Genesis 20 & Buddies Brian and Marc

Have you ever thought about how similar Legalist, Marketers, Emergents, and Liberals are?  What do Marc Grizzard and Brian McLaren have in common?

Marc is inviting you to burn Bibles:

Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan’s bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God’s Word the King James Bible.

We will also be burning Satan’s music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contemporary Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies [sic], etc.

We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol [sic], Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.

We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken [sic], fried chicken, and all the sides.

Mclaren is inviting some to be Hindu followers of Jesus:

I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts … I don’t hope all Jews or Hindus will become members of the Christian religion, but I do hope all who feel so called will become Hindu or Jewish followers of Jesus. (A Generous Orthodoxy)

One seems radically exclusive, the other inclusive, what similarities can there be?  They are both Pelagians.  Pelagianism was an early church history that put salvation in man’s hands.  Both Grizzard and McLaren emphasize what we do over what Christ has done.  For Legalist it is a set of rules, dos and don’ts that make you a Christian.  For Marketers it is all about the newest and most effective methods.  For Emergents it is about “deeds not creeds”, living the kingdom life.  For Liberals it is all about how we live, the social-gospel.  Some profess the gospel, some assume, some redefine, and others deny, but all allow the Gospel to be eclipsed by works.

The central message of Abraham, of the Bible, is given in the first two words of verse 3, but first I need to set you up with verse 2.  Here is the message, “And Abraham… And Abimelech… But God…”; the Gospel is not about what we do, but what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.  We sin, God saves.  We are unfaithful, He is faithful.  What makes us Christians is not our morality, but our message.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  – Ephesians 2:1-9 (ESV)

Tolle Lege: A Hunger for God

A Hunger For GodReadibility: 1

Length: 181 pgs

Aurthor: John Piper

Fasting… when was the last time you did it?  Ever?  Why is fasting so rare today and what does this say about us?  Is it because we are physically full that we are spiritually lethargic?

All this questioning might prompt another question, why should we fast?  This book answers that question.  If you are looking for a “how to” book on fasting, this isn’t it.  This book is concerned with a greater question.  Oh, that you would read A Hunger for God, and that there would be some unsettling in the pit of your stomach right now that would cause you to go without food in longing for something more satisfying.  May these snippets whet your appetite for fasting.

Beware of books on fasting. …The discipline of self-denial is fraught with dangers – perhaps only surpassed by the dangers of indulgence. 

‘Desires for other things’ – there’s the enemy. And the only weapon that will triumph is a deeper hunger for God. The weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory, but because we keep ourselves stuffed with ‘other things.’ Perhaps, then, the denial of our stomach’s appetite for food might express, or even increase, our soul’s appetite for God.

What we hunger for most, we worship.

Half of Christian fasting is that our physical appetite is lost because our homesickness for God is so intense. The other half is that our homesickness for God is threatened because our physical appetites are so intense. In the first half, appetite is lost. In the second half, appetite is resisted. In the first, we yield to the higher hunger that is. In the second, we fight for the higher hunger that isn’t. Christian fasting is not only the spontaneous effect of a superior satisfaction in God; it is also a chosen weapon against every force in the world that would take that satisfaction away.

The Doctor: Church History Is Bigger Than You

But if we look at the long history of the Christian Church, and pay attention to certain things that are to be seen in individuals, and in groups of churches, and perhaps in a whole country, at times, we shall be given an insight into what we have in this verse.  In other words, if you are in doubt about the meaning of such a verse as this, do not reduce it to something that may be true in your own experience and limit it to that; read the lives of the saints, read the story of certain unusual people who have adorned the Church of God and listen to what they have to say.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, pp. 298-299

Genesis 19 & The Greatest Threat

The greatest threat Sodom posed toward Lot was not the persecution he faced in verse 9. The one day of persecution by Sodom is eclipsed by the many days of influence by Sodom. Persecution for the name of Jesus is blessed and magnifies his name. Influence belittles the name of Jesus. C.J. Mahaney writes:

Today, the greatest challenge facing American evangelicals is not persecution from the world, but seduction by the world.

It is not the world against us, but the worldliness within us that we need most fear.  Lot got out of Sodom, but not before Sodom got into Lot.

Tolle Lege: David Livingstone

Readability: 1

Length: 376 pgs

Author: Rob Mackenzie

By many standards David Livingstone would be deemed a failure. As a husband he was often away from his wife and never gave her a home. As a father he neglected his children. As a missionary he would see few converts. As an explorer he would never find the source of the Nile. As a doctor he never had an established practice. As a philanthropist he did not end the slave trade in Africa before his death. But God sees not as we see. Livingstone would write:

No mission which has His approbation is entirely unsuccessful. His purposes have been fulfilled if we have been faithful… And many missions which He has sent in the olden time seem bad failures. (I would comment that God’s purposes will be fulfilled even if we are not faithful. I think Livingstone would agree, the nuance being his purposes fulfilled in us.)

Oh what God has wrought from all of Livingstone’s un-successes! How many missionaries have been inspired? How much soil was prepared for a mighty harvest? Without doubt Henry Morton Stanley’s writing of his interview with Livingstone is what ignited the flames of love in Britian that would extinguish the slave trade. God used his tears as the flood to bring forth a great harvest. His zeal has infected me, thus I am thankful to God for this man.

Yes Livingstone had his faults, and he regretted them. If you wish to live without regret do not become a Christian, repentance necessitates it, and Christianity necessitates repentance. Livingstone regretted and repented of his sins, but he regretted none of his earthly sacrifices.

For my own part, I have never ceases to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left is Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.

We cannot pay God back, we only fall deeper into debt. The glorious debt of grace, oh to plummet into the red. Father, may such zeal as Livingstone had be graciously put into our hearts for the salvation of men’s souls to Your eternal glory.

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The Doctor: The Spirit is Not a Liquid

Surely this other teaching, thought it reminds us that the Holy Spirit is a person, nevertheless seems to forget that fact at this point.  It falls into the error of talking of the Spirit as if He were a liquid that could be poured out, or as if He were like the air which can be breathed in.  But the Holy Spirit is a Person!  He is God, the third Person in the blessed Holy Trinity; and we Christians cannot take Him just as we breathe in the air, whenever we like, and whenever we choose.  What we are taught is that we have to be subject to the Spirit, we have to surrender to the Spirit, and we have to be very careful not to ‘grieve’ or to ‘quench’ the Spirit.  But there is never any suggestion anywhere in Scripture that we can take Him in this simple and almost casual manner.  This teaching seems to me to do violence to the very Person of the Holy Spirit Himself.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 253

Tolle Lege: The Word Became Fresh

The Word Became FreshReadability: 2

Length: 154 pgs

Author: Dale Ralph Davis

I think The Word Became Fresh will be profitable for all, but I especially recommend it to all teachers and preachers.  The profit for general readership will be insight in how to read and interpret Old Testament narrative and make application to self.  Do not be intimidated by the subtitle, “How to Preach from Old Testament Narrative Texts.”  The book is a joy to read being full of whit and illustration.

Who would’ve ever guessed that a bizarre soap opera would proclaim the faithfulness of God?  But that is clearly the case when you see Genesis 29-30 backed up against the people-promise of Genesis 12; that is, as you are meant to see it.  And instead of moaning about the family breakdown you will proclaim the faithfulness of God from this text.  The chemistry of divine providence takes the sludge and crud and confusion of our doings and makes it the soil that produces the fruit of his faithfulness.

Is the Lord deficient in understanding kindness or am I deficient in understanding holiness?

Doctrinal appreciation may feed genuine worship but it should never be identified with it.  In our finest hermeneutical moments we are only a step from idolatry.

Genesis 18 & Kill the Cosmic Care Bear to Know Love

I wonder if when we sing “Amazing Grace” with some sincerity we often mean nothing more than that we are amazed at what His grace has done for us, rather than it is directed to us.  “God’s grace is wonderful, but the wonder is not that it’s directed towards me.”  Grace is amazing in its power, and amazing in that it is directed towards a sinner such as I.

What amazes you more the fire and sulfur of chapter 19 or the grace and condescension of chapter 18.  Sodom and Gomorrah should not shock us.  Oh, for sure we should be in awe of the terrible might and wrath of God Almighty, but it should not come as a surprise that such wrath would be directed against wicked men from so holy a God.  If chapter 19 shocks us more it is because we are more impressed with ourselves than God.  Dale Ralph Davis does well in cautioning us to ask, “Is the Lord deficient in understanding kindness or am I deficient in understanding holiness?”

America needs a soft “God”.  We could never tolerate the gods of the ancient Norseman.  They are far too rude.  No, give us a Cosmic Care Bear in the sky.  He need not awake our awe so much as he need be enthralled with us.  Such is our attitude.  Thus as R.C. Sproul laments, “What amazes us is justice, not grace.”  We have redefined God to please our ego, and in so doing we have lost God all together.  In so doing we have emptied His love of any meaning at all.  D.A. Cason writes:

I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God – to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of Christianity.

The result of course, is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable.  The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized.  This process has been going on for some time ….

It has not always been so.  In generations when almost everyone believed in the justice of God, people sometimes found it difficult to believe in the love of God. The preaching of the love of God came as wonderful good news.  Nowadays if you tell people that God loves them, they are unlikely to be surprised.  Of course God loves me; he’s like that, isn’t he?  Besides why shouldn’t he love me?  I’m kind of cute, at least as nice as the next person.  I’m okay, your okay, and God loves you and me.

You cannot esteem high opinions of yourself and God at the same time.  God is holy.  Sin is serious.  Sodom and Gomorrah and serious.  Yea, Sodom and Gomorrah fall short of the eternal hell that your God belittling pride deserves.

Today my dentist jokingly said he wanted to get the Swine Flu for a couple of reasons:

  1. Everybody is getting it; he wouldn’t want to be left out.  It seems like the cool thing to do.
  2. It would help him appreciate his health.  Requesting it is requesting a lesson in gratitude.

If you wish to be overwhelmed with divine love, drowned in it, enraptured by it, first you must be floored terrified of his holiness.  The whispers of God’s love in chapter 18 sound sweeter against the back drop of the thunder of His wrath in chapter 19.  Either chapter without the other is incomplete.

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Hebrews 4 11:-13 & The Mountains Will Not Listen

Genesis 17 & All That He Is – For You

Do you realize the preciousness of these words “to be God to you… I will be their God” (Genesis 17:7-8)?  What is the difference between God being God to us, and God being God?  Do not pass lightly by such phrases in God’s Holy Word.  There is life giving, joy sustaining truth in such phrases.  Phrases like this are the place of sweet communion with God.

The difference between these two phrases, “God being God to us” and “God being God”, are as different as a woman being a wife, and a woman being my wife.  In one instance she is a wife, in the other she is a wife to me.  This means that everything she is as a wife, she is for me and to me alone.  This is the language of covenant.  This is the language of intimacy.  God has betrothed Himself to His people in love.

All that God is He is for you.  His beauty, for you.  His goodness, for you.  His kindness, for you.  His glory, for you.  His joy, for you.  His wisdom, for you.  His power, for you.  All His attributes are for you to enjoy and take comfort in.  Even His justice and righteousness, yes, even His wrath are for you.  Because in Christ your wrath has been born, now the wrath of God which works only to exalt His name and to stamp out injustice also works to your joy and good.  All He is, His entire “Godness” is for you.  There is nothing that He is that He is not for you.  To clarify and avoid heresy, by “for you” I mean for your enjoyment and protection.  God’s attributes are not against you, but for you.  You are not the reason He is what He is, but all that He is, He is in your favor.  This is the magnitude of grace we enjoy.  He is both your shield and your exceeding great reward.

The Doctor: Reverence is Not Bondage

The reconciliation of the apparent contradiction lies in the difference between respect and fear.  When you respect a person you do not fear that person.  What you fear is that you may do something that displease him, and that, not because you feat that he may punish you, but sometimes  even because you may feel that, because he is who and what he is, he will not punish you!  Reverence is ultimately based upon love, it is the recognition of this greatness of the privilege of being allowed to approach God.  There is nothing craven about that; there is not torment in it; there is no bondage in it.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 224