Daily Meditation

Gain What You Cannot Lose

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27)

John Piper

Here are two great incentives from Jesus to become a World Christian and to dedicate yourself to the cause of Frontier Missions.

• Every impossibility with men is possible with God (Mark 10:27). The conversion of hardened sinners will be the work of God and will accord with his sovereign plan. We need not fear or fret over our weakness. The battle is the Lord’s, and he will give the victory.

• Christ promises to work for us and to be for us so much that when our missionary life is over, we will not be able to say we’ve sacrificed anything (Mark 10:29–30).

When we follow his missionary prescription, we discover that even the painful side effects work to improve our condition. Our spiritual health, our joy, improves a hundredfold. And when we die, we do not die. We gain eternal life.

I do not appeal to you to screw up your courage and sacrifice for Christ. I appeal to you to renounce all you have to obtain life that satisfies your deepest longings. I appeal to you to count all things as rubbish for the surpassing value of standing in service of the King of kings. I appeal to you to take off your store bought rags and put on the garments of God’s ambassadors.

I promise you persecutions and privations — but “remember the joy”! “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).

On January 8, 1956, five Auca Indians of Ecuador killed Jim Elliot and his four missionary companions as they were trying to bring the gospel to the Auca tribe of sixty people.

Four young wives lost husbands and nine children lost their fathers. Elisabeth Elliot wrote that the world called it a nightmare of tragedy. Then she added, “The world did not recognize the truth of the second clause in Jim Elliot’s credo: ‘He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.’”

Antipolitical Politics of the Kingdom of God

The New Reformation

Rod Dreher provides some great advice and wise counsel to Western Christians reeling from the onslaught of secularist atheism throughout society.  For far too long the Church has been fat and lazy in the West.  By far the largest cohort of Western Christians has ignored the social and cultural aspects of the Kingdom of God.  Christians have forgotten their lineage and the legacy of the "once-for-all-delivered-to-the-saints" faith [Jude 3] entrusted to them.  They have assumed that the western world would always think and act within the boundaries and ethical instruction of the Ten Commandments.  They have believed themselves entitled to a good time in this world whilst they focused upon life after death--a comfortable ride all around.

But, meanwhile, the Enemy has had other plans.  Gradually the tsunami of secular atheism has been building, initially far out to sea, but latterly it has hit shore and is sweeping all before it.

Worship and Liturgy

Liturgy and Culture

Aug 20, 2014 

Justin Taylor

Frank Senn:

The liturgy is transcultural in that it includes orders and symbols that witness to the church as a worldwide communio.
It is contextual in that it always admits the use of natural or cultural elements in worship in each locality.
It is countercultural in that the gospel it proclaims and celebrates always holds out the vision of an alternative worldview and lifestyle.
It is cross-cultural in that it uses expressions from different cultures.

—Frank C. Senn, Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997),  678.

Letter From America (After Surviving Ebola)

Calling Time On Ebola

The media have carried the news of the full recovery from Ebola by two US missionaries to Liberia, West Africa.  After contracting the disease, they were flown home and treated at Emory University Hospital.  Not without controversy.  A virtual, viral flash mob rapidly formed driven by the irrational fear of a bubonic plague about to kill everyone in the United States.  One conservative commentator, Ann Coulter complained that it did not make any sense for US missionaries to go abroad.  Weren't there enough problems to face in the United States?  Poor Ann overlooked a slight problem with her argument: when God calls, no man can successfully gainsay.  A reluctant prophet by the name of Jonah springs to mind.  Apparently, Ann had neglected to read Matthew 28: 18-20 recently.

In any event, Dr Kent Brantly has released a public statement  which he read after being released from Emory University Hospital.  It bears testimony to the Spirit of Christ, Himself.  

Deadly Force

Muhammad's Great Commission

In his book, Global Jihad, scholar Patrick Sookhdeo, who was himself raised a Muslim, addresses Islam's version of the Great Commission.  Drawing on the Qur'an, he writes:

Islam teaches that all lands belong to Allah who has given them to Muslims.  Some they already possess, the rest are theirs in theory and will gradually become theirs in practice.  This doctrine is based on several verses in the Qur'an.  [Patrick Sookhdheo, Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam. (McLean, VA: Isaac Publishing, 2007), p.85.]

 Now, this may not seem startling in any general sense, since monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Christianity) necessarily have a belief that the entire world, indeed creation, belongs to God, since there is no other God and no false deities or authorities or powers will ever prevail in the face of the one and only God.  Thus, imperial possession of the entire world is a necessary corollary of monotheism. 

But all three monotheistic religions face a world which is manifestly neither Christian, nor Jewish nor Islamic.  How, then, do they believe it will come about?

Beginnings

God's Business

We have often remarked that the Kingdom of God is exceedingly thick: it addresses and covers everything.  When folk turn their attention to the coming of the Kingdom and what it might look like, oftentimes they naively compare the Kingdom to the kingdoms of this world: all pomp, circumstance, trappings, and a lust for power.  But the Kingdom of God, whilst coming in the world, is definitely not of this world.  It is of another order entirely.

It's Official

China's Christian Explosion

[The article reprinted below is from the May edition of the OMF Newsletter.  The growth of the Christian church and the spread of the Gospel in China is now being officially acknowledged in government circles.  This brings some risks.  It also begs the question which many Western Christians have been asking for some years.  Since the West is turning away from the Lord, and the lights are going out on Western Christendom, will Asia in general, and China in particular, become the new Christendom of the next one thousand years of our Lord's reign?]

For many years leaders of China’s State-controlled church would cautiously tell foreign visitors that the number of Chinese Protestants, although growing, was still only “a tiny minority” of the population.

This year, leaders of the China Christian Council and the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) have issued the official statistic of 23 million registered Protestants in China. That is an amazing increase compared to less than one million in 1949 when the Communist Party took power. However, it is under 2% of the total population of 1.3 billion. So is the TSPM right in sticking to its story of a “tiny minority”?


Not if researchers and academics advising the government at the highest level are to be believed.

Praying for Islamic Lands

Breaking Satan's Ostensible Iron Grip

Christians are not allowed to preach the Gospel in Islamic lands. Under Islamic law, if an Islamic person converts and becomes a Christian he automatically attracts the death penalty. Satan holds these nations in a terrible grip, shutting up the people in a dark prison, effectively preventing them from hearing the Gospel.

Christians everywhere ought to pray with great boldness and strong faith that this oppression and tragedy will stop. In Revelation 20: 1--3 we are told that the Dragon, the Serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan has been thrown into the abyss so that he should not "deceive the nations any longer."

According to David Chilton, (The Days of Vengeance, p. 502) most Reformed scholars agree that this refers to Satan's inability to prevent the message of the Gospel from achieving success. Satan's opposition to the Gospel takes many forms. When he so controls a state or a people that the very law of the land outlaws the Gospel and prevents it from being heard by anyone, Christians have a biblical warrant boldly to remind the Lord that Satan has been bound and in the light of that to be praying very specifically that this travesty be brought to an end speedily.

How it will happen is beyond our ken. But, as ever, the Lord moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. We ought to take no rest, and give Him not rest until He does this. (Isaiah 62:6,7)

Only a Matter of Time

All Nations Required to be Christian

"All nations are absolutely required to be Christian, in their official capacity as well as in the personal character of their individual citizens. Any nation that does not submit to the all embracing rule of King Jesus will perish; all nations shall be Christianized some day. It is only a matter of time. Jesus Christ is the universal sovereign, and he will be recognized as such throughout the earth, in this world as well as in the next, in time as well as eternity. He has promised: 'I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth' (Psalm 46:10). The Lord of hosts is with us." 
David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p.489.

1 The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool."
2The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!
3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power,
in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours.
4 The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind,
"You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek."
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses;
he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.
7 He will drink from the brook by the way;
therefore he will lift up his head.
Psalm 110

The Kingdom of God does not come by the sword, or by force. It is a Kingdom of consent--just as no-one truly believes in the Saviour except by personal faith and repentance. It is a Kingdom of people universally born again by the sovereign, free work of the Spirit of God. Without this, no-one even sees the Kingdom, let alone participates. So our Lord definitively declared in John 3. God's people freely offer themselvesin the day of His power.

So, why then the reference to kings (and nations) being shattered, filled with corpses? This is the judgement of God wrought upon ungodly kings and nations by the ungodly. Even as the pagan Romans encircled Jerusalem in AD 66-70, destroying it utterly, for their own reasons and goals, in fact they were the servants of God, carrying out His purposes and judgments. That is why the Christ declared to the High Priest that he would see the Son of Man Himself at the head of the destroying armies.

This was not new. God used the Assyrians and the Babylonians as His servants, His chosen vessels, to judge faithless Israel. He also used the Babylonians to shatter the Assyrians, then the Medes and Persians to judge Babylon, then Greeks to judge the Medes, and so on. These judgements are so shattering that they shake the very foundations of Unbelief, and, as it pleases Him, lead people to yearn for the Prince of peace. The violent degradation of so many people in the Roman world was one of the reasons the Gospel first spread so powerfully amongst the Gentiles. In the same way, we are told, (here, here, and here) we are witnessing a turning to Christ amongst Muslim people in these days, as they see the violence and wickedness of their inherited religion.

These patterns are not new. They are typical of the work of God making His enemies a footstool for the Lord Jesus Christ. As the kings of Unbelieving nations shatter each other, in mutually destructive, enervating divine judgements, so the people yearn for the Prince of peace. Until the day their kings and governments also offer themselves freely in the day of His power.

Only a matter of time. From age to age, He stands, and time is in His hands.

Christian Nations

Can They Be Found?

Over at M&M we have been debating whether the United States is a Christian nation.  We issued the following challenge to one of the protagonists who asserted that the US is an overtly Christian nation:

If you can find one current governing document (Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc. at either Federal level or state level), one Supreme Court Decision, one federally funded entity, one public school, one federally funded college or university, one officially sanctioned public prayer, one act of Congress, or one democratic vote on anything anywhere that publicly acknowledges and honours Jesus Christ as Lord of these United States, or college, or state legislature–or whatever, then you may have a point–at least for that one particular public institution that performed an isolated act of obeisance to the King of kings. But to speak of the US as a Christian nation whilst all institutions of public governance are forbidden by law to mention, let alone honour or invoke the Christ, would seem at first glance bizarre. . . .

If you were to observe that there are plenty of Christians in the US and that makes the US an overtly Christian nation, I would observe that there are millions upon millions of Christians in China, but that does not make China an overtly Christian nation in any sense whatsoever.

The discussion raises interesting questions.  Can any nation accurately be called Christian today?   Secondly, what would an overtly Christian country look like?  The answer would be quickly to hand if we were to ask: what does a Christian family look like?  Two things.  Firstly, it is necessary that the family, as a family, profess the Lord Jesus Christ as its head, and profess loyalty and obeisance to Him.  This is a necessary condition to being a Christian family.  There must be an "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" position taken and proclamation made.  But this is not sufficient.

In addition, a family that is Christian must not only make the profession, but must evidence an actual living faith that is transforming the lives of all its members to be more like Christ.  Or, to use the modern idiom, it must talk Christianly and walk Christianly.  Then we can accurately and fairly speak of a Christian family.

The same principles and tests would hold true for any Christian institution, such as a Christian school, a Christian hospital, or a Christian law firm.  Precisely the same tests hold true for a genuinely Christian nation.  In order for a nation to be fairly called Christian it is necessary that the nation, as a nation, publicly acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as its Head, as the King over its judges, courts, parliaments, executives.  But this is not sufficient.  In addition, in national life, the nation must walk the walk, which would require, of course, that the vast majority of its citizens as citizens are Believers and are living out their faith.

Does this mean that in a Christian nation, everyone would be forced to become a Christian?  Of course not.  You cannot force anyone to be a Christian: it is a contradiction in terms.  No-one can force the regeneration of the Spirit which leads to a man being born again.  Did not our Lord say that the Spirit blows where He wills?  But it does mean that in a Christian nation even Unbelievers will adopt Christian practices and habits because they will have become cultural.  When everyone is doing something, others go along for the ride. 

Given these litmus tests as to whether a nation is Christian, is there any Christian nation upon the earth today?  Clearly not.  Are there nations that are more Christian than others?  Clearly yes, if we mean by that nations where Christians have freedom to believe and practise their faith, and that as such they have some influence over their local communities.

Will there ever be genuinely Christian nations upon the earth?  We believe so--provided you also believe, as we do, that the Lord Jesus Christ will indeed ensure the fulfilment of the Great Commission.  Why else would He have been raised to the office, position, and glory of absolute ruler of the heavens and the earth?

Fathers Are Critical

Great Hope, Huge Responsibilities

The Covenant of Grace is the engine block of redemption: it is the spiritual structure which effects redemption and the salvation of the world.  God deals with us and relates to us within the terms and structures of the covenants He made with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Israel, David and so on--all of which were precursors of, or preludes to, the one Covenant--the Covenant made in the Blood and Body of Christ.

Central to that Covenant is the dynamic of children inheriting the promises and faith of their believing, covenant-keeping fathers.  The Covenant is thus a covenant with us and with our descendants.  This, in turn, is founded upon the promise of God: "I will be a God to you, and to your children after you."  (Genesis 17:7)  For our part, our duty is to respond in faith to these promises, and act in accordance with them.  Thus, we raise our children not to be "little deciders for Jesus" but we command them to believe, obey, and walk in the commandments of their God.  Thus, God says of Abraham, our father:  "For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him." (Genesis 17: 19)  Faithful, covenant keeping fathers no more allow their children a choice as to whether they would believe and follow the Lord than they would allow their children to choose whether they would cross a busy street with their eyes shut.  Both lead to death. 

Commanding one's children and household to keep the ways of the Lord is a duty placed upon every husband and father--the God appointed head of the household.  As that duty towards children is carried out, and as indeed, children are taught and trained to walk after the Lord and keep His Covenant, so the Lord brings about His promises.  And the promise is that Abraham (and his descendants) will become great and that all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him (Genesis 17:18).

Right at this point you have a distinction in the Church of our Lord.  There are many, many fellow believers who have not yet heard, nor reckoned with this reality.  For one reason or another they have not heard of the Covenant of Grace as the engine block of their salvation, nor reckoned with the fact that they have inherited the promises made to Abraham and are, in fact, children of Abraham (Galatians 3:29).  Sadly, they have not yet understood that God has made promises to them and their children; consequently they do not understand that they must command their children to walk in all the ways of the Lord.  To these brethren, the Great Commission begins afresh and again with each generation.  There can be no progress of redemption upon the earth. Everything goes back to "Go" with each new generation.  They sadly believe that each child born to Christian parents is not in any way differently related to God than an infant born in an unbelieving house of idolatry that has never heard the Gospel.  Both alike are children captive to the Devil. 

The Covenant of Grace, together with its intergenerational promise from God, to both fathers and their children, makes the task of discipling all the nations of the earth not only possible, but inevitable.  Thus, it is vitally important that every Christian household comes to understand the promises that God has made to us about our children, and the consequent required obedience that rests upon us, the parents, to command our children to walk in the ways of the Lord.

In this regard, fathers are critical. It is fathers, as heads of households, who must lead, not only by example, but by command.  When fathers fail to obey and fulfil their duties to their children, more often than not children grow up disbelieving and rebelling against the God of their father and their mother.

To illustrate, consider the following post by Justin Taylor:  

A Father’s Role in His Children Going to Church When They Are Adults

Robbie Low, writing in Touchstone (June 2003), points to an interesting 1994 study in Switzerland about the connection between the churchgoing habits of fathers and mothers and the effect on their children when they are grown.
Here’s a summary:

In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.

A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!

The results are shocking, but they should not be surprising. They are about as politically incorrect as it is possible to be; but they simply confirm what psychologists, criminologists, educationalists, and traditional Christians know. You cannot buck the biology of the created order. Father’s influence, from the determination of a child’s sex by the implantation of his seed to the funerary rites surrounding his passing, is out of all proportion to his allotted, and severely diminished role, in Western liberal society.

A mother’s role will always remain primary in terms of intimacy, care, and nurture. (The toughest man may well sport a tattoo dedicated to the love of his mother, without the slightest embarrassment or sentimentality). No father can replace that relationship. But it is equally true that when a child begins to move into that period of differentiation from home and engagement with the world “out there,” he (and she) looks increasingly to the father for his role model. Where the father is indifferent, inadequate, or just plain absent, that task of differentiation and engagement is much harder. When children see that church is a “women and children” thing, they will respond accordingly—by not going to church, or going much less.

Curiously, both adult women as well as men will conclude subconsciously that Dad’s absence indicates that going to church is not really a “grown-up” activity. In terms of commitment, a mother’s role may be to encourage and confirm, but it is not primary to her adult offspring’s decision. Mothers’ choices have dramatically less effect upon children than their fathers’, and without him she has little effect on the primary lifestyle choices her offspring make in their religious observances.
Her major influence is not on regular attendance at all but on keeping her irregular children from lapsing altogether. This is, needless to say, a vital work, but even then, without the input of the father (regular or irregular), the proportion of regulars to lapsed goes from 60/40 to 40/60.

You can read the whole essay here.

Thy Kingdom Come

Charles Haddon Spurgeon
 Evangelism; Great Commission;

I myself believe that King Jesus will reign, and the idols will be utterly abolished; but I expect the same power which turned the world upside down once will still continue to do it.  The Holy Ghost would never suffer the imputation to rest upon His holy name that He was not able to convert the world. 

Quoted in Iain Murray, The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1971), p. 258.