Nothing new about truth

Solomon said that there is "nothing new under the sun" (Eccl. 1:9).

I've understood that to be true in a variety of circumstances. Death is sorrowful. Marriage is the greatest source of earthly joy (and often sorrow). Sin is devastating. Always. Where there are people, there will be conflict. Where there is Christ, there can always be reconciliation. There is nothing new under the sun.

Yet we sometimes think of the trends of our current age as being new and novel. Postmodernism, the debate over Christ and the atonement, the relationship between justification and salvation, all sound to our ears to be new debates. They're not.

Listen to two statements about truth:

The truth is everything to a Christian.

I fear that the church in this…era has lost focus on that fact. It is no longer deemed necessary to fight for the truth. In fact, many evangelicals now consider it ill-mannered and uncharitable to argue about any point of doctrine. Even gross error is now tolerable in some quarters for the sake of peace. Rather than rightly dividing the word and proclaiming it as truth, many churches now feature motivational lectures, drama, comedy, and other forms of entertainment — while utterly ignoring the great doctrines of the faith. Even people who attack the truth in pseudo-scholarly ways are finding publishers in the evangelical realm and being honored as if they had deep insight.

We must recover our love for biblical truth, as well as our conviction that it is unassailable truth. We have the truth in a world where most people are simply wandering around in hopeless ignorance. We need to proclaim it from the housetops, and quit playing along with those who suggest we are being arrogant if we claim to know anything for certain. We do have the truth, not because we are smarter or better than anyone else, but because God has revealed it in the Scriptures and has been gracious to open our eyes to see it. We would be sinning if we tried to keep the truth to ourselves.

And:

Some things are true and some things are false: — I regard that as an axiom; but there are many persons who evidently do not believe it. The current principle of the present age seems to be, "Some things are either true or false, according to the point of view from which you look at them. Black is white, and white is black according to circumstances; and it does not particularly matter which you call it. Truth of course is true, but it would be rude to say that the opposite is a lie; we must not be bigoted, but remember the motto, 'So many men, so many minds,'" Our forefathers were particular about maintaining landmarks; they had strong notions about fixed points of revealed doctrine, and were very tenacious of what they believed to be scriptural; their fields were protected by hedges and ditches, but their sons have grubbed up the hedges, filled up the ditches, laid all level, and played at leap-frog with the boundary stones.

The first is from John MacArthur earlier today. The second from Charles Spurgeon about 130 years ago. Different continents, and different eras, yet they both speak for this age — and the one that is already past and etched in history's stone. That implies at least two things: 1) we need not be surprised at attacks against our core beliefs. It has always been that way and always will be until the return of Christ; 2) vigilance to protect the truth really is foundational for believers. God said that through Paul's pen; it was true in Ephesus, and it is true for us. We stand on the truth.

Something worth reading about reading

Today's blog on Desiring God contained a helpful commentary, "On Reading." It is worth reading (as are the links it provides to other encouragements to read).

There have never been more good books (nor more bad books, too) available than what we have available today. And most of them can be delivered to our doors within a few days at the most! We do well not only to collect good books, but to saturate our minds with them — to actually learn them — so that our minds will be saturated with joy in Christ.

Don't just be convicted to read more, but start today to read more. One thing I've done to help me read just a little bit more is to keep a devotional book by my Bible (I'm currently alternating Lectures to My Students and What Jesus Demands from the World). Just a few minutes each morning or evening (I try for 8-12 pages, or a short chapter each time), will result in reading several extra books each year.

And I've found another benefit as well. I begin my morning reading by reading my book for 10-15 minutes — before I read my Bible. By the time I've mulled over a few pages of Spurgeon or Piper or Watson, I find that my mind is more alert, attentive, and prepared for the Word of God. So reading devotionally actually makes my Bible reading more profitable.

Start reading tomorrow, or even tonight!

Sunday Leftovers (7/15/07)

Yesterday morning I read an extended quote from Tedd Tripp's book Shepherding a Child's Heart (one of the very best books on parenting). Here is the rest of the quote that I left unread (the entire quote was from pp. 38-40):

Remember Proverbs 4:23. Life flows out of the heart. Parenting cannot be concerned only with positive shaping influences, it must shepherd the heart. Life gushes forth from the heart.

I am interested in helping parents engage in hand-to-hand combat on the world's smallest battlefield, the child's heart. You need to engage your children as creatures made in the image of God. They can find fulfillment and happiness only as they know and serve the living God.

…You want to provide the best possible shaping influences for your children. You want the structure of your home to furnish the stability and security that they need. You want the quality of relationships in your home to reflect the grace of God and the mercy for failing sinners that the character of God demonstrates. You want the punishments meted out to be appropriate and to reflect a holy God's view of sin. You want the values of your home to be scripturally informed. You want to control the flow of events so that it is never a chaotic, but rather a well-structured home. You want to provide a healthy, constructive atmosphere for your child.

When all is said and done, those things important as they are, will never be the total story. Your child is not just a product of those shaping influences. He interacts with all these things. He interacts according to the nature of the covenantal choices he is making. Either he responds to the goodness and mercy of God in faith or he responds in unbelief. Either he grows to love and trust the living God, or he turns more fully to various forms of idolatry and self-reliance. The story is not just the nature of the shaping influences of his life, but how he has responded to God in the context of those shaping influences.

Since it is the Godward orientation of your child's heart that determines his response to life, you may never conclude that his problems are simply a lack of maturity. Selfishness is not outgrown. Rebellion against authority is not outgrown. These things are not outgrown because they are not reflective of immaturity but of the idolatry of your child's heart.

The importance of the Gospel

The gospel has always been controversial and attacked.

This afternoon I began listening to Martyn Lloyd-Jones' sermon "Christianity — the Only Hope" preached a generation ago. And his lament in that day was largely the same as today — a concern over a declining interest in the truth, the power of the Word of God and the clarity of the gospel.

It's always been that way. So we should hardly be shocked when it is attacked now. That ecuminism and the arguments over penal substitution and emergent theology and openness theology are taken seriously and given credibility by so many is to be sadly expected.

We should not be surprised — but voices should also be raised in clearly articulated arguments and defenses against these attacks against the centrality of the gospel. So we should be grateful for faithful men and new institutions like The Gospel Coalition, which are being raised up to defend the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This coalition is a new organization of pastors and theologians committed to preserving the accuracy of the gospel — salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone:

We have become deeply concerned about some movements within traditional evangelicalism that seem to be diminishing the church’s life and leading us away from our historic beliefs and practices. On the one hand, we are troubled by the idolatry of personal consumerism and the politicization of faith; on the other hand, we are distressed by the unchallenged acceptance of theological and moral relativism. These movements have led to the easy abandonment of both biblical truth and the transformed living mandated by our historic faith. We not only hear of these influences, we see their effects. We have committed ourselves to invigorating churches with new hope and compelling joy based on the promises received by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Of the plenary messages at the initial conference in May, the addresses by D. A. Carson ("What is the Gospel?") and Tim Keller ("What Does Gospel Centered Ministry Look Like ") were especially helpful and well worth hearing (I will be listening to Keller's message again later this week).

We do well to keep abreast of these attacks against the gospel. Our faith stands or falls on the reality of Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, coming again — Savior and substitute. There is no salvation except in Christ and His righteousness, alone. We have been placed at this station of life in this time for the defense and proclamation of that very truth. Defend it and speak it we must and we will.

Sunday Leftovers (7/8/07)

For the most part, the much dreaded millennium bug was pretty much a non-event. For a 105-year-old woman in Norway, it provided an occasion for a reflective chuckle. Because the computer for a local government agency that offered free daycare to all five-year-olds in Oslo, it pulled all the records of children born in '94 — including the record of one woman born in 1894, not 1994. Imagine her surprise at finding the invitation to attend kindergarten — again. One hundred years later!

Or, perhaps the opportunity elicited some inner contemplation on this order: "If I really could go back, what would I do differently? How different would my life be with a different start?"

How we start is important.

And that is why Solomon, when instructing his son about spiritual life, began his talk with direct words about the authority and blessing of adherence to the Word of God. And the first word about the first spiritual priority was, "do not forget my teaching [lit., Torah]." This command is a warning about the importance of remembering the Word of God.

Now, when we say, "remember the Word of God," it is easy to slip into a discourse about Scripture memory. There is an element of that which is true — memorizing Scripture should yield a meditation on Scripture which should produce an increasingly transformed life. However, Solomon equates remembering God's Word to obeying and doing the word of God, which he states by using the words keep (v. 1), bind them around your neck, and write them on your heart (v. 3).

So the task of the parent in discipling his child is to stimulate the child to remember what the truth is, what it has been designed by God to do in the individual, and then to faithful do what it says. So my task as a Dad is to examine every situation in the life of my children, help them evaluate it in the light of Biblical truth, and then encourage, exhort, and help them to obey with joy.

So there are two questions that remain:

1. How well are my children remembering (obeying) the Word of God?
2. What am I doing to stimulate them to remember the Word of God well?
   

Crawford Loritts asked it well in his recent sermon "Passing the Torch:"

What signature are you writing on the souls of future generations?…Is there a clear pathway that can be seen through how you approach ministry back to the character of God and the content of Scripture? How are you thinking about what God has entrusted to you?

Preparing for worship

A few days ago, Oswald Chambers wrote the following in My Utmost for His Highest. It is a fitting reminder and call as we prepare for worship on Sunday. Have I allowed the Spirit of God freedom to examine my heart so that my fellowship with Christ might be true and that the Lord would hear my prayers?

"Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." Isaiah 6:5

When I get into the presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense; I realize the concentration of sin in a particular feature of my life. A man will say easily - 'Oh, yes, I know I am a sinner'; but when he gets into the presence of God he cannot get off with that statement. The conviction is concentrated on - I am this, or that, or the other. This is always the sign that a man or woman is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but the concentration of sin in some personal particular. God begins by convicting us of the one thing fixed on in the mind that is prompted by His Spirit; if we will yield to His conviction on that point, He will lead us down to the great disposition of sin underneath. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously in His presence.

This experience of the concentration of sin is true in the greatest and the least of saints as well as in the greatest and the least of sinners. When a man is on the first rung of the ladder of experience, he may say - I do not know where I have gone wrong; but the Spirit of God will point out some particular definite thing. The effect of the vision of the holiness of the Lord on Isaiah was to bring home to him that he was a man of unclean lips. "And he laid it upon my mouth, and said Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.

Salsa recipe

If you like Mexican food, and like fresh salsa with a little bite, try this one. It's excellent on chips, homemade tortillas, grilled chicken sandwiches and hamburgers. [Or, try my favorite restaurant salsa, from Blue Mesa Grill.]

I don't measure anything, so my measurements here are guesses:

3-4 cloves garlic
Juice of one lime
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 tbsp. brown sugar (this is my "secret" ingredient)
1-2 tbsp. red wine vinegar (this acts as a preservative)
1 bunch cilantro (this varies, depending on the size of the bunch I get from the grocery)
3-4 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (I prefer La Costena brand)

Put all these ingredients in a food processor and chop until the cilantro is fairly finely chopped (about 5-10 seconds) Add 1 large can of whole tomatoes (I drain the sauce because I prefer a chunkier salsa), and pulse until you get the consistency you like (I chop it for about 5-10 seconds).

Place into a bowl or sealable container; chop 1 more can of tomatoes in the food processor and add to the mixture and stir well to blend. [My food processor isn't large enough to handle both cans of tomatoes without spillage.]

Test and adjust seasonings to your taste. Enjoy!

Worthy of imitation

Several years ago, basketball player Charles Barkley created no small amount of controversy when he said,

"I am not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on a basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I can dunk a basketball, that doesn't mean I should raise your kids…"

He is wrong on the first part of his statement — whether he, or any other person in public view, is willing to acknowledge it or not, he is a role model. But his second premise is absolutely correct — parents should be role models.

This is why Solomon says to his son, "A righteous man who walks in his integrity — How blessed are his sons after him" (Prov. 20:7). A son who has a father who lives a life of integrity and authentic Biblical faith is blessed indeed, for he has someone worthy of following. He reaps the blessing and joy of having a godly father who shepherds and nurtures him (instead of a cruel father who antagonizes him and provokes him to anger), and he reaps God's blessing as he learns to live his own life of righteousness.

This is not the only encouragement to live an exemplary life — a life worthy of imitation. For instance, it is remarkable how often Paul and the other New Testament writers say, "Follow me." (E.g., see 1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Eph. 5:1; Phil. 3:17; 4:9; Col. 1:3-4, 7; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2:14; 2 Thess. 3:7, 9; 2 Tim. 3:14-15; Heb. 6:12; 13:7; 3 John 11.) The calling of these verses emphasize that it is possible to live a life worth emulating (God only calls and requires of a believer that which He also equips him to do), and that it is also the calling of the believer to live an exemplary life (one of the words that is often used in these passages is the word group from which we get our word, "mimic").

Paul, as a spiritual father to various churches and individuals was unafraid to say, "Follow me. You can imitate my faith. You should imitate my faith as much as I am following Christ." And this is essentially what Jesus called Peter to do in Jn. 21 when He told Peter to “shepherd my sheep.” With that statement, he means, "lead my sheep in such a way that they will follow you to me.”

This is the calling of every parent — to live in such a way that our faith is worthy of imitation and to intentionally put our children in situations so that they can see a vibrant faith in us and that they are stimulated to love and good deeds. As you consider your relationship with your children (both infant and adult) or those who are your spiritual children, or those who just happen to watch your life, are you living in such a way that anything you do is worthy of imitation?

Gratitude when robbed

Last week our church building was broken into again. It's happened several times over the years, and every time it happens, my mind immediately thinks of the words of Matthew Henry after he was robbed:

Let me be thankful.
First, because I was never robbed before.
Second, because although they took my wallet, they did not take my life.
Third, because although they took it all, it was not much.
Fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.

With those few words, he gives evidence how one can give thanks in everything. Learning to be grateful in all things is a matter of seeing life not through the lens of a temporal life, but through the eye-glass of Scripture, with an eternal perspective as God sees it.

On the reading of many books

Having books and resources at our disposal is a good and blessed gift from God.

But at times it is overwhelming to consider what to read and what to give our attention to the most.

In previous generations, the question was not "do I have enough time to read?' but, "do I have enough to read?" To those who had a slender apparatus (few books), Spurgeon gave advice that was good then and good now too —

The next rule I shall lay down is, master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and re-read them, masticate them, and digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times, and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, lapping at them, as the classic proverb puts it; “As the dogs drink of Nilus.” Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading. Books maybe piled on the brain till it cannot work. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. They gorge themselves with book-matter, and become mentally dyspeptic.

Sunday Leftovers (7/1/07)

It was supposed to be just a simple, brief, quiet lunch at home with Raye Jeanne and the girls. A respite in the midst of a busy schedule. The taste of some sweet fellowship to nourish our hearts with each other until we came together again at the end of the day.

At the time I could get home in about 10 minutes, enjoy 45 minutes with the family, and then be back at the office in a reasonable time frame. I was about 40 minutes into that lunch, when something happened.

Time and forgiveness has dulled the memory of the particular event. I do remember it wasn't overly significant in itself. It was just a small offense — "trivial" almost (I say that knowing that sin is never trivial). All it would take was a simple, "Mommy, I was wrong; will you forgive me?" So I gently encouraged our daughter to do just that. Then the second event happened.

"No."

"Sweetheart…what you did was wrong; you need to ask Mommy for forgiveness."

"No!"

I looked at my watch. The second hand was ticking. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just take her to the other room, explain it more carefully, she will see her sin, confess it to me and Raye Jeanne, and I will still be back to the office in good time."

Forty-five minutes later she finally confessed. In the process, she was crying, Raye Jeanne was crying, and I was doubting my parental abilities and shepherding wisdom. "Is it really worth it?" I wondered. "Maybe I should just go give up and go back to the office. It's just one small sin; it'll be okay."

Except it wouldn't. The toleration and willful ignorance of even one sin sets in motion the thought in the child's mind that sin is acceptable and of little consequence. And the equally evil thought, "Mom and Dad care about sin, but not too much; they aren't really willing to pay the price to reinforce their convictions. So I just need to wait for them to give up on their beliefs."

Now maybe a two-year-old won't think that thought literally (though a 14-year-old very well may), but she will begin acting on that presupposition. And it will be to her detriment.

Fools mock at sin,
But among the upright there is good will. (Prov. 14:9)

Righteousness exalts a nation,
But sin is a disgrace to any people. (Prov. 14:34)

He who loves transgression loves strife;
He who raises his door seeks destruction. (Prov. 17:19)

By transgression an evil man is ensnared,
But the righteous sings and rejoices. (Prov. 29:6)

To train a child takes wisdom to confront sin graciously, consistently, and with endurance. That's what makes parenting hard. And it's also what makes it joyful at the end of life.
So the hard job of a parent in child training (and this is applicable for adult children as well), is not just the confrontation of sin, but the consistent confrontation of sin. Endurance in the confrontation of sin. Appealing to confession in the confrontation of sin. And the granting of liberal and gracious forgiveness for confessed sin.

He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. (Prov. 28:13)