An hour from now I may lose my life wrestling with an escaped bear. I know, it sounds unlikely (I’d win for starters), but bear with me in my point. As human beings we experience the now and can remember (to some degree) the past but we are always blind to the future. After all, the future is very resistant to prediction. The twists and turns of our lives make complex patterns that we can never fully follow, predict or anticipate. For Christians, as we deal with the ups and downs of life, we face an added layer of struggle which is the battle between sight and faith.
We all know this fight well. Something bad happens and sight, that is our immediate experience of the event, says: “I can see no good in this.” while faith quotes Romans 8 v 28 and says: “ALL THINGS FOR GOOD!” Faith being unnatural to us, we will by default place greater store on sight. It is an interesting condition: being limited finite creatures unable to see how the future will pan out, we place greater trust in our own limitations than we do in God. Oh the folly of unbelief! For what we are prone to forgetting is that faith is always the wisest option, it presents to us the most accurate picture of what is going on, it presents to us certainty while sight presents to us mere predictions of uncertainty. In the book of Hebrews faith is described in the following way: ““Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is a sure and certain thing! While sight is not so sure and most definitely not certain.
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Around eighteen months ago I wrote a blog post on the joy of attending a prayer meeting; so in the spirit of better late than never here's the next part to it! Truth be told, this was not a post I could have written back then because it has only been over the last six months or so that I've actually regularly started to look forward to going to church. Although it still surprises me when I wake up on Sunday and I find that I'm actually eager to attend.
Before I get started I'd also like to say that while the title to this piece speaks of abundant joy then that is still very much an aim for me. Most of us will hopefully know the partial joy of church attendance and it is my hope and prayer that this will spur us on to seek its abundant joy. The first and most basic joy is that of obedience. As the 4th commandment goes: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God." (Exodus 20v9-10) Even if our Lord's day is otherwise a joyless affair and we can see no point in attending church at least we do go. When all other joys fail there can still be the joy of duty, however minor such a joy may be. It is the golden rule of blogging that Spurgeon has been there before and said it better than you. So as I start a blog on prayer let me quote him: "Prayer girds human weakness with divine strength, turns human folly into heavenly wisdom, and gives to troubled mortals the peace of God. We know not what prayer can do."
In a recent editorial for the Reformed Presbyterian newsletter then Mr Quigley discusses bloggers who are adapt at pointing out flaws in the church but don't give the advice they should: "but there seems to be a glaring oversight when it comes to exhorting God’s people to cry out to the Lord for the salvation of the lost." (Source) All I can do is hold up my hands and admit that I am such a blogger. This then, is an effort to correct that glaring oversight with an encouragement and an extortion to pray more. It ties in well with the series of sermons my minster is going through on the work of the Holy Spirit, as for the last few weeks he has dealt with the Holy Spirit helping us to pray - his extraordinary way when we have no words but groan in agony of soul and in his ordinary way, when he helps us struggle and wrestle with God in prayer. In many ways I would love to be able to support theistic evolution for it would allow me to say that God is creator and yet still maintain my intellectual credibility in the eyes of the world. It would sidestep a debate that often gets bogged down in insults, anger and misunderstandings and it would avoid arguments that can often detract from talking about other issues of greater importance. If there is one view that I hold that will regularly result in insults (from both non-Christians and, tragically, Christians) then its being a six day creation literalist.
But my own 'intellectual credibility' forbids me from taking that path. It boils down to a simple question of ultimate authority: is it man's reason, as found in 'science'; or is it God, as found in his Word? Given that, as I will explain, theistic evolution is not supported by the Bible, how then can I accept the ideas of men above God? That is why my argument against theistic evolution is theological not scientific - the Bible is our ultimate authority on this matter. At its essence I see the creation/evolution debate as no more than a choice between God's description of events or man's description. It would be foolish to accept man's opinion of creation above the Creator's opinion on creation! This is hardly an unusual position to be in. Academic thought and biblical thinking have often battled with each other in various fields. After all, the resurrection is a subject where we happily reject the notion that it is a scientific impossibility and accept the truth of the Bible on the subject. The point is, being scorned for truth is not surprising, the world scorns us for the truth that homosexuality is a sin, abortion is murder and Sunday is the Lord's day. Why should we be concerned when a similar thing happens with creation? As we venture into this debate let us bear in minds the words of Jesus: "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5 v 11 - 12) Given that the internet sensation ‘Gangnam style’ has had over a billion hits on Youtube and spawned more parodies than I would care to mention then it got me thinking: what would a version of the song about Christianity look like? Regrettably, I am no lyricist so my answer will have to be given with ponderous words; lacking, to the relief of us all, any form of dance moves.
By Christian Style I mean a certain way of doing Christianity, a way that has no substance, its light and frothy, comfortable in the wrong sense, a way characterised by show, a pretence at the real thing. It’s when we say we’re Christian but we do not act like Christians, it’s the easy path not the hard path of obedience, and it is often our default setting for the Christian walk. The following list is by no means exhaustive but I hope it is challenging, I’ve found it hard to write. As we begin this, at every point then I encourage you to ask yourself: do you have Christian style? Piper tends to be quite divisive in reformed circles, either people love him for being a reformed baptist with mainstream appeal or they get really annoyed at his stance on the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. I fall into both camps, on the one hand I think he's a very wise and godly man with a great gift as a pastor. On the other hand, I get annoyed at his stance on extraordinary spiritual gifts.
The reason I bring this up is because a week ago on the Desiring God blog a video was posted of a short interview with Piper on tongues and prophesy. Of the two, I'm going to engage with the prophesy one first, you can watch it here, there's no strict need to watch it before reading what's to follow (but it will probably help). In the video he defends the continuationist view on the extraordinary gift of the Holy Spirit. It's a view that most people I know who are continuationist would hold to so its worth exploring what the problems with it are. It's probably worth adding that I use the term 'continuationist' to refer to everybody who thinks that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit - prophecy, tongues and healing have continued to this day. I use the term 'cessationist' to refer to those who think the extraordinary gifts ended with the death of the Apostles and the closing of the canon of Scripture. On December 29th then I came across a story in the telegraph about the decision of a judge that Christians have no right to refuse work on Sundays because, and I quote, “Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs.” It gets better, he went on to say: The fact that some Christians were prepared to work on Sundays meant it was not protected.”
First it is a really stupid decision, surely the issue is not what other Christians are doing but what the Christian teaching on work on Sundays is? Even if the matter was uncertain then her managers initially agreed to respect her decision that she could, in clear conscience, work on a Sunday. It’s not as if she deceived them and yet her stand for what she believed right is branded wrong because according to a secular judge, who seems to have little understanding of Christianity, working on a Sunday is not a core element to the faith. I suppose it is to be expected and rant aside there’s a bigger issue to talk about. This isn’t just a testament to the foolishness of the judge; far worse it is a massive rebuke to Christians in Great Britain. The judge was correct in saying that many Christians are prepared to work on a Sunday - the disobedience of these Christians heaps problems on the head of their brothers and sisters who are being obedient! The Christmas season is one of the few times of the year when people who ordinarily would not be seen dead in a church will go and sing some carols because, hey, it's Christmas! Sadly, such are the times that we live in that it is likely that they will go to a church that does not preach the gospel; or rather they will preach a gospel but it will not be the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ but a false gospel that instead of pointing them in the direction of salvation will usher people towards hell.
This is a great evil, as Paul writes: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galatians 1v8) It matters not if the intentions were good or if the church has the most noble of purposes, if a false gospel is preached then the speaker heaps condemnation on himself. What follows are some of the common false gospels that will be preached in churches this Christmas. I probably should add from the start that most are fairly subtle but that makes them all the worse for they are more likely to be believed. It must be of great delight to Satan that even when people do go into a church they only hear a corrupted gospel that does not proclaim the truth has is found in the Bible. Once again, I am delighted to introduce a guest blog post by James Mildred. I am happy to host any well written piece of work so if you would like to contribute please do get in touch! The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith defines the providence of God in the following way: “God the good creator of all things, in his infinite power and wisdom doth uphold, direct, dispose and govern all creatures and all things from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for which they were created, according unto his infallible foreknowledge and free and immutable counsel of his own will; to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness and mercy.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith is marvellously abridged in the shorter catechism: “God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and their actions.” In scripture we read: “Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgements, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay them? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.” [Romans 11: 33-36.] Matthew Henry comments on the apostle’s heartfelt cry of adoration towards God: “Paul was as well acquainted with the mysterious of the kingdom of God as ever any mere man was; and yet he confesses himself at a loss in the contemplation, and, despairing to find the bottom, he humbly sits down at the brink and adores the depth. “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
1 John 3 v 18 This verse has been on my mind a lot recently for I think it does a good job of summing up one of the failures of my own walk with God and, if I can be so bold as to generalise, the church as a whole. We know that the essence of Christianity is love: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13v13) and we know the summary of all of God’s commandments: “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matthew 22 v 37 – 39). And yet when push comes to shove then we are not very good at loving others. Oh, we are very good with loving with words and speech! It is easy to say “I’ll pray for you”, it is also pretty easy to actually pray, but if that’s all we ever do for our friends then we’ve missed the glaring point of Christian love. Don’t get me wrong, there is always room for encouraging words, promises to pray, a cheerful word, a reminder of a bible verse, these are good and we should overflow with them. But if that’s the extent of our love then we have a problem. And that problem is that we are not truly loving. Take the Lord Jesus Christ, he doesn’t just say he loves us, he doesn’t just pray for us, he doesn’t just give many encouraging promises to us (though he does all these things), Jesus also died for us. You can’t get more nitty gritty practical than that. As John writes a few verses earlier: “This 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 and sisters.” (1 John 3v16). In fact, if you follow John’s argument the reason why he calls us to love with actions is this is exactly what Jesus did! |
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