Dian – My loving wife, I am so grateful that you stood by me and supported me while I fulfilled my calling of being a Pastor.  Thank you for all the hours you invested in this church.

Josh – Thank you for your faithfulness.  A more devoted son than I deserve.

Matthew – Thank you for sticking it out with me and enduring.

P.J. – I have loved watching you grow into the responsible, mature man you are today.  Thank you for taking your commitment to Christ so seriously.

Bryan – My worship leader, week in and week out.  You were incredibly dependable and so faithful to use your talents in service to the Kingdom.  I have loved watching you wrestle with the truths of Scripture and grow in your knowledge and understanding.

Michal – You are beautiful through and through.  Such a gentle heart and loving spirit, I love you like a daughter.

David – You went to the Marines and kept your faith, I doubt I could say anything that could add to that impressive accomplishment.  Thank you for your faithfulness and willingness to learn.

Thank you all for what you have done.  I loved being your Pastor and watching how you all matured.  Continue in the faith and plant yourselves in a new church quickly.  I love you all with the heart of a Pastor, friend, and father.

I know it’s a lot to take in and it’s never fun to exposed as a fool before a watching world.  Some of you are facing financial ruin, some of you have to face a mocking family, some of you have to return to work on Monday morning and know you will be jeered and laughed at by co-workers.  It won’t be fun.

But now what?  Your whole life was wrapped up around one man that we all now know is a false prophet.  (Some of us had it figured out sooner, but that’s beside the point.)  What is the next step for you?  Please allow me to give you a few pointers.

Burn your radio

Just take your radio and smash it into a million pieces, or block his url or however you were listening to him, get rid of it.  He was a liar and made you into a fool, you are done with him.

Repent

Camping taught a lot of bad things but the fact that you believed him is your responsibility.  You need to repent of your sin of believing a lie.  I’m not just talking about the date of the rapture, I’m talking about the fact that you left your church and were convinced that the Spirit of God had abandoned the local church.  You believed this because you didn’t like church and found it to be an easy excuse for your brand of lone-wolf Christianity.  I hope now you see the silliness of the idea that God would abandon His bride.  Repent, find a local church, submit yourself to the leadership of elders and listen to what they have to say.  Don’t try to teach or take over, you’ve proven yourself to be extremely immature, just listen and apply.

Ask for forgiveness

Your actions have made a mockery of the truths of Scripture.  You have opened up the glorious truth of His soon return to be scorned and sneered at by the world.  You need to go to the people that knew you believed that and ask for forgiveness.  They need to know that Christ will indeed return someday but it will be like a thief in the night and no man knows the hour or the day.

Cast not away your faith

Above all, you will feel the temptation to just throw it all away and walk away from the faith.  That’s not what needs to happen.  Christ is real and the Bible is true, you were just deceived but you can always be restored.  Turn to Christ and He will accept you. Read your Word and obey its clear teaching.  (You don’t need to have a calculator and an engineering degree to determine the meaning of Scripture.)  As always, if you have any questions you can contact me through this blog.

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“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; or the Lord will see and be displeased and turn His anger away from him.” Prov 24:17-18

Well, there you go.  A direct command from God to take no delight in the death of Osama.  Case closed.  Or is it?

Is it wrong to be happy that Osama is dead?

The Bible does indeed warn us of gloating over our enemies stumbling.  In fact, we are commanded to go the extra mile and bless our enemies and to turn the other cheek when attacked.  But what about verses like

Psa 58:10  The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
Psa 58:11  Mankind will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth."

Here we see that the natural result of seeing the wicked receive a just punishment is rejoicing.  Also, many times in Revelation we see that the saints are commanded to rejoice when God judges the wicked and sends them to their eternal home in Hell.

Rev 18:19  And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out, "Alas, alas, for the great city where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth! For in a single hour she has been laid waste.
Rev 18:20  Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!"

So what gives?  How do we reconcile these seemingly contradictory commands?  How should we react when someone like Osama is killed?

Rejoice when God rejoices

I think the key to understanding how we should react lies in our ability to affect the person in question.  For instance, if for some strange reason I found myself in the room with Osama the day before his execution, it would be wrong for me to rejoice or gloat because I knew what was about to happen.  The proper thing to do there would be to share the gospel and implore him to repent and put his faith in Christ.  (Some may balk at the idea of Osama in Heaven but in the eyes of God he is no worse a sinner than the rest of us.)  I have the opportunity to change his eternity and I have a responsibility before God to take it in all eagerness and seriousness.

However, if I am half a world away and it is positive that he has lived a life in direct opposition to the Word of God and has proved himself to be a hater of God and His Christ, when God cuts His life short and brings him before Himself for judgment, I can rejoice in that.  God has seen the life of the wicked and has chosen the perfect time and the perfect way for him to enter eternity and be judged by his Maker.  I trust my God and know that He works all things out for His glory and the joy of His people, to not rejoice when that happens is to set myself as a judge above God, to hint that He should have run His decision past me before He made it for my final approval.

Therefore, we rejoice in this news of Osama’s death.  America has rightly wielded the sword of its authority and brought a criminal to justice.  Not man’s justice (unfortunately) but to the Just Judge of all mankind.  So honk your horn, wave your flag, and join in the chants of USA! USA! but let us never forget that one day we too will be called before that same Judge and our only hope is to found hidden in Christ.

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In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, Paul instructs him to tell the women to dress modestly (1Tim 1:9-10) and to adorn themselves with good works rather than fancy jewelry or hairstyles.  (No doubt if Paul gave these instructions today, he would get his own slutwalk dedicated to him!)  Why would modesty be an important enough issue for Paul to stress in this letter?  Here are three reasons.

To protect women

The command for women to dress modestly is not to repress or hold back women, but to protect and honor them.  Women were not created by God to be merely creatures for men to lust over.  They were created for us to befriend, to learn from, to grow together with them in the knowledge and wisdom of Christ.  And when it comes time for us to pursue one romantically, we make that decision not on the basis of fading beauty but the unfading glory of a life filled with and saturated by the glory of Christ.  Modesty helps women be seen for who they really are, their character and good deeds instead of just their bra size.

To protect men

Anyone that says that scantily clad women do not incite a man to lust has clearly never been a man.  The fight to live a pure life before God is a fight that never ends this side of glory and for most men, the one thing that is the biggest struggle is the fight with lust.  Having women who dress modestly helps us to not see you as objects of lust in our mind but as the sister in Christ that you are supposed to be.  It helps free us from the bondage of a twisted imagination to be the men of God we need to be for women.  Men are called to draw near to God and lead others into His presence by the way we live our life, to constantly have to fight the urge to look down a woman’s cleavage that is on display short-circuits that process and causes us to either give in to lust or avoid being around women altogether.  God’s command for women to dress modestly helps men be the men He has called them to be.

To glorify God

The way we dress is a way we can show the world that our hope is not in our looks but in God.  Modesty allows women to attract the attention of people, not on the basis of beauty but by the attractiveness of a life lived for the glory of God.  This allows a women to then redirect people’s focus off of her and on to Christ where it belongs.

In a world where it seems that the woman that is valued the most is the one with the most statuesque body with the least amount of clothing, the modest women stands out like a diamond among coal.  A woman that is kind, generous, loving, and modest will be honored by God and esteemed by the people around her.

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Here’s where I kind of sympathize with him.  Bell tells tons of stories where people ask him difficult questions and if he gave the orthodox answer, it would sound…well…mean.  Like the woman whose brother died an avowed atheist, how much nicer would it be to say to her that her brother gets a second chance after death to enter Heaven?  Then you could affirm the love of God, give comfort to the grieving, and when you leave everyone likes you and talks about what a great pastor you are.  Having been in those situations, I have felt the temptation to remove Hell from my theology (at least for a moment) and just focus on the parts of God everyone likes.  It certainly makes things easier.

Unfortunately, it is also not what the Bible teaches about Hell or (more importantly) the character of God.  We cannot emphasize one characteristic of God (like His love) to the exclusion of His other characteristics (like His wrath at sin and sinners).  To do this is to remake God in our own image, transforming Him from the Righteous Judge of all the Earth to the Big Teddy Bear in the Sky that is ok with sin and makes no demands on us.  It also downplays just how bad our sin is, we are not basically good people that just need a little grace to get us to heaven but rebels and haters of God by nature.  We are fundamentally flawed and incapable of doing anything to please Him and if we die in that state, with our sins unforgiven and still in rebellion against our rightful King, our only destiny is the Hell we deserve.  To compromise on this truth is to make the church weak and ineffective, so focused on this life that we fail to prepare anyone for the next life.  Instead of the church being the only thing on the planet that can actually bring the good news of salvation to all people, the only organization that can tell people how to be right with their God, it becomes just another charity doing good works that will ultimately be meaningless.  We cannot compromise the gospel to win friends and influence the world, it is far better to preach the truth and be hated than to proclaim “Love Wins!” and fall under the judgment of God.

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Are we to exalt God…or Christ?

At its core, this type of thinking confuses natural and special revelation about the character and nature of God.  Natural revelation is found in the first half of Psalm 19.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.  Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. – Psalm 19:1-6

The psalmist is pointing to the heavens and stars as proclaiming the glory of God and I think we can safely include other types of beauty in this list.  I concede that art, music, sculpture, and a host of other pursuits are beautiful and the ability to experience and enjoy beauty is a gift from God but the Psalm doesn’t end there.

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. –Psalm 19:7-14

Now we have special revelation, or the Word of God that tells us exactly who God is and how we should respond to Him.  It simply isn’t enough to use art or beauty and expect people to be able to make the jump from “That’s beautiful” to “I should love God”.  The chasm between those two statements is simply too large for anyone to make.  Beauty alone is not enough, it must be coupled with the Word of God and instruction on how to have a relationship with the God that made that beauty possible.  If an organization fails on this point, it has no right to call itself Christian because it does not point anyone to Christ.  At best it could call itself Deistic because all it’s doing is pointing to a formless, definitionless God that makes no demands on His followers and offers no real grace.

If you are involved in this type of organization, I implore you to realize that if you are a Christian (or a Christ-follower or whatever hipster term you are using this week) you are not called to point people to “God” but to the very specific “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”.  Beauty and art alone will not cut it, it must be joined with instruction on what to do next.

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Click Here to view embedded video

I have to admit that I have a certain fascination with Ted Haggard.  Ever since his scandal broke (I had not heard of him before that) I have followed his story with a kind of macabre fascination with the hope that something positive will result from his shame.  And to be truthful, there have been some positive, God-glorifying things that have happened; most notably that his wife chose to stick with him through this and they are working to hold their marriage together in the midst of this (self-imposed) storm.  But when it comes to Ted himself, he seems to go out of his way to do the dumbest thing imaginable at every turn and this video is further evidence of his self-delusion that he is the victim and we should all act like nothing ever happened.  Before I speak about Ted directly, I want to use this video as a starting point to look at the Biblical concept of restoration.

Biblical Restoration can only happen within the church

In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus gives us instruction for how to deal with a brother (or sister) that has sinned.  The goal of this process is to restore our brother to right fellowship with the church (vs 17), therefore before someone can be Biblically restored they have to submit to the leadership of the church elders and agree with them that what they are doing is wrong and needs to be stopped.  If the elders that God has established over that church deem it necessary for certain disciplinary measures to take place (accountability groups, counseling, cessation of public ministry for a time) then the brother should willingly and happily follow their instruction, convinced that God has placed his elders over him for his good. (Heb 13:17)  In fact, if the one who sinned rejects the leadership of his elders and decides to do what he wants, even if the person has stopped the particular sin that started the process, he has not truly repented and should not be restored to full fellowship with the church.  In fact the church as a whole should assume that he is unsaved (Mt 18:17) and treat him as they would any other sinner by witnessing to him and commanding him to repent.  (And in Ted’s case they should most certainly not join his church or submit to him as Pastor)

Biblical Restoration and Worldly Restoration are completely different

On of Ted’s complaints is that he has seen Martha Stewart, David Letterman, Michael Vick and others restored to their former place so K-Mart, CBS, and the NFL are better at restoration than the church.  The difference between the church and these companies is that these churches couldn’t care less about the eternal souls of these people and only care about the bottom line.  If Ted’s church had only money as their main concern then you can be sure that Ted would have been right back in the pulpit after a short time away but to their credit they were more focused on the man than the money and asked him to undergo a long process of restoration.  Ted’s efforts to say that the church should be more like the world in this respect shines a light on what is the problem with Ted really is, a defective and world-like theology.  Instead of going to the Bible to see how restoration should actually be done, he is going to the world and taking their advice and modeling his theology after K-mart and the NFL.  Unfortunately for Ted, that is not how either the Church or Jesus Christ Himself restores his people. 

I will still watch the Ted Haggard story as it unfolds, hoping and praying that somehow he realizes his sin and goes back to the church elders that loved him enough to confront him on his sin and not gloss it over as the world does.  Unfortunately, the longer this goes the more distant the possibility of that happening becomes.

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Scripture Alone has authority

Sola Scriptura does not mean that the Bible is the only authority in the believers life, it means it has the highest authority in the areas it addresses.  For instance, when deciding how to best run the local church, the Bible should be the primary source of instruction because the Bible speaks on this subject.  If you wanted to learn the best way to cook a roast or perform surgery, the Bible would not be consulted because it does not speak to those areas.

Scripture Alone is true

Scripture is absolutely true in its original autographs.  Although it is made up of many different genres it is clear when something should be interpreted literally and when something should be interpreted poetically.  For instance the historical books like the Torah, Kings, and Chronicles are historical and should be interpreted as literally as possible.  (This includes a literal six-day creation)  The book of Psalms is primarily a book of poetry and should be interpreted as such, so when Psalm 18 describes God with smoke coming from His nostrils and riding a cherub we understand that the author is poetically describing the fierceness and swiftness of God.

Scripture Alone is infallible

Scripture can not fail to do all God intends for it to do.  It alone reveals God’s true nature and character to us and perfectly teaches us the Law and Gospel.  Scripture teaches that every man is under the wrath of God and will be judged by the perfect Law of God and be found wanting but God has made a way out from under the wrath of God, namely His Son, Jesus Christ.  Just has every person outside of Christ is doomed to Hell, every person in Christ will enjoy eternal life and communion with their Savior.

Scripture is clear

The message of the Bible is clear and can be easily understood by anyone.  If there is a section of Scripture that you do not immediately understand you can use the clearer portions of Scripture to interpret the unclear keeping in mind that Scripture can never contradict Scripture.

Scripture is sufficient

The Bible is everything we need for life and Godliness and no further revelation is needed.  While God does indeed led and guide His people by His Spirit, He no longer gives speaks verbally to us.  Further communication is not needed because the Bible includes all that we need.

Helpful verses.

2Ti 3:16  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
2Ti 3:17  that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

1Co 4:6  I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.  (We are not to exceed Scripture)

Luk 1:3  it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
Luk 1:4  that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.   (We have certainty of everything in Scripture)

Rev 22:18  I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book,
Rev 22:19  and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Nothing can added to or taken away from Scripture)

Despite her claims, androgyny was never God’s plan, the creation of Eve happened before the fall showing that this was God’s perfect will for His creation. God intended from the beginning to create both male and female but created Adam first to make a point about authority and headship.  Adam represents man and the man is to be the leader and final authority (under God) in the home.  He is to be the provider and protector and ensure the safety and well-being of his home just as Adam was responsible for the garden.  Eve came from Adam as a sign that neither man nor woman is complete without the other, that man and woman complement each other and bring each of their strengths and weaknesses to a relationship that will be strengthened over time.

God’s creation of Adam and Eve give us a clear picture of what marriage is supposed to be. One man and one woman, committed to each other and to God.  Despite the introduction of sin messing up the divine order, that is still God’s plan for each of today. No matter how much modern Bible scholars want desperately to undermine the Bible’s clear teachings about sexuality, they will always fail and the truth of the Word will endure.  God’s will for every man and woman is to be celibate until marriage and marriage can only be heterosexual.  The homosexuality that Paul condemned is the same homosexuality that exists today, that word has not changed its meaning over the intervening 2,000 years.

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