The heart of magic is misdirection. Sure, there are specially made tools of the trade. There is well-trained prestidigitation. There are moments of art and flourish. The magic, however, is to get the audience to look one direction while you do something decidedly ordinary in plain sight. That’s how we start with an empty hat, and end up with a fluffy bunny.
It is much the same in all manner of intellectual magic. If we can get our intellectual opponents to overlook the fact that we are bringing something out of nothing, we can wow them all the way to the bank.
Consider first naturalistic science. Here we begin with one of two hats, both of them black. Some will say that all of reality was compressed into a point of singularity that existed from all eternity. Did you see what they did there? They explain the creation of the universe by presupposing the existence of the universe. We ask, “If you deny that God made everything, where did everything come from?” and they reply, “Well, everything was really squished together…” We let them get away with a universe, and a profound change (the explosion of the point of singularity) from and by nothing. The second option is more brazen. On the one hand these scientists are more honest, affirming that there was nothing. And then they get more dishonest, when they tell us “it” exploded into everything. Wait. There was no “it.” There was nothing, not even a hat surrounding the emptiness. And now it’s everything?
They don’t, of course stop there. Evolution takes center stage for act two. We’ve got everything, but how are we going to make it better? How do we go from chaos to cosmos? The magicians flourish again and tell us, “Everything gets better.” We ask, , “But how? Where’s the oomph?” They tell us, “Everything gets better. It’s science.” More order, more information jump out of the hat as fish take a walk on the dry side. All by themselves.
Consider second economics. An honorable politician promises to defend our wealth. A truthful politician promises to take some of this one’s wealth for the benefit of another. A common politician promises he can make us all richer by taking from all of us. Once again the common politician is the magician. He wants us to forget that the state has nothing it can give that it did not first take from another. He may take it via taxes. He may take it by inflating the money supply. But he will leave it out of the equation, pulling bunnies out of hats. And worse, getting us to pull levers behind the curtain at our voting booths.
Consider third man’s will. Those who believe in the doctrines of grace are quite content to confess that men are free to do what they want, to act according to their nature. Indeed we affirm we must do what we want, and can do no other. Those who don’t believe in the doctrines of grace, on the other hand, define freedom of the will as the ability to do what you don’t want to do. You choose without the desire for what you choose. This too is something out of nothing. Two men are presented with the gospel message. One embraces it, the other does not. How’s come? If we confess the difference in the man, it is the man God made, the man for which God is the ultimate cause. (And of course the wiser man would have something of which to boast (Ephesians 2:9)). If we confess the difference is in God, well, welcome to the doctrines of grace.
All three, like magic, claim to give us effects without causes, something from nothing. All three depend on our willingness to be distracted, to be misdirected. All three are rabbits out of hats, and hats out of thin air.
Dear Friends,
“Shame held my head down. Fear lifted it up. I was chained, shuffling my feet into the jury box along with other chained men. I was not there as a juror, but a prisoner.” Thus begins my latest book, Growing Up (with) RC. While the book itself is a loving remembrance of all the ways my father spoke to me about the grace of God, the introductory chapter, dealing with my DUI reveals why I so deeply need the grace of God.
It has been nearly three years since that life-changing night. I have, during that time, sought to use the gifts God has given me to serve the kingdom quietly. I have done some ghostwriting. I have done quite a bit of editing the books of others. I wrote my new book, co-wrote another and I have prayerfully meditated long and hard on the grace of God and its life-giving power.
Over the past few months those thoughts and prayers have found their way into the broader world through my blog and my podcast, Jesus Changes Everything. I am seeking, like Peter before me, to steward my failures, and to strengthen the brethren, to live not just in the forgiveness won by Jesus on the cross, but in the power demonstrated when He walked out of the grave.
Which is why, after earnestly seeking His will, we have recently begun a new ministry- Dunamis Fellowship. Our mission is to labor to see His church filled with and led by humble servants who are trained in His Word, consumed by His glory, captured by His grace and compelled to spread His gospel. We seek to do so through exhortation, education and empathy.
1. Exhortation– through social media, blog pieces, conferences, speaking/preaching
2. Education– through public Bible studies, book publishing and the establishment of a pastors’ training college both online and brick and mortar for underserved and aspiring pastors.
3. Empathy Continue reading
There are at least two ways, one most of us are on guard against, the other we’re oblivious to. One of the defining qualities of the gnostic worldview is that it sees that which is material as bad, inherently inferior to that which is spiritual. This mindset may have had deep roots in the older fundamentalism that has all but passed away, the kind that opposed alcohol, cards, movies, dancing, seemingly seeing the evil in those things rather than in our hearts.
Gnosticism spread rapidly across the middle east and beyond in the second century. Why? It certainly didn’t come equipped with a coherent, rational theology complete with a solid apologetic. The truth is when someone explains gnostic theology it’s kind of hard not to giggle. And it probably was then too. So why the appeal? That’s the second part of the worldview that besets us to this day.
Gnosticism didn’t spread through the bold proclamation of its silly doctrines. It spread through the appeal of getting into the inner circle. Their methodology was much like what you see in Freemasonry. You are initiated slowly into the group. With each step more of the secret knowledge is revealed to you. As long as you continue to “progress” you are brought further and further in to the secrets, into the inner circle. In short, it appealed to human pride, to our gnawing desire to be among the elite who know the secrets the great unwashed don’t know.
Here the actual content matters not at all. All that matters is that I know it and others don’t. That, not the wisdom, sophistication, insight of what I believe, is what makes me feel special, set apart. And I can bring you in simply by presenting what I know as a secret that I don’t share with many, that you have to earn the right to hear.
To be sure we’re not as crass as either the original gnostics nor the Freemasons. We have no secret handshake. But we do drop the right names to prove we’re in the fraternity. We do display the right books to show we’re in the know. We do tell the knowing jokes that serve as a secret wink to prove we’re on board. We have well worn paths where people get saved among this group, progress to the next group that has a more robust theology, mature to the point that they are talking about Turretin while smoking fine cigars and from there they look for the next new thing, which may very well claim to be the secret lost old thing.
The antidote is humility. It comes from remembering that all that we have truly learned we’ve learned because we were fools and He rescued us. We are not where we are because we’re better, smarter, more insightful than the next guy. We are where we are because He found us dead at the bottom of the sea and has been leading us. We are where we are because even after He raised us from the dead we wander off and He finds us once again. We not only have no secrets, we keep no secrets, confessing what is obvious to all, that we are wretched sinners saved by the grace that was put on display at Calvary for all to see.
The kingdom of God is at war. The promise from the beginning was that the seed of the woman, our King, would come and crush the head of the seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Jesus’ first step out of the tomb at Gethsemane crushed that ancient and wily serpent’s head, and from that time forward we, the bride of Christ, created to be a help suitable for our Husband in His dominion calling, have been engaged in what historians call a “mopping up” operation. The enemy has been defeated, but he doesn’t yet have the sense to give up.
That our Lord has secured the victory ought to encourage, and empower us. That the serpent hasn’t yet given up ought in turn to put us on our guard. That the battles yet rage, despite the glorious truth that the war has been won, ought to inspire us to discern the times. If we were wise we would seek not only to predict how and where the serpent might attack, but would think strategically about where we might attack. Consider, for instance, those culture warriors who aspire to do the work of “pre-evangelism.”
Evangelism, of course, is the proclaiming of the good news of Jesus Christ. It is sowing seed, casting forth the Word of God about the victory of the Son of God. Pre-evangelism is an attempt to make ears more ready to hear, eyes more ready to see. To borrow from the parable of the sower, pre-evangelism is an attempt to till the ground, to make rocky soil more fertile, that the seed might take root and flourish. Often pre-evangelism takes the form of “worldview” studies. Here we spend less time and energy declaring the truth about Jesus, and more time and energy defending the truthfulness of truth. In a modern age we proclaim that Jesus is the truth, against the truth claims of other religions, or Darwinism, or some other form of naturalism. In a postmodern age we cannot argue for the truthfulness of the Christian faith until we first establish that truth is even real, that it can be known, and that it transcends that which is merely “true for me” or “true for you.”
Sometimes “pre-evangelism” takes the form of artistic expressions of sundry forms. Here we may, instead of affirming the glory of Jesus, seek to depict the gloom and vanity of a life lived under the sun. We may tell stories of redemption that, while not exactly telling the story of Jesus, are signposts toward His story. We may simply affirm the dignity of man, as we bear the image of God. Here again we are tilling the ground, preparing it for when the seed is cast, prayerfully hoping our labors might be used to bring in the elect from the four corners of the globe, and that His reign might be made manifest.
These sundry forms of “pre-evangelism” have advantages and disadvantages. They certainly can be effective for some. They can, however, sometimes create exactly the wrong kind of soil. That is, when we simply assault the foolishness of the world, and leave out the heart of the matter, we might be making more “converts” who will wilt under the pressure of the sun. Worse still sometimes we may miss out on the real issue. That is, we may be so focused on the “pre” that we miss the evangelism. It is far easier to talk around the gospel than it is to say to our family, our friends, the broader world, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”
What we often find, however, is that when our strategies work, even just a little, it’s usually because we have stumbled onto something God has already commanded. That is, there is a form of “pre-evangelism” that God calls us all to, that will work, and has worked far more effectively than our worldview wonkery or our high concept cultural artifacts. It is, in the end, the kingdom itself that brings in the lost. That is, we live faithful lives in covenant community, we, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (I Peter 2), are a light shining upon a hill. This light does indeed condemn the darkness (a victory we ought to celebrate, even as we likewise rejoice when the elect are brought in) but it is also a beacon.
If we were smart we would know that the lost are rarely brought in by how smart we are. Instead it is our love, one for another, that invites them in. This is what Jesus told the disciples (John 13:35), that it is in and through our love for each other that all men will know that we are His disciples. Our witness then, in the end, isn’t about our clever arguments. It isn’t about our subtle works of art. Our witness shines through by our love for each other. This is both pre-evangelism and evangelism. That is, it softens the heart, even as it intrigues the mind as pre-evangelism. But, it is evidence of the redeeming power of Jesus Christ; it is the reality of the coming of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Once again, in the upside down economy of our Lord, the more we love one another within the kingdom, the more we bring in those who were outside the kingdom. We seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things are added to us.
The wisdom of this question, I would argue, is that it gets at the real horror of hell. A lake of fire is a frightening thought indeed. The greater dread, however, is the duration of hell, that it never ends. This, I suspect, is what tempts some to try to tweak the church’s historic view on hell, including everyone from John Stott to Rob Bell. Is it possible to posit a truly terrifying, painful hell that only lasts a time? Can we affirm the just judgment of God, and still hope that it will one day come to an end?
Well yes you can posit it, but in so doing you would expose a lack of understanding of the scope of the evil of our sin, and a lack of understanding of the nature of God’s judgment. Sin, the church has argued, must be punished infinitely because we sin against an infinitely holy God. The problem with taking a cookie out of the cookie jar isn’t the cookie, nor the calories. Rather it is the shaking of our fist at the God of heaven and earth. When we commit even the smallest sin we are committing what one great theologian called “cosmic treason.” When we steal the cookie we are declaring to the God who made us, who sustains us, who daily pours out His grace on us, “I WILL NOT HAVE YOU RULE OVER ME.” Thus we stand infinitely guilty, and no amount of intensity to the sinner’s pain can trump the eternity of the sinner’s guilt. As painful as it may be to admit, anything less than eternal punishment would not be just, given the depth of our depravity in rebelling against our Maker.
If, however, that still does not satisfy ones sense of justice, if we still find God less than honorable to punish the earthly sins of men with an eternity in hell, consider this. Men do not cease to sin when they die. That is, the souls in hell are still unregenerate, still captive to their sin. Indeed they are all worse than they were when they were on earth. Hell lacks the common grace of God, the restraining grace of God. It is true that even the sinners below confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, but they do so with clenched teeth, seething with rage. It is true that their knees are bowed, but only because our Lord has broken them with a rod of iron. They hate God and curse Him for eternity.
Indeed one could argue that the deepest horror of hell is not that the pain will be so intense, nor that it will endure forever, but that we will ever become less and less what we were made to be. Without His grace we will continually devolve, and continually earn His continuing wrath. We, like hell, spiral ever downward into deeper and deeper darkness, deeper and deeper evil.
Hell is too dreadful a place to think on for too long. If you are comfortable with it, if the thought of it does not make you squirm, likely you don’t understand it. Sin, however, is still more dreadful, despite how comfortable we are with it. Hell is forever.
