Veritas Aequitas

…it’s what I’m for.

I’ve decided that denominations are a good thing – mostly. When they directly describe a confessional or creedal standpoint, they’re great. However, when they become a point to divide Christians over, they’re bad. Very bad.

I’m a baptist because I believe that only true believers in Christ should be baptised. I’m reformed because I believe that the entire point of being a Christian is to become more like Christ – to be reformed to His perfect mold. And I’m independent because I think a better association for churches is for them to be autonomous units fighting Satan in this world; they can (and should, maybe even must) work towards that goal in a combined fashion, and should (perhaps must) build relationships and fellowship with other Christians in other churches in both their own and other areas of the world.

Any time I can join another Christian in doing good or promoting the gospel, I will try my best to do so. Where we do not disagree on fundamental issues of doctrine and belief, I will try to both learn from them and show them my views as backed-up by the Bible. When they are promoting a heresy, I will do my best to call them to the floor, and show them their error – and if they won’t listen to words of Christ and the rest of the Holy Bible, I will do my best to ignore them and stop fighting – I’ll let the Holy Spirit do His work in them, if He wills. But when our disagreements are on trivial, non-moral (or non-primary) issues, I will work with them to reach the lost, and to grow in my walk with Christ.

Drawing lines of battle over whether or not I’ll even speak to you because you’re a Presbyterian and I’m a Baptist, or you’re a Southern Baptist and not Reformed – that’s just idiotic. We’re in this fight together. Where we can’t reach agreement, I will attempt to pass peacefully by. But in those vast swaths where we do agree, that denominational title hanging over our heads just gets in the way of fellowshipping and accomplishing Christ’s work on earth.

It seems that everything I decide to write about here involves prayer. That’s a good thing, though. Since prayer is the means God has given us to communicate with Him, it’s profitable to consider it frequently.

My consideration today is on what God will do in extreme situations by dispatching His angels to our aid. The first example I want to cite is that of King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 19 where Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has come up to Israel. Hezekiah is desperate for God’s intervention and prays thusly: “O LORD the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O LORD our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O LORD, are God alone.” [15-19]

Hezekiah knew that Israel was the specially-chosen nation that God had set aside for Himself, and he also knew that Sennacherib was a ruthless, cruel, merciless conqueror. God knew this, too, and didn’t need to be reminded of this fact, but He had to hear it from Hezekiah to have public witness that Hezekiah knew who God was, and what role he was playing in His nation.

God’s verbal response has been saved for us, as He spoke through Isaiah: “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the LORD.” [32-33]

Now, if God had just stopped there, I am positive Hezekiah would have been thrilled to bits. But God had more to say: “For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” [34]

How exciting must this prospect have been for Hezekiah?! God told Hezekiah not only to not worry about the Assyrian army, but that He Himself would defend Zion, Jerusalem, His Holy City! Now there’s an answer to prayer we don’t typically expect: not only does God answer Hezekiah in the affirmative, He answers him with a specific promise to take all of the responsibility of the defense of the city upon Himself – He wasn’t going to use the means of Israel’s armies, as He often had in the past. No, God decided to handle this one Himself – no earthly means are necessary here.

God had already determined that Sennacherib’s reign was to end soon, and his reign of conquering terror was now over. The first part of God’s verbal response to Hezekiah is recorded in verses 21b-28, where God unlooses a harsh string of curses against Sennacherib, mocking him and his presumed continued conquests of weak nations.

God’s judgment of Sennacherib was both incredibly swift, and incredibly frightening. But from it we can derive comfort in God’s ways. Verse 35 explains in a very short sentence what God did to the Assyrian army: “And that night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians.” Wow: one angel, in one night, single-handedly wiped-out 185,000 of the toughest, meanest, strongest men ever to be assembled into an army. One hundred eighty-five thousand men following Sennacherib on his incredible string of successive victories. One hundred eighty-five thousand men reveling in their king’s cruelty when vanquishing the next nation in his path. One hundred eighty-five thousand men sent in a few hours to eternal judgment for their sins.

The second example I want to cite is in the book of Exodus, and the record of the final plague brought upon Egypt. God promises to eliminate every first-born in all the land of Egypt, except for the first-borns found in houses marked with the blood of the Passover lamb. Exodus 12:12-13;23 records this thusly: “For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt…For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.” For the Israelites, that night was going to be one of eager anticipation of their coming emancipation. For the Egyptians, it was to be a night of never-before-heard mourning, even howling to their gods for the calamity God was to bring upon them.

God brought a destroyer upon the entire population of Egypt, from animals to servants, citizens to the Pharaoh’s house itself. The Egyptians weren’t made privy to the means of salvation, and were punished. We are never told how large the nation of Egypt was, but we do know that they were about the same size as the Israelites living in their midst. When Israel was finally chased out of the land by the Egyptians, we are told there were about 600,000 men above the age of 20. If we presume that all of them were married, there were about 1,200,000 adults in the nation of Israel at the time of the Passover – plus children. Since the Egyptians numbered about the same, it is not out of line to think there were about 2,000,000 people in Egypt. Presuming 10% of them were first-born, that means that 200,000 people were killed in Egypt by God’s destroyer in one night – along with all the first-born livestock.

In one night two hundred thousand souls were ushered off into eternity by God’s destroyer – punished for not just their own sins, but also for Pharaoh’s refusal to let Israel leave his country. That’s a very busy night for any being – it’s hundreds of people per second that God had killed by His destroyer.

The amazing thing about all of this to me is that that self-same God is on the side of His chosen people today. I don’t know if He still answers prayer by sending angels directly to comfort His people, or to exact His judgment on evil doers, but I do know that He can. Imagine what would happen if God sent His angel, His destroyer to eliminate the terror camps of Islamists. I know that’s not what we typically think to pray for in the New Covenant in Christ’s blood, we think to pray for salvation for those people – that they would stop shedding blood, that they would come to know God’s free gift of grace in His Son Christ Jesus, and leave their evil ways behind them. But I think it’s time for Christians to start praying that if God won’t pour out His grace and mercy on those people, that He instead pour out judgment. I think it is unwise to pray just for the destruction of God’s enemies since we no longer live in a specially-separated, geographical nation for His glory like David did when penning some of the Psalms, but praying for peace doesn’t mean we pray for pacifism. Peacemaking is one of the lofty callings of the Christian. And sometimes peacemaking can only come after violence.

I pray that God would do a mighty act for His name in the earth – and whether that mighty act is a mass conversion and salvation of Islamist terrorists, or whether that act is a single night in which His destroying angel is sent out to rid the world of them, I pray that He will receive the glory for it.

There is coming a day in which every evil doer will be eternally punished, damned to Hell. That same day will prove to be the initial glory of God’s chosen people when we no longer have to deal with sin and temptation and evil and distress and fear. When Christ returns to purge the world of all its evil, those left who have not bowed their knee willingly to His authority will be on their faces in fear – knowing they are going to be burning for eternity in a fire that was designed to punish fallen angels. I can’t imagine the horror that will be, and I hope you bow before the Lord Jesus willingly as I have before it is too late.

His destroyer is prepared for the final coming in judgment of the world. I’m claiming Christ’s sacrifice to protect me just like the Israelites claimed the blood of their lambs spread on their door posts and lintels. And I’m looking forward to the day when I awake, as Hezekiah and the inhabitant of Jerusalem did, to see every enemy gone – dead and no longer a threat to me.

I wrote a short series a few months ago about the importance of prayer (1 2 3). Today I am building on that.

Just this weekend my church in Mebane hosted Pr Brian Borgman from Minden Nevada who spoke in all three of our services on “The Church Getting Her Hands Dirty”.

Something that jumped out at me from the evening message was Acts 20:24 “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Paul flat-out told the elders in Ephesus during his last hours with them on this earth before going on to other ministries that he selflessly proclaimed the gospel to them, and, by implication, they were to do the same.

Not all Christians are called to be elders but all are called to proclaim salvation through Jesus Christ. Matthew 28:18-19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The so-called ‘Great Commission’ was not merely given to the 11 disciples on the mountain with Jesus before he ascended into heaven. If it were, they failed miserably. But because they went out and shared the gospel with any who would listen, I’m here today able to claim Christ as my savior.

Interestingly, God seems to like to do things for His servants when they ask for others – Job 42:10a “And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends.” Too often, I suspect, we focus most or all of our energy expended in prayer on ourselves. This is especially true in affluent America, where I live. What time we do spend praying is generally spent asking God for stuff for ourselves. Of course it is right to want to talk to our Heavenly Father and make requests of Him, but Christians are just as prone to selfishness as the unsaved – perhaps more so.

Before we were saved, all of our energy was spent on ourselves. Unfortunately, after many of us have been saved, we continue to focus energy on ourselves. But now we ask for God’s help in getting what we want. We think of God as our personal Genie (“PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER!!!! Itty bitty living space!” [Aladdin]) merely around to do what we ask.

I hate to break it to you, but God’s not in the business of making our dreams come true. He’s in the business of making Himself known in the earth, and garnering men, women, and children to Him who will take the time to praise Him as He is due.

God does answer prayer. He answers every prayer we ever pray. Sometimes He answers “No”, sometimes “Yes”, and sometimes “Not yet – you’re not praying hard enough”. But focusing our prayers on ourselves will most likely not accomplish much in the grand scheme of things, and maybe not much – or even anything – in our own personal experience. But when we flip our focus off ourselves and onto others – in the church, our neighbor hood, at work, at school, relatives, the cashier at the corner drug store – those we have some form of interaction with regularly, or that we want to have interaction with, God tends to start doing some pretty cool things.

Want to grow closer to God and His word? Ask God for someone to witness to. More often than not in both personal experience and from observation, God will plop somebody in front of us shortly after asking. Maybe it’s the coffee shop girl who pops out with a “why don’t you ever come here on Sunday”, or maybe it’ll be a professor who makes a comment inviting a response from the Bible, or maybe it’ll be that panhandler near your favorite restaurant. It’s not up to us to make them listen or believe, but it is up to us to tell them about Jesus’ work on the cross.

It has been said that people do nothing if it will not benefit them in some way. I happen to agree. The benefit Christians should be looking for from their actions, however, shouldn’t primarily found in this life. Jesus told us that some of His servants would bear fruit 100 fold, some 60, and some 30.

But the only way any of us can bear any fruit is to try. Spreading Christ’s message doesn’t just come from speaking – it comes from our lifestyle, too. But in order to have the opportunity to speak we need to get out of ourselves just a little, and get selfish in a good way.

It’s easy to get comfortable in our church, and our clique in the church, and among our closest circle of friends. But those folks probably aren’t the ones that need to be witnessed to so much. They’ll be watching us to make sure we keep following what we claim to believe in our lives, but it’s the unchurched, the unsaved that need to be witnessed to.

Such witnessing can be done through physical acts of kindness like going on a medical mission trip to some third world country. Or going to storm-ravaged regions and helping clear debris and getting people back on their feet after disasters like hurricanes. Trips and efforts like that are great. But I would put money down that you don’t need to traverse more than a couple miles (unless you live in Podunk Wyoming, where you nearest neighbor is 65 miles away) to find people who could use help, real, physical help in your own community.

Where I grew up in upstate New York, there were (and are) scads of people who could use some real physical help. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t help very many people outside my comfort rings when I lived there, and that I have only done so in small ways since moving to North Carolina three years ago.

I’d wager that just in the apartment complex I live in there are folks who could use some kind of help, but I haven’t found them. A few months ago I schlepped a small end table inside for an elderly neighbor who has trouble with her wrists. It took less than 2 minutes of my time, and saved her several hours of waiting for her son to come by and get it out of her car for her. In the very brief conversation I had with her, I found out that goes to a Presbyterian church in the area, and never would’ve found that out (probably wouldn’t have met her, either) if I hadn’t noticed her struggling with the end table on my way to work that morning.

It doesn’t take much for people to notice that you’re willing to expend a little effort to help them. Helping my neighbor with her table didn’t cost me anything more than a couple minutes, but we’ve been promised that in as much as we help the least of Christ’s brethren, we’re helping Him. So moving her table was a selfish act – I wanted to get noticed by God.

Some people need more motivation than just being told that they should do something. Jesus gave us that motivation when He described the separation of the sheep and the goats on the last day. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” [Matthew 25:31-46]

We’ve been given the best possible motivation to be Good Selfish Christians: we will be rewarded in Christ’s kingdom when He returns. And we’ve been given the best possible motivation to not be lazy: eternal punishment for those who merely claim to be Christ’s followers, but do nothing about it – those who want to use God as a backup plan in case He really exists and not those who are trusting only in Him.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon is famous for being a Baptist preacher in the 19th century (1834-92). But more interesting than his career of regularly preaching to 10,000+ congregants is how he lived his life outside of ‘merely’ preaching the Bible.

Charles was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England on 19 June 1834 as both the son and the grandson of independent preachers. The first of 17 children (9 of whom died in infancy), Charles came from a large family, but was under the care of his grandfather for several years as a youth. Though trained in the Bible by his grandfather and father, Charles didn’t truly understand the gospel and find Christ until he was nearly 16 years old. He claimed, “that I never would have been saved if I could have helped it. As long as ever I could, I rebelled, and revolted, and struggled against God. When He would have me pray, I would not pray, and when He would have me listen to the sound of the ministry, I would not. And when I heard, and the tear rolled down my cheek, I wiped it away and defied Him to melt my soul. But long before I began with Christ, He began with me.” [bio ch 2]

His parents and grandparents – but especially his mother – prayed for him for many years while seeing him continuing to rebel against God and do the opposite of what was required by God for salvation. His self-beratement for knowing God’s law and will, and yet also knowing he didn’t measure up, and never would, took a toll on him as a teenager. The majority of the preaching and teaching he heard was accurate and faithful to the Bible, but young Charles never heard the pleas of God as recorded in the scriptures and proclaimed by the preacher to believe and repent of his sins for God had provided a just means for his salvation.

It was the 6th of January, in the middle of a snow storm when Charles meandered into Primitive Methodist Chapel. The preacher was not the ordinary one, and there where only a handful of souls who had come out for the service that morning. The text was “‘Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ Even though the preacher did not pronounce all his words correctly, there was a gleam of hope in them for the seeker in the side pew.” [bio ch 2] The preacher, having noted Charles’ visit, noted him specifically and told him what his problem was. He was miserable because he wasn’t looking to the right man: “Young man, look to Jesus Christ! Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live.” [bio ch 2]

From that moment, when Charles saw the way of salvation, the truth of Christ, and the life possible through Him, he was Christ’s.

His entire life-course had been altered: no longer was he a sin-tormented adolescent, but a new creature in Christ, pushing himself to carry that call to the lost. He began preaching ‘for real’ the week after his baptism as a Sunday school teacher, and continued to proclaim his savior until his death 41 years later. His early ministry encompassed the distribution of tracts, and engaging on a personal level those who would talk to him.

Charles, who became widely known for his magnificent illustrations, was nonetheless always in earnest about his topic. He served his Lord and Master daily, hourly, with everyone he met. His was not a privatized or compartmentalized faith – it was on public display for all to see. And the public did certainly see him. After being converted in 1850, Charles became a pastor just 2 years later, and just a year after preaching his first ‘official’ sermon. [wik]

At age 20, just 4 years after his conversion, he was called to pastor the New Park Street Chapel in Southwark. Outgrowing their building shortly after his arrival, they moved to Exeter Hall, and then to Surrey Hall wherein Charles would routinely preach to crowds of more than 10,000 people. This God-granted and -sparked growth happened within 2 years of his arrival in Southwark. The church moved in 1861 to the Metropolitan Tabernacle, where Charles did more than just preach. He wrote, taught aspiring pastors, and began an orphanage.

In his lifetime, Charles published 49 works, including commentaries, sayings, anecdotes, illustrations, and devotions. [wik] He married a young Christian woman in 1856, and had twin boys – both of whom were converted to Christianity under his ministry. Among his most famous published works are Morning and Evening – a devotional, and The Treasury of David – a treatment of the Psalms. In the 1860’s he was known to preach a great deal: “it was no uncommon thing for the young preacher, in the exuberance of his early days, to preach ten to twelve times a week. He was in demand in all parts of London and the home counties.” [bio ch 3]

He preached all through Great Britain, and visited Ireland and France several times. On each of his trips, whether officially in a church service setting, or just on an interpersonal basis, Charles exuded the gospel message he so dearly loved. His service to Christ’s kingdom extended wherever he was, and perhaps no more famous preacher has lived.

While he was by conviction a Calvinistic Baptist, he was not strictly bound to a denomination, and would preach in any church that would have him – including St Peter’s Cathedral. From chapter 3 of his biography:

Preaching in Leeds for the Baptist Union in a Methodist Chapel on a memorable occasion, he read the tenth chapter of Romans. Pausing at the thirteenth verse, he remarked, “Dear me! How wonderfully like John Wesley the apostle talked! ‘Whosoever shall call.’ Whosoever. Why, that is a Methodist word, is it not?”

“Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!” came the responses.

“Yes, dear brothers,” the preacher added, “but read the ninth chapter of the epistle, and see how wonderfully like John Calvin he talked – “That the purpose of God according to election might stand.’” Smiles on the faces of those that had before been silent were the only response to this utterance. “The fact is,” continued the preacher, “that the whole of truth is neither here nor there, neither in this system nor in that, neither with this man nor that. Be it ours to know what is scriptural in all systems and to receive it.”

He tried to proclaim the full counsel of God, and whether or not that ‘fit’ with a given denomination’s creeds was not his problem – if it were in the Bible, he proclaimed it. This caused some consternation to his hearers who didn’t necessarily fully agree with certain aspects of Christian doctrine, but Charles’ view was that if God said it, and it was recorded for us in His Word, that it should be taught and expounded.

He held that faith in Christ’s atoning work on the cross to reconcile us to God was a fiercely personal faith. Simultaneously, he understood that such a personal conviction and faith can not be lived-out merely by one’s self – it must be lived in public. Christ did not call us to separate ourselves from the world by removing to some monastery. He called us to be separate in heart and affection, but to live in the world and try to bring those we come into contact with to faith in Him.

Eph 4:11-12 “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ”. Charles was an exemplar for the ministry. Perhaps no other preacher in the history of the church had the impact he did on both his and future generations. To this day, pastors of many denominations look to Spurgeon as a model for preaching, passion, and patience. Charles was not afraid to preach bluntly to his congregation – to make them sit up and pay attention to their plight as unbelievers, or their reward as believers. His impassioned pleas for repentance are famous. And his eagerness to share his faith over and over and over again with the lost is astounding.

His self-effacing claim was that “he had no wish to speak to ten thousand people; his only ambition was to do the will of God.” [bio ch 3] I think it is fortunate for the rest of us that God’s will seems to have been for him to preach to thousands, and write to millions. Charles’ life has been studied, reviewed, and used as an encouragement to churches, Christians, and the lost around the world for over a century.

He proclaimed what, at the time, were unpopular political views, especially with regards to slavery, war, and the opium trade. But for each he would start with the Bible, study out the issue, and exegete the verses therein. He didn’t attempt any runs for political office, start any protests, or encourage marches. He just tried to follow God’s word where ever it led.

Charles’ calling was to teach others, to share the gospel, to prepare men and women for service in the kingdom of God. How he found time to lecture for hours several days a week, run an orphanage, raise two children, keep a wife, and pastor a church I don’t know. But God gave him the ability, for which the world has benefited much since.

George Whitefield once said, “We are immortal till our work is done.” Charles Spurgeon’s immediate work ended in 1892, and “like John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Jeremy Taylor, George Whitefield and William Tyndale, Spurgeon was fifty-seven when he died, but he was not young, for he began early and he had laboured long, and departed full of days and of grace.” [bio ch 19] He has lived-on in his published works, and the memories of those who heard him.

I think if more Christians took their faith and Savior seriously, myriad more ‘Charles Haddon Spurgeons’ would appear. He didn’t set out to become famous. His goal wasn’t world renown. He was merely looking to share his faith and love of Christ with others.

It is staggering to think of what he accomplished in such a short time. It is humbling to realize I am already almost 10 years older than he was when he was converted and began preaching. But more amazing is that God has used a man from a pretty small town, in a small country, during a time of formalism and disinterest in God, Christ, and church to bring so many to Himself. I pray that I will be used for the furtherance of Christ’s kingdom here on earth in some measure. All Christians may not be Spurgeon, but we can all share our faith with those we meet like he did.

Works Cited:

[wik] | [spu] | [bio] | [ccs] | [enc]

Prayer is lots of things to the Christian. It’s our communication line to God. It’s our way of providing support to other Christians. It’s also what some have called the ‘weapon of last resort’.

Christ has called us to pray for our enemies. He rebuked His disciples for wanting to call down fire on folks who weren’t ‘with them’ but were still proclaiming Jesus as Messiah. We have the example of Paul and Silas in jail where God caused an earthquake to open their bonds while they were singing and praying to Him.

Shifting to the Old Testament, we have the record of Elijah’s confrontation with the prophets of Baal with his ardent prayer to God to display Himself as the true God of Israel rather than Baal. Elijah’s prayer that it would not rain in Israel for a long time, and then his prayers that it would rain again showcased God’s judgement and blessing to the evil king of Israel Ahab.

As New Testament believers in Christ, we have been promised the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We have also been promised that whatever we pray for in Christ’s name, and for His glory, will be accomplished. Elisha prayed for his servant to see those who were ready to defend him against the Syrians. When he had done this, God opened his servant’s eyes to see the mountains covered in horses and chariots of fire.

When is the last time you prayed for your eyes to be opened to the spiritual realities around you? I know it’s been too long for me. God has placed us in the world to accomplish evangelism. I think we spend too much time coming up with reasons to not do anything for God that we lose sight of the possibilities set in front of us. What might God do if we all started praying for God to open our eyes to opportunities to witness, do good, and repel the attacks of our ‘Syrians’?

To quote Paul, we are to be “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints” [Eph 6:18]. As Christians in the world, we are engaged in a constant battle against evil. We are fighting daily to hold territory claimed for Christ, and to push a little further into Satan’s strongholds.

As the capstone to his analogy between the “whole armor of God” and the physical donning of “real” armor, Paul orders us to “pray at all times..for all the saints”. Any army needs logistics personnel, and God’s army is no different. To quote Andrew Fuller encouraging William Carey, “It is clear that there is a rich mine of gold in India; if you will go down I will hold the ropes.” Fuller knew he couldn’t go with Carey to the front lines to harvest souls for Christ with Carey, but he could stay behind and support him. Fuller helped organize prayer services, raised funds, and shared news of Carey’s work with congregations in England. Carey may have been fighting at Satan’s doorstep, but Fuller was right behind him, calling on God to protect and favor him.

Returning to the primary example from the Bible, Acts 12 records for us Peter’s imprisonment, and the church’s prayers for him. Peter was in the prominent front of leading the church in Jerusalem, and Herod had imprisoned him expressly to kill him to please the Jews. While we admire Peter’s quiet sleep the night before his scheduled execution – his confidence in God to protect him, or take him home – we can’t ignore what the earnest prayers of the church accomplished: “And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.’ And the chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, ‘Dress yourself and put on your sandals.’ And he did so. And he said to him, ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.’” [Acts 12:7-8]

There is no way the church could have expected Peter to be free in such a tremendous way. I imagine they were probably praying for Herod to have a change of mind, or even for Herod’s death. Maybe they were praying for Peter to know God’s peace even to the moment of his beheading the next morning. I am convinced, though, they didn’t pray, “God, send an angel, have him slap Peter to wake him up, and then lead him out without the guards knowing”. But God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we want Him to.

Peter was certainly happy to be out of the prison, and Carey was happy Fuller was organizing prayer for his efforts. Are we contributing to the war in a similar way? Not all of us are called to be missionaries, or even pastors. But we can all pray: in the car on the way to work, before a meal, during a break between classes – we can pray anywhere, at any time. God is always ready to hear us, and is eager to encourage our faith with His amazing response.

God is in the business of saving sinners; I know because He saved me. It’s often a struggle to remember to pray for others, but it’s such a simple thing we can all do to supply those on the front lines of the battle with God’s grace, peace, and strength.

“The fervent prayer of a righteous an accomplishes much.” [Jam 5:16b]

Have you tried to accomplish anything with prayer?

I know what many who read this will think: duh! We’re told repeatedly in the Bible to pray to God. The model prayer given to us by Jesus begins with “Our Father Who art in heaven”. Jesus prayed to His Father a lot, and as “little christs”, we should be mimicking that example.

The real question for many Christians, though, is why don’t we take advantage of this tool more often? Why do we neglect opportunities to talk to God?

Initial responses might be, “I’m busy”, “it’s too petty to worry about”, or the famous “I forgot”. While these are typical, they are all wrong. Going back to Jesus’ example, He would often spend entire nights in prayer – talking directly with the Father. I find it hard to believe we can’t find even 5 minutes where we can spend time talking to God.

In the Bible we are also given the example of Nehemiah, cup-bearer to the king, who uttered a prayer to God while talking to the king to make a request [Neh 2:4].

There really is no excuse to not talk to God. In any relationship, communication is really the vital link between the parties. Whether it’s a marriage, a business, a family, or the Christian’s walk with God, all the parties of the relationship have to talk. God talks to us through His word, and we talk to Him via prayer.

From personal experience, I can say that the worst times in my walk have been when I wasn’t listening to God, or talking to Him. And the opposite has been true, too. When I’ve spent more time reading God’s word and listening to it, and then talking to Him, I’ve grown.

Atheism is a belief that there is no god. Contrasted with agnosticism, the belief that we can’t know whether or not there is a god, atheism is predicated upon a basic belief held by others that there is a god. Interestingly, though, many atheists take great pains to attempt to prove their beliefs.

Some say that belief in a god is not useful to life. Others claim it is dangerous to an individual’s psyche. Most, though, claim to not care what anyone else believes, so long as they can go about their business believing in nothing. If neither believing nor disbelieving in god really matters, why would an atheist care to defend his position?

Atheists defend their position, because they know that they have to be right to have any security in their beliefs. Realistically, if there is no god, it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe in one. If an atheist were true to his/her claims, they wouldn’t care about defending themselves. We’re all going to some great oblivion when we die, and we won’t know about it, since we’re really just animals that can think.

The problem faced by any defensive atheist is that they have nagging at the backs of their minds that they might be wrong. What if that Muslim is right? the Jew? the Christian? The only reason to defend a belief there is no god of any kind is to give confidence to the defender. The atheist has to be correct in his beliefs. A Jew doesn’t have to be right in her belief – if it turns out there is no god, she’ll never know. The same is true of the Muslim or Christian.

The atheist, on the other hand, will be sorely disappointed if it turns out there is a god. After a lifetime of espousing nothingness, if there is an eternal realm after death, the atheist will end up spending it in some form of separation from the god he claimed didn’t exist.

For the sake of the atheists, I could hope there is no god. I could hope that my belief and reliance upon the omnipotent God of the Bible is wrong – that I’m just wasting my life going to church, participating in the sacraments, and spreading my faith to others. But I can’t do that. I believe the God of the Bible is real. I believe in eternal, happy, fulfilled fellowship with the triune God for those who have trusted in His proffered method of salvation, those who have trusted in the atoning work of Christ on the cross. I believe in an eternal separation from God’s favor for those who have scoffed at Him, where they will suffer forever.

I believe any who claim there is no God will be in that place of suffering for eternity. I don’t want to see them go there, and will continue to tell them about the God I serve as long as I’m capable in this life.

Just consider whether or not I might be right.

It is essential for anyone claiming to be a Christian to believe in a literal 6-day creation timeline. Upon that basis rests the entirety of God’s revealed word in the Bible. My employer has recently added a page defending evolution on its website, and I am very disappointed in that move. Evolution cannot speak to origins of life. Since no one was around to record how the earth was created, the only valid understanding of origins is provided in God’s account, as recorded by Moses in Genesis chapters 1 & 2.

The cornerstone of evolutionary theory is that there is no God, or that if He exists, He merely started everything off, perhaps giving some divine guidance along the way, but that natural processes have accounted for the formation, and deformation of life as we know it. Evolution is more than just a way of explaining natural processes. It claims that life can arise from non-life, that mutations can be beneficial and be passed to offspring in such a way as to promote the development of new and better versions of themselves, and that this process has been in place for billions of years. Evolution claims that we are all the product of dumb luck (evolutionists would word it ‘chance’, but it’s the same).

Besides the incredible mathematical improbabilities of every mutation as we see it now having begun with chance interactions of chemicals in some primordial ooze spawning the first form of ‘life’, evolution and its proponents have other bizarre realities to contend with. A prime example is the supposed age of the universe. Based on current estimated rates of expansion, these scientists can claim to calculate the initial time of the universe’s ‘big bang’ at approximately 10-12 billion years ago. Since there are stars 10 billion light-years away, they say, and light travels at a more-or-less constant speed, the light we are seeing now from those stars was first started that many years ago (minus a slight adjustment for the fact that the universe is apparently expanding).

However, if the light we are seeing from these incredibly distant stars is in fact that old, why are we seeing stars near the end of their life spans? Light arriving from those distant objects should show the state of stars near the beginning of their existence, not the end. Yet, the light we are now observing coming from these distant stars, constellations, and galaxies is ‘old’. We should be seeing the early stages of galactic formation, and should be observing more and more stars in an on-going fashion.

Contrasting that position, Christians understand that God created the world in 6 days, resting on the 7th, and the deterioration of the universe is the fault of a single man’s transgression. Evolutionists, and even some claimed Christian theologians, claim that the universe is billions of years old, and that God could not have possibly made the earth, and everything it contains in 6 literal days. The earth, they say, looks too old. But there is a problem with their thinking: no one knows what a ‘young’ earth looks like. We’ve never observed a planet being formed. By merely flipping the time-table around, and saying that things have proceeded in the past as we observe them now, scientists can claim to know how old the earth and universe are.

The laws of thermodynamics, among which state that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but can only merely be translated into a different form, argue against evolution also. If it is true that matter and energy can not be created or destroyed, then the universe must not have originated in the ‘big bang’, but that it must be eternal. Since everything is in a state of constant decay (observe any chemical or physical process, and how there is loss due to friction, noise, heat, etc), thermodynamics, which scientists claim to believe, bluntly shows that things are not getting better, they’re getting worse.

Scientists who believe in evolution as the source of life merely transpose their faith from an infinite, eternal God who made them in His image, as the crowning element of creation, for whom the universe exists, into a faith in the eternality and infiniteness of space, matter, and time.

My journal entry’s title is important. Without a literal 6-day creation period, Christianity (and Judaism, too) falls apart. When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, He flatly announced the reason for keeping the Sabbath Day holy: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” [Ex 20:11]. If the days listed in the creation account in Genesis are not literal days, then the reason given in the fourth commandment for observing the Sabbath is groundless. Previously, in Exodus 16:26, God tells Moses that the people may only gather the manna He miraculously provided for them on the mornings of the 6 days of the week, and could not gather any on the seventh day, since it was the Sabbath, and God was not going to provide food that day. The day previous to it He would provide twice what the people needed, so they would have enough for the next day, but the Sabbath was to be a day of rest. The entire Mosaic Covenant falls apart if the creation week is not literal.

Jesus Himself declared that He was ‘Lord of the Sabbath’, since He was the Son of God. Declaring Himself to be ‘Lord of the Sabbath’ would have been irrational if the creation days are merely figurative and do not reflect accurately the amount of time God spent to create the universe.

God really did make the earth, universe, plants, animals, and mankind in their full forms in 6 days. The ‘evenings’ and ‘mornings’ recorded were not figurative, they were real. Just like days we have now. It has been said that the word ‘day’ or ‘days’ can be taken to mean several different things, such as a 24-hour period, the daylight hours, a period of time (‘in those days’), or a reminiscing (‘back in my day’). However, every time a numerical qualifier is used with the word ‘day’, it indicates a real, honest-to-God day. The repeated use of the phrase, “and there was evening, and there was morning the 1st day” (and 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th) can only lead you to understand that each day is a ‘real’ day.

Another issue that evolutionists have to deal with is the matter of reproduction and maturity. According to the Biblical account, each creature was made and then told to “reproduce after their kind”. When God specially made man on day 6 of the creation week, he told him to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” God would not have told an infant to “be fruitful and multiply”. He would not have brought “every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens to the man to see what he would call them” if the ‘man’ was an infant and not a ‘man’. Nor would it make any sense to have made a “helper fit for him”: “So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” Infants don’t need spouses, they need parents! The evolutionist’s solution to this conundrum is that, since life started with single-cell organisms, as those organisms got larger and more complicated, they gradually adapted ways of raising their young. Unfortunately for them, though, many (if not all) single-cell creatures do not reproduce sexually, they just get to a point where they’re too big to continue as one cell, and divide into multiple cells, who then each go their own way. There really is no logical reason for single-celled critters like amoebae to ever evolve into a form that needs to reproduce sexually: their reproductive manner works fine, why change? With the inerrant light of God’s holy word, though, it is obvious that God intended for there to be multiple ways of reproducing, myriad different types (that had the ability to speciate over time), and that mankind did not come from ‘lower’ life forms.

The wholesale rejection of God and His word by modern science is disheartening. Paul, in writing to the Roman believers says in Rom 1:18-23, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” (emphasis added). God’s astonishing creative diversity is witnessed billions of times a day all over the world. Yet, even with His incredible daily displays of variety, order, uniqueness, and beauty, scientists propound that God did not create the world, that we’re all a giant cosmic experiment, an accident, just one of an infinite number of possibilities that could have been.

Truly, those who espouse belief in evolution have professed themselves to be wise, and yet are fools. God’s word is clear about what will happen to them: “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” [Rom 1:24-25] & “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” [Rom 1:26-32].

Man’s refusal to acknowledge God has led to every form of evil in the world today. Our refusal to believe God’s revealed self has devolved our race into murdering, thieving, lying, coveting, idol-worshipping, adulterous people. God has revealed so much of Himself in creation that no man has an excuse to not believe in Him. But, to shut up their consciences, to make themselves feel good about not believing in God, men have come up with ‘alternate’ theories of how things came to be. Their proclaiming of evolution is an act to appease their minds and consciences. By making other people believe their lie, they feel better about it themselves.

If we really are no better than the animals, laws have no purpose. If we really are just a ‘higher’ life form, societal structure doesn’t matter: there is no right and wrong; there is no crime; it’s an “every man for himself” environment.

But not even the evolutionists really believe that. They may profess to believe the current philosophy du jour, that morals are all relative, and your truth is good for you, and my truth is good for me, but they don’t hold to their professed ideals. Everyone demands justice for acts committed against themselves. They may demand it in different ways, but they all want retribution, vengeance, vindication, justice.

Fortunately, God has provided a way of escape from this enslaving mindset: He sent His Son to die on a cross to pay for our sins and transgressions against Himself. Hebrews 9:22b, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Jesus came and lived a perfect life, proclaimed a perfect kingdom, died a perfect death, offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice, and rose from death never again to die, but having conquered death, has proffered us, fallen humanity, to have the reward of His perfection by giving us eternal, perfect life in fellowship with God.

I pray for those who hold firm to their evolutionary beliefs. I pray that God will open their eyes to see their error, and to believe Him and His perfect word. I don’t want to see these people suffering eternal judgement for their erroneous beliefs and their spreading of such a heinous lie. I want to see them saved, to join the throng worshipping God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all eternity with me.