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.