BibleDriven

Archive for the ‘Truth’ Category

I was just on the way from the church over to my little “reserved” table at Starbucks for an afternoon of java and jotting some notes on the history of Christian thought when I noticed, on the car in front of me, this remarkable “thought”—Jesus is coming … look busy!

Aaauuugghhhhhh!! Now, if I’m not completely mistaken, that’s a quote from George Carlin—not really the best source of theological reflection, you know. And I don’t know if the little lady driving this car was a Carlin fan (if so, I would never have guessed it), or whether perhaps she thought that this “thought” had some merit, but its message is fundamentally unbiblical and the attitude behind it dismissive and dangerous.

Here’s what I mean. Jesus is coming … that’s absolutely true. God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness” by this man whom he’s appointed, and of this he has “provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17.31). The appeal that flows from that truth, though, is not “Look busy!” but “Repent!” The Judge of all the earth will not be fooled by “looks.” Oh no! “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ …” (2 Corinthians 5.10), and the word Paul uses there for “appear” is actually passive voice, and means “be made known, be revealed, be brought to light, be seen through,” i.e. for who we really are. “Looking busy” when Jesus comes won’t make any difference. What’s the hope of the hypocrite—the one who pretends to be other than what he or she is—when Jesus comes? None!

Jesus is coming! Repent! Be faithful unto death! Hold fast to our confession and to the hope set before us! Don’t grow weary in doing good! “We must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12.1-2).

But what we must not do is just try to “look busy”!

Carson began the devotional with this true observation: “When people know little about the God who has actually disclosed himself, it is terribly easy for them to sink into some perverted view of this God, until the image held of him has very little to do with the reality.”

He concluded with this troubling illustration: “Yesterday I received in the mail a letter from one of America’s premier television preachers, inviting me to send money and offering me in return a Christmas tree ornament of an ‘angel’ with a trumpet, to remind me that God had commanded the angel looking after me to blow a trumpet to celebrate me. What kind of pared-down and domesticated image of God do such leaders hold that they should utter such nonsense?” (D. A. Carson, from the August 14 Devotional, For the Love of God)

Indeed!

Please read the article entitled “The day the circus came to church” written by Pastor Don Hattaway (Tabernacle Baptist Church, Cartersville) and appearing in The Christian Index (July 30, 2009). In case there’s not a copy of The Christian Index at hand, the article can be read online HERE. More and more voices are beginning to cry in this ecclesiastical wilderness, and my hope is that the Lord is about to do great and mighty things for his church in our place and time. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts …” (Hebrews 3:15; 4:7).

“All my family are Christians …” That’s how the woman with whom I was having an intriguing chat at the coffee shop began her next story. She’s a spry and inquisitive lady of nearly 70 years, well-read and well-traveled, and an absolutely delightful conversationalist. We’d talked about seeing the country by train, about her late husband and friends she’d known in other places. She’d told me of times spent in London and Scotland, of an opportunity missed to visit Japan, and of a Lutheran pastor she had once that, for just a moment, I reminded her of.

Then she leaned forward and began, “All my family are Christians …,” and I wondered what would follow. Her next words gave me pause: “… but we’ve all taken so many different routes.”

“Do you mean different routes to becoming Christians?” I thought.

But before I could ask, she made clear that she meant that they each had such different ways of “being” Christians. One, she said, was a ”religious fanatic,” another a good and kind person, but who “never went to church,” yet another had decided that her Christianity and heavy drinking were quite compatible. She herself, she noted, was “spiritual” and a “Christian” but not much of a church-goer, and really quite comfortable with people believing whatever they liked as long as they didn’t judge her.

And it hit me hard. There, right in front of me in the person of this charming and entertaining and interesting older lady, sat the embodiment of much American religion — moralistic, therapeutic, deistic, consumerist, individualist, neo-gnostic, postmodern, pluralistic, and completely self-assured and self-satisfied. This is all that many folks — even many church members — have. It is their own little religion, their own unique route and journey, for sure, and they really like it. But it is not biblical nor historic Christianity, nor is it good news in the end.

These are strange days. Therefore, “… be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the saints. Pray for me also, that I may be given the message when I begin to speak–that I may confidently make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may be able to speak boldly as I ought to speak” (Ephesians 6:18-20, NET).