What is it to Know God (The Trend of this Knowledge)

What do I mean when I say, “The knowledge of God?”, what I mean is not only that we grasp the fact that there is some God, but also understand what relevance it has to us, and what brings Him glory, really what I am saying is, what is relevant to mankind with regards to knowing God. WHATS THE POINT?.

If we have to speak properly we cannot say God is known where there is no religion or holiness. I am not talking about how people who are lost and under God’s curse understand God as a Redeemer in Christ or anything like that, I simply mean, a knowledge of God that humans would have had if Adam did not sin and fall. Of course now, no man in the current ruin and lost state of this human race can see God as their Father, or author of Salvation, until Christ makes peace for them. Still it is one thing to understand God as our Maker, Who supports us by His power and rules us by His providence, leads us with His goodness and gives us all kinds of blessings; and its another thing to embrace the grace of reconciliation offered to us in Christ. A knowledge of God as Creator and then as Redeemer.

Although we cant think of God without giving Him some worship, no one will worship Him and only Him alone, unless they see Him as the fountian of all goodness, as the spring of all joy, hope and meaning. What I mean is, we must be persuaded, not only that He once made the world, and sustains it by His power, governs it by His wisdom, preserves it in His goodness, rules the human race with justice and judgment, bears with them in mercy, shields them by His protection; but also that not a particle of light, or wisdom, or justice, or power, or genuine truth can be found anywhere that does not flow from Him. By the way must learn to expect all things from Him, and thankfully praise Him for whatever we receive. It is this understanding of God’s perfections that teach us holiness, out of which genuine religion comes.

*By holiness I mean a union (a marriage, a mixing) of the fear and love of God, which is inspired by a knowledge of what He does and Who He is.*

You see, because until people feel that they owe everything to God,  that they are cherished by His parent-like care, and that He is the author of all their blessings, so that they should look nowhere else but to Him,  man will never submit to Him in voluntary obedience; even more so, unless they place their entire happiness in Him, they will never give their whole life to serve Him in truth and sincerity (Where do you place your happiness? What things do you do to make you happy? Eating, movies, porn, relationships, sports? Do you get happiness apart from God in these things, since they are not all bad in and of themselves? Or do you realize that He is the one that gives everything good, and your happiness even in these things is due to Him?)

People who argue about what the essence of God are rambling with silly speculations- it is much more important for us to know what kind of being God is, and what things relate to us in His nature. I mean whats the point of knowing a ‘God’ who doesn’t care about anything but His own ease, and has nothing to do with us? The effect, read carefully, the result of the knowledge of God should be first to teach us reverence and fear; and secondly to cause us to ask for everything good from Him, and when we have received it, to praise Him for it.

How can the idea of God even come into your mind without causing you to think, “Hmmmm? I am His workmanship (He made me), I am bound by every law of nature to submit to His authority” (Ah! the folly of making a God to suit yourself, ‘to me God is…?’). I mean how can you think of God without knowing that you owe Him your life (you did not choose to exist), that whatever you do should have something relating to Him. If you can think of God without that, then sadly your life is corrupted, you are not in obedience to Him, because His will should be the rule of our lives. On the other hand you understanding of Him is not clear if you don’t see Him as the fountain of all goodness.

I think we would have confidence in God and a desire to hold onto Him, if the sinfulness of our mind did not lead us away from this kind of proper thinking.

First of all, the Christian (and holy) mind does not try and make up a God, but looks alone to the one true God, the Christian mind also doesn’t make up characteristics of God, but is happy to accept God in the character that He reveals Himself in.

The person who understand God like this, sees how He governs all things, confides in God as His protector and guardian, and throws himself on God’s faithfulness- understanding that He is good and merciful, he rests on God with sure confidence, and does not doubt that in calamity, a divine remedy will be provided for every time of need- understanding Him as Father and Lord, he considers himself bound to respect His authority in all things

Listen to the words of Calvin, “Such is pure and genuine religion, namely, confidence in God coupled with serious fear- fear, which both includes in it willing reverence, and brings along with it such legitimate  worship as is prescribed by the law. …. only a few truly reverence Him. On all hands there is an abundance of ostentatious ceremonies, but sincerity of heart is rare.”

Dedicated to Book 1 of Calvin’s Institutes

A Challenge to Christians (Part 1)

I have been thinking lately about the issue of Christians living not like Christians! You know what I mean, the lady living with her boyfriend who is a youth leader at a local church, or the guy who buys his FHM magazines, but the issue is much bigger then that isn’t it? If we read books like 1 John and James we can clearly see that those people are not genuine Christians, however genuine, authentic Christians get lumped with the professing- Christians right, and thus the name of Christ is reproached by the world. However, I think as a side effect of this, the genuine Christians are being diluted by the world around us a bit, I’m not sure many of us would survive in a Puritan village. Fortunately the puritan villages are not the measure of What God expects of us, and so I would like to challenge you Christians out there, challenge you as Paul would, follow with me over the next few blogs and lets look together at Romans 12:9-21… I dare you to venture with me.

Romans 12:9a “Let love abide without hypocrisy”

After the long theological foundation of Romans 1-11 Paul drops this, so if you think you have your theology right, you may have it right in theory, but is it in practice (notice the therefore in verse 1 of chapter 12, therefore, meaning, as a result of this long theological treatise, offer your body up as a living sacrifice, and then he tells us how)?

Now it goes without saying that we are saved by grace, but our salvation allows us to obey, we are now free to obey God, Eph 2:10 nsays that this is why God made us in Christ Jesus, to do good works.

The one thing we should do is love, ‘agape’ (unconditionally, sacrificially love) one another. Not the “I love so and so in the Lord” kind of love (Translated, “I cant stand them but I put up with them). Its the kind of love that comes from above, its the kind of love that makes you not sound like a banging piece of steal (1 Cor 13). Do you have a lot of Bible knowledge? Can you preach in 20 languages? Have you given up your life to serve God? If you don’t have love you are like a piece of steal banging banging banging banging banging banging banging! Is that annoying yet? It is if you don’t have love (1 Cor 13).

Furthermore we are to love without hypocrisy, that is not just in word, but in deed and truth (1 John), not with false motives, not self see-kingly ( I encourage you to meditate on 1 Cor 13, see how your love matches up).

You know what the greatest thing is, this is so practical…

Who are you to love? Read the story of the ‘Compassionate (thanks Thomas) Samaritan’, in Luke. You are to love the first person in real need that comes across your path. Sacrificially and unconditionally, not based on you time or comfort (I don’t think we should stop and help everyone change a tire, but we can access if a person needs help or if there is already someone helping).

How do you answer the phone to: Your mother, father, wife, boss, brother, sister, friend, sales guy, annoying neigbour? Are you loving in the way you sound, dont go fake the love now, deal with your heart… go re-apply the doctrine of Romans 1-11 to yourself, cause you may not have grasped the point.

You see how applicable this is… How you speak, act and think, towards your family, friend, next circle of influence and enemies.

This article is already to long, Christians lets take up the challenge, mediocrity is not what we have been saved to live in. Dream big, live passionate for God.

1 John 4:20
If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

Knowledge of God and Man Connected.

John Calvin said, “Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” This seems to be what most people think, even philosophy lectures at universities begin with the existence of God (philosophy of religion) and then move on to man, trying to figure out how man knows what is right and wrong (interesting, when you throw God out the equation, you can only toy with theories about right and wrong, there is never a basis…. ethics - God = nightmare)

To start with man cant look at himself without first looking to God, he cant understand himself without first turning to look at God, since it is in God that man lives and moves. The gifts, talents, abilities, everything we have is not from ourselves, it is all from God, He determined where and when we would live, what our IQ would be, our environment, everything. To try to figure out who one is or anything about oneself, without first looking to God is like a man trying to discover who he is, but not looking at his parents, background, or anything that caused him to be…. maybe this is why people have identity problems and what not…

However, God is the being from which all life comes, He is the font of every blessing, all the blessing we have point us upward to God. Now the infinitude (what a great word) of goodness which is in God becomes so much more real. A rich person, in the face of infinite riches might be a little amazed and think its great, but the man who comes from utter poverty can grasp what the riches really are, because he has come to grips with the nothingness he has, so he marvels at the riches.

More specifically, the ruin that sin has plunged man into, the pain, suffering, bondage, poverty, hatred all wall us in and cause us to look upward; not only because we are hungry and starving, but being shaken by fear might learn humility, that God is God, and guess what, we are man. Did you get that? When you are lonely, and in pain, depressed, worried, fearful, let it teach you humility (Broken and contrite spirit the Lord will accept).

In man there is an ocean of misery, ever since we were stripped from the divine clothes in Eden, our nakedness shows a great amount of horrible abilities (envy, pride, vengeance, lust etc.), every man being stung by conciseness of his own unhappiness, in some way obtains some knowledge of God. What I am trying to say is that all our evil and corruption reminds us that in God, and Him alone is the true light of wisdom, solid true beautiful, amazing, wonderful goodness.

Listen to what Calvin says about this, “We are … urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves” … wow! put that in your every-body-is-special-and deserves-the-best theology. Do you chatter about theology to feel pleased with yourself and escape the results of theology, to humble you?

I think many ‘reformed’ need to think on this, reformed (or put whatever theological label you want there) in theology will take you to hell, one needs to be re-formed in heart. Be honest, who doesn’t naturally trust in themselves? In their own abilities? Completely unaware of their own misery, not only teenagers, but everyone thinks they are immortal to one degree or another. As a result anyone who comes to a knowledge of himself is not only urged to seek God, but even led by the hand of God to find Him.

On the other hand, its also true that man doesn’t fully understand himself till he looks at God, and comes down after the look at God, to then look at himself. Mans pride works in such a way that we always look good to ourselves, we always look just, or at least, not too bad- we are only convinced by solid evidence of our own impurity, vileness, wickedness (I think to many of us just believe as an abstract thought that we are evil and wicked, but we are not moved by it, we don’t believe it as a fact which effects reality). We will never be convinced of our poverty and evil unless we first look at the Lord. He is the only standard which can show us what we are really like, when we compare ourselves with others it is like the ape looking at another ape and saying, “I am more human then you” maybe because he is sitting and the other hanging?!

We are all prone to hypocrisy, an empty bag labeled righteousness (goodness) will satisfy us, instead of righteousness itself. You know what I mean, people will be happy to just carry the empty bag from an expensive store. People who think they are good, that they have the power within themselves to please God, they are like people who in the afternoon go outside, and look around, they see cars, trees, children playing, the person then thinkis to himself “Ah, what good eyes I have” they look to distant mountains and their pride grows stronger, but wait- when they look up with their powerful eyes and look at the sun, their eyes begin to burn, the squint and pull weird faces, they cannot even begin to see any form or shape on the sun, they become confused and their eyes water…. the object which gives us light to see, also shows us how limited out vision is…. It is the same when we look at our spiritual qualities, as long as we don’t look beyond the earth we are happy with our abilities, with our righteousness, wisdom and goodness- we think of ourselves in the best ways and imagine ourselves to be nothing less then demi-gods, the masters of our own destiny. But should we ever look up and put our thought on God, and reflect on what kind of Being He is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness and wisdom and virtue, He who is the standard of what we should be like… we will see how silly the way we thought of ourselves really is, how the world pollutes our minds with thoughts of goodness inherent in us.

Now you see why in The Holy Bible men were so struck with dread and amazement when they were in the presence of God. You can see how the people who stood so firm and sure are now shaking and trembling.This is why people would die if they saw God…

Isaiah 24:23, “The moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign” When God comes to reign, the brightest objects will seem dark next to His brilliance.

See also: Judges 13:22; Isaiah 6:5; Ezek 1:28; 3:14; Job 9:4 Gen 18:27; 1 Kings 19:13

(Dedicated to the memory of a man used by God greatly, John Calvin, glory to God through Jesus Christ)

Why Read The Bible?/Whats the Point of Having a Bible? (Part 2)

-          Hard to Understand-

 

One of the most encouraging passages in the Bible is in 2 Peter 3:15-16. There Peter talks about Paul’s writings and admits that some of it is hard to understand. To be honest, sometimes I read something in the Bible and I am like huh? What was that?! Have you ever felt like that?

If so, its okay, so did Peter.

 

I read one author who looked at the story of the fall of Jericho in Joshua 6. He reacts in the same way most of us might react… with shock!

 

“They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it- men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.”

 

How could God have commanded that, how could a good God have commanded that?

 

God was with Joshua when he slaughtered men, women and children?

 

Is that God?

 

What does a person do with something like that?

 

The way I see it you have a couple of options:

1)     Deny that the Bible is God’s Word

2)     Humble yourself and try understand it, even though it may be difficult

3)     Say that the Bible is kind of God’s word except for the parts that I don’t like and are too hard to figure out

4)     Hide under your bed and recite the Greek alphabet

 

I remember years ago I had a third-person computer game called ‘Blade Runner’, in this game you are a detective and you have to try to figure out what is going on in the story, and as you figure stuff out and put it into action you move on. On day I got to a place where I just didn’t know what to do anymore… I must have spent three hours walking around the same place. I got so frustrated, I turned the game off to play a more mindless game, one where I just run and shoot (I wouldn’t have had to do this if some of my friends had finished it and could have told me what to do).

 

Many people are like that when it comes to their Bible, they read Joshua 6 and get a shock, cause all their life they have read bumper stickers that say ‘Jesus loves you’. Now God sends in armies to attack and destroy….  So they throw in the towel and jump to an easy out conclusion.

 

Ah, the folly of bumper sticker theology.

 

Reading the Bible is really important to understand it, I mean really reading, not just remembering flagellum. Before Joshua goes out In Leviticus 18:25 God speaks about the kind of people that live in the land the Israelites are about to invade, it seems from the rest of the chapter there was the worship of Molech, this involved sacrificing a child into the fiery arms of a steel idol, furthermore homosexuality and bestiality were rife. All these things being loathsome before God.

 

God was visiting judgment upon them!

 

This leads to a whole load of other questions, and that is not all there is to it, but the real question you have to stop and ask is, am I willing to keep looking and searching, or should  I cop out now?

 

In Peter chapter 3 Peter goes on, he says that because some of what Paul writes is hard to understand, other men who are untaught and unstable twist what he says as they do with the rest of Scripture.

 

A favorite one which is twisted is in 1 Corinthians 7:12. Here Paul says, “But to the rest I, not the Lord, says…”

 

Oh, so this is not inspired right, this is just Paul’s opinion!

 

Well if you read the few verses before (v10-11) and you have been reading widely in your Bible, maybe places like Mark 10:6-10, you would see that Paul had just been quoting Christ Himself. And so now, to end his quotation he uses the words ‘I, not the Lord, in case you are thinking I’m still quoting Mark’.

 

Anyway, wasn’t Paul’s opinion inspired when he wrote Scripture?

I though men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit? Oh, how the bumper-sticker theology has made so many unstable and untaught teachers.

 

Have you ever looked at Christianity and thought, wow, so many denominations?

 

I have, all the disunity is quiet a problem. Let’s boil it down a little…

 

Most of these denominations exist because of a difference in interpreting the Bible. What we want to know then is what influences how we interpret the Bible:

 

1)     What is the Bible

2)     Rules of interpretation

 

Those are the two major influences on how we interpret the Bible.

 

Islam, is relatively unified because they all see the Koran as being Allah’s word so they just obey it, Hindus, don’t really care, nor do Buddhists. Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses all see the Bible Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russel want them to, so that’s pretty unified. The average catholic doesn’t care, they just do what they got to do to get into heaven.

 

Let me say it like this, how much value you place on the Bible will determine how you understand it, and it will determine if it will bring you the life it is supposed to.

 

I believe that the Bible is God’s perfect revelation of Himself to man, that all of the Scripture is God-breathed, and flawless, and that it contains all things the man of God may need to be fully equipped for very good work.

 

Tell me, does democracy mean that I can say or do anything I want to?

 

Does freedom of expression mean that I can kill someone to express myself?

 

Have people done that before?

Does that mean that anytime someone argues a point from their democratic right and from their right to freedom of expression that they are being crazy?

 

Exactly, it doesn’t.

 

Now even though someone may try to use the Bible to defend something that’s wrong, and that the Bible doesn’t say, that doesn’t mean that whenever someone uses the Bible to defend a point, that they are wrong.

 

Peter points out that people can twist things, but God in His wisdom placed the Bible in a context, in actually history with actual words that have actual meanings.

 

So, guess what, people can not make the Bible say whatever they want it to say.

 

There is only one interpretation of every verse, one. But people twist what it says to make it mean what it does not say…. Why? Two reasons

 

1)     They have a low view of the Bible

2)     They don’t know who to interpret the Bible

 

Times are crazy. When I go out to share the gospel, I often encourage people to find a good ‘bible-preaching’ church.

 

What does that mean?

 

Does that mean that the pastor must quote verses?

Must the preacher have verses to back up his point?

Should the preacher only say stuff I can imagine God would say?

 

Lets compare this to a professor of medicine who is about to graduate and next month will be doing his first open heart surgery…. On you!

 

Does that mean the professor must quote parts of the textbook?

Must the professor recite sentences from the textbook to back up his point?

Should the professor only say stuff that you would imagine could help during open heart surgery?

 

No, I want him to teach medicine, what does the textbook say, line by line, tell him how to do everything properly.

“Oh, yes, I remember the professor saying I should use a scalpel, then he spoke about the nice patterns one can make with it, hmmm yes”

 

What really helped me to grasp this was to see how Jesus interpreted and used the Old Testament. Jesus Himself said that he did not come to do away with the Law or the Prophets, but rather to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).

 

Lev 19:18 tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, that’s pretty simple, but the Pharisees had messed it up by Jesus’ time so he simply restates it for the people in Matthew 5:43-44 and corrects the wrong rabbinical interpretation, that’s why Jesus says, ‘you have heard it said’ so often, they had heard it from rabbias who were making their own self-serving interpretations on God’s word.

 

The Bible is the best interpreter of itself, why do I say that?

 

Well, who is my Neighbor? In Luke 10:30-37 Jesus answered that exact questions when he told the story of the good Samaritan.

 

Well, how do I put this into action day to day? If you read the book of Leviticus there are hundreds of day to day principles for loving your neighbor, from keeping him safe when he is in your house to making him feel welcome and giving him refreshments (lets not forget 6 of the Ten Commandments)

 

Well, what kind of love should I have, who defines that love? Jesus did in the rest of Matthew 5:43-48.

 

The Bible is a closed book, and its perfect. Yes we need to interpret it, but we are not alone, we have most importantly the Holy Spirit, and we have common sense.

 

Words have meaning, contexts give color, and surroundings writings give added and deeper meaning.

 

Did you understand what I just wrote? Did the words mean something? Did you know I was talking about the Bible not a Superman comic cause of context? When you read the next chapter I hope you will have some added meaning to have I have just written.

 

Guess what? I mean everything I just said, and there is only one way to understand what I said, you may make a mistake and miss-read me, I hope not though. In the same way the Bile has meaning, and if one is fair to it, one can see it, it will be meaningful and applicable to life.

 

 

Car Accidents and the Sovereignty of God/Rejoicing in a Smashed Car

Yesterday I was in a car accident, to get that out of the way… I am totally physically unharmed and so was the other person, we were both alone in our respective cars, suffice to say we collided and that is all I really care to say about it. Now it is horrible, I am without my car for a period of time, I have to change many plans I have made for the next few days, possibly weeks. This I would consider, along with the loss of money, a trial, James speaks about trials in James 1, and I have recently preached on the issue and am currently studying my way through the book.

The point of my writing this is to at least demonstrate how the sovereignty of God shines through in this situation, which from all human reasoning is not good at all.

Firstly, this is a guaranteed opportunity for expressing joy, James wrote in verse 2 of chapter 1, “My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into various trials” Why? Well I am now more dependent and can be joyfully dependent on the One who allowed the accident. This draws me closer to God, since I must now trust him for a number of things, money, my car, transportation, the thoughts people have about me, my relationships. I like what commentator Warren Wiersbe said on this passage, “Our values determine our evaluations. If we value comfort more than character, then trials will upset us. If we value the material and physical more than the spiritual, we will not be able to `count it all joy.’ If we live only for the present and forget the future, then trials will make us bitter, not better” (Be Mature, [Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1978], p.23).

So now i pray, God help me value the spiritual more then the material.

Secondly, I must have an understanding mind. verse 3 says,”Knowing this, that the testing of your faith worketh patience” two things I need to know 1) The reality of the testing… Look every Christian will get it, we are promised trials and tribulations and problems in this world… we are not in heaven .2) the reason for the testing….. Why am I being tested? Well according to Romans 8, God’s intention is to make me conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and according to verse 4 of James 1 these things will make me complete and lacking in nothing. So I can rejoice because God is working in my life through the tools of these trials, to make me more like Christ. So I have thought about it so I don’t waste it, and this is some of the things I figured out, the rest, only God knows.

1) I need to be grateful, not like those of Romans 1, who were unthankful, I should be thankful that the Lord spared me from injury, from being totally written-off, spared the other driver, spared me from going to jail due to any death that could have happened. Grateful that I have a car to crash… There are people who suffer living in abject poverty. Thankful for a kind church with godly elders that care and have provided me with a car till mine comes back, thankful for God’ provision of insurance, thankful for the opportunity to give witness to Christ to the lady I crashed with, and to the police later. Thankful that I had friends with cars to help me after the accident. Basically thankful for so much, since in fact I am a sinner who deserves hell, so in fact I got off light. That leads to my second point….

2) Humility. Contrary to my own prideful heart, I am not the worlds most perfect driver who never makes a mistake. Now other people may think less of me, they may think, “Ah, what a typical 23 year old” and my flesh hates that, but the only reason it does is because I think I am so much more then that, my heart tempts me to think I am more then just dust. Humility, that will make me more like Christ, oh that the sin of pride would be gone from me, and praise God for allowing this accident to cause it to be attacked.

3) Patience. Wow, I thought I had patience, but I saw how the next day, not having my own car, and after being a bit ruffled, I got so frustrated in traffic, which I don’t normally. I thought I was a pretty patient person, but I see how when things are not going well, my patience are short.

Thirdly, I must have a submissive will. James 1:4 says, “let patience have her perfect work, then you will be perfect and complete lacking in nothing” I need to let the perfect work happen, patience is not the point, the end result is to make be perfect… The Greek word was used of a mature animal, who was fully grown. I must not be angry or impatient, upset that God is working, I must not wish for it not to have happened… Its funny, I was sitting yesterday and thinking, “God, you can do everything, please undo time or make us all wake up and the accident never to have happened”, what a foolish attitude, what I am saying in essence is that God did not know what He was doing. But I know, what happened was the best possible thing that could happen, cause it was the will of the all-wise, all-loving God, and He knows what I do not, so I pray God by the grace of Christ, help me to be submissive in this my lesson.

One other thing I learn’t also comes from James. Foolish man, you say we will go here and there and do this and that, yet you do not know what will happen tomorrow. I had such grand plans, to go to Bible study and teach, then go watch some soccer and have a restful night, after that the next day I would go watch my German teach beat Croatia (Its been a rough three days), but alas, God had other plans, I should rather have said God willing. I need to remember that the Lord is in control, it is so easy to become self-sufficient in your thinking. As if this was bad enough, my computer crashed today, and showed me the blue screen of death. Praise the Lord, this is truly great my friends, the Lord is working, and I need to become more like Christ, not have a good car and fancy computer.

I hope this helps those of you out there who have heard my sermon on James 1:1-4 see this in a contextual light. If you would like to listen to this sermon you can click on one of the following links, and search for my name and this text (James 1:1-4)

http://www.birchleighbc.co.za/resources/

http://www.cpbc.co.za/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=44&Itemid=60

The Folly of the ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ Philosophy

There is a common phrase in our day and age, people say that their only rule and the way they live there life is: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you”. In Luke 6:31 Jesus revealed this rule when He said “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” This can be seen as a rather good ethical code, and so some people say Jesus was a good ethical teacher. I say Christ was far more then a mere ethical teacher, and so when I say folly of the philosophy, I am not saying what Christ said is folly, but rather the way people who refer to themselves as ’spiritual’ have decided to use it apart from Jesus Christ and the context He placed it in.

One thing to note, the moment you say that this is a rule, you have by inference said that not doing to others as you would have done to you is wrong.

This begs the question, why is it wrong?

If it is purely human wisdom and you have conceived of it yourself, what basis does it have except your own subject and often flawed heart?

Why should anyone else conform to this? Dictators, rapists and murderers often go unpunished their whole life, yet they assumingly don’t live by this code.

Despite the difficulties mentioned above, has anyone ever kept this law perfectly? Have you?

People shun away from God’s moral law as shown in the Ten Commandments yet many of these hang on the command to love your neighbor as yourself.

Don’t lie, steal, covet, commit adultery, murder, disrespect your parents? Have you kept all of these? If not you have not loved your neighbor as yourself. So then what? Is this a powerless law, will you go unpunished? If there is not punishment, then what is the good in keeping the law at all, since people who don’t follow this also find joy and a complete life?

This is why Paul said in Romans 3:20, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

All that this moral code does is show you how far you are from perfection. It reminds me of speeding tickets. Do you realize that the law of the road will never justify you? It never records all the good driving you do and then rewards you as the countries best driver. The law only serves to bring knowledge of sin.

Furthermore, I am also sure that there are some bad people in prisons, right? Do you think we should let them out? I mean, would you like to be locked up for making a mistake!? We need to do to them what we would want done to us.

Can you imagine, what a chaotic society we would have.

However, people do go to jail, and we do have a sense of right and wrong, something which we couldn’t evolve to have, something which does not come from society (since we see isolated communities that know right and wrong), and the basis for there being a wrong is that there is a right.

Well, you say, I have only done a few things wrong then, not many. Well, how many things must one do wrong before one is guilty? Five, ten, sixty?

The entire issue has at its core, what is your source of truth?

Is it yourself? Your own reasoning powers and intellect, your own sense of justice? Jeremiah the prophet spoke about man, he said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can understand it?” When we are sick, we look outside ourselves, when we are school learning, we look outside ourselves, but ah, when we are trying to justify ourselves we look at ourselves as the standard. In 2 Corinthians 10:12 Paul notes, “… But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding”. It is like the second grader who compares himself with another second grader and since he is a bit smarter, assumes he should be in university already- let him compare himself to the teacher.

Our source of knowledge comes from God as is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the express image of His Person. This we can discover in the written Word, the Holy Bible, a book which has stood the scrutiny of scholars for 1900 years. A book which one is hard-pressed to deny is perfect, completely harmonious (despite all reasons for it not to be), prophetic (in a testable verifiable fashion), amazing (in its content which surpasses the human mind in purity and holiness).

Rom 3:19, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God”

Our perception of good and evil comes since there is an absolute standard of good, God… He alone is the Perfect One. We have fallen far below that standard, and thus are culpable to the ordained of that standard. Since the crime is against and infinite God, it is infinitely punishable.

Herein lies the good news of the gospel, herein lies the purpose of Christ’ death: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:23-24). Paul goes on later, “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. (Romans 10:9-11).

Is Doctrine that Important/ The Distaste of Doctrine (Part 6)

- DELIGHT-

The point of all of this, is our delight! That is what most glorifies God, when we delight in Him… not in a mystery, or not knowing Him. God’s glory and our delight and happiness are not two opposing things. We are commanded to rejoice in the Lord always, and in case you missed it, again I say rejoice (Phil2). Obeying God’s commands is the most enjoyable thing to do…. Not the easiest, but the most joyful.

This became so clear from me recently when I read Genesis 29:20, listen to this:

“So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.”

Wow! Sometimes obeying God seems like its seven years work in one moment, but because of the love I have for God, its nothing to me. This is why John says, if you love God you will obey His commands.

Why do we not have to be anxious? Because God is near!

Which God is near? The capable God of the Holy Bible, who is faithful and loving and just and powerful… the God who would part an ocean for His own, the God who works all things (even the horrible, terrible, evil things) for our good and His glory. The God who works in the real world, not in my imagination and hopeful wishes.

When I build a model boat, or watch gymnastics at the Olympics, or watch a jet scream past, or hear inspiring music, I stop and think… what an amazing God! Who makes all these things, and shows Himself to me in His Word.

Is Doctrine that Important/ The Distaste of Doctrine (Part 5)

- QUESTIONS – (I recommend you read part 1,2,3 and 4 before this, unless it makes sense first time)

A Christian with a faith grounded in reality doesn’t steer clear of questions, he runs to them because He knows that God invaded the human world and became a man. He knows that God gave a perfect revelation of Himself in His word so we could have all the questions we need answering answered.

Questions are not daunting

What is daunting is when there are no answers.

What is heartbreaking is a faith that can’t stand up to them.

The other day I was sitting in a university first year philosophy lecture, I got into a conversation with a guy next to me, he saw I was reading a book which argues for the historical proof of Jesus and His resurrection. This guy told me how its good to ask questions about these things but His church doesn’t really let him ask those kind of things ( some churches want questions, just for the fun, but they don’t want to answer them, just enjoy not knowing). He went on to explain how the philosophy classes had made him think, that maybe Jesus wasn’t real, maybe God wasn’t real. After I said that there are answers, he got real excited, for the rest of the lecture he wrote down questions instead of listening, to ask me after the lecture ended.

He asked:

How does one become holy?

How do you know what is right and wrong?

How do you know if your interpretation of the Bible is correct?

Some other questions I have had asked:

Why do good people die in tragic ways?

Why do evil people prosper and good people suffer?

Why is there war and poverty if God is loving?

If God will forgive us when we ask, why not life any way we want, and ask him for forgiveness in our dying moments?

Since God controls all things, why is there evil, does God make evil happen (that sounds terrible right?) or do we have free-will and God has no control (cause that is also rubbish)… What’s going on.

These are a few questions, I have had hundreds upon hundreds thrown at me in my short life. I’ve spoken to heart-broken people, angry people, humble people, intellectual people, philosophical people. Let me tell you, the joy I have knowing that my God invaded this messed-up, crazy, painful, really real world and He didn’t bring a placebo, He brought the truth, a truth that can set us free from the pain, anger, lost-ness, intellectual burnout-ness.

This is why peter goes out of his way to point out that this is all real, he said, “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” We were eye-witnesses? He saw it, it was real it happened. What an amazing truth.

Am I saying that I know everything? No.

Am I saying that God has given me everything I need for life and godliness while I’m here on earth? YES (2 Peter 1:3)

I remember at school when I was young, they always said that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but as I got older, they started saying, that smart questions make one smart.

The truth of God’s word being a freedom, a freedom that I’m not lost without answers in a world that is full of questions. However some people ask questions like that ad, where the child just keeps asking ‘why?’ for the sake of it, not really to learn anything.

A question that doesn’t come out of the hunger for an answer is not a real question, it’s a heart with no blood.

Humility is saying, God you have the answer, I’ll accept what you say, no matter how hard it is, because you are the potter and I am the clay.

Trying to deny that there is an answer in the name of humility is like a student who doesn’t want to show his marks, or see anyone else’s, because ignorance is bliss, and I don’t want to know if someone is better then me, and I don’t want others to know I’m not so good.

Oh, that we would humble ourselves like little children and come to God to learn from Him.

Most often God brings questions to our lives about reality so that we have to throw ourselves at Him and learn more about Who He is? Like with Abraham in Genesis 18, God goes to Abraham, and by God’s actions brings a whole lot of questions up in Abraham’s mind, and each time God answers, Abraham knows God a little better.

Central to our Christian Faith, is that we have the truth incarnate. And so we bring our dead daughter to Christ and ask Him to bring healing, we bring our confusion about meaning and hope and ask Him to answer, because that’s part of why He came, to show us the way, the truth and the life.

Robert Brownings wisely said, “I thirst for truth, but shall not reach it till I reach the source.”

The Christian faith is something which makes a difference and is real, but more then that… its true. Otherwise it would be easier to just believing something else, if there was some natural nobility in believing something.

Pauls said that we should answer each person (Col 4:6). The problem is when people sometimes attempt to answer back to God (Rom9:20).

Many people today would like to turn Christianity into a mystery, they would like to turn God’s revealing of Himself and His answers into mystery…

And to be honest, it is, as we saw earlier, the natural man does not understand the things of the spirit! They are foolishness to him. It was once said in the Scriptures that no one understands (Rom 3:11).

But what does it say to believers? 1Co 2:12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” Wow, what a gift, we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16).

Where do we discover the mystery? Where do we find the answers? Paul said, “Eph 3:8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

Eph 3:9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things,

Oh, Christians, are you left on earth to reveal in questions? Did the all powerful, loving God decide that the best answer for mankind would be mystery?

Build the boat!

Take the cruise!

It will save you!

Two possibilities: One; oh, wow, God is so big, I don’t understand how he is going to save or bring hope or life, I’m trapped in despair, and now I feel free to share it with everyone.. its so exciting to be lost without an answer and hope!

Two; Rom 16:25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages

Rom 16:26 but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith–

Rom 16:27 to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.

This has always been the understanding of Orthodox Christianity, a group of God loving holy theologians put this in a plain way in a great Christian confession, they said:

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word

This tell s us a very obvious thing: If we are going to travel the distance Jesus traveled, if we are going His way, we need to make sure our ship has the right equipment to travel across the ocean. Then we can take our feet off of the firm ground of this worlds sinful and dangerous ideas, and put our faith in something ‘more sure’, we are aliens and travelers on this world, it is not our home.

In a world where the pieces don’t matter, and the focus is more just about the journey, we would be led by a group of people who are very much like kids about to go on holiday with their parents. They don’t know to pack the spare tire, or fill up, or do checks on the car, or pack medicine.

Now, as I have said, somethings are not as important as others….

Whether Jesus comes back before or after the tribulation, or after the millennium, is not an important issue… whether Jesus is coming back at all,, is a very important issue….

This is why Paul under the control of the Holy Spirit wrote these heavy words: Gal 1:9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Is Doctrine that Important/ The Distaste of Doctrine (Part 4)

- FOUNDATIONS – (I suggest you read Part 1,2 and 3 before this for it all to make sense)

I recently brought a book, and the author was a rather popular guy in ‘Christian’ circles these days. At one point in his book he says, that he believes Jesus was born of a virgin, but if that was not true, he could keep being a Christian! Apparently Jesus being born of a virgin or not being born of a virgin doesn’t impact on His saving work on the cross. That’s a bizarre leap of reasoning don’t you think.

I realized while I was reading that for this guy doctrine won’t save yourself and others, so you don’t have to watch it closely. His faith is kind of blind, detached from reality, a reality where a ship needs certain parts to make a journey.

What if someone could prove today that Jesus really had an earthly father? What if there was irrefutable evidence and there was a DNA test to prove it. What if the gospel writers made up “cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”? What if it was some ploy to appeal to secular Mithra cults at the time, whose gods also had supposed virgin births?

What if that part of our ship was left out?

Could a person still sail? Could a person still love God? Could a one still be a Christian?

Would you still want to travel the distance Jesus traveled?

Or does everything just shatter?

But it is so amazing if you consider the following:

Jer 36:30 says, “ Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit on the throne of David” right, but now look who is in Jesus’ genealogy in Mat 1:11 “ and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. “ Fortunatly, this is the family line of Joseph who was Jesus adoptive father, but not blood father.

As we read on in matthew we see the wonder of the whole thing, Mat 1:20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Mat 1:21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Mat 1:22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

Mat 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

When the angel points out that this is fulfilling a prophecy he does it on purpose, because this baby has got to be able to pay for peoples sins, what man could do that, except the God-man, God with us.

So without the virgin born Jesus, we are lost in our sins, not saved from them.

This is because truth is fixed in reality, it doesn’t flex or bend or change, gravity will always stop you from jumping of a building and going up, unless you have some kind of flying contraptions attached to you. Traffic will always be dangerous if you are standing in a freeway, there is just nothing but that reality. The natural laws God made to allow the universe to run and work, what an amazing God, a God is not a God of confusion (1 Cor 14:33).

This really made sense for me a while ago, in college I was doing a course in Pastoral counseling, and one of the issues I was looking into was how psychiatrists use medication, when I came across rather interesting information about a placebo (not to be confused with the band). What doctors do mostly with people who are hypochondriacs or psyco0semantically ill people, you know the kind that think they get healed at those ‘healing crusades’ on TV (people who think they are sick, but really aren’t) is give them something that looks like a drug, but really it is just sugar or some other harmless substance, and suddenly the people feel better and are able to get on with life. If man’s sickness of sin and brokedness was not real, then we wouldn’t need a real cure, one made up in my mind would b e just as good.

But in the real world death crushes families, people starve in poverty, countries make war, children are lost, women are raped, men are murdered. I see sin and its wages all around and it’s a problem in reality, and so whatever cure I’m going to grasp hold of has to come into this same reality and be different, not just some fancy idea made up in peoples heads.

I am far more concerned with what is true and right and can fix these problems, then with ignoring the cure in the name of false humility or anything else for that matter. You always defend the things you love, you delight in it and want to bring others to delight in it.

Imagine someone who came to a doctor with a deadly sickness, and the doctor gave them some lame placebo that does nothing, imagine the doctor said that the real cure is not that important, and it makes no different what ingredients are in you tablet. Would you fight that? Wouldn’t you complain to the superintendent of the hospital?

This is why Paul told Timothy to teach only what goes along with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1)

This is why God said that those who oversee and watch over the church “… must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” Rebuke those who contradict it? Sounds harsh, but its important, life and death important.

The gospel was called ‘good news’ by the early Christians, but if you change that message and tell people something that is not real, then its not good news… it’s a lie.

Jesus never lied, he told the truth to the barest of reality, but not reality as natural man sees it all the time. One time His teaching was so hard and difficult that his disciples said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” and later some of those who had been following him turned back and stopped following Him (John 6:60,66).

So people today want to make the gospel massage so wide, they want to change the drugs ingredients so much, maybe so more people feel comfortable taking it, I mean, who wants stuff loaded with all kinds of crazy chemicals.. unless it will save you! But Jesus said, they way to life is narrow and hard, and few will find it (Matt 7:14).

Is Doctrine that Important/ The Distaste of Doctrine (Part 3)

- PARTS OF A BOAT-

(if you have not read them, then reading part 1 and 2 will be helpful to follow the thoughts)

Not all the parts on my boat were essential, the boat could sail and get to where it going if it was missing a velvet couch, and maybe if I didn’t put the stickers on to distinguish between the guys and girls bathroom (although it make for some weird situations)

Take for example the piece of our boat called ‘baptism’. Some think we can baptism babies, and others think we can’t. I think if we all went honestly to the Scriptures and wrestled it out together we would come out with the same conclusion, but at the moment there are more important pieces to be sure about, so instead of fighting about that specific piece I link arms with someone who might not understand it like I do and fight to get the doctrine of the trinity on our boat.

Some guys make a piece that’s not important become important though… imagine if on a bot a guy put ‘no-entry signs’ with a toxic symbol over all the bathroom doors! That could cause all sorts of major problems and in the end even cause sicknesses and all crazy things on the ship… I’ll leave it to your imagination. That would be like people who say baptism is essential for salvation, they do not build the ship according to the manual, but their mistake in construction will jeopardize the whole voyage

Paul wrote to Titus and said one of the most amazing things about the connection with doctrine and living a righteous life… he said, “…showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” Paul was writing to slaves and telling them to be obedient and not to steal, before that he spoke to young men, young women, older men and older women, telling the Christians of all walks of life to live is such a way that adorns the Doctrine of God our Savior.

I think that’s so beautiful, its like how a husband would not look at other women and always speak highly of his wife, loving her by his actions all the time, and so he adorns the truth of the vows and marriage he is a part of.

The truth that he is married is important, its vital, if he wasn’t but was living like he was married that would be fornication. But if one has the truth as a ‘thing’ its made beautiful by the actions.

Paul when he was teaching Timothy showed the importance of doctrine, he said that Timothy should watch his life (the way he lives) and his doctrine closely, and by doing that he would save himself and those that heard him teach. (1 Tim 4:16)

Wow! The lights come on… Timothy, make sure you follow the instructions in that boat, that why lives will be saved. Paul could have said, “Timothy, the instructions are important, but the boat is a whole lot more then just a set of instructions, the boat is big and glorious and magnificent!” People die on big magnificent things…

But then comes the question…. And questions are vital….. What is the essentials? What pieces does our boat really need?

I may have opinions, you may have opinions, but what did God say?

Paul wrote down God’s out-breathed words and said, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ( 1 Cor 15:3-7)

Some people say that it doesn’t really matter if Jesus rose or not, some ‘christians’ say that they could continue to be a Christian if this were not true, if Jesus didn’t historically rise. Well.. Paul said, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins (1 Cor 15:17).

From those verses I see some stuff of first importance, do you?

It seems like Christ dying for our sins is rather important as well as His rising.

Because, he explains, both of those have to do with our salvation, that is, with how man is made right with God

So when someone says, you have to be baptized to be saved…. That’s adding a wrong piece to the boat, that’s going to cause people to suffer and never make it possibly

When someone says that you can get your sins forgiven by saying a prayer, or by eating a piece of bread, or doing good things, that’s not Christ dying for our sins. That’s taking things from other parts of the baot and putting it where its not supposed to be.

We can pray to communicate with our heavenly father whom we love and fear

We can eat bread in remembrance of Christ at communion

We can do good things because that’s why God made us His children, to do good works (Eph 2:10)

But if we take those things and put them where they don’t belong, we can make a very dangerous ship, on that can even make shipwreck of peoples faith (1 Tim 1:19)

In history a man named Martin Luther was on a really messed up ship, but he got hold of a manual and saw how wonderful it was meant to be! He tried to get the people who ran the ship to put the right pieces in the right place, but they wouldn’t. They didn’t understand the things of the Spirit and so they treated Luther like Jesus was treated, the rejected him and even tried to kill him.

This was called the reformation, it wasn’t a time of coming up with new pieces for the ship, it was a discovery that things when they are put in their right place, when the doctrines are understood correctly, leads to having a cruise the way Jesus intended it, the way God revealed it, the most glorious and life giving exciting way. Many people, called ;’reformers’ saw how beautiful this was saw how things were meant to be, and they were so amazed at the beauty of how God revealed Himself in His word that many many many of them died painful deaths, trying to show a so called ‘church’ how the boat was supposed to look.

I’m trying to convey a message to you through these blogs, but I’m limited, my vocabulary, the length of the blogs, my background, but there is a good chance that this blog will not convey all that I intend for you to