Choose Wisely

Choose Wisely

Every time you make a choice you are turning the control part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, you are slowly turning this control thing into a heavenly creature or into a hellish one.
C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

It has long been my own personal observation that the "table" of ideas, leadership and civic authority in America has been reduced by one chair. Christians have been inexorably, deliberately excluded from their traditional seat at this table. Pervasive secularly-defined tolerance has elbowed aside meaningful contribution from moral voices.
Only recently, here in our small town, Christians discovered how small was their influence and how puny was their voice. Civic leaders made a decision with a moral undertone without expecting any backlash. When Christians arrived at a meeting, they were greeted with open skepticism and a deaf ear. The city's leaders seemed not to have considered that Christians would have anything to say regarding their decision.
Recent political developments have alarmed lots of pastors. It is not far from hate-crimes and hate-speech legislation to political censorship of spiritual thought. Already erosion of freedom in the pulpits of America has occurred as pastors have been legally threatened for preaching the Biblical view of homosexuality.
This far, but no further. We are facing anti-life, anti-marriage, anti-free speech political forces that are stepping into the moral sphere. We render to Caesar what is Caesar's but we reserve for God the spiritual, moral world that is His. Our denominational points of separation are of minimal importance in this stance. We must begin to stand together and elbow our way back up to the table of public debate.
Please read the Manhattan Declaration. I urge you to sign it. And to stick to it.

40 Years of God-Experience

I am getting older.
It's obvious by the scarcity of hair on my head and the gray in my beard.
It's obvious in the grown-up lives of my kids. They used to hunt Easter eggs and lose teeth and enjoy piggy-back rides. If I tried to give them a piggy-back ride now, I'd be riding. To the emergency room.
But, there is an illuminating side to this age. It is possible for me to know of something for 40 years. In my memory, there can be 40-year-old phenomena. Bicycles, birthday cakes, banana pudding and bb guns are things I've known of for 40 years. And lots of other things besides.
Last night, I was reminded of something I've probably known about for 40 years. It's the Bible story of the manna; the bread of heaven provided for the Hebrews during their sojourn from Egypt to Israel. It is described in Exodus 18 as small and round and fine as frost, tasting like honey and similar to coriander seed. (Don't know anything at all about coriander seed.) I suppose I first heard about manna in a children's Sunday School class or from the Bible Story books my dad read to us at home. The Hebrews would wake up in the morning and out on the ground, there would be manna. They didn't know what to call it. They looked at each other and said, "What is it?" In Hebrew, that's "manna?" So, they called it, 'what is it' bread, or manna.
"Manna, this tastes good!"
"Momma, what some manna?"
"Manna pudding anyone?"
The Hebrews were told they should gather the manna every morning, not storing any up for the next day. When they tried to store it, it rotted quickly. However, on the day before Sabbath, they were explicitly instructed to gather enough for two days. And on these occasions, the manna would keep. Curious.
I've known of this story for 40 years. The Hebrews Lived This Story for 40 years.
If there was one thing a middle-aged Hebrew man with gray arriving in his beard knew, it was that the manna was going to be there in the morning. I mean you could doubt it for awhile. But after 40 years straight, I'm prepared to believe that there was not much doubt left in the Hebrew camp. It was the regular, daily, necessary, tasty provision of God for His people. It was coming. Better than the mail service. More dependable than Moses' sermons. The manna was gonna be there.
It made me wonder as I thought of it last night, "What do I know about God with 40 years of proof?"
I can think of some things. One of them is just this: God can be known. Personally. Vitally. In the reality of life in 2009, there is a Truth that says, God can be known.
God provides. He has been in the providing business since Creation. And He's good at it.
Daily life in relationship with God through Jesus Christ is a life of love.
And, after I am able to say that I have 50 years experience with Him, there will still be more of Him to know!

Agent of Redemption

As we approach the Fall (something that isn't happily discussed in this house full of students and a teacher) I'm looking forward to getting back on the road and preaching revivals in churches. Always the question is "what should I talk about?" A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon about an un-named girl in 2 Kings. I named her as an Agent of Redemption. Here's why.

We know that when she was young, she was stolen away from her home and family by raiding warriors from the neighboring country. It was common practice in the ancient world for captives to become slaves, and so it fell upon her. Naaman was the general of Syria's armies and responsible for raiding parties like the one that had taken this little girl from Israel. She became a slave in Naaman's house, serving Naaman's wife.

As time went by, Naaman became sick with leprosy. The little girl told her mistress, "If only my master would go to see the prophet in Israel. He would cure him of his leprosy!" Naaman's wife told him, he told his king and his king sent him to Israel. Long story short, Naaman was cured.
But what about that little girl? Let me tell you, if I had been stolen from my home, sold into slavery in a foreign country and the man who was in charge of that got sick, I would probably not have told him about a cure! I would probably have laughed out loud! "Ah ha! Serves you right! There is a God! Justice!" I probably would have hoped for a long and painful end for him. He hurt me, so now it's his turn to hurt!

She didn't do that. She became an Agent of Redemption in Naaman's life. She returned good for evil, she fulfilled the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount hundreds of years before Jesus' time. She spoke up and offered help to one who should have been her enemy. I tell you, I get excited about it everytime I talk about it. THIS is Christianity! This is a radical thing, capable of changing culture and crossing lines and verifying the Gospel!

The next time you get bad service at a restaurant, your boss blames you falsely or your children let you down, stop for a moment. Instead of blaming, recriminating, plotting or cursing, choose a better option. Live up to the Christian Gospel by becoming for your adversary an Agent of Redemption! Speak for their encouragement, return good for their evil, smile and speak of Jesus with joy. What a different response that would be! What a testimony!

What a girl!

Ministry Website Updated

Uploaded a new sermon onto the MIP website on the Downloads and Audio page. Praying for Revival, from the Spring 2009 series. Sermon text is Psalm 80.
Also, the latest newsletter will be mailed Friday but it's already available online already on the website.
www.makeitplain.org

Trip to Guayaquil, Ecuador

Here are some of the pastors and church leaders meeting this past weekend at Iglesia Bautista Dios Es Amor in Guayaquil, Ecuador. They are already meeting and beginning to pray to prepare for our upcoming trip February 1-8, 2010. I need a team of American pastors and church members to come with me to Guayaquil. 22 churches are cooperating together to host us. We will do personal evangelism, church services and community rallies. The total cost will be about $2000 per team member, including airfare, hotel, food, transportation and insurance. South America's evangelicals are eager for help. People are discovering a personal relationship with Jesus. Come on! Let's go!

On Being Christian in China

Tomorrow, I'll be talking to a geography class at school about China. I visited with them about Africa a couple of months ago. They're interested in all the pictures and in a first-hand account. It's quite a privilege to be asked and to participate in opening some young minds.
China is such a big subject, though. So many people, so much culture and history, so many crazy food choices! Taxi rides there are like no where else. Bicycles. Apartments. Everyone stares at you because "you are Not from here" and it's totally obvious. Subway rides in Beijing mean violations of personal space in all 360 degrees.
But what I cannot talk much about tomorrow is the complete miracle of the Chinese Christian experience. 20,000 (some say 50,000) people are turning to Christ in China per day. They are building churches that seat 3,000 people and filling them 7 times a week, with different people in every service. They are printing Bibles in China. There are eight Christian seminaries in China. But they cannot turn out pastors fast enough. Counties with 1 million people have only 10 pastors. And thousands of new converts. Baptism services are held for 500 people at a time.
I was in a service in cold, rainy weather in a small building. People were outside, listening through the windows. I told my interpreter, "We need to do something for the people outside!" He said, "They are the Christians. They have stayed outside so that their seats can be given to those who are not yet Christians."
I've been privileged to hand out Bibles in China and seen the tears flow from an elderly woman's eyes as she held what was probably her first Bible.
I've ridden in a car with an RAB man (Religious Affairs Bureau, government official charged with monitoring church activities) as he drove us to the site of a new town. New factories to be built so that new apartments would be built and new schools and hospitals, and, according to the RAB man, a new church. I thought I'd misheard. No. They were planning to have a church in the new town. "Why?" "The Christians are our best workers. We want to encourage them."
Wish I could tell these kinds of things about China tomorrow at the school. But rather than shaking our heads over that, what about if we Christians in free America lived and witnessed with the commitment that our Chinese brothers and sisters have demonstrated? They are exponentially exploding the Kingdom of God. It is one of the great miracles of modern days. Rejoice! Christianity is alive and well and growing in China!
Would to God it should be reinvigorated here. In America. Soon.

Nietzsche's Words on a Poster

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, 1844-1900. Quoted from a poster displayed in a dormitory building on a large state university campus.

This past weekend, I took my son to see a university. We are on a quest for the "right" school. Criteria are in play here that remain unspoken and generally mysterious for me as a dad. My role has been to be the chauffeur, photographer and the annoying (but very comical) sidekick.
We've seen five schools now. It's been an impressive exercise for me. I went to a small Baptist school. My son's aspiration is much grander than mine and I approve.
We walked into a dorm to see a "typical" room. The kid had to have been warned that we were coming. No boy at college lives that clean. No way. On our way into the dorm, we passed the wall where all the posters are. You know, the bulletin board-type stuff about bikes for sale, apartments, garage bands and campus events. Posters went on the wall around the board. One had the Nietzsche quote on it. I stepped closer to discover that the poster was "sanctioned" by the Housing Committee for the university. In other words, it was posted by the Housing Committee in all the dorms on campus.
Now Nietzsche is the one who said, "God is dead." His philosophy is virulently anti-God, anti-Christian. Nazis used Nietzsche quotes to justify their positions. He denied any spiritual "reality" and focused only on this physical reality. He laid the groundwork for the humanism of our modern day.
This quote fits in great in our relativistic culture. No judgmentalism, no standards, no firm morality. We are all little anarchists, fatalistically denying any boundary until we pass into nothingness. It's a hopeless code. Unsustainable in life. No one really lives that way. Lots of people talk that way today and use this kind of stuff to deny their need for Christ.
First of all, this kind of stuff pervades our culture and I'm probably taking a great risk to criticize it. Thought police will label me intolerant. You might have thought that a big southern school full of good ol' boys would be the last place for this kind of thought. Think again.
Second, we have got to equip our children to theologically and philosophically answer these kinds of challenges. Christianity is logical. We can give an answer. I feel that the Church is losing the culture war by losing its children. By failing to equip them to intellectually engage and confront the failed logic of relativistic humanism.
Third, Truth exists in a Person. His Name is Jesus Christ. He is The Way, The Truth and The Life. Purpose and hope are found in a relationship with Him. A standard of morality has been revealed and codified in the Bible. Only within this philosophic system can humanity be something greater than a thoughtful animal.

This is a test, this is only a test, of blogging from my phone. This hooked up world is blowing my Buster mind!

The Evil Problem

I read (most) of the Isaacson biography of Einstein some time back. Were he alive today, I believe Einstein would have been an advocate of Intelligent Design. But Einstein had difficulty with the question of evil. That question has been variously phrased, but I put it to you here as: How can a loving, all-powerful God allow evil to exist? Examples citing the Holocaust usually follow.

With no confidence in my own brain power, but with long experience with both a loving and all-powerful God and with evil, I posit the following answers.
1. Evil is real. Modern humanists want desperately to hold an untenable position, that all people are basically good. Evidence to the contrary surrounds them. Given a choice, people choose evil. I do. You do. Good is real. So is evil. Education and technology are informed by morality, including evil. Highly educated people kill their spouses. The Internet is full of pornography. Terrorists fly planes into buildings in the name of religion. Why? Because evil is real.
2. This isn't Heaven. Political messiahs aside, this world is not heaven and will not become heaven apart from supernatural intervention. The design of this world includes natural disasters, sicknesses and trials of famine and drought. These cause humans to yearn for heaven and for heaven's Creator. These evils help us define Heaven. Heaven is the place where there is no evil.
3. Free will for everyone. The exercise of choice is powerful. Animals live instinctively and without a soul. Human life is different because humans possess a 'will,' or a "wanter" as one author said. And this will has freedom to choose in all philosophical areas including good and evil. Inevitably, free will means that some will choose to do evil. So evil exists because we choose it. God could have designed humanity as superior puppets, doing only His Will, and we never would have known the difference. But, God gave us free will to allow us to choose Him, His Way, His Truth.
4. No stacked deck. God did not stack the deck to influence our free will. For free choice to be free, both sides of the choice must be viable. Should God have given us free will but have made evil a non-viable, incomplete system with such obvious flaws that we would all see them and choose His Way everytime? Then the free exercise of our will and thought would not truly be free. So there is evil, an evil system including a personification (the devil), gratifying rewards (the good life now), and power (status, position and influence). A legitimate choice.

Of course, the God who is revealed to us through Jesus Christ and the choice of Light, Goodness, Truth and Love are the better choice, according to the Scriptures.

"And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it," says the apostle John (1:5)

Four short statements: Evil is real, This isn't Heaven, Free Will and No Stacked Deck. I urge you to develop your own answer to this question, or borrow and improve mine. We need to be prepared to give an answer, a reason for the hope that we have! Thinking people today need answers.

Initial Post

Well, I'm jumping into the world of blogging and the first challenge was the name of the blog. General enough to cover a wealth of topics, individual enough to be available, words to focus the blog and point it down a useful path.
So, "Echoes of Ravenhill."
A.W. Tozer said of Leonard Ravenhill that he was one of God's specialists. Equating Ravenhill to the one man a company might employ to spring into action when the equipment went down. Recalling the ministries of Elijah, Jeremiah and Malachi, Tozer said that Ravenhill was the man God used to spring into action when the church 'went down.' Such a description should attach itself to every God-called evangelist in this modern day.
"Those who know Leonard Ravenhill will recognize in him the religious specialist, the man sent from God not to carry on the conventional work of the church, but to beard the priests of Baal on their own mountaintop, to shame the careless priest at the altar, to face the false prophet and warn the people who are being led astray by him." (Tozer, in his introduction to Ravenhill's Why Revival Tarries, p. 12 of the Bethany House 1991 edition)
Leonard Ravenhill was an English-born evangelist who preached hard to the churches of England and America and ended his days in Lindale, Texas. I discovered him through his little book Why Revival Tarries. His boldness came from his unction of the Lord, and it would be my fondest wish to be so filled and so used. My use of his name is with the greatest respect and with the intention that this blog should always have a point to it.
So. My first post.