Friday, December 30, 2011

Content With This World or Encouraged By Heaven

It may be that we are just too content here.  We are just fine with the way things are.  Money affords us the luxury of living without hunger, thirst, and, for the most part, pain.  If there are inconveniences, that's just what they are - inconveniences; most of which only need to be "fixed" before we die.  Make that note: get it all in before we die.

But do we really believe in heaven after we die?  Do we have hope that there is really a life that, for billions and billions of years, will be so much more familiar to us than this life?  Do we live in eager expectation of a time when things don't just get better or get fixed, but when all things are perfectly and gloriously recreated and are in complete subjection under Christ Jesus?

Do we believe that sacrificing things in faith, hope and love for others will really turn out to benefit us in heaven?  Does God reward those who diligently seek Him?

Does cancer, back pain, cerebral palsy, depression, bi-polar disorder, ingratitude, brutal persecution, and even unexpected death bring us to long for the day when we are "made perfect in holiness"?

I have to admit that I find myself quite content here, although I am slowly becoming less so.  It may be that I am getting older; and that my life as a husband, father and pastor now has more responsibility attached to it.  It may be that life is going by much faster than it ever has.

I trust that sanctification is playing a role as well - by His grace of course.  More than ever, I feel the loss of this worldly life with every step of obedience; from helping my children brush their teeth, to ministering in a more "dangerous" part of town than I'm used to.

Regardless of it all, I am becoming more aware and more convicted by the call to preach the gospel of Christ to as many as I can.  Ironically, going to the dark places (of my own heart as well as the hood) has enabled me to see more light.  I have seen the power of the gospel at work.  And I really like it.  I believe that Christ saves more now than ever.

In short, I am thankful that the Lord is enabling me to believe that heaven is worth giving up everything for.  My life is an absolute wreck right now; but I have never prayed more in my life.  Nor have I believed this much that Christ, via death, is truly gain.

I was encouraged today by Paul's words to the Thessalonians and I would like to leave those words with you.  It is my prayer that as the Lord sanctifies us, that we will be more and more encouraged by the truth of His inevitable return and by our glorious eternity in heaven:

For the Lord Himself will decent from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of GOd.  And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who hare alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.  Therefore encourage one another with these words (1Thess 4:16-18).

Some Pretty Amazing Videos! Enjoy Your Friday!





Thursday, December 29, 2011

You Can't Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

Cornelius Van Til once wrote, "Modern science holds not only to the idea of pure contingency or indeterminacy, but also to that of pure determinism."  In saying such, CVT is referring to the deep inconsistency of the unbeliever's position when attempting to formulate a coherent scientific argument for his atheistic case.

To rely heavily upon strict laws such as uniformity of nature, laws of gravity, and the speed of light, while making a case for the evolutionary view of chance, randomness, and openness is deeply contradictory, making such an argument completely incoherent and even absurd.

An example of this can be found in the common argument against the creation account found in Genesis.  I'd like to step back and say that the point of this example is NOT to defend a young-earth view, but to show how common arguments against it are logically inconsistent, thus proving to be no argument at all.  Until a consistent argument is put forward, the Genesis account remains not disproven.

Many unbelievers dismiss the biblical creation account by saying that we know that the earth is millions of years old.  The fact that there are galaxies and celestial bodies millions of light years away makes it empirically obvious that the universe that contains those bodies is at least millions of years old.

The formula is pretty simple: the light that radiates from those bodies travels at a constant speed; it takes millions of years for that light to reach our eyes (via regular sight or telescope, etc.); it follows then that those bodies, and the universe that contains them, are at least millions of years old.

Therefore, the Genesis account, they say, is incorrect.

But I see huge problems with this argument.  In my experience, many who dismiss the Genesis account because of this type of argument are deeply committed to an evolutionary theory of nature (one of "pure contingency or indeterminacy" and openness).  There was/is no creator, and thus everything happens and has happened by chance - a product of randomness.  Lifeless matter evolved over time to be what it is now.  And the evolutionary process continues.  Change is constant.

But why are the strict laws, upon which every single scientific argument is based, not subject to the evolutionary process?  Why is the speed of light somehow protected against evolutionary change?  I wonder if it is empirically possible to prove that the speed of light has remained a constant over millions of years, as well as under atmospheric conditions millions of light years away.  Further, why isn't the uniformity of nature called also into question by his evolutionism?

It seems to me that if evolution is embraced, then every so called constant is constantly subject to that change - even evolution itself!

These questions are frustrating to the unbelieving position.  If he remains committed to his worldview, the study of the historical universe becomes highly problematic; and what he "knew" must now be degraded from fact to mere unjustified, false belief.

Here we see CVT's observation in action - the unbeliever's deep commitment to unchangeable laws which form the basis for his argument that the universe is and has always been open, changeable, and random.  Unfortunately, it is impossible for an unbelieving position to have it's cake and eat it too.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

If Jesus Had a Cell Phone

I am reading A Praying Life by Paul Miller.  The book so far is very good, very practical, and very inspiring.  Praying in our world is very difficult because we are so busy.  We have emails coming in, thoughts running around in our minds, and pressures coming from all directions.  Finding a snippet of time where we can be uninterrupted by another can be quite an obstacle.

I was greatly encouraged by Miller's comments about the life of Christ.  He writes: "But even a cursory glance at Jesus' life reveals a busy life.  All the gospel writers notice Jesus' busyness, although Mark in particular highlights it.  At one point Jesus' family tries to state an intervention because he is so busy (Mk 3:20-21)...But he loves people and has the power to help, so he has one interruption after another.  If Jesus lived today, his cell phone would be ringing constantly...The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me.  If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy.  Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart."

I don't know why this makes me feel better.  I guess it is because my life feels like it is completely out of order.  No matter how hard my wife and I try, we just cannot seem to run a perfectly regimented home-machine that is without the constant "Bing!" and "Ring!" of the cell phone.  But, I know we love people.  And, a love for people and the gospel make for a pretty busy life it seems.

I am reminded now of Spurgeon and Calvin, both dying at a relatively young age due to illness and overwork.  When asked by a parishioner how he could get so many things done, Spurgeon replied something to the effect of, "Don't you know?  There are two of me."  I can only imagine how many interruptions he would have faced if he had a cell phone!

And these men - Christ, Spurgeon and Calvin (along with scores of others) - were devoted to a life of prayer.  In the midst of all of the interruptions, they communed with their Father in prayer.  Christ even had to wake up before everyone to find the time.

I pray that my life would resemble theirs.  That the grace of God would drive me to a busy life bathed in prayer to my Father.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

A Little Lewis For You Concerning Nature vs. Supernature

Interest in evidence in order to obtain knowledge about a certain topic or fact must take the student a bit deeper than the evidence itself.  All "evidence" is interpreted by the one observing it.  To state it another way, all facts are interpreted by an underlying philosophy or deep-seated commitments.  Some call these presuppositions.  They are the lens through which one views and interprets the world around her.

C.S. Lewis describes this well in his book Miracles.  He says, "The question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience.  Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our senses, something seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted.  And our senses are not infallible.  If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been victims of an illusion.  If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say.  What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience.  It is therefore useless to appeal to experience before we have settled, as well as we can, the philosophical question."

He goes on to speak about determining whether or not miracles happened in the past on the basis of evidence: "The result of our historical enquiries thus depends on the philosophical views which we have been holding before we even began to look at the evidence.  The philosophical question must therefore come first."

Lewis begins the chapter by giving an example of a lady who has seen a ghost.  However, because of her presuppositions that supernature does not exist, the concludes that she must be hallucinating.  In other words, even if God did come down, even if He worked wonders in our day, many who exclude super nature in their basic philosophy would conclude that there must be a natural explanation for it, and would spend their lives in search for such an explanation.  


Wednesday, December 7, 2011

We Cannot Repair What We Have Done.

Imagine a child as he sneaks into the corner to play with matches.  As he lights the first match he doesn't notice that he is a bit too close to the curtains.  Before he knows it, the entire house is in flames.  The family escapes and watches their home burn to the ground.

The child, with guilt welling up inside, knowing that his disobedience was the cause of this disaster, looks up at his parents and says these words: "Don't worry Mom and Dad.  I'm going to fix this."

They look down at the child with a depressed, but frustrated face knowing good and well that their five-year-old cannot even come close to repairing what has just been lost.  Sure, he is capable of the damage.  But he is completely unable to repair it.

And that is the irony of our situation.  We have the ability to damage, but the inability to repair.  We are immensely valuable, but extremely vulnerable.  Sin is not only tragic in that it condemns us; it is even more so because it violates an image bearer.  Tragedy lies less in the one who takes and more in that which is lost.

To make matters even worse, we, like the child, move immediately from damage to reparation.  We simply try and fix that which is broken.  When we hurt, we quickly try to heal.

The idea that we can make reparations for our sin devalues the one against whom we have sinned.  We forget that, as image bearers, we carry a divine value - not that we are gods, but that we are created in the image of God.  Penalties reflect the worth of the victim.  And if we believe we can pay sin's penalty, we devalue the One who has been transgressed.  Sin against God demands a divine payment.  We simply do not have the resources to pay.

Further, the reparation idea is extremely prideful as it overvalues our abilities.  In thinking we can repair things, we become God.  Our works have divine worth and are not to be thought of as "filthy rags."  So, not only do we think less of the victim (and of God), but we think too much of ourselves.

Last, reparations can only be made by Christ - the God-Man.  As Anselm so rightly said, "It could not have been done unless man paid what was owing to God for sin. But the debt was so great that while man alone owed it, only God could pay it, so that the same person must be both man and God."

So, when we sin, we should never skim past repentance.  We should value the image of God in the other, and ultimately the God we have sinned against.  And we should recognize our utter inability to repair what our hands have done.  This is why He is the Prince of Peace.  And this is why faith in Christ is critical for every relationship in life.  The Gospel is not about what we can do, but about what He has done.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Faith Is Not Blind Faith

Van Til was often accused of fideism - the view which assumes knowledge originates in a fundamental act of faith, independent of rational presuppositions; and, that Christian assertions are matters of blind belief and cannot be known or demonstrated to be true.  Fideism, we are told, is based upon a leap of faith and a negation of rational constructions.

Van Til's accusers could not be further from the truth.

In his work, Van Til's Apologetic, Dr. Bahnsen quotes Van Til who said, "Faith is not blind faith...Christianity can be shown to be, not 'just as good as' or even 'better than' the non-Christian position, but the only position that does not make nonsense of human experience."

Bahnsen further explains that, "Van Til's presuppositionalism explicitly aims to provide rational and objective proof of the inescapable and certain truth of Christianity...Fideism maintains that the believer cannot (and perhaps should not) offer rational grounds for the full certainty of Christianity's truth-claims.  Thus, Van Til is at the opposite pole from fideism, while his critics, ironically, stand closer to it, for they agree with it (to this extent) that full rational proof of CHristianity cannot be given.  Van Til aims for rational certainty, while his critics settle for far less, namely, probability."

If you are in the least bit interested in Christian apologetics, I would strongly suggest getting and digesting this book.  It will strengthen your faith, hope and love for God, as well as enlarge your heart for unashamed evangelism.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Have a Great Friday!

I have no categories for this or why I roll in the ground every time I watch!



And, this is my brother-in-law (KP) reenacting the above - even funnier!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

This Is Our Logo.

I am grateful for my good friend Mike Phelon from Vision Communications Design for putting up with me long enough to get this done!  Good work on the logo Mike!