a victory of deception over truth. This is not to say that I believe that Christians who commit suicide go to Hell. I’m not the Judge, and I don’t know their hearts, but I have reason to believe that both Paul and Ed had sincerely trusted Jesus for salvation and that they are in His presence today. But to give up hope is to forget or ignore Jesus and the Gospel, and to believe a lie.

I was driving home one night under a heavy burden of depression. I had just given into temptation and yielded yet again in an area of habitual sin which had hindered my life and my calling in God at every turn. As I was driving home, familiar feelings of shame and hopelessness assailed me. “You are a failure. You’ve done nothing with your life. You’re pathetic…” And so on. All of this seemed to be my own mind, and certainly at the time I agreed with most of the sentiments. I felt pathetic. I felt like a loser. I felt like I was accomplishing nothing and I was in a dead-end job. I felt my sin disqualified me from any possible destiny in God.

These thoughts began to take a particularly nasty turn that night, however. I began to feel that life was not worth living any more. Depression began to harden into despair. Suicidal thoughts began to float through my mind. I looked at a bridge I was driving past and had thoughts of driving my car into a concrete abutment or off of a cliff. For a few moments I wallowed in these feelings, and they began to crystallize into a suggestion. “Why don’t you just do it? Why don’t you just end it now?” I continued in my self-pity and depression another moment, but the suggestion became more insistent. Suddenly a new thought crossed my mind.

This isn’t me.

Nearly automatically, I said out loud in the car, “Spirit, I rebuke you in Jesus’ name!”

And it stopped. The voice stopped instantly and completely. Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking suicidal thoughts. I wasn’t pitying myself for my pathetic life. I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t even feeling shame anymore. Instead, I felt like I was waking up from a dream. What had I just been listening to for the past 15 minutes?

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, I urge you to get help. Tell someone. Call 911 if you need to. But above all, believe the Gospel. Jesus Christ has paid the price for the redemption of the entire earth – for your freedom as well as your forgiveness. Repent of your sins, trust Jesus Christ for salvation, and then take hold of the authority that is yours as a child of God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Suicidal thoughts are not your portion as a believer in Jesus. Find people to pray for you, ask the Holy Spirit to help, and renounce the lie that you are destined to be depressed and suicidal your whole life. DO NOT GIVE UP. There is always hope. Jesus has set many people free before you. There are thousands of people all around the world who wanted to kill themselves before Jesus rescued them.

One place you can find dozens of testimonies of people who have been freed from suicidal thoughts is the IHOPU Student Awakening. Watch the video testimonies and believe that what Jesus did for those people He can – and will – do for you! It’s not about IHOP, it’s about Jesus. This is what He’s like. He’s the Savior, and so He saves. He’s the Deliverer, and so He sets people free. He will set you free IF YOU DON’T GIVE UP.

Lewis: Anthropomorphism is better than Mechanomorphism

2010-06-23T22:07:00.001-05:00

Heaven's not a vapor
And God's not a cloud
He's in a physical temple
On the top of a mount
(Chorus from the IHOP-KC Prayer Room, June 2010)

One of the criticisms occasionally leveled against "charismatic" teachers and groups¹ is that they are anthropomorphites (e.g. Catholic Answers). That is, they believe that God the Father - in addition to God the Son - has a human form.

At first glance, the topic may appear to be as straightforward as Catholic Answers suggests - people are merely taking imagery like "The right hand of YHWH" (Ps 118:15-16) literally and coming to overly simplistic conclusions. But on closer inspection, there is a case to be made for the anthropomorphism even of the Father. Abraham apparently had YHWH to his tent for dinner and then talked with Him about Isaac and the fate of Sodom (Gen 18). Moses and seventy elders of Israel "saw the God of Israel" and He had feet (Ex 24:10). Isaiah saw YHWH sitting on a throne and wearing a robe (Is 6:1,5). Ezekiel saw "the glory of YHWH" and he had "a likeness with human appearance." (Ezek 1:26,28, see also Ezek 3:23; 8:4; 9:3; 10:4, 18).

The standard theological response to these verses has been to regard them as Old Testament Christophanies (pre-Incarnate appearances of the Second Person of the Trinity). Various New Testament scriptures do provide legitimacy for that view (e.g. Jn 1:18, 1 Jn 4:12; and Jn 12:41, which states clearly that Isaiah saw a Christophany). But it must be noted that with the exception of John 12:41, Scripture itself is silent on Old Testament Christophanies.

The early church fathers are helpful to a degree (see the extensive selection of quotes at the Catholic Answers link above), but it must be recognized that the apologists and early theologians of the Church virtually all imported a large number of Hellenistic assumptions into their theological works. These ideas were alien to the Hebrew worldview in which the Torah was received and into which the Messiah and all His apostles were born. This can be seen clearly in some of the earliest quotes on the topic, where the church fathers go beyond scripture and import propositions from Greek philosophy, e.g.:

Athenagoras

"I have sufficiently demonstrated that we are not atheists, since we acknowledge one God, unbegotten, eternal, invisible, incapable of being acted upon, incomprehensible, unbounded, who is known only by understanding and reason, who is encompassed by light and beauty and spirit and indescribable power, by whom all things, through his Word, have been produced and set in order and are kept in existence" (Plea for the Christians 10 [A.D. 177]).
(http://www.catholic.com/library/God_Has_No_Body.asp)

You will not find the idea that God is "incapable of being acted upon" in the Bible. In fact, it's hard not to get the impression that He is very much affected by our choices - not least our sins. (e.g. Jer 12:7-8) Or try telling Abraham that God is "known only through understanding and reason." His answer might be, "No, He talked with me and He visited my tent." (Gen 18)

But aside from throwing Bible verses back and forth, there is actually an important pastoral issue involved. I recently finished reading Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, by C.S. Lewis, and I found Lewis' thoughts on anthropomorphisms in scripture to be the best I've heard:

This talk of “meeting" is, no doubt, anthropomorphic; as if God and I could be face to face, like two fellow-creatures, when in reality He is above me and within me and below me and all about me. That is why it must be balanced by all manner of metaphysical and theological abstractions. But never, here or anywhere else, let us think that while anthropomorphic images are a concession to our weakness, the abstractions are the literal truth. Both are equally concessions - each singly misleading, and the two together mutually corrective. Unless you sit to it very tightly, continually murmuring “Not thus, not thus, neither is this Thou,” the abstraction is fatal. It will make the life of lives inanimate and the love of loves impersonal. The naïf image is mischievous chiefly in so far as it holds unbelievers back from conversion. It does believers, even at its crudest, no harm. what soul ever perished for believing that God the Father really has a beard? (Pg 22)

Scripture doesn't take the slightest pain to guard the doctrine of Divine Impassibility. We are constantly represented as exciting the Divine wrath or pity - even as "grieving" God. I know this language is analogical. But when we say that, we must not smuggle in the idea that we can throw the analogy away and, as it were, get in behind it to a purely literal truth. All we can really substitute for the analogical expression is some theological abstraction. And the abstraction's value is almost entirely negative. It warns us against drawing absurd consequences from the analogical expression by prosaic extrapolations. By itself, the abstraction "impassible"can get us nowhere. It might even suggest something far more misleading than the most naïf Old Testament picture of a stormily emotional Jehovah. Either something inert, or something which was “Pure Act” in such a sense that it could take no account of events within the universe it had created.

I suggest two rules for exegetics: 1) Never take the images literally. 2) When the purport of the images—what they say to our fear and hope and will and affections—seems to conflict with the theological abstractions, trust the purport of the images every time. For our abstract thinking is itself a tissue of analogies: a continual modelling of spiritual reality in legal or chemical or mechanical terms. Are these likely to be more adequate than the sensuous, organic, and personal images of Scripture—light and darkness, river and well, seed and harvest, master and servant, hen and chickens, father and child? The footprints of the Divine are more visible in that rich soil than across rocks or slag-heaps. Hence what they now call “demythologising” Christianity can easily be “re-mythologising” it—and substituting a poorer mythology for a richer. (Pg 51-52)

In essence, Lewis is saying that anthropomorphism is far less dangerous than mechanomorphism (imagining God to be like a machine), which is all we have left if we think that words like "omnipresent," "omnipotent," and "impassible" are literal truth that doesn't need to be qualified or explained.

God's impassibility is probably the weakest of the "attributes of God" discussed by theologians - the least Biblically supported and the most liable to dangerous misunderstanding. There are some Biblical reasons to support it (e.g. "God is not a man that He should lie or a son of man that He should change His mind…" Num 23:19, and the very fact that the Lake of Fire is a place of everlasting wrath - everlasting wrath is an impossible emotion for human beings). But we are much safer to think of God's emotions as analogous to ours than to think of them as something abstract and static. If we focus on the idea that God's emotions are utterly unlike ours, we will ruin our emotional relationship with Him, and we will actually make void the many things that He tells us about His emotions through scripture.

We run into a similar problem when we think about God's relationship to time. It is all but unthinkable that God could experience time in the same way as us, as a slave of the future, not knowing with certainty what will happen. To think of God like that reduces His promises from certainties to probabilities, and His sovereignty from utterly trustworthy rule to the best bet among uncertain options. Further, if the theory of relativity is correct in that time and space are inextricably linked - to the point that travel through space at speeds approaching the speed of light actually affects time - then to make God subject to time is to make God subject to space, and therefore to His own creation. It would be a self-contradiction.

However, when we consider the alternative - of declaring God to be "outside time" or "timeless," the distortion that enters in is again far more spiritually dangerous than the intellectual difficulty of picturing God within time. When we think of "timelessness," we inevitably think of something static. And in fact, that was precisely how Plato pictured the First Cause - the "Unmoved Mover", the "Ultimate Form" from which all else was derived. It reduces the personal and deeply involved YHWH of Israel to a pretty statue and renders the Incarnation an irreconcilable contradiction in terms.

So, as Lewis wrote, we are far safer to approach God using the imagery and language that He has given us, even recognizing that the Bible itself warns us against taking the images rigidly (e.g. we are told "He does not change His mind," and yet on several occasions, the story records that He did precisely that). It is much better to cry with Moses, "Turn from Your burning anger," (Ex 32:12) than to sit back with the false piety of Ahaz saying, "I will not ask, and I will not put YHWH to the test." (Is 7:12)

¹ Note that I am using the word "Charismatic" loosely to refer to a broad spectrum of groups and denominations who believe in the present operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus didn't call us to comfort

2010-04-19T23:43:00.000-05:00

In the news today, another well-known Christian singer has come out as a homosexual. I found what Jennifer Knapp had to say about her story to be interesting:

The Signal - Christian singer Jennifer Knapp comes out as a lesbian
“I still consider my hope to be a whole human being, to be a person of love and grace. So it’s difficult for me to say that I’ve struggled within myself, because I haven’t. I’ve struggled with other people. I’ve struggled with what that means in my own faith. I have struggled with how that perception of me will affect the way I feel about myself.”

I will not attempt to say that I fully understand what she has experienced in the tension between sexual attraction to her own gender and what the Bible says. I have no first-hand experience of same-sex attraction, so I will frankly say that I don't "get it." But I do have first-hand experience of powerful and overwhelming urges to do things which our society considers normal, but which the Bible condemns as sin. In fact, for a large part of my life, I have felt trapped in a habit (or even an addiction) which I cannot seem to escape, despite trying virtually everything that has been recommended to me. Over and over again, I have felt how much easier it would be to give up the struggle, quit fighting it, and simply live the way it seems most Americans do.

But when I look at the Bible, I find that rather than "being a whole human being" who is free from internal struggle, what the New Testament urges is much closer to my experience of constant internal battle.

The writer of Hebrews described this life as a footrace, and suggested that we should do whatever it takes to be free of encumbrance so that we can run this race to the finish line. (Heb 12:1-2) The finish line, it is clear from the context, is the end of this life. (Heb 11:39) So the Christian life can be compared to running a marathon which lasts your entire life. There may be glory in a marathon, but it not comfortable or easy.

Peter and Paul both take comparison up a notch and equate this life to a war. Peter urges Christians to abstain from the lusts of our flesh, because they wage war against our souls. (1 Peter 2:11) Paul encourages Timothy to "share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 2:3-4), and writes to the Ephesians that they are to put on a full suit of spiritual armor to withstand every attack of demonic forces against them. (Eph 6:10-20)

Most disturbingly of all, from the very lips of the Master Himself, we are told that this life is a voluntary process of self-execution. He calls us to live in such a way that it is like giving ourselves up to humiliation, torture, and a slow, agonizing death by one of the most horrific means of execution ever devised. That is what "Take up your cross" means, after all. And of all the great leaders in history, this Man is the only One who can with absolute unquestionable authority call us to that voluntary self-destruction. He is not asking us to do anything He did not do first! (Mt 16:24-25, Lk 9:23-24, Mk 8:34-35)

Today we are constantly hearing that it is too hard and too unkind for Christians to insist that those with same-sex attraction resist it just because the Bible says so. In light of the strong – and even ruthless – words we have just surveyed from the Founder and the fathers of our faith, such arguments seem anemic and pathetic.

The reason that anemic and pathetic arguments carry so much weight today, however, is because the contemporary American Church is by and large anemic and pathetic. Gay activists are very nearly right in saying that Jesus never talked about homosexuality (though note His restatement of God's intention for male and female in Mt 19:3-9 and parallels). The issues to which He did apply His call to violent holiness have a much broader application:

We have to die to religious pride. (Lk 18:9-14, Mt 7:1-4)
We have to die to love of money. (Lk 16:10-15)
We have to die to idle and unprofitable speech. (Mt 12:36-37)
We have to die to our right to be angry. (Mt 5:21-26)
We have to die to even looking lustfully at another human being (of either gender). (Mt 5:27-30)
We have to die to getting what is due to us. (Mt 5:38-42)
We may well have to suffer persecution and even die physically. (Mt 5:10-12, Rev 2:10)

Internal struggle - even internal warfare unto continual death to self - is what Jesus calls us to. Let us forget our ignorant dream of being comfortable and happy in this life and instead do whatever it takes to be holy. What we will find is that there is a better joy, a better peace, and a better comfort - a comfort beyond imagination - coming in the age to come for those who refuse to give up.

And even in this age there is a downpayment of that joy to be had. People really do find freedom from all kinds of besetting sins, including same-sex attraction. People really can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, live with an increasing measure of holiness in this life. I really do have hope that in this life I will have consistent and lasting victory over sinful habits.

But victory only comes to those who fight.

Number of big earthquakes really is increasing...

2010-04-08T09:03:00.000-05:00

I found this blog post today, after observing that there has been at least one headlines-worthy earthquake every month in 2010 so far...

City Brights: Zennie Abraham : More big earthquakes projected for 2010 than 2009, 2008, and 2007: "One reason for this increase in number may be improved earthquake sensing technology. Indeed, the USGS reports that this is the case. But there's a problem in the basic logic presented by the USGS, a large earthquake has damaging impacts such that more sensitive technology would make no difference, a large quake is just that: big. People know when an earthquake larger than 6 on the Richter Scale strikes. Moreover the USGS points to improved technology between 1931 and today, not within the last decade."

Matthew 24:6–8 (ESV)
6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Misty Edwards: Arms Wide Open (You Shall Love Me)

2010-02-22T23:51:00.000-06:00

This is the song (lyrics below) that American snowboarder Kelly Clark was singing along with on her iPod when she won the bronze medal at the Olympics this week.

I won't pretend that I have a clue of what it must feel like to be competing in the Olympics with the eyes of the millions watching you. But I will say that singing about what Jesus did on the cross to define love for us, in order that we would love Him back with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength, is probably the best possible way to act in that situation. Most likely only trivia buffs will remember Kelly Clark's name and what she won 20 years from now - but the love in her heart for Jesus Christ is going to be honored before the throne of God forever and ever.

If you found this page out of curiosity, I urge you to actually read the lyrics below and think about the implications. God Himself - the Creator of heaven and earth and everything in them - became a human being and showed us what a human life was always supposed to look like. And then He submitted Himself voluntarily to a gross mockery of justice, to torture, to public shame, and to death, in order to bear the penalty that we deserved for our rebellion against God. And then three days later, He rose from the dead, and is never going to die again.

He did all of that because He loves you, and He wants you to fulfill the purpose for which He made you. God demonstrated His love for us in this: while we were still in rebellion against Him, Jesus died for us. And now Jesus has been given authority over everything that He made and is co-ruling with His Father in heaven. But He isn't going to stay there forever. There is a day coming - sooner than you think! - when He will come back to the earth and every human being who has ever lived will give an account to Him for how they lived their life. I urge you, if you do not know Jesus the Messiah personally, make your peace with Him now while you still have time!

Arms Wide Open – Misty Edwards

“What does love look like?” is the question I’ve been pondering
“What does love look like?”
“What does love look like?” is the question I’ve been asking of You

I once believed that love was romance, just a chance
I even thought that love was for the lucky and the beautiful
I once believed that love was a momentary bliss
But love is more than this
All You ever wanted was my attention
All You ever wanted was love from me
All You ever wanted was my affections, to sit here at Your feet

Then I sat down, a little frustrated and confused
If all of life comes down to love
Then love has to be more than sentiment
More than selfishness and selfish gain

And then I saw Him there, hanging on a tree, looking at me
I saw Him there, hanging on a tree, looking at me
He was looking at me, looking at Him, staring through me
I could not escape those beautiful eyes
And I began to weep and weep

He had arms wide open, a heart exposed
Arms wide open; He was bleeding, bleeding

Love’s definition, love’s definition was looking at me
Looking at Him, hanging on a tree
I began to weep and weep and weep and weep

This is how I know what love is, this is how I know what love is

And as I sat there weeping, crying
Those beautiful eyes, full of desire and love

He said to me, “You shall love Me, You shall love Me
You shall love Me, You shall love Me”

With arms wide open, a heart exposed
With arms wide open, bleeding, sometimes bleeding

If anybody’s looking for love in all the wrong places
If you’ve been searching for love, come to Me, come to Me
Take up your cross, deny yourself
Forget your father’s house and run, run with Me
You were made for abandonment, wholeheartedness
You were made for someone greater, someone bigger, so follow Me
And You’ll come alive when you learn to die

Finney: How great sin can precede revival

2009-10-22T10:52:00.000-05:00

I've started a discussion group in my Biblical Studies class to read through Finney's Revivals of Religion together and to pray through what he taught. This week, the following quote caught our attention. Surely, when heresy is growing in the Church, when those giving up on the Church are increasing, and when sin is being justified, promoted, and boasted of all around, we are living in times of "outrageous wickedness."

If so, then let us repent of our "carnal policies that only make things worse," follow God's prescription, and humble ourselves and pray!

Charles Finney: Lectures on Revivals of Religion, "II. When a Revival is to be Expected":
But sometimes the conduct of the wicked drives Christians to prayer, and breaks them down, and makes them sorrowful and tender-hearted, so that they can weep day and night, and instead of scolding and reproaching them, they pray earnestly for them. Then you may expect a revival. Indeed this is a revival begun already. Sometimes the wicked will get up an opposition to religion. And when this drives Christians to their knees in prayer to God, with strong crying and tears, you may be certain there is going to be a revival. The prevalence of wickedness is no evidence at all that there is not going to be a revival. That is often God’s time to work. When the enemy cometh in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him. Often the first indication of a revival, is the devil’s getting up something new in opposition. It will invariably have one of two effects. It will either drive Christians to God, or it will drive them farther away from God, to some carnal policy or other that will only make things worse. Frequently the most outrageous wickedness of the ungodly is followed by a revival. If Christians are made to feel that they have no hope but in God, and if they have sufficient feeling left to care for the honor of God and the salvation of the souls of the impenitent, there will certainly be a revival. Let hell boil over if it will, and spew out as many devils as there are stones in the pavements, if it only drives Christians to God in prayer—they cannot hinder a revival. Let Satan get up a row, and sound his horn as loud as he pleases; if Christians will only be humbled and pray, they shall soon see God’s naked arm in a revival of religion.

Finney: Why the Church needs revival

2009-10-08T08:34:00.000-05:00

After hearing Lou Engle speak at IHOPU chapel last night I started reading Charles Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion. There is a lot of wisdom rooted in experience in Finney’s talks. I was particularly struck by two points in the first talk:

Many Christians – and I think Christian leaders in particular – would rather see the Church make progress steadily and grow over time instead of going through all the confusion and disruption – and excess and error – that comes with revival. Finney answers the argument squarely. If the Church were who she is supposed to be most of the time, revival would not be necessary. But in this age, with the deceitfulness of sin and the influence of the world which is “under the sway of the wicked one,” (1 Jn 5:19), we need revival. The Church continually backslides without regular injections of God’s power in revival.
Revival, when it is the real thing, is so clearly the work of God and beyond what human beings could work up, that people often conclude that it is entirely a work of God’s sovereignty and human beings have nothing to do with it. In fact, the history of revival shows the opposite. It is the praying Church, consecrated and committed to seeing God’s will done on earth as in heaven, that opens the door for God’s power to be manifested.

Lectures on Revivals of Religion by Charles Finney
There is so little principle in the church, so little firmness and stability of purpose, that unless the religious feelings are awakened and kept excited, counter worldly feeling and excitement will prevail, and men will not obey God. They have so little knowledge, and their principles are so weak, that unless they are excited, they will go back from the path of duty, and do nothing to promote the glory of God. The state of the world is still such, and probably will be till the millennium is fully come, that religion must be mainly promoted by means of revivals. How long and how often has the experiment been tried, to bring the church to act steadily for God, without these periodical excitements. Many good men have supposed, and still suppose, that the best way to promote religion, is to go along uniformly, and gather in the ungodly gradually, and without excitement. But however sound such reasoning 11may appear in the abstract, facts demonstrate its futility. If the church were far enough advanced in knowledge, and had stability of principle enough to keep awake, such a course would do; but the church is so little enlightened, and there are so many counteracting causes, that she will not go steadily to work without a special interest being awakened.
....
I wish this idea to be impressed on all your minds, for there has long been an idea prevalent that promoting religion has something very peculiar in it, not to be judged of by the ordinary rules of cause and effect; in short, that there is no connection of the means with the result, and no tendency in the means to produce the effect. No doctrine is more dangerous than this to the prosperity of the church, and nothing more absurd.

Suppose a man were to go and preach this doctrine among farmers, about their sowing grain. Let him tell them that God is a sovereign, and will give them a crop only when it pleases him, and that for them to plow and plant and labor as if they expected to raise a crop is very wrong, and taking the work out of the hands of God, that it interferes with his sovereignty, and is going on in their own strength: and that 14there is no connection between the means and the result on which they can depend. And now, suppose the farmers should believe such doctrine. Why, they would starve the world to death.

Just such results will follow from the church’s being persuaded that promoting religion is somehow so mysteriously a subject of Divine sovereignty, that there is no natural connection between the means and the end. What are the results? Why, generation after generation has gone down to hell. No doubt more than five thousand millions have gone down to hell, while the church has been dreaming, and waiting for God to save them without the use of means. It has been the devil’s most successful means of destroying souls. The connection is as clear in religion as it is when the farmer sows his grain. (pp 12-14)

Everything is falling apart… more of the same will fix it?

2009-10-03T12:03:00.001-05:00

Two news articles on very different – but actually related – topics caught my eye recently.

First, a horrific article about America’s most profitable export - hardcore pornography – and the effect it’s having in poor villages in West Africa.

Africa goes hardcore | Tim Samuels | The Guardian
"The village has no electricity, but that doesn't stop a generator from being wheeled in, turning a mud hut into an impromptu porn cinema – and turning some young men into rapists, with villagers relating chilling stories of assaults taking place straight after the film's end."

Second, a not-surprising-if-you’ve-been-paying-attention article about the sharp decline in the number of Americans self-identifying as Christians in recent years.

Where Have All the Christians Gone? - Bruce Feiler - FOXNews.com
"A shocking new study of Americans’ religious beliefs shows the beginnings of a major realignment in Americans’ relationship with God. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) reveals that Protestants now represent half of all Americans, down almost 20 percent in the last twenty years. In the coming months, America will become a minority Protestant nation for the first time since the pilgrims."

What do these two stories have in common? They both provide a disturbingly negative diagnosis of the spiritual bankruptcy of America then proceed to prescribe pathetically weak remedies – in fact, both writer’s prescriptions amount to nothing more than “Let’s keep doing what we’ve been trying to do for years.”

Tim Samuels, completely ignoring his own narrative hook with the story of young African porn initiates becoming instant rapists, prescribes more condoms and more safe sex education.

“Since the only sex education some people in places such as Ghana are getting is via porn films, there is a decent argument for the porn industry to produce more films where performers use condoms. In LA, where the majority of the world's porn is still shot, only one company routinely makes such films. The condom-only policy adopted following an industry HIV outbreak five years ago lasted just months.”

God forbid that we should say the obvious and admit that we shouldn’t be making hardcore porn at all. Pornography is addictive, destructive of our ability to relate to the opposite sex in a healthy way, and it creates rapists all over the world – not just in mud huts in Ghana. The sexual revolution was a lie. It was based on falsified research created to advance a predetermined agenda. We are not going to solve this problem with “corporate responsibility” in the porn industry. We need to repent and reject the sexual revolution altogether.

Bruce Feiler’s diagnosis on the topic of church decline is equally completely unsuited to the crisis:

“First, catering to older believers is a recipe for failure; younger Americans are tuning out.

Second, Americans are interested in God, but they don’t think existing institutions are helping them draw closer to God.

Finally, Americans’ interest in religion has not always been stable. It dipped following the Revolution and again following Civil War. In both cases it rebounded because religious institutions adapted and found new ways of relating to everyday Americans.”

I’m not sure if Feiler is a Christian or belongs to a church. I haven’t read any of his books. But his idea that more relevance and catering to the youth is the answer surely shows a massive disconnect from anything that’s actually happening in the American Church. What have we been doing for the past twenty years if not trying to be relevant and catering to the youth?

It isn’t working. It isn’t going to work. An entire generation has grown up in churches filled with church growth strategies that were designed to be relevant to our culture and to meet the needs of young people. How many of that generation are devoted followers of Jesus now?

According to Thom Rainer, in The Bridger Generation, only 4 percent of people under 30 affirm that Jesus is the only way of salvation. Despite the fact that a huge percentage of them still attend church. Our strategies have failed.

More of the same isn’t going to solve this problem. As Feiler rightly notes in his article, there were massive dips in faith in America before. But better church growth strategies were not the solution. The solution was revival. God’s people got desperate enough to quit trying the latest new thing and went back to the forgotten, old things – prayer, repentance, and holiness. (Jeremiah 6:16) And in the fullness of time, God sent revival, and everything changed.

That is what America needs today. It is desperately important that the sexual revolution be turned back as unbridled sexual sin destroys millions of lives. It is desperately important that America hear the Gospel again and respond to Jesus. But a new strategy is not going to accomplish either goal. It is time to shut down our programs and pray.

We are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us.
We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You. (2 Chronicles 20:12)

Muslims hear about Jesus on Capitol Hill

2009-09-26T10:41:00.000-05:00

Joel Rosenberg has posted a great followup to the "Islam on Capitol Hill" event that happened yesterday.

Of the approximately 3,000 Muslims that came, apparently a large proportion of them received a packet of materials from Christians who were there to greet them respectfully and offer them gifts - which included the JESUS film and the DVD More Than Dreams. It was extremely encouraging to read the testimony of one Muslim woman who said, "I am very sincere. I will definitely take this home and look at these things." There really are sincere Muslims who are hungry for the true knowledge of God. That hunger alone is not enough to save them, but I think the ever-increasing testimonies of Muslims receiving dreams and visions of Jesus is evidence that God is still doing what He did with Cornelius. (Acts 10:1-5)

Sadly, these believers were upstaged by others who seemed to think that shouting angry condemnations - and mixing political messages into their proclamation of Jesus - was what was most profitable to do. The story below of a woman who challenged one of the protesters about his willingness to die in order that Muslims might be saved is very telling.

“ISLAM ON CAPITOL HILL” EVENT ATTRACTS FAR LESS THAN EXPECTED: Evangelical Christians use opportunity to share gospel with thousands of Muslims « Joel Rosenberg’s Weblog: "“I’m just really concerned about the message you guys are communicating. Aren’t we supposed to love them? Aren’t we supposed to share the truth in love? Would you die to bring these people the gospel? Do you want them to be saved, or just to tell them that they’re following a lie?”
“Die for them?” the protester asked, somewhat bewildered, thinking about the concept for few moments. “I just don’t think I could. I have a wife and five kids.”"

By the way, I just finished reading Joel Rosenberg's book Epicenter, and I highly recommend it. I'm not sure yet whether I agree with his interpretation of the timing of the war of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38-39, and I definitely disagree with him about the timing of the Rapture, but his book is nonetheless fascinating and very readable.

New Message on Podcast: Shelley Hundley – The TURN Word

2009-09-03T14:14:00.001-05:00

I’m posting something a little different on my podcast this month because I’ve recently been stirred about the state of our nation and how dire the need for intercession for America is right now. Daniel Lim and Allen Hood recently shared powerful messages at Forerunner Christian Fellowship about the crisis in America and the prospect of judgment if we there is not a widespread turning of our hearts. I urge you to listen to both messages and pray sincerely about what God is saying to America right now. (Allen’s message should be on the FCF Podcast soon)

The message I’m posting is related to these exhortations; it was an open vision that another IHOP-KC leader had seven years ago, also on the topic of judgment coming to America. The conclusion is the same – America, and specifically the Church, needs to do 2 Chronicles 7:14, and we need to do it soon!

Shelley Hundley – The TURN Word
Shelley Hundley, a teacher at IHOPU, had a vision of Jesus in 2002 in which He warned of judgment coming to America. He did not tell her anything about the timing or the nature of the judgment, only that the response needed among God's people was the fear of the Lord, the first commandment, and willingness to speak an unpopular message.

NOTE: this episode is an exception for this podcast because it recounts a subjective experience that a person had, rather than a teaching drawn from scripture. The Bible says not to despise prophecies, but to test all things and cling to what is good. (1 Thes 5:20-21) I urge you to listen to this story and judge it according to that standard.

Piper: the Tornado, the Lutherans, and Homosexuality

2009-08-31T08:59:00.000-05:00

This is about as clear a warning as America is going to get about how God feels about churches decreeing that homosexual behavior is not sin. We have the Bible, but we've ignored it and twisted it to make it say what we want. Now God has sent a tornado. That didn't stop us either. What will He have to send next?

God loves people who have same-sex attraction just like He loves everyone else who struggles with sin. But the answer is repentance and faith in Christ, seeking the power of Christ to bring transformation and freedom, not changing the Biblical standard of sexual behavior.

As Piper aptly put it, "official church pronouncements that condone the very sins that keep people out of the kingdom of God, are evil. They dishonor God, contradict Scripture, and implicitly promote damnation where salvation is freely offered."

The Tornado, the Lutherans, and Homosexuality :: Desiring God:
"According to the ELCA’s printed convention schedule, at 2 PM on Wednesday, August 19, the 5th session of the convention was to begin. The main item of the session: “Consideration: Proposed Social Statement on Human Sexuality.” The issue is whether practicing homosexuality is a behavior that should disqualify a person from the pastoral ministry.

The eyewitness of the damage continues:

This curious tornado touches down just south of downtown and follows 35W straight towards the city center. It crosses I94. It is now downtown.

The time: 2PM."

The Silence is Broken

2009-08-28T13:52:00.001-05:00

I suppose this post title could be apropos to the fact that I haven’t posted anything here for two months. But actually it’s the title of this poem, which I wrote yesterday as an assignment for my Pentateuch class. I don’t particularly think I’m a poet, but poetry can be a great way to meditate on things that are hard to capture in prose. I’ve probably written half a dozen poems in my life, most of which are not worth sharing, but I don’t mind this one. It’s a meditation on Exodus 3.

For four hundred years of silence
They waited for You to speak
They lived out their lives in darkness
With a future endlessly bleak

Their deadlines came and false hopes went
Generations were spent like grass
All still awaiting the promise
When Your word would come to pass

They were burdened beyond strength
But still You allowed yet more
And You extended Your silence
While the groan of their hearts turned sore

And then there appeared a man
Who seemed to be someone great
Yet he failed when put to the test
And obscurity was his fate

You tested him in the desert
For forty years tending sheep
And while their hopes seemed still empty
Your promise was not asleep

There came a day - at last, that day
When You broke Your silence fast
On a day like any other
A mountainside gleamed as he passed

"Moses! Moses!" Your word spoke out
"Take off the shoes from your feet.
For the place where you are standing
Is where God and mankind will meet."

And in those minutes that followed
You opened up Your heart
And earth would never recover
From the fire Your word would start

Now again we wait, as they did
Having learned that You cannot lie
We saw the Cross, the empty tomb
But await the light in the sky

Silence surrounds us, and we groan
But exult in hope as we wait
For from creation until now
Your word never comes too late!

Sayers: No one ever spoke to women like this Man

2009-07-01T15:35:00.001-05:00

I’m making a point of collecting and sharing quotes on the uniqueness and glory of Jesus. This is from Dorothy Sayers, in her book Are Women Human?, which I found quotes in Leanne Payne’s Crisis in Masculinity:

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man — there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as "The women, God help us!" or "The ladies, God bless them!"; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious.

There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words of Jesus that there was anything 'funny' about woman’s nature.

But we might easily deduce it from His contemporaries, and from His prophets before Him, and from His Church to this day.

- Are Women Human?, pg 68-69 (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005)

Lord, give grace to Your Church to treat our sisters as You did!

On a sidenote, Payne’s point in quoting the passage was actually quite a good one – she wites that anytime an intellectual system builds itself on the contrast of one class with another (women vs. men, poor vs. rich, etc.), that intellectual system creates a conflict between the two. One class will always come out on the downside of the comparison: women have indeed been oppressed by men, the poor have indeed been oppressed by the rich. But to focus on that contrast is to perpetuate conflict – women’s rights at men’s expense – and whoever buys into that system becomes a warrior for the oppressed class. They end up being oppressors themselves, albeit in a different way (e.g. the feminist professor who verbally abuses the comparatively helpless young men in her classes).

The answer is not to “balance the scales” by exalting the downtrodden at the expense of their oppressors. The answer is reconciliation, which happens at the cross, when both sides lay down their rights, repent of their wrongs, forgive those who wronged them, and find a new identity in the One who had nothing to repent of, but nonetheless laid down everything for them:

Galatians 3:28 (ESV)
²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Why I won't defend IHOP

2009-06-17T09:21:00.002-05:00

Two years ago, when I was an intern at IHOP-KC, I put up a post called Is IHOP a Cult? Rather disappointingly, until recently, that post was always the most popular post on this site. In fact, it still gets an average of 2 hits a day. Judging by the time spent on the page, it looks like people have found my "intern's perspective" on whether or not IHOP-KC is a cult helpful.

In that post, however, I also said that I would do a series of posts analyzing different issues that people have against IHOP-KC. If you have looked at the archive for this site, it's quite clear that I never did any of those posts. There are several reasons why:

At the time I wrote that post, IHOP-KC was still "them" for me and I felt like I could have an outsider's perspective. However, very shortly afterwards, I felt freedom from the Lord to return to IHOP-KC long-term, and IHOP became "us." It's a very different thing to write a post that analyzes "them" and a post that defends "us."
A large part of the reason I wrote that post was because I was in conflict with a friend over IHOP's theology. I quickly realized that I could not continue to write about the subject without trying to refute my friend in a passive-aggressive way.
Most importantly, I became familiar with the prophetic history of IHOP-KC (which is available on the IHOP website¹). I realized that the issue of opposition and responding to it with meekness has been a central command from the Lord in Mike Bickle's ministry from the beginning.

The story from the prophetic history that I'm talking about is a prophetic word that Mike Bickle received from a prophetic man named Augustine in St. Louis in 1982. This was later repeated by Bob Jones as confirmation of Bob's prophetic ministry.² The four parts of the word were:

Thousands of young people are going to be gathered to Kansas City.
There will be a full release of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. (John 14:12)
A false prophet will be in your midst from the very beginning.
[All I have ever heard Mike Bickle say about this is that that already happened long ago and has been taken care of.]
Persecution will be birthed against you and the work that God has entrusted to your leadership, and the Lord says you are not to touch it, you are not to answer it; you are to leave it in the Lord's hands, and He will settle it for you.

If you go on listening to the prophetic history, you will hear about a massive controversy that did break out over Mike's ministry in the early 90s.³ It was related to the connection between the Kansas City Fellowship (Intercession and the prophetic) and the Vineyard (Worship and compassion/healing). However, the IHOP-KC leadership do not believe that what happened in the 90s means the controversy is over. They fully expect more intense controversy to come.

Partly for this reason, Mike Bickle has taught repeatedly on respond to mistreatment in a Biblical way. The life of David gives a great illustration of how God calls us to respond when we are slandered, mistreated, and even persecuted. Jesus, of course, lived out these principles perfectly in His life; far beyond King David. (for example, although David passed the test of mistreatment twice when he had the opportunity to kill Saul, he would have failed the test with Nabal if Abigail had not intervened - 1 Sam 25:34)

Mike Bickle recently spoke on this topic at Forerunner Christian Fellowship. You can read his notes on the IHOP website, or listen to the sermon on the weekly teaching podcast. I highly recommend this teaching. Although I have used it to help explain why I refuse to "set the record straight" about IHOP-KC, its primary application is to our personal lives. As Mike said in the message, every one of us will be mistreated many times in our lives - often in small ways and sometimes in big ways - and it is incredibly important that we learn to respond rightly!

¹ On the Free Resources page, the prophetic history is called "Mike Bickle: Encountering Jesus Series" As of June 17, 2009, the link is broken, however. You can find it as a free download on the Internet Archive.

² Prophetic word from Augustine to Mike Bickle in Jun 1982 ("Encountering Jesus" series, Disc 3, starting at 5 minutes); Independently confirmed by Bob Jones on Mar 7, 1983 (starting at 31 minutes)

³ "Encountering Jesus" series, Disc 11, from 45 to 48 minutes, more from 58 to 64 minutes

Jon Thurlow: Sons of Men

2009-06-13T18:40:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite things about IHOP-KC is the emphasis on meditating on the glory of Jesus - His deity, His humanity, His personality, His work, His words, and His plan to come back to the earth. When this teaching is combined with a 24 hour prayer room and a bunch of talented worship leaders and song writers, some glorious songs get created.

My favorite song at the moment is a meditation on the glory of Jesus called "Sons of Men" by Jon Thurlow. You can download the song for free from the Forerunner Music website, and I've typed out the lyrics below.

Verse 1:
My heart is overflowing
I speak concerning my beloved King whose name is light
This One is white and ruddy
This One stands out among ten thousand, His head glows like gold so bright

Chorus:
Brighter than the sun You shine
Flames of fire are in Your eyes
Jesus, You are fairer than the sons of men
Your Father's words, they dwell inside
No other man is more alive
Jesus, You are fairer than the sons of men

Verse 2:
No one has ever seen God
But Jesus, Your person radiates the glory of His frame
You are the faithful witness
You are the One who speaks the name of the Father of all light

Chorus

Bridge:
I can hear the angels singing
Glory, glory to God in the highest
There's never been a Man who's more alive (x3)
More alive than You, Jesus

Who is like You? No one like You, Jesus

Scripture References:
Ps 45:1-2; Song 5:10-11; Rev 1:5,14,16,18; Jn 17:8,26; Jn 1:18; Heb 1:3; Lk 2:14

Balthasar: The Complete Man

2009-06-12T17:13:00.001-05:00

A quote on the uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth, even when He is considered simply as a Man:

Here is a man with an utterly free interior life under the most restricted and oppressive conditions, simply through prayer, as we see from the sovereign self-consciousness he displays in dialogue with his disciples and, even more, with his enemies. Here is a man whose love is perfect, although he often makes of others the same inflexible demands he makes of himself. Here is the complete man; not a man who fits in with all and sundry, but a strong and distinctive personality, utterly unforgettable, whose words an deeds are unique and inimitable, whose influence on history is supreme. The perfect friend, the perfect leader, whose energy, however concentrated, never distorted his character, who always remained fresh and even childlike, with no false sophistication, loving children (a sure sign!) and commending their outlook on life to those who liked to think themselves "adult". He never reacts in a banal, predictable way; all that he does is original and creative. Indeed, the gospels and the whole New Testament pulsate with "spirit", in the literary sense as well as the philosophical and religious sense. How empty and relatively poor in imagination, by contrast, are such writings as the Koran or the Speeches of Buddha - once one has the "feel" of them, one can make them up oneself!

-Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Prayer, pp 171-172

While fully embracing Jesus' fully divine nature, and even emphasizing it (e.g. It was God that went to the wedding and turned water into wine...), Balthasar urges his readers to meditate on Jesus' full humanity as well:

True holiness in the Church, with its influence on history, has always been connected with the straightforward endeavor to take the humanity of Christ seriously, and all the kitsch to be found in Christian life and Christian art arises from the failure to take it seriously. (pg 172)

New Sermon on Podcast: David Pawson - Israel in the New Testament (Part 3)

2009-06-08T10:09:00.001-05:00

Here is the third part of David Pawson's series of talks on Romans 9 through 11. As he said, Calvinists tend to like Romans 9 (though they take it out of context); those who espouse Replacement Theology tend to like Romans 10; and Christian Zionists tend to like Romans 11. We need to read and understand all three chapters (and the entire book of Romans as their context) to have a proper perspective on God's continuing purpose for Israel.

The content of all of these talks (and much more) is available in David's book Israel in the New Testament.

David Pawson - Israel in the New Testament: Romans 11
David Pawson came to IHOP-KC in March 2009 and spoke on "Israel in the New Testament." This is the third talk in a series of three on the topic of Israel in the book of Romans. In Romans 9, Paul described how God had chosen Israel, and in Romans 10, he described how Israel has resisted God. David's title for the third message was "The 16 Surprises of Romans 11"

The Critical Need for Encouragement

2009-06-04T14:14:00.001-05:00

Hebrews 3:12-14 (ESV)
¹²Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Mike Bickle has been talking a lot about encouragement in his recent sermons at Forerunner Christian Fellowship. In one talk, he described the three primary accusations that the devil is constantly bringing against every Christian:

Your work doesn't matter.
Your spiritual life is a failure; in fact, you're going backwards instead of growing.
No one would even notice - let alone care - if you gave up.

Mike commented that he has shared those three accusations in various contexts over the years and people have come up to him afterwards and said, "That was prophetic - those were exactly what I was being attacked with!" He replied that it doesn't take a prophetic gift to know that people are being attacked with those three accusations - because that's what the devil is telling all of us all the time!

The enemy's goal is simple - he wants us to quit. He wants us to make a ceasefire with him; to quit trying to strive against sin; to quit praying for the world and for the lost; to quit trying to share our faith in Jesus; to quit expecting God to actually help us and answer our prayers; and maybe even, after a while, to give up on Jesus altogether.

If this is the world in which we live - one in which demons are constantly whispering in our ears that we are insignificant, hopeless, and alone - then what should we be doing? Here's what the apostles said over and over again:

Encourage each other!

What does it mean to encourage each other? In short, it means to speak the truth to one another to build each other up. It means to have a merciful and generous attitude towards one another so that our words can strengthen them... so that they will want to not quit.

The first way we encourage one another is simply speaking the positive things that we see in others. Encouragement begins with simple compliments. For many of us, this does not come naturally. Most of the time, our culture takes the positive for granted and highlights the negative as grounds for complaint. When was the last time you overheard co-workers talking about what your boss was especially good at?

This may seem obvious and we may even feel silly giving compliments, but it can be very profound. The things which are obvious to you about your friends and family members may not be obvious to them - especially since there are demons whispering the opposite to them all the time!

The second way that we encourage one another is to speak truths of scripture over each other. For example, for a believer who keeps falling into sexual sin, it really may not look like he is "accepted in the Beloved," (Eph 1:6), but it is nonetheless true. We declare truths of scripture over one another by faith, knowing that they are true because God says so, not because of what the situation looks like on the surface.

Finally, we speak out truth to encourage others that we have gotten directly from the Holy Spirit in prayer. This is primarily what Paul is talking about when he talks about the gift of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14.* He writes that the purpose of prophecy in the Church is "upbuilding and encouragement and consolation" (1 Cor 14:3, ESV).

The way this normally happens is that when we are praying for another believer, a Bible verse will spontaneously come to mind, or a phrase, or a mental image. These things are given to us by the Holy Spirit to use for the encouragement of our brothers and sisters. We are under no compulsion to share them (1 Cor 14:30-32), nor should we share them without sufficient interpretation (e.g. if I am praying for someone and get a mental image of a coffin, I must ask the Holy Spirit to tell me what it means before I share it. There are many ways that that image might be very encouraging - such as Rom 6:11 - but without the interpretation it will probably be the opposite of encouraging!)

It is incredibly important that we encourage one another. There is not one of us who is immune to the hardening effects of sin's deceitfulness, and the devil will take every opportunity to push us one step further away from wholehearted obedience to Jesus. Let us take the Apostles' counsel seriously, humble ourselves, take some risks, and learn to encourage!

* I rely on Wayne Grudem's definition of the New Testament gift of prophecy:

Although several definitions have been given for the gift of prophecy, a fresh examination of the New Testament teaching on this gift will show that it should be defined not as “predicting the future,” nor as “proclaiming a word from the Lord,” nor as “powerful preaching”—but rather as “telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind.”

Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology : An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 1049 (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 1994).

New Sermon on Podcast: David Pawson - Israel in the New Testament (Part 2)

2009-06-02T10:47:00.003-05:00

Continuing the series of talks by David Pawson.

David Pawson - Israel in the New Testament: Romans 10
David Pawson came to IHOP-KC in March 2009 and spoke on "Israel in the New Testament." This is the second of three talks he gave on Israel in the book of Romans. In this talk, he focuses on the relationship between God and the Jews in the present. Although God had chosen the Jews for Himself in the past (Romans 9), in the present, many of them are stubborn and have been cut off from Him (Romans 10).

New Sermon on Podcast: David Pawson - Israel in the New Testament (Part 1)

2009-05-26T14:23:00.001-05:00

David Pawson gave a wonderful seminar at IHOP-KC in March on Israel and the covenants of God. I recently picked up CDs of some of his best talks in the series, and since IHOP-KC's copyright is "the right to copy," I'm sharing them on my podcast.

David Pawson - Israel in the New Testament: Romans 9

David Pawson came to IHOP-KC in March 2009 and gave 11 talks over the course of the weekend on the topics of "Israel in the New Testament" and "The 5 Covenants of Scripture." This is the first of three talks that he gave on Israel in the book of Romans. In this talk, he introduces the book of Romans, explains why Paul wrote it, and why the subject of the Jews is front and center in Romans rather than an awkward digression in chapters 9-11. Then he talks about Romans 9.

Common Sense from the Early Church Fathers

2009-05-14T18:29:00.001-05:00

I read the Didache the other day because of something I read in a commentary. The Didache (or "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles") is an anonymous early church document which summarizes scripture and gives practical advice for how to live as a church. Opinions are very divided about when it was written (some details here), but the consensus seems to be that it was quite early - possibly as early as 100-120 AD. The instructions given are tremendously practical, even earthy. I actually laughed out when I read this passage:

5. But he [a traveling prophet or apostle] shall not remain except one day; but if there be need, also the next; but if he remain three days, he is a false prophet. 6. And when the apostle goeth away, let him take nothing but bread until he lodgeth; but if he ask money, he is a false prophet. 7. And every prophet that speaketh in the Spirit ye shall neither try nor judge; for every sin shall be forgiven, but this sin shall not be forgiven. 8. But not every one that speaketh in the Spirit is a prophet; but only if he hold the ways of the Lord. Therefore from their ways shall the false prophet and the prophet be known. 9. And every prophet who ordereth a meal in the Spirit eateth not from it, except indeed he be a false prophet; 10. and every prophet who teacheth the truth, if he do not what he teacheth, is a false prophet. 11. And every prophet, proved true, working unto the mystery of the Church in the world, yet not teaching others to do what he himself doeth, shall not be judged among you, for with God he hath his judgment; for so did also the ancient prophets. But whoever saith in the Spirit, Give me money, or something else, ye shall not listen to him; but if he saith to you to give for others’ sake who are in need, let no one judge him.

Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe, The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. VII : Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries: Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Homily and Liturgies., 380 (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997).

Note that while this is great common sense advice, it is actually not Biblical to say that a person is a false prophet just because they're greedy. True prophets may fall into sin through greed (1 Timothy 6:9-10). The Biblical test of whether a prophet is true or false is whether or not they confess Jesus as fully God and fully man (1 John 4:1-3), and whether their lives bear good fruit (Matthew 7:15-20). In the New Testament, the test is not whether or not they ever make predictions that don't come true (cf. Deut 18:22) - but that's a topic for another (longer) post...

Murray: Prayer is Meant to be Answered!

2009-04-22T13:57:00.001-05:00

I have been making an effort to read a chapter of With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray each day, and am being provoked all over again to seek God for what the Bible actually says is possible in prayer. Even at IHOP-KC, it is all too easy to come up with a theology to explain away my barrenness and lack of power in prayer.

Oh Lord, may I not settle for less than what You have actually promised to Your Church!

With Christ in the School of Prayer, note after ch 21, "The All-Inclusive Condition"

On a thoughtful comparison of what we mostly find in books or sermons on prayer, and the teaching of the Master, we shall find one great difference: the importance assigned to the answer to prayer is by no means the same. In the former we find a great deal on the blessing of prayer as a spiritual exercise even if there be no answer, and on the reasons why we should be content without it. God’s fellowship ought to be more to us than the gift we ask; God’s wisdom only knows what is best; God may bestow something better than what He withholds. Though this teaching looks very high and spiritual, it is remarkable that we find nothing of it with our Lord. The more carefully we gather together all He spoke on prayer, the clearer it becomes that He wished us to think of prayer simply as the means to an end, and that the answer was to be the proof that we and our prayer are acceptable to the Father in heaven. It is not that Christ would have us count the gifts of higher value than the fellowship and favour of the Father. By no means. But the Father means the answer to be the token of His favour and of the reality of our fellowship with Him. ‘To-day thy servant knoweth that I have found grace in thy sight, my lord, O king, in that the king hath fulfilled the request of his servant.’

A life marked by daily answer to prayer is the proof of our spiritual maturity; that we have indeed attained to the true abiding in Christ; that our will is truly at one with God’s will; that our faith has grown strong to see and take what God has prepared for us; that the Name of Christ and His nature have taken full possession of us; and that we have been found fit to take a place among those whom God admits to His counsels, and according to whose prayer He rules the world. These are they in whom something of man’s original dignity hath been restored, in whom, as they abide in Christ, His power as the all-prevailing Intercessor can manifest itself, in whom the glory of His Name is shown forth. Prayer is very blessed; the answer is more blessed still, as the response from the Father that our prayer, our faith, our will are indeed as He would wish them to be.

I make these remarks with the one desire of leading my readers themselves to put together all that Christ has said on prayer, and to yield themselves to the full impression of the truth that when prayer is what it should be, or rather when we are what we should be, abiding in Christ, the answer must be expected. It will bring us out from those refuges where we have comforted ourselves with unanswered prayer. It will discover to us the place of power to which Christ has appointed His Church, and which it so little occupies. It will reveal the terrible feebleness of our spiritual life as the cause of our not knowing to pray boldly in Christ’s Name. It will urge us mightily to rise to a life in the full union with Christ, and in the fulness of the Spirit, as the secret of effectual prayer. And it will so lead us on to realize our destiny: ‘At that day: Verily, verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the Father, He will give it you in my Name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled.’ Prayer that is really, spiritually, in union with Jesus, is always answered.

Born Gay? Or born with a 20% chance?

2009-04-09T14:18:00.000-05:00

Vermont just legalized gay marriage, this time without the Supreme Court legislating from the bench. Now there are four states where gay marriage is legal - Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, and Vermont.

Andy Comiskey of Desert Stream Ministries, had some good commentary on the situation in Iowa:

‘Gay Marriage’ in The Heartland « 40 Days of Devotion: "A lower court heard the case in 2007 and ruled that the ban was unconstitutional due to the judge’s belief that ‘homosexuality is unchangeable’, that ‘gay parents will not impact the development of their kids’ and that ‘homosexuals are politically powerless.’ All false, especially the last point: gays in Iowa have Lambda Legal, the most powerful reps I know.

The lower court’s ruling was ’stayed’ then appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard the case last January. I could tell by the hearings that the Court was more inclined toward Lambda Legal than the traditional voice. On Friday, the Court announced that it had unanimously redefined marriage. One decision by one court and the most basic institution of the state changes for all of its citizens."

In addition to the false claim about homosexuals being politically powerless, I just read the following in The Language of God, by Francis S. Collins:

An area of particularly strong public interest is the genetic basis for homosexuality. Evidence from twin studies does in fact support the conclusion that heritable factors play a role in male homosexuality. However, the likelihood that the identical twin of a homosexual male will also be gay is about 20 percent (compared with 2-4 percent of males in the general population), indicating that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.

....

To summarize this section: There is an inescapable component of heritability to many human behavioral traits. For virtually none of them is heredity ever close to predictive.
Environment, particularly childhood experiences, and the prominent role of individual free will choices have a profound effect on us. Scientists will discover an increasing level or molecular detail about the inherited factors that undergird our personalities, but that should not lead us to overestimate their quantitative contribution. Yes, we have all been dealt a particular set or cards, and the cards will eventually be revealed. But how we play the hand is up to us. (Collins, The Language of God, 260,262)

The truth is that even if some people are born with a predisposition towards homosexuality, it is absolutely possible to change. I have a number of friends who were living a gay lifestyle, and by the power of Jesus Christ, they changed and are not looking back. In fact, some of the men who have come out of homosexuality are among the most powerful men of God that I have met. There is a reality and a gravity to their lives and their testimonies that gives them power to set others free. Andy Comiskey is a great example - I've published a couple of his talks on my podcast, which I highly recommend.

Here's what the Bible says:

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NKJV)
⁹Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, ¹⁰nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Malatya: The Story of the First Turkish Martyrs

2009-04-08T13:35:00.000-05:00

Voice of the Martyrs is distributing a movie about the three believers in Jesus who were killed in Malatya, Turkey on April 18, 2007. The movie was produced by The Austin Stone community church in Austin, TX.

April 18 has also been designated the International Day of Prayer for Turkey. There are still only a few thousand believers in Jesus in a nation of 70,000,000, and the believers are often under great pressure, as you can see in the trailer for Malatya.

Please pray for Turkey!

If you would like to order the DVD, it is available on the website.

Christian Persecution Blog: Malatya Film: "Two years ago one of the most heard stories of persecution was what happened in Malatya, Turkey when young Muslims murdered three Christians in a Christian publishing office."

Update (9-Apr-2009): Thanks to Todd for pointing out that The Austin Stone actually produced the movie instead of VoM.

Return of the Lover (Take my heart)

2009-03-10T14:13:00.001-05:00

Update 3-Dec-2009: Misty has recorded “Take My Heart,” along with her chorus “All I Know” on her live album “Fling Wide.” As of right now, eMusic has an advance release of Fling Wide available. It will probably only be available for the next two weeks or so, and then the album will be officially released on Dec 28 (at Onething ‘09).

I've been thinking a lot recently about a beautiful song that Misty Edwards sings. I've never heard anyone else sing it, but it wasn't on any of her albums. I finally decided to look it up, and it turns out that it was written by a Vineyard worship leader from Canada named John Janzen. Here are the lyrics:

“For a long time, I’ve been waiting for You
You have won my heart, and I am following
For a long time, I’ve been crying out for You
Tears make my heart soft
And I am ready for the return of the Lover

Fashioned from the very fabric of God
At the start of time, set free to decide
I will love You, ’cause You’re the One who loved me first
Just one look from Your eyes
I’m captivated by the eyes of the Lover

Take my heart, my mind and strength too
I was made for loving You
I will wait, and I’ll be faithful
I was made for loving You

Bowing low in the presence of the One
At the end of time, I’ll hear the bells chime for our wedding
It will wait no longer now
Oh how I love You
I’ll finally fall into the arms of the Lover”

The album, "Think Again" is apparently out of print, but you can download this song (and a few others) for free at music.download.com.

(Lyrics and download link found at http://queeniesky.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/waiting-for-you-only/)

New Sermon on Podcast: David Pawson - De-Greecing the Church

2009-03-09T20:57:00.001-05:00

David Pawson is a remarkable Bible teacher who has held the line on Biblical inerrancy and a grammatical-historical interpretation of scripture (that is, literal, within the context of the author's intent). One of the subjects about which he speaks most strongly is God's continuing plan for Israel. The Church has not replaced Israel in the promises of the Old Testament; God would be a liar (and therefore not God) if He did not do for Abraham's descendents what He promised He would do. However, Israel does not get those blessings apart from their Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

In this talk, Pawson lays some of the groundwork for his theology of Israel and shows how Greek philosophy (which is fundamentally alien to the Bible) has been imported into the core of the Church in Western Civilization.

David Pawson De-Greecing the Church
David Pawson is a British Bible teacher who has been teaching the Bible as the inerrant and infallible Word of God for decades. In this talk, he surveys how the Church in Western Civilization has been heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, resulting in significant differences in our attitudes and doctrinal emphases from what the Apostles (who were all Jewish) taught.

As Pawson himself says, this two hour seminar is an inadequate and even simplistic overview of a vast topic, but he raises crucial topics that Christians cannot afford to ignore. As the Apostle Paul wrote, we must not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds! (Romans 12:2)

Part 2 of the seminar is also posted.

Being right and working hard isn't enough

2009-03-08T17:42:00.001-05:00

When Jesus dictated His letters to seven churches in Asia Minor, He pulled no punches. There is a stinging rebuke for churches that have a reputation for spiritual life but are dead on the inside (Sardis, Rev 3:1-6), and a fiery warning to lukewarm churches operating by human programs and human resources without the power that comes from God alone (Laodicea, Rev 3:14-21).

But for earnest believers, honestly attempting to be steady in prayer, Bible study and obedience to Jesus, the most unsettling letter of the seven is the letter to Ephesus. (Rev 2:1-7)

Because it's not enough to be right and to work hard. Jesus is looking for love.

Take a look at what the church in Ephesus had going for them:

They worked hard. (Rev 2:2)
They could not bear those who were evil. (Rev 2:2)
They had right doctrine, and they had discerned false teachers and rejected them. (Rev 2:2)
They had endurance and had stood up under testing. (Rev 2:3)
They were still going strong; they weren't getting burned out. (Rev 2:3)
They had a holy hatred of sin and the actions of those who approved of immorality through a false message of "grace." (Rev 2:6, cf. Rev 2:14-15 and Prov 8:13)

But Jesus had something against them.

He's looking for love. It was the very thing that He said when someone asked Him what the greatest commandment was:

Matthew 22:37-38
³⁷Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and great commandment.

Normally, in the American Church when we talk about loving Jesus, we have to make sure people aren't indulging in sentimentality. Love for Jesus is not the same thing as having certain feelings. It's not the same thing as dancing during a praise song or crying during a prayer time. Love, in the New Testament, is defined in very concrete terms. The one who loves will express it in action. Jesus said that the one who loves Him will keep His commands. (John 14:15,21; 15:10) John the Beloved wrote that loving God means loving our brothers and sisters, giving up our goods and laying down our lives. (1 John 4:20-21; 3:16-17)

But look again at Ephesus. They were doing all of this. They were obeying Jesus' commands. They were faithful and diligent with sound doctrine and good discernment. And yet Jesus still had something against them. It's possible to do all the right things and still lose your love.

Emotion without action is not love... but action without emotion is not love either!

So how do we get emotions for Jesus to match and empower our actions of obedience to Him? We have to look at Him. Of all the human beings who have ever lived, Jesus is the One Man who is most deserving of our love.

There has never been another who loved us more. (John 15:9)
There has never been another who sacrificed more. (Philippians 2:5-8)
There has never been another who was stronger. (John 19:10-11)
There has never been another who was more humble. (Matthew 11:29)
There has never been another who was more kind. (Matthew 19:13-14)
There has never been another who was wiser. (Luke 20:26)
There has never been another who was more trustworthy. (1 Peter 2:21-23)

Jesus Christ is the most lovable Man who has ever lived. Let us meditate on His love and learn to love Him as He deserves. It's what He's looking for. It's what He died for!

1 John 3:16 (NIV)
¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

New Sermon on Podcast: Mike Bickle - Discerning Truth and Error about God's Grace

2009-02-26T00:31:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking for a while about putting up some more of Mike Bickle's sermons on my podcast, but it's hard to know where to start. There's a lot of his stuff that's already available on the web for free (he's always said, "My copyright is the right to copy," and lots of people take him up on it), and I'm not sure whether I want to start posting whole series of talks on this podcast. This talk is actually the first in a series of six, but, like most of Mike's messages, the series is pretty repetitive. I'm not sure if I'll post the rest of it. This one includes most of the main points he makes in the series.

Mike Bickle - Discerning Truth and Error about God's Grace
This is a teaching that Mike Bickle did in 2006 addressing the confusion that is rampant in the American Church today about the meaning of God's grace and whether God cares about our sin.

There are some strong words in this message, but Mike's pastoral heart also comes through. There is a continual tension that must be held in the church between warning those who are unruly and upholding those who are weak (1 Thessalonians 5:14). In this message, Mike succeeds in doing both.

Notes are available on the IHOP-KC website here.

Review: the Fire of God's Presence by Wes Adams

2009-02-25T17:58:00.001-06:00

The Fire of God's Presence is the story of the revival that shook the Hebrides Islands from 1949-1953, the last "historic revival" in the Western world. The story was originally told in When God Stepped Down from Heaven, a booklet by Owen Murphy, a Scottish evangelist. Wes Adams, a student of historic revival for the past two decades, adapted Murphy's booklet and added some historical details and commentary on the principles involved. The book is 81 pages long, and reads quickly.

What I liked:
This is a powerful story of the work of God and a challenge to the complacency of the Bible-believing Church in America and Europe.

What I didn't like:
The book is a little bit repetitive. Partly because of Murphy's style and partly because of Adams' commentary, "covenant prayer" is explained at least three times. Of course, considering the almost total lack of understanding of covenant in the West, this may not be a bad thing!

Summary:
God has transformed entire communities and geographic regions by His manifest presence. But He does not come in a vacuum; He comes in response to the humble, believing, holy prayer of His saints. What would He do if His Church met the conditions for revival in our generation?

Review

In 1949, God visited the Hebrides Islands, off the west coast of Scotland. The effect of His visit was profound. From parishes where not a single young person attended church, a transformation swept through towns and villages, emptying dance halls and bars, and filling churches. 75% of those born again in this revival were saved outside of church buildings. The presence of God was so evident that people fell under conviction of sin while walking through the fields and ran to churches looking for someone who could pray with them for God to have mercy!

This unusual work of the Holy Spirit did not happen in a vacuum. It was preceded by months of fervent prayer by intercessors who had become desperate and concluded that God's presence was the only hope for their region. Seven men, elders in the local church, met in a small cottage 3 nights a week to pray – often until 4 or 5 in the morning – crying out for God to visit His Church. This went on for months. They called out to God for mercy, they repented of their sins, and they entered into "covenant prayer" – reminding God of His promises. God had promised to hear His people, forgive their sin, and heal their land if they would humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways. (2 Chronicles 7:14) In the end, it was God’s faithfulness to His covenant and His people’s faith in His promise that brought the revival.

Beyond telling the story of the Hebrides, Adams gives a great deal of attention to what was done to attract and keep the presence of God in the Hebrides. He especially focuses on the topic of covenant prayer, which is a foreign concept for most American evangelicals. The last chapter is a discussion of the principles of revival and a challenge to stir ourselves up and lay hold of God for our own generation. Adams’ challenge to the Church is a fitting summary of the book:

The greatest problem in the Western world today is not secularism, humanism of liberalism, but rather passionless, lukewarm Bible-believing churches and Christians. We need another visitation of the fire of God's presence that brings revelation of God's holiness and the awfulness of sin, accompanied by sin-convicting power and the fear of God. Only such a visitation will revitalize both spiritual leaders and their congregations, and cause multitudes of sinners to turn to Christ. This is the ministry God is waiting to send to America. This is the ministry that the great God of revival is waiting to impart to those who will seek His face and presence in fasting and prayer until He has met them in a new experience of His presence and power. (page 52)

He's not going to leave you alone

2009-02-16T20:56:00.001-06:00

Most of us much of the time want God to leave us alone. If we are not religious, we think that He will leave us alone if we leave Him alone. But many of those who are religious are actually doing their religious exercises in order to placate Him - so that He will leave them alone. In fact, even people who love Jesus often live much of their lives secretly hoping that He will leave them alone.

Sure, we want Him to do some things sometimes. Maybe you prayed, "God if you do this, I'll never do that again..." or maybe it was "God, if you'll do this, I'll do that for the rest of my life." Or maybe it was just, "God, help me!" But sometimes even when He comes through and does what we ask Him to, we still go back to wanting Him to leave us alone as soon as we're on our own feet.

Well, if that's you, there's good news and there's bad news.

The bad news is that He's not going to leave you alone. He is stuck on the idea that He made you for more than just maximizing your personal happiness, comfort, and security. He absolutely refuses to lower His standard to match yours. His standard is that you would love Him absolutely and completely - with everything that you are and everything that you have. And that you would be able to love yourself the way that He loves you. And then that you would be love other people the same way that He loves you and that you love yourself.

If that seems a little abstract to you, let's put it this way: He wants everything. He claims the right to all your time, all your money, everything you do in private, every relationship you have, every word you speak, and every thought you think. He wants you to use all of it to love Him, to receive love from Him, and to love yourself and other people just the same way.

Because that's what He did. Jesus took all that He has and all that He is and He gave it all up - for you. Jesus is God. He had all the glory and all the power and all the beauty and all the privileges and comforts and joys of heaven, and He gave it all up for us. He became one of us and walked around in a body just like ours for 33 years. Nobody knew who He was, and nobody respected Him as He deserved. People laughed at Him and insulted Him and lied about Him and finally they betrayed Him, got Him convicted at a sham trial, and got Him executed as a common criminal - by the most horrific form of execution that human beings have ever devised.

And He did it all because He loved you. Because in giving up His life for You, He purchased your forgiveness and your freedom and your healing and your right to be in perfectly restored relationship with God.

And so He has the right to claim you as His own - because He made you, first of all, but also because He has redeemed you. He purchased you for Himself by the blood that He shed when He was crucified.

But He's not going to force you to love Him. Love can never be forced - the only way you love someone is by finding out what they're like and how much they love you and then your heart responds to them. He's not going to make you love Him. But if you refuse to love Him, the consequences are serious - He's not going to leave you alone. He made you, and He bought you, so the only options are to love Him or to be His enemy. And if you make yourself His enemy, He will crush you utterly and completely. The Bible says that His enemies will be thrown into a lake of fire that burns forever and ever and ever. And He will be right there - all the time. He's not going to leave You alone. You may get Him to leave you alone for a few years in this life, but for endless ages after ages after ages, He will preside over your punishment in that burning lake. You will hate Him and be angry at Him forever and ever and ever, but He will never, ever leave you alone.

That's the bad news.

But the good news is actually the same - He's not going to leave you alone.

If you turn to Him right now and surrender all your petty plans to have a nice comfortable life and to be as happy as you can while still staying in control of everything, you will change from being His enemy to being His friend, His adopted child, His beloved one. And you will begin to learn what love really is for the first time in your life. You will look at that Man who was God - Jesus Christ - who died for you on the cross, and you will understand love in a way that you have never imagined before. And He will come to you and heal your heart and your soul. He may even heal your body - He's done it many times before. And you will find a joy and a peace that transcends anything you imagined that you wanted when you were trying to make the best life you could by control and the pursuit of comfort and pleasure.

And you will suffer, too. Because He did. That's what love does - love suffers for the ones it loves. But it will all be worth it. Because you will suffer for a few years in this life, and then the day will come when He will make everything new. Everything will be restored to the glory that He intended it to have. Every wound will be healed, and He will wipe every tear away from your eyes, and you will live with Him and with those who love Him forever and ever and ever. The Bible says that no one has ever seen or heard or even imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.

And then the great problem of your life right now will become the surpassing glory and joy of your life in that age and forever more - He won't leave you alone. In fact, He will never, ever, ever, leave you or forsake you. The love will go on and on and on and beauty and joy and peace will increase forever.

He's not going to leave you alone. The only question is whether you will make peace with Him and enjoy His company forever, or continue to reject Him until it's too late, and then His presence will be your torment forever!

As Saint Paul said, "we implore you, on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God!"

It won't be His own blood next time

2009-02-13T15:37:00.001-06:00

Did you see The Passion of the Christ? Jesus was covered in blood once. His back was ripped to shreds, His head was crowned with thorns, and nails were driven into His hands and His feet. His body was covered in His blood and it ran down the cross to the ground. And after He gave up His life for the sins of the world, they stabbed His side, and His blood flowed again - poured out of a heart broken for your sin so that you could live forever with Him.

That's why He died. That's why He was covered with blood. Because in His blood there is freedom. In His blood there is life. In His blood there is grace for healing and deliverance and cleansing. It is only in His blood that there is any hope in this life. And there is an offer - a free offer of mercy. Give Your life to this Man - surrender your pride, your agenda, your plans, your rights - lay it all down completely and cry out for His mercy. And you can be washed. You can be covered by the blood that He was covered with on the cross. And it will make you clean.

Revelation 7:14-17

“These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. ¹⁶They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; ¹⁷for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

That is the offer. It is still open to you. No matter where you've come from; no matter what you've done. No matter how dirty you have made your heart or how defiled your conscience is. The offer stands. You can wash your robe in the blood of the Lamb. You can be clean - today, right now, if you will surrender to Him.

But the offer will not stand forever. He will be covered with blood again. But it won't be His own blood next time.

Revelation 19:11-15

¹¹Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. ¹²His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. ¹³He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. ¹⁴And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. ¹⁵Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Isaiah 63:3-4

³“I have trodden the winepress alone,
And from the peoples no one was with Me.
or I have trodden them in My anger,
And trampled them in My fury;
Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments,
And I have stained all My robes.
⁴For the day of vengeance is in My heart,
And the year of My redeemed has come.

He will be covered in blood again. But next time it will be the blood of His enemies. In that Day, there will only be two options. You will either be on His side, or you will be against Him. If you want to be on His side, you need to surrender and wash your robe in the blood of the Lamb. If you refuse and make yourself his enemy, you will be destroyed, and your blood will be on His robe.

Those are the only two options.

Will His blood be on your robe to wash you clean?

Or will your blood on His robe as He crushes you?

What will you choose? There is still time to decide. But there won't be for much longer. He's coming back, and the time to decide will soon be over. The world may have decades left. But you may only have days. He never guarantees us tomorrow.

New Sermon on Podcast: Christopher West - A Bold, Biblical Response to the Sexual Revolution

2009-02-12T13:19:00.001-06:00

I recently heard Christopher West speak at a conference and was tremendously impressed with his message and with the movement that he represents. It is encouraging to see how God has moved in multiple streams of the Body of Christ globally to raise up the same message of radical purity for the sake of a Bridegroom God who is passionately committed to His Church.

Some who read this blog may have be troubled that I am promoting a teaching from a Catholic man which derives from theology written by the Pope. If you find that you are stumbling over parts of this message, I encourage you to test everything by the Bible. If Christopher West (or I, or anybody else) is preaching something that is not in the Bible, then disregard it. But if it is in the Bible, then the question is not "why is he preaching that?" but rather "How am I going to respond to the word of God?"

Christopher West - A Bold, Biblical Response to the Sexual Revolution
Christopher West is a research fellow at the Theology of the Body Institute in the Philadelphia area. The Theology of the Body is a series of talks given by Pope John Paul II on how human sexuality points to the great mystery of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32), and therefore, how we are to live in light of the purpose of our lives that is displayed right in our bodies.

For those familiar with Mike Bickle's ministry at IHOP-KC, the Theology of the Body can be regarded as "The Bridal Paradigm for Catholics." (though it has great relevance for Protestants as well, and Christopher has spoken widely to mixed audiences.) It is all part of the Lord's plan to restore the First Commandment (Matthew 22:37-38) to first place globally so that at the end of the age, it is the Spirit and the *Bride* who cry "Come!" (Revelation 22:17)

Mike Bickle: Praying for Our Inner Man

2009-02-06T18:25:00.000-06:00

Since September, there has been a blog with Mike Bickle's name on it associated with the IHOP-KC website. I'm pretty sure the blog is ghost-written, but it includes accurate summaries of what Mike has been teaching recently, in a very succinct format.

This post is a very nice summary of the message that Mike gave at FCF last week - a great acronym for 10 prayers for ourselves related to our inner being and relationship with God. The full message was well worth listening to, especially for Mike's testimony regarding his prayer life and his motivation behind praying these things. However, the acronym by itself is valuable:

Mike Bickle » Blog Archive » Praying for Our Inner Man

The notes for this message are available here. At some point, the full message should be available as an MP3 on the "IHOP-KC Weekends" Podcast (it's been updated sporadically for the past month or so).

What do we need people for?

2009-02-05T22:18:00.001-06:00

I recently made the discovery that I have lived much of my life with an inner commitment not to need anyone else. Of course, I knew, Biblically, that that was wrong, so I repented of that commitment. But in the ensuing weeks I found that I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do differently as a result of that change of heart. So in journaling on the topic, I decided to do a Bible study on the question:

"What needs is it right for me to expect other people to meet?"

What I found was quite interesting, so I decided to share it here.

There are two extremes that are obviously both wrong. First, the answer cannot be "to heal me, to save me, and to satisfy the deepest needs of my heart." That is the path to idolatry.

Jeremiah 17:5-6
5 Thus says the LORD:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the LORD.
6 For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.

Proverbs 18:24
24 A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

At the same time, however, the answer also cannot be "nothing." That is the path to isolation and ungodly self-reliance.

Proverbs 18:1
1 A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire;
He rages against all wise judgment.

Proverbs 28:26
26 He who trusts in his own heart is a fool,
But whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

Hebrews 10:24-25
24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

So what is the Biblical answer to what needs I can and should expect other people to meet?

The short answer, of course, is "love" (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39; John 13:34-35, 15:12, 15:17; Romans 13:8; 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13, 4:9-10; Peter 1:22, 4:8; 1 John 3:11-12, 3:23, 4:7, 4:11, 4:12; 2 John 1:5, etc.). But since "love" is such a confused concept in our society, it is probably helpful to unpack it with some other verses.

(Note that none of this should be understood as "I have a right to this" regardless of how I act. For example, if I badly injure someone by my behavior, I forfeit any "right" to be accepted as their friend. Forgiveness is mandatory in the Bible, but reconciliation and trust are not.)

To provide companionship

Genesis 2:18
18 And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
To strengthen and be strengthened

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
9 Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
10 For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
11 Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Also Hebrews 12:12-13, Luke 22:32, Acts 15:32
To give and receive encouragement and exhortation

Hebrews 10:24-25
24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

Also Romans 15:14, Colossians 3:16, 1Th 4:17-18, Hebrews 3:13
To serve and be served

Galatians 6:2
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Also 1 Corinthians 12:24-26, Galatians 5:13, 1 Peter 4:10
To accept and be accepted in friendship

Romans 15:7
7 Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.

Note that there are several "Greet one another" verses: Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Peter 5:14
To confess sin, receive prayer, and experience healing

James 5:16
16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
To give and receive help for physical needs

Acts 4:34-35
34 Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, 35 and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.

1 Peter 4:9
9 Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.

Note that in context, the hospitality Peter had in mind was probably housing refugees from persecution for extended periods rather than dinner parties... Thus the exhortation about not grumbling!

New Sermon on Podcast: Deborah Hiebert - Seven Longings of the Human Heart

2009-02-04T15:40:00.001-06:00

As I mentioned earlier, I have been limiting my Internet access recently (and not minding it at all actually...), so posting here has slowed down considerably. I seem to have lots of great ideas when I get up in the morning, but by the time I make it to the library to check email, my ideas for posts have all evaporated.

Anyway, here is another podcast episode. I heard Deborah Hiebert give this talk on January 9 at IHOP-KC and immediately thought "this is going on the podcast." It's not that she gives a particularly systematic presentation or that she has any earth-shaking theological insights, but she shares the reality of her life in God from her heart. The thrust of her message is simply endurance in the midst of the mundane - because Jesus is worth it. And, as the writer of Hebrews said, "We have need of endurance!" (Hebrews 10:36)

Deborah Hiebert - Seven Longings of the Human Heart
Deborah Hiebert co-wrote the book The Seven Longings of the Human Heart with Mike Bickle in 2005. She was part of the IHOP-KC leadership team until a few years ago, when she and her husband moved to Idaho to participate in a new ministry. While returning to IHOP-KC in January 2009, she gave this message at the Friday night Encountering God Service.

She actually does not talk very much about the 7 longings in her message (as she says, read the book...), but her story is powerful because she testifies to the reality of Jesus' good leadership and the possibility of keeping your heart alive in love for Him even while making life work with a family and children and ministry responsibilities.

Congratulations to President Obama

2009-01-20T12:57:00.000-06:00

As I wrote at the time of the election, I am committed to pray regularly for President Obama and to honor him in the office of President. May our heavenly Father protect President Obama, grant him wisdom and divine guidance, and make known the fear of the LORD to him, which is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7), and a fountain of life (Proverbs 14:27).

I honor President Obama as a gifted man, and I celebrate the fact that an African-American man is now holding the highest office in a land where injustice against those of African descent has cried out to Heaven for redress.

However, I will not be seduced by rhetoric of false hope.

Obama's inaugural speech - CNN.com:
"On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics."

I have chosen hope over fear - I have chosen a hope that is the very anchor of my soul, both sure and steadfast. I have chosen a living hope, that I will have an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that does not fade away, which is reserved in heaven for me. (Hebrews 6:19-20, 1 Peter 1:3-5)

My hope is not in America. Or in human nature. Or in all of us getting along.

My hope is in Jesus the Messiah, the Jewish Carpenter from Nazareth, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. My hope is rested fully in the Day that He comes back to the earth (1 Peter 1:13).

Righteousness is not a worn-out dogma. Making compromises with rebellion against the King of the Universe is not necessary to get along. Pragmatism is often necessary in government, and compromise is always to be desired when the issues are truly negotiable. But when it is the word of God against the ideas of human beings, compromise is not an option.

I will continue to agree with the Bible's declaration that human life is sacred because human beings are made in the image of God, and that sex is for one man to share with one woman under the covenant of marriage for life, because it is a picture of Jesus Christ and His Church. I will say that as long as the First Amendment protects my right to say it, and if someday a human court decides to remove that right by calling it a "hate crime," I will say it anyway. Because I fear the One who can destroy both body and soul in Hell more than I fear those who can kill me. (Matthew 10:28)

New Sermon on Podcast: Andy Comiskey - Taking Authority Over Sexual Idolatry

2009-01-12T19:41:00.001-06:00

I had a second talk by Andy Comiskey from the same conference that was as good as the first one, so I decided to go ahead and post it on the podcast. Andy gives some painful and sobering statistics about sexual sin in our culture in this talk (note these are from 2006):

80% of college students have had 10 or more sexual partners with no intention of long-term commitment by the time they graduate.
There is 14x more Lesbian behavior than 10 years ago.
There is 4x more male homosexual behavior than 10 years ago.
75% of households have at least one person sexually addicted.

These numbers are literally insane. We have gone mad as a nation. We have pretty much arrived at the nirvana of sexual freedom that was envisioned by the sexual revolutionaries of the 40's - only it turns out that nirvana is a nightmare. We pay for this kind of sexual license with the lives of 4,400 babies per day and tens of thousands of sex slaves... not to mention the countless lives ruined (legally!) through "adult industries".

And the Church will have no credible voice to help anyone trapped in these snares and addictions until we make up our minds that Jesus is God and sex is not!

Andy Comiskey - Taking Authority Over Sexual Idolatry

A second talk from the same conference by Andy Comiskey, founder of Desert Stream Ministries and part of the IHOP-KC community.

Andy talks about the power of sexual sin as an idol in our hearts, and gives shocking statistics about the destruction of American sexual morality. A woman from Desert Stream ministries also shares her testimony of renouncing romantic and sexual idolatry during this talk.

It is time for the American Church to stop "faltering between two opinions." If Jesus is God, we need to serve Him and renounce sexual idolatry!

New Sermon on Podcast: Andy Comiskey - Overcoming Barriers to Trust

2009-01-09T18:26:00.001-06:00

I'm finally getting going again with the podcast. I recently came across this talk that Andy Comiskey gave at an IHOP-KC conference in 2006 and it was exactly what I needed to hear. We must not buy into the lie that we can be whole and holy Christians without each other. Jesus is to be found in His body, and we must break through our fear and self-protection and be honest with one another.

Andy Comiskey - Overcoming Barriers to Trust

Andy Comiskey is the founder of Desert Stream ministries, which ministers to the sexually and relationally broken. In this talk, from an IHOP-KC conference in 2006, Andy, in his inimitable style, gives a forceful call for finding others with whom we can be real in the body of Christ.

We are not to be foolishly transparent, but with wisdom, we must find trustworthy friends and tell them what's really going on in our hearts. Jesus can heal us, but He has given us to each other for a reason - we must find Him in His body!

Reading Revelation in a Week

2009-01-09T17:34:00.001-06:00

At Onething '08, Mike Bickle officially launched a new "Sacred Charge" for those who feel that the Lord has called them to be a forerunner messenger at the end of the age. (The 7 point sacred charge is on the IHOP website.)

For those of us in the IHOP-KC community, most of the Sacred Charge isn't new. We're already expected to be in the Prayer Room at least 2 hours a day, and to be fasting one day a week. For the past year, there has also been pretty strong encouragement to add a second fasting day. We are already exhorted regularly to give extravagantly and to live with holiness. (Of course, the fact that IHOPpers are exhorted to do these things doesn't necessarily mean that everyone at IHOP is actually doing them, or is even personally committed to doing them.)

The one aspect of the Sacred Charge which is really new is reading the book of Revelation through once a week (for 3 years - or more). After Mike's course on the Book of Revelation this semester, I am excited about doing this part and making Revelation a core part of my devotional life. (obviously, in addition to, not instead of, reading the rest of the Bible devotionally)

So, being the geek that I am, I came up with a plan to read through the book of Revelation weekly, in approximately equal length segments, divided up by the outline sections rather than by chapters. I thought I'd post it here in case it's helpful for others.

Day	Passage	Outline Section (From Mike Bickle's Outline of Revelation)	Total Verses
Sunday	Revelation 1-3	John's Calling to prophesy about the End-Times Jesus' Letters to the Seven Churches	71
Monday	Revelation 4-7	Jesus takes the Scroll Chronological Section #1: Seals Angelic Explanation #1: Protection	59
Tuesday	Revelation 8:1-11:13	Chronological Section #2: Trumpets Angelic Explanation #2: Direction	58
Wednesday	Revelation 11:14-14:20	Chronological Section #3: Jesus' Second Coming Angelic Explanation #3: Confrontation	61
Thursday	Revelation 15-18	Chronological Section #4: Bowls Angelic Explanation #4: Seduction	71
Friday	Revelation 19:1-21:8	Chronological Section #5: Jesus' Triumphal Entry	44
Saturday	Revelation 21:9-22:21	Angelic Explanation #5: Restoration of all things	40

New Donation Button

2009-01-08T22:13:00.001-06:00

I've added a Donation button to this site to allow my supporters to send me financial support with a credit or debit card through PayPal. I know this may be helpful for some people.

Important note: Support given through the PayPal button comes directly to me; it does not go through the International House of Prayer. Therefore, if you give to support my ministry using PayPal, it will not be tax-deductible. If you itemize charitable giving on your tax return, you will want to send me a check made out to IHOP-KC so that you can get the tax receipt.

If you don't currently support me and would like to, I would love to hear from you... Send me an email at Jeff (at) TodayandThatDay.com and I'll tell you where to send the check. :)

Apologies for the sparse posting recently. Lots of thoughts, but little time or Internet access to write. The new semester at FSM is starting in a few days which should mean a more regular schedule and more Internet access. God willing, that will also translate into more regular posting!

Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men

2008-12-25T20:26:00.000-06:00

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
...
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day", Stanzas 1 & 4

Longfellow wrote this poem in the midst of the American Civil War and in the wake of his wife's death and son's injuries in battle. It is easy to see how such hopeful words would surely ring hollow in the face of pain and tragedy.

In the midst of seemingly perpetual war in the Middle East, the ongoing threat of terrorism, religion rising against religion, race against race, culture wars at home and troops in danger overseas, is it not easy to agree with Longfellow's sentiments about "Peace on earth, Goodwill to men?"

Yet Longfellow himself found hope:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

- "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day", Stanzas 5

Where is the hope? What can give us the conviction that "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep / The wrong shall fail, the right prevail?" Is our hope in human nature? In finally electing the right people in office? In the right theology of social action in the Church?

No. We certainly need a Biblical theology of social justice in the Church, but our hope is not in our theology, or our action. Our hope is not in us at all.

Our hope is in a story. A story, and where we are in that story.

God's answer to the problem of evil and suffering and injustice is profoundly clear in the Bible. He made two promises - first, He would provide a man who would be born who would decisively defeat evil, reverse the curse on the created order, and bring justice to all nations. Second, He would provide for Himself a dwelling place on the earth, so that He could again live with His creation in the communion and joy of the garden of Eden. The entire Hebrew scriptures are essentially the telling and retelling and elaboration and false starts and restored hopes of those two promises.

And then, in a gloriously dramatic and un-looked for way on the first Christmas night, God set His plan into motion. He personally invaded His creation and became the Man who would fulfill the promises in Person. The first beachhead of the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth was a cattle trough in a cave in a peasant village just outside Jerusalem.

In the next 33 years, God-in-the-flesh waged war against sin and death and sickness and evil and injustice. But the war was very different from what anyone expected. Instead of crushing sinners, He saved them. Instead of casting down evil, He confronted it with a love that would not back down - even in the face of threats and insults. Instead of leading a revolution to end injustice, He thundered against the wickedness in individual hearts and called for everyone who heard Him to repent and put their faith in Him, personally. And instead of ending the curse of death, He took it upon Himself and died.

And in death, He triumphed once and for all. That was why, as His first followers said, "It was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him" (Acts 2:24). He rose from the dead, and in that moment, the battle was won. The beachhead of heaven had turned into the unstoppable advance of a total victory, already accomplished in everything but detail. To use an analogy from World War II, D-Day had happened, and the war in Europe was effectively won.

But between D-Day and V-E Day (when Germany surrendered), there were many harsh days of slogging through battlefields and many lives lost to accomplish in fact what was already achieved in effect. And so it is with us. We live between the first invasion of God, when He won the victory, and the second, when He will come and take ownership. In that Day, every promise He made will be fulfilled, every wrong will be redressed, and injustice and death and war will end once and for all.

In the meantime, we've got a job to do, of declaring the good news of this Kingdom that is coming - the Second Invasion of God to planet Earth - both in bringing every rebel heart back to allegiance to the True King, and in bringing a downpayment - a foretaste - of that King's kingdom into every area of life: healing bodies, restoring relationships, ending injustice, and creating beauty. The goal of all of it is to create in every human heart who will listen a longing for the King to come again and for the Kingdom to be established once and for all.

God has already done something about evil. God is doing something about evil right now, through His people. And God will - soon - do something about evil once and for all.

When you know what story you live in and where you find yourself in the story, you can join the angels in exuberant praise, and actually mean it:

"Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!" (Luke 2:14)

A blessed Christmas to all, and keeping looking and hoping for the true and final peace on earth!

Review: Simply Christian by N.T. Wright

2008-12-24T00:23:00.001-06:00

What I liked: A profound and clear explanation of worldviews which exposes the root of much contemporary error in the Church and unbelief outside the Church. Also many great insights into the nature of the Gospel, the Church, and sacraments.

What I didn't like: Not much! I'm not convinced of some of Wright's views on Christology (Jesus' self-identity as a "calling"), and I'm pretty sure I disagree with him about the End-Times. But neither of those are issues that would reduce my endorsement of this book.

Summary: If love Jesus and you haven't read this book, put it on your reading list right now. You will be very happy you did.

If you have problems with Christianity or the Church or Jesus or organized religion, this book will be an excellent place to sort out some of those issues.

Introduction

I recently finished listening to an audio version of N.T. Wright's Simply Christian. The book held my attention strongly, despite the fact that I listened to most of it on a four hour drive to the airport when my body was really confused about whether it was supposed to be awake or asleep.

I can add little to the rave reviews the book has already received from many quarters, such as Anne Rice's comments on the dust jacket: "Simply Christian goes beyond C.S. Lewis' great classic Mere Christianity. N.T. Wright is simply crucial; his writing can transform one's life. This will become a classic."

The comparison with Mere Christianity is apt, but worth exploring. As Rice said, Wright goes beyond what Lewis did in significant ways. Lewis effectively and winsomely presented an argument for the existence of God and expanded from there to smoothly cover the Christian understanding of redemption, the Trinity, the Church, and Christian life. Wright touches on many of the same subjects, but takes several to a much greater depth than Lewis did. The differences are not surprising. Lewis was a layman and a philosopher; Wright is a bishop and a theologian. Lewis was writing to an audience that was largely modern in mindset, and not totally alienated from religion; Wright's readers are post-modern and highly skeptical of "organized religion" (even within the Church). For this reason, Wright starts more broadly and goes deeper on certain points than Lewis did.

The whole book is excellent, but one theme which he repeats over and over again is so crucial to the malaise of Western Christianity (both within and outside of the Church) that I'm going to summarize it here.

The Core of the Book

As soon as he begins to talk about God in chapter 5, Wright takes a step back and lays a foundation by talking about worldviews. He identifies three different general approaches to thinking about God and the universe which have existed throughout human history and continue to exist today. The choice of which worldview I identify with will determine much of what I am able to accept and understand of Christianity; and the extent to which I allow assumptions of one of the false "options" below to be active in me is the extent to which my understanding and application of Christian doctrine will be skewed.

Wright presents these three basic worldviews as "Option 1", "Option 2", and "Option 3".

Option 1: Pantheism

In what Wright calls Option 1, the relationship between God and the universe is that God and the universe are the same thing. God is everything and everything is God. This, he says, is more or less what the ancient Stoics believed. The prescription for life that comes from such a belief is that all that humanity can do is simply learn to like the way things are. If God is the world, then obviously the world is exactly the way its supposed to be.

In pantheism then, Adaptation to reality is the definition of human excellence. And of course, if adaptation to "the way things are" is the goal, then surely suicide is the quickest and surest means to completely adapt oneself to the way things are. After all, human beings continually strive with their environment to some degree as long as they are alive.

Fortunately, the numerous people who today are more or less pantheists (C.S. Lewis described pantheism as the default human religion in Miracles) are not at all consistent in practicing their "faith." If they were, they would call the preference for justice rather than oppression - or relationship rather than isolation, or beauty rather than ugliness - all illusion and get on with the proper Stoic thing to do by killing themselves.

Option 2: Deism

Option 2 in Wright's scheme is the view that God and the universe are utterly different and distant from each other. In fact, God is so far from the universe that it is difficult to imagine that He could really have anything to do with it. This was the view of the ancient Epicureans, and it has filtered down to the present time through the idea of Deism, which is sometimes described as "a watchmaker God who put the universe together, wound it up, and then left it alone to run down."

Deism excludes miracles because it holds that God has caused the universe to run by finely tuned "laws of Nature" and now there is no reason for Him to ever interfere with them - in fact, it would be somehow aesthetically inappropriate for Him to do so.

Though Wright does not stress this point, I think that the difference between Deism and "Option 3" below requires careful study. Many Christians have actually been raised with a great deal of Deistic assumptions about reality, and therefore still live as though God were very distant and all but impossible to reach. Though we know God supposedly became a Man and hears our prayers all the time, the idea that He would actually do something here and now seems somehow unbelievable. After all, isn't everything controlled by the "laws of Nature" that God put in place billions of years ago? As Wright puts it in chapter 12, prayer under Option 2 is rather like putting a message in a bottle and sending it out to sea in hopes that perhaps Someone, Somewhere, may find it. Does that sound at all like your prayer life? I know there are days when it feels that way to me...

Option 3: The Biblical Worldview

Although I believe Wright often refers to Option 3 as "the Christian worldview," I think it's probably more appropriate to call it the Biblical worldview - the view of reality which God first revealed to the Jews. All too often in Church history, it has been confused Greek philosophy, with the result that "Christianity" has ended up having strong overtones of Option 2. We must remember that the worldview of the Bible is not one that has ever arisen naturally - no human being would know about it if God had not revealed it.

In option 3, God and His created universe are intimately related, but distinct. In fact, there is a vast amount of activity that takes place in the invisible, spiritual realm that affects and interacts with the visible, physical world. In the Bible, angels appear and give messages from God, Satan afflicts Job, demons possess people, God miraculously heals and judges, and prophets see visions and are even caught up into the Throne Room of God and see Him directly. And of course, in the ultimate brain-buster for Greek philosophy, God Himself became a human being and lived on the earth for 33 years.

To the pantheist, this last - the Incarnation - is sheer nonsense - the statement that "God became Man" translates to "Everything became part of Itself." To the Deist, although the Incarnation may be theoretically acknowledged as possible, it seems improbable to the point of incredulity - why would the God who had so perfectly ordered and ordained His creation interfere with it in such a childish way? And what, once He was here, would He - who is utterly different from us - say to us?

To the Christian - at least the Christian whose world is truly defined by "Option 3" - the Incarnation is still a spectacular and awe-inspiring event. But it is not incomprehensible. From the very beginning, the God who created all things and yet was distinct from them has been intimately involved with what He made. Invisibly, He sustains and orchestrates, but He also visibly calls and teaches and warns and judges and delivers. The idea that the God who delivered Israel from Egypt and descended to Mount Sinai in darkness and fire could ascend the hill of Golgotha and die on a cross to deliver the world from sin is not a non-sequitur. In fact, it is precisely what He had told His prophets over and over again - YHWH will save His people.

These insights, which Wright stresses over and over again throughout his book, have profound significance for both those with spiritual questions outside the Church and those who struggle to live a spiritual life inside the Church. If this were the only topic in Simply Christian, the book would still easily be worth the read.

Open Questions for me

There are still a few areas of Wright's theology on which I'm not sold. He talks about Jesus' self-identity as a kind of "calling" - that Jesus, in the course of many years of study and prayer, may have grown gradually into the awareness that He was uniquely one with Yahweh - called to be and do for Israel and the world what only God could do, and He proceeded to act out this vocation in the course of His ministry. I find this hard to square with numerous verses which seem to show Jesus having a much greater awareness of His divinity - even memories of eternity past. This is especially true in John's Gospel, as when He said, "now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." (John 17:5)

Finally, in terms of eschatology, I haven't read enough of the details of Wright's theology to know exactly what he thinks, but it seems to me that the stress always falls on what we are to be doing now, through the Holy Spirit, to make the world the kind of place that God desires it to be. Now, I wholeheartedly agree that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost has profoundly shifted human history and that the Church has got a job to do in proclaiming the Kingdom of God - both in word and in deed. But if emphasis is placed entirely on what we are to do now and not on what God is going to do when Jesus comes again, then I think we have wandered from the teaching of the Apostles. Peter actually goes so far as to call Christians to "rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:13) As I said, however, I do not know enough of Wright's eschatology to do more than attack a straw man, so I will leave the topic there.

In summary, I will say again that Simply Christian should be on every Christian's reading list. It should also be an excellent place to start for those who are not Christians and yet are for some reason reading this blog!

Thoughts about Apostasy

2008-12-17T01:52:00.000-06:00

Although I don't have time to fully develop this topic right now, I wanted to throw out a brief paragraph on what I've been thinking about recently. I just read this excellent article on falling away from the faith in Mission Frontiers magazine:

"Great is Thy Faithfulness": Some Reflections on the Loss of Faith by Ruth Tucker

Here's an excerpt that blew up some of my presuppositions:

Common Myths
In my research for Walking Away from Faith, I identified five common myths about people who lose their faith. Here is a list ready-made for challenge, including additions and deletions:

1. Those who lose faith are rebellious and angry.
2. Those who lose faith can be argued back.
3. Those with serious doubts should go to Bible college or seminary.
4. Those who walk away from faith do so to live a promiscuous lifestyle.
5. Those who lose faith were never sincere Christians to begin with.

It is simply not true that leaving the faith is prompted by the kind of rebellion we associate with a teenager who refuses to participate in family outings or church. The stories more often show initial hesitance and anguish and fear of alienating friends and relatives.

That people can be argued back to faith if we use the best apologetics is also false. In fact, many of those who lose their faith do so while seeking to argue others back to faith. These individuals are often enthusiastic and very bright Christians with a high degree of confidence—or as some would say, arrogance.

The notion that Bible colleges and seminaries offer secure protection from doubt and unbelief is not sustained by statistics. In fact, when the environment seeks to curb hard questions and doubt or to marginalize the doubter, such institutions can serve as an incubator for unbelief. The strictest regulations often foster an atmosphere of doubt.

That individuals walk away from faith in order to live a profligate lifestyle is not supported by the literature. Christians must be cautious about pointing the finger. They themselves are prominent among the Enron CEOs and elected officials who hire prostitutes—to say nothing of televangelists and megachurch ministers. It is true that some walk away from faith to feel more comfortable in gay or lesbian relationships. But many testify that they walked away because they could no longer live a lie—that they had tried to hide their unbelief but conscience got the best of them.

That people who walk away from faith were never really sincere Christians is an issue more closely related to theology than to character or sincerity. Theologically, the matter of losing faith is a topic that many people find troubling—especially those who hold fast to a belief in eternal security. From an Arminian perspective, the matter is easier to handle; people who lose their faith need to be re-evangelized and “saved” and brought back into the fold. For Reformed folks, on the other hand, a true experience of saving grace is a matter of God’s election and is something that cannot simply be undone.

Yet, apart from one’s theological perspective, there is surely the appearance of people losing faith—and not just the university student who abandons the faith of earlier years. Even among the most outwardly committed evangelists and ministers there are ones who have served faithfully for many years, only to walk away from it all. The theological implications are important, but it is also critical to consider this matter from a missiological perspective.

Internet fasting

2008-12-16T23:25:00.001-06:00

I am still alive, and I've had plenty of thoughts to post recently, but little time to post them!

Ironically, as soon as I wrote in my November newsletter that FSM was not too academically challenging, I went into Stephen Venable's "Introduction to Biblical Doctrine" class and was educated otherwise. Actually, the class still wasn't terribly hard, but it did definitely require me to work and to think a lot - in fact, I'm still thinking a lot about several subjects on which he taught. Which is what I came to FSM for, of course! But posting on the blog has taken second place to academics for the past month.

Also, I've decided to fast from the Internet for a while by getting rid of my wireless card and limiting my Internet time to an average of 1 hour a day. So posting here has become doubly challenging.

I highly recommend Internet fasting, by the way. It's amazing how much the Internet can dominate my life. And it really is possible to survive without Internet at home and even without wireless! Public computers in the places like public libraries actually work fine for getting important stuff done online, and I actually focus on what I'm trying to get done on my laptop when I don't have email constantly open in the background... or even an option to open it up when I feel like procrastinating!

So anyway, maybe at some point I will get back to posting as regularly as I hoped, but for right now, it's less Internet and more Jesus for me (at least that's the plan!)

Review: Oversold the Movie (starring Crissy Moran)

2008-11-21T15:05:00.001-06:00

I've noticed that if you Google oversold movie, for some reason, this site is the #5 hit, after the official movie site, a couple of YouTube Trailers, and Crissy Moran's MySpace page. That's kind of funny, since I only posted once about the movie, and until last week, I had not even seen it. But, since people seem to be finding my site looking for Oversold, and I have seen the movie now, I might as well write something about it!

What I liked:
Oversold is a powerful parable of the passionate heart of the God who so loved the world that He gave up everything to redeem sinful people to Himself. Crissy Moran (Sophie) and Stephen Zimpel (Joshua) play their parts well, and Pastor Dave Cowan does a solid job of explaining the Biblical story and how the parable illuminates it.

What I didn't like:
It was too short! 32 minutes just isn't enough time to do justice to the complexities of character development needed to give this story its emotional weight. But what they managed to accomplish in 32 minutes is effective.

Summary:
Watch it! It is an enjoyable movie, and this is a project well worth supporting. You can download it for iTunes here.

Review

I originally became interested in Crissy's story when I heard that she had left the adult movie industry after returning to her childhood faith in Jesus. I began to follow Crissy's blog on MySpace, and have been impressed with her honesty about her story and her bold witness for Christ since her repentance. (As you're reading this, please pause and pray a 20-second prayer for Crissy. She needs protection and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit for the stand she's taking.)

About six months ago, she posted that she was going to be in a movie again - only this time, with her clothes on, and in a movie that will glorify the Savior that she loves. The movie is a modern-day parable of redemption and the price that Jesus paid to win back His treacherous, adulterous bride. It is basically a video sermon on the first 3 chapters of Hosea, with narration by Pastor Dave Cowan from Elevation Church.

Joshua (Stephen Zimpel) is the young, single pastor of a small church, and is an easy-going, clean-hearted man. As the story begins, he is traveling to Las Vegas to meet up with a long-lost stepbrother, Ethan (Grant Henderson). Ethan, it turns out, isn't particularly interested in quality family time, but Joshua accidentally befriends a gorgeous woman in somewhat mysterious circumstances, whose name is Sophie (Crissy Moran). As Ethan continues to ignore Joshua, Sophie and Joshua become close and begin dating. And of course, it turns out that Sophie has been living a double life. She is in fact is Ethan's ex-girlfriend and works at night as a stripper.

Joshua is crushed, but then he is shocked to hear the still, small voice of the Lord tell him to marry Sophie, regardless of her background. He proposes, she says yes, they are married by Elvis in Vegas, and then things really get interesting...

As Dave Cowan frankly admits at the end of the movie, this retelling comes nowhere near the intensity and heart-wrenching agony that the Lord called the Biblical Hosea to endure. But even in the "Hollywood version" of Hosea's story, the beauty and glory of a lover who would sell all to win back his beloved comes through powerfully. I found myself weeping as Joshua chose to obey God in his own version of Hosea 3:1.

My only complaint about the movie is really just that it wasn't long enough to develop the characters. Sophie and Joshua have fairly real personalities, but Sophie's painful decision between the snares of her old life and the new husband that she loves was virtually skipped. Ethan is definitely a bad guy, but through a combination of too-short scenes and too-abrupt dialogue, he didn't really succeed in being a believable character. (For example, the line "I own this town," was more laughable than menacing.)

All in all, I would definitely recommend watching Oversold. It's $7.99 to download the low resolution version for iTunes, and I found that the low resolution version looked fine on my laptop screen.

New Sermon on Podcast: Stephen Venable - Loving God with All Our Hearts

2008-11-21T13:55:00.001-06:00

Apologies for falling behind on the podcast (and posting in general) recently. The election ate up a lot of my emotional energy at the end of last month, and my class schedule has been quite full since then. However, I hope to get back onto my target schedule soon (1 podcast every two weeks, 2-3 posts a week).

I'm currently taking "Intro to Biblical Doctrine" with Stephen Venable at FSM, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is being recorded on video as he teaches, so it should be available on IHOP-KC's eSchool soon. (It is $50 to audit a course using the audio lectures, or $150 to audit using video).

Stephen Venable - Loving God with All Our Hearts
Stephen Venable has become my favorite teacher at IHOP-KC. His message is consistent: intimacy with Jesus must be the focal point of true Christianity; we grow in intimacy with Jesus by increasing our relational knowledge of Him; and the way we increase that knowledge is by meditating on the stories of His life in the inspired record. It is simple, but it is profoundly powerful and profoundly neglected in the American Church today. In this message, Stephen looks at the First Commandment and provides a practical grid for how we engage our affections in loving Jesus wholeheartedly.

The Beginnings of Persecution in America

2008-11-17T06:14:00.001-06:00

Lou Engle shared this video and the accompanying testimony by an intercessor from the Justice House of Prayer in San Francisco tonight at Forerunner Christian Fellowship. (It was a challenging message from Lou, as usual - if you want to listen, to it, you should be able to buy an mp3 for $3 here.)

Of course, in comparison to what happens daily to followers of Christ in many parts of the world, this is mild. It was only hot coffee that was thrown in their faces - not sulfuric acid. Though they experienced borderline sexual assault, no one was raped. And a woman was hit on the head with her Bible and kicked, but she was not beaten to death.

Nonetheless, this story is significant because these followers of Jesus were doing nothing to stir up trouble - they were not preaching, they were not passing out literature, they were not carrying signs, they were not shouting slogans. All they were doing was singing and praying. Yet they were targeted for abuse and hatred simply because they were Christians who were making their allegiance to Jesus known in a place where others deemed them unwelcome.

Note: the video contains a few profanities.

JHOPSF - Chased out of the Castro District - 11-14-08

November 14, 2008
I went to the Castro (the homosexual district of San Francisco) with JHOPSF (I have been with the Justice House of Prayer San Francisco since April 2008.) like we usually do on Friday nights.
Normally, we sit on 18th and Castro, and someone plays the guitar, and we all worship God.
Sometimes a person will yell at us, or maybe a few. Sometimes people will ignore us. Sometimes people will let us pray with them.
This time was not a normal night. It was the first time we'd been back in the Castro to do our normal outreach since California Proposition 8, which defined marriage as "one man with one woman" was passed. We played the guitar and sang together and worshiped the Lord. After just singing and worshiping God for a while, Roger decided that we should all hold hands in a circle and continue singing. So we did.

Someone (Actually a person who came up and hugged and kissed some of us who he knew from the past) convinced some people that we were there to protest against the no on 8 campaign.
Then some guy who was dressed up like one of the sisters (The sisters of perpetual indulgence is a group of men who dress up like nuns and call themselves the spiritual authority of the Castro.) took a curtain-type thing (Which I think they use to curse people) and wrapped it around us.
Then a crowd started gathering. We began to sing "Amazing Grace", and basically sang that song the whole night. (At some points we also sang "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus" and "Oh the Blood of Jesus".) At first, they just shouted at us, using crude, rude, and foul language and calling us names like "haters" and "bigots". Since it was a long night, I can't even begin to remember all of the things that were shouted and/or chanted at us. Then, they started throwing hot coffee, soda and alcohol on us and spitting (and maybe even peeing) on us. Then, a group of guys surrounded us with whistles, and blasted them inches away from our ears continually. Then, they started getting violent and started shoving us. At one point a man tried to steal one of our Bibles. Chrisdene noticed, so she walked up to him and said "Hey, that's not yours, can you please give it back?". He responded by hitting her on the head with the Bible, shoving her to the ground, and kicking her. I called the cops, and when they got there, they pulled her out of the circle and asked her if she wanted to press charges. She said "No, tell him I forgive him." Afterwards, she didn't rejoin us in the circle, but she made friends with one of the people in the crowd, and really connected heart to heart. Roger got death threats. As the leader of our group, people looked him in the eyes and said "I am going to kill you.", and they were serious. A cop heard one of them, and confronted him. (This part is kinda graphic, so you should skip the paragraph if you don't want to be offended.) It wasn't long before the violence turned to perversion. They were touching and grabbing me, and trying to shove things in my butt, and even trying to take off my pants - basically trying to molest me. I used one hand to hold my pants up, while I used the other arm to hold one of the girls. The guys huddled around all the girls, and protected them. Soon after, the cops came and stood between us and the mob. When it was getting more heated, the cops were like "You guys should leave." and Roger said "We want to stay." Someone tried to steal my backpack, but I tapped a cop on the shoulder, and said "Hey, that's my bag." and he got it from him and gave it to me. Others weren't so lucky. Probably half our team got their jackets stolen. Eventually, as the crowd was getting more and more uncontrollable, the cops were afraid for our lives, so they escorted us to our van. (The cops were very nice to us from start to finish.) Our van was parked pretty far because it was hard to find parking that day. As the cops escorted us, the mob followed us, until the cops formed a line, and held off the people so we could drive away. We took the long way home, just in case anyone tried to follow us. When we got home, we prayed and sang more, and then prayed over each-other. Please know my heart. All of what we do is for the Love of Jesus Christ, and the love for those in the Castro. The Bible says to love God, and then love people. We can only love because He loved us first. We can't hate the people because they are just broken and blinded by the spirit of this age. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against Principalities and Powers. It's not a political thing, we just love the people.

Kristene Mueller: Keep Hoping Saint Francis

2008-11-10T00:47:00.001-06:00

Kristene Mueller, who is a songwriter with Jesus Culture, played this powerful song at the Call San Diego last week. In light of Proposition 8 being passed in CA, this is a very timely prayer and prophetic declaration about the homosexual community in San Francisco. Even though God answered prayer in the passage of Proposition 8, there is only a more urgent need for prayer for healing of homosexuals in California.

Pray for California - especially for God to raise up anointed deliverers who can bring help and hope to those trapped in homosexuality.

The lyrics to Kristene's song are below.

Keep Hoping Saint Francis by Kristene Mueller

There is a love hidden inside your borders
Just waiting to be free, just waiting to be free
There is a hope hidden inside your borders
Just waiting to be realized, just waiting to be realized

So keep hoping Saint Francis
You'll be a free man yet
You'll see the sun shine again over your city streets
Keep hoping Saint Francis
You'll be a free man yet
Though darkness covers your sleeping love, it won't last

Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength
Those who wait upon the Lord will not be put to shame

So we wait
So we wait for the Son to shine
So we wait
So we wait for You to come

Piper: 2008 Election and God's Sovereignty

2008-11-05T02:07:00.001-06:00

A friend forwarded me this video from John Piper a few days before the election and I thought it was absolutely excellent. I almost posted it at the time, but I decided to hold off until the election was over. Piper's encouragement to lean into the sovereignty of God is absolutely right on, but some people have a false idea of God's sovereignty which causes them to assume that human prayers and human actions don't really matter.

Now that God's sovereign will for the 2008 election is clear, Piper's advice is timely and extremely relevant.

Christians must now unite in support of our new president. Insults and flippant mockery were never really righteous (Titus 3:2), but now, on the authority of Scripture, they must stop. (Exodus 22:28) This doesn't mean that we agree with unrighteous policies, but when we disagree, we must do so with respect and meekness. (2 Timothy 2:24-25)

Pray for and give thanks for President-Elect Obama! (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

Concerned about the election?

2008-11-02T01:19:00.001-05:00

A lot Christians are greatly concerned about the outcome of this historic election this week. I heard a story today of someone who has made herself almost physically sick over the idea of Obama being elected. I'd like to throw out some Biblical thoughts about what are appropriate and inappropriate ways to act in the last few days before this election.

Do not:

Do not worry! (Matthew 6:34, Philippians 4:6-7, Psalm 37:1, 7-8)
Do not get angry. (James 1:19-20, Psalm 37:8)
Do not resort to name calling. (Titus 3:1-2; 1 Peter 3:15-16)

I read the blog of a Christian leader this week who referred to some people who had emailed him defending their vote for Obama as "so called 'Christians'". This is totally out of bounds. We are not privy to whose name is and is not written in the Lamb's book of life. If someone is engaging in blatant, defiant sin, that is a good reason to help them consider if they are truly born again. But who a person chooses to vote for, even in an election like this, is not!
Do not resign yourself by saying "whatever happens will be God's will." (Joel 2:14, Psalm 115:16, Genesis 1:26)

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is clear that the earth has been given to human beings (specifically, human beings in Christ with the Holy Spirit living in them). God, in His sovereignty, has decreed that some things that He desires to happen on the earth will not happen unless human beings pray for them and then do them in obedience to the Holy Spirit. (e.g. He desires all men to be saved, 2 Timothy 2:3-4, but we know that all men will not be saved - Revelation 21:8)

God is sovereign, and we must submit to whatever does in fact happen as God's will. It is possible that in this election, God's purpose is to bring judgment on America by giving us the leadership that we deserve - in order to wake up His Church! But we must not decide that in advance. Until the event has actually happened, God's sovereign will can not be known with certainty.

Do:

Pray!! (Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:6-7, Joel 2:17, Matthew 6:9-13)

God's sovereignty does not exclude our prayers making a massive difference in what happens this week. God in His sovereignty has decreed that human prayers and human choices actually do change what happens on the earth!

Pray for all the candidates, and pray for God to have mercy on us in this election. I posted what I'm praying for this election a week or so ago.
Fast. (Joel 2:15-17)

Lou Engle sent an email today during the TheCall CA, inviting believers to engage in a 3-day Esther Fast (no food or water) from Sunday 2-Nov through Tuesday 4-Nov. Do not attempt a 3-day Esther fast if you've never fasted before. But if you are going to pray for this election, fasting (drinking only water or juice) does make a difference!
Repent! (2 Chronicles 7:14, Joel 2:12-14, Acts 3:19)

Do not dive into introspection. We are all sinners and we all have done lots of things that we're ashamed of. Some of them we aren't ready to deal with yet, and others are less critical to our walk with God. Ask the Holy Spirit in prayer what He is asking you to repent of. Pray, and then wait for Him to bring something to mind. If He does, then confess it as sin, make a plan to change your behavior, and, if need be, go to the person you sinned against and ask for forgiveness. You might want to consider 5 areas on particular:

How am I using my speech? (gossip, slander, coarse speech, idle words)
How am I using my money?
How am I using my thoughts? (anger, lust, pride, covetousness)
How am I using my time?
How am I using my eyes? (lust, unedifying entertainment)

Whatever the Holy Spirit brings to mind, believe God for His mercy to forgive you (Psalm 51:17, Luke 15:22-24), and for His grace to give you the power to change. (Romans 6:11, 8:9-11)
Speak up with meekness and kindness. (1 Peter 3:15-16, Proverbs 31:8)

Prepare your heart to communicate the Biblical issues in this election and the stakes that are riding on it. As I said above, make sure that you do not resort to name calling or fall into anger, but speak with boldness and meekness.
Get informed about all the candidates and issues on your ballot and vote!

Some resources to help you get informed about this election are:

www.smartvoter.org from the League of Women Voters
State-affiliates of National Right to Life have voter guides on pro-life issues
Resolve now that you will pray for the next President, whoever he is! (1 Timothy 2:2)

Obama and Ominous Portents of Post-post-modernity

2008-11-01T02:05:00.000-05:00

"America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise -- that American promise -- and, in the words of scripture, hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess."

-Barack Obama's acceptance speech on August 28, 2008

I did not watch the Democratic National Convention (nor the Republican one), so I only recently heard some excerpts from Obama's speech, when I read Wilfred McClay's article in First Things. All of McClay's critiques of Obama's rhetoric are well worth reading, but the point that I want to highlight is the phrase "We must pledge once more to march into the future." When I first read this, I laughed out loud. Immediately, C.S. Lewis' words from The Screwtape Letters came to mind:

Once they [humans] knew that some changes were for the better, and others for the worse, and others again indifferent. We [the demons] have largely removed this knowledge. For the descriptive adjective "unchanged" we have substituted the emotional adjective "stagnant". We have trained them to think of the Future as a promised land which favoured heroes attain--not as something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is,

After my initial amusement, however, I began to be thoughtful. Obviously, it is obligatory for politicians to say this kind of drivel (Thomas Dewey apparently used the line "You know that your future is still ahead of you" in the 1948 election). The difference in 2008 is that I haven't heard anyone (other than rabid conservatives) mocking Obama for this silliness. The thought occurred to me - could it be that people have actually bought into the idea of "the future" as the "promised land which favored heroes attain?"

But we are post-moderns, right? We are supposed to be cynical and relativistic and self-absorbed. The last thing that I'd expect a post-modern generation to buy into is the idea that the future is synonymous with "progress" and things will get better as long as we give ourselves to the right ideas that are "in accordance with the general movement of our time."

Well, maybe not. For the last few years, I have been hearing rumblings that post-modernism is on its way out. Perhaps the most memorable line to this effect was in a talk by N.T. Wright. He introduced his talk with an analogy to Handel's Messiah in which the introductory Symphony is set in E minor, and then changes to E major with the "Comfort Ye" recitative from Isaiah 40:

"We need to be reading the Bible within the struggle to move through the sterility of modernism, through the perplexity of post-modernism, and out into the new possibility of post-post-modernism, which will be, so to speak, set in E major - a time of fresh hope and new comfort."

Another signpost of optimism about the decline of post-modernism is the "generational cycle" from Strauss and Howe's book Generations. The Millennial generation (those born from 1982 to 2001) are coming into their own as adults, and they are among Obama's most ardent supporters. According to Strauss and Howe's theory, the Millennials should be Civic generation, and therefore, will be much more inclined to public service, the pursuit of social justice, dedication to a cause, etc. The last Civic generation was the G.I. Generation that fought World War II (described by Tom Brokaw as "the greatest generation any society has produced"). Surely such a generation will have no patience for the cynicism and narcissism of post-modernism, right? Is this not a sign of hope for our nation and the world? Does this not lend credence to N.T. Wright's expectation of "a time of fresh hope and new comfort?"

I would like to suggest that it does not. In Obama's speech, I think there is an ominous portent of the worldview that is growing up around us.

In modernism, which Wright appropriately labeled "sterile", western culture abandoned faith in the Church, Scripture, and transcendent hopes. Instead, we focused our hopes on science, the "evolution of society" and progress. In a general sense, this was the worldview of much of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. There were hopes of worldwide peace, the advancement of science, the elimination of disease, and the triumph of humanity. Many Christians, who had conceded the ground of the authority of scripture and the origin of the universe, we swept along and began to wonder if perhaps the eschatological promises of the Bible were symbols for the progress of the human race into a Golden Age.

Two world wars culminating in the overwhelming victory of amoral technology over reason and morality - the atomic bomb - combined with philosophical seeds sown a generation before, put an end to the vain hopes of modernity. Out of its ashes arose a "reactive" (so to speak) worldview - post-modernism. Post-moderns abandoned absolute truth as non-existent (or at least unknowable), and cynicism and self-actualization divorced from all but the most primitive ideas of morality (don't hurt anybody who can hurt you back) became the rule.

So where are we going now? What will post-post-modernism be like? Western culture as a whole will never repent entirely of the sins of their fathers. We have abandoned the Church and Scripture. We have abandoned science and evolutionary ideas of history. We will not go back.

We may reaffirm absolutes, but absolutes based on what? They will not be based on scripture, nor on reason as an absolute, so what is left for us to base our absolutes on? Consensus and political correctness?
We may reaffirm the value of service, but service in what cause? We have become strongly averse to anything divisive, and we hunger for unity in a way that threatens to become intolerant of any claim to exclusivity. This will not be another Missionary Generation. It is notable that some voices in the American Church are calling for the inoffensive goal of "eliminating global poverty" as "the altar call of this generation".
We may reaffirm hope for the future and faith in progress, but on what basis? God? Science? No. Human nature.

It seems like the journey that western culture has been on for the past few hundred years has been one designed by God to strip away pretense and bring out the roots of human nature. When history has stripped away all that we have trusted in and set our hopes on, what emerges? Hope in ourselves.

The last words of Obama's speech tell the whole story. "Let us...in the words of scripture, hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess." The verse Obama is quoting here is Hebrews 10:23. The writer of Hebrews called his readers to hope "for He who promised is faithful." Obama calls us to hope in ourselves.

That decision is at the core of the human experience. In whom will we put our trust?

Proverbs 28:26
²⁶He who trusts in his own heart is a fool,
But whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

New Sermon on Podcast: Stuart Greaves - Blessed are the Peacemakers

2008-10-24T00:56:00.003-05:00

For many Christians, including many of my friends, social justice is the issue facing the Church today. There is no question that righteousness and justice are the foundation of God's throne (Ps 97:2), but as we pursue social justice, we must be careful that we are in agreement with God's perspective and His plan to bring justice on the earth once and for all. Stuart Greaves gave a powerful talk on this subject recently at FCF.

Stuart Greaves - Blessed are the Peacemakers
Stuart Geaves, director of the Nightwatch at IHOP-KC, gave this talk at Forerunner Christian Fellowship in October 2008. It is a timely and clear declaration of God's priority and plan to bring justice on the earth, as well as a critique of the contemporary social justice movement which is growing among both Christians and nonChristians.
Teaching notes for this talk can be found here.

Lou Engle: The Shedding of Innocent Blood

2008-10-24T00:16:00.003-05:00

This talk, given by Lou Engle at TheCall in Kansas City, explains the urgency of the issue of abortion in this election.

Outline [PDF] - The Doctrine of the Shedding of Innocent Blood

A Prayer for the 2008 Presidential Election

2008-10-21T03:05:00.002-05:00

Almighty and most merciful God,

I confess that my nation stands self-condemned before You. We have disregarded Your law and devised for ourselves rules which do not profit.¹ We have murdered the innocent. We have dishonored marriage and treated divorce, which You hate,² as if it were a light matter. We have committed fornication and all manner of perversion, and have exported our lewdness and blasphemy all over the earth. We have loved money,³ stored up our treasures on the earth,⁴ and have worshipped and served Mammon rather than You.⁵ And above all, we have failed to love You with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength, and we have failed to love our neighbors as ourselves.⁶

Lord, we are guilty before You, and we deserve Your wrath and Your judgment upon us. However, we appeal to You because of Your great mercy and compassions which never fail.⁷ Lord, in wrath remember mercy!⁸ Do not deal with us as our sins deserve!⁹

O merciful Father, You who raise up kings and tear them down,¹⁰ You are sovereign over the nations of men, and You give them to anyone You wish.¹¹ You have declared to us that a leader after Your heart will fear You and practice justice,¹² for righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne.¹³ O God, in this election season, do not give us the leader that we deserve! Give us a leader who fears You and will practice justice.

And Lord, please look on our weak prayers and our weak repentance, and on the basis of the blood of Your perfect Son, as of a Lamb without spot or blemish,¹⁴ turn our hearts back to You!¹⁵ Lord, send revival to America! Open our eyes to see Jesus the Messiah, the Lamb of God crucified for the sins of the world.¹⁶ Convict our hearts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment,¹⁷ and awaken us to our desperate need for You.

Lord, have mercy on America!

References

¹Jeremiah 2:8
²Malachi 2:16
³1 Timothy 6:10
⁴Matthew 6:19
⁵Matthew 6:24
⁶Matthew 22:37-39
⁷Lamentations 3:22
⁸Habakkuk 3:2
⁹Psalm 103:10

¹⁰Daniel 2:21
¹¹Daniel 4:17,25,32
¹²2 Samuel 23:3
¹³Psalm 89:14, 97:2
¹⁴1 Peter 1:19
¹⁵1 Kings 18:37
¹⁶John 1:29
¹⁷John 16:8

Update: Lest this be misconstrued as a passive-aggressive attempt to promote a candidate using spiritual language, please refer to what I posted in January. Nothing in my position has changed since that time.

Answered Prayer (from 40 Days for Life)

2008-10-18T00:32:00.001-05:00

I love stories of answered prayer. We have Christian book stores stocked with books about unanswered prayer: why God doesn't answer my prayers, disappointment with God, and so on. I'm sure these books contain great wisdom and have brought comfort to believers struggling to understand God's wisdom in the midst of tragedy.

But we are in danger of jumping to conclusions far too fast. Most Christians have only a theoretical faith that God ever actually does something because we have prayed, and some of us do not even have that - it's all too easy to assume that God's sovereignty eliminates the possibility that prayer could actually change anything.

So I like to say that every Christian should read at least 4 books on answered prayer for every one book they read about unanswered prayer. The primary way that we begin to actually expect God to do something in response to prayer is simply by hearing others' stories. "God, if you did that for them, why not me?" God might say, "Well, why not you? Why don't you actually ask Me for something?" (James 4:2)

I particularly love stories of answered prayer which come not from seasoned intercessors but from brand new, or newly restored, believers. God does not wait for us to be mature before He acts on the basis of our weak requests! In light of this, I wanted to highlight this story of answered prayer from 40 Days for Life, which is coordinating prayer meetings in front of abortion facilities all over North America.

DAY 24: Standing in the rain | 40 Days for Life
It turns out the woman had made an appointment with her pastor that morning but something came up and it was canceled. So she kept her appointment for the abortion. Her pastor was her last chance, she thought, and that had fallen through. Maybe God did not hear her prayer. Now, she said, it was too late.

What Does God Like? Part 7 - His Son

2008-10-17T00:01:00.001-05:00

Isaiah 42:1
¹“Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

In contrast to the silly pantheistic idea that "love is God," the Bible declares in a profound mystery that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). In the vital Heart, Center and Life Source of all the universe, there is relationship, intimacy, and delight. The Father loves the Son, delights in the Son, is and well-pleased with the Son (John 3:35, 5:20; Matthew 3:17, 17:5). The Son loves and honors the Father, and does only what He sees the Father doing (John 5:19, 8:49). The Spirit glorifies and testifies of the Son (John 15:26, 16:14).

All Three Persons are One God, and yet they know, speak to, and enjoy Each Other. The Bible even records conversations in which the Father and Son spoke to One Another, both before and after the Incarnation (Psalm 2:7-9; Psalm 110:1,4; Mark 1:11, 9:7; John 12:28)

So what does this have to do with us?

Simply this: We have been invited in.

We have been invited In in a sense that makes the most elite, conspiratorial inner ring of human power brokers seem as attractive as a gathering of maggots in a rotting corpse. We have been invited to share in the heroic fellowship, the glorious intimacy, the holy adventure of the ultimate Inner Circle.

John 15:9-10
⁹“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. ¹⁰If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

John 17:23
²³I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

If you belong to Jesus, then Jesus loves you the way that His Father loves Him! And the Father also loves you the way that He loves Jesus.

John 17:25-26
²⁵O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. ²⁶And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

Through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, you and I are going to love Jesus the way that His Father loves Him!

Pro-Life, Evangelical Christians…for Obama?

2008-10-15T06:21:00.000-05:00

Dave Sliker has reposted a withering critique of the idea of pro-life Americans voting for Obama.

It pretty much speaks for itself, so I will not comment on it.

His Hand is on the Door » Pro-Life, Evangelical Christians…for Obama?
...In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: ”that question is above my pay grade.” It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator’s pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then.

Stewart: Behold Your God

2008-10-14T23:32:00.001-05:00

This sermon by James S. Stewart is the next in the series after the one I posted in August, "Behold the Man." Both are taken from The Strong Name.

WHO IS THIS JESUS ?

(2) Behold Your God

"In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."— Col. ii. 9.

THERE was a day when death had darkened the home of that rugged but sensitive soul, Thomas Carlyle. Some one, taking a New Testament, opened it at the Gospel of St. John, and read the familiar words : " Let not your heart be troubled. In My Father's house are many mansions." " Aye," muttered the bereaved man, " if you were God, you had a right to say that ; but if you were only a man, what do you know any more than the rest of us ? "

That incident may well give us our starting-point to-day, reminding us, as it does, that on the answer which we individually give to the question " Who is this Jesus ? " hang for us the most momentous issues of life. " If you were God, Jesus, we can face the darkest hours victoriously ; but if you were only a man, life has us beaten for ever."

Let me recall in a word the path our thoughts travelled in our previous study. We were dwelling on the true and full humanity of Jesus. We saw that from every page of the Gospels there emerged a Figure of real human lineaments — not some heavenly Being disguised or masquerading as a man, but a man in very truth — really tempted, really suffering, really knowing those experiences of conflict and weariness, of yearning and limitation, which are what we mean by being " human." We recognized how crucial this fact was for our Christian faith : for if Jesus does not meet us on our own level, He is no Saviour for us.

But now, supposing all that is granted, we have still not finished with our question. Or rather, it has not finished with us. He was true Man : but is that all ? He was (as even unbelievers and non-Christians agree) the greatest Man who ever lived : but is that the final truth ? Will conscience and spiritual insight, or even reason and commonsense, be content to leave the matter there, and probe the mystery no further ? Are human categories sufficient to explain this strange phenomenon—this unique personality that confronts us in the Gospels, this historic power that blazes a track across the centuries, this living presence that stands and judges us in the deep places of our souls ? He is Son of man : but is He simply to be classified with all the other sons of men ? If not, what name are we to give Him ? Must it not be at last the name which is above every name ?

Let me say at once that this is a question which can be settled only from within a Christian experience. I mean that it is only as we consent to follow Christ and live with Christ that we can come to know who He really is. It is well that we should labour under no misapprehensions at this point. To attempt to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus—that He is God manifest in the flesh—to a man who has no inclination for the life of discipleship, and no intentions of embarking on it, is simply wasted effort: and all our arguments and discussions, under these conditions, are just beating the air. That needs to be said, and ought to be said quite frankly. It is only from within a Christian experience that the divinity of Christ can be understood. Let it not, however, be imagined that to say this is to take refuge in evasion and give the case away. For is it not true that in our daily life we are in contact with a whole series of facts which can be grasped and appreciated only as we yield and submit ourselves to their influence ? Well then, why should this rule not hold of our relationship to the fact of Christ ? Just as you cannot really see the marvellous " Five Sisters " window at York as long as you stand outside the Minster—you have to enter and look upon it from within, and then the matchless profusion of its beauty is revealed; just as you cannot appreciate great music at its true value unless you submit yourself humbly and quite deliberately to its influence and its working; just as you cannot understand the deeper reaches of friendship unless you are prepared to make the adventure of trusting yourself to your friend—so you cannot come to a knowledge of who this Christ really is, except from within the life of Christian discipleship. That stands to reason. Some men declare unconcernedly, or even truculently, that they do not believe in Christ. But then, some men have no right to believe in Christ. They have no qualification for believing, no conceivable possibility of understanding the fact of Christ, because they have not yielded to the challenge of the fact. I repeat, therefore, it is only as we follow Jesus, and seek to live with Him, that there can break on us at last the incredible yet inevitable truth of who this Jesus is.

Keeping that in mind, we return now to our question. This Christ is perfect man—but is He more ? What name are we to give Him ? You would not thank me, I imagine, in this the supreme issue of our faith, for being vague and nebulous and talking generalities. I invite you, therefore, to consider five facts, all pointing decisively to the same overwhelming conclusion : " In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

The first cardinal fact is the claim Jesus made for Himself. Do we realize how astonishing and unprecedented this is ? Think of other great religious teachers and leaders who have arisen—Socrates, Buddha, Confucius—and then ask, What was their paramount concern ? Not to fix attention upon themselves, but to win acceptance for their message. " I am nothing," they seemed to say, " the truth is everything. Perish my name, if only the message live ! " But with Jesus and with Him alone, it is utterly different.

He deliberately places Himself at the very centre of His own message. His supreme concern is not to implant some abstract truth in His hearers' minds : it is to win their devotion to His own person. He does not merely claim to have found the answer to all men's needs: He claims to be the answer. " Come unto Me, all ye who labour, and 7 will give you rest." What other prophet or preacher ever dared to say a thing like that ? If the language were not so familiar, it would simply stagger us with its audacity. Calmly He arrogates to Himself a position transcending all the wisdom and the splendour of the centuries. " A greater than Solomon is here." " Prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them." He declares that at the Day of Judgment the final test will be " Ye have done it unto Me," " Ye did it not to Me." " Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father." " He that loseth his life for My sake, shall find it." His whole attitude is " God and I." " Before Abraham was, I am ! "

What are we to say about all this ? There are just two alternatives. Either it is the infatuation of an absurd megalomania, or else it is really true. Either these sayings are the preposterous, incredible arrogance of a pathetic and pathological egotism—or else He had a right to say them. You have to choose one or the other : there is no third option. The extraordinary thing is that, while on the lips of anyone else these sayings would sound utterly presumptuous and incongruous and unbalanced, somehow on His lips they sound entirely fitting and apt and just and credible. Who, then, is this Jesus ? One signpost we have found marking the way to an answer—the claim He made for Himself.

The second decisive fact concerns His sinlessness. That word indeed is too negative to describe a moral perfection which was always active and energizing ; but the fact stands, on the testimony of friend and foe alike, that this man, alone of all the sons of men, " did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." Read the Gospels, and again and again you will see His enemies turning the fiercest searchlights of their hostile criticism upon Him. Can they detect one flaw in moral character ? Not one, for all their searching. " In all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

Moreover, this stands not only on the evidence of friend and foe, but on the testimony of Christ Himself. Never once is Jesus heard confessing sin. This Man whose whole life was a constant self-identification with sinners, who came far closer to them than any one else before or since, and brought them to the mercy-seat of God for the cleansing of their hearts and lives, never had to bow in penitence nor plead for cleansing for Himself. How many a lesson He taught His disciples on the need of praying for forgiveness every day they lived! Yet He never needs or asks to be forgiven.

That fact surely is startling. And it becomes all the more startling when you consider that it is precisely the saintliest people in the world who have been most conscious of their own sin. Bead the stories of the saints, the spiritual history of a Paul, a Thomas a Kempis, a Teresa, and in every case this fact confronts you—that in proportion as a soul draws close to God, the more vividly does it realize its own personal unworthiness. It is the chief of saints who know best that they are the chief of sinners. The clearer the vision of God, the deeper the dissatisfaction with self. That is the universal rule to which all the saints conform. Does Jesus conform to it ? Ought we not to find that Jesus, having a unique God-consciousness, had also a unique awareness of sin ? Yes, indeed, if He is just the greatest of the saints, we should. But if what we find is the exact reverse ; if here, in this one instance, the rule is broken through completely ; if so far from having a desperate sense of sin, like Paul and a Kempis and Teresa and all the finest souls of history, He alone has none; if He is thus not only different from all sinners, but different also from all saints—then who is He ? Who must He be ? The fact of sinlessness is the second great signpost marking the way towards an answer.

The third decisive fact is this: Jesus does for men what only God could do. Here I am thinking particularly of the experience of being forgiven. Consider it like this. Suppose I do something which I know to be wrong. Suppose that thereupon I " rationalize" my action, finding palliating circumstances, and justifying myself to my own satisfaction. Is that the end of the matter ? In my heart of hearts I know that something else is needed to deal with what has happened and to right the wrong. For what my act has done is to throw me out of gear, not only with my better nature, or with a moral ideal, but with the universe. The barrier that has been raised is not between my higher and my lower self: it is between me and God. And that is the real barrier that must be dealt with. In other words, it is God who must forgive—else there is no true forgiveness possible. It is God who must put me right, or else the wrong remains unannulled. " Thou must save, and Thou alone."

But now see what happens. This thing which none but God can do—this divine, supernatural thing—Jesus does.

Look at your Gospels. He did it again and again in Galilee. And, mark you, it was not only that He pronounced words of absolution—any priest can do that—but it was this, that He actualized God's forgiveness for those poor sinful folk, embodied it, " represented, sealed and applied " it (to use the words of The Shorter Catechism) to their desperate, gaping need; so that having been with Jesus, they knew with a sense of amazed, incredible relief that God was at peace with them, and they with God. And what happened then in Galilee has been happening ever since. Consult your own experience. Have not the hours of your deepest assurance of divine forgiveness been the hours when you have encountered Christ ? Who, then, is this Jesus ? When the Pharisees, attacking Him, declared " No one can forgive sins but God only," and argued that consequently Jesus must be a usurper and an impostor, their first statement was perfectly correct. Only God can convey forgiveness : that is true. And that is what we have to square with this other unimpeachable fact, that forgiveness is conveyed by Jesus. Only God can open the gate of the kingdom of heaven: yet it is certain that for thousands Christ has opened it. Only God can break the chain of a man's sinful nature : yet for thousands Christ has broken it. Only God can redeem: yet I am certain that Christ is my Redeemer. If Christ thus does for us what only God could ever do, who can He be ? What other name is possible except God manifest in the flesh, the fulness of the Godhead bodily ?

The fourth decisive fact is the universality of Jesus. It is worth asking ourselves the question : How do we propose to account for the unique phenomenon, that Jesus has laid His spell invincibly upon every century and every race and upon all kinds and conditions of men ? Aristotle never did that: he was too Greek, and too academic. Buddha never did it: he was too typically Eastern. Only in Jesus has everything local and temporal been transcended by a spirit universal and eternal.

Look at the first circle of His friends. Peter and John were, temperamentally, poles asunder: yet in His eyes they both beheld the answer to their dreams. Consider His early biographers. Matthew the Jewish taxgatherer and Luke the Gentile doctor had nothing whatever in common: yet to draw His portrait for the world to see was, to both men, the only thing that mattered. Or think of the modern writers who have toiled to tell of Him—Papini and Bruce Barton, as different as an Italian mystic and an American business man could be, Emil Ludwig and Middleton Murry, and a host of others even in this last decade, of utterly diverse intellectual background and racial sympathy and moral ideal, yet all fascinated by this one fact, all drawn by the compulsion of the mystery of Christ! Or pass in review the unbroken ranks of His friends and followers throughout the ages. Who can this be who can grip and captivate the souls of men so utterly different as Luther the Reformer and Loyola the Jesuit, as Francis the friar and Moody the evangelist, as G. K. Chesterton and General Booth, as Cardinal Newman and David Livingstone ? What an amazing universality is Christ's!

" I see His blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of His eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

All pathways by His feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree."

Could any mortal man thus besiege and lay captive the thinking and the worship of the centuries ? Must not this beleaguering spirit be eternal and divine, the fulness of the Godhead bodily ? The universality of Christ is our fourth significant signpost pointing to the answer.

The fifth and final fact is the most decisive of all. It is the divine self-verification of Christ in conscience. For there is a very wonderful thing which happens : you begin exploring the fact of Christ, perhaps merely intellectually and theologically—and before you know where you are, the fact is exploring you, spiritually and morally. You begin by dealing with a historic Figure as presented in the Gospels, and gradually you become aware that the ultimate reality and heart of things is dealing with you. You begin by looking for the secret of this Master of life who walked the Galilean road, and piercingly you are made to feel that everything that is highest and holiest and divinest in the universe is looking for you. You set out to see what you can find in Christ, and sooner or later God in Christ finds you.

That is the self-verification of Jesus. That, in every age, has been the ultimate and sure foundation of the impregnable conviction of His divinity. In Christ, the one and only God has come. It is a confession of faith which I am constrained and bound to make, because the more I confront myself with the fact of Christ, the more intensely do I know that the living God is confronting me, demanding —as only God can demand—the entire and utter surrender of my soul. If the final reality of the universe comes to meet me anywhere, it comes to meet me here ; and all I know of God—His nature, attributes and ways of working—has come to me through Jesus. Wherefore, with the whole company of His disciples throughout the centuries to whom the glory of the Word made flesh has been revealed, I, too, can take the sublime, imperishable words upon my lips and say—" This is the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Thou art the King of glory, 0 Christ; Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father ! "

In these two studies, we have been facing the fact of Christ, in His humanity and His divinity. But let us not suppose that our quest can ever end in a mere giving of assent to certain truths and propositions. When Saul of Tarsus, in the supreme moment of his life, had received an answer to his first impulsive cry " Who art Thou, Lord ? " immediately and instinctively a second question came— " What wilt Thou have me to do ? " And when from afar we have caught our glimpse of the glory of the Lord, there rises at once and confronts us in the secret place of conscience the inevitable challenge—" If that is Christ, what is our response to be ? "

To that question each of us must find an answer for himself. It will be well if, standing at the foot of the cross, we can give such an answer as that which was given by St. Aloysius long ago :

" O Christ, Love's Victim, hanging high
Upon the cruel Tree,
What worthy recompense can I
Make, mine own Christ, to Thee ?

My sweat and labour from this day,
My sole life, let it be,
To love Thee aye the best I may
And die for love of Thee."

Wall Street and the Judgment of God

2008-10-12T02:48:00.001-05:00

Amos 3:3-6
³Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?
⁴Will a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey?
Will a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing?
⁵Will a bird fall into a snare on the earth, where there is no trap for it?
Will a snare spring up from the earth, if it has caught nothing at all?
⁶If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid?
If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?

In a recent post, I suggested that the debacle on Wall Street is the judgment of God towards America. I want to qualify that statement a bit, not because I think that it's untrue, but because it's likely to be misunderstood.

First, judgment does not need to mean condemnation. I think that much of the offense that people have towards the idea of God's judgment comes from the assumption that God is simply angry and vindictive. The truth is that as long as you have the ability to realize God is judging you (i.e. fire and brimstone aren't falling out of the sky on your head), then God hasn't condemned you yet. God's temporal judgments - short of the kind of thing that happened to Sodom and Gomorrah - are actually His merciful warning system so that you will repent and not be condemned.

Second, we do need to be careful not to fall into the trap of Job's friends. Terrible things happened to Job, and in their theology, bad things only happened to bad people; therefore, Job was a sinner, regardless of whether there was any objective evidence of sin in his life. The truth was that Job was actually suffering because he was righteous (Job 1:8). It is never wise to reason backwards from tragedy to root cause.

However, as Christians, we cannot allow the idea that things happen randomly. If God is sovereign (and He is, e.g. Deut 32:39), then there is simply no such thing as coincidence.

Therefore, if something bad happens to a person (or a nation), and that person or nation is manifestly living in rebellion against God, then we can reason forward from the sin to the tragedy and we are fairly safe to conclude that God is trying to get the their attention. This is all the more true when the tragedy is directly related to the cause (e.g. God may get the attention of an unrepentant alcoholic through a DUI).

In the case of the American financial industry, both of the above are true. America is manifestly in rebellion against God on many fronts, not least "You shall not kill" and "You shall not commit adultery" (Ex 20:13-14). And power brokers in the financial industry have apparently been directing their companies not altogether unlike drunk drivers for the past 15-20 years. (Note that Warren Buffet predicted at least part of this fiasco in 2003). And of course the root of this irresponsible behavior - regulations, etc. aside - is also a sin:

1 Timothy 6:9-10
⁹But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. ¹⁰For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

We dare not point the finger at executives with 70 million dollar bonuses, however. Covetousness and greed are pervasive in American society. Take a look at the statistics on Americans trying to live beyond their means and lottery ticket sales.

The question that remains open is whether or not we will get the message and repent, or whether God will have to "turn up the volume" for us.

What Does God Like? Part 6 - His People

2008-10-11T02:03:00.001-05:00

Proverbs 8:22-31
²²“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.
²³I have been established from everlasting,
From the beginning, before there was ever an earth.
...
³⁰Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;
And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,
³¹Rejoicing in His inhabited world,
And my delight was with the sons of men.

Proverbs 8 personifies "Wisdom" and gives her divine attributes. Some commentators (e.g. Matthew Henry) have understood the voice of "wisdom" here to be Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, speaking of His relationship with His Father before time began.

Under this interpretation, then, Jesus is testifying that from the very beginning His delight was in human beings. He rejoiced with His Father to see the world inhabited and populated by creatures in Their own image and likeness.

Earlier in this series, I wrote about the intensity of God's wrath and how that rightly leads us to the fear of God. What I want to emphasize here is that God's wrath is not the most basic thing about His feelings towards us. He is not mostly mad and He is not mostly sad. Towards those who repent and stop trying to destroy themselves and each other, He is actually glad most of the time. Because His delight and His rejoicing in people were there before His wrath.

Most of us - Christians included - don't like ourselves very much. We are frustrated by our limitations, we dislike our bodies, and we may even have serious character flaws (e.g. anger) that make us feel hopeless and worthless.

If you're a Christian and you dislike yourself, then stop it! If you have repented of Your sins and trusted Him, God actually delights in you. He likes your body, He likes your personality, and He likes your talents and abilities just like He gave them to you. Agree with His evaluation of you. Agree to stop hating yourself and love what He loves: you!

It will help to start by meditating on the fact that He actually likes you. And praying Ephesians 3:16-19 for yourself wouldn't hurt either. If you keep it up, you'll find that over time, your character will change more by meditating on God's love for you than by beating yourself up.

Excellence in One Thing

2008-10-07T23:01:00.001-05:00

Luke 10:41-42
⁴¹And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. ⁴²But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

It's fairly common for Christians to thoughtlessly talk about "excellence in all things" as though this were something taught by the Bible and/or taken for granted in Christian life.

If anyone will actually stop and think about it, however, the idea is ridiculous even on a purely natural level:

Excellence in this life is unusual. When we find a person who keeps an immaculately clean house, or a mechanic who does thorough, honest, and correct work, or even someone who actually uses correct spelling and punctuation in emails, we notice it, because it is out of the ordinary.
Excellence in this life is difficult. We take it for granted that Olympic athletes make sacrifices to get to the top of their sport, or that those who want to go to top-tier medical schools will need to skip some parties in college.

The reality is that "excellence in all things" is impossible. Life in the modern world - and I suspect life in this age in general - requires "triage." Some things (for example, keeping your car or house clean, answering all your email, etc.) must intentionally be done with mediocrity if you want to do the things that really matter with excellence.

Someone might argue that on the basis of Mark 7:37, striving to do all things with excellence is required if we want to follow Jesus' example. I reply that first, Jesus was not a sinner, and you and I are - we waste vast amounts of time and emotional energy in thinking about, committing, repenting of, and trying to make amends for sin, and Jesus did not. Second, the crowd's statement about Jesus must be taken in context. Did they mean that Jesus kept His house exceptionally clean? I doubt it.

In fact, what we see in Jesus' life and teaching is a triage so radical that it makes us uncomfortable. He lived a very simple life. He repeatedly counseled people to stop worrying about clothes, possessions, health and reputation. He went without sleep and sometimes without food in order to pray. He was shockingly indifferent to His public image. And on at least two occasions, He explicitly told people that there was only one thing that mattered in this life. (Matt 6:33, Luke 10:42)

So as for me, I want to agree with Jesus. I want to do one thing with excellence, and let everything else be mediocre. I want to excel at "sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to His word." He said that the rest would fall into place if I put His kingdom first. But even if some things don't work out well, from the perspective of eternity, it will be a good trade.

New Sermon on Podcast - The Heresy of Cheap Grace

2008-10-06T18:05:00.001-05:00

One of the topics that Mike Bickle and other teachers at IHOP have been emphasizing strongly recently is the false teaching of cheap grace - that it's possible to be forgiven by God without repenting of our sins. The reality is that Jesus said that calling Him "Lord, Lord" but not doing what He said would end in disaster (Matthew 7:21-27). I may address this topic more in the future, but as an introduction, here is a short sermon that gives a succinct indictment of the "Gospel of easy forgiveness."

Ernest O'Neill - The Heresy of Cheap Grace

Ernest O'Neill, a pastor from the Minneapolis area, preaches a succinct and powerful message about the reality of the Gospel. In many contemporary churches, it has become common to assume that the Gospel is that we can be forgiven of our sins even if we never repent and stop sinning. O'Neill exposes this false teaching and calls us to the true Gospel - to trust Jesus means to strive to obey Jesus!

For a transcript of this sermon, visit:
http://a-clean-heart.com/cheapgrace.htm

What Does God Like? Part 5 - Humility

2008-10-04T01:50:00.001-05:00

Psalm 149:4
⁴For the Lord takes pleasure in His people;
He will beautify the humble with salvation.

God loves humility. Humility is what He is like (Ps 113:6, Phil 2:8), and it is when we humble ourselves that we are most who He made us to be - most living in His image.

Micah wrote that humility is one of three things that God requires of human beings (Micah 6:8). Isaiah wrote that God dwells with and looks to humble and contrite ones in a special way (Isaiah 57:15, 66:1-2). The Psalmists wrote that the meek would inherit the earth (Ps 37:11), and that when Jesus returned, He would ride to victory on behalf of humility (Ps 45:4).

God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble (Prov 3:34, 1 Pet 5:5). Therefore, Peter says, "Humble yourselves!" (1 Pet 5:6-7) God will exalt those who humble themselves. We have good reason to believe that this is true - after all, the Man who humbled Himself more than any other in human history has been more highly exalted than any other ever has been or ever will be! (Phil 2:9-11)

With all of that said, it must be noted that humility does not come naturally. Pride and self-exaltation are very close to the root of our fallen nature. It requires profound trust in God to humble ourselves completely and trust in Him to lift us up.

So how do we begin? We begin the same way we begin to pursue any virtue in the Kingdom of God. We recognize that this virtue originates from and describes God Himself. We acknowledge that this virtue is preeminently displayed in the person of Jesus Christ (Matt 11:29). And then we meditate on the Man Jesus Christ and ask the Holy Spirit to grow the character of Christ in us. It's His job after all.

For further study, check out Andrew Murray's book Humility. (highly recommended!)

What Does God Like? Part 4 - Judgment

2008-10-01T00:26:00.001-05:00

Deuteronomy 28:63
⁶³And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess.

In light of the recent events on Wall Street, I'm going jump ahead in this series to a post I was planning for later. God delights in bringing judgment.

("Wait, are you saying that what is happening on Wall Street is a judgment from God?" Yes. Not because the stock market fell 777 points, but because, 1. God is ultimately responsible for everything that happens - read Job; and 2. America deserves judgment - read Exodus 20).

Deuteronomy 28:63 is one of the harshest words from God to Israel in the Bible. God promised that He would rejoice in bringing destruction and exile to Israel because of their disobedience. Why? How can a God of love say and do things like that?

It's not because he enjoys doing harm. That's what we call "sadism" (or more succinctly "evil"). God explicitly says that He does not enjoy killing for its own sake:

Ezekiel 18:32 (see also Ezek 33:11; 2 Pet 3:9)
³²For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. “Therefore turn and live!”

No, the reason that God can rejoice to bring judgment is because He sees the end from the beginning. He is not a disinterested Watchmaker, He is a tender Father and a passionate Bridegroom towards His people. He knows that there comes a point when human beings are so united in doing and approving of evil (Rom 1:32) that the only way to wake them up and spare them from eternal disaster is to bring temporal disaster on them. Mike Bickle calls it "removing everything that hinders love" or "knocking away the props."

Hosea is one of the clearest pictures of how God uses judgment to wake up stubborn and rebellious people (for example, see Hosea 2:6-8).

Compared to the Babylonian exile (the Holocaust of the 6th century BC), a few hurricanes and the Wall Street mess are extremely mild judgment. But if we do not repent, we can expect the "alarm clocks" to keep getting louder. Because God does not give up.

What Does God Like? Part 3 - Faith / the Fear of the LORD

2008-09-25T20:35:00.001-05:00

Psalm 147:10-11
¹⁰He does not delight in the strength of the horse;
He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.
¹¹The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him,
In those who hope in His mercy.

God wants us to trust Him.

It was the core issue in the Garden of Eden ("Will you trust Me enough to not eat from that tree for no reason other than because I said so?"), and it will be the core issue at the end of the age, as He judges wickedness and the rebellion of all nations against Him. How will you respond when God unleashes judgments that kill half the population of the earth? (Rev 6:8, 9:15) God is looking for those who will trust His leadership and agree with His heart so completely that they will sing "Just and true are Your ways!" in the midst of the most cataclysmic judgments in human history (Rev 15:3-4).

The word "faith" does not appear much in the Old Testament, but the "fear of the LORD" actually means something very similar. Faith and fear are really the same - they are both about a belief in what you do not yet see. And both are appropriate responses to God. All of us are going to answer for every choice that we make before a Man who knows everything we did, every thought, and every secret motive perfectly. Paul said that the appropriate response to that fact is to be terrified (2 Cor 5:11).

Fear need not paralyze us, however. From the terror of the Lord, we can move on into trust in the Lord. He who will be faithful to judge us with perfect accuracy will also be faithful to extend abundant mercy to anyone who asks for it. (John 6:37)

And He loves it. He actually enjoys people who believe Him and understand His character enough to respond rightly to Him! After all, it's what He made us for.

New Sermon on Podcast - 23 Minutes in Hell

2008-09-23T21:01:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago while doing street evangelism, I met a young woman who had heard a message called "23 Minutes in Hell" by Bill Wiese. The message scared her so much that she decided to get serious with God again and started going to church. The weekend that I talked with her, she had been scheduled to be baptized, but had decided to wait because there were still a lot of things that she was struggling to let go of. I had the opportunity to talk to her for almost an hour about the justice and love of God and what repentance really means. I haven't heard the end of her story. I'm praying that she was able to take the final step in repenting of her sins - whatever the cost - and fully trusting Christ.

I was impressed by the effect that this testimony about Hell had on her. Many in the American Church today have a disdain for "hellfire and brimstone" evangelism. Certainly, there are bad ways to preach about Hell. But we cannot afford to dismiss the topic entirely - after all, Jesus preached about Hell more than anyone else in the Bible! Using fear to motivate people to repent is not God's highest purpose, but it is absolutely a Biblical thing to do.

Bill Wiese - 23 Minutes in Hell

This is a testimony given by a man named Bill Wiese who had a visionary experience in which God let him experience Hell for 23 minutes. He backs up the things he witnessed with Bible verses, as he appropriately checked his experience against what the Bible says.

It is powerful, it is scary, and it ought to be strong motivation for all of us to make sure that we have sincerely repented and trusted in Jesus Christ, as well as to make sure that family and friends have heard an accurate presentation of the Good News about Jesus.

What Does God Like? Part 2 - Repentance

2008-09-21T17:15:00.001-05:00

Luke 15:7-24

⁷“...there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. ...

¹⁰Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

... the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. ²³And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; ²⁴for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.

God is more intense than we can imagine.

Jeremy Taylor wrote, "God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy." In fact, He threatens eternal torment if we will not lay down our rebellion and enter into "the joy of our Master." His jealousy and wrath are terrible and frightening to meditate on. (Psalm 90:11)

But we must not allow our view of God's intensity to lean in one direction. The intensity of His wrath against rebellion is perfectly balanced with His exultant jubilant buoyant joy when the rebel lays down his arms and comes home. There is joy in the presence of the angels of God every time a sinner repents. Throw away your sermon-illustration idea about "angels dancing". The angels aren't the ones who Jesus said rejoice - it's the Father who rejoices!

If you know there's something between you and God, then don't beat yourself up about it! Sincerely admit you've been sinning, ask Him for forgiveness, and then make a plan to stop it for good. The moment you sincerely repent, on the authority of the Bible, God is shouting for joy over you!

If you still need more convincing, here are just a few more scriptures on God's delight in repentant people: Psalm 51:17; John 6:37; Matthew 5:3-4; Micah 7:18

What Does God Like? Part 1 - Simple Obedience

2008-09-18T23:09:00.001-05:00

God is easily pleased.

Many people have trouble believing that, but it's true. The Bible is very clear. God is pleased - delights, even - in the simplest, most mundane acts of obedience.

Proverbs 11:1
¹Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight.

Let me be clear: if you do not belong to Jesus Christ, no amount of good works will do anything to make God accept you, let alone enjoy you. God is not impressed by good works done by rebels who refuse to accept His leadership (1 Samuel 15:22). But if you are on Jesus' team - that is, if you have decided that He is in charge of your life - and are sincerely seeking to obey Him, God is mostly happy with you most of the time.

We think of rules like "You shall not cheat your neighbor" (Leviticus 19:13) as being like the speed limit. The state police do not enjoy the fact that you keep the speed limit - even if you are the only one on the road who is. But the eternal reality is that God enjoys those who keep His law. Every little decision to say "yes" to His laws and His leadership is cause for rejoicing in heaven. He is far more easily pleased than we are!

‘A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again," to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again," to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.’

- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

New Sermon on Podcast - Allen Hood - God Desires Mercy

2008-09-09T00:11:00.001-05:00

I've fallen behind on posting sermons on my podcast. Apologies for that! School and doing the nighwatch in the prayer room have kept me busier than I thought I would be.

Allen Hood - God Desires Mercy

This is a teaching that Allen Hood gave at the Onething 2007 conference. The teaching is based on Matthew 9:13 (Hosea 6:6), and is about how God delights to give us mercy but it is a continual struggle for us to receive it.

The most powerful part of this message for me was Allen's description of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and His commitment to finish what He has started in me. The Holy Spirit is profoundly committed to my maturity. Praise God!

For Terry & D'Ante - Read your Bible!

2008-09-01T05:40:00.001-05:00

This post is primarily for Terry & D'Ante, the two young men that I met last week, if you should happen to look at this website. Others may also find it useful, however.

Because of what we talked about when we met, the single most important thing that you can do is read your Bible. This is not about religion, it's not about ritual, it's not about earning anything from God. God loves you, and nothing that you can do will make Him love you anymore than He already does. From the moment that you said yes to Jesus as King of your life, He is thrilled with you. He actually likes you. He looks at you and does not see any of the sin that you struggle with or any of the bad things that you have done - He sees you as good, and clean, and pleasing to Him.

So why do you need to read your Bible? Because remember, this relationship with God is not just about being forgiven. It is about a kingdom. Jesus is the King, and He is going to come back to the earth, and take over the entire planet. It may happen soon, or it may happen long after all of us are dead. But either way, we don't get a choice about who is going to be in charge of the world or of our lives. The only choice we get is whether we like it or not!

So the reason we need to read the Bible is because we need to get to know the King. We need to find out what Jesus is like, what He said, what He did, and what He tells us to do. And we need to remember that what He tells us to do isn't a suggestion! That's how a Kingdom works - He tells us what to do, and we do it. But what's really amazing is that doing what He tells us to do is how we show Him that we love Him. It's how we express gratitude for the fact that He loved us so much that He was willing to be tortured to death so that we could be with Him forever.

So how do you start?

You need to pick out these three things:

A Time - Set aside a time during the day when you have 30 minutes to read your Bible. It doesn't always have to be the same time, just make sure you do it every day. One person I know said, "Make an appointment with the King and keep it!"
A Place - Pick a place where you can have some peace and quiet. Maybe alone in your room, or maybe in a public park, or maybe in a coffee shop. Whatever works for you where you won't be interrupted.
A Plan - Know in advance what you're going to read. I suggest that you start with the book of Matthew (about 3/4 of the way through; in my Bible it starts on page 649 out of 834.) You want to start with Matthew, which is the story of Jesus' life and what He taught, and just keep reading from there. I'd suggest that you plan to read just a few pages a day.

Once you actually come the place where you're going to read your Bible, this is what you do:

Pray - Ask God to help you understand what you read and to show you something that you didn't know before.
Read - as you read the Bible, you want to do "A-B-C":

Ask questions - Ask yourself questions like, what does this mean? What is Jesus asking me to do? How would my life be different if I really took this seriously?
Pick your Best verse - Read slowly, and allow God to show you a particular phrase or sentence that seems really important to you. Think about that idea for a while.
Commit to take it seriously - if the verse you pick is asking you to believe something, then decide that you're going to believe it, regardless of how you feel. If the verse is telling you to do something, then decide that you're going to try to do it, with God's help.

Pray again - ask God to help you do what you've said you want to do. The wonderful thing is that if you belong to Jesus, then God Himself lives inside of you through the Holy Spirit. He is really really really strong, and it is really easy for Him to help us if we will just trust Him and expect Him to do it!

And that's it. If you do that every day for the next 5 years and take it seriously, you will be a completely different person. If you have any questions or any problems that you want help with, send me an email at: Jeff (at) TodayAndThatDay.com.

May God give you strength on the inside to love Jesus with everything that you have and everything that you are!

A Contemporary Nazirite Vow: What I Learned

2008-08-17T17:45:00.001-05:00

As anyone has seen me in person in the last 6 months knows, I did a Nazirite vow this year. I was launched into it by hearing Lou Engle, Jese Engle, and Bethany Yeo at a conference in January. The vow ended with TheCall DC yesterday, and I have now shaved my head. Since it's over, I thought I'd take some time to reflect on what the vow was about and what I learned.

The Background

Since Nazirite vows are obviously not a common practice in most of the Church today, I probably need to address some questions first.

What's a Nazirite vow?
See Numbers 6:1-21. In a nutshell, it is a voluntary vow that a man or woman can take to be consecrated to God for a period of time. The consecration consists of not drinking wine or any food or drink made from grapes, not cutting your hair (note: actually the beard is not included; compare Numbers 6:18 with Leviticus 14:9), and not becoming ceremonially unclean by touching a dead body.
Isn't it an Old Testament thing?
No. It's a Jewish thing. Paul took a Nazirite vow (Acts 18:18), and Paul also paid for the sacrifices so that three Jewish believers in Jesus could complete their Nazirite vows in Jerusalem (Acts 21:23-24). (Sidenote: if you think that Paul was compromising his belief in justification by faith by doing this, go back and read Acts 15. For Jewish believers in Jesus, keeping the law is about voluntary obedience and love for God. According to Hebrews 7:11-19, no one was ever saved by keeping the Law.)
But you're not Jewish...
No. That's true. However, I do love Jesus and I have a desire to be consecrated to Him. In a sense, I borrowed a Jewish act of consecration because contemporary American evangelical culture does not have any comparable means of sacrificially expressing devotion to Jesus. And it is in the Bible after all...
Did Lou Engle dig this up on his own?
Lou Engle apparently had a dream in the late '90s about calling out contemporary Nazirites as a challenge for 21st century America. But he's not the first one to go back to the Old Testament and find this vow. As at least one example, Rees Howells performed a Nazirite vow in the early 20th century (see Rees Howells: Intercessor, by Norman Grubb, pages 113-120).
What's the point?
The Bible actually says basically nothing about what the vow is for. I'll post some more thoughts below, but one thing that I do want to say very clearly is that a Nazirite vow does not earn favor with God. We are accepted by God only and entirely because of what Jesus did at the Cross. If we are in Christ, God enjoys us as His children and delights in us because of our sincerity of heart - that is, our pursuit of complete obedience (pursuit, not the attainment of it). No act of devotion can make Him love us more, just as no sin can make Him love us less. On the flip side, if we are living in unrepentant sin, no act of devotion can make up for the lack of obedience either ("To obey is better than sacrifice", 1 Samuel 15:22).

What I Learned

My Nazirite vow began on January 21, and lasted for 208 days, ending yesterday. Reflecting back on the past 200 days (as I rub my shaved head), the following thoughts come to mind:

I am weak but He is strong.
The deepest insight that I have gained out of this experience is my weakness. If I thought I was out to demonstrate my holiness by a act of radical devotion, I failed completely. For much of this time, I have been half-hearted in prayer and pursuing intimacy with the Lord. I fell into all the same sins I struggled with before. And therefore I felt like a hypocrite - I had the symbol of my consecration on my head, but I wasn't living a consecrated life.

In the end, I have come back again at a deeper level to the place where I started. If my hope of living the Christian life depends on me, I'm screwed. I am weak. Though I still hope and pray for breakthroughs and increasing victory over specific areas of sin, I will always be weak.

But He is strong. My hope is not in my faithfulness, my ability to obey His commandments consistently, my ability to fast, or my perseverance in prayer. My hope is in Him - Him alone!

Lamentations 3:22-24
²²Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
²³They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
²⁴“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”
Being a Walking Declaration of the Worthy God
Something I've thought about a lot is why God set up the Nazirite vow the way that He did. The Nazirite vow might seem to be similar to fasting as an expression of "radical" devotion to God in the contemporary Church, but there are major differences.
- Fasting has a very practical dimension - it weakens your body, not just as a symbol of dependence on God, but as a means of actually increasing conscious dependence on God. The Nazirite vow is basically symbolic.
- Fasting is to be primarily a private practice (Matthew 6:16-18), but the Nazirite vow is impossible to hide.
- Fasting was mandatory for the people of God in the Old Testament (Leviticus 23:26-29), and is expected in the New Testament (Matthew 6:16, 9:15). The Nazirite vow, with the exception of a few special cases (e.g. Samson, Judges 13:5), is voluntary.
- Fasting includes a dimension of seeking (seeking an answer to prayer, e.g. David, 2 Samuel 12:16; or seeking revelation, e.g. Daniel, Daniel 10:2-3, 10:12). The Nazirite vow is more often an expression of gratitude and overflow towards God (e.g. Samuel, 1 Samuel 1:11).
Grapes are in everything!
I expected the hair part of the Nazirite vow to be challenging, but I didn't expect the grapes part to be so bad. It turned out that not eating grapes was far more troublesome than having of long hair and a beard.

One issue that every Christian Nazirite needs to face immediately is the question of communion. I decided that I would take communion, since I normally commune even when I'm fasting, and I thought of it as roughly parallel. So I drank grape juice whenever I had communion.

Much trickier is the issue of vinegar. Vinegar - often, but not always, made from grapes - is in all kinds of things, from hot sauce to salad dressing to Wonderbread (Wonderbread??). I decided early on that I wasn't going to bother with avoiding vinegar (actually, I decided retroactively after about three weeks of having eaten hot sauce practically daily...).

Even without the vinegar, though, it is still hard to avoid grapes completely. It turns out that grape juice (usually white grape juice) is the favorite mixer juice for most of what you buy in the store. So if you buy any kind of juice product that isn't 100% some other kind of juice, it's very likely that it has grapes in it. Crazier yet, I found a few different kinds of bread that had raisin juice extract in them. It wasn't raisin bread. It was just plain whole wheat bread. But for some reason, they felt that it needed raisin juice. So I ended up checking ingredients on almost everything I bought.
Hair doesn't burn very well.
At the end of the Nazirite vow, you're supposed to shave your head and take the hair to the Temple and burn it on the altar. Obviously, there's no Temple now, but I did decide to burn the hair that I shaved off. It was an interesting experience. It turns out that in order to burn hair, you really need a pretty good fire that is already burning something else. Hair itself doesn't so much burn as melt. Not having any lighter fluid, I ended up spraying it with WD40 to get it to burn, and even then, it took a while.

It was actually a neat insight with which to end the vow. I don't know if you would see the same thing if you actually threw your hair onto an altar fire and watched it burn up, but I found that in trying to burn my hair I gained an appreciation for how God designed it. Once hair catches fire, it melts and chars into a plastic-looking ash, and then it goes out. If the hair is packed together, that only happens to the outer layer. The inside isn't burnt. So if your hair actually caught on fire, the likelihood of your head getting burnt would actually be pretty low. God gave us a semi-flame retardant covering for our heads!

Lewis: The Miracles of Christ, King of the Universe

2008-08-14T02:23:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned once previously on this blog, C.S. Lewis was my most significant theological influence when I came to Christ in high school. With only a few exceptions, I have not had to unlearn anything that I learned from Mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, Miracles, The Great Divorce, The Abolition of Man, and even from The Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. In fact, I have recently rediscovered some of Lewis' ideas and found them to be more helpful than what I was believing before.

Lewis' idea about the Atonement in Mere Christianity is one of these. I hadn't really understood it the first time I read it. In a chapter called "The Perfect Penitent", Lewis suggests that Jesus made human repentance possible by enduring the death that repentance requires - the only way that we can repent and return to God now is if He does it through us, and the only way that God could repent on our behalf was through the mystery, the horror, and the wonder of the Cross. I don't believe this idea instead of the Penal Substitution theory - I think they are both ways of approaching a reality that is beyond human understanding. As Lewis said, the Cross will continue to have the effect of saving the souls of those who repent whatever theory we hold about how it works.

For all of Lewis' significance for me, however, there are still a few of his books that I have not read. I've recently been listening to an audiobook of God in the Dock, and I was struck by the following segment on the miracles of Jesus. I find this to be a profound insight into both the miracles and the Man Jesus Christ.

From "Miracles", God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, pp. 28-33

This is what St Athanasius says in his little book On the Incarnation: ‘Our Lord took a body like to ours and lived as a man in order that those who had refused to recognize Him in His superintendence and captaincy of the whole universe might come to recognize from the works He did here below in the body that what dwelled in this body was the Word of God.’ This accords exactly with Christ’s own account of His miracles: ‘The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do.’ The doctrine, as I understand it, is something like this:

There is an activity of God displayed throughout creation, a wholesale activity let us say, which men refuse to recognize. The miracles done by God incarnate, living as a man in Palestine, perform the very same things as this wholesale activity, but at a different speed and on smaller scale. One of their chief purposes is that men, having seen a thing done by personal power on the small scale, may recognize, when they see the same thing done on the large scale, that the power behind it is also personal — is indeed the very same person who lived among us two thousand years ago. The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. Of that larger script part is already visible, part is still unsolved. In other words, some of the miracles do locally what God has already done universally: others do locally what He has not yet done, but will do. In that sense, and from our human point of view, some are reminders and others prophecies.

God creates the vine and teaches it to draw up water by its roots and, with the aid of the sun, to turn that water into a juice which will ferment and take on certain qualities. Thus every year, from Noah’s time till ours, God turns water into wine. That, men fail to see. Either like the Pagans they refer the process to some finite spirit, Bacchus or Dionysus: or else, like the moderns, they attribute real and ultimate causality to the chemical and other material phenomena which are all that our senses can discover in it. But when Christ at Cana makes water into wine, the mask is off. The miracle has only half its effect if it only convinces us that Christ is God: it will have its full effect if whenever we see a vineyard or drink a glass of wine we remember that here works He who sat at the wedding party in Cana. Every year God makes a little corn into much corn: the seed is sown and there is an increase, and men, according to the fashion of their age, say, ‘It is Ceres, Adonis, it is the Corn-King.’ or else, ‘It is the laws of Nature.’ The close-up, the translation, of this annual wonder is the feeding of the five thousand. Bread as not made there of nothing. Bread is not made of stones, as the Devil once suggested to Our Lord in vain. A little bread is made into much bread. The Son will do nothing but what He sees the Father do. There is, so to speak, a family style. The miracles of healing fall into the same pattern. This is sometimes obscured for us by the somewhat magical view we tend to take of ordinary medicine. The doctors themselves do not take this view. The magic is not in the medicine but in the patient's body. What the doctor does is to stimulate Nature's functions in the body, or to remove hindrances. In a sense, though we speak for convenience of healing a cut, every cut heals itself; no dressing will make skin grow over a cut on a corpse. That same mysterious energy which we call gravitational when it steers the planets and biochemical when it heals a body is the efficient cause of all recoveries, and if God exists, that energy, directly or indirectly, is His. All who are cured are cured by Him, the healer within. But once He did it visibly, a Man meeting a man. Where He does not work within in this mode, the organism dies. Hence Christ’s one miracle of destruction is also in harmony with God’s wholesale activity. His bodily hand held out in symbolic wrath blasted a single fig tree; but no tree died that year in Palestine, or any year, or in any land, or even ever will, save because He has done something, or (more likely) ceased to do something, to it.

When He fed the thousands he multiplied fish as well as bread. Look in every bay and almost every river. This swarming pulsating fecundity shows He is still at work. The ancients had a god called Genius — the god of animal and human fertility, the presiding spirit of gynaecology, embryology, or the marriage bed — the ‘genial bed’ as they called it after its god Genius. As the miracles of wine and bread and healing showed who Bacchus really was, who Ceres, who Apollo, and that all were one, so this miraculous multiplication of fish reveals the real Genius. And with that we stand at the threshold of the miracle that for some reason most offends modern ears. I can understand the man who denies the miraculous altogether; but what is one to make of the people who admit some miracles but deny the Virgin Birth? Is it that for all their lip service to the laws of Nature there is only one law of Nature that they really believe? Or is it that they see in this miracle a slur on sexual intercourse which is rapidly becoming the one thing venerated in a world without veneration? No miracle is in fact more significant. What happens in ordinary generation? What is a father’s function in the act of begetting? A microscopic particle of matter from his body fertilizes the female: and with that microscopic particle passes, it may be, the colour of his hair and his great grandfathers hanging lip, and the human form in all its complexity of bones, liver, sinews, heart, and limbs, and pre-human form which the embryo will recapitulate in the womb. Behind every spermatozoon lies the whole history of the universe: locked within it is no small part of the world's future. That is God's normal way of making a man—a process that takes centuries, beginning with the creation of matter itself, and narrowing to one second and one particle at the moment of begetting. And once again men will mistake the sense impressions which this creative act throws off for the act itself or else refer it to some infinite being such as Genius. Once, therefore, God does it directly, instantaneously; without a spermatozoon, without the millenniums of organic history behind the spermatozoon. There was of course another reason. This time He was creating not simply a man, but the man who was to be Himself: the only true Man. The process which leads to the spermatozoon has carried down with it through the centuries much undesirable silt; the life which reaches us by that normal route is tainted. To avoid that taint, to give humanity a fresh start, He once short-circuited the process. There is a vulgar anti-God paper which some anonymous donor sends me every week. In it recently I saw the taunt that we Christians believe in a God who committed adultery with the wife of a Jewish carpenter. The answer to that is that if you describe the action of God in fertilizing Mary as 'adultery’ then, in that sense, God would have committed adultery with every woman who ever had a baby. For what He did once without a human father, He does always even when He uses a human father as His instrument. For the human father in ordinary generation is only a carrier, sometimes an unwilling carrier, always the last in a long line of carriers of life that comes from the supreme life. Thus the filth that our poor, muddled, sincere, resentful enemies fling at the Holy One, either does not stick, or, sticking, turns into glory.

So much for the miracles which do small and quick what we have already seen in the large letters of God's universal activity. But before I go on to the second class — those which foreshadow parts of the universal activity we have not yet seen — I must guard against a misunderstanding. Do not imagine I am trying to make the miracle less miraculous. I am not arguing that they are more probable because they are less unlike natural events. I am trying to answer those who think them arbitrary, theatrical, unworthy of God, meaningless interruptions of universal order. They remain in my view wholly miraculous. To do instantly with dead and baked corn what ordinarily happens slowly with live seed is just as great a miracle as to make bread of stones. Just as great, but a different kind of miracle. That is the point. When I open Ovid, or Grimm, I find the sort of miracles which really would be arbitrary. Trees talk, houses turn into trees, magic rings raise tables richly spread with food in lonely places, ships become goddesses and men are changed into snakes or birds or bears. It is fun to read about: the least suspicion that it had really happened would turn that fun into nightmare. You find no miracles of that kind in the Gospels. Such things, if they could be, would prove that some alien power was invading Nature; they would not in the least prove that it was the same power which had made Nature and rules her every day. But the true miracles express not simply a god, but God: that which is outside Nature, not as a foreigner, but as her sovereign. They announce not merely that a King has visited our town, but that it is the King, our King.

The second class of miracles, on this view, foretell what God has not yet done, but will do, universally. He raised one man (the man who was Himself) from the dead because He will one day raise all men from the dead. Perhaps not only men, for there are hints in the New Testament that all creation will eventually be rescued from decay, restored to shape and subserve the splendour of re-made humanity. The Transfiguration and the walking on the water are glimpses of the beauty and the effortless power over all matter which will belong to men when men are really waked by God.

James S. Stewart: Behold the Man

2008-08-12T00:30:00.001-05:00

I recently bought a used copy of The Strong Name, which is a collection of sermons by James S. Stewart. I found the book through a passage about Jesus which Ravi Zacharias quoted. Stewart was ranked as the best preacher of the 20th century, according to the Wikipedia article, and it's easy to see why when you read his sermons. This particular sermon is a beautiful exposition on the uniqueness of the Man Jesus Christ. Because the book is out of print and not available on Google books, I decided to post the entire sermon.

WHO IS THIS JESUS?

(1) BEHOLD THE MAN

And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this ? “—MATT. xxi. 10.

All the city said it then; and all the world has said it ever since. For nineteen centuries one Figure has haunted the thinking and the conscience of mankind.

If you go climbing among the mountains, you may come occasionally to a lofty pass where the water-courses change their direction. Here a tiny rivulet makes its inconspicuous way to join the rivers flowing eastward: yonder, a few yards off, another begins its long winding journey towards the sunset and the western lands. The raindrops falling on one side of the summit may be carried down to the North Sea, while those on the other merge at last in the Atlantic. You are standing at the watershed, where all the streams divide.

Incomparably the most important watershed in the long history of humanity has been the Incarnation of Christ. At this point, the streams divide. After this, the human course and direction are changed. One Figure has split history in two—so that every event is now dated with reference to His coming, either before or after. In the clash and turmoil of this bitter age in which we live, His influence is still a more dominating thing, His power more to be reckoned with, than the power and influence of any Caesar. For this one Figure multitudes to-day would be glad to die; and no man who has once seen Him can ever quite thrust Him out of sight again or evade His urgent challenge. “Who is this ? “ they asked at the street-corners in Jerusalem long ago : and it is no academic speculation or theological theorizing that renews the question now. It is life, it is history, it is all that is deepest in your experience and mine, that force it inescapably upon us. Who is this Jesus?

Let us begin our inquiry by setting right in the centre of our minds one fundamental fact: the Christian religion is first and foremost and essentially a message about God. It is not primarily a new ethic. It is not just a gospel of brotherliness and loving our neighbour and accepting the Golden Rule. It is not in the main a philosophy of life or a social programme. Doubtless it includes all that : it involves an ethic, supplies a philosophy, enunciates a programme for society. But basically, it is none of these things. It is not a message about human virtues and ideals at all. It is a message about God.

That message is this—that the living God, eternal, immortal, invisible, has at one quite definite point broken through into history in an unprecedented way. Once and for all, in an actual life lived out upon this earth, God has spoken, and has given the full and final revelation of Himself. In Jesus, God has come.

Such is the dramatic and astounding statement on which the Christian religion is built. Possibly familiarity has dulled its wonder for us: but will you try to realize afresh just how electrifying, how startling, that statement is ? In order to realize it, we must go back to our Gospels and contemplate the picture that confronts us there. Who is He, of whom such amazing things are spoken?

They tell us that for the greater part of His life He was a working carpenter. His home was in an obscure provincial village. He was born in a stable, adjoining a roadside inn. Wealth and official position He had none. He wrote no books, He fought no battles, the applause of listening senates was never His to command. His friends were mostly as poor as Himself, fishermen and peasants. When He left home and started preaching His own family tried to dissuade Him, thinking and actually saying that He was mad. The theologians and clever people scoffed at what they thought was His illiteracy. The crowds which at first gathered inquisitively to listen to His teaching soon dwindled and vanished away. His own best friends showed signs of doing the same. “Will ye also go ? “ He had to ask them; and at the end, they did desert Him to His fate. He died a felon’s death, reviled and execrated, hanging between two thieves. He was buried in a borrowed grave.

But then a strange thing happened. It was rumoured that death had not finished Him. It was reported that He had been seen alive. And then, quite suddenly, His disciples appeared in the streets proclaiming that He had risen. They said He had come back to them. They said the carpenter’s apprentice of Nazareth was at the right hand of God in heaven. They said they now saw, what formerly had been hidden from them, that from the first God had been uniquely present in Jesus ; that in that life and death, the unseen had become visible, and the eternal had become historic, and God had become man.

Was it surprising that the world, hearing all that, laughed it to scorn ? The Book of Acts, in its second chapter, records that the first contemporary theory about the apostolic preaching was that these men had been drinking—” full of new wine “ : the tale was so incredible. And when from its home of origin in Jerusalem, it began to circulate more widely, acquiring currency in the great cities of Asia and the west, the whole Roman Empire rang with contemptuous laughter, shouts of amused derision.

But the extraordinary thing was this, that neither with laughter nor with force, not with the massive arguments of her philosophers nor by the might of her thundering legions, could Rome stop Jesus. What actually happened was that Jesus stopped Rome, and on the dust and ashes of her broken splendour set the foundations of the empire of God which was to be.

So the question is thrust back upon us with redoubled force : Who is this Jesus ? When the first Christians appropriated the word Lord, Kyrios (the same hallowed name which the Old Testament had reserved for the Hebrew Jehovah), and dared to use it of this Galilean Carpenter; when those men, strict monotheists as they were, took that astounding and unprecedented step, were they just dreaming, romancing, yielding to the intoxication of a foolish fancy? Were love and imagination running away with them? Or was the thing true?

Some of you will remember the passage in Mrs. Humphrey Ward’s Recollections, in which she tells how once she met Walter Pater at Oxford. She had thrown off the Christian faith; and reckoning on his sympathy, she expressed the belief that Christ’s day was done. He shook his head, and looked troubled. “I don’t think so,” he said. “And we don’t altogether agree. You think it’s all plain. But I can’t. There are such mysterious things. Take that saying, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.’ How can you explain that? There is a mystery in it— something supernatural.”

Even the sceptic has stood troubled and ill at ease before this strange fact of Christ. Here none of his categories seem to fit. His confidence deserts him. There is mystery in it.

Now if we try to analyse the mystery, we shall find, I think, that it is threefold—the mystery of a personality, the mystery of a power, and the mystery of a presence.

When I speak of the mystery of a personality, I am thinking of the startling coalescence of contrarieties that you find in Jesus. He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men: yet He said that He would come on the clouds of heaven in the glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at His coming: yet He was so genial and winsome and approachable that the children loved to play with Him, and the little ones nestled in His arms; and His company in the innocent gaiety of a village wedding was like the sunshine. No one was ever half so kind or compassionate to sinners: yet no one ever spoke such red-hot, scorching words about sin. He would not break the bruised reed, and His whole life was love: yet on one occasion He demanded of the Pharisees how they expected to escape the damnation of hell. He was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions: yet for sheer stark naked realism He has all our self-styled “realists” beaten. He was the servant of all, washing the disciples’ feet : yet masterfully He strode into the Temple, and the hucksters and traders fell over one another in their mad rush to get away from the fire they saw blazing in His eyes. He saved others: yet at the last, Himself He would not save. There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts that confronts you in the Gospels. The mystery of Jesus is the mystery of a personality.

But it is more. It is the mystery of a power. From that far day when He took a deadly cross, and converted it into a glorious throne, that power—like a streak of gold—has marked the centuries. Empires have gone down before Him. Through His influence, great movements of reform have swept the earth. In His name, men and women of every age and race have “wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions, and out of weakness have been made strong.” He has been the master-force behind the onward march of men. What Emerson said of Jesus was indeed magnificently true: “His name is not so much written as ploughed into the history of this world.” Thomas Hardy, near the close of The Dynasts, makes Napoleon say—

“To shoulder Christ from out the topmost niche
Of human fame, as once I fondly felt,
Was not for me.”

The one name before which the Anti-God movement of to-day trembles is the name of Jesus of Nazareth. There is no modern Caesarism which can shoulder Christ off the page of history, or break His grip on the souls of men. After nineteen centuries, we still baptize our children in His name; when love and marriage come, His is the blessing we invoke, and His the altar at which we plight our troth; when all is over, it is beneath His cross we lay our dead, and it is in His message of eternal hope that we find comfort. Ten thousand times He has broken the chains of evil habit, and set the prisoners free. He has put energy and victory into wasted lives and souls rotting with sin. And there are those in this Church now who would unhesitatingly ascribe “every virtue they possess, and every victory won, and every thought of holiness,” not to their own resolution or resources, but to the saving might of Christ alone. The mystery of Jesus is the mystery of a power.

But it is still more. It is the mystery of a presence. In every age, His own words have been verified anew—” Lo, I am with you always.” Now notice what this means. It is frequently said that it is quite impossible that Jesus should have any final relevance for the modern mind or for the social order of to-day. He was born in the first century. His environment was totally different from ours. The quiet life of a peasant in agricultural Palestine was worlds apart from the hectic life of a city-dweller in this mechanized, industrialized age. We have problems on our hands which the first century never envisaged. How should Jesus, born a Jew, using the categories and thought-forms of His own age, facing the problems of His own society, still remain authoritative for us?

“The Man upraised on the Judean crag,
Captains for us the war with death no more,
His Kingdom hangs as hangs the tattered flag
On the tomb of a great knight of yore.”

But the argument which imprisons Jesus in the fetters of a particular age and environment and denies His validity for to-day involves a double fallacy. It ignores two decisive facts: the one, that the human heart which Christ addressed is still the same, the same in its loves and sorrows, its temptations and hopes and passions and defeats—that has not changed; the other, that in any case we are not harking back to a dead memory, but encountering the challenge of a living spirit. This Christ is a present fact, and men know it. For when we read our Gospels, intending to judge and assess and pass our verdict on what meets us there, gradually an extraordinary thing begins to happen: the central Figure steps out from the page, and stands before our conscience, and judges us. This is not talking metaphorically or at random. It is not using language dishonestly. In fact, the more honest we are in this matter the more vividly do we grow aware that Someone—not a mere fact of history, not the moving memory of a mighty life long since passed away, but Someone alive and present—is meeting us, is refusing to be held at arm’s length or thrust aside, is dealing with us as only God could deal. This is not romancing. It is a strictly accurate, unrhetorical account of what actually happens. It is the assured, irrefragable experience of men and women in this Church to-day. The mystery of Jesus is the mystery of a personality, and of a power, and of a presence.

What, then, are we to say of Him? What explanation shall we offer ? Reason and conscience alike demand that we should attempt some answer. We cannot be content to leave an unprecedented fact like this unexamined. For the sake of our own peace of mind, if for nothing else, we must try to reach a verdict. Who is this Jesus ?

The deeper answer to that question we must hold over for our next study. We shall consider then whether we cannot recapture for ourselves the sublime and breathtaking conviction of the men of the New Testament, that this Jesus was God manifest in the flesh. But for the present let us concentrate on getting this one thing quite clear— that whoever or whatever else He may have been, whatever other name or predicate we may feel impelled to give Him, He was at least truly and fully man.

I beg you never to let that go. It is crucial for salvation. If Jesus was not truly a man, if His humanity was in some sense unreal, an appearance or a disguise, if the Figure in the Gospels was an unearthly angelic visitant, a demigod in human shape, the whole doctrine of redemption falls to the ground. Hold on to the full humanity of Jesus!

Many good people are in danger, perhaps quite unconsciously, of losing sight of this essential aspect of the person of our Lord. It is a strange and very significant fact that the first heresy which ever vexed the Christian Church—the so-called “docetic” heresy of the first and second centuries—was not a denial of the Godhead of Jesus: it was a denial of His true manhood. It was an assertion of His Godhead which virtually emptied His manhood of all reality. That attitude is still rife. Even now there are good Christian people who have an uneasy feeling that you cannot emphasize the humanity of Jesus without subtracting from His divinity—which is an utterly erroneous idea. They have been so concerned (and indeed quite rightly concerned) to uphold at all costs the Godhead of Jesus that He is no longer, for them, truly and genuinely human. But I repeat —unless Christ was real man, there is no salvation.

Can there be any doubt as to the witness of the New Testament on this matter ? The Jesus of whom the evangelists tell is veritable man if ever there was one—not some heavenly Titan masquerading as man, but man in very truth. He knew as we do, what weariness means, and the burden of sheer physical exhaustion: “Jesus, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well.” His tears at Lazarus’ grave were not forced tears, but the real grief of a sensitive spirit. He felt, as we do, the need for friends what volumes that poignant question in Gethsemane speaks —“ Could ye not watch with Me one hour?” He had to fight temptation, not only in the desert at the beginning, but right on to the end of the journey: and it was no sham fight, no easy, automatic victory, but a real and desperate encounter, a struggle that made His soul sweat blood. What He suffered in His body on the cross, and in His mind and spirit through all the despising and rejecting which culminated there, was not make-believe or solemn play- acting, but something so terrible that thought recoils before it and language fails. “He descended into hell.”

No, there is not one shadow of doubt as to the New Testament’s witness. From every page of the Gospels there emerges a Figure whose humanity is unmistakable and authentic, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. I say nothing about the other side of the picture now. Let it suffice for the moment to get this one truth piercingly clear to our own minds and hearts; and to be able—with the Roman governor who tried His case at the end—to say, “Behold the Man!”

There is a most moving passage in which the great Russian novelist Turgenev has described how once there came to him, in a kind of vision, a swift and wonderful insight into the meaning of the humanity of Jesus. “I saw myself, a youth, almost a boy, in a low-pitched wooden church. The slim wax candles gleamed, spots of red, before the old pictures of the saints. There stood before me many people, all fair-haired peasant heads. From time to time, they began swaying, falling, rising again, like the ripe ears of wheat when the wind in summer passes over them. All at once a man came up from behind and stood beside me. I did not turn towards him, but I felt that the man was Christ. Emotion, curiosity, awe overmastered me. I made an effort and looked at my neighbour. A face like everyone’s, a face like all men’s faces. ‘What sort of Christ is this? ‘I thought. ‘Such an ordinary, ordinary man. It cannot be.’ I turned away, but I had hardly turned my eyes from this ordinary man when I felt again that it was really none other than Christ standing beside me. Only then I realized that just such a face is the face of Christ——a face like all men’s faces.”

He is true man, this Jesus. Never for a moment must that truth be suffered to grow dim. We dare not—if we have set our hopes upon Him—let this fact go. It is crucial for the world’s salvation. Do you see why? Do you understand why it is so overwhelmingly vital and important to reassert the full humanity of Jesus ? Suppose we were led to conclude that He was not quite human, that He never met us just on our level, that there is no true identity between Christ and our sinning, suffering race, then not only are we robbed of our most precious pattern and example, but what is far worse, we have to say that God has not come the whole way after all, that God has not quite stooped down to the depth of our urgent need nor borne all our human burden: and that means—no atonement, no healing of our mortal wound, no breaking of our bitter bonds. I beg you to realize that that—nothing less—is the issue; and realizing that to cling, as the New Testament clings, to the certainty of Christ’s full humanity, to the glorious, heart-stirring and subduing fact that God, in love for you and me, has indeed come all the way, has started on the level where we are and met us where we live, and borne our earthly frame of dust and clay, that we may wear His immortality.

“With this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.”

We cannot tell, says Alice Meynell, what other forms of revelation God might choose for other worlds. We cannot guess His secret dealings with other dwellers in His wide universe, beyond this wayside planet we inhabit.

“O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The myriad forms of God those stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.”

“There is one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.”

But is that all? Is that the final word? In our next study we shall endeavour to press more deeply into the mystery; until we reach a point where, looking upon this Man, our souls are able to say, “My Lord and my God!”

Signs of the Times: Israel

2008-07-31T08:46:00.000-05:00

I saw this story on ASSIST news this morning. It sent a thrill down my spine. If you're familiar with Messianic Jews in Israel, there isn't much new information in the article, but the emphasis on expectation of revival is powerful. Make sure you understand what the salvation of Israel means, and what will happen to the earth before and after it is accomplished. Israeli Jews confessing Yeshua as Lord and Messiah is not just another revival!

Romans 11:25-27 ²⁵For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. ²⁶And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
²⁷For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”

People get ready... Jesus is coming!

Israel’s Messianic Jews: Some Call it a ‘Miracle’: "“In Israel, a resurgence in the number of Jews who believe in Jesus is getting a lot of attention. Many leaders say it's the strongest growth since the time of Jesus and that the Messianic movement could be on the brink of a great revival.”

So said Wendy Griffith, CBN News Senior Reporter, in a story for The 700 Club.

“This is the first time where we've seen Israeli society in general being so open to consider who Yeshua is,” Messianic leader Asher Intrater told her. “This is a real miracle, and there's beginning to be grace and favor with us in the land.”"

Mike Huckabee on theCall

2008-07-25T20:17:00.000-05:00

I found the following article on the ASSIST News website. I had not heard Mike Huckabee's statement about theCall, but I agree with him! Senator Brownback came to theCall in Nashville on 7/7/07, and said some powerful things about repentance on behalf of the US government towards Native Americans.

It's cool that Huckabee will be involved with theCall. In fact, he's going to be speaking at the Pre-Call events the days before. I'm curious what he'll say in that context. He was a pastor of course, but he as also a presedential candidate.

Lobbying for God from the National Mall: "“America’s greatest crisis is not political, but spiritual,” said Huckabee. “TheCall D.C. is a day set apart for Christian believers to fast and pray and seek God’s blessings after a time of repentance and reflection. I hope believers across the nation will answer TheCall.”

TheCall D.C. will culminate two days of Pre-Call events Aug. 14-15 at the City of Praise church in Landover, Maryland, for attendees and their pastors and leaders. Speakers will include Mike Huckabee, Lou Engle, Harry Jackson, Tony Perkins, Ron Luce, president of Teen Mania Ministries, Mike Bickle, director of the International House of Prayer, and Bill McCartney, founder of Promise Keepers."

One note on the title of ASSIST's article however: TheCall is not about lobbying for God. We've had more than enough "lobbying for God" in the past 30 years of Christian politics. It hasn't worked. TheCall is about taking our appeal to a higher court - in fact, to The Highest Court. TheCall is first and foremost about lobbying God on behalf of the nation, secondarily about "lobbying" the Church on behalf of God, and only a distant third about trying to influence the unbelieving world.

The Bible teaches clearly that there is something worse than recession, terrorism, natural disasters, and even open war. What is worse than all of these is making it through 80 years of human life cultivating pride, independence, and defiance of God. The result of dying rich, proud, and irreligious is that you will stand before a Throne and the One who sits upon it will declare you a rebel and consign you to the everlasting fire of Hell. It is an unmitigated eternal disaster. To avoid that, to get His rebellious wayward children to repent and come back to Him, God will often wreck our lives in this age. He will take our money, our health, our careers, our reputations, and ultimately, if a whole nation defies Him long enough, He will take the lives of thousands - or millions - in judgment so that those who are left will wake up and repent.

TheCall, at its most basic level, is a plea to Church to wake up now, before He has to resort to judgment to wake us up by force. And it is a plea to God to continue to have mercy and be gentle in waking us up rather than giving us what we deserve.

Abraham’s Revelation of the Everlasting God

2008-07-21T23:00:00.001-05:00

Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. (Genesis 21:33¹)

Abraham, the first man to be called a prophet in scripture (Genesis 20:7) received significant revelation into the attributes and personality of God. God had told him His name "Yahweh" (Genesis 15:7 and 18:14, rendered as "the LORD" in most translations²), had communicated that He is a Rewarder of those who seek Him (Genesis 15:1), that He is "Almighty God" for whom nothing is too hard (Genesis 17:1 and 18:14), and that He is the ultimate Provider (Genesis 22:8,14). Abraham had also discovered, perhaps through the priest Melchizedek, that God was the Possessor of heaven and earth (Genesis 14:22, 24:3). He had even received revelation, according to the writer of Hebrews, that God would raise the dead, and so he was willing to sacrifice Isaac, the son God had promised him and with whom all his destiny lay (Hebrews 11:19, also note "we will come back to you" in Genesis 22:8).

With all of this revelation, we might say of Abraham what A.W. Tozer wrote of the Church looking at the scriptures:

"The truth is that if the Bible did not teach that God possessed endless being in the ultimate meaning of that term, we would be compelled to infer it from His other attributes, and if the Holy Scriptures had no word for absolute everlastingness, it would be necessary for us to coin one to express the concept, for it is assumed, implied, and generally taken for granted everywhere throughout the inspired Scriptures."³

We learn that Abraham had received revelation of God's eternity by the time he made his covenant with Abimelech and Phichol in Genesis 21. We do not know whether Abraham learned, as Moses did later, that God had no beginning, but was "from everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 90:2), nor whether he understood as Isaiah did that God's eternity is not an endless extension of time as we experience it, but actually outside of time ("…the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity…" Isaiah 57:15). The revelation that Abraham received, however, was sufficient for those promises in which God had asked him to trust. God had given to Abraham an "everlasting covenant" (Genesis 17:7,13,19), and had promised him the land of Canaan as an "everlasting possession" (Genesis 17:8). What kind of God can enter into an everlasting covenant and be able to perform what He promises? Only an everlasting God!

The letter to the Hebrews gives us additional information about Abraham's revelation of God. According to the writer of Hebrews, Abraham "waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10), he was seeking a homeland (11:14), and desired "a better, that is, a heavenly country" (11:16). Here we see how high the revelation of God's everlastingness will take us. As soon as the revelation that God is eternal is taken seriously and sinks in, human life immediately takes on new meaning – or to put it more clearly, human life sheds all kinds of false meanings that our darkened minds have created for it. When we grasp that God is everlasting, then human life – no matter how long – is revealed to be a vapor (Psalm 39:5,11), and human glory to be a flower that blooms overnight and then dies (Isaiah 40:6, 1 Peter 1:24). The only thing that matters is the everlasting reward that can be given only by the everlasting God. And thus Abraham found strength to be steady throughout his life. Abraham was not the one who wrote "one thing I do… I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God" (Philippians 3:13-14), but he would have agreed!

The Everlasting God of Abraham is the same God who lives inside of us if we belong to Jesus. Let us also press on to know this One who has eternal reward for those who seek Him!

¹ All scriptures quoted from the New King James Version, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), unless otherwise noted.

² Note that Exodus 6:3 seems to say that Abraham did not know the name Yahweh (YHWH – an abbreviation for "I AM THAT I AM" – Ex 3:15), but this cannot be reconciled with Genesis 15:7 and 18:14. The best understanding seems to be that God revealed the Name to Abraham, but did not explain it.

³ Tozer, A.W. The Knowledge of the Holy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1961), p. 38-39

Mystical Life of Communion

2008-07-21T16:44:00.002-05:00

As part of the SEEP curriculum, I recently finished the course Mystical Life of Communion, taught by Stephen Venable. (to listen to a sermon by Stephen, check my podcast)

This course contained probably the most valuable teaching I have received in the past year. I'm still several steps away from practicing the things that I learned on a regular basis, but the course was a paradigm shift for me in three areas:

How much it is possible to know and experience God in this age, based on the testimony of scripture and the experiences of certain believers in Church history.
How far we Americans are (i.e., how far I am) from the lifestyle of these saints who experienced such breakthroughs.
What I need to do to move towards this kind of intimacy. The answer is not novel - it is the "one thing" that King David and Mary of Bethany pursued and the simplicity of life to which Jesus called us.

I'm posting this now because this course is available online. Through IHOP's eSchool, you can download mp3 files of this course. In fact, right now, until July 31, 2008, the course is available at half-price, so you can listen to approximately 24 hours of class sessions and have access to over 200 pages of teaching notes for only $25. Read the full post for details.

For a Limited Time Only

50% Discount on 2 New eSchool Courses

The eSchool (GEC) would like to announce 2 new classes – Mystical Life of Communion and Attributes of God – for only $25 each (50% off) through July 31.

To register for these and any of our other courses, please visit www.ihop.org/GEC. Please e-mail eschool@ihop.org with any questions.

Mystical Life of Communion
with Stephen Venable
The ardent desire for lives of lovesick prayer filled with the Word of the Lord and manifestations of the supernatural are not NEW but rather an ancient path of radical Christianity. This class will bring together treasured teachings from historic mystics, experiences of the prophets and New Testament lifestyles that lead to communion and the activity of the Holy Spirit that transforms us. We will take a journey together into these fiery realities that not only give us hope and faith that such a life is possible but will even set us on that path by giving us the practical helps we need to enter into and remain in the life of communion.

The Heavens Shall Tremble

2008-07-19T23:00:00.006-05:00

As many of my friends know, video games figure fairly prominently into my testimony. I don't think I was addicted to video games; I wasted a lot of time with them, but it was a manifestation of "casting off restraint" because I lacked revelation of who God is (Proverbs 29:18) rather than something that was out of control.

Anyway, I'm posting this because Blizzard (the only video game company whose games I played in the past 10 years) recently announced Diablo III. I played Diablo II a lot for a few years after college, and I have to say it was a really fun game. The trailer for the new one and the text of the voice-over are at the end of the this post. Once again it looks like a great game. However, as you should expect in this space, I'm not planning to give a video game review. I'm posting this because of a few observations related to the times in which we live.

We live in an era in which more, better, and more intense are an insatiable demand. Diablo was a really fun game in a gothic horror genre in which traditional role playing characters attempted to kill, essentially, the devil.

We live in an era in which more, better, and more intense are an insatiable demand. Diablo was a really fun game in a gothic horror genre in which traditional role playing characters attempted to kill, essentially, the devil.

In Diablo II, 5 years later, the graphics got much better, the blood and gore were more graphic, and occult elements were more prominent (for example, you could play a necromancer and raise dead monsters as skeletons to fight for you.)

Now, in Diablo III, the graphics are all 3D and look amazing. The blood and gore is quite graphic (the gameplay demo had flying body parts all over the place and a boss monster who killed a player by picking him and biting his head off), and I'm sure the boundaries of occult elements will be pushed even further.

When is it enough? Does anybody see what we're doing? Is there ever a point where people will begin to wake up and say, "more of the same hasn't scratched my itch in the past 10 years of doing this - why do I think it will satisfy this time?"
Blizzard has always been rather tone-deaf to the religious elements of their games.

The original Diablo game was premised upon a Zoroastrian-like dualism with angels and demons fighting for cosmic dominance in something called "the sin war," in which humans could pick sides and participate. However, the game was chock-full of Christian imagery - a haunted cathedral, catacombs to explore, a character called "Archbishop Lazarus" who had made a deal with Diablo, and even a number of celtic crosses in various places.

In Diablo II, the composer of the musical score commented that he based one of his pieces on the latin phrase "miserere" commenting that he thought it was appropriate for the "misery of souls in hell." The problem, of course, is that he apparently didn't know that "miserere" means "have mercy." The reason you hear it over and over again in old Latin choral pieces is because they were all filled with cries for a sovereign and loving God to have mercy on poor repentant sinners. There's no room for a sovereign God in the Diablo universe.

There are hints that the plot of Diablo III involves corruption entering into the "high heavens" and now "fallen angels" are going to be involved in attacking the innocent citizens of Sanctuary. The tagline "And the heavens shall tremble" once again hearkens to Christian imagery (in this case, the King James translation of Joel 2:10), but pulls it out of context and misses the point.

Who is causing the heavens to tremble in Joel 2:10? The earth is quaking and the heavens are trembling before an evil, viciously destructive army, which seems to fit the Diablo III usage well enough; but look who is responsible for this army:

10 The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: 11 And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?
(Joel 2:10-11, KJV)
My final observation is that the language of eschatology (that is, the end-times) is becoming more and more common in popular culture. This is no Left Behind series game that we are talking about, a niche product for evangelicals and those with curiosity about the end of the world. This is likely to be the single most popular PC game on the planet in 2011 or so. And the first line of the cinematic trailer is "It has been said that in the end of all things..."

This is not an isolated incident either. It's happening over and over again in popular entertainment. Even those with no thought of religion have a latent sense that things can't keep going on like they are too much longer. People don't like to think about the fact that it could actually be true that "the end is at hand," but there is a horror-movie chic to the idea of The End.

So here's my point, and the reason for posting random thoughts about a video game on this blog. The truth is that the universe that we live in is not a dualistic Zoroastrian universe. It is an absolute monarchy, and the Creator is absolutely sovereign and radically involved in His creation. We are indeed speeding towards the end of all things and the heavens shall indeed tremble, but the One who is going to shake all things is the One who made them. He is utterly unthreatened and unmoved by the "prime evil" - which in fact is only one of His creatures who rebelled against Him, and who is now unwillingly but inexorably serving His purpose of bringing judgment on His rebellious creation.

The day is coming soon when those who do not want God to rule over them will say to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:16-17)

What will you be saying in that day? The loving, sovereign God has opened a way for you to be reconciled with Him and to be absolutely safe on that Day. It does not come easily - if you choose to be reconciled with Him it will cost you everything, because He requires absolute allegiance. But He is worth it!

Voice-over text for Diablo III cinematic trailer:

It has been said…
That in the end of all things…we would find a new beginning.
But as the shadow once again crawls across our world,
and the stench of terror drifts on a bitter wind,
the people pray for strength and guidance…they should pray for the mercy of a swift death…
For I have seen what the darkness hides.

I don’t think its safe here.

New Sermon on Podcast - Mike Bickle - the Paradox of Experiencing God's Glory

2008-07-19T20:42:00.001-05:00

I'm still alive. I know it seems like I fell off the face of the earth, but in fact, I've just been trying to figure out how to do FSM classwork and prayer room time on the webstream while living at home for a month. I've been a lot busier than I thought I would be.

Anyway, I've gotten more or less caught up now, so I thought I should update the blog. Here's a new podcast episode - an excellent sermon by Mike Bickle that I recently heard.

Mike Bickle - the Paradox of Experiencing God's Glory

This is a wonderful teaching by Mike Bickle on cultivating an eternal perspective, based on 2 Corinthians 4:7-18. This was required listening for Forerunner School of Ministry students doing the Summer Early Entry Program this year. I think it should be required listening for every believer!

Teaching notes from the IHOP website are available here.

How to Waste Your Fire in the Night Internship

2008-06-15T17:41:00.003-05:00

Inspired by How to Waste Your Theological Education, which was recently forwarded by a friend.

Maintain external compliance with the no dating policy, but think continually about interns of the opposite sex, and talk about the opposite sex with your roommates all the time.
Think that curfew is for little kids. Stay up till 10 am every morning.
Assume that fasting is impossible. Never even try it.

Maintain external compliance with the no dating policy, but think continually about interns of the opposite sex, and talk about the opposite sex with your roommates all the time.
Think that curfew is for little kids. Stay up till 10 am every morning.
Assume that fasting is impossible. Never even try it.
Spend all your time studying the end-times figuring out how to win arguments.
Never try fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit.
Every time you hear a sermon on bridling your tongue, guarding your thought life, or managing your time and money, assume that it doesn't apply to you.
Assume that everybody is faking their prayer language, and never study what the Bible says about tongues or ask for prayer to receive the gift of tongues.
Never ask Stuart a question for fear of looking dumb.
Never pray on the mic.
(for musicians and singers) Don't audition for a worship team and then complain all the time about how monotonous the worship is at IHOP.
Leave your schedule open so you don't feel restricted when you don't have to be in the prayer room.
Don't take any FSM classes; sleep in every day instead.
Ignore the policy about video games and movies. Fill all your free time with electronic entertainment.
Insist on having to figure out for yourself the allegorical meanings of everything in the Song of Solomon, and never buy a book or a commentary about it.
Watch the clock every night in the prayer room and think about how you can't wait to get out of there.
Treat the whole six hours in the prayer room as study hall every night. Read lots of books but don't bother trying to intercede.
Complain about how narrow IHOP-KC's prayer mandates are (for Israel, Kansas City, the black community, etc.), and never ask the leadership or God to help your understand them.
Make fun of your core leader behind his or her back and assume that there's nothing you can learn from them.
Gossip about your roommates.
Make sure everybody thinks you're cool (or smart or spiritual or radical... or whatever).
Treat service assignments (cleaning, CEC, inner city, etc.) as a tedious chore beneath your dignity.
Assume that you are now part of the spiritual elite. Write condescending emails and newsletters to people in your home church.
Never use the Apostolic prayers (Ephesians 1:17-19, Ephesians 3:16-19, etc.). Always pray in your own words instead of trying to understand the prayers in the Bible.
Come up with theological reasons why God doesn't answer your prayers. Refuse to consider the possibility that you might be "asking amiss" (James 4:3).
Assume that God is not doing anything unless there are signs and wonders. Never pray for wisdom and revelation to understand the Bible.
Never pray for your home church, unsaved friends, or people you actually know at home.

As I've been typing this up, it struck me that I know people who have done most of these (and I've done several myself), but in the end, the internship still wasn't a waste. They showed up as one person, and they left as someone completely different.

It's not that IHOP or Fire in the Night is such a cool thing; it's the Lord. If you take a bunch of 18-30 year olds and require them to read the Bible and talk to God for 6 hours a day for 3 months - in the middle of the night, so they have nowhere else to be - even if they do it kicking and screaming, the Holy Spirit will still change their hearts!

Oversold - a modern day retelling of Hosea

2008-06-11T07:39:00.001-05:00

I posted a few months ago about Crissy, a porn star who repented and returned to Jesus after years in the adult industry.

She recently posted something on her blog about a short movie (video sermon, really) that she is acting in. It's a modern day retelling of Hosea, in which Crissy plays the part of Gomer as a stripper that the prophet marries as a symbol of the Lord's faithfulness to an unfaithful people.

It sounds like an interesting project, and perhaps may attract some people who know of Crissy's story but wouldn't normally ever think about the Bible. Here's a post on Crissy's blog from the pastor who is producing the movie:

Crissy Myspace Blog - Guest Blog by Pastor Dave Cowan - OVERSOLD the Movie

Update 21-Nov-2008: I've now watched Oversold, and posted a review of it.

A Two-Letter Revelation

2008-06-06T07:50:00.002-05:00

LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. (Psalm 90:1)

As part of the SEEP program for FSM, I've been watching recordings of a class on the attributes of God taught by Stuart Greaves. The teaching is excellent (of course, it's Stuart!), and the content is amazing. It is significantly enlarging my perception of Who I'm talking to when I sit in the prayer room and say "God, give us Your Spirit of wisdom and revelation" over and over again. I keep getting hit with moments where I think "We have NO IDEA!" If we really believed God was who He says He is... well, I think almost everything about the American Church would be different.

One of those "We have no idea" moments came a few days ago while listening to Stuart talk about the eternity of God. I have a feeling that I'm going to have trouble communicating this with the same impact that it had on me, but I'll give it a try.

First, a quote by Stephen Charnock, from The Existence and Attributes of God:

God is his own eternity. He is not eternal by grant, and the disposal of any other, but by nature and essence. The eternity of God is nothing else but the duration of God; and the duration of God is nothing else but his existence enduring. If eternity were anything distinct from God, and not of the essence of God, then there would be something which was not God, necessary to perfect God. As immortality is the great perfection of a rational creature, so eternity is the choice perfection of God…

In Isaiah 57:15, it says that God "inhabits eternity". In other words, eternity is not merely time extended out forever, but eternity is actually outside of time.* But as Charnock correctly observes, eternity cannot be "the 'time' where God dwells" or else it would be something greater than God. God is His own eternity. And therefore, God dwells in God.

What else dwells in God? Well, for one thing, time. Here's how Stuart expressed it in his class notes:

Eternity is the realm in which God dwells. There is no time in the realm of eternity because time is subject to measurement. There is no past, present, or future in eternity. The very name of God is I AM. Time dwells in God.

Follow that through to its logical conclusion. If time itself exists in God, then what else exists in God? Everything.

As I realized that, verses that I read dozens of times and even prayed a few times came back to me one after another, all with one little two-letter word in big bold letters: "IN"

Acts 17:28
²⁸ for in Him we live and move and have our being...

Colossians 1:17
¹⁷ And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

John 5:26

²⁶ For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself,

Let that sink in for a moment. All of creation exists inside of God. Not in some mystical, spiritual sense. Literally. Physically - as much as it makes sense to talk about the Infinite God having a physical existence. A literal translation of the Greek for Colossians 1:17b would read, "the all in Him has stood together." In other words, the universe was "put together" within God (actually, within Jesus!).

Now, keeping this in mind, let your thoughts go back to the world as you have known it. You know all those people who don't like God? Who don't want Him to be in charge of their lives? How about the devil - the greatest creature the God made who is now in open rebellion against God? Every creature that rebels against its Creator is fighting against its own existence. Satan is inside of God, rebelling against the very One who continually upholds his existence.

And yet, God will not ultimately grant the request of suicidal, self-destructive creatures. Granting a terrifying dignity of choice to His creatures, He has decreed that every angel and every human being is going to exist forever - either in the eternal joy of fellowship with their Creator, or in the eternal torment of His wrath. It's up to you which one will be your destiny. In the words of the Apostle Paul:

...we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God! (2 Corinthians 5:20)

* The idea that the Creator is outside of time matches with the predictions of General Relativity. Einstein predicted the beginning of the universe in a Big Bang, before which not only space, but also time itself could not have existed.

SEEPing my way back to school

2008-05-27T07:31:00.001-05:00

After years of thinking and praying about possibly going to grad school or seminary, I have finally decided to take the plunge. As of a few weeks ago, I have enrolled in IHOP's Forerunner School of Ministry (FSM).

It's a bit of a compromise for me. I was leery of seminary because I really don't want my relationship with God to become academic. I'm also not really interested in debating controversial issues. I think far too much controversy is just a smokescreen to avoid the personal implications of the Bible's plain meaning. ("It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." - Mark Twain)

FSM is not a seminary, but I have received verbal assurance that students who are capable of working at that level will be treated as such. We shall see. The major advantages for me are (1) It is structured around IHOP's prayer room, and prayer room time is a required part of the program, so it should be easier to keep a vibrant walk with God in the midst of studying; and (2) Because I'll be in the prayer room, I can maintain my ministry as an intercessory missionary.

On top of that, I think there really may be something to FSM's tagline of "Redefining Theological Education through Night and Day Prayer." It's pretty clear to me that the current model of seminary education, by and large, is not producing leaders who radically impact society. Perhaps it's time to try putting the theological education together with a deep commitment to prayer, fasting, and personal holiness.

I'm excited about it. I'm actually starting classes this week - even before the end of the Fire in the Night internship - doing something called SEEP (Summer Early Entry Program). With a name like SEEP, you might think it was a way to slowly enter into the school semester, but in fact it's rather the opposite. I'm going to be taking 4 months' worth of classes in about 9 weeks, and the first 3 weeks of that will overlap the internship. Perhaps they should call it the Summer Crash Course Program instead.

Anyway, it should be an interesting summer. Watch this space for (irregular) updates!

The Call DC - Message from Lou Engle

2008-05-26T20:34:00.001-05:00

This is a video message recorded by Lou Engle at the end of TheCall Jerusalem about the upcming Call in Washington, DC. I encourage everyone who identifies themselves with Jesus and believes that the moral decay in the US is a crisis to seriously pray about going to DC on August 16.

New Sermon on Podcast - Stephen Venable

2008-05-20T19:47:00.005-05:00

I've put another sermon up on the Today and That Day podcast. This was actually the first sermon I heard when I came back to IHOP-KC for Fire in the Night Track 2 and it made a huge impression on me. I've been thinking a lot about Christology and the personality of the Lord Jesus recently, and I hope to post some of those meditations soon, but time to blog continues to be hard to find. This talk helps to lay the foundation for why that pursuit is so significant.

Stephen Venable - Growing in Intimacy

Stephen Venable, a professor at the Forerunner School of Ministry gave this message at an Encounter God Service in April '08. It is an excellent teaching on what intimacy with God really is and how we grow in it. He discusses the distinction between the invitation to intimacy (God wants you to know Him), the overflow of intimacy (the joy and peace and pleasure of knowing God), and the actual substance of intimacy (relational knowledge of God).

I believe this is the most concrete and practical teaching on intimacy with God that I've heard. (hint: it's all about Jesus!)

Teaching notes for this sermon can be found here.