A few years ago in Time magazine a feature article was written about phobias.
I first used this to illustrate a point while teaching a Pest Management Seminar and looking for a way to insert a biblical truth into the presentation. At a later date I included it in a sermon on the love of God for His elect. I was re-reading some older notes of mine and I remembered the article.
The Time article provided an in depth psychological discussion stating that large numbers of the US population are afflicted with arachnaphobia, clausterphobia, chemophobia, hydrophobia, homophobia and many more phobias. The most interesting thing to me was that Theophobia, fear of God, was not listed.
Where there is no reverence and awe for God, according to His standards, there is no true love for Him.
Here is love.
Christ came and shed His blood so our sins would be forgiven. And not only our former sins, but our present and future sins as well.
What He did for us in the past provides the grace for the blood to continue to forgive as we confess our sins during our life as believers.
Here is love.
These sins cannot undo what Christ has settled for us in eternity.
Because we were totally unable to come to Him of our own ability, He chose us, without condition and died for us and drew us unto Himself and preserves us forever as His own.
Here is love.
By the Word and the Spirit He enlightens us to what is His will and He enables us, encourages us, and equips us to live according to His will. even as expresses in his prayer of
Ephesians 3: ¶ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Here is love.
We sin, every day, and it cannot, if we are truly saved, do anything to change our standing with God because we are alive in Christ and Christ is in the presence of the Father and we are risen together with Christ and seated in the heavenly places because our citizenship is in heaven and
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, Eph. 1:3
Our disobedience in our life in Christ only affects our temporal living. Certain benefits are withdrawn and withheld, conditionally. Others are unconditional and we cannot keep them from blessing our lives.
Here is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us.
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Rom 5: 8-10 .
Paul in essence says the same throughout Eph. chapters 1&2
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
These words were nothing new to Paul, the great Old Testament scholar and the apostle born out of time who was taught by Christ.
The love of God is rooted objectively in God himself and the word of God that reveals Him to us and it is subjective experience based on our personal knowledge of Him and personal communion with Him in and through the Word by His Spirit.
Category: Worldview
A Multi-ethnic Galaxy
Have you ever noticed the ethnic reconciliation that exists in the future world of Star Trek.(remember this series began in the late sixties, so think metaphors and allegories in a turbulent time of our history) All sorts of strange, exotic and unique humanoids live together in harmony that is usually disrupted only by an outside alien force or rebels within the utopian, discovered and civilized galaxy.
There are marriages between Vulcans and humans that produce Mr. Spocks and the struggles of deciding how to live between two worlds.
The original essental crew is comprised of an African (and a woman at that) named Uhura, a Russian named Chekov, a Japanese American named Sulu, a Vulcan named Spock, a southerner named Bones and a midwesterner named Kirk (whose character is loosely based on Horatio Hornblower)
There are still some Klingoncentrics and Romulancentrics who see humans as a lower species of the evolved orders who at best should only be occasionally tolerated because of their inferiority.
However, with this unity in diversity, there is one thing that is absent: any sense of absolutes that govern morals or ethics with the exceptions of murder, rape and pillage.
So, if mating, for example, is an instinct that carries little or no responsibility with it because all the offspring are turned over to eunuchs and professional mothers, one may think it odd, but that is their culture.
If the singular goal of the Federation of Planets is to bring peace to the galaxy and let each culture live in Utopian bliss., then there is no need for truth as an absolute. The only truth is the need for each culture to promote this peace for the well being of one another and ultimate success as living organisms that can reason and act accordingly.
Everything comes to fulfilment through negotiation and compromise based on reason, logic and as a common goal a peaceful co-existence with galactic neighbors. Cultural exchange and free market enterprise are the tools for galactic peace and harmony. An integrated hierarchy of rule and an integrated force of military/explorers and scientists can accomplish anything. Higher and lower life forms can interact to defend and save the galaxy from intruders and rebels because everyone acknowledges that Utopia, although demanding, is desirable and attainable and does not require absolutes.
This is wonderful in the context of a fantasy world, but it is not the reality of a world bound in sin, which results in ethnic hatred and racial prejudice. Sadly, even the greatest vehicle by which true reconciliation is granted to the human race, the Body of Christ, is a tragic failure.
We have been asked to address how we can improve the state of the church in relation to racial reconciliation.
Obviously, the first step is to recognize that the church has problems with deliberate segregation and prejudice.
Once this is recognized there is hope for working our way through a number of solutions and bringing true reconciliation, ethnically, within the body of Christ.
Let me ask you a question. During the O. J. Simpson debacle (it was which ever side was right or wrong) how did you respond to the deliberate politics of racism.
Was he guilty because he was rich and black? Was he innocent because he was black and had overcome the gangs and the hood and was very talented? Guilty because he was married to a white woman and in the end they both got what they deserved? Guilty but got off because of his wealth? Guilty but had to be let loose or once again America might burn.
What was the significance of seeing OJ with a Bible in his hands? Was black America being emasculated once again through the trial of a successful black? Were whites getting even because of all the “reverse discrimination†that was on the increase?
Or was the OJ thing nothing but another indicator of how deeply ingrained racism is in the American conscience: corporately, institutionally, in families, in our neighborhoods and let’s not forget the church.
Use the OJ thing as a barometer of your own failings in the matter of racial reconciliation. How well did you hold up, biblically, during the whole series of events? What glasses did you view it through?
How many cross cultural relationships have you attempted to build since then?
The first step in building an honest relationship across ethnic lines is to make acquaintance with someone. (Big revelation right?). This needs to be done intentionally.
You may have to go out of your comfort zone because you may sense that you have nothing in common with someone who is not of your ethnic origin.
But we all have many things in common.
First of all, we are all created in the image of God and are marred and scarred by sin. We are common in our sinfulness and imperfection. Second, death is common to all men and all men are made common in death. Third, many women and men are wives and husbands, mothers and fathers. Some due to various circumstances are single parents. Others are not married. Professional people have something in common with their peers just as construction workers share in a number of common experiences. Everybody wants some sense of meaning for their lives, although many are living in despair and are overcome by their circumstances
If we are truly saved, we have the same Saviour and Sovereign God.
Yet, there are some differences that could keep us apart, even as Christians, especially if we do not know what it means to develop a Christian mindset in a pagan world, which is essential for reconciliation.
If I have a Euro-centric mindset, I may believe that all of the greatest achievements in history came from the mind of Western Europeans. But don’t forget, that’s where the (racist) Crusades and two world wars began.
If I have an Afro-centric mindset, I may celebrate the heritage and amazing feats and incredible knowledge of the Egyptian Dynasties. But don’t forget that they were a slavemaster nation, one of the worst of antiquity and God crushed Pharaoh.
All of us will have some kind of baggage to bring to the relationship table.
It may be bias or prejudice, but in Christ each can be overcome because in Him we are one new people.
Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me
The Dream That Remains A Dream
In March of 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr.Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech. The eloquence of his oratory matched the conviction of his heart.His words were the revelations of a visionary leader of a movement that would neither ultimately succeed nor ultimately fail.
Peter Marshall, late Chaplain of the US Senate said, “I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.”
The speech was filled with imagery that stirred the imagination and kindled the fires of emotion in Americans who were exhorted to take responsible, peaceful action toward the elimination of racism in America. In contrast to the voice of pacifism and non-violence, there were the voices that advocated violence and were opposed to the mainstream message and methods of the movement.
These voices devastated the hopes for a true coalition of black leadership.The message of rage and racism within the Black Power Movement was articulated by Malcom X, Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis and lesser known indiviuals. They represented The Nation of Islam, SNCC, The Black Panthers and other groups. More voices of opposition added to the turmoil. George Lincoln Rockwell spewed forth his Aryan rhetoric through the American Nazi Party and of course there was the ever present K.K.K.
These were the days of white faced mobs, springing up like hedges along the Civil Rights Marchers pathways, faces snarled with hatred and spitting venemous words of scorn at them.
These were the days of the famous and the infamous proving, once again, that the Bible accurately describes humanity as being depraved, wicked and sinful, (Mt. 15:18-20).
But, these were also the days of seeing the gift of a moral conscience because we are created in the image of God, yet marred by sin. A conscience that can still respond to the inequities in our society that are the result of our common sinfulness (Rom.3:23).
From Selma to Memphis, the consequences of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden were repeatedly illustrated and seared into the memories of a generation.
But Dr.King had a dream.
Curiously, there was one voice that was ambivalent and strangely silent. Barely a whisper came from this voice although it had a presence in every urban center, suburb and rural area of America. Generally, the voice of the “evangelical†white church was not heard.
Jews, Catholics and Christians from the mainline and liberal churches were in the mix. Some were killed – black, white, Jew and Gentile. But where was the evangelical church, white or otherwise.
This brings us to the essential factor as to why the Civil Rights Movement did not ultimately succeed nor can it succeed as men might hope it will. The underlying theological presuppositions upon which the movement was based were not biblical. The presuppositions of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man are contrary to our biblical understanding of man.
The key theological presupposition in the I Have A Dream speech is evident:
“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children (author’s emphasis), black men and whitemen, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will beable to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
The freedom and brotherhood that Dr. King so earnestly desired cannot become a reality when we honestly and biblically assess human nature. Human nature is bound as a slave to sin (Rom.6:17). Without the Gospel and the reconciliation of God and man first, there can be no true reconciliation between men (Eph.2:14-17).
God is the Creator of all and the Father only of those who believe in Christ and repent of their sin.
To be free at last can only be accomplished through the cross and Christ’s resurrection.
Without Christ, the dream is a humanistic desire for a Camelot that man can never create. There was no happy everaftering for King Arthur, nor is there for us, unless Christ is our King and Sovereign Lord.
Many of the leaders in the movement were also trained in Eastern Mysticism meditation techniques and they embraced the philosophy of Mahatmas Ghandi which only obscured the truth of Scripture. Hindus and Brahmans and other Eastern religions believe in the universal fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man and that many roads lead to heaven. This is anti-Christian.
Why were these ministers of the gospel so eager to embrace teachings that are so far removed from the truth of the Bible?
Although I do not agree with the theology of either Dr. King or Billy Graham, can you imagine what might have been if Billy Graham and Dr. King held a joint evangelistic crusade in Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta or Memphis?
Can you imagine addressing racial prejudice by preaching the gospel and being ministers of reconciliation in our multicultural societies today or tomorrow?
Would Dr. King envision that the body of Christ, at least as he understood it, with it’s many hues, continues to and may even take the lead in promoting segregation in America forty-four years after saying, I have a dream...
A more in depth article is available at www.fbceny.org/articles/king1.pdf
The Aliens Are Already Here
Peter writes that there is something about us that makes us different from other people. We are aliens and strangers.
Now Christians come in all shades of hue and color. We are brown, red, yellow, black and white. We wear dresses, suits, dashikis, saris, sandals, shoes, sneakers and some go barefoot.
We are teachers, mechanics, factory workers, administrators, and salesman.
We live in small houses, larger houses, huts and in prisons.
We like sports and we do not like sports.
In these and in so many other things we are no different from those in the world in which we live.
We are all made in the image of God and until we are made God’s own possession by his mercy and grace we are all the same in our fallen state of sin.
But God has made His own different.
We are to be holy even as He is holy.
Simply put this means that as God is different from all He has created we are to be different from other men.
The way in which our difference can be readily known is by our moral behavior.
The world is an amoral place. It really does not care about morals in an absolute sense and so immorality is very much tolerated, not universally but by matters of degree.
Certain immoral behavior according to God’s standard is tolerated by the world depending on the circumstances of how one is affected by certain immorality. Often, if something immoral by God’s standard has no direct effect on a person in the world, then it will be tolerated, as long as it does not interfere with one’s life.
Often, a Christian sense of morality becomes politicized.
Many moral issues that are biblically based on God’s holiness become the center stage for politics and the morality is really left out. The issue becomes more of a difference of opinion on what rights someone has as opposed to a purely moral issue.
This is how Christians get swept up into right wing politics and the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, neither of which were exclusively moral or Christian.
I do not need Rush Limbaugh representing my worldview. If I am Christian and happen to be a political conservative perhaps I agree with Rush on political views, however his world view is not rooted in the Scripture, it is not a biblical world view anymore than Jerry Falwell’s or Pat Robertson’s view is biblical once they make it political.
So what we engage in are culture wars that are really removed from the Scriptures although some appeal is made to the truth of Scripture for the basis of the political process.
We are not called to change the world through politics but we we have a legitimate call to be nation builders through the preaching of the gospel, which enlarges the kingdom of God and His holy nation on the earth.
So Peter is urging to abstain from fleshly kinds of immoral behavior that are proven by God’s word to bring destruction to the soul.
This is what truly makes us holy, different from other people.
We have a deliberate and conscious standard of morality that is based on God’s purpose for us, to be holy as He is holy. Our standard of morality is different than the morality of the world. This is why we are aliens ands strangers; this is why we are different. Aliens and strangers stand out in any community. We will not stand out by our clothes, our work, and our food or our hobbies but we will stand out because of our morality.
This will be outstanding because it is not a priority for the world.
Self-indulgence, self esteem, degrees of hedonism and self-satisfaction are the standard of the world and they are blind to the absolute standards of God and His morality and will lose the war against the soul, which is perpetrated by our very own sinful nature.
And the purpose of this moral living is the glory of God. This is where the real battle lies; it is about the glory of God.
We will be slandered and accused of many things but in the end God will be glorified by how we lived as being different people, as aliens and strangers and as Peter later says as good citizens where ever we are.
The world does not care. It is not a priority. Absolute truth from the One who is the Way, the Truth and The Life means nothing to the world reveling in its heart of darkness.
Was absolute morality a concern for you before Christ saved you? I don’t think so.
By our living according to God’s morality we will be called evildoers, Peter says. We will be singled out as the ones who really have a problem. By upholding and living the truth of Scripture people will call us evil for even daring to say that another person is a sinner and deserving of hell.
You may be the most pleasant and gracious neighbor on the block, but once you have a serious biblical discussion about the penalty for an immoral lifestyle you will be judged by most and perhaps tolerated by some.
Once you inform someone that their child or husband, or wife is not a victim but an active sinner whose own wicked nature is encouraging their self destruction you’d better duck. And if they do slap your cheek, then turn the other to them.
Our job is not to hit back but like Rocky Balboa says in street language that rings true to Scripture, “But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward.â€
Rocky is talking about winning a fight. We are talking about winning the war, the only one in the end of human history that really matters. John Bunyan called it the Holy War.
I may learn to live from you but only if you are living according to Christ otherwise you have nothing to teach me that will nourish my soul.
Now that does not mean that I should live like a monk and only learn spiritual things.
But Christ is to be the priority of my life. As I learn life skills and trades and other things that are needed to live in the world they need to be a part of my living for Christ. As I use these skills or apply my trade I do it as a Christian. The morality of my life needs to be seen, so that they who will call me evil may one day give glory to God at Christ’s appearing.
The world cares not for the glory of God
O, what a fearful condition
When the heart of darkness rules in man’s life
The end will be perdition
How great was the darkness of my own soul
Until Jesus revealed His light
How unworthy I was
And how glad I am now
That mercy and grace gave me sight (J. Krygier)
We are the light of the world. We are the salt of the earth. It is not just speaking the truth of God’s word that He uses for His glory. That is important because true faith comes from the hearing of the word and Peter later writes:
1Pe 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;
Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11-2 says that by observing our good deeds they may glorify God.
Our faithful living according to God’s morals does affect men for good. It is part of the process God uses to call His elect unto Himself.
What we say and how we live are both used of God for His glory.
Just as we are to fight against those things that would cause us to demean Christ, those things we should fear that would be demonstrating that we may truly not be what we think we are, we should be waging war against the immorality that will attempt to destroy our living unto the glory of Christ and which will destroy the souls of men who do not know Christ.
The Excellency of The Kingdom of Light
The darkness that we were called out from is the very heart of what and who we were. People living in spiritual darkness ruled by a nature that loves darkness because our evil deeds relish the darkness of our souls and the darkness of our souls relish the darkness.
Therefore, we really do not, in our dark condition, see man as he really is.
Darkness is the inability to see: this may sound simple, but as a description of the human nature it has profound implications. Failing to see another human being means failing to understand that individual and not knowing what the real source of their difficulties are. In our darkness we cannot see it.
Our worldview, without Christ, is determined not by the light of absolute truth found in Christ but by the darkness of our own hearts and our depravity and our natural condition as haters of the Light. Having eyes to see we cannot see, in the natural or the spiritual sense.
What did you know and what truth did you really see until God called you out of darkness and brought you into His marvelous light?
The only honest answer is that you saw nothing and knew nothing in an absolute sense.
What you knew of man was distorted although even sinful men can recognize evil for example, but not in the absolute terms of God’s definition of evil.
What ever you saw or knew of God was distorted and overshadowed by human reason and making gods in your own image until God called you from that domain of darkness with a heart of stone and placed you in his kingdom of light with a new heart.
You may have known much about God but knowing him is a completely different thing.
Peter says we once were not a people of God but since we have received mercy we are the people of God. We need to cherish more and more of what that means.
O Christ, in Thee my soul hath found
And found in Thee alone,
The peace, the joy I sought so long,
The bliss till now unknown.
I sighed for rest and happiness,
I yearned for them, not Thee;
But while I passed my Savior by,
His love laid hold of me.
Now none but Christ can satisfy,
None other name for me;
There’s love, and life, and lasting joy,
Lord Jesus, found in Thee.
–Author unknown
As the people of God many will despise you and call you arrogant and call you bigoted and call you crazy to believe that you have some kind of right to be so exclusive about God.
But we have the sure word of God and a changed heart and the ministry of the Holy Sprit that proves who we are by God’s grace and mercy. We do not merely know about God – we know him through Jesus Christ our Lord and we know He knows us, intimately as his very own possession. To proclaim the excellency of our God should be the easiest and most joyous thing that we can do.
His name alone is excellent. We can speak of the excellencies of his grace, of his mercy, of his kindness, of his faithfulness, of his everlasting love and so much more.
Elections come and go. God’s Election remains forever!
Tuesday, Nov 7th is election day in the USA.
It is mid year elections and of course the get out the evangelical, whatever that is today, vote movement is once again moving forward at full pace.The pundits, Theonomists and the Reconstructionists are all waiting to see if God is going to win this election.
What a shallow view of the Sovereignty of God.
Elections are purposed in the divine purposes of God as a means to His ends for the praise of His glorious grace. But they are no more condtioned by any external force that is the government that is a brutal dictatorship and remains so as long as God determines that to be His providence.
I am a Baptist by conviction. In the US we might have been a limited religious freedom country made up of about four major denominations if it had not been for the Baptists. I am an incurable Christ lover by God’s decree and choosing.
I no more want to affiliate with the religious right and the confused doctrines of a Pat Robertson or a Jerry Falwell than I want to be ruled by Sharia Law or anarchy.
My days as a hippie (I am 56) radical are behind me. I stood in front of the state troopers while occupying a student building at a NY State College in 1968. I experienced pepper gas and all the tension of a mass demonstration. I was going to vote for Frodo Baggins in the 1968 election but he did not get on the ticket, so I voted for Eldrige Cleaver and Mark Lane. I am glad that I saw how Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin really manipulated alot of young people and walked away from that long before I was A Chrisitan. But then again in ’68, guys were leaving for Canada and other places during the October draft. I drew a high number but after a few years I gave up my student exemption, and waited for six months to be called. I never was. If the war had continued, I would have been on my way as soon a I left school so I figured. Let’s get it over with and take the risk.
It is wonderful to be able to express my freedom in an election. But far too many Christians in the world suffer daily as they live to honor God in whatever way they can.
American evangelicalism as a whole is a far cry from what true biblical Christianity is.
It would do us well to recall Peter’s 1st epistle.
Peters’ purpose in writing this letter seems to be based on clearly making it known to his readers about the heavenly inheritance. He also follows Christ’s example, if we would reflect back to the Sermon on the Mount and other passages where Jesus guarantees persecution for the believer, to give consolation to the persecuted, and to prepare them for a greater approaching ordeal. Peter exhorts all by letter’s end – husbands, wives, servants, elders, and people to live as good citizens wherever they are, so as to give no reason for the enemy to reproach Christianity or the Gospel of Christ. Rather he would hope that they would win them to it, reminding them that they are established in the faith and others can be as well.
But too often our political Christianity does the opposite in the name of political freedom and we do everything we can to anger the enemy by accusing them of all sorts of nasty things, which they will do by sheer nature and hatred of God.
All Christians, if they rightly consider their calling, must never settle themselves here in this temporal place and kingdom, but see themselves as travelers, sojourners and as pilgrims waiting for the consummation of Christ’s kingdom to come in His person unto the praise of His glorious grace. Jesus taught us “My kingdom is not of this worldâ€. Yes we are members of His kingdom, but it is not of this present world or its system. The kingdom of God is within us and where ever we are there exists the kingdom of God, in small tracts as it were, as we gather as bodies of believers throughout this world. We should live as aliens and many times brethren we are made to be aliens in many lands and many places. We are not wanted. However we are God’s chosen.