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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| Repentance and Obedience |
I was reading in the third chapter of Matthew's account of the gospel this morning, where John the Baptist was preaching that men should repent on account of the kingdom of heaven being at hand, when I was struck again, with that same old hunger that has infected me so many times in my Christian walk - a hunger to clarify, to articulate, and to educate.
The truth sets a man free, but in order to be set free, that man must actually hear and understand the truth. We have a murderous enemy in this world, an enemy whose greatest weapon is deceit and falsehood. An enemy who would wash the truth away by setting it afloat upon a flood of lies. Such that I fully expect that many if not most professing believers have, at the very least, an incomplete understanding of what it means to repent.
I recall talking to another believer about a decade back. He attended a larger church where he "ministered" as a sound man for the various local house bands church worship teams. From what I gathered, the church was the sort where one could go and remain anonymous, and fellowship meant singing with others who are singing, and smiling at others who are smiling - then going home to live the next six days with no contact with any of your "church" friends.
The one thing I knew, was that this fellow did not know his bible. I had asked him what repentance was, not as one who was trying to learn for himself, but as one who was probing to see where this guy was at. His answer was shallow and vague, but he dutifully looked into it for me, and came back with a written description he had, no doubt, lifted from some web page somewhere, which was a very well written specimen of that same vague and shallow answer he had formerly given me.
I recall that my challenges to investigate this definition together in scripture were met with the sort of practiced doctrinal inertia that surrounds people who have settled a matter in their mind, and are happy with what they settled on. To press the matter was to challenge what he had already decided was true, and only a hater would ever do such a thing.
I explained in brief why and where I thought his definition could be improved upon, but I was speaking to a mind that was already settled in the matter, and not open to any instruction in that direction. Perhaps a seed was planted that day, the Lord knows, but I don't. He moved to another city shortly after that, but I have thought about that exchange often in the years since.
Not that I am pining for an opportunity to follow-up on this conversation, but rather that it stands out in my thinking as an exchange that is typical of many such discussions with other believers. People can become settled in what they believe, even if what they believe is wrong.
I recall this exchange today because the text I was reading mentioned repentance, and I this was an example in my life where a very genuine Christian was not only confused about what repentance was, but was even satisfied to remain confused, having convinced himself otherwise. Like to untangle knots, and the more so when they are theological, and so very important to a right and healthy faith. To that end I want to take a moment or two more and describe what it means to repent, as I understand it and to do so in the service of God's truth - that He might be exalted. That we may as one draw nearer to Him in love through a deeper understanding of this old truth, and through all that this same truth will provoke in us.
Let's start with a truism: Christianity never allows a person to become content (i.e. make peace) with their sin.
Christ does not lead Christians into failure, He leads them into victory. But not every believer has learned to follow Christ's lead. Hear this: the only way a Christian can fail to overcome sin is if he or she attempts to overcome that sin apart from a settled surrender to Christ. If the believer isn't trying to overcome sin, is is because he or she is ignoring, and therefore grieving, the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is not provoking the "believer" by convicting them of their own sin and of the righteousness of Christ they are to apply to their lives, then that "believer" is suffering from a false conversion. He or she thinks he or she is a Christian, but they are not in Christ, and were never given the Holy Spirit. They may be convinced of their faith, but they have no (biblical) reason to presume themselves to be saved. One does not become or remain a Christian according to his or her ability to convince himself or herself that he or she is a Christian.
All of this is to set the stage, as it were, for a quick lesson on repentance. What does it mean to repent? Those who are confused in the matter might say that repentance means that you stop sinning. I mean, that is exactly what the Pharisees believed. They believed that if they obeyed the letter of the law, suppressing in themselves any outward disobedience, they were being penitent and righteous. Christ told them that they were hypocrites cleaning the outside of their cup, while leaving the inside full of sin.
Repentance then, is not a suppressing of the outward expression of sin in your life. It is not a keeping of yourself from lying, and from stealing from or abusing others. Even if you keep yourself from these things, what more have you done than the faithful Muslim, or stoic humanist? Repentance is something that happens inwardly and can be seen in outward expressions. But those same outward expressions can be aped religiously, and consistently, without ever the hint of a penitent heart.
Our Lord said "blessed be the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". Note, the present tense in this blessing? It isn't that they will one day receive it, it is that theirs is presently the kingdom of heaven. Most of the other blessings will follow later, but being poor in spirit means being in the kingdom of heaven right now.
What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Well, it doesn't mean blessed are those who are financially stricken, but happen to be spiritual, as some teach. Material poverty is no more a virtue than material abundance is a blessing. The same Holy Spirit who through Agur the son of Jakeh wrote, "Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God." (Proverbs 30:8-9 [ESV]) is not suggesting through Christ in Matthew 5 that suddenly material poverty is to be preferred spiritually. There is nothing spiritual about want or abundance - Paul was content in either (c.f. Philippians 4:11-12).
The poverty here, is a poverty in spirit. It means that you understand that nothing in yourself can produce eternal life. It means that you do not look to your own efforts as a means of pacifying or appeasing God's wrath. It means that you do not think you can avoid God's wrath by being good, because you know that all your good deeds are in fact unclean rags before the Lord (c.f. Isaiah 64:6). It means that you have entirely abandoned self effort as a means of righteousness - that you do not imagine that there is some purity in your own spirit that counts as valid currency in God's economy. You know that you deserve condemnation, and that no amount of changed behavior will undo that. It is a total an utter bankruptcy - a recognition that you have nothing with which you may barter with God concerning your sin. It means that you see and understand that you can only come to God as one who has a debt that cannot be repaid by anything you do, or will do. It is to understand that you are entirely guilty, and have cast yourself upon God for mercy. It is the thief on the cross who has nothing to commend himself to Christ, whose appeal for mercy that is entirely absent of any sense of entitlement, "remember me in your kingdom".
Every true believer knows this as surely as they know themselves. Anyone who is convinced that they have some good in them is confused, and anyone who trusts in this imagined goodness, has fallen short of grace, that is, fallen short of the kingdom of heaven.
So what then is repentance? To repent is to change what your mind is set upon. In order to have a mind that is set on the things of the Spirit, you must repent of having a mind that is set on the things of the flesh.
A lot of people would define repentance with a simpler arithmetic: stop sinning. I both love that simple equation, and hate it. I love it because it is perfectly correct, but I hate it because most people have a doctrinally stunted or truncated understanding of sin.
What makes something you do sinful is if whatever you are doing is being done as an act of rebellion against God. It is the rebellion against God that is the sin, this rebellion may express itself a million different ways, but it is the rebellion itself that is the sin.
Why is that an important concept? It is important because unless you understand the difference, you will never comprehend what is going on inside of you when you stop these five sins over here, but indulge this other sin over there. It is important because it identifies why your version of Christianity may not "work".
Imagine a modern day Jonadab (the son of Rechab, c.f. Jeremiah 35:14), asking his four sons not to drink wine. Now imagine that upon his death, only one son continues to abstain. Which of these has obeyed their father? All have obeyed. But which of these has done the will of his father? Only the one who set his heart upon doing his father's will. The others obeyed, but not from the heart. They did not set their hearts upon doing the will of their father, instead they regarded his command as a stricture they obeyed externally, but never accepted internally.
I am trying to draw out the difference between obedience and obedience from the heart. The one is external only, the other is both external and internal - in fact the other is external because it is internal, and the former is external in spite of the internal.
In the above example, only one son "repented" of drinking wine. The other three did not set their heart on obedience, that is, they obeyed but did so without setting their hearts on obeying. They went through the motions, but their obedience did not reflect what was in their hearts.
It is important for the believer to repent according to what the bible teaches repentance to be. If our repentance does not line up with what our Lord, through the scriptures, describes it to be, then our "repentance" will neither satisfy standard we are called to, or be producing a rich, fruitful, and especially joy-filled walk with the Lord.
I hear/read people almost complaining about their Christian "experience". Why is it that no matter how much I try, I can't seem to break through to God? How come I pray and read my bible, but still God doesn't answer my prayers, and I feel no closer to Him today, than I did ten years ago? Why is it that I never have lasting victory over my sin??
That last question is perhaps the most common, and one that I believe some answer too quickly with empty platitudes. I can tell you why your struggle against sin is so fruitless - it is because you refuse to repent.
Try saying that to a person who is struggling against sin, and you will hear pretty quickly that their struggle is genuine. They sincerely -want- to stop doing things that are sinful, but they want to achieve apart from sacrificing utter control of their lives over to God. They want to be obedient without committing themselves to obedience.
You have read in Paul's letter to the Romans (c.f. chapter 8) that the carnal mind is set on the things of the flesh, rather than the things of God. That the carnal mind not only isn't subject to God's rule, but it cannot be brought into subjugation. The problem with understanding that is you have to understand what Paul means by "carnal mind". By "mind" he doesn't mean your "brain" - he means your settled disposition. I say settled because that is what he is talking about when he says, "the mind that is set on..." - it is set in the sense that concrete sets. It describes a disposition that is set-in-stone.
What does that look like in practice? It looks this way: your heart is either going to be set-in-stone on pursuing an uncompromising, and all encompassing surrender to God such that your obedience is the natural outflow of this same surrender, or your heart is set-in-stone on preserving your own rule, such that your obedience will ever remain only skin deep, and that because we have no power in ourselves to do anything beyond this. The former is an expression of humility which becomes the fount of grace by which we overcome, and the later is an expression of sustained rebellion, dressed up in religious garb, which receives no grace, and keeps the one appealing for it in the rags of his own suppressed sin.
Repentance then, is the turning away from this heart-deep rebellion against God. It is a decided and willful change in disposition. It is an uncompromised and all encompassing abandoning of oneself to God's rule. It is a heart that has become settled in its course - obedience at =all= costs. It is what Christ is talking about when he describes "taking up your cross" - because this is not something you simply do, it is nothing less than dying to self, or the demands of self; it is what Bunyun is talking about when he speaks of the mortification. It is a down-to-the-roots-deep work of the Spirit in you, whereby you choose for yourself, while it is yet today, to serve God. It is an unhitching of your carriage of your soul from the black horse of self rule, and hitching anew the same to the white horse of Christ's rule.
Do you want to know, brother, sister, why you cannot overcome sin? It is because you are trying to overcome sin before you're able. You will never overcome sin in this life if you remain in a state of settled rebellion - if you reserve for yourself the "right" to obey God and disobey God as it pleases you. So long as you retain this "right" - your carnal mind will continue to "live" and continue to rule over you - no matter how many times you obey a little here and a little there. Your obedience is not the obedience of one who accepts God's will, but the begrudging obedience of one who is conquered, but hasn't surrendered.
Like those in Christ's day, who, although they obeyed Roman law, nevertheless did not bow their knee to Rome. Such is one who obeys the commands of Christ without first surrendering the rule of his life to Christ. They are the ones who have built their house on the sand (the rules) rather than the rock (the rule giver). They are the ones jumped in before they counted the cost, the ones who have attempted to follow Christ apart from taking up the yoke of the cross. They have come into the sheepfold, but not through the gate. They cry, "Lord, Lord" but do not do what Christ commands.
If this is you, you have a problem. The problem is you have found the Pearl of great price, or the treasure in the field, but you don't want it enough to surrender the rest of what (you think) you have to lay a legal hold on it. You have instead unearthed it, and taken it, but it doesn't belong to you and all that it promises is being withheld from you because you refuse to let Christ rule over you.
The solution is pretty simple: Surrender to Christ, or, to use the biblical terms: repent. Stop hedging between two opinions - you cannot serve Christ and mammon at the same time - either you are determined to obey your own desires, or you are determined to obey Christ's - the two are mutually exclusive. It is one or the other, and never both.
Can't do it? Talk to God about it - but not that wishy-washy-whiny kind of talk. Get down on the knees of your heart, and cry out to Him who is able to lift you up out of this mire, and set your feet on the rock. You cannot set your own feet there, it is a work of grace - but it is a grace you can cry out for so long as you have breath and the Spirit is willing.
Repentance is more than simply obeying God - it is a surrender to God that, once settled, expresses itself in obedience. It is not (and cannot be) an obedience that exists apart from this same surrender.Labels: repentance |
posted by Daniel @
7:19 AM
3 comment(s)
 
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| What if? |
For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. - Matthew 5:18 [ESV]
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. - Luke 21:33 [ESV]
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. - Hebrews 8:13 [ESV]
The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. - Luke 16:16 [ESV]
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. - Matthew 5:17 [ESV]
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. - Romans 10:4 [ESV]
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. - Galatians 3:24 [ESV]
For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. - Hebrews 10:1 [ESV]
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. - James 2:10 [ESV]
Anyone who has ever understood the purpose of an engagement ring can understand the notion of a promise to one day make a better promise. That is what an engagement ring is, it is a promise to one day make another (better) promise. It says I am committed to seeing the second promise established.
Now no one, when asking another person to marry them, will get on bended knee and say, "I promise you, if you accept this promise, that I will give you a better one later" - no, the question is simply, will you marry me? If the answer is yes, the engagement ring is given, and it represents not only the promise to wed, and the acceptance of that promise, but a promise of exclusivity. When the ring is donned, the promise is in effect.
Once the wedding has taken place, the engagement ring no longer has the same role it previously had; that role has been overcome by the wedding band which represents a more substantial promise. The engagment ring is still worn along side the wedding band, but it is the wedding promise that is in effect. The exclusivity of the engagement promise, while no longer in effect, has been replaced with a greater promise of exclusivity: the marriage vow.
You probably are able to leap ahead of me, but in case you were wondering what engagement rings and what not have to do with the verses quoted above, I am writing today about the relationship between the promises of God, and the expectations those promises warranted.
I am sometimes pressed to explain to those younger in the faith, what role the law of Moses is supposed to play in the life of the believer. New converts are typically zealous to be good Christians, but aren't sure what they need to do to be good Christians. For this reason many a new believer has become convinced (and subsequently has taught others of the same) that keeping the ten commandments is part of what God expects from a believer.
I plan to explain how that is off, but in doing so I don't want to be misunderstood. If a person keeps the ten commandments that God gave to the Israelites on Sinai, that person's life will certainly look far more righteous than the life of someone who is not keeping those commandments. In fact, that was a major reason why many of the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees rejected Christ. They were already "righteous" in their own eyes because they were keeping the letter of the law, at least according to their interpretation of the law.
The Apostle Paul taught that the law cannot be kept by a sinful man. That the purpose of the law was to prove this to the individual. The law's purpose was to bring us to the realization that we are sinful, and in need of a Saviour; that is, that we need Christ.
Here is where some people go way out to lunch. Becoming a Christian doesn't mean that Jesus now empowers you to keep the laws of Moses, thus generating legitimate personal righteousness of your own. Paul was not teaching us to seek after "a righteousness of [his] own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith" (c.f. Philippians 3:9). No, Paul did not believe that Christ empowered Him to keep the law of Moses; Paul wasn't looking to its keeping as a means of righteousness, nor was He looking to Christ as the power by which He could obtain personal righteousness through the law. Paul was relying entirely on a righteousness that was not His own at all, but that was His through His union with Christ by faith.
Christ was the only one who ever kept the law. If anything the law was there to show us who the Christ was, for only the Christ has ever kept it. I think this is part of what is meant when Paul says that the law was our schoolmaster, bringing us to Christ. It doesn't bring us to any other man, but only to Him who kept the law perfectly. The law then served to identify the Christ.
But I am digressing a bit. The new believer sees the law and assumes that in keeping the law, he will be pleasing to God, and because the Holy Spirit dwells within Him, the notion of being pleasing to God is a driving motivation; so the new believer falls easy prey to a works righteousness mindset, and the law of Moses, and the ten commandments in particular, are the rungs on the ladder this one endeavors to climb.
But how many new believers are gung-ho to sacrifice cattle or sheep? How many give up pork and shellfish? How many get circumcized? How many pay tithes to the Jewish Priesthood? I tell you, very few, if any, and those who do, pick and choose what they will keep and what they will throw away. But when it comes to the ten commandments, things change. Those who would never bother to pay the temple tax are ready to obey the ten commandments without reservation, even though James tells us plainly that the law is a whole, that keeping the ten commandments counts for nothing if in doing so you fail to keep the rest of the law. In other words, Christianity is either Judaism plus Christianity, or it is just Christianity; you can't have it both ways.
Now some might will object at this point (if not sooner), because the I am, in effect saying, that the command "You shall not commit murder" is no longer in effect. They will take offense because it is clear to any and all that God does not now condone murder.
Here is the lesson of the engagement ring again. The promise of exclusivity that was bound in the engagement, is replaced by a better promise of exclusivity in marriage. In the same way, the commands given to Moses on Sinai, commandments which if you kept them meant you were upholding your part of the bargain, and could thus depend upon God to keep His end of the bargain - that promise was replaced by a better promise.
You are still not allowed to commit murder, as a Christian. Not because God commanded the Israelites, in order to maintain their end of the bargain, had to refrain from murdering -- but because you belong to Christ and are therefore commanded to love your enemy/neighbor/brother etc. That might not seem any better than the first promise, but it is better because this promise cannot be anulled by our failure to uphold our end of the bargain.
You see, Christ upheld and upholds the bargain. It is His righteousness, and not our own upon which this covenant depends - and the moment God raised Christ from the dead, the matter was sealed and settled. He kept "our" end of the deal - securing for us an unbreakable (by us, and the things we do) covenant.
Typically when someone asks me if they should keep the Sabbath or not, I don't jump on them with the whole spiel, my answer for such a question is typically brief, and involves quoting such passages as Colossians 2:16-17 (Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.), since that deals with the concept directly.
But such a question, because it betrays an ignorance of the covenants of God and how they pertain to the church, often draws me into the underlaying concepts that are confusing the one asking the question.
One way I approach the topic is by asking what would be different if instead of sending Moses to provide us with a system that was to the shadow of Christ's substance, God had simply sent Christ instead.
Christ would not issue ten new commandments from Sinai, there would be no laws of seperation, no ritual uncleanness, no animal sacrifices, no priesthood, no temple, no national Israel... All of these things were shadows. So what would Christianity look like without them? Or more pointedly, would would be different?
I can tell you what would be different; people wouldn't be trying to keep the ten commandments (which wouldn't exist), they would instead be keeping the commandments of Christ.
Now, if a person is convinced that he must keep the Sabbath, or new moon festivals or even get circumcized, I will not charge the person with sin if they pursue such shadows in their ignorance. If a believer is blinded in this way, and imagines that what he does is spiritually significant or required, and so in his confusion he responds from a good heart, I say he or she has done well. But I don't believe that ignorance is proper, or that we should allow ignorance to continue or thrive.
Imagine that you sit down to a meal with another believer who informs you as you are eating, that the beef you are munching down is sacred, having been sacrificed earlier that day in worship to God. I tell you, I might pause for a moment in thought, then continue eating, and change the subject to the sacrifice of Christ, and how every other sacrifice pointed to Christ, and how this meat which we were eating, was no more sacred than any other meat - perhaps even less sacred because in sacrificing the animal, it was a tacit accusation that Christ's sacrifice was insufficient.
The point is, that the law of Moses served a purpose, it was a placeholder tied to a covenant that has been surpassed by the new covenant in Christ's blood. Israel's heart of stone (the ten commandments) was replaced with a heart of flesh (Christ) when He ushered in the new covenant. We are no longer under the law, but under grace. If I refrain from murder, it is not because the law says, "you shall not murder" it is because Christ has said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." (c.f. John 13:34). No one who is obeying Christ's command can commit murder. If I refrain from coveting it is not because the ten commandments tell me not to covet it is because Christ said, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (c.f. Luke 12:15). If I refrain from paying the temple tax, it is not because there is no longer a temple, it is because Christ commanded nothing concerning the temple tax.
Had there been no Moses, Christianity would not call me to imitate what never was, but here is the thing: Christianity does not call anyone to imitate what was. We are not called to an amended form of Judaism, where Christianity is just the latest patch sewn into the old cloak of Judaism, we are called to a new covenant, a covenant that was foreshadowed by, but not a continuation of, the old.
The knowledge of this should make us more holy, and not less - for we will not imagine, as some unfortunate souls presently do, that law keeping has anything to do with righteousness. Do you want to do the work of God? Then believe in Him whom God sent. His Spirit will indwell you, and you will be inclined by that same Spirit to live a life that is pleasing to God. You will learn how to please God, not by obeying the voice of Moses, but by obeying the word of Christ.
One closing note: Moses spoke, as did all the prophets, the words of Christ. I don't suggest that Moses was supplying Israel with anything less than exactly what Christ commanded for them. What I do suggest is we are no longer in the engagement phase of our relationship, but in the marriage itself - and while some of what was true of our engagement is likewise true in the marriage, they are not one and the same thing. Moses was the shadow, Christ the substance - we are not married to the shadow, but are married to the Substance; it behooves us therefore to be discerning in our worship, to ensure that we do not confuse the keeping of the old covenant laws with the keeping of the new covenant commands. We are not under the old covenant if we are in Christ, even if there is a great deal of overlap between the commandments of Christ and the laws of Moses.
This was a difficult thing, even for many Jews to grasp (hence the Judaizers etc.), it may not be something you fully get (today), but it ought to be something you think about.Labels: hastily written |
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posted by Daniel @
8:28 AM
10 comment(s)
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| Engendered Truth |
Imagine, if you will, a man who (after watching Peter Jackson's rendition of "the Lord of the Rings") so identifies with the elven character of Legolas, that he begins to believe himself to be an elf trapped in a human body.
Now imagine that this person is so obsessed with the notion that he was born an elf in a humans body, that he contracts a plastic surgeon to surgically alter his ears to resemble the (pointy) ears of a Tolkien elf.
Now imagine that after the successful surgery, his ears are pointy, and because he looks more like an elf than he used to, he begins to expect that everyone else has to agree with him, that he is now an elf. Perhaps he goes so far as to refuse to use "human" restrooms, and wants society to build "Elven" restrooms for himself.
Question: Is the man now an elf?
Question (the follow up): Is mankind obligated by either this man's "ear reassignment" surgery, or this man's own personal conviction that he is an elf, I say, is mankind obligated to agree with this man? Should mankind now think of this man as an elf?
My Opinion: Personally, I think the answer is no. No one becomes obligated to refer to another person as anything other than what they are, even if they have undergone surgery to make them look or (superficially) function otherwise. |
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posted by Daniel @
10:35 AM
7 comment(s)
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| The citation for : have you no wish for others to be saved? |
Hello Internet.
Here is a quote you have probably read before:
"Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
You may also have seen it the quote prefixed to a larger paragraph, as though this were the paragraph from which the quote was lifted:
"Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that.The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perishing sinners and his blessed Master, will be an all-absorbing passion to him. It will so carry him away, that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others. He will be like the brave fireman, who cares not for the scorch or the heat, so that he may rescue the poor creature on whom true humanity has set its heart. If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
As it turns out, this paragraph is a hash of three quotes, the above quote, and thoughts snipped out of two different Spurgeon sermons (numbers #284, and #349):
The saving of souls, if a man has once gained love to perishing sinners, and love to his blessed Master, will be an all-absorbing passion to him. It will so carry him away, that he will almost forget himself in the saving of others. He will be like the stout, brave fireman, who careth not for the scorch or for the heat, so that he may rescue the poor creature on whom true humanity hath set his heart. - Charles Spurgeon, One Antidote for Many Ills (Sermon #284, November 9, 1859, see: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0284.htm)
"...if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for." - Charles Spurgeon, The Wailing of Risca (sermon #349, December 9, 1860 see: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0349.htm)
The original quote however is taken from a sermon preached by Spurgeon in 1888 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle entitled, "She was not Hid" (see: http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols34-36/chs2019.pdf) and is pulled from the following paragraph:
"But the confession had to be made for the sake of others. Do any of you wish to live unto yourselves? If you do, you need saving from selfishness. I have seen it brought as a charge against evangelical religion that we teach men to look to their own salvation first and that this is a kind of spiritual selfishness. Ah, but if that salvation means salvation from selfishness, where is the selfishness of it? It is a very material point in salvation to be saved from hardness of heart and carelessness about others. Do you want to go to Heaven alone? I fear you will never go there. Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that. What is the most natural plan to use for the salvation of others but to bear your own personal testimony?"
It took me a while to source that, so I figured it would probably be good to provide the citation here, should anyone else be looking to find it.
Grace and peace. |
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posted by Daniel @
10:58 AM
6 comment(s)
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| Happiness. |
I'll be happy when such and such happens.
Maybe you've said something like that in your life. I know I used to say that quite often. For me it was a larger salary. No matter how much I made, I felt that I needed at least $20K/year more. I would be happy when that happened.
For some of you, it might be something as inane as saying you will be happy when your spouse learns to pick up after themselves, or stop leaving the lid off the toothpaste. Maybe you want someone in your life to start doing something, and you will be happy when they do.
The common thread is the notion that there is a lack of something, that if filled, would produce the happiness that we ought to be experiencing, but are not.
In a way it is a classic syndrome. Classic in the sense that it is a textbook expression of what it means to be corrupted by sin. We have a built in sense of entitlement, we deserve not only to be happy, but to be happy according to our own brand of happiness; the problem is, that even when we receive whatever it is we think we are owed in life, that sense of contentment continues to elude us.
Now Pascal introduced the notion of every person having a God shaped void in themselves - which, in their falleness, they attempted to fill with other things - but no matter what they poured into this vacuum, it remained. I don't care for that imagery however, because scripture tells us that there is no one seeking after God, and that image suggest that everyone is seeking after God - they just don't know it. I have heard this sort of imagery used to "witness" to people; that is, they use this imagery to suggest to people whom they are trying to "win" to Christ, as a way of suggesting that God is the "balm" they have always been searching for. etc.
I don't care for that sort of flimshaw, as I think it denies the power of the gospel, and relies instead on the power of persuasion and the promise of a better life - that is, it caters to their carnality - attempting to use the existing corruption of sin to the gospel's advantage - as though one could add such to the gospel to increase its effect.
In fact some of the people who use this imagery in their "witness" end up preaching that it is in fact God who has a man shaped hole, so desperate is He to see sinners come to saving grace.
But I digress.
So all Pascalian imagery aside, when I speak of an unquenchable desire to be happy, I am actually describing one aspect of what our fallenness looks like. Now, let me be clear: When I say happy, I mean contented. I don't mean happy in the sense of a yellow-circle smiley face. I am not talking about being joyous all the "live long day" or smiling all the time and being consistently "peppy". Nor am I suggesting a sort of vacant, "Ned Flanders-esque" clue-(diddly)-lessness that leaves one "happy" by way of blissful empty-headedness. No. I simply mean being free from the nagging frustration and resentment that comes upon us as we consider our life failing to be we believe we deserve it to be.
The key word in that last sentence is "deserve". Would you be truly surprised to learn that most people who feel entitled to something, really have no grounds for that sense of entitlement?
I remember years ago seeing a relative inherit a large sum of money. This relative was in a double income marriage, and already had a very fine house. I was in a single income marriage, and my house was not even a moderately fine house. I remember feeling frustrated by the fact that some people had everything handed to them in life, while I had to work for every thing I received. It ate me up inside to see someone else receive grace - it produced in me a sense of entitlement - didn't I deserve to inherit that money? Why not me??
You know, it is like the men who worked all day in the vineyard and thought that they were going to get paid extra because they saw the men who had only worked the last hour of the day get paid a full days wage. When they received what was owed them they were indignant because they felt entitled to more. They saw the grace extended to someone else, and immediately imagined themselves owed something more.
This sense of entitlement is just one expression of our fallen nature. No matter what we get, we will always imagine, deep down, that we deserve more. We will tell ourselves that we will be happy when we get such and such - but even after we get such and such, we do not find the contentment we imagined we would. So we set the bar higher, and should we achieve that higher standard, we find that even this did not satisfy our discontentment.
The problem isn't that we don't have enough; the problem is that we want -nay, that we feel entitled to more. But truly, the only thing that any one of us is entitled to is judgment. We who have sinned against God, have forfeit our life in the moment that we exercised rebellion against His command. Every second we are allowed to live after that first sin is the product of grace and mercy. Rather than be content with such - we go the extra mile in our sinfulness and imagine that God owes us more.
Do you know what I hear when I talk to an atheist? I mean, once I get past all the fluff of their justifying their belief that there is no God? The thing I hear is that even if God stood in the sky and showed himself to be real, they would still reject Him because they believe that they are entitled to live without His judgment.
Nevermind that they impose upon Him to sustain their rebellious existence. Never mind that they owe Him the food that they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breath. They honestly believe that God owes such as these to them - and the continuation of life. Deep down, it is always there. They reject God because His very existence disqualifies their sense of entitlement.
Contentment does not (and cannot) come by having more things. Truly, the reason why most people want to be rich is so that they can have everything they want without having to work for it. Yet time and again we find that people who are rich, and could be said to have everything they want, are just as discontented as everyone else. No matter how much they have, they want more.
Contentment comes when you are perfectly satisfied with God's provision. It follows that you can only be perfectly satisfied with God's provision when you are perfectly convinced that God's provision is perfect. That is, we learn to be content whether we are in prosperity or poverty because we learn that God is the one who gives, and his provision is always perfect. If I have less it is because God has determined that having less is the most perfect thing I need right now. If I have more it is because God has determined that having more is the most perfect thing I need right now. If calamity strikes, it is because calamity is the most perfect thing I need right now; you get the picture.
Contentment flows from faith. Faith is not a commodity that we get "more of" - it is just the word we use to describe trusting in something. Faith therefore cannot exist apart from the thing you are trusting. Faith then is more than just believing that God exists. The demons believe that, and it isn't counted as faith for them, it just shows that they are rational beings. No, you have to trust God in something for there to be faith. In this case, contentment comes when you trust God's provision.
Now, I did not say, "When you trust God to provide..." - because I have seen people use that kind of thinking to perversion rather than to God's glory. It isn't that you trust God to provide you with fill-in-the-blank. It is rather that you trust that what you have already is what God has provided. Contentment comes when you believe that this provision is already perfect. You neither want more nor less, because you trust that God's provision is not fickle, nor lacking, but carefully and lovingly ministered to us.
How could Stephen cry out to the Lord not to charge the sin of those stoning him to their accounts? He could say this because he truly accepted as coming from the Lord even the death of a martyr.
So I encourage you Christian, don't look for happiness in the things of this world, nor look to the Lord to provide you with those things that you think you need. The Lord knows what you need before you even ask it. Whether you find yourself in poverty or prosperity - trust in the Lord, and you will be content. |
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posted by Daniel @
7:38 AM
4 comment(s)
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| I Spoke To You In Your Prosperity |
Given that our God is sovereign, and that you are providentially reading this post, I thought I would pass along the thought God first expressed to those living in Jerusalem during the days before He exiled them to Babylon.
There, in Jeremiah 22 we read the following:
I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen!’ [NASB]
If there is any tug in your soul when you read this, I hope you will not ignore it. |
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posted by Daniel @
11:06 AM
2 comment(s)
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| Overcoming Sin By Faith. |
You've probably heard it preached or said that we, as believers, overcome sin by faith. As true as that is, it isn't very helpful because such a statement is too vague. How does one overcome sin by faith? What should this faith be trusting in?
Faith requires conviction, but faith is more than mere conviction. To give a biblical example, we are told that the demons "believe" (that is, they have a convicted that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God) - but who in their right mind would confuse the conviction of demons for saving faith? No. Faith isn't conviction by itself, faith is casting your hope entirely upon your conviction. Thus faith requires the conviction that something is true, and then requires one to place themselves entirely at the mercy of that conviction.
The problem with saying that believers overcome sin by faith is that it doesn't tell us what believers are supposed to be believing in. So I will spell it out for you, and may the Lord be merciful and open your heart to receive this truth.
If you are a Christian, you serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can I say that another way? If you are a Christian, you are Christ's slave. You have no rights, you have no say. What Christ commands, you obey, and you obey because you are Christ's slave and because Christ is your divine Master.
Though this may be a riddle to some of you, I tell you that this is what you must believe - that you belong to Christ; that you are His slave.
It is one thing to believe that Jesus is 'the' Lord, and quite another to believe that Jesus is your Lord.
Let me make this practical. Consider the man who is a womanizer, a substance abuser, and a liar. He becomes a Christian, but soon finds himself overcome by the lusts of his own flesh. Years of empty teaching, have left him confused about how to overcome sin in His life, and so he finds himself in a never ending cycle of sin and confession. The Spirit within him provokes him to repent, but he finds no strength in what he believes, and so his misery, alongside his sin, increases year by year. He is on his last rung, when he comes to you and asks how he can be set free from these things when the root problem is that he loves them more than he loves Christ.
Your duty in Christ is to instruct him in how he can be truly set free by God's power, and not by his own ability to suppress these things. What do you do?
Here is what you do. You inform Him that He belongs to Christ, and as Christ's slave, he is no longer free to pursue his own lusts, but must surrender himself to Christ's rule.
He objects, naturally, because he truly wants to be free from these sins, and simply believing himself to be a Christian has never freed him from the lusts that provoke these sins in him.
You interject at this point with the truth. If he were Christ's slave, he would not do these things.
He is offended. You seem to be saying he is not a Christian! He knows he is a Christian, having given himself to Christ in such a way, and he supplies you with ample evidence to support his claim.
You firmly explain the truth. If he was Christ's slave, he would obey Christ instead of his own lusts. The problem, you explain to him, is that he doesn't really believe he is Christ's slave.
He is confused by this, and wants to know what you mean?
You explain: The reason he is not overcoming sin is because for all his profession of faith, he truly doesn't believe that he is Christ's slave. He believes that he is supposed to be Christ's slave, but "knows" that he really isn't. This unbelief, you explain, is the root of his sin. He simply does not believe that He is actually Christ's slave. He is waiting for obedience to overtake him and prove to him that he is Christ's slave, but you explain, that one apprehends the evidence of this truth the moment one begins to walk by faith in the fact that one is Christ's slave.
I could go on, but you get the point. You overcome sin by exercising faith in the reality that you are Christ's slave. Practically speaking, when the temptation comes, you remember that like the Prophets and the Apostles before you, you are a servant of the Most High God - you are Christ's slave, and as such your own lusts cannot supersede the commands of your Master. You obey --because-- you truly believe you are His slave, and that He is your Master.
This isn't positive thinking, it is standing by faith on the truth.
There are Christians today - and you may be one of them - who wonder why their Christianity "isn't working". This is because they have unbiblical expectations when it comes to overcoming sin. They understand that sanctification is a spiritual work, and they may even understand that it is accomplished by faith (as you received the Lord Jesus so walk in Him), but they don't understand how to apply faith to their problem.
The purpose of this post is to but some meat on the skeleton of sanctification. You are sanctified by faith - by trusting in the fact that you really are a Christian, that is, trusting in the fact that you truly are Christ's slave - and then walking in that truth. When you walk in this truth by faith, you will overcome whatever sin is tempting you. It is one thing to try and obey Christ because you know you should, and quite another to obey Him by faith in the fact that you are His.
Ask anyone who has truly overcome some sin, and you will find that at the heart of it was the teaching that they were set free from that sin the moment they stopped telling believing that the sin owned them, and began to trust in the fact that Christ owned them. It may come out differently in their description, but you will find that this is at the heart of their deliverance - putting their trust in what is true of them as Christ's servants.
Let me know if it helps. |
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posted by Daniel @
7:52 AM
14 comment(s)
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