Something to Think About...

Was challenged by an African pastor this past week (not deliberately on his part, but merely by the testimony of his life) that in American Christianity we cannot hope to be preaching the entire Gospel if we do not make clear that demons and Satan are real enemies that are quite cunning in their actions toward humanity.


Of course I knew this, or at least I thought I did, until I encountered this man's stunning and robust theology and practical experience in this field.  Now I'm leaning toward the mindset that we are more darkened in our understanding than I previously thought.

It is my conviction that we should always move toward preaching "the whole counsel of God" and I think perhaps I have shied away from this topic more than I should have-especially when I consider that there was a significant portion of Jesus' ministry dedicated to deliverance.  To be clear: I have preached on this topic and even testified about it, but it has perhaps been too rare a thing for me, especially in a society that is arguably more demonized than it's ever been before.

I am not saying I'm ready to start focusing on this topic (I think any distraction from Jesus as THE POINT of it all would be a BAD idea) or that I'm going to be the guy who says there's a demon lurking under every bush.

I am saying that I am going to have to think and pray into this topic some more because I need a more well rounded theology here and a more striking/penetrating way to communicate this topic while avoiding the pitfalls of ignoring it and of sensationalizing it.  We (us Americans) are about as bad in this area (or worse) than we are in our understanding of the judgments of God.

Our Rest a Stone

"Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep." -Genesis 28:11

Jacob's Dream, by Gustav Dore

Jacob was traveling to a land he'd never been to before and stopped to get a wink of sleep.  What followed was him getting a stone to rest his head on and a terrific encounter with God (in a dream) that changed his life for the next 20 plus years.  (Note: Jacob didn't convert here, he just began a greater faith journey.  Read this post for more on that story).

That stone of course, was a type (or symbol) that prefigured (i.e foreshadowed) the coming Messiah.  (We know this because Christ is referred to as "the Stone" in other prophetic pictures, and Messiah means "Anointed One."  Jacob literally anoints his "sleep stone" after he has the dream; see v. 18).

Anywho, here's the point: As we sojourn through this world, God calls us to rest on that offensive stumbling Stone known as Christ (Isaiah 8:14, 1 Peter 2:8, Romans 9:32).  And He is terribly offensive!  He will create custom-tailored offenses, just for you, in order to offend out of you everything that does not belong to Himself.  The offense is so great that many people often choose to stop following Him after awhile simply because they cannot bear to deal with Him.  Only those who are sober to the reality that there's nowhere else to go stick around (see John 6:66-68).

To rest on Him, therefore, will be most uncomfortable, as it would for anyone sleeping on a rock, and yet, it will be the only rest that is actually life-giving.  Whatever the fitful repose we have on that Stone now, things will be different for us as we learn to cease striving in our own ways, our own comforts and strengths, etc.  Our rest in Christ will eventually be sweeter, truer and better than the kind of sleep we became accustomed to when going our own way.  That kind of sleep actually puts us into a sleep of stupor-of terrible spiritual dullness where we are unaware of Him and what is real, what is moral, what is just and what is Truth.  Pilate was in such a sleep when he looked Christ who is the Truth (John 14:6) in the face and asked Him "What is truth?" (John 18:38).

It has been said that the best night of sleep Jacob ever got was the night that he slept on that Stone.  So rest on the Stone, but just as the old hymn, Nearer My God to Thee says, "My rest a Stone" remember that your rest is a Stone!!!   Do not expect to be comfortable, for He will press you to the breaking point till you no longer rely on yourself but on Him (2 Cor 1:9).  Expect to be alive and have rich encounters with Him that changes not only your own life, but the lives of those all around you for generations to come as a result of your trusting in Him.

Thoughts on the Last Supper

Da Vinci's Last Supper was painted on the wall of the refectory (cafeteria) of the Holy Mary of Grace church in Milan, Italy.  Everyday when the monks gathered, they saw this painting and were reminded of the real Last Supper.  

There are so many wonderful things to meditate on in Communion services, but this wonderful piece of art showcases the moment where Christ told His disciples that one of them would betray Him.  Of all the truths to choose to think upon during Communion, this is the one Da Vinci's genius chose to depict.   

There was a traitor at the Last Supper, even with King of Glory Himself being present. 

I want close communion with God, to enjoy the freedom of relationship with Him that He purchased for me, and I'm glad to be reminded of that and feed on that joy when I celebrate Communion services. 

But Da Vinci has taught me that it's also good to remember that Christ chooses to dine with even the evil, traitorous ones that are in His life (don't we all have them?).  I should go and do likewise with others, AND be willing to let God love on me in all the places where my heart still wants to rebel against Him. 

Furthermore, let it be a backstop to my heart to know the judgment of God: that even though I sit and dine with Him today and receive His mercy, I must continue to choose His mercy and forgiveness and not my own self-righteousness as the way to salvation.  

A Little Study on Isaiah 1

No Bible Thumping Here:

This post is going to have a lot to do with the Judgment of God.  Let me begin by saying, I'm no Bible-thumper, and I don't like to emphasize this particular topic over God's mercy and His love.  That's because I just don't believe that the best way to motivate people is to tell them, "God will judge you."  The "fire and brimstone" preaching, in my opinion, usually only turns people away from God.  

However, I do think that from time to time, the simple awareness of God's Judgment, when it's happening/when it's not happening, and an understanding of His motivation behind His judgments is extremely helpful.  To that end, I'm writing this post, but with the disclaimer that you really need a book on this subject to even begin to adequately explain it.  

How Judgment Works:

Throughout the Bible, whenever God judges, you see several things in play: 

1. His judgments are always aimed at bringing His people back to Him.  It's never arbitrary or separated from His love.  It's like a parent who disciplines His children-though this example is of limited use because judgments are on a much more massive scale than spanking a child.

2. God always gradually steps up judgment.  He does not obliterate people groups in an instant because of a sinful act-that's always the last resort.  He steps up His judgments as people continually refuse to turn back to Him. 

3. This is always after He has reached out in love toward people repeatedly and after He has shown mercy and patience.  He always sends warning messages, either through signs and wonders or through prophets that speak a message of warning.  These messages are not always obvious to those who hear them (if you are hard of hearing, you won't hear what is obvious), but God warns clearly nevertheless.  

Isaiah 1 is a great example of some of these things in action:

"Where should I strike you next, as you persist in rebelling?  The whole head is sick, the whole heart diseased.  From the sole of the foot to the head there is nothing healthy, only wounds, bruises and festering sores that haven't been dressed or bandaged or softened with oil.  Your land is desolate, your cities are burned to the ground; foreigners devour your land in your presence; it's as desolate as if overwhelmed by floods."  -Isaiah 1:5-7

Here, God is in the midst of seeking to turn His people back, but they have repeatedly refused to repent.  He is now desperate ("Where should I strike you next...?") as any concerned parent would be with a child that is refusing to stop acting wickedly in spite of consistent discipline.

Judgment Starts with the House of God

Dore's Last Judgment

When God starts judging, Scripture says that He begins, not ends with His people (see 1 Peter 4:17).  Israel and His Church by extension, are the first to be judged because they should know better.

Continuing in Isaiah 1, God demonstrates His feelings toward hypocrisy.  If the actions His people take outside of the temple/church are not consistent with what they do inside then God doesn't really care too much for the so-called worship services of His people toward Him.  Not caring is actually a bit of an understatement-He actually says that He ceases to enjoy them!

"New moons, Sabbaths, calling convocations-I can't stand evil together with your meetings!  Everything in me hates your [religious] festivals; they are a burden to me-I'm tired of putting up with them.  

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; no matter how much you pray, I won't be listening; because your hands are covered with blood.

Wash yourselves clean!  Get your evil deeds out of my sight!  Stop doing evil, learn to do good!" 
-Isaiah 1:13b-16a.  

Angry God Face!

These passages can seem a little bleak, but even in the midst of this passage (there are many other passages to back up this point too) we see that God is willing to be patient with a people that are trying to go in another direction when we see Him say, "learn" to do good.

It does take time to learn and develop the practice of doing good, especially when evil has been handed down to us from previous generations.  Thankfully God knows this and is more than willing to work with us.  Additional parts of this same chapter (see Isaiah 1:18-20) drive this point home.

Conclusion:

I think it's really important for the church to study the Judgment of God so that we know when we are being judged and how we can respond to it properly.  In such cases I believe we will be pushed into taking action that will bring new relevance and power to our worship services as well as revival in our personal lives.

Reasons of the Heart

For logical people, acting out of the heart can be very hard.  In Deuteronomy 15, we have an example of God pointing out problems when someone thinks through something with shrewd logic without having a heart.

"Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, 'The seventh year, the year of release is near,' and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against you, and you be guilty of sin.  You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake." -Deuteronomy 15:9-10.

In ancient Israel, every seven years, all debts were forgiven.  People that lent money to others in the sixth year might have felt like they were being stupid because they would never see any of that money come back to them.  However, God told them to guard against thoughts that would be seemingly logical, full of good stewardship, shrewd and strategical.  In a sense, the thought, "the seventh year is approaching, it's silly to give" is technically "right" but it's wrong because it's unloving.  We must always remember that no matter how "right" we are, if we act without love, we're in trouble (we see this in 1 Corinthians 13-all things done without love are counted as nothing before God.)

So the questions I try to remember to ask when something seems silly are these:

1. God, are you calling me to do something that is logical only in the sense that it is loving and not that it is the most efficient or technically accurate way to do something?



Pascal

2. Am I loving this person, group of people or organization well?  

...Aaaaand I'll close with this thought from philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal: 

"Le cœur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point. On le sent en mille choses. C'est le cœur qui sent Dieu, et non la raison. Voilà ce que c'est que la foi parfaite, Dieu sensible au cœur."

"The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason."

Everything God Commands...

"Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do.  You shall not add to it or take from it."  
-Deuteronomy 12:32

What grabs me here is that God tells us to be diligent to do what He calls us to, and we aren't to add anything or take anything away.

On the one hand, we're to be thorough, making sure there's nothing we leave out when we hear something from Him.   All the extra "homework" assignments we need to do in order to fill His command we must be sure to follow through on.  But on the other hand, there's relief in that there's a lot that we don't have to do.  If He didn't speak it to us, then we should leave it out and not add to ourselves any false responsibility that's not helpful to us or the Kingdom of God that we're building.

Intercession

Some fast food for thought on prayer:

Abraham for Sodom and Gomorrah

"But when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and sent Lot out, away from the destruction, when he overthrew the cities Lot lived in.  -Genesis 20:29

Abraham meets the Three Angels before they destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah

The only reason that righteous Lot lived through the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah was because Abraham had prayed for God to spare the righteous in the city before God went to visit it.  Stunningly, not everyone in Lot's family made it out though (his two sons-in-law and his wife perished).  It does make me think that those who are righteous living in an unrighteous place can be overthrown with the wicked-unless we pray.  On a side note, vv. 27-28 tell us that Abraham saw the destruction of these cities but had no idea at the time whether or not his prayers for Lot's safety had been answered.  

Abraham Praying for Abimelech and His Unintentional Sin

"He is a prophet, and he will pray for you, so that you will live." -Genesis 20:7

Though King Abimelech had sinned unintentionally, God still pronounced him as good as dead (see Genesis 20:3.)  Nevertheless, God said that He would have Abraham pray for the king, and because of this action, God would spare his life.

I really felt God was speaking to me when I read this verse.  I came to it quite accidentally after really struggling with offense toward a friend of mine that was intentionally running away from God's commands.  It left me believing that regardless of how I felt, I must love as He loves, and that is to love even those that are the enemies of God.  As a result of that, I'm pushed to pray.  Even IF I feel His righteous hand of judgment approaching this person's life, my prayers can hold it off and give them time to repent.  Crazy as it might sound, I actually believe this is happening.

Isaac Praying for His Wife

"Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was childless.  The LORD heeded his prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant." -Genesis 25:21

Genesis 25:20, 26 inform us that it took Isaac 20 years before he realized he needed to pray for his wife to be fruitful.  Whoa!  I'm just praying that God would make me fully aware of how to pray for my wife so that I wouldn't spend 20 years holding back blessings that I could be praying into her life.

Cats are Superior to Dogs (Theologically Speaking)

We’ve all been part of this conversation or have overheard one.  Person A, a dog-lover, meets Person B, a cat-lover.  They have a discussion,  (and it might get a little heated, but usually ends friendly) about how cats are superior to dogs or dogs are superior to cats, etc.  These conversations never really go anywhere, but people have them anyways.  Dogs alwaysgreet you when you come in the door; cats can be litter box trained/aren’t so stupid, blah-dee-blah-blah, and so on.  ENOUGH!  Today, I thought I would settle the matter, at least for those of Biblical faith: cats are vastly superior to dogs.  So sorry dog-lovers.  L

First of all, in making this argument, allow me to give a few disclaimers.

Disclaimer 1: Everything I’m about to say in this article is a joke.  I say this because I’ve actually had people get angry with me when I’ve given these arguments.  It’s understandable, I suppose, if you are in the dog loving camp. 

Disclaimer 2: Though I will be quoting Scripture I’m not trying to make a doctrine out of this, it’s all in good fun!

Disclaimer 3: I’m not trying to say that dogs have no value or that no one wants them or that you’re evil if you own one.  Far from the truth! They’re useful, lovable creatures and I think God loves them too.  After all, two of them were saved on the ark with Noah.  But let’s be clear that we’re talking about a lesser creature than cats.

So let’s proceed with the theology.  To make this easy on everyone, I’m going to keep a scorecard, starting with Cats 0, Dogs 0.

Throughout the Bible, dogs get dogged on, and it’s not just me who says so.  According to the entry on dogs in The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (a source I used for several of the verses on dogs in this article), the life of a dog “…shocks the reader with visions of squalor, dismal poverty and the life of a pariah at the bottom of the social scale.”  (Cats 0, Dogs -1.)  It goes on to say, “Of all the domesticated animals there is a particular revulsion for the dog, who alone is willing to eat humans corpses, a fact that is reprehensible to every human and exploited uniquely by the book of Kings as a curse that comes upon wicked dynasties.”  (Before we go on, we have to tally that one up… dogs eat human flesh and they are used as curses… that’s a negatory on two counts so it’s Cats 0, Dogs -3.) 

But wait dog lovers!  Did you know that there’s actually a verse in the Bible that explicitly mentions a condition in which a dog is better than a cat?  Yes!  There is!  Behold: “…even a live dog is better off than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4 NIV).  Ouch.  I guess you can tell that the language in that verse indicates that under normal circumstances a dog is obviously inferior to a lion (cat), but that if the cat is dead and rotting a dog trumps it… barely.  For this, I suppose we can be extremely generous and deduct only two thirds of a point from dogs.  (Cats 0, Dogs -3.66.) 

“But Adam, that’s just Old Testament…” says the dog-lover.  We’re in the New Covenant now.  Okay!  Here goes!  Paul says in Phil 3:2, “Beware of the dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the false circumcision.”  The context here is that these people referred to as “dogs” were trying to rob the Philippians of their participation in Christ’s salvation.  (Cats 0, Dogs -4.66.)

The Apostle Peter, in 2 Peter 2:22, compares sinners returning to their sinful ways with dogs returning to lick up their own vomit.  (Cats 0, Dogs -5.66.)   He juxtaposes dogs with swine in the same verse.  (Cats 0, Dogs -6.66.)  It seems that dogs are not only losing their case, but now they are seeming kind of… evil, wouldn’t you say? 

I could go on, but I will end it with one, final point that is enough to ruin the day of any Bible-believer who previously thought that dogs were superior to cats.  Revelation 5:5 is THE trump card where God Almighty identifies Himself with a lion when He names Himself, “the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah.” 

Obviously, being associated with God gives cats* an infinite number of points, so we end our competition with the final score of Cats ∞, Dogs -6.66.  I rest my case.

*If you are thinking about making the GROUNDLESS argument that a lion is not a cat, please read this article.

The 20 Year Conversion...

First a little bit of history: In the 1800's, the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody was giving a two week series at the end of which he planned to give an opportunity for salvation.  Problem is, he never got to preach the second week to most people because a huge fire broke out all over Chicago.  As a result, Moody said he would never wait, he would always give people a chance to convert in the moment.  Tons of evangelists and pastors followed his example.  At the time, that probably wasn't a big deal, but now our society has gotten tired of this rush to make converts.  

Recently, I've been rethinking the whole way we see people convert to Christianity, and it has a lot to do with these two passages: 

"Then Jacob made a vow saying, "If God will be with me and will guard me on this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I return to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God.'" -Genesis 28:20-22.

"So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, 'Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and put on fresh clothes.  Then let us get up and go to Beth-el, so that  I can build there an altar to God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I went.'" -Genesis 35:2-3.

Jacob Prays for Protection (Dore Bible Illustrations)

Here we basically see the conversion of Jacob, a.k.a Israel.  This is a big deal for the whole Bible.  For one thing, Jacob is a patriarch of the Jewish faith; secondly, he was the grandson of Abraham, and the progenitor of the nation of Israel (not to mention its namesake).  His conversion was before the Law (not introduced till Exodus 20) and therefore his covenant with God was based on faith just as was Abraham's covenant.  

Furthermore, he was converted to the faith because God Himself guided him and brought him to belief; Jacob was a skeptic that learned to trust a God he initially did not have close relationship with.  It's noteworthy that this wasn't about a preacher or evangelist giving an invitation or having Jacob pray "the sinner's prayer."  Nevertheless, it was still a very real decision on Jacob's part to follow God, and as a result, he had his family put away their foreign gods (this basically meant that the whole family converted too!).  

But here's the kicker for me: between these two passages (Genesis 28 and 35), twenty WHOLE YEARS go by in Jacob's life.  God was in no hurry to convert this man, regardless of how important he was for God's plan for the redemption of the world.  

So here's the application I get from this: 

1. We do not have to be in a hurry to see conversions.
2. God pursues people and sees them through to conversion.
3. Just because someone doesn't go to church or fit our agenda for coming to Christ, doesn't mean that God isn't working on them or pursuing them.  
4. Our responsibility is to (A.) love them, (B.) go the distance with them, (C.) entrust them to God, (D.) point them back to God.  

I think that if we learned to practice such things, we would see a greater transformation in society than we are from our current efforts that are (to be quite honest) irritating to most of the population.  

Dore Bible Illustrations

The Dore (pronounced like "door-ay") Bible illustrations are absolutely my favorite when it comes to the Scriptures.  (NOTE: I'm aware that this might make me seem like a nerd to even mention this, but after this blog, I hope to have you saying the same thing!)  I so respect him as an artist because he was willing to do what so few people were willing to do in his time (mid to late 1800's), and are still unwilling to do today.

In the 1800's there were LOTS of people publishing the Bible, and those Bibles often had illustrations included in them, but they were full of hyper-religious cheese ball drivel that thankfully are rarely seen anymore because they stunk.  (Unfortunately, there are still many publishers recreating all new hyper-religious and sterile pictures for Christian bookstores).  But Dore's pictures still speak loudly; he refused to sanguinate the Bible by excluding passages and acts of God that were offensive.  And the characters come to life! There's so much epic drama in each picture you get the sense of what was happening spiritually.  What I mean by that is this: in the natural, these scenes almost assuredly weren't so epic looking-a lot of it might have been very plain.  However, the drama of what God was doing spiritually in the Biblical narrative is every bit as weighty as Dore's illustrations make them out to be!

Besides all that, the man was simply a great illustrator (he did a lot with wood carvings).  During his day he was quite popular, and you can see his influence on a lot of illustrations today.  Worth looking at  for further study are his illustrations of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Crusades and Dante's Inferno and Paradise.  Once you start to recognize the look of his work, you'll see that he's all over the place in the older stuff.

BONUS: since all his work is so old, it's all public domain and thus can be used royalty free by anyone today.

TIP: click on the images to make them larger.

Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones.  Note how totally BOSS Ezekiel appears, with light around him and even a breeze on his cloak-it's a brilliant subtlety.  The narrative mentions the breath of God coming and giving life to the dry bones.  It's a small detail by Dore, but it is creatively faithful to the story.  Likewise, don't miss the character in the front right of the drawing.  It's as if he is rising up to praise God with arms outstretched.  

These are the lions of Samaria.  It's a little known passage out of 2 Kings 7:24-41.  Basically, when Israel was conquered and Assyria sent foreigners to live in the land, God judged them by sending lions to eat them.  A short yet violent blip in the whole of the Bible, but Dore realized it was visual gold.  

I will simply say that I love how people are clamoring to get to Jesus, and that Jesus (denoted by the posture of His hands and leaning of His body) is equally eager to get to the people.  I love it when artists show the heart of God with simple gestures of His hands (probably the best example is the detail of hands in Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam.)

Moses breaking the 10 Commandments after seeing Israel had sinned.  So EPIC!  Note that Dore puts God's stamp of approval on Moses' actions with the thunderbolt behind him.

Tongues of Fire resting on the disciples as they pray for the Holy Spirit to come.  

This is Lazarus coming out of the tomb.  The incredulity of the disciples (hand on top of the head) as Jesus raises the dead.  The use of light in this illustration is brilliant because everything is dark all around except for the center of the action-where God is at work!

Our New Birthright...

To me, the concept of living out those things which I was born to do is an important one.

I want to lay hold of everything I was created to do, and when I reach the end of my life, I want the joy of knowing that I did precisely what I was supposed to do.

Recently, several things have really pierced my thinking on this topic.

First THIS:
"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world."  -1 John 5:4

When I was first born in a natural way, there were perhaps things I was born to do that were different from what I am born to do now because I was given a brand new start when I was reborn of God through faith in His Son.  So the concept of what I've been born to do takes on a whole new form with that thinking.

"If I am reborn of God, what am I now born to do?"  
I don't want to define it for anyone with a close-ended theological answer that we might all know.  I want to leave it open to the specifics of what God will tell us and roll with that answer.

But I can't stop considering how epic, how vast and how wonderful it is to be reborn of God and to have a birthright that is beyond all current belief I have.


Second THIS:
"By faith he [Abraham] went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise." -Hebrews 11:9.

Abraham was given a promise that he would inherit the land of Canaan.  Unlike his famous descendants who lived in Egypt, were delivered and then died in the desert seeking to enter the Promised Land, Abraham actually got to live there his entire adult life.  He LIVED in the place of God's promises!

But here's the painful part: each and every day that he lived in the place that he was called by God to inherit he was reminded that the promise was not yet fulfilled.  It was still a foreign country.  Imagine being surrounded by your dream, your calling, your life's purpose EVERY DAY and never seeing it accomplished or fulfilled!!!

As for descendants vast and numerous from God: he only had a few at the time of his death.  Had he not faith, he would have died considering his whole life a failure.  Had he truly considered his life a failure, he might have gone on to have many more children with the slave woman Hagar-trying out of his own strength to populate the Land of Promise.  But instead he counted on God and His character in truly amazing fashion.

Tying together First THIS and Second THIS: what I am born to do, I might not see all the fruits of in this lifetime-in fact, no matter how much I attain to, I cannot measure my success by what should be the tip of the iceberg.  By God's grace, we'll set in motion, through the course of our lives, the transformation of entire nations as Abraham did through the actions and faith that we have in our brief sojourn on this earth.  It is our new birthright.