The Knowledge of the Holy

Greetings All,

     Today's 'thought' goes along with a sermon I preached from Revelation 4:1 this past Sunday, entitled: "The Script Has Already Been Written."  For that verse speaks of God's plan for the future and how it "must" come to pass.

     In this thought A. W. Tozer elaborates on that same topic with his typical clarity. This selection is found in his superb book, "The Knowledge of the Holy."

     Given the world situation at this present time (which seems like a pressure cooker about to explode!) such biblical truths can ease many of our fears, and give us the encouragement we need to look to the future with hope.  Enjoy.

     "God's Sovereignty is the attribute by which He rules His entire creation, and to be sovereign God must be all-knowing, all-powerful, and absolutely free... Only God is free. God is said to be absolutely free because no one and no thing can hinder Him or compel Him or stop Him. He is able to do as He pleases always, everywhere, forever.  To be thus free means also that He must possess universal authority...

     Even to discuss the authority of Almighty God seems a bit meaningless, and to question it would be absurd.  Can we imagine the Lord God of Hosts having to request permission of anyone or to apply for anything to a higher body?  To whom would God go for permission? Who is higher than the Highest?  Who is mightier than the Almighty?  Whose position antedates that of the Eternal?  At whose throne would God kneel?  Where is the greater one to whom He must appeal? (Is. 45:5, 20-21 / 46:5, 8-10)...

     [Yet] if God rules his universe by His sovereign decrees, how is it possible for man to exercise freedom of choice? And if he cannot exercise freedom of choice, how can he be held responsible for his conduct? Is he not a mere puppet whose actions are determined by a behind-the-scenes God who pulls the strings as it pleases Him?

     The attempt to answer these questions has divided the Christian church neatly into two camps [one denying God's sovereignty, the other man's will to choose]...

     Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make, but that he should be free to make it.  If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, "What doest Thou?"  Man's will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.

     Perhaps an illustration might help us to understand. An ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been determined by proper authorities. Nothing can change it. This is at least a faint picture of sovereignty.

     On board the liner are several scores of passengers. These are not in chains, neither are their activities determined for them by decree. They are completely free to move about as they will. They eat, sleep, play, lounge about on the deck, read, talk, altogether as they please. But all the while the great liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port. Both freedom and sovereignty are present here and they do not contradict each other. So it is, I believe, with man's freedom and the sovereignty of God. The mighty liner of God's sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history. God moves undisturbed and unhindered toward the fulfillment of those eternal purposes which He purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began.

     Toward [the fulfillment of all God has decreed and promised] God is moving with infinite wisdom and perfect precision. No one can dissuade Him from His purposes; nothing can turn Him aside from His plans. Since He is omniscient, there can be no unforeseen circumstances, no accidents. As He is sovereign, there can be no countermanded orders, no breakdown in authority; and as He is omnipotent, there can be no want of power to achieve His chosen ends... Within the broad field of God's sovereign, permissive will, the deadly conflict of good and evil continues with increasing fury. God will yet have His way in the whirlwind and the storm, but the storm and the whirlwind are here, and as responsible beings we must make our choice in the present moral situation."

     There are certain things I might phrase a bit differently than Tozer, but his points are well taken. God is sovereign, man is responsible. God decrees and ordains all that happens, yet without ever violating our liberty to choose. His plan will unalterably come to pass -- the ship is going to Liverpool! (to use his illustration) -- but we still have the liberty to make choices for which we will be held responsible (Westminster Confession, Chapter 3, section 1 -- On God's Eternal Decrees).

     To use the words of Revelation 4:1, "Come up here and I will show you what MUST take place after this."  In the end it will all unfold just as God has decreed. This means that when things look out of control (from our perspective) we can be thankful God still occupies the throne of His sovereign rule, and is, "moving with infinite wisdom and perfect precision" to carry out His plan for the ages.

Under the shadow of His wings, Pastor Jeff

Trivializing God into a god-of-my-nation

Greetings All,

As I was on vacation last week it gave me a little more time to read and listen to things I don't usually spend time reading or listening to (like newspapers and talk radio)!

Yet as I did, one thing bothered me. It was the way people politicized Christianity or made God to be the advocate of their particular position, and, of course, by the implied contrast, the opponent of those who disagreed with them (be they people coming from the right or the left). And, yes, I know it's nothing new, but it is always dangerous - both to our own personal spiritual health as well as the unity of Christ's church.

Thus I offer this "thought" as a corrective (coming as I do from the position that the Gospel is far too radical to be held captive by any political party or persuasion, and that the Kingdom of God "is not of this world" and therefore far too glorious, divine and spiritual in nature to even be faintly equated with any earthly kingdom).

Having said that, I know this thought won't be popular. I won't get people writing back and telling me how much it helped them. But that's ok, because it still needs to be said! It comes once again from Donald McCullough's superb book, "The Trivialization of God - The Dangerous Illusion of a Manageable Deity." It isn't meant to inspire, but challange and get you to think. If looked at in that sense I trust it will not disappoint you! Enjoy!

"The oxygen in the bloodstream of the religion devoted to the god-of-my-nation is the myth of a Christian America. How often have we heard exhortations to get this country back to its Christian roots? ...

As with any powerful myth, truth and error comingle here. The colonists who first settled along the eastern shore of North America in the seventeenth century were Puritans convinced of their divinely appointed mission... But by the time of the American Revolution and the establishment of our nation (our official beginning) things had changed dramatically. Thomas Jefferson, the greatest of our "Founding Fathers," was more Deist than Christian... A comparative statistic may set things in perspective: today 62 percent of Americans are involved in a church, but in 1776, only 17 percent were involved. Who would want to take America back to those roots?...

A few years ago, Self magazine polled its readers to determine the most popular personal public heros. Jesus made the list, to be sure, but came in behind Mother Teresa, George Bush, Madonna, Norman Schwartzkopf, and Cher -- tying with Desert Storm Troops and Julia Roberts!... Only 13 percent of Americans believe all the Ten Commandments were binding. The evidence simply does not support the view that we are a "Christian Nation"..."

(It's also necessary, he says, to note the soaring rates for violent crime, infant mortality, homelessness, divorce, abortion, and racism).

"Whatever else we might say about America, we certainly cannot say it is a nation perfectly attuned to the will of a holy God! It never has been.

It's remarkable, therefore, how many seem to enwrap God in a red, white and blue bunting, (and) how many seem convinced that, of all the nations of the world, this is God's most beloved. What's good for America, many seem to believe, must be good for God; there seems little practical difference, for many sincere Christians, between the Kingdom of God and the United States of America.

Do I exaggerate? Let me propose a test: remove from your sanctuary the Christian flag and watch whether anyone even notices; then remove the U.S. flag and watch how quickly your hide gets nailed to the wall. I did this (after 12 years of working up the courage!), and not one person mentioned the loss of the Christian flag. But at the next meeting of elders, we had a pretty heated discussion about the absence of Old Glory. "What happened to the flag?" one elder demanded to know. I explained I had moved it to the narthex, the symbolic border, as it were, between the world and the church, and I reminded them that we are not the Rotary Club but part of a church that pledges allegiance to a very different Commonwealth. They decided they could live with it in the narthex, but had I tried to remove it from the church grounds altogether, they might have decided they could live without me.

Truth is, many in the American church are Americans first and Christians second. They have never consciously prioritized these loyalties, though, because it has never occurred to them there may be a difference, let alone a conflict, between the two. But when American patriotism is blended with Christian spirituality, the former will always bully the latter. Patriotism, if it's anything more than sentimentalism, leads inevitably to politics. And politics has a concrete immediacy: it regulates lives, reaches into pocketbooks, opens doors for some and closes them for others. This practicality exerts a powerful gravitational pull from which our Christian commitments separate us only with great difficulty. The consequent distortion of perspective shapes our view of God.

To put it bluntly, for most evangelicals God is a Republican and for most mainline liberals God is a Democrat. During the last national election, one organization sent out a brochure announcing the "Christian" position on many issues. I was surprised to discover that God was in favor of limiting congressional terms and lowering taxes...

Both deities, the one who rides an elephant and the one who rides a donkey, are trivial gods too limited by narrow interests to do anything but create a psuedo-religious atmosphere that, however handy for political huckstering, has no power to save a nation, let alone a single individual. The holy God of the Bible neither adds a basso profundo to "God Bless America," nor joins the raucous rendering of "Happy Days Are Here Again." The holy God of the Bible has set apart only one nation -- Israel -- and that to be a "light to the nations," witnessing in its history to both the grace and the judgment of God...

Do not misunderstand me. I am grateful for the ways God has blessed America, and I believe we should express our citizenship by helping to order society according to the will of God as we understand it. But letting God define political commitments is one thing; letting political commitments define God is entirely something else. Unfortunately, the powerful pull of politics too often trivializes God into a god-of-my-nation, unable to do much more than offer a misty-eyed sentimentalism."

Just food for thought, sent with the desire that we might all avoid the error of making our majestic and holy God into a "god-of-my-particular-political-agenda."

For the Glory of His name, Pastor Jeff