Call It Grace

2011-09-25T13:25:00.002+08:00

THE SUFFERING SERVANT

Introduction

I must confess that I was overjoyed when Pastor asked me to preach from this portion of Isaiah. If there is any one passage from the Old Testament that I have always wanted to preach from, it is this one. This part of Isaiah, often known simply as "The Suffering Servant", contains the very heart of the gospel.

Proposition

It can be summed up very simply as this: "Jesus suffered and died for our sins." This is so basic that we sometimes forget it is what Christianity is all about. It's not primarily about becoming a good person, or finding peace in our hearts or strength to cope with the struggles of life. Yes, these things are part of our Christian life, but if you think about it, most other religions promise these things as well. The heart of Christianity is this: "Jesus suffered and died for our sins." It is important that we never forget this.

I will first start with a very brief overview of the entire passage, followed by a more detailed discussion of its main themes.

A PORTRAIT OF MESSIAH

In the passage before us, Isaiah is painting a picture of the Messiah, the one whom the Lord would send to rescue Israel and establish an everlasting kingdom.

The vision of Isaiah

We don't know for sure how prophets received their inspiration from God, but Isaiah often speaks of the visions that he saw. In fact the first verse of this book begins with these words: "The vision of Isaiah, which he saw ..."

Imagine then, if you will, Isaiah receiving one of these visions while he is deep in prayer. God puts him right there, in spirit, seven hundred years in his future, as an eye-witness of the events leading up to the most important moment in all of human history – the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Messiah.

Now, Isaiah has one great advantage: As He witnesses Jesus being betrayed, put on trial, tortured and crucified, he also sees the spiritual reality behind all the events – that the truth of the matter was that Jesus was dying for our sins, something which those who were there, watching him die on the cross, were unable to comprehend until much later.

Moved by this vision, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Isaiah then proceeds to write a magnificent poem to describe in detail what he saw in his vision. The amazing thing about this description of Messiah is that it would be fulfilled in minute detail in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, seven hundred years after the prophet had penned his poem. The fact that one person so accurately fulfilled all the prophecies (not just in Isaiah but also elsewhere in scripture) is a testimony both to the trustworthiness of scripture and to the fact that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah.

Non-linear narrative

As I go through the picture which Isaiah paints for us, I want you to notice that he does not go about it in a chronological order in the way that most of us would. No, he does it instead in the form of flashbacks - going back and forth in time to weave a compelling story.

Without further ado, let's now see what Isaiah has to tell us about the suffering servant:

BEHOLD, MY SERVANT SHALL ACT WISELY;
HE SHALL BE HIGH AND LIFTED UP,
AND SHALL BE EXALTED.

The first thing he declares is the grand finale – Jesus will be high and lifted up. This is what it's all about. The story of the gospel exists ultimately to show forth the love and mercy of God, so that the name of Jesus may be exalted.

HIS APPEARANCE WAS SO MARRED, BEYOND HUMAN SEMBLANCE,
AND HIS FORM BEYOND THAT OF THE CHILDREN OF MANKIND.

Now, immediately after announcing that Christ will be highly exalted, Isaiah goes to the other extreme - he describes the lowest point in the life of Jesus. In verse 14 of chapter 52 we read: "His appearance was marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind." Isaiah sees Jesus being reduced to such a mass of bleeding flesh that he can hardly be recognized as human. Remember, in his mind's eye, he was there witnessing Jesus being flogged by the Romans. Anyone who watched the movie The Passion will find it hard to forget the scene where the nails in the whip become embedded deep in the flesh of our Lord, and the torturer has to give it a good yank to get it out, ripping out a large chunk of flesh in the process. Isaiah here gives us a good idea of the bloody pulp that must have remained of his face and body after the flogging.

WHO HAS BELIEVED WHAT HE HAS HEARD FROM US?
AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?

There is a pause in the narrative, as Isaiah muses to himself: Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? Who's going to believe what I have to say about Messiah? Who could believe it, unless the Lord reveals his mighty arm, and gives him the faith to believe?

FOR HE GREW UP BEFORE HIM LIKE A YOUNG PLANT,
AND LIKE A ROOT OUT OF DRY GROUND;
HE HAD NO FORM OR MAJESTY THAT WE SHOULD LOOK AT HIM,
AND NO BEAUTY THAT WE SHOULD DESIRE HIM.

And then, in a flashback, Isaiah brings us back to the early childhood years of Jesus. He pictures Messiah as growing up before the Lord like a young plant, in the quiet little town of Nazareth, a root out of dry ground. Luke 2 tells us "the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom and with the favour of God upon him." Yet he was unnoticed by anyone, for "he had no form or majesty or beauty that we should desire him." In other words, he had none of those qualities that bring forth men's admiration. We think of Prince William and Prince Harry, growing up in the public eye – good-looking, rich, famous, with royal blood. Jesus was not like that. He was poor and humble.

HE WAS DESPISED AND REJECTED BY MEN;
A MAN OF SORROWS, AND ACQUAINTED WITH GRIEF.

As Isaiah moves forward to the latter part of Messiah's life, he describes him as despised and rejected. Those in his own hometown sneered at him: "Is this not the carpenter's son?" He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He knew the pain of being betrayed with a kiss, and of being deserted by all of his closest friends.

SURELY HE HAS BORNE OUR GRIEFS
AND CARRIED OUR SORROWS;
YET WE ESTEEMED HIM STRICKEN,
SMITTEN BY GOD, AND AFFLICTED.
BUT HE WAS WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS;
HE WAS CRUSHED FOR OUR INIQUITIES;
UPON HIM WAS THE CHASTISEMENT THAT BROUGHT US PEACE,
AND WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED.

Isaiah then comes to the heart of this passage. He declares the spiritual reality of what is happening to Messiah. Remember, in his vision he has the privilege not only of looking into the future, but also of being able to understand the true significance of what he is seeing.

The entire passage pivots around this word: "SURELY". Isaiah says here that SURELY - the real truth of the matter - is that he was bearing OUR griefs and carrying OUR sorrows.

See, those who saw Messiah being tortured and crucified were probably thinking in their hearts that surely he was being punished by God for some deep hidden sin. The Hebrew words translated as "stricken", "smitten by God" and "afflicted" all bear the connotation of suffering sent by God as judgment for sin. In the Jewish mind, there is an inseparable link between sin and suffering. If you sin, you will suffer for it, and therefore, if you are suffering, it must be because you have sinned.

BUT - Isaiah says - He was wounded for OUR transgressions; crushed for OUR iniquities. He was scourged, he was spat upon and beaten on the head, he was crowned with thorns, he was crucified for our sins, so that we could have peace with God and healing for our souls and our bodies.

HE WAS OPPRESSED, AND HE WAS AFFLICTED,
YET HE OPENED NOT HIS MOUTH;
LIKE A LAMB THAT IS LED TO THE SLAUGHTER,
AND LIKE A SHEEP THAT BEFORE ITS SHEARERS IS SILENT,
SO HE OPENED NOT HIS MOUTH.

Isaiah then continues with a description of the last hours of Messiah's life. We are taken to the scene of his trial. He was falsely accused and condemned - even though everyone could see that he was innocent. In all this he never opened his mouth to protest the injustice that was being done. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. All he needed to do was to say the word, and his Father would immediately send twelve legions of angels to rescue him – but he did not. He willingly went to the cross.

AND THEY MADE HIS GRAVE WITH THE WICKED
AND WITH A RICH MAN IN HIS DEATH.

And then he describes Messiah's death and burial. He was crucified between two thieves. The usual fate of those who were crucified is that their bodies would be taken down and thrown into Gehennah - the huge rubbish dump outside Jerusalem, to rot there. That's what the Romans planned to do with him – to make his grave with the wicked - but instead he was buried in a rich man's tomb – that of Joseph of Arimethea, who asked for his body after his death to give it an honourable burial. This happened in order that the scripture would be fulfilled.

THEREFORE I WILL DIVIDE HIM A PORTION WITH THE MANY,
AND HE SHALL DIVIDE THE SPOIL WITH THE STRONG.

The final image of Messiah which Isaiah paints for us is that of a triumphant conqueror. "He shall divide the spoil with the strong." Just as a victorious king divides the spoils of war with his generals, so Christ will divide the spoil with those who have triumphed with him. God has highly exalted Christ and given him victory over sin and death, and we who are in Christ share that victory.

To summarize, right at the beginning, Christ is portrayed as high and lifted up and exalted. At the end of the passage, the same thing is declared - Christ is a triumphant conqueror over sin and death. And in between is an amazing prophecy, fulfilled down to the smallest detail in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, where we are told WHY Christ deserves to be exalted. It is because, even though he was God, he humbled himself and became a man - to suffer and die for our sins. He did this out of an amazing love for us, and in willing obedience to the Father, so that the glory of God's love and mercy could be made manifest.

SIN AND SUFFERING – THE CURSE OF THE LAW

The reason this passage resonates so deeply with all of us is that we are all familiar with suffering. We KNOW what the prophet is talking about when he says Messiah was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, because we ourselves know what it means to feel pain and grief and sorrow. We experienced pain the moment we were born, when the midwife spanked our bottom to make us cry and draw in our first breath of air. We are familiar with the pain of losing our loved ones, and of being despised and rejected.

Most of us would also have learnt along the way that our suffering is linked to our sin. When we were young children, we found out sooner or later that being disobedient or naughty – doing what we knew to be wrong – would lead to a painful experience: that of being punished by our parents. When we see bad things happen to others, don't we often think to ourselves or even say out loud that "this must have been a punishment from God."?

The Israelites knew this from bitter experience. It is believed that Isaiah wrote this poem while the Jews were still in captivity in Babylon. They had been addicted to the worship of idols, and they had been carried off to Babylon as a punishment for this sin, after ignoring many warnings from God. As a nation, they were suffering for their idolatry, and they knew it.

The idea that sin leads to suffering is not new. Right in the beginning, in the book of Genesis, God told Adam and Eve that they would suffer because they had sinned. To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children." And to Adam he said, "Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you."

We are also warned about the curse of the law. In chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, we read of the blessings promised to those who obey the law. But in the second half of this chapter, we read of the many curses that will befall those who are not careful to obey the commandments of the law. Here's a small sample: "The LORD will send on you curses on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken him. He will strike you with wasting disease and with fever and with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind..." And it goes on and on and on.

The ultimate curse which all of us face is death - spiritual death. The soul that sinneth - it shall die. Paul puts it another way: The wages of sin is death. Spiritual death is nothing less than the eternal separation of the soul from its creator and the source of all its blessings. Where there is separation from God, there can be no hope of any blessing or any mercy - only eternal pain and deprivation and darkness. And it is what all of us rightly deserve for our sin.

Think about all the ways that hell is described - it's all about eternal suffering! Our Lord Jesus himself describes it as being outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth; where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

THE MAGNITUDE OF OUR SIN

Now, if you ask anyone whether they think they would actually deserve all this, the most common answer would be: "No." I've gone around asking people if they would agree that all of us have sinned. They will usually answer "Yes - we're not perfect. We've all done things which we've known were wrong." But there is always an attempt to tone down the seriousness of sin by calling it a "moral failing" or "a bad decision". The general consensus is that we're not that bad. We don't deserve to go to hell.

But think about this: Whom have we all sinned against? We have sinned against Almighty God, the one who made the universe. He created us and therefore has every right to demand our complete love and obedience and worship, which we have failed to render to him from the day we were born. Those of us who are parents will understand the hurt and anger we feel when our children reject us and rebel against us. Can you imagine how God must feel when men despise him? Men whom he himself made from the dust of the earth and breathed life into.

Yes, he is a loving and forgiving God, but he is also holy and just. He hates sin, and has declared: "The soul that sinneth - it shall die." In order to be true to his own nature, he must punish sin.

And we have all sinned. Look at verse 6 of our text: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." If this is the case (and it is) and if suffering is what we deserve for our sin, then all of us are in trouble. It would take an eternity of suffering in hell to repay our debt to an infinitely holy God!

THE MADNESS OF OUR SIN

None of us enjoy suffering, and would rather avoid it if we could. We instinctively shrink from the idea of hell, because we don't exactly relish the prospect of eternal suffering. That's why I think there is a certain madness to sin. We know deep inside that we will suffer for it and regret it infinitely (as DSK said), but we still go ahead and do it. As Bono once sang: "Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in my mouth." Sin deceives us – it promises pleasure, it promises to make us happy. And so we sin willingly because we fall for the lie that sin will make us happy. But pleasure is not happiness. We soon realize that sin may give us pleasure for a short time, but it can never make us truly happy. In the end it always brings pain and suffering.

We may be tempted to doubt this principle sometimes when we see the wicked prospering and never seeming to suffer in this life, or when we seem to be escaping punishment for our own sins, but rest assured - there will be a final day of reckoning. It is appointed for everyone to die once - and after that comes judgment.

THE CONCEPT OF SUBSTITUTION

I would like to move on now, and introduce you next to a very important concept: Substitution. The Jews were very familiar with this idea of sacrificing an animal as your substitute to satisfy the wrath of God.

We read about this in Leviticus chapter 4. If you became aware that you had committed a sin, this was how you would atone for it: You would select from your flock a bull or a goat that was spotless and without blemish. You would lay your hand on the head of the animal, symbolically transferring your sin and guilt to it. It would then be brutally slaughtered, and its blood would be collected into a bowl. The priest would sprinkle the blood before the Lord seven times, then pour the rest of it onto the altar. The carcass of the dead animal would then be burnt as a burnt offering. Then the priest would make atonement for you, and your sins would be forgiven.

The Jews understood this: "I deserve death for my sin. I deserve the consuming fire of God's wrath. But by the offering of this animal as my substitute, violently killed and consumed by the fire of God upon his altar, I hope to turn away the wrath of God from myself. May my sacrifice be acceptable to God."

But we are told in Heb 10 that the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins. The only acceptable substitute who could atone for my sin by being sacrificed on my behalf would be a perfect human being - one who had never sinned and perfectly fulfilled the righteous demand of the law - to love and obey God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength every moment of his life. Where in the world could I find someone like this who would willingly take my place and sacrifice himself for me?

JESUS CHRIST – OUR SUBSTITUTE

This is where the good news of the gospel message comes in. The reason I have dwelt so long on our sin and the suffering it brings, is that unless we realize how bad the bad news is, we will never appreciate how great the good news is.

The bad news is that we have all sinned, and we stand under the curse of the law. We are all sinners, and we deserve to go to hell. I know you don't hear things like that very often nowadays, but I believe this to be true with all of my heart. But you know what? Knowing that I'm a hell-deserving sinner makes the good news of the gospel so much sweeter.

The fantastic news is that Jesus suffered and died for our sins. He took upon himself our sin and shame. He bore the griefs and the sorrows that were rightfully ours. He was bruised for our transgressions and was crushed to death for our iniquities.

If you find yourself yawning when you hear these words, it might be because you're not convinced of how bad the bad news is. But if, by the grace of God, you HAVE been convicted of the enormity of your sins, these words will be the sweetest words you could ever hope to hear.

REDEEMED FROM THE CURSE OF THE LAW

Christ redeemed us by becoming a curse for us, as he hung upon that tree. He received in himself all of the wrath that was due to us because of the curse of the law.

Like the animal upon whom sin and guilt was transferred by the laying on of hands before it was slaughtered, its blood poured out as an offering and its body burnt as a sacrifice so that God's righteous wrath would be turned away, so our sins were transferred to Christ (and his righteousness transferred to us) and he was led away like a lamb to the slaughter.

THE CUP OF GOD'S WRATH

Remember how Jesus prayed so earnestly in Gethesemane - "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me."? What was our Lord Jesus dreading so much that he could sweat great drops of blood as he prayed in agony to his Father? It wasn't just the thought that he would suffer and be put to death by the Romans in the most cruel way that has ever been devised in the history of mankind. What do you think was in that cup he was referring to? Revelations 14 tells us: "They will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur, and the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever, and they will have no rest, day or night."

The cup of God's eternal wrath is reserved for all those who do not believe in Jesus. But for those of us who do believe, Christ has already, as our substitute, emptied this cup on our behalf. It was filled to the brim with the unleashed fury of almighty God against all the sins of the elect from all eternity. And Christ put it to his lips, he opened his mouth and he drank all of it - until the cup was empty. And when he had done this, he said: "It is finished!" He tasted death for us, so that we might have life.

See what Isaiah says about this, in verse 22 of chapter 51: Thus says the LORD, who pleads the cause of his people: "Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the dregs of the cup of my fury you shall drink no more."

Christ's willing sacrifice

Christ sacrificed himself willingly. He says so in John chapter 10: "I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." Now follow me closely here. Look at verse 10 of Isaiah 53: It was the will of the Lord to crush him. And what does it say at the end of that verse? The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. In other words, if it was the will of the Lord to crush him, then he would willingly, obediently let it happen. It was his meat and drink to do the will of his father. And we see this in verse 7: He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

He sacrificed himself out of obedience to the will of his father, but he also did it out of love for us. Remember Gal 2:20? The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

DO YOU BELIEVE?
"WHO HAS BELIEVED WHAT HE HAS HEARD FROM US?
AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?"

The question each of us must ask ourselves is this: Do I believe this?

Unless we believe the message of the gospel, it will not apply to us. Heb 4:2 tells us that the word that we receive must be mixed with faith in order to benefit us.

Ask yourself: Do I really believe that Jesus suffered and died for MY sins? Did he bear MY grief and carry MY sorrows? Was he wounded for MY transgressions and pierced for MY iniquities?

If your honest answer is "Yes, I do believe this", then, my friend, you have passed over from death to life. You have been redeemed from the curse of the law. And this is the promise we have in Romans 8:1: There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Every time we sin, we don't need to go around looking for a poor bull or goat to sacrifice. We can point - by faith - to the sacrifice that was made 2000 years ago and rejoice that the perfect lamb of God was slain, as our substitute, once and for all. Our great high priest has already made atonement for us, and our sins have been forgiven. And not only that, look at what it says right at the very end of our passage: "He makes intercession for the transgressors." Notice that it is in the present tense!

I am reminded of Paul's boldness in Rom 8:33,34: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies us. Who can condemn us? Christ Jesus is the one who died (isn't that what this passage is all about?) - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us." When Satan accuses us before God, Christ, our precious Saviour, is there, saying: "But I shed my blood for their sins!"

Do you believe this? Are you counting on it? Have you put all your money on it? The atonement which Christ made for our sins was full, perfect and sufficient for all of our sins. There is no sin that was not atoned for. And yes, even after you believe in Christ with all of your heart and you are saved - you will still sin! But Christ has paid for those sins as well. Not that we now have liberty to sin freely – God forbid! We should live as those who are free from the bondage of sin. But that is another sermon for another day.

PREACH THE GOSPEL!

The message of revival

The title of today's sermon is this: What is the message of revival? The answer is very simple. The message of revival is the message of the gospel, and the message of the gospel is that Jesus suffered and died for our sins. Are we praying for revival? Do we really want to see our church grow? It will not happen if we do not preach the gospel. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. When the gospel is preached, the Holy Spirit will be at work – changing hearts and convicting them of sin, and granting faith and repentance - and it is only this that will lead to changed lives.

This is the message that is ours to deliver. This is the good news that is ours to declare to the world - that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He did this as our substitute, and redeemed us from the curse of the law.

Conclusion: Preach the gospel!

Last week, Pastor was sharing about how God has been greatly blessing all the outreach programs in our church. I was greatly encouraged by the report. I would like to challenge all of us (and that would certainly include myself) to go one step further:

Preach the gospel. Tell people about it - not just those who attend our outreach events, but anyone and everyone whom you have any dealings with - family members, neighbours, colleagues, business associates, fellow students. Warn them (in the kindest way possible) that they are hell-deserving sinners, and that unless they believe that Jesus suffered and died for their sins, they will perish. But tell them also that if they do believe in him, they will not perish but have eternal life. That's fantastic news, isn't it? But, you see, how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching the gospel to them?

Preach the gospel - knowing that there will be many who will reject the message. "Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?" The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. If you are rejected, don't take it personally - you are only the messenger, after all. They are not rejecting you, they are rejecting the only one who can save them. And if it still hurts inside, remember - our Lord himself knew what it meant to be despised and rejected by men.

Preach the gospel - and do it for the glory of God. Remember - the ultimate purpose of the gospel is to show forth the glory of God's love and mercy, and so that the name of Jesus may be exalted.

Preach the gospel - praying and trusting the Holy Spirit to open hearts and minds. Acts 16 tells us that it was the Lord who opened Lydia's heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. Let's not depend on our ability to befriend people or impress them with our lifestyles, or to persuade them with words of wisdom. Rather, let's just proclaim the message of the gospel as simply as we can, in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Think about it: when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost, all they did was simply to go out and proclaim the gospel and 3000 were added to their number that day. It was the power of the Holy Spirit convicting the hearts and minds of those who heard the gospel being preached that made the difference.

We must preach the gospel! How tragic if the people we are reaching out to come to the conclusion that we are such a warm friendly church full of very nice people, but in the end they never get to hear the gospel that will save their eternal souls! How sad if they went away, after hearing our testimonies, thinking that all Christianity is about is how God helps us in our troubles, and heals us of our illnesses, and blesses us. Yes, he does! And we can and should praise God for all these things, but how heartbreaking if they fail to hear about the greatest blessing that God has given us – Jesus suffering and dying for our sins.

Let our first priority always be to communicate the message of the gospel. As Paul told the Corinthians: "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." In fact, he went so far as to say: "I determined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified."

So let's be like those Isaiah describes in verse 7 of chapter 52:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace, who proclaims news of happiness, who declares salvation.

Let's tell everyone the good news that Jesus suffered and died for our sins.

Living by faith

2011-03-20T16:44:00.003+08:00

Sermon given on 20 Mar 2011.

Introduction

In the last few months, our focus has been on the theme of "Discipleship". The first thing that usually comes to mind whenever we hear this word is a list of how-to's: How to pray, how to grow spiritually, how to draw near to God and so on. In fact, when I was first given this topic to preach, that's the kind of list that went through my mind.

As I thought and prayed about what I should say, I realized that it is critically important for us to understand the very foundation upon which we are called to be disciples.

Imagine if we went through our whole lives doing all the things which we thought disciples should be doing, and we thought we were doing a good job. And then on the last day, Jesus turns to us and says: "Depart from me, I never knew you, you workers of iniquity." What a shock that would be!

Yet Jesus warned us that we should build our foundation upon the rock and not upon sand. How do we make sure that we have done this?

Believing, not just doing

I would like to put to you that being a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ is more about having FAITH in what Christ has DONE for us, than about what we are to DO as disciples. To put it simply, it's more about BELIEVING, than it is about DOING.

You see, in talking about discipleship, we always face the danger of losing sight of the Gospel. The Gospel isn't about learning how to be good or finding peace and happiness or being able to deal with the troubles we face in life. Our main problem is our SIN, and the Gospel is simply the proclamation that Christ has paid the penalty for the sins of those who believe in Him, and has given to them His perfect righteousness. Christianity is a "DONE" religion. God has done everything that is necessary to secure the salvation of those who belong to Him. All we need to do is to believe.

Work OUT your salvation, not work FOR your salvation

Yes, no doubt, as Christians, we are to PURSUE holiness and to DO the good works which the Father has prepared beforehand for us to do (Eph 2:10). But these come AFTER we have been saved – they are the FRUITS of our salvation. We must never confuse the FRUITS with the GROUND of our salvation, which is faith in Jesus Christ alone. Whatever we do as disciples - whether striving for holiness, preaching the Gospel or caring for the poor - we must remember that we do these things not in order to get to heaven, but because we are already going there. Discipleship is about working OUT our salvation. It is never about working FOR our salvation.

Please turn with me to Gal 2:19,20, which is our text for today.

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Before I get into the text itself, I would like to briefly comment on the background to the book of Galatians.

The letter to the Galatians was written by Paul in response to a crisis being faced by the church there. A group of false teachers (the Judaizers) had come from Jerusalem, and they were teaching that it was necessary for the Gentile believers to be circumcised. Mind you - they were not saying that you didn't need to have faith in Christ. You had to have faith in Christ BUT you also had to obey the Law of Moses, which included circumcision.

This was absolutely contrary to the core of the Gospel message - that we are justified by faith alone in Jesus Christ and not by obeying the works of the Law. In other words, all we need to be declared righteous in God's eyes is to believe in Jesus Christ, and nothing more.

Paul rebukes Peter

In Gal 2:11 we see Paul describing how another group of Judaizers had arrived in Antioch with their false teachings. Peter, who had until then been eating freely with the Gentile believers, stopped doing so, because he knew that according to the Law of Moses, Jews should not be eating with Gentiles, who were considered unclean. Don't forget - this was the same Peter who had been told by God in a vision three times not to call unclean what God has called clean. Yet he was somehow afraid of these Judaizing teachers, and wanted to please them. Peter's fear of man overcame him, just as it did when he denied Christ three times. His hypocrisy was so great that it began to affect the other Jewish believers, including Barnabas. They began to follow his example of not eating with the uncircumcised Gentile believers.

When Paul saw what was happening, he rebuked Peter in front of everyone, because what was at stake was no less than the integrity of the Gospel. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is laid out by Paul in Gal 2:16:

We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.

This is such a crucial doctrine that Martin Luther calls it "the article by which the church stands or falls", and it was the main reason for the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

Paul now comes to our text for today. Let's examine it line by line.

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God

What does Paul mean by this statement?

Well, if anyone could have been justified by the works of the law, it would have been Paul. After all, he was "a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to righteousness under the law, blameless." Outwardly anyway.

But Paul considered all of this as rubbish, compared to "the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ as my Lord, and obtaining the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ."

Dying to the law as a means of justification

After trying all his life to become righteous before God by obeying the Law, Paul finally realized that he had failed miserably. The Law which said "Thou shalt not covet", convicted him of the covetousness within his heart - he knew he was guilty, and he knew God could see it, even if no one else could. And so he died to the Law in the sense that he gave up on it as a means of being justified before God. He knew it was impossible. It was the Law convicting him of his sin that led him to this conclusion. This is why he says it was THROUGH the Law that he died to the Law. And it was only in dying to the Law in this way that he could finally live to God.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was very much like Paul. Trained as a lawyer, he saw very clearly that he was rightfully exposed to God's wrath. He knew that the greatest commandment was to love God with all his heart, soul mind and strength. Yet he confessed: "You ask me if I love God? I hate God!" This was because he only saw God as a strict and righteous judge out to condemn him, and he knew that he was rightfully condemned. His guilty conscience tortured him day and night, and he tried to soothe it by living a very strict lifestyle as a monk. Now, in those days, monks would whip themselves to show penance, and he is said to have whipped himself until he became unconscious. In fact, he declared that "if ever a man could have been saved by becoming a monk, it would have been I." But he knew deep in his heart that it was all in vain.

In the preface to his commentary on Romans, he writes:

"It is one thing to do the works of the law and quite another to fulfill it. The works of the law are the things we try to do (in our own power) to obey the law. But because in doing such works the heart hates the law and yet is forced to obey it, the works become completely useless. The law is spiritual, which means that no one can satisfy it unless everything he does springs from the depths of the heart. To fulfill the law means to do its work eagerly, lovingly and freely, without the constraint of the law; it means to live well and in a manner pleasing to God, as though there were no law or punishment."

Martin Luther knew, as Paul did, that he could never truly fulfill the Law from the depths of his heart in the way that God demanded, because he couldn't help but rebel against the Law. That's why when God revealed to him the true meaning of Rom 1:17: "The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, The righteous shall live by faith.", it was as though, in his own words, "he entered Paradise itself through open gates". He realized that this verse was describing not an active righteousness which God demands of man, but the passive righteousness which is given as a free gift to all those who have faith in Jesus Christ. All that's needed for us to receive this righteousness is to believe. When Martin Luther realized this, he, too, died to the Law, and he found that he could finally live to God.

I have been crucified with Christ

In verse 20, Paul says: "I have been crucified with Christ." What does he mean? Well, remember that he has just said that he has died to the Law. And so in this verse, Paul is explaining HOW he has died to the Law - by being crucified with Christ.

In other words, he is saying that when Jesus Christ was being crucified on the cross, he, Paul, was hanging right there with Him on that cross - not literally, of course, but he was indeed there in a very real, spiritual sense, being united with Christ by faith.

And when God was pouring out His wrath on His Son who was hanging on that cross, it was as though He saw Paul hanging there. The wrath that was being poured out was rightfully meant for Paul (and for all of us), but it was poured out on Jesus.

And when Christ finally died on the cross - as far as God was concerned, Paul also died on the cross. And we, all of us who are united with Christ by faith, have also been crucified with Christ and died with Christ on that cross. The debt that we owe to God, the penalty due to us for our unspeakable sin against an infinitely good and holy God, the God who created us and blessed us with life – that debt has been paid in full by our Lord Jesus Christ. He suffered and died in our place.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me

Paul goes on to clarify that although he has been crucified with Christ, he still lives. And yet it is no longer the old Paul who continues to live, but Paul the new man, who is united with Christ. It is Christ Himself who now lives His life through Paul.

Now, Paul is not saying he's a zombie. He is still Paul of Tarsus, with his intellect, his personality and all of his faculties intact. The only difference is that he is now no longer in charge. He has been bought with a price - he is not his own. He has a new master. He is now being led by the Holy Spirit who is changing him into the image of Christ - to think and act like Christ in everything he does.

This is what Paul means when he says that Christ lives in him. And this is the characteristic of every single person who belongs to Jesus Christ - that the Holy Spirit lives in us, and leads us.

The life I now live in the flesh

The "flesh" refers to the corrupt desires within us that are at war with the desires of the Spirit (Gal 5:17). The fact is that as long as we live here on earth, we will continue to sin because of our fallen human nature. No doubt, in Christ we are new creatures, but the remnants of our old nature still remain to trouble us.

There is a striking illustration of this in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. We are told that as he walked out of the tomb, he still had his hands and feet bound with linen strips. They probably still bore the stench of his rotting flesh. Although he had been given new life, the remnants of his old life, the reminders that he was once dead in his sins, still clung to him and bound him. They still had to be removed, layer by layer, before he was completely free.

It is the same with us after we have come to Christ. Although we have been born again, our old corruptions still cling to us, and the rest of our lives will be a continual process of eradicating the old man - of subduing the desires of the flesh and being made more and more like Christ.

As we grow in our Christian lives, God will reveal to us more and more how sinful we really are, and this will humble us, as we see ourselves for who we are. At the same time, as the Holy Spirit continues to work in us, we can expect to sin less, because we are no longer under the dominion of sin. But we will never, on this side of heaven, become completely sinless. Paul's struggle in Romans 7 testifies to this. The process of sanctification will not end until we are glorified - that is, until the day we die, or when Christ returns. But we can rest assured, as the Bible promises, that He who began this good work in us will bring it to completion.

I live by faith in the Son of God

Paul says that the life he now lives in the flesh, with all its weaknesses and failings and sinfulness, he lives by faith in the Son of God. This is an echo of Habakkuk 2:4 - "The righteous shall live by faith." - a verse which is quoted at least three times in the New Testament.

What does Paul mean when he says he lives by faith? Remember the context of Galatians, and especially chapter 2, and the burning issue being discussed, which is that we are justified by faith alone and not by works of the Law. So, if we are to take this verse in its proper context, we must conclude that Paul here is talking about living by faith in Christ as opposed to living by the Law. In other words, instead of spending his life trying to live up to the Law in a vain attempt to be righteous before God, he lives the rest of his life by faith - simply trusting in the perfect and sufficient work of Christ to justify him.

True saving faith

We are to live by faith in the Son of God. But what IS faith? Faith is not simply believing that God exists and that a man named Jesus died on a cross two thousand years ago.

True saving faith is a gift from God, whereby we find ourselves believing the Gospel when we hear it being proclaimed, and personally trusting in it for our salvation. The Holy Spirit Himself will bear witness within our hearts that what we read in the Bible is true. It will lead us to abandon all hope in any other way of salvation, including and especially by our own works of righteousness.

Let me try to illustrate this. Have any of you ever had to be rescued from the top of a ski mountain? I have. I won't bore you with the details of how and why I needed to be rescued. But let me tell you how the rescue is done. They have this modified sled which functions as a stretcher. It looks like a shallow bathtub, and you're supposed to get into it, and lie down inside it. Then they make you put your arms by your side, and strap you in tightly so that you can't move around. It's kind of like being in a coffin. Then you're supposed to lie there without doing anything except to put your full trust in your rescuer while he safely brings the stretcher all the way down the ski slope to the base of the mountain.

To me, that's what true saving faith is. To commit myself entirely into the hands of Jesus Christ and refrain from my own works-righteousness, trusting that Christ and Christ alone will bring me safely home.

Who loved me and gave Himself for me

Paul knew Christ loved him, and that was the basis of his faith in Christ. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. If you can't trust someone who lays down His life for you, then there's no one you can trust.

Notice also that Paul doesn't say "I live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us." No. What does he say? He says: "I live by faith in the Son of God who loved ME and gave Himself for ME". Saving faith is an intensely personal thing.

APPLICATION

We now come to the application. You may ask, what has all this to do with discipleship? As I said at the very beginning, it has everything to do with discipleship. Since we are justified by faith and not by works, we should live by faith and not by our works.

Co-operating with God?

Some people have the mistaken idea that coming to Christ and becoming a Christian is only the entrance ticket into a life of discipleship. After that, we have to work really hard, cooperating with God to make sure we keep our faith and don't lose our salvation. Did you know that this is the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church - that you must have works as well as faith in order to be saved? That is exactly what the Judaizers were teaching! And that's why there was a Reformation - to redeem the original doctrine found in the Bible - that salvation is by faith alone and not by works. We may not be Roman Catholics, but sometimes we forget that and start to think that we must supplement our faith with works.

Discipleship is NOT about cooperating with God or partnering with God in order to be saved. Remember what I said right at the very beginning - Christianity is a "DONE" religion. The works of the flesh can add nothing more. Paul puts it this way in Gal 3:2-3:

Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Works-righteousness

The problem with us is that we so easily turn discipleship into a performance-based affair, and start to introduce KPI's for ourselves – key performance indicators. We make resolutions and set spiritual goals and try all sorts of man-made methods to achieve them in our own strength. We follow every spiritual fad that comes along (Promise-Keepers, Holy Laughter, the Purpose Driven Life), hoping that it will give us the secret of spiritual success, and allow us to live the so-called "Victorious Christian Life". And when we fail, we feel bad about ourselves and think that we have disappointed God, and (worst of all) that He somehow loves us a little less.

Have we forgotten what the good news of the Gospel is about? God showed His love for us in that while we were yet SINNERS, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). God's love for us is eternal and does not change! It does not depend on our spiritual performance as disciples! It never has and it never will. It is by grace that we have been saved through faith!

Why are we so prone to fall into works-righteousness? It is because of the pride that exists in our fallen human nature. We would like to think that there is at least a little something we can contribute to our salvation, a spark of goodness in us. The problem is, we have too high a view of ourselves, and too low a view of God's perfect standard of righteousness. We refuse to acknowledge the fact that we are hopelessly fallen and utterly ruined in the presence of a holy God, and can do nothing to save ourselves.

Let's say you're standing before the Great White Throne on Judgment Day, and God asks you: "Why should I let you into My heaven?" - what would you say?

Do you know that in a survey, a large majority of those who identify themselves as Christians gave replies which pointed to some form of works-righteousness? "I've tried my best to be a good person. I've never hurt anyone. I've always loved my neighbour as myself. I've served God faithfully in the church all these years. I've been a faithful witness for God. I've led a Purpose-Driven life."

When we, as Christians, depend on works-righteousness to become acceptable to God, we are in effect "nullifying the grace of God", as Paul says in Gal 2:21. And we are insulting God, because if righteousness could come through works, then Christ died for no purpose.

The truth is (as it always has been) that we are only acceptable to God when we are covered by a righteousness that is not our own, the righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. To live by faith is simply to remember this truth throughout our lives.

The problem of sin in our lives - "simul justus et peccator"

We all struggle with sin in our lives. Anyone who claims to have reached a state of sinless perfection contradicts what the Bible says in 1 John 1:8:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

There is a certain "tension", as Pastor puts it in an earlier sermon, between the life lived "in the flesh", and the life lived by faith.

Martin Luther had a phrase to describe this state in which a Christian lives: "simul justus et peccator" - "Righteous, and at the same time, a sinner."

On the one hand, the fact is that we are miserable sinners – always being tempted by the devil and our own desires, and often falling into sin. On the other hand, because of our faith in Jesus Christ, we are justified - we are regarded as perfectly righteous in God's sight. Let me emphasize that we have no righteousness of our own. It is only because we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, that God regards us as having the perfect righteousness of Christ. I might add that we should be very bold, even boastful, about this righteousness we have in Christ, because it is a perfect righteousness that saves perfectly. We have no need to be modest about it.

And so this is what a Christian is - simul justus et peccator - a miserable sinner, yet at the same time, perfectly righteous in the sight of God through faith in Jesus Christ. To live by faith is to remember this, and rejoice in it.

But how does this translate into practice? Well, being in the flesh means that we sin a thousand times a day, whether we realize it or not. And when we sin, Satan (who is described as "the accuser of the brethren"), tries to destroy our faith (which is the most precious thing we have). He does this by accusing our conscience: "Are you sure God still loves you? Are you sure you're good enough for Him? You've disappointed him, you know. You've betrayed him, after all he's done for you. I know your dirty thoughts. I saw that nasty thing that you did just now."

To live by faith is to immediately confess our sins when we become aware of them, and to repent. It is to wholeheartedly agree, when Satan accuses us: "Yes, I am guilty. I'm a miserable sinner, and I know it!", and THEN turn to Christ by faith, trusting that He has already paid the price for all of our sins once for all - past, present and future – because, if you think about it, all of our sins were in the future when Christ died on the cross for them. By faith, we can boldly proclaim the promises in Rom 8:

If God is for us, who can be against us? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who can condemn us? Christ Jesus is the one who died for us, who is at the right hand of God interceding for us.

Looking to Jesus

To live by faith is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ crucified. We must never forget the Gospel - we must preach the Gospel to ourselves every day and rejoice in it!

No doubt, we are to be ever mindful of our sins, and mourn them, that we may remain in a humble state of mind. But we are also to rejoice daily in the fact that God's mercy is greater than our sins!

Trusting in God's providence

To live by faith is also to trust implicitly in God's providence. The word "providence" does not merely mean that God provides for our physical needs such as food, clothing, shelter and so on. Indeed, He does supply all our needs - all the blessings we enjoy in our lives, for which we should daily give thanks.

But He is the One who also sends trials and tribulations - to refine our faith. He inflicts pain on our physical bodies - to humble us and remind us that we are but dust. He takes away our possessions - to wean us from the love of this world. He allows our loved ones to disappoint us and to hurt us - in order to drive our souls to find fulfillment and satisfaction in Him alone. And yes, He sends earthquakes and tsunamis - to compel us to seek our safety in Christ alone, and to teach us to have compassion and to weep with those who weep. All these things are also part of God's providence.

The Bible tells us in Rom 8:28:

All things work together for good to them that love God.

The good that is spoken of here is our greatest good – being with Christ in heaven. Living by faith is to believe that whatever happens to us is planned by God for our own good. So whether I'm stuck in a traffic jam, or I've just lost my job, or I've just been diagnosed with cancer – whatever situation I find myself in – I can know with full assurance that this is exactly where my loving heavenly Father wants me to be, and that it will work out for my ultimate good.

Now, like many things in life, this is easier said than done. When the crunch comes, when our faith in God's providence is being tested: I can tell you - it will not be easy. That's why we have to cling by faith to God's promise in 1 Cor 10:13: There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

God's promises

To live by faith is to believe all the promises in the Bible concerning the perseverance of the saints: That no one can snatch us out of His hand, or separate us from His love. That He will finish the good work which He began in us, because He Himself is the author and finisher of our faith. That Christ is at the right hand of the throne of God interceding for us, and that He is able to keep what we've committed to Him against that day.

There is a wonderful assurance that comes when we trust in Christ alone for salvation, because we know that He will never fail us. If we were to depend on our own righteousness, we could never have that assurance. We could only hope that our pathetic best would be good enough for God – but that's only wishful thinking - and we know it.

Holiness

One last thing: Does this mean we can forget about seeking holiness and obeying the Law of God? After all, if Christianity is a "DONE" religion, why bother trying to be holy?

Well, what does the Bible say? It says:

"You shall be holy, for I am holy."

Regeneration

As Christians, we are called to be holy. The wonderful reality of the Christian life is that God Himself puts in us a desire to become holy. He changes us so that the desire to fulfill the Law springs from the depths of our hearts eagerly, lovingly and freely, as Luther puts it. In Ezek 36:26-27 we read:

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

This change of heart - this "heart transplant" - is a work which God Himself does. It is not anything that we can achieve on our own.

When God has changed our hearts, our new hunger to fulfill the Law will not lead to instant holiness (there is no such thing as instant holiness), but it will energize us to press on to reach the goal. And as the Holy Spirit works in us, we will find ourselves slowly but surely being changed into the image of Christ. Again, this will not be an easy process, and we will experience many setbacks as we struggle to overcome our selfish, sinful desires. Without the Holy Spirit, it would be a hopeless endeavour. And that is why we need to live by faith - believing that God will keep His promise and will finish the good work He began in us.

Justified by faith alone

I hope that by now, you have come to a better understanding of this passage. If you remember nothing else, remember this: We are justified by faith alone and not by works, and therefore we are to live by faith. To live by faith is to keep our eyes on Jesus and preach the Gospel to ourselves every day. It is to place our souls entirely in the hands of Christ alone and to trust in God's providence for our lives.

As we strive to be faithful disciples, let us make sure that we have built our foundation upon the rock, which is faith in Jesus Christ, and not upon the sand of our own works. Let us live the rest of our lives by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

This world is not my home

2011-01-02T14:54:00.010+08:00

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
(Col 3:2)

I have my earthly father to thank for instilling in me a yearning for heaven with an old Jim Reeves tape which I must have played hundreds of times, until the tape wore thin. I loved the tunes, and did not realize that I was imbibing the message at the same time.

I do realize there isn't much of the gospel in these songs. Much of it is maudlin sentimentality and in fact, there is even more than a hint of universalism. Nevertheless it does point to an other-worldliness which is to be found only in true saints.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Heb 11:13-16)

And so, without further ado, here is today's Jim Reeves nostalgia fest.

This world is not my home I'm just a passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore

Oh Lord you know I have no friend like you
If heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do?
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore

I have a loving mother just over in Gloryland
And I don't expect to stop until I shake her hand
She's waiting now for me in heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore

Oh Lord you know...

Just over in Gloryland we'll live eternally
The saints on every hand are shouting victory
Their songs of sweetest praise drift back from heaven's shore
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore

Oh Lord you know...

When my way groweth drear
Precious Lord linger near
When my life is almost gone
Hear my cry hear my call
Hold my hand last I fall
Take my hand precious Lord lead me home

Precious Lord take my hand
Lead me on let me stand
I am tired I am weak I am worn
Through the storm through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord lead me home

When my work is all done
And my race here is run
Let me see by the light Thou has shone
That there city so bright
With the Lamb as the light
Take my hand precious Lord lead me home

Precious Lord take my hand...

Some glad mornin' when this life is o'er I'll fly away
To a home on God's celestial shore I'll fly away
I'll fly away oh glory I'll fly away
When I die hallelujah by and by I'll fly away

When the shadows of this life have flown I'll fly away
Like a bird from prison bars has flown I'll fly away
I'll fly away oh glory I'll fly away
When I die hallelujah by and by I'll fly away

Just a few more weary days and then I'll fly away
To a land where joy shall never end I'll fly away
I'll fly away oh glory yes I'll fly away
When I die hallelujah by and by I'll fly away

I have lived a life of sin in this world I'm living in
I have done forbidden things I shouldn't do
I asked a beggar along the way if he could tell me where to stay
Where I could find real happiness and love that's true

Across the bridge, there's no more sorrow
Across the bridge, there's no more pain
The sun will shine across the river
And you'll never be unhappy again

Follow the footsteps of the King till you hear the voices sing
They'll be singing out the glory of the land
The river of Jordan will be near, the sound of trumpets you will hear
And you'll behold the most precious face ever known to man

Across the bridge...

I have heard of a land
On a faraway strand
'Tis a beautiful home of the soul
Built by Jesus on high
There we never shall die
'Tis a land where we never grow old.
Never grow old, never grow old
In a land where we'll never grow old
Never grow old, never grow old
In a land where we'll never grow old.

When our work here is done
And the life crown is won
And our troubles and trials are o'er
All our sorrow will end
And our voices will blend
With the loved ones who've gone on before.
Never grow old, never grow old
In a land where we'll never grow old
Never grow old, never grow old
In a land where we'll never grow old...

Smelly cheese

2011-01-01T23:26:00.004+08:00

During my family holiday to Europe, I had visited a Christmas market in Paris with my daughter, and we had come across a delightful fromagerie (a shop which specialises in selling cheeses and cured meats). There was one particular goat's cheese which my daughter and I took a particular liking to, and we had bought a piece of it. The lady who sold it to us warned that it was a very strong cheese, and indeed it was. The aroma was wonderful and filled the entire hotel room that night as our entire family savoured the cheese and a piece of similarly aromatic cured ham. We couldn't finish it and packed it away.

A couple of days later, I noticed the same aroma filling the tour bus, and realized that my children had taken some out to eat. I also noticed, with alarm, many if not all of the other passengers wrinkling their noses up in utter disgust, and those closest to where my children were sitting were furiously fanning their noses. Some of them looked pretty close to vomiting. I realized that what my family considered "ambrosial" was in fact much closer to "scatological" with respect to the noses of others around us.

I scrambled to the back of the bus where my children were sitting, and wrapped up the offending source of the smell with no less that three layers of plastic bags, tying each one securely with an airtight knot. Even then, I suspect it took more than half an hour for the lingering smell to slowly abate.

As I settled into my seat with a sigh of relief and embarrassment, I remarked under my breath to my wife seated beside me that this reminded me of 2 Cor 2:14-16:

"Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life."

The good news of the gospel is a marvellous aroma to us who are being saved. We have been given grace to see the wretchedness of our sinful condition and our desperate need for salvation, and the revelation of Christ meeting that need by His death on the cross is a sweet fragrance to us. It gives us hope where we have no hope.

On the other hand, to those who have not seen their need of Christ, the gospel is horribly offensive. It stinks. To suggest that a man does not have any righteousness of his own, that he is a sinner destined for hell, and that there is nothing he can do to save himself, that all his good works count for nothing, stirs the self-righteous to indignation. Surely there must be something good in me! Surely I must have done something good! To state plainly what the Bible says - that those who do not believe in the Son of God are already condemned - can arouse an extremely disproportionate response of anger. I have experienced that personally myself. And yet we must remember never to remove the offence of the cross - the central truth of the gospel that only faith alone (but not faith which is alone) can justify.

I'd rather have Jesus

2010-12-26T16:44:00.001+08:00

The songs you learn in your youth stick with you...

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands,
I’d rather be led by His nail pierced hand.

Than to be a king of a vast domain
Or be held in sin’s dread sway,
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.

I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause;
I’d rather be faithful to His dear cause;
I’d rather have Jesus than world-wide fame,
I’d rather be true to His holy name.

Than to be a king of a vast domain
Or be held in sin’s dread sway,
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.

A prayer on Reformation Day

2010-10-31T13:45:00.003+08:00

Dear God,

Thank you that on this day so many years ago, you caused Martin Luther to post his 95 theses that launched the reformation which reclaimed the truth of your glorious gospel.

Thank you for the gospel of your son Jesus Christ, revealed through scripture alone, which proclaims that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to your glory alone.

Thank you for your gifts to your church through the ages - the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, whom you have given "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes."

Thank you for Paul and John and Peter and James. Thank you for Augustine and Martin Luther and John Calvin. And in our day, thank you for RC Sproul and John MacArthur and Paul Washer and so many more I have no time to mention.

Thank you for the technologies which you have, in your providence, created through the ages. Thank you for the printing press in the time of Martin Luther. Thank you for mp3 sermons, for the internet, for blogs and youtube and facebook today. Thank you that through these, your elect in all ages and throughout the world are being brought to the knowledge of your true gospel, and saved from the lies of the devil.

Thank you that you are continually reforming us individually, so that though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self, transformed by the renewing of our minds, may daily grow more and more into the image of Christ.

Lord, at the same time, you know that many of the evangelical churches which bear your name have fallen into apostasy and gone back to Rome and idolatry and lawlessness, and the love of many has waxed cold. The gospel that we preach is not the true gospel of your son Jesus Christ, and the God we proclaim is not the one true God.

For the sake of your glory, and the glory of your son Jesus Christ, let your gospel be preached - let there be a new reformation, so that your name may be great among the nations, and that all may know that you are Lord. Let many sons be brought to glory. May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of his suffering!

Amen!

The word of faith – meditations on Romans 10:4-10 and Deuteronomy

2010-10-15T23:45:00.007+08:00

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.

But the righteousness based on faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) or "'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Rom 10:4-10)

I had a little epiphany as I read this passage one morning. I had been puzzling over its meaning for some time. Why was there such an emphasis on confessing with the mouth? Wasn't that a "work" that went against the tenet of sola fide (justification by faith alone)?

I suddenly realized that Paul was speaking as a Hebrew would, even though he was writing in Greek. His sentences are constructed as Hebrew parallelisms!

If you look at verse 10 first, and then verse 9, it will be easier to see what I mean. One believes with the heart and is justified; one confesses with the mouth and is saved. To believe with your heart is the same thing as to confess with your mouth - one inevitably follows the other. Verse 9 essentially says the same thing - to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord is to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. The result of this is to be saved. Again, in verse 10, we see another parallelism - to be justified is to be saved, and vice versa.

Was Paul trying to say that you need to do TWO things to be saved? To believe in your heart AND THEN confess with your mouth? No. He was emphasizing the point that these were one and the same thing. This would have been quite obvious to the early Christians in the Roman Empire. Caesar demanded emperor worship, and anyone who refused to confess Caesar as Lord would be put to death. A true Christian who believed in his heart that Jesus is Lord would confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord (and not Caesar), even on pain of death. This would be certain evidence of the genuine faith in his heart. To paraphrase James: faith without confession is dead. Jesus himself said: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."

The word of faith

Now, WHAT is it that we are to believe in and confess? It is "the word of faith" that was being proclaimed by Paul and the apostles. What is this "word of faith"? It is all that the name of Jesus stands for - the fact that he is Lord, that he was crucified (bearing our sins upon the cross), died and was buried and rose again. These things (and many more) are encapsulated in the term "word of faith", which is, of course, nothing other than what we call the gospel! Believing (and consequently confessing) it results in salvation!

We see, therefore, that "confessing the word of faith" has nothing to do with what the "Word of Faith" movement terms "faith confession" - where you make a "positive confession", exercising faith to believe what you have just confessed, which will then generate power to make it come true. The faith that is exercised becomes a "force" that can be manipulated ("Use the force, Luke..."). If God comes into the picture at all, it is only because he is obliged, by the faith exercised, to make the wish come true.

At its best, this is simply wishful thinking. At its worst, it's New Age mystic occultism disguised as Christianity. There is essentially no difference between this and a witch uttering an incantation to cast a magic spell, only in this case the magic word isn't "Abracadabra" but things like "claiming victory / taking authority / binding the spirit of [insert whatever you like] / command blessing - IN THE NAME OF JESUS." Those who do this without thinking would be well advised to heed the words of Matt 7:22-23.

But I digress...

The gospel according to Deuteronomy

When I looked up the scripture Paul was quoting in verse 6-8, I realized that there is so much of the gospel revealed in Deuteronomy.

"For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?' But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it." (Deu 30:11-14)

It's difficult to think of this passage applying to the Law of Moses, which is impossible for any person to fulfill perfectly. The Law demands not just perfect obedience, but wholehearted perfect obedience performed out of a pure love for God! Not one of us has fulfilled the first and greatest commandment (Deut 6:5) for a single second in our lives – to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We simply can't do it.

But here it says the commandment is not too hard, and we can do it. The word is near us, in our hearts and in our mouths (does that sound familiar?) so that we can fulfill the commandment. There are echoes of this in the New Testament. Jesus himself promised:

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Mat 11:30)

And the apostle John declares:

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (1Jn 5:3)

What is this word that is so near us, in our hearts and in our mouths? It is the word of faith, the gospel. To fulfill the commandments of God does not require heroic works of righteousness, equivalent to ascending to heaven or descending into the abyss - it simply requires faith in what the gospel preaches. In Romans 10, Paul substitutes "Christ" for "the word", for indeed Christ is the word. It is he who is near us in our hearts, whom we confess with our mouths. It is he who is the gospel. It is he who is the end (fulfillment) of the law.

But how? How does the word get near to our hearts and our mouths? How can we possibly obey the commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength - we, who are dead in our sins and trespasses, and whose very nature is enmity against God?

One word: Regeneration.

Here are the familiar passages which we all know and love:

And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deu 30:6)

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Eze 36:25-27)

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (Joh 3:5-8)

And what is the result?

I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart." (Psa 40:8)

I delight in the law of God, in my inner being. (Rom 7:22)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." (Heb 8:10-12)

Praise the Lord!

Prayers for healing

2010-10-12T22:42:00.003+08:00

Someone I know recently died from lung cancer. She was 50 years old. Apparently, her brother, who is from NCC, was fervently praying for her to be healed right up to the moment she drew her last gasp of air, refusing to let go of the hope that she would be miraculously healed after two years of fighting the disease. Her 15 year old daughter is now very angry with God for not answering their prayers. Her husband, who is a new Christian, is very confused. Her brother feels very guilty that he did not have "enough faith" to save her.

That's the problem with wrong theology. Theology is not just about dry doctrinal disputes - it makes a huge difference in how you live your life, how you die (me? I would like to have it said - God willing - that I died with a smile on my face), and how you relate to God.

If your theology is soundly based on the word of God, which states categorically that health AND sickness comes from God (Job 33:19-22, Job 5:17-18), that it is NOT always God's will to heal a sick person (John 11:6), that all things are in the hands of God (Heb 1:3, Psa 75:3, Col 1:17), then you can calmly face anything that happens to you, knowing that your Father in heaven knows what is best and will accomplish it.

If, however, your theology is based on false doctrine, on the idea that God desires always to heal, that we only need to have enough faith, or that we must (somehow) summon up enough faith to speak or command illness away, then when the inevitable happens (Heb 9:27) or miraculous healing does not come, your faith will be destroyed. We simply cannot hold God to promises he never made.

I remember someone I had encountered some time back. She had a bad knee problem, and I had asked, in a conversational way, if she had decided to go for the operation that had been recommended by her orthopaedic surgeon. She said no, she firmly believed that God would heal her (I'm sure she meant miraculously, without the use of medical means). I walked silently beside her for a while as she limped along, then I asked, as gently as I could: "What if he chooses not to? Or what if he chooses to use a surgeon to heal you, rather than do so miraculously?" Let's just say that she did not take kindly to that, and I had to take a deep look into the lessons behind Eph 4:15-16, about speaking the truth in love.

Let me state at this point that I unequivocally believe that God answers prayer. I cannot count the number of times God has answered my prayers for all sorts of things, not just physical healing from sickness. My kids will testify that the first thing I do when they fall ill is to pray for them. I also administer medicine to them if necessary. I see no conflict or lack of faith in doing that.

A W Pink rightly states that all healing ultimately comes from God - whether through the natural processes God has designed into our bodies, or through the use of means such as traditional remedies or medical science. We must remember that whatever medical advances that we now enjoy have come about through the providence of God! And of course God may choose to heal through miracles (healing that occurs against all natural explanation).

But do I believe that he will answer ALL prayers for healing? No. The Bible tells me that is not so. When Lazarus was ill, did Christ heal him immediately? No, he tarried two more days and let him die (John 11:6)! Paul left Trophimus ill at Miletus (2 Tim 4:20). You'd think he would simply have used one of his magic handkerchiefs (Acts 19:11-12) to heal Trophimus, wouldn't you? My own experiences also tell me that there are times when my prayers for healing don't seem to be answered as quickly as I would like them to be.

My wife and I were talking about the person who had died, and how it had affected her family. She pointed out that there was a recent Grace Gem which spoke about this:

"Cast your burden upon the Lord--and He shall sustain you!" Psalm 45:22

There are some mistaken notions current concerning the way in which God would help us. People think that whenever they have a little trouble, a bit of hard path to go over, a load to carry, a sorrow to endure--that all they have to do is to call upon God, and He will at once take away their sorrow, or free them from the trouble. But this is not the way that God helps us! His purpose of love concerning us is--not to make all things easy for us--but to make something of us!

When we ask God to save us from our trouble, to take the struggles out of our life, to make the paths mossy, to lift off every heavy load--He will not do it! It would be most unloving in Him to accommodate us. We must carry the burden ourselves! All God promises is, to sustain us--as we carry it! He wants us to learn life's lessons, and to do this--we must be left to work out the problems for ourselves.

There are rich blessings which can be gotten only in sorrow. It would be short-sighted love indeed--which would heed our cries, and spare us from sorrow--and thus deprive us of the wonderful blessings which can be gotten only in sorrow! God is too good to us to answer our prayers--which would save us from pain, cost, and sacrifice today--at the price of holier, better, truer life in the end. He would not rob us of the blessing that is in the burden--which we can get only by carrying it!

Living under grace, not under law

2010-10-12T16:09:00.008+08:00

I had a young man who came to see me the other day. His arm was tattooed with the name of his girlfriend. We got to talking about Christianity, and he mentioned that he was a Christian, too. As we spoke, I kept glancing at his rather interesting looking tattoo, admiring it and idly wondering to myself what he would do if he broke up with his present girlfriend. He must have felt a little ashamed of it, because when he noticed me looking at it, he quickly said, a little sheepishly: "Oh. We live under grace, not under law."

Now, that sounded familiar. I don't have any problem with tattoos in general, but I do have an issue with certain doctrinal teachings. I asked him if he attended New Creation Church, and he said yes. I asked him what he meant about living under grace and not under law, and he explained what he thought it meant. Classic NCC stuff. I pointed out to him the usual verses in Matthew 7:21-23, Heb 12:14, 1 John 1:7 etc, about how, as Christians, we are to seek holiness, and how, although the Old Testament ceremonial law had been abolished by Christ, there is a third use of the law (apart from convicting us of sin and pointing to Christ as our schoolmaster), which is to serve as a guide for living a life pleasing to God for those who have been regenerated.

I explained that the law does not apply to us in the sense that we have to fulfill its requirements perfectly before we can be counted righteous, but that we will nonetheless seek to obey it with all our hearts if we have been truly born again.

I sent him on his way with the Paul Washer "shocking" sermon and some Paris Reidhead sermons to listen to, and a silent prayer to God that his heart and his eyes would be opened to the truth.

The root of bitterness

I happened to read Deuteronomy 29 this morning, and was reminded of this young man:

Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, "I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart." The LORD will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the LORD and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. (Deu 29:18-20)

I was struck by how this passage perfectly describes the teaching of New Creation Church. "I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart." God will bless me. I live under grace, not under law.

Of course, the standard NCC reply to this would be that this passage is under the Old Testament and therefore does not apply to the New Testament Christian. Is this really so?

Well, if you look at Hebrews 12, you will see this "root of bitterness" alluded to:

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no "root of bitterness" springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. (Heb 12:14-16)

Notice what this passage (which is in the New Testament – surprise surprise!) is talking about. It's talking about holiness, avoiding sexual immorality. It also talks about the GRACE of God, and how some may FAIL to obtain it. This root of bitterness, if you look carefully at the context in the passages shown, probably refers to a false teacher bringing forth bitter fruit – by teaching that being immoral and unholy is all right because we "are living under grace, not under law" – that "we will be safe though we continue to walk in the stubbornness of our hearts". By this, many will become defiled and fail to obtain the grace of God.

Indeed, as Christians, we DO live under grace and not under law. We could never justify ourselves under the law (I will deal with this in a separate post). But as Christians, we... well, I'll just let the Bible speak for itself:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Tit 2:11-14)

'nuff said. THAT's what it means to live under grace.

Let your sins be strong

2010-05-09T21:12:00.009+08:00

There are times when I find myself falling into sin over and over again, as a dog returns to its own vomit. These are the times I turn to 1 John for comfort and assurance:

If I say that I have no sin, I deceive myself, and the truth is not in me. But if I confess my sins, He is faithful and just to forgive me my sins, and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8,9).

I feel acutely what Paul describes in Romans 7:

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (Rom 7:15)

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom 7:22-24)

I reflected in two previous posts here and here that in my experience, God sometimes allows us to be sorely tempted and fall into sin, in order to humble us. Little did I realize until recently that the Westminster Confession of Faith affirms this as part of Christian experience, with Biblical proofs.

The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.
(WCF Chapter V Part V)

"Let your sins be strong"

Martin Luther, in a well known letter to Melanchthon, made these amazing statements:

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2 Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.

At first glance, one might think that Luther was advocating antinomianism! In fact, that is what he was accused of doing by many of his enemies when they found this letter.

Other commentators who know Luther better have said that he was using hyperbole, which he often did. I tend to agree with the latter group.

I think I understand what Luther was trying to say.

You see, there have been many times when I have started to go down the path of beginning to rejoice in my own little victories over sin and my worthless, beggarly attempts to live a life pleasing to God. My unspeakable sins against God, the sins for which Christ died, begin to take on an almost imaginary character, mere abstract concepts, an intellectual assent that they displease God, rather than being seen as real, horrifying sins against God's divine majesty. I begin to trust in the process of my own sanctification rather than in the righteousness of Christ in which I must be covered if I am to stand justified in the day of judgement. How soon I forget that "all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags; I fade like a leaf and my iniquities, like the wind, take me away." (Isa 64:6)

Or, as Paul puts it:

Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Gal 3:3)

Luther was warning Melanchthon (and me) to never ever start downplaying the strength and evil of sin. Our sins are real, not imaginary, and they are far worse than we can ever conceive or appreciate them to be. The Gospel is not about an imaginary mercy exercised for imaginary sins. The Gospel is about a real mercy purchased by Christ to pay for the worst possible sins.

The truth of the matter is that Christ came into the world to save sinners, and (although justified) we remain sinners until we are glorified. Let's never forget that, and downplay the sins in our lives as imaginary sins. We still sin REAL sins every day (!) and were it not for the longsuffering goodness of our loving God, and His faithfulness towards us, we would ever remain in danger of deservedly being swept into an eternal hell.

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lam 3:21-23)

Luther was not telling Melanchthon: "Go ahead and sin - and make sure you enjoy it." He was telling Melanchthon: "Sin is real, and it's worse than you think. Acknowledge your sin boldly, and its sinfulness. It's not imaginary. But Christ is stronger than the sin you commit every day, and His mercy is a real mercy that is able to wipe away all your sin. So rejoice in this!"

It certainly doesn't mean we should then sit back and enjoy our sins when God withdraws His restraining grace on us. No, we must continue to struggle against sin, humbled by our weakness and corrupt human frailty, drawing ever closer to God in dependence upon Him for strength and support, and becoming ever more watchful against future occasions of sin.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Opinions - everyone's got one

2010-04-03T01:27:00.005+08:00

As someone commented on Dr Michael Horton's blog:

"The planet earth will probably remain in its orbit, and God will most certainly remain on his Throne."

* For the record, I think John shouldn't have.

To know and be known

2010-03-13T23:51:00.006+08:00

First and foremost, let me state that this is NOT a rigorous exegesis of any of the verses I quote. Just some philosophical ramblings and personal reflections on how some verses resonate within me.

I have often found that the human condition is one of lonely existence. All my life I have had a deep yearning to know another, and to be known by that other.

1 Cor 13:12 stirs that part of me which feels this. It says:

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

The moment that there is self-awareness, when you discover that self exists, and that outside of your self there also exists a reality that comes to you through your senses, there arises a desire to connect to another who is outside of yourself. I do believe that this yearning is put there by God. After all, He said Himself: "It is not good for man to be alone," and then made Adam a helper suitable for him (Gen 2:18).

I remember realizing this in my teens, and seeking to establish platonic relationships with girls on a mental and emotional plane, deliberately avoiding physical contact as far as possible. This was in part due to my wish, as a young Christian, to avoid falling into sexual temptation, but it was also because I had been carried away with ideas of what I now recognize to be gnostic dualism (but that's another story for another day, quite beside the point of this post) and considered then that a platonic relationship was far superior to a physical one.

I had very good male friends, of course, but the nature of this yearning to know and be known was complementary in nature - it had to do with connecting to someone of the opposite sex - just as Adam "knew" Eve his wife.

Now, I have been greatly blessed to have found, in the wife whom God has given me, what Jonathan Edwards describes as "an uncommon union". She is the best friend I have on earth. We can talk for hours, and we are very comfortable with each other physically (I suspect we sometimes embarrass our kids with our public displays of affection).

Yet despite this, there are limits to how close we can ever possibly get each other, how deeply we can ever know each other. There exists an immense gulf between any two human beings which none can cross. There are depths of my soul which she could never possibly plumb, and vice versa.

In fact, there's so much I don't even know about myself!

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and wonder who this person staring back at me is. What his life is like, what he's really thinking, how he really feels. No, seriously. And no, there's no medication I've forgotten to take...

Calvin said that in order to truly know ourselves, we must first know God our creator, and what He has revealed to us about ourselves.

And that's where 1 Cor 13:12 comes in. It assures me of the blessed hope that though I now see through a glass, darkly - one day I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

The deepest longing of my heart would have been fulfilled! The Bible tells me that I have always been known (even if I don't feel it), as fully and intimately as it is possible to be known, by none other than He who made me. I have been known and loved in all my desperate unloveliness (Ezek 16), and I will be known in the beauty of the holiness with which He Himself will clothe me (Psa 110:3).

But to also know Him - to see Him face to face, to know Another as I have never known any other before, not even the dear wife of my youth, and to embrace Him in all His glory as my God! To know not only the Father, but to also know Jesus the Son, to be fully united to Him, the Saviour of my soul! Oh, what a glorious promise!

Inconsistent Arminians

2010-03-13T19:59:00.004+08:00

I was at a prayer meeting this morning, and heard a prayer which went something like this: "Lord, thank you for answering our prayers, and that xxx has now accepted you into her life."

It brought to mind this FAQ I had read just a couple of days ago.

The question in the FAQ was: Are Arminians saved?

The response was:

We do not exactly hold the view that Arminians are lost. Much bad theology turns out merely to be inconsistent theology and it is possible to be saved in spite of bad theology, but only if you are inconsistent, and you don't really believe what you think or say you believe. I find, in my many encounters with Arminians, that this is usually the case. Thankfully I think a good number Arminians are inconsistent, and they don't really believe what they say. For example, they pray for God to bring friends and neighbors to salvation - why? God has no power (or right) to do that, according to Arminianism. But some Arminians (I would argue, the ones that are saved) know in their heart that salvation IS all the work of God and IS all by grace. So they pray for God to save sinners! Their true theology comes out in their prayers, even if they don't want to admit it. I feel that, over time and with patience, these people would become reformed in theology if they had good teaching and instruction.

This is so true. If, as so many people believe, human free will is sacred and untouchable even by God, then we really have no business praying to God for the salvation of anyone else's soul, since He can't do anything about it anyway. Our efforts should be fully poured instead into persuading that person through any means whatsoever (including and especially seeker-friendly methods - being sensitive, making connections, building rapport) to convince that person to accept Christ, using persuasive words of man's wisdom. Anything would be permissible, because the end would justify the means.

But if, as the Bible teaches, we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1), and need a new heart and a new spirit implanted into us (Ezek 36:26-27), need to be born again (John 3:3,5) by hearing the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1:16), if all of this is by grace and not of works (Eph 2:8,9), if it is impossible for man but possible for God (Matt 19:26), if no man comes to Jesus unless the Father draws him (John 6:44), then we would be right to pray for the salvation of those whom we love, because salvation is a mighty work of God, and there is no other way in which it can be accomplished.

Albert N Martin

2010-03-06T20:33:00.004+08:00

I'm now listening to the sermons of Albert N Martin. He's an extremely passionate preacher who, as he describes himself, pours out his guts from the pulpit every week. I've been looking for a series of sermons to clearly present the gospel message, and you can't get any clearer than this series on "Signposts to the Celestial City."

You can find the rest of his sermons (all 500 of them!) on SermonAudio.

Highly recommended!

Conversion

2010-03-06T00:07:00.008+08:00

An amazing testimony

I have a patient who grew up in the world of gangsters and secret societies. She's married to one of these gangsters, and it is an unhappy marriage, with two children. She struggles to keep afloat financially, and her husband is an absent father. She intends to leave him one day, and take the two kids with her. But this story is not about her.

She saw me today, and when I asked how she was doing and so on, she started telling me about the amazing transformation she had seen in one of her former "big brothers". He had always been known to be exceptionally violent. A wrong word, a short stare, and broken beer bottles and knives would ensue.

She had met him recently and been completely amazed by the transformation in him. She simply could not believe her eyes and ears. He was calm and composed and even told her she must not get upset too easily, that she must take things easy. He spoke to her about how important it was to "be friends with Jesus" and trust Him for everything.

You see, he had come to know Christ in prison, and his life had been completely turned around. In fact he is studying to become a pastor at the moment. He's married and has a child now, and even his wife attests to the change she's seen in him. He is still the same tattooed person outside ("because laser tattoo removal is expensive") but he is a completely different person inside, and in his behaviour.

It's amazing enough when you hear a person testifying about how God has changed his life. It's even more incredible when you hear a non-Christian testifying to the amazing change she can see that Jesus has made in someone she knows very well (including how bad he once was). It is a change that is visible to all the world to see - "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." (Matt 5:16)

(By the way, for those who don't know, there has been and is presently ongoing a tremendous revival in our prisons. Men and women are being converted and their lives changed. Hardened inmates are breaking down and confessing their sins and asking each other for forgiveness. It's a quiet revolution. You might want to check out Prison Fellowship Singapore to find out more.)

Isn't it amazing what God can do? This is what the gospel is all about. Changed lives - not just a free ticket to heaven, or an insurance policy against hell. And all to the glory of God. No wonder the angels rejoice when one sinner repents - they rejoice in the great glory of God in making possible such a great salvation.

What is conversion?

I had an interesting conversation with a relative of mine during a recent Chinese New Year dinner. He had been sharing with me about how he had been a Christian for many years, but a "legalistic" one, never experiencing the joy of his salvation until he had received the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" many years later and began speaking in tongues. It was only then that he began experiencing an intense hunger for the word of God, and experienced great joy in his salvation, and began to serve God with all of his heart.

I put it to him that he had only been truly converted during his second experience, and that the first part of his life was simply him trying to be religious and seeking to please God. He disagreed with me, saying that his Sunday school teacher had come to his house and told him that unless he repented and believed, he would be lost, and he had repented then and believed. I did not pursue the matter any further, and agreed that he would probably know better than me when he had indeed been converted. In any case, the important question is not "when?" but "whether" conversion had occurred.

The words of Christ to Peter come to me at this point.

And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not. And when you are converted, strengthen your brothers. And he said to Him, Lord, I am ready to go with You, both into prison and into death. And He said, I say to you, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before you shall deny knowing Me three times.
(Luk 22:31-34)

Peter had been with Christ for almost three years, following him everywhere, hearing him preach and teach. He would soon fight for Christ at the garden of Gethsemane, drawing his sword and cutting off Malchus' ear.

BUT HE WAS NOT YET CONVERTED, according to Christ!

It would only be after he had denied Christ three times and come to the realization of how miserable a sinner he was, how utterly helpless and spiritually bankrupt he was, having "wept bitterly" and experienced the godly grief that works repentance to salvation, that he would be CONVERTED and become an utterly different person from who he once was, a bold preacher of the truth instead of a cowardly denier of his Lord.

Ordo Salutis

There is an interesting discussion going on in the bowels of Facebook based on this link at www.monergism.com to a very brief but extremely useful piece on "the order of salvation". There are some who argue that the elect have been justified from eternity - have always been justified - while others maintain that justification occurs at a point in time, within history. I certainly belong to the latter camp.

As Joel points out, we must not become confused between the decree of justification, and the justification itself. The point at which we are regenerated and given a new heart by God is the point at which we exercise the faith we have been given and become justified by this faith (which is simply what Calvin calls the "instrumental cause" of our salvation - not the "meritorious cause" which is Christ's atoning death on the cross). This is the point in time when we are converted and our practical sanctification begins.

To be CONVERTED is simply to be changed from one thing to another. To become new creatures in Christ. To have new hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone. And this is not just an internal thing. James demands that there must be visible evidence of it! "Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith BY my works." (James 2:18)

If you've called yourself a Christian for many years but there's been no change in your life, and then all of a sudden there is a great change, I would say that it is more correct to call the point in which you have noticed a change the point of conversion.

It's not an instant process, of course. No, far from it. It's a slow, steadfast, sometimes painful process. But it will be progressive.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
(2Co 3:18)

Neither will it be completed within our lifetime, except on the last day, when it will be accomplished in the twinkling of an eye:

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
(1Co 15:52)

Genealogy

2010-03-04T22:53:00.003+08:00

In the last few months I have been slowly but steadily reading through the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, for the first time in my life, to get "the big picture". I'm at the halfway point at the moment, in the early chapters of the psalms.

Anyone who's done this would have noticed fairly large swathes of Bible genealogy - who begat who.

That got me thinking - why is this in the canon? Why are these details so important that God wanted it on permanent record as part of His inspired Word?

I can come up with two important reasons, although I am sure there are more.

The first is to validate the account of creation. Yeah, God foresaw (not foreknew) Darwin's theories way back then. The genealogies trace the ancestry of Jesus Christ all the way back to Adam. These are carefully preserved historical records of real people who lived and died and reproduced. If they are true and accurate (and I believe they are), then the earth is not very old, and there is absolutely no time for the "millions and millions of years" required for evolution to take place.

The Biblical record of creation and the history of the earth that follows is actually a very plausible proposition. Just going back 500 years into the past already gives us an extremely murky picture of what life was like then. How can anyone then claim to know for sure that what the Bible claims happened 10,000 years ago in the mists of time is actually not true?

If you just take a look at the pace of technological change that is going on in just the last hundred years - if you extrapolate that backwards, it is far easier for me to believe that mankind has been around for a few thousand years than a few million years - because I would expect that we would be far more advanced than we already are right now. But I digress.

The second (and more important) reason is theological. The genealogy of Jesus Christ had to be laid out in detail because of the promises God made to His ancestors - to Eve and Abraham and David and finally Mary - that their seed would bruise the serpent's head, would be the blessing of the nations, would reign forever and be the Son of the Most High, and would save His people from their sins. It was important to show that Jesus was this promised seed, that He descended directly from all these to whom the promises were made. And of course, that's why Jesus had no physical children - because the promise had been fulfilled in Him, and there was no need to wait for a future seed any more to fulfill the promise.

Kiss the Son

2010-02-28T13:37:00.006+08:00

In July 2008, here and here, I had laid before the Lord the fact that if He wanted me to preach, He would provide opportunities to do so. Well, in the last days of 2009, I was asked if I would preach a sermon on one of the psalms, and I readily agreed.

Here it is. If you want to follow along with the Powerpoint presentation, you will have to download it, along with three short videos, which are there to emphasize important points.

The sermon in mp3 format

The powerpoint presentation

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

The Problem with Prince

2010-02-23T00:29:00.006+08:00

Oops. Wrong picture. Never mind. It gives the right idea.... somehow.

Today I listened to one of Joseph Prince's sermons.

The one I downloaded and listened to was Part 1 of "In Christ, All Of God’s Promises Are ‘Yes’ And ‘Amen’!" which you can find in the Resources section on the New Creation church website.

The direct link is here

His text was 2 Cor 1:20. He tied that in with Deuteronomy 28:1-14, which lists all the promises of God to the obedient. He made the point that in himself, he would not be entitled to all those delicious promises of God's blessings, no matter how much he longed for them, because he was not obedient to the command of God. But Christ led a life of perfect righteousness and since He is the (sic) "federal head of all mankind", all those blessings would be his to claim. Christ died for us! For us! If we are in Him, we can enjoy all these abundant blessings from God, just by claiming them in the name of Jesus.

A sample transcript (from around the 43 minute mark):

"Jesus did it. But Jesus did it - FOR YOU! Jesus fulfilled it all - FOR YOU! The promises are YOURS AND MINE! Jesus kept all of God's Law. He kept all the statutes. Now, the promises are MINE! He did it for ME! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! So now you can go to Deuteronomy 28, and you can read: "I'M blessed coming in! I'M blessed going out! I'M blessed in the fruit of my body." God commands His blessing in all that I set my hand unto. Now I can reach out in faith and say "Yes!" to this promise. And when Pastor Prince or anyone is preaching, you say "Amen!" when he confesses that promise over you! Amen! Amen!"

You get the idea, but you really have to listen to it to get a feel of how it sounds like. Not pretty.

My comments

Well, the first thing is that Christ is the head of His church (Eph 5:23), not of all mankind. So only those who are in Christ are entitled to the spiritual blessings and promises of God.

Who are those "in Christ" then? Those who were CHOSEN to be in Him, before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4).

What are the promises of God? What is His most important promise? "I will be your God, and you will be my people."

What are the blessings to be found in Christ? SPIRITUAL blessings in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3) - not temporal ones, although we are to thank God heartily for these as well (though not to claim them as though we were completely entitled to them - they are undeserved blessings from God, who causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust).

Why did Christ die for us? So that we would be able to enjoy all the blessings that God promises to the obedient? No. So that we would be holy and blameless before Him (Eph 1:4).

What is the greatest blessing of being in Christ?

"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit."
(Psa 32:1-2)

And finally, yes - Jesus died for our sins. He did it for us. But His ultimate purpose was not so that we could be rich and healthy. No, He did it ultimately for the glory of God - His own glory.

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
(Joh 17:4-5)

We choose what we prefer

2009-11-05T10:41:00.002+08:00

While having breakfast this morning, I ruminated on a couple of books by Jonathan Edwards ("Freedom of the Will" and "The End for which God created the World") which I had read quite a long time ago. The details may be fuzzy, but I think this is the gist of it.

What I understand Jonathan Edwards to say, basically, is that we inevitably choose what we prefer. The real question then becomes - what do we naturally prefer, and what makes us prefer one thing over another?

The answer becomes obvious in the light of scriptural revelation (without which we are blind to the truth, because the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving ones - 2 Cor 4:4). We all naturally prefer evil over good, rebellion over obedience, self over God. This is what the Bible teaches. And so we choose to do evil because we prefer it, even if we will not admit this to ourselves or those around us. Instead, in our pride and ignorance, we flatter ourselves that we would naturally choose to do what is good, and it is only because Satan tempts us to evil that we succumb. The only reason we try to perform good works in our unregenerate state is to try to justify ourselves before God and in our own eyes, and to win the praise of men; not realising that whatever we can do in the flesh is pathetically inadequate, shot through with corruption and appears only as filthy rags in God's eyes.

But wait, you say. Don't we (regenerate and unregenerate alike) often choose to deny ourselves and deliberately do what we don't prefer to do? I say, indeed we do, but it is always done for the purpose of an ultimate end which we prefer. What do I mean by this?

Jonathan Edwards, speaks of intermediate ends and ultimate ends. To give an example - an ambitious student may very well deny himself certain pleasures in order to study hard and do well, for the purpose of getting a good job and earning lots of money in the future. He chooses to forego what he prefers in the present, in order to be able to get what he wants in the future.

In the same way, a man may choose to deny himself the gratification of a sinful desire in order to achieve an ultimate end. Two men may make this choice, with entirely different ultimate ends. For instance, one man may choose to do so with the aim of justifying himself before God and men, and taking pride in his morality. Another may do so simply to please the God whom he loves.

And so we come to the difference between an unregenerate heart and a regenerate heart - Adam vs Christ.

The unregenerate man is spiritually dead in his trespasses and sins. His mind has been blinded by the god of this age and he is unable to see the truth about his spiritual condition. He lives in the kingdom of darkness and his will is in bondage to sin. He has not been born again and he naturally prefers to do what is evil, and therefore chooses it.

The regenerate man, on the other hand, has been made alive in Christ Jesus. The light of the glorious Gospel has shone upon him, the Holy Spirit has opened his heart, and his eyes have been opened to see the truth about his condition, and the good news of the Gospel, which he finds himself believing. He has been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, and is no longer a slave to sin but a slave to righteousness. He has been born again and because of this, God has changed his desires. He now willingly prefers what is good, and so naturally chooses it. Although his corrupt flesh gets in the way of his desire, and he often stumbles and falls, he is able to see that his ultimate end, his greatest desire, is to please the God whom he loves, and the Holy Spirit enables him to progressively choose more and more decisively that which his heart truly desires - to obey and glorify the God whom he now loves because He first loved him.

What of Adam? Was he unregenerate, or was his will truly free to choose what is good over what is evil? Or was he inclined to good, yet chose evil?

I don't know the answer to that, but I would lean towards the last option (after all, God saw what He had made, and pronounced it very good), which would make his sin that much more abominable and inexcusable.

I will leave it for the moment at the conclusion Paris Reidhead gave in one of his sermons: the Bible does not explain WHY all men are sinners - the Bible simply tells us THAT all men are sinners - and that is what we must believe. In the same way, the Bible does not tell us WHY Adam sinned, or even HOW he was able to sin, it only tells us THAT he sinned.

Life, the universe and everything

2009-10-11T21:14:00.005+08:00

One of the verses I loved to quote in my angst-filled youth was this one:

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. (Eccl 1:2)

It expressed well the sense I had of the meaninglessness of existence that, I am convinced, comes over each of us at one time or another. I remember sitting at the beach with a group of friends enjoying the sunset and discussing the meaning of life. Of course, none of us were able to come up with anything that made sense, and we concluded (then) that this verse pretty much said it all. Life seemed pretty meaningless. Actually, our parting words were something to this effect: "Get back to me in 20 years, and I'll give you the answer then."

Well, it's been more than 20 years, and I think I may have caught a glimpse of the answer fairly recently (and no, it doesn't have to do with 40 days of anything...). Someone had quoted Eccl 1:2 on Facebook, and it occurred to me, when I saw it, that the very antithesis of vanity - is glory! The glory of God.

Let me explain.

I'm no Hebrew scholar. All I have is Strong's Greek and Hebrew Concordance that comes free with e-Sword. I refer to it now and then to get the original meanings of certain words I want to get right when I study the Bible.

So, the word "vanity" is translated from the Hebrew word:

הבל הבל
hebel hăbêl
emptiness or vanity; figuratively something transitory and unsatisfactory

Or, if I may venture to elaborate, something that is very light, of very little weight or consequence. Frivolous. Fluff. You get the idea. Completely meaningless.

On the other hand, when God's "glory" is described, the Hebrew word used is:

בד כּבוד
kâbôd kâbôd
weight; but only figuratively in a good sense, splendor or copiousness

Again, if I may elaborate, this would mean something weighty, having substance, substantial, of great worth. Like a bar of solid gold, if you like.

You begin to see where I'm going.

Life, without a view to the glory of God, is completely meaningless and "fluff". Everything we do, without exception, good or bad - our pleasures, our pursuits, our work, our families, all that we hold dear in life and spend our time and energies on (eg youtube, facebook, blogging etc - yes, even the study of theology) - all of these are ultimately meaningless if they are done without relation to the glory of God.

Do note that Solomon was well placed to enjoy the best that this earthly life could offer. And yet, his conclusion, after testing all of them, is that they are vanity! Empty. Meaningless.

There is no weight to them. No substance. They will pass away and be no more. Blown away like chaff. Burnt away like wood, hay and stubble. What will remain? Only that which is built on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ our rock, for the glory of God!

And so, my friends (wherever you may be), if you remember that evening's conversation; here is my answer 28 years later: The meaning of life is to seek the glory of God!

That's why Paul could reckon present sufferings as nothing compared to future glory. Like comparing zero to infinity. In fact Rom 8:18-23 can be read as a comparison between present "nothingness" (suffering, bondage to corruption, futility) and future "weightiness" (glory, freedom from sin, redemption in Christ).

One more thing. What in the world does it mean to seek the glory of God?

When Moses sought to see God's glory, God hid him in the cleft of a rock and passed by him. He described His glory thus:

"The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." (Exo 34:6-7)

God's glory is best manifested in his mercy and grace side by side with his just holiness. He is just, and yet the justifier of those who believe in Jesus Christ. And where do we see this? In the Gospel message of redemption! This is why, to me, the best way of seeking to magnify God's glory is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Amen.

Contextualization

2009-10-11T14:22:00.004+08:00

I have just been introduced by my brother Isaiah (a constant source of edification) to Shai Linne and the intriguing genre of Christian rap music (or Holy Hip Hop, as some call it).

While I've never been (and still don't consider myself to be) a great fan of hip hop and rap music in general, I took a look to see what this was all about. To be honest, I was ready to dismiss it as another futile exercise in "contextualization" and "being relevant" and "redeeming the culture", until I watched the first part of a sermon by Paul Washer preaching to reformed rappers.

In it, he said that what he saw was the word of God being preached. Spurgeon, Whitefield or Edwards would never be able to reach these people (black inner city "brothers") in the way that Christian rap music can.

I began to see what he was getting at. There would never be an audience in the first place. They would probably never listen to an old time preacher, but they will certainly listen to rap music which, by its very nature, demands very close attention to the content of the lyrics. In fact, a person listening to hip hop would probably pay far more attention to what is being said than many people listening to a Sunday sermon do.

Now, this comes dangerously close to what is being taught by certain preachers about accommodating to the culture and spirit of the times, and so I set out to discern what the difference might be.

Youtube is a great source of music nowadays, and so I listened (and read the lyrics, courtesy of the videos) of what was being presented by Christian rappers. What I saw was the Gospel, pure and simple. And I don't mean the false gospel of "please accept Jesus, He loves you and has a purpose for your life", but the true Gospel of conviction for sin, repentance, forgiveness, atonement and a life of holiness unto Jesus, who is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Reformed preaching at its best, delivered to an audience not usually exposed to the kind of preaching we are used to (1 Cor 1:26-29).

So what is the difference, really, between this and the "Cultural Mandate" being espoused by Kong Hee that teaches us to throw ourselves at pop culture as "a powerful means of communicating to us what the real world is like, and how to live in it" as it offers us "the essential comfort and wisdom for living"?

A big difference.

In Christian rap music, the intent is clearly to present the Gospel using the music as the medium. IN WORDS. The latter qualification is important because I really don't buy into the concept of using dance and instrumental music as a way of presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The preaching of the Gospel requires the use of language to communicate ideas to the mind. For the ghetto "cats" who listen to rap music, it is simply the language they speak, and which they will listen to. It's just the same as Hudson Taylor learning to speak Chinese, and wearing Chinese clothing and a long pigtail, in order to preach to the Chinese people. They would be more willing to hear what he had to say than if he had come in Western clothing, preaching in Queen's English. This is an appropriate application of the apostle Paul's modus operandi:

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. (1Co 9:20-22)

In the so-called "Cultural Mandate", on the other hand, the aim is (rather obviously) to elevate and glorify popular culture for its own sake, so that it can be worshipped and indulged in for the sake of entertainment, to the pleasing of the flesh. This is spiritual death! Furthermore, there is no presentation of the Gospel whatsoever even in so-called "Christian popular arts", apart from perhaps the false gospel I alluded to earlier. And I don't even want to start talking about why a Christian should never get involved in something like "China Wine".

What of Mark Driscoll and his brand of preaching, then? Let's call it "Driscollism", shall we? He certainly uses the language of the street to get his message across, which is the message of the Gospel. What's wrong with that?

Very much. The use of profanity in order to be culturally relevant dishonours God, who calls us to holiness. Not only is there a direct Biblical injunction against this (Eph 5:4), it lays open the way for God's name to be blasphemed (Rom 2:24). The message is very important, but so is the method (2 Cor 4:2). You will know them by their fruit (Matt 7:16-18).

Which, of course, means that Christian rap musicians have (like every other true Christian, actually!) a great responsibility to live out holy lives before the Lord and before men, as Paul Washer pointedly says.

To summarize, then - as long as the Word of the Gospel is accurately preached and proclaimed, and God is not dishonoured by the method, and fruits meet for repentance are brought forth - this is acceptable to God. Let's all use whatever means that fulfill these criteria, to proclaim the wonderful message of salvation, to the glory of God the Father!

Amen.

The restraining grace of God

2009-07-18T01:26:00.004+08:00

"It was I who kept you from sinning against me." - Gen 20:6

The restraining grace of God in keeping me from sinning against Him through providential distraction (and other means) never ceases to amaze me. He and I alone know the iniquity I harbour in my heart, and what I would be capable of, if left to my own devices.

This is one of the reasons why I believe the Bible with all my heart when it says that He is able to save to the uttermost (Heb 7:25). I have seen this principle at work in my own life!

May He never give me up to my stubborn heart, to follow my own counsels (Psa 81:12).

"You shall call his name Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins." - Matt 1:21

- not just from the penalty of sin, but also from the pleasure and power of sin, and finally from the very presence of sin!

What a wonderful God we serve!

Something to keep in mind when discussing doctrine

2009-07-12T14:30:00.005+08:00

A guide to godly disputation - by John Newton

"There is a principle of SELF, which disposes us to despise those who differ from us; and we are often under its influence, when we think we are only showing a fitting zeal in the cause of God.

I readily believe that the leading points of Arminianism spring from and are nourished by the pride of the human heart! But I would be glad if the reverse were always true; and that to embrace what are called the Calvinistic doctrines was an infallible token of a humble mind!

I think I have known some Arminians, that is, people who for lack of a clearer light, have been afraid of receiving the doctrines of free grace, who yet have given evidence that their hearts were in a degree humbled before the Lord.

And I am afraid there are Calvinists, who, while they account it a proof of their humility, that they are willing in words to debase the creature and to give all the glory of salvation to the Lord—yet are of a prideful, harsh and bitter spirit.

Whatever it is that makes us trust in ourselves, that we are comparatively wise or good, so as to treat those with contempt who do not subscribe to our doctrines, or follow our party—is a proof and fruit of a self-righteous spirit!

Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines—as well as upon works! A man may have the heart of a Pharisee, while his head is stored with orthodox notions of the unworthiness of the creature, and the riches of free grace!"

To be with Christ

2009-07-11T23:58:00.011+08:00

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
(Phil 1:21-23)

It's interesting how you can read a verse and identify with it for many years, and not really "get" it, because you have applied your own eisegesis to it.

Fearing death

I've never really been afraid of death, perhaps because I was exposed to it at a young and tender age. My stepmother died when I was 4, my father when I was 10, my mother when I was 12, and both my maternal grandparents shortly thereafter.

When I started reading the Bible in earnest after I was saved at the age of 15, this was one of the passages that resonated within my heart. Death did not seem a very big deal to me, especially since I knew I was saved. I sincerely desired to "depart" - but I realise now that it was for all the wrong reasons: the hope of going to heaven, being with the heavenly Father (something that obviously appealed to me very much, given my background of having lost my earthly father at a young age), escaping suffering and pain on earth, and not having to struggle with sin.

It's all about Christ!

When I re-examined this passage last Saturday during cell group meeting, I was struck by how, all these years, I had missed Paul's message by a very wide mark. One thing was very conspicuously absent - and that was the person of Jesus Christ!

Paul's whole life was about Christ and dedicated to Him - "for me to live is Christ"; and "to die is gain" - why? Because to die would be to depart to "be with Christ" - the culmination of all his desires. He did not wish to depart in order to escape from suffering or the struggle with sin - that would be a Buddhist outlook! His main reason for wanting to depart was simply so that he could be with Christ and enjoy His presence!

It's a truth that God is bringing to my attention again and again, and which I still have a problem translating from my head to my heart - Salvation is a Person!

Remaining in the flesh (staying alive)

It is enlightening for me to note that Paul didn't mind staying alive, rather than how I had subconsciously misread it as a young Christian - that he had wished to escape from this earthly life, and couldn't wait to go to heaven (it's amazing how carelessly I read things sometimes). And his reason for staying alive? So that he could continue in fruitful labour for the sake of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the sake of the people he was ministering to.

That's a healthy rebuke to me. The only reason I should desire to stay on earth is not so I can enjoy more of life, but so that I can be engaged in fruitful labour for my Lord!

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
(Psa 73:25-26)

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
(Phil 3:7-14)

A very angry man

2009-07-05T21:04:00.011+08:00

I met a very angry man ~~today~~ last week.

I had simply asked him casually: "Have you heard of the name Jesus Christ before?"

He replied: "Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ!?! Oh, you're trying to preach to me!" and for the next 20-25 minutes he ranted and raved against Christianity, without much of a chance for me to get a word in edgewise. This was in Mandarin, mind you, so I'm sure I missed a large part of it.

He had had a bad experience in Anglican High School when he was a teenager there many years ago. The discipline master then - a notorious fellow who nevertheless professed himself to be a fervent Christian - had accused him of sending a letter threatening to kill him (something which he denies to this day). His parents had been informed that if he (the discipline master) was ever found murdered, their son would be the prime suspect.

At that time he had been introduced to the rudiments of Christianity and prayer, and so he had prayed earnestly every night that the discipline master would not be murdered (apparently he was hated enough for this to be a distinct possibility) - but that he would be killed in a traffic accident instead! Imagine his shock and horror when it actually happened about three months later - the discipline master indeed got knocked down by a car and died!

He reasoned that if God was evil enough to answer such an evil prayer, he did not want to believe in such a God! It did not occur to him to condemn the one who had made such a prayer in the first place, nor the fact that God has every right to destroy a sinner at any time - whether someone prayed for it or not!

He is also very angry with his younger brother, who is a Christian. He had sacrificed much for his younger brother to do well in school and succeed in life, despite which his younger brother had apparently announced one day that he believed it was God who had provided for him and his success. He had felt very hurt and angry that his sacrifices were not acknowledged nor any gratitude shown for them. He believes very strongly that blood is thicker than water, but his younger brother would rather give to the church rather than help with the family finances.

[Incidentally, this is not the first time I am hearing this sort of story. I am sure it is an unfortunate spinoff from prosperity preaching and the need to "sow into the work of the Lord". Matt 15:4-6 is quite clear that charity should begin at home!]

"I am not against any religion!"

The interesting thing is that he kept making disclaimers, insisting over and over again that he wasn't against any religion, that they are all the same, that they teach people to do good. Having said that, he went on an all-out attack on Christianity, talking about the evil of the Crusades and especially the hypocrisy of many professing Christians he knew who do not follow what the Bible teaches (he had studied Bible Knowledge in school!), and the dubious practice of deathbed conversions, among many other things.

I kept trying to interject, to tell him that there were so many things he was saying which I agreed with, but that they had nothing to do with the the message of Christianity, which is one of free grace and not of works - but he was not interested in listening. Truly, "our gospel is veiled only to those who are perishing, for the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." (2 Cor 4:3-4).

Personally speaking

This episode resonates strongly with me because my own older adopted brother, who is unsaved, is also dead-set against Christianity because of an experience in Anglican High School! Apparently when he was there as a teenager, the then-principal (also a fervently professing Christian) was embroiled in some sort of a sexual scandal and had to resign as a result.

Law and Grace

I find that these two examples serve to illustrate the failure of a Christianity that emphasises precepts - do's and don'ts - rather that the message of grace and forgiveness, redemption and sanctification. God's law is good, and we should preach it - but only to prepare the way for grace, because it is our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, once we realize that we will never meet up to its perfect standard - until our hearts are changed. Then it will be our delight to obey the law of God. Even then, it is only by being clothed in Christ, with a righteousness not our own, that we can hope to stand before the judgement seat of God and not be condemned.

There is no excuse, of course, for Christians to sin - we were saved to be holy and blameless before Him. But we will inevitably fall at times, and if the emphasis of our message is not one of grace, but of law and works, those who look at us will see hypocrisy, and we will be guilty of what the Jews were accused of in Rom 3:23-24 - "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."

John Wesley - the messed up Calvinist

2009-07-05T14:43:00.008+08:00

On a day that falls between Aldersgate Day and John Calvin's birthday (a person who, for some strange reason, Methodists hear very little about!), it bemuses me to recall Phil Johnson - in one of his sermons - describing John Wesley as a "messed-up" Calvinist. What he meant is that Wesley sought to give God all the glory - yet inadvertently he stole some of it for himself through his Arminian beliefs.

This underlines an important distinction in understanding what Calvinism is all about. It's not so much about predestination (which is the mental pigeonhole most people assign it to) as it is about the glory of God. Calvin's greatest goal was to demonstrate the glory of God in everything - in vocation, in salvation, in election, in all of life. In this sense, John Wesley was a Calvinist as well as he, too, sought the glory of God in all that he did - it was just that he didn't think election and reprobation and limited atonement demonstrates the glory of God (it does). He had too low a view of God's glory and sovereignty.

In the end, Wesley's Aldersgate experience proves the truth of God's electing sovereignty: God met him and took hold of him, not the other way around!

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Did John Wesley CHOOSE to believe and trust in Christ? Methinks not. He simply found that he did!

The Barrier of Language

2009-07-05T01:55:00.006+08:00

I've just finished reading "A Different Gospel" by D R McConnell. One of the interesting things he mentions is the barrier of language - how the Word of Faith teachers quote extensively from scriptural "proof-texts" and use Christian jargon while meaning something completely different.

Paris Reidhead correctly said that definitions are very important, because "we think with definitions". If two people talk about something without defining the terms they use, they may be comparing apples and oranges without realizing it. Or, as the Chinese would say, it would be like a chicken and a duck talking to each other.

For instance, the more charismatic folk in a congregation would accuse a conservative pastor of "quenching the Spirit", if the pastor is not open to "allowing the Spirit to move." First and foremost, the Holy Spirit will move where He wants to, whether we allow Him to do so or not (John 3:8, 1 Cor 12:11). He does not need our permission!

More importantly, no true Christian would desire to hinder the operation of the Holy Spirit. But what do we MEAN when we say we want to see the Holy Spirit moving and working? One believer would think in terms of hearts being changed - convicted of sin and being led to repentance, being opened up to the reception of the Word. Another would envision miraculous healings, signs and wonders and people being "slain in the Spirit".

Another example would be when we talk about the Word of God speaking to us. Those who adhere to sola scriptura would be very clear what that means to them - the written word of God and what it reveals. On the other hand, those brought up in "rhema" teachings would have something completely different in mind when they say something like that, listening deeply inside themselves for some impression of the Spirit on their hearts (forgetting what Jer 17:9 teaches!)

Of course, everyone wants to see the Holy Spirit moving, and everyone wants to have the Word of God speak to them. But what do we MEAN when we say that?

So... yes. Definitions are important. Very important.

What must I DO to be saved?

2009-07-03T01:15:00.008+08:00

I came across this interesting quote by someone named Francis Turretin (a new dead author to discover!) in this paper by my brother Daniel.

For the Gospel which is preached to those who are called, does not declare that, in the eternal decree of God, it has been ordained that in Christ redemption has been procured for each and every man, It rather announced to sinners a divine command, with a promise annexed, and teaches what is the duty of those who wish to be made partakers of salvation.

There's that word, in the last sentence. Duty. "What must I DO to be saved?"

If salvation is all of grace, and only through faith, then why should there be a duty appended to it?

The simple answer is that this is what God has ordained - faith and repentance as the required response to the offer of salvation made to all men, and rightly so, as this is what is most glorifying to Him.

But here's the catch - we are not capable of faith and repentance on our own. We are dead in our trespasses and sins, and the carnal mind is enmity against God.

The answer to this quandary is stated very simply by Augustine in AD 397 in his Confessions: "Give what Thou commandest; Command what Thou wilt."

In other words, God Himself will supply the means by which He has ordained salvation is to be received. And He will give these to those He has chosen to save from before the foundations of the world (Eph 1:4-5). "The Lord knows those who are his." (2 Tim 2:19)

And if God requires faith and repentance so that we may be saved, He will give faith and repentance - to His elect.

Phil 1:29 tells us: "For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake."

Acts 5:30-31 says: "The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."

2 Tim 2:25, in speaking of false teachers: "God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth."

And this is why Francis Turretin also says:

Christ is not revealed in the Gospel as having died for me in particular, but only as having died in general for those who believe and repent. Hence I reason from that faith and repentance which I find actually to exist in my heart, that Christ has, indeed, died for me in particular. I know that He died for all who fly to Him, I find that I have fled to Him, hence I can and should infer that He died for me.

What must we do to be saved? We simply need to believe and repent, and even the ability to be able to do these things has to be given to us by God, which is why salvation is all of grace. And when we are saved, our duty as Christians is simply to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves, which is none other than the whole law of God.

And this we will do willingly, because His people will be willing in the day of His power (Psa 110:3), and we will have been given new hearts of flesh to replace our hearts of stone (Ezek 36:26), His spirit will be within us (Ezek 36:27), and His law will be written on our hearts (Heb 8:10). He will be in us, and we in Him.

And this is all of God.

Why pray?

2009-06-23T22:26:00.003+08:00

Team pyro's latest post on prayer reminded me that I wanted to post a(nother) talk I had given to my church youth on 14 Jun 2009 (which explains my online silence - I was furiously preparing for it). No, I'm not in great demand. Just a stand-in for someone else who could not make it at the last minute.

It's about 20 pages long, so I've put it into a pdf file you can download. Feel free to take a look. It was delivered verbatim a la Jonathan Edwards.

In it I discuss not just the reason we should pray, but also the sovereignty of God and God's passion for his glory.

What does it mean to confess Christ with our mouth?

2009-06-22T23:17:00.007+08:00

Somebody asked this very pertinent question. I thought that Albert Barnes, in his commentary, did a very good job of explaining it. So here it is:

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Rom 10:9-10)

That if thou shalt confess - The word here rendered “confess” ὁμολογέω homologeō is often rendered “profess”; Mat 7:23, “Then will I profess to them, I never knew you;” Tit 1:16; Tit 3:14; Rom 1:22; 1 Tim 2:10; 1 Tim 6:12-13, 1 Tim 6:21; Heb 3:1, etc. It properly means to “speak what agrees with something which others speak or maintain.” Thus, confession or profession expresses our “agreement or concord with what God holds to be true, and what he declares to be true.” It denotes a public declaration or assent to that, here expressed by the words “with thy mouth.” A profession of religion then denotes a public declaration of our agreement with what God has declared, and extends to all his declarations about our lost estate, our sin, and need of a Saviour; to his doctrines about his own nature, holiness, and law; about the Saviour and the Holy Spirit; about the necessity of a change of heart and holiness of life; and about the grave and the judgment; about heaven and hell. As the doctrine respecting a Redeemer is the main and leading doctrine, it is put here by way of eminence, as in fact involving all others; and publicly to express our assent to this, is to declare our agreement with God on all kindred truths.

With thy mouth - To profess a thing with the mouth is to speak of it; to declare it; to do it openly and publicly.

The Lord Jesus - Shalt openly acknowledge attachment to Jesus Christ. The meaning of it may be expressed by regarding the phrase “the Lord” as the predicate; or the thing to be confessed is, that he is Lord; compare Acts 2:36 and Phil 2:11, “And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Here it means to acknowledge him as Lord, that is, as having a right to rule over the soul.

Shalt believe in thy heart - Shalt sincerely and truly believe this, so that the external profession shall correspond with the real, internal feelings. Where this is not the case, it would be hypocrisy; where this is the case, there would be the highest sincerity, and this religion requires.

That God hath raised him - This fact, or article of Christian belief, is mentioned here because of its great importance, and its bearing on the Christian system. If this be true, then all is true. Then it is true that he came forth from God; that he died for sin; and that God approved and accepted his work. Then it is true that he ascended to heaven, and is exalted to dominion over the universe, and that he will return to judge the quick and the dead. For all this was professed and taught; and all this was regarded as depending on the truth of his having been raised from the dead; see Phil 2:8-11; Eph 1:21; Acts 2:24, Acts 2:32-33; Acts 17:31; 2 Cor 4:14; 1 Cor 15:13-20. To profess this doctrine was, therefore, virtually to profess all the truths of the Christian religion. No man could believe this who did not also believe all the truths dependent on it. Hence, the apostles regarded this doctrine as so important, and made it so prominent in their preaching.

Thou shalt be saved - From sin and hell. This is the doctrine of the gospel throughout; and all this shows that salvation by the gospel was easy.

For with the heart - Not with the understanding merely, but with such a faith as shall be sincere, and shall influence the life. There can be no other genuine faith than what influences the whole mind.

Believeth unto righteousness - Believes so that justification is obtained. (Stuart.) In God’s plan of justifying people, this is the way by which we may be declared just or righteous in his sight. The moment a sinner believes, therefore, he is justified; his sins are pardoned; and he is introduced into the favor of God. No man can be justified without this; for this is God’s plan, and he will not depart from it.

With the mouth confession is made ... - That is, confession or profession is so made as to obtain salvation. He who in all appropriate ways professes his attachment to Christ shall be saved. This profession is to be made in all the proper ways of religious duty; by an avowal of our sentiments; by declaring on all proper occasions our belief of the truth; and by an unwavering adherence to them in all persecutions, oppositions, and trials. He who declares his belief makes a profession. He who associates with Christian people does it. He who acts with them in the prayer meeting, in the sanctuary, and in deeds of benevolence, does it. He who is baptized, and commemorates the death of the Lord Jesus, does it. And he who leads an humble, prayerful, spiritual life, does it. He shows his regard to the precepts and example of Christ Jesus; his regard for them more than for the pride, and pomp, and allurements of the world. All these are included in a profession of religion. In whatever way we can manifest attachment to it, it must be done. The reason why this is made so important is, that there can be no true attachment to Christ which will not manifest itself in the life. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. It is impossible that there should be true belief in the heart of man, unless it should show itself in the life and conversation. This is the only test of its existence and its power; and hence it is made so important in the business of religion. And we may here learn,

(1) That a profession of religion is, by Paul, made as really indispensable to salvation as believing. According to him it is connected with salvation as really as faith is with justification; and this accords with all the declarations of the Lord Jesus; Mat 10:32; Mat 25:34-46; Luk 12:8.

(2) there can be no religion where there is not a willingness to confess the Lord Jesus. There is no true repentance where we are not willing to confess our faults. There is no true attachment to a father or mother or friend, unless we are willing on all proper occasions to avow it. And so there can be no true religion where there is too much pride, or vanity, or love of the world, or fear of shame to confess it.

(3) those who never profess any religion have none: and they are not safe. To deny God the Saviour before people is not safe. They who do not profess religion, profess the opposite. The real feelings of the heart will be expressed in the life. And they who profess by their lives that they have no regard for God and Christ, for heaven and glory, must expect to be met in the last day, as those who deny the Lord that bought them, and who bring upon themselves quick destruction; 2 Pet 1:2.

Call it Grace

2009-06-05T19:59:00.002+08:00

The title of this blog is from a CD I just happened to pick up one day at a discount from a Christian bookshop. It's titled "Call it Grace" by Steve Archer. Really great collection of songs. Here's the lyrics of the title song:

Call it Grace

You threw back the canvas, said: "Welcome to my world"
And placed a wild heart within my soul
Created for a purpose I'd come to understand
As I would learn to give up my control

Time has turned the pages
Through the joy and every trial
You've brought me to a place
Of true reflection for awhile

Tonight my heart beats tenderly
On this warm and rainy night
Memories of days gone by
Have climbed aboard this flight

I'm looking back across the years
And lines that seemed to find their rightful face
If just one word could write the story of my life
I'd call it grace

I've tasted my fair share of this life's forbidden fruit
And came to tell the bitter from the sweet
But I still tend to stumble over things I should have learned
In the time it took to get back on my feet

I have made You laugh
And felt the warmth of Your embrace
At times You've caught the tears
As they were rolling off my face

Tonight my heart beats tenderly
On this warm and rainy night
Memories of days gone by
Have climbed aboard this flight

I'm looking back across the years
And lines that seemed to find their rightful face
If just one word could write the story of my life
I'd call it grace

I can trace Your footsteps
When we've walked in desert sand
And I can feel the nail scars
When You hold on to my hand

Tonight my heart beats tenderly
On this warm and rainy night
Memories of days gone by
Have climbed aboard this flight

I'm looking back across the years
And lines that seemed to find their rightful face
If just one word could write the story of my life
I'd call it grace

Little crises, great crisis

2009-06-03T23:46:00.013+08:00

It has been an interesting week of being able to peek into the lives of people around me, and the crises we all face at one time or other in our lives.

A little crisis

For instance, my daughter had a little crisis on Monday morning. She realized, too late, that the pair of track pants she needed for a Girl Guides event that day was soaking in the wash. She freaked out, and it was almost comical watching her use the hairdryer to desperately blow dry her track pants.

Greater crises

Not all crises are as trivial.

I bumped into a good friend of mine from ACS yesterday. We have not met for 30 years. He has always been a rich and successful businessman, in the shipping business. He told me he had gone through 1997 and 2003 (the two previous recessions) “without a scratch”. But this time was different. He has had to sell his house and car and move to a small HDB apartment to save his business. Great crisis.

One of my patients had a stroke this morning. His wife suffered a massive stroke in 2001, and for the last nine years, his life has been dedicated to singlehandedly looking after his wife, who is bedridden. He has been the only one feeding her, bathing her, changing her, caring for her all these years, because he does not trust the care given by the nursing homes, after a bad experience. Even though he himself has now been felled by a stroke, his greatest concern - lying in his hospital bed – is this: Who is now going to look after his wife? Great crisis.

I know a 19 year old boy who had gotten his 17 year old girlfriend pregnant. They had decided to keep the baby and get married. The venue has been booked and fully paid for, all the invitation cards have been sent out, all the preparations have been made. The girl found out yesterday that she has suffered a miscarriage. The baby is no longer alive. Now the whole family is wondering whether to go ahead with the wedding (and risk a very unhappy future) or to abandon the whole thing, including the financial loss and loss of face. Great crisis.

My own crises

I think back to some of the great crises in my own life. One stands out in particular. I was in the army - young, foolish, sinful and careless. I had written, jokingly, a disparaging remark (which included an implied profanity - I didn't actually write down the four letter word, I left certain letters blank) about the food in the cookhouse in the comments book. The cookhouse sergeant had complained to the company sergeant major, who was not amused. He handed some papers to my commanding officer to charge me. I was berserk with fear, and asked a Christian brother to pray for me, which he did.

My commanding officer was an angel sent from God. With a pained face, he asked me why I had done such a stupid thing, then asked if I was planning to take up any medical traineeship. Being charged in the army is not a minor matter, and would effectively have destroyed any chances of getting a traineeship to further my medical career (I eventually did get the traineeship in family medicine I wanted, quite miraculously, but that is another story for another day).

To save me from being charged, my commanding officer told me he would PERSONALLY APOLOGIZE to the company sergeant major (someone far below his own rank) on my behalf! There's a gospel message in there somewhere. The company sergeant major reluctantly agreed to drop the matter if I wrote a letter of apology and delivered it to him personally. Before I did so, I got together with the brother who had prayed for me to thank God. As he did so, I wept with relief.

When I faced the company sergeant major in his office, he told me to promise not to do such a stupid thing again. I did, and I believe I have kept that promise to this day. Great crisis - resolved.

The greatest crisis

But you know what?

Every single one of us faces a crisis which pales beside any crisis we could possibly face in this life. That crisis is what awaits us on the other side of eternity – eternal punishment in hell for rebelling against an infinitely holy God. For not loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and for not loving our neighbour as ourselves - the two greatest commandments.

And this is a crisis that we cannot ever hope to escape or resolve on our own. It won't go away even if we hide our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist, and one day we will wake up on the other side of eternity to find that it's true. It's true.

But that's not the end of it. The good news is that Someone has resolved the crisis for us, on our behalf. He took upon Himself the punishment that was to be ours, the wrath of God that was to be poured out on us, and gave to us His righteousness, so that we can stand before the judgement seat of God clothed in a righteousness that is not our own.

And all we need to do, to know that our crisis has truly been resolved, is to believe it.

The Christian and Homosexuality

2009-05-30T01:48:00.003+08:00

First time speaking in public in about 30 years. Do be charitable.

You can download the Powerpoint presentation to watch as you listen. You can also download Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 as mp3 files.

Part 1 - What the Bible says

Part 2 - Answering the arguments of the gay advocates

Part 3 - Conclusion

The New Tolerance

2009-05-29T15:36:00.002+08:00

I have so many things to write about my head is spinning. But before I tackle the backlog, I must link to this excellent post which was highlighted by my brother Isaiah.

Dr David R Reagan nails in on the head when he defines it:

But this traditional concept of tolerance has been replaced by the "New Tolerance" that is being taught to our children today. The "New Tolerance" demands not only respect, but also endorsement and praise. Thus, it is no longer sufficient for me to simply tolerate the homosexual lifestyle. To be truly tolerant, I must also endorse it and praise it. And if I refuse to do so, I am a bigot!

The Queen's Gambit

2009-05-05T23:57:00.008+08:00

In case you haven't heard about it yet, you will, soon.

pinkdot.sg

Deny it as they will, it's basically going to be a Gay Pride parade. Good photo-opportunity, "Free love" and an animated pink blob that looks like he (she?) came from the Woodstock Festival. Hey, the Hell's Angels might even turn up. I'm wondering whether I should go down, but probably not. Not edifying to my soul.

They really believe in seizing the moment to carry the day. With all this increased visibility, no better time to make a statement than now. Sway those who are undecided. keep up the momentum and make headway into (locally) uncharted territory. Gay marriage next, no doubt.

The human viewpoint

Speaking from a purely human viewpoint, it's a pretty good tactical move. Like placing your queen (pardon the pun) in a vulnerable position on the chessboard, and daring your opponent to take it. A queen's gambit, as it were.

If the government lets them go ahead, it will be seen as a great victory for the LBGT faction. Tacit acceptance and endorsement by the government, or at least an admission that the group is too significant to be trifled with.

If the government clamps down, they can cry discrimination and the deafening rhetoric will be heard all over again.

Either way, greater visibility, greater penetration into the public psyche, greater acceptance.

Indeed, as my aunt says, they're "very smart people".

God's viewpoint

But then, from God's point of view (ahh, how I love the Psalms!):

Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision. (Psalm 2)

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.
The wicked plots against the righteous
and gnashes his teeth at him,
but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that his day is coming. (Psalm 37)

Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. (Psalm 73)

Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?
The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Your tongue plots destruction,
like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
You love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah
You love all words that devour,
O deceitful tongue.
But God will break you down forever;
he will snatch and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
The righteous shall see and fear,
and shall laugh at him, saying,
“See the man who would not make
God his refuge,
but trusted in the abundance of his riches
and sought refuge in his own destruction!” (Psalm 52)

Let's never forget God's viewpoint! Now that's what I call REAL laughter therapy!

Psalm 73

2009-05-02T22:28:00.002+08:00

God Is My Strength and Portion Forever
A Psalm of Asaph.

Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.

Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

* Isn't it amazing how Psalms 37 and 73 are so complementary?

Psalm 37

2009-05-02T21:57:00.003+08:00

Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

The wicked plots against the righteous
and gnashes his teeth at him,
but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that his day is coming.

The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slay those whose way is upright;
their sword shall enter their own heart,
and their bows shall be broken.

Better is the little that the righteous has
than the abundance of many wicked.
For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,
but the Lord upholds the righteous.

The Lord knows the days of the blameless,
and their heritage will remain forever;
they are not put to shame in evil times;
in the days of famine they have abundance.

But the wicked will perish;
the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures;
they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.

The wicked borrows but does not pay back,
but the righteous is generous and gives;
for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land,
but those cursed by him shall be cut off.

The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
when he delights in his way;
though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
for the Lord upholds his hand.

I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for bread.
He is ever lending generously,
and his children become a blessing.

Turn away from evil and do good;
so shall you dwell forever.
For the Lord loves justice;
he will not forsake his saints.
They are preserved forever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit the land
and dwell upon it forever.

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
and his tongue speaks justice.
The law of his God is in his heart;
his steps do not slip.

The wicked watches for the righteous
and seeks to put him to death.
The Lord will not abandon him to his power
or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial.

Wait for the Lord and keep his way,
and he will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on when the wicked are cut off.

I have seen a wicked, ruthless man,
spreading himself like a green laurel tree.
But he passed away, and behold, he was no more;
though I sought him, he could not be found.

Mark the blameless and behold the upright,
for there is a future for the man of peace.
But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed;
the future of the wicked shall be cut off.

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
he is their stronghold in the time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.

* PS - take a careful look at the picture: it isn't a woman.

Confronting Idols

2009-05-01T20:00:00.011+08:00

I first heard about The Gospel Coalition when I attended Redemption Hill Church a couple of weeks ago. Simon Murphy, the pastor there, was sharing about God had miraculously provided a way for him to attend the conference (it's a long story, so I won't repeat it here).

Then I saw Dan Phillip's post on Team Pyro about Tim Keller's sermon on “The Grand Demythologizer – The Gospel and Idolatry”. Of course I had to download it (and all the rest of the sermons). I've just listened to it, and I find it surprisingly relevant for these days.

He takes as his text Acts 19:23-41:

About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.”

When they heard this they were enraged and were crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.” And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.

Sounds like the AWARE meeting that's going to happen tomorrow, doesn't it?

Anyway, the message was about confronting, exposing and destroying the idols of our day. As Christians, we are, as salt and light, to affect the culture around us. The early church turned the world upside down! The notes on the sermon are available here, but you really need to HEAR it.

Here's an excerpt:

When idols are opposed, it's dangerous. Idols are violent. Through idols, the powers and principalities control us. If you oppose them, you take your life in your hands. Paul risked his life to oppose them; he rested in Jesus, who had already given his life to defeat the principalities and powers.

For Christians, the issue involved in the AWARE debate is about exposing, confronting and destroying the idols of OUR society (and I'm NOT talking about homosexuality). Someone commenting on the ST forum has described one of these idols quite eloquently - political correctness:

Today, it is fashionable and politically correct to make statements like, “I have nothing against homosexuals”, “In a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural society like Singapore, we must be open to alternative ideas and lifestyles”, “We must be tolerant, non-judgemental and inclusive”, and “We should not discriminate”.

The majority in our society have allowed themselves to be cowered into a corner by the minority because they have been lulled into a sense of “non-thinking”. The AWARE saga provides an opportunity for the majority to wake up from a self-induced slumber. Alas, this may not be taken up, judging from the responses to the saga so far. Both camps are careful to toe the line of political correctness.

Our being inclusive, tolerant, non-judgemental will be looked upon by posterity as cowardice, especially in the light of the intolerance of advocates of ‘tolerance’, the judgementalism of those who cry foul of the ‘judgements’ of some who speak out against the sins in society , and the exclusivity of those who eschew ‘inclusivity’.

Since when is it uncivil to hold on to an idea and to actively defend it? It is logical for someone who accepts moral absolutes to make a statement like, “It is wrong to steal.” For someone who declares himself to be a relativist, it is inherently wrong to make such a statement. In any case, he makes it anyway, and very loudly at that. If the majority in our society continues to revel in their ‘liberated thoughts’, the day will come when it is politically correct and fashionable to say, “I Have Nothing Against Heterosexuals!”. (Homosexuality, Lesbianism, Bestiality, Same-sex marriage and Polyamory will be commonplace).

Do have a listen – it's worth your time.

Psalm 2

2009-04-30T00:49:00.005+08:00

Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and
against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me,
and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Substitution, Identification, Imputation

2009-04-27T00:20:00.011+08:00

I can't get over how Pink's writing is, as Tozer puts it, "like a chicken dinner to my soul." It tickles me pink. (OK sorry, could not resist that one). All this AWARE nonsense makes me feel so pink.

Anywayyyy.....

Here, he explains how our sins are transferred to Christ through a covenant relationship that existed before the foundation of the world, by which we are united to Christ, and by which He acts as our substitute as we are identified with Him and He with us, and by which our sins are imputed to Him and His righteousness is imputed to us!

Quote:

"The afflictions which the Lord Jesus experienced were not only sufferings at the hands of men, but also enduring punishment at the hand of God: "it pleased the LORD to bruise Him" (Isa. 53:10); "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man that is My Fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd" (Zech. 13:7) was His edict. But lawful "punishment" presupposes criminality; a righteous God had never inflicted the curse of the law upon Christ unless He had deserved it. That is strong language we are well aware, yet not stronger than what Holy Writ fully warrants, and things need to be stated forcibly and plainly today if an apathetic people is to be aroused. It was because God had transferred to their Substitute all the sins of His people that, officially, Christ deserved to be paid sin’s wages.

The translation of our sins to Christ was clearly typed out under the Law: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, (expressing identification with the substitute), and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat (denoting transference), and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited" (Lev. 16:21, 22). So too it was expressly announced by the Prophets: "The LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all... He shall bear their iniquities" (Isa. 53:6, 11). In that great Messianic Psalm, the 69th, we hear the Surety saying, "O God, Thou knowest My foolishness; and My sins are not hid from Thee" (v. 5) —how could the spotless Redeemer speak thus, unless the sins of His people had been laid upon Him?

When God imputed sin to Christ as the sinner’s Surety, He charged Him with the same, and dealt with Him accordingly. Christ could not have suffered in the stead of the guilty unless their guilt had been first transferred to Him. The sufferings of Christ were penal. God by act of transcendent grace (to us) laid the iniquities of all that are saved upon Christ, and in consequence, Divine justice finding sin upon Him, punished Him. He who will by no means clear the guilty must strike through sin and smite its bearer, no matter whether it be the sinner himself or One who vicariously takes his place. But as G. S. Bishop well said, "When justice once strikes the Son of God, justice exhausts itself. Sin is amerced in an Infinite Object." The atonement of Christ was contrary to our processes of law because it rose above their finite limitations!

Now as the sins of him who believes were, by God, transferred and imputed to Christ so that God regarded and treated Him accordingly—visiting upon Him the curse of the law, which is death; even so the obedience or righteousness of Christ is, by God, transferred and imputed to the believer so that God now regards and deals with him accordingly—bestowing upon him the blessing of the law, which is life. And any denial of that fact, no matter by whomsoever made, is a repudiation of the cardinal principle of the Gospel. "The moment the believing sinner accepts Christ as his Substitute, he finds himself not only freed from his sins, but rewarded: he gets all Heaven because of the glory and merits of Christ (Rom. 5:17). The atonement, then, which we preach is one of absolute exchange (1 Pet. 3:18). It is that Christ took our place literally, in order that we might take His place literally—that God regarded and treated Christ as the Sinner, and that He regards and treats the believing sinner as Christ.

"It is not enough for a man to be pardoned. He, of course, is then innocent—washed from his sin—put back again, like Adam in Eden, just where he was. But that is not enough. It was required of Adam in Eden that he should actually keep the command. It was not enough that he did not break it, or that he is regarded, through the Blood, as though he did not break it. He must keep it: he must continue in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. How is this necessity supplied? Man must have a righteousness, or God cannot accept him. Man must have a perfect obedience, or else God cannot reward him" (G. S. Bishop). That necessary and perfect obedience is to be found alone in that perfect life, lived by Christ in obedience to the law, before He went to the cross, which is reckoned to the believer’s account.

It is not that God treats as righteous one who is not actually so (that would be a fiction), but that He actually constitutes the believer so, not by infusing a holy nature in his heart, but by reckoning the obedience of Christ to his account. Christ’s obedience is legally transferred to him so that he is now rightly and justly regarded as righteous by the Divine Law. It is very far more than a naked pronouncement of righteousness upon one who is without any sufficient foundation for the judgment of God to declare him righteous. No, it is a positive and judicial act of God "whereby, on the consideration of the mediation of Christ, He makes an effectual grant and donation of a true, real, perfect righteousness, even that of Christ Himself unto all that do believe, and accounting it as theirs, on His own gracious act, both absolves them from sin, and granteth them right and title unto eternal life" (John Owen).

It now remains for us to point out the ground on which God acts in this counter-imputation of sin to Christ and righteousness to His people. That ground was the everlasting covenant. The objection that it is unjust the innocent should suffer in order that the guilty may escape loses all its force once the covenant-headship and responsibility of Christ is seen, and the covenant-oneness with Him of those whose sins He bore. There could have been no such thing as a vicarious sacrifice unless there had been some union between Christ and those for whom He died, and that relation of union must have subsisted before He died, yea, before our sins were imputed to Him. Christ undertook to make full satisfaction to the law for His people because He sustained to them the relation of a surety. But what justified His acting as their surety? He stood as their Surety because He was their substitute: He acted on their behalf, because He stood in their room. But what justified the substitution?

No satisfactory answer can be given to the last question until the grand doctrine of everlasting covenant-oneness comes into view: that is the great underlying relation. The federal oneness between the Redeemer and the redeemed, the choosing of them in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), by which a legal union was established between Him and them, is that which alone accounts for and justifies all else. "For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:11). As the Covenant-Head of His people, Christ was so related to them that their responsibilities necessarily became His, and we are so related to Him that His merits necessarily become ours. Thus, as we said in an earlier chapter, three words give us the key to and sum up the whole transaction: substitution, identification, imputation—all of which rest upon covenant-oneness. Christ was substituted for us, because He is one with us—identified with us, and we with Him. Thus God dealt with us as occupying Christ’s place of worthiness and acceptance. May the Holy Spirit grant both writer and reader such an heart-apprehension of this wondrous and blessed truth, that overflowing gratitude may move us unto fuller devotedness unto Him who loved us and gave Himself for us."

Unquote

The Doctrine of Justification

2009-04-25T22:59:00.010+08:00

My sermon-listening and reading has taken a turn towards understanding the true meaning of justification in the last two weeks, and it has been profitable indeed.

It began with Phil Johnson's excellent sermon on Justification by Faith , which is part of his series on Truth Under Attack. Then I came across a sermon on what the Gospel is all about by John MacArthur which also explored the meaning of Justification. I'm now listening through Phil Johnson's "Evangelism Toolbox" series, where he again deals with Justification as the heart of the Gospel.

Next I was led to read A W Pink's little treatise on The Doctrine of Justification. This is an amazing little volume, and really widened my understanding and appreciation of the plan of salvation. I have just finished it, and I highly recommend it!

Double imputation

It has helped me understand what "double imputation" is all about. By our identification with Christ when He died on the cross and rose from the dead, He acts as our substitute. There is a great exchange whereby our sins are imputed to Him, AND His righteousness is imputed to us.

Justification is more than just the pardon of sins. It is a legal verdict whereby we are declared righteous before God - declared to have fulfilled all the requirements of the Law perfectly! It is not just to have our sins washed away, but to be regarded as though we had lived the perfect life that Christ lived on earth.

An analogy would be as follows:

Supposing all of us have taken loans and we owe the bank a lot of money - sums so impossibly large that we could never repay those loans. Then suppose that the US Federal Reserve declares that anyone who calls a certain telephone number would have their debt cancelled. Those who believe this good news will call up immediately, and their debt would be cancelled. Those who are unable to believe this good news will of course not act on it. They do not call up, and their debt remains unpaid.

This is where we usually stop, but it is only half the story! To have your debt cancelled means that your account goes to zero, from a negative amount. You would be debt-free, but you also wouldn't have any money to buy anything!

To have Christ's righteousness imputed to us - credited to our account - means that not only has the debt for our sins been paid, but the account has been topped up with the righteousness of Christ - a million trillion dollars - enough “credit” to purchase eternal life.

Now, if the idea of purchasing eternal life sounds repugnant to you, it should - if it is done with money. It wouldn't be possible. But the eternal life that was purchased for us, and to which we are entitled, was purchased with the blood of Christ, and the righteous life He lived while He was on earth.

You see, God's promise of life is to those who perfectly fulfill, positively, ALL the righteous requirements of the law perfectly – not just to those who have never sinned.

We possess the righteousness of Christ!

Pink says something almost shocking, but absolutely true. "God doesn't just treat us AS IF we were righteous, we ARE righteous, and are pronounced so by God." It took me a while to digest this. He doesn't mean that we have actually lived a completely righteous life on earth (that would be impossible), but we actually POSSESS Christ's righteousness (a free gift received through faith) in the same way we would possess that million trillion dollars if it had been credited to our bank account (or given to us in cash!):

But not only are the sins of all who truly come to Christ eternally remitted, but the very righteousness of the Redeemer passes over to them, is placed upon them, so that a perfect obedience to the law is imputed to their account. It is theirs, not by promise, but by gift (Rom. 5:17), by actual bestowment. It is not simply that God treats them as if they were righteous, they are righteous and so pronounced by Him. And therefore may each believing soul exclaim, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels" (Isa. 61:10). O that each Christian reader may be enabled to clearly and strongly grasp hold of this glorious fact: that he is now truly righteous in the sight of God, is in actual possession of an obedience which answers every demand of the law.

This unspeakable blessing is bestowed not only by the amazing grace of God, but it is actually required by His inexorable justice. This too was stipulated and agreed upon in the covenant into which the Father entered with the Son. That is why the Redeemer lived here on earth for upwards of thirty years before He went to the cross to suffer the penalty of our sins: He assumed and discharged our responsibilities; as a child, as a youth, as a man, He rendered unto God that perfect obedience which we owed Him. He "fulfilled all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15) for His people, and just as He who knew no sin was made sin for them, so they are now made "the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). And therefore does Jehovah declare, "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee" (Isa. 54:10).

By actually believing with a justifying faith the sinner doth receive Christ Himself, is joined to Him, and becomes immediately an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ. This gives him a right unto and an interest in the benefits of His mediation. By faith in Christ he received not only the forgiveness of sins, but an inheritance among all them that are sanctified (Acts 26:18), the Holy Spirit (given to him) being "the earnest of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:13, 14). The believing sinner may now say "in the LORD have I righteousness" (Isa. 45:24). He is "complete in Him" (Col. 2:10), for by "one offering" the Saviour hath "perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10:14). The believer has been "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6), and stands before the throne of God arrayed in a garment more excellent than that which is worn by the holy angels.

Amen and amen! What a glorious truth!

A response to homosexuality (Part 1)

2009-04-24T23:26:00.010+08:00

(picture courtesy of angrydoc)

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. - 2 Cor 10:4-5

As I said before, there is a spiritual war going on, and it is an ideological one. I have compiled some responses to the common statements made by homosexual activists in justifying their sin, so that my Christian brothers and sisters may know how to respond. I find it very interesting that the arguments sound very familiar, which bespeaks a textbook approach on how to advocate homosexuality. Well, here are some textbook responses!

Homosexuality is not "against nature."

Answer:

Design shows that homosexuality is against nature

If you study the design of any higher order of living creature (whether you believe that design is arrived at by a Creator or by evolution), it will be immediately obvious that, in general, the species is preserved and continued through heterosexual means – that is, by male and female members of that species coming together to produce new life – the process of sexual reproduction (asexual reproduction occurs mainly in single-celled organisms and some plants and fungi).

This is true at the cellular level – there exist distinct male and female DNA chromosomes which are combined during sexual reproduction to produce a new individual.

This is true at the anatomical level – the sexual organs of the male and female of every species are designed to be complementary to each other – to fit each other perfectly, and not to fit another member of the same sex.

This is true at the societal level – families (whether human or animal families) generally consist of one male and one female and their offspring. In every case, the offspring is the result of male and female sexual union.

It is therefore perfectly reasonable to conclude that heterosexuality is the natural order of things, and that homosexuality is an aberration of nature.

Homosexuality is genetically determined.

Answer:

The reason why this is such an attractive argument is that homosexuals can then say: “I can't help it - my genes made me do it.”

The fact of the matter is that to this date, there has been no conclusive proof of any genetic basis for homosexuality (apart from the innate total depravity of mankind, which includes but is certainly not confined to homosexuality).

In the early 1990's a rash of scientific research studies purportedly proving the genetic basis of homosexuality appeared. It is very likely that if you engage in a discussion with a homosexual activist, these studies will be quoted, in order to intimidate and awe and shut you up. As Anthony Standen, a scientist, wrote in his book: “Science is a Sacred Cow”:

“When a white-robed scientist momentarily looking away from his microscope or his cyclotron, makes some pronouncement for the general public, he may not be understood, but at least he is certain to be believed. No one ever doubts what is said by a scientist. Statesmen, industrialists, ministers of religion, civic leaders, philosophers, all are questioned and criticized, but scientists, never. Scientists are exalted beings who stand at the very topmost pinnacle of popular prestige, for they have the monopoly of the formula, ‘it has been scientifically proved,’ which appears to rule out all possibility of disagreement.

Thus, the world is divided into scientists who practice the art of infallibility and non-scientists, sometimes contemptuously called laymen, who are taken in by it. The laymen see the prodigious things that science has done and they are impressed and overawed. Science has achieved so many things that it is hard to believe that it can be wrong in anything. Since it is only human nature to accept such flattery, the scientists accept the laymen's opinion about themselves. The laymen, on the other hand, get their information about scientists from the scientists. And so the whole thing goes round and round like the whip at Coney Island.”

And so there is an attempt to supplant the authority of the Bible with the infallibility of the scientist. But I digress...

LeVay's brain studies

In 1991, Simon LeVay (who is a homosexual) published a study which seemed to show that there was a difference in the size of a certain part of the brain (called INAH3), depending on whether the subject was heterosexual or homosexual. This study was strongly criticized for its small sample size (41 cadavers), the fact that the sexual histories were inadequate (try asking a cadaver for his or her sexual preference!), the method of measuring the INAH3 size, and the fact that many of the cadavers were prisoners who had died of AIDS related diseases, which may have affected the size of INAH3. You can read more here.

Bailey and Pillard's twin studies

In 1991 again, Bailey (a gay activist) and Pillard (a homosexual) published a study on identical and non-identical twins trying to prove that there was a genetic basis for homosexuality. Again, there was strong criticism of the small sample size (100), the fact that all the respondents were recruited from ads placed in “gay” publications, and that there was no attempt to remove the confounding factor of the twins being raised in the same home and exposed to the same environmental factors! A study done by the British Journal of Psychiatry in 1992 attempted to replicate the results (an important scientific principle to prove or disprove a study) and came up with entirely different results).

Hamer's chromosomal studies

In 1993, Dr Dean Hamer (a homosexual) examined the X-chromosomes of 40 pairs of gay brothers, and claimed to have found 33 genetic markers for homosexuality. A later study in 1999 thoroughly debunked his findings. Read more...

More on these three studies.

I find it interesting that these studies all appeared at about the same time, and by openly gay activists, in order to prove what they wanted to prove. The people who quote these studies to intimidate you will not tell you the shortcomings and criticisms of the studies, and certainly not about the fact that they have been debunked by later studies.

There are more than 300 animal species in which homosexuality has been documented to exist. Therefore homosexuality is “natural”.

Answer:

Aberrations occur in nature, including (but not confined to) homosexuality in animals – for instance, animals are born deformed, they go berserk and rampage, they kill their own young, they mutilate themselves.

The fact that homosexuality has been documented in only 300 out of millions of species certainly does not make it “natural” - on the contrary, it simply underscores the truth that it is UNnatural, the exception to the rule!

In any species, the individuals practising homosexuality will die out, because they do not reproduce themselves. This can hardly be natural.

In the Christian worldview, aberrations exist in nature as a result of the fact that the earth was cursed because of Adam's sin (Gen 3:17-19), and creation itself is now in bondage to corruption (Rom 8:21). If not for sin, there wouldn't be any disease, because all creatures, including microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses, would be non-pathogenic!

We should fight discrimination against homosexuals, just as we have fought discrimination against women, racial minorities and the disabled.

Answer:

This FAQ gives a very good answer to this statement:

Since other groups who have been discriminated against (such as women, blacks and the disabled) have been given equal opportunity, homosexuals claim that they, too, should be liberated. However, as one Christian expert has said …

“Gender, race and impairment all relate to what a person is, whereas homosexuality relates to what a person does.”

In contrast, homosexuals claim that scientific studies have shown that there is a biological basis for homosexuality.

Three main studies are cited by “gay rights” activists in support of their argument: Hamer's X-chromosome research, LeVay's study of the hypothalamus, and Bailey and Pillard's study of identical twins who were homosexuals.

In all three cases, the researchers had a vested interest in obtaining a certain outcome because they were homosexuals themselves. More importantly, their studies did not stand up to scientific scrutiny by other researchers. Also, “the media typically do not explain the methodological flaws in these studies, and they typically oversimplify the results”. There is no reliable evidence to date that homosexual behavior is determined by a person's genes.

To the extent that biological or social factors may contribute to a person's bent toward homosexual behavior, this does not excuse it. Some people have a strong bent towards stealing or abuse of alcohol, but they still choose to engage or not engage in this behavior because the law rightly holds them accountable.

(To be continued...)

A word to fellow Christians

2009-04-24T23:13:00.005+08:00

As Christians, what should be our response to homosexuals?

I can't do better than to quote the last two paragraphs in this excellent FAQ on the Christian perspective on homosexuality:

Q. What should be the Christian's attitude toward the homosexual?

We must always keep before us the fact that homosexuals, like all of us sinners, are the objects of God's love. The Bible says, "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Jesus Christ "is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (I John 2:2). The Christian who shares God's love for lost sinners will seek to reach the homosexual with the gospel of Christ, which "is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth" (Romans 1:16). As a Christian I should hate all sin but I can find no justification for hating the sinner. The homosexual is a precious soul for whom Christ died. We Christians can show him the best way of life by pointing him to Christ. Our Lord said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). We are obligated to take the gospel to all.

Q. How can we help Christians who get involved in the practice of homosexuality?

We can help them by seeking to draw their attention to what God says in His Word. In a kind and loving spirit we can show them that they are wrong. However, the homosexual must admit to the fact that he is living in sin and that he has the desire to be made free from it. Without a genuine conviction of God's displeasure and a strong desire to do God's will, there is no hope. A truly born again person cannot continue to practice sin without reaping the results of miserable unhappiness brought on by loss of fellowship with God, the fear of retribution and the anxiety produced by guilt. The homosexual must ask himself, "Is the temporary gratification of the flesh worth all the penalty and losses I must suffer?"

Why bother?

I am honestly quite bemused at how this particular subject of homosexuality and the AWARE saga is gripping my attention so strongly. I would rather be immersing myself in the wonders of the Gospel, learning more and more about justification and grace and the beauty of God's holiness, and getting to know Him who is my all in all.

I am not one who believes that "all that is required for evil to flourish is for good men to remain silent," because I don't believe there are any good men. There are only sinners saved by grace, servants of the most high God.

I certainly do not believe that the outcome of this spiritual war depends on the efforts of men (and women), but on the sovereign, overruling will of God regarding human affairs. In fact, I rather think that we are about to see what Jesus clearly predicted - that iniquity will abound, and the love of many will wax cold:

Then they will deliver you up to be afflicted and will kill you. And you will be hated of all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another. And many false prophets will rise and deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will become cold. - Matt 24:9-12

I believe that in the midst of all this wickedness, God will gather His elect from every nation and redeem them, and then He will wipe the slate clean (Matt 24:14).

Why speak up against homosexuality?

I speak up not because I hate homosexuals or fear them. I don't. Like Dr Thio, I have spoken to quite a few homosexuals in the course of my work as a doctor. My general impression is that they are all deeply unhappy individuals (I've known a few of them for some time, and that was my impression of them BEFORE they told me they were homosexuals). Not one of them is in a happy stable relationship, so to me the myth of a happy homosexual couple is just that - largely a myth. If asked to describe how I feel about them, I would say I pity them.

I speak up against the militant activists who would promote the cause of homosexuality as a testimony against them, because I know their outright rebellion against God grieves Him (Rom 1:32). They glory in their shame (Phil 3:19). They oppose the truth and would seek to silence those who speak out against their wickedness (2 Tim 3:8-9). They also entice others into their slavery (2 Pet 2:14,18-19).

I speak up because I have children in school. As Anita Bryant said: "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children."

But most importantly, I speak up because I believe it is simply what God would have us do as Christians - to warn those who will turn and repent, and as a testimony against the wickedness of the rest of our generation (Ezek 33:1-17).

Paper pastors

2009-04-22T00:43:00.004+08:00

Wow!

How did he know?

This one really hit me in the solar plexus - I think it was written just to rebuke me. An excerpt:

Now, some professed Christians sin outright, by never physically attending an actual, in-person church. We've talked about that, and they aren't our focus.

But others do attend a church — physically. They come in, they sit down. They sing, they may give financially. They may look at you, Pastor, as you preach.

But you know their heart belongs to another.

Their real pastor isn't you. It's Dave Hunt. Or it's John Piper. Or it's John MacArthur, or Ligon Duncan, or Mark Dever, or David Cloud, or Joel Osteen. Or it's Charles Spurgeon, or D. M. Lloyd-Jones, or J. C. Ryle. Or Calvin, or Luther, or Bahnsen, or de Mar, or R. B. Thieme, or J. Vernon McGee.

And they're such better pastors than you are! You know they are!

Why?

Well, paper pastors are never in a bad mood. They're never cranky, or sleepy or sick. (Especially the dead ones.)

They've never just had someone else pull their guts out with a rusty fork, and then had to turn and listen graciously to your complaint about the translation they preach from, or argue about a Greek word you can't even pronounce. They don't have a family who loses the time you use. They never half-listen, never have an appointment that cuts short their time. Their office hours are your office hours. They're available 24/7, and everywhere, at your whim, and you always have their undivided attention.

What's more is they always have all the answers! They can tell you with complete confidence and masterful eloquence. They never stammer, guess, nor search their memory. And they can prove it — whatever they're saying! With footnotes!...

Being AWARE of Satan's schemes

2009-04-20T00:17:00.011+08:00

In order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. - 2 Cor 2:11 (NIV)

Why Christians must take a stand

To many Christians (including myself, up to a very short time ago), homosexuality is not an important issue. Why should we quibble about it, when it's more important to get on with preaching the gospel? After all, aren't we all totally depraved sinners (homosexuals and heterosexuals alike) who need the grace and mercy of God? Why should we focus on homosexuality, out of the great litany of other sins that all of us are guilty of?

It was only recently that I was convicted of the fact that it was time to draw a line in the sand and take a stand.

Both 2 Peter 2:2-22 and Jude 1:4-16 paint a compelling picture of false teachers - the liberals and emergent church leaders of today. The descriptions could well apply to secular humanists as well, because liberalism is nothing more than humanism by another name. No matter what they call themselves, these are the people who would usually endorse the gay agenda. Notice who Peter singles out as facing greater judgement:

And especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones. (2 Pet 2:10).

An inclination to sexual immorality (all forms of it, not just homosexuality but fornication, adultery and other types of sexual perversion) is often associated with an inclination to despise authority. They go together like bees and honey.

Albert Barnes comments on this verse:

They regard all government in the state, the church, and the family, as an evil. Advocates for unbridled freedom of all sorts; declaimers on liberty and on the evils of oppression; defenders of what they regard as the rights of injured man, and yet secretly themselves lusting for the exercise of the very power which they would deny to others - they make no just distinctions about what constitutes true freedom, and in their zeal array themselves against government in all forms. No topic of declamation would be more popular than this, and from none would they hope to secure more followers; for if they could succeed in removing all respect for the just restraints of law, the way would be open for the accomplishment of their own purposes, in setting up a dominion over the minds of others. It is a common result of such views, that men of this description become impatient of the government of God himself, and seek to throw off all authority, and to live in the unrestrained indulgence of their vicious propensities.

When men are self-willed, and when they purpose to give indulgence to corrupt propensities, it is natural for them to dislike all government. Accordingly, it is by no means an unfrequent effect of certain forms of error to lead men to speak disrespectfully of those in authority, and to attempt to throw off all the restraints of law. It is a very certain indication that men hold wrong opinions when they show disrespect to those in authority, and despise the restraints of law.

This is in fact what the debate on repealing Section 377A was all about, isn't it?

Notice also that Sodom and Gomorrah are featured prominently as examples in both these passages. What were Sodom and Gomorrah known for? They were known for being utterly destroyed (Gen 19:24-25) as a result of their great wickedness (Gen 13:13), which was their (unanimous!) tolerance and practice of homosexuality (Gen 19:4-5).

Notice, finally, that Lot, whom God rescued (along with his two daughters), was greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (2 Pet 2:7). He was tormented over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard (2 Pet 2:8). We should well examine ourselves if we find that our souls are not tormented by the unrighteous acts of the ungodly.

Why it's actually about spiritual warfare

No, I'm not talking about taking authority and casting out demons and binding them.

Spiritual warfare is all about ideology. It is about “destroying strongholds and arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive to obey Christ." (2 Cor 10:4-5).

Whether or not there was initially a planned takeover of AWARE to counter the homosexual agenda is a moot point. Josie Lau denies it, and if she is telling the truth, then God must have arranged it. Whatever the case, the fact is that it is now perceived as the main issue. The lines have been clearly drawn.

Jenica Chua, when asked during the meeting whether she accepted homosexuality, flatly replied: “No.”

Claire Nazar (to her credit) had written an excellent defence of the Christian view of homosexuality during the S377A debates in 2007. Sadly, she has backpedalled on this. As reported in the Straits Times: "Sighing, she said: 'For the record, I am not anti-gay.'"

Dana Lam, former AWARE president, has said: “AWARE is not about whether we are for or against Christianity; AWARE is not about whether we are for or against homosexuality.”

But in fact that is precisely the issue, as everyone knows. But it goes deeper than that.

The real issue – can you trust the Bible?

The issue of homosexuality - for the Christian - is really about the authority of the Bible - whether it can be believed when it says that homosexuality is an abomination. If the Bible is to be believed, then the message of Christianity is true. If the Bible is irrelevant, then so is Christianity.

One concern would be the fact that AWARE conducts sex education courses in our schools. You can see why that would be a concern if you don't believe homosexuality is a valid lifestyle choice, but the person teaching your child does. You can see where this is going.

In case you're not aware, there is a battle royal being waged in America over the gay marriage issue. There is no question of criminality - gays have been “accepted” for a long time, and now they are pushing for same-sex marriages to be legally recognised. Next will be the re-introduction of “hate crimes” legislation, where it will be criminally punishable to “discriminate” against gay people (whichever way you want to define discrimination). This will obviously take away your ability to state your beliefs if you happen to think that homosexuality is a sin. This, in the land of liberty. As you can see, we in Singapore have much to be thankful for (and consequently much to lose, if we are not careful).

Regaining perspective

Homosexuality is not a new sin. It is also not a sin which has only recently become tolerated and widely accepted. Sodom and Gomorrah are testimony to that fact. But just because it's been around a long time does not make it right or natural (I just saw an advertisement for a book that documents the practice of homosexuality in China for the last 2000 years). Human depravity has been around since Adam.

Homosexuality is also not the only sin there is. There are many other sins, and every man and woman stands guilty of transgressing God's law. But homosexuality is a sin nonetheless, and is not to be continued in if a person truly believes and repents, because we know that those who practise homosexuality will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9).

I am not a homophobe (the word means someone who fears homosexuals and homosexuality, and I don't fear them). Hate crimes against homosexuals are not to be condoned.

But Christians have a right (and a responsibility!) to declare the plain truth of what God says about homosexuality. In short, to be able to simply say: “In case you were not aware – God says, in the Bible, that homosexuality is a sin and an abomination” and to call sinners to repentance, sharing with them the good news about how Jesus came to save us and set us free from our sins.

Satan's schemes

Satan is a master of deception. But before I go further, let me say this: I am a Calvinist, not a pessimist. I believe that God will ultimately triumph, that His justice (and mercy, and all is other attributes) will be displayed for all to see, and that He will ultimately be justified in all He does. That He is sovereign over all, and that there is not a single maverick molecule (to borrow an expression from Paul Washer) in the entire universe.

Nevertheless, while we are here on earth, we will have to deal with Satan and his schemes. We are to be wise as sepents and innocent as doves (Matt 10:16). There are layers of intrigue, deception, subterfuge and shadows in his tactics. We are not to imitate him! Rather, we are to renounce underhanded ways and declare God's truth plainly (2 Cor 4:2)!

The weapons of our warfare!

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. - Eph 6:10-20

I am working on a series of responses I would give to anyone who asks me about my views on homosexuality, and the reason why I hold such views. This will also include responses to the common objections to such views. I will be posting it up shortly, and may it bless and help my Christian brothers and sisters out there.

Rejoice!

2009-04-17T22:16:00.012+08:00

And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. - Lev 23:40

I've just finished reading Leviticus and embarked on Numbers.

The word “rejoice” only occurs once in Leviticus. Perhaps this is why it stood out for me when I first read it, but I only realised this fact (that it occurs only once) when I did a search for it. I found this intriguing because, in a way, this word defines the book of Leviticus for me. Maybe that's why God used it only once in this book - to make it stand out.

Strange to say, but the laws on sacrifices, offerings, feasts and other matters to be found in Leviticus evoke in me a sense of great joy. They reflect on a God who is holy, and worthy to rejoice in.

I can imagine two Jews taking part in the sacrifices and offerings and the various feasts. One sees these rituals and ceremonies as burdensome and wearisome to the flesh, and takes part in them only because he is commanded to.

The other KNOWS in his heart the God who ordained these laws and, by faith, can see beyond the ceremonies to catch a glimpse of the grace typified in the sacrifices and offerings and feasts, that they provide a way to approach and worship YHWH, which would otherwise not be possible for sinful creatures.

He sees the importance of holiness for the priests who intercede for him, as well as the importance of personal holiness, separating between the clean and the unclean. And he rejoices in this, that YHWH is good, and has provided a way for him to be cleansed in order that he may approach Him who is holy!

He sees that YHWH makes a way for his sins to be atoned for, and he rejoices in that!

He sees the practical laws on how he may love his neighbour, practising justice and mercy, and he rejoices that in this way he has been shown how he can honour and love YHWH!

He sees the promise of blessing for obedience and punishment for disobedience, and he “rejoices with trembling” that he worships a just and holy God!

It will not escape the careful reader that the rejoicing exhorted in this verse of Leviticus foreshadows the rejoicing of the Jews during Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem! And so we rejoice in Christ, who fulfills the law, which spoke of Him.

Housing the soul in Him alone

2009-04-14T20:15:00.000+08:00

To those who are able to undergo the strain of faith, God allows all sorts of disappointments, the death of bright hopes, the removing of earthly friendships... to compel the soul to house itself in Him alone.
- J Oswald Sanders

Tozer the Arminian

2009-04-12T23:51:00.009+08:00

The inescapable conclusion I have drawn from his writings is that A W Tozer was pretty much an Arminian, as were Charles Finney and John Wesley, whom he admired greatly. Tozer was also obviously deeply influenced by the spiritual mystics of old.

So he wasn't perfect, even though he was a GREAT writer, and had the gift of articulating deep spiritual truths with great clarity.

Now, that is not to say that I believe Tozer was not saved. Far from it. His great love of God, and knowledge of the attributes of God and the work of the Holy Spirit shines through his writings. No man who loved God the way Tozer did could possibly be lost. But I can safely say that Tozer was mistaken on the issue of Calvinism and the bondage of the will (for he held that all men had the ability to choose).

So we see that there are these great men of God who were Arminian in outlook, and yet served God's purpose in their day.

Mark Driscoll does not seem to think it matters. He says: "I was saved at nineteen - if you are a Calvinist, God saved me then; if you are Arminian, I accepted Jesus into my life then. Whatever. I met Jesus".

Does it matter or not?

Knowing in part (1 Cor 13:9-12)

I think that we learn more and more of the truth progressively, as God reveals it to us "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little" (Isa 28:9,10), as we go through life. Even as I read through my earlier writings, I am horrified by some of the things I had accepted as truth in my early baby formulations of faith. But I thank God that, in His faithfulness, He continues to teach me more of His great truth day by day.

I know that there was once I was an Arminian, even though I was saved. Now I am a Calvinist, and deeply assured of my salvation.

While it behooves me to be humble to realize that I was not born with a complete understanding of the whole truth, I do not fall into the post-modern error of coming to the conclusion that it is impossible to ever know the truth for sure. Indeed, as I learn more each day, and base my knowledge of the truth more and more upon the rock of scripture, rather than the traditions and teachings of men, I become more assured of its veracity, and more willing to die for it, if need be.

There is also the inward witness of the Spirit that has not failed me, in recognizing truth when I see it. Phil Johnson, in his excellent sermon on "Programs! Get your programs!" (which is part of this series) lists a long litany of the evangelical "fads" that have come and gone, which I have seen in my lifetime.

It has been my experience that what is false somehow sets off a little red warning light deep inside, whereas the truth, when you encounter it (say, in the writings of J C Ryle and Jonathan Edwards), has the unmistakable ring of truth, because it is based solidly upon the Word of God. I think Jesus explains it when He said: "My sheep know my voice" (John 10:4-5), and John elaborates on this in 1 John 4:5-6.

This is how Paris Reidhead puts it:

Have you ever been listening to something being taught – oh, perhaps in a service, or on television or radio – and you said: “That doesn’t sound right to me…”? “I can’t put my finger on it – I don’t have a verse, but there’s something about that that just doesn’t sound right….” You know what could very well be happening? God the Holy Ghost is causing that unction to exercise in you. And it’s therefore extremely important for you to become sensitive to what the Spirit of God may be saying. Why is it important? Because it’s this unction that will preserve us against the antichrists now, for there are many.

So, does it matter whether you are an Arminian or a Calvinist?

I don't think believing in the doctrine of election is essential to salvation - all that is required is a saving faith in Jesus Christ, and the regeneration of the heart that is the work of the Holy Spirit alone. God is able to save both Arminians and Calvinists (whether the Arminian believes this or not!)

But I do think a proper understanding of the Biblical doctrine of election provides a wonderful basis for the assurance of salvation in the heart of a Christian - salvation by a God Who is able to save to the uttermost, and from Whose hands nobody will be able to snatch His elect.

It also provides the correct basis for the proclamation of the Gospel - for the sake of the elect, that all who are appointed to eternal life may hear and believe, and that to the rest it will be a savour of death to death. This takes off all the "performance pressure" from the one who faithfully proclaims the Gospel! The Arminian, if he merely stops to think about the eternal consequences of his potential failure (if Arminianism is true), must surely find the pressure unbearable!

I suspect Tozer may have changed his mind towards the end of his life, as he looks a lot more relaxed than John Wesley and Charles Finney, who look positively grim! I have his book "God's pursuit of man" (the sequel to his excellent book, "The pursuit of God") on my bookshelf, and have yet to read it, but the title itself seems rather Calvinistic, don't you think?

The Loneliness of the Saint

2009-04-11T09:58:00.003+08:00

I'm reading "The Radical Cross" by A W Tozer at the moment, and he nails it on the head, as far as my own experience is concerned, when he describes the loneliness of the saint.

The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone. The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way.

The man who has passed on into the divine presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. A certain amount of social fellowship will of course be his as he mingles with religious persons in the regular activities of the church, but true spiritual fellowship will be hard to find. But he should not expect things to be otherwise. After all, he is a stranger and a pilgrim, and the journey he takes is not on his feet but in his heart. He walks with God in the garden of his own soul - and who but God can walk there with him?

He is of another spirit from the multitudes that tread the courts of the Lord's house. He has seen that of which they have only heard, and he walks among them somewhat as Zacharias walked after his return from the altar when the people whispered, "He has seen a vision" (see Luke 1:22).

The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity. He lives not for himself but to promote the interests of Another. He seeks to persuade people to give all to his Lord and asks no portion or share for himself. He delights not to be honored but to see his Savior glorified in the eyes of men. His joy is to see his Lord promoted and himself neglected. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens.

He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces (see Psalm 45:8), and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart. It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. "Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me" (Psalm 27:10).

His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else. He learns in inner solitude what he could not have learned in the crowd - that Christ is All in all, that He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, that in Him we have and possess life's summum bonum.

Two things remain to be said. One, that the lonely man of whom we speak is not a haughty man, nor is he the holier-than-thou, austere saint so bitterly satirized in popular literature. He is likely to feel that he is the least of all men and is sure to blame himself for his very loneliness. He wants to share his feelings with others and to open his heart to some like-minded soul who will understand him, but the spiritual climate around him does not encourage it, so he remains silent and tells his griefs to God alone.

The second thing is that the lonely saint is not the withdrawn man who hardens himself against human suffering and spends his days contemplating the heavens. Just the opposite is true. His loneliness makes him sympathetic to the approach of the brokenhearted and the fallen and the sin-bruised. Because he is detached from the world he is all the more able to help it.

He died for us

2009-04-10T13:06:00.005+08:00

When we were sinners Jesus came
And took upon Himself the blame
Willing to bear our sin and shame
He died for us

The Son of God became a man
Fulfilling God's eternal plan
Conceived before the world began
He died for us

Chorus - (Sorry, can't make out the words)

And so God offers to each one
The price of pardon for what we've done
Because of Jesus, His own son
Who died for us

He died for us

(an old song from an old tape by Cam Floria - remember them?)

Deliverance and Power

2009-04-05T20:11:00.003+08:00

A very simple and powerful sermon.

To summarize:

1. The Moral Law condemns our past sins. The answer is in Romans 5 - Christ died for us.

2. The law of sin and death controls us. The answer is in Romans 6 - Christ died as us.

3. The law of the Spirit of life gives us power. Romans 8 - Christ in us.

Three problems

There are three problems that confront all of us, and we would see these three problems clearly before we see the answers to them.

The first problem that you face as a morally responsible person is the problem of what you have done. That is, the sins of the past. God is a just and righteous God, and He has said: “The soul that sinneth, it shall surely die.” Thus the first problem is the problem of guilt that we have incurred because of our revolt and our rebellion against God. What are we going to do about the past?

The second problem is: What are we going to do about ourselves? It's not only what we've done that haunts us, but it's what we are, what we know ourselves to be - our nature, our trait, our character and our tendency - all of which seem to have a gravitational pull in the direction of evil.

So the first problem: What we've done. The second problem: What we are. How are we ever going to escape from the tyranny of our own nature and personality?

And then the third problem is this: How are we going to be able to do what we've now come to want to do, and know we ought to do? And so the third problem is that of power - of ability - to be the kind of person that we know we ought to be, and to have the ministry that we understand we ought to have.

Three problems - what we've done, what we are and how we're going to be able to do what we know we ought to do.

The Law of God

Now I find, in this portion here, of Romans 7, three laws that correspond to these three problems. And if you will turn to Romans 7:14, I believe you will see. Let's begin, however, with v 7, shall we?

“What shall we say, then? Is the Law sin? God forbid. I had not known sin, but for the law, for I had not known lust, except the Law had said: Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of evil desire, for without the law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the Law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the Law is holy, and the commandments holy and just and good. Was then, that which is good, made death unto me? God forbid! But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin, by the commandment, might become exceeding sinful.”

Conviction of sin

We discover, by means of the Law, our guilt. Perhaps you've had the experience of witnessing in prison (I hope that you've been on the outside of the bars witnessing to those within them). My experience in prison or jail ministry is this: That from what you hear from within the bars, our courts have a record of almost 99 and 44/100 percent of miscarriages of justice. I have on one occasion met a man who admitted to guilt - but only one. Almost invariably, on other occasions, it's been a bought judge, or jury, or a crooked lawyer, or witnesses that agreed together to thwart justice. From the conversation of the people within the bars, it seems that all of the good people are within and all of the bad people are without. Now, they have been condemned, but in their own minds, they've never been convicted. You see, conviction is not an action of law. In the scriptural sense, conviction is an attitude toward one's self. Now, obviously, the attitude of the Law toward these individuals is that they're guilty. We understand that there's a minority of cases, a small fraction, where there could be the possibility of a miscarriage of justice. This we realize. But, by and large, the evidence was sufficient to indicate that the one that is there had reason for being placed behind the bars. They are there, but so frequently, they are not convicted.

Now, there's a reason for this. We're rational beings, and everything that we do seems good to us at the time that we do it, even if it's bad. For instance, a person that commits theft is convinced that in his condition, with the dire pressures that are upon him, and the great needs that he has, and the way that nature's been so unfair to him, and others have so much, and he so little, that it is really fair and right and just that he should steal - because he is a rational being. And though he knows it - from a certain standard without - to be wrong; by that inward standard - by which he measures his present conduct - it's right! He did the right thing. So with murder. So with every crime that could ever be listed.

The Law says: “Thou shalt not…” But because the criminal is rational, because he acts in what he judges to be a proper manner, he has convinced himself that for him, in this situation, it's justifiable to commit adultery. It's justifiable to steal. It's justifiable to lie. It's justifiable to murder. Because no one has ever had the pressures that he's had, or the reasons that he's had, and if any judge in any court of Law knew all that there is to be known, they would agree that he was acting properly for him, at this time, to do it. And this is the rationale of all law-breaking. It seems right to the person even though it's enormously wrong.

So the function of law, therefore, is not only to capture and corner the culprit, but also to convince him that what he did was wrong. And thus God gave a measure. He did a very wonderful thing when He gave us this measure. He not only put it without, but He put it within, so that there could be and outward and an inward testimony.

The upper and lower millstones

Charles Finney has a sermon that is outstanding in its directness and its clarity on this point. He calls it the outer and the inward witness of the law. He uses another analogy. I've spoken of a yardstick or measure that God puts within. Finney spoke of it as a millstone. Perhaps you can visualize the old millstone - a huge piece of granite or other hard rock, that was chipped and shaped round, with a hole for the axle at the centre. And then ridges would be cut, so that the grain could be ground.

Now, the function of the millstone was to crush the grain. And so, the ridges on the lower millstone corresponded almost exactly to the ones on the upper millstone, the grain would be poured in the centre and gradually worked its way to the outside, eth while being crushed. And so Finney said: When God made man, he put within him a lower millstone. This lower millstone we call “conscience”, or that knowledge with which we were endowed by the creative act of God. God, in other words, wrote the Law upon the fleshly tables of the heart.

God exists

Isn't it interesting that our Bible noticeably lacks in two areas? First, it doesn't prove the existence of God, which philosophers have been vainly trying to do for centuries. Some months ago I was asked to go to Brooklyn College in New York City, to speak to the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship chapter on the theme: The Proof for the Existence of God. When I got there, my opening statement was that it's utterly impossible for me or anyone else to prove that God exists. And the students looked with wide-eyed faces why I should say such a thing. O, I said, there is sufficient evidence that He exists, but you asked to prove it. And because the evidence is to be weighed by the individual who questions the existence of God, and that individual could take evidence quite sufficient for another person and simply say: “It doesn't prove it to me…” - it's impossible to prove to a skeptical and unwilling mind that God exists. But I said - I know He exists. I know it. The Bible is noticeably free from every effort to prove that God exists. If Genesis began any other way than it does, there'd be real reason to question the Bible - its inspiration and its authority. If, for instance, it started out to prove that there is a God, then we could doubt its inspiration. But, you see, God was addressing the book to people whom He already knew had the information that He existed, because He'd built that information into them, and it wasn't necessary to prove it, for only those who knew He existed could possibly read the book that He was giving to them, and it would have been utterly redundant and unnecessary for Him to have done it, and would have discredited its inspiration. But because the Bible begins: “In the beginning, God…”, we know there's no need for argument, because the only ones who can read those words are the ones who have the knowledge that God exists. It already is part of the very structure of their personality and being.

The Law is good

So with the law. God does not prove to anyone - by any argument of philosophy - that the Law is just and holy and good. But however horrendous the criminal may be, however vile the person may be, however degraded they may be, you need not ever prove that the Law is just and holy and good, because God has already written that Law upon their consciences. God doesn't prove it is just and holy and good, He states it. Because the individual has been built, he's been fabricated, he's been made with the Law already as a basic part of his personality. This is what's within.

My experience in the mission field a decade ago proved to me that tribes that had never seen a missionary, or heard the name of Christ, knew by “that knowledge that lighteth every man that comes into the world”, that the Law was right. We didn't have to tell them - they knew it!

Now this is that inner millstone. This is the Law of conscience. This is that which we have reference made in Romans 2 - when it declares - “when they (the Gentiles, the pagans) which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a Law unto themselves, which show the work of the Law written on their hearts, their consciences, the mean while, condemning or else excusing.

The Law convicts of sin

And so, the picture is this: God made us with the Law as a millstone, using Finney's analogy. And so it's turning, and then what happens? As the intellect acquires sophistication, and rationalisation and argument, and as the conscience is seared by practice, this millstone that turns, is soon covered with an overlay of chaff and filth and dirt, so that the repeated actions fall upon it, but there's no longer any grinding effect. And this is where the proper preaching of the Word comes. When, a hundred years ago, more or less, certain Bible teachers declared that this, being the Dispensation of Grace, no longer needed the preaching of the law, they took from the Holy Ghost the only weapon with which He'd ever armed Himself to prepare men for grace, because there's nothing in the essence of Gospel to convict of sin. It's the answer to the convicted sinner's need, but it doesn't convict of sin. But by the Law is the knowledge of sin. For the Law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And the Law was given that every mouth might be stopped and all the world might become guilty before God. Therefore, before it is appropriate to say: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, it is absolutely necessary for us to say: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die!” Because until one is aware of his sins, he has no appreciation whatever for the death of Christ. This is the function of the Law - the Moral Law. The Civil Law, we understand, was given to guide the nation, as they were the object lessons, witnessing to the people around them by their conduct. The Ceremonial Law was given as types and shadows, by which we could understand that Lord Jesus Christ whe He came, picturing Him in His various office work. And so it is the Moral Law to which we refer - this revelation of the unchanging and unchangeable character of God. And it is this Law that the apostle says is “just and holy and good.”

Now, think of this Law in the book, as being the upper millstone. And when it is properly applied, as belonging to morally responsible men and women, do you see the effect? Here, by the power of the Holy Ghost, the truth concerning God's requirements upon responsible men, comes to bear upon the human spirit. But there's already a Law that's turning, always covered over with filth. It's covered over with sophisticated arguments. It's covered over with casual indifference. But as the truth bears upon it, it begins to grind all this filth away, and soon the human spirit is caught between the upper and the lower millstone, and all is ground away until it has done its work of dividing between soul and spirit, and exposing the individual to the fact that he is a rebel against God, a traitor against God, an anarchist and an enemy, and certainly a transgressor, and under the sentence of death.

And this it is the good office work of the Holy Ghost, in His initial contact with us, to show us that what we have done in the past constitutes crime, and that we stand justly condemned before the tribunal of wisdom and righteousness as worthy of death. Do you see this?

The sinner is a rebel

Then the first problem is what we've done, why did we do what we did? We did it because we loved ourselves, lived to please ourselves. The essence of our crime was that we were idolaters who worshipped ourselves. Not a very nice picture. Man a traitor, and a rebel, and an enemy, and an anarchist. And what he did - he's not in trouble with God because of what he did. The reason that God is angry with a sinner is not because he lied. The reason He's angry with a sinner is because the man is a self-idolater, and worships himself, and rules his life, and has openly defied God and said that he is god, and will do what he pleases and he will not have this God to rule over him. And the lie is but just a little shot that's being fired over the ramparts of his defiance. It wasn't the few balls that fell on Fort Sumter that started the Civil War. It was that a section of the country had defied law and government and justice. It was this that made those shots significant. Otherwise they could have been laughed off. But it couldn't be laughed off when it was understood that it represented the attitude of rebellion. And it necessitated the Civil War. And so it is that the lie that the sinner pronounces is simply an evidence of his open treason against God. Well, he's under the sentence of death.

Christ died for helpless sinners

What is the answer? Well, the answer to this problem as to what man has done is found in Romans 5. If you turn to it now, you'll see why I've chosen it. We look at v 6, because we begin there with this first characteristic of man: "Without strength." Not in without strength of sin, for the rebel turned all the power of his personality into his sin. But without strength to either change his heart and attitude or to do anything about his past crime. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for those who had no god but themselves - the ungodly. This is what ungodly means - no God. They were themselves their own god.

But we look at v 8 - But God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Look at v 10 - For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. So we see three things: We were without strength, we were without a God, we were sinners, and we were enemies. And this gives to us the measure of the love of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ died for us - He died for us. In our place. And in our stead. He died for us. That's the message of Romans 5. This is a man's answer to a guilty conscience. This is the answer to one who stands condemned in the presence of God - Christ died for us. This is the answer to the past, this mountain of accumulated guilt - every crime that we've committed against eternal justice and holiness. Here is the answer - Christ died for us. We'll never get beyond this, we'll never outgrow our need for this truth.

So if I speak to one tonight who's come in without strength to do anything about your past. Do you realize this, that if you were to somehow, tonight, purpose to perfectly please God from today on and succeed in doing it, that that perfect obedience from this moment would not acquire, in the remainder of your life, enough merit to atone for one past sin, because God exacts, and God demands perfect obedience, and there's no merit for giving Him the minimal requirement.

Christ came to save the lost

And so we're without strength to do anything about it. If you've realized how utterly hopeless it is, you may remember what Martin Luther saw there as he did vain penances on the steps in Rome, that it was not by such works that justification came, but the inward illumination given by the Holy Ghost that marked the Reformation was this: The just shall live by faith. Therefore being justified by faith, that Christ died for us. O, guilt sinner - have you ever been lost? Do I speak to some who've been lost? Some years ago, I was addressing a company of people - about a hundred in number. I said: How many of you have ever been lost? Four hands were raised. And now I said: How many of you are saved? And about a hundred hands were raised. I said: Isn't this amazing? The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. The only ones He sought, the only ones He had any provision for, the only ones for whom He could do anything was the lost, and only four of you have ever been lost. And yet all of you think you've been saved.

My friend, He only came to save the hopeless, without strength, the ungodly, enemies, sinners. And such were we. Have you seen it? Has the Spirit of God done His good office work in your heart? And brought you to the place where you've discovered that from the top of your head to the sole of your feet, there were wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and all your righteousnesses were as filthy, pestilential rags? O, what's the answer? Someone said: The good people are in church. O no, no. The good people are outside. The bad people are in church. The only ones that are in the church, His body, are those that were absolutely stripped, and broken and crushed and bankrupt by the work of the Law - just and holy and good - that showed them that they were dead in trespasses and sins, and without God, without hope. They came to the cross and saw the Lord Jesus Christ dying for them. This is the message of Romans 5 - Christ for us. The Law, just and holy and good, condemns us. But Christ died for us.

The second problem - who we are

But what's the second problem? What we are. What we've done - answered by the death of Christ for us. But what about what we are? Let's go back to Romans 7, and see if there's anything further. Verse 14 is where we'll begin reading. For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, I do not, but what I hate, that do I. If, then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the Law, that it is good. Now, then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil that I would not, I do. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law (now we have the second law) that when I would do good, evil is present with me, for I delight in the Law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into the captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.

The law of sin and death

Now what is Law? Law is the way we've been taught to do things. The word comes from "Torah" - teaching, or from the ancient idea of a shaft - speaking, for instance, of a shaft of lightning - and so it is that we have acquired in the state of our rebellion, certain laws of action, certain traits we've inherited in our very nature and makeup and disposition, certainly. Certain appetites and tendencies, certain pressures within and drives and urges and habits of mind, learned responses. And so as you stood outside the cross, it's not only it's what you have done, but it's what you were, the effect of sin within, without, touching, twisting, warping and Paul calls this a law - a law of sin, a law of sin and death. The manner in which you've learnt how to respond, both by inner tendency and outer experience and teaching and observation, and that you had now acquired a disposition, if you please, to be selfish - for the essence of sin is selfishness. And now you add a new attitude - you want to please Christ. your mind says: This is right - to obey Him. He's to be Lord of my life. I'm to serve Him with all that I am. I've repented of my sin, I've received Him to rule. I've renounced my government. I'm no longer going to play god. And then you discover that today you start out to obey Christ, but here's a habit - somebody says something to you, and all of your past - your attitude has been to fight back, to retaliate and get even, insist on your own way.

And this is the law, it's the manner in which you've adjusted to your circumstances - it's part of your personality. It's intrinsically you. It's not your tissue, it's not the cells that make up your body. It is the warping, twisting effect of what you've been - it's the carnal nature, it's the flesh, it's the old man - it's you! And so, it's not only what you did - but now that you have purposed to please God, but you discover something within you. And this something within you, you can't push away - you've got to identify it with you - it's what you were, by nature and trait and disposition and learned response when you stood outside the cross, and you said: O, God, forgive me for what I've done. You see, at that point, all of us, I believe, or at least most of us - figured that we were really pretty good stuff after all. We'd done some things that were bad, but if God would just forgive us, and give us a little push and help and lift now and then, we'd make it. We were pretty good. But after we'd been forgiven and pardoned and we'd purposed to please God and we find this new desire and new goal to obey Him, and we start down the road, and then, right smack, we're hit. We discover that we're reacting the same way we did. Somebody comes up and so, just a little lie to protect ourselves, just a little cheating to get what we want. And we go to the Lord in confession and in brokenness, and ask Him to forgive us, and pretty soon we discover what Paul's talking about. With his intellect, with his spirit, he says: This is right! But with his personality, with that intrinsic part of him he finds that there's a conflict. As someone says: I didn't know temptation until I became a Christian. That's true, because there is a frustration. Your intellect and your spirit is committed to the Lordship of Christ and the will of God, but all the rest of you has been twisted and warped, and so you've got to somehow say: Where will I get victory? How am I ever going to get victory?

A personal testimony

My own experience on the mission field was that I discovered that all through my life I'd unconsciously (not deliberately, certainly) but I'd been building certain responses. I wasn't what I ought to be, and I knew it. As a young preacher, Bible School student, here in this city, in this state, I knew I wasn't what I ought to be, and the only way I could possible escape from the miserable agony of this was to prove that nobody else was what they ought to be. And so I just had a censorious mind, and a critical spirit, and with that developed a sarcastic tongue. I learned to adjust to it, because I had to survive here, but when I got to the mission field, there I found out. One day I was down here in the basement, in the kitchen, and they showed me the potato peeler. They told me about someone who had put a half bushel of potatoes in it and forgotten about it, and came back and scooped up a half bushel in the palm of their hand. Well, the mission field, to many of us, is like a potato peeler. It just knocks all the superficial adjustments we've ever made right off, and gets down to what we are. And so, on the mission field, I discovered this critical mind and this censorious spirit and this sarcastic tongue. Now, I knew I was a Christian because I hated it so. But it would build up and the tension would build up, and missionaries would put a little pressure on me, and you know that 99 and 44/100 percent of all the problems on the mission field are personality adjustment problems – not climate, not malaria. But it's you. You carry most of the problems with you when you go. And I did. And so here I was. Trying to serve the Lord, but this critical mind, this censorious spirit. I remember going in, putting my fingernails in the palm of my hand, saying: O God, if You'll forgive me this once, I promise You I'll never do it again. I'll never be sarcastic. I meant it. But listen, dear heart, victory doesn't come from your fingernail! Nor from the set of your jaw, nor the wretching, twisting of your jaw muscle. That's not where victory comes from. O, you can make up your mind, but victory doesn't come from your mind. Someone said: It's your subconscious - that's the source of power. I tuned in on that and I just got more of the same poison I had in my conscious - no help there.

In my flesh dwelleth no good thing

O, who shall deliver me from the tyranny of my trait? Who shall deliver me from the despotism of my disposition? And the victory? And you see, I was praying: O God, help me. Help me not to be critical. Help me not to be censorious. Help me not to be sarcastic. God couldn't answer the prayer. If He did, He'd just have to throw away the whole foundation of government. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't die to help me. He died knowing I couldn't do it, and His help wouldn't avail anyway. He didn't die to help me do it. He died so that I could come to the place I'd let Him do it for me. You see, He's everything I'm not, and all I have to bring Him when I come to Him is an honest recognition that I'm not, and He is, and I don't have, and He has, and this is the hard part: Well, bless God, there came a time back there when I discovered, after getting old, that the answer to the despotism of your trait and disposition is not in self hypnotism. It's not in some kind of a evangelical coueism: I'm getting every day and every way and getting better and better. It's not that sort at all. It's frank open admission that in me, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.

A person in New York said to me the other day: I'm bad, I'm all bad. I've been bitter, I've been critical, I've been lying, I'm not fit for this task, I don't deserve this privilege, I shouldn't have it, and I should be sent away. I said: Sent away, nothing. This is what we've been praying for. This is what the Lord's been working. You see, this is God's great job. We still have an idea that if He'll just help us a little, we're going to make it.

Have you ever tried to put a rug down that was too big for the room, sort of a 12 foot rug in an 11 foot room? You ever tried to? You know, you get there and you say here's a lump, and you pat and you smooth, and you get it all nicely patted down and you say that's fine - pftt - pops up back there. And you get that patted down, all smoothed out - pfft pfft - two other places. Just too much rug for the room. It's got to be cut somewhere if it's ever going to fit. And so people keep saying: O Lord, help me with my tongue, and then they get mad at the children. O, Lord, give me victory over getting mad at my children, get mad at her husband. And so it goes, and they're just running from one thing to another, trying to get the Lord to help them ,and the Lord can't help them, because they're approaching it wrong.

Christ died as us

He didn't die to help me to do something that He knew I coudn't do. He died to do something for me, and be something to me that He knew I could never be. And so Romans 5 tells us that when we were without strength, Christ died for us. But you know what Romans 6 tells us? That when we found out that in us, in our flesh, there was no good thing, Christ died as us.

He died for us to deliver us from the Law that was just and holy and good, but He died as us to deliver us from the law of sin and death. See, He wasn't only on the cross for me, He was on the cross as me. He went there as me. In the Father's eyes, that was me on the cross - Reidhead, with that critical, sarcastic, censorious - oh, name it! You, as well. Christ died as us. Romans 6:6 tells us in so many words: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed.

So this is the answer to the second problem - what I am. The Lord Jesus died for me to remove the mountain of what I'd done. He died as me to break the tyranny of what I was. And so in His eyes, when I realized that when He died, I died. Then we have this testimony in the first part of Romans 7: He that is dead is freed from her husband, from the relationship. We were married to the devil; we died. We were married to the flesh; we died. We were married to our nature; we died. And now we've risen and walk in newness of life. And so the answer as to what I am is Christ as me.

The law of the Spirit of life

But let's go on - there's another law. And we'll turn to Romans 8: There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, for the law (here it is) - the law, the law of the Spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The Law of God, just and holy and good, slew me - but Christ died for me. The law of sin and death tyrannized me - but Christ died as me. But here's another law - the law of the Spirit of life. The way the Holy Spirit does things. He put a new desire to please Him - but you see, it's one thing to want; it's another thing to do, to be able to do. So the same One that wrote the Law upon our hearts (and O, how beautifully saw it as God spoke to him and said: I will take away the heart of stone, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will write My Law upon your heart, and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes. here's a law of the Spirit of life which has made us free from the law of sin and death.

So what is it?

Romans 5 - Christ for us.

Romans 6 - Christ as us.

Romans 8 - Christ in us.

Isn't it wonderful? The three great needs - what I've done, what I am and how I'm going to do and be what I ought to be.

The Importance of Being Assertive

2009-04-03T13:12:00.003+08:00

Been reading Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will". It's a surprisingly short and lively piece (I confess I gave up halfway through Jonathan Edwards' "Freedom of the Will" - will attempt another assault on it another day).

You can see his character shining through. He starts off by praising Erasmus' eloquence, then describes his diatribe as "rubbish and dung in gold and silver vessels" - basically all talk and no substance. The English translator himself admits: "Although Luther used certain words that I should not employ, yet I have adhered faithfully to his own phraseology as translated by Cole. Luther speaks for himself." I wonder what the German version was like!

Anyway, there are a few gems in this "masterpiece of polemical composition" which have struck a chord within me.

On the important of being assertive in matters of Christian doctrine:

For not to delight in assertions, is not the character of the Christian mind: nay, he must delight in assertions, or he is not a Christian. But, (that we may not be mistaken in terms) by assertion, I mean a constant adhering, affirming, confessing, defending, and invincibly persevering. And moreover, I speak concerning the asserting of those things, which are delivered to us from above in the Holy Scriptures. Were it not so, we should want neither Erasmus nor any other instructor to teach us, that, in things doubtful, useless, or unnecessary; assertions, contentions, and strivings, would be not only absurd, but impious: and Paul condemns such in more places than one.

How often does the apostle Paul require that assurance of faith; that is, that most certain, and most firm assertion of Conscience, calling it (Rom. x. 10), confession, "With the mouth confession is made unto salvation?" And Christ also saith, "Whosoever confesseth Me before men, him will I confess before My Father." (Matt. x. 32.) Peter commands us to "give a reason of the hope" that is in us. (1 Pet. iii. 15.) But why should I dwell upon this; nothing is more known and more general among Christians than assertions. Take away assertions, and you take away Christianity. Nay, the Holy Spirit is given unto them from heaven, that He may glorify Christ, and confess Him even unto death; unless this be not to assert—to die for confession and assertion. In a word, the Spirit so asserts, that He comes upon the whole world and reproves them of sin (John xvi. 8) thus, as it were, provoking to battle. And Paul enjoins Timothy to reprove, and to be instant out of season. (2 Tim. iv. 2.)

On the clarity of scripture:

The clearness of the Scripture is twofold; even as the obscurity is twofold also. The one is external, placed in the ministry of the word; the other internal, placed in the understanding of the heart. If you speak of the internal clearness, no man sees one iota in the Scriptures, but he that hath the Spirit of God. All have a darkened heart; so that, even if they know how to speak of, and set forth, all things in the Scripture, yet, they cannot feel them nor know them: nor do they believe that they are the creatures of God, nor any thing else: according to that of Psalm xiv, 1. "The fool hath said in his heart, God is nothing." For the Spirit is required to understand the whole of the Scripture and every part of it. If you speak of the external clearness, nothing whatever is left obscure or ambiguous; but all things that are in the Scriptures, are by the Word brought forth into the clearest light, and proclaimed to the whole world.

Forgiving Duch

2009-04-01T22:32:00.010+08:00

The story of Duch caught my attention the other day.

During the Khmer Rouge regime, Duch was in charge of Tuol Sleng camp, which was responsible for atrocities resulting in 16,000 deaths. The line that caught my eye in the newspaper report was this one:

"Duch , who became a born-again Christian while in hiding in the 1990s..."

The question naturally arises: "Would God be fair to forgive Duch for such atrocious crimes?" I am sure that there are many whose instinctive self-righteous reaction would be to declare that Duch deserves to burn in the lowest corner of hell for eternity for what he had done.

The answer, of course, is YES! If Duch is a genuine believer (and there is every reason to believe that he is), God would be perfectly fair to forgive Duch for every single one of his sins, because Jesus Christ bore the just punishment for those sins on the cross, and has given Duch His perfect righteousness. Of course, Duch will still have to bear the earthly consequences of his sins, but that is nothing compared to the eternal punishment which he has been saved from.

The truth is that none of us deserve any less punishment than Duch for our heinous crimes against a most holy God. And the good news of the Gospel is that God can and will forgive us if we believe!

This is something that was brought home to me in an excellent sermon by Phil Johnson (my favourite preacher of the moment) on Justification by Faith, which is part of this excellent series "Truth under attack", which I highly recommend! In it, he expounds on 2 Cor 5:21:

"For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."

Every single sin of every believer was imputed to Jesus Christ on the cross. He was MADE SIN for our sake, and God's wrath was fully poured out on Him and completely satisfied, once for all, so that God is fully justified in pardoning the sins of every believer. And every believer, everyone of us who is IN CHRIST, has the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to him - credited to his account, so to speak. This is the glorious heart of the Gospel. What a wonderful truth!

While trying to find out more about Duch's Christianity, I came across this insightful article. Some excerpts and my comments:

Today, more than 100,000 Cambodians belong to more than 3,000 evangelical churches across the country, among them many former members of the Khmer Rouge. "The former Khmer Rouge more often open their hearts to God," said Heng Cheng. "Duch is a role model."

But of course. Those who have witnessed for themselves the depths of depravity of their own hearts would certainly be more open to the Gospel.

Duch's conversion to Christianity has caused some friction with his former cadres. For instance, Nuon Chea scoffed at Duch's conversion, saying in his revealing 2003 interview: "Duch wanted God to take responsibility for his sins! ... You commit the sin, so you pay for the sin. Nobody can help take responsibility for the sin."

This man certainly understood what the Gospel is about. He just refused to believe it!

It is religiously significant, some believe, that former top Khmer Rouge leaders Meas Muth and Nuon Chea have not sought forgiveness for their roles in the alleged genocide. One possible reason, suggests Columbia University's Buddhist scholar Bob Thurman, is that Christianity uniquely claims that the road to salvation runs through repentance, remorse and making up for past sins.

"Perhaps the Christian ones are more intent on forgiveness because they have the belief that repentance and true belief in Christ will help them once and for all reach heaven, no matter what they've done," Thurman wrote by e-mail. "Whereas Buddhists do repent, do try to do better, but remain aware of a long road ahead to reach enlightenment or nirvana - no one else can grant them the ultimate salvation, in their view."

That, of course, is the great peace and assurance which the Gospel affords - that salvation is a supernatural work of God, who is able to save to the uttermost. May He receive all the glory!

Happy Atheist Day!

2009-04-01T20:31:00.011+08:00

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." (Psa 14:1)

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. (Prov 26:4)

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. (Prov 26:5)

Matthew Henry comments:

See here the noble security of the scripture-style, which seems to contradict itself, but really does not. Wise men have need to be directed how to deal with fools; and they have never more need of wisdom than in dealing with such, to know when to keep silence and when to speak, for there may be a time for both.

1. In some cases a wise man will not set his wit to that of a fool so far as to answer him according to his folly “If he boasts of himself, do not answer him by boasting of yourself. If he rails and talks passionately, do not rail and talk passionately too. If he tells one great lie, do not tell another to match it. If he insults your friends, do not insult his. If he banters, do not answer him in his own language, lest you be like him, even you, who know better things, who has more sense, and has been better taught.”

2. Yet, in other cases, a wise man will use his wisdom for the conviction of a fool, when, by taking notice of what he says, there may be hopes of doing good, or at least preventing further, mischief, either to himself or others. “If you have reason to think that your silence will be deemed an evidence of the weakness of your cause, or of your own weakness, in such a case answer him, and let it be an answer ad hominem - to the man, beat him at his own weapons, and that will be an answer ad rem - to the point, or as good as one. If he offers any thing that looks like an argument, then answer that, and suit your answer to his case. If he thinks, because you do not answer him, that what he says is unanswerable, then give him an answer, lest he be wise in his own conceit and boast of a victory.”

The Divine Inspiration of the Bible

2009-03-31T00:00:00.010+08:00

"Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil." - 1 Pet 3:13-17

Apologetics

Arguments give me headaches.

Don't get me wrong. When I was younger, I used to love arguing for the sake of arguing (and admitted it). The issues were not important, I could take either side of an issue and argue it. It was good fun with my duelling partners, and we knew it was just that. The issues were not important.

Then I grew older and the issues became important. And I quickly realized, as I engaged in arguments of this nature, that it was different from arguing for the fun of arguing, and very much an exercise in futility. Both sides were usually well entrenched in their foxholes, and neither side would be moved to change their positions, even after hours of arguing.

Yet debates such as these were not entirely a waste of time. For one, it helped you crystallize your own view, and gave you insight into the possible fallacies you were buying into, and loopholes in your own arguments which you may not have seen before. But the greatest benefit would be for those (who could be bothered) watching the debate - to sway those who were undecided.

For me, at this point in time, rather than engaging in polemical debate, I find it simply more useful to sit down and prepare (mostly for myself but also for the sake of you, my dear reader) the reasons I believe what I believe, so that I may quietly present my answer for those who sincerely want to know the reason for the hope within me. I hope to do this for a few topics, including the gay debate, as time permits.

Not that engaging in polemical debate is at all wrong. In fact, it is very important. Just as I started driving this morning, Phil Johnson was describing the Fundamentalists in his series of sermons on "Truth Under Attack", and he mentioned this verse which caught my attention: "Holding fast the faithful Word according to the doctrine, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convict the gainsayers." (Tit 1:9) Just that I'm not yet prepared with enough knowledge to do that at the moment.

One of the more important and basic topics would have to be The Divine Inspiration of the Bible, which A W Pink has done a very good job of defending. I have taken the liberty of summarizing his points below, in an order which seems a little more logical to me. I do encourage you to read the main text itself. The formatting of that website is unfortunately rather difficult to read, so I would suggest copying the text to a file and formatting it in a word processor to your personal preference for reading!

There is a presumption in favour of the Bible.

Nature reveals the existence of God, but tells us nothing about His character and His moral perfections. Man is in darkness not just about God, but also about himself - the purpose of his existence, where he came from and what will happen after he dies. Man needs a revelation from God, and God is able to supply one; is it not, therefore, reasonable to suppose He will do so?

The indestructibility of the Bible

Many attempts have been made to wipe it out and eradicate it, yet it survives and thrives.

The unmistakable honesty of the writers of the Bible

The writers of the Bible were honest to a fault, never seeking to hide their weaknesses, frailties and mistakes, and always ascribing glory only to the Lord. This would be remarkable unless they were writing under divine inspiration.

The fulfilled prophecies of the Bible

Many of the prophecies made in the Bible have been fulfilled, some many hundreds of years later, and to a degree of accuracy that is impossible unless from a divine source.

The uniqueness of its teachings

The teachings of the Scriptures about God Himself, about man, about the world, about sin, about eternal punishment, about salvation, about the Lord Jesus Christ, are proof that the Bible is not the product of any man or any number of men, but is in truth a revelation from God.

The typical significance of the Scriptures

Many of the Old Testament characters were typical of Jesus. They foreshadowed in a representative way the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation.

"How remarkable that the earliest history in the world, extending from the creation and reaching to the last of the prophets—written by various hands through a period of fifteen centuries—should from start to finish concentrate in a single point, and that point the person and work of the blessed Redeemer! Verily, such a Book must have been written by God—no other conclusion is possible."

The wonderful unity of the Bible

"The manner in which the Bible has been produced argues against its unity. The Bible was penned on two continents, written in three languages, and its composition and compilation extended through the slow progress of sixteen centuries. The various parts of the Bible were written at different times and under the most varying circumstances. Parts of it were written in tents, deserts, cities, palaces and dungeons; in times of imminent danger and in seasons of ecstatic joy. Among its writers were judges, kings, priests, prophets, patriarchs, prime ministers, herdsmen, scribes, soldiers, physicians and fishermen. Yet despite these varying circumstances, conditions and workmen, the Bible is one Book, behind its many parts there is an unmistakable organic unity. It contains one system of doctrine, one code of ethics, one plan of salvation and one rule of faith."

The marvelous influence of the Bible

How much of our culture has been shaped by it!

The miraculous power of the Bible

How many lives have been changed by the Word of God!

The perennial freshness of the Bible

Those who have read the Bible will attest to the fact that it is perenially fresh, and always speaks in a new and appropriate way to every season in life.

Inward confirmation of the veracity of the scriptures

There is an inward witness of the Spirit to the truth of the Bible.

Application of the argument

I. We Need to Seek God’s Forgiveness.
II. It is the Final Court of Appeal.
III. It is the Ultimate Standard for Regulating Conduct.
IV. It is a Sure Foundation for Our Faith.
V. It has Unique Claims Upon Us.

The God of small things

2009-03-28T22:58:00.004+08:00

No, this has nothing to do with Arundhati Roy's book.

I have this pair of stereo bluetooth earphones which I'm rather fond of. I got them quite cheap, and use them to talk hands-free on my phone, as well as to listen to the sermons which are loaded in my phone, wherever I happen to be.

The thing is, those rubber noise-isolation buds keep coming off quite easily. The first few times this happened, I was able to find the missing bud in my bedroom, where it had inadvertently slipped off when I hung my earphones up for the night.

Once, I was in a public place, and thought I had lost one of them for good. I had walked all around looking for it, with no luck. I then prayed to God to help me find it, and walked out to look for it on the sidewalk one last time. Lo and behold, there it was, right next to the grass verge. A couple more inches and it would have been invisible to my eyes.

Earlier tonight, the same thing happened. I had to fetch my daughter to and from her Girl Guides campfire, and decided to pick up some items I needed from IKEA while waiting for her to finish. As I walked around, I suddenly discovered with a sinking heart that I had lost one of the rubber buds (again). I retraced my steps and could not find it, despite praying for God to help me spot it. I resigned myself to the loss, refusing to get too upset about it, telling myself that God must have a reason for letting this happen.

I walked to the hawker centre to have dinner, then called my daughter. She was still not finished. I walked back to IKEA and decided that I would just try one last time. I walked around once again, eyes glued to the floor, looking for a tiny little black piece of rubber. This time I prayed a little harder. Something seemed to click, but.... zilch. Nada.

I finally reached the pillows section, where I had earlier picked up a pillow from a box stuffed full of pillows. It must have been quite a popular type of pillow (or maybe God suddenly made it popular), because the box was now half empty - only a short time had passed. And there, in the bottom of the box, was this little black piece of rubber...

I rejoiced greatly, but was honestly not surprised. I have literally lost count of the number of times God has answered my prayer in this way. Keys, books, electronic devices, important documents - how many times I have searched without success, paused to breathe a prayer, and almost instantly had that prayer answered!

Believing, you shall receive

It's interesting, that phrase in the Bible: "And all things, whatever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive." (Matt 21:22) You know how it is. Many times you pray without much faith, and nothing happens. But sometimes you pray, and something just clicks inside, and you know, without a doubt, that God is going to answer that prayer. And when that happens, you see the answer to that prayer. It's not a matter of how hard you grit your teeth that determines how much faith goes into that prayer - I believe that prayer-answering faith is given to us, just like everything else. That faith, however, mustard seed though it is, needs to be exercised, in order to grow into a large tree.

One may ask then: Why bother to pray, if everything depends on God and not us? We are to pray, simply because He commands it: "Yet for this I will be inquired of." (Ezek 36:37). God also commands us to pray to Him so that His name will be glorified! "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." (Psa 50:14-15)

And why does God, the great Master of the Universe, bother Himself with all these little things which trouble us? I believe it is simply because He wants to grow our faith, and show us that if He can be faithful to us in even these small things, then how much more we can trust Him for the most important thing - the salvation of our souls!

"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." (2 Tim 1:12)

The Ten Commandments

2009-03-26T17:24:00.009+08:00

I have just finished listening to an excellent series of sermons by Phil Johnson on the Ten Commandments. They are extremely challenging and convicting to listen to. The purpose of the Law is to show us and convict us of our sinfulness, and our utter inability to fulfill God's righteous requirements, and drive us to the righteousness to be found by faith in Jesus Christ alone.

I have always felt that my sense of my own sinfulness has been less than what it should be, and have prayed for a long time that God would show me the true depth of my sinfulness and the total depravity of my own heart. God has answered that prayer, through one of the sermons in this series, in which Phil Johnson describes the breadth of the moral law, hit me right between the eyes as I was driving and listening to it a couple of weeks ago. Here is the part that struck me:

As carnal people, we have a tendency to think of the law in a carnal way. But these commandments of the law are meant to deal with more than merely our outward actions. The real aim of the law is to govern the inward motions of our hearts. The law is spiritual, so it reaches the inward as well as the outward man. The Law-Giver Himself is a spirit, and He observes all the thoughts and inclinations of our souls – He can see what's in our hearts. He's as grieved with the impurities of our hearts as He is with the overt sins of our behaviour, and therefore, His law governs not only our outward actions, but also our inward affections.

In the words of the Westminster Larger Catechism: “The law is spiritual, and so reaches the understanding, will affections and all other powers of the soul, as well as words, works and gestures.” The law governs all these things. The law lays on our understanding the duty to know the will of God. It charges our wills with the duty to choose what is right and shun what is wrong. And the law demands of our affections, that we love the things that are to be loved, and that we hate the things that are to be hated. In other words, the law binds all the powers of our soul to obedience – it doesn't speak just to outward actions.

We're not supposed to give the law an external obedience only. Jesus taught this, didn't He? It's not enough to abstain just from the act of adultery, we have to avoid even the thought of it. Jesus said: “I say unto you, whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matt 5:28). Remember – notice here – He doesn't call it a lesser sin. He says to look on a woman to lust after her is – in effect – adultery committed in the heart. It's a violation of the seventh commandment.

Secret thoughts of adultery carry the same kind of guilt as the overt act. The same moral principle that prohibits adultery therefore codemns lust. And the law speaks to our hearts, not just our external behaviour.

Similarly, it's not enough just to forego killing your neighbour. You have to guard your heart, so that you're not even guilty of hatred towards him. Jesus said this (Matt 5:21): 'You've heard that it was said by them of old time: You shall not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgement. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgement, and whosoever shall say to his brother 'Raca' shall be in danger of the Council, but whosoever shall say 'Thou fool' shall be in danger of hellfire.” In other words, He's saying that the same moral principle that forbids us to murder forbids us to kill, that same moral principle forbids us from having a murderous heart – hatred. And He equated the two morally.

This principle applies to the whole law. God's law commands the heart, the immaterial part of us. It doesn't merely command our external passions. And that is made inescapably clear by the first and great commandment. Think about it. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy HEART, with all thy SOUL and with all thy MIND.” It speaks the immaterial part of us – our heart, our soul and our mind.

And that commandment - on which Jesus said all the other commandments hang - defines the realm in which God's law is designed to operate. It's not our external actions – it's our inward attitudes, our affections. That's where the law sets its starting point for the true essence of obedience. If you obey externally, but not in your heart, that doesn't even count as obedience. And that is precisely what Jesus meant when He said that what comes from within us defiles us more than the food that goes into us. Mark 7:20-23 - “That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” He gives this catalogue of moral sins, and He says they all come from within the heart. All these things, He says, come from within and defile the man. All sin has its inception in the heart. All immorality starts there. And therefore, when the law forbids us to sin, it is speaking primarily to the heart, not just dealing with matters of visible, external behaviour. It demands not merely outward acts of obedience, but more importantly, the inward affection of love. Remember? That's what the law deals with. And that's what it demands of us – love – which is an inward affection. And remember – love is the fulfilling of the law (Rom 13:10).

The law is spiritual, and therefore it's directed at our hearts, not just our external behaviour.

I realized my lostness at that point in time - that I was condemned, that there was no escape. It is not so much the multitude of sins I am already guilty of (both of commission and ommission) that condemns me – it is the SINFUL HEART within me that already condemns me. The doctrine of original sin, far from excusing me, exacerbates my guilt, because all of my sins arise from that sinful nature. Even if I have never sinned (which, of course, would be impossible), that rebellious heart within me, from which all my evil thoughts spring, would already ensure that I stand condemned. The truth of what Jesus said in Mark 7:20-23 really struck home and cut me to the quick.

Reading Leviticus

At the same time, I am reading Leviticus (with the help of Matthew Henry), which I find to be extremely intriguing. The perfect holiness - and separation from sin and uncleanness - which God demands of His people is made very evident. I find especially the little “footnotes” scattered amidst the commandments to be very revealing, as God explains His purpose for the various laws He lays down, such as Lev 20:26: "You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine." How wonderfully jealous a God is He!

Salvation is a Person!

2009-03-17T07:58:00.007+08:00

A fitting reminder from an amazing book ("Holiness" by J C Ryle):

I am afraid that many who profess Christ in our day have lost sight of our Lord’s person. They talk more about salvation than about their only Savior, and more about redemption than the one true Redeemer, and more about Christ’s work than Christ Himself. This is a great fault, one that accounts for the dry and shriveled spirit that infuses the religious lives of many who profess faith.

As ever you would grow in grace, and have joy and peace in believing, beware of falling into this error. Cease to regard the Gospel as a mere collection of dry doctrines. Look at it rather as the revelation of a mighty living Being in whose sight you are daily to live. Cease to regard it as a mere set of abstract propositions and abstruse principles and rules. Look at it as the introduction to a glorious personal Friend. This is the kind of Gospel that the apostles preached. They did not go about the world telling men of love and mercy and pardon in the abstract. The leading subject of all their sermons was the loving heart of an actual living Christ. This is the kind of Gospel which is most calculated to promote sanctification and fitness for glory. Nothing, surely, is so likely to prepare us for that heaven where Christ’s personal presence will be all, and that glory where we shall meet Christ face to face, as to realize communion with Christ, as an actual living Person here on earth. There is all the difference in the world between an idea and a person.

Or, as Paris Reidhead loves to put it:

You see, salvation is not in a plan. Salvation is not in scripture verses. Salvation is not in ordinances and all the scheme of theology. Salvation is not a decision. Salvation is not in the pronouncement of an evangelist, or a pastor, or a teacher.

Salvation is a Person!

This is the cardinal truth of our day. Salvation isn’t FROM a person only - it is - but salvation IS a person. David saw this in Psalm 27: “Jehovah is my light and my salvation.” Again we have it: “He that hath the Son hath life. Life is in the Son. He that hath not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him.”

You understand, therefore, that salvation IS Christ. He is our light. He is our salvation. He didn’t die to send it, He died to become it, and He isn’t just some Saviour because He’s in heaven, it has to be in you. Now, Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in 2 Cor 13:5 and said: “Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith: prove your own selves. Know you not your own selves, how that Christ be in you, except you be reprobates?”

Being, Becoming and Doing

2009-03-07T23:39:00.014+08:00

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. (1Jn 3:2)

R C Sproul has a fascinating series of lectures on The Consequences of Ideas, in which he discusses, among other things, the early Greek philosophers and their ideas.

In one of these (Aristotle Part 1), he discusses the concepts of "being" vs "becoming". He describes how an acorn, if planted and watered, will inevitably grow into an oak tree and not an elephant, because it contains within itself the seed of "oak tree-ness". What it becomes is a result of what it already is, or has in itself, in the first place.

This brings to mind, of course, what Jesus taught in Matthew 7:16-20 about good trees and bad trees, and the kind of fruit they bring forth. It also led me into some profitable meditations.

BEING

Who ARE we?

We are Christians - believers, the elect, chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4), children of God (Jn 1:12), a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession (1 Pet 2:9), heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17), according to the promise (Gal 3:29) and loved by God (Rom 8:38,39).

In a sense, this is who we really are and always have been, because God decided it woud be so from before the foundation of the world.

Yet, in another sense it is not true, for we were all born totally depraved - brought forth in iniquity and conceived in sin (Psa 51:5). Such a creature, left to itself, would certainly grow into a monster of iniquity.

And so there's this magic word - "Regeneration". The miracle performed by God, in His electing grace, whereby He changes the very nature of a person - the seed of what that person will eventually become when eternity rolls around - from a child of darkness into a child of the light (Eph 5:8), taking out the heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh (Ezek 11:19,20), causing him to be born again (John 3:3-8) and to be a new creature in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).

Think of it, if you like, in terms of what Jesus was describing in Matt 7:16-20, and consider it the equivalent of taking the seed of a thistle plant and miraculously changing it into the seed of a fig tree, that will one day bear good figs.

Or, as Peter puts it:

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever (1 Pet 1:23).

BECOMING

Although a mustard seed has the potential to become a gigantic tree, it first has to fall into the ground to die. Then begins the long process of growing, first into a sapling, then into a small tree, then into a large tree.

So it is with us. After God has changed our nature (notice that John says: "We are God's children NOW" - 1 Jn 3:2), it takes time for that seed to become a full grown tree. Even though it is God who causes the growth, we need to remember that watering the plant and providing fertilizer will help it to grow better.

The ultimate end of our "being" Christians is to eventually "become" like Christ (1 Jn 3:2, Rom 8:29). This process of becoming Christ-like Christians is what sanctification is all about, and when this process is complete, we will be glorified (Rom 8:30), which is nothing other than to be like Him (Phil 3:21). (It certainly does not mean being on the receiving end of the glory of men, which is how some would erroneously read it.) We can have the greatest assurance that this process will surely reach its final conclusion (2 Tim 1:12, Heb 7:25).

In describing the process of sanctification, I cannot do better than simply to quote some excellent passages from J C Ryle's "Holiness":

Sanctification is a reality for which every believer is responsible. Believers are eminently and peculiarly responsible and under a special obligation to live holy lives. They are not as others, dead and blind and unrenewed; they are alive unto God and have light and knowledge and a new principle within them. Whose fault is it, if they are not holy, but their own? On whom can they throw the blame, if they are not sanctified, but themselves? God, who has given them grace and a new heart and a new nature, has deprived them of all excuse if they do not live for His praise. This is a point which is far too much forgotten. A man who professes to be a true Christian, while he sits still, content with a very low degree of sanctification (if indeed he has any at all), and coolly tells you he "can do nothing," is a very pitiable sight and a very ignorant man. Against this delusion let us watch and be on our guard. The Word of God always addresses its precepts to believers as accountable and responsible beings. If the Savior of sinners gives us renewing grace and calls us by His Spirit, we may be sure that He expects us to use our grace and not to go to sleep. It is forgetfulness of this which causes many believers to "grieve the Holy Spirit" and makes them very useless and uncomfortable Christians.

Sanctification depends greatly on a diligent use of scriptural means. The "means of grace" are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church, wherein one hears the Word taught and participates in the Lord’s Supper. I lay it down as a simple matter of fact that no one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make much progress in sanctification. I can find no record of any eminent saint who ever neglected them. They are appointed channels through which the Holy Spirit conveys fresh supplies of grace to the soul and strengthens the work which He has begun in the inward man. Let men call this legal doctrine if they please, but I will never shrink from declaring my belief that there are no "spiritual gains without pains." Our God is a God who works by means, and He will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without them.

Sanctification is a thing which cannot justify a man, and yet it pleases God. The holiest actions of the holiest saint that ever lived are all more or less full of defects and imperfections. They are either wrong in their motive or defective in their performance and in themselves are nothing better than "splendid sins," deserving God’s wrath and condemnation. To suppose that such actions can stand the severity of God’s judgment, atone for sin and merit heaven is simply absurd. "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." "We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (Rom. 3:20–28). The only righteousness in which we can appear before God is the righteousness of another—even the perfect righteousness of our Substitute and Representative, Jesus Christ the Lord. His work, and not our work, is our only title to heaven. This is a truth which we should be ready to die to maintain. For all this, however, the Bible distinctly teaches that the holy actions of a sanctified man, although imperfect, are pleasing in the sight of God. "With such sacrifices God is well pleased" (Heb. 13:16). "Obey your parents . . . for this is well pleasing unto the Lord" (Col. 3:20). "We . . . do those things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John 3:22). Let this never be forgotten, for it is a very comfortable doctrine. Just as a parent is pleased with the efforts of his little child to please him, though it be only by picking a daisy or walking across a room, so is our Father in heaven pleased with the poor performances of His believing children. He looks at the motive, principle and intention of their actions and not merely at their quantity and quality. He regards them as members of His own dear Son, and for His sake, wherever there is a single eye, He is well pleased.

DOING

When I speak of "doing", I do not refer to the "diligent use of scriptural means" described by Ryle, but rather the many things that are nowadays prescribed as necessary for Christians to be doing. You know - serving in church, social work and charity, reaching out to the lost, glorifying God by our good works, praying for the sick and healing them, etc.

While these are indeed good and important, many Christians (myself most definitely included, more so in the past than now, but still...) have got the cart in front of the horse.

The "doing" is the practical working out of the process of our "becoming" like Christ. The fact that we are "becoming" like Christ is the evidence that we "are" indeed Christians (in Christ) in the first place.

We should beware of "doing" Christian things simply because we have been told we should do so, without understanding what it is to "be" and "become" Christians!

Worse still is to "do" in order to "become" what we "are" not!

A W Pink tells it like it is:

Equally pitiable is the hand religion of the day, when young "converts" are put to teaching a Sunday school class, urged to "speak" in the open air, or take up "personal work." How many thousands of beardless youths and young girls are now engaged in what is called "winning souls for Christ," when their own souls are spiritually starved! They may "memorize" two or three verses of Scripture a day, but that does not mean their souls are being fed. How many are giving their evenings to helping in some "mission," when they need to be spending the time in "the secret of the Most High"! And how many bewildered souls are using the major part of the Lord’s day in rushing from one meeting to another instead of seeking from God that which will fortify them against the temptations of the week! Oh, the tragedy of this hand "Christianity."

How subtle the Devil is! Under the guise of promoting growth in "the knowledge of the Lord," he gets people to attend a ceaseless round of meetings, or to read an almost endless number of religious periodicals and books; or under the pretence of "honoring the Lord" by all this so-called "service" he induces the one or the other to neglect the great task which God has set before us: "keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23). Ah, it is far easier to speak to others than it is constantly to use and improve all holy means and duties to preserve the soul from sin, and maintain it in sweet and free communion with God. It is far easier to spend an hour reading a sensational article upon "the signs of the times" than it is to spend an hour in agonizing before God for purifying and rectifying grace!

Conclusion

I think Ephesians is a nice study to illustrate what I am talking about.

Paul spends the first 3 chapters telling the Ephesians WHO they are in Christ (BEING). He then exhorts them to BECOME what they are supposed to grow into in chapter 4. Finally in chapters 5 and 6 he tells them what to DO, in practical terms, to live out who they ARE and what they are to BECOME.

I think that's about right, in terms of the order of importance we should place on these three aspects.

I find it interesting to note that Paul does everything for the sake of the elect (2 Tim 2:10) - from evangelism to pastoring. You notice that all of the epistles are addressed to God's people. There are no "seeker-friendly" (that's become quite a dirty word amongst the Reformed set, hasn't it?) evangelistic tracts addressed to unbelievers. And, as A W Tozer points out, Paul prays a lot more for believers than for unbelievers.

Why is this? Because he knows that those who are destined to BE Christians will be called effectually, and his main interest is to make them understand this, and BECOME who they should become, travailing until Christ should be formed in them (Gal 4:19).

To summarize, I should know who I AM, work with God to BECOME who He wants me to be (like Christ), and the DOING will naturally follow.

Phil Johnson

2009-03-05T13:16:00.007+08:00

I first stumbled across The Spurgeon Archive (which has been a great blessing) more than 10 years ago, which is where I first came across the name Phil Johnson. At that time I thought he was just an IT geek with an enthusiasm for Spurgeon.

Lately his name has been popping up all over the place (he runs Grace To You, John MacArthur's website, as well as being a contributing member of Team Pyro.

So this guy is actually a pastor, and he has a pretty good repository of sermons himself.

You will, of course, notice the Spurgeon-esque facial hair, and I'm sure he's working towards attaining Spurgeon's girth as well!

But seriously, I'm presently listening to his series "A survey of heresies". Very clear, engaging and instructive. Audio quality is very good, too. (You need to download the mp3's from the main download site.)

Highly recommended!

The Gay Agenda

2009-02-26T18:43:00.013+08:00

Speaking out

"A time to keep silence, and a time to speak." - Ecclesiastes 3:7

A few days ago, someone whom I have known for a long time posted a video on facebook. It was the Academy Award acceptance speech by Dustin Lance Black. The accompanying comment was as follows:

This segment of the Academy Awards 2009 was censored by Mediacorp in Singapore simply because Dustin Lance Black, the screenplay writer for the movie 'Milk', spoke about his own experiences growing up as a gay person, expressed his support for gay people and voiced his belief in equality for GLTB people. This is a message that we ALL need to hear!

Now, this guy (initials RP in the discussion that follows) was one of the leaders of the Methodist Youth Fellowship when I was a young teenage Christian. After the exchange that follows, I took a look at his profile and realized that he now describes his religious views as "secular humanist". Truly, 1 Jn 2:19 says it all.

Anyway, I was moved to comment on the matter. Up to this point in time, I have kept silent on homosexuality (out of the fear of man more than anything else) but a confluence of events (orchestrated by the Lord, no doubt) led me to the conclusion that it was indeed time to speak out - to draw that metaphorical line in the sand and take a stand.

One of the things that galvanized me is that Wild Rice productions is producing a play "The Importance of Being Earnest" which clearly promotes the homosexual agenda, as their advertisements in the newspapers brazenly show (incidentally, one of the leading characters who will be in drag also used to be from my church when I was young).

I also happened to notice that my teenage daughter is reading some books by a best-selling author named Jodi Picoult, who purportedly writes novels about "Family, Relationships and Love" - Ha! For some reason, I was prompted to look into what her books are about, and what I found shocked me. I decided to read "Change of Heart" for myself, in order to refute the gnostic teachings in it, rather than just telling her to stop reading something without actually examining it for myself - after all, I can't stop her from reading what she wants later in life, and forbidden fruit tastes sweet - much better to use the book as a starting point for dialogue). The gnostic teachings are really laughable, and I think she has enough sense to suss out what's true and what's not true, but I will still talk to her about them. The other thing that came through very clearly was a strong emphasis on garnering sympathy for the homosexuals in the story. It brought to mind a movie I had watched a few years ago - American Beauty - which had the same strong subversive slant, and had left me strongly disturbed.

On TV, Ellen Degeneres continues to command a strong following, as I see on the blogs of some of the youth members in my church.

The fear of man

On one level, the gay agenda does not perturb me as I know that God is very much in control of whatever goes on in this world, and is longsuffering, waiting for the final day of judgement, when He will vindicate Himself (Psalm 2).

On the other hand, the Bible commands us to expose the works of darkness (Eph 5:11,12).

Obeying the command took some courage, as I was well aware of a potential backlash from the militant, outspoken and eloquent gay community (who would, of course, pounce on my comment). They certainly did not disappoint me. I worded my comment very carefully, prayed to God and asked Him: "Are you sure You want me to do this?" - the answer was "Yes" - and I hit the submit button. It was really a matter of overcoming the fear of man, and I had to pray for boldness to do so (Acts 4:24-29). I did not forget that John lost his head after telling Herod about his incest.

The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? - Psa 118:6

The exchange

This was my comment:

RP: I think the message we ALL need to hear is what the Bible says very clearly in 1 Cor 6:9-10 and 1 Tim 1:9-10.

To support gay people, without also supporting murderers, adulterers, swindlers, liars, slave traders and the like, is to be inconsistent. Homosexuality is a sin, just like all the others. Why should it be granted exemption from judgement along with all the other sins mentioned?

It was useful reading the responses (all 44 of them!) that followed. I've anonymized the names, as it is the issues, rather than the persons commenting, which are important. It's interesting how tired and familiar most of the arguments used sound. I will put up my responses to them (given, I believe, by the wisdom of the Spirit) in another post.

Am I surprised at the response? Not at all (Prov 9:7). Why did I do it? As James White would say - for the sake of the elect (2 Tim 2:10). For God only knows that someone out there reading this (and the arguments in the next post) may repent and come to saving faith, by the grace of God.

I did not bother engaging in polemical debate in the original comments thread as I thought that would not be wise (and it seems I was being enticed to, but I didn't bite!). My intention is simply to share some answers I have found to the challenges that were brought up, that may be of help to my brothers in Christ, when they face similar challenges.

(Needless to say, comment moderation has been turned on)

LRK at 4:57pm February 26
havent read Corinithians, but even murders have equal rights to marry?

so if you are gay you should have less rights than a murder? We're not talking about sin and religion. We're talking human rights here.

RP at 6:10pm February 26
SB, I think that the same Bible that you are quoting from to condemn homosexuals as sinners, was also used at one time or another to condemn the mentally disabled as demon possessed, black people into slavery and women into subjugation. It is widely accepted now, by most people, with the exception of some hardened bigots, that such interpretations are baseless. I am sure that the time is coming when interpretations of the Bible that are being used to condemn homosexuals and deny them basic human rights will be shown by science and other means to be similarly baseless and a product of misguided, self-righteous thinking. I think that we should leave the act of judgment to god, whose role it is to do this, and not to assume that role ourselves. Otherwise, we might be thought to be taking on a role we were cautioned not to take up - "judge not that you may not be judged" (Matthew 7:1) .

RP at 6:13pm February 26
I think that what the world needs to hear is that ALL people, black, white, christian, buddhist, rich, poor, gay or straight should have the right to be regarded as unique human beings and should be entitled to the same rights as each other.

THST at 6:32pm February 26
I think the heart of God is that He loves and accepts gay people but hates the act of homosexuality.

In my opinion, it is not whether they have human rights but whether we as people can accept them and not judge them. In Canada, gay has so much this so-called human rights that it is legal to have gay marriages but this causes many social problems.

At the end of the day, we need to acknowledge and accept their feelings and their struggles. If we want to talk about sins here, all of us have fallen short based on the standard of the bible. Struggling with homosexuality does not make a person less than one struggling with lust/jealousy/greed etc.

I have no doubt that homosexuality is a sin but let us not look at them with tinted glasses. We need to love them with the love of God.

GS at 6:34pm February 26
Karma can be a real bitch, so I'd watch what I say if I were you. But I suppose a religious person such as yourself would not be bothered by the likes of this sort of nonsense now would you?

Don't support them if you don't want to, but certainly there's no reason to condemn them to being the same as the likes of muderers, adulterers, swindlers, liars, slave traders, etc.

Judge not lest ye be judged. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.

Nobody is saying that they should be granted exemption from judgement. ALL of us will be judged in the end, but that is something for God and God alone to do.

Nobody likes a bigot.

JCYK at 7:15pm February 26
The Bible? What is that? Is it relevant?

RP at 7:41pm February 26
Whilst I appreciate your more moderate views on this issue, Tim, I am afraid that I cannot accept the 'love the sinner and hate the sin' doctrine that you are talking about. I think this ends up merely paying lip-service to homosexuals and only deludes proponents into thinking that they are being kind and more accepting, when in fact they are not. It is based on the false premise that sexuality is a result of a conscious choice. The vast majority of homosexuals, and hetrosexuals (if they are honest with themselves), will tell you that this is not so. Sexuality is part of what it means to be human. To say that we can love a human being but reject his sexuality brings us very close to being schizophrenic. Furthermore, if this were true, homosexuals must all also have masochistic tendencies to keep on insisting on being gay in spite of all the abuse, discrimination, injustice, jailings, beatings and even killings they have had to endure. This cannot be the love of god.

VK at 8:48pm February 26
Well said Sir! Without trying to sound like a troll, I'll have to say that I am appalled at the lack of awareness. In this day and age?! Come on now people. Fer good measure, nature has had rampant homosexuality before we even knew what it was. Hardly a hypocritical God eh?

VK at 8:51pm February 26
BTW, Timothy Ho, I fail to see the negative socio-political rammifications of allowing gay marriages in Canada. Seeing as I live here. Nope. I dare someone to prove me otherwise.

AO at 10:02pm February 26
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnHyy8gkNEE
To the gentlemen who thinks homosexuality is a sin. IGNORANCE. PURE IGNORANCE. "homosexuality is not a mental disorder and thus there is no need for a cure" -The American Psycological Association
Therefore homosexuals are not " Struggling with homosexuality does not make a person less than one struggling with lust/jealousy/greed etc."

MQT at 10:16pm February 26
I'm amazed Mediacorp would censor something like this, it came off more as a heartfelt anecdote than a propaganda piece. The irony is, by censoring it they are only drawing more scrutiny to the very issue they are trying to squash. This thread is proof enough of that.

RP: I echo your sentiments completely. The central premise advancing the argument for equal rights to homosexuals is that their sexuality is more of a circumstance than choice. Unfortunately this premise will never be proven as necessarily true.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of homosexuals who are of such circumstance shouldn't be denied a human right. The arguments against gay marriage have become a tired and groundless rhetoric on the downfall of the traditional family unit. It's so outdated, I daresay it belongs right with the hypocrisy of quoting scripture as an operating manual for modern day life. ;)

RI at 10:51pm February 26
Oh God, bible-ists here.. doesn't deserve more than a one liner.

AQ at 11:29pm February 26
i think at the end of the day this whole issue still boils down to one's beliefs. there are many reasons as to why homosexuality is wrong or right for that matter. but as seen, it can only go thus far.. ultimately, the answer to whether it is right or wrong will never end. believers will believe that homosexuality is a sin simply because it is stated clearly. and say even without the scripture, ther are loads of reasons(google) as to why homosexuality is bad or unhealthy as a whole. the impact it may have on society could be drastic and overwhelming.

and i think the point here is that, ok .. hypothetically speaking, say sin really is a sin. if it is as such, there shouldn't even be any talk about rights should there? i think that if homosexuality IS classified as sin, and with the groups of murder and etc. then it should be rightfully judged upon like it is. and that if the very basic of it is wrong, there shouldn't even be a warrent for it to be reassess or assess for that after.

AQ at 11:36pm February 26
* warrant
* after- matter

THST at 12:03am February 27
From what I understand, there is a problem with gay marriages in Canada: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/04/15/michael-coren-on-canada-s-biggest-mistake-gay-marriage.aspx Abstract from the article: "For the first time not only in Canadian but in world history we are purposefully creating and legitimizing families where there will be either no male or no female role model and parent. Anyone who speaks of uncles, aunts, communities and villages raising children has no real understanding of family life..."

It is not scientifically proven that there is a gay gene. I tend to believe that homosexuality is caused by environmental factors such as upbringing, child molestation, an absent mother or affectionate father.

I respect homosexuals and have some good friends who are homosexuals. Some of them have asked me for help because they want to change. They experienced bad childhood like child molestation when they were young and it is not easy for them.

VK at 12:22am February 27
One article by Michael Coren doesn't make it so. Bah! Why am I even wasting my time. Believe what you believe people. All I can say is, live and let live. I'm out!

JCYK at 2:19am February 27
Of course some homosexuals would want to 'change'; why would they like to be discriminated against and abused and vilified and be treated like they are second class citizens? These people can't accept who they are, simple as that. It's Michael Jackson syndrome.

RB at 3:04am February 27
One word: DELETE

RP at 4:06am February 27
Tim, I know you well enough to say that you are not a fool, so I am very surprised to see you coming to conclusions on issues based on personal opinions expressed by the likes of Coren and on your own rather limited experience in performing reparative therapy on some of your friends who have sought your help to change. Your map of the world is certainly not the territory, as there are many homosexual couples who live in very stable and healthy relationships that do not tear away at the fabric of society, and for every one of those who seek reparative therapy from you, there are many more married men seeking solace outside their relationships by engaging in homosexual encounters. I think of the Evangelist Ted Haggard as one such prominent example.

RP at 4:08am February 27
Your personal beliefs regarding homosexuality being caused by environmental factors are also well worn, as MQ rightly points out. Professional bodies such as the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association & the American Counselling Association have all stated clearly that homosexuality is not a disease and it should not be treated as such. I like the way this is phrased by the the American Psychological Association, “The research on homosexuality is very clear. Homosexuality is neither mental illness nor moral depravity. It is simply the way a minority of our population expresses human love and sexuality. Study after study documents the mental health of gay men and
lesbians. Studies of judgment, stability, reliability, and social and vocational adaptiveness all show that gay men and lesbians function every bit as well as heterosexuals.”

RP at 4:23am February 27
I think my simple act of wishing to air a segment of a TV show that I believe was unfairly censored has, as pointed out by MQ, certainly drawn more scrutiny to the issue. What is clear from this discussion, as mentioned by Abel, is that there are entrenched positions on both sides. I am prepared to wait and let history take it's course. If the lessons of history are anything to go by, we will see that the injustices of the past will eventually give way. Whether I will live to see this happen with regards to homosexuality, I don't know, but I have hope that some day, gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual people all around the world will have the last laugh!

CJKJ at 8:51am February 27
since some people here enjoy selective quoting, i shall now call on nietzsche: god is dead. truly.

shellfish, anyone?

GT at 10:17am February 27
i particular find this segment kinda inapproriate for an Academy Awards telecast

he shld lobby it elsewhere

RP at 10:40am February 27
Well, given that he was talking about the film 'Milk' that celebrates the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, I think he is entirely appropriate in talking about these issues. I also don't see this as lobbying. I feel he was sharing something that was very personal about his life as a gay man and acknowledging the role that Harvey Milk played in helping him come to terms with his sexuality.

GT at 10:53am February 27
sorry, i have not watched the movie. If the movie is about a gay man's life then i would agree that the segment is appropriate.

As to why the segment was cut out, well, the final decision must have come from the editor. He/she may view it differently and thus decided not to include it. Afterall, such topic is still deemed a taboo.

What is not normal is sadly and often being feared upon by so-call normal people

Anyway, thank you for introducing this movie. I think I will go watch it.

RP at 11:15am February 27
I am really happy to hear that you will be watching this movie.

THST at 2:06pm February 27
I do not have doubt that there are homosexual couples who live in healthy and stable relationship but there are also many who indulge themselves in the sexual relationship as well. It does not take Coren's article to understand the health and social problems caused by homosexual acts within or outside a gay marriage. Again, I do not have doubt that there are married men seeking solace outside their relationships by seeking homosexual encounters, but there are many homosexuals who managed to overcome too. I think of the Evangelist Sy RPs as one such prominent example.

I agree that homosexuality is not a disease and I am glad if they can accept who they are and live with it, without indulging themselves in homosexual acts. I do not seek to change my homosexual friends unless they look for me for help. The mental health of gay men and lesbian is fine but I have also seen hard cores who can be out of control. Child perversion and other sexual acts are common among the hard cores.

RP at 2:22pm February 27
Oh please, Tim! There are lots more heterosexual men and women indulging in sexual perversion than homosexuals! All you have to do is hang out at Harbourfront on a Saturday night to see scores of middle aged men, many of whom are married, lining up to go to Batam to have sex with teenage girls! So why aren't you campaigning to end their right to stay married, eh? Your stand is nothing short of hypocritical and it reveals your absolute bias against people who are different from you!

And all this talk of health and social problems...what utter rubbish! There are more heterosexuals with social diseases like AIDS and STDs than there are homosexuals. Once again, your blindness is shown by your inability to recognise the flaws in your own arguments. Admit it Tim, you are a bigot when it comes to this issue!

GT at 2:40pm February 27
I was once a BIG time homophobic, but once I have friends from that group, my perpective of them has changed completely.

Pity, Singapore is afterall still a very conservative society. But on the other hand, thank god for the internet and the availability of free media, very soon Singapore will not be able to control how we think and how we should behave.

The future of TV programmes will come solely from the internet.

RP at 2:55pm February 27
It warms my heart to know that you are a reformed homophobic, Gabriel. I can see no valid excuse for anyone to be a homophobe.

THST at 3:58pm February 27
I feel that your views are too extreme and I hope to give a more balanced view. You spoke as though all you said are truths and I felt the need to give alternatives to your views. I do not think that I am bias against homosexuals and I will continue to treat them normally.

RP at 8:08pm February 27
My views are too extreme! That's a laugh! Well, chum, I have news for you - I have absolutely no intention of changing my views whatsoever or retracting anything that I have said on this issue. I am sure you do not like what I have said, but that is my right and it is what I believe and see to be true. I think this will have to be a case where we will have to agree to disagree. It has been a most stimulating discussion indeed.

AO at 8:25pm February 27
Do not drag the bible or religion into this issue because not everyone as u assume are Christians. and even so i have many gay friends who are christians. If you sir were to bring this talk of homosexuality "caused by environmental factors such as upbringing, child molestation, an absent mother or affectionate father" u would be under real fire. You have crossed that very fine line from a discussion to an issult. and what u have said is extremely insulting. It honestly, disgust me immensly and is a joke really. PURE BULLSHIT to say those are the factors from your own opinions or whatever u assume. PLEASE. maybe u assume it is becos of the same-sex schs in sg or whatever and u derive that from that but there are homosexuals who have been in a straight environment all their life eg:ellen degeneres. and have dated guys before because it is what the community SAYS is "right" but they realise that they have no attachemnt to them at all.and with that example people dont BECOME homosexuals

AO at 8:26pm February 27
just because they have been molested or absent whatever.

TZY at 8:36pm February 27
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-11/24/content_497556.htm
Sex is determined at fertilization. The gonads (i.e. either testicles or ovaries) are undifferentiated upon development. If the fetus has XY chromosome, the gonads develop as testicles. If the fetus has XX chromosome, the undifferentiated gonads develop as ovaries.

However, in rare cases (actual statistics unknown) such as the one in the link above, the fetus develops testicles but the rest of the sex organs do not develop. Thus the person has XY chromosomes but looks exactly like a female. This person may develop breasts during puberty, and the voice does not break.

Often the only way to tell this condition is through a medical exam.

It may be entirely possible, although far from proven, that a person may have all the features of one sex but be intrinsically attracted to the same sex. Further research is required.

THST at 9:42pm February 27
AO, there has been much debate about what causes homosexuality. The reasons are complex. Homosexuality is not genetic but neither do people choose to have homosexual feelings.
Scientists have studied twins. If homosexuality is solely genetic, you would expect to find a one-to-one correlation of sexual orientation for identical twins. In other words, every time one twin was homosexual, the other identical twin would be too because they share identical genes. Twin studies do not show this. The study by Bailey and Pillard, published in 1991, is often reported as a major study of twins. They did not find that all identical twins are always both homosexual. Interestingly, this study also looked at the rest of the family and they found that the rates of homosexuality among the rest of the family, including adopted brothers was 200-300% more frequent than the general rates in society. And so the data leads to the conclusion that something more is causing homosexuality.

MQT at 12:39am February 28
I hope you don't mind me interjecting again, I'm only acquainted with RP in this discussion but I feel compelled to respond to Mr Ho's comments.

After sifting through the rhetoric I believe it would be fair to say your stand comprises two claims:

1) Homosexuality is a choice, not a result of genetic circumstance.

I believe on this point, neither side has the right to claim that their view has been validated by science. For every anecdote you have of a gay man who has CHOSEN to be gay of his own volition, there will be another if not more who will testify that their homosexuality was innate. For every scientific journal or empirical evidence that you cite, there is another survey ready to show the exact opposite.

This brings me to the second portion of your argument which focuses largely on the group of homosexuals you believe have CHOSEN their sexuality. Namely:

MQT at 12:43am February 28
2) Gay marriage has a negative social and health related impact OUTSIDE the marriage. You have stated this in a way that pretty much amounts to a fact. I would sincerely like to see you back up this claim with FACTS. Surveys of health detriment? Scientists willing to stand up and say gay marriage perpetuates health problems in society different in nature to those of heterosexual activities? What kind of social problems? If you are going to launch into the same tired argument about the degradation of the traditional family unit Sir... well, frankly Sir, I believe there are far more PRESSING concerns for the family unit TODAY than if my gay neighbour falls in love and gets married. This claim you have made is the central force of your argument and that you have made it with little to no real evidence and then pledged yourself to a view of "tolerance" is disturbing.

MQT at 12:48am February 28
A final point. Let us assume, for the sake of this convoluted argument, that you cannot prove that gay marriage has a negative impact on society (although I leave the burden of proof open to anyone to alleviate with some serious source evidence), what then of the negative INTERNAL impact on the gay marriage as you have ALSO claimed to be true?

Sir, I would humbly suggest that it is not our place to champion the proper state of bedroom activities for couples around the world!

On a more serious level, I am SURE there are gay couples who treasure their sexuality and enjoy their partnership. I am equally sure that there are heterosexual couples who despise themselves and view the nature of their sexual relationships as a detriment to their happiness. Surely the personal happiness of any two individuals has almost nothing to do with their sexual orientation?

MQT at 12:58am February 28
It's who you love, not what.

This world needs more love and acceptance, not fear and denial.

I would be more than happy to change my views with overwhelming evidence. For now, it seems to me like the arguments against gay marriage run the risk of becoming convenient rationalizations for intuitively homophobic sentiments.

My apologies RP, for flooding your thread. I have said my piece.

RP at 2:53am February 28
Please don't apologise, MQ, I really do appreciate your contributuion to this discussion. Thank you so much.

THST at 3:07am February 28
Concerning your point 2, I am not sure whether you are aware that gay divorce is happening in some countries. 7 months after gay marriage is legalized in Massachusetts, gay and lesbian couples started filing for divorce already. In the news article below, there were problems with the custody of children because usually family court judges leaned towards maternal preference when it came to custody disputes, but in this case both are women and they claimed to be the mother.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/01/AR2008010101734.html
Gay and lesbian couples can divorce easily and search for other partners outside their marriage. You may say that heterosexual marriage is the same but it is more complicated in the case for homosexual. It is not only a breakdown of a family unit but there are more implications as you read the article above. For health problem, I have found a link which you can read to understand the higher risks involved: http://www.narth.com/docs/

RP at 3:16am February 28
I beg to differ with you, Tim. The findings by Bailey & Pillard (1991) indicated a 52% of identical (monozygotic) twins of homosexual men were likewise homosexual, and in a follow-up study in 1993 done on lesbian women, the same researchers found that 48% of identical twins of homosexual women were also likewise homosexual. Whilst the results are not conclusive, they are statistically significant enough to indicate a possible genetic influence. This was the conclusion of the researchers themselves.

RP at 3:30am February 28
Please be wary of Tim's reference to NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy on Homosexuality). This organisation, although claiming to be secular, is very closely associated with the right-wing Christian organisation, Focus on the Family, founded by Dr James Dobson. Dr Nicolosi of NARTH is one of the keynote speakers for Dr Dobson's 'Love Won Out' conferences.

RP at 3:34am February 28
The interpretation of scientific information produced by NARTH in support of it's objectives has been a concern to legitimate scientific organisations such as the American Psychological Association which in August 2006 issued a warning about NARTH and the reparative therapies it supports, viz. “For over three decades, the consensus of the mental-health community has been that homosexuality is not an illness and therefore not in need of a cure. The APA’s concern about the positions espoused by NARTH (National
Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) and so-called conversion therapies is that they are not supported by the science. There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Our further concern is that the positions espoused by NARTH and Focus on the Family create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.” (American Psychological Association Annual Convention, New Orleans,
August, 2006)

RP at 4:01am February 28
I am going to call this discussion to a close. We could go on forever otherwise, and personally, I have better things to do with my time. Thank you everyone for contributing.

THST at 4:18am February 28
Like what MQ said earlier, for every scientific journal or empirical evidence that you cite, there is another survey ready to show the exact opposite.

RP, I am glad to have engaged this discussion with you. I have never thought to have keep in touch with you in this way, now that I am in Ecuador. I jumped into this discussion because of an irresponsible remark and quote of scriptures initially. I agree to disagree with you on our stand. Thanks for the provoking video that stimulates so much discussions and thoughts.

Let God be the judge at the end of the day.

Indeed, He will be. Amen.