Archive for the 'Church' Category
If Spock Was A Seeker
Lights On During Fog
I’m sitting here watching a preacher on television, looking dapper in his nice pin-striped suit and colorful tie, offering well-traveled principles on how to get the most out of life. One of the points he has just made is “Learn How To Travel In The Fog” meaning, of course, when life is uncertain, there is One who is always certain and can be trusted, so follow His lead with the eyes of faith.
Good reminder to be sure.
The trouble is, when he made his point, the corresponding words that flashed on the television screen were slightly different. One little word was altered which changed the meaning completely. The person in the multimedia department who was responsible, and for whatever reason, flashed the words: “Learn To Travel In A Fog”. I’ll bet they wished they had caught it before it went to broadcast!
That seems to be the general atmosphere among the church scene of the 21st century. We yawn our way through Sunday and sleep-walk our faith throughout the week. Cobwebs grow along the cavernous chambers of our hearts. There is no bite, no vim and vigor and little passion in our love affair with Christ. What love affair? We’d rather keep it on the down-low, not wanting to turn it into something that will raise eyebrows or elicit exclaims of “what’s happened to you?” We prefer, many of us, to keep the thermostat on 75; not too hot, not too cool. Just right. Cozy, even.
I’m not posing that we look to emotionalism as being the savior of the church. Lord knows we have churches that pump up the jam, jump and shout amid lasers and stage lights and still have no more effect on cultural transformation than how a frog’s hopping in the woods would cause someone in town to turn his head worried over tremors and earthquakes. Whether the fog is on the stage or in the pews, no matter.
I am positing, however, a return to a high view of God. His being transcends all and if we lift our eyes above the fog, we will see Him. Tony Evans, pastor of the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, said he went to his neighborhood Wal-mart recently to shop for a few items. He didn’t want the hassle of long lines so he left his house early to avoid the hubbub but when he arrived, the parking lot was full. Groaning and not a little puzzled over why so many would be out shopping so early, he went inside to discover the reason: there was a store-wide clearance sale.
While waiting in one of those cursed long lines, it dawned on him that this is how most people approach their commitment level with Christ. If you can get God at a reduced price, they’re all for it. Keep God cheap and they’re in. But offer me a God at retail, or worse, an inflated price, uh, no thanks, I’ll just sleep in.
Say what you want about the Puritans, I have a strong appreciation for my forebears concerning the esteem to which they raised and praised God. It sounds out-dated I know, but they feared Him something fierce! Sure, at times they went a little overboard with the language of we humans as low-down dirty worms and worthless, but they really knew how to exalt the Almighty to the highest place and give Him His due honor.
Over the weekend, I heard some Christian girl group from the UK sing about Jesus as being their “sunshine”, all the while dancing and looking worldly and seductive; and though the sound was catchy, the lyrics were so nebulous one could easily think they were singing about a boyfriend. We want to package Christianity so close to the world’s comfort level (“keep Him cheap”) thinking that will hook them when all it does is muddy the waters a good deal more. Christianity then gets so assimilated into all other religions and worldviews it has lost its potency.
Ah, but go to the airwaves or workplace and herald Christ as the Almighty, omnipotent, transcendent Lord, the only way and only hope for mankind, then heads will turn and the fog will clear. Our culture is saddled with many gods, none of which can save the human race. We, the people of the only true God, must get God out of the bargain basement and elevate Him in our lives, our homes, and our weekly places of worship.
Who wants to fall in love with “Sunshine”? No, beloved, but I certainly can swoon and blush at the thought of creation’s Creator fighting and conquering all enemies just to win me for His Bride! And to think He’s coming for me—any day now!—makes me want to be ready and clear-headed.
Though I’m dark You say I am lovely
Though I’m poor You say I am beautiful
Somehow my weakness has overwhelmed You
Somehow my weak glance has stolen away Your heart
That’s reason and motivation enough, wouldn’t you say? Oh, and if you catch me napping, remind me of these things. And if I look like I’m in a fog, do me a favor and slap some sense into me.
Left-Turn Jesus?
When Jesus entered Jerusalem amid the cries of “Liberate us! Rescue us! Now! Today!” He once again zigged when mob mentality preferred He zag and have done with it. Our Savior who was there when beasts of burden were created, gently nudged the animal on which He was riding to go right when all of the Passover throng urged Him left.
Had He gone left, the road would have taken Him to the Fortress of Antonias, the residence of Pilate who was then governor of Judea. You can almost imagine the egress of humanity as it parted to give their conquering king leeway to lead the revolution Rome-ward. Get Rome out of our Home! signs, if there were such, would say. The waving of palm branches and the rubbing of palms would intermingle buoyed by the hoots and hollers of antsy renegades long tired of Gentile occupation.
But He turned right instead.
“Wha–?”
“What the–?”
“Where’s He going? Jesus! Jesus! Wrong way!”
“Left!”
“Left, we say!”
But the butt end of a donkey spoke volumes. Its right flank told the fed-up malcontents that this King may not be their king after all. Where was He going? Oh wait, I know, some thought. Optimism rising: He’s gonna do a victory lap around the city BEFORE He rides into the jaws of Gentile dominion. But they were wrong.
Gently coaxing the beast onward through the thickening atmosphere of suspicion and burgeoning alarm, the Teacher wended His way past the curious and the quietened. Mouths were hanging open and palm branches drooped, tips touching the stone and sand of the city. Whispers carried over the tops of heads and more than a few voices raised in faltered protest, still not exactly sure what this quasi-king was up to.
The Temple. Oh, sure, He needs to go into the Temple for a blessing before He confronts the enemy. So they thought.
The outer court of the Temple proper was filled with turtledoves, pigeons, lambs and rams. Moneychangers had their booths set up all over the area and as Jesus dismounted, a strange and deadly fire billowed in His eyes. He looked upon the carnivalian sight with disgust and wasted little time finding some cords with which to fashion whips. If no one had been watching and wondering up until now, they were certainly doing just that in this moment. What was He going to do? Wait! The whips must be for the backs of the oppressors!
Hardly.
With zeal no one had seen until this time, the Christ’s arms flashed out tentacles of cord against the backs of the moneylenders and court shysters. The tips never touched animal flesh but how they snaked and bit into the cloth and skin of those who were turning this sacred ground into their operations of greed and blasphemy. How the Son of Man whirled in furious passion, a blur of blazing authority! Howling out protests agains such unrequited insolence, these merchants of mayhem ran for the exits and straight into the waiting arms of the planners of the carpenter’s demise.
Fast forward several days.
Pilate stands before the mob, irritated and incredulous at their fickleness. How could the same people who lauded and applauded this pitiful Man a few days earlier now want His blood to run down the sewers of the city? Can anyone figure out these lunatics? He called for a man named Jesus to be brought forward, a terrorist imprisoned for atrocities against Roman soldiers. Standing him beside another Man named Jesus, he said:
“Which Jesus do you want?”
You see, One Jesus had said to anyone who would listen for three years that He had come from His Father and most if not all knew exactly what He meant. He was saying quite literally He was the sent-One from God, God in human flesh, the One this nation had been waiting for, prophesied for centuries, and He was here, now.
The other Jesus was one who spoke their language and gave them exactly what they wanted. Few know his first name was Jesus but most know him as Bar-abbas, translated: the son of his father, and both stood side by side before the world, as it were, and, except for a shockingly small number, most chose the one who would give them immediate satisfaction. They wanted the freedom-fighter, not the Giver of Freedom. They wanted the one who whipped the Romans, not the Jews.
And so Jesus was tried, convicted and crucified. All because He turned right instead of left.
There are so many ways to take this but I want to submit that much of what is called the church today, had it been living in that era, would, I fear, blend into that fickle mob, choosing a left-turn Jesus rather than a right-turn Lord. Many do not want a Supreme King to reign over them but they are fired-up silly for a God who will give them what they want.
Peter himself, in a fit of schizonphrenia, told Jesus to turn left just weeks from Passion week, way up in the foothills of Mt. Hermon near Caesarea Philippi (see Matt. 16:21-22). Jesus told the disciples ahead of time which way He would turn, but Peter said, “NO! Not on my watch You won’t!” You see, Peter couldn’t stand the thought of Jesus dying—for a variety of reasons, some of them subtle, some not-so. I think that the impulsive fisherman innately knew Jesus’ death meant his own would surely follow.
That’s the church, or at least what passes for the church today. We want left, left, left! But Jesus is turning right. See Him? And if we are His people, we need to go that way too.
Must Jesus bear the cross alone
And all the world go free?
No, there’s a cross for everyone
And there’s a cross for me.
The consecrated cross I’ll bear
Till death shall set me free;
And then go home my crown to wear
For there’s a crown for me!
This post inspired by David Pawson’s teaching, “The Uniqueness of Christ”
This was in my inbox today.
Let the Body of Christ feel the chains.
Let us rise up as one and pray.
May our pleadings before the Throne bring to ruin the purposes of the enemy.
Precious friends,
It is with anticipation and with some sadness that I share this story with you today. I am full of anticipation because I know our Lord does great things and can deliver anyone from a death sentence. He already has for those of us who follow Him. However, it breaks my heart that Christians all over the world are not living in freedom like we do here in the States. My prayer today is that some of the sadness I feel over this situation with our brother in North Korea, will subside as millions of you get involved and come to the defense of this precious brother.
The Voice of the Martyrs has set up a special webpage that will give you all of the information you need to get involved and to tell others how to get involved with helping the persecuted. But first, let me brief you on the situation.
Yesterday there was a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., concerning the situation with Son Jong Hoon’s brother. Senator Sam Brownback and representatives from VOM attended the Press Conference. The following is part of the press release from yesterday:
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Son Jong Hoon, who is visiting the United States from his home in South Korea, today pleaded with the world to pressure North Korea to release his elder brother awaiting public execution for the crime of simply being a Christian. For more than a year, Son Jong Nam, former North Korean Army officer-turned-underground-evangelist, has been beaten, tortured and held in a bleak, North Korean death row basement jail in this capital city. He has been sentenced to public execution as an example to the North Korean people.
. . .
VOM was been joined in the initiative by Brownback, a noted supporter of human rights for North Korean refugees. Brownback sent letters last week, also signed by Senators Baucus (D-Mont.), Durbin (D-Ill.), Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Vitter (R-La.) asking U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to work to secure the release of the Christian prisoner
VOM is directing people go to its web site, www.prisoneralert.com, where they can compose a personal letter of support and encouragement to Son. The letter is to be mailed to the North Korean delegation to the United Nations, along with a cover letter asking the North Korean government to spare Son’s life, release him from prison immediately, report on his current status and deliver the personal letter to Son.
“We are asking for prayers for Mr. Son, but also that people around the world take action on his behalf,” said Todd Nettleton, director of media development for VOM. “Jesus said ministering to a prisoner was like ministering to Himself. Every letter and email can make a difference.”
To learn more about this situation please click here to visit the website set up specifically for this.
Please visit www.prisoneralert.com
Thanks Everyone and please pass it on,
Stacy L. Harp
Voice of the Martyrs
Blind Leading the Blonde
You may have noticed so few posts here recently. Of course I could say my wife and I were out of town a few days visiting her folks in Florida but that’s not the real reason for my absenteeism. I confess there’s been so little in the way of inspiration of late. Today’s post is evidence of that.
I’ve got a ‘blonde’ joke for you.
Before I regale you with side-splitting humor, let me give you a little background. While in Florida, I visited one of my favorite church fellowships, the Calvary Chapel of St. Pete. The message was, as I’ve previously found, refreshing, poignant and heartfelt. As was the worship. The cool thing I experienced was some fellowship I enjoyed with a gentleman minutes before the service began. He took such an interest in me, my background and the fact I was a visiting pastor. About a minute before, he said, “Oh man, I gotta get up there” and nodded to the platform. Well, I knew he wasn’t the pastor because I remembered him, so I asked, “Are you on the worship team?” He smiled and said sheepishly, “Yeah, I guess you can say that. I’ve led worship here for twenty years.”
Thirty seconds later, Bob Corry was on the stage with two other men, leading us in acoustic worship that was water to my parched soul. So cool.
Anyhoo, Danny Hodges, the man I do remember as pastor, got up to speak, expositing from the gospels on the teaching ministry of our Savior. Nestled within the exposition this man launched into a blonde joke that took quite a risk but, frankly, he pulled off.
Seems a blind guy walks into a bar. He tells the barkeep he wanted to tell a blonde joke.
“I’ll have you know, sir,” the bartender said, “that I am blonde and could toss you out of here with no problem. I’ll also have you know the guy sitting next to you is a weightlifter and benchpresses several hundred pounds. He’s also blonde. And over your shoulder is a blonde guy who weighs over three hundred pounds and works as a bouncer. You still want to tell your blonde joke?”
The blind guy smiles and says, “Not if I have to explain it three times.”
The crowd roared and, last time I checked, the man is still pastor there.
I know what you’re thinking: Hurry up, Scott, and get inspired. This stuff is rubbish.
The Least Of These
40,000 children die every day worldwide to starvation and pestilence. India and Africa combined are burdened with ninety percent of this sad figure. The rest are spread over Latin American countries. Fifteen million children die every year worldwide.
Do you cry?
In Afghanistan, children as young as 8 years old are being given away in marriage for the bride price to keep families from starving. According to Starvation.net, someone dies on our planet every other second to AIDs, starvation or waterborne diseases—eighty-five percent are children. 20% of children in Niger, Africa will die before they reach the age of five.
Am I paying attention?
One out of six members of the human race lives on less than a dollar a day while the average American consumer has to dig around in their wallets and purses for a measly $88. Oh, this is our hardship each and every day. The average American family has 16 credit cards that carry a debt load of $8000. Our average yearly income puts us in the ‘richest in the world’ category. Even those at the poverty line in the United States with cars, cable and air conditioning are among the elite class of the world.
Is this easy to swallow?
How hard it is to say that we are the gluttons at the world’s dinner table, hoarding the food on our end and giving only one-hundreth of a single percent ($33 per day YEAR per American household) of our bounty and toss it to the starving masses like crumbs. Those kind of crumbs are hard to divide up and spread around. No wonder so many in the world hate us.
Can we blame them?
While we do not even remotely resemble a third world country here on our end of the globe, it’s still awfully risky for children to make it past the age of five in these here United States. Abortion takes care of that with almost 1.5 million murders of our children every year. Fortunately, 4 million others make the cut.
Should we celebrate?
How ironic that we choose to kill our young while scores across this globe wish their children had one more day.
God and Going Postal
Postage has gone up.
(Yay.)
I recently came across a story in blogdom that might make this a good thing. Turns out, a pastor was sick, tired and fed up with ministry. It was late on Sunday after a full day of preaching and he felt yet again that he was facing a bunch of zombies and malcontents and he had had enough, thank you very much. So he sat right down and wrote his congregants a letter. It wasn’t exactly a letter of resignation but he did confess, “Perhaps my work here is finished.”
Where was his wife in this? No, she wasn’t telling him to pray on it, sleep on it, see if he feels differently in the morning. She wasn’t giving the poor man any of those tender, wifely “suck it up, mister” speeches. No-o, rather she was pulling the letters out of the printer, stuffing them in envelopes and addressing each one by hand! Then, before midnight, she was at the post office opening the central mailbox of their town and dropping the stacks of letters inside.
Later the next day, all of the letters found their way back to the church office. Not realizing postage had gone up overnight, the poor pastor was shocked to find they were returned to sender, marked “undeliverable” because there was not enough postage!
“This isn’t funny, Lord,” he railed to the ceiling. Then he busted out laughing.
Shamed by his own impulsiveness, that pastor thanked God that that day, of all days, the post office had decided to raise the price of a stamp and quite possibly saved his job.
The next time you want to quit, ask yourself:
(1) who am I doing this for? Myself? Or the Lord?
(2) who stands to lose the most if I quit?
(3) exactly how have I arrived at this decision?
(4) have I sought counsel from those who would tell me the truth? (avoiding them tells a lot)
(5) will this decision deepen my character, or betray it?
(6) is this decision best for the long-term, or short-term?
(7) will intimacy with Christ grow? Or wane?
Do you have any other questions worth asking?
Theologically speaking, I am closer to Wesley than I am to Luther or Calvin, the same way ‘3′ is closer to ‘1′ than, say, ‘10′ is. I’m sure this will surprise or even disappoint some of my fellow theologues out there but there it is. Once upon a time I was a strict dispensationalist. A cessationist. A fundamentalist (note the emphasis is on the last syllable). I still adhere to the fundamentals which include the virgin birth, the vicarious death of Christ, His victorious resurrection and visible return to earth and the veracity of the holy scriptures . If you notice from that list I have conveniently alliterated it, showing my homiletic roots from which I can never stray very far. Tragically, there are more than three points, however, and no poem.
Well, you can’t please everybody.
Some time ago, the Lord had me all in knots over Paul’s first missive to Timothy when he wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the startling prediction that “in the last days some will depart from THE faith…” This taxed me to no end especially when I laid it alongside Christ’s sobering conclusion to His famous Sermon (“MANY will say to Me on that day…”), my neatly packed world began to writhe and sway. This tumultuous “sword drill” further rocked my world when God added more beef to the stew through this interchange between Jesus and a seeker:
“Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?”
“Strive to enter through the narrow door,” He replied, “for MANY, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able…”
I see little ’striving’ these days. I garner that such a message has been deemed non sequitur by moderns and we evangelicals have retooled it so we can help God turn the “few” into “many.” Sorry, Lord, but we think we can get You bigger numbers with some favorable repackaging. Whaddaya say we tone down the Gospel a smidge, hide some of its dicier demands, and make it easier to get in? Hey, I know, let’s get people to pray a quick prayer, shake their hand and tell ‘em they’re saved? Forget the aisle or public confession, just have ‘em pray it silently in their seats with no one looking around! Wouldn’t want ‘em to feel self-conscious…even if they don’t connect with a faith family, no matter. They’re in. It’s all done.
If Barna’s right, then there’s not a whole lot more to do in America because 8 or 9 out of ten polled people consider themselves heaven-bound. Hooray! Our way has worked!
Oh, sorry, Jesus…uh, You’re still Lord and everything…
When it comes to evangelism, the church in our era is more like the proverbial hare, like a rocket out of the gate and hurry-scurry across the countryside, and Jesus’ style is more like the tortoise, plodding, purposeful and particular. And terribly effective.
When I was a teenager in the 70s, our youth group at church would go door-to-door witnessing on Thursday nights in area neighborhoods. I, however, would board a church van with three or four other guys and we would be taken into the seedier side of town, amid drug deals and shootings, to share the gospel on street corners. We were the ‘preacher boys.’ Our goal was to get as many saved as we could, so our presentation went something like this:
“How many of you want to go to heaven when you die?”
There was always a group of ten, fifteen, or thirty curious listeners, mainly children, and mostly puzzled by upper middle class white guys converging on their turf. When the question was raised, so were the hands. Even some adults lifted an arm to the air. Immediately, we knew we had them.
“If I could tell you that you could have a mansion one day, walk on streets of pure gold and live forever, would you be interested?”
They were hooked. Mostly by the mansion thing, but hooked, nonetheless. By now, some more children were filtering our way and they, too, were betaken by visions of fairies, angels and huge marble palaces. And gum. Not hard to see, really, when the streets we proclaimed this gospel from were not golden and lined by rows and rows of shanties. Well, anyway, I would hurry through the death, burial and resurrection part of the gospel because you couldn’t stay on these matters too long or you’d lose them. They were in it for bigger game. How do I get a mansion, mister? So, I would wrap up the “sermon” part and reel them in.
“So, if you want to live forever and have your very own mansion, repeat this prayer after me…”
Many did. We’d count the noses then report back to the van our great success. Never did know what became of those noses, however. The difference between our method and the first century understanding of the gospel was that we’d count noses and jump for joy! Those early disciples would make disciples and change the world.
Though the above scenario is absolutely true, I realize that I’ve caricatured to an extent and culled something from a different time, but over all I see very little in the western church that reflects the last sentence of my previous paragraph. Going back to those earlier texts, I am greatly burdened by a man-centered gospel that is powerless to save and weak against the kingdom of darkness. I fear for a people who are basing their salvation on “greasy” grace (slide in on a wing and a prayer), a little prayer and handshake, a raised hand during an invitation long, long ago, a gospel about heaven and not Him and who are unwitting targets for the great falling away.
Brothers, something’s wrong. And we’d better address it.
One-Sided Dialogue
Ever been in a conversation that could’ve gone on without your presence?
I get the feeling that is what the Sovereign Lord bemoans when He enters into dialogue with His church. He’s wanting the church to ‘zig’ with Him but all she seems capable of doing is a nice little ‘zag’ maneuver and then au
daciously pats herself on the back thinking the Lord Christ is wowed by her suaveness (yes, it’s a word) and dexterity. The things that are on His heart have not seemed to be captured in the weekly homilies coming from our pulpits. We’re on a whole ‘nother plane altogether (as in: get your seat cushions ready, we’re in a nosedive) and though God is wanting to talk about His Kingdom, we want to checkmate Him with ours.
So there I was on a recent Saturday night, while all other pastors are on their faces begging God for a sermon or on the internet getting a “ready-made” one, I was taking a different tack altogether. Because I had the Sunday “off” I thought I might see what the religious channels might be serving up (warning, heavy satire ahead). First up was a pastor from the midwest and he was talking about “seed” and “prosperity.” I actually heard him say this:
“Wouldn’t it be great if all we had in our church were millionaires and billionaires?”
Okayyyyy…that’s quite a dream you got there, sir.
And then:
“I’ve always taught that God wants you to be wealthy, but now I’ve changed that. God needs you to be wealthy.”
So, God has fallen on hard times? Hey buddy, can you spare a dime? Guess that’s to be expected after millennia of blessings pouring out of the windows of heaven. I mean, really, just how long can His coffers hold out? Let’s be serious…
“It’s been true that the wealth of the nations is laid up for the righteous,” he continued, ramping up his argument because, obviously, papa needed a new set of golf clubs, “but that is changing. The wealth of the nations is now in the hands of the righteous!”
Really, now? Tell that to the little old lady who has given fifty percent of her fixed income to the Lord for years and keeps the carpet in her prayer closet warm with her arthritic knees for missionaries around the world. I found it interesting that as the camera panned over the crowd, many of the faces it found were puckered and tired as if this dead horse had been beat on one too many times. Time to go… Continue reading ‘One-Sided Dialogue’
Manna and Mammon
bou-lim-i-a [boo-lim-ee-uh, -lee-mee-uh, buh-] a serious eating disorder, characterized by compulsive overeating usually followed by self-induced vomiting or laxative or diuretic abuse, and is often accompanied by guilt and depression
Fallen, fallen, fallen
Is Babylon
Fallen, fallen, fallen
Is the City of Doom
The queen of every dark desire
Fallen by famine, plague and fire
Fallen is Babylon
Fallen is the City of Doom!
–Michael Card, City of Doom
We christians are something. We binge and purge our way through the world like a bunch of spiritual boulimics, pining for and dining on Egypt. Trouble is, Spirit doesn’t mix with Egypt and sonship and onions make a lethal cocktail. Mixing leeks and manna sours the stomach and fouls the breath, yet we say it is the way to stay relevant; so we pull up our chairs at the pub, get tipsy on Nile water, not as drunk as the pagan in the next stool mind you, but tipsy enough to coherently give ‘em the Romans Road in a bar ditty.
How ironic that we fight for things like blended worship to make everyone happy when there is a much more pathological issue of blended worship going on among those who name the name of Christ: Jesus said it was like trying to serve both “God and mammon” (you say mammon is money but it is really anything that steals our devotion from the Lord and thus opposes Christ). Light and dark. Egypt and the Promised Land. The broad road and the narrow road. Babylon and Zion. Manna and mammon.
Sadly, too many of us swallow Egyptian food then regurgitate it because, while we may like its taste, we don’t want the curse that goes along with it. Quoting from a friend, we’re “buying real estate on the Nile River” instead of packing our bags for the wilderness. We choke down leeks and onions along with our Passover Lamb even though the Death Angel is just down the street.
Let me tell you where all this ranting is coming from. It is on me. Me, I tell you! Although I am a saved man I confess I still dabble in Babylon. The other morning when I should have given the earliest hours to the Lord, it was more important to me to see to some other tasks and the Lord called me on it. And while we’re on the subject, Scott, he added, what’s the deal with you watching that stuff on TV last night? Do you enjoy sitting through a movie that curses My name?
I immediately fell into repentance and confessed to My Master that I can be such an ‘Egyptophile’. I said, Lord, the man You saved does not want or need the bells and whistles, comforts and conveniences, luxuries and bounty of this world. The man You saved wants YOU! He wants YOU at the loss of all other things this world has to offer. Babylon is fallen! Fallen! Why in heaven’s name would I want a world that has a life span?
My prayer to the Lord that morning continued (I often write my prayers to the Lord),
The man you saved is a violent warrior. He is looking ever and only to the Commander and seeks to please Him. He is faithful to Sandy, never looking at another. He is a Lover and a Leader. The man You saved is a friend to all and will freely give his shirt and coat to one in need—even though he has his own needs. The man You saved lives the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle. He isn’t entrusting his soul to a prayer he prayed or an aisle he walked but to the Person of Christ. He is a “Lord’s Prayer Man” not a “Sinner’s Prayer Man.” Thy Kingdom come, Lord, and let it come in me!
I know this man is alive, Lord, and every once in awhile I can actually see him. So why do I still feast at ‘Pharaoh’s Diner’? Why do I do it only to look in the mirror later and disgust myself? If this man, this saved man, can muscle up to the head of the line and punch the lights out of this other entity who passes himself off for me, I know he will never choose Egypt and its crap (’scuse the language, used only for effect) because he knows, (a) it is never palatable, and (b) it is passing. This saved man will never forage for a half-eaten Wendy’s burger covered in maggots in some dumpster but will sell all he has for the Manna from heaven.
That’s what got me on this soap box today. I sincerely hope I didn’t needlessly offend you but every once in a blue moon I need a swift kick in the derriere to jolt me back into kingdom reality when I catch myself eyeing the green of Egypt. And I suspect you do too. So, c’mon, brothers and sisters, let’s stop the retching. The bags are all packed, the wilderness is calling, and the Lord is wooing us to our inheritance. Giants will fall. Kingdoms will perish. And we will not look back, by the grace of God, but forge ahead. What’s to miss, after all?
Someone please pass the manna…
Is it just me or am I hearing the loud silence of acceptance of the rising gas prices lately? Recently, I sighed at the large sign up the road, blaring the news that gas had risen to two and three quarters’ bucks per gallon, unleaded. My, how things can change in a year. Twelve months ago when the prices had risen to nearly three dollars a gallon in my hometown, the consternation was palpable; people were calling their congressmen, the governor stepped in, and angry mobs with torches and pitchforks were marching on filling stations. But that was last year.
So, what’s that I hear today?
*crickets*
Guess those anger management classes have worked wonders. Or perhaps we’ve all gotten sheepish after all those empty threats of showing the gas companies by not driving. If memory serves, our lust for the road didn’t downshift one iota, so we ate our crow and found that silence is the better virtue. Or maybe we just got conditioned to the frenetic oil market and what was once a crisis is now commonplace, redolent of the proverbial frog in a kettle. Mmmmm, yeah, a nice warm bath after a hard day…hey, do you smell something? Smells like chicke
n…
The church too has been conditioned by the elements around her and rather than jumping out of the fryer, she has gotten comfy in the nice warm liquid bubbling all around her. She’s made agreements and concessions with the world, looked the other way and sold bits and pieces of herself to the lowest bidders. And with each rising degree she adapts. She thinks she can win the world so long as she stands one half-step away from it even though she sloshes around in the same putrid waters the world splashed in just a half-step earlier.
“Stockholm Syndrome” has invaded the church. She has become sympathetic and friendly to the same world system that has abducted her and would see her die. The thing about “SS” is that while the abductee might become more friendly toward the captor, the captor remains just as determined to see his scheme through, never becoming amenable or sympathetic. The church is deceived into thinking her becoming more worldly will work to her advantage. (A note here: I’m talking about ‘church’ in the most general terms, not she who is the Bride, the wise virgin, the one wrapped in His Light)
In various parts of the world today, where the heat is the strongest against the church, 150,000 are martyred yearly. This is overt persecution. What we have in America today is another type of persecution altogether. It has been called “warm” persecution (as in the temperature slowly being raised and the church’s being oblivious to it until it is too late) or “passive” persecution, which elicited this comment from a visiting Chinese pastor who was eyewitness to the seductively damning culture of America, “It would be very difficult to stand for Christ in the face of such persecution.”
While America burns, the church is up in her palaces playing the fiddle with her eyes closed, not once taking into account that those same fires will soon consume her as well. It is clear the church is making no impact on modern society here in the west. Instead I have this peculiar picture in my head that the collective society, from media to man on the street, stands over the pot like diabolical schoolkids giggling at the frog. Poke him, Ernie, see if he jumps…no, no, turn the knob…higher!…higher!…
Or maybe they don’t notice us at all.
Five years ago, George Barna wrote, “It is quite astounding that although Protestant and Catholic churches have raised - and spent – close to one trillion dollars on domestic ministry during the past two decades, there has been no measurable increase in one of the expressed purposes of the church: to lead people to Christ and have them commit their lives to Him.” In 2005 his reporting showed that despite higher levels of creativity, glitzier marketing, savvier productions, cheekier technos and slicker services, spirituality has not deepened and our cities still puke out the fumes of the dark kingdom that rules over them.
And here we are, doing the backstroke, not feeling the burn. Hey, I ask you, my reader, is there hope? Is there not a cause? Is this thing salvageable? What is the application of all this for YOU? (hint, hint, I’m asking for comments)
Always Mr. Wright?
I like John MacArthur. I really do. I can say without overstating the facts that the Lord used his teaching ministry in fair measure to get me back on the right path to God when I had gone astray a number of years ago. While I understand he’s taken a lot of heat of late from his own reformed camp with regard to his views on eschatology, that is not the reason for this post.
In a recent sermon, well, not so recent but one that I recently listened to, he colored N.T. Wright in a less than favorable light (a poet and don’t know it), saying that the famed bishop in the Church of England writes in such a way as to suggest that his explanations and apologetics for our faith are more accurate and convincing than the entire body of conservative Biblical writing up till now. Okay, that may be well and good. I know Wright should be on my list of reading, but I confess I am one of the (apparently) rare ministers who have never read from the good bishop. He may be a deceiver of the elect, I don’t know (somehow I don’t think so). I cannot answer to MacArthur’s quip.
And yet, at the close of his sermon, the Grace to You broadcast went immediately to commercial where Dr. MacArthur advertised a couple of solid resources for spiritual understanding and growth in the Christian Life. One was his very own study Bible. I have one and, I admit, got a lot out of it a few years ago when I used it for my personal time with God. I read every note, every chart, every line and gleaned much. Believe me, the man is a gifted teacher and student of scripture and I respect his place within the community of faith quite adoringly. So far the Pyromaniacs love me. Are you sensing a “but” here? Continue reading ‘Always Mr. Wright?’
Revising The Gospel
A great post and quote from JR Woodward over at Dream Awakener and worthy of a listen. May God convict and deliver us from a convoluted, adulterated, watered-down Gospel. Is this what so many have given their life-blood for?
For the life of me, I can’t see it.
The following thought was written in 1984: “Many evangelicals here [San Jose, Costa Rica] have commented on the implications of the fact that, when one of our best evangelists held a campaign a few years ago in Nicaragua, President Somaza gladly helped defray campaign expenses. Such a fact - hardly an isolated instance in Latin America - raises the suspicion that something has gone wrong with our comprehension of the gospel.
When John the Baptist preached the good news of the kingdom, the Roman government (quite superior to that of Somoza) imprisoned and beheaded him. When Jesus preached his good news to the poor, he was crucified. Peter and Paul were always getting carted off to prison.
But when we preach our revised, apolitical version, dictators and tyrants are eager to help us cover the costs! This anomaly has even the fundamentalists and dispensational theologians in Latin America starting to ask whether our “made in the U.S.A.” version of the gospel has not changed and emasculated the message in some way.
Everything we say may appear exceedingly good and biblical. But instead of ‘making low the mountains and elevating the valleys’ have we managed to bury the ’stone of stumbling’?”
- Thomas D. Hanks For God So Loved the Third World
Dan Edelen, over at Cerulean Sanctum, posted this gut-check article which he has entitled, “Big Box Altars.” The whole article is worth the read but I share this portion of it as it called to mind the sons of Aaron who brought “strange fire” to the Lord. Much of what we call worship in our 
corner of the globe is nothing more than a stained-glass charade. It’s man’s best coming to the Lord by man’s own way, by his own rules, rife with self-indulgence and self-effort. Such worship is too neat, too pretty, awfully scripted and hollow. And it fizzles.
Does our worship even come close to what is shown in Scripture? Could you fall on your face in the aisle next Sunday without disrupting the agenda? Could you dance (not you Pentecostals…I’m talking to the Methodists) like David danced without getting eyeballed like David got eyeballed? Can you weep between the porch and the altar? Can you get so lost in worship that you forget there’s anyone else in the room? Hey, here’s one: when’s the last time you’ve seen an adult run from his car to the front door of the sanctuary just because he was excited to come in to the house of the Lord?
Enough of me, here’s Mr. Edelen’s thoughts:
I’ve got to believe there’s something wrong with a Church where week in and week out there’s no weeping before the altar of the Lord. If a man can go through an entire church year without once falling on his face weeping, without soaking the church carpeting with his tears, something’s desperately wrong with his church.
I’ve got to believe that a church will never amount to much for the Kingdom if it never once sees someone get up and dance during worship. I’ve got to believe that a church filled with people who just sit and nod their heads will be asleep when the Bridegroom comes. The Holy Spirit’s missing in a church that goes through the emotionless motions.
How can an unstirred church reflect anything resembling the abundant life?
In C.S. Lewis’s masterful book, The Great Divorce, he posits a heaven so substantial that all of life this side of it resembles a vapor. Massive, unearthly Christians fill that dense heaven, giants, heroes that shake the foundation of the world with their conquests. How then can it be that so little life fills believers today? Why is it that we cannot find succor for our souls on Sunday, but instead find our hearts strangely warmed—if only for a passing moment—by a 60″ plasma display rocking with the Final Four?
Have we Christians rendered Christ so inconsequential? Have we denied the power of YHWH for the power of LG?
What happened to passion and fire?
An Anglican bishop is speaking up. Tired of his church’s perceived impotence and irrelevance while England’s evangelical roots are being duly pulled up and supplanted with seeds of tolerant inclusivism, this Jack is shimmying up the beanstalk. Bishop Michael Nazir-ali of Rochester is taking off the proverbial gloves and serving notice to satan’s dark kingdom that it is high time for England to again reassert her Christian identity. Amid a “multi-faith mish-mash” the good bishop sees the bludgeoning and erasing of his own.
And it’s just plain ticking him off.
He is calling for the evangelical population to rise and be counted, to resist neutrality and irrelevance and is even calling out Prince Charles for wanting to be known as the “Defender of Faith” (i.e., all faiths) instead of guarding the sacred trust handed down to the Heir of the Throne as “Defender of THE Faith.” Ahem, Christianity.
Nazir-ali’s England now embraces “rooms for reflection” instead of hospital chapels and spaces previously set aside for Christian worship are known as “multi-faith venues.” The Bishop of Rochester is from Pakistan and knows well the price to be paid for being born Muslim and converting to Christ. It’s not for the faint of heart. And he knows all too well that too much blood has been spilled in the soil of his adopted homeland and the hallways of its history still echo with the voices of brave and gallant warriors of the faith.
Time will tell if his co-mingling voice will fall on deaf ears. There is more. A law may soon be passed making it illegal in England to refuse any kind of service to gays (are you paying attention, evangelical America?). If one’s moral and spiritual code compels them to refuse to rent a room to a gay couple at their bed-and-breakfast, the government will shut them down. If a pastor refuses to marry a gay couple, he will be fined and imprisoned. If a church school refuses to include curriculum that endorses the homosexual lifestyle as a viable alternative, there would be recriminations.
I guess the point of this is: what might God be stirring over there in the stiff-as-a-board Anglican institution? Bishop Nazir-ali is not alone. Other clerics are now joining ranks and crying from the rooftops. Could it be that satan has awakened a Sleeping Giant? Is a Wesley right now stomping the sleep out of his legs? Is a Wilberforce now rising to challenge the status quo? Is a Cranmer ready to cast off compromise and offer his hand to the fire? Is there a new Latimer begging to be lit on fire for God? Is there a William Wallace itching to “pick a fight”?
We can only pray.
I’ll probably get some stern looks and cold shoulders for posting this, but, hey, I just calls it likes I sees it, even though I didn’t write it. But I should have.
Pardon me while I go check to see if I have any guts…
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“THE NEW FAMILY TRUMP CARD” (Family Time v Church Time)
by Albert Mohler (www.albertmohler.com)
Is “family time” encroaching on “church time?” Leadership, a publication in the Christianity Today family of magazines, surveyed 490 pastors last year, asking them about church life and family. A major theme — parents are taking their kids to soccer games rather than to church.
The soccer games are only an illustration, of course, but team sports loom larger and larger in the lives of many kids and families, often leaving little time for anything else.
From the Leadership report:
The phenomenon of overprogrammed kids in the last decade or so is well documented–to the point of satire. (A recent sitcom showed an alien begging off an invasion of Earth because his kid had “a thing.”) What isn’t so well documented is the effect this legion of extracurricular activities has on church life.
The pastors we surveyed report the overall busyness of families is keeping families away from church. Asked whether people are spending more discretionary time on family activities or church commitments, 76 percent said the scale tipped toward family activities. This contrasts with the perception of 62 percent of respondents that a generation ago, free time was more likely spent on church commitments. The balance has shifted.
(Read more)
And Joel Likes It Too!
I fell out laughing at this…and that’s not a good thing when you are in a wheelchair! You can find this and other ginormously funny parodies and satires at tominthebox.blogspot.com
(Pastors, RUN, don’t walk, to buy this book!)
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It’s every pastor’s nightmare; the town infidel dies and he is called upon to preach the funeral. Perhaps the man was the town drunk, a drug dealer or a notorious womanizer, but the pastor is expected to “say something nice.”
Now, the Reverend Al Sharpton reveals his secrets of how to preach anyone into heaven, no matter how they lived their life.
Sharpton teaches his methods using real life examples from his years in the ministry, during which time he has been called upon to preach numerous funerals.
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CHAPTERS INCLUDE:
-The Town Drunk
-Joseph Stalin: Yes, You Can!
-Intolerance: The Only Unforgivable Sin
“The best book I’ve read since ‘Finding Jesus in Vishnu and the Krishna.’ A must-read!” - Bishop John Shelby Spong
“Super duper!” - Joel Olsteen
“Hey, I thought my picture was supposed to be on the front too!” - Jesse Jackson
$14.99
…Might as well be a Baptist preacher…
The following is an important article posted in a recent issue of Christianity Today. It is both daring and courageous, and I, for one, am glad someone had the guts to address this lingering issue in modern evangelical Christianity–or at least what passes for it.
JESUS AND THE SINNER’S PRAYER
What Jesus says doesn’t usually match what we say
David P. Gushee
Is it permissible to reopen the question of salvation? If we do, how will Jesus’ teachings stand up to our inherited traditions?
These questions came to me acutely not long ago. I was getting ready to preach. As the worship leader was finishing the music set, he offered some unscripted theological reflections. He said something like: “The only thing required of us is to believe that Jesus’ blood saves us. Nothing more. It’s nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
In my Baptist context, we’ve heard these thoughts a thousand times. The problem was that I had in my pocket a message in which Jesus himself had a very different answer to the question of salvation.
The Big Question
In reading through Luke, I had discovered that twice (10:25, 18:18) Jesus is asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Continue reading ‘Well, Someone Had To Say It’
William Was A Force
The England of William Wilberforce was very much in the ballpark of Dickens’ “best of times and worst of times.” For the wealthy, there was the theater, the clubs, gambling, alcohol and women. Against the backdrop of such affluence were the indignities waged against the downtrodden and outcasts. The Industrial Revolution was ramping up and children were forced to labor in sweat shops for 16 hours a day. Only 25 percent made it to adulthood due to unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Youngsters were publicly executed for stealing scarves and such just to protect themselves against the miserable conditions of life.
And there was the slavery thing. Eleven million Africans were rent from their homeland and shipped across the ocean in four foot by eighteen inch berths. Chained. Covered in feces and vomit. Most died. Women were raped hanging upside down. And the England of Wilberforce was the chief buyer and seller in the damnable slave trade.
As the film “Amazing Grace” opens, you read how in such a time only a few dissented against such practice but even fewer dared speak up. William Wilberforce was one voice that God used to speak Life and Light into such a dark time. Each word from his mouth punched a separate hole in the darkness until, at last, the institution of slavery fell under the weight of Heaven’s veto and was abolished in England once and for all.
Cowper, the poet laureate of England, wrote of Wilberforce in a sonnet describing him as bringing “the better hour.” On a plaque where he is buried in Westminster Abbey, it reads:
In an age and country fertile in great and good men,
He was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of our times
because to high and various talents, to warm benevolence, and to universal candour
He added the abiding eloquence of the Christian life…
This was a man who gave away a quarter of his yearly earnings to the poor, tirelessly championed the causes of chimney sweeps, single moms, and orphans and did it all with a grace and humility befitting of such a call. He gave over forty years of his life to campaigning against slavery and, one month after his death, England’s Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, thus granting every slave in the English empire their freedom. Truly, he fought to the end. He fought the good fight. With the passion of the Lord burning inside, he brought to the world a better hour.
Imagine with me, won’t you, what God could do with a single person, or a handful of devoted slaves of righteousness. It just takes one voice speaking what is on the Lord’s heart and the deal is done. Last time I checked, satan’s nefarious power is no match against the will of God and his empire is still marked for destruction.
Amazed By Grace
Went with the Mrs. to see “Amazing Grace” today. For me, the final scene was well worth the price of admission…or, hold on…ten bucks?…(oh, what am I complaining about? It could’ve been twenty except for the fact that Regal cinemas lets my wife get in free as my “attendant”, God bless them)…yeah, okay, I guess it was still worth it. Anyway, the scene I mentioned is a brigade of bagpipes playing the theme song complemented by horns and such…ooooh, can you say ’spine-tingly’?
Amazing that such a song can overpower you with its winding-river grace. I speak, of course, of
the old hymn penned by a former slave trader, John Newton (who is also featured on my ‘biography page’). I discovered that Mr. Newton, though marking his own conversion to Christianity in the mid-1700s, remained in the slave industry for a number of years, but finally made a clean breast of things after falling in with the likes of John Wesley and George Whitfield. Afterward he became a preacher of the grace that so gently lifted him from the vomit bucket of the world. That’s right: this venerated clergy-poet had once, during the lowest abyss of his debauchery, offered himself to the service of satan.
It was during a giant storm at sea, Newton testified, that he heard the voice of God speaking to him out of the tempest, calling him to Himself. In the days leading up to the nor’easter, the Lord had been thawing out the sailor’s cold heart for He had him reading a Kempis’ book, The Imitation of Christ. But with the onslaught of the storm, the embittered slave ship captain’s ever so gradual turn to the Eternal Giver of Grace was hanging in the balance. With water filling his cabin and timbers being jerked free from the hull, Newton frantically pumped water alongside his crew but to no avail. Finally he lashed himself to the wheel, hoping to steer the ship through, but at the height of peril cried on the winds, “Lord, have mercy on us!”
In his journal Newton said of this very occasion that he promised God he would be “His slave forever” if only He would rescue them. God in His great mercy did just that. And John Newton, former slave ship’s first mate, former slave himself, and former slave captain, was ardently captured by Grace.
I also learned today (not from the film) that the Cherokee nation considers this song to be a national anthem of sorts as it was sung on the Trail of Tears by their ancestors. Same tune, slightly different words but still a testimony to redemption through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. It was also the most-oft sung hymn during the Civil Rights marches of the 1960s. Through many dangers, toils and snares indeed…
Amazing Grace. Go see it. The tagline of the movie says, “Behind the song you love is a story you will never forget.” How true. It is thought that the melody came from slaves songs which haunted Newton throughout the years of his herding innocent victims. It is a delicately simple tune, built on the pentatonic scale, and played on the black keys. Five notes. That’s it. But what an amazing song whose enduring message can change the world.