Sanam Doctrinam

You’d think by now we’d have this one figured out!  Unfortunately with the barrage of bad theology and watered down material we are constantly having to reaffirm what the Bible really says.

It is a shame that we have people walking around believing that they are "eternally secure" because they went forward at a Christian Camp and threw a stick in the fire!  I would venture to say that most people think because they simply prayed a wrote prayer that they’re in!  Has anyone bothered to check in to see how things are going?  Here’s what I mean by that…

In the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3-23)  Jesus plainly describes those who it seems come to a true faith, but over time many of those apparent conversions are washed away by all the matters that, if one is not truly born again, will drag them away permanently.

We seem to deal with these matters in the way we do as a matter of emotion rather than what is based on truth.  We want so badly for that profession to count, that we forget that the evidence in found in a lifestyle that truly reflects one who has been born again. (James 2:18)

This does ot mean people who are born again will not sin (and sometimes big time!)  What it does mean is that when one is confronted on that sin (which is Biblical, see Matthew 18:15-18), they will respond in a way that one who is truly born again responds, and that is with repentance.

The standard of the Gospel is clear and it is this (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

This is what one must believe in order to be saved.  This is the Gospel.

I was writing an address I delivered to our Elders and Deacons at our biannual meeting Saturday June 14.  It had to do with the admission of Willow Creek, that their methodology over the last 30 years has been as mistake (These are not my words, but theirs.)  Not only has this admission come along, but also they have chosen to bring along guys like Brian McLaren to help them figure out the next direction.

Granted the "admission" was made in a Summer 2007 Summit meeting which is the main WCA Conference and McLaren was invited to the Shift Student Ministry Conference 2008.  I understand that these are two different venues, but let’s not forget that the original Willow model was born out of Youth Ministry.  This seems to be the way things go as far as progression at Willow.  All of that to say that it appears that one of the major "band wagon" instigators has now jumped onto a much bigger (and more dangerous) bandwagon itself.

McLaren and all of his hip wannabes reject any semblance of Orthodox Christianity.  Need I go further? Because much (to much) has been written on this matter.  The reality is though, as with almost every aberrant movement, there is a nugget of truth in there.

Observation in these things sometimes has merit, but application is where most go overboard.  The observation that the Evangelical church (do I need to define Evangelical church?) has failed to speak into some of the social issues of our day (except abortion) is true.  That we have abandoned the cities for the comfort of the suburbs is not all true.  You know the rest of the story. 

McLaren and his folks way of dealing with this is to literally reshape the gospel into one that is not the gospel, so you end up with a gospel that supposedly solves all the "Global Crises" as McLaren puts it, but ultimately doesn’t save anyone from a Christless eternity in Hell. His solution reads something like this, "Equity, Security, and Prosperity (What McLaren sees as our Christian duty) come through a sacrificial (wait for it…) people (dang, he almost got it) who embody reconciliation (who to whom?) and bring peace through justice and love, the Kingdom of God is at hand!"

Wow!  Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?!  We can take it to the bank that this will send people straight into the pits of Hell!  This is not the gospel.  Jesus said it a lot more simply.  I believe His words were, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" (Matthew 4:17)  If we are not going to the cities, the suburbs or around the world with this message in tote, we are not doing what Jesus did!  All the social programs in the world can not ultimately save any one!  It might speak to their current need (which we need to do) but it must come packaged with the truth that can set them free spiritually, even if the social program fails to do so physically (which many will.)

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted
And saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

The world is filled with broken people. If we look around, we can see them everywhere. People who look as if they have been buffeted by life. These are the sort of people about whom my mother used to say “had more than their share.” Last week I wrote of the people who are forgotten by the world. The broken and crushed certainly fall into this category.

I find the Hebrew of Psalm 34:18 to be especially rich. In reading the English text of this verse, I have always assumed that “brokenhearted” was simply a familiar expression the translators have traditionally employed to refer to those who evince an attitude of humility. What I discovered is that the Hebrew reads, “broken hearted.” The significance of the Hebrew word for “broken” is demonstrated in another text that uses the same word, 1 Kings 22:48: “Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold, but they did not go for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber.” Do you know people with shipwrecked hearts? Do you have one? Psalm 34:18 speaks directly to those whose hearts have been damaged by the vicissitudes of life, who have had “more than their share” of sorrow and grief. The text says that God is near these people. My Hebrew lexicon renders the Hebrew word for “near” in Psalm 34:18 as, “nearby in connection with God.”

Scripture tells us the rundown, forgotten, ignored, broken people are the ones to whom God is the nearest. Successful individuals upon whom the world pours adoration are not the great spiritual beneficiaries in heaven’s economy.

The second line of today’s couplet reinforces the first. God “saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Crushed means crushed. It is the people who have been crushed by life who Yahweh delights in delivering.

Some years ago I was sitting in a Greek class. The professor called on an older gentleman in the class to pray. I’ll never forget his prayer. He addressed the Lord of Hosts as the One who “sits high, but looks low.” He had it right. He might have been thinking of Isaiah 57:15: “For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, ‘I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”

Our God is a God of broken people and crushed spirits. The reason He delights in these may be because so many of us think we have it all together. We’ve got life by the tail financially, emotionally, and physically. There’s often not much room for God in a life so perfectly managed. For the ones who are broken and know it, however, God is at hand. And as we recognize the depth of our dependence on God and our brokenness before Him—if only by virtue of being human—we discover how near God is.

He will bless those who fear the LORD,
The small together with the great.

Psalm 115:13

Sometimes a new Bible makes us read the text with new eyes. A friend gave me a new, pocket-sized Bible this week, and in reading it this morning, I came across the above verse. I was intrigued. It speaks of two types of people, namely, the small and the great. I would like you to come along with me on a brief journey of discovery, probing the meaning of these two words.

The pair of words constitute a polarizing expression that refers to all people in a collective sense. The words can refer to young and old, but it seems to me that’s not the sense in this verse. Here, I believe the sense is much like that of Job 3:19. In that verse, as in Psalm 115:13, the meaning is “the insignificant and the significant.” If the words “small” and “great” here do correspond to insignificant and significant, it’s worth considering at what level the people mentioned here are insignificant or significant.

In our consideration of the meaning of great and small in Psalm 115:13, we can quickly dismiss one possibility: Great and small are not significant and insignificant from God’s perspective. He is infinitely greater than all. In fact, when God spoke about the relative significance of humanity to Himself, He described the people of the world in the most minimal terms. In Isaiah 40:15 we read, “Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales; behold, He lifts up the islands like fine dust.” Lest we think this only refers to pagan nations in contrast to Israel, it’s worth calling to mind that Abraham, the progenitor of God’s chosen people Israel, viewed himself in similar terms to Isaiah’s (Genesis 18:27).

If small and great do not refer to significance and insignificance from God’s perspective, we are only left with one possibility—that small and great refer to the relative significance of people from a human perspective. This is where things get interesting. How do we gauge human significance? Money, fame, power—each of these serves as a barometer of human importance. We can think of these sorts of people in terms of history: Napoleon, Kennedy, Hannibal—in each case these people are known by a single name. Or take money for an example. Few are unfamiliar with names like Gates, Buffet, and the Walton family, who control vast fortunes. Celebrities too numerous to mention are considered significant because of their sheer popularity—their fame.

As chintzy and banal the reasons for the perceived significance of some of these people, they are nonetheless considered significant by human standards. Life is filled with the winners and the losers. The powerbrokers and the weaklings. The famous and the forgotten. What I love about today’s verse is that the psalmist puts all these things that humanity elevates to such a height, and lowers the platform under it. He says of our God, “He will bless those who fear the LORD.” The implication is that human significance makes no difference whatever in the final analysis. The blessing of God is freely available to all who revere Him. God certainly will bless those who fear Him, recognizing who they are in the context of who He is. That blessing may not come in the way we expect or desire, but it will come, nonetheless, if in no other way than in the joy of an intimate walk with our loving Creator.

Do you feel small? Do you feel insignificant? Meaningless? Forgotten? Let’s not forget that while people may make us feel this way at times, the reality is not to be judged on a balance hanging in a human court. Small or great, if we fear the Lord, He will bless us. Ultimately His opinion is the only one that matters.

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

Life is filled with quests. A great portion of our lives is consumed by going after things. It may be the pursuit of a job, a hobby, a relationship, or simply something from the grocery store. We engage in these pursuits, often, simultaneously.

In today’s text, Jeremiah introduces us to the single greatest quest of life. In short, Jeremiah speaks of a quest for God.

I think it’s worth pointing out that knowing God is the greatest pursuit we can ever choose in life. Seeking God is worthy of every ounce of our strength and every moment of our time. One thing I believe that is important for us to understand, however, is that seeking God requires effort. Jesus once told His disciples not to cast their pearls before swine. God follows this same principle in the arena of our seeking Him. When we pursue God with only a halfhearted desire that radiates disinterest, we needn’t expect that we will find Him.

As a teacher of God’s Word, I have sometimes wondered why, when God chose to communicate with humanity, He did not give us the information He wanted us to know in a propositional, outline form. Certainly such a measure would have sidestepped all the confusion and conflict that surrounds the interpretation of biblical passages. God didn’t do this, however. He wrote His Word in a variety of genres including poetry, narrative, prophecy, epistle, and apocalypse, with all the literary richness (and accompanying interpretive challenges) these entail. I’ve come to believe that one primary reason He did so was to prompt us to seek Him. Bible study requires effort and commitment. We must mine propositional truth from the pages of Scripture in order to discover the nature and character of our God. God remains shrouded in a degree of secrecy from everyone, but He reveals Himself to a much greater degree to those who are willing to sincerely seek Him. Psalm 25:14 instructs us, “The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him.” While God is accessible to all, we must nonetheless seek Him in order to know Him.

I dare not neglect prayer in this matter of knowing God. Seeking God is not simply a matter of encountering objective truth in the Word of God, but also of pursuing God in prayer. It is in calling earnestly upon God that we pour out our hearts to Him (Psalm 62:8) and experience the expression of His grace in our lives as a result. Seeking God is connected with prayer in Scripture (2 Chronicles 7:14). God graciously answers a saint’s sincere call for a greater understanding of Him.

It’s important that we recognize the condition Jeremiah 29:13 places on seeking God—He must be sought with all our heart. When I survey the times the phrase “all your heart” shows up in my English text of Scripture, it strikes me that the greatest number of times I find it is in the book of Deuteronomy. God made it clear to Israel, through His servant Moses, that seeking Him demands all that we are. In fact, Deuteronomy 4:29 serves as a close parallel to today’s verse. After that initial command, we find “with all your heart” in Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 13:3, 26:16, and 30:2, 6, 10. God was clear with His chosen people that they were to pursue Him with all that they were. We are called to do no less.

If you’ve ever seen someone totally absorbed in a task, you know that you can almost read the concentration and intensity on their face. Their mission has consumed them. So it is with our pursuit of God. We are called to let it consume us.

Life for us will include many pursuits. All quests, no matter how noble, must take a backseat to the lifelong quest of seeking God.