Knowing About God is Not Enough!

The following from a John MacArthur sermon was a sobering reminder of the insufficiency and folly of those who seek to accrue more and more "knowledge" about God alone, without "mixing it with faith" (cf. Heb. 4:2, KJV):

A famous actor was once the guest of honor at a social gathering where he received many requests to recite favorite excerpts from various literary works. An old preacher who happened to be there asked the actor to recite the Twenty-Third Psalm. The actor agreed on the condition that the preacher would also recite it. The actor's recitation was beautifully intoned with great dramatic emphasis, for which he received lengthy applause. The preacher's voice was rough and broken from many years of preaching, and his diction was anything but polished. But when he finished there was not a dry eye in the room.  When someone asked the actor what made the difference, he replied, "I know the psalm, but he knows the Shepherd." Salvation does not come from knowing about the truth of Jesus Christ but from intimately knowing Christ Himself.

As Leonard Ravenhill used to say, there is a great difference between knowing the Word of God, and knowing the God of the Word.

Indeed, there is a pervasively deceptive danger of faithless, lifeless knowledge that has crept not merely into many of our churches, but many of our pulpits.

May God rescue us from the deceptive lie that a mere & shallow head knowledge of the gospel is to be equated with a robust and living faith in our living Savior.

In Christ, God's Word incarnate,
Pastor Ryan

Life is More than Lip- Service

In a tiny little gem entitled, "A Guide to Christian Living", the eminent pastor-theologian John Calvin wrote the following which cut me to the quick.

In the first chapter, under the 4th subheading entitled "Life is More than Lip Service" he writes:

Something should be said at this point to those who, having only the name of Christ, wish nevertheless to be known as Christians. How bold they are to glory in His holy name, seeing that none enjoy His friendship save those who rightly know Him through the gospel...Clearly, when such people claim to know Christ, their claim is false. In the process they do Him much wrong, however persuasively they prattle on about Him.

The gospel is teaching intended not for the tongue, but for life. Unlike other disciplines it involves more than just the mind and memory: it must take full possession of the soul and must have its seat and home deep in the heart. Otherwise it is not really taken in. So let these people cease to shame God by boasting of what they are not, or let them prove themselves to be disciples of Christ.

In the matter of religion, we have so far given priority to what is taught, since that is the beginning of our salvation. But to bear fruit and to be profitable, what is taught must lodge in the heart and demonstrate its power in our lives. More than that, it must transform us so that its nature becomes ours.

I confess that often I am content to let the truth dwell in my mind and intellect, but never really worry about its transforming voyage into my heart and soul. Why? Because it's easier to look holy by quoting (or blogging or tweeting or Facebooking) a lot of other noble theologians or philosophers, or (gasp!), even the holy Scriptures themselves than actually living them out.  And the scary thing is this: we seemingly get away with it, and begin to harden our hearts further, resulting in a life that is utterly and completely hypocritical. Or as Jude warns, "clouds without rain." Scary stuff. This is perhaps one of the worst forms of God's judgment (i.e. giving us over to sin, even if outwardly everything looks "sinless").

Oh how I praise God for the gift of His Spirit's conviction! I praise Him that in His mercy, He has not let me go too far in my proud downward spiral. 

What is the life my Savior wants us to exhibit? The life of faith. Like Abraham, who simply took God at His Word and lived in light of it.  He didn't merely talk about God's promise in ivory towers when visiting theologians stopped by to talk shop.  No, he walked by faith. Or, as James puts it, Abraham showed he was right in the eyes of God because his works backed up his profession.

This is the life I want to live for my Savior.  I want to live like a little child, simply taking God at His Word and then obeying it immediately.  Paul was right: in those who are prone to pride (i.e. me), "knowledge puffeth up." Lately I have been so puffed up, and yet so empty inside.

Please deflate, or if necessary burst, my intellectual bubble, O God, if it draws attention to my intellect instead of Your glorious gospel, wherein Jesus, the Son of God, died a humiliating death at the hands of sinful men and bore the divine wrath my sin had heaped upon Him.

Thank You, glorious God, for giving us the gift of men like John Calvin, who point us back to Your Word afresh.  Forgive us for making men like him our boast, rather than the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Christ alone, through whom we have adoption as sons,
Pastor Ryan

The New Liberalism in Christianity (Man-Centered "Evangelism")

In an article entitled, "Is the Megachurch the new Liberalism", Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Seminary, writes:

Theological liberalism did not set out to destroy Christianity, but to save it from itself. Is the same temptation now evident? The Great Commission, we must remind ourselves, is not a command merely to reach people, but to make disciples. And disciples are only made when the church teaches all that Christ has commanded, as the Great Commission makes clear.

In a nutshell, Mohler states that the church's infatuation with numbers is a great threat to orthodoxy.  The primary example he gives is from a recent sermon delivered by Andy Stanley, Pastor of Northwood Community Church in Atlanta, which is the 3rd biggest church in America, wherein he implicitly stamped his - and by implication his church's - hearty approval of same-sex marriages, including them in his definition of "the modern family."

Being a pastor myself, I feel the pressure that "evangelicalism" places on churches to be "successful."  Of course, being completely ignorant of any time in history but our own, we as North Americans assume that successful has always been defined in terms of numbers and public approval.

I think this is the dangerous mentality that has permeated most (note: not all) megachurches.  When their god becomes numbers and not faithfulness to God's Word, this is inevitable.  However, as Mohler notes, this is not peculiar to megachurches.  Many small churches, that haven't reached that status, are trying to.  And how do we fill our pews, er, cool movie theater seats? By cheapening the gospel.  Whether or not they are "in" the Kingdom of God is besides the point.  They are in our church, and therefore we must be doing something right.

Let's face it. Jesus didn't suffer for preaching a soft-sell gospel.  He died because He preached a message that confronted sin, and only offered forgiveness to those willing to part with their sin.  As Leonard Ravenhill once said, if all Jesus preached was our American gospel, He would still be alive today.

Like adultery, stealing, gossip, blasphemy, lust, and covetousness, homosexuality is a sin.  If this message keeps homosexuals from attending our church, we must be faithful to the Scriptures, and trust that the Holy Spirit will bring them to repentance through regeneration.  If our message keeps people who are living in adultery from attending our church, we must preach the gospel & likewise trust that God will bring true conviction and repentance.  (By the way, I truly believe that the church has compromised on what the Bible teaches on divorce & remarriage for this reason alone, namely, that our churches are filled with people who treat marriage with such indifferent contempt. God forbid they go across the street to another church! So we let all kinds of people divorce for unbiblical reasons, so they and their families can stay in our church....and keep tithing, of course).

If we "tweek" the gospel, we take away the only tool the Spirit has to bring about the new birth.  It's that simple.  We can fill our churches with people who pray prayers that are not found in the Bible, but we may be inadvertently filling Hell with people who have been given a false bill of sale.

Satan is no fool.  The word "liberalism" is scary, and most 'evangelical' pastors would denounce those who have denied the authority & sufficiency of Scripture in the past.  So Satan gives us something noble, namely "soul-winning via a goat's gospel" to destroy the witness of the church, filling it with unregenerate 'members' who have never truly known what "Jesus is Lord" really means.  Such professors show up to church on Sunday, sing some songs, laugh at some jokes, give some money, are entertained for 25 minutes, then leave so they can return to 'reality'. One little addition to the gospel can completely change it, just as one molecule can radically change the outcome of a chemical reaction.  Since we pander after unbelievers who love their sin, we preach a feel-good gospel that tells them Jesus is OK with our sinfulness.  After all, He came to save sinners, right?  However, Jesus came to save His people "from" their sin (Matt. 1:21), not "for" their sin. One letter makes all the difference!

I close with a quote from Mohler, who is implying that many of the 'pastors' filling pulpits today are the successors of well-known liberals from the past.  This is scary stuff.

The current cultural context creates barriers to the Gospel even as it offers temptations. One of those temptations is to use to use the argument that our message has to change in order to reach people. This was the impetus of theological liberalism’s origin. Liberals such as Harry Emerson Fosdick claimed that the Christian message would have to change or the church would lose all intellectual credibility in the modern world. Fosdick ended up denying the Gospel and transforming the message of the Cross into psychology. Norman Vincent Peale came along and made this transformation even more appealing to a mass audience. Fosdick and Peale have no shortage of modern heirs.

 Gulp.  I would challenge you to check out the 10 Biggest Churches in America. Listen to their "messages" and tell me if the words "sin" or "repentance" are used in their "gospel" appeals.  God have mercy on us!

How different from Paul's final letter, written to Timothy.  We just finished working through it in our family devotions. It's filled with suffering for the gospel.  Sometimes I wonder how we in North America have missed one of the main themes in the New Testament: suffering for preaching & living the (true) gospel. In 2 Tim. 4, Paul reminds Timothy of what needs to be done "in these last days" which are characterized by religious wickedness (ch. 3):

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, Who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."

 May God give us His Spirit in full measure to suffer for the gospel (2 Tim. 1:6-8).

Recommended books:

James Gresham Machen, "Christianity & Liberalism"

Michael Horton, "Christless Christianity"

Dever on Monologue Preaching

The following is taken from Mark Dever's latest book entitled, Preach.  It is extremely pertinent to a 'christian' generation that has by and large forgotten that it is through "the foolishness of preaching" that people are saved (1 Cor. 1:21, NET). Not entertainment. Not slick presentations. Not emotional appeal. Not hip youth pastors or tight worship teams. The first two chapters of Paul's letter to the immature Corinthian church are a rebuke to our insipid, post-modern, latte drinking, entertainment seeking

The empty pulpit in many of our church buildings well displays the spiritual reality. We run around seeking life for our churches and life for ourselves through a million different methods, and the one means God has given for bringing people into a relationship with Himself stands neglected and disdained. In the act of preaching—a congregation hearing the voice of one man who stands behind the Scriptures—God has given us an important symbol of the fact that we come into relationship with Him by His Word. Just as surely as Abram was called to God by the word of promise addressing him, so we as Christians are made God’s people by believing God and trusting His promises. In a word, we come into relationship with God through faith, and “faith comes,” Paul tells us in Romans 10, “from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

There is only one God, and He is a relational and communicating, personal being who speaks to us and initiates relationship with us. Those powerful, life-giving truths are not only proclaimed but also powerfully symbolized by the preaching of God’s Word. He speaks, and therefore we preach.

As Mark Dever says in an endorsement of Al Mohler's book, He is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World, "Where are the Spurgeons of this generation?"

May our Lord Jesus, in His great love for His church, send this generation many such monologue preachers who speak as God's mouthpieces to a dying, Hell-bound world.

In Christ, and for His glory to the ends of the earth,
Pastor Ryan

The Resurrection Changes Everything

I'm currently reading a book entitled, "Raised With Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything" by Adrian Warnock. His preface is just too good to not share with others.

For Christians all over the world, every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. We meet each week, among other things, in order to celebrate the glorious, wondrous fact that Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus' resurrection really did change everything. It changed the cross from a tragedy into a triumph...This was the most powerful divine event in the history of creation, and it ushered in a new age of the Holy Spirit's activity and power in saving and transforming lives.

When considering if Christianity is true, it all boils down to the whether Jesus rose from the dead. The lives of Christians today demonstrate that the resurrection is still changing people. It changes fear into love, despair into joy. The resurrection changes people from being spiritually dead to being alive to God. It changes guilty condemnation into a celebration of forgiveness and freedom. It changes anxiety into a hope that goes beyond the grave. It can change our sinful hearts so they want to follow the Lord Jesus, and the power of the resurrection is relentlessly killing the sin in every true Christian. Because we neglect to emphasize this truth, many Christians have a meager expectation of the extent to which we can today experience resurrection life and victory over sin. The resurrection is far from being something we only benefit from in the future!

As John MacArthur says,

The resurrection is the ground of our assurance, it is the basis for all our future hopes, and it is the source of power in our daily lives here and now. It gives us courage in the midst of persecution, comfort in the midst of trials, and hope in the midst of the world's darkness.

Warnock continues,

Christians have therefore already been changed by Jesus' resurrection. Jesus really is alive today. Because of this Christians are also alive in a whole new way. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is living in every true Christian. God wants us not just to believe in Jesus' resurrection but to be transformed by it and to receive the power we need to live the way we know we ought. For all of us, the questions, did Jesus rise from the dead? and what are the implications of His resurrection? are the most important ones we will ever answer.

 If Warnock is right, we would do well to understand more deeply, and reflect more seriously, and apply more realistically the glorious truth and subsequent implications of the immeasurable greatness of God's power at work in us (Eph. 1:19ff.).

Is Jesus Yahweh?

One of the younger ladies in our church asked for some resources to help her dialogue with a friend of hers who left the church and has since become a jehovah's witness (I have intentionally not capitalized their title out of reverence for the true & living Yahweh).

I sent her some good stuff from the ESV Study Bible, which I thought was excellent.

Then I went to Robert Reyburn's Systematic Theology and basically sent her his section on how the NT writers ascribe the divine Name of Yahweh used in the OT to Jesus in the NT.

Here, with a couple of additions, is what I sent her.  I hope it will help us as we contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.  Jesus is God.  Let us remain confident and unashamed of what the Scriptures make so abundantly and gloriously clear.

1. Moses' description of Yahweh as "King of kings" (Deut. 10:17) is applied by John to Christ (Rev. 17:14; 19:16).

2. The author of Hebrews applies the entirety of Psalm 102:25-27 to Jesus (1:10-12).

3. Proverbs 18:10 provides the background for Peter's assertion in Acts 4:12

4. Joel's summons to trust in Yahweh (2:32) is employed by Paul to summon men to faith in Christ (Rom. 10:13).

5. When Isaiah looked upon Yahweh (Isa. 6:1-3), according to John he was beholding the glory of the preincarnate Son of God (John 12:40-41).

6. Isaiah's call to sanctify Yahweh in the heart (8:12-13) is applied by Peter to Christ - He is the One who is to be sanctified as "Lord" in the heart (1 Pet. 3:14-15).

7. Isaiah's representation of Yahweh as a stone that causes men to stumble & a rock that makes them fall (8:14) is applied by Paul to Christ (Rom. 9:32-33).

8. Yahweh, whose coming would be preceded by Yahweh's forerunner (Isa. 40:3; Mal. 3:1; 4:5), is equated w/ Christ (Matt. 3:3; 11:10; Mark 1:2-3; Luke 1:16-17; 3:4; John 1:23).

9. Jesus Himself employs Yahweh's words in Isaiah 43:10 & 45:22 to summon men to be His witnesses & to rest in Him (Acts 1:8; Matt. 11:28).

10. Isaiah's description of Yahweh as the "first & last" (44:6) is employed by John to describe the glorified Christ (Rev. 2:8; 22:12-13).

11. Yahweh, "before whom every kneww shall bow & by whom every mouth shall swear (Isa. 45:23) is identified by Paul as Jesus (Rom. 14:10; Phil. 2:10).

12. Yahweh, the pierced One upon whom men would look & mourn (Zech. 12:10), John tells us is the Christ (John 19:37).

13. Jesus is given the divine Name, "Lord" (NT) by the Father in Phil. 2:9).

14. That Yahweh is called "the only Savior" in the OT (Isa. 43:11; 45:15, 21) and applied by multiple NT writers to Jesus shows that Jesus is no mere angel, but divine (see Tit. 1:3 & compare w/ 1:4; 2:10 w/ 2:13; 3:4 w/ 3:6). That Paul does this 3 times in the same context is more than mere coincidence.

There are plenty more examples.  If they deny this much, there is no use giving any more, as their hearts are closed to the truth & hardened to what the Scriptures plainly & repetitively teach.


In Christ, and for His divine glory to the ends of the earth,
Pastor Ryan

Loving Our Enemies

In God's great providence, He saw fit to give me one of those minds that has a hard time 'stopping'.  Hours after reading a book, my mind is often found digesting and analyzing and contrasting and comparing and dissecting.  Needless to say, more often than not, sleep can become more of a chore than anything.  One of the ways I have learned to combat this 'gift' is to read "non-theological" books (especially biographies) at night time as I'm 'settling down' to go to bed, as doing so often has the effect of putting my brain into more of a screensaver mode.

Last night, I began reading A Heart for Freedom, the story of Chai Ling and her courageous determination to seek the freedom of her fellow countrymen (and women) in China.  Though best known for her leading role in one of the greatest uprisings in world history (Tiananmen Square), what she is not known is for the amazing journey that God had predetermined for her before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:3-14).

But before she gets to her freedom in Christ, she recounts for us in the beginning of the book the slavery associated with her upbringing in Communist (read: Atheist) China, along with the massive effects and implications that this had upon her life.  In these introductory chapters, she paints the landscape of her upbringing in a small town in China, highlighting especially the pain of growing up without her parents, who were somewhat renown doctors and loyalists to the People's Liberation Army (PLA). So loyal were they to this 'cause', that they were never home for their children; often they were away from home for up to a year at a time.  Though well fed physically, they were starving spiritually.

By the time she gets to the sixth chapter, which chronicles her University life in Beijing, we begin to see the ramifications of a godless [read: God-hating] upbringing.  For example: having never had a godly male figure in the home - she literally was raised by her grandmother, and then by the age of ten, was raising the rest of her family - she never was taught what true love from a man looked like.  And so we should not be surprised when she recounts how in her time at University she began dating a guy whom she didn't love.  The reason she dated him: he would be a stable husband, much the way her dad was to her mother.

Then, one day, before Chai Ling knew what had been happening, one thing led to another, and, while visiting her parents during a University break, was found to be with child (Chai had no idea, though her mom of course did).  Being brought up in a culture that is completely foreign to us, namely a culture of respect and shame, Chai Ling's father was furious, as the very mention of this would destroy the generations of hard work he and his ancestors had exerted to build the family a respectable name in the their town (not to mention the Army they so loyally served).  Without even discussing the options, her father dragged her to an abortion clinic two hours away (no one would know them in the remote village they went to), where an abortion was administered without any questions whatsoever (again, we need to remember that at that time, China was under the one-child policy).

The details were gory.  As wicked and gruesome as abortion is in "modern and sanitized" America, how this abortion was administered was far more disturbing.  Having the joy of being blessed with children, as well as the pain of losing two via miscarriage and stillbirth, I confess reading this was quite difficult and emotional for me.

And yet, as much as I was grieving over the murder of her first child, I actually was grieving over Chai Ling as well.  In a very real biblical sense, she knew better, namely that murder is wrong (Romans 1:18ff.; 2:12-16).  And yet in another real sense, she was the victim of ignorance and a Satanic government system.  She was the victim of trying to find love in a finite man, because she had never truly heard of the love of God for the world in Jesus Christ.  She was, as Paul says, an ignorant Gentile having no hope and without God in this world (Eph. 4:17-18; 2:11-12).

To console herself from the emotional, physical, and spiritual pain of abortion, she threw herself even more into her studies, which of course as an idol could never deliver her.  Before she knew it, she was pregnant again, and this time concealed her going to the abortion clinic for fear of her dad's wrath.

By the end of the book (I don't know why I read the endings so often), she has become a Christian and is fighting for more than mere political freedom in her country; she is fighting for the freedom that only comes in a personal relationship in the God-man Jesus Christ (Gal. 5:1).

The moral of the story: we don't know the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God (Rom. 11:33).  So often, in our rage against injustice we forget that sinners sin by nature.  We really shouldn't be all that surprised.  The reason the world is broken is because it is desperately in need of the saving gospel of Jesus.  Like Chai Ling, the world will continually seek solace & comfort from the "course of this world", which only brings more bondage & slavery to the god of this world (cf. Eph. 2:1-3; 2 Cor. 4:4).

Last night at prayer meeting, we grieved over another instance of injustice in the Federal court system.  Basically, a hockey coach, guilty of numerous accounts of sexual abuse of boys he had been coaching, was given a slap on the wrist (2 years in prison).  But what was sweet was that we not only prayed for justice to be meted out by God; we also, and especially, asked that this man would be regenerated and saved by Jesus Christ.  Vengeance is not ours to repay.  God alone holds that prerogative (Rom. 12:19-21; Heb. 10:30).

How are we to respond to sinners in a fallen world?  Even sinners who kill babies?  Sinners who are trying to change the laws in our education system?  Sinners who gossip about us, lie about us, hurt us, use us, abuse us?

Rather than hating our enemies, Jesus explains how His kingdom works: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, revealing that you are children of your Father in heaven" (my translation of Matt. 5:45a).  Why?  "Because," Jesus continues, the Father acts in the same way towards those who hate Him (5:45b).

Paul says that instead of acting in wrath & rage against those who oppose the Kingdom, we are to feed our enemies when they are hungry, and to give them something to drink when they are thirsty, "for by so doing you will heap coals upon their head" (Rom. 12:20).  Paul closes the chapter by encouraging the gospel-remembering believers (12:1-2) "not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good" (12:21).

In 1 Cor. 6, after listing & categorizing a motley crew of Hell-deserving sinners, Paul says, "And such were some of you."  I wonder what Chai Ling's reaction was when she read the glorious verse for the first time.  I wonder if she wept for the praise of the mercy she found in Jesus when she read the next sentence, "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (6:11).  Brethren, because of grace, mercy triumphs over judgement! (James 2:13)

May God give us the grace to love our enemies, and pray that God would save them.  They are already condemned.  Jesus came not into the world to condemn the world (because it already is), but that through Him the world might be saved (John 3:17).  May the gospel of hope for the chiefest of sinners be the theme of our song, for truly, beloved, such were some [read: "all"] of us!

In Christ, and for the glory of His name to the ends of the earth, China included,
Pastor Ryan