Our Future Hope!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:1-4, ESV)

There's something wrong with our planet. Seriously wrong. Devastatingly wrong. Hurricanes, volcanoes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, even ice ages. These are imperfections that resulted from the curse, when the Lord removed Adam and Eve from the garden in Genesis 3. But why did God do this? Why did he make the Earth a more dangerous place? Was it just to make us feel guilty about Original Sin? No! He did it to increase our desire for restoration with Him, and to increase our Hope for heaven!

Romans 8:22-23 (NKJV) says,

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

The despair that we have with our current planet increases our hope for the New Heaven and the New Earth! The terrible imperfection now points to the great future perfection we long for! Creation, as well as our own bodily pains and weaknesses that we experience, cause our great longing for our future hope to grow more and more!

How does a Christian cope with such devastating loss? Through the hope he has that one day it won't be like this anymore. In verses 24-25, Paul points to this hope, this collective desire for something more, something better, something safe, as our reason for perseverance: "For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance."

To all those who have lost loved ones on the sea over the centuries, or those who lost everything in the tsunamis, our Lord has great news: "The sea was no more." (Rev. 21:1) There will be no more destructive waves, no more sharks, no more drowning, no more death by hypothermia. But it's not just the threat of a watery death that will be removed. The Lord is going to take away all of our pain, all of our sorrow. "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Rev. 21:4)

Southeast Asia Tsunami Disaster Relief

I'm not even going to give you a number right now. If I did, it would be outdated by the time you read this, because the death toll is rising so quickly. But many, many, many people died on Sunday. Gospel for Asia, a missions organization which our fellowship supports, is one of several Christian groups who have taken up the call to provide emergency relief to the survivors of last Sunday's tragedy. Please pray for the relief efforts in Asia, and learn about how you can help.

Winter Intercession

I've been overhearing a lot of Chico State students talking about intercession lately. Actually, I'm kidding. They're really talking about winter intersession (before regular classes resume at the end of January). But wouldn't it be cool if it were the other kind of intercession that they were talking about--intercessory prayer?

C.S. Lewis said, "Prayer doesn't change God, it changes me." While this is true, it is not just us that prayer changes, but it also has the power to change the world around us. But if God is in charge, why do we need to pray?

We find in Genesis 3 and Psalm 8 expressions of God's assignment for mankind when he put us here, commonly referred to as the "Dominion Covenant". And Psalm 115:16 (NKJV) says,

The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD's;
But the earth He has given to the children of men.

The Hebrew word nathan, here translated "given", means to "apply, appoint, ascribe, assign," etc. Our sovereign, omnipotent God has not abandoned the earth, but he has assigned to us a certain responsibility of governing it. In The Treasury of David, Charles H. Spurgeon says of this verse,

He hath left the world during the present dispensation in a great measure under the power and will of men, so that things are not here below in the same perfect order as the things which are above....The free agency which he gave to his creatures necessitated that in some degree he should restrain his power and suffer the children of men to follow their own devices; yet nevertheless, since he has not vacated heaven, he is still master of earth, and can at any time gather up all the reins into his own hands.

We are given a certain responsibility to govern what goes on here, and this is why it's our job to do God's will, as well as to pray for God to do his will. And at times we need to petition the Creator directly on behalf of his people. We find in Amos 7:1-6 a beautiful example of this kind of intercession, which is the core of what I want to talk about here.

Thus the Lord GOD showed me: Behold, He formed locust swarms at the beginning of the late crop; indeed it was the late crop after the king's mowings. And so it was, when they had finished eating the grass of the land, that I said:
"O Lord GOD, forgive, I pray!
Oh, that Jacob may stand,
For he is small!"
So the LORD relented concerning this.
"It shall not be," said the LORD.

Thus the Lord GOD showed me: Behold, the Lord GOD called for conflict by fire, and it consumed the great deep and devoured the territory. Then I said:
"O Lord GOD, cease, I pray!
Oh, that Jacob may stand,
For he is small!"
So the LORD relented concerning this.
"This also shall not be," said the Lord GOD.

Amos asks God to cease his judgments, and he does. First John 5:14-15 says, "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him." This means that when we pray for God to relent or to show mercy when he is in the process of passing judgment, we are not praying against his will, but we are praying for his will to come about, even though it might appear otherwise to our own finite minds.

There are parallel incidents in Genesis 18:16-33, where Abraham intercedes for Sodom, and in Numbers 14:11-25, where Moses intercedes for the people of Israel. Intercession in these passages about Abraham, Moses, and Amos, is all about relationship. The Lord says, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?" (Gen. 18:17). And adds, "For I have known him" (Gen. 18:19, emphasis mine). This word "known" is the Hebrew word, yada, as in the Yiddish expression, "Yada, yada, yada." But it is also the same word used in Genesis 4:1, where it says, "Now Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bore Cain..." When God said he knew Abraham, it was the kind of knowledge and intimacy that two people share in marriage. Our sovereign Lord, who declares the end from the beginning (see Isaiah 46:8-11), still chooses to partner with his people in a relational manner.

In each of these cases, the Lord uses the dialog of the situation--the conflict, if you want to think of it in literary terms--to bring a deeper revelation of himself to his people. He puts them to the test, to see how well they know his character, because it is through the challenge of our faith that our own faith becomes stronger. And these men do, in fact, know the Lord's character, and when they ask the Lord to cease and desist, they do it by reminding him of who he is. Abraham says, "Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25, emphasis mine). Moses asks God to "Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now" (Numbers 14:19, emphasis mine).

When God spoke through the burning bush to call Moses in the desert, Moses gave numerous excuses on why he wasn't the man for the job. But God told him, "I will be with you" (Exodus 3:12). When God gives you the call, don't be like a child asked to take out the garbage and pretend you didn't hear him. And don't just sit there and assume that someone else will come by and take care of it.

"So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. Therefore I have poured out my indignation on them..." (Ezekiel 22:30-31) God has assigned the responsibility to us. Will you take up the call?

On Sunbathing

I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself,
that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Correct me, O LORD, but in justice;
not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing. (Jer 10:23-24, ESV)

Jonathan Edwards wrote that cold results from the sun going below the horizon, yet the sun is a source of heat and not of cold, of light and not of darkness. We do not blame the sun when we experience cold and darkness. In the same way, "sin is not the fruit of any positive agency or influence of the Most High, but on the contrary, arises from the withholding of his action and energy, and under certain circumstances, necessarily follows on the want of his influence" (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 1).

A lot of people get tripped up and say, "How can God allow bad things to happen to good people?" Well, as Jesus said, "No one is good except God alone" (Mk 10:18, ESV), and if there is any goodness in us, it comes from the Lord shining his warmth on us through the power of the Holy Spirit and the life of Christ that is in us. "Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4, NKJV). This newness of life cannot be obtained any other way than through Jesus' atoning sacrifice for our sins.

As Romans 8:28 (NKJV) says, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." We want him to call us according to his purpose. We want him to work all things together for his good. Since we are called according to his purpose, and since goodness results from exposure to God's warmth, then it should be our desire for him to shine down his light and heat on us, unraveling the sin in our lives and replacing it with his righteous energy!

Think of it as spiritual sunbathing...

(Except instead of getting wrinkles and skin cancer, the result is that we begin to look more and more like Jesus!)

Sex and the Supremacy of Christ

I don't know Matt Hall. But my buddy Dave referred me to his article about the Desiring God conference at John Piper's church last fall. After reading Matt's article, I went to the conference website and downloaded John Piper's first session to my mp3 player and listened to it like 5 times. It was so good. The message totally kicked my butt! It was something I really needed to hear, and I wish somebody had prescribed it for me earlier.

I am doubly indebted to both Dave and Matt Hall for exposing me to this material, as well as for providing the inspiration I needed to get my own MovableType web app up and running!

Choosing God's Will

DISCLAIMER! This post no longer accurately reflects my theology. But I am keeping it here for posterity. Of great concern to me is the Arminian notion of free will which I claimed was bestowed on us at salvation, whereas the truth is, my will is still not free, and I am entirely dependent upon the Holy Spirit to keep me walking in his steps.

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

And that malarkey about "God is a Gentleman"-- I'm so embarrassed...

Original post:

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that." But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. (James 4:13-17, NKJV)

But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15, NIV)

Some Christians can mistakenly get caught up in a view of God's sovereignty that says that, if God is in control, then His will is going to happen in my life, just by my continued existence, so I can sit back and relax and do what I want. But as justified, regenerated believers, He has bestowed upon us a free will. There are now two wills at work in us, the will of the old man (the flesh) and the will of the new man (led by the Spirit). We have to actively decide which of these we are going to let govern our lives. That is, God, as the Gentleman He is, will not force His will on us. His will is something we need to choose for ourselves.

God's word tells us over and over again that we need to do His will. In Matthew 7:21 (ESV), Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." See also Mt 12:50; Mk 3:35; Jn 4:34, 7:17, 9:31; Eph 6:6; Heb 10:36; 1 Jn 2:17. If it were not required of us to choose to do His will, then we would not have to be told.

We are also told to seek His will, to know His will, and to choose His will over our own. Jesus said, "I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me" (John 5:30, ESV). See also Mt 26:42; Lk 12:47, 22:42; Jn 6:38; Acts 22:14; Rom 12:2; Eph 5:17; Col 1:9; Heb 10:7; 1 Pe 4:2-3.

There are two imporant points here. First: His will is in fact knowable, and second: His will is EMPHATICALLY not the same as our will. If we believe that God's sovereignty means that, because He's in control, we can just follow our every whim and thereby produce God's will in our lives, we are wrong. And many of us have learned this the hard way (for Biblical examples of guys to do it the hard way, look at the life of Jacob in Genesis, and the life of Solomon in 2 Chronicles and Ecclesiastes).

Our will is bad; God's will is good. We have to actively choose to submit ourselves to God (James 4:1-10). So, how do we know what God's will is in order that we might choose it? Read the Bible and pray. Those are the two primary means through which God reveals His will to us: through His word, and through prayer.

Through His word, He tells us directly what His will is. First of all, it is His will for us to be saved: "Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish" (Mt 18:14, NKJV). See also John 6:39-40, Gal 1:4, Eph 1:5, 1:9-12, Heb 10:9-10. Scripture also tells us in several places that His will is for us to be sanctified, to abstain from sexual immorality (1 Th 4:3), to control our bodies and honor our spouses as well "in sanctification and honor" (1 Th 4:4), to not be a slave of your own desires like those who do not know God (1 Th 4:5, see also Eph 2:1-7), to be thankful in all things (1 Thess. 5:18), and to do good and silence the ignorant (1 Pe 2:15). Each of these verses contains the phrase, "This is the will of God." But we can be sure that wherever there is an imperative in the Scripture, and the context of the passage makes it applicable to all believers, that is God's will for us. We should always read God's Word in such a way that we're seeking how it can be applied in our lives.

As for the subject of prayer, the relationship between prayer and God's will is multifaceted. First of all, we pray for His will to be done: Mt 6:10, Luke 11:2. Also, we pray for His will to be revealed to us: Col 1:9, 4:12. And we can pray in the confidence "that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us" (1 John 5:14). Again, remember that His will is different from our will. We do not pray for our desires, we pray for His desires in us (see James 4:3). C.S. Lewis, as portrayed in the movie Shadowlands, says, "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God, it changes me."

Prayer actually "bends our wills to God's will" (Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man, 83). E. Stanley Jones said, "If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God" (A Song of Ascents, 383).

Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Heb 13:20-21, NKJV)