Sunday, June 07, 2009
Sermons and Lessons
DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY
JOHN 3:3 - Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God.
Suppose I put the question to this audience, and ask how many believe in the Word of God, I have no doubt every man and every woman would rise and say, “I believe.” There might be an infidel or skeptic here and there, but undoubtedly the great mass would say they believed. Then what are you going to do with this solemn truth, “Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God,” much less inherit it? There are a great many mysteries in the Word of God. There are a great many dark sayings of which we have not yet discovered the depth. But God has put that issue so plainly and simply that he who runs may read if he will. This third chapter of St. John makes the way to Heaven plainer than any other chapter in the Bible; yet there is no truth so much misunderstood, and the church and the world are so troubled about, as this. Let me just say, before I go any further, what regeneration is not. It is not going to church. How many men think they are converted because they go to church! I come in contact with many men who say they are Christians because they go to church regularly. It is a wrong idea that the devil never frequents any place but billiard-halls, saloons, and theaters; wherever the Word of God is preached, He is there. He is in this audience today. You may go to church all the days of your life, and yet not be converted. Going to church is not being born again. But there is another class who say, “I don’t place my hopes in going to church. I have been baptized, and I think I was regenerated when that took place.” Where do those persons get their evidence? Certainly not in the Bible. You can not baptize men into regeneration. If you could, I would go up and down the world and baptize every man, woman, and child; and if I could not do it when they were awake, I would do it while they slept. But the Word says, “Except a man be born again” - born in the Spirit, born in righteousness from above - ”he can not see the kingdom of God.”
There is another class who say, “I was born again when I was confirmed. I was confirmed when I was five years old.” But confirmation is not regeneration. A new birth must be the work of God, and not the work of man. Baptism, confirmation, and other ordinances are right in their place, but the moment you build hope on them instead of on new birth, you are being deceived by Satan. Another man says, “That is not what my hope is based upon; I say my prayers regularly.” I suppose there was no man prayed more regularly than Paul did before Christ met him; he was a praying man. But saying prayers is one thing, and praying is another. Saying prayers is not conversion. You may pray from education; your mother may have taught you when you were a little boy. I remember that I could not go to sleep when I was a little boy unless I said my prayers, and yet perhaps the very next word I uttered might be an oath. There is just as much virtue in counting beads as in saying prayers, unless the heart has been regenerated and born again.
There is another class who say, “I read the Bible regularly.” Well, reading the Bible is very good, and prayer is very good in its place; but you don’t see anything in the Scriptures which says, “Except a man read the Bible he can not see the kingdom of God.” There is still another class who say, “I am trying to do the best I can, and I will come out all right.” That is not new birth at all; that is not being born of God. Trying to do the best you can is not regeneration. This question of new birth is the most important that ever came before the world, and it ought to be settled in every man’s mind. Every one should inquire, Have I been born of the Spirit? - have I passed from death unto life? - or am I building my hopes of Heaven on some form? In the first chapter of Genesis we find God working alone; He went on creating the world all alone. Then we find Christ coming to Calvary alone. His disciples forsook Him, and in redemption He was alone. And when we get to the third chapter of John we find that the work of regeneration is the work of God alone. The Ethiopian can not change his spots; we are born in sin, and the change of heart must come from God. We believe in the good old Gospel.
What man wants is to come to God for this new heart. The moment he gets it he will work for the Lord. He can not help it; it becomes his second nature. Some say, “I would like to have you explain this new birth.” Well, I might as well be honest, and own right up that I can not explain it. I have read a great many books and sermons trying to explain the philosophy of it, but they all fail to do it. I don’t understand how it is done. I can not understand how God created earth. It stag¬gers me and bewilders me when I think how God created nature out of nothing. But, say the infidels, He did not do it. Then how did He do it? A man came to me in Scotland, and said he could explain it, and I asked him how those rocks are made. He said, “They are made from sand.” “What makes the sand?” “Oh!” he replied, “rocks.” “Then,” I asked him, “what made the first sand?” He couldn’t tell. Notwithstanding the philosophy of some people, we do believe that God did create the world. We believe in redemption. We believe that Christ came from the Father, and that He grew up and taught men. We believe He went into the sepulcher and burst the bands of death. You may ask me to explain all this; but I don’t know how to do it. You ask me to explain regeneration. I can not do it. But one thing I know - that I have been regenerated. All the infidels and skeptics could not make me believe differently. I feel a different man than I did twenty-one years ago last March, when God gave me a new heart. I have not sworn since that night, and I have no desire to swear. I delight to labor for God, and all the influences of the world can not convince me that I am not a different man. I heard some time ago about four or five commercial travelers going to hear a minister preach. When they got back to their hotel, they began to discuss the sermon. A good many people just go to church for the purpose of discussing those things, but they should remember that they must be spiritually inclined to understand spiritual things. Those travelers came to the wise conclusion that the minister did not know what he was talking about. An old man heard them say they would not believe anything unless they could reason it out, and he went up to them and said: “While I was coming down in the train this morning I noticed in a field some sheep, some geese, some swine, and cattle eating grass. Can you tell me by what process that grass is turned into hair, feathers, wool, and horns?” “No,” they answered, “not exactly~” “Well, do you believe it is done?” “Oh, yes, we believe that.” “But,” said the old man, “you said you could not believe anything unless you understood it.” “Oh,” they answered, “we can not help believing that; we see it.” Well, I can not help believing that I am regenerated, because I feel it. Christ could not explain it to Nicodemus, but said to him, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof; but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth.” Can you tell all about the currents of the air? He says it is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Suppose, because I never saw the wind, I say it was all false. I have lived nearly forty years, and I never saw the wind. I never saw a man that ever did see it. I can imagine that little girl down there saying, “That man don’t know as much as I do. Didn’t the wind blow my hat off the other day? Haven’t I felt the effects of the wind? Haven’t I felt it beating against my face?” And I say you never saw the effects of the wind any more than a child of God felt the Spirit working in his heart. He knows that his eyes have been opened; that he has been born of the Spirit; that he has got another nature, a heart that goes up to God, after he has been born of the Spirit. It seems to me this is perfectly reasonable.
We have a law that no man shall be elected President unless he was born on American soil. I never heard any one complain of that law. We have Germans, Scandinavians, foreigners coming here from all parts of the world, and I never heard a man complain of that law. Haven’t we got a right to say who shall reign? Had I any right when I was in England, where a Queen reigns, to interfere? Has a foreigner any right to interfere here? Has not the God of Heaven a right to say how a man shall come into His kingdom, and who shall come? And He says: “Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom.” How are you going to get in? Going to try to educate men? That is what men are trying to do, but it is not God’s way. A man is not much better after he is educated if he hasn’t got God in his heart. Other men say, “I will work my way up.” That is not God’s way, and the only way is God’s way - to be born again. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. You take an unregenerated man in Chicago and put him on the crystal pavements of Heaven, and it would be hell. A man that can’t bear to spend one Sunday among God’s people on earth, with all their imperfections, what is he going to do among those who have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb? He would say that was hell for him. Take the unregenerated man and put him into the very shadow of the Tree of life, and he wouldn’t want to sit there. A man who is born of the Spirit becomes a citizen of another world. He has been translated into new lift, taken out of the power of darkness, and translated into the Kingdom of light. Haven’t you seen all around you men who had become suddenly and entirely changed?
Just draw a picture: Suppose we go down into one of these alleys - and I have been into some pretty dark holes down here in this alley that used to lie back of Madison Street, and I have seen some pretty wretched homes. Go to one of those rooms, and you find a wife, with her four or five children. The woman is heart-broken. She is discouraged. When she married that man he swore to protect, love, and care for her, and provide for all her wants. He made good promises and kept them, for a few years, and did love her. But he got led away into one of these drinking saloons. He was a noble-hearted man by nature, and those are just the ones that are led astray. He has now become a confirmed drunkard. His children can tell by his footfall that he comes home drunk. They look upon him as a monster. The wife has many a scar on her body that she has received from that man’s arm who swore to love and protect her. Instead of being a kind-hearted husband, he has become a demon. He don’t provide for that poor woman. What a struggle there is! And may God have mercy upon the poor drunkard and his family is my prayer constantly! Suppose he is here in that gallery up there, or in the dark back there, and you can’t see him. May be he is so ashamed of himself that he has got behind a post. He hears that he may be regenerated; that God will take away the love of strong drink, and snap the fetters that have been binding him, and make him a free man, and he says, “By the grace of God I will ask Him to give me a new heart.” And he says, “0 God, save me!” Then he goes home. His wife says, “I never saw my husband look so happy for years. What has come over him?” He says, “I have been up there to hear these strangers. I heard Mr. Sankey singing ‘Jesus of Nazareth passeth by,’ and it touched my heart. The sermon about being born again touched my heart, and, wife, I just prayed right there, and asked God to give me a new heart, and I believe He has done it. Come, wife, pray with me!” And there they kneel down and erect the family altar.
Three months hence you go to that home, and what do you find? All is changed. He is singing “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,” or that other hymn his mother once taught him, “There is a fountain filled with blood.” His children have their arms upon his neck. That is Heaven upon earth. The Lord God dwells there. That man is passed from death unto life. That is the conversion we are aiming at. The man is made better, and that is what God does when a man has the spirit of Heaven upon him. He regenerates them, re-creates them in His own image. Let us pray that every man here who has the love of strong drink may be converted. Unite in prayer with me now and ask God to save these men that are rushing on to death and ruin.
On Being Born Again
JOHN 3:3 - Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God.
Suppose I put the question to this audience, and ask how many believe in the Word of God, I have no doubt every man and every woman would rise and say, “I believe.” There might be an infidel or skeptic here and there, but undoubtedly the great mass would say they believed. Then what are you going to do with this solemn truth, “Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God,” much less inherit it? There are a great many mysteries in the Word of God. There are a great many dark sayings of which we have not yet discovered the depth. But God has put that issue so plainly and simply that he who runs may read if he will. This third chapter of St. John makes the way to Heaven plainer than any other chapter in the Bible; yet there is no truth so much misunderstood, and the church and the world are so troubled about, as this. Let me just say, before I go any further, what regeneration is not. It is not going to church. How many men think they are converted because they go to church! I come in contact with many men who say they are Christians because they go to church regularly. It is a wrong idea that the devil never frequents any place but billiard-halls, saloons, and theaters; wherever the Word of God is preached, He is there. He is in this audience today. You may go to church all the days of your life, and yet not be converted. Going to church is not being born again. But there is another class who say, “I don’t place my hopes in going to church. I have been baptized, and I think I was regenerated when that took place.” Where do those persons get their evidence? Certainly not in the Bible. You can not baptize men into regeneration. If you could, I would go up and down the world and baptize every man, woman, and child; and if I could not do it when they were awake, I would do it while they slept. But the Word says, “Except a man be born again” - born in the Spirit, born in righteousness from above - ”he can not see the kingdom of God.”
There is another class who say, “I was born again when I was confirmed. I was confirmed when I was five years old.” But confirmation is not regeneration. A new birth must be the work of God, and not the work of man. Baptism, confirmation, and other ordinances are right in their place, but the moment you build hope on them instead of on new birth, you are being deceived by Satan. Another man says, “That is not what my hope is based upon; I say my prayers regularly.” I suppose there was no man prayed more regularly than Paul did before Christ met him; he was a praying man. But saying prayers is one thing, and praying is another. Saying prayers is not conversion. You may pray from education; your mother may have taught you when you were a little boy. I remember that I could not go to sleep when I was a little boy unless I said my prayers, and yet perhaps the very next word I uttered might be an oath. There is just as much virtue in counting beads as in saying prayers, unless the heart has been regenerated and born again.
There is another class who say, “I read the Bible regularly.” Well, reading the Bible is very good, and prayer is very good in its place; but you don’t see anything in the Scriptures which says, “Except a man read the Bible he can not see the kingdom of God.” There is still another class who say, “I am trying to do the best I can, and I will come out all right.” That is not new birth at all; that is not being born of God. Trying to do the best you can is not regeneration. This question of new birth is the most important that ever came before the world, and it ought to be settled in every man’s mind. Every one should inquire, Have I been born of the Spirit? - have I passed from death unto life? - or am I building my hopes of Heaven on some form? In the first chapter of Genesis we find God working alone; He went on creating the world all alone. Then we find Christ coming to Calvary alone. His disciples forsook Him, and in redemption He was alone. And when we get to the third chapter of John we find that the work of regeneration is the work of God alone. The Ethiopian can not change his spots; we are born in sin, and the change of heart must come from God. We believe in the good old Gospel.
What man wants is to come to God for this new heart. The moment he gets it he will work for the Lord. He can not help it; it becomes his second nature. Some say, “I would like to have you explain this new birth.” Well, I might as well be honest, and own right up that I can not explain it. I have read a great many books and sermons trying to explain the philosophy of it, but they all fail to do it. I don’t understand how it is done. I can not understand how God created earth. It stag¬gers me and bewilders me when I think how God created nature out of nothing. But, say the infidels, He did not do it. Then how did He do it? A man came to me in Scotland, and said he could explain it, and I asked him how those rocks are made. He said, “They are made from sand.” “What makes the sand?” “Oh!” he replied, “rocks.” “Then,” I asked him, “what made the first sand?” He couldn’t tell. Notwithstanding the philosophy of some people, we do believe that God did create the world. We believe in redemption. We believe that Christ came from the Father, and that He grew up and taught men. We believe He went into the sepulcher and burst the bands of death. You may ask me to explain all this; but I don’t know how to do it. You ask me to explain regeneration. I can not do it. But one thing I know - that I have been regenerated. All the infidels and skeptics could not make me believe differently. I feel a different man than I did twenty-one years ago last March, when God gave me a new heart. I have not sworn since that night, and I have no desire to swear. I delight to labor for God, and all the influences of the world can not convince me that I am not a different man. I heard some time ago about four or five commercial travelers going to hear a minister preach. When they got back to their hotel, they began to discuss the sermon. A good many people just go to church for the purpose of discussing those things, but they should remember that they must be spiritually inclined to understand spiritual things. Those travelers came to the wise conclusion that the minister did not know what he was talking about. An old man heard them say they would not believe anything unless they could reason it out, and he went up to them and said: “While I was coming down in the train this morning I noticed in a field some sheep, some geese, some swine, and cattle eating grass. Can you tell me by what process that grass is turned into hair, feathers, wool, and horns?” “No,” they answered, “not exactly~” “Well, do you believe it is done?” “Oh, yes, we believe that.” “But,” said the old man, “you said you could not believe anything unless you understood it.” “Oh,” they answered, “we can not help believing that; we see it.” Well, I can not help believing that I am regenerated, because I feel it. Christ could not explain it to Nicodemus, but said to him, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof; but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth.” Can you tell all about the currents of the air? He says it is everyone that is born of the Spirit. Suppose, because I never saw the wind, I say it was all false. I have lived nearly forty years, and I never saw the wind. I never saw a man that ever did see it. I can imagine that little girl down there saying, “That man don’t know as much as I do. Didn’t the wind blow my hat off the other day? Haven’t I felt the effects of the wind? Haven’t I felt it beating against my face?” And I say you never saw the effects of the wind any more than a child of God felt the Spirit working in his heart. He knows that his eyes have been opened; that he has been born of the Spirit; that he has got another nature, a heart that goes up to God, after he has been born of the Spirit. It seems to me this is perfectly reasonable.
We have a law that no man shall be elected President unless he was born on American soil. I never heard any one complain of that law. We have Germans, Scandinavians, foreigners coming here from all parts of the world, and I never heard a man complain of that law. Haven’t we got a right to say who shall reign? Had I any right when I was in England, where a Queen reigns, to interfere? Has a foreigner any right to interfere here? Has not the God of Heaven a right to say how a man shall come into His kingdom, and who shall come? And He says: “Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom.” How are you going to get in? Going to try to educate men? That is what men are trying to do, but it is not God’s way. A man is not much better after he is educated if he hasn’t got God in his heart. Other men say, “I will work my way up.” That is not God’s way, and the only way is God’s way - to be born again. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. You take an unregenerated man in Chicago and put him on the crystal pavements of Heaven, and it would be hell. A man that can’t bear to spend one Sunday among God’s people on earth, with all their imperfections, what is he going to do among those who have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb? He would say that was hell for him. Take the unregenerated man and put him into the very shadow of the Tree of life, and he wouldn’t want to sit there. A man who is born of the Spirit becomes a citizen of another world. He has been translated into new lift, taken out of the power of darkness, and translated into the Kingdom of light. Haven’t you seen all around you men who had become suddenly and entirely changed?
Just draw a picture: Suppose we go down into one of these alleys - and I have been into some pretty dark holes down here in this alley that used to lie back of Madison Street, and I have seen some pretty wretched homes. Go to one of those rooms, and you find a wife, with her four or five children. The woman is heart-broken. She is discouraged. When she married that man he swore to protect, love, and care for her, and provide for all her wants. He made good promises and kept them, for a few years, and did love her. But he got led away into one of these drinking saloons. He was a noble-hearted man by nature, and those are just the ones that are led astray. He has now become a confirmed drunkard. His children can tell by his footfall that he comes home drunk. They look upon him as a monster. The wife has many a scar on her body that she has received from that man’s arm who swore to love and protect her. Instead of being a kind-hearted husband, he has become a demon. He don’t provide for that poor woman. What a struggle there is! And may God have mercy upon the poor drunkard and his family is my prayer constantly! Suppose he is here in that gallery up there, or in the dark back there, and you can’t see him. May be he is so ashamed of himself that he has got behind a post. He hears that he may be regenerated; that God will take away the love of strong drink, and snap the fetters that have been binding him, and make him a free man, and he says, “By the grace of God I will ask Him to give me a new heart.” And he says, “0 God, save me!” Then he goes home. His wife says, “I never saw my husband look so happy for years. What has come over him?” He says, “I have been up there to hear these strangers. I heard Mr. Sankey singing ‘Jesus of Nazareth passeth by,’ and it touched my heart. The sermon about being born again touched my heart, and, wife, I just prayed right there, and asked God to give me a new heart, and I believe He has done it. Come, wife, pray with me!” And there they kneel down and erect the family altar.
Three months hence you go to that home, and what do you find? All is changed. He is singing “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,” or that other hymn his mother once taught him, “There is a fountain filled with blood.” His children have their arms upon his neck. That is Heaven upon earth. The Lord God dwells there. That man is passed from death unto life. That is the conversion we are aiming at. The man is made better, and that is what God does when a man has the spirit of Heaven upon him. He regenerates them, re-creates them in His own image. Let us pray that every man here who has the love of strong drink may be converted. Unite in prayer with me now and ask God to save these men that are rushing on to death and ruin.
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Saturday, June 06, 2009
Comic Art
SO BAD, THEY'RE GOOD
Every grouping of superheroes needs a villain that is a time traveller, it just allows for those incredibly complex plots that allow for 100's of characters. For no group is that more important than the generational spanning Justice Society of America. And they have a goody of a time traveller in Per Degaton. Born in the forges of Nazism, Per Degaton makes the average time traveller look like a kitten. to call this guy a meglomaniac is to understate the case. And yet, at a time when most classic comic villains have had to be reinvented because Nazism simply does not fill the national consciousness anymore, Per Degaton has remained fairly close to his original conceptions.
There is something near perfect about the symmetry of the duel between Degaton and the JSA. I really love the JSA books because they are one of the last vestiges of what super heroics should be about. Oh the younger generations have all the foibles (drug addiction, infidelity, yada, yada, yada) that sells so many comic books these days, but the older guys always come in and remind the youngsters of what it means to be a superhero. It is, actually, about being better.
And Degaton, born in Nazisim, is always a reminder that real, genuine evil exists. The horrors of Hitler's Reich was the last evil this world was willing to look square in the face. It is still out there, but it is buried on page 3 as we try to live our lives in comfort or pretend such evil is only the stuff of fiction - on TV.
But in Degaton, that last great evil lives and each new generation must see and fight it - and in so doing he illuminates the evil that is real today.
Everyone ought to read the JSA/Degation stories.
Every grouping of superheroes needs a villain that is a time traveller, it just allows for those incredibly complex plots that allow for 100's of characters. For no group is that more important than the generational spanning Justice Society of America. And they have a goody of a time traveller in Per Degaton. Born in the forges of Nazism, Per Degaton makes the average time traveller look like a kitten. to call this guy a meglomaniac is to understate the case. And yet, at a time when most classic comic villains have had to be reinvented because Nazism simply does not fill the national consciousness anymore, Per Degaton has remained fairly close to his original conceptions.
There is something near perfect about the symmetry of the duel between Degaton and the JSA. I really love the JSA books because they are one of the last vestiges of what super heroics should be about. Oh the younger generations have all the foibles (drug addiction, infidelity, yada, yada, yada) that sells so many comic books these days, but the older guys always come in and remind the youngsters of what it means to be a superhero. It is, actually, about being better.And Degaton, born in Nazisim, is always a reminder that real, genuine evil exists. The horrors of Hitler's Reich was the last evil this world was willing to look square in the face. It is still out there, but it is buried on page 3 as we try to live our lives in comfort or pretend such evil is only the stuff of fiction - on TV.
But in Degaton, that last great evil lives and each new generation must see and fight it - and in so doing he illuminates the evil that is real today.
Everyone ought to read the JSA/Degation stories.
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Friday, June 05, 2009
One Sentence Wonder
Culture 11 quotes John Shore:
I cannot think of any idea that better describes so much of what goes on, particularly in Christian blogging. We talk endlessly and with apparent "depth" about the most arcane of topics, but how much of it makes a difference in our day-to-day existence? How much of a difference does your particular view of the atonement matter when confronted with a grieving parishioner? How important is it whether you are pre- or post-millennial when tempted with internet pornography? Does the particular translation of scripture matter that much when you want someone to understand that Jesus died and was resurrected for them?
We seem to forget one essential fact - Jesus was a person - Jesus is a person - and being a Christian is all about being with that person.
During the heart of last presidential primaries, with my support of Mitt Romney, I heard over and over how Mormons worship a "different Jesus." I have never heard a more baffling statement in my entire life. Jesus Christ was an historical figure. There is only one. Now, admittedly, Mormons have a very different understanding of who he was in relationship to the rest of the trinity, and their understanding of His ministry is quite different than my own, but that does not make Him any different.
We really do complicate Christ. That does not, by the way, mean that all of the stuff we do is worthless, it simply means that we have to keep it in perspective. We have to remember the difference between what we are saying about Jesus and Jesus himself.
Sometimes I think that in our efforts to be all that we can be when it comes to Christ, we make Him entirely too complicated.in what may be the shortest and one of the most powerful blog posts I have ever read.
I cannot think of any idea that better describes so much of what goes on, particularly in Christian blogging. We talk endlessly and with apparent "depth" about the most arcane of topics, but how much of it makes a difference in our day-to-day existence? How much of a difference does your particular view of the atonement matter when confronted with a grieving parishioner? How important is it whether you are pre- or post-millennial when tempted with internet pornography? Does the particular translation of scripture matter that much when you want someone to understand that Jesus died and was resurrected for them?
We seem to forget one essential fact - Jesus was a person - Jesus is a person - and being a Christian is all about being with that person.
During the heart of last presidential primaries, with my support of Mitt Romney, I heard over and over how Mormons worship a "different Jesus." I have never heard a more baffling statement in my entire life. Jesus Christ was an historical figure. There is only one. Now, admittedly, Mormons have a very different understanding of who he was in relationship to the rest of the trinity, and their understanding of His ministry is quite different than my own, but that does not make Him any different.
We really do complicate Christ. That does not, by the way, mean that all of the stuff we do is worthless, it simply means that we have to keep it in perspective. We have to remember the difference between what we are saying about Jesus and Jesus himself.
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Friday Humor
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Thursday, June 04, 2009
I Want To Be Seriously Happy
Milt Stanley links to a post that contends "Christianity is too Happy" (where Milt also comments):
Do you remember when you were a child and something made you unhappy? You cried and cried and only being totally encased by your mother's arms could make you settle down. Nothing in those arms changed the unhappy facts. The scrapped knee remained scrapped. But suddenly it was "OK" because your mother truly deeply loved you. That embrace did not take away the injury, but it did make you find a way to be happy, even if injured.
As Christians, we exist in such an embrace. The love of Christ, expressed in the very unhappy fact of the cross and the gloriously happy fact of the resurrection, is nothing if not such an embrace. If we do not feel happy, even with our unhappy circumstances, it is because we are not allowing ourselves to rest in that embrace.
We find "the wink" unsatisfactory because it comes from the stranger - we do not know if it is an expression of love, or a way to just make us go away. The winker needs to find a better way to communicate God's love, but that is a different issue.
I agree, the Christian life is full of trips and falls, pain and sorrow. Lord knows I have had my share. But the love of God embraces me - it empowers me to be happy with the pain. I do not deny my pain - that's a problem. But I do use it to drive me to snuggle deeper into the embrace of my Heavenly Father.
We sing happy songs and smile. Smiling is, in fact, the new outward face of the “good Christian.” Our popular pastors are always smiling and well-tanned. I have no problem with smiling and tans, I just have a problem with happy. Happy, happy, happy. It’s too happy. I know, we’re told to “rejoice evermore.” Rejoicing is much different than happy.Folks, I agree that when it comes to ministering to those in pain, it is an act of denial to just "put a happy face on it" and try to get them to move on. But Christianity does make me happy. Later in the post, Jeff Weddle says this with which I deeply disagree:
We say happy platitudes to each other, “Just have faith, brother!” Followed by the patronizing grasp of the shoulder and the comforting smile. Rah, rah, rah, go win one for the Gipper.
There’s so much happiness that I wonder if anyone is even in Christianity, you know, like, for real. Pharisees prayed great prayers about being better than everyone. Christ commended the sinner who couldn’t lift his eyes to heaven. Pharisees strike me as winkers. You know winkers. Winkers are the people who are happy, smiling door greeters, who say “Hey, this is the day the Lord has made! Amen?” Wink. They have everything figured out. No sticking points. Life is good. Wink wink. Check out Proverbs 10:10 about winkers.
Christianity is not about making this life better; it is about making our eternity perfect. A. W. Tozer said, “For myself, I long ago decided that I would rather know the truth than be happy in ignorance. If I cannot have both truth and happiness, give me truth. We’ll have a long time to be happy in heaven.”If Christianity in not making your life better right now, then you are not truly plugged into Christianity. Knowing the truth will, in fact make you much happier than living in ignorance. The real question is how much of the truth do you actually know.
Do you remember when you were a child and something made you unhappy? You cried and cried and only being totally encased by your mother's arms could make you settle down. Nothing in those arms changed the unhappy facts. The scrapped knee remained scrapped. But suddenly it was "OK" because your mother truly deeply loved you. That embrace did not take away the injury, but it did make you find a way to be happy, even if injured.
As Christians, we exist in such an embrace. The love of Christ, expressed in the very unhappy fact of the cross and the gloriously happy fact of the resurrection, is nothing if not such an embrace. If we do not feel happy, even with our unhappy circumstances, it is because we are not allowing ourselves to rest in that embrace.
We find "the wink" unsatisfactory because it comes from the stranger - we do not know if it is an expression of love, or a way to just make us go away. The winker needs to find a better way to communicate God's love, but that is a different issue.
I agree, the Christian life is full of trips and falls, pain and sorrow. Lord knows I have had my share. But the love of God embraces me - it empowers me to be happy with the pain. I do not deny my pain - that's a problem. But I do use it to drive me to snuggle deeper into the embrace of my Heavenly Father.
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Illuminated Hymns
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Is Evangelicalism Dead?
It's everywhere - rumors of the death of Evangelicalism. I'll link to this post at Out of Ur because it has a lot of good links to some of the other stuff. Not included are this article in Newsweek and some of my political reactions to it.
My question is - "What is dying?" Certainly Evangelical political influence is on the wane. Given how ham-fisted the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and James Dobson have been at that - no real loss. It will just clear the decks for smarter people like Jay Sekulow.
The mega-church movement is likely coming to an end. To which again, I shrug my shoulders. No real loss. It will just take a substitute for genuine ministry out of the way. No longer will people be able to pretend that they are worshiping when they attend something more akin to a television taping than a church service.
Maybe, just maybe what's happening is going to be what should have happened all along. Evangelicalism is going to morph into the reform movement of the denominations it should have been from the beginning.
Frankly, I am surprised Evangelicalism has lasted this long. It's rootless. It's a part of the gospel and one portion of the church's total ministry.
The amazing thing about our faith is the resurrection. I'm betting on it. I'm just thinking what comes back will not be what people are expecting.
My question is - "What is dying?" Certainly Evangelical political influence is on the wane. Given how ham-fisted the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and James Dobson have been at that - no real loss. It will just clear the decks for smarter people like Jay Sekulow.
The mega-church movement is likely coming to an end. To which again, I shrug my shoulders. No real loss. It will just take a substitute for genuine ministry out of the way. No longer will people be able to pretend that they are worshiping when they attend something more akin to a television taping than a church service.
Maybe, just maybe what's happening is going to be what should have happened all along. Evangelicalism is going to morph into the reform movement of the denominations it should have been from the beginning.
Frankly, I am surprised Evangelicalism has lasted this long. It's rootless. It's a part of the gospel and one portion of the church's total ministry.
The amazing thing about our faith is the resurrection. I'm betting on it. I'm just thinking what comes back will not be what people are expecting.
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Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Here we Go Again
Justin Taylor links to this piece in CT. Julie Vermeer Elliott says a great deal of terrible importance in this piece. Read the whole thing. Some highlights:
Of all the viewers who followed the Gosselins, evangelicals were among the most faithful. Jon and Kate's refusal to resort to "selective reduction" when they found themselves pregnant with sextuplets, their membership in an Assemblies of God church, and their Isaiah 40:31 T-shirts all helped to make them icons of evangelical piety. Churches from across the country clamored to be added to their speaking tours. In the last two years the vast majority of Jon and Kate's presentations took place at Christian conferences or at evangelical churches, most often Baptist, nondenominational or charismatic.Hmmmm...maybe there is something to these well organized hierarchical denominations after all?! The quoting continues:
We evangelicals tend to be easily impressed. We cheered on Jon and Kate's decision to carry all six babies to term but rarely considered the prior question: Was it right for them to undergo risky fertility treatments in the first place? They had been married only a matter of months when Kate, who was in her mid-20s at the time, took fertility medication to stimulate her ovaries for intrauterine insemination and became pregnant with their twins, Cara and Mady.It was these greater questions about "reproductive technology" that casued my wife and I to opt out of same. But I digress...
Only a few years later, Kate's ovaries were stimulated once again, but this time they were hyper-stimulated. Warned by their doctor during an ultrasound examination that the fertility medication had worked a little too well and that four mature follicles were present, Jon and Kate nonetheless went ahead with the insemination. Apparently their doctor had miscounted on that fateful day, because Kate soon discovered that she was pregnant with seven embryos (one of which miscarried a short time later). Six babies were growing in a space designed for one, posing great risks to the life of each baby as well as to the life of their mother. Faced with this unintended but preventable situation, Jon and Kate were right to carry all of the babies to term. But this decision is not enough to warrant their status as models of Christian faithfulness. That most evangelicals were satisfied to celebrate the end—six miraculous lives—rather than assess the morality of the means whereby those lives were created, betrays the thinness of evangelical reflection on reproductive ethics. Too often our ethics have focused so singularly on the question of abortion that we have given comparatively little attention to the morally-significant issues surrounding infertility, reproductive technology, childbirth, and parenting. As such, we have a hard time challenging the assumptions of our consumerist culture or those who, like Jon and Kate, seem to be beholden to it.
As fellow Christians, we should have reminded the Gosselins that life is a gift to be received in gratitude, not something to be grasped, purchased, or sold. In many ways, the last four seasons of Jon & Kate Plus Eight is the story of a family that seemed to progressively lose sight of this truth. Of course, they had help along the way from TLC, from the show's producers, and not least of all, from their Christian viewers.
As such, the breakdown of Jon and Kate's marriage is but a symptom of the larger weaknesses of ethics in the evangelical community. We are easily seduced by wealth and fame. We are easily contented by the shallow rhetoric of hot-button issues. In short, we are easily deceived by cultural values painted in Christian veneers (or clothed in Isaiah 40:31 T-shirts).Lord, hear our prayer...
The hope for us—and the hope of Jon and Kate—is to turn once again to the rich, complex, and difficult ethics of Jesus and to let those ethics form us into a more discerning people in the world. It is time that we look for role models who value self-sacrifice over material gain. It is time that we practice forgiveness and the healing of broken relationships and call fellow Christians to do the same. It is time that we take our own marriage vows seriously and hold our brothers and sisters to be true to their commitments as well. Most importantly, it is time that we develop a view of faith and life that is capable of asking deep questions and courageous enough to embody real answers. Then, and only then, will Christians have something to offer the world and something to offer Jon & Kate Plus Eight.
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Cool or Uncool?
In The Agora links to a story from local Seattle television:
For example, radio show hosts now use twitter to monitor audience reaction to what is going on on the show and may modify it on a moment by moment basis. Now for radio, that is a good thing. But, do you think the pastor here was monitoring the Twitter feed and altering his sermon as the reactions came in? Does the praise band adjust the play list based on congregational response?
Lord help us if such is the case.
Not to mention, media is no substitute for message. Have you ever thought about God's sequencing:
The Word become flesh...
The Word could be messaged, but God decided such was insufficient, it had to be embodied. It seems like as media capability increases we are trying, somehow, to reverse that process. It is usually not good to try and reverse the direction God has set.
Should people get feedback on what is happening in your church? - of course they should, but we should be in their face when we do it. we need to "press flesh" as it were.
I find it fascinating. People that want to be president of the United States spend months or years traveling - they try to touch as many people as they can, personally. Why is it those that minister in God's name seem to be working, tirelessly, to find a way to never leave the office?
Something to think about, isn't it?
The Mars Hill Church in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood is not your grandma's church. On Sunday, the pastor's sermon was being broadcast on large video screens to accommodate his laryngitis and the congregants in church were broadcasting on their iPhones.OK, first question - what don't we know?
They weren’t talking, but “Twittering,” typing in brief thoughts or messages for their friends to read in real time.
For example, radio show hosts now use twitter to monitor audience reaction to what is going on on the show and may modify it on a moment by moment basis. Now for radio, that is a good thing. But, do you think the pastor here was monitoring the Twitter feed and altering his sermon as the reactions came in? Does the praise band adjust the play list based on congregational response?
Lord help us if such is the case.
Not to mention, media is no substitute for message. Have you ever thought about God's sequencing:
The Word become flesh...
The Word could be messaged, but God decided such was insufficient, it had to be embodied. It seems like as media capability increases we are trying, somehow, to reverse that process. It is usually not good to try and reverse the direction God has set.
Should people get feedback on what is happening in your church? - of course they should, but we should be in their face when we do it. we need to "press flesh" as it were.
I find it fascinating. People that want to be president of the United States spend months or years traveling - they try to touch as many people as they can, personally. Why is it those that minister in God's name seem to be working, tirelessly, to find a way to never leave the office?
Something to think about, isn't it?
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Kitty Kartoons
Monday, June 01, 2009
Good Preaching
John Jay Hughes writes at First Things about what constitutes good preaching/ Hughes is a Catholic priest, which I bet automatically disqualfies him to offer advice in this area for any number of the average evangelical reader here, but I like what he has to say.
I find that so often, this kind of morality preaching comes from preachers that are concerned that if they don't preach it, the congregation will never hear it. They feel this way, of course, because so little of the congregation shows up for other than worship service. Which could be a result of, oh I don't know, preaching that fails to bring them the real Jesus whose Spirit would motivate them to show up to something like Sunday school. Just guessing here.
There is a vast need for in depth ethical and moral instruction in the church - a vast need. But the pulpit is no place for it.
I know that in my life I am looking for the preacher that drives me deeper. Actually, scratch that - for the preacher that calls me to Jesus Christ who drives me deeper. I think if you are to be a preacher, that is the kind to be.
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The preacher’s primary task is not to tell people what to do. It is to proclaim good news.Sounds amazingly, well...Evangelical!
[...]
To be effective, therefore, preaching must be in the indicative mood, not in the imperative.
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Those who come to Mass on Sunday need reassurance—more than exhortations to be good—that God continues to love them despite their failures.
[...]
“Preaching is communication of Jesus Christ himself,” Fr. Alvin Kimel writes.
[...]
Our goal should be preaching that causes our hearers to say, with Cleopas and his unnamed companion (perhaps his wife) on the first Easter evening: “Did we not feel our hearts on fire as he talked with us . . . and explained the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32).
I find that so often, this kind of morality preaching comes from preachers that are concerned that if they don't preach it, the congregation will never hear it. They feel this way, of course, because so little of the congregation shows up for other than worship service. Which could be a result of, oh I don't know, preaching that fails to bring them the real Jesus whose Spirit would motivate them to show up to something like Sunday school. Just guessing here.
There is a vast need for in depth ethical and moral instruction in the church - a vast need. But the pulpit is no place for it.
I know that in my life I am looking for the preacher that drives me deeper. Actually, scratch that - for the preacher that calls me to Jesus Christ who drives me deeper. I think if you are to be a preacher, that is the kind to be.
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