Hearing check

I came across this in my reading this morning and it stuck in my mind like an American in a European round-a-bout. When we read the Bible, what do we hear? Can we hear? And how well do we hear--and I mean really hear?

"Whoever is of God hears the words of God."

Now, most of us will shrug it off thinking we are aware of God in the cosmos, but Jesus drives it deeper.

"The reason why you do not hear them (the words of God) is that you are not of God." (John 8:47)

Again, how well do you hear? As a former fighter pilot, I have a number of friends who cannot hear certain frequency ranges due to decades around jet engines. They hear nothing in that range. God's giving us a very plain hearing test, and it doesn't require sitting in a sound-proof booth and mashing buttons when you hear an imaginary tone.

Here's the test: open the Bible and read it. You'll fall into one of three categories:

1. You REJECT it. You won't even take the test. You probably don't want to stop back by this blog anymore.

2. You're PERPLEXED. As you read the pages of the Bible, you don't understand what all the falderol is about. It's like reading somebody else's mail. But if you'd like to understand, ask the Author. You might be surprised what he'll show you (see John 3). If you think it's stupid, go back to category #1.

3. You're TICKLED. You hear his voice pretty well (John 10:27).

It all hinges upon God's word. Can we hear it? It's either true or it's not. If it's true, the consequences are enormous. It's like learning of a hidden treasure. Would you not do all within your power to obtain it? If it's false, then Jesus of Nazareth and all of his followers are the foulest individuals for selling millions a bill of goods.

So the question still hangs there. How's your hearing?

Sin: The root of evil

Another horrifying day in America. Children dead. Teachers dead. The heart cries out, "Why? How did this happen? How could a human being do such a thing?"  Many folks a thousand miles away spent sleepless nights wrestling with such horror. Parents stole into their children's bedroom to behold their babes and to weep.

Two common answers have swirled about in the wake of this tragedy. It's a mental illness problem, and it's a gun problem. That's Roland Martin's take at CNN, and the sentiment in the Twitter-verse:

"MORE gun control, MORE mental health services. It's no longer a debate. Never was," spewed comedian Patton Oswalt. 

He wasn't alone in his anger.

"The way to honor these dead children is to demand strict gun control, free mental health care, and an end to violence as public policy," suggested Michael Moore.

Anybody notice anything missing from these ruminations? None of these men and few talking heads hold the man accountable for his actions. Man is culpable for what he does.

Man is an independent moral agent responsible for his thoughts, words, and deeds. That's part of what is meant by God when he stated, "Let us make man in our image" (Genesis 1:26). As such, he is responsible for his choices. God went on to strip away excuses when he declared,

"What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." (Mark 7:20-23)

I do understand that some do not have all of the cognitive tools that others have. Consider the man or woman with Down's Syndrome, but when has there ever been an instance of one with a clear genetic challenge who has gone off the moral deep end and unleashed carnage on an entire school or anything even approximating such atrocity? Rather you'll find the average Down's individual a more moral and compassionate individual than an individual with the standard chromosomal alignment. Nope, if you peek into the cells of butchers like the one in Connecticut, you'll find a set up much like mine or yours.

But what of their past, what of their environment? This has been the focus of modern psychology. We are not responsible for what we do because we are machines, experts assert, and are simply the product of our past and our environment. Does anything that has ever happened to me in the past justify my murdering twenty kids? God doesn't seem to think so. In fact, he goes so far as to command that we control our reactions to slights and affronts.

"But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." (Matthew 5:44)

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, commands them to,

"Repay no one evil for evil...If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”" (Romans 12:17a, 19)

From the time of the Fall of Man, man's rebelliousness against God and his commands have plagued him and his relationship with his fellow man. He destroys himself and all that is good. Little points to the veracity of the Bible more than what's happening in the world around us. How can man who on the one hand seems to be able to do such good turn about and unleash such evil?

Anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists continue to wrestle with that question, but thousands of years ago, God had recorded for his creatures the truth. Man, created in God's image, has rebelled against his Creator, and while he still carries that image (and thereby the capability for good), that image is marred beyond man's ability to restore it leaving him ever in a struggle against an innate hostility toward God and toward the good.

If you get right down to it, if there is no God, who can say such barbarity is wrong? Is it not survival of the fittest in a world that is red in tooth and claw? But we rail against such a notion. We know such conduct is evil because we were created in God's image, marred though we be. 

So what is it then that causes a man to gun down innocents? The same thing that makes a man cheat on his wife. The same thing that makes a man rob a convenience store. The same thing that makes a man slander a political opponent. It is the sinfulness of man's own heart.

It is for this very reason that Jesus Christ bore in himself the penalty of mankind's rebellion against God. His vicarious sacrifice for us provided the means of justice in dealing with such rebellion by which God's righteousness might be satisfied and by which man might be restored in his relationship to God. Paul went on to declare of the one who has accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to himself thusly:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

A bit later, Paul declares how this took place:

"For our sake he made him (Jesus Christ) to be sin who  knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (5:21)

Even as a Christian, the struggle against our sinful nature remains (Romans 7:23, 1 John 1:8), but as a Christian, God empowers us (Philippians 2:13) and disciplines us (Hebrews 12:7-10) that our minds and our lives might be transformed to a thing that is pleasing to God (Romans 12:1-2).

And so when horrors like those of this past week come, we grieve. Man's rebellion against God continues to slap us in the face, but we do not have to grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). God has provided the solution to such evil by bearing himself the ultimate penalty that was due to each one of us.

This is the only answer (Acts 4:12). We just choose to ignore it.

Evidence

Amidst my ponderings of the continued ebb (just ebb, no flow) of Christianity's moral and cultural influence in the United States especially in light of Election 2012, I kept hearing folks quoting G. K. Chesterton in various contexts. He said in his usual blunt manner,

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting;
it has been found difficult and not tried."

Makes sense. When I can scratch any itch in 50 million different ways and when my government will not hold me culpable for my bad decisions but will continue to provide me the sticks for my itch scratching, why should I consider a religion that appears to have run its course? Many folks still consider Jesus a pretty decent philosopher for his day, but did he really intend for Paul to go so far as to have wives submit to husbands? This is the 21st century, after all. And what did Jesus mean anyway when he suggested plucking our eyes over lust? Really? So rather than pursue and investigate, we're content to pluck passages from their contexts rather than our eyes.* Christianity is labeled ridiculous, and its adherents are painted as uneducated, flat-earth, science-damning hillbillies. It's much easier to dismiss someone with the sweep of an insult that to examine their arguments.

But here's the problem: the Bible is true.

Because of the easy dismissals and primary-colored caricatures, few today wade into the deep waters of biblical claims to investigate for themselves. Biblical study is unsettling. It's difficult. And like Augustine near 1700 years ago, the agony one encounters as he comes face to face with the truth becomes unbearable for he must answer the question "If it is true, shall I live the rest of my life in the delusion of my own will, or shall I pursue the One who has created me for his good purpose and given all that I might be restored in relationship to him?"

So let me throw out a few reasons you might consider that point to the cornerstone truth that, yes, Jesus Christ is your Savior, your God, and your King.

1) THE TESTIMONY OF WITNESSES. Matthew and John, two of the gospel** writers, were among the twelve of Jesus closest followers, and they recorded the relevant happenings of Jesus' life and ministry. The earliest extra-biblical testimonies credit these writings as those of these men despite the attempts of modern scholars to push the writings beyond the time of these men. Mark, while not a disciple of Christ, became a close assistant first to Paul and Barnabas and ultimately to Peter in Rome. If anybody knew Jesus, it was Peter. Lastly, as Paul emphasized the importance of the resurrection of Jesus to the church at Corinth, Greece, he indicated that there were 500 folks who saw the risen Jesus at one time and many of them were still alive to corroborate the account.

2) INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING. Luke was not a disciple of Jesus during his earthly ministry and perhaps never saw him. He was a physician by trade and from the manner and style of his writing, he was a well-educated man. In his bio of Christ, he scoured the testimonies of those still alive, he separated the wheat from the chaff, and attempted to present the most accurate account he could to a friend of his, Theophilus, that he might have certainty about the things he was taught (Luke 1:1-4). In the book of Acts, the book immediately following the four gospels, he provides one of the most geographically detailed accounts of the Mediterranean region and of first century seafaring in his account of the spread of the early church.

3) FULFILLED PROPHECY. To Blaise Pascal, this was the most compelling aspect of the entire Bible. No other religion so audaciously hangs its existence on things to come. It was a keynote to Israel that God had actually spoken through specific men.

Isaiah 45:21 - "Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me."
Isaiah 48:3 - "The former things I declared of old; they went out from my mouth, and I announced them; then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass."
Isaiah 48:5 - "I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say, ‘My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’"

Because prophetic fulfillment is one of the most compelling aspects of the entire Bible as the previous verses show that God intended it to be so, scholars have gone through the contortions of a Chinese acrobat to move the writings of the Bible all centuries later than the Bible itself indicates. They believe that because prophecy ranks with the supernatural, it cannot be. Therefore what had to have happened is religious leaders took the events of the day, events that had taken place, and they wrote prophetic stories to make it look like they had been fulfilled, that God loves his people, and that he can see the end from the beginning. The gymnastics required to neuter prophecies pales in comparison with the lies required to post-write prophecies. Any child knows the difficulty of maintaining a single lie. Now imagine trying to maintain the thousand of fulfilled and yet to be fulfilled prophecies. Such deception cannot be historically substantiated.

As one reads through the gospel of Matthew, you can't help but notice his emphasis on the sheer number of prophecies that Jesus Christ's advent fulfilled, a few he could have tried to fulfill to try and make people believe he was the Christ (i.e. riding into Jerusalem on a donkey) but most he had no control over (his place of his birth, the means of his death, and the events surrounding that event to name a paltry few).

The evidence for the veracity of the Bible is overwhelming. But will we take the time to read and assess what it says for ourselves? As Chesterton notes, few are willing to wade in past the preconceptions and challenges to glean the truth. Perhaps today you might consider taking a challenge from the very lips of God, "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8). As Augustine discovered, it's a life-altering consideration.

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* I have to do it because some will take me out of context. I am NOT advocating eye-plucking for those struggling with lust. Hyperbole, people. Jesus had figures of speech mastered.

** Many do not know any longer what a "gospel" is. The word means good news. What have become known as the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are the first four books of the New Testament of the Bible. Even "New" Testament is something of a misnomer. Rather than Old and New, consider them the first and second Testaments, or as we would say, Part I and Part II of the book. The gospels are in essence biographies of Jesus life. Some are more chronological than others, but all tell of the historical events of Jesus' life, ministry, death, and resurrection.

QotD: Happy Birthday, Francis!

January 30th marks Francis Schaeffer's 100th birthday. He'd celebrate were he still alive. Instead, he's glorying before the throne of his King.  


If you have never heard of Francis Schaeffer, let me recommend three books, The God Who is There, Escape From Reason, and He is There and He is Not Silent.  You can actually buy it as a trilogy on Amazon (here). He was one of the foremost philosophical minds of our era. You likely have not heard of him because he was an unabashed, unashamed Christian whose conviction about God and the Bible informed every thought he had and every topic he discussed.


In honor of his birthday, a quote from his book, Death in the City, seems apt in our post-postmodern America. The italics are his, the boldface is mine.

Do you really believe He is there? Why is there so much unreality among evangelicals, young and old? What is the final reality? The final reality is that God is really there. The Bible is what it is because the God who exists has spoken it in propositional, verbalized form. But does your Christianity end with something less than God who is there? In the teaching of your courses in Christian schools, do you believe He is there? In your learning, do you believe He is there? Do you really believe He is there, or are you only living in some sort of sociological belief? Are you only making the right theological statements, or do you believe God is there and you live before Him?


If He is really there and if He is a holy God, do you seriously think that God does not care that a country like our own has turned from Him? There is only one kind of preaching that will do in a generation like ours---preaching which includes the preaching of the judgment of God.

I am not knowing

A friend mentioned to me this morning his distress over the death of civil discourse in our country.  People can no longer discuss the merit of an idea, the conduct of a person, or any other topic whatsoever without hostilities breaking out. 

What has happened that two individuals can no longer construct and assess arguments on a particular topic without volcanic emotion?  Might I suggest that this should come as no surprise in a post-modern and now a post-Christian era?  For example, I read a little blurb earlier in the week. In it, the author tried to argue against those who used truth as a weapon and indicted those who failed to embrace or comprehend the simplest truths.  Then he regurgitated this hairball:

"...you cannot possibly know if any absolute truths exist, because we simply cannot be absolutely certain. Yes, I firmly believe this postulate that we can never know for certain anything."

If I cannot know that absolute truth exists, why pursue it?  If I did pursue it and found it, how would I know that it was indeed absolute truth?  This recent phenomenon, the idea that there is no truth or that absolute truth cannot be known, puts man in the position of beast.  If I can know nothing for certain, as this teen and many lettered university professors assert, then why should I not eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow I die (Isaiah 22:13, 1 Corinthians 15:32)?  And if I can know nothing for certain, why should you and I bandy arguments about?  What a waste of breath and time!

This know-nothing attitude has murdered logic and rhetoric.  If you don't like my position, you're stupid!  What a moron.  Oh, yeah, you're one of them born-agains.  If people had a modicum of education, they would understand why evolution is brilliant and global warming a fact.  Um, excuse me, do you have any support for anything you are saying, or will you merely assault my character and my identity?

I wish this were merely true outside the church, but such no-nothingness has infected the Body of Christ as well.  Listen to the author's next statement:

"This is the beauty of life, where faith has to step in, lead us, and strengthen us when we are faint of heart."

Francis Schaeffer referred to this as an upper-story leap of faith.  If we can't know anything certain about our current plane of existence, we're going to jump into the realm of illogic and unreason and hope something will be there to encourage my soul.  As the Church has jettisoned the word of God, it has abandoned the only source of objective truth it had.  Today faith and religion is true as long as it is true for you. 

On the contrary, biblical faith is a foundational and fundamental trust in a God who has proven himself over and over to his creatures.  Biblical faith is the child who will leap from the side of the pool into daddy's arms because a) the child knows his father, b) the child has seen his daddy catch him and take care of him many times before, and c) the child applies those facts forward by trusting his daddy to catch him when he leaps.  It's not an irrational leap into the abyss but an absolute trust in the One who is there.

How important is knowing things certainly?  Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins" (1 Cor. 15:17)  Whoa.  He anchors our hope as Christians in the FACT that Jesus has been raised.  He says that very thing two verses later, "But in fact Christ has been raised..." (1 Cor. 15:20).

So serious were the apostles about this that John wrote at the end of the first century, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13).  God himself emphasized evidence throughout Ezekiel where over and over again the fulfillment of prophecy would show Israel and others that he is who he said he is.  "Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord" (Ezek. 37:14).  Jesus described eternal life as knowing God the Father and God the Son (John 17:3).

How, though, can I be certain about anything in this world?  If I begin with myself, I cannot be certain of anything for how would I know if my faculties were revealing things to me as they truly are?  Perhaps our world is nothing more than a snow globe in the mind of an autistic child as depicted on television's St. Elsewhere.  The only way we can be certain is if someone with an objective perspective conveys to us what reality is.  And someone has.  That someone in fact created the cosmos and each of us as individual masterpieces. 

That Someone is God.

His revealed word, the Bible, provides man with his only sure reference in the cosmos.  While the grass will wither, the flowers will fade, and the North Star may supernova, God's word will remain forever (Isaiah 40:8).  It's no wonder the psalmist declared that God's revealed truth was a lamp to his feet and a light to his path (Psalm 119:105).

The blurber concludes:

This is the journey of life; searching for truth, finding the path to our chosen truth, and watching in prayer as the path unfold before our eyes...We pray that we have chosen to follow the right truth and hope that we haven’t wasted our short life on meaningless treks.

There it is, the maxim of the 21st century.  "Whatever is true for you."  Such a starting point will continue to lead to deteriorating discourse because we begin from two different planets, one anchored in created reality and revealed truth and the other knotted in the wastelands of sin and self.  Pilate shrugged his shoulders asking "What is truth?" and then proceeded to walk away from Truth incarnate and have him crucified.

Revising revisionism

Have you heard the one about those horrid Puritans, the ones who initiated the witch trials The Crucible made famous? Yes, I know you have. Thank you, Arthur Miller. But did you know that the government sentenced the women and that the preachers of the day, led prominently by Cotton Mather, ended the lunacy? No, I didn't think so. We prefer a playwright's history.

And the Crusades. You have heard how those horrid Christians (a theme?) attempted to drive the peace-loving Arabs from their homeland, haven't you? Let's put a bit of focus on this most recently blurred of historic events.

Many thanks to my good friend, Jeff, for passing this on to me. Dr. Peter Hammond, the article's authoer, has spent 26 years as a Christian missionary among the Arab peoples of Africa and especially the Sudan. He has also researched, far more than I have, the Crusades.

Anyway, here's the article (here, really) titled "Jihad and Crusades." It's a lengthy read, but it's stuff that was common knowledge a few centuries ago. Thanks to the post-modern slop taught in 97% institutes of any learning, most of us don't get such information.

Let it ricochet around in your mind for a few days, then turn on the tube and see what Iran's up to in the eradication-of-Israel department.

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For further review on this topic, I've linked another article, "What were the Crusades all about?" here.

Marsh-wigglian philosophy

(or "You can learn a lot about the world around you from a fictional character")

In the climax of C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, Jill Pole, Eustace Scrubb, and their Marsh-wiggle guide, Puddleglum had just released Prince Rilian from his decade-long enchantment, when the witch, the Lady of the Green Kirtle, returned to her underworld castle. Despite the ruse of the quartet that Rilian remained under her spell, the witch assessee otherwise and begian to beguile the lot of them.

The potency of her magic? Her incense and the steady, monotonous strumming on her mandolin got them all fuzzy-headed, but her lies began to bind them under her spell. "Do you really know what you know?" Soon she had them doubting the beauty and reality of Rilian's Narnian homeland, convincing them that all that there was was this dark, cavernous underland.

"There is no place called Naria."

"Yes there is though, Ma'am," said Puddleglum. "You see, I happen to have lived there all my life."

"Indeed," said the Witch. "Tell me, I pray you, where that country is?"

"Up there," said Puddleglum, stoutly, pointing overhead. "I -- I don't know exactly where."

"How?" said the Queen, with a kind, soft, musical laugh, "Is there a country up among the stones and mortar of the roof?"

"No," said Puddleglum, struggling a little to get his breath. "It's in Overworld."

"And what, or where, pray is this...how do you call it Overworld?"

On went the thrumming on the mandolin, on continued the deceptions, until Rilian, Jill, and Eustace had succumbed to an entranced sleep. At that point, Puddleglum summoned the last vestige of his sanity and plunged his foot into the fireplace. Not only did this heroic act raise such a stench as to counter the incense and roust the sleepers, but it brought lightning sobriety to Puddleglum's mind.

At this point, C.S. Lewis focused the laser beam of his scholarly mind, a mind that had been transformed by his relationship with Jesus Christ, upon the retort of the humble Marsh-wiggle.

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

Folks continue to posit a world and universe that have come about through machinistic means. Pah. I'm sticking with the Marsh-wiggle and clinging to the Lion and the true Word he has given us.