A few months ago, I began memorizing scripture – I started with Psalm 32. Today, I had the opportunity to take what I’ve learned from memorizing and meditating on this Psalm and share it in a sermon. Read more »
Category Archives: Faith - Page 2
Martin Luther on Open Theism
Posted by darryl
on March 4, 2009
1 comment
As previously noted I’m reading through Martin Luther’s Bondage of the will at the moment.
Along the way several of his thoughts have jumped out at me on various subjects (not the least of which is his stinging assessment of Erasmus’s book (Bondage of the will was written as a response to a book by Erasmus).
If you don’t know what Open Theism is, it essentially states that God doesn’t know the future. Here is what Luther said to Erasmus when he said that God doesn’t know the future:
…If you doubt, or disdain to know that God foreknows and wills all things, not contingently, but necessarily and immutably, how can you believe confidently, trust to, and depend upon His promises? For when He promises, it is necessary that you should be certain that He knows, is able, and willing to perform what He promises: otherwise, you will neither hold Him true nor faithful, which is unbelief, the greatest of wickedness, and a denying of the Most High God!
(Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, p37)
Lloyd-Jones on spiritual life
Posted by darryl
on November 18, 2008
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I just came across this paragraph from D Martyn Lloyd Jones:
"Take your New Testament as it is. Look at the New Testament Christian, look at the New Testament church and you see it vibrant with a spiritual life, and, of course, it is always life that tends to lead to excesses. There is no problem of discipline in a graveyard; there is no problem very much in a formal church. The problems arise when there is life. A poor sickly child is not difficult to handle, but when that child is well and full of life and vigour, well, then you have your problems. Problems are created by life and by vigour, and the problems of the early church were spiritual problems arising because of the danger of going to excess in the spiritual realm.
Would anybody like to claim that speaking generally that is the danger in the church today?"
If only it was.
I’ve been challenged significantly by books like Tozer’s "The pursuit of God" as well as "Who’s afraid of the Holy Spirit". We live in a post reformation and post enlightenment age where spirituality has been relegated to the back of our mind and replaced with intellectual rationalism. Many even deny the existence of the supernatural. Christians may not outright deny the supernatural, but many of us practically deny the supernatural.
But "God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24).
Lloyd-Jones’ words are thought provoking. If we (western Christians) were more spiritual – i.e. if we were continually conscious of the presence of God, then the problems that the western church would be dealing with would be quite different. We wouldn’t be dealing with unrepentant money loving "believers" or adulterous spouses – no – we’d be dealing with misuse of spiritual gifts and a host of other completely different sins. It makes you think.
Certainly it can’t be said that we suffer from spiritual excesses.
Faith, unbelief, evangelism and worship
Posted by darryl
on March 5, 2008
13 comments
At the basis of the unbelievers world view we don’t find science, philosophy or similar, we simply find rejection of their creator – the God of the Bible. I’m sure that all atheists would disagree with this, however.
In the Bible we find the following in Prov 3:5: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding". Unbelief is, at it’s root, a failure to believe or trust God (either willfully or unwittingly) and instead leaning on your own understanding.
The truth about God is obvious, it is clear and it is undeniable:
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature , have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom 1:19-20)
However, it is possible to start from a position of unbelief and make a compelling argument for that position. This doesn’t make that position correct, but it can make it intellectually viable to believe that point of view.
The interesting thing is that it is not our evil acts that condemn us (ironically), rather it is this simple unbelief that condemns us. Why? Because the truth is clear and obvious, and rather than submitting to the Lord and trusting Him, the unbeliever has decided that they are more authorized or qualified than God to determine reality, and they put all their trust in their own opinions (formed through the equally unbelieving opinions of others in many cases) – in other words they "lean on [their] own understanding".
As Christians, this should help us understand how we should live. If we want to worship the Lord, it is as simple as trusting Him and His word rather than our own understanding. We don’t understand everything (nobody does except the Lord), and even what we do know may be wrong, however the word of God stands as truth and stands the test of time:
All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass, the grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. (1 Peter 1:24-25)
Therefore, as the word of God stands, then it is reasonable to think that perhaps this singular truth is more reliable than our own understanding.
This is the heart of faith – believing God – not just believing in God, but believing Him and submitting to His word by obeying it – even when we don’t understand why.
This is also the heart of evangelism. We are to call people not just to believe in God, but to believe God – to trust Him and submit to Him. Which is why science and philosophy fails as an evangelistic tool – all it can do is (at best) prove that God exists – it does not lead us to trust Christ at all.
As for those who do not believe scripture is clear:
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever! (Rom 1:25)
Our favourite creature is the one we see when we look in the mirror.
Why I believe in a young earth
Posted by darryl
on January 30, 2008
10 comments
We studied creation last night, as we are starting an overview or a survey of the Old Testament in our home group.
When preparing for the study, I looked in depth at some arguments for an old earth in Genesis 1.
One of the interesting threads I looked at was this one. I have no intention of doing a point by point critique of the arguments, but in preparing for the study I came up with some reasons why I don’t buy the old earth hypothesis.
Firstly some background.
The book of Genesis was written by Moses sometime during the period of Israel’s wanderings. This gives us some important insights into the purpose of the book. The book of Genesis was intended to explain the origin of the Hebrew people and their God including an explanation of the origin of the universe (primarily that it was created by and subject to the Hebrew God), how it got to be the way it was and why, as well as where the nation of Israel had come from and the origin of the nations around them.
Given this, the book was written to be easily understood, which indeed it is – even to children today.
With this in mind here are my 10 reasons why I don’t believe the Bible supports an old earth.
1. The old earth hypothesis is based on evidence that is interpreted through uniformitarian philosophies. What I mean by this is that if you took all the "evidence" out of the picture and read Genesis 1, you would come naturally to the conclusion that the earth was made in six 24 hour days. The only reason to put an old earth into the creation account is to support current scientific theory.
2. It assumes that current scientific theory is correct and complete. Scientists suppose that the earth is old because of certain data that suggests this, however, not all the data is available yet (there is much we don’t know), and much of what is available is only hypothesis to support atheism. Theories such as this one are interesting as they demonstrate that there are hypotheses that are yet to be explored, but yet hold up well to scrutiny while upholding the laws of relativity, etc.
3. The old earth hypothesis opposes the apparent intention of the author who as we saw above wrote an account to give understanding. This is not to say that it explains every aspect of creation, however, the intention of the author seems to be clearly to present a six day creation. If this were not intention of the author, he would have used different words to get his point across – words that gave the intended message.
4. It sets about reconciling scripture with scientific theory rather than pushing back on science and saying the science is wrong. In this way it marginalizes the authority of scripture
5. If the days were not literal 24 hour days but long periods of perhaps millions or billions of years, and given Adam lived through part of the sixth day and the seventh day, he must have been millions of years old, yet Gen 5 states that he was 930 years old when he died, therefore it introduces significant discrepancies into the word of God.
6. Unless you throw out the consecutive order of the days (which you have to do) then much of the plant life would not have survived the millions of years without birds and bees (and other insets) to pollinate them.
7. Similarly to point 5, it requires interpreting other passages of scripture differently to their historical and natural translation. The example on the page I linked to above did this with Rom 5:12 to make it say that mans sin only brought death to man as animals are not explicitly mentioned. However this particular example plays roulette with the redeeming work of Christ not to mention that it flies in the face of verses like Rom 8:20-21 and Isa 24:5-7.
8. Given the argument I just mentioned and that the primary purpose of old earth thinking is to account for the fossil record – it marginalizes the effects of sin. If sin only affects man then sin is not as bad as we have been led to believe. This has huge implications as we will see in a moment.
9. It marginalizes the wisdom of scripture by elevating the wisdom of man.
10. It is designed to make Christianity more palatable and acceptable to unbelievers rather than accepting that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who reject it.
It is also mooted by old earthers that the age of the earth does not affect any of the major doctrines of the Bible, so it is harmless to hold this view. True it does not completely oppose the major doctrines, but it is more insidious than it first appears:
- It marginalizes the authority of scripture. Rather than opposing false science, false science is elevated to at least as much authority as the bible. Both scripture and science must be seen to be true or there would be no attempt to align their conflicts. However, scripture is the inspired yardstick by which science is to be measured.
- By accommodating the fossil record before the fall, it marginalizes the consequences of sin and therefore the seriousness of sin
- This in turn marginalizes the seriousness of Gods judgement as judgement is based on the weight of the individuals sin
- It marginalizes the work of Christ on the cross. If sin is not so bad then Christ’s death is not as significant.
- It marginalizes the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit – as sin is not as significant to overcome
- It marginalizes the supernatural nature of creation by replacing it with natural process
- It marginalizes the glory of God as seen in His creation – this is the most serious issue
- It marginalizes the role of faith by trying to rationalize what cannot be rationalized. Heb 11:3 says "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible". If everything can be rationalised intellectually, then we have no need for faith.
On this last point I have much more to say, but that will have to wait until another day.
For what do we do all this damage? Just to accommodate current scientific theory that is incomplete and in many cases incorrect.
Interestingly Peter wrote about this and cites uniformitarianism: "…knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2 Pe 3:3-4 emphasis added). Now, here we are in the 21st century defending the word of God against even evangelical Christians who uphold this error.
It would be interesting to see what scientific theories they are trying to shoe-horn into the Bible in 200 years time…
Samson – a lesson in life positions
Posted by darryl
on January 17, 2008
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I’ve just finished reading the story of Samson in Judges, if you haven’t read it, it is a good read and it really highlights the grace of God and the fact that leaders (spiritual or otherwise) get their positions not by their skills or any other thing they have but by the grace of God.
Here are some of the things that stand out to me about Samson
Samson appears to have been spoilt as a child – at least that is how I read Judges 14:1-2. He sees a woman, so he goes and tells his father to get her as a wife. Get that – he doesn’t consult, nor does he ask his father – he simply tells him
“I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.”
His parents put up a half hearted protest, but this pattern seems to be well established and he simply ends the discussion by stating "she is the one for me" (verse 3).
This of course is the beginning of a series of events that simply spiral from Samson being an young and unknown Israelite to a significant enemy of the Philistines.
The rivalry between Samson and the Philistines begins with a riddle which was probably intended to give a boost to Samson’s ego and earn him a little wealth (clothing is considered wealth throughout the Bible – 30 changes of clothing is significant wealth). It is probable that the value of the wager was set too high, meaning that to lose was a difficult prospect for the Philistines to consider, which leads to the cheating that they engaged in
This cheating of course didn’t go over too well as the riddle was completely unknown and without Samson directly spilling the beans, this was not even something that could be guessed.
When the told him the correct answer, Samson was furious and went and killed 30 Philistines and took the required clothes from them (Judges 14:19).
Next he went back to his wife a few months later to find that she has remarried -which is again not welcome news. Samson sets fire to their crops in revenge. When the Philistines find out why he did it, rather than taking it out on him, they burn his father-in-law and wife to death.
This of course only serves to further enrage Samson who then slaughters them. The Philistines cant have random Israelites attacking them like this, so they gather an army and go up against Judah. Judah isn’t interested in a fight with the philistines, so they send 3000 (!) men to bring Samson bound back to the Philistine army.
When Samson arrives, he breaks the ropes and then uses the Jawbone of a donkey as a weapon and kills 1000 (!) of the philistine soldiers who have come up to capture him. With that the Philistines seem to decide not to chase Samson for a while and for quite some time there seems to be some peace. However, when opportunity presents itself, they can’t help but to make an attempt on his life again.
In all of this Samson is not serving Israel but is generally just serving his own vendetta and in the process he is helping Israel too. However the dispute between Samson and the Philistines is for Samson a very personal vendetta, and it is questionable how much loyalty he has to Israel or anyone other than himself.
In Judges 16 we read about the repetition of the only successful strategy the Philistines have found to work with Samson – women. With this strategy he is worn down and ultimately destroyed. He is consequentially imprisoned and put to forced labour where his great strength would be useful – doing the work that would normally be assigned to an ox – grinding at the mill in the prison (Judges 16:21).
His finale comes when he is brought out as sport for a party. There he takes his last vengence on his enemies and kills 3000 of them in one instance by pushing the pillars holding the roof to give way, bringing the roof down on the party goers, and killing them and himself.
Childrens books focus on the physical power of Samson, which was obviously significant, and while this is certainly a stand out feature of Samsons story, it is not the only one.
The self centered cycle of destruction that Samson brought upon the Philistines was all planned by the Lord – in other words, in spite of his short comings – his adultery, lack of loyalty to his people and his self centeredness, the Lord used Samson to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines.
The great lesson in this for me (and presumably you) is that even though we all have failings we are not necessarily discredited from some sort of useful service to the Lord as a result of these failings. Samson had great failings and was used by God anyway. However, this is not to say that anyone is qualified for any service for the Lord – scripture is clear that Elders and Deacons must meet certain criteria, however, just because you don’t meet those criteria, does not disqualify you for some other work.
Indeed, to take this further, it is possible for the Lord to use unbelievers to fulfill his purposes – Pilate would be a good example of this.
Samson was a leader in Israel, however, his leadership was not due to his chivalry or his wisdom or his charisma, as he probably had none of these qualities, rather he was a man who was raised up by the Lord for a particular task at a particular time.
With this in mind the other big challenge for us in this is to be content with the position the Lord has put us in regardless of how great or humble it may be. If you have the highest intelligence or wisdom or greatest speaking ability of any person in the world and the Lord chooses to put you on the shelf or give you a humble role, He is in His rights to do that. He doesn’t need you, but He will use you if He chooses (by His grace) to do so. In the meantime, do the things He gives you with all your might as working for the Lord and not for men (Col 3:23), and be content with your lot – as this is the lot the Lord has assigned to you for reasons that he may or may not reveal to you.
Understanding this gives great freedom. We don’t have to promote ourselves. If the Lord wants to use us to lead, he will make it happen, if he doesn’t call you to leadership, feel free to explore other opportunities that the Lord puts in front of you.
You are free – only use your freedom to serve one another through love (Gal 5:13).
Anti-Islamic websites
Posted by darryl
on January 3, 2008
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Islam watch is a web site that is run by ex-Muslims and runs with the mission of fighting against the resurgence of Islam and contributing to its eventual demise. It is the second largest web site run by ex-Muslims, just behind faithfreedom.org.
While I’m sure these sites are not Christian (and may in fact be anti-Christian as much as they are anti-Islam), they recognize some interesting and important things about the Muslim faith that many are not prepared to examine. Faith Freedom for example on its main page states that Islam is:
an imperialistic ideology, disguised as religion, invented by Muhammad for his own personal gains. With a promise of a carnal and orgiastic paradise (just for men) and threat of hell he goaded his foolhardy followers to raid and slay innocent people under the pretext that they were infidels. He and his merry band of terrorists looted their villages and cities, raped the women, and enslaved all who were not killed outright. To this day, Muslim terrorists are following the footsteps of their prophet who bragged, "I have been made victorious with terror" [Bukhari 4.52.220].
Both these sites regularly publish articles and investigative pieces on various aspects of Islam and happenings in the Islamic world.
You can subscribe via email to Islam-watch.org and via RSS to Faithfreedom.org. If you are concerned about the rise of Islam and have a desire to know how to reach out to Muslims, consider subscribing to these sites to grow your understanding of Islam.
God is good
Posted by darryl
on November 25, 2007
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This morning I had the privilege of speaking at our local church on the subject of God is good.
Read more »
Does God withhold salvation?
Posted by darryl
on October 30, 2007
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Dom and I have been discussing atonement. Its been an interesting and exhilarating way to grow…
This post serves as a continuation to the discussion that started here, was followed up here and which Dom has continued here.
The final issue that Dom raises is regarding my comment:
Salvation is offered to all – the whole world, but received only by those who believe.
To which Dom states:
“If one truly offers something, then one does not deliberately keep it from the person to whom it is offered.”
This is a common opposition to the viewpoint of sublapsarians (as we are called) on this issue.
Firstly, God does indeed harden hearts in order to make it impossible for individuals to believe – and he is not unrighteous in doing so.
Therefore, if God did make an offer and withhold it, he would not be unrighteous to do so. In fact scripture states in a number of places that indeed He does withhold salvation. For instance, Deut 29:4 which says “To this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.” (cf Acts 28:26-27, Rom 11:8).
Typically the response to this is “thats not fair!”. How can God do that to people and hold them accountable? This argument is dealt with by Paul in Romans 9:19-21. Prior to this passage Paul has been explaining that God has mercy on whomever He wills an he hardens whomever He wills” (Rom 9:18) which further adds to my previous point. This leads to the following argument that Paul predicts in his reader:
You will say to me then “Why does He still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?
The point is that God made man for His purpose – not for mans own purposes. He has made us all for different purposes, but all of which fulfill His purpose. It is at this point that many so called believers switch off. The reason for this is that they have supposed that the universe is at mans disposal and that Gods purpose for the universe is man – however mankind is a means to a far greater end for God. This greater end is His own glory. That is that man is made to make much of God. We can deal with the accusations of ego another time, but for now the fact is that the glory of God is the most valuable thing in the universe and it would be wrong for God to view it any other way (as it is for us).
So God hardens whom He will and He has mercy on whom He will.
Secondly, Man is utterly depraved and left to his own devices will not seek God. Rom 3:11 states this clearly when it states “no one seeks for God”. That is to say that man in his sin is incapable of turning to the Lord as he does not even seek to do so.
This seems to further be acknowledged by Steven in his address to the Jewish Council when he called them “stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit”. His point builds on the truth that “no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the Heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Rom 2:28-29). As they were uncircumcised in heart, (i.e. unbelieving) they always resisted the Holy Spirit. This is the natural response of the unregenerate person.
Further confirmation of this in plain language is found in the following passages:
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor 2:14 )
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot (Rom 8:7)
These two points state that
- God can offer salvation to all and be just in doing it and
- that the offer can be made to all but man, without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, cannot receive it as he has no capacity to receive it
This is what Christ referred to when His disciples asked “Who then can be saved?”. Of course in their thinking they had been conditioned to understand that wealth was a sign of holiness and the blessing of God. So in their mind if the wealthy cannot be saved, then who can? Jesus answered by saying “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”.
That is to say that God alone is the hope of the unsaved. As Dominic inferred – the Holy Spirit must bring about a change on an unbeliever – which is generally called regeneration. It is also referred to as the new birth (being “born again”). We find the new birth referred to in John 3:3. Here the word translated “again” is often translated “from above” – see John 3:31, James 1:17, 3:15, 17 which all translate this word along these lines. Thus the new birth is a second birth (as Nicodemus understood it to be), however, it is also the birth from above – meaning the new birth is from God.
We further read that even faith is a gift of God (Eph 2:8). On Faith Rom 4:16 says “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace“.
Finally, there are good reasons why the call to salvation and repentance is a general call – some of which (there are many) I will put down here:
- In order to be offered at all, Christ’s sacrifice must be offered indiscriminately. Otherwise, the preacher would need to know who was elect and who was not.
- The atonement is sufficient in value to atone for the sin of all men indiscriminately – there is no sin of man for which an infinite atonement has not been provided (which speaks to my original point).
- God is not the one putting an obstacle in the path of the atonement being effective. That is, God leaves the non-elect to do as he likes – which as we have seen is to reject Gods offer. In fact – Gods kindness, forbearance and patience is meant to lead people to repentance (Rom 2:4)
- God desires that all should come to repentance (1 Tim 2:3-4). God has the right and the ability to call upon the non-elect to something that He delights in, simply because He delights in it.
This is a huge topic and any one of these points could very well lead to more discussion. It never ceases to amaze me that we are called to believe in Jesus Christ and be saved (i.e. a simple message to preach) – but the complexity of what happens under the covers is monstrous, and not for the faint hearted. To be able to dig into the depths of salvation means to understand the plan and character of God, the design and failure of man, the nature of Sin, the work of Christ, the extent of atonement, a significant understanding of the sovereignty of the creator and significant time in the word of God.
In my humble opinion the most critical thing in the Gospel is the centrality of Jesus Christ in all aspects. After all – by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through Him and for Him (Col 1:16).
I hope someone finds this useful 
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