Nothing New

"Fire and brimstone" preaching wasn't popular in the Old Testament days either.

"'Do not preach' - thus they preach -
'one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.'" (Micah 2:6)

Let's just say the prophets weren't shy about warning other nations of God's impending judgment. It doesn't always have to be horrible news, of course. There is much about God's grace for those who repent, but there is also very much about God's wrath. More than I'm comfortable with, to be honest. It simply isn't a taboo subject for them, though I'm increasingly more convinced that God doesn't tell them to preach as such simply because "it was more effective back then" or something. People don't like to hear about their sin, but this is where the gospel starts, does it not? Law before grace.

I hate talking about my own sin. I hate when others know about my sin. I just hate it. It's not comfortable; it's embarrassing; it's humiliating. But it needs to happen. Sometimes we can feel good about getting the respectable sins out. Like "I thought better of myself than I should have in this situation" or "I desired that thing covetously." What about the deepest parts of your soul that you don't want anyone to know about? What about the kind of sins that you're afraid of people knowing about because even if they're your best friend, you're sure they'll abandon you for it? Those hurt. The conviction there is not fun.

And then comes the Christmas news, the good tidings of great joy. In that darkness and sin and sickness Jesus Christ enters on the scene, and he takes personal responsibility for everything. The good news is that when there was nothing worth being excited about, when there was every reason to be afraid and be weighed down with guilt, it is then that Jesus Christ steps between you and God's wrath. It is then that he comes with hope of justification and freedom and salvation.

Angry with Love

First off, I want to apologize for recently dropping off the face of the blogging earth. I know I had been doing this daily and then suddenly stopped, but I should be back in business for a while, given that I'm now officially on Christmas break from school. The reason I stopped was due to finals until Friday; since then I've been having so much great fellowship with Christians who are back home that I simply haven't set aside time for blogging! It's a great situation actually. There's clearly a bond that we have, and it's founded on Biblical truth. We've been spreading God's gospel together at Westfield mall and constantly sharing meals and encouragement with each other. I love it.

Today's reading comes from Jonah! Slap me if I've already blogged about this, but not too hard because I think it deserves to be said again if I have. If you haven't read Jonah, you should do so. It's short enough to read all of it in like 5 minutes. Since most who read this blog will probably already know the gist of the story of Jonah, I'm just going to skip that part. After Jonah finally turns from his sin of directly running from God's will to obeying it by preaching a message of repentance to Nineveh, Nineveh actually heeds Jonah's words and repents, all the way up to the king! Because of this, God relents of the disaster that He meant to give them.

And Jonah gets angry! Listen to this crazy complaint from Jonah 4: "¹But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. ²He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." Whoa! Isn't this crazy? God is so amazingly merciful that he gets on a prophet's nerves! And that is good news for me. Really good news.

Noise in God's Ears

Some verses in the Bible just scare me plain and simple. I have the privilege of leading worship before Almighty God in High Point, as well as in RUF, the Stanford college fellowship I'm involved with. So when I come across warnings specifically dealing with public assembly and such, like this one from Amos 5, it hits me right between the eyes:

²¹I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
²²Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
²³Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
²⁴But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

The point is that if we come to God in praise and live the rest of the week scorning his name in what we do the rest of the week, God is not pleased. In fact, he hates such assembling, and the sound of our voices is annoying to Him. It would be better if we didn't sing and instead came before Him with fear, trembling, and repentance, pleading for forgiveness. It would be better if we would go show our devotion to Him, rather than hypocritically singing it. So here is my encouragement for you: "let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18).

Amos 3:6

This verse, I struggle with, because it seems so uncaring towards those who actually have to endure the suffering of the disaster coming to the city. Nevertheless, the Bible is clear:

Is a trumpet blown in the city,
and the people are not afraid?
Does disaster come to a city,
unless the LORD has not done it?

Now, I don't know about you, but I immediately thought of things like 9-11, the Columbine shootings, the recent shootings in Colorado and Nebraska. What is our response to such things in light of this verse? What should our message be?

One thing we certainly do not do is automatically pronounce judgment on the people killed! They were not killed because they were "worse people" than us. As Jesus says of those on whom the tower of Siloam in Luke 13:4-5:

Do you think that they were worse offenders than the others…? No, I tell you...

So people do not necessarily suffer this "irregular" harm because they're worse than you or me or the other people in the city. So that's certainly not how we approach their suffering. Second, we need to "weep with those who weep" (Rom 12:15). We should have compassion and sympathy for those who have experienced loss. Finally, our message is Christ's, and it comes at the end of Luke 13:5:

…unless you repent, you will likewise perish.

The question is "are you ready?" You don't know when you're going to die, so be ready for it! How do we prepare for such an event? The fearful thing about death is not that I don't know what happens afterwards, but that I know exactly what happens afterwards:

It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. (Heb. 9:27)

But this is only a fearful thing for one whose conscience has not been cleansed by Christ's blood. His sacrifice is central to our answer to death. Do we know the eternal state of those who have died? Why would we look into that? We can only examine ourselves. That is the exhortation we present to those questioning why crazy things like this happen.

Christmas in the City '07

Yesterday was Christmas in the City for High Point. We had a good time singing carols to some elderly folks, passing out cookies, and then spending time at Pier 39, Union Square, and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. Here are a couple things that popped up as favorites in addition to the obvious hanging-out-with-friends aspect of the event: talking to the elderly people after singing and passing out tracts! I was encouraged by this.

Praise God that I and a number of the students (most notably my sister) had a chance to pass out some million-dollar-bill tracts as well as big-money tracts. There seemed to be an unusual abundance of people that weren't interested in taking the tracts from me, so that was discouraging. However, there were always those times when someone came up to me asking for more. I got to meet a guy from Australia who had an Australian version of the million-dollar-bill tracts, and one lady was offering to buy two more off me for a dollar so all her kids could have one! I talked to two police officers for about 15 seconds; literally all I got out was, "Good evening, officers", "Did you get one of these", "I'm spreading the Christian gospel", and "What do you think happens when we die?"

This was the first Christmas in the City I've gone to where I've had more of an evangelistic mindset than a self-centered one. It was a great blessing to work towards fulfilling the great Commission. Talking to the students was encouraging, as well, just to know that they're even willing to process spiritual things! Damien especially was a treat as he had so many questions and I didn't have to try hard to carry on spiritual conversations with him.

There were negative aspects, as well, but I know the Lord is faithful and good. Pray that He will tear the sin out of our lives.

Thrice Holy

This Christmas time I have been burdened about a way to communicate the majesty of the incarnation. I want to do this not only for the benefit of others, but also because I am so susceptible to just saying, "Yea, I get it. Can we talk about something new?" I was convicted of this as I was reading the four sections in my daily reading. I got through the last passage and thought to myself, "Well, that was nice, but there really isn't anything much to write about today." At that point, I knew my heart was wrong. I'm reading my own personal copy of the Word of God to mankind! I had lost sight of the significance of this daily routine that I've gotten myself into. The exact same thing happens at Christmas every year. So I got thinking, based on the fourth chapter of Revelation, which was the last portion of the reading. Here's what I decided: I think that in order to understand how truly amazing the incarnation is, we must understand how glorious and holy God is. That is where this text from Revelation comes in. I'll just post verse 8, but it would certainly behoove you to read the whole chapter:

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

"Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!"

Did you catch that? I'll point you to what caught my attention: "Day and night they never cease." These amazing creatures never tire of proclaiming God's holiness. And that to the choir of all choirs! These creatures are in awe of God and they never tire of declaring his praise. Surely the only reason we ever would tire is because God has been removed from the center of our focus.

So what's the difference between us and them? Why do we tire of hearing of the glory of the incarnation, or praising the Lord for His holiness, or standing in wonder at His majesty? The simple answer is that we do not understand it. No one on earth does. Not me; not you; not the newly repentant sinner; not the aged and experienced veteran of the faith. There isn't a soul on earth who grasps the majesty of God. Realizing this is part of what will magnify His glory in your eyes. If you, as an insignificant speck, grasped the majesty of God, I would have to submit that He would not be all that majestic. Can your mind contain the glory of God; or your heart, the fullness of praise He deserves? You cannot do it.

The word awesome is far overused now, which is why I have tended toward words like majestic and glorious; nevertheless, if you can set aside all the puny subjects - like TV shows, good food, and people - that have somehow taken hold of this adjective, then I will say to you: God is awesome. He alone deserves our awe. Stand in wonder at the sight of God's work in the world and in your life. Fear him for the sacrifice He made in becoming man!

The awe of the incarnation comes in realizing that God - Whose glory we cannot grasp, Who overwhelms to the point death all who would look on His true form, the God Who is thrice holy - that this God steps down from His throne and takes on the human flesh that He created, subjects Himself to disobedient ingrates, and suffers under the wrath of the Father. That is truly awesome.

Those Whom I Love

I think it is always vital to keep in mind this precious saying of Christ when dealing with what can at times feel like the "harsh" message of repentance found all over the Bible: "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline" (Rev. 3:19). That's one for the noggin right there. In Christ's zeal for purity and hatred of hypocrisy, He comes through with this precious line of hope. In his exhortation He is for us, if we are His children. This can be awfully confusing when we consider that the church He currently reproves is the one He calls lukewarm! After all, what are we saying? Will You reject those You have received, Lord? Will You vomit up those You clutch tightly in Your hand? I don't think so.

About a year ago, and from a rather unfortunate source, I was pointed to this nevertheless great truth. Paul, in his shipwreck on His way to Rome, is visited by an angel, and promised that all of those on board will survive:

Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said, "Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you." So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. (Acts 17:22-26)

So Paul has God's good faith promise that those who are with Paul will all be alive at the end of the day. So what in the world is Paul doing telling the centurion 5 verses later that "Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved" (Acts 17:31)??? Paul had an understanding of the relationship between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. He was no fatalist! You could say that God used this exhortation from Paul as a means to grant His promise.

So don't take Christ's warnings lightly! If you remain lukewarm, He will indeed spit you out of His mouth. But seriously, what Christian redeemed by the blood of Christ from the depths of sin and granted eternal bliss in glorious communion with the Holy Trinity can stay lukewarm in light of his Father's rebuke? Would this even make sense? For those who are Christians, you ought to be encouraged in a sense by the Lord's rebuke. Better to be rebuked by Him than forgotten! Indeed, if you aren't receiving the Lord's chastisement, you aren't a true child (Heb 12:8).

And what is our response to Christ's chastisement? Zealous repentance (Rev 3:19). Pretty consistent, eh?

This Sermon Wouldn't Preach

Not these days, anyways. It's too… extremist. It's a sermon on wisdom. Here's the central passage from Job:

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding. (Job 28:28)

Trying to figure out what it means to fear God? I'll let this supporting passage give you a subtle hint:

But when they had grazed, they became full,
they were filled, and their heart was lifted up;
therefore they forgot me.
So I am to them like a lion;
like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.
I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs;
I will tear open their breast,
and there I will devour them like a lion,
as a wild beast would rip them open. (Hosea 12:6-8).

Don't let your comfort help you forget God this Christmas (or ever!). Let it remind you of His goodness!

Assurance

This topic has been on my mind a significant amount lately. Yesterday I read through a website article that seeks to give those who have "invited Jesus into their lives" the assurance that they really are saved. Other articles on the website seem so much more solid that it really confuses me how they could drop the ball on a subject like this. I also watched a sermon from a church that, from my miniscule amount of knowledge, had seemed solid. The preacher did a 10 minute altar call at the end of his sermon, and then they baptized the new "converts" right there on the spot! Want to guess what the test was for regeneration? "Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?" A "yes" gets you dunked and what fool would slip and say "no" at that point? I was dumbfounded that this church could call itself Baptist.

In answering someone's question of whether or not they should have assurance of their salvation, I don't think it is wise to come back with trite answers like "well if you weren't saved you wouldn't be worrying about it, so yes!" In fact, I don't know that it is wise to say yes ever, because that isn't our job. Only the Holy Spirit can grant assurance through the promises found in Scripture. The website was always completely affirming and sought to dispel all doubts about whether a person is saved or not without applying any Biblical tests. I came across one such test today in my reading through John: "By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples" (John 15:8). How do we prove to be a disciple of Christ? By bearing much fruit.

Instead of telling someone, "Look at all these promises. If you asked Jesus to save you, then of course you are saved," we need to be saying, "Here's how you become a Christian, and here are the things the Bible says should be true of you once you have become a Christian. Examine yourself. I can't do it for you!" More than likely, the loss of assurance stems from the fact that they either lack a desire for God or they are entertaining some sin in their life. Let's encourage people to bear fruits in keeping with repentance! We cannot just assume people are in the faith because they call Jesus "Lord." We already know what Jesus' response to many of those people will be (Matt. 7:21-23).

Revelation 2:1-17

The next section of reading I had in Revelation was of the first 3 letters to the seven churches. These are the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamum. I picked up on a few themes that resonated with me and they are as follows:

The Lord loves pure doctrine. He praises Ephesus for theirs and rebukes Pergamum for their lack. This is because right doctrine leads to right conduct (orthodoxy begets orthopraxy). The Ephesians spotted false teaching and evil practices a mile away. They hated the deeds of the Nicolatians, followers of Nicolas who essentially taught that Christians have a license to sin. Christ hates their deeds too. The church in Pergamum, however, struggled with false teachings and even had some who followed the teaching of the Nicolatians.

The Lord does not love mechanical orthodoxy. This was the fault of the church in Ephesus. Despite their endurance, their intolerance for moral misconduct, and their watchful eye for erring teaching, the Ephesians had abandoned their love of Christ. This was such a serious error that the Lord threatened to remove the church! I often have to check myself and see if my devotion to discernment has exiled my love of Jesus. It is quite an easy thing to do for the church who is determined about being truly committed to the Bible.

Endurance is an essential part of the Christian life. At the end of each letter so far, Jesus expresses some wonderful truth about the fate of "the one who conquers" (vv. 7, 11, 17). They will "eat of the tree of life" (v. 7), they "will not be hurt by the second death" (v. 11), and they will get some "hidden manna" and a stone with a secret name on it that only they know. I think the first two things are pretty straightforward. Eating of the tree of life is representative of everlasting life, and escaping the second death is escaping God's wrath toward evil. I can't figure out what the hidden manna refers to, but I believe that the image of the white stone is reflective of a heightened level of intimacy with Christ. That sounds good to me! In addition, each church is praised for it's endurance and encouraged to continue. So endure! Whatever trial you might be facing, whether it be temptation or ridicule or the death of a close one, endure. It's most certainly worth it, and Christ smiles on you for it! He understands your hardship and is with you in it. Let that strengthen you.

The proper response to sin is repentance. In both cases when Jesus has something against the church (Ephesus and Pergamum), He commands them to repent. It's that simple, but don't get me wrong, simple does not mean easy. Realize where you've gone wrong. Apologize for it. Hate it. Move on. This is not some complicated process of needing to figure out what sort of repressed feelings are at work and how we need to get in touch with our inner self by meditating on the… NO! You're struggling with a sin? Repent. Love what God loves and hate what God hates. Have nothing to do with that sin anymore. Don't give it any pathways into your life. Don't put yourself in a position to be tempted by it. I can't count the number of times when I asked myself why I struggled so much with a particular sin. Then the question came up of what I was doing to actively combat it and… I had no answer. As John Piper says, "Make war!!"

Morning Cloud

Sometimes I roll out of bed to go to my morning classes, look up at the sky as I walk out the door toward my bike, and see that it is completely overcast. An hour later I walk out of the classroom and it is completely sunny out, with hardly a trace of cloud anywhere! Sometimes it's frustrating because I can't figure out what the day is going to give me. Once I start mentally preparing for overcast and possibly rain, but then it ends up being wonderfully sunny and warm out; this forces me to change my mindset toward the day. The weather is fickle, you could say. The morning cloud does not give a true picture of what the day will really be like. This is exactly the charge that the LORD brings against Ephraim and Judah in Hosea 6. They are fickle, and their sacrifices do not reflect their heart:

"Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away" (4b).

God desires a love that is settled on Him, not one that is constantly looking for the next best thing to come around. You could say He is looking for marriage, not recreational dating. He desires a commitment and that from the heart, not just in word and outer appearance: "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice" (6a). We're striving here for a love that lasts.

Sometimes I wonder if I have that kind of love. There have been times in the past where I was simply not enticed by the prospect of reading God's Word, or when I deliberately defy his clear commands. How it hurts to even think of such a time! I think there is a comfort in knowing that I am not and can never be worthy enough to keep God from destroying me. That might sound strange, but it simply entails that it must be God Himself who is empowering me to have a continued faithfulness - a fact clearly attested to by the rest of Scripture. That is a freeing concept! I can obey my master with a full heart; my failings and defiance are washed away and never held against me because of the blood of Christ.

Job and Revelation

Today's reading presented quite a lot to write about. There's Job who loves the word of God and wants to appear before Him to argue his case, that he is righteous, yet admits near the end of the chapter that God does whatever He wants and this fact terrifies him. Then we have Hosea, whom God commands to marry a prostitute. So far Hosea has had three children by this woman and God gets to choose all their names, including a daughter named No Mercy and a son named Not My People. Flipping to John 14 we have the first part of a discourse by Jesus on the Father. And finally, there's the first eight verses of Revelation, which are quite rich in discussion about Jesus, the Father, a few words about the Holy Spirit, and what the reason for writing down apocalyptic literature is. So for this entry I suppose I have a question and some thoughts.

The question: In reading Job, the language indicates that Job was actually afraid of God. And by actually afraid I mean as opposed to this "reverent awe" I often hear about. Job uses the word terrified twice and dread once to explain his response to God's presence in Job 23:15-16. So, should we be afraid of God? Job seems to be, can we assume that this kind of fear is what is prescribed for our lives? People in the scriptures do crazy things when God shows up, and even when it's just an appearance of angels, they seem to have to remind them to not be afraid, because that is the natural response. Does this kind of fear have any place in a Christian's relationship to God?

The thoughts: I like Revelation. There are some things that are difficult to understand about it, but the things that I do understand are quite glorious. For one, this book promises a blessing to "the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy" and also to "those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near" (1:3). That's a cool thing, but first I want to clear something up. Some people have said "Hey, look! You're blessed if you just read it! This is the only book like that!" I have to confess that when I finally read the verse that they based such a thought on more closely (i.e. just now!), I concluded that that interpretation was a bit of a stretch. Although for many years I totally bought the former interpretation, it did seem a little bit too superstitious.

The word they often don't mention or don't emphasize enough is "aloud." The person who proclaims this message will be blessed, basically. That makes a bit more sense, because in that way they are being an active servant of God. That's something you can be blessed for! Secondly, "those who hear it, and who keep what is written" are blessed. That also makes more sense, because it's a blessing resulting from hearing and then obeying God's commands, not just passively taking in information. I think John when he was giving this blessing was probably referring to the setting in which Scripture was read aloud publicly. I'm going to guess this was a more common practice in the first century church than it is today, because Paul tells Timothy to "devote [himself] to the public reading of scripture" (1 Tim 4:13). Given that at least the first part of revelation is a compilation of seven letters to seven different churches, John was probably imparting a blessing upon the person who had the privilege of reading the letter publicly before the church.

So, since most of us have probably not been entrusted with the job of reading Revelation publicly, we get to be the hearers and doers instead! That's how we get our blessing. Don't fool yourself into thinking that if you just read through Revelation and your life doesn't change that you've nevertheless been magically blessed. I'm not convinced it works that way. In fact, it might be just the opposite.