Life through the Bible

After running far enough away where he might be safe the European man broke down and wept bitterly.

For three he had been shackled like a dog on a lead. He had been taken captive by his enemies and subjected to the treacherous miseries of prison life. Not long after his imprisonment though, another European traveler came through. He saw his countryman and pitied him, but dared not help him for fear of being incarcerated himself. The best he could do was give him a book.

The prisoner was highly disappointed. He did not want books. He wanted food, clothing and freedom. In a rage he threw the book aside. And there the book laid for three long, harsh years.

One day, out of mere chance, he picked up the book and started leafing through it. To his surprise, there within he found a file—the one thing he needed most. When the guards were not looking he was able to file down his chains and make his escape.

When safely out of the way he broke down and lamented how foolish he had been. All along the means to escape sat right beside him. The key to his freedom and happiness was found in the book.

Sadly this is the way many people treat the Bible. The one book that can set us free from the bondage of sin and help us escape the flame of hell is, tragically, neglected by so many. For whatever reason, be it laziness or stubbornness, it is never opened. As a result, its blessing is never enjoyed.

God’s Word tells us that the Bible is “able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” This means that, to get to heaven, you must read the Bible and accept its truths. It is as simple as that. But if its teachings are ignored or outright rejected, then one will find himself forever outside heaven. Instead of being forgiven and welcomed into eternal glory, you will suffer the punishment that is justly due to us for sin.

Like a road map, the Bible outlines the only way to escape this punishment and come safely to Paradise. It teaches us that the God we have offended has provided a Savior and freely offers sinners life and salvation through him. All we need to do to receive this salvation is turn from our sin, accept Jesus Christ as Savior, and begin to live a new life of obedience. If this is done, eternal condemnation need not be feared. That’s because the Bible tells us that we will become God’s child and will forever enjoy His favor.

Some will scoff. Some probably will find it hard to believe. But the only way to know for sure is to take it up and read it for yourself. If you do, you will not be disappointed. You will find that “It is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over to possess." (Deut. 32:47, ESV)

The Atheist Producing Church

Christian churches are producing atheists! This article in the Christian Post (and its subsequent comments) are quite right. The education of our covenant children needs to be taken more seriously. The church has adapted the Sesemea Street approach to learning about God and his Word. Should we be surprised that our young people grow up to be wholely ignorant and radically atheistic.

Evil Funds Tyndale's Bible Propagation

Many of us owe a great debt to William Tyndale. This farmer became convicted that the Scriptures should be translated into English and disseminated among the people of England. He threw himself into the work and began producing Bibles.

Being that the Catholic church at that time did not allow the Scriptures to be in the hands of the common person, the Archbishop of England sought to purge England of the Bibles. He did not order them all to be burned, as that would create an uprising among the people. Instead he sought to rid England of them by buying them all up. But this just provided Tyndale with more money to make more Bibles!

With God in the Wilderness

Dr. Duncan has a sweet series in Numbers, that book we normally skip over. The series is entitled "With God in the Wilderness."

He really helps us see the divine intent of things like the arrangement of the camp, the woman accused of adultery, the priests and Levites, and those funny laws. Don't think this is dull stuff either, far from it. It's practical and dripping with Christ's redemption. I have to say, it is a must hear.

Spurgeon on the Importance of Reading.

A special thanks to Still Waters Revival Books for this choice morsel from Charles Spurgeon:

As the Apostle said to Timothy, so he says to every one of us, "Give yourself to reading." He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature. But study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the puritanical works and expositions of the Bible. The best way for you to spend your time in leisure is either in reading or praying.

Where the Blame Really Lies

"The veil still remains upon their heart."
(2 Cor. iii. 15)

"If our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost,
whose heart the god of this world hath blinded."
(2 Cor. iv. 3-4.)

In his work, Bondage of the Will, Luther makes the following comment on these verses

With the same rashness any one may cover his own eyes, or go from the light into the dark and hide himself, and then blame the day and the sun for being obscure. Let, therefore, wretched men cease to impute, with blasphemous perverseness, the darkness and obscurity of their own heart to the all-clear Scriptures of God.

Prince of Preachers

I love stories of how the Word of God is not bound, but continues to break forth into the world with power. To my great joy librivox.org, an MP3 audio book site, now has sermons by Charles Spurgeon.

While they are easily found elsewhere, they mainly are found on Christian sites. But here we see that the Prince of Preachers is so compelling, even over 100 years later, that the secular world will welcome his messages. What a testimony to this servant, he still speaks!

Other great Christian works may be found on that site too. I am currently "reading" Ambrose's book The Duties of Pastors and Daniel Defoe's work on the London plague of the 1640's. Excellent stuff so far.

What is great about the Librivox books is that they are mainly from generations past. The classic stuff that has stood the test of time is the stuff we should be reading. Do you hear of anybody reading the Prayer of Jabez anymore? How about the purpose driven life? Basically those books have seen their day expire. That should tell you a lot about their content. Check out this audio if you want more on that subject.

Idle Talk

"And we encourage you, brothers, [to] admonish the idle."

1 Thessalonians 5:14

Hey, do you got a second? Sure you do, you are an American.

No country in the world throughout history has had the amount of free time that we Americans do. We have made it our goal to get things done efficiently and effectively. As a result we have spawned the automobile, the microwave, the computer (and the blessed Internet--thank you Al Gore), and,perhaps the epitome of time saving utensils, the clapper.

As a result of our technological enterprises and advancements we've got time. No longer do we have to work for our daily bread. Should our pantry not have our Sugar Smacks all we need to do is walk down the street to the bagel shop. Hours spent in labor are reduced to a 8 hour day (compared to 12-16 hour days in many other countries), and the rest of the day is spent doing.....yeah that's right, nothing.

That is an overstatement, for sure. But we must admit that we have an excessive amount of leisure time. While a holy resting is a gift from the Lord and necessary for the refreshment of the mind and body, too much leisure can (and does) lead to the vice of idleness.

And America is becoming a nation of "Dr. Do Little's." Young people in particular spend countless hours surfing the net for no apparent reason. Adults squander precious evening hours in front of the TV. Fictional novels are consumed at a incredible rate and frivolous games eat up time that could be devoted to more profitable endeavors.

We as Christians are no wise innocent in the matter either. Somehow we have time to do our 45 minute workout each day, but we are unable to make it to the mid-week prayer meeting. We can peruse the comics, but not meditate on a scriptural exhortation.

As Christians we must remember: "to whom much is given, much is demanded." Therefore it is imperative that we be redeeming the time. One of my "highly recommended books" is Lewis Bayly's The Practice of Piety. In that book he teaches you how to spend your "down time" (such as, while you are eating dinner or sitting in your lazy boy after a day at work) in a holy way. He gives thoughts for you to reflect on and ideas that seek to stir you up to prayer.

We must not think though that idleness is the act of doing nothing. You may think that an idle person is a person who sleeps all day. But that is only one form of idleness. An idle person may very well be a very active person. Idleness, according to the Bible, means that you aren't doing anything of real purpose and profit: Shooting the breeze, cruising the town, taking a prolonged shower, or indulging your fancy in a video game may equal qualify. These things are not bad in and of themselves, but doing them at the expense of something more profitable or necessary (like prayer, assisting the needy, or cleaning your room) is cause for concern.

I find the Proverbs 31 woman to be the perfect model of the anti-idle. Here is a woman who is apt in her work--be it in the home, at the market, or out in the world at large--and she still has time to devote to personal piety and assisting the less fortunate. Wow.

Paul says in the verse above that the idle are to be admonished. That's such a strong message, for most of us seem to think that idleness is not a big deal. If we did admonish someone for idleness, they would probably give the same reply that they give to the cop who pulls them over for speeding--"don't you have anything better to do?"

But remember, an admonition does not have to be a sour confrontation. It could be a time where the father and son are talking by the pond while fishing (that certainly is not idleness!). Or it could be the friend who politely asks, "When you are doing X (the seemingly idle task), how do you keep from wasting those moments?"

Nevertheless, a command is a command. The fool may scoff, but the wise will hear and heed. The family that is slack in their daily worship together will recognize that their idleness will lead to the paganization of the church. The employee that chats by the coffee station will recognize that he is dishonoring God and wasting his employer's money. The child who awaits the bus will see that those stagnate mornings and monotonous rides can become a rich time of prayer. Thus, the idle will become profitable for both man and God.

On the Rhetoric of 'On the Rhetoric of 'A War On Terrorism'"

In his speech "On the Rhetoric of a 'War on Terrorism'" Dr. Kyle Fedler, a religion professor at Ashland University, examines the use of words. His proposition is that words are powerful, and as a result, can influence the shaping of policy when it comes to war.

Dr. Fedler makes many fine points in his speech. One has to do with the "dehumanizing" of our enemies through our choice of words (i.e. referring to them as "the enemy" or "vermin"). As Christians, we acknowledge that all men (even enemies) have dignity and therefore must be treated with the utmost respect.

I agree with Dr. Fedler when he says, "Language is a powerful tool," and agree with his main supposition--that language, because it can exercise a powerful influence over people, should be used carefully. But readers should beware, some of Dr. Fedler's rhetoric should be scrutinized as well.

In reference to the 911 attack Fedler says, "Even if God could produce some good from these events, it would not help explain them."

Fedler's choice of words cast doubt upon God's ability to bring about good from the terrorist attacks. It even seems to go so far as to say that those Muslim men got the best of God on this one.

But these words (which I assume were purposely chosen being that this was a public speech) do not reflect the Bible's rhetoric of God's sovereign decree. The Bible is clear when it says that God "works all things according to the counsel of his own will" (Eph. 1:11). Even something as horrific as the 911 terrorist attack most certainly falls under Scripture's general category of "all things." As a result, even the 911 attacks were part of God's foreordained plan.

Admittedly, the intricacies of God's eternal decree is concealed to men. For this reason we must remember that the secret things belong to God and that we must adhere to what is revealed (Deut. 29:29). But when it comes to the dreadful acts of men and the question of "where was God in it?", we are not left to vain (or despairing, in Dr. Fedler's case) speculations. Joseph's words still remain true: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." (Genesis 50:20).

But the sovereignty of God is not the only issue that perks one's attention in Fedler's speech on war rhetoric.

Fedler also seems to indicate a bit of a quibble with the Bible's masculine language. When speaking about the Devil, the Bible always refers to him with masculine pronouns. Yet Fedler suggests that there is room for debate regarding the devil's gender. In reference to an extreme quote from Anne Coulter Fedler says, "I can only imagine that the devil is licking his (or her) lips over the possibility of Coulter's all-out war on the just and unjust alike."

Had he referred to the devil in a neutral way (i.e. "it") we would have no cause to pause. For angels and demons are not sexual beings per se, like humans. But his insertion of the feminine pronoun makes us wonder if the Bible can be trusted when it speaks of the devil. Indeed, it leads me to wonder, if the gender of the devil is open for debate, why not discount the devil altogether. We could take it even a step further, since the Bible is not a guide in this instance, why should it be a guide at all?

Fedler rightly argues in his speech that a war on terrorism could easily slip into terrorism itself. But what concerns me is his attack on the Bible.

As Christians we affirm the plenary inspiration of Scripture. That is to say, we believe that every word of Scripture was given by God through the Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16) to be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. As God's Holy Word, the rhetoric of the Bible is to be taken seriously, never adding to it or taking away from it. In other words, the words mean something, and they are there for a reason: To serve as the only infallible guide for life and faith.

If the Bible is not taken as one's guide for life, one cannot have clarity on life's greatest issues, as Dr. Fedler so beautifully illustrates. With it you may possess knowledge and peace, Without it one is left with confusion and, ultimately, despair.