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The Culture In Which We Live

Written by Rick Shrader

The Culture In Which We Live

by Rick Shrader

“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.     (1 Peter 2:11-12)

Have we ever seen a time in our country in which God’s children needed to walk more honestly and have felt more like strangers than the time in which we live? We say that the world is getting smaller and faster, and it certainly is from a technological point of view, yet with advantages come also moral responsibilities and failures. These only show that the Scripture is correct in revealing human beings as fallen creatures needing regeneration by the Spirit of God and through His grace.

It is interesting to see an obvious irony in our culture. On the one hand we are as loose in our morals and manners as we have ever been, flaunting profanity, nakedness, lawlessness, rudeness, adultery and fornication of all sorts. Media, in all its forms, seems to have no boundaries and in fact protests loudly when anyone suggests a curb on their so-called liberties. Yet on the other hand, we impose the most ridiculous rules and politically correct limitations on everything from speech to printed T-shirts. One university campus imposed a list of words and phrases that cannot be used on campus, including the word American because it may offend someone who is not from this county. This, of course, while the most vile things go on in the student dorms and frat houses.

We scream for law and order but do so by rioting and destroying our neighbor’s business and property. We say certain lives matter but we sell the body parts of unborn babies for personal profit. We threaten law suits for deflating a football, but release six-time convicted criminals onto the public streets to murder again. We demand that pastors in a certain community turn in their sermons for investigation of terminology, but create sanctuary cities to protect anyone who needs protection for crimes against the state. “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isa. 5:20).

The Christian must live in the world without becoming of the world. Paul warned the Corinthian Christians, “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:9-10). One day we indeed will go out of the world and dwell in God’s presence where none of these things can abide. But until then we are like Bunyan’s Christian, pilgrims on our way to the Celestial City. We must navigate the path with wisdom and insist to our fellow travelers that we stay in the way that leads to life eternal. When Paul says that we must not “company” with those who practice these things, he used a rather unusual word, sunanamignumi, which means to mix up together, to be intimate with, to share company with. This is a difficult task in an age such as ours.

Paul reminds us that he is not talking about not being in the same life together, or on the same planet because then the only way to fulfill this would be to die and go on to heaven. That will come in God’s own time. The Pilgrim still had to make his Progress. We still have to be neighbors, make commerce with them, travel the same roads and side walks with them. In fact, we have to approach them for the gospel’s sake, trying to win them to Christ so that they will go with us in the way. This takes the mind of Christ in the world in which we live.

We live among atheists

Our country has taught an evolutionary model of origins for a hundred and fifty years. Generations have been inculcated in our schools with a belief that there is no need for a Creator or for God at all. G.K. Chesterton said of his native England a hundred years ago, “Darwinianism was every bit as brazen an atheist assault, in the nineteenth century, as the Bolshevist No-God movement in the twentieth century.”1

The Bible calls such a person a “fool” (Psa. 10:4; 14:1; 53:1) in the sense that he has been fooled into such thinking though he may be a highly intelligent person. It is no wonder that such a person would be “ungodly” (Jude 15). Douglas Groothuis wrote, “When God as the source and center of ultimate meaning, value, and significance, evaporates from the social scene, a bevy of busy idols rushes in to stake out the vacant territory. When the transcendence of God is rejected, the meaning of personhood is annulled; for persons are cut off from the only reference point that explains their origin, nature, purpose, and destiny.”2

When there is no Lawgiver there is no law. If we really don’t have a God against Whom all standards of right and wrong are measured, then every person becomes his/her own final authority in truth and morality. As one writer adds, “Nor can a person be expected to pursue pleasure only so long as it doesn’t hurt others—all grounds for condemning even destructive behavior have themselves been destroyed with the initial assertion that pleasure is the highest good. All moral assertions are relativized and destroyed and life becomes, as Nietzsche said, an aesthetic phenomenon.”3

Peter says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer (apologia) to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear” (1 Pet. 3:15). Meekness is not weakness in these matters. Paul wrote, “The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:24-25).

We live among murderers

Though the number of abortions per year has decreased from 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.06 million in the last three years, the total number of unborn babies killed since Roe v. Wade in 1973 in the United States is 57,496,000+.4 There is no so-called barbaric nation in history that could boast more killings than this. Hitler and Stalin combined have to take a back seat to America’s intentional homicides. Then very recently we have learned that Planned Parenthood (it should be called Planned Unparenthood) not only is history’s largest killer of babies but carefully harvests the bodies to sell body parts for so-called research. Pharoah and Herod were not so sadistic. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the author of Amazing Grace, John Newton, happened to write, “Unnatural lusts, and the want of natural affection toward their offspring, are abominations not to be found among the brute creation. What shall we say of mothers destroying their children with their own hands, or of the horrid act of self-murder! Men are worse than beasts likewise in their obstinacy; they will not be warned.”5

I am a baby boomer child of the 60s. My high school days (1964-1968) saw the sexual revolution come in like a flood along with its counterparts: drugs, rebellion, and Rock ‘n Roll. Combined with atheism and radical feminism, the hippies would have their immoral cake and eat it too. Nothing would stop them from their sexual desires including killing the human offspring of their fornication. All this took was a little redefinition of when life begins. They argued over various stages of pregnancy, trying to appease their conscience and objecting Christians, until some, even recently, suggested that life doesn’t begin until a mother takes the baby home from the hospital.

The problems with this grew, however. The discovery of DNA revealed that the baby, at the moment of conception, has complete DNA, i.e., complete personhood. Then came Ultra-Sound where the mother and father could see the live baby moving, breathing, smiling, crying. We could watch as the baby was brutally killed and thrown away in the trash. These amazing discoveries have forced us to see that “unborn” babies are fully human beings. In addition the Bible was rediscovered with its statements about the conception of Jesus Christ being the eternal God at His very conception (Luke 1:31-35), and King David admitting that he was a sinner at conception (Psalm 51:5), and Job lamenting that he didn’t die after conception that he might go to heaven before his birth (Job 3:11-17), not to mention the Bible’s strict teaching of the sacredness of life which is made in the image and likeness of God and given as a blessing from Him as Creator (Genesis 1:26; 2:7; Psalm 139:13-16). Yet still today, people will have their sexual sin at all costs, even the cost of a human life.

We live among fornicators

The sexual revolution has made fornication and adultery acceptable, even expected. Hollywood has gone from fairly clean entertainment with good guys and bad guys, to smutty and immoral entertainment with bad guys and worse guys. The music industry is making its fortunes by spewing out perverse lyrics to the shouting applause of its listeners. The pornography underground has come above ground. The ubiquitous internet and online cell phone have made parental policing of this destructive sin almost impossible. College campuses have become drunken co-ed overnights, Spring Break is almost indescribably immoral, and children being born out of wedlock is more common than two-parent homes.

The inevitable outcome of such a culture is homosexuality, the lowest form of fornication. The apostle Paul addressed the epistle of Romans to the church that existed in an empire drenched in homosexuality. Immediately in the first chapter he says that God gives people up to this debasing sin (Rom. 1:24-28). He called it “against nature” (1:26); a change of the “natural use” of the human body (1:26, 27); “unseemly” (1:27); and an “error” that brings about its own judgment (1:28). Both Peter (2 Peter 2:6) and Jude (Jude 7) used the homosexual sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as an obvious example of God’s judgment on this grievous sin and a warning to others who would spurn that judgment.

In the United States, however, a nation that boasts that it trusts in God, that swears in its elected officials with one hand on the Bible, has watched those same officials decree that same-sex marriages will be protected by the law of the land. This Biblically described sin is now a hallmark token of America’s boast against God. In the same nation pornography is protected as free speech and nakedness paraded in the streets is protected as an individual right. But when a Christian boy admits his sin and settles it in a Biblical manner, he is labeled for life by this same adulterous society. The Christian must continue to do right and think right. James warns even believers, “Every man is tempted, when his is drawn away of his own lusts, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren” (James 1:14-16).

I have four more areas of warning but I will shorten them due to the space I have left.

We live among idolaters

Here we may be getting closer to the heart of the problem. D.A. Carson says, “Yet the heart of all this evil is idolatry itself. It is the de-godding of God. It is the creature swinging his puny fist in the face of his Maker and saying, in effect, ‘If you do not see things my way, I’ll make my own gods! I’ll be my own god!’”6 If we are not actually making ourselves into gods, we certainly live around things that we have made into gods. We live in an image-based society rather than a word-based society. Everything we want and desire is placed before us in beautiful picture. We don’t even have to respond for the responses are scripted in for us. Most of the day may be taken up watching a screen of some sort. Not that the screen is the idol, but making a master out of it certainly is.

In America, for many, life is a continual concert. We are wallpapered with noise. Talk radio and conservative television cannot start nor stop without a long and drawn out invasion of contemporary “music.” Any group of sloppily dressed performers, young or old, can perform in the same, tired, old way and the audience, young or old, responds in the same tired old way. We can even call it American Idol and it only encourages rather than discourages us.

We live among thieves

Sadly, the American dream of working hard, paying off your own home, retiring with your needs met, is no longer the American dream. The American dream is now winning a million dollar law suit or the lottery jackpot. If those don’t work, the government will pay you not to work. Of course, all of these come from someone else’s work, not yours. Politics has become a promise of transferring one person’s wealth to another for a vote, taxing those who do work and giving it to those who don’t: legal thievery!

Man was made to work. Adam was placed in a garden, not a shelter. Paul reminded us to “do your own business, and to work with your own hands” (1 Thes. 4:11). Honest laborers are under the same kind of burden that the Jews and Christians were under during the Roman Empire but Paul told them to “Render to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom” (Rom. 13:7).

We live among the uncivil

I mean by this, we have lost any semblance of manners. We have no self-government nor self-control. Peter Drucker once wrote, “Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects. Manners enable two people to work together whether they like each other or not. Bright people, especially bright young people, often do not understand this. If analysis shows that someone’s brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy—that is, a lack of manners.”7 “Be not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33).

We live among covetous people

Covetousness is itself idolatry (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5). Paul’s testimony was that he was convinced of sin when he read in the law, “Thou shalt not covet” (Rom. 7:7). It is the tenth but foundational commandment of the second half. We do not love our neighbor because we are too busy coveting what he has. American thievery begins and ends with covetousness. Our houses are full of junk while we are constantly shopping for more. We are richer than any people in history but complain that we don’t have enough.

And So . . .

The Christian challenge is as great as it has ever been. We must be salt and light in a tasteless and dark world. The Bible was written in and for a time like ours. It was sufficient for them and it will be sufficient for us.

Notes:

  1. G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: Image Books, 1956) 108.
  2. Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997) 29.
  3. Michael Aeschliman, The Restitution of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Case against Scientism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 32.
  4. National Right To Life: http://www.nrlpac.org/
  5. John Newton, The Letters of John Newton (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2000) 108.
  6. D.A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 46.
  7. Peter Drucker, “Managing Oneself,” Harvard Business Review, March/April, 1999.

 

 

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Good News & Bad News About Human Identit

Written by Rick Shrader

Good News & Bad News About Human Identity

by Rick Shrader

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There are some things about which the Bible speaks clearly and one of those is the makeup of human beings. Yet it is amazing how far away from the plain language of the Bible our society has moved within one generation. In my youth it was risky enough to refer to homosexuals or lesbians rather than men and women. We would not even say the word sex in public and terms such as bi-sexual were a strange anomaly. Now we learn that “sex” only refers to biology but “gender” refers to however a person (I think we can still use that term with some certainty) feels about one’s identification in the world of anything-goes identities. In the 80s the acronym LGB (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual) became popular in an attempt to lessen the embarrassment of the categories. In the 90s it became LGBT, adding Transgender to the list, and now Q is added, obviously referring to queer or sometimes questioning. On a website that offered a list of terms now used, the title had LGBTQ+ because it listed over 50 gender identities, any of which a person may claim as one’s own and for which one may also rightly claim to be slandered. Today one may claim androgyny, binary, cisgender, pansexual, transgender, and even two-spirit gender! In our schools and public places, any offense given to someone who claims one of these, could end in accusations and even lawsuits.

Is all of this important? Well, I think it is and that it may partly determine how the government looks at the church, and sooner than we think. In a Weekly Standard article, writer Jonathan Last titled his article on this subject, “You Will Be Assimilated.” He summarized the growing problem this way,

All of which is a very long way of saying that whatever the Supreme Court rules in the coming weeks in Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage campaign is far from over. It hasn’t even reached the point of consolidating its gains. Rather, it is still in its aggressive expansion phase. Next up on the docket are transgender rights . . . and polyamory. Then the push to bring religious organizations—schools, charities, and para-church groups—to heel will intensify. Already, Catholic Charities has been driven out of adoption and foster care in places like Illinois, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia because that organization doesn’t place children in same-sex households. (Tellingly, this rebuff has been deemed not a regrettable by-product of the gay-marriage movement, but a victory for it. The goal is not live-and-let-live.) then will come the big fight over breaking the churches themselves. And if you think that the same-sex marriage movement will stop short of trying to force churches to perform gay weddings, then you haven’t been paying attention.1

As I write this article, the Supreme Court has ruled that gay marriage must be legally recognized in all fifty states. But my purpose is not to delve any further into this sad underworld of our society. Rather, I want to give the good news of what God has created, allowed, redeemed, and proclaimed. Only Christianity has a message of redemption. It describes the world realistically and offers the only solution to fallen human beings who are trapped in their own sin. To understand this, one has to believe that the Bible is indeed God’s Word, a revelation from Him to us, and an infallible record of what God has to say to our situation in any age and culture. In this revelation there is much good news and also some bad news.

Good News! We are made in God’s image.

Francis Schaeffer once said, “Man, made in the image of God, cannot live as though he is nothing.”2 Of all the things God created, human beings are the zenith. Only of human beings did God say that they are created in His very image. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:26-27). Even though God created Adam first from the dust of the ground, and created Eve second from the side of Adam, the Scripture declares that both are made equally in the image of God. We may share life with the other creatures of God, yet none but mankind are given this unique and favorable position. G. Campbell Morgan once wrote, “There was life in the plant, and life in the lower animals, but when God inbreathed to man the Breath of lives, He bestowed a life in which lay the elements of light. In man, creation first looked back into the face of God, and knew Him.”3

In creation language there is only one race and that is the human race. There are only two sexes, or genders, and that is male and female. Jesus said, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh” (Matt. 19:4-5). Because there are only two sexes, male and female, marriage, says the Lord, can only be between a man and a woman. Every other kind of “marriage” is fornication.

Bad news! We are sinners.

The Bible makes no mistake about the existence of Adam and Eve, and neither is it unclear that our first parents sinned. Having been warned of the consequences of their disobedience by God, regardless, they ate of that which was forbidden, “and the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen. 3:7). Millard Erickson wrote,

If we choose to investigate the Bible’s depiction of man, we find that man today is actually in an abnormal condition. The real human is not what we now find in human society. The real human is the being that came from the hand of God, unspoiled by sin and the fall. In every real sense, the only true human beings were Adam and Eve before the fall, and Jesus. All others are twisted, distorted, corrupted samples of humanity.4

But the Bible tells us something deeper, more personal than the fact that our first parents sinned: we sinned with them! They were the head of the human race, and we sinned also as part of that race. Therefore we are born sinners. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12, NKJV). L.S. Chafer wrote, “No other human being than Adam has ever become a sinner by sinning. All others were born sinners. Distinction is made at this point between sin as an evil act and sin as an evil nature. By a sinful act Adam acquired a sinful nature, whereas all members of his family are born with that nature.”5

Our whole human race has substantive guilt, i.e., since we received our nature from our parents, both physical and spiritual, material and immaterial, and they from their parents all the way back to Adam and Eve, we were actually present in them when they sinned, and we sinned with them. Sin was imputed to the entire race at the moment of that sin, our “original sin.” In addition, we have inherited sin passed down through the generations in the sin nature accumulated from all of our ancestors.

What a contradiction we are! Created in God’s image but so marred by the fall and past generations of sin that we are hardly recognizable. “When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom. 1:21-23). Blaise Pascal described us, “What a freak then is man! How novel, how monstrous, how chaotic, how paradoxical, how prodigious! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth; sink of doubt and error, glory and refuse of the universe.”6

Good news! God loved us.

The reason why John 3:16 is the most well-known verse in the Bible is because it speaks such an obvious truth—if God does not love us, we are without hope. But God does love us! “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The apostle Paul pointed out that this love came to us, not because we were lovely, but while we were unlovely. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). What love is this? God loving the unlovely? Yes! The word agape is a word virtually unique to the New Testament. It is not a human love of give and take, but an all-giving love. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). God did not need anything in return from us in order to love us. He just loved us. And since He loved the whole world of sinners, any may come to Him without price and without worth, and find divine forgiveness. C.S. Lewis wrote,

I call this a Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up ‘our own’ when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is ‘nothing better’ now to be had.7

“How could God like the sinful, foul, stinking world? How could he embrace and kiss it? He would have to turn from it in revulsion. But he could and he did love it, comprehending all its sin and foulness, purposing to cleanse it and, thus cleansed, to take it to his bosom.”8 Praise God for His great love wherewith He loved us!

Bad news! We cannot recover ourselves.

Human beings, in their sinful condition, find it a difficult thing to accept the unconditional love of God. Surely there is something in us that God sees as acceptable and therefore loves us. We want to give something to God first, something of value, so that God will say, “Ah, this person has something I can accept.” But this is not the case. Though God loves us because of what He did in creating us in His own image, yet because of our own sin there is nothing left in us that can merit salvation. God must love us in spite of our moral bankruptcy. And morally bankrupt we are!

The devil’s lie is that sinful human beings can work hard enough and finally produce enough “good works” that will make them acceptable to God, or at least enough to outweigh their bad works. All false religions are built on this premise. But the fundamental error is that man is basically good enough, or that man has more good than bad in him, or that man, being God’s creation, is all that is necessary for him to one day stand before a holy God and be accepted and not rejected. But man is fallen. He is sinful. Even his good intentions have selfish and evil roots.

The law of God, whether we mean the law of Moses written in the Old Testament, or we mean every moral or “natural” law that God has revealed, has proven that man is unable to produce righteousness that will redeem his soul. In fact Paul states, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:19-20). So Paul can conclude, “There is none righteous, no not one” (Rom. 3:10), and “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). There is a “curse” that comes with the keeping of law for salvation. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10). Or, as James so aptly put it, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). But since the Bible plainly shows that no one is without sin, we are therefore all condemned.

Good News! Jesus Christ provides a way for God’s love to save us.

John Newton’s beloved song, Amazing Grace, is so popular even among those who know nothing of that grace, because it seems to say that grace accepts “a wretch like me” simply because God loves me. This, God cannot and does not do. On the one hand God does not accept us just as we are. In that case there would be no need for Jesus to die for us on the cross and resurrect victorious over sin and death. God cannot accept us without our sin being forgiven. But on the other hand we do come just as we are. when we sing “Just As I Am” we mean that we must come to God with no righteousness of our own, with no good works for salvation. We come to God as sinners and undone, needing to be clothed in the righteousness of the sinless Christ. The old song, Rock of Ages, has it,

 

“Nothing in my hand I bring,

simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked, come to Thee for dress;

helpless, look to Thee for rest;

Foul, I to the fountain fly,

Wash me, Savior, or I die.”

 

In a strange way, the good news is that we are all sinners. Paul concludes in Romans 3 that, happily, “there is no difference: For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22b-23). That is, it is a good thing that we are not saved by law keeping because then it would be unfair. Some might make it and some might not. But since the fact is that all have sinned, and that salvation cannot come to sinners, God has made salvation by grace through faith, “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). You can be saved because, even though you are a sinner, God allows you to come by faith, not by your worthless works.

But one more thing needs to be said here, and Paul makes this plain as well. Jesus Christ died for you and rose again. God accepts Jesus Christ and all who attach themselves to Him by faith. He doesn’t save you by your righteousness, but by the righteousness of Christ. If God merely excused your sin then He would be unrighteous. So Paul concludes, “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay; but by the law of faith” (Rom. 3:26-27). Faith in Christ leaves me nothing with which to boast, except the righteousness of Christ.

And So . . .

We human beings cannot act or boast as if we set our own rules of right and wrong. Outside of Jesus Christ we will choose wrong because that is our nature. And we will be condemned for it. But in Jesus Christ, in His righteousness alone, we can be sinners saved by grace.

Notes:

  1. Jonathan V. Last, “You Will Be Assimilated,” The Weekly Standard, June 22, 2015.
  2. Francis Schaeffer, Escape From Reason (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1968) 53.
  3. G.C. Morgan, Understanding the Holy Spirit (AMG, 1995) 40.
  4. Millard Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991) 496.
  5. L.S. Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. II (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1969) 217.
  6. Blaise Pascal, Pensees (London: Penguin Books, 1966) 64.
  7. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (New York: MacMillan, 1962) 97.
  8. R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1961) 259.

 

 

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Will The Antichrist Be Muslim?

Written by Rick Shrader

Will The Antichrist Be Muslim?

by Rick Shrader

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One of the difficulties for Christians in apologetics is that they have to know a lot about many religions and cults, but the religions and cults only have to know about Christianity. The growing threat from Islam reminds the Christian of this very thing. That is why I was glad to receive a book exposing Islamic beliefs (and deceptions) and read it with great interest. It is a 2009 book, The Islamic Antichrist by Joel Richardson.

Richardson’s purpose, however, is not simply to inform believers regarding Islam, but to propose that the coming antichrist will actually be a Muslim called the Madhi, the messianic figure of Islam, and that his empire will not be western but eastern. Although I would recommend the book to become better informed about Islam, I could not agree with Richardson’s thesis about the antichrist. First, I will try to explain his reasoning, which at times can be confusing, and then will explain why I am not convinced of his proposition. While giving good information about Islam, Richardson’s understanding of prophecy seems shaded by it and therefore sees Islam behind every prophetic bush. I will allow his own words to inform us about Islam, and then I will take time to respond to his view on an Islamic antichrist.

Richardson seems to do a thorough job of explaining, quoting, and footnoting sources from Islam. He takes time to give some history of Muhammad and the writing of the Qurʹan (which Muslims believe is inspired) pointing out how Muhammad himself didn’t know what happened to him and even believed he might have been demon possessed (chapt. 11, “The Dark Nature of Muhammad’s Revelations”). Besides the words of Muhammad in the Qurʹan, Muslims have the Sunna, a record of sayings, customs, teachings, and examples from Muhammad. These are equally important to Muslims. The Sunna contains two types of sources: the Hadith literature is the collection of oral sayings of the prophet handed down over the years. The Sirat literature is basically biographical (chapt. 2, “The Sacred Texts of Islam”).

Other interesting chapters of the book are “The Mahdi: Islam’s Awaited Messiah;” “Islam’s Ancient hatred for the Jews;” “Islam and the Goal of World Domination;” “Understanding Dishonesty and Deceit in Islam;” and “The Great Apostasy, Terror, and Islam’s Conversion Rates.” All of these give good information regarding the real nature of Islam. Richardson shows how lying and deception are virtues in Islam if it helps the cause of Jihad or promotes Islam or even if it protects Muslims from harm or embarrassment. He also believes that America is accepting the lie that Islam is basically peaceful rather than understanding that all Muslims are obligated to participate in world-wide domination, whether it is by repopulation of enemy countries, or fighting under the black flags of Jihad and beheading infidels.

Richardson quotes Mawlana Sayid Abul Ala Mawdudi, an Islamic scholar writing,

Islam is a revolutionary faith that comes to destroy any government made by man. Islam doesn’t look for a nation to be in a better condition than another nation. Islam doesn’t care about the land or who owns the land. The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam. Any nation or power that gets in the way of that goal, Islam will fight and destroy. In order to fulfill that goal, Islam can use every power available every way it can be used to bring worldwide revolution. This is Jihad.1

Richardson then quotes Aduallah al-Araby, in his book The Islamization of America, describing an interfaith meeting where an Islamic cleric said, “Thanks to your democratic laws, we will invade you. Thanks to our religious laws, we will dominate you.”2

Will the antichrist be Islamic?

I will try to explain Joel Richardson’s view that the antichrist is not a westerner, as is widely believed among conservative prophetic scholars, but is a Muslim and that his ten nation coalition described in the Bible is made up of Islamic nations, not European.

First, however, Richardson writes, “Among the Major Signs, the most anticipated and central sign that Muslims await is the coming of a man known as ‘the Mahdi.’ In Arabic, al-Mahdi means ‘the Guided One.’ He is also sometimes referred to by Shiʹa Muslims as Sahib Al-Zaman or Al-Mahdi al-Muntadhar, which translated mean ‘the Lord of the Age’ and ‘the Awaited Savior.’”3 Richardson also says,

Throughout the Islamic world today there is a call for the restoration of the Islamic caliphate. The caliph (khalifa) in Islam may be viewed somewhat as the Pope of the Muslims. Muslims view the caliph as the vice regent for Allah on the earth. It is important to understand that when Muslims call for the restoration of the caliphate, it is ultimately the Mahdi that they call for, for the Mahdi is the awaited final caliph of Islam. Muslims everywhere will be obligated to follow the Mahdi.4

Jihad is the conflict that leads up to the coming of the Mahdi (p. 25). Faithful Muslims must begin that war so that Mahdi will return, ending the conflict by final domination of the entire world. These faithful Muslims will carry black flags with the words “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger” (p. 26). Mahdi will plant a white flag in Jerusalem when the destruction of Israel and the domination of the world is complete (p. 27).

Muslims see Jesus as a prophet but not as their messiah or Mahdi(Muslims do not believe Jesus died on the cross, but lived and was taken to heaven at a later time). They believe he will return in the last time and convince the world that Islam is the true religion and turn Christians to Islam (chapt. 6, “The Muslim Jesus”).

These facts about Islamic eschatology are fascinating and important in order to understand Islam (the author adds more details as well). Richardson, however, because these beliefs are so universal in a universal religion, believes that this Mahdi and this Muslim Jesus will actually be fulfilled in the Biblical antichrist and false prophet. That is, the Biblical antichrist will portray himself as the Muslim Mahdi and the whole Islamic world will follow him. Richardson also believes that the Biblical false prophet (of Rev. 13) will pretend to be the Muslim version of Jesus who will support the Mahdi and also cause the Muslim world to follow this deception (chapt. 5, “Comparing the Biblical Antichrist and the Mahdi,” and chapt. 6, “The Muslim Jesus”).

To support his conclusions, Richardson spends time explaining Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38 & 39 as the antichrist and his confederates. (chapt. 10-”The Revived Islamic Empire of the Antichrist”). Having posited that, he describes the nations in Ezekiel 38 as Islamic nations—which, of course, they are. He doesn’t entertain the view (at least not here) that the battle of Gog & Magog happens before the battle of Armageddon. He does say,

Prophecy teachers and Bible scholars have different opinions regarding the identification of Gog and his coalition of nations. The majority position for the past few decades, however, has been that the invading army of nations described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is not the army of the Antichrist, but another army led by another world leader. I personally reject the idea that Gog is anyone other than the Antichrist.5

To support this claim Richardson uses the reference to Gog & Magog in Revelation 20:8 after the millennium to try to say that antichrist couldn’t be in both places a thousand years apart. But, of course, that would also be a problem for his view as well. Also in support of his view, Richardson claims that after the Roman empire ended, the fifth kingdom is the Ottoman Empire which makes up the ten nation confederation of the antichrist. He rejects the idea of a “Revived Roman Empire” or of a European ten nation confederation.

He warns that we should not read our current situation into the Scripture as, he thinks, the past generation has done (which, of course, he is obviously doing).

No, the antichrist will be western

As I have said, I am not convinced of Richardson’s view, novel though it may be, and must stick with the majority view on this. Here are my reasons why.

  1. 10 toes, 10 horns. When Daniel sees the great image in chapter two, the legs are of iron which is the Roman Empire (to which even Richardson agrees). The ten toes (2:40-44) are mixed with iron and clay because they are attached to the legs of iron. Also, in chapter seven, Daniel sees the four beasts, the fourth of which is the Roman Empire described as a terrible beast having ten horns. The ten horns are on the Roman beast. The little horn who is the antichrist comes up out of these ten horns (7:19-25). This is much more a picture of a revived Roman Empire than a middle-eastern Islamic Empire.
  2. The people of the prince. In the great prophecy of Daniel’s 70 weeks (Dan. 9:24-27), the antichrist will sign a covenant with Israel which he will later break (vs. 27). Before this, Daniel depicts the destruction of Jerusalem by saying, “and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary” (vs. 26). The Romans destroyed the city in 70 AD. Here the antichrist is called the prince that shall come and his people are those that destroyed the temple. They were (and will be) Romans.
  3. King of the north. Daniel 11:36-39 is one of the most graphic descriptions of the antichrist and his hatred for Israel. In vss. 40-45 a king of the north is described coming into the land to fight against him. The antichrist destroys this northern king (whom most see as Gog and Magog) and then becomes the victor.
  4. The God of his fathers. Daniel 11:37 says that the antichrist will not “regard the God of his fathers.” This has been traditionally taken to mean that the antichrist is Jewish. Though some have doubted that this is clear from the verse, Rolland McCune writes, “Racially or ethnically, it appears that the Antichrist is Jewish. Daniel notes that he will have no regard for the ‘[elohim] of his fathers’ (Dan 11:17). If this is taken in its Old Testament sense of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of Israel—then this would indicate that the Antichrist has a Jewish background.”6 If this is the case, an Islamic Mahdi doesn’t fit Daniel’s description of the antichrist.
  5. Gog & Magog. The nations of Ezekiel 38 & 39 are definitely Islamic. Richardson criticizes older writers for seeing this as Russia, Moscow, etc., due to name similarity, a view which has been corrected many times by men of my view. Interestingly he quotes Matthew Henry and Josephus as examples, showing how far back the old view goes. At any rate, no one argues with the fact that the nations following Gog are from the middle east and above. But there is no evidence that Gog is antichrist. That is pure conjecture. This is the king of the north, and is defeated long before the antichrist is defeated at Armageddon.
  6. The harlot of Rev. 17. John describes a harlot riding upon a beast (who is the antichrist). The beast has 10 horns (his ten nation confederation). These 10 nations “receive power as kings one hour with the beast” (vs. 12). For the first three and a half years the antichrist and his confederates use the woman and then discard her. For the second three and a half years a new religion is established with the beast, the false prophet, the image, and the 666. Many have believed that this harlot is the Roman church, not that the antichrist himself is the Pope or the Catholic Church personified. This religious system that deceives the world is this Roman-based Church which the antichrist uses to come to power. In such a case, the ten nations and the beast upon which she is riding extend wherever she extends, which means that the antichrist’s western confederation exists wherever this western Church exists (many would say all of Europe, as well as North and South America).7
  7. Antichrist, not AntiMahdi. I think an important point to make is that the apostle John gives us the title of “antichrist” in his first epistle (2:18). The antichrist will pretend to be Christ. I know that “anti” can mean “against” as well as “instead of.” The point is that he will be a false Christ. Even Jesus warned that “many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:5). But an Islamic antichrist would not say this. In Richardson’s view the false prophet is the one who would say that he is Jesus Christ.
  8. Premillennial writers. This point would not come first, but it should be mentioned. Many prophetic writers have held to the common view that the antichrist is western and that the ten nation confederation is western. Many of these writers wrote long before world powers were aligned in any specific way. In his historic work, Things To Come (1958), J. Dwight Pentecost, in dealing with the antichrist and his ten nation confederation, quotes from these men holding the same view: Lewis Sperry Chafer, C.I. Scofield, Edward Dennett, Arno C. Gaebelein, Sir Robert Anderson, S. P. Tregelles, William Kelley, Harry A. Ironside, G. N. H. Peters, E.J. Young, Walter Scott, Roy Aldrich, and F. C. Jennings. Again, this would not matter against plain Biblical teaching, but it is a strong testimony that many men who believe in a literal interpretation of the Scripture hold to a western antichrist and confederation.
  9. Historical naiveté.   Richardson himself says, “In America, we are infamously America-centric. As American Christians we read into the Bible our own American experience.”8 Also, “We must not read our assumptions or modern events into Scripture. We must allow Scripture to speak for itself.”9 Yet when commenting on Jesus’ words that those who kill you will think they do God a service, Richardson says, “Islam, however, fits Jesus’ prophecy perfectly.”10 So he is doing this very thing. It is always tempting to see the fulfillment of prophecy in our own circumstances though other circumstances in history probably fit much better than our own. I think if I had been a German Christian in the 1930s I would surely have thought Hitler was the antichrist, and maybe Himmler the false prophet. But it wasn’t so. Sure, we have thought that Russia would be the king of the north, and maybe it still will be. But we will not know until it happens. That’s what makes the second coming of Christ imminent.

And So . . .

I will say again how much I profited from Richardson’s knowledge of Islam and his careful documentation of its beliefs. His view on an Islamic antichrist is his view, and maybe that of many others. I think he is reading too much into the Scriptures that describe the antichrist. He may not be looking for the rapture but I am. And when the church is gone and the end time events begin, we will be praising God for His sovereign working of His mighty plan, and we will rejoice when we see it happen. Maybe that will be in our life-time with events as we now know them and maybe not. It could be a hundred years from now with totally different events. But either way, the church will always say with John, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).

 

Notes:

  1. Joel Richardson, The Islamic Antichrist (Los Angeles: WND Books, 2009) p. 144.
  2. Ibid. p. 145.
  3. Ibid. p. 21.
  4. Ibid. p. 24.
  5. Ibid. p. 83.

6.Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology, vol. III (Detroit: Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010) 373.

  1. See McCune, p. 374, and also J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come, p. 324.
  2. Richardson, p. 190.
  3. Ibid. p. 86.
  4. Ibid. p. 192.

 

 

 

 

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America’s Testing

Written by Rick Shrader

America’s Testing

by Rick Shrader

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In his farewell address George Washington said that a nation is “a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”1 More than two hundred years later America’s greatest animosity is to Christianity, and its greatest affection is to profligacy. On the day I sit to write these words, Baltimore is being burned by rioters, the Supreme Court could rule that same-sex marriages become the law of the land, and the President is about to sign an agreement to give the largest state of terror in the world and the greatest threat to Israel, Iran, a green light to nuclear weapons. Space allows me only to mention legalized marijuana, trans-gender rights, terror shootings in public places, licentious college students on Spring break, as well as the growth of radical Islam around the world and in our own country.

America has lived off the moral capital of the last two hundred years and it is about gone. In our churches we often say that God has no grandchildren, meaning that one is not a Christian just because his/her father and mother were Christians. Every individual must make that choice for himself/herself. We are learning that America is not a Christian nation just because our ancestors were Christians. We do not live by laws and morals just because our ancestors did, even though they wrote them into a binding Constitution. Why is this so? Because the Bible is true and declares plainly that human beings are fallen creatures and, without individual regeneration, will surely and resolutely rebel against God and His holiness. Man’s problem is not with culture, but with God as Creator and Owner of this world. D.A. Carson described it this way,

All of the potential of the so-called ‘natural’ world was called into being by God and operates under the authority of the resurrected Christ: all of art, music, administrative gifts, colorful diversity, creative genius. And yet everything is corrupted by sin. Our creative genius may build weapons of destruction, our administrative gifts may become exercises in personal power and self-promotion, our art may become wretchedly ugly and celebrate all that is disjointed, our nationalism easily identifies our own race or vision with the will of God, our democracy is in danger of claiming vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], and our liberalism is tempted to confuse the pursuit of liberty with the pursuit of God—a vision of liberty that, in tragic irony, enslaves us in a new idolatry.2

Although no human band-aid can stop this decay from taking place and only spiritual renewal can even arrest it, laws that recognize the Biblical process can slow it greatly (though once that recognition is gone, the residual effects disappear quickly). However, the American experiment is proof that godly churches and Christian principles, mixed with proper laws, can produce a respite on this slippery slope. We may not be able to return to the same resoluteness of our forefathers but perhaps there can be enough true Christian character, enough moral fortitude, enough disgust from the citizenry, to slow the tide of our own moral decay and destruction.

Professedly, it is my belief as a premillennialist and dispensationalist, that this age of grace in which we live will not get better overall but will continue on a downhill slide until Jesus comes. God alone knows when that time will be. Human nature has a growing bent toward Godlessness, and God has not promised His people an America in every age, or any age. In fact He has promised apostasy. He has assured us that only His coming is what will ultimately heal this sin sick world. That is not defeatist. It is realistic and optimistic. It is the one thing that really gives hope and causes the believer to continue faithful until that Day.

Homosexual marriage in the courts

Today the Supreme Court began hearing arguments in the case known as Obergefell v. Hodges which will determine the legal definition of marriage in our country. The question is whether the states have the right to define (and therefore limit) marriage as only between a man and a woman. Federal district courts have blocked the states from enforcing their laws and have allowed same-sex marriages in spite of the states’ laws. In a surprise, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit which oversees four states ruled in favor of the states to define marriage. Now the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing the appeals.

In the majority opinion for the Sixth Circuit, Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, made a bold and truthful case for traditional marriage. In his blog today, Albert Mohler, Jr. described Sutton’s defense of the states,

He began by noting the speed of the moral revolution that has produced same-sex marriage in many U S. states, mostly by judicial action. “From the vantage point of 2014,” he wrote, “it would now seem, the question is not whether American law will allow gay couples to marry; it is when and how that will happen. That would not have seemed likely as recently as a dozen years ago.”

He continued: “For better, for worse, or for more of the same, marriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women. So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades. So widely shared, the tradition until recently had been adopted by all governments and major religions of the world.”3

Not only would a Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage contradict Scripture and defy all of human history, it will destroy our Federalism or the rights of states to determine their own rules about such things. In addition, it will continue to bring great pressure upon any citizens who are caught in that middle ground of not wanting to support a homosexual lifestyle by not baking cakes or taking pictures. But it will also find a way to the front door of the church.

We have enjoyed, in our nation’s history, a moral fiber supported by the Christian Scriptures which makes outright immorality, if not illegal, at least forced underground. But we are in a time when such blatant immorality goes on parade. Now the very laws that once protected us from this will force it upon us. Christians can live in such society as they have always had to do (but how unfortunate in America). What a Christian cannot do, however, is condone such activity which God specifically calls sin. It is one thing for a store owner to sell a man who practices homosexuality a cake off the shelves, it is another thing to be asked to condone that sin by catering his wedding.

Obviously a Christian minister can live in a country where same-sex marriages are legal, but he cannot be asked to condone that marriage by forcing him to perform it. We could soon come to that point. And what will we do? We will refuse of course. And then what? Will we lose our tax exemption? Probably. Will we lose proper zoning for our church property? Maybe. Will we be arrested for disobeying the law? Perhaps. So far such laws have stopped outside the church doors and we can hope they will remain there. But when laws are no longer the church’s friend, anything can happen.

Last week I finished a sermon series on Hebrews. The text for my last message was “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled” (Heb. 13:4). Actually, this is not just indicative but imperative, “Let marriage be honorable in all” just as the following verse, “Let your conversation be without covetousness.” The rest of verse 4 says, “but whoremongers (lit. “fornicators”) and adulterers God will judge.” That is, when marriage is honorable, all “conversation” is honorable. Even non-married persons keep marriage honorable by keeping themselves pure. But when marriage is not honorable, nothing is honorable and God will judge.

In 1 Cor. 6:9-10, a list of sins is given that, when practiced, show a person is not a believer and will not enter the kingdom of God. That list includes, “adulterers, effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind.” The NKJV has “nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites.” An obvious truth is that these things can’t be things that people are born with, because God does not ban someone from heaven and send them to hell for the way they are physically born. All the things in this long list are things people choose to practice, and are therefore judged by God for making such choices. “Know ye not” that they shall not “inherit the kingdom of God.”

Christians cannot condone such sins regardless of the cost. Let us pray that our Supreme Court will follow history, the Scriptures, and our good constitution.

Lawless rioting in the streets

No Christian should participate in rioting. Rioting is against every principle of Christian doctrine. Those who riot in the name of some religious principle have fooled themselves into thinking that their own sinful bent against their neighbor, against God-ordained law enforcement, against cultural civility, and against Biblical teaching, is somehow justified by the emotion of the moment. Rioting breaks every command for the Christian to be law-abiding, meek, peaceful, humble, loving (Gal. 5:22-23), as well as to accept our circumstance in this world as from God (1 Pet. 2:19-20), and to look rather to our reward in the next life where lies our real citizenship (Phil. 3:20-21).

The Greek word for “riot” is found four times in the New Testament. It is the word asōtia, meaning literally, “without salvation” (a is negative meaning “without,” and sōtia is the root word for “salvation,” as in “soteriology”). In Luke 15:13 the prodigal son wasted his substance in “riotous living.” In Ephesians 5:18 we are admonished not to be drunk with wine “wherein is excess,” asōtia, rioting. In Titus 1:6 a qualification for a pastor is that his children be not “accused of riot.” And in 1 Peter 4:4 believers are encouraged to not run with the old crowd they knew before their salvation, when they participated in “excess of riot,” even though they speak “evil of you.”

In all of these uses of the word, rioting is pictured as a sinful thing for a Christian to do. The very word itself (meaning “without salvation”) describes activity that is foreign to the Christian faith. It would be especially detrimental for a Christian minister to participate in or encourage participation in such activity. Rather than being faithful to his own calling of a more powerful and life-changing message, he has acquiesced to a lower, human groveling with the natural man.

Just today also, John MacArthur placed an article on his blog encouraging families to meet today’s challenges in a Biblical way even though that way is criticized by the world. In that short article he wrote,

In fact, the only taboo these days is holding to the absolute moral standards the Lord instituted in His Word. Lifestyles of promiscuity, debauchery, rebellion, and lawlessness aren’t merely tolerated—they’re celebrated. Selfishness, greed, and dishonesty are accepted and even expected.” . . . . “Far too much of the church’s effort in recent years has been squandered trying to confront anti-family trends, such as abortion and homosexuality, through legislative efforts alone. Reform is no answer for a culture like ours. Redemption is what is needed, and that occurs at the individual, not societal, level. The church needs to get back to the real task to which we are called: evangelizing the lost. Only when multitudes of individuals in our society turn to Christ will society itself experience any significant transformation.” . . . “Part of the problem is that many of the parenting and family programs being labeled “Christian” today are not truly Christian. Some are nothing more than secular behaviorism papered over with a religious veneer—an unholy amalgam of biblical-sounding expressions blended with humanistic psychology.4

The Christian should pray for those in authority that they would do right and follow their God-given responsibility of enforcing law in a lawless world. The riots of today are an eerie reminder of the 60s and fifty years has done little to heal the problem. Secularists and race hustlers may hail this as some kind of victory but another fifty years will go by with no solution if a spiritual answer cannot be found.

Nuclear weapons in the middle East

America should be Israel’s friend and most ardent supporter (Gen. 12:1-3; 1 Cor. 10:32). America has historically understood the unique Biblical connection between the church in this age and Israel’s place in history. Yes, our Jewish friends need Jesus Christ as their Savior or they will be eternally lost like any other sinful human being. But we also know that in the end God will save and rescue Israel and honor those who have honored her (Rom. 11:26-28).

For America, at this point in time, to turn from our support of Israel and allow her most powerful enemy potentially to destroy Israel’s people and land is to put America in opposition to God’s revealed will. Presidents, Secretaries of State, and any other political leaders who cannot see this do not understand the Scriptures, the age of grace, and the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Israel failed at her most important moment in history, the recognition of her very Messiah, Jesus Christ, Who was virgin born in Bethlehem’s manger, lived a sinless life as the God-man, died for the sins of the whole world (and thus became the world’s hope, not just Israel’s), rose bodily from the grave, and is ascended back to the right hand of the Father, “Whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21).

The return of Jesus Christ to the earth for the promised restitution will come suddenly into this world. Jesus will judge the lawless and sinners and will reward the righteous, the ones forgiven through His own blood. This is the Blessed Hope (Titus 2:13) that will alone bring real change to the world. That change can only come to an individual through a true repentance and regeneration.

The Middle East is headed for the battle of Gog and Magog and then Armageddon. Iran is Biblical Persia and will be defeated by God’s miraculous power at a time when she tries to invade and destroy Israel and fails (Ezekiel 38:18-23).   This will be followed by a one-world government, economy and religion set up by a western leader we call antichrist. He will have his way for three and a half years until Jesus Christ returns and destroys him and his followers at a place called Armageddon (Rev. 16:16). Israel will then be established as the greatest nation on earth, ruled over by Christ Himself.

America has always understood this Biblical scenario and has sided with Israel in this age. The Christian Scriptures (New Testament) explain, fulfill, and complete the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) and bring into focus the position of the believer (as well as Israel) in this age of grace. One could truly say that America has been blessed because of this Biblical understanding.

And so . . .

In this short space I have tried to say that though the world is quickly changing around us, we have only to be faithful to our God and His Word. It has been ages since the church could be so effective as salt and light as it is in this needy world. Salt and light are not effective because they are like other things, but because they are so much unlike them. Be salt and light.

 

Notes:

  1. George Washington, “Farewell Address,” Orations from Homer to McKinley , vol. 6 ( New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1906) 2526.
  2. D.A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 64.
  3. AlbertMohler.com, “In Defense of Marriage, The Rule of Law, and Ordered Liberty,” 4/28/15.
  4. John MacArthur, Grace To You Blog, 4/28/15.

 

 

 

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Anointing With Oil

Written by Rick Shrader

Anointing With Oil

by Rick Shrader

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             Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.                         James 5:13-15

I have been a Baptist pastor since 1985 and worked in Baptist churches since 1972. During that time I have stood beside many sick beds and death beds, praying with dear Christian people as this verse describes. I have had to perform well over one hundred funerals and try to comfort grieving families in times of sorrow and loss. I have done that pastoral duty with both joy and blessing, albeit not infrequently with tears. These are the times that you see the strongest Christian traits and the deepest faith of some of God’s great saints. There have been times when wonderful Christians have been more than ready to go on to see the Lord though family, friends, and medical personnel may not have understood their quiet resolve. In all of these times in which I have fulfilled my Biblical responsibility, I have never anointed someone with oil because I don’t believe that is part of my responsibility as a pastor/elder.

I have, however, often worked hand-in-hand with those wonderful medical people who do the modern equivalent of anointing with oil. Almost always, I would say as well, they have worked with me to allow me to perform the part that they don’t do—the prayer of faith. There have been many times that they waited in a pre-op room for me to finish my prayer with the family and their sick one before the surgery began, many times joining with us in the prayer. This has always been a fulfilling time in ministry. A.T. Robertson expressed this sentiment a hundred years ago,

Today we have a more advanced medical science which is, however, by no means final and infallible. We separate the functions of the minister and the physician. We prefer the doctor to the oil, but we still need God with the doctor. It is a great error for one to think that God is not to be called upon because we have a skilled physician. The minister still has a place, and a very important place, . . .”1

Yet there has always been a controversy over what James meant when he urged the anointing of the sick one with oil. Good men differ. Some have used oil with a view to helping heal, though not in the same vein as the Catholic Church that administers extreme unction upon the dying person, yet still believing that there is healing power in the oil. Some put oil on a sick person in a symbolic way, a kind of object lesson, showing the sincerity of the act. I have always taken a third view that the oil was medicinal and was administered to ease the pain, even if cosmetically, but was not connected to the prayer of faith.

The first view is held by many charismatics and healers and seldom finds its way into Baptist orthopraxy. The second view is much more common. Douglas Moo gives a more recent defense of the symbolic use and concludes, “But other factors suggest that James probably views the anointing as a physical action symbolizing consecration. . . We conclude, therefore, that ‘anoint’ in v. 14 refers to a physical action with symbolic significance.”2 The third view is strongly held by A.T. Robertson, R.C.H. Lenski,3 and recently by Donald Burdick who concludes, “There are a number of reasons for understanding this application of oil as medicinal rather than sacramental.”4 Burdick then gives three reasons which I will also list in this short article. In short, the Greek words used, the comparative New Testament passages, and the historical usage all suggest a medicinal use.

The Greek words used

There are basically two kinds of anointing, or two actions that can be taken with the oil. One is to physically apply the oil to the body. This may be done for a variety of reasons but the words used to describe this action all necessitate the actual applying of the oil. The other kind of anointing does not require any physical contact between the oil and the body. This is a spiritual consecration or positional anointing that makes a person (or thing) set apart.

Non-Physical anointing. We will consider the second, or positional anointing first. The word always used in this case is chriō (verb) or chrisma (noun) and two compound verbs built upon chriō. The most obvious use of this word is for Jesus Himself. He is called the Christ (Christos) because He is the Anointed One of God. In Acts 4:27 the disciples praised God in the face of Herod and Pilate who stood against “thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed.” Jesus is the Anointed One of God, not because any actual oil was put on His body by God, but because He was ordained of God to be the Christ.

Another use of chriō or chrisma is of the church of Christ. The church has been baptized by the Holy Spirit which is called an anointing (chrisma). John uses the noun three times in 1 John 2:20 & 27. The KJV has the word “unction” and also “anointing.” The verb (chriō) is used of the church once in 2 Cor. 1:21 where Paul says that God has “anointed us.” Believers in Christ are anointed by God in a spiritual or positional sense by being baptized by the Holy Spirit at the moment of our salvation. Just as our Spirit baptism was not a physical water baptism, so our anointing was not a physical rubbing of oil on our bodies.

Chriō is never used in any other sense but this non-physical anointing. However, the two compound verbs are used in interesting ways. Epi-chriō is used twice in John 9:6, 11 in the story of the blind man upon whom Jesus made clay with his spit and “anointed” his blind eyes. This was obviously a physical placing of clay upon the blind man. The other compound verb is eg-chriō used in Rev. 3:18 of the church at Laodicea needing to “anoint” their eyes with eye salve. But in neither of these cases is the pure verb (chriō) used, and in either place the case could be made that the physical element used had nothing to do with any cure that resulted. The physical element was at best a symbol of the spiritual work that was needed.

Physical anointing. The second kind of anointing is described primarily with the Greek verb aleiphō, but sometimes with murizō (verb), muron (noun), katacheō twice, and epixeō once. James uses the verb aleiphō in 5:16. This verb (there is no noun use in the NT) is used nine times in eight verses in the New Testament and always describes a physical application of oil. Jesus said to anoint one’s face with oil when fasting (Matt. 6:13); the apostles anointed with oil and healed (Mk. 6:13); the sinning woman anointed Jesus’ feet with oil (Luke 7:38, 46); Mary anointed Jesus with oil (John 11:2) and also anointed His feet with oil (John 12:3); and the women anointed Jesus’ body for burial (Mk. 16:1). The LXX uses this word for the anointing of the high priest for service (Exod. 30:22-33). Since James uses this word, it must also mean a physical applying of oil to the body.

A similar word (murizō, muron) is used as a virtual synonym with aleiphō. The verb is used once of Mark to describe Mary’s action of anointing Jesus (Mk. 14:8); and is used nine times in the noun form, “ointment,” all in the same contexts as above, with the addition of Rev. 18:13 also as “ointment.”

Then there are three other places where the physical kind of anointing is described. The word katacheō is used twice, both to describe Mary’s anointing of Jesus (Matt. 26:7, Mk. 14:3). The other usage is instructive. Epicheō is used only once in Luke 10:34 in the story of the good Samaritan. This man “bound up his wounds, pouring in (epicheō) oil and wine.” Even Douglas Moo says this is where oil “clearly has a medicinal use.”5 Perhaps Dr. Luke alone used this word because of its medicinal meaning but was unique to his time and place of writing. It does show, however, that oil was a common cure for wounds in the body.

Of the two kinds of “anointing,” Lenski feels that only the non-physical should be translated with the word “anointing” because we loose the difference when both are thus translated. He says, “Only [chriō] should be translated in this way [i.e. ‘anoint’] for it is used of the sacred act while [aleiphō] refers to the common use of oil. We do not ‘anoint’ a piece of machinery, we ‘oil’ it.”6 Burdick similarly concludes, “The word aleipsantes (‘anoint’) is not the usual word for sacramental or ritualistic anointing. James could have used the verb chriō if that had been what he had in mind. The distinction is still observed in modern Greek, with aleiphō meaning ‘to daub,’ ‘to smear,’ and chriō meaning ‘to anoint.’”7

The conclusion from the uses of the New Testament words is that what James describes is definitely a physical placing of oil on the body. The mixing of this application with any other spiritual significance is either nonexistent or would be very rare (only perhaps Mary’s physical anointing is said by Jesus to be with a look to His burial, Jn. 12:7).

Comparative New Testament passages

James was the first New Testament writer to use aleiphō and therefore doesn’t rely on another writer for meaning. It is not wise at this point to try to apply some principle about James being the first time the subject of anointing is mentioned, and then determining all other mentions by this. Myron Houghton warned, “If truth has been progressively revealed, then making the first mention of that truth crucial to its meaning simply cannot be true; in fact the opposite concept would seem better supported: the later mentions of a truth, particularly if found in the NT epistles, would present a clearer, more focused and detailed explanation of a truth found elsewhere in the Bible.”8   James used the common word for smearing oil on a sick body. Later mentions of the word aleiphō and chriō must stand alone in their own contexts. Yet, we find that other writers used the word aleiphō in virtually the same way as James thus confirming the very natural meaning of placing oil on the body, even medicinally.

James wrote in the late 40s A.D., Luke wrote in the late 50s or early 60s. Dr. Luke’s description of pouring oil into a wound for medicinal purposes carries on the meaning and practice that we first see in James. This was common in the first century and beyond. None of the New Testament uses contradicts a medicinal meaning by James.

Historical uses

All writers that I have referenced admit that oil was used for medicinal purposes in the first century. Moo says, “Ancient sources testify to the usefulness of oil in curing everything from toothache to paralysis.”9 Burdick gives a common observation,

Furthermore, it is a well-documented fact that oil was one of the most common medicines of biblical times. See Isaiah 1:6 and Luke 10:34. Josephus (Antiq. XVII, 172 [vi. 5] reports that during his last illness Herod the Great was given a bath in oil in hopes of effecting a cure. The papyri, Philo, Pliny, and the physician Galen all refer to the medicinal use of oil. Galen described it as ‘the best of all remedies for paralysis’ (De Simplicium Medicamentorum Temperamentis 2.10ff). It is evident, then, that James is prescribing prayer and medicine.10

It may be difficult for us in the twenty first century to grasp the medicinal advantage of rubbing oil on a sick body. Oil was obviously used also for simple cosmetic purposes, cleansing, perfuming, as well as helping in healing. But whether we think it useful or not, they obviously did in biblical times and it seems that James was instructing caring church members to help sick people by doing it.

Objections

Those who add a symbolic use to the application of oil are not totally out of bounds. Of the few times I have been asked to anoint some sick person with oil (and politely refused) it was mostly intended as a sign of some sort of one’s trust in God’s healing power. I think this may be commendable, but unnecessary. Moo goes further and says,

“The medicinal [only] view is problematic for two reasons. First, evidence that anointing with oil was used for any medical problem is not found—and why mention only one (albeit widespread) remedy when many different illnesses would be encountered? Second, why should the elders of the church do the anointing if its purpose were solely medical? Surely others would have done this already were it an appropriate remedy for the complaint.”11

First, James is encouraging believers to help a sick member. If oil was common in the first century, it would be natural to use that as the example of help. I may advise a sick person to “see the doctor” when, it may turn out, he needs a surgeon, or some other specialist, but “doctor” is the most common way of instruction. So was applying oil to an ailing body. Second, the elders were called primarily for the prayer of faith. It would not be beneath them to apply the oil also, but it could be done by anyone. It is noted by most that the aorist imperative “let them pray over him” is to be done after the aorist participle “having anointed him” with oil. That is, the elders were there for the prayer which they did once the body was smeared with oil. It made no difference whether they applied the medicine or someone before them.

And so . . .

We can conclude (about James 5:14) that the grammar of the passage suggests that the oil was physically smeared upon the body of the sick person and that it was not necessarily connected to the prayer of the elders. Also, we can conclude that James uses this language apart from any other New Testament usage, but is nevertheless consistent with all other NT usages. And we can also rest assured that anointing a sick body with oil was the common thing to do in New Testament times.

At times when brothers and sisters have loved ones hurting or even dying, their cry for help is sincere and sometimes desperate. Their request for the symbolism of oil comes out of these feelings and should not be treated unkindly. I have found that a gentle explanation of the passage in James as to why the oil is not necessary because they are already under good medical care, and because such symbolism will not affect our prayer in any way, is a better help than acquiescing to their request. Such a request is more of a weakness in faith than a strength, and relying on prayer to save the sick is a much better kind of faith. There is nothing in the New Testament to suggest that our faith in God needs this kind of ritual. Robertson concludes, “There is here no such superstition as sending for a minister when death is at hand to perform a magical ritual ceremony to stave off death.”12 To this I cringe for the strictness of expression, but agree with the truthfulness of the issue.

Notes:

  1. A.T. Robertson, Studies in the Epistle of James (Nashville: Broadman Press, originally published in 1915) 190.
  2. Douglas Moo, The Letter of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 241-242.
  3. R.C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistle of James (Minneapolis: Augsburg Pub. House, 1966) pp. 660-665.
  4. Donald W. Burdick, James, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981) p. 204.
  5. Moo, 241.
  6. Lenski, 660.
  7. Burdick, 204.
  8. Myron J. Houghton, “An Evaluation of the Law of First Mention,” an unpublished paper, Faith Baptist Theological Seminary, p. 10.
  9. Moo, 239.
  10. Burdick, 204.
  11. Moo, 241.
  12. Robertson, 190.

 

 

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The Christian in an Unfriendly World

Written by Rick Shrader

The Christian in an Unfriendly World

by Rick Shrader

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The believer is in a hard place. James, the Lord’s brother, emphatically declared, “Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (Jas. 4:4). Yet Paul declared that we cannot altogether separate from the world, “for then must ye needs go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:10). Still, John commanded, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” (1 Jn. 2:15). The Christian knows he is created, and also redeemed, to bring glory to God with his whole heart and mind and strength. God created the world for this purpose, yet He will destroy it by fire and those who are an offense to His holiness with everlasting fire. What is a Christian to do?

When the Bible states that God loves the world, we understand this to apply to people, the one part of His creation made in His own image and likeness. It is certainly not wrong of us to love human beings in some degree to which God loves them. But human beings are moral creatures who, therefore, can do the most wicked and vile things in offense to their holy Creator, even making Him out to be blameworthy of all the world’s evils. And yet, this world, the life-time in this world, is but a moment compared to the eternity the redeemed will spend in heaven, or the eternity the unredeemed will spend in hell. And no doubt, for the redeemed as well as the unredeemed, most of our time is wasted on perishable things.

In 1923, soon after the first world war, with the fear of communism rising rapidly, conservative scholar J. Gresham Machen described the time wasted by Christians using the Christian gospel to fix the planet rather than to save the souls living on the planet.

“Christianity will combat Bolshevism; but if it is accepted in order to combat Bolshevism, it is not Christianity: Christianity will produce a unified nation, in a slow but satisfactory way; but if it is accepted in order to produce a unified nation, it is not Christianity: Christianity will produce a healthy community; but if it is accepted in order to produce a healthy community, it is not Christianity: Christianity will promote international peace; but if it is accepted in order to promote international peace, it is not Christianity. Our Lord said: ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” But if you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness in order that all those other things may be added unto you, you will miss both those other things and the Kingdom of God as well.”1

Too often, it is true, we Christians spend too much time rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Yet, at the same time, God made us to work with our hands and to bring glory to Him by our labor in this world. We have a foot in each world—the world we live in now, and the eternal world which is to come. The task is to keep our minds in the proper balance and to see things as God sees them.

Recently I sat down and listed challenges we face from the broadest perspectives to the narrowest. I then listed several things within each perspective that face the Christian. I went back and selected the first four of each that came to my mind. It was not hard to match each one with pertinent Scriptures.

The International Situation

First, this is a dangerous world. Every day we watch the growth of ISIS and the slaughtering in the name of their god. Just this morning the television news, while showing the pictures of Iran’s military destroying a mock U.S. warship, the crawler on the page read, “weapons to play a key role in the battle with the U.S.” The believer is susceptible to terrorism as anyone else, yet God long ago said, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision” (Psa. 2:1, 4).

Second, we could be seeing an end-time scenario. No one knows for sure when the rapture will occur and the Biblical events will unfold, but the stage is more precisely set than ever before. There is an antipathy toward Christianity and Judaism, even in this country. Islam is spreading and insisting on Muslim law for all nations. So, “let your loins be girt about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord” (Lk. 12:35-36).

Third, Israel is in great danger. The nations to the north will be the first to invade Israel. Iran is being allowed to develop nuclear weapons with the intention of destroying Israel from the face of the earth. The battle of Gog and Magog always looms on the horizon. Never before have God’s words to Abraham been more appropriate, “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee” (Gen. 12:3).

Fourth, America is in retreat. This does not have to be, nor does it have to continue, but for now America’s leadership is timid and unable to exert moral leadership in the world. We are like the weakling on the playground who lets the bullies intimidate him, but tries to act suave when in a safe environment. One wonders how we can last another two years until a leadership change. No longer does America proclaim, “O Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psa. 90:1).

In a similar vein to Machen, Darryl Hart recently wrote, “Just as William Jennings Bryan had pointed to Germany after World War I as an example of what happened to societies that abandoned Christianity for secularism, so [Harold John] Ockenga was convinced that without the cardinal doctrines of Christianity a fate similar to Nazi Germany’s awaited the United States and the West.”2 Certainly, the world situation makes the Christian wonder what his role is in the time in which he lives.

The American Culture

First, colleges and other schools have become incubators for group think. Rather than creating individual thinking and creativity, they seem to be rehashing old, worn out deconstructive ideas. Christian kids are especially at risk and need our prayers. We are a long way from citing, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” but we can certainly say, “fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7).

Second, the entertainment and arts industries are perverted beyond recognition. Things that could be used for good are overrun by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 Jn. 2:16). We are being told not to offend anyone’s gender because there are now over 50 recognized gender options for kids. You may claim one of two “sexes” but your “gender” could be any weird variety you “feel” you really are. If we live in the end time, “As in the days of Noah,” we should not expect different.

Third, basic manners are a thing of the past. If “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33), we must have awfully evil means of communicating. We are so politically correct that a young man could be sued for opening the door for a girl, or saying “yes ma’am” to an older woman. How dare we ask a man to remove his cap, even in church! No one will address indecency in public for fear of being accused of being perverted in his own thinking.

Fourth, the anti-Christian sentiment is overwhelming in our country, so much so that Christian chaplains are not even allowed to mention their religion while counseling. “In the mainline cultural establishment today—in the press, the universities, the art circles, and among other culture makers—Christianity hardly exists except as a reflection of bad old times or as a sentimental memento.”3

The Christian Church

First, we have endured the success syndrome. For all of my life I have heard and been pressured to make the church “successful.” This, of course, means to grow numerically, monetarily, and organizationally. The pastor must be a CEO, not, as Bunyan called his autobiography, chief of sinners. And, ironically, one of the best ways to become successful is to criticize the success syndrome.

Second, there is a marked de-emphasis on doctrine and identification. To become too confident in what you believe means that you are arrogant, if not racist. To put the description of what you believe over the door of your church is, well, offensive. Tozer said, “In many churches Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone.”4

Third, casualness, brevity, and entertainment have become the main reasons for assembling. Heaven forbid we might ask someone something that would cost time or effort. We have given up Wednesday and Sunday evening services for convenience’ sake, and we would do the same for Sunday morning if we could figure out a way. We have forgotten that the greatest need in church is to “humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (Jas. 4:10).

Fourth, there is a lack of ownership of the local assembly. The house of God is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). This is God’s ordained oracle for the preaching and teaching of His Word. This is the safe haven for believers from a world that is no friend of grace. This is where we have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

The Christian Family

First, we suffer from a lack of structure and discipline. Much of this is due to the fast-paced age in which we live. Our days and evenings are crowded with activity. Surely, we cannot be Amish and live in a past, slower century as much as we might like. But we don’t have to adopt the uncouth and slovenly demeanor of our day. Our language, dress, work habits, and self-discipline can still be more Christian than pagan. We can still honor father and mother that our days may be long upon the earth.

Second, we may have religion in the home, but often the high places are not torn down. The television, the internet, the iTunes, the Netflix, the social media, can become idolatrous with our time, affection, and beliefs. None are evil in themselves, but any can become a “high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5).

Third, there is a lack of devotion time in our homes. We are all guilty of robbing God of the time He asks of us. Somehow we find time and create time for almost any desire we have, but we just cannot bring ourselves to give God, “Who giveth to all men liberally,” a few minutes out of the day. “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” As someone has said, we better “come apart” before we come apart.

Fourth, there is a profane level of cursing, profanity, and other indecent acting on the part of those who name the name of Christ. It is shocking the kind of language and rancor that appears in many Christian homes. How far this is from Paul’s admonition to “let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:31-32).

The Individual Christian

First, there is the question of personal conversion. What passes as Christianity today is not all Christianity. We may be “co-belligerents” (to use Francis Schaeffer’s term) with some things that are called Christian by the world, for sake of conservative politics or anti-terrorism, but we may not be brothers. Though salvation is not a magic formula to be repeated with one’s fingers crossed, neither is it merely an education process, or a membership class, or a philosophical affinity. The scripture has harsh words for those who name the name of Christ but do not “work out” their salvation with fear and trembling. John says, “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:4). Paul says, “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Tit. 1:16). C.S. Lewis wrote, “If we do not believe it, let us be honest and relegate the Christian faith to museums. If we do, let us give up the pretense that it makes no difference.”5

Second, our personal walk with God is more and more challenging in an anti-Christian culture. I’ve referred to some of this already. Surely we are like the frog in the slowly boiling pot. We think we are spiritually minded, and we are, compared to an atheistic world. But we are also like the juice that is settled too long on its lees, sour and contaminated. We ought to be light in the darkness, salt in an unsavory world, medicine in a sick and dying world, “for this is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thes. 4:3).

Third, the pull of cultural mores is strong upon our generation. I can’t believe, for example, that the divorce rate is the same for Christians as for non-Christians (not everything that calls itself a Christian is one), but I am convinced that it is far too close to the world’s rate. Are there really believers who sleep around in church youth groups and among adults as well? Do we really smoke, drink, cuss, and chew like the rest of the world? Our language is crude and rude and ought to embarrass us but it doesn’t. Surely the Spirit that dwells within us yearns with envy. Someone said that though the Holy Spirit never leaves the believer, He often locks Himself in His room because He doesn’t like the rest of the house. These things ought not to be.

Fourth, the individual Christian today lives with an unfounded fear of ostracism by the world. Peer pressure seems to be one of the most powerful motivations for the believer today. For some reason we feel like we must never be considered nadir by the culture around us. The apostles, on the other hand, were “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41). Peter later wrote, “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you; on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified” (1 Pet. 4:14). We are pilgrims and strangers here. We are only passing through. Bunyan pictured Pilgrim passing through Vanity when it was having a fair. The residents asked him to leave for three reasons. His language and his clothing were too different than theirs, and he would not participate in the activities of the fair. We should care so little on our journey to the Celestial City.

And so . . .

It seems I have been critical and harsh, but no more to others than to myself. A little reflection and it will be admitted that it is a hard day for a Christian in the world.   The apostle Paul says we can be more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Where sin has abounded, grace will much more abound. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil” (Ecc. 12:13-14).

Notes:

  1. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977) 152.
  2. D.G. Hart, That Old-Time Religion in Modern America (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002) 116.
  3. Gene Veith & Christopher Stamper, Christians In A .Com World (Wheaton: Crossway, 2000) 101.
  4. A.W. Tozer, Worship and Entertainment (Camp Hill: Christian Publications, 1997) ix.
  5. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: Macmillan, 1980) 116.

 

 

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The Coming Battle of Gog & Magog

Written by Rick Shrader

The Coming Battle of Gog & Magog

by Rick Shrader

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Recently I overheard someone talk about the good old days of prophecy conferences when we used to fear Russia and communism. Aren’t we even closer to the Lord’s return today than we were back then? I have often said myself how those preachers from a generation ago could not have conceived a world like we live in today. Israel, as a nation, has never been in such dire straits as it is today; never has east and west been at such tension as it is today; never has there been the real possibility of total annihilation of large cities and small countries; and, sadly, never has America’s strength in the world been doubted as it is today. The nations to the south, north, and east of Israel have never put forth the kind of pressure that is applied today and seldom with the same vitriol.

It also appears certain that a conflict of some kind is coming with those nations, especially to the north of Israel, because of their threat, not just to Israel, but to western nations as well. While we have learned (sometimes the hard way) not to be date setters or prognosticators of political circumstances, we have also learned not to reject prophecy because the circumstances don’t seem to work out the way we want. There are no “signs” of the rapture, and the tribulation will come upon the world as a thief who comes unexpected. But that should not keep us from preaching prophecy and expecting the Lord to come at any moment. Even the most conservative prophecy preachers knew that sometime the stage would be set for the scene to begin. Even if it doesn’t this time, it will sometime.

With the Islamic extremists spreading their terror around the world, and their obvious intention to wipe Israel off the map, and their boldness in attacking Christian-based countries, it seems we are headed for a world-wide conflict with Islamic terrorists. As I write, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has just died, and Yemen’s president Abd-rabbu Mansour Hadi has resigned. The absence of these two “friendly” leaders leaves Israel surrounded by even greater potential threats. There is no way of knowing in any definite way that such a conflict will be what the Bible predicts of the tribulation time and it would be foolish to preach it as such. Yet one of these times the stage will be set as God alone knows and wants, the rapture will occur, the antichristian king of the west will sign a treaty to protect Israel, and the tribulation will begin, and kings of the east, west, north, and south will begin making their moves on the chess board of the world.

These things will happen some day. If I lived in the 1930s I would surely have thought that this scenario was imminent. But it wasn’t. In the 1970s, every time Henry Kissinger (a German-born Jew representing western American interests) left for Israel, we pretribulationalists began getting ready for the rapture. But that wasn’t it either. And what we see today may or may not be the setting for the tribulation that only God knows and will cause to happen. We may go another hundred years. But then, it could happen now as I am writing or as you are reading. One thing is for sure, we’re closer to it now than we’ve ever been.

So let’s review one of those great prophecies of the tribulation period, not making any predictions, but simply realizing that one day these things will happen and, yes, it could be soon.

The overall picture

A time of tribulation is coming that will last seven years. This is the seventieth week of Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 9:24-27) and is divided into two halves of three and a half years each (see Rev. 11:1-3 for the designations of “forty two months,” and “a thoussand two hundred and threescore days,” in addition to “time, and times, and half a time” in 12:14). The tribulation officially begins when a treaty is signed by the antichrist with Israel (Dan. 9:27, called the “covenant with death” and “agreement with hell” in Isa. 28:18). The antichrist will rise to power during the first half of this time as the rider on the white horse of Rev. 6:2, going forth “conquering and to conquer.” In the middle of the tribulation he will break his treaty and desecrate the sacrifices in Jerusalem (2 Thes. 2:4). This is called “the abomination of desolation” by Jesus (Matt. 24:15, also Dan. 12:11). The second half of the tribulation (“great Tribulation,” Matt. 24:21) will bring great wrath upon those left alive.

The whole conflict will end at Armageddon (Rev. 16:16). Some emphasize the final conflict in the valley of Megiddo, and some emphasize a whole war lasting the entire three and a half years. Ryrie says, “Probably both emphases are valid, for there will be several battles encompassing more than just the local area of Megiddo that precede the final and climactic battle at Megiddo.”1 One of those battles is called “Gog and Magog” and is described in detail in Ezekiel 38 and 39. This is not the final battle often called the battle of Armageddon, but a previous battle that sets the stage for the final conflict.

The geographical participants

In the whole campaign of Armageddon there are essentially four main participants, five if you include the Lord from heaven Who is the final Victor after the last battle. These four earthly participants are easily designated as the kings of the east, west, north, and south. The kings of the east, who come late in the campaign, are described as a great hoard of 200 million (Rev. 16:12, 9:16). The kings of the south and north are mentioned by Daniel (11:40), not to be confused with the contemporaries of Daniel described in 11:5-35. The king of the west is the antichrist, the “prince that shall come” (Dan. 9:26) of Daniel’s vision, the one who breaks the covenant in the middle of the 70th week.

The battle of Gog and Magog concerns the king of the north and his invasion into the land of Israel early in the campaign. This king is described in Dan. 11:36-45 as “the king of the north;” in Isaiah 10:5, 30:31, and 31:8 as “the Assyrian;” in Joel 2:20 as “the northern army;” and in Ezek. 38:2 as “Gog, of the land of Magog” (NKJV). This battle will be the first major conflict affecting Israel in the tribulation, and, with the defeat of the northern king, will allow the king of the west to become the primary power in the war.

The time of the battle

There are varying views as to when the battle of Gog and Magog takes place. Some put the battle before the rapture so that it would be a current event even for the church; some put it in the millennium when Jesus returns to the earth; but most put it within the seven year tribulation. Of those, the two major views are that this battle is essentially Armageddon, or that it happens at or near the middle of the week and is the catalyst for the next three and a half year campaign. I think the latter is the preferred view.

That the battle of Gog and Magog takes place at the middle of the tribulation makes sense for a number of reasons. Daniel’s vision of this northern invasion in Dan. 11:40-45 is followed in 12:1, “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to the same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” This defense of Israel by Michael is described again in Rev. 12:7 immediately following the mention of the 1260 days in verse 6. This places Michael’s action at the middle of the tribulation, and therefore, places Daniel’s northern invasion “at that time.”

Dwight Pentecost lists ten reasons why he believes the battle takes place at or near the middle of the tribulation.2 Included in these is that Israel is still dwelling in peace when the invasion takes place; that Satan is cast out of heaven at this time and leads the northern army against Israel; and that the defeat of the northern army allows the antichrist to turn against Israel, breaking the covenant and desecrating the temple sacrifices. In addition, the time it takes to clean up after this battle (7 years to burn the weaponry, and 7 months to bury the dead, Ezek. 38:8-16) fits this time better than at the end of the tribulation.

Gog and his allies

Ezekiel gives a list of allies who will participate with the king of the north in the invasion of Israel at the middle of the tribulation. First, Gog is described, “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against them” (Ez. 38:2, NKJV). Here, we are told that Gog (most likely a title meaning chief or head) is the head over the lands of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. Then in verses 5-6 we are given the names of five allies that join with Gog, “Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you” (Ez. 38:5-6, NKJV)

There is considerable discussion over the identity of these places. This is important because these names may identify nations that exist today and are ready to participate in the destruction of Israel. Older prophetic writers (simply early or mid 20th century) commonly identified Rosh as Russia and Meshech and Tubal as cities of Russia (Moscow and Tobolsk).3   They quote Josephus, Jerome, and later Gesenius, as well as the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge as sources. Therefore, these identities cannot be dismissed out of hand. But more recent writers have questioned the connections, especially based on linguistic-sounding names. Others caution reading modern names into the text which, 2500 years ago, may not have known today’s nations at all. Even by 1969, Charles Feinberg wrote, “It is not worthy of the prophecy to make identifications merely on the basis of similarity of sounds. . . There have been many writers who connected the name Rosh with the Russians, but this is not generally accepted today.”4 I would say that such may be the case, but we must remember that God was not bound to time, and He wrote what would take place in our day or yet in our future, and we shouldn’t rule out such an eventual result. In addition, it is not really “reading into a text” to try to fit the prophecy with current events. There is nothing wrong with asking if the stage could be set for end-time events. That is not to say that this is absolutely what Ezekiel saw, but only that perhaps it could be what he saw.   The mention of the “far north” (38:6, 15, 39:2) also shows that Gog comes from a land, not just north of Israel, but far north. This leaves quite a wide berth of possible fulfillment as to the land of Magog.

The other five associates of Gog mentioned in verses five and six have also undergone much scrutiny. I would suggest Ryrie’s conclusion written in 1999, for the general identity of all the associates.

“The countries of that northern coalition are listed in Ezekiel 38:2-6; they include the territory of Magog, which will be ruled by Gog and was identified by Josephus as the land of the Scythians, the region north and northeast of the Black Sea and east of the Caspian Sea. Today, these are the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States including Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan and perhaps some of the smaller states of the commonwealth. Meshech and Tubal includes the area of modern Turkey. Persia is modern Iran; Ethiopia, northern Sudan; Put, Libya; Gomer, probably the eastern part of Turkey and Ukraine; Beth-togarmah, the part of Turkey near the Syrian border. Many, but not all of these nations, now have large Muslim populations.”5

What is important for us today is Ryrie’s last sentence. The radical Muslims today are surrounding Israel and would gladly join in such a confederation for this common cause. Renald Showers has also written, “It should be noted that the present government of Turkey is being threatened by Islamic fundamentalists. As a result, some leaders fear that Turkey could become another Iran. If that happens, then all the nations named in Ezekiel 38:5-6 will be characterized by a militant Islamic hatred of Israel.”6 Showers, writing in 1996, did not see the events of the last few years as Turkey has pulled away from western alliances and become more friendly toward the extremists.

Thus, if the rapture were to happen today, this battle of Gog and Magog would be a short three and a half years away. The lands described in Ezekiel easily describe the countries surrounding Israel and that have common cause for Israel’s destruction. Regardless of the ancient or modern names, the land never changes, and neither do God’s purposes.

The result of the battle

The invading armies from the north come into a land that is dwelling in “unwalled villages” and “at rest” and that “dwell safely” (38:11). This is because Israel is protected by the western king’s treaty. But Gog has had enough, and with her allies she believes she can plunder and destroy without intervention from the west. It is at this point that God miraculously intervenes. Ezekiel 38:18-23 describes the northern armies being destroyed on the mountains of Israel in such a way that the world takes notice and fears. Showers describes it,

“He will then actively intervene to destroy the massive invading force through a fierce earthquake, landslides, self-destructive panic, pestilence, excessive rain, great hailstones, and fire and brimstone (38:19-22). The destruction of the invading army will be so extensive that the mountains and open fields of Israel and a valley near the Dead Sea will be congested with corpses. God will bring fowl and beasts to eat many of them. It will take all the Jews seven months to bury the rest of the dead and seven years to destroy their weapons (39:3-5, 9-20). If this invasion takes place shortly before the middle of the Tribulation, then this destruction of weapons will continue into the early part of the Millennium.”7

In addition to God’s miraculous intervention to save His people Israel from human destruction, 38:21 says, “And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains.” Some believe this “sword” is God’s use of the antichrist, the western king, who also comes to defend his treaty. Once the king of the north is destroyed, however, the western king has no need of such a treaty and turns against Israel and rises to world dominance. This we know will be true of the antichrist.

And So . . .

A showdown is coming between the west and the Islamic terrorists countries surrounding Israel. The tension continues to build around the world as violent attacks against the west continue to escalate. The situation we see today may or may not be the precursor to the great battle of Gog and Magog that Ezekiel describes, but one day this scenario will happen. Nothing must take place for the rapture to occur, and if it were to happen today, these events would immediately begin to align as the tribulation would begin.

“And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12).

Notes:

  1. Charles Ryrie, “The Campaign of Armageddon,” Countdown to Armageddon, various contributors (Eugene: Harvest House, 1999) 198.
  2. J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969) 350-355.
  3. See Pentecost, Things To Come, pp. 326-331; John Walvoord, The Nations, Israel and the Church in Prophecy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967) 105-108; Leon J. Wood, The bible & Future Events (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973) 122.
  4. Charles L. Feinberg, The Prophecy of Ezekiel (Chicago: Moody Press, 1969) 219-220.
  5. Ryrie, 199.
  6. Renald E. Showers, “Gog and Magog,” Dictionary of Premillennial Theology, Mal Couch, ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996) 124.
  7. Showers, 125.

 

 

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The Humility of Incarnation

Written by Rick Shrader

The Humility of Incarnation

by Rick Shrader

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“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

             Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:5-11

A summation of the Christmas message is captured in this “kenosis” passage by the expression “made himself of no reputation.” One of the most difficult things with which humans wrestle is the thought of having no reputation, of being found more as a servant than as a person of great fame and notoriety. Yet as Christians we are specifically instructed in this great passage to let this same attribute of the incarnate Christ be in us, to actually think that to be humble and obedient is good.

Every time I read through one of the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, I come to emotional frustration realizing that the very incarnate God was rejected, scorned, mocked, and crucified by a sinful world who actually deserved it, and yet He was as a Lamb who is silent before the shearers. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). “The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Matt. 11:19). “And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself” (Mark 3:21). “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day. And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it” (Luke 9:22-24).

Even the disciples, right up to the end, were much more happy to dream about sitting on thrones in the next life than to be stripped of reputation in this one, but that is exactly what their life was to be. “Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with” (Matt. 20:23). Paul assured Timothy, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us” (2 Tim. 2:12); and Paul, having been stoned and left for dead admitted, “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

I am not here thinking of the absolutely incredulous unbelief of the world in celebrating Christmas without so much as a mention of God, Christ, incarnation, or even a religious hymn. To them, Christmas is a mystical self exaltation in positive thinking. I am rather thinking of a much more difficult and manly belief, of accepting a good and religious life that, because of acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, submits itself to the same humble status as its Lord. “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord” (Matt. 10:24). There will be time enough for reigning in that actual eternity when we also, similar to our Lord, will be highly exalted above our present calling. But Christmas to us is an historical fact. It is the fact of God becoming one of us, to redeem us from our own iniquity, and needing to suffer in order to accomplish that great fact. So our mind must be as His mind in the short time we have to walk as He walked.

Phil 2.5It should be said, in relation to this pure religion of non-reputation, that the Lord sees fit to place all of us in the places He wants. James said, “Let the brother of low degree rejoice when he is exalted: but the rich when he is made low” (James 1:9-10). This chaism of language uses the word tapeinos twice, from which we get the word “tapestry.” If God so wills that we be lifted up and placed on a wall for all to see, then rejoice. Yet if God so wills that we be placed on the floor to comfort the soles of men, so be that as well. It is not ours to ask why God does what He wants with His servants.  Oswald Sanders, in his classic book on leadership, said, “A desire to be great is not necessarily in itself sinful. It is the motivation that determines its character. Our lord did not discount or disparage aspiration to greatness, but He did pointedly expose and stigmatize unworthy motivation.”1 That is why most great men did not necessarily desire greatness, but rather to be godly men, and then God used them in great ways. Spurgeon said, “Many through wishing to be great have failed to be good; they were not content to adorn the lowly stations which the Lord appointed them, and so they have rushed at grandeur and power, and found destruction where they looked for honour. . . A man does well to know his own size.”2

There is an abundance of examples in the Bible of men that did not seek the limelight but were thrust into it. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30) and yet Jesus said of John “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11). The apostle Paul was the greatest evangelist that ever lived yet he saw himself as the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). The apostle John began writing the great treatise on prophecy but described himself as “your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:9). John Calvin said of himself, “Being by nature a bit antisocial and shy, I always loved retirement and peace . . . . But God has so whirled me around by various events that He has never let me rest anywhere, but in spite of my natural inclination, has thrust me into the limelight and made me ‘get into the game,’ as they say.” 3

It is one thing for a well-known or reputable man to recount how God placed him in high places, but it is quite another for a good and godly man to graciously and gladly accept anonymity from his Lord. For the one, and we have known many such good and reputable men, we “rejoice” as with James’ admonition. My own life has been blessed and made better by sitting under, hearing, and learning from such well-known men. I count them my mentors. But then there are the unsung heroes. I heard a friend pray the other day in a small six-person prayer meeting, a black inner-city preacher whom few would know, and bring us all powerfully before the throne of grace. I also heard a retired pastor pray for communion in a small, unknown church in such a wonderful way that it brought tears to one’s eyes. Who would venture to say which, of all these servants, is the greatest in the Lord’s eyes?

There is a record of a great but unsung servant in the book of Acts: Philip the deacon and evangelist. Here is a man who started out on a path that seemed unlimited. His co-worker Stephen served his Lord in a short but triumphal way, and then Philip took the reins and became the leading evangelist in those days. He was blessed of God to preach city-wide in Samaria and yet gladly accepted the one-on-one ministry in the desert of Gaza. But then, and almost suddenly, Philip is removed from the story and placed in Caesarea for twenty years without notice. Even Cornelius, while in Caesarea, was instructed to find Peter for the message, not Philip. I will let the great Alexander Maclaren tell the story:

“What a contrast to the triumphs in Samaria, and the other great expansion of the field for the Gospel effected by the God-commanded preaching to the eunuch, is presented by the succeeding twenty years of altogether unrecorded but faithful toil! Persistence in such unnoticed work is made all the more difficult and to any but a very true man would have been all but impossible, by reason of the contrast which such work offered to the glories of the earlier days. Some of us may have been tried in a similar fashion, all of us have more or less the same kind of difficulty to face. Some of us perhaps may have had gleams, at the beginning of our career, that seemed to give hope of fields of activity more brilliant and of work far better than we have ever had or done again in the long weary toil of daily life. There may have been abortive promises, at the commencement of your careers, that seemed to say that you would occupy a more conspicuous position than life has had really in reserve for you. At any rate, we have all had our dreams, for

 

‘If Nature put not forth her power

About the opening of the flower,

Who is there that could live an hour?’

And no life is all that the liver of it meant it to be when he began. We dream of building palaces or temples, and we have to content ourselves if we can put up some little shed in which we may shelter.

Philip, who began so conspicuously and so suddenly ceased to be the special instrument in the hands of the Spirit, kept plod, plod, plodding on, with no bitterness of heart. For twenty years he had no share in the development of Gentile Christianity, of which he had sowed the first seed, but had to do much less conspicuous work. He toiled away there in Caesarea patient, persevering, and contented, because he loved the work, and he loved the work because he loved Him that had set it. He seemed to be passed over by his Lord in His choice of instruments. It was he who was selected to be the first man that should preach to the heathen. But did you ever notice that although he was probably in Caesarea at the time, Cornelius was not bid to apply to Philip, who was at his elbow, but to send to Joppa for the Apostle Peter? Philip might have sulked and said: ‘Why was I not chosen to do this work? I will speak no more in this Name.’

It did not fall to his lot to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. One who came after him was preferred before him, and the Hellenist Saul was set to the task which might have seemed naturally to belong to the Hellenist Philip. He too might have said, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’ No doubt he did say it in spirit, with noble self-abnegation and freedom from jealousy. He cordially welcomed Paul to his house in Caesarea twenty years afterwards, and rejoiced that one sows and another reaps; and that so the division of labour is the multiplication of gladness.

A beautiful superiority to all the low thoughts that are apt to mar our persistency in unobtrusive and unrecognized work is set before us in this story. There are many temptations today, dear brethren, what with gossiping newspapers and other means of publicity for everything that is done, for men to say, ‘Well, if I cannot get any notice for my work I shall not do it.’

Boys in the street will refuse to join in games, saying, ‘I shall not play unless I am captain or have the big drum.’ And there are not wanting Christian men who lay down like conditions. ‘Play well thy part’ wherever it is. Never mind the honour. Do the duty God appoints, and He that has the two mites of the widow in His treasury will never forget any of our works, and at the right time will tell them out before His Father, and before the holy angels.”4

In 1793 William Carey helped begin the Baptist Missionary Society with Andrew Fuller and others as they sat up late at night in the widow Wallace’s house in Kettering. They took up an offering among themselves that night of 2 shillings, 6 pence, about 13 pounds. But Carey was so poor, pastoring a small church and working as a cobbler and teacher to keep his family alive, that he could not contribute to the new missionary fund. But this humble servant who had a year before preached, “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God,” said to the others that since he had no money to give he would give himself. “I go to India to mine for souls. You hold the ropes.” Fuller, his dearest friend and the pastor in Kettering, took the challenge personally and became the first (and life-time) treasurer of the society, holding the ropes until his death. Carey went to India for the rest of his life, never returning a single time to his native England. No one knew much at the time about those small-town ministers, but their unselfish service was blessed and multiplied by God.5

Thousands of other great servants of God will make equal sacrifices with no recognition in this life. That is what the Bema Seat of Christ is all about. Paul simply said, “Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon . . . Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it” (1 Cor. 3:10, 13). I’m glad we will not be judged for how much, but simply for how we have served. It is still God Who gives the increase.

Our almost one-year-old grandson was home last week for Thanksgiving. He is at that stage where he loves to go up the stairs from the first floor landing to the second floor. He does a great job of going up. He only has one problem, however. He has no idea how to go down—except, of course, head over heels. So I was standing over him on the stairs waiting for the moment he would stand and topple backwards, and at that moment I would catch him. In addition to the guardian role, I began to teach him how to stretch his legs downward, one at a time, feeling for the lower step, until he could feel secure in lowering himself downward, sliding on his stomach. We did not accomplish the task during our visit last week, but he will soon enough. And he will find that going down is as rewarding a task as going up.

I’m glad my heavenly Father stood behind me and caught me all those years when I didn’t know how to go down, only up. But His strong arms and divine patience kept me safe until I learned that peace and contentment comes not in going up or in going down, but in going where He leads.

The greatest Christmas gift we could receive from our heavenly Father this year is the graciousness and joy of accepting the “no reputation” status. Those Pharisees who rejected Jesus because He did not offer what they expected, needed trumpets sounding before them as they walked down the street. “Verily, they have their reward” (Matt. 6:2).

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. . . Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 6:6, 12-14).

“And thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:4).

Notes:

  1. J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971) 10-11.
  2. C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, vol. VII, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1978) 87.
  3. From Bruce Shelley, Church History in Plain Language (Dallas: Word, 1995) 256-257.
  4. Alexander Maclaren, Maclaren’s Expositions of Holy Scripture on Acts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959) 260-262.
  5. Rick Shrader, syllabus, “Discovering Baptist History Tours.” aletheiabaptistministries.org.

 

 

 

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Things We Should Not Forget

Written by Rick Shrader

Things We Should Not Forget

by Rick Shrader

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The apostle Peter explained to his readers that his intention in writing was to “stir you up by putting you in remembrance” (2 Pet. 1:13) and “stir up our pure minds by way of remembrance” (2 Pet. 3:1). Believers have “pure minds” in that we have the mind of Christ revealed in His Holy Word (1 Cor. 2:16). The holiday season is a time in which we can and should do this. We will soon be sitting around bountiful tables with family and friends, bowing our heads and saying about our God, “Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). We may eat turkey, beef, or pork, but we will remember that, “every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4-5). Thomas á Kempis said, “God doth well for us in giving the grace of comfort; but man doth evil in not returning all again unto God with thanksgiving.”1

Kyle Yates, the Old Testament scholar, reminded us that “the one who thinks will thank,” because “thankfulness in the old English is thinkfulness.”2 Proverbs says, “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (23:7). “A Christian believes in thinking and thinks in believing.”3 In order to be a thankful people, therefore, we must be thinking right. There is a well-known story of Matthew Henry (though it has been told in various editions) when he was robbed by highway robbers: “Let me be thankful first, because I was never robbed before; second, because, although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed.”4

The Bible says “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). There may be many ways in which this is true, but one is that we simply cannot see many of the things we believe in. Even of Jesus, Peter wrote, “Whom having not seen ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8). Even fearing God becomes largely a matter of believing what He has said. If I disobey Him because I can’t see the Holy Spirit Who lives within me, I am not fearing God. The only way to guard against that is to think correctly about things I can’t see. In fact, I can’t see how God has providentially worked all things together for my good, but I surely believe He has. Knowing this in my mind makes me thankful.

God is Sovereign

This means primarily that God is the supreme power in the whole created universe. A “sovereign” in a country is one who is the highest authority, who has a sovereign right over everything in the realm. The Psalmist said, “Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Psa. 135:6). James proclaimed, “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). Paul wrote, “In whom also we obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11).

Of the many attributes of God revealed in Scripture, consider just a few. God is a faithful Creator (1 Pet. 4:19). The One Who created everything that exists outside Himself is able to start anything, stop anything, undo anything, or continue anything. No wonder Peter said we can trust such an One in times of trouble and commit our souls to Him. I can thank Him for every situation because I know He is in total control. He will not suffer me to be tested beyond what I can stand (1 Cor. 10:13).

God is the Sustainer. “I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me” (Psa. 3:5). Of the second Person of the Godhead, Hebrews begins: “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). Paul wrote, “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col 1:17). George Washington, in his first inaugural address said that God is “the invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men.”5 We should remember, therefore, around our Thanksgiving tables, that it is God Who has sustained us and provided these things at our hands.

God is eternal. “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy” (Isa. 57:15). At Christmas we will hear the story of Jesus in Bethlehem, and that “out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Mic. 5:2). We usually think of eternity past and wonder how old God must be! But then we realize He is not “old,” He just “is.” But remember also that God will exist (in fact, does exist) in the future as well. We are not headed into a “Star Wars” kind of future where worlds collide and unheard of creatures rule. All things that He has promised will come to pass.

Satan is Powerful

There are two things that believers often forget, or at least do not pay enough attention to: We have a sinful nature that is powerful, and we have an adversary, Satan, who is very powerful. He is the usurper of this world. When Adam, as the king of God’s creation, forfeited his (and our) inheritance in the earth, Satan became the temporary landlord. He once offered the kingdoms of this world to Jesus (Matt. 4:8-9). Sure, he is not sovereign, but he has temporary control, enough to give it to whomsoever he will. Christ would not worship him, but one day an antichrist will, and all the world with him.

He is the god of this world. “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4). He is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:1). He will be bound for a thousand years “that he should deceive the nations no more” (Rev. 20:3).

Satan is highly organized. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). “In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). Satan is also highly energized. He is “as a roaring lion,” walking about, “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Though humans in high places are not without blame, we should remember that God has allowed Satan to usurp control and deceive the nations for a time. Men are not a match for him, are mere puppets in his hand. It is a strange but true comfort to realize that evil men are not my underlying enemies, but the very devil who controls them.

The Church is not Earthly

It was not Israel nor Rome nor the Reformers who separated the Church from the State. Israel was the only true theocracy that ever existed. Others have tried (Islam, for example) to make their religion the rule of the government, but the true God has only done this once and that was at Mt. Sinai. Rome did successfully marry the state to a remade Christianity but it has been tyrannical everywhere it has been tried. The Reformers did no better, as shown in Luther’s Germany or Calvin’s Geneva.

America’s separation of church and state has been the greatest blessing to the world in the last 200 years. We have the Baptist Roger Williams to thank for it. John Barry compares the efforts of Puritans to again unite church and state, to Williams’ argument against it: “He was saying that mixing church and state corrupted the church. He was saying that when one mixes religion and politics one gets politics. . . Williams’s [sic] ambitions for liberty started with Rhode Island, but they went beyond Rhode Island.”6

Leonard Verduin has written, “The First Amendment of the Federal Constitution of these United States, has, as has been intimated in this volume, carved out the kind of pluralistic situation for which the Stepchildren toiled; it has secured, by the highest law of the land, the kind of cultural and societal composition for which they labored; it has laid low the sacralism against which they fought. And it has done so with apparent blessing.”7

What these and many other historians are saying is that we as Americans ought to thank God that He has given us a country where the church is not controlled by the state or the state by the church. The church can remain faithful to God regardless of the sickness of the state.

The Church is Heavenly

The church is made up of those baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ from Pentecost to the Rapture (1 Cor. 12:13). “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). “God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name” (Acts 15:14). In this sense the church is universal. It has no earthly country to call its own, no single language common to all its members, no kingdom on this earth. It only has local expressions, local churches, made up of believers who happen to reside in the same place at the same time.

Therefore, the church is heavenly. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). Our Savior is in heaven, our home is in heaven, our rewards are in heaven, and our “conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). We are “strangers and pilgrims” (1 Pet. 2:11) who look for a city whose builder and maker is God.

The church is a mystery. “Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (Eph. 3:5). In this sense the church is a parenthesis in God’s prophetic program. We are not Israel of the Old Testament, and we are not (yet) in the kingdom. This “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:2) in which we live makes us unseen to Old Testament believers.

Though we are last in time, we will be first in position when that kingdom comes. In this sense the church is future. We are only now betrothed to our Groom, but we will be taken home to be married, and return with Him to live and reign on the earth for a thousand years. We may have little now “with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last first” (Mark 10:30).

The New Jerusalem is Home

The church looks forward to going to the Father’s house. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2-3). McCune writes, “Hitherto the saints looked forward to a resurrection day when God would come down and dwell on earth with them forever in His glorious kingdom. Now, believers were told of the prospect [of] Christ’s absence during which time He would be preparing dwelling places for them in a non-earthly dimension, in what He termed ‘the Father’s house.’”8

This house that is waiting for us in heaven seems to be the same as, “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). Many believe this city will circle the earth during the millennial reign of Christ and be the home of the church, since they will arrive in resurrected bodies, fit for earth or heaven. It definitely is the eternal home of the saints after the earth is destroyed by fire after the millennium. It has the streets of gold, the crystal river, the tree of life, the gates of pearl. This is our future abode to which we look with anticipation. We, like Abraham, look “for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10).

And So . . . .

The degree to which we forget these kinds of things is the degree to which we become unthankful for how God has blessed us. The fact is that the modern world has given us many things that our forefathers did not have, and we are thankful for them. Of course, there are may evils that modern society brings also. We should “in all things give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thes. 5:18). Whether our Thanksgiving table be large or small, it is all from God.

Yet we do not measure our blessings merely by things on our table or in our house, or on this earth at all. We are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Pet. 2:9-10).

The story is often told of the cynic sitting under a nut tree and arguing with God why it was necessary for such a large tree to bear such small fruit. Just then a nut fell and hit him on the head. “Thank you, God, that it wasn’t a watermelon!” Our lives are filled with our surmising about God’s world. We actually think we could have planned it better. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad people never seem to suffer in this world? I heard an atheist in a university classroom ask how things could be so bad in this world if there really is a good God. The answer was given, imagine how bad it would be if there were not a good God Who is in control of it all! Rather, we should be able to say with Paul, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).

 

Thanks to God whose Word was spoken

In the deed that made the earth.

His the voice that called a nation;

His the fires that tried her worth.

 

Thanks to God whose Word incarnate

Glorified the flesh of man,

Deeds and words and death and rising

Tell the grace in heaven’s plan.

 

Thanks to God whose Word was written

In the Bible’s sacred page,

Record of the revelation

Showing God to every age.

 

Thanks to God whose Word is answered

By the Spirit’s voice within.

Here we drink of joy unmeasured,

Life redeemed from death and sin.

 

R.T. Brooks

 

Notes:

  1. Thomas á Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Chicago: Moody, 1984) 112.
  2. Kyle Yates, Preaching From the Psalms (New York: Harper & Bros., 1948) 168.
  3. Attributed to Augustine, Douglas Groothuis, Christianity That Counts (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994) 13.
  4. In Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations (1990) 1456.
  5. George Washington, “The First Inaugural Address,” Orations from Homer to McKinley (New York: Collier & Son, 1902) 2506.
  6. John Barry, Roger Williams and The Creation of the American Soul (New York: Viking, 2012) 308.
  7. Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964) 277.
  8. Rolland McCune, A Systematic Theology, vol. III (Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010) 365.

 

 

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Wandering Stars

Written by Rick Shrader

Wandering Stars

by Rick Shrader

Jude, the brother of James and half brother of Jesus, declared that apostates are spots in a church’s gatherings, clouds that can’t hold water, trees that produce no fruit, waves of the sea that foam up all kinds of filth, and wandering stars that appear in the sky briefly and then disappear into the blackness of space forever (Jude 11-13). Such are those who make pretense of faith in Christ but are deceivers and themselves deceived.

I’ve always loved the stars. Who hasn’t? There is no more majestic spectacle in all of God’s wonderful creation than peering into space on a clear night and seeing the lights of the sky placed there by the God of lights. God has put earth in the Milky Way Galaxy which, by average estimates, has over 400 billion stars in it. Some galaxies have a trillion stars. And (my mind loses comprehension here) there are over 170 billion galaxies!

Isaiah described the immensity of God, “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with the span” (Isa. 40:12). The Psalmist declared, “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names” (Psa. 147:4). Imagine! God holds the universe in His hand and knows every star by name! Try to picture that on a clear starry night!

I have enough trouble finding a few planets that appear in the night sky and the big dipper. I can tell if the moon is waxing or waning and I can always find the north star. I have one of those phone apps that I can point in a certain direction at night and it will give me the names of the constellations and planets in that direction. Pretty amazing! One of the thrills that we always remember when we look at the night sky is the shooting star. These pieces of rock, or meteoroids, come streaming out of the darkness, creating enough heat by entering the earth’s atmosphere to leave a streak of light, and sometimes a tail of glowing particles, and then disappear as quickly as they appeared. Jude simply called them “wandering stars.”

Jude’s word choice is typical and yet unique. “Wandering” is the word planētai, from which we get our word “planet.” Some have thought that Jude intended to signify the very planets which circle the sun but are never in a fixed position (The north star is the only celestial star that remains fixed). Most agree, however, that Jude referred to the shooting stars that disappear into the darkness. The word is appropriate. Planē in its various forms takes on the meaning of going astray, deceiving, seducing, wandering, and of being out of the way.

Besides our sun itself, the brightest objects in the sky are the least reliable. The shooting stars are fantastic to see, but can’t be counted on at any given time. The moon is bright but it is in a different position each night and throughout the month. The planets are the brightest “stars” but pass quickly across the sky and come only seasonally. The constellations are always there but are not always visible either. Jude’s description of apostates as shooting stars depicts them as the most thrilling but least reliable of the night lights.

The word planē, planaō, and planos, are together used over fifty times in the New Testament in a number of different contexts. A few times the word is morally neutral and signifies a direction as when the writer of Hebrews tells us that the persecuted saints “wandered in deserts” (Heb. 11:38). He also wrote that Christ is a High Priest for those who are “out of the way” (5:2). Jesus used the word in the parable of the one sheep that had “gone astray” (Matt. 18:12), and Peter reminds us that we were “as sheep going astray” (1 Pet. 2:25). But the great majority of uses for this word have to do with the deceptions and the deceivers of this world. We should realize that these “wandering stars” are not reliable guides for the believer.

Satan and his ministers

We know so much about Satan that we almost take him for granted. Most of us can give a quick biography of his history and future prophecies and speak about him as if he were a political contemporary. Well, he does control spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12) and he does have ministers preaching all around us (2 Cor. 11:15). In the book of Revelation our word planē is used six times to describe his world-wide activity, each time translated as “deceive.” He is the one who “deceiveth the whole world” (12:9), whose false prophet “deceiveth them that dwell on the earth” (13:14), whose antichrist and false prophet “deceived them” (19:20) with the mark of the beast, and who will be bound for a thousand years so that he can “deceive the nations” no more (20:3, 8, 10).

When we are warned not to love the world (1 Jn. 2:15), it is because Satan controls the world through deception. This is the proper point with which to begin. The other ways in which we are deceived are overseen, influenced, or controlled by Satan’s great power in the world. He deceives whole nations, and therefore “it is no great thing” (2 Cor. 11:15) if he controls businesses, churches, families, and individuals with his ministers and “doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1). He was able to offer the Son of God the “kingdoms of the world” (Matt. 4:8) because he is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), and is, in fact, “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4).

He truly “has blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4). Sinners are simply “taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). Luther wrote in his great hymn, “For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe, his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.”

We should not leave this thought without also remembering that as believers we can “resist the devil, and he will flee” from us (Jas. 4:7), and that we do not have to “give place to the devil” (Eph. 4:27), and he is one whom we can “resist in the faith” (1 Pet. 5:9).   When we put on the armor of God, we can “stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11). Satan is a wandering star who will one day fade into the blackness and darkness forever. No one has to go with him.

False religions

Much as our familiarity with Satan dulls our fear of him, our knowledge and “fairness” toward world religions dulls our differences with them. Any religion that denies the gospel of Jesus Christ is false and is taking people to a Christless eternity. “Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 Jn. 2:22). John would then say, “These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce [planaō] you” (2:26).

Paul told Timothy, “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13). These false religions are wandering stars themselves and are causing people to wander away with them. Jesus told the Sadducees, a religious group that denied the doctrine of the resurrection, “Ye do err [planaō], not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God (Matt. 22:29). Jesus severely criticized the church of Thyatira because they suffered “that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols” (Rev. 2:20). This was the inroad of an ancient religion which would destroy the church. The same danger was also in the old teaching of Balaam (Rev. 2:14). John also saw the harlot, the one-world religious system, and said, “for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived” (Rev. 18:23).

Paul gave the Ephesian church an interesting word picture concerning false teachers of false religions when he wrote, “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:14). Those that are lying in wait to deceive God’s church are like leaves being carried around with the wind, and are like cubes (“sleight” is from kubeia), or the rolling of the cubes i.e., the dice. Here are two more pictures of those who deceive: blowing leaves and rolling dice! You take your chances on where you will end up.

Lusts and desires

In the end, we will not be able to blame Satan or religions for our sin. “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Tit. 3:3). James said, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren” (Jas. 1:14-16). When the sinner stands before a holy God and hears his fate read, it will be for no other reason than that his own sin was not forgiven through Jesus Christ. It is our own sin that makes us wandering stars “To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).

Paul wrote, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). Paul also wrote, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption” (Gal. 6:7-8). John would conclude, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn. 1:8).

To be deceived by our own sin is so serious that hell is waiting for us. The pale horse of the Apocalypse was named Death, “and hell followed him” (Rev. 6:8). We naturally recoil at the thought of a literal hell of fire and brimstone being eternal, without ending. Surely, we think, a loving God would not send someone there. One cannot think of a more horrible punishment. And why? For sins during a moment of life on the earth? But the only answer can be that a holy God must determine it so. Sin is so contrary to God, so appalling to His holy nature, so foreign to His holy heaven, that the punishment can never fully be paid. This is how serious our sin is and how deceived we are by being led astray by it.

Worldly culture

The debate still rages over the definition of culture. I think the older definitions are unbiased and more correct. T.S. Eliot called culture “The incarnation of religion.”1 Later, Ravi Zacharias also said, “Religion is the essence of culture while culture is the dress of religion.”2 That is, culture is not a neutral phenomenon that just happens to exist, that we can copy without caution or reserve. Culture is the expression of man’s nature. It is what man really believes. It is what the Bible means when it uses the word “world.” “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 Jn. 2:15).

God became grieved with Israel in the wilderness because they created a culture contrary to His law. “Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways” (Heb. 3:10). When we follow our natural desires and beliefs, we are following a worldly culture created by ourselves and not God. That’s why James could say, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (Jas. 4:4). When believers try to appease the world, they are becoming an enemy of God. John cautioned against the false teachers who did that very thing. “They are of the world: therefore they speak of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” (1 Jn. 4:5-6).

Many today look at the culture as something inviolable. They think it is like the north star, unchangeable and something by which to set your compass. So rather than working to change the culture, they change themselves to fit the culture. To be “cultured” used to mean to have refined yourself, to have changed your culture. Now it means to be changed by your culture. This is the “spirit of error,” or of planē.

Antichrist, and many antichrists

The antichrist will be the great deceiver of humans. He will foster a lie that the whole world will follow (2 Thes. 2:11) and be deceived. John warned, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (1 Jn. 2:18). Jesus taught that this will be especially critical in the last days, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:4-5).

In his second epistle John wrote, “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2 Jn. 7). Not only will the antichrist himself be a world-wide deceiver, but until then there will always be the spirit of antichrist. Anyone or anything that lends itself to that final apostasy is antichrist. This is why John taught that we cannot bid “God speed” to false teaching (2 Jn. 10-11). When we do, we are “partakers” (koinōnei, fellowshippers) of that evil deed and are deceived by it.

And So . . . .

Isaac Watts put Psalm 147 to verse in this way:

Praise ye the Lord; tis good to raise

Our hearts and voices in his praise;

His nature and his works invite

To make this duty our delight.

The Lord builds up Jerusalem,

And gathers nations to his name;

His mercy melts the stubborn soul,

And makes the broken spirit whole.

He form’d the stars, those heav’nly   flames;

He counts their numbers, calls their names;

His wisdom vast, and knows no bound,

A deep where all our thoughts are drown’d.

Great is our Lord, and great his might;

And all his glories infinite:

He crowns the meek, rewards the just,

And treads the wicked to the dust.

 

Sing to the Lord, exalt him high,

Who spreads his clouds all round the sky;

There he prepares the fruitful rain,

Nor lets the drops descend in vain.

He makes the grass the hills adorn,

And clothes the smiling fields with corn;

The beasts with food his hands supply,

And the young ravens when they cry.

What is the creature’s skill or force,

The sprightly man, the warlike horse,

The nimble wit, the active limb?

All are too mean delights for him.

But saints are lovely in his sight,

He views his children with delight;

He sees their hope, he knows their fear,

And looks, and loves his image there.3

 

Notes:

  1. T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture (New York: Harcout Brace, 1949) 101.
  2. Ravi Zachariah, Deliver Us From Evil (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996) 82.
  3. Isaac Watts, Psalm 147, The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997) 265-266.

 

 

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