October 6, 2004
God is Great
    Over and over, the psalmist proclaims it: “God is great!” (Ps. 48:1; 86:10; 95:3; 145:3). What does he mean? Partly, it is a signal to God’s immensity (we tend to think in special terms, God is “big”; but then, so does, occasionally, the psalmist (cf. Ps. 103:11, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him”). But something else is in view here. God is greater than we can grasp. There is more to God than we can ever know, or even imagine. Think of the incarnation, or the Trinity, or the cross of Christ and you will grasp a little of the “infinities and immensities” of the Christian faith. God truly is great!
Theology has expressed this notion by saying that God is incomprehensible, not that God cannot be known at all, but that God cannot be known fully. Finitum non capax infinitum wrote Calvin: “the finite cannot grasp the infinite.” Two opposing pictures help us grasp this idea: God dwells in “unapproachable light” (1 Tim 6:16); and “Clouds and thick darkness surround Him” (Ps. 97:2). It is a pictorial way of saying: God cannot be measured.
    Christianity is a revealed religion. What we know of God, we know by revelation. And we only know that which God has been pleased to reveal. Several things need to be borne in mind:
    Firstly, God is knowable. Every person knows God in a sense, even if they deny it! That is the position Paul adopts in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans: “since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them” (Rom. 1:19). As Calvin puts it: His essence, indeed, is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of His works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse.” (Institutes I.v.i). This is so, partly, because God discloses Himself (in creation and providence), and, partly, because man is made in the image of God (and still retains a semblance of that image even in his sinful, fallen condition). There is sufficient knowledge here, even in denial of it, that can condemn a man to hell! And furthermore, in the gospel, that is in the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, there is knowledge that can redeem; knowledge that can restore into fellowship; knowledge that guarantees eternal communion with God. God is knowable! This may sound somewhat elementary, but one has to remember that the early church faced a heresy that denied this very thing. The Gnostics did not believe that God was knowable by ordinary rational means. Only those “in the know,” through some mystical, intuitive way could know God. This may well be the background to many of the epistles of the New Testament.
    Secondly, what we know, we truly know. This, too, is important. We may not know everything there is to know, but we do have real knowledge. What we know is not a pretense. God, said Calvin, has accommodated Himself to us, speaking to us in “baby-talk” in order that our finite capacities might grasp it. Childlike it may be; but it is nonetheless real and genuine for all that. In heaven, we will discover God to be greater, but not different from that which we now know. Thus, God bends to our limited capacities and “prattles” (to use Calvin’s word), telling us that He has hands (1 Sam. 5:11), and feet (Nah. 1:3); eyes (Job 28:10 and ears (Neh. 1:6); and that He sits on a throne (1 Kings 22:19). But, this is God speaking to us in a form we can understand. This is not the way that He is in Himself. But they do tell us something that transcends these anthropomorphic pictures: that God is our Father and friend and rules all that is.
    Thirdly, we will never know God fully. This is not always sufficiently realized. When providence frowns and dark clouds gather, comfort is sometimes sought in the advice: “But we will understand in heaven.” Two New Testament references are usually cited. The first is John 13:7, when during the course of the foot-washing episode, Jesus says to the disciples: “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” It is doubtful if this refers to heaven; rather, it refers to what the disciples came to understand about his servant work after Jesus had died on the cross. The other is Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 13: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (v. 12). Even if this does refer to an eschatological knowledge, rather than the knowledge gained by the completion of the canon of Scripture. Paul cannot possibly be understood to suggest that, in heaven, we shall know everything there is to know about God. Such a view would contradict other statements (e.g., 1 Tim. 6:16). Even in heaven, our knowledge will be limited. It will be perfect; but, it will not be comprehensive. Even there, we will need to bow before His inscrutable majesty, acknowledging the sovereignty of His ways and perfection of His plans. But here, too, we will not see all there is to see.
    There will be something, and Someone, to wonder at, to fall down before in doxology, for all eternity.

September 29, 2004
Postmodernity Blues
    For something like two hundred years (intellectuals like to debate this fact at considerable length), ever since the Enlightenment first darkened Western minds through the influence of thinkers like Kant and Rousseau (some blame the French collectively!), and we should not forget Jefferson, the cultural and educational establishment took for granted the “received wisdom” that man’s mind was the measure of all things and “truth” and “value” were discernible through reasonable interaction with what could be observed and empirically proven through experiment. A hundred years ago, it was widely believed that our reason—and especially science—would be the making of us: thus, optimistic pronouncements were made with regard to improving society through technological advancements, social engineering, urbanization, and better education.

Well, that was yesterday, and today we know better! Modernity did not bring us health, wealth and happiness. Science gave us nuclear weapons capable of destroying the entire planet. The thinking of the past produced two world wars and a great deal of other nastiness which need not detain us here. Needless to say, modernism died a quiet death having failed to produce what it promised.

In its wake came postmodernity—a worldview that is essentially relativist on every issue of substance, particularly ethics and religion. It is inherently suspicious of the collective, giving precedence to the individual, insisting that everybody’s shaping of reality is equally valid.

The end result? A way of life, to quote J. I. Packer, that “is the egghead equivalent of Mr. Bean.” It has spawned views of spirituality without any concept of truth, raised individuality without imposing any limits, and elevated tolerance which is intolerant of any idea of wrong!

What are the implications of this for historic Christianity? There are many—but the most important, and most often heard, distills into the view that plurality in religious expression is something to be welcomed (rather than forms of idolatry as, say John Calvin might have said). It is part of the complex tapestry of humanity’s subculture to be preserved and valued as indicative of what makes us human. All religious expressions thus enable us to get in touch with the transcendent. All dogmatic pronouncements which insist that Christianity—the offering of Christ as unique, the only Savior of men and women to be received by faith alone and outside of which there is no possibility of salvation—such views are deemed offensive, intolerant and exclusivist. All religious expressions have value except this form—a paradox that always haunts postmodernity’s “tolerance.”

To all of this Jesus speaks in cool and calculated terms: ‘“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”’ (John 14:6). Which seems to answer postmodernity very easily.

Except that postmodern deconstructionists interpret these words to say that whilst it is true that Christians come to a “god” whom they call “Father” through Jesus Christ, others come to know “god” through other and equally valid ways!

O brother! Enough already!

September 22, 2004

God's Invisible Hand
There are few more poignant words in the Bible than the despair-laden response of Jacob to his sons’ news that their half-brother, Simeon, had been taken captive in Egypt. “All these things are against me,” he cried (Gen. 42:36).

Poor Jacob!
He thought his favorite son, Joseph,
was dead. He wasn’t!
He thought his next favorite son,
Simeon was as good as dead. He wasn’t!
He thought that any hope of famine re-
lief from the Egyptians (given that
incriminating evidence pointed to the fact that Jacob’s sons had dealt treach- erously with the Egyptians) was
doomed to failure. It wasn’t!

    But based on the solid empirical evidence at his disposal, thinking rationally and without reference to the power of God, Jacob came to the conclusion, Tolkien Two Towers-like, as the intrepid band entered the Mines of Moria, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!” It was all perfectly reasonable. And it was all perfectly wrong!
    Jacob’s despair is one we identify with—all too readily: that which we see, or hear, or touch, or can reason about says one thing to us. But such analysis fails to take into consideration the perspective identified by the Puritans as sub specie aeternitatis—a resolve to look upwards, to view things in the light of the heavenly realm, of eternity! To put the matter simply, Jacob reasoned from a perspective of practical atheism! He failed to take God into account. The truth was that Joseph was not only alive; he was the Prime Minister of Egypt! His sons, though guilty of many things and capable of blatant hypocrisy, were not guilty of treachery in their dealings with the Egyptians. And Simeon was in good hands, under the careful supervision of his brother Joseph (even though he didn’t know it).
God was at work in the details of Jacob’s life—yes, in the details, even though we foolishly repeat the axiom that the “devil is in the details.” God loves details! It is in the details that we discern His hand of providence—ruling, directing, providing, sustaining, preventing, surprising. What may look catastrophic from one point of view, will appear from another angle to be the outworking of a plan in which God is in full control.
Two things Jacob failed to do:

He failed to take into account the possibility that he had made a miscalculation. Unbelief assumes a certainty of its own. Jacob was resolute in his despair. He “refused to be comforted” (Gen. 42:35). No amount of “what if” caveats could shake him. Gloom took on a life of its own and spiraled into the blackness of the land of despair.
More importantly, he also failed to reckon into his equation the invisible hand of God. And that is always a fatal mistake. God’s ways are mysterious: they are often hidden to our sensory world of perception. As the poet William Cowper wrote:

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.
Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

    Truth is, God was for Jacob in the same sense that the psalmist can say, “God is for me” (Psa. 56:9). Paul seems to be borrowing the phrase in the grand expanse of Romans, culminating in the cry—Deus pro nobis, “God is for us” (Rom 8:31). God had a plan for Jacob and his family revealed by way of covenant with Jacob’s father and grandfather. The purpose of God to save His people for eternity was bound up with the survival of Joseph and Simeon! There was no way for God to abandon His promise. The “facts” staring Jacob in the face had to be interpreted in another way. God was in the details—the details that Jacob could not see.
What this says to us is that no matter how dark things may appear to be, we must reckon with the invisible hand of God that works all things—yes, “all things” for our good (Rom 8:28). As God’s children, we may not always appreciate what it is that God may be doing in our lives; but we are to trust (yes, faith is what it will take) that in every aspect of it, God is fulfilling the best plan that ultimately will be for our good. The alternative is too terrible to contemplate: things may contrive to negate the hand of God and ensure our doom.
No! That can never be!

September 9, 2004
Theological Girlie Men!
    I don’t have a vote in this election! But I have been glued to the election process. Many things have struck a chord but none quite as resolutely as the idea of Governor Schwarzenegger’s “girlie men” quip. The very Austrian-laden sound of his annunciation of the economic left as “girlie men” rang true in my ears—not for any aversion of fiscal policy as such; it is the idea of this adage becoming the rallying call of Presbyterians. Let me explain.

I have this idea in my head of a bumper sticker, or a lapel badge with the words, “Theological Girlie Men” with a bold red line across it. After all, we believe in the doctrine of predestination: that God has ordered all things from the beginning. The doctrine of predestination is not for theological girlie men! We hold that the Scriptures are God’s Word: not that they become God’s Word (somehow, someway, indefinable and mysterious), but that every word in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the product of God’s out-breathing. Strong stuff and definitely not for girlie men who balk at the seeming primitiveness of Old Testament ethics, or Paul’s view of women! Speaking of which, we believe in the doctrine of complimentarity: that God creates men and women to compliment each other, with differing roles and functions designed to fulfill a greater purpose and familial design. We stand against egalitarianism that pits men against women socially and vocationally—a view that is decidedly girlie, if you forgive me this expression once more.

I could go on to mention the doctrine of conversion which requires proof of regeneration in the form of visible, tangible faith and repentance, issuing in a life of obedience and good works before pronouncing any “profession” to mean anything at all. A robust doctrine of the necessity of repentance as a perquisite to defining what a Christian is—and this is definitely antithetical to theological girlie language of decisionistic evangelicalism that has plagued the church for the past century and has resulted in making it indistinguishable from the world at large.

There is no end to this idea: I envisage Presbyterians armed with copies of The Westminster Confession of Faith to which they subscribe without reservation or scruple, identifying themselves as theologically conservative and decidedly not theological girlie men who hobble over its affirmations and apologize for its tone.

I think I see Luther on this platform, badge in sight, saying, “Here I stand, I can do no other. So help me God!” I think see an army of reformers, flesh on fire in the flames of persecution holding aloft their antipathy to theological girlie men. I think I see Charles Haddon Spurgeon amidst the downgrade controversy of the nineteenth century proclaiming no to theological girliness!

I think I see….

But wait! Was this a dream? Have I awoken only to find I am surrounded by churchmen who bow to Darwinianism and nod in the direction of political correctness, and are offended by Paul’s robust language and are discarding the faith and practices of their fathers? Do I live, after all, in a quagmire of theological girlie men?

Tell me this is not so!

September 9, 2004
“The Scream”
Having just returned from London where I saw an exhibition of “Russian Landscape Paintings in the age of Tolstoy” at the National Gallery, it was interesting to learn of last week’s theft of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” (sometimes called “The Cry”) from the Munch museum in Oslo. More interesting still was the discovery that there are four “versions” of this painting, and that another “version” was stolen ten years ago (and recovered) from the National Gallery in Oslo. Even more interesting is the fact that there are currently 491 missing Picassos, 342 missing Miros, and 152 missing Rembrandts, according to the Art Loss Register. Now forget Munch and Picasso, but the missing Rembrandts! This is a scandal!

Born in Loten, Norway, Edvard Munch grew up in Norway’s capital, Oslo, then called Christiania. His father, Christian Munch — brother of the well-known historian P.A. Munch — was a deeply religious military doctor earning a modest income. His wife, who was 20 years his junior, died of tuberculosis when Edvard was only five years old, and Edvard’s older sister, Sophie, died of the disease at the age of 15. Edvard, himself, was often ill. A younger sister was diagnosed with mental illness at an early age. Of the five siblings only one, Andreas, ever married, only to die a few months after the wedding. All of this helps explain the bleakness of many of his paintings (The Sick Child [1886], Vampire [1893-4], Ashes [1994]).

Munch (1863-1944) painted intense and evocative representations of psychological and emotional states and was a major influence on European expressionism in the early 20th century. This particular painting, The Scream, is universally considered a masterpiece of existential anguish. In the opinion of Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it is the most powerful image ever created in the Expressionist style of painting. Made up of what appears to be flowing rivers of paint, the painting depicts a strangely vivid red and orange sunset over a riverscape of dark blue water meandering through the countryside. A lonely figure stands on a bridge in the foreground, holding his or her almost lightbulb-shaped head as if in anguish. Through an oval-shaped mouth, the figure “screams for a moment that seems to last for eternity,” as Hoving puts it. “The painting perfectly sums up the horrors that humanity has visited upon itself throughout all of our checkered history.”

What Munch captures in this painting is psychological fear. The figure stands alone. There are no wild animals, no tortures, no weapons of any kind. Just the mind in agony. Gerard Manley Hopkins caught it well:

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap

May who ne'er hung there

Other artists have depicted similar states (for example,W. H. Auden’s lengthy poem, “The Age of Anxiety,” and Leonard Bernstein’s second symphony by the same title and based on Auden’s bleak landscape). We can be grateful to Munch for portraying these dark places on a canvas. But Munch has no redemption to offer. There is no gospel, no light that shines in a dark place. Christians have known these dark places (see Job 3, Jeremiah 20:14-18, or Psalm 88). The gospel of Jesus Christ points a way to unburden the mind and experience a peace that “passes understanding.”

Looking again at The Scream I am reminded of those words of Jesus: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27 [ESV]).

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August 23, 2004
“Especiallly the preaching...”
  The Shorter Catechism is quite explicit about the place of preaching in the kingdom of God: it is “especially” the preaching of the Word that the Spirit uses to convert sinners and to build them up in the faith (Answer 89). This, of course, is reflective of Scripture itself: Jesus commissioned His disciples to go and teach all nations (Matt. 28:19). The Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost to enable the Church to proclaim the wonderful works of God (Acts 2:11). And Paul makes it very clear as to the supremacy of preaching in the Church: he rejoices that God sent him not to baptize but to preach the Gospel (1 Cor. 1:17); he affirms that it is through the foolishness (from the world’s point of view!) of preaching that God saves sinners (1 Cor. 1:21); and the hallmark of a faithful pastor is that he labors in the word and in teaching (1 Tim. 5:17). Elsewhere, he makes the astonishing claim to the Ephesian church that Jesus came “and preached peace” to them (Eph. 2:17)! How? Jesus was never in Ephesus! The answer lies in the claim that through Paul’s preaching, Jesus Himself spoke! No greater significance to preaching can be given than that!

The Reformers urged that the preaching of the Word is by God’s appointment the primary means of grace. The common objections to preaching nowadays are, first, that monologue is not the most efficient form of instruction and second, that preachers’ ideas, no matter how sincerely held and firmly stated, cannot carry God’s authority. The first objection assumes that the purpose of preaching is to pass on information, as one would do in a lecture; the second assumes that there is no specific message from God for the preacher to deliver, so that all the preacher can ever do is relay his own best thoughts. Both assumptions are faulty.

My own view of preaching is shaped by what I first heard in the early months following my conversion to Jesus Christ in 1971. I sat each Lord’s Day—morning and evening—under the preaching of Geoff Thomas as he expounded the Gospel of Matthew. As Yehudi Menhuin relates being overwhelmed the first time he played Beethoven’s violin concerto under the baton of Willhelm Furtwängler—such was the sense that Beethoven was being recreated around him, so, too, I was overwhelmed by Geoff Thomas’ ability to make Christ known through careful, expository preaching of Matthew’s Gospel. Preaching—biblical preaching—is always like that.

What does this mean on a practical level? It means that preaching is to have a central (and dominant) role in public worship. That’s not to say that other elements of worship are unimportant. Singing , praying, reading Scripture, not to mention the right administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper—these are necessary elements to be given their proper place and emphasis. But Protestants have always given a special role to preaching. Catholic tradition has always placed a higher premium on the sacraments, even to the point of establishing services without any preaching at all. Charismatic churches have been in danger of giving emphasis to the experiential over the written Word. Contemporary worship has often given more emphasis to informal singing, drama, videos and the like. Liturgical renewal has brought about in some churches an emphasis on the form of worship at the expense of the sermon. And even in conservative churches, the sanctity of the worship hour (meaning just that—60 minutes and no more!) has placed tremendous pressure on the sermon.

All of this should give us cause for concern. If we are content with just one sermon a week, our appetites are telling us that something is wrong—very wrong. For mature Christian and Christian leaders have always loved preaching and cannot get enough of it.

The worship of God is increasingly becoming a spectator event dominated by the visual and sensory. What is heard has given way to what is seen. The audio-visual console at the back has replaced the pulpit at the front. It is not unknown, even in our beloved PCA, to be asked to be the morning preacher and for there to be no pulpit, not even a stand to place one’s Bible upon! I kid you not. And, if I may employ a Star Trekian allusion, “resistance is not futile”! Resistance is what this needs.

August 18, 2004
Sports—it’s OK not to like them!

I have to confess that sports are not big on my agenda! I can go for extended seasons without them and not feel so much as a twinge of pain! I have long preferred Beethoven to baseball, Fauré to football, and almost anything to swimming! As I write, the Olympics are wall-to-wall on TV, and my dear wife is engrossed in almost all of it (except when the Braves are on and then she must resort to picture-in-picture!). That makes me something of an oddity, I know; but, I’ve long since been comfortable with being “different.”
    To be sure, I admire those “special moments”: when Jesse Owens proved Hitler wrong, or Eric Liddell stood by his convictions, or Bob Beamon’s jump (that one still looks unreal), or the sight of John Stephen Akhwari, hobbling painfully on his bandaged leg, grimacing with every step, knowing he cannot win the Marathon race in which he competes. He is over an hour later than the winner and the only one left! He continues all the same. Finally he crosses the finish line and collapses. When asked why he didn’t stop after injuring himself? Ahwari responded: “My country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race,” he said with dignity. “They sent me to finish the race.”
    We are meant to enjoy sports. It is the same all over the world. True, the apostles utilized Olympic metaphors in their letters, often encouraging their readers to fight, or to run the race which lies ahead (Heb, 12:1; 1 Tim. 6:12; 1 Cor. 9:24; 2 Tim. 4:7). True, sports magnify the beauty (gracefulness) and strength of the human body, and to some extent the vitality of youthfulness (when drug use doesn’t tarnish our perceptions of human agility). True, sport requires mental agility—wasn’t it Yogi Berra who paradoxically said, “Baseball is 90% mental, the other half physical”? True, I struggle with the notion of Jesus playing football, and wonder if heaven will contain sporting fixtures! True, I love the tailgating phenomenon of American college football (ministers like myself get treated royally at such occasions!).
Amateur sports is one thing. Professional sports is something else. And I have to confess some measure of distaste for professional sports.
Is it envy on my part? Some baseball players sign five-year contracts for over $25 million. For a season that lasts barely 5 months? (Where do baseball players spend the other six months?). I’m sure envy comes in somewhere.
    Is it guilt on my part? This body of mine has never been selected as a candidate for anything (though I did play rugby and cricket at my high school!) The sight of bodies at the peak of their performance (and here I do not refer to baseball players!) does induce a certain amount of guilt. I really should exercise more!
Is it conviction on my part? Conviction that there is something inherently wrong about competition (as many Christians argue) and, therefore, about competitive sport? I have to admit that I find it hard to imagine reading the Sports Devotional Bible (Zondervan) with its allusions to such things as “power verses,” and “times out” articles, together with testimonies from well-known athletes. True, there is an element of competition which in a fallen world is sinful: the relish in the defeat of another, for example. But this is not essential to sport and competition in itself is not sinful if it highlights how God has made us all different, and one to excel over another. God made us that way.
    Is it wimpishness on my part? I read today of Ed. He’s 17 and plays rugby. He’s also a Christian with a keen desire to glorify God in everything. “Psychologically, if you can nail your man to the ground in the first minute then you have won a great battle,” he writes. “As a Christian rugby player, I believe that one of the best ways I can be a witness for God is to put all of my effort into it,” he continues. Hmmm. Yes, I’m glad I won’t be meeting Ed on the rugby field! Still, I admire his commitment.
    But the Olympics beckon. And surely there must be one Welshman in Athens whom I can shout for? There is, she’s a marathon runner named Tracey Morris from Holyhead in Angelsey, North Wales. “Come on, Tracey!”

Which Way?
Finding God’s Will for my Life - 1
July 7, 2004

One of the sadder figures of evangelical church history must surely be those recounted in a volume written by Hannah Whithall Smith (wife of the famous English "Higher Life" advocate of the late nineteenth century). She called the book The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life but could find no publisher. It wasn’t published until after her death in 1928, and given the title Religious Fanaticism, partly because Smith herself referred to the book as her "fanaticism papers."  It was eventually republished under the title, Group Movements of the Past and Experiments in Guidance.

In it, she recounts the story of a woman who each morning, having consecrated the day to the Lord as soon as she woke, "would then ask Him whether she was to get up or not," and would not stir till "the voice" told her to dress.

As she put on each article she asked the Lord whether she was to put it on, and very often the Lord would tell her to put on the right shoe and leave off the other; sometimes she was to put on both stockings and no shoes; and sometimes both shoes and no stockings; it was the same with all the articles of dress.

Another tale is of a maid who saw some money on a dressing table belonging to her mistress. She felt a "voice" telling her, "Take it" because "all things are yours." So she did, and was promptly dismissed for stealing!

Several issues arise which seriously question such views of guidance:

First, it displays an inadequate understanding of human psychology and the phenomenon of obsessive-compulsive behavior. Perhaps you know the humorous tale:

Welcome to the psychiatric hotline:
• If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
• If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
• If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
• If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we
can trace the call.
• If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
• If you are depressed, it doesn’t matter which number you press. No one will answer.
• If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear.

Second, it fails to take into account the possibility that such urges and promptings may be the work of Satan! This is what he does: planting suggestions in our minds without adding an identifying signature. C. S. Lewis writes delightfully of how Screwtape¹ instructs his nephew Wormwood that if he can make his "patient" start going all over town looking for a church that "suits" him instead of being loyal to his local church it will reduce his effectiveness. By searching for the "suitable" church he learns to be a critic of churches instead of a pupil of Christianity.

Third, it fails to implement God’s strategy for Christian maturity. True, there were (and are) times when God employs such means to guide us, but these are meant for the church’s infancy. The Bible is God’s guidebook for us now. He intends that we grow up, using our minds and Bible-shaped instincts to discover God’s will for us in any circumstance. We’ll come back to the question: how does the Bible teach us God’s will, but for now it is important that we apply our belief in the adequacy of Scripture to teach us all things we need to know (and that includes answers to questions about guidance), as Paul seems to be saying to young Timothy (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Fourth, it fails to take seriously our psychosomatic nature. What one may interpret as the Holy Spirit’s urgings may be what a spoonful of Pepto Bismol™ may cure!

1. The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis.
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July 21, 2004
Finding God’s Will for my Life - 3
Distrusting oneself is essential to guidance! In the process of decision making, we need to be clear why it is we "feel" certain courses of action are right. Sometimes it is because such courses of action are easier, less demanding, demanding less in terms of cross-bearing and self-denial.

July 28, 2004
Which Way?
Finding God’s Will for my Life - 4
Guidance can be a tricky business even for the most experienced Christian. Simplifying it in a few points is therefore a dangerous tactic, but essential if we are to make sense of the way ahead. So here’s a 10-point plan to utilize in decision-making:

7/1/2004
Hell is a destiny, not just a swear word!
 

"Oh hell!" That is what I heard.

It is common enough as an expression, even if offensive. In today’s secular world, "hell" is just a term to use when letting out strong feelings. Few are conscious of what the word really means, or stop to ask if it has any real meaning at all.

I have been listening to Max McLean read Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of Angry God" on CD. First delivered in June 1741, at Jonathan Edwards’ church in Northampton, it was preached again on July 8 (a Wednesday) at the frontier town of Enfield, Connecticut, where an eyewitness described an audience so moved by the sermon that people moaned, shrieked, and cried out for salvation while the preacher was speaking. [See, Harry S. Stout, Nathan O. Hatch, and Kyle P. Farley, "Preface to the Period," in Jonathan Edwards’, Sermons and Discourses 1739-1742, 34]. It was the start of the Great Awakening—a movement of the Spirit that resulted in the conversion of hundreds of thousands.

It is everything the modern world hates about biblical Christianity, puritan Christianity. Edwards’ graphic description (based on Deuteronomy 32:35, "Their foot shall slide in due time") makes vivid the thought that without Christ we are sinners in the hands of a wrathful God. Many read it as hateful and mean. It suggests cruelty. R. C. Sproul comments: "some modern analysts have called it utterly sadistic" [God in the Hands of Angry Sinners, 1]. Stephen J. Nichols observes: "One has to look fairly hard to find an anthology of American literature that does not include this sermon. Typically, however, it gets marked as an easy target for those wishing to depict the Puritans as hell-bent prophets of gloom and doom.’ [Jonathan Edwards: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought, 193-94].

Perhaps more has been made of this sermon than is warranted. In his brand new volume on the Great Awakening, Mark Noll comments that "‘Edwards’ less frequently quoted ‘The Excellency of Christ’ (1738) was just as representative of the new evangelicalism as his ‘Sinners in the Hands of an angry God"’ (Mark Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys, 133].

Edwards speaks of "natural men" as "held in the hands of God over the pit of hell." He employed vivid ‘furnace’ imagery, not unlike medieval depictions of hell, to add weight to his description and, without doubt, stir feelings of anxiety in those who heard the sermon. He could say things like: "As the heart is now a cesspool of sin, so if sin were not restrained it would immediately turn the soul into a fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone." He warned his hearers that, "Whatever pains a natural man take in religion, whatever prayers he makes, until he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him from eternal destruction for even a moment."

In his excellent recent biography of Jonathan Edwards, George Marsden writes: "In its subject, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was not unusual either for Edwards or for New England preaching. Preaching on hell was a routine part of covering the full range of Gospel topics, and other sermons were more lurid in depicting hell’s agonies" [Jonathan Edwards: A Life, 221].

But none of this meets the concern voiced by the critics. Whatever we make of the imagery of hell that Edwards employs (and in the end, it is imagery), it is, as J. I. Packer pointed out in Knowing God long ago, "that a God who could inflict punishment that required such language as this to describe it must be a fierce and cruel monster" [Knowing God, 151].

And that is the issue.

Is hell—a hell like the one Edwards described—something the Bible teaches. Is it something Jesus taught?

And the reality is that both things are true.

Jesus taught such a view of hell!

And that is the most sobering thing of all.

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June 27, 2004
Turning Away from Sin

I have been preaching through Mark’s Gospel these past Sunday evenings and last Sunday I was impressed once again by the emphasis given to repentance in the preaching of Jesus and the apostles. The text in question is found in Mark 6 in the description of the preaching of the apostles in the towns and villages of Galilee. "So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent" (Mark 6:12 ESV).

Josephus tells us that there were 204 towns or villages in Galilee during this period. Since they were sent out in pairs (Mark 6:7), it may have taken them around 6 months or so to cover the entire territory; we cannot be certain. In any case, it is more than interesting that Mark summarizes the content of their preaching as focused on the need for people to repent.

We are familiar enough with what repentance is: "Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience" (Shorter Catechism A. 87). Think of what a conductor of some prestigious symphony orchestra will do. He walks on to the stage and is greeted by applause. He surveys his adoring fans and then turns, yes turns his back on this display of sycophancy and adoration and faces the orchestra! That is what repentance is: turning your back on sin and facing God.

Luther said in the first of his Ninety-Five Theses that all the Christian life should be marked by repentance. Calvin concurred: repentance is the Christian life. It is the process whereby we die to ourselves that he may begin to live to God (Institutes 3.3.3). Or, as the puritan Thomas Watson put it, "Repentance and faith are the two wings of a bird whereby we fly into heaven."

These apostles, then, went into these towns and villages and called upon men and women to forsake their sins and turn to God. No "Million Man Walk to Jerusalem." No messages of "Come to Jesus and you will drive a Mercedes." No easy entry into the kingdom message here, but one that is marked "Repent!" The truth of the gospel is that without repentance, all expressions of faith are invalid. The Rich Young Ruler, who failed to repent of his covetousness, was not assured of a place in God’s heaven, not even one on a lesser level than the rest (for worldly, "carnal" Christians). Christ knew nothing of the popular suggestion that taking Jesus as "Lord" is optional. For Him it was not second step which is essential for great blessings but unnecessary for entering God’s kingdom. The altered message of today has deceived men and women by convincing them that Jesus will gladly be a Savior even to those who refuse to follow Him as Lord. It simply is not the truth!

"Some who call themselves ‘Christian’ in fact have never taken up their crosses. Being ignorant of the experience of self–execution, of self–denial, they are of necessity strangers to Christ. Our Lord Himself intended His illustration and His demand to deepen alarm in such individuals....Without a cross there is no following Christ! And without following Christ there is no life at all! An impression has been given that many enter life through a wide gate of believing on Jesus. Then a few go through the narrow gate of the cross for deeper spiritual service. On the contrary, the broad way without self–denial leads to destruction. All who are saved have entered the fraternity of the cross" (Walter Chantry, The Shadow of the Cross (Edinburgh: Banner), pp. 19-20, 22).

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June 15, 2004
Whatever!

I can see what Chesterton was getting at when he wrote in A Short History of England, "The past is not what it was"! I refer to the modern use of the expression, "Whatever!"

I have to confess that I find the use of it deeply irritating. I cannot fully explain it. I find its use an admission of an inability to reason, to communicate, to think! It is a postmodernist concession that nothing really matters. Children (kids!) will use it when asked to do something they do not want to do but do not care for any reasonable explanation that may be given as why it must be done. It is a sign of indifference: to authority, to social conventions, to reason.

The next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is said to have an entry reflecting its current usage along with babilicious (an attractive woman, from Wayne’s World), stalkerazzi (akin to paparazzi), and yadda, yadda, yadda (which can mean anything you want it to mean, an expression popularized by Seinfeld but actually goes back to the 1940s). There are also rumors that this king amongst dictionaries will include entries for Starbucked (an exhaustive, exaggerated, and overly bureaucratic method of developing a simple solution or process), and starbuckitus (the need of a person to drink Starbucks coffee 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) which I find delightful!

There is a French novel called Whatever! (by Michel Houellebecq, translated into English by Paul Hammond) that was the bestseller in France in 1995. It is about a deeply alienated young man who cannot find happiness… yadda, yadda, yadda.

Which brings me to last year’s bestseller in Britain: Eats Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss (and recently published here in the United States). It is a book about grammar! Yes, English grammar! The apostrophe mark to be precise. It begins with the story of a panda that walks into a café, orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air. "Why?" asks a waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda gets out a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. "I’m a panda," he says. "Look it up." Finding the relevant entry the waiter reads: "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Fortunately, I went to school just (just!) before the revolution of the late sixties when English grammar was abandoned for "self-expression." I recall a high school class in which I was ridiculed for doing precisely that: "expressing" my preference for Shakespeare over Chaucer.

But back to "whatever!" It smacks of the deeply felt cynicism that pervades our modern society, the kind that is spoken of in Ecclesiastes as "vanity" (Eccles. 1:2, and 25 other occasions). Life lived without Jesus Christ is a kind of "whatever!" You have your conventions and I have mine and for the sake of peace, I will conform, but only outwardly; not in my heart. It is a sickness for which Jesus Christ is the only remedy.

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May 31, 2004
In Memoriam

As I write, it is Memorial Day weekend.

And nowhere does post-modernity reveal its true colors more vividly than in its indifference to the past. It is right that we remember the past, if only to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Our freedoms have been paid for in blood.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on May 5, 1868, by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states.

The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every state on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act, P.L. 90 - 363, in 1971 to ensure a three-day weekend for federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas; April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

In Britain, there is a similar day, Remembrance Sunday. It is held on the closest Sunday to November 11—the day that World War I ended in 1918, when the armistice was signed in Compiègne, Northern France, at 5 a.m. Six hours later, the fighting stopped, and to commemorate this there is a two minute silence in the UK at 11 a.m., every November 11.

Initially, Remembrance Sunday had more in common with the American Veteran’s Day (remembering the fallen in World War I), but has now become a day when all who have fallen in times of war are remembered. It begins with a solemn service on Saturday evening in Royal Albert Hall in London, broadcast live to the nation, when poppies fall from the ceiling (one poppy leaf for each one fallen). The mass of red that covers the heads of soldiers standing to attention below is vivid, no more so than the sound of the words of Laurence Binyon’s poem, For The Fallen, which are uttered during this ceremony:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left growold:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

The poppies are worn because in World War I the Western Front contained in the soil thousands of poppy seeds, all lying dormant. They would have lain there for years more, but the battles being fought there churned up the soil so much that the poppies bloomed like never before. The most famous bloom of poppies in the war was in Ypres, a town in Flanders, Belgium, which was crucial to the Allied defense. There were three battles there, but it was the second, which was calamitous to the Allies since it heralded the first use of the new chlorine gas the Germans were experimenting with, which brought forth the poppies in greatest abundance, and inspired the Canadian soldier, Major John McCrae, to write his most famous poem. This, in turn, inspired the British Legion to adopt the poppy as their emblem.

It was an American, Moira Michael from Georgia, who first wore the poppy and wrote a poem of her own, We Shall Keep the Faith:

It is Memorial Day weekend. And I am grateful for the sacrifice of those who allow me to celebrate it.

I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
                                [Psalm 143:5 (ESV)]

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May 27, 2004

Holy Cappucino!
A few weeks ago, more than 300 years after his death, "Friar Cappucino"—the monk who "invented" the famous cappuccino drink—was made a saint by the Pope. Friar Cappucino joins over 1,300 other saints beatified by the current pontiff (he has formally beatified more people than all his predecessors in the past four centuries). Father Cappucino, whose real name was Marco d’Aviano, was instrumental in the defeat of the Ottoman Turk army as it marched towards Vienna in 1683. As the Islamic invaders fled, legend has it that they left behind sacks of coffee which the "Christians" found too bitter and tried it instead sweetened with honey and frothy milk. D’Aviano belonged to the order of Capuchin, and hence the name given to this beverage.

The media have been critical because of its insensitivity to Islam. Christians all over the world find it offensive because of the distortion it creates as to the nature of a "saint." This past week, Pope John Paul II canonized Gianna Beretta Molla who died of cancer in 1962. She died having refused life-giving treatment that would have destroyed the baby she was carrying. Present at the canonization were her 91-year-old husband and the daughter she gave birth to. She is the first married woman to have been made a saint in modern times. The canonization of the dead as saints was first made official by Pope John XV in the year 995.

Catholic canonization is fundamentally at odds with the Scriptures. Apart from the notion that these "saints" can now be prayed to (though many Catholics today insist that they pray with the saints rather than to them), it is the process by which they become saints that is wrong. In 1983, Pope John Paul II made sweeping changes in the canonization procedure. Following the death of a candidate, an elaborate investigation takes place by the "Cardinals of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints," following which the candidate is deemed "venerable."

The next step, beatification, requires evidence of one miracle (except in the case of martyrs). Since miracles are considered proof that the person is in heaven and can intercede for us, the miracle must take place after the candidate’s death and as a result of a specific petition to the candidate. When the pope proclaims the candidate beatified or "blessed," the person can be venerated by a particular region or group of people with whom the person holds special importance.

Only after one more miracle will the pope canonize the saint (this includes martyrs as well). The title of saint tells us that the person lived a holy life, is in heaven, and is to be honored by the universal Church. Canonization does not "make" a person a saint; it recognizes what God has already done.

This is a million miles away from the New Testament where every sinner who trusts in Jesus Christ alone for salvation is deemed a "saint" (hagios), or "holy one." Paul addressed the Corinthian believers as "those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy" (1 Cor. 1:2). It is difficult to know whether Paul meant to call them "holy called-ones" or called holy-ones." Both are true.
 

THE FOO-FOO DRIVEN LIFE!
I admit it! I love my morning coffee. I just wish I could order that "triple venti vanilla latte" just because it sounds so sophisticated! I like my coffee strong, but black. No foo-foo coffee flavors. And definitely no latte! The plastic lid of my Starbucks coffee has embossed along the top the words, "CAUTION CONTENTS HOT." And anyone who takes their Starbucks coffee "without latte" knows how hot it can be!

The apostle John records words of Jesus to the Laodicean church: "you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold" (Rev 3:16). Lukewarmness in churches is something which disgusts our Savior. He urges Christians to be hot!

Losing steam—flagging under pressure is something the writer of Hebrews warns about. He urges Christians to keep going when everything around us says "Stop!" The Christian life is an endurance test (10:36), a marathon race (12:1). I write only from what I hear others say at this point and not from experience! There is a moment when everything within wants to give up. At such times, we are to look to Jesus and draw from Him strength to endure.

This exhortation is multidimensional: first, Jesus is the pattern of our perseverance. We are to "consider" him (3:1). The verb implies a long and serious "study" of Jesus! We need to discover the ways and means He himself employed in order to finish his course.

Second, Jesus is the pacesetter. He is the "founder" (12:2) of our faith. The word implies the activity of a trailblazer who goes before us opening up a way for us to follow. This past week saw the 50th anniversary of the breaking of the four-minute mile by Roger Bannister. Recalling the occasion on radio this week, he spoke of the two pacesetters who helped him run the first three laps in just over three minutes. Without their help he would not have been able to do it. Jesus sets the pace for us to follow. Third, in union with Jesus we find Him to be our partner who by the Spirit enables us to endure. In union with Jesus we can do all things (Phil 4:13).

The tendency whenever we find ourselves flagging is to look to the latest thing, whatever happens to be passing by that carries a "best-seller" sticker on it. But the Bible’s advice to flagging Christians is clear: consider the tried and trusted pathways. Never was its said better than these words of Hugh Miller:

The Shadow of the Cross, 87.

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An occasional series on worship in Hebrews
Acceptable Worship (1)
Derek W.H. Thomas
 

These verses clearly indicate that there is such a thing as acceptable (and by implication unacceptable) worship. That’s a sobering thought, and it behooves us to find out what this may mean. No Christian wants to give to God unacceptable worship!

1.  There is a possibility that it simply means the offering of a grateful heart to God: "let us be grateful…and thus (in this way) let us offer to God acceptable worship." That is certainly a part of it. Gratitude is the Christian’s response to the experience of grace. Paul can summarize almost the totality of a Christian response by saying to the Colossians, "be thankful" (Col 3:15). Giving thanks is the constant refrain of the psalms of the Old Testament song book (Psa 9:1; 28:7; 30:4, 12; 33:2 and 25 further references!). All of our worship—private, familial and corporate, ought to be marked by the sounds of gratitude.

Sweet is the work, my God, my King,
To praise Thy Name, give thanks and sing,
To show Thy love by morning light
And talk of all Thy truth at night
                                    Isaac Watts

2.  It also involves the offering of a consistent heart to God. The author of Hebrews returns to this theme in the next chapter where the context seems to be a more general one: "Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God" (Heb 13:15-16). Here, the sacrifice of praise is linked with a life of faithfulness and concern for others. Gratitude must flow from a heart that is given over to God in every part.

In Reformed Christianity, distinctions are necessarily drawn between private and corporate worship (after all, we don’t celebrate the sacraments when we invite friends for a backyard cookout! Though, we do offer the worship of hearts when we do so). Distinguishing these two is one thing; divorcing them entirely is another. To offer worship in a corporate setting when our personal lives are given over to selfishness and greed is hypocritical and shameful. Acceptable worship involved on the Lord’s Day in the company of God’s people is rooted in a life that worships God throughout the rest of the week.

3.  It also involves the offering of a subdued and reverent heart to God. Worship is to be offered, "with reverence and awe.’"  The mention of reverence is one thing, but to bring in the threat that "our God is a consuming fire" sounds positively Old Testament! We are to worship with the day of judgment in mind! Really? In the Old Testament, this expression meant submission to God’s revealed way. In Hebrews 5:7, for example, Jesus is represented as praying fervently with reverence: an allusion to His praying in the Garden of Gethsemane with its refrain, "not My will but Yours be done" (Lk 22:42). It is that pattern that the writer of Hebrews has just held before us as one to follow (Heb 12:1-3). The expression "consuming fire" recalls Moses’ words to Israel regarding idolatry in Deuteronomy 4:24. The corporate worship of Israel had assumed aspects which were out of accord with God’s revealed pattern.

Worship is to regulated by divine instruction and we are not at liberty to alter that: not even in New covenant worship. The threat is massive: the possibility that some may worship God according to their own conventions, with disregard for God’s way: the warning is as fearful as it could possibly be: "For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries" (Heb 12:26-27). It is as serious as that!

5/5/2004
Acceptable Worship (2)
Drawing Near to God
    Some commentators on Hebrews, past and present, have concluded that the epistle to the Hebrews is a sermon—a long sermon! If this is indeed the case, the meat of the sermon (roughly) occupies chapters 5 – 9. Acting almost like bookends to this section—one at the beginning, the other at the end—the writer makes the same exhortation: the need to "draw near" (Gk. proserchesthai) to God (4:16; 10:22):

"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace" (4:16).

"Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (10:22).

1. We draw near to God through faith in Jesus Christ. In both instances we may draw near to God because of what Christ has done: Jesus our "great high priest" has "passed through the heavens" (4:14); "since we have a great priest over the house of God" (10:21). Old Covenant ritual in drawing near to God involved elaborate rituals of cleansing and the offering of sacrifices through intermediaries—the Levitical priesthood. The New Covenant is distinguished by the "priesthood of all believers." The verb employed here is the one used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for the priestly approach to God in the sanctuary (Lev 21:17, 21). But the New Covenant is different. Jeremiah put it this way: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord" (Jer. 31:31, 34). New Covenant believers have a direct access to God through Jesus Christ in a way that Old Covenant believers did not.

2. We draw near "with confidence" (4:16) and a true heart in full assurance of faith (10:22). The word "confidence" is the same one used to describe the boldness of apostolic preaching (4:13, 29, 31). There should be no doubt as to God’s willingness to receive us through Jesus Christ. His word is his bond. On the basis of what Christ has done for us and in us, we may eradicate any suspicion of being turned away, or of not being heard fully. We draw near to him and we do so boldly. The alternative is unthinkable: to "throw away your confidence" (10:35) or "to shrink back" (10:39). A "true heart" is one that offers undivided allegiance. It is a heart that is devoid of hypocrisy.

The Shorter Catechism teaches us that the preface to the Lord’s Prayer which is, "Our Father which art in heaven," teacheth us "to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence as children to our Father, able and ready to help us." 

We have a Father who is able and ready to help us! 

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April 14, 2004
Peering into the Empty Tomb
We’ve just passed through another Easter Sunday with sermons on the resurrection. The marshalling of powerful "facts" that "prove" the tomb was empty and that Jesus rose from the dead. Thrilling! My Presbyterian genes balk at the church calendar, though I do remember learning in school days the significance of Quinquagesima- which for the uninitiated is the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the official beginning of Lent. Presbyterians never adopted the calendar for reasons that we need not go into here. But, I’m happy to preach on the resurrection—anytime!

It has set me thinking: what does the resurrection mean to modern man—post-modern man? C. S. Lewis comments in his book Miracles that the resurrection was the most dominant idea of early Christian preaching. It was the central theme of every sermon in Acts. When Paul came to Athens, he preached "Jesus and the Resurrection (anastasis)" (Acts 17:18). Evidently the Athenians thought anastasis was another deity! Lewis goes on to suggest that "the first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection. If they had died without making anyone else believe this ‘gospel’ no Gospels would ever have been written."

This raises an interesting issue as to the value of declaring the "evidence" for the resurrection in this post-modern society of ours. Books like Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison, or The Resurrection Factor by Josh McDowell provide convincing evidence that the resurrection is verifiable in a court of law. But in a world that doesn’t accept absolute truth, what place do rational arguments have? The "That’s great if it works for you" response (what the British call "Right you are if you think you are") robs the logic of McDowell, Morison, or for that matter, Lewis, of its force. Indeed, a case could be made that Lewis’ "old-fashioned" argumentation appeals only to his devoted followers. It fails to reach those who take refuge in relativism. It is powerful against Freud and Marx but not against Richard Rorty or Andrea Dworkin. It is doubtful that they will "convince" the unbeliever who is skeptical about the very notion of "evidence" and who can discourse learnedly about "plausibility structures" and "paradigm shifts." Nor will it convince that other type of unbeliever who is far more likely to believe that Jesus gave sight to the blind and rose from the dead than to believe that no one comes to the Father except through Him. It is not "miracle" that offends modern men and women so much as exclusivist claims. Interestingly, Lewis gave passing note of it when Screwtape notes in his very first letter that the historical period has passed in which "the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not."

Watching Paul in Athens is a fascinating thing. He, too, encountered empirical and philosophical pluralism (to cite Don Carson’s analysis in The Gagging of God). Some found his advocacy of the "resurrection" interesting and wished to hear him some more. But there comes a time when clever arguments mean nothing and bold assertion means everything. Paul’s sermon in Acts 17 (the encounter of Jerusalem and Athens) is a model for our own time. Paul then explained Christianity to the philosophers. He did not say, "Here, let me tell you about another god to add to your pantheon." Instead, he insisted, "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything" (vv. 24-25). The God of the Bible supersedes all other gods.

7 April 2004

Out of Africa
For some time now, the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA) has "recognized" same-sex relationships. There have been pronouncements that such relationships are "sacramental" (a term that can mean almost anything from cream cheese to "I get this warm and fuzzy feeling whenever I do this"—the church should pronounce a moratorium banning its use for ten years until we can agree as to what it means!). Then came the enthronement of the "gay bishop" Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire Diocese. The furor over same-sex unions in recent days is but a logical outcome over the church’s own ambivalence, pronouncing it as "an acceptable practice within the church."

The Church of the Province of Uganda (Anglican) cut its ties with ECUSA at the end of 2003. It did so out of principle and at considerable cost. Initially, it did so fairly quietly and when ECUSA sent delegates to the church in Uganda, thereby attempting to demonstrate some kind of normality in their relationship, the Ugandan church was forced to make things clear. They published an "Open Letter" explaining their position. When certain members of the ECUSA delegation began to threaten the much needed aid that was at stake for the poor and starving in Uganda, the Ugandan church was resolute:

‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not for sale, even among the poorest of us who have no money. Eternal life, conforming to Jesus Christ, and conforming to His Word are more important.’  (See: http://www.anglican.tk/docs/uganda.pdf)

This a courageous and humbling response from our African brothers and sisters. Speaking out in this forthright, yet compassionate way, is something we owe to God. We owe it to the Church of Jesus Christ; but, we also owe it to our brothers and sisters who are tempted in this very area but are determined to live their lives in a chaste fashion for God’s glory. Some may well find this difficult to understand, but the realities are hard to deny. Some are tempted in this way and must spend their lives in denial of their desires as an act of Christian commitment to be a soldier of Jesus Christ.

The gay "lifestyle" is wrong. It does not have God’s blessing. It is contrary to what the Bible declares: "Men who practice homosexuality . . . will not inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9; cf. 1 Tim. 1:10). This does not mean that anyone who is guilty of homosexual sin is beyond redemption. What it does mean is that anyone who is committed to a gay lifestyle—body and soul—is in rebellion against God and must either repent or perish.

People need to hear this. Gays and lesbians need to hear this. They need to know that homosexual intercourse is wrong. And they need to know that it is wrong because God says it is wrong. But they also need to hear that forgiveness is possible—provided they repent. It is what we read in Scripture: that in a passage where Paul condemns homosexual practice—‘men who practice homosexuality’ will not ‘inherit the kingdom of God,’ he adds, ‘And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God’ (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

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March 3, 2004
Passionate About The Cross
    No! This is not an article answering all the questions about Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion. And No! I have not seen it nor do I intend to. The reasons? Well, some other time… What concerns me now is how we interpret the sufferings of Jesus and what they are meant to produce in us by way of response. I’m thinking of Paul’s words at the close of Galatians: "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14).

How can Paul "boast" in an instrument of torture and death? Only because he interprets the cross in a way other than that which the human eye sees. What Paul understands in the death of Jesus is substitution, propitiation, atonement, and reconciliation. None of these emerge simply from viewing the physical sufferings of Christ (as the Gospel accounts of the on-lookers testify). That’s why preaching the cross is essential. That’s why Peter’s word 6 weeks later at Pentecost is essential. That’s why the most powerful evangelistic tool we possess is the Bible!

But, its Paul’s response to the cross that concerns me now. He says two things: First, "the world is crucified to me." What is Paul saying? He’s saying that the world has nothing to offer him! This world which crucified the Saviour has nothing that he ultimately wants or needs. The fallen world, the ungodly world, the Christ-less world, it is empty and unsatisfying. It’s possessions, its glamour, its pleasures! It offers no lasting value without Christ.

This is a statement about consecration. How should the cross of Jesus Christ affect us? It should move us? Yes! And no doubt watching his death would do that for many. But that is not enough! It should force out of us a response in which I am no longer prepared to live for myself, for my family, for success and gain and the plaudits of this world. I want to live out and out for Jesus Christ.

Do you remember that parable Jesus told? About a man who tore down his barns to build bigger and better ones. What will it profit you, if you gain the whole world and lose your soul? What did he mean? That it was possible to so live for the things of this world so as to lose sight of the whole point. "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ— the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." (Phil.3:7-9)Is there something you cannot let go of?

Second, "I am crucified to the world." This is not a statement of consecration, though often interpreted that way (we’ve already had that in the previous statement). Rather, what is view here is the answer to the question: How did the world see Paul? Answer: as though he had been crucified!

The world regarded Paul as a fool! It showed no respect for him! Paul was, in a way, sharing in the sufferings of Christ. On five separate occasions, the world lashed him thirty-nine times on his back! He bore in his body "the marks of Jesus" (Gal. 6:17).

What Paul is giving here is a testimony that those who place the cross at the center of their lives, will have a cross in their center of their lives! He does not, therefore, complain about the sufferings that Jesus brings. He glories in them. He was passionate about that!

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride

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February 12, 2004
“She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah”

It has been forty years since the Beatles first appeared on American television. The media have been celebrating it lately, adding to my sense of age!

I was a teenager in the Sixties. I remember those songs: "Love me do," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "Eight Days a Week," "Yesterday," "A Hard Day’s Night," "Yellow Submarine," "All You Need is Love," "Let it Be," "Eleanor Rigby"… Truth be told, they played on my sister’s record player rather than mine. I was "into" Brahms and Beethoven more than the Beatles—even in the Sixties! But their melodies linger, even now, and only a stuffy elitism denies their musical quality. True, their lifestyles were questionable; but so were the lives of Beethoven and Brahms (let alone Tchaikovsky or Mozart).

The "Sixties" were more of a cultural revolution than a mere decade.  Bob Dylan said of the Sixties that they were as though "a flying saucer had landed and changed everything. That’s what the Sixties were like.  Everybody heard about it, but only a few really saw it." Culture turned itself on its head.

According to Ken Myers (All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes), popular culture is characterized by two key attributes: the quest for novelty and the desire for instant gratification.  Meyers argues that the quest for novelty is not simply a search for new distractions, but a belief that a new thing will be better than the old one.  It is the image of old machines being superseded by new and better ones.  C.S. Lewis addressed this quest for novelty by asking, "How has it come about that we use the highly emotive word ‘stagnation,’ with all its malodorous and malarial overtones, for what other ages would have called ‘permanence’?"  Thus, the Beatles signal the beginning of post-modernity. A distrust of the past, of tradition, of authority structures, of received meaning.

The Beatles came to define a generation, an era. A post-war generation had grown up that had not known the cost of the Forties, and were indifferent to its values. What Elvis had begun in Tupelo, the Beatles had continued in Liverpool. True, they were corrupting the youth of Great Britain and America. They did become more and more weird in their experimentation with the freedoms they espoused. Their fame rocketed them to stardom for which they were unprepared. When John Lennon uttered the famous remark that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus," understandable fury erupted—Dallas youth pastors reacted with literal bonfires when they arrived! The quote was misunderstood. The fact is that in the minds of many, they were! Lennon was, I think, merely pointing out the sad reality of a culture that had drifted from its Christian moorings a long time before him.

What we saw in the Beatles was a search for meaning which they did not, could not find in money, sex, or power. George Harrison drifted into mysticism, all of them dabbled with Maharishi Yogi, and (at the time, though hardly now) their appearance became symptomatic of a generation in defiance. Lennon was once asked about the song, "Help." He said, "I wrote ‘Help’ in ’65, and people hailed it as another advance in rock & roll. It was the cry of my heart and nobody came to answer." The Beatles played out on a big canvas the struggles that a generation had with a world that seemingly provided no answers to their questions. Pastor Alistair Begg, in an interview for Christianity Today in April of 2003, expressed his disappointment that Christians did not make a greater attempt to reach the Beatles. He commented: "I want to encourage Christians to get serious about being real about Jesus Christ. Listen to music so that you can talk to people about it rather than sloganeering and banging the drum for the same old stuff."

And that’s the challenge we still face.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for the visual art form to depict the subtlety of the written word. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a case in point. For all of Peter Jackson’s directorial finesse, what emerges is almost inevitably schmaltz, even chutzpah! Jackson re-tells the story, adapts it for his own ends. True, the written form adapts all too stubbornly to celluloid and its digital equivalent. Some reshaping is undoubtedly necessary. But, for this Tolkienite, it was a tad too much.

            Thus Denethor the steward of Gondor loses all nobility in the movie and becomes a character for whom little sympathy can be given. When Shadowfax kicks him onto the pyre, incredulity triumphs! And that kiss! Aragorn and Arwen glued in embrace. 

            Or, take Gollum. It began well. The creature was more life-like than I’d expected. The schizophrenia superbly done. But in the end something is wrong with Jackson’s direction. The sense of pity that Tolkien suggests to the very end is missing. In The Return of the Ring we lose all sense of pity for this hapless creature. In the book, Frodo says to Sam concerning Gollum, “I could not have destroyed the ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him.” Tolkien’s point is crucial to the whole book: that even Gollum was a victim of something far greater than himself. There is a providence at work, an inevitability in the end, that good emerges through evil. The good outcome is not bravado (the heroic action of Frodo in Jackson’s tacky ending, lunging at Gollum and falling off a cliff only to be saved by Sam); it is something larger, more profound, more disturbing. There is a predestination, a necessity that overrules every event. The visual genre panders to the immediate thrill and in so doing exaggerates.

            Frodo failed! That is the point. He is not the hero in the end. I cannot help but think that it is, in the end, a doctrine of sin that fails to emerge—something which the Catholicism of Tolkien understands better. It is Jackson’s failure to see the subtlety of evil—its alluring quality rather than the violent and grotesque—that diminishes the film. Evil is captivating as well as repellant.

            Did I like it? Of course! Did I see it more than once? Of course! Will I buy the extended DVD with its promise of an extra 75 minutes? Of course! The Nazgûl were terrific. The oliphaunts truly fearsome. And Sam, for all the twisted insistence of the Director, mesmerizing in his boyish display of friendship. And Pippin, made to sing a plaintive song that rends the heart, introduced a depth of understanding that had been missing..

            But it isn’t the book!

            And that reminds me, as we anticipate another cinematographic spectacle, The Passion, that for all the hype and excitement, words carry more weight than sights. If we doubt that we diminish art. And we diminish the Bible, too.

"It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.

"I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, on an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half way down the list of "premonitory symptoms," it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

"I sat for a while frozen with horror; and then in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever —read the symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got;...and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee."

The humor in that extract from Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat is due to the fact that most of us at one time or another have experienced similar feelings. But sickness is all too real to be trifled with. And the question needs to be asked as to whether or not it is God’s will for everyone to be well. It needs asking because of the astonishing claims made.

It has been pointed out that our Lord only healed one man at the Pool of Bethesda. The eighteenth century deist, Thomas Woolson, put it like this: "If he could not cure them (the others at the pool), there’s an end of his power of miracles; and if he would not, it was want of mercy and compassion in him." It was through such teaching as this that Joni Eareckson Tada was led to believe that God did not want her in a wheel-chair. Her own account of what happened is a poignant reminder of just how insensitive some Christians can be to those who already suffer enormously. Like Job’s comforters they prey on the emotions of the weak. It ought to be sufficient to remember that even the great apostle Paul was given a thorn in the flesh—a disability which God had no intension of removing because through it Paul would learn lessons that he would learn in no other way (2 Cor.12:7ff). Scripture also records the near fatal illness of Epaphroditus (Phil.2:27) together with that of Trophimus at Miletus (2 Tim.4:20). In none of these instances was the intervention of a ‘faith-healer’ advocated.

Perfect health is something God only promises in heaven. It is only in that beautiful vision of Revelation 21 and the New Jerusalem that we are promised no more pain. Full bodily well-being is a future blessing of salvation rather than a present one. Here and now we take our sicknesses both to the Lord and to the doctor asking the Lord to help us, heal us if it is his will, teach us lessons through it, rebuke us and challenge us. Maybe we shall receive healing and maybe not. We shall have to be open to either. All such situations test our faith, of course. To be ill, or to watch a loved one in pain, is a difficult experience that shakes our very foundations. Job having lost his wealth and progeny then became ill, breaking out in sores, boils and skin ulcers (leprosy?). His wife said to him "Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9). He almost did! The only thing to do is to trust God that He will do everything well. If we do that we shall emerge victorious whether we are physically restored to health or not.

This world is a preparation for the world to come. Death is a gateway into the presence of Christ. If a Christian dies young it is not "a tragedy." Keeping that thought in the forefront of our minds will spare us much anxiety. It is the only way to live. It is the only way to die.
************************

February 5, 2004
THE MEDIUM AND THE MESSAGE
The Return of the Ring ~ some thoughts

It is difficult, if not impossible, for the visual art form to depict the subtlety of the written word. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a case in point. For all of Peter Jackson’s directorial finesse, what emerges is almost inevitably schmaltz, even chutzpah! Jackson re-tells the story, adapts it for his own ends. True, the written form adapts all too stubbornly to celluloid and its digital equivalent. Some reshaping is undoubtedly necessary. But, for this Tolkienite, it was a tad too much.

            Thus Denethor the steward of Gondor loses all nobility in the movie and becomes a character for whom little sympathy can be given. When Shadowfax kicks him onto the pyre, incredulity triumphs! And that kiss! Aragorn and Arwen glued in embrace. 

            Or, take Gollum. It began well. The creature was more life-like than I’d expected. The schizophrenia superbly done. But in the end something is wrong with Jackson’s direction. The sense of pity that Tolkien suggests to the very end is missing. In The Return of the Ring we lose all sense of pity for this hapless creature. In the book, Frodo says to Sam concerning Gollum, “I could not have destroyed the ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him.” Tolkien’s point is crucial to the whole book: that even Gollum was a victim of something far greater than himself. There is a providence at work, an inevitability in the end, that good emerges through evil. The good outcome is not bravado (the heroic action of Frodo in Jackson’s tacky ending, lunging at Gollum and falling off a cliff only to be saved by Sam); it is something larger, more profound, more disturbing. There is a predestination, a necessity that overrules every event. The visual genre panders to the immediate thrill and in so doing exaggerates.

            Frodo failed! That is the point. He is not the hero in the end. I cannot help but think that it is, in the end, a doctrine of sin that fails to emerge—something which the Catholicism of Tolkien understands better. It is Jackson’s failure to see the subtlety of evil—its alluring quality rather than the violent and grotesque—that diminishes the film. Evil is captivating as well as repellant.

            Did I like it? Of course! Did I see it more than once? Of course! Will I buy the extended DVD with its promise of an extra 75 minutes? Of course! The Nazgûl were terrific. The oliphaunts truly fearsome. And Sam, for all the twisted insistence of the Director, mesmerizing in his boyish display of friendship. And Pippin, made to sing a plaintive song that rends the heart, introduced a depth of understanding that had been missing..

            But it isn’t the book!

            And that reminds me, as we anticipate another cinematographic spectacle, The Passion, that for all the hype and excitement, words carry more weight than sights. If we doubt that we diminish art. And we diminish the Bible, too.
***************************

January 27, 2004
Uncaging Nonsense
"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." No, this has nothing to do with listening to a sermon! It comes from one of the twentieth centuries most influential composers, John Cage. This past month the BBC Symphony Orchestra had been celebrating the musical output of this American composer. Born at the beginning of the last century (and died a few years ago), Cage’s popularity emerged in the mid-sixties. Some will no doubt recall Francis Schaeffer’s strong criticisms of Cage (along with similar missiles directed at Van Gogh).

Like many artists of the sixties, Cage was enamored of the eighteenth century Hindu mystic guru, Sri Rama Krishna. At a time when postmodernity is said to have been born, Cage found value in all religions, saying that they were "like a lake to which people who are thirsty come from different directions, calling its water by different names."

Cage was also fascinated with the concept of chance. He once wrote the tortuous sentence, "In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions." No, don’t bother re-reading it! He applied this fascination to music, insisting that the art of composition was best done like the throw of dice.

What lies behind this is the philosophy of nihilism. That in the end, nothing really matters. Samuel Beckett produced a play entitled Breath, which lasted all of thirty seconds and had no actors or dialogue. It has led the elitist art world to hail the likes of Helene Chadwick as an "innovative conceptual artist"—she produced a sculpture entitled "Carcass," a transparent pillar seven feet high comprised of rotting vegetables. Or, my favorite, Jacqueline Humphries, who produced an object on which bright paint was allowed to slither; she was hailed as "Jack the Dripper"!

As a philosophy, this has evident flaws. Cage, also an expert in the field of mycology—the study of mushrooms, confessed that mushrooms needed more careful study. All noises may be created equal when it comes to music, he opined, but you can’t just flip a coin when it comes to picking mushrooms. "I became aware," he once confessed, "that if I approached mushrooms in the spirit of my chance operation, I would die shortly." You see, there is a difference between a "portobello" and an "angel of death": only one is excellent sautéed. As a philosophy it cannot be consistently lived by. Something has to make sense. There have to be some moral absolutes. When a nihilist stands in front of a moving truck, he steps out of the way!

Written just months before I was born (in 1952) Cage’s most famous musical composition is entitled 4’33'’. It is played at the piano and is divided into three movements. The piece lasts four minutes and thirty-three seconds exactly! All of the notes are silent! Cage broke from the history of classical composition and proposed that the primary act of musical performance was not making music, but listening. A pianist uses a stopwatch to control his tempo. For those interested, there are a couple of CD recordings available. The score calls for any number of people playing any number of instruments, not specifically piano, although it was performed many times at the piano. A second version of the work entitled emerged and was called 0’00". It is, of course, an impossible piece to play!

The BBC Symphony Orchestra "played" 4’33'’ this past month in London as part of a larger celebration of Cage’s musical output. The conductor, Lawrence Foster, apparently mopped his brow in between movements! The artsy press, in a display of grandiose sophistry and elitism, have been falling over themselves in praising this celebration, writing lengthy reviews of the concerts.

And, yes, the orchestra received performance fees!

**********************

21 Jan 2004
Why Every Christian Should Seek to
Attend a Prayer Meeting   

It’s time for those New Year resolutions again! Here’s one worthy of consideration: that a prayer meeting ought to be a part of my Christian life. "The advantages of a well conducted prayer meeting," wrote John Angel James, "are great and numerous." But what might these advantages be? I will suggest ten of them during the course of this three-part series.

1. The church was conceived at a prayer meeting. What were the members of the church doing in those days prior to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost? Having been expressly told to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4,8), the disciples, the Lord’s brothers and the women met together in an upper room and "continued with one accord in prayer and supplication..." (Acts 1:14). The New Testament church was born as a result of a Prayer Meeting. Two factors are worth highlighting. They prayed "with one accord." Luke uses a word (homothymadon), a favorite word of Luke’s, which elsewhere means "united" (4:24; 15:25). They also "continued" in prayer. Luke uses a word (proskartereo) a word which means to be "busy" or "persistent." Paul echoed the idea by using the same word in two of his letters, exhorting the Romans to continue "steadfastly in prayer" (Rom. 12:12), and to the Colossians "to continue earnestly in prayer" (Col. 4:2).

2. The New Testament church continued as it had begun. Immediately after Pentecost the church is described as continuing "steadfastly...in prayers" (Acts 2:42). Later, when the Sanhedrin arrested Peter and John and warned them not to preach any more in the name of Jesus, it appears that the rest of the church was in a Prayer Meeting elsewhere in the city (possibly the same upper room as in Acts 1). After the two apostles were released, they went and joined with the rest of the church and "raised their voice to God with one accord" (Acts 4:24). Before Peter and John resumed their preaching work again, they held a time of prayer (Acts 4:31). When Peter was eventually imprisoned for preaching the gospel, the church responded with yet another prayer meeting (Acts 12:5,12). Before the outset of the first missionary journey, the church set aside time for a prayer meeting (Acts 13:1). In appointing church elders and other workers prayer meetings were held (Acts 6:4-6; 14:23). Paul and Silas continued the practice, holding a midnight prayer meeting in a prison in Philippi (Acts 16:25). And before saying farewell to the Ephesian elders on the shores of Miletus, Paul knelt down and prayed with them (Acts 20:36). When Paul returns to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey, the ship on which he sails stops at Tyre to load cargo. Paul spends the night in the company of the church there and before parting the next day, men, women and children hold a prayer meeting on the beach next to the ship (Acts 21:5). And in a storm on another ship which ran aground, Paul organizes yet another prayer meeting (Acts 27:29).

3. The Prayer Meeting is the power by which God’s kingdom advances. When Jesus saw the multitudes, "He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few"’ (Matt 9:36-37). And His request o the church? "Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest" (Matt. 9.38). The kingdom of God advances by prayer meetings in which the blessing of God is called for. Souls are won by prayer. The church grows and prospers through the corporate praying of God’s children.

A wonderful illustration of this is provided for us in Exodus 17:8-13. God’s people were in battle with the Amalekites and greatly outnumbered. Moses told Joshua to choose men and go out to fight the enemy. But he also said that he would stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in his hand and pray with Aaron and Hur. As long as Moses held up his hands in prayer, the people of God prevailed in the battle below in the valley. But, when Moses’ arms grew heavier, and fell down from their position of intercession, then God’s people began to lose in their battle. So someone found a large rock and put it under Moses as a seat, and Aaron and Hour supported his arms, one standing on either side of him. The three constituted a prayer meeting of intercession on behalf of the battle below. The prayer meeting was the deciding factor.

4. Our Lord Jesus felt the need for Prayer Meetings. It is surely an amazing fact that in the Garden of Gethsemane, when our Lord was facing the consequences of his Father’s will that He should die as the sinner’s substitute, that He should have expected the prayer support of His closest disciples (Matt. 26:40). As the unfolding revelation of what lay before Him became clearer, He felt the need for the prayers of sinners to uphold Him! How much more do we need the support of one another in prayer meetings as we struggle against the principalities and powers that are set to destroy us. When the apostle Paul exhorted the Ephesian Christians to pray "with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit...for all the saints" he surely intended that they should gather together for prayer (Eph. 6:10-20).

5. Prayer Meetings demonstrate our covenant nature. God’s covenant was essentially individual. God said to Abraham: ‘"And I will establish my covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant"’ (Gen. 17:7). But at Sinai, all the people redeemed from Egypt entered into covenant with the Lord. God’s covenant at Sinai formed the nation of Israel, the people of God (Exod. 19:5-6). That is why so many of the psalms are prayers expressed in the plural "we." David’s troubles were the troubles of the people of God; his joys were the joys of the people of God (e.g., Psalms 44, 46, 60, 67, 68, 74, 75, 80, 85). These psalms tell us that we belong together; we are the body of Christ; we have similar needs and fears. Corporately, at prayer meetings we make them known to God. Thus, prayer meetings remind us that as Christians we all belong to the same family. "In a sermon on 2 Samuel, John Calvin reminded his Genevan congregation that every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, repeating those words ‘Our Father’ we are reminded of our obligation to pray together. "When we pray to Him, although we do so individually, we say: ‘Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts’ (Matt. 6:11-12). This does not teach us to say: ‘Lord provide for me, and let me be sustained.’ But rather we pray in common with others." We are the family of God. Together, we are the body of Christ. We were meant to gather together and talk to our Maker in Prayer Meeting.

6. Prayer Meetings have been God’s way of bringing about revivals. Before the revival in America in 1857, Jeremiah Lanphier called a prayer meeting in Fulton Street in downtown New York. Within six months 10,000 businessmen were praying for revival. Within two years it is estimated that some 2 million people had been added to the church. At the same time in Ballymena, a certain Mrs. Colville had been used by God in the conversion of a young man called James McQuilkin. He in turn led three of his friends to Christ. The four met together in an old schoolhouse during the winter of 1857 and 1858 in order to pray for revival. By the end of 1858 the numbers had grown to fifty. In 1859 it is estimated that some 100,000 were converted throughout Ireland. God speaks of setting "watchmen" on the walls of Jerusalem "who shall never hold their peace day or night" and who give God "no rest till he establishes...Jerusalem a praise in the earth" (Isa. 62:6-7).

7. Prayer Meetings change history. We may think that in a world as complicated as ours, our prayer meetings are going to accomplish very little. This is the reasoning of unbelief. In 1 Chronicles, in an otherwise rather dull chapter full of lists of genealogies, is the mention of a man called Jabez whose faithful praying changed the course of his life. He asked for help: ‘"Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!"’ (1 Chron. 4:9-10). His simple and direct praying changed the course of his life. The collective praying of God’s people uttered at a prayer meeting can do likewise. In time of national strife, our prayer meetings ought to be full! In the time of Queen Elizabeth 1, the Spanish were planning to invade and, among other things, enforce Roman Catholicism on the newly reformed Protestant Church. As the Spanish admirals gathered hundreds of ships in preparation, God’s praying people prepared another task force to meet them. In congregations all over England they fell to their knees in urgent prayer. The Armada set out in the Spring of 1588, but never landed in England. After several skirmishes in the English Channel, terrific storms came up which scattered the Spanish fleet, driving many of the ships so far off course that they returned home by sailing around the north of Scotland!

8. Prayer Meetings deal death blows to the enemy. In the time of good king Jehoshaphat, a large number of enemies had poured in against Judea (2 Chron. 20). Although God’s people were outnumbered, they were still trusting Him and had decided to go out and fight for all that they were worth. Jehoshaphat mobilized the army, but he also asked the people of Israel to fast and pray before they took action (2 Chron. 20:3).

Assembling the people for battle, he did an interesting thing—a very odd thing! He ordered the women and children to come out and stand in front of the army (made up of their husbands and fathers). Next, he had the priests and the temple choir come out and they led the congregation in praise. As they began to sing and to praise God, His power fell and the soldiers in the enemy army began to destroy one another. The plan of Satan had been to wipe out Israel and thus prevent the coming of a Messiah who could bring salvation. But he was foiled by the praises sung by tiny children! Satan’s troops were routed by killing one another! When God’s people came to the scene, all that was left were the heaps of dead bodies, laden with so much spoil that it took three whole days to carry it all away!

How could a thing like that happen? The key is given in Psalm 22:3 which says: "But You are holy, who inhabit the praises of Israel." In other words, when God’s people pray and praise Him, there is a sense in which a special presence falls from heaven with power to expel evil. It is said that the Devil hates to hear singing and prayer. Perhaps he cannot sing a single note! It is certain that he never prays. Prayer meetings ensure his defeat.

9. Prayer Meetings release blessings already in store. Why pray? Everyone has asked that question at some time or another. Speaking in terms of absolute reassurance to God’s people in captivity, God promises to them that they will return to their land again. God will bring it about in his sovereign power. The thing is certain. And yet He says to them: ‘"I will also let the house of Israel inquire of Me to do this for them"’ (Ezek. 36:37). Again, the clear implication seems to be that God expects His people to gather for collective prayers of intercession. Zechariah illustrates a similar situation, assuring his listeners of God’s blessing, and at the same time informing them that God will hear their prayers (Zech. 10:6). God has promised us many things, but He still wants to hear us ask Him for them. We should not disappoint Him by our neglect of the Prayer Meeting.

10. Prayer Meetings are the best means of encouraging ministers of the gospel. Ask any preacher what he desires most of God’s people, and he will tell you that it is the prayers of the congregation. Paul requested prayer support from the Roman Christians immediately after telling them of his travel plans: "Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you" (Rom. 15:30-2). Several things are worth noting about this passage. First, that Paul "exhorts" ("begs’’in NKJV; the same word, parakaleo, as in 12:1: "I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God...). Second, that he uses an extraordinary verb sunagonisthai ("strive together") emphasizing the fact that it was the corporate prayers of God’s people that the apostle desired. Every preacher would echo these sentiments. They are powerless and ineffective without the blessing of God upon their ministries—and prayer meetings are God’s appointed means of obtaining these much- needed blessings.

For these reasons, every Christian should make every effort to attend a prayer meeting.