Satan is still going "to and fro in the earth, and up and down in it."

(I just finished reading Chuck Swindoll's book, The Church Awakening, so I'm updating this with some more thoughts from him.)

I really had no intention of reading about Satan’s activity, but lately some powerful warnings have come my way.  The first two are from Chuck Swindoll’s book The Church Awakening.  The second batch come from a daily emal that I receive, Thought for Today.  For a week or so E. C. Haskell complied statements that scripture makes about Satan’s activity.

“Clearly we enter a battle zone—true spiritual warfare—when we claim Christ as Lord and determine to follow Him no matter what.  We should not be surprised by conflict.  We should expect it!  Understand then, where the real war is.  The battle should never be fought among Christian brothers and sisters. . . . The church needs to realize that the real battle is spiritual . . . and to complicate matters, our real enemy is invisible.

“. . . We need to know there is a conspiracy occurring . . . an insidious war is being waged. . . . Satan heads the world’s system.  It is a plan that leaves God out, that is hostile to the Holy Scriptures, and that has as its goal to destroy the church that Jesus is building. . . .

“. . . The enemy of our souls wants to tap into our own sinful natures so that he can drive a wedge between God and us.”  (Swindoll, The Church Awakening, pp. 151-152)

“Everything God’s people love, Satan hates.  He hates your Christian marriage. . . . Our adversary hates harmony in the family.  You’ve likely seen ugly fights in your own church. . . . More than likely, the conflicts occurring in your occupation have reached such an intense level you may be thinking, I don’t even know if Christianity works anymore.  It’s all part of the enemies strategy.  (The Church Awakening)

New, 3/27:

Swindoll refers to Paul’s words to the Ephesian Elders in Acts 20:28-31.




“The first three words sum up Paul’s charge to the Ephesian church: Be on guard. This phrase translates a single Greek term that means “to be in a continuous state of readiness to learn of any future danger, need, or error, and to respond appropriately.”


He goes on to say, “Ultimately all attacks from Satan against the church are assaults against God’s people—first personally, then corporately” (220&221)


“Jesus predicted that the ‘Gates of Hades will not prevail against’ the church (Matt 16:18, NRSV). But that’s not to say that the adversary won’t attack it any way he can.” (240)


In his conclusion, Swindoll gives a good overview of the devil’s activities. “. . . even in healthy churches, we learned, the devil is alive and well, doing all he can—through worship wars, moral pollution, and doctrinal erosion—to dismantle what Jesus is building.” (267)

From a Thought for Today:
When the Apostle Paul encountered people trying to hinder his ministry and dissuade hearers, he saw the hand of Satan. See Acts 13:10           

When the Apostle Paul looked over an audience of unsaved individuals he blamed Satan for their lostness. Acts 26:18       

The Apostle Paul lamented to young Timothy that those who reject the gospel are "caught in the snare of the devil." II Tim. 2:26   

When the Apostle Paul encountered trouble makers in the church he discerned the crafty hand of Satan. Romans 16:17-20        

When the Apostle Paul became sick he believed Satan had a hand in it. He referred to his illness as "a messenger of Satan to buffet me." II Cor. 12:7       

When the Apostle Paul was unable to visit the Thessalonian church he wrote, "We wanted to come to you but Satan hindered us." I Thes. 2:18 

When the Apostle Paul exercised discipline on an erring member, he was turning such an one over to Satan. I Cor. 5:5         

When the Apostle Paul came upon the Gentiles worshiping idols, he knew Satan was behind it. I Cor. 10: 20-21

In Ephesians 6:10-18, the Apostle Paul speaks of the spiritual warfare that goes on all around us.  He tells us that we must be prepared to face this enemy.    

Quite an impressive list.  We wrestle not against flesh and blood . . .
Satan is going about like a lion--a smart lion.  He wants to devour those who are doing the most good.  That certainly includes churches who are preaching the Gospel.

Evil, A Demonstration of God's Love:

Last Sunday I presented the first message in a three part series on John 3:16.  I found my thoughts stimulated by J. Sidlow Baxter.  In the opening pages of his book he raises some objections to the concept of God’s love.  One of the problems he and others raise has to do with the horrendous evil in this world. 

The following few paragraphs, taken from my sermon notes, are some of my thoughts on the matter.

How can you talk about a God who loves when you look around at the mess this world is in?  Read the newspaper, or if you are more up to date, surf the web.  Either way you will find this world is a mess.
Disasters manmade and natural abound. 
In a 15 minute span the other day I personally—not via any public media--heard of two, one an utter display of depravity, the other a severe blow to a family.  I have no doubt that some research would have revealed thousands of instances of injustice, tragedy, and mayhem that took place in that quarter of an hour.  

God’s plan is not thwarted by this evil around us.  The fact of the matter is that God’s glory—and that is the grand purpose of creation—will ultimately be enhanced by God’s redeeming a group of people for His very own, from out of this suffering, perishing world, to live with Him in harmony  for all eternity.  (See  Romans 8:16-39)

The concept of God having people who would love Him and the possibility of evil in the world are not incompatible at all, in fact they are more related than you might think. 

Love, by its nature, involves a choice.  As any person who has tried and failed at love knows, you can’t make someone love you.   God did not create a race of automatons who are programed to act like they love Him--a world full of Stepford Christians.
Rather He created humans, who have the capacity to love.  The same abilities that enable us to love, also make possible sin and rebellion, and all the ugly results that brings. 

It will likely make your head hurt for a while as you try to wrap your mind around it, but there is evil in this world because God is a loving God.  God is so committed to the concept of love that He made the world so that people—the pinnacle of God’s creation in this world—could choose to love Him.  In making them with that ability to choose, it was necessary that we also have the ability to choose not to love, to not relate to God as we should.

In the end having the new heaven and the new earth populated with people who genuinely love Him will bring the greatest  glory to God and greatest good to all creation.

Why some (too many) teens leave church:

This article (link at end) has some overlap with the last one I posted.  Here is a quotation that strikes way too close to home:  ""I felt so badly about what I had done. The last place I felt I could turn was to God and the church." Rebecca ran away from God and from the church just when she needed them most."
I have to wonder how many "Rebecca"s I have known, and how many times I have let them down.


I'm not placing all the blame on the church or my church, but I know we can't escape all guilt.  


Let's be looking for ways to reach out in meaningful ways.  


Here is a place for we oldsters to start.  Let's make sure that we let young people know we care.


Young and old, I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.


http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2011/11/why_teens_drift_away_from_fait.html

Parental Blindspots:

Josh Harris, you remember the guy who became well known for kissing dating good bye, is now a respected pastor.
He recently published a piece, Homeschool Blindspots, written by Reb Bradley, on his blog.  The article was also published in the Virginia Home Educator Magazine.


The article is intended to make home-schoolers think, but all parents, and those of us who promote sound family living need to consider what the article has to say.  
It is one of those articles that appeals for balance and profitable conversation.  The emphasis rings true with me.


Here is the link to Harris's posting:  http://www.joshharris.com/2011/09/homeschool_blindspots.php  

Leave their car alone:

Every old black and white movie that had a wedding in it, featured the car leaving the church with a "Just Married" sign and a string of cans tied to the back.  It was a good-natured way of having some fun and wishing the new couple well.  I can remember different times when I saw cars similarly adorned going down the road.  My wife and I would honk and wish them a happy wedding day.
I've been doing weddings since 1975.  Things have gone way beyond a few tin-cans.

• I've seen cars jacked up and put on stands so when the couple gets in the wheels turn but they don't go anywhere.
• When my younger son got married it took me about four hours to clean up his car.  I think it took my daughter-in-law's dad even longer to clean her hers up.  The newly weds had wisely planned to leave in a borrowed vehicle, which arrived at the church at just the right time.
• When that son was just a kid, he was offered an impressive bribe to let the "buzzardly friends" into my garage where the grooms pickup truck was hidden.  It turned out that it was only a decoy anyhow.
• I've heard of paint jobs on cars being ruined.
• Some folk's cars are essentially undriveable for a few weeks, while the stench from whatever wears off.  Sometimes it doesn't.
• I could say more, but I don't want to give the buzzardly crowd any new ideas.

Trust me, I know more about this than the average buzzardly friend.  Wedding days are stressful, especially for brides.  Let's not add to it.

Granted many a groom shows up at a wedding having built up an incredible debt of bad matrimonial Karma.  He has messed up many a car.  He is one of the buzzardly friends that I warn couples about.  To all the other buzzardly friends, figure out some other way to get even with him, leave the young lady out of it.  If she married a guy who did all that to other people, she probably already has enough issues to deal with.
Or, here is a really novel thought.  Show some mercy.

To all of those who do not fall in the buzzardly friend category.  Thanks.  Don't join their ranks.  Dare I say it?  Do what you can to curb their enthusiasm for automotive mayhem.

I figure this has as much of chance of gaining a following as my campaign for President on the Curmudgeon ticket, but I feel better.

If you must do something to the new couple's car, put a $100 in the console.  Believe it or not, it is fun to be nice.

The Centrality of the Gospel:

My associate, Pastor Doug Williams, and I were privileged to attend the Centrality of the Gospel Conference held in Charleston WV, last Friday and Saturday.
I wish to the Thank Randolph Street Church, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, the musicians--I presume from RSC--and the two speakers, Burk Parsons and Phil Johnson for their ministry to Doug and I.  As the pastor of a small church I was incredibly impressed with the fine job the folk at Randolph did in hosting this conference.
Prior to the conference my only real point of reference with the conference was Phil. Johnson--he is an integral part of John MacArthur's ministry.  I have benefited immensely from Dr. MacArthur's ministry.  I know that Phil has been the editor of most of his books, and I have read some of Phil's postings on various issues of our day and found them to be helpful.  Phil also had the good fortune to marry a friend of mine, Darlene.  So, since the conference was relatively close, I had friends in the Charleston area where I could spend the night (Thanks Marty & Lee), the registration was cheap (The food I ate was worth far more than the price of admission.) and the conference came along at a time when my spirit was thirsty for some preaching on the Gospel of Christ, I attended.  I wasn't disappointed.  On several levels I found it to be a refreshing time.  Thanks to all who made it possible.
As any of you know who follow this blog, my attendance at this conference also intersected with some searching in regard to Fundamentalism, Evangelicalism, and my identity.  (For those who may rightly observe that I'm way to old for an "Identity Crisis," let me say I think I know who I am.  I'm just trying to figure out where that puts me in the nomenclature of Christianity in the 21st Century.  (Note the end of my October 22 post on this blog.)

This conference perhaps made the question more pointed.
The two speakers, in question and answer sessions both kinda seemed to back away from Gospel-Centered as a definition of what the church ought to be.  If I remember correctly, there were suggestions that "Gospel-Centered" is too narrow a focus.  If I understood, I tend to agree with that.
My thoughts/questions were also piqued by a statement in the conferences handout, "The Appalachia region has been long neglected by God-centered, gospel-saturated movements."  If they mean by that there is a need for more, I'll give a hearty "Amen!"  I don't think that is what they meant, though.  It appeared to me that a great deal of ministry that I would regard as Gospel saturated, and God-centered was being ignored or rejected in that comment.  I know a great many ministries in that region which I would regard as God-centered and Gospel-saturated.  Many of these ministries have withstood the inroads of gimmickery that has marked way too much of Evangelicalism.
The same handout contains one of the great old God-centered, Gospel-saturated songs.  "And can it be that I should gain . . ."  I found myself wondering, based on what I saw to be the general ethos of the conference, if the author of that hymn, Charles Wesley, would be considered to be conducting a God-centered, Gospel-saturated ministry?  (Were it only a matter of one 2 day conference I would not raise the question.  This conference is one expression of a considerable movement.)

Let me finish by asking the same question several ways:

• Is Calvinism an integral part of the Gospel?  (One passage from Spurgeon that was shared from the platform would lend me to think that the answer is yes.  Though, the reading of that passage was accompanied with a statement to the effect that in general Spurgeon did not make a big deal of his Calvinism, put Arminians down, etc.
• Did John and Charles Wesley conduct a God-centered, Gospel saturated ministry?
• Is Calvinistic purity a requirement for conducting a God-centered, Gospel saturated ministry?
• Does the kind of statement made in the conference program create a needless and unhelpful division within the body of Christ?

Again I thank all who made the Centrality of the Gospel conference possible.  My heart was blessed.  These folk were incredibly kind and giving.  Thank you.
My questions are sincere. Should anyone enter into dialog, I hope to learn from the exchange.

To God be the glory!

A definition of Fundamentalism?

I am doing my reading in a Kindle reader on my computer, so I don't have page numbers, but what I'm writing about is toward the end of the book, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)
It is near the beginning of John Stackhouses response to Al Mohler's chapter--neither of these guys regards himself as a Fundamentalist, yet it appears to me that in essence Stackhouse is accusing Mohler of being one.  (Elsewhere in the book, Kevin Bauder, the Fundamentalist representative, tongue in cheek, tries to protect his friend, "Brother Al," from such a fate.)

Anyhow, it looks like Stackhouse's accusation makes a definition that sounds pretty good to me:

I respectfully suggest that his position is not “confessional” so much as it is “conservative,” and in exactly the way American fundamentalists understand “conservative”: conserving what they understand to be the basics of the Christian faith, regardless of when or by whom in church history they might have been formulated. As far as they are concerned, what they defend is simply what true Christians have always affirmed—and it comes right out of the Bible.  (emphasis mine)

Hansen, Collin; Naselli, Andrew David (2011-09-20). Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) (Kindle Locations 1795-1798). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.